DEBKAfile reports: If attacked, Tehran will strike US and Israeli interests worldwide, says an Iranian official. Oil may hit $250

June 10, 2007, 8:44 PM (GMT+02:00)
Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, Iran's Dep. Interior Minister


Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, Iran's Dep. Interior Minister


Iran’s deputy interior minister on security, Mohammad Bager Zolghadr, issued this warning Sunday, June 10, with an eye on the joint US-Israel air maneuver which began the same day in the Negev. The unusually explicit threat by a senior Iranian official was prompted, say DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources, by his government’s interpretation of the seven-day Negev exercise as a preparatory step for a US-Israeli air attack on their nuclear sites.

His threat to send oil prices skyrocketing to $250 a barrel hinted that Iran could block the Strait of Hormuz to oil exports from the Gulf.

Last week the American carrier USS Stennis and its strike group practiced fending off small fast boats carrying explosives, torpedoes and missiles in the strategic strait, after Tehran announced the expansion of its fleet of small vessels.

Exercise commander Lt. Kevin Ralston said the threat was real. “We all remember the USS Cole [rammed by suicide bombers in a fast explosives-laden boat in Aden Port seven years ago].

Speaking to a gathering of Iranian internal security units, Zolghadr remarked that Iran had spread sabotage networks across the world capable of striking US and Israel interests at any point on the globe. They may take the offensive, he said, but they will not keep control up until the end, and the damage they suffer will be harsh and painful.

Iranian leaders have also taken to heart transport minister Shaul Mofaz’s remark after his strategic talks in Washington last week that no options can be ruled out, including the military option.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources have learned add that the Islamic Republic’s rulers have been sounding out “revolutionary” Latin American governments about creating joint anti-US terrorist cells for attacks in North and South America. The subject came up in talks with Nicararagua’s Daniel Ortega when he arrived in Tehran Sunday and in discussions with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Neither is enthusiastic about getting involved in violent terrorist activity against the United States, although not averse to stepping up anti-US propaganda.

Before Ortega took off for Tehran, Israeli parliamentarian Effie Eytam visited Managua and cautioned Nicaraguan lawmakers about the detrimental implications of close relations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran. However, Ortega is angling for economic aid from Tehran. On arrival at Khomenei airport, he said he is looking forward to fruitful ties of cooperation with Iran in the war on poverty.

LINK
..............................................benny

Israel launches satellite to spy on Iran

June 11, 2007 - 1:55PM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/isr...414189539.html

Israel's military early launched a spy satellite aimed at keeping track of developments in Iran early on Monday, Israeli Radio reported.

The launch was carried out at 2:40 am Israeli time, but it was not immediately known if the launch was successful.

According to the report, the satellite, named Ofek 7, is to replace Ofek 5, which has been orbiting for almost five years.

Ofek 5's life had to be extended when the launch of its planned replacement, Ofek 6, failed two years ago.

Israel is concerned that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon and has labelled Iran as its most serious strategic threat.

AP
..............................................benny

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Officials: Iran, Syria orchestrated raid on Jewish state
Terrorists storm Israeli border, attempt kidnapping

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 11, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – An attempted Palestinian raid of the Israeli border this weekend, purportedly to kidnap an Israeli soldier, was orchestrated by Syria and Iran, according to security officials associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.

The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday thwarted an attempt by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terror group to kidnap a soldier on the Israeli side of a major crossing into the Gaza Strip.

Four terrorists approached the Israeli border in an SUV bearing "TV" signs in an attempt to disguise themselves as journalists. Reporters working in Gaza usually travel in cars with "TV" symbols to identify themselves. Upon reaching the crossing, the terrorists blew a hole in the border fence and attempted to storm an IDF position.

IDF troops rushed to the scene, chasing three of the gunmen back to the Gaza Strip. One of militants, 19-year-old Mohammed Jaabari, became separated from the group and hid inside Israel. Jaabari was shot dead after he opened fire when soldiers approached him, the IDF said.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

"The aim of the operation was to retreat with a prisoner," said Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad. "This was prevented by the use of Israeli helicopters."

This attempted kidnapping took place just before the one year anniversary of the kidnapping by Hamas and two other groups of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held in Gaza and is being used as a bargaining chip by the Hamas-led Palestinian government to release Palestinian prisoners, including arrested terrorists, held in Israeli jails.

(Story continues below)


Palestinian security officials associated with Fatah told WND this weekend's Islamic Jihad kidnap attempt was "completely orchestrated" by Syria and Iran. They said the operation was directly ordered by Ramadan Shallah, the overall chief of Islamic Jihad who resides in Syria and travels frequently to Iran.

The Palestinian security officials said they had information phone calls were made between Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the group's leadership in Damascus right before, during and after Saturday's kidnapping attempt.

"This operation was an Iranian and Syrian way to explode things and have another card on the table," said a Palestinian security official.

The official said Hamas has shown flexibility regarding releasing Shalit, whereas Islamic Jihad is not part of the Palestinian government, answers to Iran and would take a more hardened stance if it has an Israeli prisoner.

The official also said a successful kidnapping and raid of the Israeli border was estimated by Syria and Iran to have drawn Israel into a larger conflict in Gaza, thus distracting Israel from its northern border with Syria, where according to Israeli troops Syrian forces have been mobilizing the past few weeks. After Shalit's kidnapping last year, the IDF launched the largest operation it had conducted in Gaza since Israel evacuated the territory in 2005.

The claims of Syrian involvement in the weekend attack comes after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office this week confirmed reports Olmert, using third party mediators, has offered Syria the Golan Heights if the Damascus regime cuts its ties with Iran and ends support for Palestinian terror groups.

The Golan Heights is strategic mountainous territory looking down on Israeli population centers twice used by Syria to launch wars against the Jewish state. Mainstream U.S. and Israeli military experts have long maintained Israel must retain the Golan to ensure against a ground invasion from Syria.

WND first reported four weeks ago Olmert used third party sources to explore the possibility of talks with Syria aimed at an Israeli retreat from the Golan.

The reports of a retreat from the Golan Heights follows the recent release here of a government-appointed committee report slamming Olmert's decision-making process during last summer's war against the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The report prompted mass demonstrations and widespread calls for Olmert to resign, including from the prime minister's own deputy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Analysts here have been publicly speculating Olmert's popularity could rise within his leftist base if he conducted negotiations with the Palestinians or Syria.

WND reported in the weeks prior to the report's release that Olmert, anticipating a major backlash, held meetings with leading leftist figures here pledging to carry out Israeli withdrawals in exchange for their continued support, according to diplomatic sources. The sources said Olmert told the leftist leaders he is willing to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians or conclude a peace agreement with Syria.

Multiple Knesset members this weekend bashed Olmert's willingness to relinquish the Golan, stating the prime minister was endangering his country's security to save his political career.

Syria prepping for war?

While Olmert is reportedly exploring handing vital territory to Damascus, Syria, aided by Iran, has deployed a strengthened army along Israel's northern border and is prepared to launch a surprise war against the Jewish state, according to senior Israeli security officials.

With Israelis this week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War – when neighbors Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked the Jewish state – Israeli security officials told WND Syria has prepared for a confrontation and is capable of launching an immediate war.

The officials say the Syrian army is deployed along the Syrian side of the Golan Heights with strengthened forces after carrying out stepped-up training of troops the past few weeks. The officials noted the open movement of Syrian Scud missiles near the border with Israel and said Syria recently increased production of rockets and acquired missiles capable of hitting central Israeli population centers.

The Syrian army has improved its fortifications, according to the Israeli security officials, and has received modern, Russian-made anti-tank missiles similar to the ones that devastated Israeli tanks during the last Lebanon war, causing the highest number of Israeli troop casualties during the 34 days of military confrontations. Syria also received from Russia advanced anti-aircraft missiles.

The officials noted Syria stepped up the pace of weapons, including rockets, being shipped from the Syrian border to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Just yesterday, a truckload of weaponry meant for Hezbollah was confiscated by the Lebanese army.

Assad on a number of occasions the past few months has told his state-run media Damascus is preparing for war. He warned Israel to evacuate the Golan Heights.

Last weekend, Assad called for "better cooperation" between Damascus and Tehran in "the confrontation with the Zionist regime and the USA," according to a report published Sunday by Iran's official state news agency, IRNA.

Earlier this week, an official from Assad's Baath party warned in a WND interview if Israel doesn't vacate the Golan, residents in the strategic territory would launch "resistance operations" against Israeli communities.

................................................benny

June 11

Rapture At A Time Like This

All believers are commanded by the Lord Jesus to be looking for signs of His return. With indicators so abundant these days, the average Christian should have no trouble keeping track of the signs of the time.

One end-time signal has nothing to do with warfare, earthquakes, floods, immorality, or villainous individuals. You could almost call it the anti-sign.

Most people don't realize that apathy is the greatest indication of the last days. Jesus talked more about the lack of awareness than any other sign of times. The Lord said in Matthew 24:44, "Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."

There is no contradiction here. All the indicators I have listed on the Rapture Index are guaranteed to be active when the Blessed Hope kicks off. The only problem is that the Church will be caught off guard when Jesus comes suddenly in the air.

The modern age of prophetic awareness can be traced back to 1844 with the start of the Miller movement. For 163 years, there has been continuous interest in Bible prophecy as it relates to the current generation. In the past few years, I have seen an amazing disconnect between prophecy and world events. As the signs grow stronger, Christians quickly become desensitized to their importance. News that would curl the toenails of prophecy watchers from the 1800s are yawned at by people of this age.

I have a growing list of end-time signs that I hope will show how profound the "think not" hour has become. These are all examples from today’s headlines:


This past week, the FBI reported that murders and robberies in 2006 sent U.S. violent crimes higher for the second straight year. The feds blamed the increase on gangs, youth violence, gun crimes and fewer police on beats. The FBI said the number of violent crimes nationwide went up by 1.3 percent last year, following a 2.3 percent increase in 2005. The public has zero interest in this report.
A New York federal appeals court has ruled against the Federal Communications Commission in an indecency case involving the Fox channel. The court said the FCC actions were "arbitrary and capricious" and might not survive First Amendment scrutiny.

Under federal court rulings and commission rules, material is indecent if it "in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Currently, indecent speech can be aired safely between 10 p.m.-6 a.m., and it can always used in news stories that talk about books, movies or plays with an expletives in its title.

What caused the FCC to try to fine Fox was the usage of the "F" and "S" words in the 2002 and 2003 broadcasts of the Billboard Music Awards. Singer Cher used the phrase "F--- 'em" and reality show star Nicole Richie said, "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse?" The court basically gave the green light for an unscripted stream of profanity. What amazes me the most is the lack of reaction this ruling received from the moral watchdogs.

Iran's president has just said that the Lebanese and the Palestinians have pressed a "countdown button" to bring an end to Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has previously stirred international concern by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map." His latest remark received only passing coverage in the press.

In lasts week’s Nearing Midnight update, I reported how the Russian President has triggered fears of a new cold war. Putin said he would aim missiles at targets in Europe in retaliation for the U.S. decision to establish antimissile bases there. I was shocked that we didn't receive a chorus of messages from people who were convinced that Putin was the Gog leader of Ezekiel 38 and 39.

In the Middle East, Israel and Syria have an almost fatalistic view that they will soon be at war with each other. Hezbollah is very eager to start up where it left off last year. Israel's military has determined that Hezbollah, despite the expanded presence of the United Nations, rebuilt much or most of its force in southern Lebanon. I'm left wondering where all the end-time alarmists are.

The strangest disconnect would have to be the area date setters. These folks have always been trying to claim that some near-term date is the zero hour for the rapture or some other tribulation event. Now they are focusing on dates that are years down the road. Right now, all the big money is on 2012. I've seen some other people point to 2118, 2026, and 2037. I believe the devil is the motivator behind most date speculation, and find it very interesting that there would be a sudden shift to more distant dates.

I think we live in a period that is both exciting and frustrating at the same time. It's exciting because we know all the warning signs seem to say something big is about to happen. What it makes it frustrating is seeing society fall apart, and the inability to get people to take note of our proximity to judgment.

Terry and I have been contacted by several folks from various media outlets who expressed a desire interview us if something big related to Bible prophecy transpires. If a war breaks out in the Middle East, they'll come asking us about its prophetic connection. We saw this sort of thing last year with what is now called the Second Lebanon war.

We're getting rather late on the prophetic clock, so I can't make any absolute promises that we'll be around to respond to the next major event. Someday my email inbox might receive the following series of messages:

Todd, millions of people around the world are missing. Can you tell me if these disappearances have something to do with Bible prophecy? -- 9:12 AM.

Todd, did you get my earlier email? -- 1:30 PM

Hello is anybody there???!!!??? -- 3:45 PM



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Trilogy of Last-Time Trends
A trio of issues in today's news smacks of the reality that this generation stands near the very end of “the last time” John wrote about nearly 2,000 years ago. “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (2 John 18).

Let’s look at these particular items –out of literally hundreds in our daily news—which tell the observant watchman where we stand today on God’s prophetic timeline.

The first we will examine is the story of a supermodel, regarding sexual morality and sanctity of human life. The crux of the issues involved are found in this brief news snippet.

“SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Supermodel Gisele Bundchen stepped into the debate over birth control and sexual behavior in Brazil on Tuesday, saying Church opposition to condom use was ridiculous and women should have the right to choose on abortion. Gisele is idolized by many young women in Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic country, where debate over sexual issues has intensified around a visit by Pope Benedict last month…”

She went on to say that the Catholic Church’s position on contraception is hopelessly outdated because it was adopted when “the women were virgins, the guys were virgins. Today, no one is a virgin when they get married.”

Time and time again we see, hear, and read about in the news the behavior of young women held up as the glamour queen role models for girls to imitate and emulate. We are all quite familiar with the public displays of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan.

There was a time when women held the societal key to the lock on virtue. America’s entertainment industry, as chief agent of and distributor for the materials of lasciviousness and depravity, to which sin brings any people, has long since stripped our nation of women understanding the need to use that all-important key with great wisdom and care. It’s not hip, not cool, or is just plain puritanical to think in terms of such old-fashioned moral perspectives.

Jude told of the type people produced by reprobate thinking: “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit” (Jude 19).

Ms. Bundchen, Ms. Spears, Ms. Hilton, Ms. Lohan, and others do and think what they please. The world holds them up as entertainment icons. But, God is not mocked. About doing whatever we please without regard for our Creator, God’s Word says the following:

“Every way of a man [is] right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts” (Prov. 21:2). “[There is] a generation [that are] pure in their own eyes, and [yet] is not washed from their filthiness.” (Prov. 30:12). "Woe unto [them that are] wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isa. 5:21).

The final disposition of those who choose to do what is right in their own eyes is summed up in this terrifying truth: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6: 9-10).

The second of the trio of last-time trends we will take a look at involves an issue that is at the center of some degree of debate among Bible prophecy students. The debate is over whether the endtime Babylon prophesied in God’s Word will be rebuilt in the location once occupied by ancient Babylon.

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies” (Rev. 18:2-3).

The relevant news story, in brief, is captured in the following. "The idea of moving U.N. headquarters seems to resonate with many—those who believe that the U.S. is being manipulated by anti-American and anti-Israeli elements within the U.N., as well as those who feel that the U.S. is doing the manipulation… Where should it go? Try Iraq. While moving the U.N. headquarters to Venezuela or Iran is probably not wise, moving it to Iraq might be a strategic coup. There is even a ready-made location for it—Saddam Hussein’s 600-room palace and compound constructed over the remains of the ancient city of Babylon…” (Need to Know - PostGlobal: PostGlobal on washingtonpost.com, June 5, 2007, Want Middle East Stability? Move UN to Iraq, by Prof. Cynthia E. Ayers and COL ® David W. Cammons.).

There is a grassroots swell of demand to move the world geopolitical headquarters –the United Nations—to the place many believe Bible prophecy foretells man’s final attempt to rule himself, apart from his creator, will meet its fiery destiny. If the U.N. ever does indeed move to that site, a city will almost certainly spring up overnight, much along the model of Dubai. Such a city could be constructed within months.

The third of the last-time trends we will look at is Russia reasserting her hegemony in a way that might presage a return to cold war status. The following excerpt frames the brewing storm to the north of Israel.

“…Whether by waging cyberwarfare on Estonia, threatening the gas supplies of Lithuania, or boycotting Georgian wine and Polish meat, [Russian President Vladimir Putin] has, over the past few years, made it clear that he intends to reassert Russian influence in the former communist states of Europe, whether those states want Russian influence or not. At the same time, he has also made it clear that he no longer sees Western nations as mere benign trading partners, but rather as Cold War-style threats…” (Putin is playing a dangerous game, by Anne Applebaum, Last Updated: 12:01am BST 05/06/2007, telegraph.co.uk).

Trends that look to be straight out of words spoken and written by Bible prophets continue to proliferate, and move swiftly within every aspect of this generation. Luke 21:28 was never more appropriate to consider than at present.

--Terry



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...............................................benny

Iran: Israel, civilians in ME are targets for retaliatory attack
By JPOST STAFF AND AP
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Iran will not only strike American bases if attacked, but also Israel and civilian targets in the Middle East such as crude oil fields and power plants, an Iranian admiral told US Defense News on Monday.
"The resistance will stun the US defense establishment, with dozens and even hundreds of missiles which will strike specific targets," said Admiral Ali Samhuni, security advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Countries that house US bases that could be potential targets include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.
Army Radio quoted Iran's deputy interior minister in charge of security issues as saying that "all the American bases in the region are within the reach of our weapons."
"If the United States attacked Iran, US interests would be in danger everywhere in the world," added Muhammad Baqer Zolghadr, also a former deputy chief of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
Top US officers: Military plan against Iran is ready

Israel launches Ofek 7 spy satellite

'Corruption worse than Iranian threat'
Meanwhile, the IAF and US began week-long joint exercises in southern Israel on Sunday.
On Monday, a meeting between a senior Iranian envoy and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency was abruptly canceled, and diplomats blamed Iran's refusal to make good on a promise to provide answers about past atomic activities.
The meeting, between Javeed Vaidi of Iran and IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei, had been billed as a test of Teheran's readiness to end years of stonewalling and provide answers on aspects of its nuclear program that could be used to develop weapons.
But the talks were canceled on short notice because of perceptions that Vaidi would bring "nothing substantial" to another meeting with deputy IAEA director general Olli Heinonen, a diplomat told The Associated Press.
Along with Teheran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment and restrictions on IAEA inspectors, Iranian stonewalling was also the focus of ElBaradei, in opening comments to a meeting of the agency's 35-nation board of governors.
The agency is unable "to make any progress in its efforts to resolve outstanding issues relevant to the nature and scope of Iran's nuclear program," ElBaradei told delegates, describing the development as a "key proliferation concern."
"Against the background of many years of undeclared activities, and taking into account the sensitivity of nuclear enrichment technology, it is incumbent on Iran to work urgently with the agency ... in order for the agency to be able to provide assurance regarding the exclusively peaceful nature of all of Iran's nuclear activities," ElBaradei said.
Vaidi did talk with EU negotiator Robert Cooper to discuss a recent Iranian pledge to clear up past nuclear questions in talks at Austria's foreign ministry. Still, the cancellation of subsequent meetings - first with ElBaradei and then with Olli Heinonen, a key ElBaradei aide - dashed hopes that the Iran was prepared for a breakthrough compromise on one of the issues that led to its referral last year to the UN Security Council.
It was also likely to give support to Iran critics at the board meeting, with the United States and its allies using that gathering as a platform to pressure Teheran on enrichment and other issues.

Gregory L. Schulte, the chief US delegate to the gathering, set the tone for countries pushing Iran.

"Iran's leaders (are) continuing to develop capabilities to enrich uranium and produce plutonium" in violation of the Security Council, Schulte told reporters. "These capabilities are not necessary to benefit peaceful nuclear technology but are necessary to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons."

He took Teheran to task for "continuing to withdraw cooperation from the IAEA, causing a troubling deterioration of the agency's knowledge of Iran's nuclear capabilities."

The Vaidi-Cooper talks are a spinoff of May 31 discussions in Madrid between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator.

That meeting ended with Iran offering to divulge information long sought by IAEA experts trying to establish whether Teheran's past nuclear activists were secretly aimed at trying to make weapons.

The offer fell short of the main purpose of the Solana-Larijani talks - finding a way to bridge an impasse over Iran's rejection of UN Security Council demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.

Still, any decision by Iran to fully cooperate on clearing up past activities would have represented a major concession - a hope diminished with news that the Vaidi-ElBaradei meeting had been canceled...............................................................................................benny

Talking of peace, preparing for war


Israel and Syria are issuing contradictory signals about the Golan Heights - hinting at compromise, while readying their troops for battle. Conal Urquhart reports

Conal Urquhart in the Golan Heights
Monday June 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Sto...rc=rss&feed=12

In temperatures of more than 40 degrees, Israeli soldiers are moving in formation up the slopes of Mount Hermon in full battle dress, a few miles from the Syrian border.
Down on the main plateau of the Golan Heights, new army camps are being set up and there are more military than civilian vehicles on the roads that link old battlefields and new vineyards.

Despite talk of peace, both Syria and Israel are preparing for war amid mutual distrust and confusion. "There has never been such a state of readiness since the 1980s and there is a great danger of a chain reaction if one sides makes a mistake in reading the other's intention," said Eyal Zisser, a strategic analyst at Tel Aviv University.

Both Israel and Syria are issuing contradictory signals. In August last year, President Bashar Assad of Syria said he was interested in peace with Israel but would consider war to regain the Golan Heights, lost by Syria 40 years ago.

Last week, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, sent messages to Mr Assad that Israel was willing to give up the Golan in return for a peace deal. The messages were conveyed at the same time as the Israeli army carried out a training attack on a mock Syrian village in the south of Israel.

According to Mr Zisser, the confusion is caused by Israel's uncertainty over its own desires and the intentions of President Assad.

"We don't know how serious Assad is regarding war or peace. There is also confusion on the domestic implications for the government. Then there is also the question of the attitude of the United States, which is currently against negotiations with Syria," he said.

In the meantime the armies are training and maintaining a high state of readiness. "What you can see is military preparations on both sides. Armies have their own logic. If there is a possibility of war then they prepare for it," said Mr Zisser.

The 40,000 residents of the Golan continue with their work in farming and tourism, accustomed to living in a frontier province which is as marked by war as the fields of Flanders.

The Golan begins at 200 metres below sea level at the Sea of the Gallilee and rises to 2,800 metres at the top of Mount Hermon. Most of the land is a gently sloping plateau guarded by eight volcanic plugs that overlook Syria. Some of the plugs are fortified and others are crowded with antennae, radar and observation equipment to monitor Syrian activity.

Much of the west of the plateau is covered by Syrian minefields and every few miles there is a war memorial, old tank or derelict barracks. Half of the residents of the Golan are Druze; they retain their Syrian nationality and reject Israel's rule over them in theory, but cooperate with it in practice. Around 100,000 residents of the Golan left their homes during the 1967 war and were not allowed to return by Israel. The other half are Israeli settlers who continue to move to the Golan despite the common understanding that Israel will return it all to Syria in return for a peace deal.

Albert Hecht, a Golan resident originally from Glasgow, said that there was an obvious increase in Israeli military activity.

"You do sense there is a military build up going on. For years there was very little training here and now they are reopening camps that have been empty for years.

"We are in a constant state of readiness. We were hit by a few missiles last year from Lebanon and we all have bomb shelters. We are pretty sure that if things take a turn for the worse the army will be able to evacuate us very quickly," he said.

The residents of the Golan say that they live as if they will live here forever. "We have built home, businesses and vineyards here. No one told us to stop growing," said Mr Hecht.

The local council says that 1,500 families have moved to the region in the last five years and there is strong investment. The main town of Qatzrin has a newly built mall, featuring a micro-brewery, a winery and multimedia shows that offer a very partisan history of the Golan to tourists.

Moti Bar, the manager of the micro-brewery and restaurant, said that he did not expect the talk of war to deter tourists who make a major contribution to the local economy. "Israelis are used to this kind of atmosphere, they do not plan their holidays according to the news. They understand politics and that the things that appear in the news are not always as they seem. If we did not then we would have no life at all," he said.

Golan settlers, unlike their counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza, are not driven by religious conviction and admit that Israeli sovereignty over the Golan could be traded for peace. Both Mr Hecht and Mr Bar said they hoped that any peace deal would involve Israel leasing back the Golan from Syria for a period of 20 to 100 years.

However, the Druze residents who are clustered on the slopes of Mount Hermon in the north-east of the Golan, see the settlers' work in a different light. Ayman Abu Jabel, who served 12 years in an Israeli jail for throwing a grenade at an army base, had little sympathy for the settlers.

"The settlements must be destroyed and the settlers must leave. It is not their land. Everything they have is stolen," he said.

Mr Abu Jabel said there were economic advantages to living under Israeli occupation but added: "I would be happier to have the bad things of my own country rather than the good things of Israel."
...........................................benny

Syrian sources slam Israeli peace overtures as false

Published: 06.11.07, 12:28 / Israel News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...411231,00.html

Syrian diplomatic sources said in an interview to the Lebanese newspaper 'al- Ahbar' that Israeli peace overtures extended by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Syrian President Bashar Assad were "nothing more than throwing sand in the eyes designed to serve Israel and justify its oncoming aggression."

The sources said Damascus was genuinely willing to renew negotiations with Israel without any preconditions. (Roee Nahmias..................................................................................................................benny

Monday, June 11, 2007
LIEBERMAN SAYS IT MAY BE TIME FOR "AGGRESSIVE MILITARY ACTION" AGAINST IRAN: But Washington is deeply divided




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ORIGINAL POST:
Senator Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent who ran for Vice President on Al Gore's ticket in the 2000 presidential race, on Sunday warned that it may be time for "aggressive military action" to stop Iranian agents from attacking U.S. forces and to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons....on CBS's "Face The Nation," Lieberman said:"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq. And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers....I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran, but we have good evidence. If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force and to me that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."....few other U.S. Senators have been so clear that military action may be necessary soon, but Lieberman appears to believe that 2007 is the Year of Decision....if President Bush is going to take military action at all, he most likely would not do so during a presidential election year so that would leave only the next six months....the Jerusalem Post is reporting that senior U.S. military officials say they have "a strike plan in place," and U.S. and Israeli forces began joint war games over the weekend in the Negev desert....but it is still by no means clear that President Bush believes military action against Iran is necessary yet, or even feasible at this point....indeed, Washington is deeply divided over Iran, as in the international community....the U.N. Security Council can't even agree to condemn Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying that the "countdown" to Israel's destruction has begun....Kuwait has just announced that the U.S. may not use its bases to launch a strike against Iran....and the head of the Iranian parliament is discounting the possibility of a U.S. strike...."After its bitter experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is unlikely to launch a military showdown with Iran," said Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel....Tehran is also warning of a "missile blitz" against the Gulf states and the Gulf oil fields if the U.S. tries to attack Iran....all that said, let me be perfectly clear: I don't want the U.S. or Israel or the Western powers to go to war with Iran....I would much prefer decisive international economic sanctions against Iran combined with a massive infusion of cash, technology and other encouragement to pro-democracy movement leaders inside Iran to bring about an entirely new, moderate, peaceful regime....but let us all understand that time is running out....Ahmadinejad's Shiite Islamic eschatology -- or end times theology -- is telling him he must destroy Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it in order to bring about the return of the Islamic Messiah known as the Mahdi or the Twelfth Imam....Ahmadinejad and his spiritual advisors have a timetable....they believe the end of the world is imminent, and that's why they're feverishly trying to build, buy or steal nuclear weapons and the means to use them to attack Israel and the U.S....unfortunately, the hard cold truth is that most political leaders in the U.S. and Europe don't get it....they don't understand the apocalyptic theology that is driving Iranian foreign policy right now, and thus most of them remain convinced that a few more negotiations might do the trick and persuade the Iranian regime to seek peace instead of war....to them I ask: how exactly do you successfully negotiate with or deter a regime whose leaders believe it is their God-given mission to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization in order to bring back their Messiah and spend eternity in paradise?


(Pictured: Iranian Fajr-3 missile; Sen. Lieberman with former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky at a recent pro-democracy conference in Prague.)
* NOTE: Dennis Miller interview had to be rescheduled. Check back for details.
UPDATED HEADLINES:
* Putin indicates he's interested in serving longer as Russia's President
* Hezbollah has stockpiled some 20,000 missiles
* Hamas, Fatah truce collapses in bloodshed, 17 dead
* Powell says U.S. should negotiate with Iran, Syria
* 7 arrested in attempt to assassinate Afghan president
* Sarkozy's party heading for landslide victory
* Jerusalem Post columnist: "The chief rabbinate is wrong about Evangelicals"
* Israel launches advanced spy satellite

posted by Joel C. Rosenberg @ 9:06 AM
..........................................................benny

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States expressed "grave concern" Tuesday over Iran's defiance in ramping up its nuclear capability amid new estimates by the UN atomic agency that the Islamic republic could have 8,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by December.

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The significant rise in Iran's nuclear capability is likely to fuel fears that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons, diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in Vienna Tuesday.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has been telling political leaders in private conversations that Iran shows no sign of slowing down in its uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear fuel but also atomic weapons, one diplomat said.

"It's a source of grave concern to the international system that they persist in this behavior in defiance of the will of the international community, the Security Council, the IAEA Board of Governors," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

He said the international community had to make it "clear to Iran that it can't persist in this behavior, that they have to change course, and that failure to change course is only going to result in greater isolation" and more punitive sanctions.

ElBaradei's estimate of Iran obtaining 8,000 centrifuges was based on "the technical assessment of his inspectors" and so was sound, another diplomat close to the IAEA said.

The United States is stepping up moves with its allies for a third set of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, which again failed to obey a Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.

The sanctions over the past half year target Iran's ballistics and nuclear industries.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, but Iran insists its nuclear drive is entirely peaceful and it just wants to generate energy for a growing population.

Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution to the nuclear question but has not ruled out a military intervention and has placed sizeable naval forces in the Gulf.

....................................................benny

Analysis: It all comes back to Iran
By YAAKOV KATZ
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Press rewind, stop at May 15, hit play and you'll reel from a sense of deja vu. Just like on Tuesday, over a dozen Palestinians were killed in internal Fatah-Hamas clashes in a single day.

The result at the time: More than 30 Kassams were fired into Israel, a move interpreted by Military Intelligence as an attempt to draw the IDF into the fray in order to reunite the Palestinian factions.

The recent clashes in the Gaza Strip are almost an exact repeat of those a month ago. Again Hamas is proving that there is no such entity as a "Palestinian national-unity government" and that its ultimate goal - directed by Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal - is to take over the Palestinian Authority.

This is exactly what Hamas is doing. On Tuesday, Hamas took over Fatah military installations in the Gaza Strip and shelled PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's offices in Gaza City. It is proving what the defense establishment has already known for years: that it is the dominant and ruling force in the Gaza Strip.

The working assumption within the IDF and the Defense Ministry is that at some point - just like last month - Hamas and Fatah will turn their guns against Sderot, since there is nothing like a common enemy to unite the competing factions.

The first immediate result of the internal Palestinian clashes is that the IDF will suspend its operations. Israel traditionally does not get involved when Hamas and Fatah go at it, especially when that is exactly what the terror groups would like.

The assumption is also that this will not be the last conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Predictions are that while the Egyptians will once again step in and obtain a fragile cease-fire, it is only a matter of time before the groups once again hit the streets.

Then there is the northern front, where Syria is beefing up forces along the border and procuring advanced military systems alongside Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is, Israeli defense officials said last week, back to its pre-war strength.

Like the PA, Lebanon is a case of a moderate US-backed leader who is proving weak and incapable of quelling factional violence. For weeks now, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's Lebanese Armed Forces have been battling Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camps, but without a clear and decisive victory.

At the epicenter of all of these seemingly isolated conflicts is the region's true troublemaker - Iran.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and Syria are all funded by Teheran, which continues to ignore international pressure as it races towards obtaining nuclear weapons.

Noting these ongoing conflicts, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen's dismal prediction for the Middle East on Monday, his warning of a "dark picture" emerging, and increasing chances of regional conflict, should not be taken lightly.
.................................................benny

Preparations continue for strike on Iran

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Printer-friendly version By Stan Goodenough
June 11, 2007

A military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities appeared to come closer Monday after Israel launched a new satellite capable of carrying out surveillance over Iran as well as other parts of the Arab world.

The Ofek 7 was launched atop a "Shavit" rocket that streaked into the heavens in the early hours of Monday morning, and was soon thereafter reported successfully in orbit. It is expected to be declared fully operational in the coming days and will cross over Iran, Iraq and Syria every 90 minutes.

A senior security official was quoted as saying that the satellite's advanced techonology "will drastically improve Israel's operational and intelligence capabilities."

Meanwhile reports out of the United States indicate that country has finalized plans for a possible strike against the Iranian nuclear program, with some lawmakers in that country continuing to urge action sooner rather than later.

According to The Jerusalem Post Monday, senior American officials believe Iran to be three years away from acquiring nuclear weapons, and support President George W. Bush's position that the rogue state under no circumstances be permitted to go that far.

As he defiantly pursues a nuclear bomb, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel.

He is a major force behind the insurgency into neighboring Iraq which has seen untold numbers of Iraqis, as well as many American soldiers, killed.
.............................................benny


Moscow Releases Nuclear Fuel for Iran’s Bushehr Reactor

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly Updated by DEBKAfile

June 12, 2007, 1:12 PM (GMT+02:00)


Iran's Bushehr atomic reactor can start rolling with Russian fuel


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Russian president Vladimir Putin put teeth in his threats and his cynically helpful alternative suggestions regarding the deployment of US missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 304 disclosed on June 8 that the week before the G8 opened in Germany, Moscow released the long-withheld nuclear fuel for Iran’s atomic reactor in Bushehr. It was delivered 24 hours before Israel launched its new military imaging satellite Ofeq-7, bringing forward the Iranian threat to Israel, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources. One immediate result has been the stiffening of Tehran’s negative posture, sparking what nuclear watchdog director Mohammed ElBaradei called Monday, June 11, a confrontation that needs to be urgently defused.

As DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported, special nuclear containers were loaded on a train in the yard of the manufacturers JSC Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant on June 2-3. They contained two types of nuclear fuel, WER-440 and WER-1000.

The special train then headed out of Novosibirsk to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, 2,000 km away. There, the containers awaited loading aboard a Russian ship destined for Bandar Anzili, the Iranian military port on the Caspian shore. According to our Iranian sources, a fleet of Iranian trucks was waiting at the other end outside Bandar Anzili port to transport the nuclear fuel and drive it slowly and carefully to Bushehr, a distance of 850km, arriving June 10 or 11.

But DEBKAfile’s sources added the journey was interrupted by holdups ordered by the Kremlin in an episode which also laid bare the interdependence of Iran’s nuclear industry and Tehran’s program for arming Syria for war with Israel with the latest Russian munitions.

Arguments over payments due from Tehran have dogged relations with Moscow before and Putin is far from trusting.

A few days before the nuclear fuel left the Siberian factory, Tehran delivered the sum of $327m for a fresh delivery of Russian missiles to Syria. Iran pledged another $438m for further arms consignments before the fuel cargo was allowed to go forward. Putin then ordered the cargo to be loaded at Astrakhan, but await delivery in port until payment was made.

DEBKAfile picks up the story Tuesday, June 12, and reports that Iran duly deposited the money and the ship was permitted to set sail and cross the Caspian Sea to Iran.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly went on to report that Putin never promised Bush that Russia would deny Iran the nuclear fuel for its Bushehr reactor in perpetuity, as some administration circles in Washington have claimed in the last two years. He did assure Washington, mainly in conversations with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that he would postpone delivery as long as he could, despite Moscow’s contractual commitments to Tehran.

The Bush administration’s plan to deploy missiles in East Europe made the Russian president mad enough to set this assurance aside.

His move hits the US where it hurts most: The UN Security Council meets at the end of June to approve harsher sanctions against Iran for continuing to enrich uranium in defiance of previous resolutions. The Russian fuel delivery will substantially dilute the effect of such penalties, especially when the Islamic Republic is about to clinch a deal for the acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea (as DEBKA-Net-Weekly 300 revealed on May 11).

Putin developed a complex and well thought out retaliation strategy for America’s missile deployment in East Europe.

1. A second consignment of nuclear fuel went out to India from the same Russian factory which supplied Bushehr. This was a swipe by Putin at US-Indian nuclear cooperation which it is also under attack in the US Congress. It was also meant to place Moscow at dead center of the Russian-American-Israeli contest over domination of the Indian arms market. This contest also pertains to the developing military ties between New Delhi and Tehran, which Moscow is working hard to turn to its benefit. The Kremliln has not said the last word on this contest.

2. Monday, June 4, the Russian president sent the director of the Russian Nuclear Energy Commission, Sergei Kirienko, to the Russian Interfax news agency with an announcement: “I have just visited the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant; fuel for Iran and India is ready,” he said. “It will be delivered six months before the physical launch.”

This statement has granted the Russian president six months’ leeway for jumping whichever way he finds expedient.

It is time enough for Moscow and Washington to reach terms on the Iran issue as well as the East Europe missile deployments. If the Bush administration digs its heels in on the missile defense shield, Russian engineers employed at Bushehr will be told to go ahead and activate the reactor even before December 2007. But if Washington relents, Russian personnel can always be told to go back to dragging their feet, as Moscow did on the nuclear fuel.

.................................................benny

Iran, Turkey set to expand ties
Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:56:24

Iran and Turkey enjoy high capacities to expand cooperation in different fields, an official from the Iranian foreign ministry has said.

Mehdi Mostafavi made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting Deputy Undersecretary of Turkish Foreign Minister Sinirly Oghly in Tehran.

"Tehran-Ankara cooperation has reached a satisfactory level," he was quoted by IRNA as saying in the meeting. The exchange of political, media and economic delegations would serve to increase mutual understanding between the two countries, he stated.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he referred to shortage of military equipments as the main problem facing the Iraqi government in fighting terrorists and establishing security.

Oghly, for his part, called for constant exchange of views on regional issues as means to help build up security and stability in the Middle East. He also underlined the need for preserving territorial integrity of Iraq.

"Turkey backs the Iraqi government and every effort with the aim of strengthening that government."

On ties with Iran, he said, "We support the expansion of cooperation with Iran, particularly in energy sector, in line with financial interests of the two sides. We also support Iran's right to attain peaceful nuclear energy." He added that all political parties in Turkey are keen on expanding relations with Iran.

ER/KB

................................benny .......P.S.....We are seeing Turkey aligning itself with the other islamic nations foretold in the Ezekial 38 prophecy.......For years Turkey has been a member of N.A.T.O. ......and has been trying to become a member of the European Union....But now we see that the European Union is rejecting Turkey into their fold......Turkey is frustrated by this, and is now leaning towards Russia and the islamic nations........As a whole this area of prophecy(Ezekial 38) is near complete.

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Thousands of Palestinian security officers loyal to Fatah are under Hamas siege at their last bastion – Gaza City’s presidential compound

June 13, 2007, 7:31 PM (GMT+02:00)





They are running out of food, water and ammunition. Hamas and its Executive Force have overrun some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, while loyalists of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, including complete clans, are surrendering and turning in their weapons. Hamas has set up large prisoner camps, some in the rubble of the Gush Katif villages. Wednesday afternoon, a desperate Abbas appealed to Israel to permit arms and ammunition to be transferred from the West Bank. Israeli officers said it was too late. Fatah is a lost case and any arms crossing into Gaza will be seized at once by Hamas.

Earlier, DEBKAfile reported Hamas’ seizure of Gaza’s main south-north highway in fierce fighting with many casualties, most Fatah.

Palestinian security officers loyal to Fatah were fleeing Gaza for Egypt

By borrowing this Israeli tactic for bisecting the territory to contain terrorists, Hamas shut in Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard, which has not yet been thrown into battle, and choked off ammunition re-supply routes to Fatah fighters. To tighten their control, Hamas units also commandeered high rise rooftops.

Hamas then gave Fatah till Friday noon to surrender their arms or become wanted men under sentence of death.

Abbas called the situation “madness.”

Wednesday afternoon, Hamas used a tunnel to blow up Abbas’ Security Service HQ in Khan Younes, killing 10 members. UNWRA has cut down its personnel in Gaza after two aid workers were killed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas’ planning and combat tactics clear betray the professional hands of Syrian and Hizballah officers who have set up a command center in the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday, DEBKAfile reported: The brutal civil strife has brought the fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government to closure. The War Crimes Prosecution Watch has condemned rival Palestinian factions fighting in Gaza for attacking civilians, prisoners and hospitals.

Senior Palestinian politician Saab Erikat warned the “Mogadishu syndrome” is overtaking Palestinian Gaza. “If war and lawlessness are not extinguished, the fire will burn us all”

The outcome generated by the civil war is the separation of Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas threw its entire 15,000-strong Executive Force armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades into the final bid to conquer the Gaza Strip, whereas Fatah commanders’ desperate appeals to Mahmoud Abbas for reinforcements drew nothing but a futile call for a ceasefire.

His Fatah earlier mounted an RPG attack on the Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya’s home in Gaza. No one was hurt. Hamas gunmen then shot dead the top Fatah commander in northern Gaza, his brother and cousin. Fatah then "executed" the senior Hamas commander in the North. Monday, Hamas bound a Fatah fighter hand and foot and hurled him from a 15-story building in Gaza to his death.

For two days, Hamas gunmen have been targeting injured Fatah fighters, killing them in ambulances and Beit Hanoun hospital beds. Fatah has retaliated with mortar and RPG attacks on the Hamas-controlled Shifa hospital.

Several attempts by the Egyptian mission in Gaza to arrange a ceasefire have been short-lived. In Cairo Tuesday, President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah discussed the Palestinian crisis.
...........................................benny

Abbas Pleads for UN Help
As Hamas wrests control of nearly all the Gaza Strip, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for the UN to step in -- and for the first time, Israel agrees. But is it too late to prevent the Palestinian territories splitting between a Hamas-controlled Gaza and a Fatah-dominated West Bank?


AFP
Hamas militants march towards the Fatah security headquarters in Gaza City Thursday.
As the violence in the Gaza Strip escalates, with Hamas tightening its grip on the territory, President Mahmoud Abbas has called on the United Nations for help.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that Abbas had asked him to consider UN involvement during a telephone call on Tuesday. "This is an idea for which we need to explore the possibilities," Ban said, after raising the matter with the 15 members of the Security Council on Wednesday.

"I think there are many issues which we will have to consider," Ban said. "And if we decide to have an international presence in Gaza, where to locate them, what would be the terms of reference, what would their missions be."

The Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert said for the first time on Tuesday that an international force along the Gaza-Egypt border should be seriously considered to help counter the growing strength of Hamas. Israel in the past has resisted Palestinian calls for peacekeepers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, saying any UN deployment would interfere with Israeli security operations. But there is speculation that Olmert's calls for international engagement is merely laying the groundwork for Israeli action against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, from which Israeli troops withdrew in 2005.

The European Union has also said it would consider participation in an international force in the Gaza Strip. "If we are asked, of course we will consider the possibility," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters.

However Hamas has rejected the idea of an international force out of hand. "The movement would regard these forces as occupation forces, no different to the Israeli occupation, regardless of their nationality," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Hamas Poised to Take Over Gaza

There were tentative signs of a ceasefire Wednesday. President Abbas and the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, issued a joint statement late on Wednesday night, calling on all sides to "halt fighting, and to return to language of dialogue and respect of agreements." But Hamas radio denied the two had agreed a truce and its fighters on the ground seem in no mood to halt their successful military campaign just yet.

In fact, the radicals are increasing their hold on Gaza. An Abbas aide is reported to have told diplomats "Gaza is lost," raising the prospect of a division between a Hamas-controlled Gaza and a Fatah-controlled West Bank. The two sides have been engaged in a bloody power struggle ever since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006, ending 40 years of Fatah rule. The two parties formed a unity government in March, but the coalition began to fall apart last month due to the unresolved dispute over the control of the security forces.

Establishing Abbas' security control over Gaza has been a lynchpin of recent US efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Washington has long held that negotiations can go nowhere if Israel cannot be assured that Abbas can curb cross-border attacks. A Hamas takeover in Gaza would create the prospect of an aggressive Islamist mini-state on Israel's border, beyond the moderating influence of Abbas.


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Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a Hamas victory in Gaza would cast doubt on Abbas' ability to deliver on any agreements over a Palestinian state. "If Hamas takes control of Gaza, this will be significant, not only for what happens in Gaza, but for the ability to reach agreements with (Abbas)" she said on Wednesday.

Some Israeli and Western officials see the Hamas assault on Fatah as a pre-emptive strike against US plans to bolster the forces loyal to Abbas for a planned crackdown on the militant groups. Washington had just launched a $60 million program to support Abbas' Presidential Guard with advanced training and equipment.

Abbas to Make an 'Important Decision'

Hamas has wrested control of nearly all the Gaza strip over five days of fighting that has left at least 70 people dead. The militants are now moving on to the battle for the Fatah security and political command centers in Gaza City. Witnesses told the Associated Press on Thursday that Hamas had taken control of the key Preventive Security headquarters, and were dragging men from the building and executing them on the street.

Although Fatah is numerically superior, Hamas has proved better armed and better disciplined. On Wednesday, 40 Fatah security officers broke through the border to flee to Egypt. Hamas now either controls or is on the verge of controlling the other main towns in Gaza, namely Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir el Balah.

Fatah has said that President Abbas is to make an "important decision" later Thursday regarding the future of the coalition government. There is now speculation that he will dismantle the government and declare a state of emergency, so that he could rule by decree.

smd/ap/reuters

.................................................benny

VIENNA, Austria - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday an attack on Iran over its refusal to freeze programs that could make nuclear weapons would be "an act of madness," an indirect warning to the United States and Israel.

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International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei also said Iran could be running close to 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges by the end of next month — a number that IAEA officials have described as the point of no return in the start of a large-scale program.

ElBaradei spoke at the end of a meeting of his agency's 35-nation board, a gathering that focused on Iran's refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands that it freeze activities that could serve to make nuclear arms and provide answers on suspicious aspects of its program.

He also urged Iran to offer a "self-imposed moratorium" on enrichment, describing it as a "good confidence-building measure" that could launch negotiations on the standoff

But the chief Iranian envoy to the meeting asserted his country would never suspend enrichment — the key issue of Security Council concern. Iran has said its nuclear program is peaceful and aims to generate energy, not bombs.

Although they've called for a negotiated solution, both the U.S. and Israel have refused to outright dismiss the possibility that they might target Iran militarily if it refuses to back down.

ElBaradei described use of force as "an act of madness ... (that) would not resolve the issue."

"The next few months will be crucial," he said: "Iran is building a capacity, a knowledge" of enrichment that is irreversible, while not providing evidence sought by his agency "that this is a peaceful program."

"Even if Iran wants to have a weapon they are three to eight years away," ElBaradei said, citing unidentified intelligence sources for his estimate. But "the longer we delay, the less option we have to reach a peaceful solution."

Iran's defiance of U.N. Security Council demands it stop enrichment and construction of a plutonium-producing reactor as well as increase cooperation with IAEA inspectors has led to two sets of sanctions.

A recent IAEA report confirmed that Iran was expanding its activities and continuing to stonewall the IAEA in its attempts to gain more information on past activities of concern. That has set the stage for a new round of Security Council-imposed penalties.

Declaring that Tehran had become the "master of uranium enrichment" Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA envoy, said his country will never suspend its program.

Like enriched uranium, plutonium can be used for the fissile core of nuclear warheads. Iran, however, says it wants to develop enrichment to generate nuclear power and asserts it is building the plutonium-producing reactor for research and medical purposes.

Soltanieh evaded a question on whether his country had solved all technical problems in the intensely complicated enrichment process of spinning uranium gas through centrifuges at high speed.

U.S. officials have told The Associated Press their information indicates Iran has not yet achieved the technical perfection. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential matters.

Gregory L. Schulte, the U.S. envoy to the IAEA, scoffed at Soltanieh's claim of enrichment mastery, telling AP Television News: "The Iranian ambassador spins faster than any centrifuge."

ElBaradei, however, cautioned that Iran was "speeding up its enrichment capacity" to the point where it could have just under 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges running in series by the end of July and "was steadily moving toward perfecting the technology."

"Whether some of the centrifuges are running with the speed desired, whether some of the centrifuges have been crashed, that is a part we have yet not seen and we still have to do some analysis," ElBaradei said.

"But it is clear ... that they are meeting their expectations at least in terms of the level of enrichment," he said, alluding to his agency's recent confirmation that centrifuges at Tehran's underground Natanz facility have churned out small amounts of fuel-grade enriched uranium.

IAEA officials have informally identified an Iranian enrichment operation running 3,000 centrifuges as the start of a large-scale program, while experts say that number could produce enough material for several warheads a year. Tehran says it wants to operate 54,000 centrifuges — enough for a full-scale weapons program should it want to go that route.

...............................................benny

Iran says may cut more IAEA ties if sanctions worsen By Mark Heinrich and Karin Strohecker
Thu Jun 14, 7:19 AM ET



VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran warned on Thursday it may reconsider basic cooperation with United Nations nuclear inspectors if it was hit with harsher U.N. sanctions over its expanding atomic program.

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Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Tehran had mastered the means to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel and world powers must accept that fact instead of trying to stop the work through sanctions.

Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Iran, in keeping with parliamentary legislation mandating such moves, had already stopped what he called voluntary measures of cooperation with the IAEA in response to sanctions imposed since last year.

"After each ( U.N. Security Council) resolution, each action, there is a reaction, a prompt reaction from Iran," he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors.

"But options are limited... We (remain) fully committed to our (basic) Safeguard Agreement with IAEA, but this has to be duly considered (again) with (respect to) those who are looking for confrontation," he said, referring to Western powers.

Iran says it aims to refine uranium only to the low level required for civilian energy, not the high level suitable for bombs. But Tehran's past concealment of activity from inspectors and stonewalling of IAEA inquiries have stoked suspicions.

Instead of halting enrichment, as the U.N. Security Council has demanded, Iran has rapidly expanded its program, prompting EU powers to warn on Wednesday it faced stiffer sanctions in addition to the two rounds the Security Council has imposed.

In early 2006 Iran stopped allowing inspectors to make short-notice visits to sites not declared to be part of the nuclear program.

This April, Iran stopped providing advance design information on planned nuclear sites, including a heavy-water reactor.

Soltanieh said IAEA inspectors had documented significant Iranian strides towards creating a nuclear energy industry and said this showed it was irreversible.

The IAEA says Iran continues to provide regular inspector access to its declared uranium-processing and enrichment installations in Isfahan and Natanz as required by its Safeguards Agreement with the Vienna-based agency.

Diplomats have said Iran has been delaying some inspections at the underground Natanz enrichment complex. But IAEA officials say inspectors have enough presence to verify Iran is not diverting nuclear materials into illicit bombmaking.

.............................................benny

Hamas Poised to Convert Captured Gaza Strip into Islamist Enclave

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Log of Five-Day Blitz

June 14, 2007, 12:58 PM (GMT+02:00)


Abbas' Presidential Guardsmen surrender to Hamas


14 June: Hamas seizes control of strategic Philadelphi enclave on Egyptian border and all Gaza’s border crossings with Egypt and Israel. At least 35 people died in the fighting Wednesday. Any international force in Gaza will be resisted in the same way as an Israeli occupation army, said a Hamas spokesman Thursday, June 14.

Senior Israeli officers described the Hamas victory to DEBKAfile as a greater misfortune for Israel than its Lebanon War setbacks. There, Hizballah was forced by Israeli military action to accept a UN ceasefire and international peacekeepers.

Hamas has no such incentive. In the case of Gaza, the winner takes all and can dictate terms. A radical Islamic enclave with a dominant Iranian-Syrian military presence has sprung up unopposed as a hostile reality on Israel’s southwestern border. It has made the Israeli-Middle East Quartet’s boycott an irrelevance.

The Hamas Executive Force completed the seizure of all pro-Fatah Presidential Guard border positions, including the Karni goods crossing and the Sufa, Kerem Shalom and Rafah transit points, after midnight Wednesday night, June 14. Their commander Col. Musbah Basichi and his 60 officers fled to Egypt. At least 35 Palestinians were killed in fighting Wednesday.

Hamas pounced as Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert held a belated conversation with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the deployment of an international force on the Philadelphi route. Hamas leaders flushed with victory will hardly accept such hindrance to the free flow of smuggled arms, missiles and explosives into the Gaza Strip.

Israeli military and security personnel administering the crossings on the Israeli side will have to work cheek by jowl with Hamas operators. The Israeli government, which decided to stay out of the Hamas-Fatah conflict, must now decide whether to break off ties with Hamas-controlled Gaza and seal the crossings, or interact with the new masters in order to admit emergency supplies for 1.4 million Gazans.

13 June: Overnight, thousands of Palestinian security officers loyal to Fatah were under Hamas siege at their last bastions – Gaza City’s Presidential Guard compound and the General Security command.

They are running out of food, water and ammunition. Hamas and its Executive Force had overrun some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, while loyalists of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, including complete clans, surrendered and turned in their weapons. Hamas has set up large prisoner camps, some on the rubble of the Gush Katif villages. Wednesday afternoon, a desperate Abbas appealed to Israel to permit arms and ammunition to be transferred from the West Bank. Israeli officers said it was too late. Fatah is a lost case and any arms crossing into Gaza will be seized at once by Hamas.

Israel decides to stay out of the Palestinian internecine war in Gaza.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert led the cabinet in a decision Tuesday night, June 12, to avoid “fighting on the side of the pragmatists against the extremists.” Olmert said an international force is worth considering for securing the Philadelphi border enclave of the Gaza Strip against further arms smuggling. DEBKAfile: This would replicate the situation in South Lebanon where UNIFIL troops have been helpless to halt illegal gunrunning to the Hizballah from Syria. The UN Security voiced concern over this traffic only Tuesday, June 12.

12 June: DEBKAfile reported Hamas’ seizure of Gaza’s main south-north highway in fierce fighting with many casualties, most Fatah.

By borrowing this Israeli tactic for bisecting the territory to contain terrorists, Hamas shut in Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard, which has not yet been thrown into battle, and choked off ammunition re-supply routes to Fatah fighters. To tighten their control, Hamas units also commandeered high rise rooftops.

Hamas then gave Fatah till Friday noon to surrender their arms or become wanted men under sentence of death. Abbas called the situation “madness.”

UNWRA has cut down its personnel in Gaza after two aid workers were killed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas’ planning and combat tactics clearly betray the professional hands of Syrian and Hizballah officers who have set up a command center in the Gaza Strip.

DEBKAfile’s Military sources: Iran and Syria are the winners of Hamas’ military coup against Fatah in Gaza Strip

It was the second triumph in a week for a Palestinian force backed by Iran and Syria, after the Lebanese army failed in four weeks’ combat to crush the pro-Syrian factions’ barricaded in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp near Tripoli.

Tuesday, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Palestinian Authority forces faced disaster. Their inevitable ejection from the Gaza Strip effectively severs Palestinian rule between Ramallah, where Fatah will have to fight to retain control of the West Bank and Gaza, dominated now by an Islamist Palestinian force manipulated from Tehran and Damascus.

The Iran-Syrian alliance has acquired by brute force two Mediterranean coastal enclaves in northern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Its momentum, launched a month ago in both sectors was unchecked. The Fouad Siniora government’s troops failed to break through to the Palestinian camp and crush the pro-Syrian uprising. The Olmert government stood by unmoved as the most radical elements in the Middle East snatched the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southwestern border.

The Bush administration is finding itself forced out of key Middle East positions, its main assets Siniora and Mahmoud Abbas trounced on the battlefield.

Israel’s technological feat of placing the Ofeq-7 surveillance satellite in orbit Monday quickly proved ineffective against the sort of tactics Tehran and Syria employ: mobile, suicidal Palestinian terrorists, heavily and cheaply armed with primitive weapons, who are winning the first round of the Summer 2007 war and preparing for the next.

11 June: DEBKAfile reported: The brutal civil strife has brought the fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government to closure. The War Crimes Prosecution Watch has condemned rival Palestinian factions fighting in Gaza for attacking civilians, prisoners and hospitals.

Senior Palestinian politician Saab Erikat warned the “Mogadishu syndrome” is overtaking Palestinian Gaza. “If war and lawlessness are not extinguished, the fire will burn us all”

The outcome generated by the civil war is the separation of Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas threw its entire 5,000-strong Executive Force armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades into the final bid to conquer the Gaza Strip, whereas Fatah commanders’ desperate appeals to Mahmoud Abbas for reinforcements drew nothing but a futile call for a ceasefire.
...........................................benny

very interesting info from last night by Joel Rosenberg. .....video

http://www.calvaryccv.org/wed061307pmvideo.html
.......................benny

benny,
i dont have time to watch the 1 hr video....can you summerize?

thanks

Arab Media Reports Syria Making Preparations for War with Israel

by Hana Levi Julian
Arutz Sheva
29 Sivan 5767, June 15, '07

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122765

(IsraelNN.com) A Qatari newspaper, Al Watan, reported Friday that Syria is making concrete preparations for war with Israel, saying that the Syrian government has removed the Government and State Archives from the Damascus area. According to the paper, this move indicates preparations for war.

Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash confirmed on Al-Jazeera Arabic world news satellite TV last week that Syria is indeed engaged in active preparations for a war with Israel. The conflict, said the Syrian MP, is expected to break out during the summer months.

Officials close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reported Sunday that their efforts to begin negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have gone unanswered. They also said that Mr. Assad’s failure to reply signaled that his claims of wanting peace were not honest and were meant to improve his own status in the international community.

Last week, the head of Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, warned that Syrian President Assad was putting up a smoke screen by claiming he wants to open peace talks with the Jewish State.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has also raised the issue numerous times. “The IDF is preparing for an escalation on both the Palestinian and the northern fronts,” he said bluntly during a speech to the IDF Officers Training School earlier in the year.

The IDF held a large-scale exercise ten days ago simulating a Syrian invasion to Israel’s north. Infantry units, tank divisions and the Air Force took part in the exercise, which took place at the Shizafon IDF installation, in the southern Negev.

Asked about the exercise by Army Radio, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the IDF was indeed preparing for the possibility of war with Syria, but said this does not mean that Israel would initiate such a war. "Our preparedness is not an indication of any decision by either us or Syria to go to war - these are purely defensive measures," he said.

..............................................benny

Hamas Poised to Convert Captured Gaza Strip into Islamist Enclave

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Log of Five-Day Blitz

June 14, 2007, 12:58 PM (GMT+02:00)


Abbas' Presidential Guardsmen surrender to Hamas


14 June: Hamas seizes control of strategic Philadelphi enclave on Egyptian border and all Gaza’s border crossings with Egypt and Israel. At least 35 people died in the fighting Wednesday. Any international force in Gaza will be resisted in the same way as an Israeli occupation army, said a Hamas spokesman Thursday, June 14.

Senior Israeli officers described the Hamas victory to DEBKAfile as a greater misfortune for Israel than its Lebanon War setbacks. There, Hizballah was forced by Israeli military action to accept a UN ceasefire and international peacekeepers.

Hamas has no such incentive. In the case of Gaza, the winner takes all and can dictate terms. A radical Islamic enclave with a dominant Iranian-Syrian military presence has sprung up unopposed as a hostile reality on Israel’s southwestern border. It has made the Israeli-Middle East Quartet’s boycott an irrelevance.

The Hamas Executive Force completed the seizure of all pro-Fatah Presidential Guard border positions, including the Karni goods crossing and the Sufa, Kerem Shalom and Rafah transit points, after midnight Wednesday night, June 14. Their commander Col. Musbah Basichi and his 60 officers fled to Egypt. At least 35 Palestinians were killed in fighting Wednesday.

Hamas pounced as Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert held a belated conversation with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the deployment of an international force on the Philadelphi route. Hamas leaders flushed with victory will hardly accept such hindrance to the free flow of smuggled arms, missiles and explosives into the Gaza Strip.

Israeli military and security personnel administering the crossings on the Israeli side will have to work cheek by jowl with Hamas operators. The Israeli government, which decided to stay out of the Hamas-Fatah conflict, must now decide whether to break off ties with Hamas-controlled Gaza and seal the crossings, or interact with the new masters in order to admit emergency supplies for 1.4 million Gazans.

13 June: Overnight, thousands of Palestinian security officers loyal to Fatah were under Hamas siege at their last bastions – Gaza City’s Presidential Guard compound and the General Security command.

They are running out of food, water and ammunition. Hamas and its Executive Force had overrun some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, while loyalists of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, including complete clans, surrendered and turned in their weapons. Hamas has set up large prisoner camps, some on the rubble of the Gush Katif villages. Wednesday afternoon, a desperate Abbas appealed to Israel to permit arms and ammunition to be transferred from the West Bank. Israeli officers said it was too late. Fatah is a lost case and any arms crossing into Gaza will be seized at once by Hamas.

Israel decides to stay out of the Palestinian internecine war in Gaza.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert led the cabinet in a decision Tuesday night, June 12, to avoid “fighting on the side of the pragmatists against the extremists.” Olmert said an international force is worth considering for securing the Philadelphi border enclave of the Gaza Strip against further arms smuggling. DEBKAfile: This would replicate the situation in South Lebanon where UNIFIL troops have been helpless to halt illegal gunrunning to the Hizballah from Syria. The UN Security voiced concern over this traffic only Tuesday, June 12.

12 June: DEBKAfile reported Hamas’ seizure of Gaza’s main south-north highway in fierce fighting with many casualties, most Fatah.

By borrowing this Israeli tactic for bisecting the territory to contain terrorists, Hamas shut in Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard, which has not yet been thrown into battle, and choked off ammunition re-supply routes to Fatah fighters. To tighten their control, Hamas units also commandeered high rise rooftops.

Hamas then gave Fatah till Friday noon to surrender their arms or become wanted men under sentence of death. Abbas called the situation “madness.”

UNWRA has cut down its personnel in Gaza after two aid workers were killed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas’ planning and combat tactics clearly betray the professional hands of Syrian and Hizballah officers who have set up a command center in the Gaza Strip.

DEBKAfile’s Military sources: Iran and Syria are the winners of Hamas’ military coup against Fatah in Gaza Strip

It was the second triumph in a week for a Palestinian force backed by Iran and Syria, after the Lebanese army failed in four weeks’ combat to crush the pro-Syrian factions’ barricaded in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp near Tripoli.

Tuesday, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Palestinian Authority forces faced disaster. Their inevitable ejection from the Gaza Strip effectively severs Palestinian rule between Ramallah, where Fatah will have to fight to retain control of the West Bank and Gaza, dominated now by an Islamist Palestinian force manipulated from Tehran and Damascus.

The Iran-Syrian alliance has acquired by brute force two Mediterranean coastal enclaves in northern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Its momentum, launched a month ago in both sectors was unchecked. The Fouad Siniora government’s troops failed to break through to the Palestinian camp and crush the pro-Syrian uprising. The Olmert government stood by unmoved as the most radical elements in the Middle East snatched the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southwestern border.

The Bush administration is finding itself forced out of key Middle East positions, its main assets Siniora and Mahmoud Abbas trounced on the battlefield.

Israel’s technological feat of placing the Ofeq-7 surveillance satellite in orbit Monday quickly proved ineffective against the sort of tactics Tehran and Syria employ: mobile, suicidal Palestinian terrorists, heavily and cheaply armed with primitive weapons, who are winning the first round of the Summer 2007 war and preparing for the next.

11 June: DEBKAfile reported: The brutal civil strife has brought the fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government to closure. The War Crimes Prosecution Watch has condemned rival Palestinian factions fighting in Gaza for attacking civilians, prisoners and hospitals.

Senior Palestinian politician Saab Erikat warned the “Mogadishu syndrome” is overtaking Palestinian Gaza. “If war and lawlessness are not extinguished, the fire will burn us all”

The outcome generated by the civil war is the separation of Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas threw its entire 5,000-strong Executive Force armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades into the final bid to conquer the Gaza Strip, whereas Fatah commanders’ desperate appeals to Mahmoud Abbas for reinforcements drew nothing but a futile call for a ceasefire.

............................................benny

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the escalator to war with Iran

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 15, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern



These are the "birth pangs" of a "new Middle East," said Condi Rice last summer, as Israel pounded Lebanon. Unfortunately, the new Middle East may make us all pray for the return of the old.

Hamas is today engaged in savage street fighting with Fatah for control of Gaza. If Hamas prevails, it could convert this Palestinian enclave into a terrorist base camp between Israel and Egypt.

In northern Lebanon, Islamic jihadists are battling the army for control of a Palestinian refugee camp. Scores are dead.

On Wednesday, a seventh parliamentarian was assassinated with his son in a Beirut car bomb attack.

In Samarra, the Golden Mosque was attacked again on Wednesday, collapsing the two minarets that survived last year's bombing. Gen. David Petraeus is grim about the consequences of what he says was an al-Qaida attack to escalate the Sunni-Shia war.

(Column continues below)



With Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan convulsed by ever-widening civil wars, a new danger is that the United States, tied down in two of those wars, may be about to lash out and launch a third – on Iran.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Joe Lieberman blurted on "Face the Nation," adding, "To me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training those people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

"If there's any hope of ... stopping their nuclear weapons development," Lieberman said, "we can't just talk to them."

Joe's call for air strikes follows the GOP debate where several presidential hopefuls did not even rule out the use of tactical atomic weapons to deal with Iran's uranium enrichment program.

These are politicians, however, and bashing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran has no political downside. More ominous are the grim words of serious U.S. diplomats and soldiers not usually given to bellicose rhetoric.

On Wednesday, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN that Iran is not only arming the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and insurgents in Iraq.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it's a pattern of activity," said Burns. He added there was no chance the shipments were coming from rebel groups in Iran.

"It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government," said Burns.

NATO officials in Afghanistan say Iranian-made AK-47s, plastic explosives, mortars and one "explosively formed penetrator" bomb that can pierce coalition armor have been intercepted.

On Wednesday, Gen. Petraeus told USA Today's Cesar Soriano Iran is "funding, arming, training and, even in some cases, directing the activities of extremists and militia elements in Iraq."

The flow of arms from Iran into Iraq, said Petraeus, has not diminished since the May 28 meeting between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart.

"The people they (the Iranians) are arming are very, very serious thugs," said Petraeus. The general claims militants armed by Iran kidnapped the British contractors on May 29 and were behind the recent mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone.

What Iran is being publicly charged with here, by responsible U.S. officials, are acts of war – arming insurgents and terrorists to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians.

"As many as 200 American soldiers" may have been killed by Iranians or Iranian-trained insurgents, Lieberman claimed. Petraeus and Nick Burns would not be making these charges publicly if the White House did not want them made publicly.

What is going on? The most logical explanation is that the White House is providing advance justification for air strikes on camps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that are allegedly providing training for and transferring weapons to Afghan and Iraqi insurgents. And if the United States conducts those strikes, Iranians will unite around Ahmadinejad, and Tehran will order retaliatory strikes against U.S. targets in Iraq and perhaps across the Middle East.

President Bush will then have his casus belli to take out Natanz and all the other Iranian nuclear facilities, as the Israelis and the neocons have been demanding that he do. This would mean a third Middle Eastern war for America, with a nation three times as large and populous as Iraq. Perhaps it is time to begin constructing a new wing on Walter Reed.

Which raises the question: Where is the Congress? Why is it not holding public hearings and sifting the evidence to determine if Tehran is behind these attacks on Americans and if the United States has not itself been aiding insurgents inside Iran?

Or is it all up to George W. as to whether we launch a third and wider war in the Middle East, which could result in an economic and strategic disaster for the United States?


..............................................benny

congress knows iran is killing american soldiers but two things are at play here: number one, congress is now lead by liberals who think that we are the bad guys...they think that if we pull out of iraq, all will be right with the world...to them, killing and catching terrorists and taking down leaders that want us all dead is the wrong approach...they think we should apologize for all our many sins against the peaceful arab/muslim nations and crawl home...the second thing is; even some of the most conservative hawks have lost the will to fight, they have seen the media turn iraq into an unpopular fight and are afraid any move vs iran or syria will be bad for elections too....if this generation was in control during ww2, hitler would have won...we get reports of 7 dead soldiers and people scream, "bring the soldiers home, they are dying for nothing!"..can you imagine these same people after hearing thousands of soldiers died at normady? or even after we dropped the bomb on japan...theyd say, how dare us kill those people and win this war, we should apologize and withdraw all our troops from all over the world...guess what would have happened if we pulled out of the pacific...thats right, our enemy would take over all those islands again...guess whats going to happen when we do pull out of the mideast....

ORIGINAL POST: Washington politicians take note: Gaza is what can happen when you precipitously pull your military forces out of a Middle Eastern war zone without making sure there is in place a truly democratic government and adequately trained and armed security forces capable of insuring law and order....in the summer of 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted on a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza saying the occupation wasn't working and the Israeli people were tired and ready to come home....such a bold move would be a sign of goodwill, Sharon insisted, to the Palestinian people and the entire Arab and Islamic world, evidence of Israel's goodwill and desire for peace....but even close allies of Sharon -- chief among them Bibi Netanyahu and Natan Sharansky, both of whom were serving at the time in Sharon's cabinet -- warned that such a unilateral withdrawal would be read by Israel's enemies not as a sign of goodwill but as signs of weakness and surrender....Gaza would not become a model of peace and prosperity, they cautioned, but the scene of a full blown civil war that could give rise to "Hamastan," a deadly new base camp for radical Islamic jihadists....sadly, that is exactly what has happened....with at least 113 Palestinians dead so far and hundreds more wounded in raging street battles between Hamas and Fatah, Hamas now appears to have gained full control of the Gaza Strip....there have been reports that Hamas commanders are executing Fatah leaders in front of their families....Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dissolved the government and declared a "state of emergency"....now, "Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, an independent, has been chosen [by Abbas] as the new Palestinian prime minister," reports Haaretz. "Fayyad, who is well-respected by the international community, would replace Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who was fired by Abbas on Thursday, after Hamas took control of Gaza by force"....there is talk of putting in an international peacekeeping force, though I doubt there will be much immediate interest in this....meanwhile, there is a growing fear in the Arab world -- particularly in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq -- that radical Islamic jihadists could seize control of their governments as well....how will the disaster in Gaza play out over the next few weeks?....it's too early to say for certain, but even at this early stage two things are clear: 1) Iran's efforts to surround Israel and prepare to "wipe Israel off the map" has just been significantly advanced and thus the prospect for a full-blown war in the Middle East this summer or fall now seems more likely, not less; and 2) U.S. politicians had better think twice about a precipitous withdrawal of American military forces in Iraq before the Iraqis are ready unless they want a repeat of the nightmare now unfolding in Gaza.

....................................benny ....P.S.....Joel Rosenberg,.. released his books putting End Times events into a plausible storyline, and his storylines have come true almost to a tee. Not once, not twice, but three times. He understands what is going on in the Middle East. It was beyond coincidence. These "stories" were written before the "actualities" came to pass.

He comes from a long background as an advisor in Washington on Middle East studies. He was the advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, Steve Forbes, and Rush Limbaugh among others.

JPost.com » Iran » Article


Jun. 16, 2007 20:07
Iran to Palestinians: Fight against the Zionists
By JPOST.COM STAFF
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Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini called Saturday on Palestinians to unite and continue their struggle against Israel.

"We believe that the Palestinian factions need to overcome their differences and begin a united campaign against the Zionist enemy to end the occupation of the homeland and bring about the return of robbed rights," said Hosseini.

Iran was ready to aid the factions in their negotiations in order to restore an understanding between them, Hosseini added.


..............................................benny

US debate over Iran strategy erupts
By JPOST.COM STAFF
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Talkbacks for this article: 8

A debate on US strategy regarding how the country plans to deal with Iran's nuclear program within President George Bush's administration has broken out. According to a New York Times report Saturday, a split between those favoring a diplomatic solution and those demanding the use of military force has intensified.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her deputies apparently hold more leverage with their stance on dealing with Teheran through negotiations, and not militarily. Members of Vice President Dick Cheney's office, who have had less influence on decision-making, are pressing for the US to put more effort into considering strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, said the report.


Opinion: Quiet, America is sleeping
Since Rice announced the new strategy for the US to collaborate with Europe, Russia and China to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that approximately 8,000 could be functioning by the end of 2007.

"Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran's leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country's facilities is still an option," said the Times.
................................................benny

Pat Buchanan

On the Escalator to War With Iran

Fri Jun 15, 3:00 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070615/...NGSZ0ADQX9wxIF

These are the "birth pangs" of a "new Middle East," said Condi Rice last summer, as Israel pounded Lebanon. Unfortunately, the new Middle East may make us all pray for the return of the old.

Hamas is today engaged in savage street-fighting with Fatah for control of Gaza. If Hamas prevails, it could convert this Palestinian enclave into a terrorist base camp between Israel and Egypt.

In northern Lebanon, Islamic jihadists are battling the army for control of a Palestinian refugee camp. Scores are dead.

On Wednesday, a seventh parliamentarian was assassinated with his son in a Beirut car bomb attack.

In Samarra, the Golden Mosque was attacked again on Wednesday, collapsing the two minarets that survived last year's bombing. Gen. David Petraeus is grim about the consequences of what he says was an al-Qaida attack to escalate the Sunni-Shia war.

With Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan convulsed by ever-widening civil wars, a new danger is that the United States, tied down in two of those wars, may be about to lash out and launch a third — on Iran.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Joe Lieberman blurted on "Face the Nation," adding, "To me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training those people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

"If there's any hope of ... stopping their nuclear weapons development," Lieberman said, "we can't just talk to them."

Joe's call for air strikes follows the GOP debate where several presidential hopefuls did not even rule out the use of tactical atomic weapons to deal with Iran's uranium enrichment program.

These are politicians, however, and bashing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran has no political downside. More ominous are the grim words of serious U.S. diplomats and soldiers not usually given to bellicose rhetoric.

On Wednesday, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN that Iran is not only arming the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and insurgents in Iraq.

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it's a pattern of activity," said Burns. He added there was no chance the shipments were coming from rebel groups in Iran.

"It's certainly coming from the government of Iran. It's coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government," said Burns.

NATO officials in Afghanistan say Iranian-made AK-47s, plastic explosives, mortars and one "explosively formed penetrator" bomb that can pierce coalition armor have been intercepted.

On Wednesday, Gen. Petraeus told USA Today's Cesar Soriano that Iran is "funding, arming, training and, even in some cases, directing the activities of extremists and militia elements in Iraq."

The flow of arms from Iran into Iraq, said Petraeus, has not diminished since the May 28 meeting between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart.

"The people they (the Iranians) are arming are very, very serious thugs," said Petraeus. The general claims that militants armed by Iran kidnapped the British contractors on May 29 and were behind the recent mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone.

What Iran is being publicly charged with here, by responsible U.S. officials, are acts of war — arming insurgents and terrorists to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians.

"As many as 200 American soldiers" may have been killed by Iranians or Iranian-trained insurgents, Lieberman claimed. Petraeus and Nick Burns would not be making these charges publicly if the White House did not want them made publicly.

What is going on? The most logical explanation is that the White House is providing advance justification for air strikes on camps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that are allegedly providing training for and transferring weapons to Afghan and Iraqi insurgents. And if the United States conducts those strikes, Iranians will unite around Ahmadinejad, and Tehran will order retaliatory strikes against U.S. targets in Iraq and perhaps across the Middle East.

President Bush will then have his casus belli to take out Natanz and all the other Iranian nuclear facilities, as the Israelis and the neocons have been demanding that he do. This would mean a third Middle Eastern war for America, with a nation three times as large and populous as Iraq. Perhaps it is time to begin constructing a new wing on Walter Reed.

Which raises the question: Where is the Congress? Why is it not holding public hearings and sifting the evidence to determine