Posts tagged israel

Deputy Chief of Iran’s Armed Forces Gen. Mohammad Hejazi issued a new threat Tuesday, Feb. 21: “Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests… we will act without waiting for their actions.”
debkafile’s military sources report that an Iranian preemptive attack on Israel has been in the air for some weeks. It became realistic because the dragging out of the argument between Washington and Jerusalem over a military strike and the two government’s indecisiveness gave Tehran a golden opportunity to further its interests.

It bestowed on Iran the gift of entering into talks on its nuclear program with the six world powers (P5 plus 1) free of a military threat and therefore in a superior bargaining position. For openers, Tehran has already pocketed the Obama administration’s promise of permission to continue to enrich uranium up to 5 percent in any quantity and will be more than ready to lay down more demands.
Gen. Hejazi’s threat of a preemptive strike against Israel also serves the Islamic regime in its run-up to a general election on March 3. It aims to show the Iranian voter and Middle East public that Iran has successfully turned US and Israeli aggression against Iran against them and demonstrated they are no more than paper tigers incapable of carrying through on their rhetoric. The military initiative therefore stays in Iran’s hands.

In Tehran, the standard Israeli cliché of “We don’t’ advise anyone to test our resolve” has worn thin.
By letting two Iranian warships bearing arms for Assad pass Israel’s coast on its way to Tartus without interference, Israel encouraged Tehran to assume that, in the last reckoning, it will abstain from a unilateral strike to eradicate Iran’s nuclear facilities without Washington’s blessing.

The Netanyahu government’s resolve is expected to melt away under the bulldozer assault of one American emissary after another touching down at Ben-Gurion airport to corner them into backing down.
Once Israel lets its hands be tied, Tehran calculates, it will become progressively harder to break them loose, so that if Tehran does carry out a limited “preemptive” missile attack on the Jewish state, Jerusalem will again bow to Washington and let itself be coerced into not responding.

Thursday, Feb. 23, US National Director of Intelligence James Clapper arrives in Israel to tackle its military and intelligence chiefs on the question, after US National Defense Director Tom Donilon spent three days in fruitless discussions with government leaders Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff tried his hand at persuasion earlier this month. This cycle of pressure will peak with Netanyahu’s White House talks with President Obama on March 5.
The Iranians felt confident enough to safely deny requests from the team of IAEA inspectors who arrived in Tehran Monday for access suspect nuclear locations and meetings with scientists employed in their nuclear program.
Gen. Hejazi’s words were backed up by a four-day air defense exercise, dubbed Sarallah (God’s Revenge), in the south of the country. The Islamic Republic also took another initiative by cutting off oil exports to Britain and France and so turning the tables on the European Union’s oil embargo on Tehran.

(Source: debka.com)

“Israel is the central guarantor of its own security; this is our role as army, the State of Israel should defend itself,” Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told state-owned Channel One TV.

“We must follow the developments in Iran and its nuclear project, but in a very broad manner, taking into account what the world is doing, what Iran decided, what we will do or not do,” he said.

In recent weeks, there has been feverish speculation that Israel was getting closer to mounting a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program, though Israel has denied reaching such a decision.

Tensions between Iran and Israel have been simmering with Iranian warships entering the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal in a show of “might”, a move Israel said it would closely monitor.

On Wednesday, Iran said it had installed another 3000 centrifuges to increase its uranium enrichment abilities and was stepping up exploration and processing of uranium yellowcake.

And Israel blamed a recent wave of attacks targeting Israeli diplomats on agents of Tehran, allegations that Iran denies.

US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will begin talks with Israeli officials on a range of issues including Iran, two weeks ahead of a Washington visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for White House talks with US President Barak Obama on the same topic.

A recent article in the Washington Post said that US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta thinks Israel may strike Iran’s nuclear installations in the coming months.

According to Gantz, whose interview was conducted prior to the developments, Iran was not only an “Israeli problem”, but also “a world and regional problem”.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on the world to tighten sanctions on Iran before the country enters a “zone of immunity” against a physical attack to stop its nuclear program.

Iran has been slapped with four sets of UN sanctions and a raft of unilateral US and European Union measures over its nuclear drive, which Tehran maintains is peaceful.

(Source: news.com.au)

The top US Navy official in the Gulf said Sunday he takes Iran’s military capabilities seriously but insists his forces are prepared to confront any Iranian aggression in the region.

Vice Adm Mark Fox, commander of the 5th Fleet, told reporters at the naval force’s Bahrain headquarters that the Navy has ‘built a wide range of potential options to give the president’ and is ‘ready today’ to confront any hostile action by Tehran.

He did not outline specifically how the Navy might answer an Iranian strike or an effort to shut the entrance to the Persian Gulf, though any response would likely involve the two US aircraft carriers and other warships cruising the waters off Iran.

‘We’ve developed very precise and lethal weapons that are very effective, and we’re prepared,’ Fox said. ‘We’re just ready for any contingency.’

Faced with tightening Western sanctions, Iranian officials have stepped up threats to close the Strait of Hormuz if the country’s oil exports are blocked. A fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through the narrow waterway, which is only about 30 miles (50 kilometers) across at its narrowest point.

Iran and Oman share control of the waterway, but it is considered an international strait, meaning free transit passage is guaranteed under international law.

Iran’s army chief, General Ataollah Salehi, early last month warned an American warship not to return to the Gulf shortly after the aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis and another vessel left. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, entered the Gulf without incident on January 22.

Fox acknowledged that Iran’s military is ‘capable of striking a blow’ against American forces in the Gulf, particularly using unconventional means such as small attack boats or mines laid along shipping lanes.

‘We’re not bulletproof. There are people that can take a swipe at us,’ Fox said.

But he added that he has reminded officers under his command that they ‘have a right and an obligation of self defence’ if attacked.

The admiral’s comments echo those of other Western officials, who say they will respond swiftly to any Iranian attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz.

Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ last month that Iranian forces could block shipping through the strait ‘for a period of time,’ but added, ‘We can defeat that.’

In his briefing in the Bahraini capital Manama, Fox voiced support for the tiny island nation that has hosted U.S. Navy vessels for decades.

‘They are a long-term partner and a very important piece of our ability to do our mission,’ he said of the country.

Bahrain has been rocked by protests led by the country’s majority Shiites against the country’s Sunni monarchy that erupted in force a year ago. Street battles between security forces and protesters still flare up almost daily in the predominantly Shiite villages around the capital.

Fox’s command encompasses the bulk of the Middle East, including the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and a large swath of the Indian Ocean along the east African coast. There are about 25,000 sailors under his command.

Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel said in rare speech last month that nuclear Iran would trigger arms race in Middle East, and should be addressed strategically before all other conflicts

The escalating public discourse over the possibility of a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has put a magnifying glass on incoming IAF Chief Major-General Amir Eshel’s stance on the issue.

Eshel, whose IAF appointment was announced Monday, seldom expresses his opinion publically – all the more so since becoming the head of the IDF’s Plans and Policy Directorate in 2008.

But in a rare speech made last month at the Jerusalem Center for Public affairs, Eshel stressed that while the decision to launch an airstrike on the Islamic Republic is left up to the political echelon, Iran is Israel’s primary concern.

“Iran is above everything, and it must be taken into account, strategically, before the others,” he said. “A nuclear Iran would cause a mighty change in the region. It would trigger an arms race in the Middle East. I’m sure that other nations in the region will attempt to obtain such weapons as well.

“It could create a situation that leads to a global nuclear jungle,” he added. “This is not an official assessment, but the first lesson that leaders in the Middle East learned from the Arab Spring is that they should obtain nuclear weapons … Who would have dared to question (Gaddafi) or Saddam Hussein if they had atom weapons?”

Eshel raised the concern that a nuclear Iran could embolden terror groups that operate with the Islamic Republic’s backing, including Hamas and Hezbollah – a development that would restrict the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon.

Iran precedes Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

He argued that the Iranian issue even trumps Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, saying that an agreement with the PA won’t bring peace to the region.

“Even if Israel and the Palestinians sign a peace accord tomorrow, it won’t solve the other problems or the Iranian issue,” he said. “An agreement with them won’t create a paradise in the Middle East. I don’t belittle the issue, but if (the agreement) isn’t based on solid security arrangements, it won’t last.”

Eshel noted that as per the government’s order, the IDF supports the Palestinian apparatuses in the West Bank.

“We take many risks in order to help the Palestinians build better lives with a better economy,” he said. “But if we make a mistake here, there won’t be a second chance. This is why we are so determined (to reach an accord), because we already tried in 1993 and in 2000.”

In his speech, Eshel accused the regime in Tehran of running a terrorist state.

“Everyday Iran is fighting everyone, not only through terror but also through economic means,” he said.

Eshel voiced pessimism regarding the outcomes of the turmoil in the surrounding countries, noting that “our estimation that the revolutions would be taken over by other movements have come true.”

“If the economic issues aren’t addressed, a downturn is inevitable,” he said. “The Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in Egypt could spread to the region, including Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.”

He warned that Syria’s chemical and biological weapons could fall into the hands of terror groups, noting that the country’s air force armament poses a challenge to the IAF.

“Syria has invested over $2 billion in its air force over the past two years,” he said. “We haven’t seen anything like it in the past two decades. They invested great funds in order to undermine our aerial superiority.”

(Source: ynetnews.com)

The UN’s chief nuclear inspector arrived in Iran on Sunday on a mission to clear up “outstanding substantive issues” on Tehran’s atomic program, and called for dialogue with the Islamic state.

Before departing from Vienna airport, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief inspector Herman Nackaerts told reporters that talks were long overdue.

“We are trying to resolve all the outstanding issues with Iran,” he said.

“In particular we hope that Iran will engage with us on the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. We are looking forward to the start of a dialogue, a dialogue that is overdue since very long.”

Mr Nackaerts is leading a six-person IAEA team due to meet Iranian officials from later on Sunday until Tuesday. The delegation touched down in Tehran early on Sunday morning, the official news agency IRNA reported.

The team also includes IAEA number two Rafael Grossi, an Argentine, and the watchdog’s senior legal official Peri Lynne Johnson, a US citizen, according to diplomats.

Mr Nackaerts, who is Belgian, declined to comment on who he would meet during the trip, which is aimed at clearing up what the IAEA called “outstanding substantive issues” on Tehran’s nuclear program.

Expectations are low, with the delegation not expected to be given access to any sites mentioned in a damning IAEA report in November that raised suspicions Iran had done work developing nuclear weapons.

IRNA quoted Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in Addis Ababa for an African Union meeting, as saying he was “optimistic” about the delegation’s visit.

“We have always had a broad and close cooperation with the agency and we have always maintained transparency as one of our principles working with the agency,” he said.

The agency added that the team would probably visit the Fordo enrichment site south of the capital Tehran.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran had begun enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity deep inside a mountain bunker at Fordo, taking it significantly closer to the 90 per cent mark needed for a nuclear bomb.

With Iran repeatedly denying it wants nuclear weapons and dismissing the IAEA report as baseless, the watchdog’s chief Yukiya Amano on Friday urged the Islamic republic to show “substantial cooperation” during the visit.

The report, which has led to a substantial increase in pressure on Iran from the United States, the European Union and others, detailed a string of areas in which it said Iranian activities were highly suspicious.

Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted that Tehran is not dodging negotiations and was ready to sit down with world powers Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany for talks.

AFP

(Source: abc.net.au)

Israel has hit Gaza with a series of airstrikes in response to a series of rocket attacks in recent days.

An Israeli military spokesman said the targets were an arms factory in the centre of the Gaza Strip as well as three tunnels used for smuggling contraband from Egypt.

There was no immediate report of injuries.

Since the start of the year at least seven rockets from Gaza have struck Israel causing no injuries or major damage.

In the past month, four Palestinians have died in Gaza as a result of Israeli air and artillery strikes.

(Source: abc.net.au)

Iran, at odds with Western governments over its nuclear program, has accuses U.S. and Israeli agents of being behind the killing.

By Reuters

Funeral of of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, who was killed in a brazen daylight assassination.

Iran charged on Thursday that assassins who killed an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran last week may have used information obtained from the United Nations.

Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, 32, was killed by a motorbike hitman who put a magnetic bomb on his car on a street during the morning rush hour on Jan. 11. Iran, at odds with Western governments over its nuclear program, has accused U.S. and Israeli agents of being behind the killing.

Iran’s deputy UN ambassador Eshagh Al Habib said there was a “high suspicion that … terrorist circles used the intelligence obtained from United Nations bodies, including the sanctions list of the Security Council and interviews carried out by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) with our nuclear scientists, to identify and carry out their malicious acts.”

Ahmadi-Roshan recently met with IAEA inspectors, Al Habib told the Security Council, “a fact that indicates that these UN agencies may have played a role in leaking information on Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientist.”

He also accused the world body of failing to observe secrecy over its inspections of nuclear facilities.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said he was looking into the allegations. The Vienna-based IAEA is the UN nuclear watchdog and has played a key role in trying to determine whether Tehran’s atomic program has military dimensions.

The murder of Ahmadi-Roshan was the fifth daylight attack in two years on technical experts involved in Iran’s nuclear program, which Western countries believe is aimed at producing an atomic weapon but Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

The United States has denied involvement in the killing and has condemned it, as has UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. An Israeli minister also said this week that Iran’s charges of Israeli involvement were “completely baseless.”

The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities. Its list of sanctioned individuals does not include Ahmadi-Roshan, but does name another scientist, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, wounded in a Tehran car bomb blast in November, 2010.

Al Habib, addressing a Security Council debate on justice and the rule of law, said it was “odd” that the council had said nothing about attacks on Iranian scientists. “Is it the way to advance the rule of law at the international level?” he asked.

(Source: haaretz.com)

Some 1,000 Israel Defense Forces paratroopers participated in the Paratroopers Brigade’s first complete exercise in 13 years on Tuesday.

The exercise, which took place at a base in southern Israel, came as a result of an IDF decision to reintroduce full-scale drills that mimic military operations, and comes after more than a decade during which paratroopers solely participated in less complicated parachuting practices.

According to Paratrooper Brigade Commander Col. Amir Baram, the brigade has not participated in a full-scale drill since the late 1990s, but is planning to add such operations to the IDF’s military arsenal in order to prepare for “any possible scenario.”

Baram also stated that the reintroduction of full-scale drills is only part of the IDF’s overall preparation for potential regional changes.

“The Middle East is changing rapidly,” said Baram. “Although the borders are stable, it is impossible to know what lies ahead.” Baram further stated that full-scale parachuting drills were relevant mostly to more local areas.

Moreover, according to high level officers, in the case of a real battle, only 70% of the brigade will go into the battlefield, due to the difficulty of the commanding officers to control such operations. The “70% principle,” which is based on a U.S. military model, is a fundamental change in the Paratroopers’ procedure, as the brigade previously made use of full forces in similar operations.

(Source: haaretz.com)

The people pushing for war against Iran are the same neocons who pushed for war against Iraq. See this and this. (They planned both wars at least 20 years ago.)

The IAEA report being trumpted as a casus belli contains no new information, but is based on a re-hashing of old, debunked claims stemming from “laptop documents”.

State Department cables released by Wikileaks reveal that the new IAEA head was heavily backed by the U.S., based upon his promises of fealty to the U.S. Indeed, as we’ve seen in the nuclear energy arena, the IAEA is not a neutral, fact-based organization, but a wholly-captured, political agency.

But where did the documents come from originally?

As Gareth Porter noted in 2008:

The George W. Bush administration has long pushed the “laptop documents” – 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop – as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear programme.

But those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by U.S. and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organisation.

Interestingly, the Bush Administration – and especially Dick Cheney – helped to fund the MEK (see confirming articles here and here).

And the New York Times, Washington Post and others are reporting that Rudy Giuliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser Fran Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are supporting the MEK as well.

So the terrorist group which “found” the documents is funded by neoconservatives who want to overthrow Iran. What a coincidence!

And as Gareth Porter notes in the above-linked article, the Mossad may have created the documents in the first place:

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel’s Mossad.

One thing is clear: the U.S. and its allies have a long history of using forged documents as an excuse for war.

January 2, 2012. Jerusalem. In one of the most blacked-out stories in America right now, the US military is preparing to send thousands of US troops, along with US Naval anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel, to Israel. It took forever to find a second source for confirmation of this story and both relatively mainstream media outlets are in Israel. With one source saying the military deployment and corresponding exercises are to occur in January, the source providing most of the details suggests it will occur later this spring

Calling it not just an “exercise”, but a “deployment”, the Jerusalem Post quotes US Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc, Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany. The US Commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.” In an effort to respond to recent Iranian threats and counter-threats, Israel announced the largest ever missile defense exercise in its history. Now, it’s reported that the US military, including the US Navy, will be stationed throughout Israel, also taking part.

Also confirming the upcoming US-Israeli military missile exercises is JTA.org - ‘global news service of the Jewish people’. In their account, they report, ‘Last week, plans for Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to visit Israel in January were leaked to Israeli media; his visit likely will coincide with the largest-ever joint U.S.-Israel anti-missile exercise’.

While American troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to EUCOM in Germany. EUCOM stands for United States European Command.

In preparation for anticipated Iranian missile attacks upon Israel, the US is reportedly bringing its THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel. The US forces will join Israeli missile defense systems like the Patriot and Arrow. The deployment comes with “the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East”.

The Jerusalem Post reports that US Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc was in Israel meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Brig.-Gen Doron Gavish, commander of the Air Defense Division. While there, the US General visited one of Israel’s three ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile outposts. The Israeli Air Force has announced plans to deploy a fourth Iron Dome system in the coming months. Additional spending increases in the Jewish state will guarantee the manufacture and deployment of three more Iron Dome systems by the end of 2012. The Israelis are hoping to eventually have at least a dozen of the anti-missile systems deployed along its northern and southern borders.

In a show of escalated tensions in the region, Iran test fired two long range missiles today. One, called the Qadar, is a powerful sea-to-shore missile. The other was an advanced surface-to-surface missile called the Nour. According to Iranian state news, the Nour is an ‘advanced radar-evading, target-seeking, guided and controlled missile’. Additionally, the Iranian military reportedly test-fired numerous other short, medium and long-range missiles. Yesterday, Iranian authorities reported that they test-fired the medium-range, surface-to-air, radar-evading Mehrab missile. Today is supposed to be the final day of Iranian naval drills in the Straits of Hormuz.

Iran recently made global headlines when it threatened to blockade the Straits of Hormuz if Europe and the US went ahead with their boycott of Iranian oil and the country’s central bank. One-quarter of the world’s oil passes through that waterway every day. President Obama has announced that a closure of the Straits was unacceptable and vowed to take whatever measures are necessary to keep the vital shipping lane open.

In response to the Iranian missile tests this weekend, French authorities were the first to respond, calling it a, “very bad signal to the international community.”We want to underline that the development by Iran of a missile program is a source of great concern to the international community,”the French Foreign Ministry said in a written statement. Israeli officials suggested the flamboyant Iranian military drills this weekend were a sign that international sanctions on the country were taking a heavy toll and that any additional boycotts, on its banks or oil industry, would be crippling.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the large missile tests showed, “the dire straits of Iran in light of the tightening sanctions around her, including the considerations in the last few days regarding the sanctions of exporting petroleum as well as the possibility of sanctions against the Iranian Central Bank.” While the chances of Iran going through with its threat of closing the Straits of Hormuz are slim, the deployment of thousands of US troops and naval ships to Israel shows the US isn’t taking any chances.

(Source: whiteoutpress.com)