http://www.debka.com/article/22367/Iran-pours-more-troops-into-Syria-ready-to-target-Israel-from-Syria-and-Lebanon
http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=14763
Sen. John Kerry (D – MA) has now reportedly threatened a full “review” of all US aid to the Iraqi government unless they immediately and unconditionally halt all Iranian access to their airspace.
Iran pours more troops into Syria, ready to target Israel from Syria and Lebanon
DEBKAfile Special Report September 20, 2012, 10:50 AM (GMT+02:00)
IDF Chief of Staff observes big Golan drill
Iran continues to fly military personnel and quantities of weapons into Syria by civilian aircraft which cut through Iraqi airspace, American intelligence sources disclosed early Thursday, Sept. 20. UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon also said that, "Unfortunately, both [Syrian] sides, government and opposition forces, seem to be determined to see the end by military means."
Clearly, Iran is augmenting its military involvement in the constantly escalating Syrian civil war, broadening it into a multinational conflict which threatens to drag Lebanon in, by means of the Iranian-Syrian ally, Hizballah.
The UN Secretary General's statement implying that the two Syrian sides are determined to fight to the bitter end is echoed in Iran’s resolve to fight to the bitter end for Assad, on Syrian soil.
Tehran is not hiding its actions. Sunday, Sept. 16, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Commander Gen. Ali Jafari said openly that Al Qods Brigades units were present and operational in both Syria and Lebanon.
No comment on this revelation has come from the US, Israel or Israel’s military (IDF) chiefs - notwithstanding its menacing import, namely, that Tehran is no longer hanging about and waiting for its nuclear program to be attacked in order to punish Israel, but is getting ready for a pre-emptive operation.
Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have chosen silence in the face of what any other nation would regard as a casus belli: the open deployment of enemy forces on its northern and eastern borders.
This must have been the catalyst for the IDF’s surprise two-division strength drill Wednesday on Israel’s Golan border with Syria. But the IDF spokesman sounded almost apologetic when he explained that the exercise had nothing to do with the events in Syria or with Hizballah, and that it was no more than a routine drill for testing preparedness.
This must have been the catalyst for the IDF’s surprise two-division strength drill Wednesday on Israel’s Golan border with Syria. But the IDF spokesman sounded almost apologetic when he explained that the exercise had nothing to do with the events in Syria or with Hizballah, and that it was no more than a routine drill for testing preparedness.
DEBKAfile's military sources say that, in the current climate, no military operation by any army on the Syrian border – especially one of this magnitude – may be regarded as “routine.” Only a week ago, the Golani Brigade concluded a large military exercise in northern Israel including the Golan. That sort of frequency must have operational connotations: The IDF is evidently keeping the army on the move and in a constant state of readiness to fight a real war without delay on terrain made familiar by repeated war games.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz has a penchant for expressing himself through symbols, his method of overcoming the restrictions placed on his tongue by military and other constraints.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz has a penchant for expressing himself through symbols, his method of overcoming the restrictions placed on his tongue by military and other constraints.
On New Year’s Eve last week, the general handed military correspondents a small gift: The Hebrew edition of the American writer Richard David Bach's "There's No Such Place as Far Away."
For the Golan drill Wednesday, he decided to attach Maj. Gen. (res.) Nati Sharoni, chief artillery officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to his party of advisers and observers.
The book was a clear message to Tehran and doubting Thomases at home that the IDF is fully capable of an operation against Iran’s nuclear program and of successfully accomplishing any mission far from its shores.
The book was a clear message to Tehran and doubting Thomases at home that the IDF is fully capable of an operation against Iran’s nuclear program and of successfully accomplishing any mission far from its shores.
Gen. Sharoni’s presence at the Golan exercise, and the exercise itself, was a warning to Iran, Hizballah and Syria that they will be disappointed if they hope to catch Israel unready, as it was by the surprise attack which almost overcame the IDF 39 years ago before the tide of war was turned back against Egypt.
and.....
Benghazi police refuse to serve under new chief
The police have staged a de facto mutiny by refusing to serve under the newly-appointed Colonel Salah Doghman.
Benghazi, 20 September:
Police in Benghazi are defying the Government in Tripoli by refusing to serve under Colonel Salah Doghman, the man appointed to take over security in the city following last week’s fatal attack on the US Consulate.
Doghman is due to replace Wanis Al-Sharif, the deputy minister with responsibility for eastern Libya, and Hussein Ahmedia, Benghazi’s chief of police, both of whom were sacked last week over their handling of the crisis.
“These are very dangerous circumstances,” Doghman told the Reuters news agency.
“When you go to police headquarters, you will find there are no police. The people in charge are not at their desks. They have refused to let me take up my job.”
Doghman said he had been directly instructed by Interior Minister Fawzi Abdelal to take over responsibility for the two posts, and that the de factomutiny by the Benghazi police threatened to undermine the authority of the government.
“I phoned the office of the interior minister. I told them, ‘You must take action, even use the army if you have to, to force the police to let me take up this job’,” he said.
Both Sharif and Ahmeida came in for intense criticism over their handling of last week’s attacks, which left US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Questions were asked as to why it took so long for the security services to arrive at the scene, and how it was that the assailants knew of the location of a nearby safe house, the whereabouts of which was supposed to have been secret, in which two of the four Americans died.
Sharif was also criticised by numerous politicians over his account of what took place on 11 September.
The former deputy minister had initially claimed that nobody was inside the consulate at the time of the attacks, before changing his story to allege that militants had only begun their assault after coming under fire from men guarding the compound.
The explanation was derided as “ridiculous” by influential Congressman Salah Ajouda Jawdah, while National Congress Speaker Mohammed Magarief also refuted it, saying that the attack was premeditated.
It is understood that neither Sharif nor Ahmeida have left their posts, and that the police are threatening to walk out en masse if Doghman’s appointment is forced through.
“We see the decision taken by the Minister of the Interior as an attempt to find a scapegoat for the minister’s own failure to address the security issue and to cover up the ineptitude of his administration,” said the spokesman for a union of senior police officers, Izzedin al-Sazzani.
The crisis has cast yet another shadow over the outgoing government, which has largely failed to stamp its authority over Libya’s still-fragmented security infrastructure, and potentially compromises investigations into the attacks.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that a team of FBI investigators had flown into Tripoli to assist the Libyan authorities with their enquiries.
It is believed that around seven or eight people have now been arrested in connection with the assault, with some 50 others still under investigation.
and.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/foreign-fighters-extremists-increasingly-appearing-on-front-lines-in-syrias-civil-war/2012/09/19/bf8eaa14-0299-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_print.html
Foreign fighters, extremists increasingly appearing on front lines in Syria’s civil war
By Associated Press,
TEL RIFAAT, Syria — The bearded gunmen who surrounded the car full of foreign journalists in a northern Syrian village were clearly not Syrians. A heavyset man in a brown gown stepped forward, announced he was Iraqi and fingered through the American passport he had confiscated.
“We know all American journalists are spies. Now tell us what you are doing here and who you are spying for,” he said in English before going on to accuse the U.S. of the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I really want to cut your head off right now,” he added, telling his men, many of whom appeared to have North African accents, that this American kills Muslims.
With the intervention of nearby villagers, the confrontation eventually was defused. But it underscored the unpredictable element that foreign fighters bring to the Syrian conflict.
Most of those fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad are ordinary Syrians and soldiers who have defected, having become fed up with the authoritarian government, analysts say. But increasingly, foreign fighters and those adhering to an extremist Islamist ideology are turning up on the front lines. The rebels are trying to play down their influence for fear of alienating Western support, but as the 18-month-old fight grinds on, the influence of these extremists is set to grow.
On Monday, a U.N. panel reported a rise in the number of foreign fighters in the conflict and warned that it could radicalize the rebellion.
The Syrian government has always blamed the uprising on foreign terrorists, despite months of peaceful protests by ordinary citizens that only turned violent after repeated attacks by security forces. The transformation of the conflict into an open war has given an opening to the foreign fighters and extremists.
Talk about the role of foreign jihadists in the Syrian civil war began in earnest, however, with the rise in suicide bombings. U.S. National Director of Intelligence James Clapper said in February that those attacks “bore the earmarks” of the jihadists in neighboring Iraq.
Rebel commanders are quick to dismiss the role of the foreign fighters and religious extremists, describing their numbers as few and their contribution as paltry.
Col. Abdel-Jabbar Aqidi, a top rebel commander for the Aleppo area, told The Associated Press there were maybe 500 jihadis involved in the battle for Aleppo, while a report from the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based think tank studying extremism, estimated a total of 1,200-1,500 foreign fighters in all of Syria.
Other commanders estimated that at most, jihadis, whether local or foreign, made up no more than 10 percent of the fighters.
While this is a small amount compared with the thousands of rebels estimated to be battling the regime, Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group warns that the religious extremists will have an influence on the rebellion.
“I think numbers are irrelevant,” he said, adding that the extremists are a “very important phenomenon in many ways. Their presence is very divisive, whether there are many or not.”
“They are certainly visible, and this increasingly shapes the complexion of the opposition in ways that are not negligible,” Harling said.
Reflecting their extreme sensitivity to the topic, the media center on the Syrian-Turkish border investigated and questioned any journalists they discovered who had written about foreign fighters in Syria.
“My brother died in this revolution. This revolution means everything to me, and if the world thinks that al-Qaida is involved, it is finished,” said Nader, a young rebel with the media center who declined to give his last name.
The media center investigated and questioned any journalists they discovered who had written about foreign fighters being involved in the rebellion.
Most of the rebels fighting in the north come from the countryside and have always been more traditional and religious than the more cosmopolitan urbanites of Aleppo.
Rebels often wear the beards associated with religious Muslims and pepper their conversations with references to their faith, but that does not necessarily mean they subscribe to ultraconservative views.
“Having a beard is not a symbol of extremists. It just means we’re religious, like a woman wearing a headscarf or a Christian wearing a cross,” said Abdel Malik Atassi, a young rebel in the town of Marea, as he gestured to his bearded comrades.
Atassi also noted that the fighters tend to be more religious.
“As a fighter, I am constantly close to death, so yes, I am more religious and I want to follow the prophet’s traditions more closely in case I die,” he added.
Rebel leaders like Abdel Aziz Salameh, one of the top commanders in the countryside, said that while he hopes for a future government system based on Islamic law, it will ultimately be the people’s choice.
“We don’t let the foreign fighters spread their way of thinking in our home,” he told AP. “We don’t need foreign fighters. We have 100,000 men who want to fight, but we don’t have weapons for them.”
While Salameh and other rebel commanders have pledged to respect Syria’s pluralistic society, which includes many ethnic and religious minorities, the jihadis are increasingly framing this war as part of a regional struggle between the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam.
Assad and many of the top people in the regime belong to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and the jihadis are framing the struggle in Syria as another front in the battle against what they perceive as heretical Shiites.
In the numerous online statements celebrating their nearly daily operations in Syria, Jebhat al-Nusra, or Victory Front, the largest jihadist group, often states that the attacks are to “avenge the Sunnis killed by the apostate regime.”
Despite their smaller numbers, the jihadis bring experience in fighting guerrilla wars as well as their own supply lines for much needed weapons and ammunition, making them attractive to local Syrians to join.
“The infiltration of weapons and funding to these groups, as well as the ethno-religious component of the Syrian uprising, is likely to continue to serve as a source of attraction for many fighters, some of whom are ex-Free Syrian Army soldiers and many of whom are from foreign countries,” noted the September report by the Quilliam Foundation about the role of jihadis in the rebellion.
The jihadis also have a reputation for heading straight to the front lines. Few were in evidence in the countryside, where many rebel units are involved in managing the civilian areas.
A French physician with Doctors Without Borders working near the front lines in Aleppo said in an interview last week that based on style of dress and what their companions said, half of the rebels he treated were jihadis, both foreign and Syrian.
In the end, the 12 bearded men who threatened the car full of journalists may have backed down because of wanting to maintain a good relationship with the civilians from the nearby village.
The more a rebel group is entrenched in the population, the more self-discipline it will exercise and the less likely it will engage in atrocities, Harling said. The problem with the jihadis and foreign fighters is that they often have few links with civilians.
“There is no jihadi precedent in the Islamic world that hasn’t ended in one way or another in total failure, which makes it difficult to understand how it carries so much appeal,” he said.
and....
US Threatens to Review Iraq Aid Over Iran Overflights
Claims Civilian Aircraft Actually Smuggling Weapons Across Iraqi Airspace
by Jason Ditz, September 19, 2012
US allegations that Iran was smuggling weapons through Iraqi airspace emerged earlier this month, but after the Iraqi government demanded “evidence” and none was provided the whole story seemingly died, at least for awhile.
Sen. John Kerry (D – MA) has now reportedly threatened a full “review” of all US aid to the Iraqi government unless they immediately and unconditionally halt all Iranian access to their airspace.
The allegation now is that not only are cargo aircrafts supposedly sending weapons into Syria from Iran, but that civilian aircraft in general are being stocked full of troops and weapons by Iran and that any plane leaving Iran is automatically suspect.
The US had initially demanded that Iraq force Iran to land all outgoing aircraft in their airports to search them, which Iraq said it had no intention of doing without evidence. The US has not provided evidence for the new allegations either, rather presenting them as assumptions.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
- Pakistan Kills 29 Taliban Along Border With Afghanistan - September 19th, 2012
- Unscheduled Israeli Military Drill Simulates Move Into Golan - September 19th, 2012
- Syria Rebels Capture Another Turkey Border Crossing - September 19th, 2012
- Obama, Karzai Discuss Pact, Surge in Green-on-Blue Attacks - September 19th, 2012
and....
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/12850-sen-paul-calls-for-end-of-aid-to-pakistan-egypt-libya
Sen. Paul Calls for End of Aid to Pakistan, Egypt, Libya
Written by Joe Wolverton, II- font size
Pointing to recent attacks on American consulates and embassies — including the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens — Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on September 13 offered an amendment to the foreign aid bill that would deny funds to Pakistan, Egypt, and Libya.
Paul’s amendment is a revised version of a measure he put forward in July that would have held up aid to Pakistan pending the release of Dr. Shakil Afridi.
Dr. Afridi is believed to have played a vital role in the manhunt that led to the locating and killing of Osama bin Laden. He is being held in a Pakistani prison on a 33-year sentence. Afridi ran a vaccination program that was allegedly just a front for a CIA operation to obtain a DNA sample that would verify bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. A senior CIA official told the New York Times that the effort ultimately was unsuccessful.
Following a debate on the Senate floor with Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senator Paul changed his tack and called for the money that would have been sent to the three countries to be diverted to the veterans jobs bill instead.
The total amount of foreign aid to Pakistan, Libya, and Egypt is roughly $4 billion annually. Sen. Paul’s revised amendment would strip that money from those three countries and send $2 billion of the money saved and add it to the veterans job bill. According to a statement released by Sen. Paul’s office, the remaining $2 billion would “go to deficit reduction.”
In a statement, Paul said,
I urge Sen. Reid to do the right thing for taxpayers and veterans: To send a message to countries that our aid can't be taken for granted, and to stand up for our troops abroad now, and those who have returned home after serving. He can do all of this by allowing a vote on my amendment. My amendment would halt all foreign aid to Pakistan, Egypt, and Libya, and would use those funds to triple the size of the veterans jobs bill. The only thing now standing in the way of this is the Democratic Senate Leadership.
“I do this because I think it’s important for our allies to act like allies,” Paul said during debate on the measure late Wednesday night.
In response to Paul’s statement, Politico reports that Reid said he disagreed and that “I think my friend from Kentucky should have run for Secretary of State rather than the Senate.”
Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of using the Veterans Job Corps Act (S. 3457) to “play party politics,” the Politico piece says.
While speaking at the Value Voters Summit taking place at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., Representative Michele Bachmann received a standing ovation when she echoed Paul’s sentiments, declaring, "We will immediately put an end to the United States taxpayer gravy train!”
A vote on Senator Paul’s amendment has been delayed by a procedural vote taken late Thursday night. Roll Call reports that senators agreed to put off until next Wednesday procedural votes scheduled for the pre-dawn hours on Friday.
According to the Roll Call article, the new schedule will give Sen. Reid time to “avoid a vote” on Sen. Paul’s amendment. "I respect the interest of the Senator from Kentucky in relation to Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, but every now and then the Senate should be able to focus on a small good thing," Roll Call quotes Reid as saying on the Senate floor.
For his part, Paul says he’s fine with the new time frame for the vote on his amendment to the Veterans Job Corps Act. When presented with the new schedule, Paul said he needed only 15 minutes for a vote on his proposal. “I am more than happy to work with the majority. I care deeply about the veterans. I care deeply about housing and helping the veterans who have fought for their country. But this is about whether we as a country and the American taxpayers will be asked to send good money after bad to allies that are not acting like allies,” Paul said.
Opposition to Paul’s amendment came not only from Democrats, but from some members of his own party, as well. A reliable beater of the war drums, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) railed against the potential harm to Pakistan should Paul’s amendment be approved and warned of the rise of “extremists” that could follow if the money supply is cut off. "Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons that is hanging by a thread. I think it would be a very bad idea," Graham said. "They've opened up the supply routes; they have been helpful in some areas.”
"We live in dangerous times, and I am very worried about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Pakistan falling into extremist hands,” he added.
Paul’s fellow senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, joined Graham in warning of the danger of turning our backs on Pakistan, Libya, and Egypt:
This is a moment for Americans to show our closest allies in the Middle East that we unequivocally stand with them. No mixed signals. Neither Israel, nor any of our allies, should ever have any reason to doubt that resolve.
In a speech calling for a vote on his amendment, Sen. Paul painted a different picture of the situation in Pakistan and their role as an ally:
I'm not saying don't have relations with Pakistan. Many in Pakistan have been sympathetic to our country. Many in Pakistan have helped our country. But many in Pakistan with a wink and a nod look at us, take our money and laugh at us. They cash our check and they laugh at us.
Senator Paul's amendment is one of 60 attached to the veterans job bill. Pending additional procedural maneuvers, senators will vote on the bill and the amendments Wednesday, September 19.
No comments:
Post a Comment