Nice token move amongst thieves.Originally Posted by JuBru
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Nice token move amongst thieves.
Israel and Syria brace for regional war between mid-Dec. 2011 and mid-Jan 2012
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 5, 2011, 2:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
The actions and words of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in the last 72 hours indicate they are poised for a regional war, including an attack on Iran, for some time between December 2011 and January 2012.
In their different ways, both have posted road signs to the fast-approaching conflict as debkafile's Middle East sources disclose:
1. Saturday, Dec. 3, Syria staged a large-scale military exercise in the eastern town of Palmyra, which was interpreted by Western and Israeli pundits as notice to its neighbors, primarily Turkey and Israel, that the uprising against the Assad regime had not fractured its sophisticated missile capabilities.
debkafile's military sources advise attaching more credibility to the official Damascus statement of Sunday, Dec. 4: "The Syrian army has staged a live-fire drill in the eastern part of the country under war-like circumstances with the aim of testing its missile weaponry in confronting any attack."
Videotapes of the exercise, briefly carried on the Internet early Monday before they were removed by an unseen hand, support this statement. They showed a four-stage exercise, in which missile fire was a minor feature. Its focus was on the massive firing of self-propelled 120mm cannon, brigade-strength practice of 600mm and 300mm multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), offensive movements of Syrian armored brigades backed by ground-to-ground missiles with short 150-200 kilometer ranges. They drilled tactics for repelling enemy reinforcements rushed to combat arenas.
All this added up to is an impressive Syrian demonstration of its ability to ward off an attack on Syrian soil by turning a defensive array into an offensive push for taking the battle over into the aggressor's territory, whether the Turkish or Israeli armies or a combined Arab League force backed by NATO.
2. Israel made its rejoinder to the Syrian war message 24 hours later.
Addressing a ceremony honoring the memory of for Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu recalled how 63 years ago, Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of the State of Israel in defiance of pressures from most of Western leaders and a majority of his own party. They warned him that he would trigger a combined Arab attack to destroy the fledgling state just three years after the end of World War II.
3. Six hours later, Netanyahu dropped a bombshell on the domestic political scene: He announced his Likud party would hold elections, including primaries, before January 31, 2012 - two years before schedule and a year before Israel's next general election. As head of one of the most stable and long-lived coalition governments ever to have ruled Israel, he is under no pressing domestic need of a demonstration of leadership at this time.
4. In the last two weeks, the Netanyahu government has been subjected to acerbic criticism on the part of one Obama administration official after another. They have presented Israel as having fallen into the hands of right-wing extremists who are engaged in a mad race to suppress the judiciary and diminish the civil rights of women and children – not to mention Palestinians.
Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton went to unimaginable lengths when she likened Israel to Iran because fringe ultraorthodox group's in a couple of suburbs in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak were fighting for gender segregation on public transport against the government and the courts.
Rest of article
http://www.debka.com/article/21543/
And here I was hoping to be able to watch the Super Bowl.......
"All roads lead to Putin" -- Thomas Jefferson
US diplomatic bid to defuse Syrian trigger for regional war
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 7, 2011, 12:17 PM (GMT+02:00
Tuesday, Dec. 6, the US, France and Britain went into concerted diplomatic action to contain the Syrian crisis before it detonated a regional conflict and deteriorated into civil strife more horrendous and dangerous than the Iraq war. At the same time, Syria and its neighbors have sharply intensified their war preparations, fully expecting diplomacy to fail. debkafile’s military and Washington sources report their pessimism emanates from the conviction in the region that even if Bashar Assad and his family pretend to cooperate, they will fight to the last Syrian before they actually relax their grip on government.
The US and allies launched their bid for a negotiated end to the Syrian impasse launched last week. A number of Western agents infiltrated Syria from Lebanon and Jordan and entered the embattled cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib in the north, Deir al-Zour and Abu Kemal in the east and Daraa in the south. Their mission was to unite the deeply divided opposition factions and local rebels into a coherent front. The Assad regime chose to turn a blind eye.
Building on that groundwork, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called together Tuesday, Dec. 6, in Geneva the leaders of Syrian opposition groups operating in different European capitals, as well as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, and urged them to overcome their differences and back the US-Western peace initiative.
She explained, our sources disclosed, that the administration had resolved to up the diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Bashar Assad. President Barack Obama, Clinton announced, had personally instructed all parts of the American administration to starting referring to his regime as the “Assad gang.”
more
http://www.debka.com/article/21547/
Everyone is getting ready. And yes as reported earlier, Obama has sent US troops to Jordan as well.
Syria deploys Russian anti-sea missiles on coast, Scuds on Turkish border
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 16, 2011, 2:06 PM (GMT+02:00)
Expanded Russian military and diplomatic support for the Assad regime was underscored by the deployment Friday, Dec. 16, of advanced Moscow-supplied Yakhont (SSN-26) shore-to-sea missiles along Syria's Mediterranean shore to fend off a potential Western-Turkish invasion by sea. Last week, Russia airlifted to Syria 3 million face masks against chemical and biological weapons and the Admiral Kutznetsov carrier and strike group was sent on its way to Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus.
Russian naval sources in Moscow stressed that the flotilla is armed with the most advanced weapons against submarines and aerial attack. Upon arrival, the Russian craft will launch a major marine-air maneuver in which Syrian units will take part.
Syria has received from Russia 72 Yakhont missiles able to hit marine targets up to a distance of 300 kilometers - i.e., over the horizon, our military sources report. The missile's radar remains inert, making it hard to detect, until it is close to target. It is then switched on to guide its aim.
Its high speed – 2,000 kmh – enables the Yakhont to strike before its target has time to activate self-defense systems.
Thursday night, in response to the deployment of 21 Syrian Scuds on the Turkish border, including five with chemical warheads, Ankara convened its top military council and declared its armed forces ready for war. Syria also rushed armored reinforcements to the Jordanian border
http://www.debka.com/article/21577/
Israeli drone over Turkish-Syrian border. Battles in Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 4, 2012, 11:48 AM (GMT+02:00)
Military tensions are building up on Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported sighting an Israeli Eitan (Heron) drone in the sky above the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the northern Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district of southern Turkey. The Israeli drone was said to have hovered over the encampment for four hours.
A request by local Turkish officers to fire anti-air missiles to down the Israeli Eitan went unanswered by the Turkish general staff until the drone was gone. According to the Turkish sources, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from the Diyarbakir 2nd Air Force Command Strike Center and stayed overhead as long as the Israeli drone was present.
debkafile reports this is the first time Israeli UAV's have been reported monitoring events on the Turkish-Syrian border. On Dec. 16, our sources disclosed 21 Syrian Scud missile launchers had been stationed opposite Hatay province as a warning to Turkey, NATO and Arab forces to stay out of the Syrian uprising.
Then, on Dec. 27, our military sources reported that Qatar had organized and funded an airlift to Hatay of Libyan militia fighters under the command of former Abdelhakim Belhaj, ex-al Qaeda and commander of Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFG which seized control of Tripoli. He has established a command post in the Turkish town of Antakya (Antioch).
The Libyan and Free Syrian Army-FSA fighters are training together in Turkish military camps, the main
one being the Hawk Brigade 14 over which the Israeli drone hovered. It is expected to be the main jumping off base for any foreign military intervention in Syria.
Across the border meanwhile, Syria continues its military buildup.
MORE
http://www.debka.com/article/21618/
Looks like someone in the administration finally realized that having the embassy in Syria open while doing absolutely nothing to stop the slaughter isn't the message you want the people there or anyone else to get as it is perceived to show de facto support for what Assad has been doing...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-in-Syria.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...est=latestnews
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/0...ria/?hpt=hp_t3
Assad masses loyal troops in Damascus after he was warned of a military coup
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 30, 2012, 9:38 PM (GMT+02:00)
President Bashar Assad supported by his brother and cousin
According to exclusive reports reaching debkafile, President Bashar Assad Sunday, Jan. 30, pulled in the Syrian Republican Guard and the 4th armored divisions commanded by his brother Maher Assad from the northern rebel centers and over to Damascus. He ordered them into battle positions in the capital for the first time in the ten month uprising after receiving an intelligence tipoff that western powers had won over one of the armored division commanders posted in the capital and persuaded him to stage a coup d'etat to topple him.
The renegade general, whose identity is unknown, was reported to be planning to take advantage of the absence of the most trusted regime troops in trouble spots across the country to lead 300 tanks into the capital and seize power.
The conspirators were planning to make their move on the night of Monday Jan. 30 or early Tuesday Jan. 31, just before the UN Security Council was to convene in New York and air plans for him to step down. The putsch would have presented its members with the accomplished fact of Assad's overthrow by the military.
The information passed to Assad, apparently from an external source, did not name the division commander who accepted this role from Western hands. If it turns out to be true, the scheme would strongly recall the US-led NATO-Qatari-Jordanian operation for the Libyan rebels to seize power in Libya by taking Tripoli by storm in the third week of August 2011.
Forewarned, the Syrian ruler is making every effort to ward off the threatened coup.
debkafile's military sources report that, aside from the Republican Guard and 4th division which Assad recalled to the capital, present there too are the 1st, 3rd and 9th armored divisions.
The fight rebel forces put up at the gates of Damascus Monday night was perceived by the Assad regime as part of the coup conspiracy. Western and military sources described the combat as a search, arrest and kill operation to wipe out the last vestiges of resistance around the capital, rather than battles.
Monday night, the White House issued a statement saying the UN Security Council must not let the Syrian President Assad continue the violence.
more
http://www.debka.com/article/21693/
Army fights for Damascus suburbs...
REPORT: 'Assad's family attempts to escape Syria'...
Plus check out Isaiah Chapter 17.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...17&version=NIV
Assad may start regional war if UN tells him to step down – Gulf sources
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 31, 2012, 7:23 PM (GMT+02:00)
In confidential conversations with his advisers, Syrian President Bashar Assad is reported by Persian Gulf sources Tuesday, Jan. 31 to have threatened to start up armed hostilities in the region if the UN Security Council Tuesday night endorses the Arab League proposal for him to step down and hand power to his deputy.
Those sources told debkafile that the heads of the Syrian armed forces and intelligence have been given their orders and some units are on the ready. Other Middle East sources reported that the Lebanese Hizballah has also shown signs of military preparations in the last few hours. And the Russian flotilla berthed at the Syrian port of Tartus, led by the Admiral Kutznetsov aircraft carrier, also appears to be on the alert for ructions in the wake of the Security Council Syria session.
During the day, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov warned that pushing the Arab League's UN resolution was "the path to civil war." Our Moscow sources report that top-level discussions are still going back and forth in the Kremlin over a final decision on a veto.
debkafile reports that the military flurry in advance of the critical Security Council session included US naval movements. Sunday, Jan. 29, the nuclear submarine USS Annapolis, escorted by the guided missile destroyer USS Momsen sailed through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea. This looked like a Washington warning for Tehran to keep its military fingers out of Syria if the confrontation there escalates.
MORE
http://www.debka.com/article/21696/
The UN and Obama are all talk. That said, the next regime will be even worse if this plays out for Obama like Egypt and Libya.
Syrian forces
on evening raid
kill more than 200,
activists claim
Report on attacks by government troops on city of Homs couldn't be independently verified.Full story
Syria violence rages with Security Council set for vote
More than 200 people were killed in Homs on Friday night, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. In New York, the U.N. prepared for a Saturday vote.
This is not how you try to solve the problem.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/02...-in-australia/
It's never cool to attack an embassy, no matter how bad the regime they have to follow is. These people have nothing to do with and have no control of anything going on in Syria.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-collapse.html Syrian Gen. defector view.
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