10 plus years of senseless fighting, 1 Trillion dollars wasted, stolen, plundered, and lost. Thousands of soldiers dead, wounded, and maimed for life. And not one OBJECTIVE gained. The Taliban had absolutely NOTHING to do with 911! Iraq also, Nothing gained from MONUMENTAL Military Blunder and waste of time! TOTAL FAILURE! And yet the stupid morons who make up the voting electorate in America, both DEMOCRAP AND REPUBLICRAP want more war with Iran!
Source-UK DAILY MAIL TALIBAN VICTORY OVER AMERICA!
Source-BBC NEWS/NATO REPORT IMPLICATES PAKISTAN ISI....
The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.
The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.
It alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.
Pakistan has strenuously denied any links with the Taliban on previous occasions.
"We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks," said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not seen the report.
'Informational'
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Taliban.
The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly". It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
The report states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."
Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.
Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was "a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public".
"It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances," he said.
The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.
It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing, he adds.
Taliban influence
Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants peace talks with the Taliban
In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.
It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption."
The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato's withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.
It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army.
When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.
However according to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.
Follow BBC Kabul correspondent Quentin Sommerville on Twitter @mrsommerville
The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.
The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.
It alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.
Pakistan has strenuously denied any links with the Taliban on previous occasions.
"We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks," said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not seen the report.
'Informational'
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Taliban.
The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly". It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
The report states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."
Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.
Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was "a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public".
"It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances," he said.
The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.
It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing, he adds.
Taliban influence
Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants peace talks with the Taliban
In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.
It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption."
The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato's withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.
It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army.
When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.
However according to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.
Follow BBC Kabul correspondent Quentin Sommerville on Twitter @mrsommerville
Source-Asia Times/The Crash and Burn of Drone Warfare.
The crash and burn of drone warfare
By Nick Turse
American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly. What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a ruinous turn. In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was all over. The Predator, one of the US Air Force's workhorse hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated.
An account of the spectacular end of that nearly US$4 million drone in November 2007 is contained in a collection of air force accident investigation documents recently examined by TomDispatch. They catalog more than 70 catastrophic air force
drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more.
These official reports, some obtained by TomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act, offer new insights into a largely covert, yet highly touted war-fighting, assassination and spy program involving armed robots that are significantly less reliable than previously acknowledged.
These planes, the latest wonder weapons in the US military arsenal, are tested, launched and piloted from a shadowy network of more than 60 bases spread around the globe, often in support of elite teams of special operations forces. Collectively, the air force documents offer a remarkable portrait of modern drone warfare, one rarely found in a decade of generally triumphalist or awestruck press accounts that seldom mention the limitations of drones, much less their mission failures.
The aerial disasters described draw attention not only to the technical limitations of drone warfare, but to larger conceptual flaws inherent in such operations.
Launched and landed by aircrews close to battlefields in places like Afghanistan, the drones are controlled during missions by pilots and sensor operators - often multiple teams over many hours - from bases in places like Nevada and North Dakota. They are sometimes also monitored by "screeners" from private security contractors at stateside bases like Hurlburt Field in Florida. (A recent McClatchy report revealed that it takes nearly 170 people to keep a single Predator in the air for 24 hours.)
In other words, drone missions, like the robots themselves, have many moving parts and much, it turns out, can and does go wrong.
In that November 2007 Predator incident in Iraq, for instance, an electronic failure caused the robotic aircraft to engage its self-destruct mechanism and crash, after which US jets destroyed the wreckage to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
In other cases, drones - officially known as remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs - broke down, escaped human control and oversight, or self-destructed for reasons ranging from pilot error and bad weather to mechanical failure in Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Gulf of Aden, Iraq, Kuwait and various other unspecified or classified foreign locations, as well as in the United States.
In 2001, air force Predator drones flew 7,500 hours. By the close of last year, that number topped 70,000. As the tempo of robotic air operations has steadily increased, crashes have, not surprisingly, become more frequent. In 2001, just two drones were destroyed in accidents. In 2008, eight drones fell from the sky. Last year, the number reached 13. (Accident rates are, however, dropping according to an air force report relying on figures from 2009.)
Keep in mind that the 70-plus accidents recorded in those air force documents represent only drone crashes investigated by the air force under a rigid set of rules. Many other drone mishaps have not been included in the air force statistics.
Examples include a haywire MQ-9 Reaper drone that had to be shot out of the Afghan skies by a fighter jet in 2009, a remotely-operated navy helicopter that went down in Libya last June, an unmanned aerial vehicle whose camera was reportedly taken by Afghan insurgents after a crash in August 2011, an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel lost during a spy mission in Iran last December, and the recent crash of an MQ-9 Reaper in the Seychelles Islands.
You don't need a weatherman ... or do you?
How missions are carried out - and sometimes fail - is apparent from the declassified reports, including one provided to TomDispatch by the air force detailing a June 2011 crash. Late that month, a Predator drone took off from Jalalabad air base in Afghanistan to carry out a surveillance mission in support of ground forces.
Piloted by a member of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the robotic craft ran into rough weather, causing the pilot to ask for permission to abandon the troops below.
His commander never had a chance to respond. Lacking weather avoidance equipment found on more sophisticated aircraft or on-board sensors to clue the pilot in to rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, and with a sandstorm interfering with ground radar, "severe weather effects" overtook the Predator.
In an instant, the satellite link between pilot and plane was severed. When it momentarily flickered back to life, the crew could see that the drone was in an extreme nosedive. They then lost the datalink for a second and final time. A few minutes later, troops on the ground radioed in to say that the $4 million drone had crashed near them.
A month earlier, a Predator drone took off from the tiny African nation of Djibouti in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in Afghanistan as well as Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia, among other nations.
According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, about eight hours into the flight, the mission crew noticed a slow oil leak. Ten hours later, they handed the drone off to a local aircrew whose assignment was to land it at Djibouti's Ambouli Airport, a joint civilian/military facility adjacent to Camp Lemonier, a US base in the country.
That mission crew - both the pilot and sensor operator - had been deployed from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and had logged a combined 1,700 hours flying Predators. They were considered "experienced" by the air force. On this day, however, the electronic sensors that measure their drone's altitude were inaccurate, while low clouds and high humidity affected its infrared sensors and set the stage for disaster.
An investigation eventually found that, had the crew performed proper instrument cross-checks, they would have noticed a 300-400 foot (100-135 meters) discrepancy in their altitude. Instead, only when the RPA broke through the clouds did the sensor operator realize just how close to the ground it was. Six seconds later, the drone crashed to earth, destroying itself and one of its Hellfire missiles.
Storms, clouds, humidity and human error aren't the only natural dangers for drones. In a November 2008 incident, a mission crew at Kandahar Air Field launched a Predator on a windy day. Just five minutes into the flight, with the aircraft still above the sprawling American mega-base, the pilot realized that the plane had already deviated from its intended course.
To get it back on track, he initiated a turn that - due to the aggressive nature of the maneuver, wind conditions, drone design and the unbalanced weight of a missile on just one wing - sent the plane into a roll. Despite the pilot's best efforts, the craft entered a tailspin, crashed on the base, and burst into flames.
Going rogue
On occasion, RPAs have simply escaped from human control. Over the course of eight hours on a late February day in 2009, for example, five different crews passed off the controls of a Predator drone, one to the next, as it flew over Iraq.
The crash and burn of drone warfare
By Nick Turse
American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly. What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a ruinous turn. In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was all over. The Predator, one of the US Air Force's workhorse hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated.
An account of the spectacular end of that nearly US$4 million drone in November 2007 is contained in a collection of air force accident investigation documents recently examined by TomDispatch. They catalog more than 70 catastrophic air force
drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more.
These official reports, some obtained by TomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act, offer new insights into a largely covert, yet highly touted war-fighting, assassination and spy program involving armed robots that are significantly less reliable than previously acknowledged.
These planes, the latest wonder weapons in the US military arsenal, are tested, launched and piloted from a shadowy network of more than 60 bases spread around the globe, often in support of elite teams of special operations forces. Collectively, the air force documents offer a remarkable portrait of modern drone warfare, one rarely found in a decade of generally triumphalist or awestruck press accounts that seldom mention the limitations of drones, much less their mission failures.
The aerial disasters described draw attention not only to the technical limitations of drone warfare, but to larger conceptual flaws inherent in such operations.
Launched and landed by aircrews close to battlefields in places like Afghanistan, the drones are controlled during missions by pilots and sensor operators - often multiple teams over many hours - from bases in places like Nevada and North Dakota. They are sometimes also monitored by "screeners" from private security contractors at stateside bases like Hurlburt Field in Florida. (A recent McClatchy report revealed that it takes nearly 170 people to keep a single Predator in the air for 24 hours.)
In other words, drone missions, like the robots themselves, have many moving parts and much, it turns out, can and does go wrong.
In that November 2007 Predator incident in Iraq, for instance, an electronic failure caused the robotic aircraft to engage its self-destruct mechanism and crash, after which US jets destroyed the wreckage to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
In other cases, drones - officially known as remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs - broke down, escaped human control and oversight, or self-destructed for reasons ranging from pilot error and bad weather to mechanical failure in Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Gulf of Aden, Iraq, Kuwait and various other unspecified or classified foreign locations, as well as in the United States.
In 2001, air force Predator drones flew 7,500 hours. By the close of last year, that number topped 70,000. As the tempo of robotic air operations has steadily increased, crashes have, not surprisingly, become more frequent. In 2001, just two drones were destroyed in accidents. In 2008, eight drones fell from the sky. Last year, the number reached 13. (Accident rates are, however, dropping according to an air force report relying on figures from 2009.)
Keep in mind that the 70-plus accidents recorded in those air force documents represent only drone crashes investigated by the air force under a rigid set of rules. Many other drone mishaps have not been included in the air force statistics.
Examples include a haywire MQ-9 Reaper drone that had to be shot out of the Afghan skies by a fighter jet in 2009, a remotely-operated navy helicopter that went down in Libya last June, an unmanned aerial vehicle whose camera was reportedly taken by Afghan insurgents after a crash in August 2011, an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel lost during a spy mission in Iran last December, and the recent crash of an MQ-9 Reaper in the Seychelles Islands.
You don't need a weatherman ... or do you?
How missions are carried out - and sometimes fail - is apparent from the declassified reports, including one provided to TomDispatch by the air force detailing a June 2011 crash. Late that month, a Predator drone took off from Jalalabad air base in Afghanistan to carry out a surveillance mission in support of ground forces.
Piloted by a member of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the robotic craft ran into rough weather, causing the pilot to ask for permission to abandon the troops below.
His commander never had a chance to respond. Lacking weather avoidance equipment found on more sophisticated aircraft or on-board sensors to clue the pilot in to rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, and with a sandstorm interfering with ground radar, "severe weather effects" overtook the Predator.
In an instant, the satellite link between pilot and plane was severed. When it momentarily flickered back to life, the crew could see that the drone was in an extreme nosedive. They then lost the datalink for a second and final time. A few minutes later, troops on the ground radioed in to say that the $4 million drone had crashed near them.
A month earlier, a Predator drone took off from the tiny African nation of Djibouti in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations in Afghanistan as well as Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia, among other nations.
According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, about eight hours into the flight, the mission crew noticed a slow oil leak. Ten hours later, they handed the drone off to a local aircrew whose assignment was to land it at Djibouti's Ambouli Airport, a joint civilian/military facility adjacent to Camp Lemonier, a US base in the country.
That mission crew - both the pilot and sensor operator - had been deployed from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and had logged a combined 1,700 hours flying Predators. They were considered "experienced" by the air force. On this day, however, the electronic sensors that measure their drone's altitude were inaccurate, while low clouds and high humidity affected its infrared sensors and set the stage for disaster.
An investigation eventually found that, had the crew performed proper instrument cross-checks, they would have noticed a 300-400 foot (100-135 meters) discrepancy in their altitude. Instead, only when the RPA broke through the clouds did the sensor operator realize just how close to the ground it was. Six seconds later, the drone crashed to earth, destroying itself and one of its Hellfire missiles.
Storms, clouds, humidity and human error aren't the only natural dangers for drones. In a November 2008 incident, a mission crew at Kandahar Air Field launched a Predator on a windy day. Just five minutes into the flight, with the aircraft still above the sprawling American mega-base, the pilot realized that the plane had already deviated from its intended course.
To get it back on track, he initiated a turn that - due to the aggressive nature of the maneuver, wind conditions, drone design and the unbalanced weight of a missile on just one wing - sent the plane into a roll. Despite the pilot's best efforts, the craft entered a tailspin, crashed on the base, and burst into flames.
Going rogue
On occasion, RPAs have simply escaped from human control. Over the course of eight hours on a late February day in 2009, for example, five different crews passed off the controls of a Predator drone, one to the next, as it flew over Iraq.
Source-Asia Times/Drone Crashes Part 2
Source-Russia Today/Israeli Drone Crash
The Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle Heron TP, also known as the IAI Eitan, has crashed during a test flight near the Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli radio reported that the Heron TP exploded after the crash. Nobody on the ground has been injured.
The Israeli Air Force says technical failure or human factor could have caused the incident.
The IAI Eitan was passed into service in February 2010.
The all-weather fully-automatic UAV was designed for strategic reconnaissance and carries a whole payload of sensors, optical and infrared cameras and is equipped for fire-control, also reportedly having assault capabilities. Thought to be the biggest UAV in the world, it is capable of reaching Iran.
With a wingspan of 26 meters, the IAI Eitan resembles a small airliner, though it weights only four tons. With a cruise speed of 300 kilometers per hour, it can stay in the air for up to 36 hours, and is able to cover a distance of 10,000 kilometers. Its payload is up to 1.8 tons.
Tel Nof airbase, or Air Force Base 8, is one of Israel’s three principal airbases. It was opened by the British as the UK’s main airbase on Palestinian territory, and used to be known as Ekron Airbase.
The Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle Heron TP, also known as the IAI Eitan, has crashed during a test flight near the Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.
Israeli radio reported that the Heron TP exploded after the crash. Nobody on the ground has been injured.
The Israeli Air Force says technical failure or human factor could have caused the incident.
The IAI Eitan was passed into service in February 2010.
The all-weather fully-automatic UAV was designed for strategic reconnaissance and carries a whole payload of sensors, optical and infrared cameras and is equipped for fire-control, also reportedly having assault capabilities. Thought to be the biggest UAV in the world, it is capable of reaching Iran.
With a wingspan of 26 meters, the IAI Eitan resembles a small airliner, though it weights only four tons. With a cruise speed of 300 kilometers per hour, it can stay in the air for up to 36 hours, and is able to cover a distance of 10,000 kilometers. Its payload is up to 1.8 tons.
Tel Nof airbase, or Air Force Base 8, is one of Israel’s three principal airbases. It was opened by the British as the UK’s main airbase on Palestinian territory, and used to be known as Ekron Airbase.
Source-AlJazeera.com/Street fighting Damascus Syria
Fighting is continuing in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, according to activists, as Syrian security forces appeared to be re-asserting their control over the restive fringes of the country's capital.
Activists reported on Monday that the Free Syrian Army, armed defectors fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule, had launched scattered attacks on government troops in the district of Saqba, which was reported in recent days to have been under opposition control.
An activist named Kamal, speaking to the Reuters news agency by telephone from the Al-Ghouta area on the eastern edge of the capital, said that security forces had re-occupied the suburbs.
"The Free Syrian Army has made a tactical withdrawal. Regime forces have re-occupied the suburbs and started making house-to-house arrests," he said.
A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army appeared to confirm that account.
Meanwhile, state media said "terrorists" had blown up a gas pipeline in the central provoince of Homs, causing a leak of about 460,000 cubic metres of gas.
The escalation in violence comes days after the Arab League suspended its beleaguered observer mission in the country, where activists have been calling for Assad to step down since last March.
Tanks rolling in
Activists inside Damascus told Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught that tanks had rolled into Al-Ghouta, within 10km of the city centre.
“Activists say it is the fiercest violence they have witnessed in months,” our correspondent reported. “There are fires burning all over Syria, some say almost too many for the army to deploy all over the place.”
Activists said there were 64 people killed in fighting across the country on Sunday, including three children and two defected recruits, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an activist network.
In the suburbs of Damascus, there were 16 deaths, in Kafar Batna, Saqba, Hamourya, Rankoos, Zabadany and Harasta.
At least 19 people were reported killed in Homs, 15 in Hama, five in Idlib, four in Deraa and three in Saraqeb, Deir Ezzor and Damascus, the LCC said.
At least 23 security forces were also killed, state TV reported.
The latest casualties add to the UN's toll of 5,400 people killed in the government's 10-month crackdown on protesters.
Amateur video appeared to show tanks rolling in to Al-Ghouta and Zamalka to the east amid unconfirmed reports that the shelling had destroyed homes with people inside.
In the southern province of Deraa, there were reports that security forces had killed two students when they broke into a school in the town of Jasim.
Arab League condemned
Russia on Sunday strongly criticised the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission in Syria, saying the situation demands additional deployment of monitors and not their suspension.
"We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said during a visit to Brunei.
"I would support an increased number of observers," Lavrov said. "We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers' mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission."
Our correspondent said Russia's support for Asad's government remained crucial. “What we understand is until he feels Russia will stop backing him, Bashar al-Assad will tough it out,” she said.
The Arab League suspended its observer mission on Saturday as the bloodshed in a crackdown on anti-government protests gathered momentum. Several hundred people have died in the past four days alone.
Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Assad's government.
"I think these are very irresponsible statements because trying to sabotage a chance to calm the situation is absolutely unforgivable," he said.
Syria also voiced its dismay and surprise over the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission.
"This will have a negative impact and put pressure on [Security Council] deliberations with the aim of calling for foreign intervention and encouraging armed groups to increase violence," Syria Television reported on Saturday.
Nabil Elaraby, the Arab League chief, travelled to New York on Sunday seeking to win support from the UN Security Council for a plan to end violence in Syria by asking Assad to step aside.
"We will hold several meetings with representatives from members of the Security Council to obtain the council's support and agreement to the Arab initiative," Elaraby told reporters at Cairo airport shortly before leaving for New York.
The bloc said about 100 observers would remain in the country but would not undertake new missions.
The mission has been widely criticised by the Syrian opposition for failing to end the government's crackdown on protests.
Fighting is continuing in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, according to activists, as Syrian security forces appeared to be re-asserting their control over the restive fringes of the country's capital.
Activists reported on Monday that the Free Syrian Army, armed defectors fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule, had launched scattered attacks on government troops in the district of Saqba, which was reported in recent days to have been under opposition control.
An activist named Kamal, speaking to the Reuters news agency by telephone from the Al-Ghouta area on the eastern edge of the capital, said that security forces had re-occupied the suburbs.
"The Free Syrian Army has made a tactical withdrawal. Regime forces have re-occupied the suburbs and started making house-to-house arrests," he said.
A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army appeared to confirm that account.
Meanwhile, state media said "terrorists" had blown up a gas pipeline in the central provoince of Homs, causing a leak of about 460,000 cubic metres of gas.
The escalation in violence comes days after the Arab League suspended its beleaguered observer mission in the country, where activists have been calling for Assad to step down since last March.
Tanks rolling in
Activists inside Damascus told Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught that tanks had rolled into Al-Ghouta, within 10km of the city centre.
“Activists say it is the fiercest violence they have witnessed in months,” our correspondent reported. “There are fires burning all over Syria, some say almost too many for the army to deploy all over the place.”
Activists said there were 64 people killed in fighting across the country on Sunday, including three children and two defected recruits, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an activist network.
In the suburbs of Damascus, there were 16 deaths, in Kafar Batna, Saqba, Hamourya, Rankoos, Zabadany and Harasta.
At least 19 people were reported killed in Homs, 15 in Hama, five in Idlib, four in Deraa and three in Saraqeb, Deir Ezzor and Damascus, the LCC said.
At least 23 security forces were also killed, state TV reported.
The latest casualties add to the UN's toll of 5,400 people killed in the government's 10-month crackdown on protesters.
Amateur video appeared to show tanks rolling in to Al-Ghouta and Zamalka to the east amid unconfirmed reports that the shelling had destroyed homes with people inside.
In the southern province of Deraa, there were reports that security forces had killed two students when they broke into a school in the town of Jasim.
Arab League condemned
Russia on Sunday strongly criticised the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission in Syria, saying the situation demands additional deployment of monitors and not their suspension.
"We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way," Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said during a visit to Brunei.
"I would support an increased number of observers," Lavrov said. "We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers' mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission."
Our correspondent said Russia's support for Asad's government remained crucial. “What we understand is until he feels Russia will stop backing him, Bashar al-Assad will tough it out,” she said.
The Arab League suspended its observer mission on Saturday as the bloodshed in a crackdown on anti-government protests gathered momentum. Several hundred people have died in the past four days alone.
Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Assad's government.
"I think these are very irresponsible statements because trying to sabotage a chance to calm the situation is absolutely unforgivable," he said.
Syria also voiced its dismay and surprise over the Arab League decision to halt its observer mission.
"This will have a negative impact and put pressure on [Security Council] deliberations with the aim of calling for foreign intervention and encouraging armed groups to increase violence," Syria Television reported on Saturday.
Nabil Elaraby, the Arab League chief, travelled to New York on Sunday seeking to win support from the UN Security Council for a plan to end violence in Syria by asking Assad to step aside.
"We will hold several meetings with representatives from members of the Security Council to obtain the council's support and agreement to the Arab initiative," Elaraby told reporters at Cairo airport shortly before leaving for New York.
The bloc said about 100 observers would remain in the country but would not undertake new missions.
The mission has been widely criticised by the Syrian opposition for failing to end the government's crackdown on protests.
Source-Asia Times
Growing elite opposition to strike on Iran
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Like the imminent prospect of one's hanging, to paraphrase the 18th century British essayist Dr (Samuel) Johnson, the suddenly looming possibility of war can concentrate the mind wonderfully.
If that aphorism didn't apply in the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq nearly 10 years ago, it appears to be the case now for key sectors of the US foreign-policy elite - notably, liberal hawks who supported the Iraq war - with regard to the sharp rise in tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel earlier this month.
Amid a crescendo of threats by senior Israeli officials to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the murder, presumably by Mossad, of a fifth Iranian nuclear scientist in the past several years, and a sharp escalation of Western economic sanctions designed to "cripple" Iran's economy, Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz brought the until-then hypothetical possibility of war - whether by design, provocation or accident - sharply into view.
The hawkish declarations by Republican presidential candidates eager to prove their love for Israel to Christian fundamentalists and Jewish voters and donors didn't help, nor did a renewed and intensified drumbeat for "regime change" by some of the same neo-conservatives from institutions like the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies that led the drive to war in Iraq.
Adding to the sense that war was suddenly a very real possibility, these events more or less coincided with the publication by the influential Foreign Affairs journal of an article entitled "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option''. It advocated a limited and carefully calibrated US aerial attack on Iran's air defenses and nuclear sites, and was authored by an academic, Matthew Kroenig, who had just completed a one-year stint as a strategic analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.
The confluence of all these developments provoked a number of influential members of the foreign policy establishment - including several prominent liberal interventionists who had supported the Iraq war - to warn against any further escalation either by the US or Israel.
"We're doing this terrible thing all over again," wrote Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the think-tank that publishes Foreign Affairs, in the Daily Beast, in an appeal for senate hearings on the implications of war with Iran.
"As before, we're letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw 'red line' ultimatums. As before, we're letting them quick-march us off to war," warned Gelb, a repentant Iraq-war hawk, about the chorus of neo-conservatives and other hawks with whom he had previously been aligned.
On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top Central Intelligence Agency analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counter-productive.
"The problem is that these sanctions [against the central bank of Iran] are potentially so damaging that they could backfire," he wrote, citing their possible negative impact on the West's own struggling economies and the difficulty of sustaining them diplomatically over time if they resulted in the kind of "humanitarian catastrophe" inflicted by the sanctions regime against Iraq from 1992 until the invasion in 2003.
Moreover, he went on, "The more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation. Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants."
Meanwhile, another influential liberal hawk, Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, argued in project-syndicate.org that the West and Iran were playing a "dangerous game" of "chicken" and that the West's current course "leaves Iran's government no alternative between publicly backing down, which it will not do, and escalating its provocations."
"The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian leaders can portray America as the Great Satan to parts of the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the US as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the "Iran Six" - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - and Iran be revived.
Yet another Iraq hawk, New York Times columnist Bill Keller, attacked the Foreign Affairs article, assuring his readers that Kroenig's former colleagues at the Pentagon "were pretty appalled by his article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America's ability to make things better."
Contrary to Kroenig's predictions, Keller wrote, "An attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] to redouble Iran's nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent."
Indeed, in a reply to Kroenig entitled "Not Time to Attack Iran", Colin Kahl, who had also just left the Pentagon at the end of December after two years as the head of Middle East policy, argued that Kroenig's "picture of a clean, calibrated conflict is a mirage. Any war with Iran would be a messy and extraordinarily violent affair, with significant casualties and consequences."
Among other objections, Kahl, a senior fellow at the hawkish Center for a New American Security, predicted that a pre-emptive strike of the kind promoted by Kroenig could well spark a regional war, solidify popular support for the regime in Tehran, and transform "the Arab Spring's populist anti-regime narrative into a decidedly anti-American one".
Indeed, much of Kahl's analysis was subsequently backed up by General Michael Hayden (retired), who, as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency during George W Bush's second term, could hardly be called a liberal.
According to the "Cable" blog on foreign policy.com, Hayden, who served as the head of the Pentagon's National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, told a small group convened at the Center for National Interest last week that top Bush national security officials had concluded that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - whether by Israel or the US - would be counter-productive.
The Israelis, he reportedly said, "aren't going to [attack Iran]. They can't do it, it's beyond their capacity. They only have the ability to make this [problem of Iran's nuclear program] worse."
And while the US has the ability to mount a campaign, it could only serve as a short-term fix. "What's move two, three, four or five down the board? I don't think anyone is talking about occupying anything."
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
European Union Economic Collapse
Growing elite opposition to strike on Iran
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Like the imminent prospect of one's hanging, to paraphrase the 18th century British essayist Dr (Samuel) Johnson, the suddenly looming possibility of war can concentrate the mind wonderfully.
If that aphorism didn't apply in the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq nearly 10 years ago, it appears to be the case now for key sectors of the US foreign-policy elite - notably, liberal hawks who supported the Iraq war - with regard to the sharp rise in tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel earlier this month.
Amid a crescendo of threats by senior Israeli officials to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the murder, presumably by Mossad, of a fifth Iranian nuclear scientist in the past several years, and a sharp escalation of Western economic sanctions designed to "cripple" Iran's economy, Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz brought the until-then hypothetical possibility of war - whether by design, provocation or accident - sharply into view.
The hawkish declarations by Republican presidential candidates eager to prove their love for Israel to Christian fundamentalists and Jewish voters and donors didn't help, nor did a renewed and intensified drumbeat for "regime change" by some of the same neo-conservatives from institutions like the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies that led the drive to war in Iraq.
Adding to the sense that war was suddenly a very real possibility, these events more or less coincided with the publication by the influential Foreign Affairs journal of an article entitled "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike is the Least Bad Option''. It advocated a limited and carefully calibrated US aerial attack on Iran's air defenses and nuclear sites, and was authored by an academic, Matthew Kroenig, who had just completed a one-year stint as a strategic analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.
The confluence of all these developments provoked a number of influential members of the foreign policy establishment - including several prominent liberal interventionists who had supported the Iraq war - to warn against any further escalation either by the US or Israel.
"We're doing this terrible thing all over again," wrote Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the think-tank that publishes Foreign Affairs, in the Daily Beast, in an appeal for senate hearings on the implications of war with Iran.
"As before, we're letting a bunch of ignorant, sloppy-thinking politicians and politicized foreign-policy experts draw 'red line' ultimatums. As before, we're letting them quick-march us off to war," warned Gelb, a repentant Iraq-war hawk, about the chorus of neo-conservatives and other hawks with whom he had previously been aligned.
On the pages of The New Republic, Kenneth Pollack, a former top Central Intelligence Agency analyst at the Brookings Institution whose 2002 book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, was cited frequently by liberal hawks before the war, argued not only against any further escalation, but also suggested that the sanctions track on which the Barack Obama administration and the European Union have increasingly relied was proving counter-productive.
"The problem is that these sanctions [against the central bank of Iran] are potentially so damaging that they could backfire," he wrote, citing their possible negative impact on the West's own struggling economies and the difficulty of sustaining them diplomatically over time if they resulted in the kind of "humanitarian catastrophe" inflicted by the sanctions regime against Iraq from 1992 until the invasion in 2003.
Moreover, he went on, "The more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation. Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants."
Meanwhile, another influential liberal hawk, Princeton Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, argued in project-syndicate.org that the West and Iran were playing a "dangerous game" of "chicken" and that the West's current course "leaves Iran's government no alternative between publicly backing down, which it will not do, and escalating its provocations."
"The more publicly the West threatens Iran, the more easily Iranian leaders can portray America as the Great Satan to parts of the Iranian population that have recently been inclined to see the US as their friend," wrote Slaughter, who stepped down as director of the policy planning office under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"It is time for cooler heads to prevail with a strategy that helps Iran step back," she added, suggesting that the aborted Turkish- Brazilian 2010 effort at mediation between the "Iran Six" - the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany - and Iran be revived.
Yet another Iraq hawk, New York Times columnist Bill Keller, attacked the Foreign Affairs article, assuring his readers that Kroenig's former colleagues at the Pentagon "were pretty appalled by his article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America's ability to make things better."
Contrary to Kroenig's predictions, Keller wrote, "An attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] to redouble Iran's nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent."
Indeed, in a reply to Kroenig entitled "Not Time to Attack Iran", Colin Kahl, who had also just left the Pentagon at the end of December after two years as the head of Middle East policy, argued that Kroenig's "picture of a clean, calibrated conflict is a mirage. Any war with Iran would be a messy and extraordinarily violent affair, with significant casualties and consequences."
Among other objections, Kahl, a senior fellow at the hawkish Center for a New American Security, predicted that a pre-emptive strike of the kind promoted by Kroenig could well spark a regional war, solidify popular support for the regime in Tehran, and transform "the Arab Spring's populist anti-regime narrative into a decidedly anti-American one".
Indeed, much of Kahl's analysis was subsequently backed up by General Michael Hayden (retired), who, as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency during George W Bush's second term, could hardly be called a liberal.
According to the "Cable" blog on foreign policy.com, Hayden, who served as the head of the Pentagon's National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, told a small group convened at the Center for National Interest last week that top Bush national security officials had concluded that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - whether by Israel or the US - would be counter-productive.
The Israelis, he reportedly said, "aren't going to [attack Iran]. They can't do it, it's beyond their capacity. They only have the ability to make this [problem of Iran's nuclear program] worse."
And while the US has the ability to mount a campaign, it could only serve as a short-term fix. "What's move two, three, four or five down the board? I don't think anyone is talking about occupying anything."
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
European Union Economic Collapse
Source-Asia Times/Iranian Oil Embargo blowback on Europe!
The Iranian oil embargo blowback
By Pepe Escobar
If the sorry parade of European poodles - or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies - had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal.
Better yet; death metal. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) will discuss this Sunday, in an open section, whether to cancel right away all oil exports to any European country that approved the embargo - according to Emad Hosseini, the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Committee. And that comes with the requisite apocalyptic warning, relayed via the Fars news agency, courtesy of member of Parliament Nasser Soudani: "Europe will burn in the fire of Iran's oil wells."
Soudani expresses the views of the whole Tehran establishment
when he says that "the structure of their [Europe's] refineries is compatible with Iran's oil", and so Europeans have no alternative as replacement; the embargo "will cause an increase in oil prices, and the Europeans will be compelled to buy oil at higher prices"; that is, Europe "will be compelled to buy Iran's oil indirectly and through intermediaries".
According to the EU sanctions package, all existing contracts will be respected only until July 1 - and no new contracts are allowed. Now imagine if this pre-emptive Iranian legislation is voted within the next few days. Crisis-hit Club Med countries such as Spain and especially Italy and Greece will be dealt a deathblow, having no time to find a possible alternative to Iran's light, high-quality crude.
Saudi Arabia - whatever the oily spin in Western corporate media - does not have the spare capacity; and on top of it, the absolute priority for the House of Saud is high oil prices, so it can bribe - apart from repressing - its own population into forgetting about noxious Arab Spring ideas.
So yes, already broken European economies would be forced to keep buying Iranian oil, but now from the winners of choice - middlemen vultures.
Not surprisingly, the losers lost in these Cold War tactics anachronistically applied to a global open market are the Europeans themselves. Greece - already facing the abyss - has been buying heavily discounted oil from Iran. The strong possibility remains of the oil embargo precipitating a Greek government bond default - and even a catastrophic cascade effect in the eurozone (Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain - and beyond).
The world needs a digital Herodotus to decode how these European poodles who claim to represent "civilization" were able, in a single stroke, to inflict simultaneous pain on Greece - the cradle of Western civilization itself - and Persia - one of the most sophisticated civilizations in history. In an astonishing historical replay of tragedy as farce, it's as if Greeks and Persians were bonded together at the Thermopylae facing the onslaught of North Atlantic Treaty Organization armies.
Hit the Eurasian groove
Now compare it with the action all across Eurasia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, "Unilateral sanctions don't help matters". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, exercising immense tact, nevertheless was unmistakable; "To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches."
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "We have very good relations with Iran, and we are putting much effort into renewing Iran's talks with the 5+1 [Iran Six - the United Nations Security Council permanent members plus Germany] mediators' group. Turkey will continue looking for a peaceful solution to the issue.”
BRICS member India - alongside Russia and China - also dismissed sanctions. India will keep buying Iranian oil and paying in rupees or gold. South Korea and Japan will inevitably extract exemptions from the Barack Obama administration.
All across Eurasia trade is fast moving away from the US dollar. The Asian Dollar Exclusion Zone, crucially, also means that Asia is slowly disengaging itself from Western banks.
The movement may be led by China - but it's irreversibly transnational. Once again, follow the money. BRICS members China and Brazil started bypassing the US dollar on trade in 2007. BRICS members Russia and China did the same in 2010. Japan and China - the top two Asian giants - did the same only last month.
Only last week, Saudi Arabia and China rolled out a project for a giant oil refinery in the Red Sea. And India more or less secretly is deciding to pay for Iranian oil in gold - even bypassing the current middleman, a Turkish bank.
Asia wants a new international system - and it's working for it. Inevitable long-term consequences; the US dollar - and, crucially, the petrodollar - slowly drifting into irrelevance. "Too Big to Fail" may turn out to be not a categorical imperative, but an epitaph.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
The Iranian oil embargo blowback
By Pepe Escobar
If the sorry parade of European poodles - or what analyst Chris Floyd delightfully dubbed Europuppies - had any understanding of Persian culture, they would have known that blowback for their declaration of economic war in the form of an Iranian oil embargo would be nothing short of heavy metal.
Better yet; death metal. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) will discuss this Sunday, in an open section, whether to cancel right away all oil exports to any European country that approved the embargo - according to Emad Hosseini, the rapporteur of the Majlis Energy Committee. And that comes with the requisite apocalyptic warning, relayed via the Fars news agency, courtesy of member of Parliament Nasser Soudani: "Europe will burn in the fire of Iran's oil wells."
Soudani expresses the views of the whole Tehran establishment
when he says that "the structure of their [Europe's] refineries is compatible with Iran's oil", and so Europeans have no alternative as replacement; the embargo "will cause an increase in oil prices, and the Europeans will be compelled to buy oil at higher prices"; that is, Europe "will be compelled to buy Iran's oil indirectly and through intermediaries".
According to the EU sanctions package, all existing contracts will be respected only until July 1 - and no new contracts are allowed. Now imagine if this pre-emptive Iranian legislation is voted within the next few days. Crisis-hit Club Med countries such as Spain and especially Italy and Greece will be dealt a deathblow, having no time to find a possible alternative to Iran's light, high-quality crude.
Saudi Arabia - whatever the oily spin in Western corporate media - does not have the spare capacity; and on top of it, the absolute priority for the House of Saud is high oil prices, so it can bribe - apart from repressing - its own population into forgetting about noxious Arab Spring ideas.
So yes, already broken European economies would be forced to keep buying Iranian oil, but now from the winners of choice - middlemen vultures.
Not surprisingly, the losers lost in these Cold War tactics anachronistically applied to a global open market are the Europeans themselves. Greece - already facing the abyss - has been buying heavily discounted oil from Iran. The strong possibility remains of the oil embargo precipitating a Greek government bond default - and even a catastrophic cascade effect in the eurozone (Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Spain - and beyond).
The world needs a digital Herodotus to decode how these European poodles who claim to represent "civilization" were able, in a single stroke, to inflict simultaneous pain on Greece - the cradle of Western civilization itself - and Persia - one of the most sophisticated civilizations in history. In an astonishing historical replay of tragedy as farce, it's as if Greeks and Persians were bonded together at the Thermopylae facing the onslaught of North Atlantic Treaty Organization armies.
Hit the Eurasian groove
Now compare it with the action all across Eurasia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, "Unilateral sanctions don't help matters". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, exercising immense tact, nevertheless was unmistakable; "To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches."
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "We have very good relations with Iran, and we are putting much effort into renewing Iran's talks with the 5+1 [Iran Six - the United Nations Security Council permanent members plus Germany] mediators' group. Turkey will continue looking for a peaceful solution to the issue.”
BRICS member India - alongside Russia and China - also dismissed sanctions. India will keep buying Iranian oil and paying in rupees or gold. South Korea and Japan will inevitably extract exemptions from the Barack Obama administration.
All across Eurasia trade is fast moving away from the US dollar. The Asian Dollar Exclusion Zone, crucially, also means that Asia is slowly disengaging itself from Western banks.
The movement may be led by China - but it's irreversibly transnational. Once again, follow the money. BRICS members China and Brazil started bypassing the US dollar on trade in 2007. BRICS members Russia and China did the same in 2010. Japan and China - the top two Asian giants - did the same only last month.
Only last week, Saudi Arabia and China rolled out a project for a giant oil refinery in the Red Sea. And India more or less secretly is deciding to pay for Iranian oil in gold - even bypassing the current middleman, a Turkish bank.
Asia wants a new international system - and it's working for it. Inevitable long-term consequences; the US dollar - and, crucially, the petrodollar - slowly drifting into irrelevance. "Too Big to Fail" may turn out to be not a categorical imperative, but an epitaph.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
Source-Debka.com
Jerusalem concerned: Saudi Air Force to outnumber Israel's advanced US jet fleet
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 25, 2012, 10:27 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Saudi Arabia Advanced fighter-bombers US Middle East Israeli Air Force
Saudi Air Force F-15SA fighter-bomber
With its latest acquisitions from Washington and Europe, the Saudi Air Force will have more fighter-bombers of more advanced models that the Israeli Air Force. Deep concern over this was recently relayed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
DEBKAfile's Washington and military sources that Israel made its concern known with the utmost discretion so as not to be seen as hampering the expansion of the Saudi Royal Air Force as Riyadh gets set to tackle Tehran should Saudi oil exports be sabotaged by Iranian attacks on its oil production or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, its primary export outlet.
Last month, the US agreed to sell Saudi Arabia 84 advanced F-15SA fighter-bombers worth $29.4 billion. First deliveries are due in 2015. The package included the upgrading of 70 F-15 planes of the Saudi air fleet. Riyadhis also buying 72 advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighter bombers. All in all, the oil kingdom will have the largest and most sophisticated fighter-bomber fleet in the Middle East.
Israel leaders reminded the Obama administration of its standing pledge to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge in the region. The aircraft supplied to the Saudis will place that edge in doubt.
They voiced two additional causes for concern:
1. One fine day, Saudi Arabia, which has never agreed to peace relations with Israel, may be moved to attack the Jewish state from an air base very close to Israel's shores. That proximity and the size and quality of its air force will allow dozens of warplanes to penetrate Israel's air defenses and drop bombs on southern and central Israel.
2. Israel also fears that four or five Saudi pilots or hired Islamist fliers may one day form an al Qaeda cell inside the Saudi Air Force and conspire to carry out a suicide attack on Israeli cities on the model of al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, most of whose participants were Saudis.
Israeli intelligence officials in close touch with American counterparts asked them if Washington had asked for Saudi assurances about the reliability of the air crews who will man the new F-15SA planes. They were told that no such guarantees had been requested.
For now, Israel has brought its concerns to the notice of the Obama administration without making specific requests to hold up delivery. Israel is conscious that the Gulf region is on tenterhooks over its security and the Saudis are deep in military preparations to beat back potentially aggressive Iranian moves in the wake of the oil embargo approved by the US and the European Union against Tehran's nuclear program.
Jerusalem also takes into consideration the importance to the flagging American economy of the huge warplane transaction with the Saudis which will support 50,000 jobs in the US air industry and 600 American contractors of aircraft parts.
Obama will certainly not be approachable on this issue while running for re-election.
But none of these considerations allays the deep anxiety prevailing in the top echelons of Israel's high military and air command over the radical upgrade awarded Saudi air power providing it with the capacity to outclass and outgun Israel.
Jerusalem concerned: Saudi Air Force to outnumber Israel's advanced US jet fleet
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 25, 2012, 10:27 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Saudi Arabia Advanced fighter-bombers US Middle East Israeli Air Force
Saudi Air Force F-15SA fighter-bomber
With its latest acquisitions from Washington and Europe, the Saudi Air Force will have more fighter-bombers of more advanced models that the Israeli Air Force. Deep concern over this was recently relayed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
DEBKAfile's Washington and military sources that Israel made its concern known with the utmost discretion so as not to be seen as hampering the expansion of the Saudi Royal Air Force as Riyadh gets set to tackle Tehran should Saudi oil exports be sabotaged by Iranian attacks on its oil production or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, its primary export outlet.
Last month, the US agreed to sell Saudi Arabia 84 advanced F-15SA fighter-bombers worth $29.4 billion. First deliveries are due in 2015. The package included the upgrading of 70 F-15 planes of the Saudi air fleet. Riyadhis also buying 72 advanced Eurofighter Typhoon fighter bombers. All in all, the oil kingdom will have the largest and most sophisticated fighter-bomber fleet in the Middle East.
Israel leaders reminded the Obama administration of its standing pledge to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge in the region. The aircraft supplied to the Saudis will place that edge in doubt.
They voiced two additional causes for concern:
1. One fine day, Saudi Arabia, which has never agreed to peace relations with Israel, may be moved to attack the Jewish state from an air base very close to Israel's shores. That proximity and the size and quality of its air force will allow dozens of warplanes to penetrate Israel's air defenses and drop bombs on southern and central Israel.
2. Israel also fears that four or five Saudi pilots or hired Islamist fliers may one day form an al Qaeda cell inside the Saudi Air Force and conspire to carry out a suicide attack on Israeli cities on the model of al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, most of whose participants were Saudis.
Israeli intelligence officials in close touch with American counterparts asked them if Washington had asked for Saudi assurances about the reliability of the air crews who will man the new F-15SA planes. They were told that no such guarantees had been requested.
For now, Israel has brought its concerns to the notice of the Obama administration without making specific requests to hold up delivery. Israel is conscious that the Gulf region is on tenterhooks over its security and the Saudis are deep in military preparations to beat back potentially aggressive Iranian moves in the wake of the oil embargo approved by the US and the European Union against Tehran's nuclear program.
Jerusalem also takes into consideration the importance to the flagging American economy of the huge warplane transaction with the Saudis which will support 50,000 jobs in the US air industry and 600 American contractors of aircraft parts.
Obama will certainly not be approachable on this issue while running for re-election.
But none of these considerations allays the deep anxiety prevailing in the top echelons of Israel's high military and air command over the radical upgrade awarded Saudi air power providing it with the capacity to outclass and outgun Israel.
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