Tag Archives: isreal

march 22nd financial crises Middle east news during Obamas visit

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Obama, Netanyahu grant Iran another three months’ grace

Iran red line disappears under the red carpet

Iran red line disappears under the red carpet

President Barack Obama persuaded Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in their talks in Jerusalem this week to give Tehran three more months to work through nuclear diplomacy with the P5+1 group of world powers (US, Russia, France, UK, China and Germany), DEBKAfile discloses. After June, this format for resolving the Iranian nuclear issue will be judged to have run its course.

When the US president said “There is still time for diplomacy,” he added, “But Iran must know this. Time is not unlimited. Whatever time is left, there’s not a lot of time.”

When Netanyahu pointed out that the US and Israel might have different timetables and called for “a clear and credible threat of military action,” because “the clock is ticking,” Obama replied that all options were on the table and “We will do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from getting the world’s worst weapons” – a pledge he repeated in his speech to Israeli students Thursday, March 21.
Talking to reporters Wednesday, the US president allowed, “Each country has to make its own decisions… when it comes to engaging in military action. And Israel is differently situated than the United States.”

This public exchange of views undoubtedly sparked Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s bellicose televised rejoinder Thursday: “At times the officials of the Zionist regime threaten to launch a military invasion,” he said. “But they themselves know that if they make the slightest mistake, the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”
In private, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources disclose, the American and Israeli leaders agreed to keep the diplomatic window open until after Iran’s presidential election on June 24. This does not necessarily mean that a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – or a lone Israeli military strike – will go forward the next day; only that a timeline for bringing the military option forward ahead of the diplomatic track is now before Tehran.

Obama explained to Netanyahu that he owed Khamenei the freedom to conduct Iran’s presidential election campaign without a bludgeon hanging over his head, in return for the same courtesy the Iranian leader afforded him in the run-up to his own re-election last November. In the campaign for his candidate, said the president, Khamenei can’t afford to show weakness by making concessions on the national nuclear program. After that, Obama trusts he will be more flexible.
All in all, on one pretext or another, Tehran has been able to shake off any “credible threat of military action” to curb its nuclear program for a decade or more. And there is no guarantee that things will be different after June 24.

Suicide bomber kills senior pro-Assad cleric in Damascus mosque
Syrian TV reports Sheikh Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Buti was killed in an explosion caused by a suicide bomber in the Iman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus Thursday. At least 42 people died in the attack. The mosque that was packed with worshippers. The sheikh was a senior Sunni Muslim preacher and important supporter of President Bashar Assad.

Khamenei: Iran will destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa if

attacked

“At times the officials of the Zionist regime (Israel) threaten to launch a military invasion but they themselves know that if they make the slightest mistake the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address Thursday as US President Barack Obama was addressing Israeli students in Jerusalem. Alluding to what he described as Iran’s scientific and military advances, he said: “This vibrant nation will never be brought to its knees.” Khamenei also called for Iran’s “natural right” to enrich uranium for nuclear energy to be recognized by the world.

Obama in Ramallah: We won’t give up on two states
After his talks in Ramallah Thursday with Palestinian leaders, US President Barack Obama reiterated his pledge not to give up on efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. It may take time, he said, but in the end, it will happen. In former times, he said, his own two daughters would not have had the equality in education and rights they enjoy today.  “What took time in America will take time here,” he said. Obama first met Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayad, after which they werel be joined by senior Palestinian officials

Pro-Assad cleric killed in Damascus mosque blast

Russian fleet abandons Tartus, docks in Beirut
Moscow issued a confused statement Thursday, reflecting for the first time Russian uncertainty about the situation in Syria: “The escalating conflict in Syria and [doubts] about the entry of Russian ships into the port of Tartus forced us to search for safer ports [for docking], and one of them is Beirut. Tartus continues to be the only official [facility] for Russian ships [in the Mediterranean].” The statement went on to say: “Once events in Syria become more predictable, we will be able to [come to] a position on continuing the use of Tartus.”

Khamenei: Iran will destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa if attacked
“At times the officials of the Zionist regime (Israel) threaten to launch a military invasion but they themselves know that if they make the slightest mistake the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address Thursday as US President Barack Obama was addressing Israeli students in Jerusalem. Alluding to what he described as Iran’s scientific and military advances, he said: “This vibrant nation will never be brought to its knees.” Khamenei also called for Iran’s “natural right” to enrich uranium for nuclear energy to be recognized by the world.

Cyprus says No to bank raid and turns to Russia: Two in three islanders now want to leave the eurozone

  • Islanders want to turn for Russia for help as economic crisis deepens
  • Russia has vast cash reserves in Cypriot banks
  • Distrust in Germany grows over cash confiscation fears

EU recession is worsening.jpgAnger: A Cypriot woman shouts slogans as she holds a placard during a protest against an EU bailout deal outside the parliament in Nicosia

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If Cyprus falls into Putin’s grip, the West will have lost the first battle in the new Cold War

The capitalists will sell us the rope on which we hang them, said Vladimir Lenin. And for his successor in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, Cyprus shows the truth of that maxim.

The West’s financial weakness has become its Achilles heel. Greed and naivety have left an EU member in a vital strategic location at imminent risk of falling into Russia’s hands.

Fury among ordinary Cypriots at what they see as a ham-fisted European raid on their savings has stoked a search for an alternative economic saviour — Russia.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297258/If-Cyprus-falls-Putins-grip-West-lost-battle-new-Cold-War.html#ixzz2OFvd7IQb

Assad to Beirut: Sack Lebanese army chief or more air raids. Jordan feared next

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Syrian warplanes in action over Lebanon
Syrian warplanes in action over Lebanon

The Syrian conflict spread in earnest to Lebanon Monday, March 18, when the Syria Air Force carried out bombing runs over Syrian rebel jumping-off bases inside Lebanon that are used for their attacks on government forces.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the warplanes also bombed Lebanese border valleys used for smuggling men and arms into Syria.
The targets, between one and five kilometers inside Lebanon, were the town of Arsal, where many of the Sunni Muslim inhabitants support the Syrian rebellion, and the outskirts of the towns of Khirbet Younin and Wadi al-Khayl in Arsal’s barren mountains. No casualties were reported.

DEBKAfile can disclose exclusively that Saturday, March 16, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad sent an ultimatum to Lebanese President Michel Sleiman through intelligence channels consisting of three stipulations:

1. Sack Lebanese army chief Gen. Jean Kahwaji without delay. Assad accused the general of refusing to deploy the Lebanese army for cracking down on Syrian rebel bases of operation in Lebanon and so stemming the flow of rebel strength into the embattled country.
2.  The Lebanese president, himself a former army chief, was required to take responsibility for army action to purge the Lebanese border region of rebel forces.
3.  President Sleiman was given 48 hours to order the Lebanese army into operation against the Syrian rebels. When this did not happen, Assad made good on his threat. As soon as his ultimatum expired Monday afternoon, he sent his air force into action across the border into Lebanon.
DEBKAfile’s military sources estimate that the air strike Monday was not a one-off event. Lebanon is probably in for expanding Syria air operations against its territory in the coming days.

DEBKA FILE NEWS.

Al Qaeda’s Nusra fights to seize Syrian Golan in time for Obama visit

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Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, led a Syrian rebel operation Wednesday, March 13, to occupy Golan and cleanse it of every last Syrian troop loyal to Bashar Assad. The Islamists had two more objectives:

1. To be in position for cross-border attacks on Israel and Jordan – possibly in the course of US President Barack Obama’s March 20-22 visits to those countries.
2.  To use the “liberated” Syrian Golan as launching pads for a war of attrition against Israel and Jordan – like Taliban’s campaign against NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their deadline for achieving this objective is March 15.
Jabhat al-Nusra kicked off its Golan operation Wednesday, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, by murdering Gen. Nour e-Din Habib, commander of the Syrian Army’s 90th Brigade, parts of which remain on the Golan. He was struck down from a well-planned ambush against his convoy. Also killed in the attack was Col. Radouan Rifai, the brigade’s senior liaison officer with the Syrian 3rd Extended Division.
The purpose of the attack was to disable the brigade by wiping out its top command.
Our military sources add that, in the course of the fighting Wednesday, the Nusra front uncovered a secret network of large tunnels running from different points on the Golan up to the Israeli border. They are big enough for the passage of entire Syrian units with their tanks and heavy trucks, allowing them to pop up without warning against Israeli border units and use their surprise to mow them down and advance into the Israeli sector.
DEBKAfile reported earlier Wednesday:

US President  Barack Obama’s first engagement upon landing in Israel on March 20 will be a quick tour of the Iron Dome missile interceptor stationed at Ben Gurion international airport. After a round of handshakes, the officers and men operating the system will explain how it works.

The innovative counter-missile weapon is to be deployed there, not just as a spectacle to honor the US president for his contribution to its development, but out of necessity for his safety. Air Force One might be seen as fair game for the ground-to-ground missiles wielded by Al Qaeda units fighting Assad in Syria and its affiliates in the Sinai Peninsula at the very moment that the US President steps down to the strains of the IDF welcoming band.
In normal circumstances, personal security arrangements for a US presidential foreign visit are kept under close wraps and rarely visible to the public.

full story-http://www.debka.com/article/22819/Al-Qaeda%E2%80%99s-Nusra-fights-to-seize-Syrian-Golan-in-time-for-Obama-visit

Al Qaeda forms volatile 1,000-km chain from Baghdad to Damascus

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’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz rated war as a “low risk” for the foreseeable future, but credited the risk of escalation as “very high,” in a lecture he delivered Monday, March 11 at the Interdisciplinary Institute for policy and strategy. “Almost every week, some incident occurs that could drag the region into a conflagration,” he warned.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Golan
DEBKAfile’s military sources: Gen. Gantz’s distinction between “war” and “conflagration” stems from the differentiation Israel’s senior policy-making and military circles have begun making of late to support a misconception that a full-blown war is no longer on the cards at present. They support this rationale by arguing that full-scale war can only be fought by large regular armies, while a “conflagration” or “escalation” entails smaller units and less terrain.
The Egyptian army, which would be the key to a major conflict, is held up in this regard as being in no state to go to war, given their country’s disastrous political and economic plight. The generals, according to this theory, wouldl take into account the low state of their units and lack of logistical preparedness and simply decline to issue any order to embark on war against Israel.
So when Gantz talked about a conflagration, he was thinking in terms of the Islamist militias in , Hizballah in Lebanon and the Salafists allied with al Qaeda cells in Sinai – none of which are capable of launching war on the classical dimensions of the past.

What this kind of thinking omits to take into account is that, while the regular Arab national armies which attacked Israel in the past are indeed crumbling, the militias in their countries are mushrooming dangerously. They are bursting out of their national boundaries, nourished with arms, manpower and funding from distant sources in and beyond the Middle East.
DEBKAfile’s military sources point to the example of the Syrian army’s 17th Reserve Division, whose recent defeat in the battle for the in eastern Syria established a regional landmark. It removed the last gap in the 1,000-kilometer long chain of command formed by Islamist forces identified or associated with al Qaeda, which now runs contiguously from the northern outskirts of Baghdad to the eastern fringes of Damascus.  The Syrian Golan, since it fell to the Islamist militias fighting with Syrian rebels, forms part of that chain. The Battle for the Euphrates was a landmark event in that it opened the way for al Qaeda to conduct itself as a transnational force in combat. And indeed, in a recent encounter, al Qaeda in Iraq claimed victory over Syrian military units which, having crossed the border into that country, lost the battle at the cost of 48 soldiers and 9 agents dead.

Therefore, any “conflagration” in Syria, for instance, could quickly spread to Lebanon, Iraq or the Golan; and a violent incident in Egypt may emanate from or spill over into Libya, Israel or Algeria.

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U.S. Arming Al-Qaeda in Syria