Middle East War Games Watch - Iran and Syria ! Definitely Treat All Sources Provided With a Shaker OF Salt !

As US and Israel dicker over Iran strike, American airlifts strength to the Gulf
DEBKAfile Special Report February 9, 2012, 5:20 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Israel   US   War preparations   Iran nuclear 

US Air Force airlift over Sinai to the Gulf

As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran's nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. DEBKAfile's military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.

The three International Atomic Energy inspectors who spent the last three days of January in Tehran had asked to meet the hitherto invisible head of Iran's nuclear bomb program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 50, a general of the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranians pretended to be deaf. They also kept the inspectors away from any nuclear installations. A senior Obama administration official termed the visit "foot-dragging at best and a disaster at worst."

DEBKAfile's intelligence and military sources note that without talking to Fakhrizadeh or any of the 600 nuclear engineers and scientists working under him, unless one of them defects, there is no way the West can determine what exactly is going on in Iran's nuclear program stands and which installations have been moved to underground facilities.

No one doubts now that advanced centrifuges and stocks of enriched uranium – 3.5 percent and 20 percent grades alike - have been moved to Iran's underground bunker site at Fordo near Qom, which the US administration has claimed its bunker buster bombs cannot reach and which Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak has defined as "a zone of immunity."
In their ongoing argument with Jerusalem, American officials commented crossly this week that "Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly."
Clearly Israel, unlike America, envisions the Iranian "problem" from the narrow viewpoint of potential victim of an Iranian attack. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's strategic team, was quoted as remarking, "It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel."
The remark came from a just-published detailed and serious paper by an Iranian study group which advised Tehran not to wait to be attacked but to launch a preemptive strike against the Jewish state.Wiping Israel out in 9 minutes would require a nuclear weapon. It therefore behooves Israel to narrow its vision and focus closely on Iran's nuclear potential and intent.

By now, the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government have pretty well run out of semantic ammunition for their dingdong over how long to wait for sanctions to bite before going on the military offensive against Iran's nuclear sites and who should do the deed.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans a trip to Washington in March and will almost certainly get together with President Barack Obama.  That is a date to watch.
Israel leaders have not given up warning that time is running out for a military strike that could stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Obama's comment to NBC TV Sunday Feb. 4, "I don't think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do," has been interpreted by some circles in Washington as meaning that Israel has agreed to wait long enough to give tough sanctions a chance.

DEBKAfile's sources say that interpretation is wishful thinking rather than based on fact. The president's comment was another attempt to keep Israel within certain lines of restraint.

and.....

'Scores killed' in shelling of Syria's Homs

"Makeshift hospitals overflowing with dead and wounded" as the military bombards opposition areas for a sixth day. Last Modified: 09 Feb 2012 22:45 inShare11 Email Print Share Feedback

Activists in Syria say scores of people have been killed in Homs as government forces reportedly shelled the city for a sixth day. The Local Co-ordination Committees, an umbrella opposition group, reported the deaths of 110 people in Homs on Thursday, but said it could not document the names of the victims due to heavy shelling. "They targeted my neighbour’s house with rockets. I saw it with my own eyes," Omar Shakir, a resident of Bab Amr, a stronghold of the armed opposition, told Al Jazeera. "This is the sixth day in a row we are being shelled by rockets, by mortars, by every weapon." Shakir said residents of the neighbourhood were seeking safety on the ground floor of buildings as there were no underground shelters. 'Field hospitals hit' During lulls in the shelling of Homs, loudspeakers were used to call for blood donations and medical supplies, residents said. "There is medicine in the pharmacies, but getting it to the field clinics is very difficult, they can't get the medicine to the wounded," Mohammed Saleh, a Syria-based activist, told the Associated Press news agency by telephone. Al Jazeera's Jane Ferguson reports from Homs, where some in the Alawite minority have joined the uprising Human Rights Watch, the New York-based organisation, said in a report on Thursday that makeshift hospitals in besieged opposition areas of Homs were overflowing with dead and wounded from government bombardments and snipers. Medical supplies are running out and at least three field hospitals have been hit and people are bleeding to death as it is too dangerous for rescuers to bring them to safety, HRW said. The rights watchdog said since the military operation against opposition neighbourhoods was launched on Friday night, government forces have fired hundreds of shells and mortar bombs, killing more than 300 people and wounding hundreds more, including women and children. Elsewhere in Syria, an ambush by opposition fighters near the southern town of  Deraa killed at least seven security forces and wounded dozens on Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "The security forces were travelling on board two buses when they were ambushed on a bridge by dissident soldiers," Rami Abdulrahman, head of the UK-based group, told the AFP news agency. 'Friends of Syria' meeting The reports of violence came as the US said it was working with its European and Arab allies to organise the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Syria group to explore ways to further isolate President Bashar al-Assad and support his foes. The state department said on Thursday that its chief Middle East envoy had been dispatched to Morocco, France and Bahrain to help put the meeting together, determine the group's membership and mandate. The Arab League was expected to announce the meeting as early as this weekend. Morocco sponsored the UN Security Council resolution calling for Assad to step down that Russia and China vetoed. France, along with Turkey, has offered to host the Friends of Syria meeting. In Moscow, Alexander Lukashevich, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman, reiterated the Kremlin view that though the bloodshed was regrettable, a solution was a matter for Syria. "There is an internal conflict, the word revolution is not being used - it is a not a revolutionary situation, believe me," he said. Earlier, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said that the head of the Arab League intended to send observers back into Syria and had raised the possibility of a joint mission with the UN. "In the coming days we will further consult with the council before fleshing out details," he said on Wednesday. "We stand ready to assist in any way that will contribute toward improvement on the ground. "I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighbourhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come." The Arab League suspended its observer mission to Syria last month, citing security concerns as the reason. and.... http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/assad-forces-mull-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-homs-opposition-says-1.411954 Assad forces mull use of chemical weapons in Homs, opposition says Opposition figures claim government stockpiling chemical weapons and distributing gas masks to soldiers near Homs; 130 people reportedly killed on Thursday as government intensifies crackdown. Syria's military has begun stockpiling chemical weapons and equipping its soldiers with gas masks near the city of Homs, opposition sources reported on Thursday. Opposition activists said they had received reports that the Syrian army had transferred a significant quantity of grenades and mortars containing chemical agents to a school building in Homs. The opposition also reported that gas masks were being distributed to soldiers at roadblocks. Homs has become the focal point of violent confrontations between insurgents and the country's military in recent days, and opposition figures are concerned that the moves could signal the regime's intention to use chemical weapons against its citizens. News agencies reported over 130 killed in Syria on Thursday, as Bashar Assad's government intensified its crackdown on an expanding uprising against his regime. and..... http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010174162 TEHRAN (FNA)- Media reports said on Thursday that Iran's crude exports to India have increased to 550,000 barrels a day in January which shows a 37.5% growth compared with the same period last year. India has increased oil imports from Iran to become the Islamic Republic's largest customer last month, ignoring recent sanctions imposed by US and EU on importing Iran's oil. The development, the Wall Street Journal report said, has partly offset a 50 percent cut in crude exports to China as a result of pricing dispute. China now imports around 250,000 barrels a day from Iran. The news comes despite the West's rising pressure on Iran to halt its peaceful nuclear program. On the New Year's Eve, the United States imposed new sanctions against Iran aimed at preventing other countries from importing Iran's oil and doing transactions with its central bank. After months of debates, the EU member states also eventually reached an agreement in their meeting on January 23 to sanction oil imports from Iran and freeze the assets of Iran's Central Bank within the EU. Following the decision, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton claimed that the sanctions are aimed at pressuring Iran to return to talks over its nuclear program. Despite Ashton's claims, Iran has always underlined its preparedness to resume talks with the West but has meantime stressed that it will never accept any precondition for such talks. After the EU oil ban against Iran, members of the Iranian parliament finalized a draft bill on cutting the country's oil exports to the European states in retaliation for the EU move. "The bill has 4 articles, including one which states that the Islamic Republic of Iran will cut all oil exports to the European states until they end their oil sanctions against the country," Vice-Chairman of the parliament's Energy Commission Nasser Soudani told FNA last month. Elaborating on the other parts of the draft bill, he said another article requires the government to stop imports of goods from those countries which are a party to these sanctions against Iran.  In relevant remarks last week, Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi also underlined Tehran's determination to retaliate against the western states' oil ban against the country, and said Iran will certainly cut its oil exports to certain European countries. "Export of oil to certain European countries will certainly be cut," Qassemi said in a press conference. "We will decide on stopping oil exports to other European countries later," he added.