The MANPAD threat
After nukes, greatest concern is shoulder-fired missiles
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 16.02.2006 00:20
U.S. government sources estimate there are as many as 750,000 man-portable air-defense systems in arsenals worldwide. They are often called MANPADS, and they are quickly becoming the next nightmare – second only to nuclear weapons – for those involved in counter-terrorism planning.
The State Department estimates that more than 40 civilian aircraft have already been hit by such weapons since the 1970s. Many officials and intelligence community experts say MANPADS post the most significant threat from terrorists beside nuclear weapons. “The spread of weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons like shoulder-fired missiles, quite frankly, may be the gravest threat to our country today, especially if those weapons end up in the hands of terrorists,” said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., at a recent hearing on the proliferation of such weapons.
At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, boasted about U.S. efforts recently to destroy or disable 17,000 at-risk MANPADS. He also said State has commitments by other countries to destroy more than 7,000 more. That still leaves nearly three-quarters of a billion in unaccountable arsenals around the world – any one of which can take down a commercial airliner full of civilians. “MANPADS represent a tremendous threat,” said Joseph. “We've got to deal with it. There's no question about it.
But the consequences of, you know, a coordinated attack using MANPADS would be -- would be very significant, some could say would be catastrophic. But I think the use of even a single nuclear weapon against an American city would be greater. And I think we've got to place our priorities in that framework.” He added: “Other than stopping weapons of mass destruction, I personally do not think that there is, in the area that I work, a higher priority in keeping MANPADS out of the hands of the wrong people.” Because it’s considerably easier to sneak a MANPAD into the U.S. than a nuclear weapons, the aviation industry and Homeland Security are taking notice.
Later this year, two airports in Houston are slated to become the first in the nation with a new perimeter security system that combines the inclusiveness of ground-based radar with the analytic capabilities of intelligent video. And one of the things they will be looking for is shoulder-fired missiles. Houston's largest airport, IAH, has a big problem -- about 30 miles of perimeter fence. That translates into about 11,000 acres of land just beyond the fence that needs to be watched. But the new system will allow nearly full coverage for threats like MANPADS.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, meanwhile, has also commented on the growing threat to commercial airliners. He believes the costs of developing and deploying anti-missile technologies for commercial airliners should be shared among the federal government, local and state governments and industry. The Homeland Security Department will spend $110 million developing anti-missile technologies this year, after already spending a combined $121 million studying them the last two.
The department has still not decided how widely to employ the technology. It is estimated it would cost $11 billion to install the systems on all commercial airliners in the U.S. and then $2.1 billion annually to maintain them.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Coming New War in ISRAEL
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
'3rd intifada on its way'Terror leaders detail for WND 'massive new war' against Israel
Posted: February 14, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
With Hamas now in power, the long-ruling Fatah party and its "military wing" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades forced into the opposition, and Israel announcing it will soon withdraw from the West Bank, Palestinian terror leaders tell WorldNetDaily recent events here are leading them to launch what they call a third intifada – or violent confrontation – against Israel consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal."
Some terror leaders, particularly from the Al Aqsa Brigades, whose associated Fatah party scored poorly in last month's parliamentary elections, say they are planning massive violence against Israeli civilians mostly to revolt against the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian government.
"The new intifada is only a question of time and this will be the hardest and the most dangerous one. It's just about timing until the order to blow up a new wave of attacks will be given," Abu Nasser, a senior Al Aqsa Brigades leader from the Balata refugee camp in northern Samaria told WorldNetDaily in an interview.
Israel expecting new wave of terror
In the last 10 days Israeli forces intercepted 12 potential suicide bombers and have stopped several dozen bombings the past few months, prompting fears of "a new and worrisome wave of terror," said Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet security services.
Hamas last month catapulted to power, winning Palestinian parliamentary elections by a large margin and wresting control from Fatah.
Israel has warned the losing terror groups, particularly Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, will try to stymie efforts by Hamas to form a new government and sign a long-term cease fire with the Jewish state. Also, members of the Islamic Jihad terror group expressed disappointment their organization decided not to run in elections, and have warned they will stop Hamas from imposing a truce.
Last week, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his Kadima party, leading overwhelmingly in the polls for next month's Israeli elections, will seek to "change Israel's borders" by withdrawing from most of the West Bank. Some security officials told WND they fear terror groups will increase attacks to claim credit for an Israeli West Bank pull-out.
After Israel announced its withdrawal from Gaza, which it carried out this past summer, terror organizations, mostly led by Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees umbrella group, increased attacks in the area, at one point firing an average of seven rockets per week at Gaza's Jewish communities.
Diskin warned that Iran and Syria, currently under mounting international pressure, are streaming large sums of money to Palestinian terror groups to spur on local cells to carry out attacks in hopes of starting regional violence.
The Palestinians launched their first intifada in 1987, which developed into a well-organized violent rebellion orchestrated by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization from its headquarters in Tunis. The so-called second intifada was initiated in 2000 after Arafat rejected at Camp David an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and sections of eastern Jerusalem. Some 993 Israelis and 3,781 Palestinians have been killed so far. Many say the second intifada is still being waged.
The terror groups themselves say they are planning a new wave of violence against Israelis, which some terror leaders are calling a "third intifada." They detailed for WorldNetDaily how they will carry it out.
Al Aqsa Brigades: 'We'll kill Israelis to revolt against Hamas'
The Al Aqsa Brigades was formed in 2000 by then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat as a military offshoot of the Fatah party. PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a cease fire with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last February, to which the Brigades was party – but the terror group continued carrying out attacks.
Al Aqsa's Abu Nasser claims Israel put Hamas in power, and says his group is preparing a new terror onslaught as a result.
"For the last 10 months we respected a cease fire expecting to see changes in the lives of the Palestinian people, but we received from the Israeli side more assassinations ... and above all we received the Hamas victory, which seems to be the result of an Israeli and international conspiracy. They believe that Hamas will give up easier our lands and rights. I think that they are right, but we will not allow this to happen. We will fight and we will blow up the new intifada," Abu Nasser told WND.
Sources close to Al Aqsa say Abu Nasser was involved in preparing the last three suicide bombings in Israel, including the attack last month at a Tel Aviv shwarma restaurant that injured more than 30 Israelis.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal over the weekend said his group might sign a long-term cease fire with Israel, but told reporters he will not ask other Palestinian group to stop attacks.
Abu Nasser told WND the Brigades will not respect any cease fire agreed to by Hamas and will not halt attacks at Hamas' request.
"I am sure Hamas will start arresting us, but it will not be that easy [for them]," said Abu Nasser. "We are preparing ourselves for the worst scenario."
Asked if Al Aqsa's new terror war will be launched less out of aggression toward Israel and more to revolt against Hamas, Abu Nasser replied, "This is partially true. When we were in power, we were obliged to be more sensitive and more obedient to the instructions and policies of our leadership. Now that we lost the elections, why should we obey the leaders and just who do we obey? The Hamas?
Continued Abu Nasser: "I am sure once [Hamas is] in power it is only that power that is really important for them.
They will be ready to give up things that President Arafat refused to do. The proof for what I am saying is that in the last days when the Israeli army killed more than 15 Palestinian activists, most of them from our Brigades, we did not hear the voice of Hamas. Where are their resistance principles? Did they disappear after the elections?"
Abu Nasser warned the so-called third intifada will be a combination of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Jewish towns.
"The Al Aqsa Brigades recently unified most of our cells and groups and we will wait for the most suitable moment to launch our resistance acts. As for the acts, there will be suicide attacks but there will be a massive use of rockets. These rockets will be launched against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but also if needed against Israeli cities inside the green line."
Rocket war against Israel
Since Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip this past August, security officials have been warning that the Palestinian terror groups transferred their rocket capabilities to the West Bank, which is within firing range of Israel's international airport and many major Israeli cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Israel has confirmed that at least two rockets have been fired in the West Bank so far from the northern Samaria town of Jenin. There is information terror groups in the West Bank, particularly the Al Aqsa Brigades and Islamic Jihad, will step up attacks against the area's Jewish communities ahead of any Israeli withdrawal from the area.
WorldNetDaily caught up with Abu Oudai, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader responsible for coordinating the organization's rocket network in the West Bank. He warned that his organization is preparing a rocket war against Israel:
"We have launched [several] times and with the help of Allah we will launch these rockets regularly. There will be no calm, no cease fire until the occupation leaves our land. I don't need to tell you that the aerial distance from Jenin to Netanya, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities is not big without telling you what are all our plans concerning other parts of the West Bank."
Oudai said his organization and other terror groups have stockpiled Palestinian rockets, including Qassams, which can travel about 2 miles, more primitive Jenin-1 and Jenin-2s, and Arafat-1 and Arafat-2 rockets, some of which can reportedly travel up to 3 miles. He claimed his group is developing a new rocket that will put all of Israel's major cities within firing range.
"The very near future will prove their capacity to kill and destroy and to beat the Israelis in the West Bank exactly like we did with these rockets in the Gaza Strip," Oudai said.
Oudai pocked fun at Israel's West Bank security barrier, which has been credited with making it more difficult for Palestinian groups to carry out suicide bombings.
"[The Israelis] have built a huge wall on which [it] spent billions of dollars but still we are hitting Israel with our rockets and reaching every target we want. This wall will not defend [Israel] from our rockets which have defeated the wall and all the security measures taken to prevent our attacks," Oudai boasted.
Israeli military leaders previously warned that the Jewish state will launch an "unprecedented" military campaign against any rocket firing from the West Bank.
The Israeli Defense Forces did not initiate any large-scale anti-rocket operation in response to the rockets launched from Jenin. It has been largely unable to stop the rockets regularly fired from Gaza into nearby Israeli Negev towns.
The Israeli army regularly responds to Qassam firings from Gaza with surgical missile strikes and artillery fire at areas it says are used to launch rockets. In December, Israel set up a buffer zone in sections of Gaza occasionally used to fire rockets into nearby Israeli Negev communities, but the Palestinian terrorists shifted their launching sites to other areas and have continued the attacks.
Said Oudai: "Israel already has used all its tools. Tanks, aircrafts, assassinations and everything it could use. But we are still here and still fighting. We do not get excited from the Israeli threats. What can be this unprecedented reaction? They have already tried everything."
In Gaza, the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella organization of several Palestinian terror groups, has taken credit for many of the rockets launched from the area since 2000.
Abu Abir, spokesman for the Committees, boasted his group transported missiles to the West Bank.
"If there is need, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and everywhere in Israel can become our target. Israelis must also know that we have already transferred the knowledge and the technology of producing rockets to the West Bank," Abu Abir told WorldNetDaily.
Abu Abir said his group has "improved [our] capacities in shooting these rockets. Even the Israeli officers agreed that the improvement is at all levels, [including] the distance that these rockets can reach, the capacity of explosives and their accuracy. In the last five years, there is no doubt that our abilities have improved."
Islamic Jihad: 'The Israelis should wait for our surprises'
Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for every suicide bombing against Israel since last February's cease fire, including bombings in a Tel Aviv disco and restaurant and a Netanya shopping mall, among others.
Al Aqsa leaders told WorldNetDaily they aided the recent bombings. Islamic Jihad also says it fired most of the rockets launched from the Gaza Strip since Israel's August withdrawal.
Israel says Islamic Jihad is directly backed by Iran and Syria. Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah operates openly from Damascus and regularly visits Tehran.
Security sources say Hezbollah headquarters in Damascus and Beirut have ordered Islamic Jihad to carry out attacks in hopes of drawing Israel into a protracted military conflict.
Israel's Diskin warned that Iran and Syria are looking to use Islamic Jihad in part to distract mounting international pressure against their respective countries.
Iran is under fire for its alleged nuclear ambitions, and the international community led by the United States has threatened to bring Syria to the United Nations Security Council for allegedly interfering in the investigation into the assassination last year of former Lebanese Prime Minister Raqif Hariri, for which Syria has been widely blamed.
WorldNetDaily spoke with Islamic Jihad's northern West Bank leader Abu Khalil, who warned his terror group is planning a terror onslaught to chase Israel from the West Bank and eventually from Jerusalem.
"We will launch very soon very painful attacks that will shake the enemy. In fact, this is more the continuation of the (second) intifada because we never said that the intifada has ended. We will never give calm and security to the enemy. This will happen only when Israel will run away from Jerusalem and the West Bank like it did in Gaza," Abu Khalil said.
Abu Khalil, like leaders from the Al Aqsa Brigades, said his group will not respect a Hamas request to halt attacks against Israel.
"I don’t believe the brothers in Hamas will ask us to stop. In any case, our only commitment is towards Allah, and the blood of our people and brothers and towards our political leadership," Abu Khalil told WND.
"Therefore we will not give up the right to defend ourselves and to launch all kinds of attacks against Israel everywhere there is an Israeli soldier or any Israeli goal in the West Bank and 1948 occupied Palestine [the entire state of Israel]."
Asked which weapons will be emphasized during Islamic Jihad's next wave of terror attacks, Abu Khalil replied, "I should not answer this question for operational reasons. But we proved that we use everything Allah enables us to achieve and to use – suicide attacks, rockets and more surprises. The Israelis should wait for interesting surprises."
Hamas: 'Our goal is to rebuild Palestinian society'
Hamas, a terror group responsible for more than 60 suicide bombings, last month won a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament and is currently attempting to form a governing coalition.
Hamas leaders claim they will focus on rebuilding Palestinian society, and have stated they may sign a long term cease fire agreement with Israel.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas chief in Gaza, told WorldNetDaily his group will "rebuild the Palestinian life shattered by corruption in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This is our goal now. To make a better life for the Palestinians."
In a widely circulated interview, al-Zahar even recently claimed to WorldNetDaily that Hamas might negotiate with Israel using a third party.
He said his group will likely agree to a long-term cease fire with the Jewish state, but said it will not recognize Israel or renounce its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel by "assaulting and killing."
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal this weekend said his group will not stop other Palestinian organizations from carrying out attacks against Israel.
Still, some analysts contend Hamas might use its power to halt some anti-Israel violence in hopes of receiving financial aide from international donors.
But the Al-Mustaqbal Research Center in Gaza warned that after Israel's Gaza withdrawal Hamas attacks will be focused on West Bank Jewish communities. The Center is reportedly closely aligned with Hamas and, according to Israeli security officials, it espouses Hamas ideology:
"[Hamas will be] transporting warfare technologies such as mortars and rockets from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. These will provide an easy way to bombard Israeli populated areas adjacent to the security fence, and the fence, which is currently under construction, will therefore become useless," stated a recent publication by the Research Center, according to a translation by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies.
Al-Mustaqbal stated Israel's Gaza withdrawal provided Hamas and other terror groups with a staging ground from which to launch attacks and to transport rockets to West Bank communities.
It said the Gaza withdrawal proves Israel will vacate other areas in response to repeated attacks.
PFLP: Terror forced Israel out of Gaza, will get us rest of Jewish state
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has carried out recent West Bank shooting attacks and rocket firings from the Gaza Strip. The group's leader, Ahmad Saadat, is in a Palestinian jail in Jericho for allegedly planning the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavaam Zeevi in October 2001.
Israeli security officials say the PFLP has scaled back its participation in attacks the past few months, but Abu Hani, a leader of the PLFP's "armed wing," the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, told WorldNetDaily his group used the time earned from last year's cease fire to build its arsenal in preparation for a third intifada.
"The last months were used for a rest in order to rehabilitate forces. The Palestinian people preserves its right to fight against Israel," Abu Hani said.
He told WorldNetDaily the PFLP is "forced" to launch a new terror war.
"It is not that we prepare an intifada. It is the reality on the ground that dictates a new intifada. There is the fence, there is the building in the Jewish settlements, the daily Israeli penetration into Palestinian cities, villages and camps and of course the killing of our comrades and brothers," Abu Hani says.
Israel routinely conducts anti-terror military raids in the West Bank when it receives intelligence warning of new attacks. The Israeli Air Force fires at targets in Gaza in attempts to halt Palestinian groups from launching rockets at nearby Jewish communities.
Abu Hani warned, "The current situation does not leave to the Palestinians many choices but to fight with all the tools we have or can have. The Gaza withdrawal proves unfortunately that force, attacks and rockets is the only language and attitude that the Israelis understand. They do not withdraw unless they are hit by the Palestinian resistance. So if there is a way that has already obliged the Israelis to withdraw, why not to use it again?"
Previous stories:
Hamas chief outlines 'peace initiative'
Read the entire Hamas charter
'Terror U.' sets up shop in former Jewish capital
Takeover of Egypt part of Hamas' plan?
Hamas asks Israel for help
Hamas hints long-term truce, demanding Israel change flag
Introducing Hamastan: The new Mideast dynamic
Hamas, al-Qaida linked in phony passport ring
Hamas divulges 'peace initiative'
Hamas government to be new Taliban?
Hamas wins big majority
Hamas: We're ready to rule Palestinians
Israel-Hamas peace talks?
Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud al-Zahar and leaders of the Taliban.
'3rd intifada on its way'Terror leaders detail for WND 'massive new war' against Israel
Posted: February 14, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
With Hamas now in power, the long-ruling Fatah party and its "military wing" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades forced into the opposition, and Israel announcing it will soon withdraw from the West Bank, Palestinian terror leaders tell WorldNetDaily recent events here are leading them to launch what they call a third intifada – or violent confrontation – against Israel consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal."
Some terror leaders, particularly from the Al Aqsa Brigades, whose associated Fatah party scored poorly in last month's parliamentary elections, say they are planning massive violence against Israeli civilians mostly to revolt against the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian government.
"The new intifada is only a question of time and this will be the hardest and the most dangerous one. It's just about timing until the order to blow up a new wave of attacks will be given," Abu Nasser, a senior Al Aqsa Brigades leader from the Balata refugee camp in northern Samaria told WorldNetDaily in an interview.
Israel expecting new wave of terror
In the last 10 days Israeli forces intercepted 12 potential suicide bombers and have stopped several dozen bombings the past few months, prompting fears of "a new and worrisome wave of terror," said Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet security services.
Hamas last month catapulted to power, winning Palestinian parliamentary elections by a large margin and wresting control from Fatah.
Israel has warned the losing terror groups, particularly Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, will try to stymie efforts by Hamas to form a new government and sign a long-term cease fire with the Jewish state. Also, members of the Islamic Jihad terror group expressed disappointment their organization decided not to run in elections, and have warned they will stop Hamas from imposing a truce.
Last week, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his Kadima party, leading overwhelmingly in the polls for next month's Israeli elections, will seek to "change Israel's borders" by withdrawing from most of the West Bank. Some security officials told WND they fear terror groups will increase attacks to claim credit for an Israeli West Bank pull-out.
After Israel announced its withdrawal from Gaza, which it carried out this past summer, terror organizations, mostly led by Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees umbrella group, increased attacks in the area, at one point firing an average of seven rockets per week at Gaza's Jewish communities.
Diskin warned that Iran and Syria, currently under mounting international pressure, are streaming large sums of money to Palestinian terror groups to spur on local cells to carry out attacks in hopes of starting regional violence.
The Palestinians launched their first intifada in 1987, which developed into a well-organized violent rebellion orchestrated by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization from its headquarters in Tunis. The so-called second intifada was initiated in 2000 after Arafat rejected at Camp David an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and sections of eastern Jerusalem. Some 993 Israelis and 3,781 Palestinians have been killed so far. Many say the second intifada is still being waged.
The terror groups themselves say they are planning a new wave of violence against Israelis, which some terror leaders are calling a "third intifada." They detailed for WorldNetDaily how they will carry it out.
Al Aqsa Brigades: 'We'll kill Israelis to revolt against Hamas'
The Al Aqsa Brigades was formed in 2000 by then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat as a military offshoot of the Fatah party. PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a cease fire with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last February, to which the Brigades was party – but the terror group continued carrying out attacks.
Al Aqsa's Abu Nasser claims Israel put Hamas in power, and says his group is preparing a new terror onslaught as a result.
"For the last 10 months we respected a cease fire expecting to see changes in the lives of the Palestinian people, but we received from the Israeli side more assassinations ... and above all we received the Hamas victory, which seems to be the result of an Israeli and international conspiracy. They believe that Hamas will give up easier our lands and rights. I think that they are right, but we will not allow this to happen. We will fight and we will blow up the new intifada," Abu Nasser told WND.
Sources close to Al Aqsa say Abu Nasser was involved in preparing the last three suicide bombings in Israel, including the attack last month at a Tel Aviv shwarma restaurant that injured more than 30 Israelis.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal over the weekend said his group might sign a long-term cease fire with Israel, but told reporters he will not ask other Palestinian group to stop attacks.
Abu Nasser told WND the Brigades will not respect any cease fire agreed to by Hamas and will not halt attacks at Hamas' request.
"I am sure Hamas will start arresting us, but it will not be that easy [for them]," said Abu Nasser. "We are preparing ourselves for the worst scenario."
Asked if Al Aqsa's new terror war will be launched less out of aggression toward Israel and more to revolt against Hamas, Abu Nasser replied, "This is partially true. When we were in power, we were obliged to be more sensitive and more obedient to the instructions and policies of our leadership. Now that we lost the elections, why should we obey the leaders and just who do we obey? The Hamas?
Continued Abu Nasser: "I am sure once [Hamas is] in power it is only that power that is really important for them.
They will be ready to give up things that President Arafat refused to do. The proof for what I am saying is that in the last days when the Israeli army killed more than 15 Palestinian activists, most of them from our Brigades, we did not hear the voice of Hamas. Where are their resistance principles? Did they disappear after the elections?"
Abu Nasser warned the so-called third intifada will be a combination of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Jewish towns.
"The Al Aqsa Brigades recently unified most of our cells and groups and we will wait for the most suitable moment to launch our resistance acts. As for the acts, there will be suicide attacks but there will be a massive use of rockets. These rockets will be launched against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but also if needed against Israeli cities inside the green line."
Rocket war against Israel
Since Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip this past August, security officials have been warning that the Palestinian terror groups transferred their rocket capabilities to the West Bank, which is within firing range of Israel's international airport and many major Israeli cities, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Israel has confirmed that at least two rockets have been fired in the West Bank so far from the northern Samaria town of Jenin. There is information terror groups in the West Bank, particularly the Al Aqsa Brigades and Islamic Jihad, will step up attacks against the area's Jewish communities ahead of any Israeli withdrawal from the area.
WorldNetDaily caught up with Abu Oudai, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader responsible for coordinating the organization's rocket network in the West Bank. He warned that his organization is preparing a rocket war against Israel:
"We have launched [several] times and with the help of Allah we will launch these rockets regularly. There will be no calm, no cease fire until the occupation leaves our land. I don't need to tell you that the aerial distance from Jenin to Netanya, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities is not big without telling you what are all our plans concerning other parts of the West Bank."
Oudai said his organization and other terror groups have stockpiled Palestinian rockets, including Qassams, which can travel about 2 miles, more primitive Jenin-1 and Jenin-2s, and Arafat-1 and Arafat-2 rockets, some of which can reportedly travel up to 3 miles. He claimed his group is developing a new rocket that will put all of Israel's major cities within firing range.
"The very near future will prove their capacity to kill and destroy and to beat the Israelis in the West Bank exactly like we did with these rockets in the Gaza Strip," Oudai said.
Oudai pocked fun at Israel's West Bank security barrier, which has been credited with making it more difficult for Palestinian groups to carry out suicide bombings.
"[The Israelis] have built a huge wall on which [it] spent billions of dollars but still we are hitting Israel with our rockets and reaching every target we want. This wall will not defend [Israel] from our rockets which have defeated the wall and all the security measures taken to prevent our attacks," Oudai boasted.
Israeli military leaders previously warned that the Jewish state will launch an "unprecedented" military campaign against any rocket firing from the West Bank.
The Israeli Defense Forces did not initiate any large-scale anti-rocket operation in response to the rockets launched from Jenin. It has been largely unable to stop the rockets regularly fired from Gaza into nearby Israeli Negev towns.
The Israeli army regularly responds to Qassam firings from Gaza with surgical missile strikes and artillery fire at areas it says are used to launch rockets. In December, Israel set up a buffer zone in sections of Gaza occasionally used to fire rockets into nearby Israeli Negev communities, but the Palestinian terrorists shifted their launching sites to other areas and have continued the attacks.
Said Oudai: "Israel already has used all its tools. Tanks, aircrafts, assassinations and everything it could use. But we are still here and still fighting. We do not get excited from the Israeli threats. What can be this unprecedented reaction? They have already tried everything."
In Gaza, the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella organization of several Palestinian terror groups, has taken credit for many of the rockets launched from the area since 2000.
Abu Abir, spokesman for the Committees, boasted his group transported missiles to the West Bank.
"If there is need, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and everywhere in Israel can become our target. Israelis must also know that we have already transferred the knowledge and the technology of producing rockets to the West Bank," Abu Abir told WorldNetDaily.
Abu Abir said his group has "improved [our] capacities in shooting these rockets. Even the Israeli officers agreed that the improvement is at all levels, [including] the distance that these rockets can reach, the capacity of explosives and their accuracy. In the last five years, there is no doubt that our abilities have improved."
Islamic Jihad: 'The Israelis should wait for our surprises'
Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for every suicide bombing against Israel since last February's cease fire, including bombings in a Tel Aviv disco and restaurant and a Netanya shopping mall, among others.
Al Aqsa leaders told WorldNetDaily they aided the recent bombings. Islamic Jihad also says it fired most of the rockets launched from the Gaza Strip since Israel's August withdrawal.
Israel says Islamic Jihad is directly backed by Iran and Syria. Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah operates openly from Damascus and regularly visits Tehran.
Security sources say Hezbollah headquarters in Damascus and Beirut have ordered Islamic Jihad to carry out attacks in hopes of drawing Israel into a protracted military conflict.
Israel's Diskin warned that Iran and Syria are looking to use Islamic Jihad in part to distract mounting international pressure against their respective countries.
Iran is under fire for its alleged nuclear ambitions, and the international community led by the United States has threatened to bring Syria to the United Nations Security Council for allegedly interfering in the investigation into the assassination last year of former Lebanese Prime Minister Raqif Hariri, for which Syria has been widely blamed.
WorldNetDaily spoke with Islamic Jihad's northern West Bank leader Abu Khalil, who warned his terror group is planning a terror onslaught to chase Israel from the West Bank and eventually from Jerusalem.
"We will launch very soon very painful attacks that will shake the enemy. In fact, this is more the continuation of the (second) intifada because we never said that the intifada has ended. We will never give calm and security to the enemy. This will happen only when Israel will run away from Jerusalem and the West Bank like it did in Gaza," Abu Khalil said.
Abu Khalil, like leaders from the Al Aqsa Brigades, said his group will not respect a Hamas request to halt attacks against Israel.
"I don’t believe the brothers in Hamas will ask us to stop. In any case, our only commitment is towards Allah, and the blood of our people and brothers and towards our political leadership," Abu Khalil told WND.
"Therefore we will not give up the right to defend ourselves and to launch all kinds of attacks against Israel everywhere there is an Israeli soldier or any Israeli goal in the West Bank and 1948 occupied Palestine [the entire state of Israel]."
Asked which weapons will be emphasized during Islamic Jihad's next wave of terror attacks, Abu Khalil replied, "I should not answer this question for operational reasons. But we proved that we use everything Allah enables us to achieve and to use – suicide attacks, rockets and more surprises. The Israelis should wait for interesting surprises."
Hamas: 'Our goal is to rebuild Palestinian society'
Hamas, a terror group responsible for more than 60 suicide bombings, last month won a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament and is currently attempting to form a governing coalition.
Hamas leaders claim they will focus on rebuilding Palestinian society, and have stated they may sign a long term cease fire agreement with Israel.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas chief in Gaza, told WorldNetDaily his group will "rebuild the Palestinian life shattered by corruption in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This is our goal now. To make a better life for the Palestinians."
In a widely circulated interview, al-Zahar even recently claimed to WorldNetDaily that Hamas might negotiate with Israel using a third party.
He said his group will likely agree to a long-term cease fire with the Jewish state, but said it will not recognize Israel or renounce its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel by "assaulting and killing."
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal this weekend said his group will not stop other Palestinian organizations from carrying out attacks against Israel.
Still, some analysts contend Hamas might use its power to halt some anti-Israel violence in hopes of receiving financial aide from international donors.
But the Al-Mustaqbal Research Center in Gaza warned that after Israel's Gaza withdrawal Hamas attacks will be focused on West Bank Jewish communities. The Center is reportedly closely aligned with Hamas and, according to Israeli security officials, it espouses Hamas ideology:
"[Hamas will be] transporting warfare technologies such as mortars and rockets from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. These will provide an easy way to bombard Israeli populated areas adjacent to the security fence, and the fence, which is currently under construction, will therefore become useless," stated a recent publication by the Research Center, according to a translation by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at Israel's Center for Special Studies.
Al-Mustaqbal stated Israel's Gaza withdrawal provided Hamas and other terror groups with a staging ground from which to launch attacks and to transport rockets to West Bank communities.
It said the Gaza withdrawal proves Israel will vacate other areas in response to repeated attacks.
PFLP: Terror forced Israel out of Gaza, will get us rest of Jewish state
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has carried out recent West Bank shooting attacks and rocket firings from the Gaza Strip. The group's leader, Ahmad Saadat, is in a Palestinian jail in Jericho for allegedly planning the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavaam Zeevi in October 2001.
Israeli security officials say the PFLP has scaled back its participation in attacks the past few months, but Abu Hani, a leader of the PLFP's "armed wing," the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, told WorldNetDaily his group used the time earned from last year's cease fire to build its arsenal in preparation for a third intifada.
"The last months were used for a rest in order to rehabilitate forces. The Palestinian people preserves its right to fight against Israel," Abu Hani said.
He told WorldNetDaily the PFLP is "forced" to launch a new terror war.
"It is not that we prepare an intifada. It is the reality on the ground that dictates a new intifada. There is the fence, there is the building in the Jewish settlements, the daily Israeli penetration into Palestinian cities, villages and camps and of course the killing of our comrades and brothers," Abu Hani says.
Israel routinely conducts anti-terror military raids in the West Bank when it receives intelligence warning of new attacks. The Israeli Air Force fires at targets in Gaza in attempts to halt Palestinian groups from launching rockets at nearby Jewish communities.
Abu Hani warned, "The current situation does not leave to the Palestinians many choices but to fight with all the tools we have or can have. The Gaza withdrawal proves unfortunately that force, attacks and rockets is the only language and attitude that the Israelis understand. They do not withdraw unless they are hit by the Palestinian resistance. So if there is a way that has already obliged the Israelis to withdraw, why not to use it again?"
Previous stories:
Hamas chief outlines 'peace initiative'
Read the entire Hamas charter
'Terror U.' sets up shop in former Jewish capital
Takeover of Egypt part of Hamas' plan?
Hamas asks Israel for help
Hamas hints long-term truce, demanding Israel change flag
Introducing Hamastan: The new Mideast dynamic
Hamas, al-Qaida linked in phony passport ring
Hamas divulges 'peace initiative'
Hamas government to be new Taliban?
Hamas wins big majority
Hamas: We're ready to rule Palestinians
Israel-Hamas peace talks?
Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud al-Zahar and leaders of the Taliban.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
ARMAGEDDON
TOP STORY
A heartbeat from apocalypse
One man’s life holding back World War III
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 11.02.2006 17:17
One man’s life is preventing Osama bin Laden or his allies from getting their hands not on nuclear weapons, which they already have, but a large nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it anywhere in the world. His name is Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan. If fair-and-square elections were held today in Pakistan, and bin Laden or someone like him were allowed to compete, there is little doubt the populace would be with such a leader.
Agosta 90B stealth sub But they haven’t had fair-and-square elections in Pakistan for some time – and President Bush, who promotes “democracy” as the antidote to terror, better hope they don’t have one soon. Pakistan not only has at least 40 nuclear warheads, according to most accounts, but it has some of the most sophisticated and feared delivery systems in the world. Perhaps the biggest worry is the trio of French-built Agosta 90B stealth submarines, each capable of carrying 16 cruise missiles with nuclear payloads.
The Pakistani military is very proud of its subs – and well they should be. They are at the top of the class for French submarines. They were designed by the French company DCN, which, as incredible as it may sound, has licensed Pakistan to produce more at a commercial base. The project was completed despite a suicide bomb attack with killed 11 of the project's French engineers in front of their Karachi hotel in May 2002. The deal had to be approved by the US government because the plane contains U.S. parts.
While the specs for the Agosta 90B subs say it is equipped to fire Exocet missiles and torpedoes, at a press briefing following the annual naval exercise Seaspark-2001, Rear Admiral Mohammad Afzal Tahir, the deputy chief of naval staff for operations, announced that the Pakistan navy was considering equipping its submarines with nuclear missiles. He suggested the Agosta 90B submarine, with its air independent propulsion system, can deliver nuclear weapons. The idea, according to sources within the Pakistan navy, was to turn the Agosta 90B subs into the nation’s second-strike option.
They would serve as a deterrent against any nuclear attack on Pakistan because the subs would survive any such first strike and be in a position to rain nuclear warheads on an enemy in retaliation. Pakistan’s nuclear inventory includes the land-based missiles such as the Shaheen I, the Shaheen II, the Ghauri I, the Ghauri II. These missiles have ranges between 750 kilometers and 2,500. So far there has been no report of any naval vessel being modified to carry these land-based missiles.
Currently, only Russia and the U.S. are known to have the capability of launching nuclear weapons from submarine tubes. So, for Pakistan to achieve such capability would be a remarkable development. Since Pakistan is known as one of the world’s biggest proliferators of nuclear technology, it is likely that breakthrough would be shared with others – including Pakistan’s close ally, China. Given the fact that the Agosta 90B has a range of nearly 12,000 miles, the range of the missiles themselves becomes less important.
The subs can travel quiet and they can travel long distances. If they can fire nuclear warheads, the effective range of those missiles has been greatly increased. But what does all this have to do with bin Laden and Musharraf? Bin Laden may be the most popular man in Pakistan. Musharraf may be the most unpopular man in Pakistan – perhaps second only to George W. Bush. Musharraf is presiding over a military government in Pakistan, suppressing a popular Islamist movement within his country. He walks a fine line.
He has survived many assassination attempts. He came to power in a coup, and he could be deposed in one. Musharraf is a limited ally of the U.S. in its war against this popular movement within his country. It was his country, in fact, that birthed the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan – the Taliban that harbored and fought with bin Laden’s al-Qaida forces against the U.S. in that country. Many, if not most, Pakistanis believe Allah has chosen them to arm themselves with nuclear weapons to conquer the world for him.
Thus, the man standing between a radical Islam armed with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems for attacking any part of the world with them is, just that, one man, one life, one heartbeat.
A heartbeat from apocalypse
One man’s life holding back World War III
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 11.02.2006 17:17
One man’s life is preventing Osama bin Laden or his allies from getting their hands not on nuclear weapons, which they already have, but a large nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it anywhere in the world. His name is Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan. If fair-and-square elections were held today in Pakistan, and bin Laden or someone like him were allowed to compete, there is little doubt the populace would be with such a leader.
Agosta 90B stealth sub But they haven’t had fair-and-square elections in Pakistan for some time – and President Bush, who promotes “democracy” as the antidote to terror, better hope they don’t have one soon. Pakistan not only has at least 40 nuclear warheads, according to most accounts, but it has some of the most sophisticated and feared delivery systems in the world. Perhaps the biggest worry is the trio of French-built Agosta 90B stealth submarines, each capable of carrying 16 cruise missiles with nuclear payloads.
The Pakistani military is very proud of its subs – and well they should be. They are at the top of the class for French submarines. They were designed by the French company DCN, which, as incredible as it may sound, has licensed Pakistan to produce more at a commercial base. The project was completed despite a suicide bomb attack with killed 11 of the project's French engineers in front of their Karachi hotel in May 2002. The deal had to be approved by the US government because the plane contains U.S. parts.
While the specs for the Agosta 90B subs say it is equipped to fire Exocet missiles and torpedoes, at a press briefing following the annual naval exercise Seaspark-2001, Rear Admiral Mohammad Afzal Tahir, the deputy chief of naval staff for operations, announced that the Pakistan navy was considering equipping its submarines with nuclear missiles. He suggested the Agosta 90B submarine, with its air independent propulsion system, can deliver nuclear weapons. The idea, according to sources within the Pakistan navy, was to turn the Agosta 90B subs into the nation’s second-strike option.
They would serve as a deterrent against any nuclear attack on Pakistan because the subs would survive any such first strike and be in a position to rain nuclear warheads on an enemy in retaliation. Pakistan’s nuclear inventory includes the land-based missiles such as the Shaheen I, the Shaheen II, the Ghauri I, the Ghauri II. These missiles have ranges between 750 kilometers and 2,500. So far there has been no report of any naval vessel being modified to carry these land-based missiles.
Currently, only Russia and the U.S. are known to have the capability of launching nuclear weapons from submarine tubes. So, for Pakistan to achieve such capability would be a remarkable development. Since Pakistan is known as one of the world’s biggest proliferators of nuclear technology, it is likely that breakthrough would be shared with others – including Pakistan’s close ally, China. Given the fact that the Agosta 90B has a range of nearly 12,000 miles, the range of the missiles themselves becomes less important.
The subs can travel quiet and they can travel long distances. If they can fire nuclear warheads, the effective range of those missiles has been greatly increased. But what does all this have to do with bin Laden and Musharraf? Bin Laden may be the most popular man in Pakistan. Musharraf may be the most unpopular man in Pakistan – perhaps second only to George W. Bush. Musharraf is presiding over a military government in Pakistan, suppressing a popular Islamist movement within his country. He walks a fine line.
He has survived many assassination attempts. He came to power in a coup, and he could be deposed in one. Musharraf is a limited ally of the U.S. in its war against this popular movement within his country. It was his country, in fact, that birthed the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan – the Taliban that harbored and fought with bin Laden’s al-Qaida forces against the U.S. in that country. Many, if not most, Pakistanis believe Allah has chosen them to arm themselves with nuclear weapons to conquer the world for him.
Thus, the man standing between a radical Islam armed with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems for attacking any part of the world with them is, just that, one man, one life, one heartbeat.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
TOP STORY - 2-11-06
Cuba-Iran-Venezuela axis
Anti-U.S. rumblings, threats from Latin America
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 09.02.2006 18:02
In early January, Cuban official Felipe Perez Roque made a public statement from Tehran. "Cuba supports the Iranian people and government and appreciates the solidarity of [the] Iranian nation with Cuba," he said.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad About the same time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke with Fidel Castro on the telephone – then later Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. He also reportedly spoke to Evo Morales, the Chavez clone who now leads Bolivia. Later in the month, Chavez joined Cindy Sheehan, the American antiwar activist, to attack President Bush and promised to support her protest against the Iraq war.
''Enough of imperialist aggression,” Chavez said as he hugged Sheehan. “We must tell the world: down with the U.S. empire. We have to bury imperialism this century. Cindy, we are with you in your fight.'' The last conversation took place on Chavez’s nationally broadcast TV show. Sheehan was just the latest American activist to appear on Chavez's Sunday program – a kind of political variety show where he discusses everything from baseball to his life in the army to Venezuelan history and oil prices.
Sheehan said she agreed with Harry Belafonte, the singer and activist, who made headlines by calling President Bush ''the greatest terrorist in the world.'' ''The war in Iraq will end, our troops will come home, Bush will be impeached and he will be brought to justice,'' said Sheehan. Sheehan was in Caracas for the sixth World Social Forum, where nearly 60,000 people met to protest American foreign policy and debate ideas from land reform for the poor to fair trade and indigenous rights.
The American Family Association was so outraged by the spectacle that it has begun a campaign urging U.S. drivers to steer clear of gasoline sold by Citgo Petroleum Corp., the Houston-based U.S. refining and marketing branch of Venezuela's national oil company PDVSA. "It doesn't make sense to purchase gasoline from a country that wants to bring down the U.S. government," said Chairman Donald Wildmon. And, indeed, it appears Chavez is a man of his word – determined to do just that, bring down the U.S. government.
Beyond mere rhetoric, Iran and Venezuela have joined forces in an effort to undermine the U.S. dollar. In October 2005, Chavez announced Venezuela was ready to move the country's foreign-exchange holdings out of the dollar and into the euro. He also called for the creation of a South American central bank designed to hold in euros all the foreign-exchange holdings of the participating countries.
Beginning in 2003, Iran began demanding oil payment in euros, not dollars, although the oil itself was still priced in dollars. Iran has announced the intention of opening an Iranian Oil Bourse in March to challenge NYMEX (the New York Mercantile Exchange) and IPE (London's International Petroleum Exchange). The United States relies on approximately 70 percent of all foreign-exchange currency to be held in dollars because we sell Treasury debt into that foreign-exchange market.
Should Venezuela and Iran succeed in creating a worldwide flight of foreign-exchange reserves away from the dollar and into the euro, the move could depress the value of the dollar, according to Jerome Corsi, author of “Atomic Iran.” “Dwindling foreign exchange dollar holdings could end up pushing the Treasury to sell debt into a smaller international supply of dollars, with the dollar not being as strong as it is today,” he said.
“Increasing the cost of our ‘twin deficits’ – the budget deficit and the trade deficit – would have detrimental effects on the U.S. economy and on a Bush administration, which seems to have lost traditional Republican budgetary discipline.” There are also reasons to believe that Chavez is cozying up to Tehran – and North Korea as well – for more than simple reasons of anti-Americansim. Some intelligence sources believe he, too, is ultimately after the acquisition of nuclear weapons – right in the western hemisphere.
That was the dream of his friend Castro, who lost out on the opportunity in the Cuban Missile crisis. Chavez has also been accused of supporting al-Qaida. Air Force Maj. Juan Diaz Castillo, who was Chavez's pilot, told WorldNetDaily in 2003 that "the American people should awaken and be aware of the enemy they have just three hours' flight from the United States." Diaz said he was part of an operation in which Chavez gave $1 million to al-Qaida for relocation costs, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
He is one of more than 100 military officers who have quit the Chavez regime as the president tries to hang on to power amid a month-long general strike that has cut off oil exports, his primary source of income. Diaz said in 2003 Chavez was in the process of forming a bloc of Latin American countries that "will promote terrorism and also direct action against the economy of the United States." The leaders of Cuba, Brazil and Ecuador are on board with Chavez, he said, and they "now are aiming at Argentina."
Could the new axis of evil be Venezuela, Iran and Cuba? That’s what some intelligence analysts are saying. Imagine the damage Iranian weapons of mass destruction could do from the proximity of Cuba or Venezuela? While the U.S. has focused its attention on the Middle East, a potentially more explosive development may be occurring right in its own back yard.
Monday, February 06, 2006
TICK TOCK
Later Than We Think
February 6, 2006
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
Washington Times
The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace."The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets.
He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.
The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in the hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in belief a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.
When he became Iran's sixth president since the 1979 revolution last summer, Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to donate $20 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the faithful can drop their missives to the "Hidden Imam" in a holy well. Tehran's working-class faithful are convinced the new president and his Cabinet signed a "compact" pledging themselves to precipitate the return of the Mahdi -- and dropped it down Jamkaran's well with the Mahdi's zip code.
In Mr. Ahmadinejad's eyes, Iran is strong, with oil inching up to $70 a barrel and America, dependent on foreign oil, is weak. He has said publicly America and Europe have far more to lose than Iran if the U.N. Security Council votes for tough economic sanctions. He also figures if Israeli and/or U.S. warplanes strike Iran, all he has to do is give the U.S. a hard time in Iraq as American forces prepare to withdraw.
Moving two or three Iranian divisions into Iraq and activating Shi'ite suicide bombers and hit squads throughout the region would not be too hard for a country that fought an 8-year war against Iraq (1980-88) and had no compunction about giving thousands of youngsters a key to paradise and 72 virgins before sending them across Iraqi minefields.A top Ahmadinejad officer, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kossari, who heads the political watchdog, or Security Bureau, of Iran's armed forces, recently taunted the U.S. when he bragged "we have identified all the weak points of our enemies" and have sufficient cannon fodder -- i.e., suicide operation volunteers -- "ready to strike at these sensitive locations." Iranian television recently broadcast an animated film for Iranian children glorifying suicide bombers.
So far, Supreme Leader and Chief of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who sits in the holy city of Qom, has not expostulated. Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to have his religious rear well covered. His ideological mentor and spiritual guide is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who heads the ultraconservative acolytes who believe the 12th Imam's return is "imminent."The son of a blacksmith, Mr. Ahmadinejad earned an engineering Ph.D. and is a former member of Iran's notorious Revolutionary Guards at a time when dissidents and "counterrevolutionaries" were executed by the thousands.
A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, first showed Iran how to build a nuclear weapon 18 years ago. He opened his nuclear black market to Iranian engineers and scientists.The Bush administration is anxious to clear the decks in a democratic Iraq before facing the Islamist counterpart of the "Rapture" in the "Left Behind" series of books on the end of times by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins.
President Bush says all options are on the table. But the military option is probably the one the "twelvers" would look forward to. Some Washington think tank strategists argue if Iran's Dr. Strangelove attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon, five Iranian cities would be vaporized next day.It might behoove the United States to sit down with "axis of evil" Iran to find out if the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine that kept the Soviet Union and the U.S. at peace for a half-century could still be made to work.
In any event, one would have to be irredeemably myopic not to see that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. The only question is how far this secret program is from delivering a usable weapon and fitting it in the nose cone of a Shahab-3 missile with the range to reach Israel. The Israeli Air Force will be "overhead" Iran long before.Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large for The Washington Times and for United Press International.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060205-100341-6320r.htm
February 6, 2006
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
Washington Times
The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace."The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets.
He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.
The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in the hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in belief a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.
When he became Iran's sixth president since the 1979 revolution last summer, Mr. Ahmadinejad decided to donate $20 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the faithful can drop their missives to the "Hidden Imam" in a holy well. Tehran's working-class faithful are convinced the new president and his Cabinet signed a "compact" pledging themselves to precipitate the return of the Mahdi -- and dropped it down Jamkaran's well with the Mahdi's zip code.
In Mr. Ahmadinejad's eyes, Iran is strong, with oil inching up to $70 a barrel and America, dependent on foreign oil, is weak. He has said publicly America and Europe have far more to lose than Iran if the U.N. Security Council votes for tough economic sanctions. He also figures if Israeli and/or U.S. warplanes strike Iran, all he has to do is give the U.S. a hard time in Iraq as American forces prepare to withdraw.
Moving two or three Iranian divisions into Iraq and activating Shi'ite suicide bombers and hit squads throughout the region would not be too hard for a country that fought an 8-year war against Iraq (1980-88) and had no compunction about giving thousands of youngsters a key to paradise and 72 virgins before sending them across Iraqi minefields.A top Ahmadinejad officer, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kossari, who heads the political watchdog, or Security Bureau, of Iran's armed forces, recently taunted the U.S. when he bragged "we have identified all the weak points of our enemies" and have sufficient cannon fodder -- i.e., suicide operation volunteers -- "ready to strike at these sensitive locations." Iranian television recently broadcast an animated film for Iranian children glorifying suicide bombers.
So far, Supreme Leader and Chief of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who sits in the holy city of Qom, has not expostulated. Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to have his religious rear well covered. His ideological mentor and spiritual guide is Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi who heads the ultraconservative acolytes who believe the 12th Imam's return is "imminent."The son of a blacksmith, Mr. Ahmadinejad earned an engineering Ph.D. and is a former member of Iran's notorious Revolutionary Guards at a time when dissidents and "counterrevolutionaries" were executed by the thousands.
A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, first showed Iran how to build a nuclear weapon 18 years ago. He opened his nuclear black market to Iranian engineers and scientists.The Bush administration is anxious to clear the decks in a democratic Iraq before facing the Islamist counterpart of the "Rapture" in the "Left Behind" series of books on the end of times by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins.
President Bush says all options are on the table. But the military option is probably the one the "twelvers" would look forward to. Some Washington think tank strategists argue if Iran's Dr. Strangelove attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon, five Iranian cities would be vaporized next day.It might behoove the United States to sit down with "axis of evil" Iran to find out if the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine that kept the Soviet Union and the U.S. at peace for a half-century could still be made to work.
In any event, one would have to be irredeemably myopic not to see that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. The only question is how far this secret program is from delivering a usable weapon and fitting it in the nose cone of a Shahab-3 missile with the range to reach Israel. The Israeli Air Force will be "overhead" Iran long before.Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large for The Washington Times and for United Press International.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060205-100341-6320r.htm
Saturday, February 04, 2006
IRAN and the Bomb
Iran Already Has the Bomb — Commentary
February 3, 2006The Jerusalem PostRafi Eitan suspects that Iran already has enough enriched uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs of the Hiroshima type.
"Otherwise Iranian President Ahmadinejad would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," repeating it in various versions. His efforts at denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were slaughtered prove that there is method in Ahmadinejad's madness.
"Don't treat him like a madman," Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz recently cautioned.Eitan's assessment of the situation is especially important because of his extensive intelligence experience in Israel's struggle for its existence, even before its establishment in 1948. Eitan was among those that laid the operational foundations for the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Mossad.He is credited with numerous successes above and beyond the fact that he headed the team that apprehended Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires in May 1960 and brought him to justice in Jerusalem.
He served as Menachem Begin's special adviser on the war on terror. He was involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June 1981.Eitan failed in 1985 when the United States arrested Jonathan Pollard, an American navy intelligence analyst, for spying for Israel. Eitan was forced to resign after taking responsibility for running Pollard as an Israeli agent in the United States. It emerged at that time that Eitan had stood at the head of an Israeli intelligence agency known as the Office of Scientific Relations, LAKAM by its Hebrew acronym.
EITAN, CURRENTLY a private businessman who is close to 80 years old, is not only still sharp, quick and curious, but also takes a strong interest in the dangers posed to Israel. And so he came this week to the Herzliya Conference to hear the lectures and meet with colleagues from other countries.Eitan told me: "I am convinced that the Iranians already have at least one or two nuclear devices.
They have been operating centrifuges for a number of years now, they have natural uranium, and who on earth believes the Iranians when they say that they have closed down one facility or another? You would have to be an idiot or terribly na ve to believe them."Eitan says that this view was bolstered by conversations he held with various experts from abroad who came to the Herzliya Conference - that Iran already has a an atom bomb. What should concern not only Israel but Europe too, continues Eitan, is the fact that the Iranians have acquired cruise missiles with a 3,000-kilometer range.
They tried to purchase nine missiles of this kind in Ukraine from the arsenal of the former Soviet Union, but Russia thwarted part of the deal and Iran received three or four such missiles."In an argument with colleagues from abroad," noted Rafi Eitan, "the question was whether Iran's current president is a sort of new Hitler or merely an international manipulator. Too many experts have judged him in accordance with his actions and declarations as a kind of extremist Islamist Hitler."
The American administration of George W. Bush is entirely aware of the burgeoning Iranian nuclear danger. The question is whether the leading countries in Europe will wake up in time to the danger too. "The diplomatic struggle against the Iranian nuclear danger," warns Eitan, "must be an international one and it must come in time.
The danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of Teheran is no less serious than when Saddam Hussein built the French Osirak nuclear reactor in Baghdad."What worries Rafi Eitan is that the news coming from Teheran shows that President Ahmadinejad will not hesitate to take the most extreme measures, not unlike the methods used in the Third Reich, to put down any opposition against him.
Iran has hundreds of thousands of young people who are opposed to the conceptual and cultural darkness that the fundamental Islamists are forcing on them. "Don't be surprised," Rafi Eitan told me, "if the Iranian president tries to forcibly and brutally eliminate this opposition."
Copyright 1995-2006 The Jerusalem Post
Monday, January 23, 2006
Atack on Iran
Iran attack likely before April
U.S., Israel to destroy nuclear facilities by end of March
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 22.01.2006 22:42
U.S. and Israeli military and intelligence sources say a strike against Iran is nearly inevitable before April. The incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made a pre-emptive attack on Iran more likely in the next nine weeks, say Israeli sources.
It was Sharon who vetoed the nearly unanimous recommendations of Israel’s generals that a quick strike was the Jewish state’s only chance at preventing Iran from building a significant nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile, in Washington, there is growing concern that Iran’s ultimate target is the U.S. Earlier this month, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards conducted a conference on the use of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical and biological. Included in those briefings were presentations on electromagnetic pulse weapons and other military technologies deemed to be under development for use against the U.S., rather than Israel or other enemies of the Islamic republic.
Even one nuclear weapon, used in an EMP-style attack on the U.S., would prove catastrophic to the nation, a congressional panel studying the vulnerability of America to electro-magnetic pulse weapons concluded last year. Such an attack would not require Iran to use long-range or intercontinental ballistic missiles, which it does not possess. But a simple Scud missile, with a nuclear warhead, could be fired from offshore and detonated above the U.S. wreaking near total devastation on the country’s technological, electrical and transportation infrastructure.
It would also have the advantage of offering Iran a degree of plausible deniability, given that “terrorists” armed with one nuclear weapon could achieve the same results. In addition, intelligence sources say three battalions of Revolutionary Guards began exercises on the use of weapons of mass destruction near Iran’s ballistic missile testing grounds. But the reason for the planned attacks in the next nine weeks has more to do with conventional military concerns than with the unconventional weapons Iran is developing.
Russia is closing in on another arms deal with Iran that would provide Tehran with upgraded fighters that could present major problems for an Israeli air force action. Russia has already concluded a $1 billion deal to sell Iran S-300 anti-missile systems, considered among the world’s best. The preparations for the attack have been long in the planning stages by both Israel and the U.S. Early last year, the U.S. announced the sale of 500 conventional bunker-buster bombs to Israel.
There is virtually no other use for these weapons except an attack against the dozens of Iranian sites that would have to be taken out to destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There has even been discussion in the Pentagon about the use of tactical nuclear weapons in such an attack. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent bellicose statements about destroying Israel and the U.S. have also contributed to the sense of urgency.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Dates For Terror
Likely dates for terror
Clues suggest pattern to al-Qaida attacks
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 19.01.2006 21:50
There’s chatter, again, in the terror world. All kinds of clues suggest al-Qaida is about to strike at the West – probably in the U.S.
Ayman al-Zawahiri: Significance to release dates of videos? Some intelligence source point to specific dates as likely targets. And then there are the patterns of previous attacks to evaluate.
Some intelligence analysts are noting the significance of the release of videos recently by both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri released his last video Jan. 6, making Feb. 5 the most likely target date, according to past attacks. But then what is the significance of Bin Laden’s video?
Some analysts suggest it might be the precursor to a mega-attack – something even rivaling Sept. 11 in scope and devastation. But there does seem to be an unmistakable pattern involved in the release of videos and al-Qaida attacks. Zawahiri, bin Laden’s right-hand man, who narrowly escaped death in the Pakistani missile attack several days ago, seems to release videos in pairs.
After the release of the second video, within 30 days a major event occurs. For instance: * release dates of Sept 9 and Nov. 9, 2004, were the first set of videos, followed by the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, bombings Dec. 6. * release dates of Feb. 20 and June 26, 2005, were followed by the July 7, 2005, London bombings.
* release dates of Aug. 4 and Sept 1, 2005, were followed by the Bali bombings Oct. 1, 2005. The next set started Oct. 23, 2005, and last week on Jan. 6, the second video followed. That, suggests some analysts, makes Feb. 5 a likely target date. Interestingly, it is also a significant date to bin Laden. Feb. 5, 1989, was the day the last Soviet troops withdrew from Kabul, Afghanistan, signaling their defeat at the hand of the mujahedeen.
Kabul was the capital of Osama's adopted country and was a major win for him and Islam. Significantly, perhaps, in bin Laden’s audio release he referenced the U.S withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. It also happens to be Super Bowl Sunday, when the eyes of the entire world will be watching America. Unrelated to the pattern, but also mentioned by G2B sources as a date to watch is this Monday – Jan. 23. This is a date reportedly heard in terrorist “chatter” recently.
No other information is available as to its significance or potential targets.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
SHARON IS DEAD ???
Politics
Ariel Sharon
Corpse Prime Minister
By Shmuel Neumann January 13, 2006
Corpse Bride -- an animated farcical horror flick in which a dead woman believes that a live man has asked for her hand in marriage, and then responds accordingly -- illustrates humorously what can happen when people get what they wish for, or perhaps what they deserve. Something similar is happening, tragicomically, in Israel.
With his two sons on their way to jail despite his concessions, and likely facing jail time himself when the truth was fully revealed, the latest evidence of his corruption caused our Prime Minister to explode in rage. Or at least his brain did. He was first reported brain dead and then placed on life support, so that, medically speaking, he is only clinically dead: serious but stable. Yet now, we are told, his limbs twitch in response to pain and his blood pressure increases when addressed by his beloved sons.
In fact, our larger than life Prime Minister has the best of both worlds. His Corpulence continues, from his hospital bed, to dominate the media and command the government even though he ceases to exist in the manner of homo sapiens, lacking human consciousness. He is dead, for all practical purposes; he just doesn't know it. One Prime Minister was assassinated by his secret service, and now another Prime Minister is probably medically assassinated or at least manslaughtered by his own doctors.
Yet our fearless brain dead leader refuses to give up the ghost. While his body is kept alive artificially, and a quarter of his skull is sawed-off and frozen for safekeeping, he is for all practical purposes dead but not buried -- for political reasons. He is Corpse Prime Minister, whose intentions -- or what are ascribed to be his intentions -- are perpetuated indefinitely and incontrovertibly by the very same folks who worked him, and then medicated him, to sort-of-death.
This pliable and very popular sort-of-dead Prime Minister is the answer to everyone's dream, especially those who pressured him to give up Gaza and northern Samaria under threat of jailing his two sons. He gave them what he thought they wanted. But it turns out they wanted more: for starters, the whole of Judea and Samaria and at least half of Jerusalem. Corpse Prime Minister, under a shroud of secrecy, is actively campaigning and has garnered the number one slot of the Kadima party although he did not sign the papers before he was unable to.
Such technicalities pose no deterrent to the mighty Corpse Prime Minister. Corpse Prime Minister has already reversed himself on the issue of Palestinian elections in Jerusalem. He now not only allows it, but will permit Hamas to campaign in Jerusalem. Corpse Prime Minister expects to close a deal with the elected Palestinian officials right after the January elections. It makes no difference if Hamas wins. You make Peace with your enemies.
By switching hats they remain enemies and continue to get ?painful concessions? as all previous agreements were dead ends. But the Corpse Prime Minister feels no pain, except from pinch tests and the sound of his sons' voices. Corpse Prime Minister had a brainstorm and now recognizes that 2,000 Iraqi shells laden with Anthrax and Sarin stored in underground facilities in the Lebanon's Beka Valley give Israel no choice but to surrender first Sheba Farms, then the rest of the Golan and perhaps part of the Galilee.
No plots are needed for a Corpse living artificially and agelessly. No land is needed in a missile age. Corpse Prime Minister has also reversed himself on further unilateral disengagements. He ordered the destruction of a neighborhood in Hebron, and neighborhoods of Ofra, Yitzhar, Bracha, Elon Moreh and Nevei Daniel. Corpse Prime Minister is dead set against Jews who want to live on land legally purchased. In his haste to escalate the disengagement from Judea, so he ordered his private police corps to smash the skulls of Jewish youth who dare demonstrate against this insanity and resist further expulsions.
After all, why should he be alone in suffering a coma? Corpse Prime Minister has gotten tough on settlers who obstruct demolition of Jewish homes, ordering the use of tear gas and pepper gas on Jewish youth. And we thought only Germans were authorized to gas Jews! Anaesthesia is in these days, even if euthanasia is out. Feeling sympathy for fellow vegetation, Corpse Prime Minister has gotten tough only on alleged tree abusers.
And to punish those who may some day potentially abuse a tree, Corpse Prime Minister ordered all the dogs removed from the Kfar Tapuach kennel. Corpse Prime Minister may finally put a stop to those whining homeless Jews he threw out of Gaza and Northern Samaria. Sure they're homeless, but at least they're not in as bad a shape as he is. Corpse Prime Minister can finally lead by example. From now on, every victim of a terror attack will be brought to the decomposing dictator and feel grateful to be alive no matter how disfigured, maimed and disabled.
And even the clinically dead and dismembered may be restored to glorious life on machines. Corpse Prime Minister has nothing to lose, so next time there is a war, it will be a fight to the death. He reportedly blood-pressured his aides the following message: "Any further negotiations will be over my dead body." To motivate his new following of young people, and new political allies, he is reportedly twitching to establish a Peace Corpse. As for the slogans being considered for his new political party, Kadima [Hebrew for "Forward"], the favorite is "Look Forward to Death."
With renewed esprit de corpse, lightweights and deadweights from every other political party are rushing in. Everybody is dying to join. Why live on as a nation when, under his leadership, we can join Corpse Prime Minister in a victory celebration? So ... Kadima! In light of the circumstances, some of his chevra have even suggested renaming his party: Kadisha. But in the spirit of Corpse Bride, perhaps let us call it:
The Till Death Do Us Party. L'chaim!
Vie
Ariel Sharon
Corpse Prime Minister
By Shmuel Neumann January 13, 2006
Corpse Bride -- an animated farcical horror flick in which a dead woman believes that a live man has asked for her hand in marriage, and then responds accordingly -- illustrates humorously what can happen when people get what they wish for, or perhaps what they deserve. Something similar is happening, tragicomically, in Israel.
With his two sons on their way to jail despite his concessions, and likely facing jail time himself when the truth was fully revealed, the latest evidence of his corruption caused our Prime Minister to explode in rage. Or at least his brain did. He was first reported brain dead and then placed on life support, so that, medically speaking, he is only clinically dead: serious but stable. Yet now, we are told, his limbs twitch in response to pain and his blood pressure increases when addressed by his beloved sons.
In fact, our larger than life Prime Minister has the best of both worlds. His Corpulence continues, from his hospital bed, to dominate the media and command the government even though he ceases to exist in the manner of homo sapiens, lacking human consciousness. He is dead, for all practical purposes; he just doesn't know it. One Prime Minister was assassinated by his secret service, and now another Prime Minister is probably medically assassinated or at least manslaughtered by his own doctors.
Yet our fearless brain dead leader refuses to give up the ghost. While his body is kept alive artificially, and a quarter of his skull is sawed-off and frozen for safekeeping, he is for all practical purposes dead but not buried -- for political reasons. He is Corpse Prime Minister, whose intentions -- or what are ascribed to be his intentions -- are perpetuated indefinitely and incontrovertibly by the very same folks who worked him, and then medicated him, to sort-of-death.
This pliable and very popular sort-of-dead Prime Minister is the answer to everyone's dream, especially those who pressured him to give up Gaza and northern Samaria under threat of jailing his two sons. He gave them what he thought they wanted. But it turns out they wanted more: for starters, the whole of Judea and Samaria and at least half of Jerusalem. Corpse Prime Minister, under a shroud of secrecy, is actively campaigning and has garnered the number one slot of the Kadima party although he did not sign the papers before he was unable to.
Such technicalities pose no deterrent to the mighty Corpse Prime Minister. Corpse Prime Minister has already reversed himself on the issue of Palestinian elections in Jerusalem. He now not only allows it, but will permit Hamas to campaign in Jerusalem. Corpse Prime Minister expects to close a deal with the elected Palestinian officials right after the January elections. It makes no difference if Hamas wins. You make Peace with your enemies.
By switching hats they remain enemies and continue to get ?painful concessions? as all previous agreements were dead ends. But the Corpse Prime Minister feels no pain, except from pinch tests and the sound of his sons' voices. Corpse Prime Minister had a brainstorm and now recognizes that 2,000 Iraqi shells laden with Anthrax and Sarin stored in underground facilities in the Lebanon's Beka Valley give Israel no choice but to surrender first Sheba Farms, then the rest of the Golan and perhaps part of the Galilee.
No plots are needed for a Corpse living artificially and agelessly. No land is needed in a missile age. Corpse Prime Minister has also reversed himself on further unilateral disengagements. He ordered the destruction of a neighborhood in Hebron, and neighborhoods of Ofra, Yitzhar, Bracha, Elon Moreh and Nevei Daniel. Corpse Prime Minister is dead set against Jews who want to live on land legally purchased. In his haste to escalate the disengagement from Judea, so he ordered his private police corps to smash the skulls of Jewish youth who dare demonstrate against this insanity and resist further expulsions.
After all, why should he be alone in suffering a coma? Corpse Prime Minister has gotten tough on settlers who obstruct demolition of Jewish homes, ordering the use of tear gas and pepper gas on Jewish youth. And we thought only Germans were authorized to gas Jews! Anaesthesia is in these days, even if euthanasia is out. Feeling sympathy for fellow vegetation, Corpse Prime Minister has gotten tough only on alleged tree abusers.
And to punish those who may some day potentially abuse a tree, Corpse Prime Minister ordered all the dogs removed from the Kfar Tapuach kennel. Corpse Prime Minister may finally put a stop to those whining homeless Jews he threw out of Gaza and Northern Samaria. Sure they're homeless, but at least they're not in as bad a shape as he is. Corpse Prime Minister can finally lead by example. From now on, every victim of a terror attack will be brought to the decomposing dictator and feel grateful to be alive no matter how disfigured, maimed and disabled.
And even the clinically dead and dismembered may be restored to glorious life on machines. Corpse Prime Minister has nothing to lose, so next time there is a war, it will be a fight to the death. He reportedly blood-pressured his aides the following message: "Any further negotiations will be over my dead body." To motivate his new following of young people, and new political allies, he is reportedly twitching to establish a Peace Corpse. As for the slogans being considered for his new political party, Kadima [Hebrew for "Forward"], the favorite is "Look Forward to Death."
With renewed esprit de corpse, lightweights and deadweights from every other political party are rushing in. Everybody is dying to join. Why live on as a nation when, under his leadership, we can join Corpse Prime Minister in a victory celebration? So ... Kadima! In light of the circumstances, some of his chevra have even suggested renaming his party: Kadisha. But in the spirit of Corpse Bride, perhaps let us call it:
The Till Death Do Us Party. L'chaim!
Vie
Friday, January 13, 2006
Israel - Iran attack coming
Israel's warning to Iran
Jewish state adds stick to carrot policy
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 12.01.2006 18:29
The sudden illness of Ariel Sharon, Israel’s prime minister and top defense strategist, cast a dark shadow on many critical matters on the Israeli political agenda. The acute Iran dilemma, and Tehran’s statements indicating the Islamic Republic is planning to go ahead with its military-grade nuclear development, is by far the most serious. As more rhetoric from Iran is flooding world media, it is evident the European Union group of Britain, Germany and France, have failed in its diplomatic efforts to reason with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and have decided to refer the problem to the U.N. Security Council.
This move is supported by the U.S. administration, but not by Russia and China who both might veto an anti-Iran resolution. The consultations between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are obviously also on hold. The political and diplomatic activity over Iran’s nuclear plans could easily be bogged down in U.N. bureaucratic red tape. The U.N.’s endemic inefficiency, whether unintentional or deliberate, does not mean, however, the Israeli military will also put on hold its plans to solve the issue should all other efforts fail.
Last week in Tel Aviv analysts mentioned a statement made by the outgoing military Chief of Intelligence General Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, who said March 1 could be the time limit for diplomatic means to deter Iran’s plans. What Zeevi actually conveyed was an implied warning to Iran that playing around with fire after March 2006 might result in severe consequences. Sources in Tel Aviv and in several European capitals, say Zeevi’s remarks were based on a military planned timetable toward a possible D-Day to take the Iranian military nuclear plant out of the strategic threat.
Gen. Dan Halutz General Dan Halutz, Israel’s chief of staff and former air force commander, intentionally selected to be the first chief of staff to come from the air force, last week said there are several military means to deal with the problem. Although his statement was somewhat vague, especially against the background drama surrounding Sharon’s illness, those who know Halutz, and more specifically those who are acquainted with the Israeli air force, know that he is a of verbal restraint.
He would not have made this statement without being sure the Israeli military machine would be as effective against the Iranian project as it was in 1981 against the Iraqi Ossiraq nuclear site. In addition to the general’s statements, analysts, aware of the psychological warfare part of Israel’s military statements, pointed to the surprising disclosure of an exclusive Israeli air force unit called “the anti-aircraft imaging unit.” The Israel Air Force magazine re-published a story in December 2005 under the title: “Know Thy Enemy.” It deals specifically with the anti-aircraft missile threat, which could be the major obstacle in taking out the Iranian system.
The special unit’s existence was until recently classified as top secret. But not any more. Since 1996, the air force and the Rafael Weapons Development Authority have been jointly operating a unit of Soviet anti-aircraft systems similar to those in service in the Middle East.” The unit, based on thorough knowledge of Russian-made systems, is instrumental in the training of Israeli air force fighter pilots on how to survive anti-aircraft and radar threats, sometimes thousands of kilometers away from base.
The unit also operates weapon systems captured from Arab armies, undisclosed purchased equipment and secret computer developments of systems identical to anti-aircraft systems presently used by Iran, and even systems directly ordered by Iran from the Russians to protect their nuclear assets. The unit’s commanding officer described it as “the best playground where our pilots learn to deal with the real stuff.”
Among others the unit operates Russian-made SA-6, SA-8, SA-2 and SA-3, full missile systems, radar-guided ZSU-23 anti-aircraft guns and simulators, including some purchased from General Dynamics who built the a simulator for the U.S. Air Force which is trying to tackle the same problem. The officer heading the imaging unit said significant emphasis is given to Russian, Chinese and North Korean-manufactured radar systems. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the anti-aircraft imaging unit became more prominent when Eastern Bloc systems were more accessible.
“We constantly update all new threats our pilots may have to deal with and when we learn of a new threat we find ways to bring the (foreign) know-how to us.” An interesting statement dealt with the fact former Soviet or Russian anti-aircraft officers who had immigrated to Israel. Some were attached to the unit such as the former commander of a Soviet an anti-aircraft missile battery, who was also an engineer in a development team of sophisticated Russian radar.
The air force also chose to reveal details of its cooperation with the Turkish air force including the deployment of Israeli fighter jets in Turkey and Turkish squadrons in Israel as part of a joint training program. Even Greece, which for years rejected any cooperation with Israel, recently announced its air force is also fully cooperating with the Israeli air force. This cooperation with regional air forces, especially with Turkey, which borders Iran in the east, is highly significant when mentioned in uncensored air force publications.
The Israeli air force’s capability in the past to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor, to take out the entire Syrian anti-aircraft system in Lebanon and to successfully attack PLO headquarters in far away Tunisia, should serve as a clear message to Iran there is a vast difference between rhetoric and reality and that if push comes to shove Iran will pay dearly for her controversial nuclear ambitions.
G2B contributor Yoram East
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Arik Sharon
Report: Doctor says PM's brain disease hidden for political reasons
By Tamara Traubman and Ran Reznick,
Haaretz Correspondents
A member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's medical team said that the information about the brain disease diagnosed after his first stroke on December 18 had been concealed out of "political reasons," Channel 10 television reported Wednesday. The controversy surrounding Sharon's medical treatment has continued unabated, with his doctors coming under further criticism for concealing the diagnosis of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).Senior executives at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, where Sharon was first treated in December and again since last Wednesday when he had the second, far more severe stroke, admitted this week that the hospital's doctors had decided to give the pime minister blood thinners despite the diagnosis of CAA.
The physicians had promised "full disclosure of [Sharon's] condition in the wake of his hospitalization" in December. The doctor said there was the fear that if made public, the information would be used against Sharon and his Kadima party, particularly in light of the fact that CAA has often been associated in medical literature with [Alzheimer's Disease].Sharon was in critical but stable condition Thursday morning, a statement from Hadassah said. "The prime minister's condition remains critical but stable," said the statement.
"His heart rhythm is regular. In the evening he will undergo a routine CT scan." Surgeons tending to Sharon were expected to decide on when to stop the intravenous drip completely at a daily consultation scheduled for 7 A.M., medical sources said Thursday."The prime minister's treatment is constantly being reviewed, but the decision to end sedation outright requires a major deliberation," said a source.As published in Haaretz previously, senior physicians say anticoagulants such as the Clexane given to Sharon significantly increase the risk of stroke in people with CAA.Sharon's physicians, Prof. Boleslav Goldman and Dr. Shlomo Segev, as well as Hadassah officials, did not comment Wednesday.
The condition of Sharon, who has been hospitalized since last Wednesday night with his second stroke in less than a month, did not change significantly Wednesday. Sharon is still in serious but stable condition and his life is still in danger.Doctors at Hadassah University Hospital were lowering Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's sedation to a "minimal" level Wednesday night, in a further effort to awaken him gradually from the coma in which he has lain since his massive stroke and brain hemorrhage seven days ago.
The hospital has been gradually reducing Sharon's sedation since Monday. According to officials from Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, "An additional slight improvement" in his condition was recorded. A hospital official told Haaretz on Wednesday that once again, Sharon's movements in response to pain stimuli were "greater." Also, Sharon's blood pressure was found to rise when his son spoke to him, one of his attending physicians, Dr. Felix Umanski, said late on Wednesday.Dr. Yair Birenbaum, a senior Hadassah official, told Razi Barkai of Army Radio Wednesday that the decision by Hadassah physicians to give Sharon anticlotting drugs despite the vascular disease was not, "in my humble opinion, an error in judgment.
The consultation about the prime minister was attended by a range of doctors with various specialties," and that Sharon's vascular disease was "one more variable that had to be calculated within a range of variables."Dr. Birenbaum also noted that the physicians at Hadassah considered the variety of blood-thinning drugs available and "considered various options and decided what was decided by a general consensus of the caregivers."In response to the call, which appeared in Haaretz Wednesday, by a doctor who is a department head at a major Israeli hospital, for a state commission of inquiry into Sharon's treatment, Birenbaum said there is no need for that.
However, he added that "there is plenty of time for examination committees and snoopers" and promised that if an investigative body is established "everything will be laid out" before it.A senior neurologist at a government hospital in the center of the country told Haaretz Wednesday that "it is known the treatments in modern medicine are always involved in an attempt to find a balance between risks and rewards, but in this case it is really impossible to understand the doctors' decision regarding the use of blood thinners.
"According to the medical literature, after the first stroke it seems as if the need to use anticoagulants was not very great, after the small hole in the heart was discovered. Therefore, the question becomes even more pressing."
By Tamara Traubman and Ran Reznick,
Haaretz Correspondents
A member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's medical team said that the information about the brain disease diagnosed after his first stroke on December 18 had been concealed out of "political reasons," Channel 10 television reported Wednesday. The controversy surrounding Sharon's medical treatment has continued unabated, with his doctors coming under further criticism for concealing the diagnosis of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).Senior executives at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, where Sharon was first treated in December and again since last Wednesday when he had the second, far more severe stroke, admitted this week that the hospital's doctors had decided to give the pime minister blood thinners despite the diagnosis of CAA.
The physicians had promised "full disclosure of [Sharon's] condition in the wake of his hospitalization" in December. The doctor said there was the fear that if made public, the information would be used against Sharon and his Kadima party, particularly in light of the fact that CAA has often been associated in medical literature with [Alzheimer's Disease].Sharon was in critical but stable condition Thursday morning, a statement from Hadassah said. "The prime minister's condition remains critical but stable," said the statement.
"His heart rhythm is regular. In the evening he will undergo a routine CT scan." Surgeons tending to Sharon were expected to decide on when to stop the intravenous drip completely at a daily consultation scheduled for 7 A.M., medical sources said Thursday."The prime minister's treatment is constantly being reviewed, but the decision to end sedation outright requires a major deliberation," said a source.As published in Haaretz previously, senior physicians say anticoagulants such as the Clexane given to Sharon significantly increase the risk of stroke in people with CAA.Sharon's physicians, Prof. Boleslav Goldman and Dr. Shlomo Segev, as well as Hadassah officials, did not comment Wednesday.
The condition of Sharon, who has been hospitalized since last Wednesday night with his second stroke in less than a month, did not change significantly Wednesday. Sharon is still in serious but stable condition and his life is still in danger.Doctors at Hadassah University Hospital were lowering Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's sedation to a "minimal" level Wednesday night, in a further effort to awaken him gradually from the coma in which he has lain since his massive stroke and brain hemorrhage seven days ago.
The hospital has been gradually reducing Sharon's sedation since Monday. According to officials from Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, "An additional slight improvement" in his condition was recorded. A hospital official told Haaretz on Wednesday that once again, Sharon's movements in response to pain stimuli were "greater." Also, Sharon's blood pressure was found to rise when his son spoke to him, one of his attending physicians, Dr. Felix Umanski, said late on Wednesday.Dr. Yair Birenbaum, a senior Hadassah official, told Razi Barkai of Army Radio Wednesday that the decision by Hadassah physicians to give Sharon anticlotting drugs despite the vascular disease was not, "in my humble opinion, an error in judgment.
The consultation about the prime minister was attended by a range of doctors with various specialties," and that Sharon's vascular disease was "one more variable that had to be calculated within a range of variables."Dr. Birenbaum also noted that the physicians at Hadassah considered the variety of blood-thinning drugs available and "considered various options and decided what was decided by a general consensus of the caregivers."In response to the call, which appeared in Haaretz Wednesday, by a doctor who is a department head at a major Israeli hospital, for a state commission of inquiry into Sharon's treatment, Birenbaum said there is no need for that.
However, he added that "there is plenty of time for examination committees and snoopers" and promised that if an investigative body is established "everything will be laid out" before it.A senior neurologist at a government hospital in the center of the country told Haaretz Wednesday that "it is known the treatments in modern medicine are always involved in an attempt to find a balance between risks and rewards, but in this case it is really impossible to understand the doctors' decision regarding the use of blood thinners.
"According to the medical literature, after the first stroke it seems as if the need to use anticoagulants was not very great, after the small hole in the heart was discovered. Therefore, the question becomes even more pressing."
Monday, January 02, 2006
The Hunt For Nukes
The hunt for nukes
Radiation detection efforts widespread in U.S., Canada
Top level
G2 Headlines
Author: Joseph Farah
© 2005 G2 Bulletin
Publishing date: 02.01.2006 04:59
WASHINGTON – When U.S. News broke a story the day before Christmas about radiation detection efforts taking place in the capital of the United States, most of the attention such a startling development might have received was diverted by the timing and the emphasis on whether such monitoring might in some way violate civil rights. But the real story is that a massive government operation is under way to find terrorist nuclear weapons within North America in an effort to thwart a decade-long plot by al-Qaida to kill millions of Americans – the so-called “American Hiroshima” plan.
G2B first reported on al-Qaida's plans to detonate nuclear devices in seven to nine major U.S. cities simultaneously. The most interesting development is that the U.S. government has been monitoring radiation levels at more than 100 mosques, homes, businesses and other sites in and around the nation's capital and at least five other cities since Sept. 11, 2001, providing further evidence law enforcement officials suspect terrorists have secreted nuclear or radiological weapons inside the country.
The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or NEST, according to the report. The other cities monitored include Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle. As G2B reported, former FBI consultant Paul L. Williams has described how al-Qaida has already purchased some post-Soviet mini-nukes and hired Russians to help them operate them. Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents.
As reported in G2B, Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an "American Hiroshima," the ultimate terrorist attack on U.S. cities, using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents. The series of attacks is designed to kill 4 million, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history. At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already, according to G2B intelligence sources and "The al-Qaida Connection:
International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse," a book by Williams. The captured terrorists and documents also suggest smaller attacks may take place on American soil before the nuclear incidents. They may include some involving automatic weapons at schools and shopping malls, but will not include any airplane hijackings.
Why? Because bin Laden does not want any failed efforts to overshadow "the success of Sept. 11." There will also not be any attacks on U.S. nuclear power plants. The rationale? The nuclear power plants can act as force multipliers when the weapons of mass destruction are detonated. Another requirement dictated from the top at al-Qaida is that the attacks take place in daylight, so that the whole world will be able to see the images of a mushroom cloud over an American city. One of the sources for the information is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, who is now in U.S. custody.
As previously reported by G2B, al-Qaida has obtained at least 40 nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union – including suitcase nukes, nuclear mines, artillery shells and even some missile warheads. In addition, documents captured in Afghanistan show al-Qaida had plans to assemble its own nuclear weapons with fissile material it purchased on the black market. The plans for the devastating nuclear attack on the U.S. have been under development for more than a decade. It is designed as a final deadly blow to the U.S., which is seen by al-Qaida and its allies as "the Great Satan." At least half the nuclear weapons in the al-Qaida arsenal were obtained for cash from the Chechen terrorist allies.
But when the latest disclosures about nuclear radiation detection efforts under way in Washington to thwart an “American Hiroshima” plot were disclosed, it was the U.S. government’s defensive measures that got most of the scrutiny. Warning that constitutional rights were under threat, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the monitoring of mosques in the nation’s capital without court approval as illegal and discriminatory. "All Americans should be concerned about the apparent trend toward a two-tiered system of justice, with full rights for most citizens, and another diminished set of rights for Muslims," the council said in a statement.
Somehow, radiation monitoring to prevent a nuclear disaster in the nation’s capital was being equated with eavesdropping and monitoring of communications.
But radiation detection efforts are spreading throughout the U.S. and Canada. The New York City health department announced just after Christmas it plans to spend nearly $1.4 million equipping hospitals with radiation detection devices that might become essential if terrorists detonated a "dirty bomb." The equipment, largely paid for with federal grants, could help medical centers diagnose the thousands of people who likely would flood hospitals after such a blast, the department said. "In the event of an incident in New York City involving radioactive contamination, hospitals will be on the front lines of receiving potentially contaminated persons with and without injuries," the department said in a statement.
The devices would go to public and private hospitals, whose staff members would be trained how to recognize and treat radiation injuries, and how to protect and decontaminate themselves while dealing with patients who may have been exposed. The program, to be implemented in the coming months, is part of a nationwide effort to prepare for possible attacks with nuclear material. Unlike nuclear weapons, which create huge fireballs fed by nuclear chain reactions, dirty bombs would use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material. That type of blast would not be particularly powerful and would be unlikely to cause many deaths, experts say, but the fear of contamination could spark panic.
Land and buildings hit with radioactive particles might be unusable for years. Tens of thousands of people likely would besiege hospitals, wondering whether they had been contaminated by radiological material. Earlier this year, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases issued more than $47 million for grants and contracts aimed at making it easier to diagnose and quickly treat dirty-bomb attack victims. As part of that program, Columbia University is leading a consortium of researchers developing new technologies that would allow doctors to rapidly screen large numbers of people for radiation exposure.
Those who tested positive could then get quicker treatment. Meanwhile, some officials are suggesting that not enough Homeland Security grants are being used for this front-line of defense. While the U.S. government has launched an investigation into a New York port-security program under fire for awarding grants to dinner-cruise lines and small ferryboats, a state official who heads New York’s homeland security effort said he wants to see more resources go to radiation detection. "If you're going to take money and give it to cruise lines, then you're not going to be investing in these kinds of technologies, and they need to be," said state Sen. Michael Balboni.
At the same time, a report issued by House Homeland Security Democrats concluded that only two of the nation's seaports currently have the ability to screen all incoming cargo for nuclear material. Every port could begin nuclear screening for $280 million, but the administration hasn't requested the money and Congress hasn't provided it, they said. Also last month, Canadian officials announced they have installed the nation’s first radiation detector at the port of Saint John in New Brunswick in a bid to protect the country against nuclear terrorism.
All major Canadian ports will soon be equipped with the anti-terrorism technology. The radiation detection program is a key part of Ottawa's $172 million plan to beef up marine security -- all stemming from the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The devices, which have been in use for two weeks in Saint John, detect radiation inside containers. The detector is located on two large concrete columns. The containers are driven through the scanning portal after they have been loaded on trucks.
Earlier last month, the U.S. State Department acknowledged that efforts to stop nuclear terrorism through international non-proliferation policies had failed and that the time is right for greater emphasis on defensive measures such as radiation monitoring. Under Secretary of State Robert Joseph said the spread of weapons of mass destruction by rogue states and terrorists is widely recognized as the greatest security threat facing the nation.
“We have placed new emphasis on protection from, and response to, the use of these weapons against us or our friends and allies. We are building the counter-proliferation capabilities -- from missile defense to detection of chemical and biological agents in the field -- to deter, defend against, and defeat weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our enemies,” he said. “And we are acquiring the ability to contain and reduce the potentially horrific effects if these weapons are used against us, in terms of casualties and other costs, such as from biological attacks against our population centers.”
But critics say the U.S. still needs to tighten port security, particularly scrutiny of containers, which "can be filled overseas at many different locations and are transported through complex logistical networks," as the Government Accountability Office recently reported. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, warned that a terrorist still could use fake documents or a bogus company to hide an explosive device in a container. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., recently called for searching a greater percentage of containers.
Collins said some of the post-9/11 improvements in port security "appear to be hollow." Container ships have been detained off New Jersey and Los Angeles after Coast Guard boarding teams detected radioactive cargo. The New Jersey vessel, whose searchers included Navy Seals, turned out to be carrying faintly radioactive clay tiles in a container below deck. The hot reading on the Los Angeles ship came from a small gauge used to test the vessel's firefighting system. Off New York in the summer of 2004, a ship carrying tons of fresh lemons was detained for a week on the basis of a tip that the lemons were biologically contaminated.
The lemons turned out to be fine, but they rotted at sea. In 2002, ABC News penetrated the port security system in Los Angeles by successfully smuggling 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the U.S. in a container, inside a lead box. The container was targeted for closer examination, but the examiners did not find the uranium and sent the container along. Federal officials say their detection system has improved since then, but critics say it is still ineffective at finding enriched uranium, which could be used to build a nuclear device.
While the U.S. is still behind in efforts to install radiation detection equipment at domestic ports, the government is active in assisting other countries with their efforts to thwart nuclear terrorist attacks. Last month, the U.S. and Israel signed an agreement to begin a joint effort to help detect the smuggling of radioactive materials. The agreement is the latest part of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency's Megaports Initiative which installs radiation detection equipment and trains law enforcement officials at seaports throughout the world.
It is part of the U.S.' broader Second Line of Defense Program which works with foreign partners to equip border crossings airports and seaports with the equipment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)