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Colombia calls for Chavez charges

Colombia is accusing President Chavez of financing genocide.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe says he will ask the International Criminal Court to bring genocide charges against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

He accused Mr Chavez of sponsoring and financing Colombian Farc rebels. Venezuela denies the charge.

Colombian officials say a laptop found during a raid on a Farc camp held files indicating Venezuela gave Farc $300m.

Colombian forces entered Ecuadoran territory to raid the camp, provoking protests and a diplomatic crisis.

Venezuela and Ecuador have broken off ties with Colombia and moved troops to the Colombian border.

"Colombia proposes to denounce the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, in the International Criminal Court for sponsoring and financing genocide," Mr Uribe said.

In Washington, President George W Bush said the United States fully supported Colombia. He condemned what he called "provocative manoeuvres" by the Venezuelan government.

Saturday's incursion by Colombian forces saw the killing of senior Farc commander Raul Reyes, and 16 others.

Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos, speaking earlier at a disarmament conference in Geneva, said evidence of plans to make a dirty bomb - a bomb using radioactive material - was also found on the computer.

Latin American powers including Chile, Mexico and Brazil have offered to mediate in the dispute. An emergency meeting of the Organization of American States is being held to discuss the crisis.

Farc - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - has been fighting for more than four decades with the declared aim of fairer wealth distribution.

However, analysts say it funds itself mainly through the cocaine trade, while holding hundreds of hostages it has kidnapped for ransom and political ends.

President Chavez and Venezuela have been involved in recent talks to free some of them.

In a statement, Farc said the raid had "dealt a serious blow" to negotiations for the release of the highest-profile hostage, the former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

She also holds French nationality by marriage.

Chavez urges unity after summit

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said the "happy" end to the regional crisis with Colombia should boost unity in Latin America.

"This summit was a gift from God," he was quoted by Reuters as saying after shaking hands with his Colombian and Ecuadorean counterparts at a summit.

The crisis began after Colombian troops killed Raul Reyes - the Farc rebels' second most important man - in Ecuador.

It has now emerged that four Mexicans may have been killed in the raid.

Mexico has ordered an investigation, and Ecuador has yet to confirm the identity of those killed last Saturday.

A fifth member of the Mexican group - who were all students - is recovering in a hospital in Ecuador's capital, Quito.

Colombia's government has also announced that another commander of the Farc left-wing rebels has been killed.

Ivan Rios - the youngest in the seven-member Farc secretariat - was killed by his own men in the province of Caldas, said Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos. It was not clear why he was killed.

There were heated exchanges at the Rio Group summit of Latin American leaders in Dominican Republic that had originally been planned to discuss energy and other issues.

But the crisis became the worst political spat in the region for years.

Venezuela and Ecuador cut diplomatic ties with Bogota and sent troops to their borders after the Colombian operation which left 20 Farc rebels dead.

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, who had also broken off diplomatic ties with Colombia, said they would be re-established after the presidents shook hands.

The handshakes were broadcast live on television across Latin America in response to a special request from the summit's host, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.

"We are all happy," Mr Chavez said afterwards.

"Peace! We must unite and integrate."

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe had clashed at the opening of the summit.

Mr Correa condemned Colombia's "aggression", while Mr Uribe accused his opposite number of having links with the Farc rebels.

The Colombian president said he had not warned Ecuador before the raid because Mr Correa had not co-operated in the fight against terrorism.

He also claimed material seized in the operation proved links between Mr Correa's government and the rebels.

Mr Correa rejected the claims, saying his hands were not "stained with blood".

He admitted there had been communications with Farc, but only because his government was trying to secure the release of hostages held by the rebels, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

But before shaking hands, to applause from the summit delegates, Mr Correa said: "With the commitment of never attacking a brother country again and by asking forgiveness, we can consider this very serious incident resolved."

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott says President Uribe's huge gamble in ordering the air strike that killed Reyes appears to have paid off.

He said Mr Uribe knew it would lead to a diplomatic incident with Ecuador, but perhaps did not realise that Venezuela and Nicaragua would also break off diplomatic relations.

Leaders say Colombia crisis over

The presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia have shaken hands at a regional summit, marking the end of a diplomatic crisis in the Andean region.

The crisis had been triggered by a cross-border raid by Colombian troops into Ecuador to attack Farc rebels.

Earlier there had been heated exchanges between the heads of state at the Rio Group summit in the Dominican Republic.

The summit of Latin American leaders had originally been planned to discuss energy and other issues.

But the crisis, which started with the raid last Saturday, had erupted into the worst political spat in the region for years.

Venezuela and Ecuador cut diplomatic ties with Bogota and sent troops to their borders after the Colombian operation which left 20 Farc rebels dead, including a senior Farc commander, Raul Reyes.

As the summit debate unfolded, Colombia's defence minister announced that another rebel leader, Ivan Rios, had been killed - this time on Colombian soil and at the hands of his own men.

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, who had also broken off diplomatic ties with Colombia, said they would be re-established after the presidents shook hands.

The handshakes were broadcast live on television across Latin America in response to a special request from the summit's host, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe had clashed at the opening of the summit.

Mr Correa condemned Colombia's "aggression", while Mr Uribe accused his opposite number of having links with the Farc rebels.

The Colombian president said he had not warned Ecuador before the raid because Mr Correa had not co-operated in the fight against terrorism.

He also claimed material seized in the operation proved links between Mr Correa's government and the rebels.

Mr Correa rejected the claims, saying his hands were not "stained with blood".

He admitted there had been communications with Farc, but only because his government was trying to secure the release of hostages held by the rebels, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

But before shaking hands, to applause from the summit delegates, Mr Correa said: "With the commitment of never attacking a brother country again and by asking forgiveness, we can consider this very serious incident resolved."

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott says President Uribe's huge gamble in ordering the air strike that killed Reyes appears to have paid off.

He said Mr Uribe knew it would lead to a diplomatic incident with Ecuador, but perhaps did not realise that Venezuela and Nicaragua would also break off diplomatic relations.

Bandit raids cut Darfur food aid

Food aid deliveries to Sudan's Darfur region have been reduced by 50% after a series of bandit attacks on convoys, the UN's food agency has warned.

In the latest incident, seven trucks were stolen and their drivers abducted last week as they drove to Fasher, the World Food Programme says.

WFP says 37 trucks and 23 drivers are still missing and other drivers are unwilling to risk going to Darfur.

Some two million people rely on food aid as a result of the conflict.

The WFP also warns it could halt its Humanitarian Air Service which transports aid workers around the vast country at the end of this month because of a lack of funding.

"This is an unprecedented situation," said WFP representative in Sudan Kenro Oshidari.

"Our humanitarian air operation for aid workers could be forced to stop flying because we have no money, at a time when our helicopters and aircraft are needed more than ever because of high insecurity on the roads."

WFP does not say who is behind the attacks in Darfur - there are numerous rebel groups and pro-government militia in the region.

Some 8,000 people a month use WFP flights in Darfur - 3,000 in helicopters to reach parts of the country which are otherwise inaccessible, the UN agency says.

Aid agency Oxfam has warned that its operation in Darfur would be at "serious risk" if the WFP flights stopped or were reduced.

WFP also operates flights around South Sudan, which is slowly recovering from its own long conflict and where infrastructure is even worse than in Darfur.

Here too, a massive aid operation to help millions of people affected by the war would be badly affected if flights were stopped.

The UN's special rapporteur for Sudan Sima Samar accuses says civilians were used as human shields in recent clashes in West Darfur.

Fighting has increased recently there, leading to a new stream of refugees.

The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force is making little progress - it still has just 9,000 troops out of the 26,000 planned.

AU troops arrive in the Comoros

African Union troops have arrived in the Comoros to help its military regain control of an island where a renegade leader has declared himself president.

The Comoran army chief said France had helped transport Tanzanian forces to the Comoros to prepare an amphibious assault on Anjouan island.

Lt-Col Mohamed Salimou said Anjouan's renegade leader, Mohamed Bacar, only understood the language of violence.

Mr Bacar unilaterally declared himself president of Anjouan island last year.

Earlier, AU special envoy Francesco Madeira told the BBC that time had run out for Mr Bacar and urged him to step down or be overwhelmed by its troops.

In an interview with the BBC, Col Salimou said some Tanzanian troops had just landed in the Comoros, where they would join troops from the federal National Development Army preparing for an amphibious assault on Anjouan.

Although he would not say when the operation might begin, Col Salimou said it would not take more than a week and that they were certain of victory.

Col Salimou said the time for negotiation was over.

"We have negotiated over and over and now this idea is no longer in fashion," he told Focus on Africa. "We have come to understand that the only language that Mohamed Bacar will understand is the language of weapons."

He said that the government forces would try to limit civilian casualties among the 30,000 people on Anjouan, adding that they supported the operation.

"What we know is that the civilian population in Anjouan is in favour for us and of this military intervention. So it will be a key element for our attack there and the likelihood of winning," he added.

Col Salimou told the AFP news agency that the Tanzanian force consisted of around 100 soldiers, 50 of whom had so far arrived in the capital, Moroni, on the island of Grande Comore.

Another official told AFP that 75 Senegalese soldiers had arrived in Moroni on Monday. Sudan and Libya have also pledged troops for the mission.

Col Salimou said the AU troops would be transported by ship to Moheli, the smallest of the three islands, where some 400 Comoran troops are based.

The deployment to the Comoros comes a month after a special AU ministers summit agreed to send troops in support of Comoran President Abdallah Sambi.

Mr Bacar has defied AU and international calls to step down since proclaiming himself president in July 2007 after an election which the central authorities declared illegal.

Earlier on Monday, the AU special envoy to the Comoros told the BBC that time had run out for Mr Bacar and warned him of the consequences if he tried to resist.

"I am afraid to say that if he tries to do that, it will be the end of him physically, if necessary," Mr Madeira said.

"He will be overwhelmed... and what we are going to do in Anjouan is to take over the island, we will intervene to capture the island."

A history of political violence has left the tiny Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean desperately poor since independence from France in 1975.

At times, the country has teetered on the brink of disintegration, amid tensions between the semi-autonomous islands and the central government.

Chad rebels dismiss peace accord

Chadian rebels have dismissed a peace agreement between Chad and Sudan, saying they will continue their campaign to overthrow Chad's president.

The presidents of Chad and Sudan signed an accord on Thursday aimed at ending hostilities between the two countries.

A senior commander of the joint UN-Africa Union force in Darfur said the deal will not work unless rebels from both countries are included.

Meanwhile, the UN said it is returning many more refugees to South Sudan.

A spokesman for the Chadian rebel National Alliance said the non-aggression pact signed by Chad's President Idriss Deby and Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir did not concern them.

They want talks with Chad's president, said Ali Gadaye.

"If Deby doesn't want dialogue, then we're going to chase him out by force."

In their accord, the presidents of Chad and Sudan agreed to stop armed groups from using their respective territories to attack their neighbour.

In Sudan's West Darfur, bordering eastern Chad, the commander of the joint UN-AU peacekeeping force said the agreement will not have any impact unless the rebels are brought into negotiations.

As soon as rebels start fighting, Brig Gen Balla Kaita told the BBC, "nobody will know if it's between rebels and their government or is it going to be between the two countries".

The peace accord was mediated by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and was signed on the sidelines of an Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Senegal's capital Dakar.

Just hours before it was signed, Chad accused Sudan of sending heavily armed columns of Chadian rebels across its border. There has been no independent confirmation of any crossing.

It is the sixth deal in five years and the war of words between the two sides is highly unlikely to end with the signing of the agreement, says the BBC's Will Ross in Dakar.

Chadian troops fought off an attempted coup last month in a fierce two-day battle in the capital N'Djamena.

At least 200,000 people have died and more than two million displaced in five years of conflict in Darfur.

Many refugees have crossed into Chad where a European Union force has recently deployed to protect them.

In South Sudan, the United Nations refugee agency said there is a growing desire among refugees from South Sudan to return home in time for a census next month.

The UN said 3,000 refugees a week had been repatriated to South Sudan from Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia since January - up from 600 a week.

A national census in April is being held to prepare for Sudan's first democratic election in 23 years, due in 2009.

A referendum on whether South Sudan should secede is due two years later.

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Shops on fire amid Tibet protests

Fires have broken out in the Tibetan city of Lhasa amid reports of rioting, as rare street protests led by Buddhist monks appeared to gather pace.

One eyewitness told the BBC how large groups of people were setting fire to cars and shops and destroying anything of Chinese influence.

The US embassy in Beijing said US citizens had reported hearing gunfire.

Rallies have continued all week in what are thought to be the largest protests against Beijing's rule in 20 years.

Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, released a statement expressing deep concern, saying the protests were a "manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people".

The Dalai Lama, who heads Tibet's government-in-exile in India, called on the Chinese leadership to stop using force and begin dialogue with the Tibetan people.

He also urged Tibetans not to resort to violence.

"As I have always said, unity and stability under brute force is at best a temporary solution. It is unrealistic to expect unity and stability under such a rule," the statement said.

The US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said at least one police car had been set on fire on Friday.

ICT spokeswoman Kate Saunders said her group had received reports that the Tromsikhang market in Barkhor Street - a busy commercial neighbourhood - was either on fire or had burnt down.

"It seems that lay people have now become involved in the protests," she said.

An eyewitness told the BBC there was a thick pall of smoke hanging over the city.

Another eyewitness said security forces and monks had clashed on Wednesday and several monks were beaten.

He said about 300 monks had tried to leave the Sera monastery to protest but security forces brandishing clubs stopped them and at least one monk was beaten to the ground.

The protests began earlier this week, when a number of monks were reportedly arrested after a march marking the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

Hundreds of monks took to the streets to demand their release - and reports say tear gas was used to disperse them.

The police were reported to have sealed off the city's three main monasteries on Thursday.

Correspondents say there is growing evidence that protests against Chinese rule are intensifying, despite assurances by Beijing on Thursday that the situation was under control.

China says Tibet has always been part of its territory, though Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before the twentieth century, and many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled in 1959 and currently lives in exile in India.

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Taylor 'made rebels eat enemies'

Ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor ordered militias to eat the flesh of their enemies, a former death squad leader has told his war crimes trial.

Joseph "Zigzag" Marzah said Mr Taylor had instructed his fighters in Liberia to even eat UN peacekeepers to "set an example for the people to be afraid".

Mr Taylor is on trial at The Hague for backing rebels in Sierra Leone in an 11-year war in which thousands died.

He has denied the 11 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has been moved away from West Africa because of fears that it could lead to renewed instability in the region.

It began last June, but was adjourned until January after only one day when Mr Taylor dismissed his lawyer. Many witnesses have since testified behind closed doors.

Mr Marzah, a key prosecution witness, agreed to appear in open court only after lengthy negotiations over the protection provided for him and his family.

Describing himself as Mr Taylor's former chief of operations and commander of a death squad in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Mr Marzah said the former leader ordered militias to eat the flesh of enemies in Liberia, including African and UN peacekeepers.

"He said we should eat them. Even the UN white people - he said we could use them as pork to eat," Mr Marzah said, adding that it was to "set an example for the people to be afraid".

He said repeatedly that nothing was done without an explicit order from Mr Taylor and that anyone who violated his commands would be executed.

Mr Marzah then recalled how the victims of the cannibalism were usually members of the Krahn tribe of Liberia's former president, Samuel Doe, who was in power in 1989 when Mr Taylor started the country's six-year civil war.

However, he said they had also included troops from the West African Ecomog peacekeeping force, which was deployed in 1990, and some UN peacekeepers.

The international peacekeepers eventually helped stabilise Liberia, leading to a peace agreement in 1995 and a presidential election two years later that Mr Taylor won.

"We ate a few [Ecomog soldiers], but not many. But many were executed, about 68," Mr Marzah said.

'Throw away the head'

When asked by defence lawyer Courtenay Griffith about how the militiamen would "prepare a human being" for eating, Mr Marzah described the splitting, cleaning, decapitating and cooking of the corpse with salt and pepper.

"We slit your throat, butcher you... throw away the head, take the flesh and put it in a pot... Charles Taylor knows that," he added.

Mr Marzah also described how he had killed so many men, women and children that he had lost count, and also slit open the stomachs of pregnant women on Mr Taylor's orders.

Earlier in his testimony, Mr Marzah told the court he had taken weapons, some stored at Mr Taylor's presidential mansion, to Sierra Leone and returned to Liberia with diamonds which he then delivered to Mr Taylor.

Mr Taylor is accused of funding Sierra Leone's former rebels, the Revolutionary United Front, by selling diamonds on their behalf and buying weapons for them.

The RUF became notorious for hacking off the hands and legs of civilians during their armed rebellion in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002.

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USNORTHCOM Responds to Commission

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (Army News Service, Nov. 4, 2008) -- U.S. Northern Command's primary mission is Homeland Defense, and its commander said Friday that USNORTHCOM stands ready to respond to any homeland-defense or civil-support mission requirement.

"The U.S. military absolutely has the capacity to respond to potential threats within our nation today. It will get better in this coming year and continue to improve beyond that," said Gen. Gene Renuart, USNORTHCOM commander.

The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves issues a wide-ranging report to Congress and the Defense Department Thursday, stating that DoD should improve its capabilities and readiness so the military can take a primary role in response to major catastrophes inside the United States.

USNORTHCOM was established in 2002 as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has dramatically expanded DoD's focus on all aspects of Homeland Defense, command officials said, including planning and exercising, as well as organizing new headquarters and units that are specifically tailored for domestic response.

USNORTHCOM has prepared detailed plans for responding to situations that range from pandemic influenza to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear events, and the command has redefined its readiness capabilities since Hurricane Katrina.

When it comes to providing forces in response to incidents, the command has nearly 50 National Guard officers fully integrated within its operations, in addition to National Guard Civil Support Teams located within every U.S. state and territory, and 17 regional consequence response units.

USNORTHCOM also utilizes an active-duty military response unit of nearly 450 Marines who are the "gold standard" for responding to weapons of mass destruction attacks, USNORTHCOM officials said. They said there are also pre-identified active-duty and Reserve components (4,000 members each) on a short string to provide additional muscle to initial response teams.

USNORTHCOM's primary mission remains defending the homeland, and Americans can be assured the U.S. military is ready and capable of responding to attacks within the United States, according to a USNORTHCOM statement released Friday.

USNORTHCOM Responds to Commission (http://www.army.mil/-news/2008/02/04/7249-usnorthcom-responds-to-commission-ready-for-homeland-defense/)

Deployment of US Troops inside Canada

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 13, 2008

On February 14th, Canada and the US signed an agreement which allows for the deployment of US troops inside Canada.

There was no official announcement nor was there a formal decision at the governmental level.

In fact the agreement was barely mentioned by the Canadian media.

The agreement, which raises farreaching issues of national sovereignty, was not between the two governments. It was signed by military commanding officers.

U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) released a statement confirming that the agreement had been signed between US NORTHCOM and Canada Command, namely between the military commands of each country. Canada Command was established in February 2006.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command, have signed a Civil Assistance Plan that allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

“This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation's requests for military support of civil authorities,” Renuart said. “Unity of effort during bilateral support for civil support operations such as floods, forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and effects of a terrorist attack, in order to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate damage to property, is of the highest importance, and we need to be able to have forces that are flexible and adaptive to support rapid decision-making in a collaborative environment.”

“The signing of this plan is an important symbol of the already strong working relationship between Canada Command and U.S. Northern Command,” Dumais said. “Our commands were created by our respective governments to respond to the defense and security challenges of the twenty-first century, and we both realize that these and other challenges are best met through cooperation between friends.”

The plan recognizes the role of each nation's lead federal agency for emergency preparedness, which in the United States is the Department of Homeland Security and in Canada is Public Safety Canada. The plan facilitates the military-to-military support of civil authorities once government authorities have agreed on an appropriate response.

U.S. Northern Command was established on Oct. 1, 2002, to anticipate and conduct homeland defense and civil support operations within the assigned area of responsibility to defend, protect, and secure the United States and its interests.

Similarly, Canada Command was established on Feb. 1, 2006, to focus on domestic operations and to offer a single point of contact for all domestic and continental defense and security partners.

The two domestic commands established strong bilateral ties well before the signing of the Civil Assistance Plan. The two commanders and their staffs meet regularly, collaborate on contingency planning and participate in related annual exercises.

The Decision to Allow the Deployment of US Troops inside Canada was taken in April 2002

While a formal agreement was reached in February 2008, the decision to allow the deployment of US troops in Canada was announced in April 2002 by (former) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Territorial control over Canada is part of Washington's geopolitical and military agenda as formulated in April 2002 by Donald Rumsfeld. "Binational integration" of military command structures was also contemplated alongside a major revamping in the areas of immigration, law enforcement and intelligence.

The matter has been known for more than five years. It has been deliberately obfuscated. There has been no public debate. It has not received news coverage nor has it been the object of discussion in the Canadian House of Commons or the US Congress.

cont'd next post

In an article published in 2004 entitled Is the Annexation of Canada Part of Bush's Military Agenda?, I provided a detailed analysis of the process of integration of military command structures. I also examined the broader issue of sovereignty. The Toronto Star accepted to publish an abridged version of my November 2004 text as an oped. The article explained that Ottawa had been:

"quietly negotiating [since April 2002] a far-reaching military cooperation agreement, which allows the US Military to cross the border and deploy troops anywhere in Canada, in our provinces, as well station American warships in Canadian territorial waters. This redesign of Canada's defense system is being discussed behind closed doors, not in Canada, but at the Peterson Air Force base in Colorado, at the headquarters of US Northern Command (NORTHCOM)."

Despite repeated assurances by the Toronto Star OpEd Editor, the article never appeared in print. Below is a summary of my more detailed November 2004 text as well as links to the original articles:

"The creation of NORTHCOM announced in April 2002, constitutes a blatant violation of both Canadian and Mexican territorial sovereignty. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced unilaterally that US Northern Command would have jurisdiction over the entire North American region. Canada and Mexico were presented with a fait accompli. US Northern Command's jurisdiction as outlined by the US DoD includes, in addition to the continental US, all of Canada, Mexico, as well as portions of the Caribbean, contiguous waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans up to 500 miles off the Mexican, US and Canadian coastlines as well as the Canadian Arctic.

NorthCom's stated mandate is to "provide a necessary focus for [continental] aerospace, land and sea defenses, and critical support for [the] nation’s civil authorities in times of national need."

(Canada-US Relations - Defense Partnership – July 2003, Canadian American Strategic Review (CASR),
http://www.sfu.ca/casr/ft-lagasse1.htm

Rumsfeld is said to have boasted that "the NORTHCOM – with all of North America as its geographic command – 'is part of the greatest transformation of the Unified Command Plan [UCP] since its inception in 1947.'" (Ibid)

Following Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's refusal to join NORTHCOM, a high-level so-called "consultative" Binational Planning Group (BPG), operating out of the Peterson Air Force base, was set up in late 2002, with a mandate to "prepare contingency plans to respond to [land and sea] threats and attacks, and other major emergencies in Canada or the United States".

The BPG's mandate goes far beyond the jurisdiction of a consultative military body making "recommendations" to government. In practice, it is neither accountable to the US Congress nor to the Canadian House of Commons.

The BPG has a staff of fifty US and Canadian "military planners", who have been working diligently for the last two years in laying the groundwork for the integration of Canada-US military command structures. The BPG works in close coordination with the Canada-U.S. Military Cooperation Committee at the Pentagon, a so-called " panel responsible for detailed joint military planning".

Broadly speaking, its activities consist of two main building blocks: the Combined Defense Plan (CDP) and The Civil Assistance Plan (CAP).

The Militarisation of Civilian Institutions

As part of its Civil Assistance Plan (CAP), the BPG is involved in supporting the ongoing militarisation of civilian law enforcement and judicial functions in both the US and Canada. The BPG has established "military contingency plans" which would be activated "on both sides of the Canada-US border" in the case of a terror attack or "threat". Under the BPG's Civil Assistance Plan (CAP), these so-called "threat scenarios" would involve:

"coordinated response to national requests for military assistance [from civil authorities] in the event of a threat, attack, or civil emergency in the US or Canada."

In December 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, the Canadian government reached an agreement with the Head of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, entitled the "Canada-US Smart Border Declaration." Shrouded in secrecy, this agreement essentially hands over to the Homeland Security Department, confidential information on Canadian citizens and residents. It also provides US authorities with access to the tax records of Canadians.

What these developments suggest is that the process of "binational integration" is not only occurring in the military command structures but also in the areas of immigration, police and intelligence. The question is what will be left over within Canada's jurisdiction as a sovereign nation, once this ongoing process of binational integration, including the sharing and/or merger of data banks, is completed?

Canada and NORTHCOM

Canada is slated to become a member of NORTHCOM at the end of the BPG's two years mandate.

No doubt, the issue will be presented in Parliament as being "in the national interest". It "will create jobs for Canadians" and "will make Canada more secure".

Meanwhile, the important debate on Canada's participation in the US Ballistic Missile Shield, when viewed out of the broader context, may serve to divert public attention away from the more fundamental issue of North American military integration which implies Canada's acceptance not only of the Ballistic Missile Shield, but of the entire US war agenda, including significant hikes in defense spending which will be allocated to a North American defense program controlled by the Pentagon.

And ultimately what is at stake is that beneath the rhetoric, Canada will cease to function as a Nation:

*
Its borders will be controlled by US officials and confidential information on Canadians will be shared with Homeland Security.
*
US troops and Special Forces will be able to enter Canada as a result of a binational arrangement.

Canadian citizens can be arrested by US officials, acting on behalf of their Canadian counterparts and vice versa.

But there is something perhaps even more fundamental in defining and understanding where Canada and Canadians stand as a Nation.

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US has launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. It has formulated the contours of an imperial project of World domination. Canada is contiguous to "the center of the empire". Territorial control over Canada is part of the US geopolitical and military agenda.

The Liberals as well as the opposition Conservative party have endorsed embraced the US war agenda. By endorsing a Canada-US "integration" in the spheres of defense, homeland security, police and intelligence, Canada not only becomes a full fledged member of George W. Bush's "Coalition of the Willing", it will directly participate, through integrated military command structures, in the US war agenda in Central Asia and the Middle East, including the massacre of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the torture of POWs, the establishment of concentration camps, etc.

Under an integrated North American Command, a North American national security doctrine would be formulated. Canada would be obliged to embrace Washington's pre-emptive military doctrine, including the use of nuclear warheads as a means of self defense, which was ratified by the US Senate in December 2003. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The US Nuclear Option and the "War on Terrorism" http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405A.html May 2004)

Moreover, binational integration in the areas of Homeland security, immigration, policing of the US-Canada border, not to mention the anti-terrorist legislation, would imply pari passu acceptance of the US sponsored police State, its racist policies, its "ethnic profiling" directed against Muslims, the arbitrary arrest of anti-war activists.

Deployment of US Troops inside Canada (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8323)

I don't like the sound of this but perhaps it's not as ominious as it sounds. But this added to makes it sound a little bit more conspiracy theory. :o
~~~~~~~~

U.S. Military Being Sent to the Border with Mexico

Michael Webster, Investigative Reporter
March 13, 2008
The Laguna Journal has learned that a special U.S. Military Task Force has been created to protect our southern border with Mexico. Members of this task force is preparing to secure the border by responding with specially trained fast response U.S. Army task force military units. These forces are already in place with the heart of the power being concentrated in El Paso and Southern New Mexico with a far reaching responsibility from East Texas to Southern California. They are being staged and immediately available as emergency "on call" units for use against terrorist threats on the nation's border and local disasters, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Commander.

The Ft. Bliss 1st Armored Division soldiers, as well as a new missile defense unit that are being created at Fort Bliss. America's first air defense and believed by Jane's Intel Web Report to be the owners of the sky where ever they fly. These F-22 Raptors that are stationed at Holloman Air Force Base will be available to defend homeland security, Renuart said.

Renuart, who visited Joint Task Force-North, which is under his command, declined to discuss any details of threats uncovered along the border with Mexico, but he said many agencies, including JTF-North, have made "it a very difficult border for someone to take advantage of." That would explain why there have been recent reports of U.S. military being seen on the border.

The Raptors and awax aircraft are believed to be secretly patrolling the skies over the southern U.S.Border with Mexico now. Awax aircraft called in to help protect the nation from a terrorist attack from the skies or ground. The army has been seen by lots of locals all along the border at what appears to be patrolling on the ground. U.S. Soldiers have told the Journal that those U.S. Army patrols that are on and near the border are simply on maneuvers practicing for the real thing. However they are immeditly available to augment the thin numbers of National guard units lift weak due to the Iraq war. And will be back-up for the U.S. Border patrol and other local border law enforcement agencies. Border Patrol agents and county sheriff' patrolling the border have been witnessing a serous increase of sighting of what appears to be Mexican army regulars and civilian Los Zetas see: They're known as "Los Zetas

As previously reported in the Journal the federal government acknowledged that the United States-Mexican border region has been experiencing an alarming rise in the level of criminal cartel activity, including drug and human smuggling, which has placed significant additional burdens on Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. border with Mexico extends nearly 2,000 miles along the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In most areas, the border is located in remote and sparsely populated areas of vast desert and rugged mountain terrain with vast open water of the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific oceans.

The U.S. government admits that the border´s vast length and varied terrain poses significant challenges to U.S. law enforcement efforts to control the entry of individuals and goods into the United States.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the federal agency with primary responsibility to detect and prevent illegal entry into the United States. The latest available data indicates that approximately 11,000 CBP agents patrol the nearly 6,000 miles of international border the United States shares with its neighbors Mexico and Canada.

Dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped, held hostage and killed by their captors in Mexico and many cases remain unsolved. Moreover, new cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom continue to be reported. See: Americans Being Kidnapped, Held and killed in Mexico

In addition to Federal agents, State, sheriff, and local police dept's are expected to help patrol the border areas. In remote areas along the border, many sheriffs´ departments are called upon to address border-related criminal matters and serve as a backstop to CBP operations. In many cases, these local law enforcement agencies do not have the resources necessary to patrol the thousands of square miles of border territory under their respective jurisdiction, leaving the security of the U.S. border vulnerable.

While the Southwest border hosts robust legal commercial activity, the border also is the site of violent criminal enterprises. These enterprises are carried out by organized criminal syndicates of Mexican/American cartels, gangs and international terrorist which include the smuggling of WMD's, drugs, humans, weapons, and cash across the U.S.-Mexico border.

"It is prudent for us to assume that any of these established trafficking routes, whether it's human trafficking or drugs or arms or money, any of those could be used, and so we want to keep our eyes and ears on all of those to ensure that they are not used in that regard," Renuart said. See: New Terrorist Bases South Of The Border

Both the F-22 and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile -- designed to destroy short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere -- are recent additions to the nation's arsenal. A THAAD unit is being created at Fort Bliss.

THAAD "provides extremely reliable terminal phase missile defense, something we need both with our theater commanders across the (world) as well as here at home, if the threats of rogue nations continue to emerge," Renuart said. "We've got to find better ways to integrate that capability into our broader missile defense capability."

The F-22s are being used in North American Aerospace Defense Command, and NORAD, air patrols.

"Most importantly, it (the F-22) is a commitment to the recapitalization of aging forces in our Air Force," Renuart said. "As you know, we are averaging almost 30 years an airframe now, and the F-22 is the best not just air-to-air fighter in the world, but it will bring a great air-to-ground capability."

Possibly the greatest challenge will be to support National Guard and reserve forces feeling the strain of repeated deployments that also have depleted equipment supplies. Guard units respond to natural disasters as well as bridge collapses and other human-caused incidents.

"Our job at NORTHCOM is to ensure that if there's a seam or a gap there that we're thinking of how we could fill that with some other capability out of" the Defense Department, he said. "What that has forced us to do it is think about, 'How do you solve that time/distance problem, even on a short-notice event. And so I have access to capabilities now that I didn't have a year or two ago that I can move very quickly to fill that need.

"For example, if there were something that occurred in the El Paso area that the Texas National Guard might not have a capability immediately available to respond, but Fort Bliss did in an active-duty unit, then I would pull that active-duty unit out and make that available to the state to assist." See: War On Drugs And Terror.

U.S. Military Being Sent to the Border with Mexico (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/55240)

Osama Bin Laden Threatens EU and Pope Over Prophet Cartoons - Says Revenge Will Be Severe

In a new audio message purportedly from Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader threatens the EU over the re-printing of a cartoon offensive to Muslims.

The voice on it says the cartoon, re-published recently in all major Danish newspapers, was part of a crusade involving Pope Benedict XVI.

The drawing, first published in 2005, depicts the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

The voice on the audio has not yet been verified as belonging to bin Laden.

The message comes on the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

It appeared on a Islamist website that has carried al-Qaeda messages in the past.

Over the audio is a graphic with a still image of bin Laden holding an AK-47 and bearing the logo of al-Sahab, the media wing of al-Qaeda. There is a written translation of the message in English.

Cartoon controversy

Last month, Denmark's leading newspapers reprinted one of 12 cartoons that first angered many Muslims when they were originally published in September 2005.

Anger in the Muslim world peaked in 2006 as newspapers in other countries published the cartoons.

Some of the protests turned violent and led to the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in Damascus and Beirut and dozens of deaths in Nigeria, Libya and Pakistan.

The Danish newspapers decided to republish the most controversial drawing after Danish intelligence said it had uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist.

The re-printed drawing shows the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Islamic law forbids any representation of the Prophet.

The message attributed to bin Laden says the attacks of Europeans on women and children "paled [in comparison] when you went overboard in your unbelief and... went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings.

"This is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous," the voice says.

"If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions".

It is not clear when the message was recorded. The last audio message attributed to bin Laden appeared in November but he has not been seen on video since October 2004.

He is believed to be in hiding on the rugged border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Medvedev warns on Nato expansion

The incoming Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, has said his country is not happy about the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato.

Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times of London, he said such a move could affect European security.

Mr Medvedev said no country would be happy about a military bloc to which it did not belong approaching its borders.

Asked about recent troubled relations with the UK, he said he was open to restoring full co-operation.

Mr Medvedev is succeeding Vladimir Putin after winning a landslide victory in the presidential election earlier this month.

He has pledged to continue the policies of Mr Putin, who is expected to become his prime minister.

The issue of admitting Georgia and Ukraine - both former Soviet republics - is expected to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest on 2-4 April.

"We are not happy about the situation around Georgia and Ukraine," Mr Medvedev said.

"We consider that it is extremely troublesome for the existing structure of European security.

"No state can be pleased about having representatives of a military bloc to which it does not belong coming close to its borders."

In a separate development, direct flights between Russia and Georgia are expected to resume on Tuesday, 18 months after Moscow suspended them in a row over alleged spying.

A Georgian passenger plane will fly from Tbilisi to Moscow, returning later in the day.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer, swept to power after street protests in 2003, dubbed the "Rose Revolution". He favours closer ties with the West and has accused Russian politicians of interfering in Georgia's affairs.

Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004 swept away a pro-Russian government and replaced it with one that looks to the West for support and now wants to join Nato. But President Viktor Yushchenko has been engaged in a long-running power struggle with Viktor Yanukovych, a former prime minister whose supporters are generally more pro-Russian.

_____________________________________________

U.S. Navy confirms Suez Canal shooting
American ship fired warning shots at small Egyptian boat

An American cargo ship under contract to the U.S. Navy fired warning shots at a small Egyptian boat while passing through the Suez Canal, the U.S. military said Tuesday. Egyptian authorities said at least one man was killed, but the U.S. said an investigation was under way and it had no reports of casualties.

The Global Patriot, which was under short-term charter to the Navy's Military Sealift Command, entered the canal from the Red Sea at Suez after dark Monday when it was approached by several small boats, according to U.S. and Egyptian officials.

The U.S. Navy has been careful about the activities of small boats near their warships since the 2000 suicide attack by an explosives-packed motor boat on the USS Cole in Yemen killed 17 sailors.

A U.S. Navy security team aboard the Global Patriot fired the warning shots, said Lt. Nathan Christensen, deputy spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain. He did not know whether the civilian crew on the ship was also armed.

"The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away. A warning flare was then fired," said a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. "One small boat continued to approach the ship and received two sets of warning shots 20-30 yards in front of the bow."

The statement added that "all shots were accounted for as they entered the water." It also said that "initial reports indicate that no casualties were sustained on either vessel."

An Egyptian security official at the canal, however, said that after the warning shots, a man was shot dead in the small boat and that the three other men with him were wounded.

The body of the man, Mohammed Fouad, was taken to a hospital morgue, then transferred to the Ibrahim Nafie mosque ahead of burial, the head of the union of seamen in Suez, Abbas al-Amrikani, told The Associated Press.

We are praying over his the body right now," al-Amrikani said by phone over audible sounds of prayer. "I saw the body. The bullet entered his heart and went out the other side." He added that Fouad was 27 years old.

The Egyptian government had no immediate comment. The state news agency MENA reported an Egyptian was killed "when an American ship opened fire."

Small boats selling cigarettes and other products often swarm civilian ships moving through the canal. The merchants know not to approach military vessels, but the Global Patriot looked like a civilian vessel, said the security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"We are very conscious of being in heavily trafficked areas and we as professional mariners try to keep people from getting too close," 5th Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr. Lydia Robertson told The Associated Press by phone from Bahrain. "Our team did take the appropriate steps to take those measured steps to warn the vessels that were getting too close."

Robertson said the same rules of engagement applied for warships as for those under contract.

In Washington, the State Department said Washington took the issue seriously and would work with Egypt to prevent similar incidents. Spokesman Sean McCormack said he expected Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi would touch on the matter at the State Department later Tuesday in a private meeting that is likely to focus on the security situation in the Gaza Strip. Tantawi also was to meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday.

Egyptian officials said the ship was continuing its journey through the canal and was expected to arrive at Port Said near the Mediterranean by nightfall.

The Global Patriot is registered to the New York-based Global Container Lines and, according to the company Web site, the vessel trades between the United States, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and East Africa.

Some 7.5 percent of world sea trade passes through the canal, which at its narrowest is 120 yards wide. The canal is a major source of foreign currency for Egypt.

Somalia fighting prompts warning

Forty humanitarian agencies have warned of an impending catastrophe in Somalia unless urgent action is taken.

They say 20,000 people continue to flee violence in the capital every month.

The warning comes ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to consider sending 27,000 peacekeepers to Somalia to replace the stretched African force.

Correspondents say there are increasing attacks outside the capital, with Islamists raiding Jowhar town on Wednesday morning to release prisoners.

Residents told the BBC that hundreds of fighters, belonging to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), briefly held the town, about 90km (55 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu, before pulling out after freeing the prisoners.

LIFE IN SOMALIA
2m rely on daily aid
More than 1m internally displaced
20,000 flee Mogadishu each month
Average monthly family income of those left in Mogadishu: $12.13
Life expectancy: 47

Problems: Fighting, high food prices, hyperinflation, drought

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says five soldiers and two civilians were killed in the clashes.

Ethiopia intervened to help Somalia's interim government to oust the UIC from power in December 2006.

The agencies say two million Somalis need daily help to survive the crisis caused by continued fighting between insurgents and the government.

Somalia's ambassador to the UN said his government lacked enough international support and called for the partial lifting of the arms embargo

"It is ironic when the UN puts an arms embargo on a country which cannot secure its borders then anybody can import or export whatever they like and that's what was happening for 17 years," Elmi Ahmed Dualeh told the BBC.

"Now the government is weak. It is weak because it never had support."

In a joint statement, the 40 local and international aid agencies point out that in October last year they warned Somalia was heading towards crisis.

Six months on, they say, the situation in the country has deteriorated dramatically and access to those in need has got far worse.

"It continues to deteriorate by the day," the UN refugee agency's Guillermo Bettocchi told the BBC.

"There are no signs of improvement on the ground, and those who are suffering the brunt of the conflict are the civilians, who are being either killed or displaced, and are in the middle of suffering that is unacceptable," he said.

"In terms of child malnutrition, access to education, lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities, indeed the situation in Somalia is the worst in the world... to be a child in Somalia today is something that means lots of suffering and a grim future."

Record food prices, hyper-inflation and drought in many parts of the country have made the situation worse and seasonal rains due to start soon are also predicted to fail.

"For too long, the needs of ordinary Somalis have been forgotten," the agencies said.

They urged "the international community and all parties to the conflict to urgently focus their attention on the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Somalia".

"They must ensure access for humanitarian supplies, live up to their responsibility to protect civilians and address the environment of impunity," they added.

"The humanitarian crisis will become more and more complex and will continue to deepen in the absence of a political solution to the current crisis."

The UN Security Council will discuss the situation on Thursday.

Last week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon presented the council with a report proposing the deployment of 27,000 peacekeepers as one of four possible scenarios in which the UN could heighten its presence in the war-torn country.

So far only 2,400 African Union peacekeepers have been sent to Somalia, of a planned 8,000-strong force.

_____________________________________

Israeli explores how subs could be used against Iran
By Reuters
17/04/2008

Anticipating a showdown with Iran, Israel decides secretly to deploy a submarine off its coast.

But how? The quickest route from Israel's Mediterranean coast is via the Suez Canal, which runs through Egypt and which the classified vessels shun. So the submarine is hidden in the belly of a commercial tanker, which delivers it to the Gulf.

Such is the plot of an Israeli thriller, "Undersea Diplomacy." Does it hold water? Perhaps not. Then again, the author, Shlomo Erell, is no mere novelist. He's an ex-admiral with experience in Israel's most sensitive military planning.

"It's pure fiction, but it's informed fiction," he said simply, when asked if his book reflects how the Israeli fleet of Dolphin-class submarines could be used against Iran, whose leadership has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," stoking international concern over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Israel has three Dolphins, with two more on order from Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, a German shipyard custom-building them at a steep discount as part of Berlin's bid to shore up a Jewish state founded in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust.

The submarines are a subject of deepest secrecy given speculation that they carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

Many analysts believe the Dolphins are Israel's "second strike" weapons, referring to the Cold War theory that a country can deter foes from launching nuclear attacks by maintaining the ability to retaliate, even after its own territory has been laid waste. A nuclear "platform" out at sea is the best guarantee.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, and independent experts say it is years away from any such capability. Some, in turn, think Israel's expanding submarine fleet may be part of preparations to foil the perceived future threat through force.

"There is nothing on the horizon to suggest Iran would have the capability to knock out Israel's nuclear delivery means," said Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. air force colonel who stages Middle East wargames for U.S. government and private clients.

The Dolphins, he said, may be part of "a conventional capability to deal with the number of targets Israel believes would need to be struck in a conventional preemptive attack".

Distance no object

Israel sent jets to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 and has hinted it could do the same against Iranian facilities if U.S.-led diplomatic pressure failed to rein in Tehran's plans.

But the Iraqi raid was on a single site, relatively close to Israel's borders. Targets in Iran might be too numerous and distant for Israel's air force, especially as intermediate Arab states or Turkey would likely refuse overflight rights.

Israel is assumed to have ballistic missiles, yet its small size may make surprise launches impossible: an unannounced missile test in January became news within minutes as the startled residents of nearby towns reported the roaring takeoff.

Submarines could bridge the gap, especially if positioned in Iranian waters. That possibility has given rise to speculation that Israel wants five Dolphins in order to allow for at least one to be at sea at all times while others are being serviced.

The question remains of how far they might travel.

Israeli navy sources say the Dolphins do not use the Suez -- to avoid being inspected by Egyptian harbourmasters. That means that, to reach the Gulf, Israel would either have to resort to fantastical ruses like the one in "Undersea Diplomacy," or send the submarines around Africa -- a month-long trip at least.

Jason Alderwick, a maritime analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, is skeptical.

"I don't buy the idea of a rotation. These submarines have not been purchased with a view to operating in the Gulf," he said. As Dolphins run on conventional rather than nuclear power so require regular refuelling and shore maintenance, he described them as better suited to close Mediterranean missions.

Israel also has access to the Red Sea through Eilat port. But navy sources said there was no plan to dock submarines there because the narrow Red Sea, which is shared with several Arab states, is vulnerable to blockades at the Straits of Tiran.

Deterrents never used

Restricted to the Mediterranean, analysts point out, the Israeli Dolphins could pose a "second-strike" threat to Iran only if they carried nuclear cruise missiles capable of hitting targets as far as 1,500 km (970 miles) away.

Lee Willett of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies noted that Dolphins lacked the vertical tubes used by much bigger Western and Soviet-era submarines to launch ballistic missiles.

Cold War tests showed nuclear warheads are too heavy to be delivered long distances on cruise missiles, so Israel could hit Iran only with conventional warheads if they were fired from the Mediterranean, he said.

A nuclear attack on Iran by a Dolphin, Willett argued, would have to be from the Gulf, which in turn would give away an unsupported submarine's position and probably doom it to being destroyed by surviving Iranian forces.

"The whole point of a deterrent is that it's never used," Willett said. "In designing the Dolphins as a second-strike platform, I imagine the Israelis were thinking 'it's not ideal, but it's the best we've got.'"

Israel does not discuss its nuclear capabilities, under an "ambiguity" policy billed as warding off regional enemies while avoiding the kind of provocations that can trigger arms races.

Erell appeared to support such thinking. The message of his book -- which made a modest splash in Israel, and is currently available only in Hebrew -- was "how to use a submarine without resorting to war."

"It's about affecting statecraft," he said.

Israeli explores how subs could be used against Iran (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975989.html)

Olmert: Iran will not be nuclear
By David Landau and Yossi Verter, Haaretz Correspondents
17/04/2008

"I want to tell the citizens of Israel: Iran will not have nuclear capability," said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a pre-Passover interview. According to Olmert, the international community is making an enormous effort, in which Israel has a part, to prevent Iran from attaining nonconventional weapons capabilities. "And I believe, and also know, that the bottom line of these efforts is that Iran will not be nuclear," Olmert said.

In his holiday interview, his first to the print media in a year, Olmert declared that since the Annapolis summit in November, the possibility of reaching an understanding between Israel and the Palestinians during 2008 has grown. The prime minister said that the issue of Jerusalem has not yet been discussed at all, neither in his talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas nor as part of the talks headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni with Ahmed Qureia.

As to Syria, Olmert said: "I know exactly what the Syrians want and I think the Syrians know what the State of Israel and I expect from the peace process."

Olmert said he intented to run again for the leadership of Kadima and to lead the party in the next elections. He did not rule out the possibility of a merger between Kadima and the Labor Party prior to elections.

Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu is not suitable for the post of prime minister, Olmert said, because of his positions. "We remember what happened here when he was prime minister."

Olmert also voiced unequivocal, public backing for Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, calling him devoted to the rule of law. Olmert revealed that a few months ago he asked former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak to head up a committee that would be charged with drafting a law aimed at guaranteeing the independence of the Supreme Court, with Friedman's agreement. According to Olmert, Barak agreed, but later changed his mind.

Olmert: Iran will not be nuclear (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975698.html)

Hizbullah Will Dispatch Israeli Arabs to Attack From Rear in War
April 18, '08
by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) A Syrian newspaper reported that Hizbullah plans to activate masses of Israeli Arab terrorists in the next war.

“A high-ranking Hizbullah official has said the party would launch an offensive on Israel in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 in case the Jewish state wages a new war,” the Iranian Fars News Agency reported in its coverage of the Syrian magazine Al-Hakika’s interview with the unnamed Hizbullah man.

Further elaborating, the Hizbullah planner, a member of the group’s religious “Shura Council,” said, "We would not initiate war but in case they wage any war in the future, there will be a counter attack behind the front lines. And for the first time since 1948 in Palestine itself.”

Israeli-Arabs have increasingly involved in terrorist activities. Former MK Azmi Bishara, one of the most senior and prominent Israeli-Arab representatives, fled Israel after an advanced investigation into treason and assistance to Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War. Most recently, an Israeli-Arab from Jerusalem carried out the shooting murder of eight yeshiva students at the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva. His parents subsequently set up a mourning tent adorned with the flags of the Hizbullah.

Hizbullah Snatched Mughniyeh’s Body
The official also revealed that the body of terror chief Imad Mughniyeh was whisked away to Hizbullah custody in Lebanon just minutes after he was killed by a car-bomb in Damascus on February 12. He said Syrian President Bashar Assad contacted Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah and begged him to keep the death of Mughniyeh a secret – but Nasrallah refused.

Hizbullah Training Sunni Terrorists at 'Furious Pace'
Hizbullah is training new terrorists, including Sunni Muslims, "at a furious pace," sending them to Iran for 45-day advanced training, the Christian Science Monitor reported. It quoted a terrorist, named Jawad, who said, "The holy fighters are leaving universities, shops, places of work to go and train." Hizbullah traditionally has been popular among the Shi'ite sect of Islam, and attracting support from the Sunnis would make it an even more powerful force in strife-torn Lebanon.

A local commander told the newspaper that the next war against Israel will be offensive, unlike the Second Lebanon War which he called a defensive battle. The next war will be "fought more in Israel than in Lebanon," Jawad asserted.

Hizbullah Will Dispatch Israeli Arabs to Attack From Rear in War (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125916)

British intel: China preparing for nuclear war
Analysts say Beijing getting ready for ops beyond Far East
Posted: May 10, 2008
12:30 am Eastern

WorldNetDaily

LONDON – Defense analysts for the British intelligence service MI6 believe China is preparing for the "eventuality of a nuclear war." The conclusion follows evidence that Beijing has built secretly a major naval base deep inside caverns which even sophisticated satellites cannot penetrate.

In an unusual development, the analysts have provided details to the specialist defense periodical, Jane's Intelligence Review, which published satellite images of the base location which is hidden beneath millions of tons of rock on the South China Sea island of Hainan.

The MI6 analysts have confirmed the submarine base hewn out of the rock will contain up to 20 of the latest C94 Jin-Class submarines, each capable of firing anti-satellite missiles and nuclear tipped rockets.

Knocking out the satellites would leave Taiwan, Japan and other countries around the Pacific Rim effectively without a key warning system. An attack also would disrupt vital communications between U.S. battle squadrons in the region and Washington.

Satellite images studied by GCHQ, Britain's spy in the sky intelligence gathering organization based at Cheltenham that works closely with the U.S. National Security Agency, have confirmed the entrance to the base is through no fewer than 11 separate tunnel openings.

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine, one of those in the Typhoon Fleet, now has joined another from the U.S. Pacific Fleet to build up a clear image of what is happening inside the secret base which, as well as China's nuclear subs, could house "a host of aircraft carriers."

Naval intelligence officers in London and Washington have confirmed the discovery of the base will present "a significant challenge to U.S. naval dominance and protection to countries ringing the South China Sea."

The base is sited at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan island. The island came to the attention of Western intelligence in April 2001, when a U.S. EP-3 spy plane trying to test the island's electronic defenses was forced to land there by Chinese fighters, one of which crashed in the sea killing the pilot.

A Ministry of Defense analyst, who cannot be named for security reasons, believes "this could be the prelude to China preparing for a nuclear response."

'Bush intends to attack Iran'
Israel's Army Radio cites unnamed U.S. official

US denies report on plan to attack Iran

The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran's push for a nuclear weapon "through peaceful diplomatic means."

Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.

The official reportedly went on to say that "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic for the time being.

The Army Radio report, which was quoted by The Jerusalem Post and resonated widely, stated that according to assessments in Israel, the recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah has de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack.

Bush, the official reportedly said, considered Hizbullah's show of strength to constitute evidence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's growing influence. In Bush's view, the official said, "the disease must be treated - not its symptoms."

However, the White House on Tuesday afternoon dismissed the story. In a statement, it said that "[the US] remain opposed to Iran's ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon. To that end, we are working to bring tough diplomatic and economic pressure on the Iranians to get them to change their behavior and to halt their uranium enrichment program.

It went on: "As the President has said, no president of the United States should ever take options off the table, but our preference and our actions for dealing with this matter remain through peaceful diplomatic means. Nothing has changed in that regard."

In an address to the Knesset during his visit here last week, Bush said that "the president of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages."

"America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions," Bush said. "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

Only reason this is here is because of the threat, and I didn't feel like starting a new topic.
~~~~~~~~~~

Smuggling Network Had Blueprint for Advanced Nuclear Weapon

Sunday , June 15, 2008

A draft report released by a former U.N. weapons inspector found that the international smuggling ring that supplied nuclear designs to Iran, Libya, and North Korea also obtained the blueprints for an advanced nuclear warhead, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

David Albright, a well-known nuclear weapons expert, said that designs for a nuclear device small enough to fit on a ballistic missile were found on computers belonging to the now-defunct smuggling ring of rouge Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Khan — who remains under house arrest in Pakistan for selling nuclear technologies — supplied secret nuclear blueprints to Libya, North Korea and Iran, according the Post. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been conducting an on-going investigation into what other secrets may have sold by A.Q. Khan.

Albright's report said what is troubling about these electronic blueprints — discovered in 2006 on the computer of a Swiss businessman — is that it shows the existence of another, more sophisticated design than the one sold to Libya — better suited the missile capabilities of countries such as Iran.

Swiss authorities, under the direction of the IAEA reportedly destroyed the computer contents, said the Post.

But Albright — who is known for exposing the location of Iran's secret nuclear facilities — warns the electronic blue-prints, made up of hundreds of pages of documents, could easily be copied and shared with a number of countries, according to the newspaper.

"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in his report, which was obtained by the newspaper.

Albright’s report is expected to be published later this week.

Smuggling Network Had Blueprint for Advanced Nuclear Weapon (http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,367196,00.html)

Terrorists admit cease-fire in Gaza will be used to rearm, prepare for battle

The Gaza cease-fire agreed to yesterday by Hamas and Israel is a "victory" for Palestinian "resistance" and will be used by local terrorist groups to rearm and prepare for battle against the Jewish state, top Gaza-based terror leaders told WND.

"We are humiliating the Israelis. They kept threatening to make a huge operation in Gaza, but they were the ones who begged us to go into the cease-fire," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, a leader and spokesman for the Hamas-allied, Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror group.

Along with Hamas, the Committees took responsibility for firing nearly 30 mortars and rockets from Gaza into nearby Jewish communities Wednesday, lightly injuring one Israeli woman just hours before the truce went into effect.

"The rocket attacks prove we are not going into this cease-fire from a weak point but from a point of force and power," Abdel-Al said.

Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND his group will use the truce to rearm itself.

"The hudna (temporary truce) will be used for more training, arming. ... We don't have any intention to stop from bringing in weapons from the Sinai into Gaza," said Abdullah.

He called the cease-fire "one more sign of the collapse of the Israeli army, that this big Israeli army with the so-called best air force in the world didn't succeed to stop the rockets, and they accepted the truce."

The term "hudna," dates back to Islam's founding in the 7th century, when Muhammad declared a 10-year hudna with the tribe that controlled Mecca. Later, after rearming, Muhammad attacked the tribe, claiming it had broken the truce. In 1994, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat invoked Muhammad's hudna when he justified the launch of the second intifada during the Oslo peace process.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted in 2003 that Hamas had agreed to 10 cease-fires in the previous decade and returned freshly armed after each one.

"It is important to note," the institute said, "that all cease-fire offers have been presented at a time when Hamas needed a moment to step back and regroup after an organizationally exhausting confrontation with a more powerful foe (either Israel or the PA)."

Israeli security officials have warned in briefings to the Knesset that Hamas would use the truce to rearm itself and strengthen its forces for an ultimate Israeli military incursion into Gaza. The officials said more Israeli troops would likely die fighting in Gaza because of the off-time Hamas is likely to use to prepare itself for battle.

The Gaza cease-fire officially went into effect at 6 a.m. Jerusalem time yesterday. Israel has said it will hold off all military operations in Gaza in exchange for a complete cessation of Palestinian rocket attacks and violence.

Hamas, for its part, reportedly instructed its members to refrain from carrying out any attacks.

If the truce holds through the weekend, Israel said it would ease its blockade of Gaza by allowing a larger number of shipments to enter and may open border crossings closed in recent months.

In a statement issued as the truce went into effect, Hamas' military wing warned Israel the cease-fire was "not in anyway a free gift" and said it is ready to resume attacks:

"[Hamas'] Qassam Brigades is fully ready to launch a military strike that would shake the Zionist entity if they did not abide by all the items of the calm deal and the Zionist enemy would be responsible for any foolish act they may commit," the statement said.

http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/June20/2024.html (http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/June20/2024.html)

Arabs fear fallout of nuclear conflict

Nervous Arab states fear a war in the Gulf but a nuclear-armed Iran is an even greater concern
Ian Black, Middle East editor
Thursday July 10, 2008

Arab governments are deeply worried about the prospect of war between Iran and Israel and/or the US for the very good reason that several of them would be directly in the firing line if hostilities erupted. Any fallout could have devastating consequences.

Iranian retaliation against oilfields, refineries and desalination plants in the Gulf, especially in eastern Saudi Arabia, is an obvious worry. Tehran has gone on the record as threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point for 40% of globally-traded oil, if it is attacked. Washington quickly insisted that it will not let that happen.

As the sabres rattled this week, Iran warned that it would strike at Tel Aviv and the US navy, though Revolutionary Guard Shehab missiles would find it difficult to distinguish between American and Arab targets: the US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain; US Central Command in nearby Qatar and the US navy has long relied on docking facilities at Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates.

Even without the threat of war, Iran's Arab neighbours have long lived in fear of another Chernobyl: the Bushehr nuclear reactor, two miles from the Gulf coast, is closer to six Arab capitals (Kuwait, Riyadh, Manama, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Muscat) than it is to Tehran. Any nuclear accident would be an ecological disaster.

But the recent sniping has been ominous. "We are sandwiched between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the US on the other," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai. "We feel that we are going to be victims."

Abdullah Alshayji, a Kuwaiti analyst, agrees, describing the Gulf states as "feeling like helpless bystanders with little room to manoeuvre". War would be "a nightmare of epic proportions for the whole region," he said.

And Tehran is mistrusted in almost every Arab capital. None believe the insistent claim that it is interested only in civilian nuclear power and has no military ambitions. It is seen as working to establish its hegemony across the Middle East, setting the agenda through allies or "non-state" proxies such as Hizbullah and Hamas, confounding the US and Israel in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

Syria, Iran's only Arab ally, is the glaring exception, maintaining a strategic relationship that dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Maverick Qatar, home to al-Jazeera as well as a huge US air base, has been careful to stay on good terms with Tehran, not least because of massive joint natural gas projects. Otherwise Arab states are united in their suspicion of the country they fervently hoped to see defeated by Saddam Hussein in his eight-year struggle against Ayatollah Khomeini. Historic Arab antipathy to Persians still runs very deep. And vice versa.

The sight of long-range Iranian missiles being launched into desert skies was a grim reminder of that war against Saddam. But Arabs already see Iran as the main beneficiary of the more recent conflict in Iraq, with the Sunnis defeated and marginalised by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad — even if there are now signs of grudging acceptance that it is there to stay.

Public statements by Arab leaders make clear that they oppose military action by Israel or the United States. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council has declared that it would not allow its territory to be used to attack Iran — and even hosted Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at its summit late last year.

Saudi Arabia, where some military men are said to be privately advocating a hardline stance towards Iran, has chosen the path of accommodation rather than confrontation. King Abdullah made a symbolic public declaration of this policy last year when he invited Ahmadinejad to go on the ubgone86 pilgrimage to Mecca.

Bahrain, just a few miles across the Gulf from Iran, has anxieties over so-called Iranian "sleeper cells" amongst its restive Shias - the majority of the population in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. But it too favours engagement and diplomacy — and worries about conflict. The same is true of Kuwait, at the head of the Gulf.

Further afield, Jordan's King Abdullah, who coined the phrase "Shia crescent" to describe the alarming spread of Sunni-Shia sectarianism, warned recently that action against Iran would open a "Pandora's box". His recommendation: "Engage with the Iranians. A military strike in Iran will only solicit a reaction from Iran and Iranian proxies, and I don't think that we can live with any more conflicts in this part of the world."

Privately, things may be different: "If we have to choose between Iranian nuclear deterrence and intimidation, or accept military action as a solution, we'll accept military action," says Alani. "We in the Gulf can live with Iranian retaliation for a week or a month. That's manageable compared to the possibility that Iran will be a nuclear power."

Israel, waging an intensifying propaganda campaign over Iran - and seeking to coax Syria away from its alliance with Tehran - likes to claim that "moderate" Arab states would support an attack on Iran's nuclear installations, though passive acquiescence is not the same as active support.

"We would not be participants," Alani says of the Gulf states. "We would be beneficiaries. But no one will say this in public. We don't want premature confrontation because we still believe there is a margin for a diplomatic solution."

Still, there is no mistaking the anxiety in the region. "Perhaps the objective of Iran's frequent threats is to stir up fear amongst the Gulf states over the repercussions of any US strike against it so that they it turn may pressure Washington into preventing any military action," observed Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed in the Saudi-owned al-Sharq al-Awsat. "But this is having an opposite effect from the desired one."

Arabs fear fallout of nuclear conflict (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/10/middleeast.iran)

'Peace partner' officially rejects truce with Israel
While Hamas terrorists use time-out to rearm, produce advanced rockets
Posted: July 11, 2008
12:00 am Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

JAFFA, Israel – The military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization yesterday officially announced it is no longer party to a three-week truce forged in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.

The Hamas terror group continues to abide by the cease-fire, while Fatah took credit for launching three rockets from Gaza yesterday aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

U.S. and Israeli policies consider Abbas to be "moderate" and those two nations have been negotiating with him in line with talks started at last November's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis Summit, which seeks to create a Palestinian state by the end of the year.

A pamphlet released yesterday by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and obtained by WND calls the Gaza truce "illogical."

"The cease-fire is gone and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades will make the enemy pay a high price for its crimes against the truce Hamas gave for free to the enemy. We emphasize our right to act at any time and place of our choosing," reads the pamphlet.

The statement, signed by the Brigades "in the name of Allah," accuses Israel of "assassinating" one of the terror group's "most remarkable leaders, Talal Abed."

Abed was killed on Wednesday when he resisted arrest and opened fire during an Israeli anti-terror operation. The Israeli Defense Forces said Abed was planning an imminent suicide bombing inside Israel.

The IDF claimed Abed was a Hamas member and was planning attacks on behalf of Hamas, even though WND pointed out Abed is a well-known Fatah leader and Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades itself announced Abed was working on its behalf.

Since the cease-fire was signed last month, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have fired more than a dozen rockets and mortars into Israel.

Officially, Fatah and the PA – headed by Abbas – endorse the Gaza truce agreement. But unofficially, the PA has been expressing to Israeli and American diplomats its strong opposition to the truce, explaining the cease-fire puts Hamas in a more powerful position.

WND last month quoted a top PA official complaining the truce between Hamas and Israel enhances the position of Hamas and amounts to the Jewish state's tacit recognition of the terrorist group's control of the Gaza Strip.

The PA official's main complaint was not that Israel was negotiating with a terror group but that the Jewish state, he argued, was enhancing Hamas at the expense of the PA.

The official said the PA took particular offense at talk of eventually expanding the truce to the West Bank, which until now has been considered the territory of Abbas' Fatah organization.

He said if Hamas was seen as the main power broker in the West Bank, it would be a "disaster" for Fatah and the PA.

Hamas for its part is taking full advantage of the truce.

A mysterious explosion at a Hamas training facility in the Gaza Strip earlier this week occurred while terrorists were attempting to produce rockets that can hit further inside Israel, Hamas sources told WND.

The explosion underscores the Gaza-based terrorists' utilization of the cease-fire to rearm, train and produce advance weaponry for use against Israel.

"It is not really a period of rest. We have been training, receiving religious courses ... we've been producing weapons, working on smuggling everything that can reinforce us," said a senior terrorist in Gaza, speaking on condition his name be withheld.

"This period will make that our capacities will be much stronger than before the truce," the senior terrorist said.

IDF prepares as truce 'could end soon'
Jul. 9, 2008
Yaakov Katz and AP , THE JERUSALEM POST

Following a week of near-daily Palestinian violations of the Israeli-Hamas cease-fire, senior defense officials said Thursday that the truce could be in its final stages and that as a result the IDF was preparing for possible future incursions into the Gaza Strip.

"It is not clear how much longer the cease-fire will last and we need to be prepared for an operation in Gaza," a senior defense official told The Jerusalem Post shortly after two Kassam rockets struck the western Negev Thursday afternoon.

Both rockets both hit in open areas, causing no casualties or damage. A faction of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Thursday evening Hamas said it had arrested the two men who had fired the rockets, according to an official from the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. Reuters quoted the official as saying that Hamas's security forces had detained two of its members who were part of a Kassam launching squad.

"They chased the two after they fired the rockets and captured them," he said.

A senior Hamas leader confirmed on Thursday that his group will hold to the cease-fire and stop violators.

The remarks by Moussa Abu Marzouk came after two days of talks with Egypt's chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, who is the main mediator in the fragile truce that started June 19.

In a statement before returning to Syria, Abu Marzouk called for "solidifying" the truce, saying it was in the Palestinians' interest.

He also promised that his group, which controls the Gaza Strip, will stop violators who have been firing rockets into southern Israel.

Al-Aksa had said earlier that an 18-year-old Palestinian who was shot and killed by IDF troops Thursday morning, after crossing the Gaza fence into Israel, belonged to its ranks.

The troops called on the youth to stop and after he tried to flee, they opened fire fearing a terror infiltration. An inspection of his body revealed that he was unarmed. It was the first death on either side since the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire went into effect on June 19.

"We will not let this crime pass silently," the group had said in a text message to reporters. It did not say what the young man was doing along the border.

Hamas said it considered the predawn shooting of the 18-year-old a violation of the truce.

"The Palestinian factions show a great commitment to making this understanding successful, but the occupation must also be committed to their obligations," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Late Wednesday night, a Palestinian gunmen affiliated with Fatah was killed during an arrest raid in Jenin.

Also Thursday, eight Palestinians from the Isawiya in southeast Jerusalem were arrested on suspicion of throwing Molotov cocktails at cars on the road to Ma'aleh Adumim and near the Mount Scopus campus of the capital's Hebrew University, authorities announced Thursday. The eight were members of a cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In other violence, a border policeman was lightly wounded by a rock thrown by anti-security barrier demonstrators in the West Bank town of Na'alin, north of Modi'in.

Hundreds of Palestinians and Israeli protesters clashed with police and several of the demonstrators were also reportedly hurt.

The army said they were demonstrating in a closed military zone and that security forces were trying to disperse them using crowd control measures.

Dozens of IDF jeeps and trucks entered Nablus before dawn Thursday, and soldiers raided a medical clinic, confiscating computers and documents, witnesses said. Some of the offices were ordered closed, and soldiers also confiscated five schoolbuses, they said.

The IDF confirmed an operation against Hamas in Nablus, but offered no details.

Palestinian Authority Interior Minister Abdel Razek Yehiyeh said the Israeli raids were undermining the Palestinian government's efforts to establish law and order in the West Bank. "We condemn these practices and see them as sabotaging our security achievements," he told a news conference in Ramallah.

IDF prepares as truce 'could end soon' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330928848&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Congress warned: U.S. risks 'catastrophe' in EMP attack

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=69280 (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=69280)

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A top scientist today warned the House Armed Services Committee America remains vulnerable to a "catastrophe" from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack that could be launched with plausible deniability by hostile rogue nations or terrorists.

William R. Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack and the former national science adviser to President Reagan, testified before the committee while presenting a sobering new report on "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences."

It is the first report from the commission since 2004 and identifies vulnerabilities in the nation's critical infrastructures, "which are essential to both our civilian and military capabilities."

Not taking the steps necessary to reduce the threat in the next three to five years "can both invite and reward attack," Graham told the committee.

The scariest and most threatening kind of EMP attack is initiated by the detonation of a nuclear weapon at high altitude in the range of 25 to 250 miles above the Earth's surface. The immediate effects of EMP are disruption of, and damage to, electronic systems and electrical infrastructure. Such a detonation over the middle of the continental U.S. "has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures that support the fabric of U.S. society and the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power," said Graham.

"Several potential adversaries have the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse, and others appear to be pursuing efforts to obtain that capability," said Graham. "A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. For example, an adversary would not have to have long-range ballistic missiles to conduct an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile to loft a nuclear warhead to high altitude. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could attempt to execute such an attack without revealing the identity of the perpetrators. Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of the Shahab-III, a test mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the tests as successful. Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that emerges when we connect the dots."

Graham reminded the committee even smaller nuclear weapons can create massive EMP effects over wide geographic areas. He also pointed out that United Nations investigators recently found that "the design for an advanced nuclear weapon, miniaturized to fit on ballistic missiles currently in the inventory of Iran, North Korea and other potentially hostile states, was in the possession of Swiss criminals affiliated with the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network."

Theoretically, an EMP attack is devastating because of the unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures that could result. Because of America's heavy reliance on electricity and electronics, the impact would be far worse than on a country less advanced technologically. Graham and the commission see the potential for failure in the financial system, the system of distribution for food and water, medical care and trade and production.

"The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent upon the recovery of others," he said. "The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. It is possible for the functional outages to become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."

Graham took the EMP debate out of the realm of science fiction by reminding the committee that as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Russian leaders threatened a U.S. congressional delegation with the specter of such an attack that would paralyze the U.S.

He also quoted James J. Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security, who two weeks ago told the same House committee that China's arms buildup includes exotic experiments with electromagnetic weapons that can devastate electronics with bursts of energy similar to those produced by a nuclear blast.

"The consequence of EMP is that you destroy the communications network," Shinn said. "And we are, as you know, and as the Chinese know, heavily dependent on sophisticated communications, satellite communications, in the conduct of our forces. And so, whether it's from an EMP or it's some kind of a coordinated [anti-satellite] effort, we could be in a very bad place if the Chinese enhanced their capability in this area."

Graham says terrorists who get their hands on one or a few unsophisticated nuclear weapons might well calculate they could get the most bang for their buck from attempting an EMP attack.

Recovery from a widespread EMP attack could take months or years, Graham warned. The fact that key components of the U.S. electrical grid are not even manufactured in America and must be ordered a year in advance from foreign suppliers suggests just how complicated and time-consuming recovery might be. The high state of automation within America's utilities further complicates recovery. There just might not be sufficient trained manpower available to get the job done in a timely way.

"The commission's view is that the federal government does not today have sufficient human and physical assets for reliably assessing and managing EMP threats," said Graham. "The commission reviewed current national capabilities to understand and to manage the effects of EMP and concluded that the U.S. is rapidly losing the technical competence and facilities that it needs in the government, the national laboratories and the industrial community."

Graham said it's not too late for Congress to take the bull by the horns and take the steps necessary to prepare for the threat – and thereby reduce it.

"A serious national commitment to address the threat of an EMP attack can lead to a national posture that would significantly reduce the payoff for such an attack and allow the United States to recover from EMP, and from other threats, man-made and natural, to the critical infrastructures," said Graham.

Graham's predecessor as chairman of the commission had equally tough words on the impact of the EMP threat.

"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress in 2005.

The commission's previous report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."

The weapons of World War III

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69079 (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69079)

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Did the Chinese military cause the largest blackout in the history of North America?

That is the assertion of Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, who says U.S. intelligence officials confirmed to him the People's Liberation Army gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern U.S. in 2003, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Some 50 million people were affected by the 9,300-square-mile blackout that hit parts of New York, Canada, Michigan and Ohio.

The official explanation for the power outage was that overgrown trees came into contact with strained high-voltage lines in Ohio. But the story of this possible skirmish in the "electromagnetic spectrum" is widely whispered about in defense and intelligence circles. It is referred to by some as the first battle of World War III – a conflict to be fought asymmetrically in cyberspace and with weapons that might seem like science fiction.

The Moscow newspaper Zavtra reported only a week ago that Russia has developed "special powerful electromagnetic impulse generators that may be used in design of new type radars and as a basis of electromagnetic weapons that will render enemy electronics inoperable."

"The U.S. Army is convinced meanwhile that the Russians have already designed 'kinetic weapons' and 'directed energy weapons' (apparently lasers) for ASAT warfare," the article continued. "In any event, the Americans suspect that the recent episode with the Chinese laser that damaged an American spysat became possible precisely because Moscow had made this technology available to China."

The superweapons being developed for the next global conflict began coming into sharper focus last winter when China destroyed one of its own aging, low-Earth-orbit weather satellites while it was circling at an altitude of 500 miles, using a ground-based, direct ascent anti-satellite weapon.

This year, the U.S., using its sea-based Aegis missile defense system, shot down a disabled American intelligence satellite at 100 or so miles altitude as it tumbled uncontrollably toward the planet.

The Defense Department says China is developing non-kinetic means of attacking satellites, such as jamming and blinding, and using lasers, microwave, particle beam and electromagnetic pulse weapons.

Cyber-warfare, one of the proven strengths of the Chinese military, can also be used as an anti-satellite capability. In congressional testimony this year, the director of national intelligence stated, "Counter-command, control and sensor systems, to include communications satellite jammers and ASAT weapons, are among Beijing's highest military priorities."

Bennett, meanwhile, told the National Journal he believes Chinese cyber-hackers were also responsible for another U.S. blackout last February in Florida – one that affected 3 million customers.

Bennett told the National Journal he decided to speak publicly about the incidents to point out that security for the nation's critical electronic infrastructures is weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven't sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.

Whistling Past the Graveyard
By John Perazzo

Last week, columnist Paul Weyrich reported that there is credible evidence that Osama bin Laden has acquired twenty suitcase-sized nuclear bombs from Chechen rebels in the former Soviet Union and smuggled them into the United States by way of the Mexican border. If that is true, the al Qaeda kingpin has laid the groundwork for an “American Hiroshima” plan that he intends to carry out in the very near future. Once bin Laden gives the signal, his henchmen will proceed to detonate their explosives in a number of separate U.S. cities, leaving them in irreparable ruins and killing tens of millions of people in the process.

In other words, while the Left, ever since 9/11, has argued passionately against sealing the southern U.S. border on grounds that such an initiative would constitute “racism,” “xenophobia,” a violation of “human rights,” a repudiation of “American values,” and a “threat to the environment,” bin Laden has quietly and happily exploited our national insanity and set the stage, from his cave somewhere in the remote mountains of Pakistan, for the cataclysmic end of the most powerful nation in world history.

If bin Laden indeed has been able to set in motion this nightmare scenario, he succeeded for one very simple reason: America’s military might has been offset by a weakness of spirit that has become a hallmark of the modern Western world. It is a frailty that derives entirely from the leftist worldview that has infected America over the past half-century. This view identifies Western (especially American) culture as a uniquely evil, exploitative player in the story of mankind, and depicts all acts of barbarism against the U.S. as wholly understandable reactions to American transgressions. It is a mindset that has gradually, incrementally, and inexorably made its “long march through the institutions,” -- the schools, the seminaries and churches, the media, the entertainment industry, the courts, and the political sphere -- just as the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci prescribed in the 1920s.

Gramsci understood that by poisoning the culture from within, and by so degrading and undermining the culture’s faith in itself, the American people could be compelled to believe, to their very marrow, that their heritage was in fact unworthy of defending against those who would destroy it under the banner of so-called “multiculturalism.” Gramsci and his successors were patient enough to allow this time-consuming process to unfold, knowing that the American way of life could be bled to death ever-so-slowly, almost imperceptibly, without the firing of a single shot until the time was just right. The fact that the person who ultimately may fire that shot is a seventh-century-style savage whose fanatical “religious” worldview bears no resemblance whatsoever to the ideals of Gramsci and his fellow Marxists, is not as strange as one might think. As bin Laden himself declared in a fatwa issued on Al-Jazeera Television just before American and British troops entered Iraq in March 2003: “The interests of Muslims and the interests of the socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders.”

Given that bin Laden’s agents of nuclear holocaust apparently were smuggled into our country by way of the Mexican border, it is worth recalling what some of the luminaries of the Left have had to say, in recent years, vis a vis defending that border by means of increased surveillance and the construction of a fence to repel illegal invaders:

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): Former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser attributes the concerns that many Americans have about illegal immigration to a “wave of anti-immigrant hysteria.” Wade Henderson of the ACLU’s Washington, DC office claims that the desire to regulate immigration can be traced directly to “hostility motivated by nativism, racism, and red scare.” In May 2008, the ACLU produced a tearjerker advertisement lamenting how a fence somewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border had ruined Mother’s Day for a Mexican woman and her daughter by keeping them apart.

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC): Viewing the United States as the world’s primary agent of evil and exploitation, this group has posted on its website a detailed list of strategies by which illegal aliens -- in the event that they are interrogated, detained, or arrested -- can avoid cooperating with immigration authorities or police. According to AFSC, a border fence would “disrupt” area residents’ “way of life” and “has never proven to be a long-term, practical solution to the immigration dilemma.” The organization further contends that such a fence would constitute “a form of violence to the environment” because “it is expected to cause irreversible damage to the Tijuana River Estuary environs as well as cause erosion and flooding in Tijuana.”

Border Action Network (BAN): This neo-Marxist group seeks “to ensure that those who are most impacted [i.e., illegal aliens] by border and immigration policies are at the forefront of movements calling for human dignity and civil rights …” Advocating the dissolution of American borders, BAN calls for unchecked, unregulated migration into and out of the United States. The organization has filed lawsuits against what it calls “an ugly movement of armed, militia-style civilian groups” and “anti-immigrant, white supremacist groups” -- such as American Border Patrol and Ranch Rescue -- for their practice of detaining illegal aliens and calling government border agents to arrest them. BAN co-director Jennifer Allen said in 2002: “They [illegal immigrants] have civil rights and human rights that take precedence over defending the country.” Former BAN spokesman Chris Ford, for his part, expresses concern that “this [fence] plan will cause massive environmental destruction” affecting in particular the Sonoran Pronghorn, an animal that resembles an antelope and is considered an “endangered species.”

National Council of Churches (NCC): A longtime enemy of the United States, NCC in the 1950s and 1960s, under the rubric of charity, provided financial assistance to the communist regimes in Yugoslavia and Poland. In the 1970s it helped finance Soviet-sponsored guerrilla incursions into Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, and Angola. In the 1980s it contributed large sums of money to the Marxist Sandinista Party in Nicaragua and communist guerrillas in El Salvador. Moreover, the organization has supported Fidel Castro’s (and now his successor’s) regime in Cuba for decades.

In April 2008, NCC co-signed an interfaith letter to Congress expressing “grave concern over the environmental destruction currently occurring in the U.S.-Mexico border region” as a result of the “hasty construction of hundreds of miles of fencing along the border.” “The current path of the border fence,” NCC explained, “cuts through places like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, home to over 500 species of plants, 50 species of mammals, and nearly 300 species of birds. Construction of the fence is severing migration routes and destroying thousands of acres of wildlife habitat. In Arizona alone, 39 species protected or proposed to be protected under the Endangered Species Act are being adversely affected by Border Patrol activities, including construction of the fence….”

Defenders of Wildlife (DOW): This environmentalist group has warned that the erection of a border fence will have “serious and lasting” effects on the region’s wildlife, water, and air. According to DOW associate Jenny Neeley, such a fence will significantly impact biological diversity along the border by preventing desert animals from moving around freely. “Right now,” she says, “on the U.S.-Mexico border there are 47 endangered species, including the jaguar, the ocelot, the lesser long nosed bat and numerous bird species.” Neeley further complains that the bright lights used by border patrol officers during overnight hours can cause great harm to “nocturnal animals.”

National Council of La Raza (NCLR): This organization favors amnesty for illegals already residing in the U.S., and open borders henceforth. In NCLR’s calculus, any restriction on the free movement of immigrants constitutes a violation of their civil liberties, and any reduction in government assistance to illegal border-crossers is “a disgrace to American values.” Thus NCLR supports continued mass Mexican immigration to the United States, and hopes to achieve, by the sheer weight of numbers, the re-partition of the American Southwest as a new state called “Aztlan” -- to be controlled by its alleged rightful owners, the people and government of Mexico. In October 2006, NCLR President and CEO Janet Murguía said that the prospect of a border fence “doesn’t solve the immigration issue, it makes it worse.”

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF): Over the course of its 40-year history, MALDEF has undertaken numerous legal campaigns to abet the cause of illegal immigration. In 1994, for example, the organization condemned Operation Gatekeeper, a U.S. government program intended to restore integrity to a particularly porous stretch of the California-Mexico border. Claiming that this initiative was callously “diverting” illegal border-crossers “from California to the harsh and dangerous Arizona desert,” MALDEF charged that Americans opposing unrestricted immigration were motivated largely by “racism and xenophobia.”

In 2006 MALDEF’s Interim President and General Counsel John Trasviña called the prospective border fence “a travesty” that “will take years to complete and does nothing to address America’s immigration or labor needs.” An official MALDEF statement said that such a fence would “make illegal crossings more deadly and dangerous” and would cause hardship for “American families who want to be reunited with loved ones.”

cont'd

League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC): In December 2005 LULAC created a website titled “WeAreRacists.com,” which portrayed the Minuteman Project -- a nonviolent organization of U.S. citizens who alert the Border Patrol to the presence of unauthorized border-crossers in the American Southwest -- as “an anti-immigrant group” composed of “racists, cowards, un-Americans (sic), vigilantes, [and] domestic terrorists” who are “often affiliated with white supremacy groups.”

LULAC opposes border-patrol policies that would authorize the U.S. military to prevent illegal immigration, on grounds that “military personnel are not trained for border patrolling and might easily violate the civil rights of those they intervene with.” José Velez, who headed the League from 1990 to 1994, has said that the U.S. Border Patrol is “the enemy of my people and always will be.” In 2006 LULAC National President Hector. M. Flores condemned the prospective security fence as “an affront to immigrant communities [that] will create a permanent scar in the relationship between the United States and our southern neighbors.” “Building a ‘Berlin’ style wall between ourselves and our neighbor,” he added, “is un-American, undemocratic, and unacceptable in a free society.

Democrats: In April 2008, fourteen House Democrats, including eight committee chairmen, said they would file a brief supporting a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s plans to finish erecting nearly 500 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of the year. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said, “Our responsibility to be stewards of the earth cannot be thrown aside for the sake of an ill-conceived border fence.”
If indeed Osama bin Laden’s nuclear holocaust looms just over the horizon, life as we have known it in this country will soon be gone forever. All that remains to be seen is how far the Islamists will go to humiliate and degrade us before striking their lethal blows. And we can trace this awful fate directly to the imbecilic, catastrophic policies of organizations and individuals like those listed above. While they have lectured us on stupidities like the “rights” of “undocumented” border-crossers and the plight of “endangered” long-nosed bats, our enemies were not nearly as timid as we were.

What distinguishes a large proportion of the American population from bin Laden's Islamists goes far beyond the genocidal ambitions of the latter. The most vital distinction is that the Islamists believe, with every fiber of their being, in the legitimacy (indeed, the supremacy) of their culture and the nobility of their mission. Nothing can deter them from their single-minded quest to conquer and murder in the name of Allah.

By contrast, many tens of millions of Americans have been conditioned, by decades of leftist assaults on the legitimacy of their history and traditions, to doubt that those traditions even merit a stiff defense. Only in such a culture would so many people -- from anonymous men and women on any street corner to the occupant of the Oval Office -- be so preoccupied with reiterating, ad nauseam, the notion that authentic Islam is, at its essence, a “religion of peace” that unfortunately was “hijacked” by a “small minority of extremists.” Only in such a culture would it be widely understood, as it is in America, that any deviation from these absurd talking points opens one up to charges of “Islamophobia” and “bigotry.”

Thus Americans have voluntarily placed themselves in a rhetorical and ideological straight jacket, fearing to admit that they can even perceive the plain reality that Islam’s predominant teachings and emphases -- as set forth in the trilogy consisting of the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sira -- differ greatly from those of Western religious traditions.

Their fear of stating this simple, inarguable truth closely parallels their fear of demanding that our nation strengthen its border security to the point where illegal entry is made impossible -- lest they be smeared as “racists” and “nativists” who are unconcerned with the “dignity” and the “common humanity” of “impoverished undocumented workers,” blah, blah, blah.

This type of trembling population -- echoing dutifully the cacophony of empty platitudes uttered by all manner of America-hating, know-nothing leftists in the political arena, in the media, in the pulpit, and in the university classroom -- have provided Osama bin Laden with more than enough assurance that he is facing an enemy ripe for slaughter on a scale never before seen.

Does Osama bin Laden possess nuclear weapons? Has he smuggled these weapons into the United States? Does he have a plan to detonate these weapons in multiple American cities if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities? Dr. Hugh Cort, President of the American Foundation for Counter-Terrorism Policy and Research, believes the answer to all of these questions is yes.

Cort has assembled a body of evidence which he claims supports the view that bin Laden has a plan for an "American Hiroshima" which will be implemented in the near future. He has sent this material to various U.S. officials, including Robert S. Mueller III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Cort believes that the government is not doing enough to prevent an attack.

Much of his evidence centers around one Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who has conducted the only interview of bin Laden after 9/11. Bin Laden told Mir that he had acquired 20 suitcase nuclear bombs from the former Soviet Union. Mir told Cort that bin Laden's men have smuggled these bombs into the United States. His men supposedly are waiting for bin Laden to give them the signal, then seven to ten American cities will be struck. If true it is little wonder that Iran's leader confidently predicts that the United States will be bombed back to the Stone Age.

Bin Laden supposedly has fulfilled Islamic law by warning the United States that an attack is coming and offering a truce - convert to Islam and you will not be attacked. Refusal to convert to Islam means that an attack against America is justified. Three weeks prior to 9/11 bin Laden warned that the United States would be attacked in an unprecedented way for its support of Israel.

Already bin Laden has called for all Muslims in the United States to leave. Instead of a mass exodus of Muslims from this country, new mosques are opening every few weeks. Muslim schools also are being established, which suggests that families plan to stay here for the foreseeable future. But Yossef Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism from 1988 to 1998, has testified that bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons. He told Congress that "Osama has recruited former Soviet Special Forces (SPETSNAZ) soldiers to teach al Qaeda how to maintain and operate the bombs."

Mir, by the way, has suggested that most of the nuclear weapons have been smuggled across the border from Mexico. Opponents of illegal immigration long have argued that they want the border monitored and closed for national security purposes. Proponents of illegal immigration have maintained that opposition to it is "racist." Clearly, opponents of illegal immigration have the better case, although if Mir is correct, the door may have been open too long. Christopher Ruddy, editor of Newsmax, interviewed Mueller, who told him that he is very concerned about bin Laden having nuclear weapons in the United States, so concerned that the FBI has surrounded mosques in ten American cities with nuclear radiation detectors. Cort quotes Steve Coll, President of New America Foundation, as stating that these detectors cannot sense enriched uranium when it is shielded in lead. If Islamists have such bombs, no doubt they are wrapped in lead.

Cort says that Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff does not have a plan in the event that these bombs are detonated. In such a scenario real deaths will come from radiation. If people know how to avoid radiation prior to an attack, there may be many survivors. If people can devise a radiation-proof shelter in their own homes to survive a detonation, two days later radiation is one, one-hundredth the strength of the initial blast. If people can spend three days in the shelter and then only make brief trips outside once a day, they can defeat radiation. But what credible source has warned people of the potential threat and how they can meet it?

Is all of this just alarmist talk? Has Cort missed something important which would nullify his answers? I have no idea. It seems more than reasonable that we proceed as if it is true. If it proves to be a false alarm, what have we lost? But if Cort's research has merit and we are prepared to handle such a situation, we could minimize its terrible impact. When I asked some U.S. officials why no one in the government is warning people, I was told "we don't want to unduly alarm people." Nonsense. I have great faith that the American people will do the right thing if properly informed. We did in the mid-1950s when told that the Soviet Union could start a nuclear war. We can do so again, but someone with credibility must tell Americans the truth.

U.S., Russia try to quiet flap over bombers in Cuba
Newspaper Izvestia: Crews have visited island to survey for possible refueling stopovers

The U.S. and Russia are trying to quiet speculation over a possible deployment of Russian nuclear-capable bombers to Cuba, but the reports haven't gone away.

The Russian newspaper Izvestia on Thursday reported that Russian bomber crews have visited Cuba to survey for possible refueling stopovers. The newspaper report, which could not be confirmed, came on the same day that a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman denied an earlier Izvestia report about alleged Russian plans to deploy strategic aircraft in Cuba.

But on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a strong denial of the report that first appeared in Izvestia on Monday.

"We see this sort of anonymous allegations as disinformation and another media hoax," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Ilshat Baichurin told the state media service Interfax.

At the same time, the Bush administration sought to defuse tensions by calling the Russian government a partner, not a threat.

"We want to work with them. We seek a strategic partnership with the Russians," said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman.

Buzz about a possible Caribbean crisis began when an Izvestia report claimed Russia was planning a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. that evoked the nuclear-holocaust fears of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The flap over Cuba came as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was in Russia to broker oil deals and buy $1 billion worth of weapons systems.

Izvestia said Russia was considering dispatching long-range bombers to Cuba in answer to Bush administration plans to deploy an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe.

The Bush administration has said repeatedly that the shield system — a radar site in the Czech Republic linked to interceptor missiles in Poland — is intended as a defensive measure against Iran, not Russia.

But Moscow is convinced the system could be used to neutralize Russian missiles, the cornerstone of its military deterrence doctrine.

Earlier this week, Russian officials quickly denied the initial report, though some said that while deploying strategic aircraft in Cuba was technically possible, no decision had been made. But many remained unconvinced by reassurances from the White House and the Kremlin.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, nominated as new Air Force chief of staff, nudged the speculation up a notch when he told his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that Russia would cross "a red line" if it decided to use Cuba for nuclear bombers.

The Izvestia story on Thursday said it was important to emphasize that the report on the visit of the crews — which it said came from sources in the defense ministry — did not mean the planes themselves had been on the island.

Brothers and Sisters,

Any enemy with common sense will utilize weak spots to reach their intended targets. YES - I think that our enemies have more than just common sense. They also have some disgusting traits that must be considered. The worst one is NO CONSCIENCE REGARDING INNOCENTS. This goes along with an undeveloped sense of right and wrong, morals, and traits normally associated with civilized people. Killing innocent non-combatants for us is an unintended mistake that we try to avoid. The exact opposite is true for them. After all, killing innocent women, children, and elderly makes more sensational news and results in greater TERROR. Most of the time, they are too cowardly to meet people able to defend themselves on the battlefield. The vast majority of their strategies are designed to eliminate someone being able to defend themselves or even shoot back. That's why suicide bombers are so popular for them. Just think about tiny Israel and their tiny population in comparison to the giant land masses and giant populations of their enemies. They met tiny Israel on the battlefield and got WHIPPED SEVERELY, so they use cowardly suicide bombers. They also shoot rockets at tiny Israel from among their own women and children, knowing that civilized people wouldn't want to shoot back in those circumstances. So their women and children are best used as shields. Any retaliation must then involve innocents. We must remember that their original targets are all innocents.

Are there going to be more attacks inside American like or worse than 9-11? Common sense says YES! 9-11 alone was almost enough to wreck our entire economy. We are soft and vulnerable, and our enemies KNOW IT. There are hundreds of ways to create more havoc than 9-11, and our enemies also know this. We should expect the casualties to be much higher. So far, we've been able to keep the terrorists pretty busy on their own soil, thus preventing many attacks on our own soil. However, the terrorists haven't forgotten their goals and they are already here with us. Besides, dealing with terrorists on their own soil isn't very popular with many folks, so we will deal with them HERE AMONG US. Most of this sounds pretty silly and stupid to me, especially leaving the borders wide open to allow them easy entry. Who knows what all has been smuggled in to attack us with? Anything smaller than our largest cargo plane would be pretty easy. After all, the enemy is already working in government and high-profile locations like airports. We're like sitting ducks, but we aren't as smart as the sitting ducks. Sitting ducks move and do something intelligent after the first shot has been fired. We just sat here and did nothing. In our STUPIDITY DEFENSE, we had a government that was tasked with many responsibilities NOT DONE! They were too busy with their pet agendas to be worried about the survival of the people. WE ALL KNOW THIS - DON'T WE? All kinds of PERVERSIONS were more important, and things like this happen IN THE FALL OF SOCIETIES! History has given this lesson many times, but mankind didn't learn a thing. The BIBLE also foretells these things, and they always happen exactly as the BIBLE says they will. Will the Tribulation Period Happen? ABSOLUTELY YES! AND, those times might be near for the entire world!

Lebanon: 'Right to fight Israel'

Lebanon's new government recognised Hizbollah's "right" to fight Israel, a move which politicians fear could pave the way for war.

By David Blair in Beirut
03 Aug 2008

Hizbollah, the self-styled "resistance movement" which America and Britain consider a terrorist organisation, could effectively receive official approval for its arsenal of weaponry in southern Lebanon.

This may total about 30,000 missiles - perhaps treble the number of two years ago.

The new weapons will be held in readiness to strike Israel, possibly in retaliation for any American attack on Hizbollah's chief supplier and paymaster, Iran.

This breaches United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended the last war with Israel in 2006 by demanding Hizbollah's disarmament.

Because Hizbollah may keep its weapons, Lebanon's other factions will retain their own militias, who are steadily rearming in preparation for any new conflict.

Lebanon's four million people breathed a collective sigh of relief when a national unity government under a new president, Michel Suleiman, was agreed last month, ending an outbreak of fighting in Beirut.

But Hizbollah and its allies have 11 of the cabinet's 30 ministers - enough to veto any government decision.

Hizbollah used this leverage to force the government to recognise its "right of resistance".

A draft policy statement, released at the weekend and which will go before the full cabinet this week, supports the "right of Lebanon's people, the Army and the Resistance to liberate all its territories".

"The Resistance" is official code for Hizbollah - and the need to "liberate" territories arises from Israel's occupation of eight square miles of land, called the Shebaa Farms, which Lebanon claims.

Israel left its "security zone" in southern Lebanon in 2000.

"Hizbollah wants to have a parallel state, side by side with the Lebanon we know," said Farid Chedid, the editor-in-chief of Lebanon Wire, a local news service.

"What does the right of resistance mean? It means the right to hold weapons in the South. It means the right to move weapons across the Syrian border and all around the country. It means the right to operate a private telecommunications network. This makes Hizbollah a state within a state."

Because Hizbollah is an "Iranian tool", added Mr Chedid, Lebanon's government has lost the power to decide on peace or war.

He added: "The only way out is that a miracle takes place whereby the government of the Lebanese state disarms everybody, including Hizbollah.

But with Hizbollah seeking arms and seeking legitimacy for their arms, all the other parties will seek arms."

Mustafa Allouch, an MP from the alliance supporting Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, described the "Lebanese state" as a "prisoner" of Hizbollah.

"I don't foresee a peaceful end, at least based on the current evidence," he said.

Mr Siniora, a pro-Western Sunni, has an exceptionally weak hand. The national army is probably incapable of disarming Hizbollah - and the UN buffer force in southern Lebanon has a weak mandate restricting its troops to a monitoring role.

If America strikes Iran, Mr Allouch predicted that Hizbollah would embroil Lebanon in the conflict by firing its missiles into Israel.

"It's an apocalyptic view as there will be a very heavy Israeli attack on southern Lebanon," he said.

If so, clashes between Sunnis and Shias inside Lebanon could begin, restarting the civil war which raged between 1975 and 1990. Syria may then intervene on the pretext of restoring order, reviving its long military occupation which ended in 2005.

"If this apocalypse happens, the Syrian army will be the only way out and the international community will back them to intervene," said Mr Allouch.

Lebanon: 'Right to fight Israel' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/lebanon/2494956/Lebanon-Right-to-fight-Israel.html)

Georgian official reports downing of 2 Russian aircraft
Moscow has sent 150 tanks, armored vehicles into breakaway province of South Ossetia

Parts of Russia's 58th Army — including 150 tanks and armored vehicles — reportedly were moving Friday on the capital of South Ossetia after Georgian troops entered the city in an attempt to crush separatist forces seeking to control the breakaway province.

Kakha Lamaia, a member of Georgia's National Security Council, told Reuters the two countries are "very close" to war, if not already at war.

"If it's not war, then we are very close to it," Lamaia said. "The Russians have invaded Georgia and we are under attack."

President Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly were discussing the Georgia crisis after attending the opening of the Beijing Olympic games.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov told Reuters that he is "receiving reports of ethnic cleansing in villages of South Ossetia."

Fighting escalated between Georgian and Russian forces escalated earlier in the day with Georgia claiming to have downed four Russian combat warplanes, and Russian planes bombing the Vaziani airbase outside the Georgian capital of Tblisi.

Russian Ground Forces spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov said that 10 Russian peacekeepers were killed and another 30 wounded durring Georgian shelling of their barracks.

Georgian officials denied firing on the Russian forces.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow was receiving reports that villages in South Ossetia were being ethnically cleansed.

"We are receiving reports that a policy of ethnic cleansing was being conducted in villages in South Ossetia, the number of refugees is climbing, the panic is growing, people are trying to save their lives," he said during televised remarks in Moscow from Russia's Foreign Ministry.

• Click here to view photos.

Georgian troops launched their offensive to regain control over the South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Russia, which has close ties to the separatists, of bombing Georgian territory.

Saakashvili also said it was in the United States' interest to help his country.

But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the Georgian attack will draw retaliation and the Defense Ministry pledged to protect South Ossetians, most of whom have Russian citizenship.

Russia's Channel 1 television earlier showed a convoy of Russian tanks that it said had entered South Ossetia. The report said the convoy is expected to reach the provincial capital within a few hours.

There has been no immediate comment from Russian officials.

Separatist officials in South Ossetia said 15 civilians had been killed in fighting overnight. Georgian officials said seven civilians were wounded in bombing raids by Russia.

Georgia declared a three-hour cease-fire to allow civilians to leave Tskhinvali. Georgia's Interior Ministry spokesman said troops were observing the cease-fire, which began at 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT).

A spokesman for President Bush said Russia and Georgia should cease hostilities and hold talks to end the conflict. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he is seriously concerned about the fighting and that the alliance is closely following the situation.

Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. The country has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership — a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.

Saakashvili long has pledged to restore Tbilisi's rule over South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. Both regions have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and built up ties with Moscow.

Relations between Georgia and Russia worsened notably this year as Georgia pushed to join NATO and Russia dispatched additional peacekeeper forces to Abkhazia.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it is seeking to open a humanitarian corridor to guarantee safe access to Tskhinvali. Maia Kardova, ICRC spokeswoman in Tbilisi, said military vehicles are being given priority on the main road leading to the South Ossetia capital and this is making it difficult for rescue vehicles to get through.

Saakashvili urged Russia to immediately stop bombing Georgian territory.

"Georgia will not yield its territory or renounce its freedom," he said.

A senior Russian diplomat in charge of the South Ossetian conflict, Yuri Popov, dismissed the Georgian claims of Russian bombings as misinformation, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev later chaired a session of his Security Council in the Kremlin, vowing that Moscow will protect Russian citizens.

"In accordance with the constitution and federal law, I, as president of Russia, am obliged to protect lives and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are located," Medvedev said, according to Russian news reports. "We won't allow the death of our compatriots go unpunished."

Russia, Georgia seek control of South Ossetia capital
Fri Aug 8, 2008 7:55pm EDT

By Nikolai Pavlov

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russian forces battled pro-Western Georgian troops in South Ossetia on Friday in an escalating conflict that threatens to engulf a key energy transit route to Western Europe.

Both sides ignored pleas from world leaders for calm as Moscow and Tbilisi blamed each other for the fighting in South Ossetia which began after several days of skirmishes. Georgian forces shelled the capital of its breakaway region, which separatists said left 1,400 people dead.

Moscow said its troops were responding to a Georgian assault to retake the region, which broke from Georgia as the Soviet Union was collapsing but has no international recognition.

The crisis, the first to confront Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev since he took office in May, with violence flaring in a region seen as a key energy transit route where Russia and the West are vying for influence. The hostilities dampened investor confidence and hit the Moscow stock exchange.

Georgia said Russia bombed airfields and Poti port deep inside its territory and Tbilisi and rushed tanks and troops into South Ossetia, formally still a part of Georgia, to reinforce its small force of peacekeepers.

"If the whole world does not stop Russia today, then Russian tanks will be able to reach any other European capital," President Mikheil Saakashvili said.

A top Georgian official said Saakashvili was planning to declare martial law within hours, a move that will gives him a free hand to manage the conflict.

The U.N. Security Council held a second meeting on the conflict on Friday, and diplomats said they hoped the council would unanimously call for a ceasefire.

A Reuters correspondent near Gori -- the birthplace of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin between South Ossetia and the Georgian capital -- saw Georgian troops heading back towards Tbilisi on otherwise empty roads, kicking empty ammunition cartons away from their lorries.

Checkpoints usually manned by the international peacekeeping force in the region were abandoned on the darkened road. Two tanks stood unguarded by the roadside. Georgian soldiers said little and appeared exhausted.

RIVAL CLAIMS

The conflict over Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has bedeviled Georgia's relations with Russia, angered by Tbilisi's moves towards the Western fold and its pursuit of NATO membership.

Both the Russian-backed separatists and the Georgian government said they were in control of the regional capital Tskhinvali.

"Tskhinvali and the heights around Tskhinvali and the majority of the villages in South Ossetia are under the control of Georgian forces," Saakashvili said in a televised address.

Irina Galgoyeva, spokeswoman for separatist South Ossetia, denied the report. "The entire town of Tkshinvali is currently controlled by units of South Ossetia's self-defence," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted her as saying.

Political analysts saw Georgia's bid to re-take its rebel region of South Ossetia by force as a gamble by its leader that Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region on the Black Sea.

"He is in big danger of losing the cachet he built up for himself in being pro-Western and the restraint he has often shown in the face of provocation by Russia," said James Nixey, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

Saakashvili, who wants to take his small Caucasus country in to NATO, has made it a priority to win back control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebel region on the Black Sea.

Saakashvili said the two countries were at war. The Georgian leader said on television: "What Russia is doing in Georgia is open, unhidden aggression and a challenge to the whole world.

The secretary of Georgia's Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said Saakhashvili would impose martial law within hours. Russia, he said, had bombed Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti and a military base as part of what authorities believed was the start of attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure.

"CEASE ATTACKS"

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Russia to withdraw combat troops from Georgia and stop air strikes.

"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," she said.

The president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, told Interfax about 1,400 people had been killed as a result of "Georgian aggression". Saakashvili put Georgian casualties at about 30, mostly in the military.

President George W. Bush, in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games, pledged U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity and called for an immediate ceasefire, the White House said.

Envoys from the United States, European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were due to head to Georgia.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he had spoken to the Russian and Georgian foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Eka Tkeshelashvili, to call for an end to the violence.

The Kremlin said Medvedev told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that "the only possible way out is the withdrawal of Georgian forces to starting positions".

Soldiers fired machineguns and armored personnel carriers moved through the deserted streets of Tskhinvali.

Shell holes pierced the grey concrete apartment bocks and plumes of smoke hung over the South Ossetian capital.

Lavrov accused the Georgians of driving people from their homes.

The majority of the roughly 70,000 people living in South Ossetia are ethnically distinct from Georgians. They say they were forcibly absorbed into Georgia under Soviet rule and now want to exercise their right to self-determination.

Russia, Georgia seek control of South Ossetia capital (http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL768040420080808)

Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia

August 8, 2008

Georgian tanks and infantry, aided by Israeli military advisers, captured the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, early Friday, Aug. 8, bringing the Georgian-Russian conflict over the province to a military climax.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin threatened a “military response.”

Former Soviet Georgia called up its military reserves after Russian warplanes bombed its new positions in the renegade province.

In Moscow’s first response to the fall of Tskhinvali, president Dimitry Medvedev ordered the Russian army to prepare for a national emergency after calling the UN Security Council into emergency session early Friday.

Reinforcements were rushed to the Russian “peacekeeping force” present in the region to support the separatists.

Georgian tanks entered the capital after heavy overnight heavy aerial strikes, in which dozens of people were killed.

Lado Gurgenidze, Georgia's prime minister, said on Friday that Georgia will continue its military operation in South Ossetia until a "durable peace" is reached. "As soon as a durable peace takes hold we need to move forward with dialogue and peaceful negotiations."

Geopolitical experts note that on the surface level, the Russians are backing the separatists of S. Ossetia and neighboring Abkhazia as payback for the strengthening of American influence in tiny Georgia and its 4.5 million inhabitants. However, more immediately, the conflict has been sparked by the race for control over the pipelines carrying oil and gas out of the Caspian region.

The Russians may just bear with the pro-US Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili’s ambition to bring his country into NATO. But they draw a heavy line against his plans and those of Western oil companies, including Israeli firms, to route the oil routes from Azerbaijan and the gas lines from Turkmenistan, which transit Georgia, through Turkey instead of hooking them up to Russian pipelines.

Saakashvili need only back away from this plan for Moscow to ditch the two provinces’ revolt against Tbilisi. As long as he sticks to his guns, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will wage separatist wars.

Israel’s interest in the conflict from its exclusive military sources:

Jerusalem owns a strong interest in Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azarbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel’s oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean.

Aware of Moscow’s sensitivity on the oil question, Israel offered Russia a stake in the project but was rejected.

Last year, the Georgian president commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics. They also offer instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel.

These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday.

In recent weeks, Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered Tbilisi was “defensive.”

This has not gone down well in the Kremlin. Therefore, as the military crisis intensifies in South Ossetia, Moscow may be expected to punish Israel for its intervention.

Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia (http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1358)

Israel, 'We'll neutralize S-300 if sold to Iran'
Aug. 8, 2008
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post.

The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters.

While Russia has denied that it sold the system to Iran, Teheran claimed last year that Moscow was preparing to equip the Islamic Republic with S-300 systems. Iran already has TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles from Russia.

Mixed media reports have emerged recently regarding the possible delivery of the system to Iran. Two weeks ago Reuters quoted a senior Israeli official who said the system would be delivered to Iran by the end of the year. In response, the Pentagon released a statement rejecting the assessment and saying that the US did not believe Iran would get it in 2008.

According to the Israeli defense official who spoke to the Post, "no one really knows yet if and when Iran will get the system."

A top IAF officer also said this week that Israel needed to do "everything possible" to prevent the S-300 from reaching the region.

"Russia will have to think real hard before delivering this system to Iran, which is possibly on the brink of conflict with either Israel or the US, since if the system is delivered, an EW [electronic warfare] system will likely be developed to neutralize it, and if that happens it would be catastrophic not only for Iran but also for Russia," the defense official said.

Neutralization of one of the main components of Russian air defense would be a blow to Russian national security as well as to defense exports. "No country will want to buy the system if it is proven to be ineffective," the official said. "For these reasons, Russia may not deliver it in the end to Iran."

Also on Thursday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told an Italian paper that a nuclear Iran would be "dangerous to world order."

Barak emphasized that all options for dealing with threat of a nuclear Teheran were "open and ready," and stressed the importance of "strengthening and accelerating economic sanctions against Iran."

"Either way, we need to keep every option open. If they provoke us, or they attack us, our army is prepared to attack and to succeed uncompromisingly," he asserted in an interview with the daily Corriere della Sera . "It's up to us to find the best way to get the best result with minimum damage," Barak added.

"Iran confirmed its message when it stood against the whole world: to deceive and to reject. Their aim is to obtain an atomic bomb," he continued.

The defense minister also spoke of the results of the Second Lebanon War, telling the Italian paper, "Two years ago, we saw the price that's paid for a lack of an experienced leadership. Nevertheless, today we're equipped with a good understanding to prevent this from happening again."

He added that UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the war was inefficient since Hizbullah, Syria and Iran were doing what they wanted in Lebanon.

Israel, 'We'll neutralize S-300 if sold to Iran' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104239541&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Georgia reports new air attack near capital

Aug 9, 8:05 AM (ET)

By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI

GORI, Georgia (AP) - Fighting raged in South Ossetia for a second day Saturday as Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province and dropped bombs on Georgia that left scores of civilians dead or wounded.

Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, launched a major offensive Friday to retake control of breakaway South Ossetia. Russia, which has close ties to the province and posts peacekeepers there, responded by sending in armed convoys and military combat aircraft.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that some 1,500 people have been killed, with the death toll rising Saturday.

The figure could not be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the fighting said hundreds of civilians had probably died. They said most of the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, was in ruins, with bodies lying everywhere.

Russian military aircraft also raided the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday. An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly after the bombing saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.

It is the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

The fighting threatens to ignite a wider war between Russia and Georgia, which accused Russia of bombing its towns, ports and air bases. Georgia, a former Soviet republic with ambitions of joining NATO, has asked the international community to help end what it called Russian aggression.

It also likely will increase tensions between Moscow and Washington, which Lavrov said should bear part of the blame for arming and training Georgian soldiers.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that Moscow sent troops into South Ossetia to force Georgia into a cease-fire. Moscow has said it needs to protect its peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia, most of whom have been given Russian passports. Ethnic Ossetians live in the breakaway Georgian province and in the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.

Russian Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev claimed in televised comments Saturday that Russian troops had driven Georgian forces out of the capital of South Ossetia. But Georgian officials dismissed the Russian claims and insisted they were in control of Tskhinvali.

However, witnesses said separatist and Russian forces seemed to be in control of Tskhinvali center, with no Georgian troops visible Saturday morning.

The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies.

Overnight, Russian warplanes bombed the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital and near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. He also said two other military bases were hit, and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Georgia, meanwhile, said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Saturday, according to Kakha Lomaya, head of Georgia's Security Council.

The first Russian confirmation that its planes had been shot down came Saturday from Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, who said two Russian planes were downed. He did not say where or when.

Russian military commanders said 15 peacekeepers have been killed and about 150 wounded. Russian troops went in as peacekeepers but Georgia alleges they now back the separatists.

Russian military spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov accused Georgian troops of killing and wounded Russian peacekeepers when they seized Russian checkpoints. Konashenkov's allegations couldn't be independently confirmed Saturday.

Russia's foreign minister said that Georgia brought the airstrikes upon itself by bombing civilians and Russian peacekeepers, and warned that the small Caucasus country should expect more attacks.

"Whatever side is used to bomb civilians and the positions of peacekeepers, this side is not safe and they should know this," Lavrov said.

Asked whether Russia could bomb the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, Lavrov answered: "I don't think the bombing is coming from Tbilisi, but whatever part of Georgia is used for this aggression is not safe."

It was unclear what might persuade either side to stop shooting. Both claim the battle started after the other side violated a cease-fire that had been declared just hours earlier after a week of sporadic clashes.

Diplomats have issued a flurry of statements calling on both sides to halt the fighting and called for another emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, its second since early Friday morning seeking to prevent an all-out war.

President Bush said Saturday the outbreak of fighting is endangering peace throughout the volatile region, and he urged an end to the deadly outbreak of violence.

"I'm deeply concerned about the situation in Georgia," Bush said in a statement to reporters while attending the Olympics in Beijing. "The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis.

"The violence is endangering regional peace, civilian lives have been lost and others are endangered. We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for an end to the Russian bombings, and a return by the parties to the status quo of Aug. 6."

Russia, which has granted citizenship to most of the region's residents, appeared to lay much of the responsibility for ending the fighting on Washington.

Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership - a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.

Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, long has pledged to restore Tbilisi's rule over South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. Both regions have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and have built up ties with Moscow.

Georgia has about 2,000 troops in Iraq, making it the third-largest contributor to coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. But Saakashvili has called them home in the face of the South Ossetia fighting. The Georgian commander of the brigade in Iraq said Saturday they would leave as soon as transport can be arranged.

Because of the GRAPHIC pictures, I WILL NOT post the link back to the story!!

Fighting with Russia spreads to cities across Georgia
August 8, 2008

TBLISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Bombs rocked Tbilisi early Saturday morning as the fight between Georgia and Russia over a breakaway region intensified and moved into the Georgian capital.

Government buildings, including the Parliament, were evacuated when the bombs fell.

Heavy casualties have reported on both sides since Russian forces moved Friday into South Ossetia, a pro-Russian autonomous region of Georgia.

Russian bombers were targeting Georgia's economic infrastructure, National Security Council secretary Alexander Lomaia said, including the country's largest Black Sea port, Poti, and the main road connecting the southern part of Georgia with the east and the airport.

Georgian television reported that the port had been destroyed.

Georgia, a former Soviet state, sent troops into South Ossetia on Thursday, aiming to crack down on the separatists, who want independence or unification with North Ossetia, which is in Russia. Russia responded Friday, sending troops into the Georgian province where it had peacekeepers stationed.

"I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars," Lyudmila Ostayeva, a resident of the South Ossetia capital, Tskhinvali, told The Associated Press on Friday.

"It's impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged," she said after fleeing to a village near the Russian border, AP reported.

"They are killing civilians, women and children, with heavy artillery and rockets," Sarmat Laliyev, 28, told AP.

One U.S. State Department official called the conflict a "very dangerous situation" and said diplomatic moves are afoot around the globe to stop it.

Georgia -- on the Black Sea coast between Russia and Turkey -- appealed for diplomatic intervention. Video Watch Georgian minister describe fighting in South Ossetia »

Georgia asked the United States for planes to bring back its 2,000 troops serving as part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, a U.S. official said.

"All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting [the] civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among [the] civilian population all around the country," Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, said Friday. "This is the worst nightmare one can encounter." Video Watch the interview with Saakashvili »

Russia's ambassador to United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, put the blame on the Tblisi government.

"What is going on is a massive bombardment of residential quarters in Tshkinvali and other towns, too," Churkin said.

Eduard Kokoity, head of the rebel government in South Ossetia, said that 1,400 people were killed in the province, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

Hundreds of people, possibly thousands, are fleeing South Ossetia to the Russian region of North Ossetia-Alania, the United Nations reported Friday, citing Russian officials.

About 150 Russian armored vehicles have entered South Ossetia, Saakashvili said, and Georgian forces had shot down two Russian aircraft. Video Watch the Russian tanks moving into the area »

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, quoted by Interfax, said Russians had died because of Georgian military operations in South Ossetia.

Russia "will not allow the deaths of our compatriots to go unpunished," and "those guilty will receive due punishment," he said. "My duty as Russian president is to safeguard the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, wherever they are. This is what is behind the logic of the steps we are undertaking now."

South Ossetia, with a population of about 70,000, declared independence from Georgia in the early 1990s, but it was not internationally recognized. Many ethnic Ossetians feel close to Russia and have Russian passports and use its currency.

Interfax quoted the Georgian Foreign Ministry as saying that strikes by Russian aircraft killed and wounded personnel at a Georgian air base and that Russian planes have been bombing Georgian territory throughout the day. Georgian officials also report four Russian aircraft shot down.

The U.S., NATO and the European Union have all called for an end to the fighting. President Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin discussed the conflict Friday, the White House confirmed.

By early evening Friday, a Georgian Cabinet minister said the country's forces have taken control of Tskhinvali, Interfax reported.

The Novosti news agency, citing the South Ossetian government, said Georgian tanks and infantry attacked Tskhinvali, and "a large part of the city has been destroyed. Over 15 civilians have been killed, several buildings are on fire in the city center, and the local parliament building has burned down."

But Russian and South Ossetian officials said Russia was making inroads in fighting Georgian forces.

"Street fighting in Tskhinvali has lasted for many hours. Ossetian home guards are using grenade-launchers to destroy Georgian tanks. Eyewitnesses say tanks are burning throughout the city. The turning point is approaching in the battle for the capital city," said the Web site of the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee.

The committee also said Russian armored vehicles have entered the northern suburb of the city.

Violence has been mounting in the region in recent days, with sporadic clashes between Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists.

Georgian troops launched attacks in South Ossetia late Thursday after a top government official said a unilateral cease-fire offer was met with separatist artillery fire.
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Lomaia said Georgian troops responded proportionately to separatist mortar and artillery attacks on two villages, attacks he said followed the cease-fire and Saakashvili's call for negotiations.

Russian peacekeepers are in South Ossetia under a 1992 agreement by Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian authorities to maintain what has been a fragile peace. The mixed peacekeeping force also includes Georgian and South Ossetian troops.

Fighting with Russia spreads to cities across Georgia (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/08/georgia.ossetia/index.html)

Georgia declares state of war with Russia
1 hour, 39 minutes ago

TBLISI, Georgia (CNN) -- Georgia's parliament Saturday approved a request by President Mikhail Saakashvili's to impose a "state of war," as the conflict between Georgia and Russia escalated, Georgian officials said.

Saakashvili accused Russia of launching an unprovoked full-scale military attack against his country, including targeting civilian homes, while Russian officials insist their troops were protecting people from Georgia's attacks on South Ossetia, a breakaway Georgian region that borders Russia.

Russia's Interfax news agency said the death toll was at least 2,000 killed in the capital of South Ossetia and claimed the city has been destroyed.

Separatist-backed South Ossetian sources reported that about 1,600 people have died and 90 have been wounded in provincial capital Tskhinvali since Russian forces entered the territory Thursday.

Georgia said the overall death toll would be closer to 100.

Georgian officials said Russia has mobilized its Black Sea fleet off the coast of Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian province.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived Saturday in Vladikavkaz, near Russia's border with Georgia, Russia's Interfax reported.

Meanwhile, President George Bush, speaking from Beijing, called for an immediate halt to the violence, a stand-down by all troops, and an end to the Russian bombings. Video Watch Bush express concerns over situation »

The Georgian "state of war" order is not a formal declaration of war, and stops short of declaring martial law, according to Georgian officials who described it to CNN.

It gives Saakashvili powers he would not ordinarily have, such as issuing curfews, restricting the movement of people, or limiting commercial activities, those officials said.

It places the government on a 24-hour alert, said Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia during a conference call with reporters.

Saakashvili asked Western leaders to pressure Russia to agree to an immediate cease-fire, which he said his country would willingly observe first.

"We are dealing with absolutely criminal and crazy acts of irresponsible and reckless decision makers, which is on the ground producing dramatic and tragic consequences," Saakashvili said Saturday afternoon.

A White House spokesman said President Bush spoke Saturday evening to Saakashvili and Russian President Medvedev.

The war, Saakashvili said, "is not about South Ossetia. It has never been in the first place. It is about destroying a small democratic nation aspiring to live in peace, freedom and liberty."

"This unprovoked, long-time-ago-planned invasion and aggression must stop," he said.

Russia, with a population of 146 million, is trying to destroy his country of 4.6 million people, he said, comparing it to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"I think what is at stake here is the post-Cold War order," Saakashvili said.

Inna Gagloyeva, spokeswoman for the South Ossetian Information and Press Committee, told Russia's Interfax news agency that Tskhinvali was being "massively shelled" with artillery guns. Video Watch images of crashed Georgian war plane »

It was unclear which side was in control of that city on Saturday. The Georgians said fighting raged, but the Russians said they had "liberated" the city.

"Battalion task forces have fully liberated Tskhinvali of Georgian armed forces and started pushing Georgian units out of the area of responsibility of the peacekeeping forces," said General Vladimir Boldyrev, commander of the Russian Ground Forces, in an interview with Interfax.

Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, told a news conference that the Russian paratroopers will "implement the operation of enforcing peace" on both sides.

Nogovitsyn also confirmed that Georgians had shot down two Russian aircraft. Saakashvili said his military has shot down 10 Russian bombers.

Russia said the troops were also reinforcing the Russian peacekeepers already in South Ossetia.

"Our peacekeepers, along with reinforcement units, are currently conducting an operation to force the Georgian side to accept peace," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at the Kremlin. "They are also responsible for protecting the population."

Interfax said 15 peacekeepers were killed in the Friday attack by Georgian troops. Russia has opened a criminal probe into their deaths, Interfax reported.

Georgia, a former Soviet Republic, is a pro-Western ally of the United States intent on asserting its authority over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. which both have strong Russian-backed separatist movements.Video Watch Georgian minister describe fighting in South Ossetia »

Russia moved troops into South Ossetia early Friday after Georgia launched an operation in the breakaway region when its unilateral cease-fire was met with what it said was artillery fire from separatists that killed 10 people, including peacekeepers and civilians.

Russia charged that Georgia had targeted its peacekeepers stationed in the region.

Medvedev said Saturday that Georgia must be held responsible for the situation in South Ossetia.

"The people responsible for this humanitarian disaster need to be held liable for what they have done," Medvedev said. He said the humanitarian problems were caused by "the aggression launched by the Georgian side against the South Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers."

Russian officials said more than 30,000 refugees have left South Ossetia and crossed into Russia over the past two days, since fighting began, Interfax reported.

Maia Kardava, a Red Cross spokeswoman in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi was unable to provide refugee or casualty figures Saturday morning because she said aid workers were still gathering information and visiting hospitals in South Ossetia and western Georgia.

Russian forces bombed several targets in Georgia on Saturday, according to Kardava and the British Foreign Office, which advised against all nonessential travel to Georgia.

Russian aircraft bombarded military and civilian targets the port town of Poti, on Georgia's Black Sea coast, Kardava and British and Georgian officials said. Eight Georgians were killed in the port town, Georgian officials said.

In the town of Senaki, just inland from Poti, Russian forces damaged a railway line, a military base, and a center housing civilians who fled from nearby Abkhazia.

Military bases at Vaziani and Marneuli also came under attack, the British Foreign Office said, and Russian aircraft bombed the Georgian town of Gori, about 35 miles northwest of Tbilisi, Georgian officials said.

Inside South Ossetia, civilians have been without water, electricity, and basic services for more than a day, Kardava said. She said the Red Cross was unable to reach colleagues based in Tskhinvali because their phones had lost power and they were huddled in bomb shelters.

Also Saturday, the commander of Georgian troops stationed in Iraq said the 2,000 soldiers there will be withdrawn from Iraq "very soon."
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Colonel Bondo Maisuradze said the United States would provide the transport to get them out of Iraq. He said he had no time frame for the move.

Saakashvili told CNN Friday that the troops were needed in Georgia to defend against the Russian military.

Georgia declares state of war with Russia (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/09/georgia.ossetia/index.html)

'2 US aircraft carriers headed for Gulf'
Aug. 7, 2008
Adam Gonn, The Media Line News Agency , THE JERUSALEM POST

Two additional United States naval aircraft carriers are heading to the Gulf and the Red Sea, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Kuwait Times.

Kuwait began finalizing its "emergency war plan" on being told the vessels were bound for the region.

The US Navy would neither confirm nor deny that carriers were en route. US Fifth Fleet Combined Maritime Command located in Bahrain said it could not comment due to what a spokesman termed "force-protection policy."

While the Kuwaiti daily did not name the ships it believed were heading for the Middle East, The Media Line's defense analyst said they could be the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan.

Within the last month, the Roosevelt completed an exercise along the US east coast focusing on communication among navies of different countries. It has since been declared ready for operational duties. The Reagan, currently with the Seventh Fleet, had just set sail from Japan.

The Seventh Fleet area of operation stretches from the East Coast of Africa to the International Date Line.

Meanwhile, the Arabic news agency Moheet reported at the end of July that an unnamed American destroyer, accompanied by two Israeli naval vessels traveled through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean. A week earlier, a US nuclear submarine accompanied by a destroyer and a supply ship moved into the Mediterranean, according to Moheet.

Currently there are two US naval battle groups operating in the Gulf: one is an aircraft carrier group, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, which carries some 65 fighter aircraft. The other group is headed by the USS Peleliu which maintains a variety of planes and strike helicopters.

The ship movements coincide with the latest downturn in relations between Washington and Teheran. The US and Iran are at odds over Iran's nuclear program, which the Bush administration claims is aimed at producing material for nuclear weapons; however, Teheran argues it is only for power generation.

Kuwait, like other Arab countries in the Gulf, fears it will be caught in the middle should the US decide to launch an air strike against Iran if negotiations fail. The Kuwaitis are finalizing details of their security, humanitarian and vital services, the newspaper reported.

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman - lie just across the Gulf from Iran. Generals in the Iranian military have repeatedly warned that American interests in the region would be targeted if Iran is subjected to any military strike by the US or its Western allies.

Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet, while there is a sizeable American base in Qatar. It is assumed the US also has military personnel in the other Gulf states, The Media Line's defense analyst said.

Iran is thought to have intelligence operatives working in the GCC states, according to Dubai-based military analysts.

The standoff between the US and Iran has left the Arab nations' political leaders in something of a bind, as they were being used as pawns by Washington and Teheran, according to The Media Line analyst.

Iran has offered them economic and industrial sweeteners, while the US is boosting their defense capabilities. US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have paid visits to the GCC states in a bid to win their support.

'2 US aircraft carriers headed for Gulf' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104233164&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Georgia: In 'state of war' over South Ossetia By MUSA SADULAYEV, Associated Press Writer
26 minutes ago

OUTSIDE TSKHINVALI, Georgia - Russia and small, U.S.-allied Georgia headed toward a wider war Saturday as Russian tanks rumbled into the contested province of South Ossetia and Russian aircraft bombed a Georgian town, escalating a conflict that already has left hundreds dead.

Georgia's Foreign Ministry said the country was "in a state of war" and accused Russia of beginning a "massive military aggression." The Georgian parliament approved a state of martial law, mobilizing reservists and ordering government authorities to work round-the-clock.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow sent troops into South Ossetia to force Georgia into a cease-fire and prevent Georgia from retaking control of its breakaway region after it launched a major offensive there overnight Friday.

In a meeting with refugees, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin characterized Georgia's actions as "complete genocide," according to his office's Web site. Putin also said Georgia had effectively lost the right to rule the breakaway province — an indication Moscow could be preparing to fulfill South Ossetians' wish to be absorbed into Russia.

The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war also increased Saturday when Russian-supported separatists in another breakaway region, Abkhazia, also targeted Georgian troops by launching air and artillery strikes to drive them out.

President Bush called for an end to the Russian bombings and an immediate halt to the violence.

"The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis," Bush said in a statement to reporters while attending the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili called it an "unprovoked brutal Russian invasion."

"This is about annihilation of a democracy on their borders," Saakashvili told the British Broadcasting Corp. "We on our own cannot fight with Russia. We want immediate cease-fire, immediate cessation of hostilities, separation of Russia and Georgia and international mediation."

Medvedev's office said Saturday evening that Russia had not received the Georgian cease-fire proposal.

Georgia, a U.S. ally whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, launched the major offensive overnight Friday. Heavy rocket and artillery fire pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, leaving much of the city in ruins.

It was the worst outbreak of hostilities since South Ossetia won de facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Saturday in Moscow that some 1,500 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, with the death toll rising. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

But Tskhinvali residents who survived the bombardment by hiding in basements and later fled the city estimated that hundreds of civilians had died. They said bodies were lying everywhere.

Georgia, a country about the size of South Carolina that borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Today, Russia has approximately 30 times more people than Georgia and 240 times the area.

Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and have built up ties with Moscow. Russia has granted its passports to most of their residents.

Putin arrived late Saturday in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz to talk to South Ossetian refugees who have fled the fighting. He said there were at least 34,000 refugees.

"The actions of the Georgian powers in South Ossetia are, of course, a crime — first of all against their own people," Putin said. "The territorial integrity of Georgia has suffered a fatal blow."

Russia also laid much of the responsibility for ending the fighting on Washington, which has trained Georgian troops. Washington, in turned, blamed Russia.

"We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for an end to the Russian bombings, and a return by the parties to the status quo," Bush said in the statement.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush had spoken with both Medvedev and Saakashvili. But it was unclear what might persuade either side to stop shooting — both claim the other violated a cease-fire declared Thursday.

Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's Security Council, estimated that Russia sent 2,500 troops into Georgia. The Russian military would not comment on the number of troops. By late Saturday, Russian military commanders claimed they had driven Georgian forces out of Tskhinvali, a claim that Saakashvili denied.

Russia's ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said "98 percent of Tskhinvali" was in ruins. "Our troops have re-established control over the city," he said.

Smoke rose from the city, and intermittent artillery shelling and sporadic gunfire could still be heard.

Georgian forces knocked out about 40 Russian tanks around Tskhinvali, said Georgia's Deputy Interior Minister Eka Sguladze. "Our units are well-equipped with anti-tank rockets, and they thwarted a Russian tank attack," she told reporters.

Georgia, meanwhile, accused Russia of bombing its air bases and the town of Gori, just outside South Ossetia.

An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly after the Russian airstrikes Saturday saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.

The Russian warplanes appeared to have been targeting a military base in Gori's outskirts that also was bombed.

The Interior Ministry said Russian warplanes also bombed the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and struck near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. The ministry said two other military bases were hit, and that Russian warplanes also bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

Georgia said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Saturday, according to Lomaia. It also claimed to have captured two Russian pilots, who were shown on Georgian television.

Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, confirmed Saturday that two Russian planes had been shot down, but did not say where or when.

Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Georgia brought the airstrikes upon itself by bombing civilians and Russian peacekeepers. He warned that the small Caucasus country should expect more attacks.

"Whatever side is used to bomb civilians and the positions of peacekeepers, this side is not safe and they should know this," Lavrov said.

Russian military commanders said 15 peacekeepers have been killed and about 150 wounded in South Ossetia, accusing Georgian troops of killing and wounding Russian peacekeepers when they seized Russian checkpoints. The allegations couldn't be independently confirmed.

In Abkhazia, the separatist government said it intended to push Georgian forces out of the Kodori Gorge. The northern part of the gorge is the only area of Abkhazia that has remained under Georgian government control. Lomaia confirmed that Georgian administrative buildings in the Kodori Gorge were bombed, but he blamed the attack on Russia.

Georgia claims it has met first condition of peace
Spokesman says all troops pulled out of South Ossetia

The pullout followed three days of fighting in a Georgian push to take control of the pro-Moscow enclave from separatists, which prompted Russia to pour troops into South Ossetia and launch air strikes inside Georgia.

It comes amid fears that fighting could spread to Abkhazia, Georgia's second largest breakaway region, after Russia apparently massed troops there overnight.

Russia bombed a military airfield outside the Georgian capital early on Sunday, hitting a plant producing Sukhoi Su-25 ground fighters. No one was hurt, but the impact could be heard in downtown Tbilisi.

A Georgian military convoy carrying troops and towing heavy artillery was seen withdrawing from South Ossetia through the village of Ergneti, just inside Georgian-controlled territory south of the separatist capital Tskhinvali.

"They have been withdrawn, completely," Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told Reuters. He said it was "Because of the heavy civilian casualties Georgia has suffered."

However, Russian peackeepers claimed there were still some troops present in South Ossetia.

A Georgian ceasefire offer on Saturday went unheeded by Moscow, which demanded a complete pullback to positions before fighting began.

In New York, a top UN peacekeeping official said there were indications the Abkhaz were preparing to launch a military offensive against Georgian special forces in the upper Kodori gorge in northern Abkhazia.

"At this point we are particularly concerned that the conflict appears to be spreading beyond South Ossetia into Abkhazia," U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping Edmond Mulet told reporters.

Mr Utiashvili claimed that in the past few hours Russia had brought 6,000 troops into Georgia and a further 4,000 troops by sea. "All of them are waiting for dawn to start active actions," he told Reuters.

In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "profoundly concerned over mounting tensions in the Abkhaz zone." Russia was unbowed by Western criticism of its military offensive.

"Russia's actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, visiting an adjacent region of Russia to which thousands of refugees have fled.

Mr Putin said Georgia's bid to join the Western alliance NATO - anathema to Moscow - was part of the problem.

"Georgia's aspiration to join NATO ... is driven by its attempt to drag other nations and peoples into its bloody adventures," he said, adding that Georgian action bore "elements of some kind of genocide against the Ossetians."

Russian officials said the death toll in fighting that began on Thursday stood at 2,000. Georgia said on Friday that it had lost up to 300 people killed, mainly civilians.

Russia is the main backer of South Ossetian separatists and the majority of the population, ethnically distinct from Georgians, have been given Russian passports since the enclave broke with Tbilisi in the early 1990s.

Putin said more than 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled over the border in the past 36 hours. Russian officials said two of Moscow's warplanes had been shot down, 13 soldiers killed and 70 wounded.

US President George W. Bush described Russian bombing inside Georgia as a dangerous escalation. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told him by phone the only solution was for Georgian troops to quit the conflict zone.

Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the violence by supplying Georgia with arms.

Georgia begins pulling forces out of Iraq: US military

Around half of Georgia's 2,000-strong contingent in Iraq returned home on Sunday to redeploy in the conflict in its breakaway province of South Ossetia, military spokesmen said.

"Flights have in fact begun today and Georgian forces are redeploying," US military press spokesman Major John Hall told AFP.

"We are supporting the Georgian military units that are in Iraq in their redeployment to Georgia so that they can support requirements there during the current security situation."

Colonel Bondo Maisuradze, chief of Georgia's military operations in Baghdad, who has been in intense discussions with his American counterpart to ensure the withdrawal, said the redeployment would take some time.

"The total withdrawal will take a few days," Maisuradze told AFP.

A senior Georgian military official in Iraq said 1,000 troops had already arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

Their depature came as Russia and Georgia were locked on Sunday in an escalating battle over South Ossetia that may have already claimed over 2,000 lives amid fears it is spreading to other parts of the Caucasus region.

In and around a pro-Moscow region in the west of the country, Abkhazia, the separatist government there has declared a state of war in areas of the province populated by Georgians.

As the third largest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the United States and Britain, the departure of the Georgian troops entails adjustments for the US military.

"We had already been shuffling forces around in Wassit province before the recent events, so despite the loss of the Georgian units, although unexpected, we can and are accommodating the changes," said Hall.

As a staunch ally of the United States the Georgians arrived in August 2003, about five months after the American-led invasion toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Huessein.

The majority of Georgian soldiers were deployed near Kut, 175 kilometres (109 miles) south of Baghdad in the province of Wasit, a hotbed of smuggling near the Iranian border.

They have provided training to Iraq's fledgling military, and manned border checkpoints.

The Georgian brigade has also faced powerful Shiite militias in the south and al-Qaeda forces in the Diyala region, northeast of Baghdad, regarded as the most dangerous area in Iraq.

Five of their soldiers have been killed, three of them this year in combat related incidents.

On Saturday, the Georgians handed their last posting, 25 kilometres (15 miles) northwest of Kut, to American troops, an AFP reporter witnessed.

"Professionally speaking, we have learned a lot -- knowing how to work and move together," said Major Emzar Svanidze, chief of the brigade in Kut.

"This will serve against the Russians. Even if the fight will be very different and even though I have no illusions of the power of the Russian army."

Russia battles Georgian forces on land and sea
Georgia calls for cease-fire but Moscow says troops aren't withdrawing

Russia expands Georgia siege
Aug. 10: Russian warplanes bombed targets inside Georgia and the navy deployed ships to blockade the Georgian Black Sea coast, raising fears that this small war might soon have big consequences. NBC’s Tom Aspell reports.
Nightly News

updated 2 hours, 41 minutes ago
TBILISI, Georgia - Russia battled Georgian forces on land and sea, reports said late Sunday, despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and its claim to be withdrawing from South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian province battered by days of intense fighting.

Russia claimed to have sunk a Georgian boat that was trying to attack Russian vessels in the Black Sea, and Georgian officials said Russia sent tanks from South Ossetia into Georgia proper, heading toward a strategic city before being turned back.

Russian planes on Sunday twice bombed an area near the Georgian capital's airport, officials said.

The violence appeared to show Russia's determination to subdue diminutive, U.S.-backed Georgia, even at the risk of international reproach. Russia fended off a wave of international calls to observe Georgia's cease-fire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops have indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was said to have told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia's military actions in Georgia "must not go unanswered."

Cheney's press secretary, Lee Ann McBride, said the vice president spoke Sunday afternoon with Saakashvili. "The vice president expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she said.

Cheney told Saakashvili "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community," McBride said.

International envoys on the way
International envoys were heading in to try to end the conflict before it spreads throughout the Caucasus, a region plagued by ethnic tensions. But it was unclear what inducements or pressure the envoys could bring to bear, or to what extent either side was truly sensitive to world opinion.

Saakashvili, the Georgian president, said one of the Russian raids on the airport area came a half hour before the arrival of the foreign ministers of France and Finland — in the country to try to mediate.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Temur Yakobashvili said Russian tanks tried to cross from South Ossetia into the territory of Georgia proper, but were turned back by Georgian forces. He said the tanks apparently were trying to approach Gori, but did not fire on the city of about 50,000 that sits on Georgia's only significant east-west highway.

Russia also sent naval vessels to patrol off Georgia's Black Sea coast, but denied Sunday that the move was aimed at establishing a blockade.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman as saying that Georgian missile boats twice tried to attack Russian ships, which fired back and sank one of the Georgian vessels.

South Ossetia broke away from Georgian control in 1992. Russia granted passports to most of its residents and the region's separatist leaders sought to absorb the region into Russia.

Troops trained by American soldiers
Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the regional capital Tskhinvali. Georgia says it was responding to attacks by separatists.

In response, Russia launched massive artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

The respected Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy reported that two journalists were killed by South Ossetian separatists, citing a correspondent of Russian Newsweek magazine.

Thousands of civilians have fled South Ossetia — many seeking shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors of the fighting.

She seemed confused by the conflict. "The Georgians say it is their land," she said. "Where is our land, then? We don't know."

Bush administration worried
The scope of Russia's military response has the Bush administration deeply worried.

"We have made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations," U.S. deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled them, even while calling for a truce.

"Georgia expresses its readiness to immediately start negotiations with the Russian Federation on a cease-fire and termination of hostilities," the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that it had notified Russia's envoy to Tbilisi.

But Russia insisted Georgian troops were continuing their attacks.

Alexander Darchiev, Russia's charge d'affairs in Washington, said Georgian soldiers were "not withdrawing but regrouping, including heavy armor and increased attacks on Tskhinvali."

"Mass mobilization is still under way," he told CNN's "Late Edition."

The U.N. Security Council met for the fourth time in four days, with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad accusing Moscow of seeking "regime change" in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russians don't use the expression, but acknowledged there were occasions when elected leaders "become an obstacle."

Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Both separatist provinces have close ties with Moscow, while Georgia has deeply angered Russia by wanting to join NATO.

Georgia's Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said the Georgian troops had to move out of South Ossetia because of heavy Russian shelling. "Russia further escalated its aggression overnight, using weapons on an unprecedented scale," Lomaia said.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called the hostilities in South Ossetia "massacres," hours before he and Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb left for Tbilisi and a meeting with Saakashvili.

Kouchner said he would deliver a "message of peace" to Georgia and Russia, and call on both countries "to stop the fighting immediately."

Putin describes Georgia's actions as 'genocide'
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, meeting Saturday with South Ossetia refugees who had fled across the border to the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, described Georgia's actions as "complete genocide." Putin also said Georgia had lost the right to rule the breakaway province — an indication Moscow could be ready to absorb the province.

President Bush has called for an end to the Russian bombings and an immediate halt to the fighting, accusing Russia of using the issue to bomb other regions in Georgia.

Russian jets raided several Georgian air bases Saturday and bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility. The Russian warplanes also struck near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which carries Caspian crude to the West.

Georgia said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, but Russia acknowledged only two.

Russian officials said the aircraft were targeting Georgian communications and lines of supply. But a Russian raid Saturday on Gori near South Ossetia, which apparently targeted a military base on the town's outskirts, also killed many civilians.

Tskhinvali residents who survived the Georgian bombardment overnight Friday by hiding in basements and later fled the city estimated that hundreds of civilians had died.

The Georgian government said Sunday that 6,000 Russian troops have rolled into South Ossetia from the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia and 4,000 more landed in Abkhazia. The Russian military wouldn't comment on troop movements.

Kuwait Readying for War in Gulf?
By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
Published: August 11, 2008

The small oil-rich emirate of Kuwait – situated between Iraq, Iran and an un-enviable geographic hard place on the northern end of the Persian Gulf – has reportedly activated its "Emergency War Plan" as a massive U.S. and European armada is reported heading for the region.

Coming on the heels of Operation Brimstone just a week ago that saw U.S., British and French naval forces participate in war games in the Atlantic Ocean, the object of which was to practice enforcing an eventual blockade on Iran, the joint task force is now headed for the Gulf and what could easily turn into a major confrontation with Iran.

The naval force comprises a U.S. Navy super carrier battle group and is accompanied by an expeditionary carrier battle group, a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine.

Leading the pack is the nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its Carrier Strike Group Two; besides its 80-plus combat planes the Roosevelt normally transports, it is carrying an additional load of French Naval Rafale fighter jets from the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, currently in dry dock.

Also reported heading toward Iran is another nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan and its Carrier Strike Group Seven; the USS Iwo Jima, the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and a number of French warships, including the nuclear hunter-killer submarine Amethyste.

Once the naval force arrives in the Gulf region it will be joining two other U.S. naval battle groups already on site: the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Peleliu; the Lincoln with its carrier strike group and the latter with an expeditionary strike group.

Telephone calls to the Pentagon were not returned by publication time.

This deployment is the largest naval task force from the United States and allied countries to assemble in the strategic waters of the Persian Gulf since the two Gulf wars.

The object of the naval deployment would be to enforce an eventual blockade on Iran, if as expected by many observers, current negotiations with the Islamic republic over its insistence to pursue enrichment of uranium, allowing it, eventually, to produce nuclear weapons yields no results.

Adding to the volatility is the presence of a major Russian navy deployment affected earlier this year to the eastern Mediterranean comprising the jewel of the Russian fleet, the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov with approximately 50 Su-33 warplanes that have the capacity for mid-air refueling. This means the Russian warplanes could reach the Gulf from the Mediterranean, a distance of some 850 miles and would be forced to fly over Syria (not a problem) but Iraq as well, where the skies are controlled by the U.S. military, and the guided missile heavy cruiser Moskva. The Russian task force is believed to be composed of no less than a dozen warships as well as several submarines.

However, Russia is unlikely to get involved in a military showdown in the Persian Gulf, particularly at this time when it is engaged in a major confrontation with the Republic of Georgia in South Ossetia.

For Iran however, a naval blockade preventing it from importing refined oil would have devastating effects on its economy, virtually crippling the Islamic republic's infrastructure. Although Iran is a major oil producer and exporter, the country lacks refining facilities having to re-import its own oil once refined.

Iran's oil – both the exported crude as well as the returning refined product – passes through the strategic Straits of Hormuz, controlled by Iran on one side and the Sultanate of Oman – a U.S. ally – on the other. The strait is about 30 miles wide at its narrowest point, making it easy to control, but at the same time placing Western naval vessels within easy reach of Iran's Revolutionary Guards fast moving light crafts that could be used by Iranian suicide bombers.

Although Kuwait is on the opposite end of the entrance to the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz, Kuwait City is less than 60 miles from Iran – and with good reason to worry.

"Kuwait was caught by surprise last time, when Iraqi troops invaded the small emirate and routed the Kuwaiti army in just a few hours," a former U.S. diplomat to Kuwait told the Middle East Times.

Kuwait Readying for War in Gulf? (http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/08/11/special_report_kuwait_readying_for_war_in_gulf/7724/)

Georgia says Russia bombed after order to halt war

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI, Associated Press Writers 4 minutes ago

TBILISI, Georgia - Russia ordered a halt to the war in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks that sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns, military bases and homes in the U.S. ally smoldering. Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing and shelling.
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Despite the televised order by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia launched an offensive Tuesday in the Kodori Gorge, the only part of the breakaway region of Abkhazia still under Georgian control, sending in tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery.

And hours before the order, Russian jets bombed the crossroads city of Gori, near the separatist region of South Ossetia. Gori's post office and university were burning Tuesday, but the city was all but deserted after most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled Monday ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.

In Moscow, Medvedev said Georgia had been punished enough for its attack on South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive late Thursday to regain control over the separatist province, which has close ties to Russia.

"The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized," Medvedev said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, speaking before a crowd of thousands at a Tbilisi square, said the invasion was not because Russia wanted control of the breakaway regions.

"They just don't want freedom and that's why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it," he said, as red and white Georgian fluttered.

Tens of thousands of terrified residents have fled the fighting — South Ossetians north to Russia, and Georgians west toward the capital of Tbilisi and the country's Black Sea coast.

Both sides have traded accusations of genocide.

Russia has accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in the separatist province of South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.

Many Georgians also have been killed in the fighting and on Tuesday, the Georgian security council said it filed a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice for alleged ethnic cleansing. The overall death toll was expected to rise because large areas of Georgia were still too dangerous for journalists to enter and see the true scope of the damage.

"It feels like an annexed country," said Lasha Margiana, the local administrator in one of the villages in the Kodori Gorge, where fleeing Georgians said the entire population had abandoned their homes.

Medvedev assailed the West for supporting Georgia in the conflict: "International law doesn't envision double standards."

In Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian provincial capital now under Russian control, the body of a Georgian soldier lay in the street along with debris. A poster hanging nearby showed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the slogan "Say yes to peace and stability" as South Ossetian separatist fighters launched rockets at a Georgian plane soaring overhead. Broken glass and other debris littered the ground.

"If there are any emerging hotbeds of resistance or any aggressive actions, you should take steps to destroy them," Medvedev ordered his defense minister at a televised Kremlin meeting.

Russia's foreign minister called for Saakashvili to resign. Medvedev said Georgia must pull its troops from the two Russian-backed breakaway provinces and allow them to decide whether they want to remain part of Russia.

"Ossetians and Abkhaz must respond to that question taking their history into account, including what happened in the past few days," Medvedev said grimly.

Thousands of Georgians poured out their support for their president at a rally in Tbilisi, crowding a main square and nearby streets as far as the eye could see and holding aloft fluttering red-and-white Georgian flags.

Georgia, which is pushing for NATO membership, borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Both separatist provinces are backed by Russia, which appears open to absorbing them.

Medvedev said Tuesday that Russian peacekeepers will stay in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia; Saakashvili said his government will officially designate Russian peacekeepers in those breakaway provinces as occupying forces.

The Russian onslaught angered the West and drew tough words from President Bush, but some Georgians are disappointed that the U.S. did not intervene to protect its tiny ally.

"I'd like to think the words really do matter," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said Tuesday in Tbilisi.

Bryza declined to say if the U.S. would provide military support in the event that Russia expands its operations: "I hope we'll never come to the question of what we do if Russia refuses to observe international law."

Georgia sits on a strategic oil pipeline carrying Caspian crude to Western markets bypassing Russia, has long been a source of contention between the West and a resurgent Russia, the dominant energy supplier to Europe. The British oil company BP shut down one of three Georgian pipelines as a precaution, although the company said it had no evidence the pipelines had suffered damage.

In villages around the South Ossetian provincial capital, separatist fighters reportedly were setting fire to Georgian houses and searching for hidden Georgian fighters.

An AP photographer in the village of Ruisi near South Ossetia saw fresh damage from a Russian air raid that locals said came just 30 minutes before Medvedev's televised statement.

Residents said three villagers were killed and another five wounded when a Russian warplane raided the village. One slain victim, 77-year old Amiran Vardzelashvili, was struck by a fragment in the heart while was working in a field.

The Georgian government said another nearby village, Sakorinto, also was bombed after Medvedev announcing a halt to fighting, as was an ambulance in the Black Sea province of Adzharia.

The U.N. and NATO called meetings Tuesday to deal with the conflict, while Poland's president and the leaders of four former Soviet republics flew to Georgia for a meeting of solidarity with Saakashvili.

"The Russian state has once again shown its face, its true face," said Poland's Lech Kaczynski, who was being joined by counterparts from Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Latvia.

But he said it was "good news" that Medvedev ordered a halt to military action.

At the White House on Monday, Bush had demanded that Russia end a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence in Georgia, agree to an immediate cease-fire and accept international mediation.

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," Bush said in a televised statement.

Georgia says Russia bombed after order to halt war (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_russia)
~~~~~

Maybe things are winding down. I guess we'll know in a few weeks where this is heading.......

Quote from: Barbara on August 12, 2008, 10:00:26 AM

:o Sounds like BIG trouble.

Are these ships due to arrive around the August 22nd "ImANutJob' announcement about their nuclear capabilites?

Exactly when they are to arrive is not known for sure. Considering the location of most of these ships, which participated in a recent allied exercise, there arrival in the gulf will most likely be well be well before Aug 22nd. In fact I surmise that some of them are already arriving there as we speak.

Some more information on this.

The US Naval forces being assembled include the following:

Carrier Strike Group Nine
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines

Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer

Carrier Strike Group Two
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer

USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier
with its Amphibious Squadron Four
and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer

USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine

Carrier Strike Group Seven
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship

Also likely to join the battle armada:

UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal Carrier Strike Group with assorted guided missile destroyers and frigates, nuclear hunter-killer submarines and support ships

French Navy nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines (likely the Amethyste and perhaps others), plus French Naval Rafale fighter jets operating off of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as the French Carrier Charles de Gaulle is in dry dock, and assorted surface warships

Various other US Navy warships and submarines and support ships. The following USN ships took part (as the "enemy" forces) in Operation Brimstone and several may join in:

USS San Jacinto (CG56) guided missile cruiser
USS Anzio (CG68) guided missile cruiser
USS Normandy (CG60) guided missile cruiser
USS Carney (DDG64) guided missile destroyer
USS Oscar Austin (DDG79) guided missile destroyer
USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG81) guided missile destroyer
USS Carr (FFG52) guided missile frigate

The USS Iwo Jima and USS Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Groups have USMC Harrier jump jets and an assortment of assault and attack helicopters. The Expeditionary Strike Groups have powerful USMC Expeditionary Units with amphibious armor and ground forces trained for operating in shallow waters and in seizures of land assets, such as Qeshm Island (a 50 mile long island off of Bandar Abbas in the Gulf of Hormuz and headquarters of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps).

It is also to be noted that some sources are saying that President Bush was aware of the action that Georgia had planned with South Ossetia in advance of that action and had sanctioned this move in conjunction with the build-up in the Persian Gulf.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on August 13, 2008, 04:03:42 PM

It has been rumored that Russian troops started this war dressed as Georgian Troops and attacking individuals in South Ossetia. I would believe this to be entirely possible. It is a tactic that has been used by Russia more than once. With the manner that Russia is violating a cease fire, refusing to stand down, and instead are still moving on the capitol of Georgia it is just evidence of what Russia's intent was from the very start.

The old Russia is back in full swing.

And carrying a very big grudge, against the former U.S.S.R. Republics.

I was looking, formulating a battle plan (just to see the strategic values involved). With Russia having a naval base in Syria, the former Republics, north of Israel, support would be easy to resupply, Gog and Magog. The only thing I was lacking was a reason. but Russia doesn't need a reason. The Bible says Russia will attack. And attack they will, on God's time, not mans time.

Ezekiel 38:14-16 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? 15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: 16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

Ezekiel 38:1-6 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: 6 Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.

The nations cited below, from the above verses are associated with their Old Testament predecessors, but they all represent nations that exist today. Long before Russia became a world power, biblical scholars identified Magog as the nation of Russia and Gog as the ruler of Russia. The other nations referenced above are identified below, with the original Hebrew listed first, followed by its modern English equivalent....

Magog, Meshech, and Tubal = Russia
Persia = Iran
Cush = Ethiopia
Put = Libya
Gomer = Turkey
Beth-togarmah = Turkey, Armenia, and the Turkish-speaking people of Asia Minor.

Ezekiel 38:17-23 hus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them? 18 And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. 19 For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; 20 So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. 21 And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. 22 And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.

The invasion of Israel will trigger an earthquake so strong every living creature on the face of the earth will tremble in God’s presence. The invading armies will be totally annihilated. God will cause them to turn on each other while striking them with plagues, torrential rain, hail, fire, and burning sulfur. As a result of this awesome display, the world will wake up to God’s existence. No longer will people be able to deny the existence of the Almighty, for it will be abundantly clear who intervened to save Israel. But this opens the stage for the anti-christ to enter. Where he will rule the world, till Jesus returns for Armageddon.

Ezekiel 39:7-8 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. 8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.

God has made it definitively clear that this judgment against Gog will happen just as He has said. He will no longer tolerate the desecration of His nation, and at a time unknown to us, this event will occur just as He has promised. When God strikes down the enemies of Israel, their weapons of war will litter the landscape of the Holy Land. The destruction of these invading armies will be so vast it will change the topography of the land. So many dead bodies will litter the landscape that it will take seven months to bury all the dead, even with the help of every citizen in Israel!!

Some more on recent developments from Bill Koenig:

Persian Gulf

The winds of war?...DEBKAfile's military sources note that the arrival of the three new American flotillas will raise to five the number of US strike forces in Middle East waters - an unprecedented build up since the crisis erupted over Iran's nuclear program.

The vast naval and air strength consists of more than 40 warships and submarines, some of the latter nuclear armed, opposite the Islamic republic, a concentration last seen just before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Connecting the Dots - Russian Invasion of Georgia May Have Prophetic Implications

by Bill Wilson, KIN Senior Analyst

The Russian invasion of Georgia appears on the surface to be one of revenge and regional politics. In peeling off the layers of stated reasons for the harsh military action, however, enmity is found between Russia and Israel that could have prophetic significance.

Russia's flexing of it's military muscle for the first time this century by swiftly dispatching fire power in the sovereign nation of Georgia brings it ever closer to the Ezekiel 38 prophecy where Gog, modern day Russia, ascends on Israel like "a cloud to cover the land."

What many do not know is that Israel will be a key player in the Russian invasion as a result of incurring the wrath of Russia.

Russia says it invaded south Ossetia to stop 'ethnic cleansing' by the Georgia government. Not much is written about it, but most of the population there is Orthodox Christian with a growing Muslim minority. There seems to be no documentation that Christians are ridding the land of Muslims.

Likewise, there doesn't seem to be a situation yet where the rising Muslim minority is cleansing the area of Christians. And Russia has no history of invading countries to stop the persecution of Christians. Russia does have a history of invading countries over their valuable natural resources, such as oil.

The Repuplic of Georgia is a strategic crossroads that controls the gas and oil pipelines bringing product from the Caspian Sea region. Israel owns a vital interest in these pipelines and has been negotiating with Georgia on a project to bring the pipelines through Turkey to Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat. And Russia rejected an Israeli offer to participate in the project.

According to security analyst DEBKAfile, Georgia last year commissioned about 1,000 private Israeli military advisors to train Georgian armed forces. Russia has repeatedly demanded that Israel halt this military assistance to Georgia. And DEBKAfile reports that these advisors were 'deeply involved' in the recent Georgia military efforts against Russia.

Russia has shown by this ruthless invasion that it will protect its own oil interests irrespective of whether there are other sovereign nations involved. The foray into Georgia where Israel is heavily involved could be yet another prophetic step toward the Ezekiel end-time battle as it escalates growing ill will between Russia and Israel.

Russia has shown that it will spare no firepower to attack a sovereign nation over a minute oil issue involving Israel. What will Russia do over something incrementally greater?

Ezekiel 39:9 says the weapons from such an attack will burn "with fire seven years." But Ezekiel 38:23 also says that "God will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I AM the LORD."

"Naval Blockade" or All Out War Against Iran?

Shortly after this article was released on August 13, US military sources as well as Stratfor (a Strategic Studies Think Tank) stated that the various press reports (UPI, Middle East Times, Kuwait Times, Debka) regarding the naval deployment to the Middle East were incorrect.

According to the press reports (see UPI, August 11, 2008), the war ships involved in the "Operation Brimstone" war games off the US North Atlantic coast, had set sail for the Middle East. This information is apparently incorrect, according to the US Navy and Stratfor.

It is worth noting that the Kuwaiti government had activated emergency procedures based on the information pertaining to a major naval deployment in the Persian Gulf.

Based on the movement and location of USS carrier and expeditionary strike forces, the Bush administration has not decided to carry out a naval surge directed against Iran immediately following the conduct of the North Atlantic War Games,

The eventuality of a naval blockade directed against Iran is nonetheless being considered by the Pentagon. In fact, the naval blockade initiative is supported by a bill which was launched in the US Congress in late May. (See below for details).

We have checked the most recent information regarding the movements and location of the various USS Carrier and Expeditionary Strike Groups.

The text first released on August 13 has been revised. Corrections, and updates to the text are indicated.

We will provide further updates and analysis as more information becomes available.

The Bush administration is envisaging the possibility of launching a naval blockade directed against Iran.

Extensive war games were held off the US Atlantic Coastline under "Operation Brimstone" in late July.

These war games were activated shortly after the submission in the US House of Representatives (May 22), of a bill (H CON 362) which called upon the Bush administration to carry out an economic blockade directed against Iran.

"Operation Brimstone": North Atlantic Ocean War Games

Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 'Operation Brimstone' commenced on July 21 in North Carolina and off the Eastern US Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida. Of significance was the participation of British, French, Brazilian and Italian naval forces as part of a multinational US naval exercise directed against Iran.

More than a dozen ships participated in the naval exercise including the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its Carrier Strike Group Two, the expeditionary Strike Group Iwo Jima, the French submarine Amethyste, Britain's HMS Illustrious Carrier Strike Group, Brazil's navy frigate Greenhalgh and Italy's ITS Salvatore Todaro (S 526) submarine. (See Middle East Times, August 11, 2008 , Dailypress.com, July 28, 2008 , www.mt-milcom.blogspot.com)

Stating the purpose of a war game and identifying the real "foreign enemy" by name is not the normal practice, unless there is a decision to send an unequivocal message to the enemy.

Invariably in war games, the foreign enemy is given a fictitious country name: Irmingham, Nemazee, Rubeck and Churia stand for Iran, North Korea, Russia and China (codes used in the Vigilant Shield 07 War Games' Scenario opposing the US to four fictitious enemies. (See William Arkin, The Vigilant Shield 07 War Games: Scenario opposing the US to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, Washington Post, February 10, 2007)

In the case of "Operation Brimstone", the stated military purpose of the naval exercise is crystal clear: the North Atlantic war games are carried out with a view "to practice enforcing an eventual blockade on Iran". These naval exercises are intended to display US and allied "combat capabilities as a warning to Iran." They are tantamount to a declaration of war:

"The drill is aimed at training for operation in shallow coastal waters such as the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz."

The USS Theodore Roosevelt equipped with 80-plus combat planes, was carrying an additional load of French Naval Rafale fighter jets from the French carrier Charles de Gaulle. (Ibid). France's E2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, which was "assigned to the 4th Squadron began flight operations with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8 aboard Roosevelt, marking the first integrated U.S. and French carrier qualifications aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. French Rafale fighter aircraft assigned to the 12th Squadron also joined." Navy.mil, July 24, 2008

Anglo-US war games are a routine practice. What is significant in these large scale naval manoeuvres is the active participation of France, Brazil and Italy in war games which are explicitly directed against Iran.

The participation of these countries in extensive war games points to broad consensus. It also suggests that the participating nations have accepted (in political and military terms) to participate in a US-led military operation directed against Iran. The active participation of France and to a lesser extent Italy also suggests that the European Union is firmly behind the US initiative:

"Operations with our friends and allies are the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy's current maritime strategy," said Capt. Ladd Wheeler, Roosevelt's commanding officer. "These combined operations will certainly pay dividends into the future as our navies continue to work together to increase global security."Navy.mil, July 24, 2008

Another important precedent has been set. Brazil's President Luis Ignacio da Silva has ordered the dispatch of the Greenhalgh Frigate, marking the first time that a Brazilian warship (under a government which claims to be "socialist") has operated as part of a US. strike group in war games directed against a foreign country.

According to the Greenhalgh's Commander Claudio Mello, "It allows us to be one more asset in an international operation." (Pilot Online.com, July 28, 2008)

Congressional Initiative

The naval blockade against Iran, which is tantamount to a declaration of war, is a bipartisan project, which has tacitly been endorsed by the Democrats. In May 2008, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives (H.CON. RES 362) that called for the enforcement of an all out economic blockade, including the encroachment of trade and the freeze of monetary transactions with the Islamic Republic:

"The President [shall] initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran .... prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program."

"[H. CON. RES. 362] urges the President, in the strongest of terms, to immediately use his existing authority to impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran, ... international banks which continue to conduct financial transactions with proscribed Iranian banks; ... energy companies that have invested $20,000,000 or more in the Iranian petroleum or natural gas sector in any given year since the enactment of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996; and all companies which continue to do business with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." (See full text of H.CON RES 362) (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, H CON RES 362 has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A similar procedure has taken place in the Senate.

Concurrent Military Operations: War in the Caucasus

The planning of a naval blockade by the Bush administration (Operation Brimstone, H Con 362) occurs at the very outset of an unfolding crisis in the Caucasus, marked by the Georgian air and ground attacks on South Ossetia and Russia's counterattack. The timing and chronology of these related and concurrent military operations is crucial.

We are not dealing with separate and unrelated military events. The war in Georgia is an integral part of US-NATO-Israeli war preparations in relation to Iran.

Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate.

The attack on South Ossetia was launched by Georgia on the orders of the US and NATO. US military advisers and trainers were actively involved in the planning of Georgia's attacks on the South Ossetia capital. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, War in the Caucasus, Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation, Global Research, August 10, 2008)

cont'd

Russia is an ally of Iran.

Russia is currently caught up in a military confrontation with Georgia. The Georgian attack on South Ossetia constitutes an act of provocation directed against Russia. It creates an aura of instability in the Caucasus, marked by heavy civilian casualties. It serves to distract Russia from playing a meaningful diplomatic and military role, which might undermine or obstruct the US-led war plans directed against Iran.

Both Russia and China have bilateral military cooperation agreements with Iran. Russia supplies the Islamic Republic with military hardware and technical expertise in relation to Iran's air defense system and missile program.

Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.

The structure and strength of military alliances is crucial. In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seeking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.

The Georgian attack on South Ossetia seeks to undermine Russia, which constitutes a significant countervailing military power and ally of Iran.

The ultimate objective is to isolate Iran, cut it off from its powerful allies: China and Russia.

In Washington's mindset, the events in Georgia coupled with media propaganda, can be usefully applied to discredit and weaken Russia prior to the enforcement of a naval blockade on Iran in the Persian Gulf, which could lead into an all out war on Iran.

This somewhat crude line of reasoning tends, however, to overlook America's own military setbacks and weaknesses as well as the enormous risks to America and the World which could result from a continued and sustained confrontation with Russia, let alone an attack on Iran.

In view of the evolving situation in Georgia and Moscow's military commitments in the Caucasus, military analysts believe that Russia will not protect Iran and encroach upon a US led operation directed against Iran, which would be preceded by a naval blockade.

In other words, Washington believes that Moscow is unlikely to get actively involved in a showdown with US and allied forces in the Persian Gulf.

Naval Deployment

According to press reports, upon completing the North Atlantic war games on July 31st, the participating warships in "Operation Brimstone" headed for the Middle East, to join up with other carrier strike groups and a constellation of US, British and French war ships.

Which Carrier Strike groups and Expeditionary Forces sailed for the Middle East upon the completion of "Operation Brimstone" remains to be ascertained.

Below we provide the most recent information pertaining to the movement of Carrier Strike Groups and Expeditionary Strike Groups

According to Stratfor and military sources:

-the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, according to Stratfor, returned to their home port in Norfolk after concluding participation in JTFEX Operation Brimstone on July 31

-the nuclear powered USS Ronald Reagan Carrier and its Strike Group Seven; according to Stratfor USS Reagan is currently under way in the South China Sea on a routine deployment in the 7th fleet area of responsibility (AOR) (Indian Ocean and Western Pacific)

-the USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea (confirmed by Strafor, "operations in the 5th fleet AOR, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan", namely Ariabian Sea,

- the USS Peleliu which was in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. (latest news from Stratfor USS Peleliu is in the Arabian Sea, "operations in the 5th fleet AOR, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan")

In other words, there are at present (August 14, 2008) two Strike Groups in the region: USS Abraham Lincoln, northern Arabian Sea, USS Peleliu Strike Group, northern Arabian sea. There is no confirmation as to whether the USS Ronald Reagan is moving towards the Arabian Sea.

"Maritime Security" to Enforce a Naval Blockade

US Central Command (CENTCOM) under the helm of General Petraeus, coordinates out of Bahrain so-called Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in Middle East waters ( Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and Indian Ocean).

This MSO initiative is conducted by the Combined Maritime Force (CMF) with a powerful armada of 36 warships.

Established at the outset of the Iraq war, CMF involves the participation of the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Pakistan.

There are several combined task forces responsible for maritime security (including CTF 150, CTF 152 and the CTF 158 North Arabian Gulf (NAG))

The mandate of the Combined Task Forces "aims to establish security and stability by countering terrorism in the Middle Eastern maritime environment and allowing legitimate mariners to operate safely in the area..." (see Canadian Navy, News),

In the present context, this multinational naval alliance, will be used to encroach upon maritime trade with Iran as well as play an active role in implementing the proposed economic blockade of Iran.

Canada has recently deployed three war ships to the Arabian sea, including HMC Iroquois along with HMC Calgary and HMC Protecteur which will be operating under CTF 150, which is responsible for MSO in the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

cont'd

Among the 36 war vessels involved in so-called Maritime Security Operations, are:

RBNS Sabha (FFG 90) – The Bahraini flagship of CTF 152 conducting Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the Central and Southern Arabian Gulf.

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) – The U.S. flagship of CTF 50, conducting MSO in the Central and Southern Arabian Gulf , as well as support Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. (currently in the Atlantic Ocean according to Stratfor).

FS Guepratte (F 714) – French Navy ship operating as part of CTF 150 in the North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

USCGC Wrangell (WPB 1332) – One of several USCG 110’ patrol boats conducting MSO in the North Arabian Gulf.

HMAS Arunta (F 151) – Australian Navy ship conducting MSO as part of CTF 158 .

PNS Tippu Sultan (D 186) – Pakistan Navy ship conducting MSO as part of CTF 150.

RFA Cardigan Bay (L 3009) – British Royal Navy auxiliary ship operating with CTF 158.

USS Port Royal (CG 73) – US Navy guided-missile cruiser deployed with USS Tarawa Expeditionary Strike Group.

Source: US Naval forces, Central Command, Fifth fleet, Combined Maritime Forces

Naval Blockade

The first stage of a naval blockade directed against Iran would in all likelihood be initiated by Maritime Security Operations (MSO) under USCENTCOM.

For Iran, a naval blockade, were it to be implemented, is tantamount to a declaration of war. The blockade constitutes a blatant violation of international law. According to Francis Boyle, a renowned specialist in international law:

"A blockade is an act of war under international and domestic law. A "Blockade" is a term used under international law to specifically refer to belligerent measures taken by a nation for the purposes of preventing the passage of vessels or aircraft to and from another country. Customary international law recognizes blockades as an act of war because of the belligerent use of force even against third party nations in enforcing the blockade. Blockades as acts of war have been recognized as such in the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909 that delineate the international rules of warfare."

Meanwhile, war preparations are also being undertaken by Israel and NATO in the Eastern Mediterranean. German war ships are stationed off the Syrian coastline. Turkey which constitutes a major military actor within NATO is a major partner of the US led coalition. It has an extended bilateral military cooperation agreement with Israel. Turkey has borders with both Iran and Syria. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, "Triple Alliance": The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon, Global Research, August 6, 2006)

Pre-emptive Nuclear War

A diabolical and related consensus is emerging at the political level, pointing to the pre-emptive first strike use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater, more concretely against Iran:

"In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction."

To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created.

JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against "rogue states" but also against China and Russia."Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 2006)

More recently, a December 2007 NATO sponsored report entitled “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership". calls for a first strike pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. The NATO doctrine in this report is a virtual copy and paste version of America's post 9/11 nuclear weapons doctrine as initially outlined in the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

(for details, see Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life", Global Research, January 2008)

The preemptive use of nukes as formulated in the NATO Transatlantic Partnership document would be used to undermine an "increasingly brutal World" (e.g. Iran) as well as a means to prevent "rogue enemies" to use "weapons of mass destruction".

Under this NATO framework, which is explicitly envisaged in relation to Iran, US and allied forces including Israel would "resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, " (quoted in Paul Dibb, Sidney Morning Herald, 11 February 2008).

"They [the authors of the report] consider that nuclear war might soon become possible in an increasingly brutal world. They propose the first use of nuclear weapons must remain "in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction". (Paul Dibb, op cit)

In terms of the ongoing threats directed against Iran, a pre-emptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons, which are according to the Pentagon is "harmless to the surrounding civilian population" could be carried out in relation to Iran, even if if Iran does not possess nuclear weapons capabilities, as confirmed by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use", they are slated to be used in the next stage of the Middle East war (Iran) alongside conventional weapons:

"Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent."(Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage".

cont'd

The NATO sponsored report --which broadly reflects a growing consensus-- insists that the option of a nuclear first strike is indispensable, "since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world." (Report, p. 97):

"Nuclear weapons are the ultimate instrument of an asymmetric response – and at the same time the ultimate tool of escalation"

The US-NATO doctrine to use nukes on a pre-emptive basis against Iran, with a view to "saving the Western World's way of life", is not challenged in any meaningful way by the antiwar movement.

The mainstream media has a strong grip on the public's perception and understanding of the Middle East war. The dangers of nuclear war in the Post cold War era are barely mentioned and when they are, the use of nuclear weapons are justified as a preemptive military option to ensure the security of Western World.

The truth is twisted and turned upside down.

Media disinformation instills within the consciousness of Americans and Europeans that somehow the war on Iran is a necessity, that Iran is a threat to the Homeland and that the Islamic Republic is supporting Islamic terrorists, who are planning a Second 9/11. And that a pre-emptive nuclear attack is the answer.

In contrast, the powerful economic interests behind the war economy, the Anglo-American oil giants military, the defense contractors, Wall Street are rarely the object of media coverage. The real economic and strategic objectives behind this war are carefully obfuscated.

9/11 is used profusely both by the Bush administration and the media as a justification for waging war, despite the fact that there is mounting evidence of cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

Despite the evidence, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran have been portrayed as the "State sponsors of terrorism" and a threat to the Homeland, thereby justifying the various stages of the Middle East military roadmap. The Project for a New American Century, had already described in a 2000 document the nature of this road map or "long war". What is envisaged is a global war without borders:

fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars (PNAC, September 2000)

At present US and coalition forces including NATO and Israel are in an advanced state of readiness to launch an attack on Iran. Leaders of the US led coalition including France, Germany and Italy, should understand that such an action could result in a World War III scenario.

Escalation scenarios have already been envisaged and analyzed by the Pentagon.

US sponsored war games have foreseen the possible intervention of Russia and China in the Middle East. World War III has been on the lips of NeoCon architects of US foreign policy from the outset of the Bush regime.

In response to "Operation Brimstone" and the Naval deployment, Iran's Foreign Ministry said that "Tehran will give a 'maximum response' to the slightest threat against the country's national security."

War propaganda, through media disinformation consists in galvanizing US citizens not only in favor of "the war on terrorism", but in support of a social order which repeals the Rule of Law, derogates fundamental civil liberties, upholds the use of torture and establishes a modern police state apparatus as a means to "preserving Western democracy".

There is a tacit public acceptance of a diabolical and criminal military agenda, which in a very sense threatens "the community of nations" and life on this planet.

In the course of the last four years, Global Research has documented in detail the various war plans directed against Iran. Operation TIRANNT (Theater Iran Near Term) was initially formulated in July 2003, in the wake of the US led Iraq invasion.

We have done our utmost to reverse the tide of media disinformation, to inform our readers and the broader public on the impending dangers underlying the US military adventure.

This is the most serious crisis in modern history which in a very real sense threatens the future of humanity.

Quote from: Barbara on August 17, 2008, 01:43:32 PM

This was very interesting. Thanks Sister Barbara.

Snipers sparked Russian-Georgian war
Was response a calculated attempt to win Western help?

Sources in Georgia say the massive Russian onslaught into South Ossetia was prompted by Georgian snipers who apparently were picking off separatists in response to the killing of seven Georgian peacekeepers, then ran into a team of Russian peacekeepers and killed all but three, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

It happened in the days before Aug. 7, when Russian forces penetrated sovereign Georgian territory, the highly reliable sources said. South Ossetians, under fire from Georgian snipers, were not aware of where the shots were coming from and began shelling Georgian positions outside South Ossetia.

But the fleeing Georgians killed a number of Russian peacekeepers, triggering the conflict, according to the Georgian sources.

The exchange of artillery fire between the Georgians and Russians virtually leveled Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.

The Georgian response to the South Ossetian artillery fire came despite common knowledge that the Russians had troops massed on the Russian side of the border, in North Ossetia, just opposite Georgian-controlled South Ossetia.

Indeed, there were published reports as early as July 18 that Russia and Georgia were holding large-scale military exercises simultaneously. The reports referred to the presence of more than 8,000 Russian troops, including the elite Pskov Airborne Division, taking part in exercises dubbed Kavkaz-2008. The exercises were being held in almost a dozen Russian regions, including Chechnya, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.

Meantime, some 1,200 U.S. and 800 Georgian troops were involved in a joint exercise called Immediate Response 2008 held at the Vaziani military base near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. After the Russians came into Georgia, however, Vaziani was destroyed.

Until the Russians responded to the Georgian attacks on Tskhinvali Aug. 8, North Caucasian rebels opposed to the Russians had been monitoring the movement of Russian forces in the conflict zones and putting the information on their website. In one case, the rebel website reported two Russian armored motorcades had moved from Chechnya to North Ossetia and to the Roksky pass in South Ossetia next to the Russian-Georgian border.

The rebels, who are very active in the areas of the North Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, further warned that Russia planned to attack Georgia in August.

Following the mid-July disclosures of Russian maneuvers to the north of South Ossetia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev demanded that Georgia remove its troops from Abkhazia's Kordori Gorge. Medvedev warned that "the only way out of the current situation is to adopt joint documents obliging the sides to refrain from force and guaranteeing security, and the withdrawal of Georgian troops from the upper part of the Kordori Gorge."

The Russians frequently have made it known that they will protect Russian peacekeepers and any person who holds a Russian passport, which most of the habitants of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have.

For years, Russian peacekeepers have occupied the so-called conflict areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which are are recognized by the international community as belonging to Georgia. Up until the latest flare-up, Georgian peacekeepers worked with Russian peacekeepers to police the conflict regions.

Knowing of the Russian troop buildup and the warnings issued the month before, the question arises as to why the Georgians responded to initial South Ossetian artillery fire with its own that hit the South Ossetian capital.

Some analysts suggest that the Georgian government did not think the Russians would go beyond South Ossetia, since there had been prior skirmishes between Georgian and South Ossetian forces.

Other analysts, however, suggest that it may have been a calculated effort to force Russia's hand and thereby draw attention from the West to Georgia's relations with Russia and desire to be part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

Embattled Musharraf says he's stepping down
Pakistani president had been facing likely impeachment charges

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation Monday to avoid impeachment charges, nearly nine years after the key U.S. ally in its campaign against terrorism took power in a coup.

An emotional Musharraf said he wanted to spare the country from a perilous impeachment battle and that he was satisfied that all he had done "was for the people and for the country."

"I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes," Musharraf said in a televised address, much of which was devoted to defending his record and refuting criticisms.

Musharraf said he will turn in his resignation to the National Assembly speaker on Monday but it was not immediately clear whether it would become effective the same day. The chairman of Pakistan's Senate, Mohammedmian Soomro, will take over as acting president when Musharraf steps down, Law Minister Farooq Naek said.

It also was not clear whether Musharraf would stay in Pakistan.

With Musharraf's utility fading, Western concerns appeared less interested with his ultimate fate than about how the clamor was affecting the halting efforts of the new civilian government against terrorism and the gathering economic woes.

President Bush stressed the importance of U.S.-Pakistan relationship in a statement by the White House after Musharraf announced his resignation.

"President Bush is committed to a strong Pakistan that continues its efforts to strengthen democracy and fight terror," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

The spokesman said Bush appreciates Musharraf's efforts "in the democratic transition of Pakistan as well as his commitment to fighting al-Qaida and extremist groups."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Musharraf as “a friend to the United States and one of the world’s most committed partners in the war against terrorism and extremism.”

In Pakistan, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said leaders of the ruling coalition would discuss later Monday whether to prosecute Musharraf in court on charges that that were being planned for the impeachment process.

Victory of democratic forces'
Musharraf's political foes celebrated.

"It is a victory of democratic forces," Information Minister Sherry Rehman said. "Today the shadow of dictatorship, that has prevailed for long over this country, that chapter has been closed."

Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, making the country a key strategic ally of the United States by supporting the war on terror. But his popularity at home sank over the years.

Many Pakistanis blame the rising militant violence in their country on Musharraf's alliance with the United States. His reputation suffered blows in 2007 when he ousted dozens of judges and imposed emergency rule. His rivals won February parliamentary elections and have since sought his ouster, announcing impeachment plans earlier this month.

Impeachment charges
Musharraf, who has been largely sidelined since his rivals came to power, had resisted the mounting calls to quit, even after the coalition finalized impeachment charges against him and threatened to send a motion to Parliament later this week.

The charges were expected to include violating the constitution and gross misconduct, likely in connection with the ouster of the judges and the declaration of emergency rule.

In announcing he would quit after all, Musharraf mentioned the many problems facing Pakistan, including its sinking economy. He said his opponents were wrong to blame him for the mounting difficulties. "I pray the government stops this down-sliding and take the country out of this crisis," he said.

Allies and rivals of the president said talks had been under way to get him to step down by possibly granting him legal immunity from future prosecution. The second biggest party in the government has said he should be tried for treason, which carries a maximum punishment of death.

Afghan reaction
In Kabul, the U.S.-backed Afghan government welcomed Musharraf's resignation, saying he "was not someone good for Afghanistan" and his departure will have a positive effect on the region.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of being behind an April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and the July bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 60 people.

Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, reiterated a standing Afghan government demand that Pakistan's military intelligence service cease its activities in Afghanistan.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said that Musharraf was an ally of the United States in name only. He said Afghanistan wants a Pakistani president that pursues peace by his actions, and not only through words.

Musharraf "was not someone good for Afghanistan," said Bashary. "We hope that someone good will replace him."

Speculation over next leader
Who will ultimately succeed Musharraf is an open question. There has been speculation that both Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the leaders of the two main parties are interested in the role.

But the ruling coalition has sought to strip the presidency of many of its powers. Sharif spokesman Saiqul Farooq recently dismissed the idea that his boss wants the job because the presidency would likely be reduced to a ceremonial position.

Qureshi would not say whether Musharraf might be granted a "safe exit" — speculation has focused on whether he might go into exile in Saudi Arabia or Turkey — or dragged through the courts.

"That is a decision that has to be taken by the democratic leadership," Qureshi, who is from the main ruling Pakistan People's Party, told Dawn News television. The leaders would assess the speech and the political situation, he said.

NATO won't let Russia succeed in Georgia: Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Russia is playing a "very dangerous game" with the U.S. and its allies and warned that NATO would not allow Moscow to win in Georgia, destabilize Europe or draw a new Iron Curtain through it.

On her way to an emergency NATO foreign ministers meeting on the crisis, Rice said the alliance would punish Russia for its invasion of the Georgia and deny its ambitions by rebuilding and fully backing Georgia and other Eastern European democracies.

"We have to deny Russian strategic objectives, which are clearly to undermine Georgia's democracy, to use its military capability to damage and in some cases destroy Georgian infrastructure and to try and weaken the Georgian state," she said.

"We are determined to deny them their strategic objective," Rice told reporters aboard her plane, adding that any attempt to recreate the Cold War by drawing a "new line" through Europe and intimidating former Soviet republics and ex-satellite states into submission would fail.

"We are not going to allow Russia to draw a new line at those states that are not yet integrated into the trans-Atlantic structures," she said, referring to Georgia and Ukraine, which have not yet joined NATO or the European Union but would like to.

Rice could not say what NATO would eventually decide to do to make its position clear but said the alliance would speak with one voice "to clearly indicate that we are not accepting a new line."

At the same time, she said that by flexing its military muscle in Georgia as well as elsewhere, including the resumption of Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols off the coast of Alaska, Russia was engaged in high-stakes brinksmanship that could backfire.

This "is a very dangerous game and perhaps one the Russians want to reconsider," Rice said of the flights that began again with frequency about six months ago. "This is not something that is just cost-free. Nobody needs Russian strategic aviation along America's coast."

At Tuesday's meeting, the NATO ministers will consider a range of upcoming activities planned with Russia—from military exercises to ministerial meetings—and decide case-by-case at the meeting Tuesday whether to go ahead or cancel each.

They will also discuss support for a planned international monitoring mission in the region and a package of support to help Georgia rebuild infrastructure damaged in its devastating defeat at the hands of the Russian armed forces.

And, she suggested that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed an E.U.-backed cease-fire brokered by the French, may be unable to exert power behind the scenes against his powerful predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, or the Russian military.

She said she thought the French would be seeking "an explanation from the Russians for why the Russian president either won't or can't keep his word."

"It didn't take that long for the Russian forces to get in and it really shouldn't take that long for them to get out," Rice said.

Ukraine torments Russia with show of solidarity
Askold Krushelnycky
August 17, 2008

Ukraine yesterday offered to create a joint missile defence network with the West amid fears that its port city of Sebastopol, home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, could become the next flashpoint between Russia and its former satellites.

The Ukrainian offer, which means its early warning radar stations could become part of the West’s civil defence system, will further damage poor relations between Kiev and Moscow.

Ukraine, which to the fury of Russia is looking towards Europe and membership of Nato, announced last week that it would require the Russian fleet to seek permission whenever ships entered its territorial waters.

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s reformist president who visited the Georgian capital Tbilisi last week to support President Mikhail Saakashvili, said the use of Russian ships for a war violated Ukraine’s neutrality and risked drawing it into conflict.

He instructed his security council to draw up new rules forcing Russia to apply up to 10 days in advance for permission for its fleet to move in and out of Ukraine’s territorial waters.

This weekend Yushchenko said a threat to Georgia’s territorial integrity should be viewed as a potential threat to Ukraine’s: “We have lived through the most terrible 10 days of our recent history.”

The Russian response was immediate. Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, who last week warned Poland that it could face a nuclear strike after signing a deal with the United States to place a missile shield on its soil, made a belligerent statement to Ukraine.

He said Russian ships would ignore the order to seek permission, which he claimed was “illegitimate”.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, warned Yushchenko last February that Russia could point nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it cooperated with US missile defence plans.

Ukraine is insisting the Russian military must leave Sebastopol when the lease on the base expires in 2017. The Russian navy has made it clear it may refuse to do so.

Ukraine torments Russia with show of solidarity (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4547799.ece)

Russia digs in 20 miles from Georgian capital
Rival forces observe an uneasy roadside truce as they come face to face
August 17, 2008

Twenty-four hours after Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, flew into Georgia and demanded the immediate departure of Russian troops, they were on the move yesterday.

However, instead of retreating north into South Ossetia, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting to break away from Georgia, the Russians headed south towards the capital, Tbilisi. They came to a halt only 20 miles outside the city.

A convoy of two Russian tanks, several armoured personnel carriers mounted with heavy machineguns and Russian flags and a few trucks filled with troops took up positions along the main road from Tbilisi to Gori, Stalin’s home town near the South Ossetian border.

The incursion was the deepest into Georgia proper since hostilities began 10 days ago. The troops dug foxholes along a hill only 30 minutes’ drive from the capital, watched by heavily armed Georgian soldiers and police. Men from the rival camps who had been shelling one another a few days earlier suddenly found themselves too close for comfort.

At first, the soot-covered Russian soldiers sat idly on their vehicles, cradling AK47s under the heat of a searing sun. Then a Georgian soldier in US-issued camouflage walked up to them carrying his national flag. Within minutes the two sides were chatting and exchanging cigarettes and water.

“It’s beautiful here,” said one Russian officer as he stepped out of a jeep with tinted windows. “This is a place where one should come on holiday, not war.”

The bonhomie was misleading, however. Some of the Georgian soldiers were visibly stunned to see a foreign army so deep inside their country.

They seemed alarmed that Russian military operations still had not ended four days after President Dmitry Medvedev announced that he had halted them.

The previous day Rice had all but forced Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian president, to sign a ceasefire that sealed his defeat. Yesterday Medvedev added his signature.

The document, drafted under the supervision of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and amended by the Kremlin, allows the Russian military to remain in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions that Saakashvili had vowed to return to Tbilisi’s control.

Even more damaging for the Georgian leader’s political prospects, it gives the Russians the right to remain several miles inside Georgian territory to await an international peace-keeping force - which could take weeks to assemble.

Since the defeated and demoralised Georgian army pulled out of South Ossetia last week, the Russians have secured or destroyed its military installations and arms dumps.

By yesterday afternoon they had moved back towards South Ossetia but were still positioned on the outskirts of Gori and in the Black Sea port of Poti, where they have blown up several Georgian coastguard vessels.

South Ossetian paramilitaries were also still active in the west of the country where they were reported to be looting Georgian villages. They have been accused of ethnic cleansing, of torching villages and, in several cases, of abducting young women.

The Kremlin gave its strongest signal yet that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be integrated into Russia. Saakashvili’s future as president seemed far less certain.

He was vilified by the Kremlin as a US stooge before hostilities broke out. The Russians are now bent on seeing him removed from power. Moscow has dispatched investigators from the prosecutor’s office to South Ossetia to gather testimony that it hopes to use in a criminal case against the president.

In Tbilisi many last week thought Saakashvili’s fate was already sealed. While he is credited with turning round Georgia’s economy and modernising the small state, he is expected to face a furious backlash over the failed military action.

Russia digs in 20 miles from Georgian capital (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4547797.ece)

Fear of Russian 'protection' spreads to Ukraine and the Baltic

Sunday August 17 2008

Part of Russia's justification for wresting control of South Ossetia from Georgia is that many of the region's residents hold Russian passports. The Kremlin was therefore - so it claims - protecting its citizens from Georgian aggression.

That line sends ripples of alarm throughout the former Soviet Union, where many states that became independent in 1991 took sizable Russian populations with them. Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova and Kazakhstan, for example, have much to fear if the Kremlin sees their hosting of a Russian diaspora as a licence to ignore their borders.

The problem is not just one of nationality. Russianness is an elastic concept, covering millions who speak Russian as their first language but who, in the Soviet era, were classified as Belarussians, Ukrainians, Jews or Ossetians. To make matters worse, many of the areas where Russians or Russian-speakers predominate are the subject of territorial disputes that pre-date even the USSR.

Officially, 17.3 per cent of people living in Ukraine are ethnic Russians (around 8 million people). But more have Russian as a first language and they are concentrated in the east of the country, which nationalists in Moscow argue is culturally indivisible from the old Slavic motherland. Ukrainian nationalists vehemently disagree. The same goes for Belarus (official Russian population: 11.4 per cent, around 1 million people).

But the greatest tensions are in two of the Baltic States: Latvia (29.6 per cent Russian) and Estonia (25.6 per cent Russian). Although they formed part of the Russian empire in the 19th century, the Balts broke away when the Soviet Union was formed and were only forcibly reassimilated during the Second World War. Stalin then waged a brutal demographic war, shipping ethnic Latvians and Estonians to Siberia, and settling Russians in their place.

When they regained independence, Latvia and Estonia didn't give citizenship to many of their resident Russians, whom they saw as the remnants of an occupying force. Moscow continues to agitate on behalf of them, which the Balts see as flagrant imperialism. Last year rioting broke out in Tallinn between Estonians and Russians over a decision to take down a Soviet-era war memorial.

Where the allegiance of the millions of Russians spread throughout the former USSR lies isn't known. But it is clear that the Kremlin sees itself as their rightful protector. Or rather, it sees strategic advantage in laying claim to that status.

Fear of Russian 'protection' spreads to Ukraine and the Baltic (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/17/georgia.russia1)

Iran gambles over Georgia's crisis
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Georgia is one of Iran's "near neighbors" and as a result of geographical proximity and important political and geostrategic considerations, the current Russia-Georgia conflict is closely watched by Tehran, itself under threat of military action by the US and or Israel, which may now feel less constrained about attacking Iran in light of Russia's war with Georgia.

So far, Tehran has not adopted an official position, limiting itself to a telephone conference between Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, expressing Iran's desire to see a speedy end of the conflict for the sake of "peace and stability in the region". Tehran's dailies have likewise refrained from in-depth analyses of the crisis and from providing editorial perspectives, and the government-owned media have stayed clear of any coverage that might raise Moscow's objection.

Behind Iran's official silence is a combination of factors. These range from Iran's common cause with Moscow against expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), interpreting this crisis as a major setback for NATO's "eastward expansion" in light of the unabashed pro-West predilections of Tbilisi's government, to Iran's sensitivity to Russia's national security concerns. The latter are heightened by the US's plans to install anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe, not to overlook Iran's concern as not to give the Kremlin any ammunition that could be used against it in Tehran's standoff over its nuclear program.

Representing a serious new rift in US-Russia relations, the conflict in the Caucasus, paralyzing the UN Security Council and igniting Cold War-type rhetoric between the two military superpowers, is simultaneously a major distraction from the Iran nuclear crisis and may even spell doom for the multilateralist "Iran Six" diplomacy. This involves the US, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany in negotiations over Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which some believed is aimed at making nuclear weapons.

Much depends on the scope and duration of the Georgia crisis and, yet, there is also the obverse possibility that Moscow, intent on polishing its tarnished image - as a rogue power coercing its smaller neighbors and violating their territorial sovereignty - may even double its efforts on other fronts to compensate for the damage to its international standing, given the US's threat of kicking Russia out of the Group of Eight.

As far as Iran is concerned, the Georgia crisis is not confined to South Caucasus and has broader implications for region, including Central Asia and the Caspian area, that are both positive and negative. That is, it is a mixed blessing, one that is both an ominous development signaling a new level of Russian militarism as well as a crisis of opportunity, to forge closer ties with Russia and enhance its chance of membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the grouping dominated by Russia and China.

Yet, the immediate gains for Iran may not exceed the net losses in the long run and Tehran may have blundered by not forcefully criticizing Moscow's violation of Georgia's sovereignty. Iran and Georgia have strong historical connections: Iran was in possession of Georgia for some 400 years until the humiliating defeats at the hands of tsarist Russia in the early 19th century, culminating in the Russia-Iran Treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmanchai in 1828. Under these, about a third of Iranian territory was ceded to Russia, including Georgia and Armenia.

Then and now, Iran remains weary of Russia's imperial intentions and, more recently, this was evident seven years ago when in the aftermath of a failed summit on the division of Caspian Sea, the then-president Vladimir Putin ordered a massive naval maneuver in the Caspian Sea as a stern message to Iran.

Should Putin, now premier, succeed with his "splendid little war" in South Caucasus, Russia's neighbors to the east must expect to see more samples of Russian power projection, again a prospect that simultaneously entices and yet terrifies Iran and is bound to have contradictory policy ramifications for Tehran's decision-makers.

Thus, on the one hand, no matter how cordial present Iran-Russia relations may be, the big neighbor's power and increasing militarism impacts Iran's national security calculus and may strengthen the arguments of those who are in favor of a nuclear defense strategy.

On the other hand, there is no doubt Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's statement that the world "can forget about Georgia's territorial integrity" is unacceptable to Tehran, which has recently submitted a package of proposals focusing on international cooperation.

Russia's exercise of power is substantively the same as the US's illegal post-September 11, 2001, invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and, naturally, Iran cannot adopt one set of standards for one and another for the other, irrespective of Moscow's legitimate grievances about the US's and NATO's intentions and actions around it.

Rather, Tehran must demonstrate consistency with its own foreign policy criteria, otherwise its international prestige and regional standing will suffer, no matter how the Kremlin may be displeased with a bold, yet principled, Iranian stance on this neighboring crisis.

What is more, whereas Iran during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami offered to play a mediating role in the Chechen crisis, today there is a conspicuous absence of any similar gesture on Tehran's part. This is unfortunate since Iran can indeed play an effective role in "third-party" mediation.

Mediation in international conflicts requires skilled negotiation and facilitation of dialogue between the hostile parties and, in this case, Iran could take advantage of its impartiality and proximity to the warring sides to act as a successful mediator, perhaps in tandem with other actors, such as the UN and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), in light of past Iran-OSCE collaboration with respect to the civil war in Tajikistan and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Instead of adopting such proactive steps, Tehran has settled for a quiet diplomacy, as a passive bystander, thus causing an attrition of its image as a regional player, which it can remedy by a timely intervention as a mediator in line with its own foreign policy principles and standards.

Russia's action against Georgia violates the UN charter and causes collateral damage on the integrity and security of the sovereign rights of Russia's other neighbors, including Iran, which a mere half a century ago was threatened by partition when the Soviet red army refused to leave northern Iran at the end of World War II.

Clearly, as with the collapse of the Doha rounds of negotiations on world trade, the crisis in South Caucasus reflects a serious erosion of international law and growing anarchy in international affairs, a sliding back toward the Cold War bifurcations and the renewal of the big power sphere of influence politics, albeit rationalized as Russia's own "Monroe doctrine", precisely when such bifurcations and seemingly defunct doctrines and cliches appear a relic of a bygone era.

The new post-Cold War era still remains a largely unfulfilled premise, or rather promise on the part of the big powers, which need to give up their propensity to use hard power to pursue their imperial intentions. But, old habits die hard and the US's NATO-led intervention in Russia's backyard has elicited in essence today's Russia's military gambit inside Georgian territory. This is a sobering lesson of how that premise still remains simply a potential, a wishful dream.

Iran gambles over Georgia's crisis (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH16Ak01.html)

Russia claims pullback but forces move other way

By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer Mon Aug 18, 7:37 PM ET

GORI, Georgia - Russia said Monday it had begun withdrawing from the conflict zone in Georgia, but it held fast to key positions and sent some of its troops in the opposite direction — closer to the Georgian capital.
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Russian troops and vehicles roamed freely around the strategically located central city of Gori, Russian forces appeared to blow up the runway at a military base in the western town of Senaki.

There were few signs Russia was following the terms of a cease-fire to end the short war, which has driven tensions between Russia and the West to some of their highest levels since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

In Paris, the French foreign minister said it appeared "we are witnessing the start" of a Russian withdrawal, but warned France would call an emergency meeting of the European Council to talk about consequences for Russia if that was not the case.

But U.S. defense and military officials said they had seen no significant movement yet of Russian troops withdrawing from Georgia.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her way to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers, said Russia was playing a "very dangerous game and perhaps one the Russians want to reconsider."

She said the United States and its allies would not allow Russia to draw a "new line" through Europe and intimidate former Soviet republics and former satellite states.

The foreign ministers were set to meet Tuesday in Brussels, Belgium, to consider whether to go ahead with upcoming activities planned with Russia, from military exercises to diplomatic meetings.

The European Union-brokered peace plan signed by both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili calls for both sides to pull forces back to the positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7. Medvedev had told French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday that Russian troops would begin pulling back on Monday, but stopped short of promising they would return to Russia.

Russia sent its tanks and troops into Georgia after Georgia cracked down on the separatist, pro-Russian province of South Ossetia. Fighting has also flared in a second breakaway region, Abkhazia.

In Moscow, the deputy chief of the Russian general staff, Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, told a briefing that "today, according to the peace plan, the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers and reinforcements has begun" and said forces were leaving Gori.

But Russian tanks and troops roamed freely around the city and made forays toward the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, 55 miles to the southeast. Russia also kept control of the critical highway that slices through Georgia's midsection.

AP reporters saw four Russian armored personnel carriers, each carrying about 15 men, rolling from Gori to Igoeti, a crossroads town even closer to Tbilisi, passing Georgian soldiers who sat by the roadside.

The Russians moved into Igoeti then turned off onto a side road. As the Russian vehicles rolled past a group of Georgian soldiers and policemen, one swerved and scraped a new Georgian police car. The Georgians looked down at their fingernails.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing intelligence reports, said at least one Russian battalion equipped with more than a dozen SS-21 missile launchers had moved into South Ossetia, within range of Tbilisi. Nogovitsyn disputed the claim.

The RIA-Novosti news agency reported that the leader of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, asked Russia on Monday to establish a permanent base there.

Nogovitsyn said the Russian troops were pulling back to South Ossetia, but the boundaries of the Russian presence remained unclear. He said "troops should not be in the territory of Georgia," but it was unclear whether that excluded patrols.

Russian troops were restricting access to Gori, where shops were shut and people milled around on the central square.

"The city is a cold place now. People are fearful," said Nona Khizanishvili, 44, who fled Gori a week ago for an outlying village and returned Monday, trying to reach her son in Tbilisi.

Georgia's Rustavi-2 television showed footage of a Russian armored vehicle smashing through a group of Georgian police cars barricading the road to Gori on Monday. One of the cars was dragged along the street by the Russian armor. Georgian police stood by without even raising their guns as the Russian vehicle crushed through the roadblock.

In Senaki, a series of explosions were heard from the military base in the afternoon. Later, three separate blasts that appeared to destroy the airport runway shook the leaves on trees more than a mile away.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Russian forces had blown up the runway. There was no confirmation from Russian military officials.

Earlier, Russian troops had allowed displaced people to get to the base to retrieve their belongings. Cars emerged loaded with goods, including televisions and refrigerators.

A planned exchange of prisoners captured during the fighting fell through, with each sides blaming the other. It was not clear how many prisoners were to be exchanged. Georgian officials another attempt could take place Tuesday.

In Vladikavkaz, near the border with Georgia, Medvedev gave medals to 30 soldiers and servicemen involved in the conflict. He called them heroes and said they had fought "a cowardly aggression.

"I am sure that such a well conducted, effective peacemaking operation aimed at protecting our citizens and other people will be among the most glorious deeds of the Russian military," Medvedev said.

While Western leaders have called Russia's response disproportionate, Medvedev repeated Russian accusations of genocide.

"The world realized that even now there are political freaks who were ready to kill innocent people for the sake of political fashions and who compensated for their own stupidity by eliminating a whole nation," he said.

An Associated Press cameraman was slightly injured outside Gori after four men in camouflage, possibly from an Ossetian militia, pulled up in a car and told him to stop filming.

When the cameraman resisted, the driver produced a pistol and started shooting at the ground. The cameraman, who sustained light ricochet wounds to his legs, handed over the cassette.

The Pentagon said that up to five C-130 aircraft are expected to fly into Georgia Tuesday with supplies, and that three had landed Monday as part of the relief effort. In addition to food, medical aid, tents and bedding, the U.S. is sending forklifts to help unload and move the supplies.

The United Nations refugee agency said more than 158,000 people had been displaced by the conflict, most of them within Georgia.

"I think the Russians will pull out, but will damage Georgia strongly," said Givi Sikharulidze, who lives in Tbilisi. "Georgia will survive, but Russia has lost its credibility in the eyes of the world."

Russia claims pullback but forces move other way (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080818/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_russia;_ylt=Aqo0yGNhpohAplSTI.0lpdaROrgF)

Sarkozy warns Russia: withdraw from South Ossetia or face the consequences
French president calls on Medvedev to honour pledge as US and Germany add to pressure on Moscow
Jenny Percival and agencies
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday August 17 2008 16:00 BST

The French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, today warned Russia of "serious consequences" if it failed to honour its pledge to begin withdrawing its troops from the separatist-held Georgian region of South Ossetia tomorrow.

Sarkozy's warning was reiterated by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as Russia came under intense international pressure to support the ceasefire it signed on Friday.

Sarkozy, who drafted the truce agreement in his role as EU president, warned the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, that failure to pull out under a ceasefire deal would have "serious consequences" for Russia's ties with the EU.

Sarkozy's office said he had told Medvedev there must be a "withdrawal, without delay" of all Russian military forces in Georgia. His office said Medvedev had promised the troop withdrawal would begin tomorrow at around midday.

The two men spoke by telephone yesterday, but details of their conversation were only revealed this afternoon.

His warning was followed by strong criticism from Rice, who accused Medvedev of failing to honour his pledge to withdraw troops quickly.

"I hope he intends to honour the pledge this time," Rice said on the US TV show Meet the Press. She said the Russians had said earlier in the crisis that they would start pulling troops from Georgia but had not done so. "This time I hope he means it ... people are going to begin to wonder if Russia can be trusted."

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, stepped up the hardline rhetoric, saying he believed Russia was showing signs of returning to its authoritarian past. He said its actions would require the US to re-evaluate its relationship with Moscow.

On a visit to Georgia to meet President Mikhail Saakashvili, Merkel called for "very fast" Russian withdrawal from Georgia and gave strong support to Georgia, saying it was on track to become a member of Nato.

The announcement of a Russian timetable for withdrawal followed a morning of conflicting reports about whether or not the Russian pull-out had begun.

The commander of Russian forces in Georgia said some troops were moving out of South Ossetia. Speaking outside the strategic Georgian city of Gori, Major General Vyachislav Borisov told the Associated Press that a "planned withdrawal" approved by the Russian president was under way.

Minutes later, a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry said a withdrawal was under consideration but had not yet started.

The South Ossetian interior minister, Mikhail Mindzayev, speaking by phone from the Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, also denied a withdrawal was under way. Alexander Lomaia, the head of Georgia's national security council, said Russian tanks remained in Gori and were "moving deeper" within the country.

Pope Benedict expressed hope that the ceasefire would turn into a stable peace, and called for the urgent opening of humanitarian corridors between Georgia and South Ossetia. According to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, nearly 100,000 people have been driven from their homes by the conflict.

Medvedev signed yesterday's agreement in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, 20km from the border with Abkhazia, Georgia's second breakaway province. Analysts said they expected Russia to absorb Abkhazia and South Ossetia into the Russian Federation - possibly within days. Both territories are likely to hold referendums calling for a formal association with Russia.

The six-point ceasefire agreement authorises Russia to carry out "additional security measures on a temporary basis" until an international peacekeeping force arrives in Georgia. This requires a UN resolution.

Last night, the US president, George Bush, cautiously welcomed Russia's apparent commitment. He described the deal, also signed by Saakashvili on Friday, as a "helpful step". Bush reaffirmed his commitment to Georgia's battered territorial integrity, saying the issue was not up for debate.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, praised the ceasefire move but said he was "concerned" by reports of continuing Russian military action.

Yesterday, Georgia claimed Russia was still destroying its civilian and military infrastructure. It said Russian soldiers had blown up a railway line near the town of Kaspi, outside Tbilisi - severing the last railway link between the east and west of the country. Moscow denied this.

Russian military helicopters also attacked Borjomi national park - setting fire to huge areas of protected forest, Georgian officials said. Borjomi, a popular spa town since Tsarist times, is home to endangered species, including bears.

There are growing claims of atrocities committed by irregular militias, to which the Russian forces are accused of turning a blind eye. The Observer has witnessed half a dozen assaults and robberies of civilians and journalists by mercenaries in the past five days.

Sarkozy warns Russia: withdraw from South Ossetia or face the consequences (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/17/georgia.russia3?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews)

Russia Tightens Its Grip
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
August 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — Even as Russia pledged to begin withdrawing its forces from neighboring Georgia on Monday, American officials said the Russian military had been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, a step that appeared intended to tighten its hold on the breakaway territory.

The Russian military deployed several SS-21 missile launchers and supply vehicles to South Ossetia on Friday, according to American officials familiar with intelligence reports. From the new launching positions north of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, the missiles can reach much of Georgia, including Tbilisi, the capital.

The Kremlin announced Sunday that Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, had promised to begin the troop withdrawal in a conversation with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who negotiated a six-point cease-fire agreement. Mr. Medvedev did not specify the pace or scope of the withdrawal, saying only that troops would withdraw to South Ossetia and a so-called security zone on its periphery.

The United States and European leaders reacted with wariness, and Russia’s recent military moves appeared to add an element of frustration.

“Well, I just know that the Russian president said several days ago Russian military operations would stop. They didn’t,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “This time I hope he means it. You know the word of the Russian president needs to be upheld by his forces.”

Russia’s efforts to strengthen its military position in the region have important political and military implications. American officials have demanded that Russian troops pull back from their positions inside Georgia and that the Russian military presence in the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be limited to the Russian peacekeeping force that was there before the conflict erupted earlier this month. Ultimately, American officials say, the Russian peacekeepers themselves should be replaced by a neutral, international peacekeeping force.

But instead of thinning out their forces in South Ossetia, the Russians appear to have been consolidating their presence there by deploying SS-21 missile launchers and, American officials say, by installing surface-to-air missiles near their military headquarters in Tskhinvali. Such moves appear to buttress assertions last week by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are to be separated from Georgia.

Western officials have also been monitoring Russian troop movements, which may be intended to strengthen Russian forces in and around Georgia. A battalion from Russia’s 76th Guards Airborne Division has been deployed from Pskov to Beslan, a city in North Ossetia. Several additional battalions from the 98th Guards Airborne Division at Kostroma also appeared to have been preparing over the weekend for possible deployment to the Caucasus region.

Beyond South Ossetia, the Russian military has taken other steps to raise its profile. In recent days, several Bear-H bombers have carried out training missions over the Black Sea, according to American officials familiar with intelligence reports. The Russian bombers are capable of carrying nonnuclear cruise missiles, and government intelligence analysts have told the Pentagon that a recent Bear training flight appeared to simulate a cruise-missile attack against Georgia.

The Russian moves are seen at the Pentagon as a way for Russia to show that it considers its sphere of influence to include Georgia and other parts of the so-called near abroad zones — Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Caspian — close to Russian territory. In general, the actions are seen as a matter of muscle flexing, or “force projection,” in Pentagon parlance, and are not viewed as signs that Russia intends to make a major military push to take Tbilisi.

Russian officials may also be calculating that their nation’s military presence may make some NATO members more skeptical toward accepting Georgia into the alliance. While the United States has strongly supported Georgia’s membership, some allied officials fear they may be dragged into a war in the Caucasus if Georgia is admitted.

Concerns over the military tensions in the region may already have influenced some neighbors. American officials said Turkish officials had denied the United States’ request that an American Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, be allowed to travel through the Turkish straits en route to Georgia. A Bush administration official, who asked not to be identified because of the delicacy of the diplomatic discussions, expressed hope that American officials would eventually persuade the Turks to let the ship pass.

The conflict began Aug. 7 when Georgian troops entered the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has strong ties to Russia, and Russia responded by sending its own troops deep into Georgian territory. The Kremlin has said Georgia provoked the conflict in South Ossetia, whose populace is hostile to Georgia, and Russian officials have referred to Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, as a war criminal. Mr. Saakashvili has contended that Russia is determined to turn Georgia into the kind of vassal state that existed during Soviet times.

cont'd next post

Though Mr. Medvedev announced the end of hostilities last Wednesday, Russian troops have remained in the central city of Gori, which is 40 miles from Tbilisi, and they continue to occupy wide swaths of territory. On Sunday, Western leaders pressed, with increasing unanimity, for Russia to withdraw. Mr. Sarkozy said there would be “serious consequences” for relations between Russia and the European Union if Russian compliance was not “rapid and complete.”

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Tbilisi to meet with Mr. Saakashvili, warned that “this process should not drag out for weeks.” Ms. Merkel also reiterated her support for Georgia’s eventual membership in NATO, a step Russia has fiercely opposed.

The deployment of SS-21 missile launchers to South Ossetia has added to the United States’ concerns. The SS-21 is a short-range ballistic missile carried on a mobile launcher. It can be used to attack command posts and airfield and troop concentrations. Russian forces used the missile in the Chechnya conflict, where it was believed to have caused significant civilian casualties.

James F. Jeffrey, the American deputy national security adviser, told reporters this month that President Bush was informed on Aug. 8 that two SS-21s had been fired into Georgia. He said Mr. Bush “immediately” met with Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, who was also attending the Olympics in Beijing, to express concern over the Russian military actions. Fragments of an SS-21 missile have been found near a police station in the port city of Poti. The rocket struck a police vehicle in front of the station.

But those missiles were fired from Russian territory, an American official said Sunday. In recent days, the official said, SS-21 missile launchers, as well as supply vehicles, have driven south through the Roki Tunnel into South Ossetia and been deployed on an elevated area about 10 miles north of Tskhinvali. That would put them within range of much of Georgia, including Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-largest city, and Tbilisi itself, adding to Russia’s ability to intimidate.

The original cease-fire agreement has been shuttled between Moscow and Tbilisi several times as changes were requested by the Russian and Georgian leaders, who do not disguise their mutual contempt. Among the points left unclear is how far Russian troops will draw back. Under the agreement, Russians have claimed a broad mandate to back up peacekeeping operations both in and out of the conflict zone.

Mr. Medvedev said Sunday that Russian troops would pull back to a security zone established in 1999 by the Joint Control Commission, an international body created to monitor seething tensions between ethnic Georgians and Ossetians. The commission designated a “conflict zone” of about nine miles around Tskhinvali, as well as a long “security corridor,” which extends about eight miles into Georgian-held areas.

Georgia’s foreign minister, Eka Tkeshelashvili, said the current form of the document limits Russian military operations to no more than about nine miles from the border of South Ossetia; prohibits Russian troops from entering urban areas or blocking roads; allows only patrols, as opposed to checkpoints; and would be prohibited as soon as international peacekeepers arrived.

Despite the Kremlin’s pledge of a pullout from Georgia, long lines of Russian military vehicles snaked south on Sunday along the main road from Tskhinvali to Gori in South Ossetia. Large transport trucks carrying power generators, troops, bags of potatoes, chairs and tables wound their way through the villages. A reporter driving south on the road passed lines of vehicles for nearly 40 minutes.

While the Russians have accused Georgian forces of killing many civilians in South Ossetia, it has not been possible for outsiders to corroborate those claims. Nor has it been possible to corroborate Georgian assertions that South Ossetians were purging Georgian villages in “ethnic cleansing” reprisals, although refugees have described a campaign of violence and looting, and tours along the main road show villages with as many as 90 percent of the buildings burned.

The president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, may have implicated himself in the forced expulsion of Georgians by asserting that they would not be allowed back. Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly sought on Sunday to minimize the significance of his remark, calling it “an emotional statement made under the influence of the situation resulting from the massive armed attack organized by the Georgian leadership against South Ossetia.”

Russia Tightens Its Grip (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/world/europe/18georgia.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print)

Cross us and we will crush you, warns Medvedev
August 19, 2008
Kevin O'Flynn in Moscow

President Medvedev of Russia yesterday promised a “shattering blow” against any foreign power that moved against Russian citizens.

The threat will compound the fears of former Soviet states, which are concerned that they could be next after Russia’s attack on Georgia.

“If someone thinks they can kill our citizens, kill soldiers and officers fulfilling the role of peacekeepers, we will never allow this,” Mr Medvedev told a group of Second World War veterans in Kursk. “Anyone who tries to do this will receive a shattering blow.”

He continued: “Russia has the capabilities - economic, political and military. Nobody has any illusions left about that.”

Russia’s incursion into Georgia, and its reluctance to leave, has alarmed former Soviet states such as Ukraine and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The war was designed in part to send a message to the former Soviet states that “you can’t solve your problems by running to give the West a hug”, Liliya Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Centre in Moscow, said.

At the start of the war, Mr Medvedev said it was his constitutional right to defend the “lives and dignity” of Russian citizens. Georgia’s allies now fear that Russia will begin to throw its weight around in defence of the millions of ethnic Russians who live outside the motherland.

The break-up of the Soviet Union left a huge Russian diaspora outside the country. There are more than 8 million ethnic Russians in Ukraine, 4.5 million in Kazakhstan and 1.2 million in the Baltic states.

Russia justified its attack on Georgia by insisting that it was acting to protect the 90 per cent of South Ossetians who have Russian passports.

How many of the passports are genuine is another question, as the region has long been infamous for smuggling and counterfeit passports and dollars.

Yevgeniya Latynina, a columnist, wrote last week that when the South Ossetian leader, Eduard Kokoity, received his passport, he opened it to find that it contained the picture of Abraham Lincoln from a $5 note instead of his own photograph.

Russia’s relations with Ukraine and the Baltic States have worsened in recent years after Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined Nato and the EU, and Ukraine tried to follow them.

One man was killed in demonstrations staged by Russians in Tallinn last year after Estonian authorities moved a Second World War monument that had been erected in the city by the Soviet regime. Moscow has complained that ethnic Russians are discriminated against in the Baltic states - an accusation that the EU has supported in some cases.

Ukraine and the Baltic States were quick to support Georgia, but Belarus, normally an ardent supporter of its only ally in Europe, meekly called for a ceasefire. There are more than one million ethnic Russians in Belarus.

The leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia condemned the actions of Russian forces and travelled to Georgia last week to show solidarity with Tbilisi. Estonia’s Postimees newspaper even published a map explaining the weapons Russia might use against the country.

Ukraine told Moscow that it could not use its Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet in armed conflicts without permission, after warships were deployed near Georgia. On Sunday Ukraine offered to create a joint missile defence network with the West amid fears that its port city of Sevastopol, home of the fleet, could become the next flashpoint between Russia and its former satellite states.

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s reformist President, who visited Tbilisi last week to support President Saakashvili of Georgia, said that the use of Russian ships for a war violated Ukraine’s neutrality and risked drawing it into conflict.

Ms Shevtsova, however, dismissed the idea that Russia might attack other countries.

“It is not possible,” she said, arguing that Mr Medvedev’s rhetoric was for internal consumption. “It would be suicide for Russia; it is just a show.” (want to bet......DW)

Cross us and we will crush you, warns Medvedev (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4557369.ece)
~~~~~~~~~~

It should not be a surprise that the region of the former Soviet Union is Russia's sphere of influence, where they will tolerate no interference. Not even for a non-Russia controlled oil pipeline.

Quote from: Barbara on August 19, 2008, 11:16:03 AM

There is much to ponder.....but I know we have to wait on the LORD and His perfect timing!!!! Night is coming and this is truly a time to "Watch and Pray"
and to do His work!

Amen! Irregardless of how much time we may or may not have it is definitely time to do His work. There is so much that still needs done, so many that are dying in their sins, so many that need to hear of His loving grace. There is never "a better time" to tell others about Jesus Christ. The time is now.

For those that are reading this, If you haven't accepted Christ as your Saviour, the time is running short, the time is now. Won't you call on His name right now for your salvation?

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew
first, and also to the Greek.
Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith
to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Salvation, salvation from death under the law by God's perfect grace.

Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh
after God.
Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned:

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness;

Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be
justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of
works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be
saved from wrath through him.

Rom 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance
and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee
to repentance?

Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus
Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no
difference:

Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.

Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was
able also to perform.

Rom 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

Rom 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and
with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Russia warns of response to US missile shield

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite.

Rice dismissed blustery comments from Russian leaders who say Warsaw's hosting of 10 U.S. interceptor missiles just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier opens the country up to attack.

Such comments "border on the bizarre frankly," Rice said, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Warsaw.

"When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988," Rice said. "It's 2008 and the United States has a ... firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise to throw these threats around."

The deal, which Washington sought as a way of defending the U.S. and Europe from a hypothetical threat of long-distance missiles from Iran, has strained relations between Moscow and the West. Those ties were already troubled by Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor, U.S. ally Georgia, earlier this month.

Speaking to reporters traveling with her, Rice said, "the Russians are losing their credibility."

Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signed the deal Wednesday morning.

"It is an agreement which will help us to respond to the threats of the 21st century," she said afterward.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the agreement came after tough but friendly negotiations.

"We have achieved our main goals, which means that our country and the United States will be more secure," he said.

After Warsaw and Washington announced the agreement on the deal last week, top Russian Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that Poland is risking attack, and possibly a nuclear one, by deploying the American missile defense system, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

Poles have been shaken by the threats, but NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop dismissed them Tuesday as "pathetic rhetoric."

"It is unhelpful and it leads nowhere," he told reporters at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

Many Poles consider the agreement a form of protection at a time when Russia's invasion of Georgia has generated alarm throughout Eastern Europe. Poland is a member of the European Union and NATO, and the deal is expected to deepen its military partnership with Washington.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski also expressed "great satisfaction" at the outcome of the long months of negotiations.

Poland and the United States spent a year and a half negotiating, and talks recently had snagged on Poland's demands that the U.S. bolster Polish security with Patriot missiles in exchange for hosting the missile defense base.

Washington agreed to do so last week, as Poland invoked the Georgia conflict to strengthen its case.

The Patriots are meant to protect Poland from short-range missiles from neighbors—such as Russia.

The U.S. already has reached an agreement with the government in Prague to place the second component of the missile defense shield—a radar tracking system—in the Czech Republic, Poland's southwestern neighbor and another formerly communist country.

Approval is still needed the Czech and Polish parliaments.

No date has been set for the Polish parliament to consider the agreement, but it should face no difficulties in Warsaw, where it enjoys the support of the largest opposition party as well as the government.

Russia says its response to the further development of a U.S. missile shield in Poland will go beyond diplomacy.

Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the U.S. missile shield plans are clearly aimed at weakening Russia.

The U.S. says the missile defense system is aimed at protecting the U.S. and Europe from future attacks from states like Iran.

The United States and Poland signed a deal Wednesday to place a U.S. missile defense base just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost fringe.

Dominos anyone?

jewishworldreview

Russia's invasion of Georgia is exposing many aspects of the international system that the US-led West has studiously ignored since the fall of the Soviet Union. One old truth that deserves attention is that the domino-theory of international relations remains true. That theory asserts that events in one arena will foment similar events in other arenas.

Great powers are not the only ones that can cause dominos to fall. Small states can as well. Israel's actions make this point clearly.

This week the Olmert-Livni-Barak government voted to release another two hundred terrorists from prison. Israel's leaders claimed that after releasing terrorist murderers to Hizbullah last month, we have has no excuse for not releasing terrorist murderers to Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas now. If Abbas cannot match Hizbullah's achievements, they argue that he will be discredited.

But as the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh explained Monday, there is virtually no one in the Palestinian Authority who believes that Israel will be strengthening pro-peace forces in Palestinian society by releasing Fatah terrorists from jail. Those terrorists will merely strengthen the more radical elements in Palestinian society that are generally allied with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Previous Israeli releases of terrorists have shown that untold numbers of Israelis will pay with our lives for the government's idiocy. But it isn't just Israel that is impacted by Israel's mistakes. Jordan too is harmed.

Just after the government announced its decision, Jordan announced that it was releasing four jihadist murderers from its prisons. The four terrorists, who killed two Israeli soldiers in 1990, had been sentenced to life in prison in Israel. Last summer, in a "confidence-building-measure" towards King Abdullah, Israel transferred them to Jordan to complete their prison terms.

If Israel cannot deny to Fatah what it granted to Hizbullah, so Jordan cannot deny to Hamas what Israel granted to Fatah and Hizbullah. Jordan cannot be stricter with murderers of Israelis than Israel is.

Jordan's recent rapprochement with Hamas follows the same pattern. According to the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is scheduled to visit Jordan in the coming days as part of a general Jordanian policy to rebuild its cooperative ties with the Iranian-controlled jihadist group. Amman severed those ties in 2006.

There can be no doubt that Hamas and its sister Muslim Brotherhood organization in Jordan constitute threats to the Hashemite regime. The Jordanian government would no doubt prefer not to have anything to do with Hamas. Indeed, it would doubtlessly be pleased if the terror group was destroyed. But Jordan cannot act against Hamas on its own. Only Israel can do that.

But Israel has refused to take any action against Hamas as it has solidified its control over Gaza and has increased its influence over Judea and Samaria. Israel's inaction has compelled Jordan to appease the Iranian-controlled terror group.

Israel's refusal to acknowledge the interconnectedness of international events impacts events throughout the region. The US's strategic myopia affects events throughout the world. Recent occurrences in Pakistan bear this out.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks the US has ignored the domestic situation in Pakistan. First it placed all its faith in Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to act as its ally. Washington ignored Musharraf's refusal to purge the Pakistani military and powerful Inter Service Intelligence agency of its strong jihadist elements that collaborated with al Qaida and the Taliban and provided them safe haven and allowed them to take control over the provinces bordering Afghanistan.

Then, in an about face, last year Washington attempted to advance its program of democratization of the Islamic world by pressuring Musharraf to allow open elections to Pakistan's parliament. Unfortunately, the US failed to notice that the supposedly democratic contending parties all hate America and oppose taking any action against the Taliban and al Qaida.

Now that the anti-Western, "democratic" forces that the US has unleashed have forced Musharraf from power, the US has no allies at all in Pakistan's political and military-intelligence power structures with whom to collaborate in fighting the Taliban and al Qaida. Even more disturbingly, the US has no one it can trust to ensure that jihadist forces do not gain access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

This latter point was made clear on Tuesday when the New York Times quoted a senior Bush administration official who noted that jihadist agents have made "steadfast efforts" to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear laboratories. Beyond that, even Musharraf never gave the US full assurance that he was securing his country's nuclear arsenal. Musharraf steadfastly refused to give an accounting of how he spent much of the $100 million the US transferred to him for the purpose of securing his 50-100 nuclear warheads.

Although during his first term in office President George W. Bush often warned of the danger of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorist groups or transferred to them by state sponsors, this issue has been largely ignored in recent years. Administration officials have downplayed the significance of overt cooperation between the Taliban and al Qaida and the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies. And today, Washington's refusal to contend with that cooperation is coming back to haunt it. Now the US has no easy options for preventing the rapidly collapsing nuclear-armed Pakistani governing apparatuses from falling under the influence of the Taliban and al Qaida.

A similar situation is playing out in Lebanon. Just as the US ignored the ties between the Pakistani regime and al Qaida/Taliban, so it has ignored the significance of Iran's control of Hizbullah and Hizbullah's control of the Lebanese government.

Since the Western-allied March 14 movement forced Syria to remove its forces from Lebanon in 2005, the US has treated its leaders as reliable strategic allies. As a consequence the US refused to understand that when Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora allowed Hizbullah to join his government in 2005, he effectively placed his government at Hizbullah's mercy and so became a proxy of Iran.

The US continued to ignore Siniora's subservience to Hizbullah during the Israel-Hizbullah war in 2006. Hoping to strengthen Siniora, the US barred Israel from attacking Lebanese infrastructures serving Hizbullah's war machine. That US decision made it much more difficult for Israel to prevail in the conflict. And Israel's failure to defeat Hizbullah/Iran in 2006 paved the way for Hizbullah's seizure of power in May.

Just as the Taliban and al Qaida have taken advantage of the US's refusal to acknowledge the significance of their ties to Pakistan's military and intelligence services, so Hizbullah, Iran and Syria have exploited the US's refusal to acknowledge their control over Lebanon.

cont.

Dominos anyone? cont....

One of the ways Iran, Syria and Hizbullah exploit the US's refusal to come to terms with their control over Lebanon is by making that control uncontestable. To this end, Hizbullah has forged alliances with disparate groups in Lebanon and so further isolated the remaining pro-Western voices in the country.

This week Hizbullah signed a cooperation agreement with Syrian-backed al Qaida-linked Salafists in Tripoli. This move has shocked many Western observers who have insistently argued that an alliance between Shiite and Sunni jihadists is unthinkable. These observers have ignored the fact that Shiites and Sunnis have strategic alliances throughout the region. Iran has a strategic alliance with Sunni-majority Syria. It controls Hamas. It has hosted al Qaida commanders on its soil since at least late 2001.

To a degree, these blind observers' fiction of Sunni-Shiite antipathy has been abetted by the Sunnis and Shiites themselves. Understanding the West's interest in ignoring the threat they pose both separately and together, until this week they never made their alliances explicit. What Hizbullah's accord with the al-Qaida-linked Salafists in Tripoli shows is that both forces are now so convinced of the West's weakness, that they believe they have nothing to fear from openly collaborating.

Unlike events in Pakistan, which are the consequence of the nature of Pakistani society and the US's failure to acknowledge the nature of that society, the latest events in Lebanon are at least in part the consequence of Washington's impotent response to their ally Russia's invasion of the US's ally Georgia.

It is often argued that Russia fears Islamic domination no less than the West. And while Russia certainly has good reason for to be concerned about jihadist, its concern has not led it to act as an ally to the West in its fight against the jihadists. To the contrary, like Iran and Syria and their affiliated terror groups, Russia views the US as its true enemy. Like them it seeks to exploit US weaknesses to advance its own position. Russia understands that Iran's ideological foundations make it impossible for Teheran to ever reach an accord with the US. And it exploits the situation to its benefit.

Moscow built Iran a nuclear reactor. It supplies Iran and Syria with advanced weapons systems. Russia's alliance with Iran and Syria advances its interests in two ways. It weakens the US and it ensures that Russia will not be the target of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Just as the US's failure to back Israel's bid to destroy Hizbullah in Lebanon two years ago paved the way for this week's Hizbullah-al Qaida pact, so the US's weak response to Russia's rape of Georgia has emboldened the Russians, Iranians and Syrians to expose their long-standing strategic alliance. Wednesday Iran condemned Georgia as a "Zionist" state due to its close ties with Israel. Russia returned the favor by defending Iran's satellite launch, and backing Iran's announced intention to build another six nuclear reactors.

Syrian President Bashar Assad capitalized on Russia's anti-US posture by visiting Moscow on Wednesday. Russia set the tone of his visit by condemning Israel for supplying Georgia with military assistance. It then allowed Assad to announce Moscow's intention to supply Syria with the sophisticated Iskander theater defense missile system which Syria has long sought.

Russia's exploitation of points of US weakness to advance its own position leaves the US with two options. Washington can try to give Russia a better offer than its enemies can. Or the US can work to weaken its enemies by confronting them while strengthening its allies and so force Russia into a cooperative posture. Today there is no deal that the US can offer Russia which can compete with what Russia receives from its alliances with America's enemies. So the first option is moot.

This brings us to option two which is simply the Cold War model of containment, based upon the domino theory of world affairs. Seeing as it already worked once, there is little reason not to return to it now. The US's decision to sign a strategic alliance with Poland was a first small step in the right direction. Diplomatic moves against Russia, like ending Moscow's membership in the G-7 and its association agreement with NATO should already have been carried out.

But most importantly, looking ahead, both the US and Israel should take a lesson from their enemies. They must acknowledge that when they are strong and victorious, their allies are strengthened throughout the world. And when they are weak and dissolute, their allies also pay the price of their irresponsibility.

Russians raided Israeli airfields in Georgia
Report: Sites were to be used as forward bases in attack on Iran

UPI's Arnaud De Borchgrave is reporting that one of the reasons that Russia started a war with Georgia last month was as a pretext to raid two airfields that Tbilisi allowed Israel to use as forward bases for an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.

In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.

The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured.

At a Moscow news conference, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia's deputy chief of staff, said the extent of Israeli aid to Georgia included "eight types of military vehicles, explosives, landmines and special explosives for clearing minefields." Estimated numbers of Israeli trainers attached to the Georgian army range from 100 to 1,000. There were also 110 U.S. military personnel on training assignments in Georgia. Last July 2,000 U.S. troops were flown in for "Immediate Response 2008," a joint exercise with Georgian forces.

Details of Israel's involvement were largely ignored by Israeli media lest they be interpreted as another blow to Israel's legendary military prowess, which took a bad hit in the Lebanese war against Hezbollah two years ago. Georgia's top diplomat in Tel Aviv complained about Israel's "lackluster" response to his country's military predicament and called for "diplomatic pressure on Moscow." According to the Jerusalem Post, the Georgian was told "the address for that type of pressure is Washington."

Haaretz reported Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili -- who is Jewish, the newspaper said -- told Israeli army radio that "Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers" because he explained rather implausibly, "a small group of our soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to Israeli training."

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis was agreed at the highest levels with the approval of the Bush administration. The official liaison between the two entities was Reserve Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the Lebanese border in July 2006. He resigned from the army after the Winograd Commission flayed Israel's conduct of its Second Lebanon War. Hirsch was also blamed for the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.

Israeli personnel, working for "private" companies with close ties to the Israel Defense Forces, also trained Georgian soldiers in house-to-house fighting.

De Borchgrave surprisingly leaves open the possibility that Israel may still be able to use the Georgian facilities for an attack on Iran. But Israel likely has bigger problems resulting from this raid. This is from DEBKA:

Our sources say that if the Russians got hold of an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle complete with sophisticated electronic reconnaissance equipment, they will have secured some of the IDF’s most secret devices for spying on Iran and Syria.

When this happened before, Russian military engineers quickly dismantled the equipment, studied it and passed the technology on to Tehran and Damascus.

Not good. With all the 'private contractors' Israel has training Georgian troops, one has to wonder whether Israeli personnel were guarding our country's own equipment. And if they were, why did they let this happen? Does anyone wonder anymore why the Americans insist on controlling their own equipment when they bring it here?

On the other hand, DEBKA also claims that flying time from the Georgian bases to Iran's nuclear facilities is three and a half hours. Given that it's only 900 miles from the relevant points in Israel to the relevant points in Iran, if DEBKA is correct, that would not be a whole lot of savings.

Gearing Up to Strike Iran

According to a recent article (in Hebrew) in the Israeli daily Maariv, Israel’s top political and security officials have taken a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program if nothing else is done to halt it.

Senior journalist Ben Caspit writes that “the debate between those who think everything must be done, including a military operation, to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb and those who think one can live with it, has been decided. If the Iranian regime doesn’t fall during the coming year, if the Americans don’t deliver a military blow and if the sanctions don’t break the Iranian nuclear program, Israel will have to take action. In other words: the preparations for an Israeli military option…are already underway.”

Caspit adds by way of explanation: “In the Tehran-Jerusalem-Washington triangle, things haven’t been going well. Israel is desperate to get American permission for an attack on Iran, but is not obtaining it…. The shortest flight route to Iran passes over Iraq, where the Americans are in control.”

Instead of the needed overflight codes, Caspit claims, the U.S. is offering Israel defensive radar—“‘We’ll help you defend yourselves, but we’ll prevent you from attacking,’ say the Americans.” That description dovetails with recent reports of opposition to a strike on Iran—Israeli or American—particularly by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen. A security source told Caspit that “the Americans have accepted a nuclear Iran and are trying to get us to accept it.” (Another report in the rumor mill has claimed the opposite—that the U.S. is itself preparing for a strike.)

In any case, Israel, according to Caspit, is not at all inclined to countenance a nuclear Iran, and former deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh (now head of a new political party) has been especially active trying to get that point across. Caspit says Sneh sent a document to both U.S. presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, in which he stated: “No government in Jerusalem will accept a nuclear Iran. Once it is clear Iran is at the point of nuclearization, an Israeli military action to prevent it will be on the agenda.”

To avoid that, Sneh wrote to McCain and Obama, the time has come for an all-out U.S. effort to get Europe to cooperate in imposing “real” sanctions aimed at toppling the Iranian regime. Those sanctions, Sneh believes, would have to be a complete embargo on replacement parts for Iran’s oil and refined-oil industry and a total boycott of the Iranian banking system.

Apparently aware himself of how hard that would be to achieve, Sneh recently went to Switzerland and Austria—countries that, as Caspit notes, “have announced huge investments in Iranian gas and oil fields for the next decade.”

Caspit quotes Sneh as telling him that “words about a Holocaust of Jews or Israeli security don’t impress those folks.” So instead Sneh told them it was “too bad” about their investments, “because Iddo’s going to set it all on fire”—referring to recently appointed Israeli air force chief Iddo Nehushtan. “‘Investing in Iran in 2008,’ Sneh told the Austrians, ‘is like investing in the Krupp steelworks in 1938, a high-risk investment.’ The Austrians, according to Sneh, turned pale.”

Caspit goes on to mention assessments of the likely military response to an Israeli strike on Iran—not only from Iran itself but also from Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza with their stocks of thousands of missiles. It’s with this in mind, Caspit claims, that Olmert has been holding his talks with Syrian president Bashar Assad. Olmert, according to Caspit, has said in closed forums that “Assad is a smart, sober man…. He’s capable of restraint and doesn’t belong to the world of radical Islam.”

1. Caspit’s status and contacts as an Israeli journalist mean his report shouldn’t be taken lightly. Israel is indeed in political flux, with Olmert possibly facing indictment on corruption charges and his Kadima Party set to hold primaries in less than two weeks that may further lead to general elections. Caspit describes, however, a situation where alarm at Iran’s nuclear progress is predominant, with left-of-center Labor Party figures like Sneh and Defense Minister Ehud Barak among the most alarmed. And as if Israel’s political flux wasn’t enough, its leaders will naturally be watching keenly what happens on November 4 and—if there are still no major events in the security sphere by then—will see the situation as even more stark if the winner is someone who believes everyone is basically nice and just needs to be talked to.

2. Caspit describes the Israeli leaders as, albeit deeply concerned, having a time frame that may not be realistic. Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reports that both the U.S. and Israel now fear that Russia stands to supply the sophisticated S-300 air-defense system to Iran in retaliation for Washington supporting NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. The S-300 is so effective that it’s said to be a “game-changer” that would rule out an Israeli raid and seriously complicate a U.S. attack. The system would take up to a year to become operational but the Israel sense of urgency would only be escalating.

3. It’s striking how loath even some Israelis like Sneh, who have no illusions about the Iranian threat, are to give up on the idea of concerted sanctions against Iran in which the Europeans would participate. In addition to Sneh’s Austrian and Swiss interlocutors, most recently Germany—led by the ostensibly conservative, pro-American Angela Merkel—has granted permission to the SPG engineering firm to build three plants in Iran for liquefying natural gas in a 100-million-euro deal. Even in the close-to-impossible scenario that Europe would at last sign on to severe sanctions, Iran’s friends outside the NATO sphere like Russia, China, and India would help it get past the rough patch.

4. Also striking is Olmert’s ongoing insistence on Assad’s reasonableness and potential benign role even in the aftermath of the Syrian leader’s trip to Moscow where he reportedly requested his own S-300 system as well as offensive weapons capable of affecting the Israeli-Syrian strategic balance. Olmert apparently is also not impressed by Assad’s praise for Russia’s invasion of Georgia and what that says about Assad’s geopolitical alignment. Although not shared by the current Bush administration, the belief in the Assad pere et fils regime’s pliability and openness to be enticed—with the Golan Heights—into the Western camp despite decades of drastic evidence to the contrary appears to be an incurable affliction.

5. Although current Israeli leaders Olmert, Barak, and Livni are aware of how badly Israel’s strategic position is complicated by the Hezbollah threat in Lebanon and the Hamas threat in Gaza, creating the possibility of a four-pronged missile barrage in addition to Syria and Iran, these leaders have not been able to draw the right conclusions or improve the situation. Despite frequent threats to act against Hamas, Barak has remained passive and has now grasped at the straw of a “ceasefire” in which Hamas is feverishly building its forces. It was largely Olmert and Livni’s bungling in the summer 2006 war that further empowered Hezbollah in Lebanon and since then they’ve done nothing to impede that process. Add this to the ongoing U.S. and Israeli impotence toward Syria, and U.S. and Western fecklessness toward Iran, and the situation is indeed acute.

How An Iranian War Might Lead To WW3 - One Analysts Worst Case Scenario

Prophecy News Watch
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I have served as a consultant to three very high tech aerospace firms. My specialty is conceptualizing advanced warfare especially as it relates to new cutting edge advanced weapon systems. What I see unfolding with a war on Iran is the most frightening set of circumstances I have ever seen; and I have been involved in advanced theoretical weaponry strategy and design for over 20 years.

Sometime in the weeks to months ahead, there will be a war launched against Iran. The war may be started by Israel, or by the United States, or by a NATO/EU/US embargo, or by some 'false flag' attack. What matters is that it will begin; and where it will take the world.

Regardless if the war begins with a limited number of air strikes against Iranian military and nuclear targets, or if an all-out several thousand target attack begins from day one, the probabilities of the war becoming a major regional war within 48 hours are 90% or higher.

The Iranians will simply not allow Israeli and/or American military forces to attack its territory without a major response. Any significant counter-attack on Israel and/or American regional bases will trigger a much greater counter-response.

The Iranians have equipped, paid for, and trained a massive unguided rocket and guided missile force in Lebanon (the largest such force in human history). These missiles are in place as a MAD force (a MAD ~ mutually assured destruction ~ force is one that is a doomsday force; established to prevent the use of overwhelming military force by allowing a return "punch" of overwhelming military destructive force upon one's enemy). The total number of missiles and rockets in Lebanon are variously estimated at between 40,000 and 110,000. While many are unguided Katyusha rockets, many are longer ranged guided missiles. All are operated by Hezbollah Special Forces launch teams.

The Hezbollah Special Forces are in effect a highly trained and well-equipped Iranian commando force of at least a Brigade in size. They man and protect a large number of mostly unguided and rather crude rockets, generally Katyusha 122mm artillery rockets with a 19 mile/30km range and capable of delivering approximately 66 pounds/30kg of warheads. Additionally, Hezbollah are known to possess a considerable number of more advanced and longer range missiles. During the 2006 war Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 rockets (95% of which were Katyushas) all utilizing only "dumb" high explosive warheads. Some Iranian-built and supplied Fajr-3 and Ra'ad 1 liquid-fueled missiles were also fired. It is believed that the larger and longer range missiles are directly under the control of Syrian and Iranian officers.

The combination of short to medium range rockets and guided missiles in Lebanon, and the longer range guided missiles in Syria, the smaller number of rockets and missiles in the West Bank and Gaza, and the longer range guided missiles in Iran present a massive throw weight of warheads aimed at Israel.

The 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War (called the Second Lebanon War in Israel) was an attempt by Israel at eliminating the MAD counter-force in Lebanon. It was an attempt that failed. The Syrians had purchased (and supplied to Hezbollah) a large number of very nasty, relatively low cost Russian AT-14 Kornet solid fuel anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), and the Iranian-trained Hezbollah commandos dug in massive numbers of concrete bunkers and firing positions. After over 50 Merkava main battle tanks were hit, and the high tech American-made warplanes and pinpoint weapons proved ineffective, the handwriting was on the wall. Either use neutron bombs or lose a large number of Israeli soldiers to remove the Hezbollah threat; or declare peace and walk away for the time being ~ the Israelis chose the latter.

It now appears that Israel has given up on the idea of a ground assault to remove the many rocket and missile launchers in Lebanon. A senior Israeli general has resigned with the complaint that the Army is not training sufficiently to fight in Lebanon. The alternative is the use of FAE (fuel air explosive) technology weapons and neutron bombs (a type of nuclear weapon that produces a higher short-term radiological output and less blast output than normal nuclear weapons).

Any use of such WMD by the Israeli Army on the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon will likely automatically trigger the use of WMD warheads on whatever rockets/missiles remain operational (if their use has not already been authorized due to the nature and scope of Israeli and/or American attacks on Iran).

The bottom line of this is that Israel will face a truly massive number of rockets and missiles from Lebanon with radiological, chemical, biological and FAE "weapons of mass destruction" warheads. Additionally, a sizable number of such weapons/warheads will be fired from Gaza and the West Bank. The Syrians will be using larger, more accurate guided missiles to shower WMD upon Israel as will the Iranians. To counter this, the Israelis will be using their Green Pine Radar system and a combination of Israeli and American anti-missile missiles. They will have good success in knocking down many incoming missiles but the sheer number of incoming weapons will totally overload all defensive measures.

Large parts of Israel will be contaminated with radiation with extremely long half-lives (many tens of thousands of years in some cases), with a mix of chemical, FAE, and biological nightmares thrown in for good measure. Total deaths will amount to one-third to one-half of the Israeli population with a large additional number being injured.

The Israeli response will be the nuclear annihilation of Syria, Iran, and parts of Lebanon with many tens of millions killed. Expect to see every city of any size destroyed. There will be insufficient people left in Syria, Iran, and large parts of Lebanon to even bury the dead. Radiation will spread around the world from the nuclear bombs.

Iranian sleeper teams in North America and western Europe will begin to "seed" the populations of these areas with a number (perhaps in the several dozens) of different man made killer viruses. People in movie theaters, churches, synagogues, shopping malls, subway stations, airports, etc., will be exposed without anyone knowing it at the time, to these advanced biowar viruses. About nine to ten days later the computer reporting systems in the western countries will begin to report back strange illnesses. That will trigger a host of measures to contain the advanced biowar viruses but it will simply be too late to prevent a massive outbreak of horrific illnesses. International travel and trade will effectively stop. People will be ordered to stay home from work and school with only critical job holders being allowed on the streets. Hospitals will be overcome with sick and dying people of all ages. The medical community will be among the first to die off. Where temporary hospitals are established in school gyms and other areas, the cross infection of several different genetically engineered viruses will ensure 100% mortality of everyone in the temporary hospitals.

In the event that other nations have sought to expand the Georgia war by new attacks on Russian forces or by creating some naval incident in the Black Sea, the probabilities of an quick expansion into a all-out Third World War involving Russian and NATO nuclear weapons will be at approximately 50%. Even without a global total war being initiated, Russia is apt to "sweep" the Black Sea of NATO ships with considerable loss of life on both sides.

The world will be in the worst economic depression in history as global trade will be halted for at least several months due to fears of the spread of the various advanced biowar viruses. If Israel releases the Arab-specific designer advanced biowar viruses that many claim she has, the Saudis are apt to fire their Chinese IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles) and send their very well-equipped air force against Israel with the small number of nuclear weapons that they possess (they have funded the Pakistani nuclear weapons program and have several Pakistani made nuclear devices). Of course, what is left of the Israeli forces will respond with additional nuclear attacks, this time on Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations for good measure.

In North America and western Europe the total number of civilians, after two months of advanced biowar illnesses, is apt to be at least a third of the population - a total death count of well over 200 million persons. Despite the best efforts of all nations, the man-engineered super killer mutant viruses will spread throughout the world causing total numbers of perhaps a billion or more to die.

The after effect of all of this may well lead to even more war as some nations will be so incensed at the massive loss of life of their citizens that total global war may be unstoppable.

War fears run high as Bolivai violence rages
Saturday, September 13, 2008

LA PAZ: Deadly clashes in Bolivia on Thursday stoked fears of further widespread unrest and possibly even civil war, amid a furore over the expulsion of the US ambassador to the country.

-At least eight people were killed and a dozen people wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the northeastern town of Cobija, officials said. It was the third day of street violence in parts of the country.

The United States, meanwhile, responded with fury to President Evo Morales’s ordering the departure of the US ambassador by ordering Bolivia’s envoy to Washington to also leave.

The conflagration in Bolivia was a worsening of a months-long political standoff between Morales, who has been pushing through socialist reforms since becoming president in 2006, and conservative governors in the east opposed to his reforms.

Morales, the first indigenous president of majority-indigenous Bolivia, has sought to distribute resources more equally in the poorest country in South America.

The conflict has racial overtones as relatively prosperous regions of the eastern lowlands, where more people are of European descent and mixed-race, are keen to hold on to local resources they see as being pulled away by the impoverished indigenous highlands.

Morales’s spokesman, Ivan Canelas, said on Wednesday the conditions opened the way to “a sort of civil war.”

In Santa Cruz and Tarija, two hotspots for violence this week, with government offices ransacked, the situation was relatively calm, although precarious.

Wednesday, the central market area in Tarija saw right-wing youth groups linked to opposition governors defying Morales clashing with indigenous groups. Around 100 people were hurt.

In Santa Cruz, police overnight dispersed similar fights over control of the city’s coach (bus) terminal.

In southeast Bolivia, a gas pipeline was blown up on Wednesday in what the head of the state energy company YPSL, Santos Ramirez, called a “terrorist attack” by anti-government protesters.

Authorities at the private Franco-Brazilian Transierra company said supply to Brazil had been seriously affected.

On a visit to Brasilia, Bolivia’s Finance Minister Luis Alberto Arce said Bolivia was facing a “civilian coup attempt” referring to the protests targeting gas exports. Natural gas is Bolivia’s main saleable natural resource.

The Brazilian presidential adviser on international affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, responded by saying Brazil “will not tolerate” any moves to oust Morales.

Brazil “will not recognise any government taking the place, or trying to take the place, of the legitimate, constitutional government of Bolivia,” he said.

War fears run high as Bolivai violence rages (http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=135575)

55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism

Prophecy News Watch
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A major terrorist attack on the United States, probably featuring a weapon of mass destruction, is inevitable during the next four to five years, says Marvin J. Cetron, the futurist who predicted 9/11 with alarming insight.

During an exclusive interview with Newsmax, Cetron said the attack could come in as little as two-and-a-half to three years.

Cetron, who startled and embarrassed the intelligence community with his study “Terror 2000,” has let the genie out of the bottle again with his latest report, “55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism.”

When Newsmax asked how the expert and founder of Forecasting International Inc. (FI) can be so sure of the impending disasters, he said he needed to guard his classified sources.

“Let me put it this way: We have so many good sources of signals intelligence and human intelligence that lets us know what doesn’t show up in the press,” he said.

FI, which produced “55 Trends” has conducted an ongoing study of the forces changing our world for almost half a century in support of clients ranging from General Motors to the YMCA, and from the Central Intelligence Agency to the White House.

“Terror 2000,” another FI project that was done for the Department of Defense in 1994, warned that terrorists were planning to use commercial aircraft as guided bombs to strike against a major landmark in the New York City area. It also warned that terrorists could hijack a commercial airliner, fly it down the Potomac, and crash it into the Pentagon.

Tragically, the report was filed and forgotten.

Cetron hopes this will not be the case with “55 Trends,” a 252-page treatise that is very short on any good news and includes the disturbing conclusion that worldwide terror networks are stronger today than at the time of 9/11. It also contends that the cells are not taking orders but are free to attack when, where, and how they want.

“We’re not talking about al-Qaida running these operations,” Cetron says. “We’re talking about cells and they are self-invigorated, if you will. They run on their own. The second thing that’s a real problem in this is that they don’t take orders. They do what they think is going to be good in their own local sphere.”

Cetron is not talking only about cells overseas.

The Terrorists Are Already Here

He estimates that there are “a dozen or more cells in the United States and they don’t get orders from overseas. They just know what to do. They get what they need.”

Lurking in the homeland are small groups of less than five and some between five and 20, Cetron tells Newsmax.

“They get their funding from drug funds, they get it from money laundering, they get it from kidnapping, I can throw a whole list, but those people can give us a lot of grief,” he says.

“There are two different groups – those that cost less than a quarter of a million to attack a target and then those that cost more than a quarter of a million. So you have to break them into separate areas and see what they are capable of doing and that’s what you got to take a look at.”

Cetron provides some detail about these ready-to-pounce cells: “They want to make two or three or four or five operations all at the same time and shoot up a whole bunch of strip malls. They will have already planted – about 50 yards back from those malls – bombs inside cars, so when the police set up their area that they want to cordon, they will blow up the police and the people watching to see what is going on.”

As to where such zealots are coming from, Cetron notes, “Only 7 percent of the Muslim population agreed with what al-Qaida is doing, but if you take a look at 7 percent of 1.1 billion people, you are talking about over 1 million people running around here. That’s a hell of a lot of people who will be sympathizers.”

A multiple mall attack, however, could just be a warm-up, says Cetron, whose new report takes a hard look at WMD scenarios.

“But the biggest thing is that they could be using weapons of mass destruction. For instance, if anybody got into a printer where they print dollars or Euros, and they put pathogens on there, we could end up with literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, getting ill from that – and you wouldn’t even know where the hell where it came from.”

Another likely scenario, Citron says, is cyber war. “The Russians just used that in Georgia. You can literally turn off the electronics. Airplanes in the air wouldn’t be able to fly, you wouldn’t be able to communicate, you can turn off alarm systems. … They are actively looking to get into our systems…”

The Issue of Terrorists and Nukes

Cetron’s band of experts in “55 Trends” concludes that, if Muslim extremists cannot lay hands on a stolen weapon from the former Soviet Union, they soon may be able to obtain them from Islamabad. Tehran remains a more distant possibility.

This is not a guarantee that terrorists will use nuclear weapons against the United States or other potential targets, Citron’s latest report notes. The fabled “suitcase nuke” may be a terrorist’s dream weapon, but it is technology that no one who would share is likely to possess.

Instead, al-Qaida or some future equivalent will receive bulky, low-yield devices that will be much harder to smuggle to their target. They may well try anyway, but it will be some time before this becomes an immediate possibility. During that interval our detection and intercept capability should improve significantly.

Other WMDs will be much more practical, the report says. If mushroom clouds do not appear over Manhattan or Washington, clouds of toxic gas or weaponized bacteria easily could.

As Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subways in 1995, demonstrated, chemical weapons are available to essentially anyone who wants them enough to put in a modest effort to make them.

Biological weapons suitable for military use take considerably more effort to prepare, but there are practical purposes for which all-out weaponization is not required. And even if radiological dirty bombs are not traditionally considered WMDs, they could be equally disruptive if employed with skill in a major city, the report says.

cont

55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism cont.

The distinguished panel of experts and consultants behind “55 Trends” makes some grim predictions:

- International terrorism will grow as veterans of the Iraq War return to their native lands, train sympathizers in the tactics of terror, and spread across the world.

- Among the Western lands, Britain and France (owing to their large Muslim populations) and the United States will be at the greatest risk of attack, in that order. Further attacks on the scale of 9/11 are to be expected in all three countries over the range of five to ten years.

- These attacks will combine mass bloodshed and economic impact. Now that the World Trade Center is gone, Grand Central Station at rush hour would be an obvious target for Manhattan. Coordinated attacks on shopping malls, tourist attractions, casinos, schools, churches and synagogues, and sports events also are possible.

For those who still minimize the risk of attacks, Cetron notes that the proof is in the pudding: Many foiled attempts have never reached the public domain because of concerns that intelligence sources will be compromised.

“We’ve stopped a lot of attacks,” Citron tells Newsmax. “This is all classified, but the truth is that they have stopped a lot of stuff because we’ve gotten hold of computers. We’ve had a lot of people on the ground with human intelligence.

“If you want to put it properly, we’ve been damn lucky.”

Citron fears that Britain and France are in a worse position than the U.S. and it all has to do with demographics.

“By 2025 they are going to have more Muslims than non-Muslims,” he says. “That’s a problem. In Britain they have to take people from all of the old Commonwealth countries. And it’s not those people who come in the first generation. It’s the second one, the brighter ones that can pass as being Brits or Europeans or French that are going to give us grief.”

For anyone who thinks that the startling conclusions of “55 Trends” are the brainchild of one overly paranoid think-tanker, Cetron sets them straight.

“We had some 170 of the best people in the United States – not only the United States but all over the world,” he says.

It was a case of taking the talents of futurists and combining that with the raw knowledge of folks out in the field.

“We sent it out to all of these people all over the world and said look here is what we think is going to happen in the future, now you tell us where we’re wrong, and where we’re right,” Cetron says.

“We even had a bunch of flight officers and senior colonels and commanders in the Navy, etc., who sent us back information and said don’t use my name but let me tell you what’s really going on – and we used all of that information.”

Disturbing Trends

If talking to Citron is an eye-opener, reading the great detail of the “55 Trends” report may be even more so. At every other page is the grim news that we may be traveling backward rather than forward in our war on terror.

Case in point: In deposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and depriving al-Qaida of a safe haven there, the United States struck a major blow against the terrorist movement as it existed five years ago. Yet by failing to follow up on that success effectively, the report concludes, we have squandered much of the benefit that should have been gained from that first step in the counterterrorist war.

The Iraq War has supplied al-Qaida and its sympathizers with a cause around which to rally their existing forces and recruit new ones, the report says. As a result, the terrorist movement is now growing stronger, the report reveals.

Up to 30,000 foreign fighters are believed to have gravitated toward Iraq, where they are now gaining contacts and experience that will serve them well in future campaigns against the U.S. and its allies.

In this, Iraq is now serving the function that Afghanistan provided in the 1980s. The war in Iraq is building a skilled and disciplined terrorist cadre that will fan out across the world.

Saudi Arabia even has been forced to build a major program aimed at keeping young men from going to Iraq. The Wahhid, the dominant Muslim sect in that country, is teaching that joining the jihad is the Muslim man’s second-greatest duty, after going to Mecca. They must fight in Iraq, then come back and be available to fight for fundamentalist Islam in Saudi Arabia.

Thus are terrorist cells built, independent of al-Qaida but firmly committed to its goals and methods.

Expert Reveals Possible Prime Targets of Terrorism
Prophecy News Watch
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Marvin J. Cetron, the futurist who predicted 9/11, and who embarrassed the intelligence community with his study “Terror 2000,” said the State Department requested the reference to terrorists using a jet aircraft as a weapon be deleted from the report. Officials feared it might give the terrorists an idea they hadn’t already thought of, Cetron said during an exclusive interview with Newsmax.

"I no longer worry about giving the bad guys ideas. Ordinary citizens need to know where the dangers lie," Cetron said.

This analysis of several possible prime targets of terrorism is based on a new study that Cetron’s Forecasting International carried out for the Pentagon. None of this information is classified.

Although the oft-mentioned threat of a “suitcase” nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb has been discussed widely, and is a possibility, the consequences of attacking lesser, non-nuclear threats can be dire.

Members of the armed forces, the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and many other agencies agree that the question isn’t whether America will be attacked on its own soil again. It’s only a question of when.

Ten scenarios the report outlined:

Attack on U.S. oil refineries

Probability: High

Impact: High

Four terrorists driving minivans approach four oil refineries: The Royal Dutch Shell installation at Port Arthur, Texas; the Valero Energy refinery at Corpus Christi, Texas; the Chalmette refinery east of New Orleans; and the Chevron refinery at Pascagoula, Miss. They crash through the gates and aim for the key catalytic units used to refine petroleum. The crashes set off more than 500 pounds of dynamite in each van. Eleven workers die in the initial attacks and six more perish in the infernos that send plumes of dark smoke miles into the sky. Even before the flames can be extinguished, the price of oil skyrockets to more than $200 a barrel. The president declares a state of emergency and dispatches National Guard units to protect key infrastructure.

Casualties: 17 dead, 34 wounded.

Consequences: In a single day, America loses 15 percent of its crude-oil processing capability for more than a year. The Federal Reserve slashes the prime rate by a full point in a desperate attempt to avert a recession, as gas prices balloon. Critics bemoan the fact that, for decades, the United States neglected development of its “dirty” oil-processing infrastructure -- and now it's too late. Total economic cost: $1.2 trillion.

Bring down four high-tension wires across the west

Probability: High

Impact: High

The North American power grid has a dark secret: Of the 10,000 power substations, a loss of only 4 percent will disconnect more than 60 percent of the entire grid. But only 2 percent needs to be disrupted because downing just a few power lines can have widespread consequences. Some attacks are as easy as starting forest or grass fires under transmission lines, to ionize the air and cause the lines to fail. Others require suicide car bombs. In 12 hours, by downing just four lines, more than 60 percent of North America is without power. Power is lost from Knoxville, Tenn., to Nevada, and north to the Canadian border.

Casualties: Other than the suicide bombers, there are no direct casualties. But patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and even private homes on respirators and other life-saving devices begin to expire. The indirect death toll starts to climb rapidly. Based on previous blackouts, 100 to 300 deaths are likely. Stop lights don't work, gas stations can't pump fuel, and civil disturbances occur as crowds waiting in lines to receive ice grow restless. The president considers requesting help from the National Guard to maintain order.

Consequences: Nearly 200 million people are affected, and infrastructure damage could take several months to repair. At best, the economic impact easily could top $100 billion.

Coordinated suicide shootings at major tourist attractions

Probability: High

Impact: Low

It is Dec. 1, and families across the U.S. are packing in a last Saturday of vacation fun before returning home to spend Christmas with relatives. In Anaheim, Calif., two recently hired Disneyland employees stand back-to-back and begin firing AK-47s into the crowd. To avoid detection, they smuggled the weapons into work, a few pieces at a time during the past few weeks, and reassembled them. Similar attacks take place simultaneously at Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and SeaWorld in Orlando, and at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Casualties: Before security personnel kill the attackers, 84 vacationers lie dead and another 103 are wounded.

Consequences: Its icons of innocence smashed, America loses hope of life returning to how it once was. Theme parks across the country lose an average of 10 percent of their business for the next year, an impact of about $1.25 billion. With many Americans afraid to resume normal lives, the economy teeters on the brink of recession.

Destroy Tennessee Valley Authority dams

Probability: Low

Impact: High

The Douglas Dam stretches 1,705 feet across the Tennessee River northeast of Knoxville. The Norris Dam spans 1,860 feet across the Clinch River northwest of the city. On May 10, 2009, with water levels at their annual peak, a bomb far below the water line cracks the Norris Dam. An hour later, the Douglas Dam is hit. Both structures give way, and the water backed up behind them easily sweeps away the smaller dams at Melton Hill and Fort Loudon. About 2.1 million acre-feet of water cascade down the Tennessee Valley, sweeping away just about everything in its path. The flood plows into the Watts Bar Dam, then the Chickamauga, the Nickajack, and on down the Tennessee River. The Watts Bar and Sequoyah nuclear power plants are flooded. Debris pours out of reservoirs, flooding Chattanooga as the crest passes. No trace is ever found of the terrorists who set the bombs.

Casualties: An early alert that the dams were failing surprisingly holds the deaths to 43 people.

Consequences: Damage to the Chattanooga area is estimated at $5 billion. Luckily, there are no radiation leaks from the nuclear plants, but all the secondary hardware outside the containment vessels is destroyed. About 20 percent of the TVA’s power-generating capacity will be out of commission for at least a year, with repair costs for power facilities alone expected to run at least $2 billion. During the next five years, the Tennessee Valley will incur about $1 billion in flood damage the lost dams would have prevented. Cost to replace them: at least $25 billion.

Explode liquefied natural gas tanker and storage depot near Boston

Probability: Medium

Impact: Very high

A four-seat Cessna 172 takes off from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., and turns southeast. In minutes, it passes over downtown Boston and arrives above the Distrigas liquefied natural gas depot on the far side of the Mystic River, in Everett. The small craft dives at a tanker that is unloading almost 40 million gallons of liquefied natural gas. On impact, a detonator sets off 250 pounds of explosives in the plane’s back seat. An explosion with the power of more than 50 Hiroshima bombs destroys the entire storage depot. Boston’s North End simply ceases to exist, along with parts of Chelsea, Everett, and Somerville.

Casualties: Nearly everyone within a half-mile of the terminal dies; at 1 mile, the toll averages 75 percent. An estimated 197,525 people are lost, with thousands more injured.

Consequences: Severe damage stretches for 2 miles in each direction. Several billion dollars worth of property is lost, including Boston City Hall and the Faneuil Market tourist area. The catastrophe dwarfs Hurricane Katrina by comparison. Lacking natural gas for heat, nearly 300 elderly residents die of cold during the winter. The tourists stop coming, businesses fail, and pundits sadly remark that Boston may never again be the city it once was.

cont.

Expert Reveals Possible Prime Targets of Terrorism cont.

Cruise the East Coast, releasing anthrax

Probability: Medium

Impact: High

On a night with a brisk easterly wind, two young men who had entered the country from Canada at Portal, N.D., drive from Boston to Washington, D.C. Opening the rooftop vent of their rust-bucket van, they fasten a dryer vent hose into it. Using a small air compressor and a funnel, they send anthrax spores into the wind. They have smuggled in only a small fraction of the weaponized anthrax stolen in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. But it will be enough. Driving through every rest area, with detours through downtown Hartford, New Haven, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, they finally arrive in Washington. Parking at the Iwo Jima memorial, they distribute the last of the anthrax and walk off. Throughout the Northeast, the health-care system soon collapses under the needs of the dying.

Casualties: Almost 1.6 million people up to 40 miles downwind from Interstate 95 could be affected, according to 2003 Pentagon reports. At least 95 percent of those who inhale the spores will die, even with treatment.

Consequences: Based on the 2001 anthrax scare, this scenario could make substantial areas of the Northeast unlivable for the years it will take to decontaminate an area of more than 20,000 square miles. Cleanup and medical costs could reach $1.4 trillion.

Detonate EMP bombs in the Internet-critical region of Northern Virginia

Probability: Medium

Impact: High

EMP means “electromagnetic pulse,” a blast of radio energy so strong it fries electronic equipment. Set off an atomic bomb at an altitude of 30,000 feet, and there won’t be a computer working for miles around. But the terrorists who strike Northern Virginia on 9/11 in 2010 do not need a nuclear weapon to shut down the region’s computers. Instead, they use homemade EMP generator-bombs that any good engineering student can build with $400 and information from the Internet. They detonate nine bombs in a triangle stretching from McLean west to Dulles International Airport and south to Chantilly. The blasts take down communications and navigation equipment at Dulles, some of the less critical computers at CIA headquarters in Langley, and data centers that carry some 40 percent of the world’s Internet traffic. With police unable to use modern communications, the terrorists escape and leave the country. It is eight months before they are identified. Two years later, only one of the six-member team has been captured. A similar bomb, detonated near Wall Street, would be a "weapon of mass disruption," bringing chaos to the world’s financial center.

Casualties: None directly. In Northern Virginia-area hospitals, 17 patients die in part because their computerized monitors no longer operate properly. Another 14 may have died when their pacemakers delivered massive shocks to the heart and then ceased working. And the chaos has just begun.

Consequences: Dulles-bound aircraft are diverted for three days until replacement gear can be brought in. About 40 percent of the world’s Internet traffic flowed through this part of Northern Virginia. Losing that capacity slows the Internet to a crawl, which complicates military, emergency, and intelligence response. Most of the 175,000 people employed in IT-intensive region will be out of work for at least a year. Repairing the electronic infrastructure will cost an estimated $40 billion. Businesses across the United States lose an additional $2 billion a month because of the loss of Internet service.

Introduce E. coli into fast-food restaurants on Wall Street and Capitol Hill

Probability: High

Impact: Low

After a costly E. coli outbreak, one major fast-food chain announces that it will start testing lettuce on the farm. Another touts its program for preventing food-borne illnesses. Neither grasps the obvious, that their people are the weakest link: food preparation and delivery. Staff turns over rapidly, and it doesn’t take long to plant “sleepers” in more than a dozen fast-food outlets near Wall Street and the four within half a mile of Capitol Hill. One Wednesday morning, they start misting lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and even buns with a spray containing E. coli.

Casualties: With the three- to eight-day incubation period, which masks the attack and puts the initial response over a weekend, five days’ worth of customers are sickened, more than 13,500 in all. At least 142 people die, many of them children and elderly.

Consequences: Lawsuits filed against the chains demand a total of $250 billion in damages. They will not be settled for years. Even more costly: Fast-food hamburger orders drop by 27 percent, on average, throughout the industry for the first six months after the incident, resulting in a loss of about $57.5 billion in revenue.

Introduce nerve gas into air intakes of crowded public buildings

Probability: Low

Impact: High

A terrorist gets a low-level job servicing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment for a contractor in Manhattan. His work takes him to important buildings: Madison Square Garden, where Andrea Bocelli is in concert; and to Carnegie Hall, where Reinbert de Leeuw is conducting students from Julliard and the Weill Institute of Music. Also on his route: the studios and offices of ABC, CBS, and DowJones. Hidden in his thermos is odorless sarin nerve gas, frozen into ice cubes. All he has to do is leave the ice inside each building’s ventilation units, which he sets to “recycle” instead of drawing in fresh air from outside. As he escapes to New Jersey, the ice melts and the deadly gas spreads through each building. Other terrorists drop vials of pungent mercaptan, to simulate a natural gas leak, throughout Battery Park and South Street Seaport. This distracts police and emergency crews for hours. Chaos reigns in New York City.

Casualties: Two-thirds of the 15,000 people in Madison Square Garden are seriously ill, and 2,851 die. At Carnegie Hall, all 600 people are sick, and 127 die. The office buildings are hit during the night shift and add 86 more deaths.

Consequences: People are terrified. Tourism and event attendance drop precipitously across the country. New York City alone loses $500 million in wages and taxes for every 1 percent decline in visitor spending. The entire hospitality industry in New York hovers on the brink of collapse.

Syria poised to invade Lebanon
10,000 soldiers massed along border

New concerns are being raised by the possibility that Syria may launch troops into Lebanon by using a pretext of concern over assaults on a Lebanese faction sympathetic to the Syrian leadership, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Confirmed reports reveal that there are some 10,000 Syrian special forces troops massed on the northern border of Lebanon.

A small Alawite faction near the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, has been in repeated gun fights with Sunni militants. The area's majority population is Sunni.

The Alawites are of the same tribe as Syrian President Bashar Assad. Most of Syria's top security and military officials also are Alawite.

The concern is that Syria forcibly would annex the northern part of Lebanon to protect the Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam which is associated closely with the Syrian-supported Shiite Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah has been fighting the Sunnis in support of the Alawite minority in northern Lebanon.

The Alawites in Lebanon became influential while Syrian troops occupied Lebanon until 2005. The Syrian troops left following the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

The Syrian opposition, led by Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, places the blame of the father's assassination on the Syrian regime. The investigation to determine responsibility for Hariri's assassination still is under way.

Saad Hariri heads the Sunni group that is fighting with the Alawites in Tripoli. In early September, Hariri, who heads the Sunni Future Movement in Lebanon, recently held talks with the head of the Alawite faction, Ali Eid.

Eid is pro-Syrian while Hariri's Future Movement heads the anti-Syrian movement in Lebanon.

Tensions in Tripoli, however, have precluded any return to political stability in Lebanon despite efforts last May by Qatar to end a long power struggle between Hariri's anti-Syrian coalition and the pro-Syrian Hezbollah.

The 10,000 Syrian special forces troops massed on the Syrian-Lebanese border are in positions on the northern Lebanese border in the hills overlooking the El-Kabir River, which forms the northern boundary of the two countries.

Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Spies Warn That Al Qaeda Aims for October Surprise

Prophecy News Watch

In the aftermath of two major terrorist attacks on Western targets, America's counterterrorism community is warning that Al Qaeda may launch more overseas operations to influence the presidential elections in November.

Call it Osama bin Laden's "October surprise." In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America's military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda's leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions.

An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. "These are generic orders," the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. "It was, 'Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.' It was sent out on many channels."

Also, Yemen's national English-language newspaper is reporting that a spokesman for Yemen's Islamic Jihad, the Qaeda affiliate that claimed credit for last week's American embassy bombing in Sa'naa, is now publicly threatening to attack foreigners and high government officials if American and British diplomats do not leave the country.

Mr. bin Laden has sought to influence democratic elections in the past. On March 11, 2004, Al Qaeda carried out a series of bombings on Madrid commuter trains. Three days later, the opposition and anti-Iraq war Socialist Workers Party was voted into power.

In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Mr. bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if President Bush were re-elected. In later messages, Al Qaeda's leader claimed credit for helping elect Mr. Bush in 2004. Last year in Pakistan, Qaeda assassins claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who returned to her native country in a bid for re-election.

"There is an expectation that Al Qaeda will try to influence the November elections by attempting attacks globally," a former Bush and Clinton White House counterterrorism official, Roger Cressey, said yesterday.

Mr. Cressey said Al Qaeda lacks the capability to pull off an attack in the continental United States, however. "It would likely be a higher Al Qaeda tempo of attacks against U.S. and allied targets abroad," he said.

At a talk at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs on August 12, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats said he expected to see more threat reporting on Al Qaeda as America approaches the November elections.

The terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Saturday was a particular blow to the allied effort against Al Qaeda. The hotel's lobby in recent years served as a meeting place for the CIA and Pakistanis who would not risk being seen at the American Embassy. The bombing, which targeted one of the most heavily fortified locations in Pakistan's capital, will likely claim close to 100 lives after the dead are pulled from the rubble.

President Zardari, who had just given his first major address as Pakistan's head of state, on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, was the target of Saturday's attack, the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, said.

"He was expected to attend the iftar dinner at the Marriott," Mr. Gartenstein-Ross said "Think of the symbolic value if they were able to kill Zardari after his first address as president of Pakistan in a speech announcing his fight against the terrorists. The symbolic effect of the attack on the same day would be devastating."

An adviser to Senator McCain and a former director of central intelligence under President Clinton, James Woolsey, said Al Qaeda has a "history of doing three things at least related to elections. One is to attack before elections, such as in 2004 in Spain, and of course the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. They also have a history of attacks when new leaders take over, like Gordon Brown in Britain and the new leader in Pakistan, with the attack over the weekend. Also Al Qaeda sends messages to populations in elections. You really don't know which one of these they are going to implement."

Directives for Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. appear on the Internet

Prophecy News Watch

A posting uncovered in an Arabic language Internet forum is currently raising a few eyebrows in the intelligence community. The single posting, which is presently being scrutinized by intelligence officials, appears to provide detailed instructions for Muslims living within the United States, giving them specific actions to take before, during and after an upcoming attack in the U.S. The communication was discovered by "Archangel," a well-known independent intelligence analyst active within the intelligence community.

The post was initially published on August 2, 2008 under the title “Commandments [Directives] Before the Strike,” and appears to be a sort of a conflict management guide, or instructions on what Muslims should do prior to the attack, actions that should be undertaken concurrent with the attack, and well as additional instructions following the attack.

The text addressing the nature, location and timing of the planned attack, although specific to the U.S., appears otherwise ambiguous. For instance, the timing appears to focus on the Tuesday following the end of Ramadan, which would be October 7, 2008. The nature of the attack is less clear. Although the author appears to talk about a strike greater in magnitude than the 9/11 attacks and makes reference to the possibility of it being nuclear in nature, the text references to the nuclear aspect of the attack appear somewhat muddled.

In terms of the location of the attack, it is clear that the author identifies both New York, as the financial capital of the U.S., and Washington, DC, as the nation’s capital, as being both desirable and affected. It is interesting that under analysis, the details of “the attack” referenced by the author are nestled within the text of instructions, rather than being prominently placed to serve as an overt warning as seen in the past. The relative subtlety in which the targets and type of attack was referenced is most interesting from a historical and analytical perspective.

The author who wrote the posting appears to be well established and respected by the community of terrorists and their supporters who frequent such forums. Research of the various membership profiles within that community indicates the author could be a sheik or other Muslim with leadership status. To be clear, research indicates the author has a level of credibility within the forum community. Accordingly, it would be completely consistent for the author to be able to issue a set of instructions that could be expected to be followed by the readers of the forum.

An investigation of the post, in terms of placement, links and replies, also provides significant insight with regard to its weight and credibility. Looking at a specific patterns of posting on Arabic language forums over the last seven years, investigation and research takes into account the number, type and authorship of follow-up postings or replies, for example to the original communication.

What makes this post particularly interesting is the limited number of replies to date – a total of three- despite the length of time it has been posted. Further, the replies in this case are general blessings, such as “May Allah Bless You” and general wishes of support for the operation. Based on extensive research of historical posting patterns over the last seven years suggest that this posting could be classified, recognized and acted upon as an order, as opposed to being a point for further discussion.

The commandments or directives are written as a set of instructions to an audience the author has divided into six groups as follows, most if not all having some presence in the United States:

1. Muslim scholars, students, followers of Islam;
2. Various Islamic movements.
3. Islamic peoples not belonging to any specific movement.
4. “Dubai Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus” the Islamic State of Iraq and other jihadist movements;
5. Sleeper cells and potential recruits;
6. The general command of al Qaeda.

Various directives are issued to each of the groups referenced above, providing direction to each group on activities that need to be conducted before and after “the” attack. For example, members of “sleeper cells” should immediately seek out those who are already activated – known by some Islamic scholars and religious leaders – for further tactical advancement.

Specific instructions were also given to the Muslim people to move Muslim children to the safety of training camps at a time that would correspond to the Tuesday after Ramadan – a date that was established as the potential attack date within this posting.

In addition to the varied instructions within this post, there is an additional directive that appears to serve as a worldwide activation order for Islamic terrorists to carryout maritime missions subsequent to the attack, with the obvious intent on disrupting all major maritime supply routes.

Instructions were given to jihadists in the following areas for such operations:

"The Philippines - Indonesia - Maldives - the coast of Yemen - the coast of Somalia - the coast of Chinguetti - and perhaps the coast of Algeria;"

"The skyline of the Islamic many important straits and sea lanes that have articulated by the march of trade and military forces of infidelity:"

"The Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Sumatra, one of the most important corridors of the world trade."

"The Torres Strait, which lies between New Guinea and northern Australia..."

Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of this posting might not be the message itself, but the message when viewed through the prism of historical patterns exhibited subsequent to the 2001 terrorist attacks. While the contents of the message are revealing, they become even more relevant when analyzed in tandem with the threat of worldwide jihad in advance of the bombings in Yemen and Pakistan.

We are seeing a resurgence of Islamic jihad previously before unseen, with few notable exceptions. Those exceptions, however, are indeed notable: the time periods before the London & Madrid bombings, both described as each country's own 9/11.

Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.

Chavez said he accepted an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for assistance in building a nuclear reactor.

"Russia is ready to support Venezuela in the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and we already have a commission working on it," Chavez said. "We are interested in developing nuclear energy."

Putin offered Chavez assistance in developing nuclear energy during a meeting in the Russian city of Novo-Ogaryovo last week. The prime minister did not specify what kind of cooperation he could offer Venezuela, but Russia is aggressively promoting itself as a builder of nuclear power plants in developing nations.

Russia has ramped up its cooperation with Venezuela since last month's war with Georgia, which badly damaged Moscow's already strained ties with the West, particularly the United States.

During Chavez's visit to Russia last week, a Russian naval squadron sailed for the Caribbean Sea in preparation for joint exercises with Venezuela later this year — a move that appeared retaliatory after the U.S. sent warships to deliver aid to Georgia.

The deployment is expected to represent the largest Russian naval maneuvers in the Caribbean — and perhaps the Western Hemisphere — since the Cold War.

Chavez says that stronger ties with Russia will help build a multi-polar world — a term the two allies use to describe their shared opposition to what they claim is U.S. global domination.

Since 2005, Venezuela has agreed to buy more than US$4.4 billion worth of weapons from Russia including fighter jets, combat helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. And President Dmitry Medvedev has offered Chavez a loan to purchase additional weapons.

Chavez argues the United States and European Union do not have the right to prevent developing countries from pursuing nuclear technology, and he has strongly defended Iran's nuclear program despite the Western powers' fear that Tehran may be building nuclear weapons.

Before taking Russia up on its offer, Chavez had expressed interest in acquiring a nuclear reactor from Argentina and working with Iran, among other countries, to research nuclear energy.

Oct 1, 3:51 AM EDT
Suspected US missile strike kills 6 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A missile strike by a suspected U.S. drone killed at least six people in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, two Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday.

American forces recently ramped up cross-border operations against Taliban and al-Qaida militants in Pakistan's wild border zone, a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.

The attacks have drawn stiff protests from Islamabad, an uneasy ally in Washington's seven-year war on terror, particularly since an highly unusual Sept. 3 raid by U.S. ground troops in the South Waziristan region.

The two intelligence officials said the missiles struck the home of a local Taliban commander before midnight Tuesday near Mir Ali, a town in the North Waziristan region.

The officials, citing reports from their field agents, said six people were killed in the attack. Both officials asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

They said a U.S. drone aircraft - not Pakistani forces - fired the missiles.

They did not identify any of the victims.

Pakistani leaders insist only their forces are allowed to carry out operations inside Pakistan, and its troops recently fired warning shots at U.S. helicopters flying over the ill-marked frontier.

Meanwhile, a physician for the Taliban and a spokesman for the group denied reports that the movement's top leader in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, had fallen ill and died.

"I spoke to him today at 9 a.m. on the telephone and he told me that he is surprised over rumors about his death," physician Eisa Khan told The Associated Press.

Khan said Mehsud had an unspecified kidney problem but gave no more details. Mehsud's spokesman, Maulvi Umar, was cited on Geo television station as saying he was healthy.

Officials have accused Mehsud of being behind a wave of suicide attacks washing over Pakistan since the middle of last year, including the slaying of opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto in December.

American officials have expressed frustration at Pakistan's failure to kill or capture militant leaders whom they accuse of sending fighters and arms into Afghanistan, where foreign troop casualties are escalating.

Feds launch dragnet to stop 'October surprise' attack

worldnetdaily

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

As Pakistani investigators hunt the terrorists behind the massive Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, FBI agents in the U.S. have begun aggressively hunting for Americans who have recently returned from trips to Pakistan where they may have trained at al-Qaida camps, WND has learned.

A coast-to-coast dragnet has been launched partly in response to leads developed in the arrest of one of al-Qaida's "fixers" in the U.S., say FBI officials. They report the bureau is in a race against time to identify Pakistan-trained sleeper cells and disrupt a possible pre-election "October surprise."

For the first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence of wrongdoing.

Controversial new investigative guidelines approved by the Justice Department allow agents to monitor suspects and conduct undercover interviews even before opening formal investigations.

FBI headquarters has ordered its field offices to aggressively pursue anonymous tips and report back any suspicious activities in their Muslim communities. The intelligence will be immediately analyzed and shared in a threat matrix to avoid a repeat of the so-called "Phoenix memo" intelligence failure, officials say.

In the weeks prior to 9/11, an alert agent in the FBI's Phoenix office noted that several radical Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons. He drafted a memo and sent it to headquarters, which promptly buried it, missing an opportunity to act before the disastrous hijackings of 9/11.

The FBI's new rules and current sense of urgency follow the recent interrogation of al-Qaida operative Aafia Siddiqui, an M.I.T.-educated scientist who fled to Pakistan after 9/11. She was arrested this summer in Afghanistan and brought back to the U.S. after sustaining injuries from a gun battle.

According to a federal indictment, Siddiqui was found with handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and listed various locations in the U.S. including Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Plum Island and the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, certain notes referred to the construction of "dirty bombs," chemical and biological weapons and other explosives.

Siddiqui's notes also discussed "mortality rates associated with certain of these weapons and explosives," the indictment says. Other notes referred to various ways to attack "enemies," including destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs and using gliders.

A computer thumb drive in Siddiqui's possession contained electronic correspondence that referred to specific "cells" and "attacks" by certain "cells," the indictment says. Other documents referred to "enemies," including the U.S., and discussed recruitment and training.

Officials say subsequent interrogations have revealed that possibly hundreds of American Muslims, many of them of Pakistani descent, have traveled to Pakistan in recent years to train at al-Qaida and Taliban madrassas and terror camps and have returned to the U.S. to carry out suicide attacks.

The revelation has shocked the politically sensitive FBI into abandoning its long-held policy of coordinating investigations in the Muslim community with Muslim-rights groups. Officials say it's more important than ever to track down Muslims who have traveled to Pakistan, and gather and disseminate intelligence quickly to disrupt possible terror plots before they can develop to an operational stage.

"There's some worry we may be in another Phoenix moment," one official said, "but this time we're determined to leave no stone unturned."

The formation of al-Qaida training camps inside Pakistan has been a major concern among U.S. security agencies since at least 2004, when Washington issued a rare intelligence directive to border agents to check young Pakistani male travelers –including Americans – for physical signs of military training.

As WND first reported, they were asked to look for "rope burns," "unusual bruises," "scars" and other possible injuries suffered from obstacle courses, firearms or explosives.

"Many of the individuals trained in the Pakistani camps are destined to commit illegal activities in the United States," warned the two-page DHS advisory that launched the special action.

According to another internal DHS document obtained by WND, the department more recently directed customs officers to escort passengers identified by "one-day lookouts" to secondary inspection, where they are subjected to a battery of questions to determine if they have visited terror camps in Pakistan.

American citizens of Pakistani descent also are under increased scrutiny. Over the past few years, U.S. authorities have arrested or investigated several Pakistani-American men who have trained at the camps during trips to Pakistan. One camp used photos of President Bush for target practice.

"The camps are a big concern," said a DHS official, who requested anonymity. "We are questioning U.S. citizens, as well as Pakistani nationals, as they come back to the states if the computer says they might have terrorist ties."

FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month cited the threat posed by the Pakistani terror-training camps while briefing Congress about the bureau's expanded investigative powers, which officially go into effect Oct. 1.

"We know that in western Pakistan now that there are camps in which individuals are being trained. The U.K. knows that very well because individuals who were involved in the 2005 attacks and later attacks had traveled to Pakistan for training in the camps and then come back," Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "I believe the American public would want us to do what is necessary to try to identify persons who had traveled to Pakistan, whatever their heritage, whatever their background, whatever their ethnicity, to determine who has gone to Pakistan to obtain that training and may be coming back to the United States to undertake an attack."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., complained the new investigative rules would give FBI agents license to racially profile citizens.

FBI officials noted that the Marriott blast, which killed both U.S. Defense and State Department officials, signaled new techniques by al-Qaida-trained suicide terrorists. The dump-truck bomb they used was so massive, leaving a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide, that it managed to severely damage the building even from beyond the concrete barriers protecting the perimeter of the building.

Also, investigators said that the hotel – a high-profile target that was used by Western diplomats as well as the CIA – had been targeted at least twice previously for attack, just as the U.S. embassy in Yemen had been hit in minor operations before this month's full-scale attack.

The repeat attacks indicate the terrorists are testing security, experts say. It also indicates they will keep coming back to the same target until they are successful in destroying it.

In the U.S., the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993 and then again in 2001. A target the hijackers intended to strike but failed to hit on 9/11 was the U.S. Capitol. Terror analysts believe the Pentagon remains an al-Qaida target as well, since it was only partially damaged in the 9/11 operation.

Report: N. Korea threatens war with south
Shifts arsenal of missiles to nearby island, bans U.N. inspectors

North Korea warned South Korea against provoking war on Thursday as it reportedly deployed an arsenal of missiles near their shared sea border and told U.N. inspectors it plans to restart its nuclear facility.

The North's naval command accused the South of encroaching on its territory around the disputed sea border off Korea's west coast and threatened to take unspecified "decisive action" unless Seoul stops sending naval vessels into its waters.

The warning, delivered in a statement carried by the communist regime's official Korean Central News Agency, came hours after a South Korean newspaper reported that a U.S. spy satellite detected signs the North had positioned about 10 missiles on an island near the disputed sea border after test-firing two short-range missiles on Tuesday. The Chosun Ilbo report cited an unidentified South Korean government official.

Later Thursday, North Korea told the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that it was banning inspectors from its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon and stopping its program to dismantle the site, the agency said.

It was the clearest indication to date that the North plans to pull out of an international deal to end its nuclear program, said a senior diplomat linked to the IAEA who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to the media.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, responding to reporters' questions about Thursday's developments, said the Bush administration was "reviewing the situation."

Pyongyang had already barred U.N. weapons personnel from a plutonium reprocessing facility last month, one of three main installations at Yongbyon, as it took steps to restart its weapons-producing atomic program in violation of an international disarmament-for-aid accord.

The North's latest moves come at a time of increasing concern about security on the Korean peninsula.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the Korean War ended on June 25, 1953, with an armistice, not a peace treaty. North Korea does not recognize a sea boundary unilaterally drawn by the U.N. at the end of the war, and the waters off Korea's west coast remain in dispute.

In its warning Thursday, North Korea said the recurring maritime dispute was "so dangerous that a third West Sea skirmish and a second June 25 war may break out at any moment."

South Korea's Defense Ministry said the country has never violated the sea border.

On Tuesday, North Korea reportedly fired two short-range missiles off the west coast. South Korean intelligence officials believe the North is planning to fire more than five additional missiles in coming days, the Chosun Ilbo report said, noting that the North had banned ships from the waters until next Wednesday.

South Korea's Defense Ministry, the National Intelligence Service and the U.S. military command in Seoul said they could not confirm the reports.

North Korea routinely test fires short-range missiles as part of its military training, but rarely such a large number at once. It conducted an underground nuclear test two years ago and in 2006 fired seven missiles off the country's eastern coast.

In 2007, the North agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and other concessions. But it abruptly stopped disabling the Yongbyon facility in mid-August, over objections to U.S. demands for verification of its atomic program. Washington had made verification a condition for removing North Korea from a list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

Warning signs of an Israeli strike on Iran
October 12, 2008
David Owen

Some key decision makers in Israel fear that unless they attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities in the next few months, while George W Bush is still president, there will not be another period when they can rely on the United States as being anywhere near as supportive in the aftermath of a unilateral attack.

In the past 40 years there have been few occasions when I have been more concerned about a specific conflict escalating to involve, economically, the whole world. We are watching a disinformation exercise involving a number of intelligence services. Reality is becoming ever harder to disentangle.

Last month a story in The Guardian claimed that on May 14 Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, in a meeting with Bush, had asked for a green light to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. We were told that Bush refused. He believed Iran would see the United States as being behind any such assault and Americans would come under renewed attack in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shipping in the Gulf would be vulnerable. We were told that the source of the story was a European head of government and “his” officials – as if to exclude Angela Merkel and Germany. It is, however, improbable that Israel abandoned its option to take unilateral action.

Three weeks later the Israeli military conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean to demonstrate to the United States as well as Iran that it could attack. More recently there have been a number of stories raising concern about what is happening in Iran. One said Iran’s first nuclear electricity generating plant would go critical in December and thereafter any air attack would become impossible since it would trigger a nuclear explosion. Then we were told that a US radar system had been deployed in Israel with US personnel to strengthen Israel’s defence against Iranian airstrikes. There was also an interview with Olmert where he dismissed as “megalomania” any thought that Israel should attack Iran. He appeared to be trying to disrupt the Israeli coalition negotiations.

Finally, on Friday, The New York Times revealed that in February an IAEA inspector had talked of experiments in Iran that were “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon”. Iran denied the claim.

Before the Israeli negotiations got under way, Ehud Barak, the Labour leader, spoke first to Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud opposition party, rather than to Tzipi Livni, the newly elected leader of Kadima. This indicated that Barak was interested in an all-party coalition, presumably believing that a Palestinian settlement is not yet achievable and that Israel needs maximum unity to deal with a world transfixed by the economic crisis and resigned to Iran becoming a nuclear weapon state.

If Israel were to attack Iran, one Iranian response would be to block the Strait of Hormuz. On September 16 Iran said its Revolutionary Guards would defend the Gulf waters. In the narrow strait just one oil tanker sunk would halt shipping for months. Insurance cover would be refused and owners would fear the risks of sailing even if the US navy cleared mines.

The Revolutionary Guards are committed to a war against Israel and prepared, in the process, to take on the rest of the world. They have good equipment and operate from the land, sea and air. They will be suicide soldiers, seamen and airmen. If Iran is attacked, Russia and China will supply it with arms.

The circumstances surrounding Georgia’s decision to attack South Ossetia are worth remembering. The Georgian president was advised by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, not to attack but there were powerful voices in Washington that, by a nod and a wink, were encouraging action, so the Georgian government felt confident in going ahead.

Following an Israeli attack and Iranian countermeasures, the American military would be bound to follow Bush’s orders. The president-designate or, if before the election, the two candidates, would be wary of criticising him. It is imperative that voices are raised in America and Europe to warn Israel off unilateral action against Iran. The experience of Georgia has given an amber, if not a green, light to Israel and only Bush can switch that to red.

Bush’s legacy would be best served by taking dramatic diplomatic action to prevent a war with Iran. He should publicly warn Israel that the United States will use its air power to prevent it bombing Iran, while announcing that he is sending Rice to Tehran to start negotiating a grand bargain whereby all sanctions would be lifted if Iran forgoes the nuclear weapons option. He could indicate that the negotiations would not continue indefinitely, but they would give his successor, as president, time to consider all the options, military and economic. It would also allow time for Israel either to negotiate a coalition to last until 2010 or to hold elections. It would replace the present multilateral negotiations, which are stalled with Russia and China unwilling to move on strong economic sanctions. Above all, it would be a last act of real statesmanship from Bush who is otherwise destined to end his term a miserable failure.

Warning signs of an Israeli strike on Iran (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4926251.ece)
~~~~~~~~~

Well, if they wait for the Obama-nation of Desolation, they'll have to deal with alot more than they're facing now.

Report: U.S. helicopters attack Syrian village
Witnesses say at least 7 counted dead near Iraq border

U.S. military helicopters attacked an area along Syria's border with Iraq Sunday, killing eight people, the Syrian government said, condemning what it called "serious aggression."

A government statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency said the attack occurred at the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction, firing on the workers inside shortly before sundown, the statement said.

The U.S. military in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An American commander indicated last week that the Syrian border area still presented a security problem more than five years into the Iraq war.

Syria's Foreign Ministry said it summoned the charges d'affaires of the United States and Iraq to protest the strike.

A resident of the nearby village of Hwijeh, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the aircraft flew along the Euphrates River into the area of farms and several brick factories.

Some of the helicopters landed and troops exiting the aircraft fired on a building, he said, adding that at least one of the dead was a construction worker.

Iraqi travelers making their way home across the border reported hearing many explosions, said Farhan al-Mahalawi, mayor of the Iraqi border town of Qaim.

The Syrian government said there were civilians among the dead, including four children.

"Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions. Syria also calls on the Iraqi government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch and immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria," the statement said.

Qaim, across the border in Iraq, had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money coming into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.

Iraqi insurgents seized Qaim in April 2005, forcing U.S. Marines to recapture the town the following month in heavy fighting. The area became more secure only after Sunni tribes in western Iraq turned against Al Qaeda in late 2006 and joined forces with the Americans.

On Thursday, the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said in a briefing with Pentagon reporters that American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, from where some fighters were continuing to enter Iraq.

Maj. Gen. John Kelly said in last week's briefing that Iraq's western borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan were fairly tight as a result of good policing by security forces in those countries but that Syria was a "different story."

"The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side," Kelly said. "We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement."

He added that the U.S. was helping construct a sand berm and ditches along the border.

"There hasn't been much, in the way of a physical barrier, along that border for years," Kelly said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem accused the United States earlier this year of not giving his country the equipment needed to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq. He said Washington feared Syria could use such equipment against Israel.

Though Syria has long been viewed by the U.S. as a destabilizing country in the Middle East, in recent months, Damascus has been trying to change its image and end years of global seclusion.

Its president, Bashar Assad, has pursued indirect peace talks with Israel, mediated by Turkey, and says he wants direct talks next year. Syria also has agreed to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon, a country it used to dominate both politically and militarily, and has worked harder at stemming the flow of militants into Iraq.

European, American and Arab officials also have increased their visits to the country after years of avoiding it. Most recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined the leaders of Turkey and Qatar in a summit with Assad in Damascus.

Russian prez orders missiles on EU border after Obama victory
'Mechanisms must be created to block mistaken, egoistical ... simply dangerous decisions'

President Dmitri Medvedev took advantage of the euphoria in America today to order the deployment of missiles inside Europe as a response to US plans for a missile defence shield.

Speaking within hours of Barack Obama's election as the new US President, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad next to the border with Poland.

He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Mr Medvedev also cancelled earlier plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia.

"An Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralise if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe," Mr Medvedev said in his first state-of-the-nation address.

He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its navy and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which involves the deployment of a radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.

His announcement prompted a burst of applause from government ministers and parliamentary deputies assembled in the Kremlin. The President failed to congratulate Mr Obama or even to mention him by name during his 85-minute state of the nation address televised live across Russia.

Instead, in a criticism directed at the US, Mr Medvedev declared: "Mechanisms must be created to block mistaken, egoistical and sometimes simply dangerous decisions of certain members of the international community."

He accused the West of seeking to encircle Russia and blamed the US for encouraging Georgia's "barbaric aggression" in the war over South Ossetia in August. He issued a warning that Russia would "not back down in the Caucasus".

"The August crisis only accelerated the arrival of the crucial moment of truth. We proved, including to those who had been sponsoring the current regime in Georgia, that we are strong enough to defend our citizens and that we can indeed defend our national interests," Mr Medvedev said.

"What we've had to deal with in the last few years - the construction of a global missile defence system, the encirclement of Russia by military blocs, unrestrained NATO enlargement and other 'gifts'... The impression is we are being tested to the limit."

Outgoing President George W. Bush insists that the missile shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran. But the plan has infuriated Moscow, which argues that it threatens Russia's security and that the US is ignoring its concerns.

Mr Medvedev said that Russia had been forced to cancel its plans to withdraw the ballistic missiles, which have a range of 6,200 miles. He said: "We have told our partners more than once that we want positive cooperation, we want to act together to combat common threats, that we want to act together. But they, unfortunately, don't want to listen to us."

In his only reference to the US election, he said that he hoped the new administration would work to repair its relationship with Moscow. He said: "I stress that we have no problem with the American people, no inborn anti-Americanism. And we hope that our partners, the US administration, will make a choice in favour of full-fledged relations with Russia."

Mr Medvedev blamed the US for the global financial crisis, saying that the rest of the world had been "dragged down with it into recession". He claimed that the era of American domination after the collapse of the Soviet Union was now over.

"The world cannot be ruled from one capital. Those who do not want to understand this will only create new problems for themselves and others," he said.

Mr Medvedev, who was elected in March, also set out proposals to extend the presidential term from four years to six. He did not say whether the reform would apply to his current term.

Iran warns U.S. after Obama win
'This is a clear message to the American president-elect'

Iran warned U.S. forces in Iraq on Wednesday that it would respond to any violation of Iranian airspace, a message analysts said seemed directed at the new U.S. president-elect more than neighbouring American troops.

The Iranian army statement, reported by state radio, came after a cross-border raid last month by U.S. forces into Syria, a move that was condemned by Damascus and Tehran.

But an Iranian politician said the timing suggested it was directed at Barack Obama, who won Tuesday's U.S. vote, more than the U.S. military, and might reflect concern by hardliners in Iran who thrived on confrontation with Washington.

Obama has said he would toughen sanctions on Iran but has also held out the possibility of direct talks to resolve rows, which include a dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"Recently it has been seen that American army helicopters were flying a small distance from Iraq's border with Iran and, because of the closeness to the border, the danger of them violating Iran's border is possible," state radio reported.

"Iran's armed forces will respond to any violation," radio said, citing a statement from Iran's army headquarters.

Washington, which has not had diplomatic ties with Tehran since 1980, has accused Iran of funding, equipping and training militants in Iraq. Iran denies this and says security problems are due to the presence of U.S. troops who should quit Iraq.

"This is a clear message to the American president-elect because radicals are not very happy that Obama has been elected," said the Iranian politician.

LOGGERHEADS

He said Iran could have chosen to pass such a message through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which handles U.S. interests in the absence of a U.S. mission. That route had been used in the past.

The two countries are also at loggerheads over Iran's disputed nuclear work. Washington says Tehran is seeking an atomic bomb. Tehran says it wants the technology to make electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said he hoped Obama would make "fundamental changes in the approach of the United States towards global issues" and end "aggression towards other countries," state broadcaster IRIB reported.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, according to IRNA news agency: "The election of Barack Obama ... is a clear sign of the American people's wish and desire for fundamental changes in America's domestic and foreign policies."

Obama, like Bush, has not ruled out military action although he has criticised the outgoing administration for not pushing for more diplomacy and engagement with Iran.

"Change of political figures is not important by itself. What is more important is a change of American policy," Ali Aghamohammadi, a close aide to Iran's most powerful figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Reuters.

Iran has warned it would respond to any attack on its territory by targeting U.S. interests and America's ally Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway at the mouth of the Gulf and vital route for world oil supplies.

Some Iranians were enthusiastic about the U.S. vote.

"I hope that our relations with (America) will improve as Obama has talked of direct negotiations with the Iran," said Mona Saremi, a 22-year-old student.

But some analysts were cautious, saying Obama had to show he was offering more than a change in style from Bush. "It is for the Americans to show that something has changed, not the Iranians," Tehran University professor Mohammad Marandi said.

World faces growing risk of war: US intelligence chief

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

The world faces a growing risk of conflict over the next 20 to 30 years amid an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from West to East, according to the US intelligence chief.

Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted rising demand for scarce supplies of food and fuel, strategic competition over new technologies, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

"What I'm suggesting -- there's an increased potential for conflict," McConnell said in a speech Thursday to intelligence professionals in Nashville, Tennessee.

"During the period of this assessment, out to 2025, the probability for conflict between nations and within nation-state entities will be greater," he said.

Conditions for "large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, or less likely, nuclear materials" also will increase during that period, he said.

McConnell described a multi-polar world in 2025 shaped by the rise of China, India and Brazil, whose economies will by then match those of the western industrial states.

"In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power, now underway, as noted from West to East is without precedent in modern history," McConnell said.

Territorial expansion and military rivalries are not likely but cannot be ruled out, he said.

"We judge these sweeping changes will not trigger a complete breakdown of the current international system, but the next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks and many, many challenges," he said.

By 2025, China is likely to have the world's second largest economy and to have emerged as a major military power, the largest importer of natural resources and the largest contributor to world pollution.

"China is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country," he said.

India will have either the third or second largest economy and will press to become "one of the significant poles of this new world," he said.

Russia also will be part of that group but only if it expands and diversifies its economy and integrates it with the world global economy, he said.

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, demographics, access to natural resources, investments and technological innovation. There will be a struggle to acquire technology advantage as the key enabler for dominance," he said.

Future is nuclear war and famine

By Jim Mannion in Washington | November 21, 2008
Article from: Agence France-Presse

THE use of nuclear weapons will grow increasingly likely by 2025, US intelligence warned in a report on global trends that forecasts a tense, unstable world shadowed by war.

"The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over scarce resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons," said the report.

"Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the uneven impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions."

Called Global Trends 2025 - a Transformed World, the 121-page report was produced by the National Intelligence Council, a body of analysts from across the US intelligence community.

Officials said it was being briefed to the incoming administration of president-elect Barack Obama. A year in the making, the report does not take into account the recent global financial crisis.

"In one sense, a bad sense, the pace of change that we are looking at in 2025 occurred more rapidly than we had anticipated," said Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence.

One overarching conclusion of the report is that "the unipolar world is over, (or) certainly will be by 2025," Mr Fingar said.

But with the "rise of the rest," managing crises and avoiding conflicts will be more difficult, particularly with an antiquated post-World War II international system.

"The potential for conflict will be different then and in some ways greater than it has been for a very long time," Mr Fingar said.

The report has good news for some countries:

- A technology to replace oil may be underway or in place by 2025;

- Multiple financial centres will serve as ``shock absorbers'' of the world financial system;

- India, China and Brazil will rise, the Korean peninsula will be unified in some form, and new powers are likely to emerge from the Muslim non-Arab world.

Risk of nuclear war

But the report also says some African and South Asian states may wither away altogether, organised crime could take over at least one state in central Europe; and the spread of nuclear weapons will heighten the risk they will be used.

"The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used will increase with expanded access to technology and a widening range of options for limited strikes," it said.

The report highlighted the risk of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East where a number of countries are thinking about developing or acquiring technologies that would be useful to make nuclear weapons.

"Over the next 15-20 years, reactions to the decisions Iran makes about its nuclear program could cause a number of regional states to intensify these efforts and consider actively pursuing nuclear weapons," the report said.

"This will add a new and more dangerous dimension to what is likely to be increasing competition for influence within the region," it said.

The report said it was not certain that the kind of deterrent relationships that existed for most of the Cold War would emerge in a nuclear armed Middle East. Instead, the possession of nuclear weapons may be perceived as "making it safe" to engage in low intensity conflicts, terrorism or even larger conventional attacks, the report said.

The report said terrorism would likely be a factor in 2025 but suggested that al-Qaeda's "terrorist wave" might be breaking up.

"Al-Qaeda's weaknesses - unachievable strategic objectives, inability to attract broad-based support and self-destructive actions - might cause it to decay sooner than many people think," it said.

"Because history suggests that the global Islamic terrorist movement will outlast al-Qaeda as a group, strategic counterterrorism efforts will need to focus on how and why a successor terrorist group might evolve during the remaining years of the 'Islamic terrorist wave'."

The report was vague about the outcome of current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and nuclear armed Pakistan.

In 2025, the government in Baghdad could still be "an object of competition" among various factions seeking foreign aid or pride of place.

Afghanistan "may still evince significant patterns of tribal competition and conflict".

"The future of Pakistan is a wildcard in considering the trajectory of neighbouring Afghanistan," it said.

Future is nuclear war and famine (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24684836-12377,00.html)

Pakistan: We're ready for war with India
Pakistan warned it is ready for war with India if it is attacked following the strike by the Mumbai terrorists.

Last Updated: 12:13PM GMT 09 Dec 2008

The remarks by Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who also insisted he would not hand over any suspects in the Mumbai attacks, come amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

India has said it is keeping all options open following last month's carnage by the Mumbai terrorists, who killed more than 170 people.

"We do not want to impose war, but we are fully prepared in case war is imposed on us," said Mr Qureshi.

"We are not oblivious to our responsibilities to defend our homeland. But it is our desire that there should be no war."

Indian officials say the hardline Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which is based in Pakistan despite being banned by the government, is behind the bloodshed, and Indian media have suggested there could be Indian strikes on militant camps.

Mr Qureshi said he was sending "a very clear message" that his country did not want conflict with India.

"We want friendship, we want peace and we want stability - but our desire for peace should not be considered Pakistan's weakness."

The minister also said that India's demands for the extradition of suspects in the Mumbai attacks were out of the question and that Pakistan, which has arrested 16 people since Saturday, would keep them on home soil.

"The arrests are being made for our own investigations. Even if allegations are proved against any suspect, he will not be handed over to India," Qureshi said. "We will proceed against those arrested under Pakistani laws."

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain and nearly came to a fourth in 2001 after an attack on the Indian parliament that was blamed on LeT.

Under international pressure to act, Pakistan raided a camp run by a charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, that many believe has close links to LeT, and arrested 15 people.

The authorities are questioning Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, who was among those arrested at the weekend.

Pakistan: We're ready for war with India (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3688288/Pakistan-Were-ready-for-war-with-India.html)

School closure saves lives of pupils
Dec. 31, 2008
Abe Selig
THE JERUSALEM POST

Beersheba experienced its second day on the front lines Wednesday as Hamas stepped up Grad-type rocket attacks, striking an open area and a high school - the second educational institution in the city to be hit since rockets began falling there Tuesday night.

A day earlier, a kindergarten was hit.

Fortunately, both schools were closed due to the security situation, and no one was hurt.

It had been unclear late Tuesday if children were to return to their classrooms on Wednesday in the south's largest city. But a final decision came at 4 a.m.,when Mayor Rubik Danilovitz met with officials from the Home Front Command and other security services.

They decided to keep the schools closed as the situation in Gaza was likely to continue for days.

If proved to be a prescient decision: hours later, the first Grad of the morning slammed into the Comprehensive Alef high school near the city center.

The rocket pierced through the ceiling of a classroom around 9:30 a.m. - where ninth graders would have been sitting had school been open.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine what would have happened here if school had not been canceled today," National Parents Organization head Yitzhak Maimon said as he toured the classroom. "The mayor and the Home Front Command made the right decision, and it's going to stay this way for the foreseeable future."

There were no injuries in the city, but a number of people were treated for shock. The damage could be seen from outside the building, as concrete on the second floor crumpled from the hit, and rocks and other debris were scattered on the ground.

Inside, rubble covered the hallway, and a pupil's painting - two sharks swimming carefree in the ocean - lay on the floor, covered by concrete and dust. The classroom itself had a hole through the roof, and a desk, directly beneath the rocket's entry point, had been hit dead-on.

The explosion created another hole in the wall, and ceiling tiles were thrown in every direction. Ball bearings and bolts, which terrorists often pack into the rockets to increase their deadliness, had sprayed throughout the classroom, leaving holes in the walls.

Parents and security personnel gawked at the damage, saying quiet thank you's that no one had been in the room at the time of the strike.

Across town at the kindergarten hit on Tuesday evening - the first strike in the city - the damage was just as haunting. While that rocket struck long after the children had gone home, it landed in the playground, spraying the same type of ball bearings as far as a block away.

The marks and holes from the shrapnel could be seen from the playground back into the building, as workers struggled to piece back together the ceiling tiles, some of which had been blasted 20 meters away from the building.

At a nearby home, Raisa Zaberoff, a 70-year-old immigrant from the former Soviet Union, struggled to put the blinds back up in her bedroom. Her backyard, which faces the kindergarten, was also sprayed with shrapnel, leaving scars on the fence posts and windowsills of her home, and shattering the windows.

"Look here," she said in broken Hebrew, pointing at the ceiling in her kitchen. "Somehow the shrapnel got all the way into here."

She gestured toward holes in her ceiling.

"But my neighbors across the street said even their windows were broken," Zaberoff continued. "I just keep thanking God that I was at my daughter's house when it happened, and that the kids had already gone home from school."

Zaberoff said she heard a few of the sirens that sounded on Wednesday - five were reported in all. She knew that parts of the city had no siren system, and in others that did, it simply wasn't working.

Other residents complained of similar problems.

"I didn't hear the siren, but I sure heard that boom," said a young woman who had ventured out to walk her dog. "What's going on? Why can't they fix the siren?"

By early afternoon, the Home Front Command had begun tackling the problem, telling reporters in front of City Hall that all of the sirens had been fixed.

"There was a brief hiccup with the siren system this morning, but we've fixed it and residents will be able to hear their sirens if they go off," Deputy OC Home Front Command Brig. Gen. Avraham Ben-David told The Jerusalem Post.

"However, some parts of the city are not equipped with sirens at all, but they will be within the next 48 hours," he said.

"However, for residents in those areas, and they know who they are, I cannot stress how important it is that they keep a radio on and keep an eye on their TV, because, for example, Radio Darom is working with the Home Front Command to broadcast the siren every time it sounds," he said.

Still, the possible lack of a working siren scared many people into staying home for the day.

"I'm staying in until this blows over," Miri Shalom said as she stood in front of her apartment building in the Alef neighborhood. "Siren or no siren, I'll only go out for a few minutes here and there."

Pausing to catch her breath, Shalom expressed a sentiment felt by many residents.

"I can't believe rockets are hitting Beersheba," she said. "No one believed that they could, but here they are, they're really coming down."

School closure saves lives of pupils (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456538695&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

IAF hits mosque storing rockets
Dec. 30, 2008
Yaakov Katz
THE JERUSALEM POST

As Hamas continued to bombard the South with dozens of rockets on Wednesday, senior defense officials said a ground operation was "days away."

The air force struck Wednesday at more than 25 targets throughout the Strip, including a Gaza City mosque that the army said was being used to hide Kassam rockets. The IAF reported several secondary explosions following the strike.

A number of Hamas outposts and command posts were also destroyed, as well as a tunnel in Khan Younis that was used to covertly move weapons throughout southern Gaza.

Since Operation Cast Lead began on Saturday, fighter jets have carried out some 500 sorties against Hamas targets, the IDF said, adding that attack helicopters had also flown hundreds of combat missions. According to the IDF, at least 95 percent of the targets were hit.

Also on Wednesday, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that Hamas had turned some mosques into command and control centers, assuming that Israel would not bomb them. He also said Hamas has stockpiled weapons in mosques.

After the security cabinet on Wednesday rejected a French proposal for a 48-hour suspension of the fighting, defense officials said the IDF was ordered to complete preparations for a ground operation, the second stage of Operation Cast Lead.

"The ground operation will come as a surprise," an official explained. "Hamas fighters are currently waiting in their positions for us to come, but they will be shocked and surprised when it happens."

The incursion, the official said, would not be designed to retake the Gaza Strip.

"It is not in our interest to conquer all of Gaza since then we don't know how we will get back out," the official said. "Instead what we are talking about is a surgical operation that will have the effect of changing Hamas's attitude and making the group understand that it is against its interest to fire rockets into Israel."

As the rocket fire intensified on Wednesday, when more than 60 rockets hit the South, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to expand the "special security situation," that he had previously declared, to all communities within 40 km. of the Gaza Strip, up from 30 km.

The declaration grants the Home Front Command the authority to close factories, cancel conferences and events, and conduct other civilian activities. It also enables the security establishment to play an active role in municipal affairs alongside the local authorities.

Soldiers from Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade, stationed along the Gaza border, said Wednesday that they were itching to invade and that all of the necessary preparations had been made.

"We all know what we are supposed to do and what our targets will be," said one commander. "All we need is the green light from the political echelon."

IAF hits mosque storing rockets (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456538553&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)
~~~~~~~~~~~

If Hamas is stupid enough to store missiles in a mosque they should be hit!! And by the looks of it, Hamas is stupid. They have been sending missiles and mortars into Israel, it's about time Israel struck back.

All's fair in love and war, especially when Hamas started this battle.

Quote

What I've heard on the news, Russia has slowly but surely during this time been moving more and more troops back into Ossetia. And while the world is watching Israel.............. Russia decides it's time to move things along slowly, while the world watches....................

Things are really moving forward pretty quickly to what GOD has already Promised will happen. The Prophecy is MASSIVE, so this many things coming together in such a short time frame are SUPERNATURAL! There is no way that so many events can be coincidence - JUST LIKE the foretold birth, life, and death of JESUS CHRIST couldn't possibly be coincidence. The Old Testament Prophets gave DETAILS, and all of the DETAILS were RIGHT. Those DETAILS could have ONLY Come from GOD HIMSELF. THE SAME IS GOING TO BE TRUE WITH THE TRIBULATION PERIOD!

I would think that especially Christians could take a hint and see more than just MAN working. YES, I think the time is growing short. WE WILL SEE MUCH MORE, AND A FALSE PEACE WILL BE MADE! Christians might not even be here to see these things unfold, BUT THEY WILL UNFOLD AT GOD'S APPOINTED TIME! It's more than possible that Christians will be RAPTURED HOME TO GLORY before then.

Have you ever wondered about some of the things that might happen after Christians are suddenly removed from this earth? I have, and I especially wonder how many will pick up the Holy Bible with renewed interest after we're gone. The RAPTURE will definitely happen, but we don't know when and in what sequence of events. My personal opinion involves the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD living in our hearts and Christians being part of the "GREAT RESTRAINER" THAT WILL BE REMOVED to allow the devil FREE REIGN OVER THE EARTH. YES, THIS WILL HAPPEN, regardless of whether Christians are part of the "GREAT RESTRAINER" or not. I personally believe that we are because of Bible Teachings about the SPIRIT BEING ONE!

We live in fascinating times that are going downhill quickly. I only use the word "fascinating" because of the amazing details of the Holy Bible and ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE that all of the Promises of GOD are going to be fulfilled perfectly. WHEN? - SOON - GOD'S APPOINTED TIME!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ezekiel 7:1-9 NASB Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2 "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel, 'An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land. 3 'Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you. 4 'For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the LORD!' 5 "Thus says the Lord GOD, 'A disaster, unique disaster, behold it is coming! 6 'An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it has come! 7 'Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near--tumult rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 8 'Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you; judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations. 9 'My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the LORD, do the smiting.

Bin Laden tape urges war on Israel, taunts Bush
In recording, al-Qaida leader says Obama receiving 'heavy inheritance'

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to launch a jihad against Israel and condemned Arab governments as allies of the Jewish state in a new message aimed at harnessing anger in the Mideast over the Gaza offensive.

Bin Laden spoke in an audiotape posted Wednesday on Islamic militant Web sites where al-Qaida usually issues its messages. It was his first tape since May and came nearly three weeks after Israel started its campaign against Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

The al-Qaida leader also vowed that the terror network would open "new fronts" against the United States and its allies beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
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He said President-elect Barack Obama has received a "heavy inheritance" from George W. Bush — two wars and "the collapse of the economy," which he said will render the United States unable to sustain a long fight against the mujahedeen, or holy warriors.

"There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God," bin Laden said in the 22-minute audiotape, referring to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. "The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades."

"Islamic nation, you are capable of defeating the Zionist entity with your popular capabilities and your great hidden strength — without the support of (Arab) leaders and despite the fact that most of (the leaders) stand in the barracks of the Crusader-Zionist alliance," bin Laden said.

Voice resembles previous messages
The authenticity of the tape could not be independently confirmed, but the voice resembled that of bin Laden in previous messages.

The tape, entitled "a call for jihad to stop the aggression on Gaza," was played over a still picture of bin Laden and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, one of Islam's holiest sites. But there were no English subtitles and flashy production graphics that usually accompany such messages.

That suggested the message had been hastily put together and issued to best exploit anger in the region over the Gaza offensive, which Palestinian medical officials say has killed more than 940 Palestinians, half of them civilians. Israel said the offensive aims to halt rocket fire from Gaza against Israeli towns.

Bin Laden accused Arab leaders of "avoiding their responsibility" to liberate Palestine.

"If you are not convinced to fight, then open the way to those who are convinced," he said.

Bin Laden and his lieutenants frequently use the Palestinian issue to try to rally support for al-Qaida and often call for holy war to free Jerusalem. But there has been little sign that the terror group has carried out attacks in Israel. Bin Laden made no direct reference to Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007. Al-Qaida leaders have frequently criticized the Palestinian militant group for participating in elections and failing to seriously pursue jihad against Israel.

Cites world economic problems
The al-Qaida leader also said the world economic crisis was a sign that the United States' power was falling apart, boasting that "the Islamic nation's jihad is one of the main causes of these destructive results for our enemies."

Pointing to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, bin Laden said al-Qaida was prepared to fight "for seven more years, and seven more after that, then seven more."

"We are on the way to opening new fronts," he said, urging Muslims to "join hands with the mujahedeen to continue the jihad against the enemy, to continue bleeding them on these two fronts and on the others that are open to you."

"The question is, can America continue the war against us for several more decades? The reports and signs show us otherwise," he said. He said Bush had left his successor "with a heavy inheritance," forcing Obama to choose between withdrawing from the wars or continuing.

"If he withdraws from the war, it is a military defeat. If he continues, he drowns in economic crisis," bin Laden said.

It was the first time bin Laden have spoken of Obama, though he did not mention him by name. Bin Laden's top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has previously spoken against Obama, warning Muslims he will not bring major change in U.S. policies.

'Partial war' looming between China, India?
Military suggests border dispute is 'threat' to Beijing

A border dispute could become the spark that launches China and India into a military conflict, with Chinese strategists resurrecting the concept of a "partial war" to recover what they call "Southern Tibet," the region India calls "Arunachal Pradesh," according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The area in northeast India has a 650-mile unfenced border with China, which lays claim to the region and refers to it as Southern Tibet.

Some of the threats are emanating from Chinese publications that reflect the opinion of the Chinese leadership without making official comments.

For example, the China Institute of International Strategic Studies, or IISS, has said it visualizes "two crises" for the People's Liberation Army in the immediate future. One was the succession in the North Korean leadership should Kim Jong-Il die.

The other was India's continued presence in territory China claims as its own.

India regards Arunachal Pradesh as the 24th state in the Indian Union. Yet China still claims much of it as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region and may be prepared to launch an action to regain it.

Ironically, the veiled threat comes at a time when China looks upon its relationship with India as being in the "best period" of their joint history.

Called the "land of the rising sun," Arunachal Pradesh means "land of the dawn lit mountains," since it is in the Himalayas.

The Burma Road, known to have helped supply China during World War II, passes through the region. Burma, or Myanmar, borders on the East.

The 650-mile Chinese-Indian border in Arunachal Pradesh is separated by the so-called McMahon Line, also known as the Line of Actual Control.

The dispute dates back to the time India was ruled by Britain, whose officials in 1914 held a conference over the boundary. In 1962, China and India fought a serious border war, with Chinese troops advancing well into Arunachal Pradesh but later withdrawing. The region flared up again in 1986.

Now, the region is becoming a focal point again.

A Chinese military website that reflects official positions observed that the border issue may be symbolic of how India looks upon China as the "greatest obstacle" to its rise.

The website suggested that the border dispute over Southern Tibet constitutes a security threat to China and that Beijing may need to adopt a strategy to weaken control of the Indian central government.

It does appear that the major players of the Tribulation Period are falling into position for Bible Prophecy to be fulfilled. GOD'S Appointed time may be soon. Frankly, I hope that GOD'S Appointed time is soon. Mankind's mockery and disobedience of GOD is getting worse by the day. We know that GOD'S Patience does have a limit. The irony is that the ways of evil always result in suffering and destruction. This evil and dying world isn't going to have any peace until the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST! Surely, this evil world is ripe for the RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD - OUR CREATOR! HE has been denied, rejected, disobeyed, and mocked for thousands of years - even after JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF died on the CROSS - providing a way for man to be rescued from the curse of sin and death. There is NO GREATER LOVE that GOD can show us - but most still reject HIM.

The time will come when GOD will take what is HIS, and all will be brought under subjection. Mankind has failed miserably - countless times! The facts are that most of mankind has chosen evil over good, and the devil is the master - NOT GOD! GOD will NOT be denied when HIS patience runs out. The devil and evil will be crushed - reserved for final judgment in the fires of hell. The depravity of man has a appetite for more evil - not less - and that appetite will be fulfilled completely in the Tribulation Period. Mankind will experience evil unrestrained, and ONLY GOD HIMSELF will be able to end it.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Luke 21:20-28 NASB "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. "Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. "Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. "There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. "Then they will see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory. "But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Will North Korea launch a war?

Tuesday, February 3 04:58 am
Reuters Jack Kim

North Korea appears to be preparing to test-launch its longest range ballistic missile, media reports said on Tuesday, just days after Pyongyang warned that the Korean peninsula was on the brink of war.

Analysts say the possibility that North Korea would start an all-out war with the South is low because Pyongyang knows its underfunded military is no match for the U.S.-backed modern military of its Southern neighbour.

But the following scenarios could unfold:

A NAVAL SKIRMISH

The North has threatened military action over a disputed sea border off the west coast and it previously triggered clashes in 1999 and 2002 that killed or wounded dozens of sailors on both sides. The 1999 battle was orchestrated by the North's military with its leader Kim Jong-il's close involvement and caught the South by surprise, according to intelligence sources.

The North may be hesitant to spark another battle after its navy was badly outgunned by a superior South Korean force in the last firefight in 2002. Since then, the North's Soviet-era navy has become more obsolete while the South's has increased its firepower and technology.

What has changed is the North's deployment of more short-range missiles. The North could raise tension by firing missiles into waters claimed by the South or at one of its ships.

BORDER GUNFIGHT

A shootout along the Demilitarised Zone border could easily ignite a broader gunfight involving many of the more than 1 million troops who are deployed on both sides of the buffer zone that has divided the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire and not a peace treaty.

But a land battle is unlikely because of the chance it could trigger a bigger conflict. A more likely scenario is for the North to conduct massive military training manoeuvres or send aircraft just close enough to the border so that the South has no choice but to respond.

A MISSILE LAUNCH

The North could raise regional tension by testing its ballistic missiles, which have the range to hit all of South Korea and most of Japan. It could go ahead and fire its long-range Taepodong-2 missile. South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying the North had a newly constructed launch pad on its west coast.

The last time North Korea launched a Taepodong-2 in 2006, the missile fizzled less than a minute into flight and destructed.

A successful test would boost support at home for North Korea's leaders and raise alarm in Japan and the United States because it increases the chances that the two countries could be targets of North Korean missiles.

SECOND NUCLEAR TEST

The North could set off a nuclear device again. The first test in October 2006 was considered by South Korea and the United States as only a partial success, which indicted flaws in the North's weapon design or materials. The North needs a second test to see if it has fixed those problems, experts say.

But a second test carries major risks to the isolated state because it is certain to strain ties with its biggest benefactor China and lead to a new round of international trade sanctions.

NUCLEAR PLANT

North Korea might feel it can win more over the long term from new U.S. President Barack Obama if it ups the stakes. In order to increase its leverage, the North could begin to restore operations at its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant and reverse disablement steps called for in an international deal that were designed, in total, to put the facility out of business for at least a year.

The North's most likely priority would be restoring its facility that separates plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Experts say the North could have it up and running again in a few months. There are discharged, irradiated fuel rods cooling at Yongbyon that the North could use to produce what experts say would be enough plutonium for one more nuclear weapon.

ALL-OUT WAR

U.S. military commanders in South Korea have said U.S. and South Korean forces would be able to quickly defeat the North, even though the North would still be able to quickly fire off thousands of artillery shells as well as launch missiles that could hit South Korea and Japan. Analysts say an all-out war would bring the end of Kim Jong-il's government, cause enormous destruction on the peninsula, and perhaps Japan. It could also plunge the regional economy, and even the global economy, into a tailspin.

South Korea has 670,000 soldiers backed by 28,000 U.S. troops. North Korea has a military of 1.2 million personnel.

Will North Korea launch a war? (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090203/twl-uk-korea-north-scenarios-sb-bd5ae06.html?printer=1)

NKorea may be set for long-range missile launch

55 mins ago
AFP

North Korea seems to be preparing to test-fire its longest-range missile, reports said Tuesday, a move that would heighten tensions amid stalled disarmament talks and icy relations with South Korea. Skip related content

A source quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency said US and South Korean intelligence agencies have recently spotted a train carrying a long cylindrical object believed to be a Taepodong-2 missile.

Launch preparations are likely to be completed in a month or two at a new west coast site, the source said. The defence ministry and National Intelligence Service refused to comment.

Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper said spy satellites had detected a large container capable of housing a missile being delivered to the site at Tongchang, about 40 km (25 miles) south of the border with China.

The paper said frequent truck movements had been spotted at the site and launch preparations could be completed in one or two months for what could be a remodelled version of the Taepodong-2.

The missile has a maximum range of 6,700 kilometres (4,150 miles), meaning it could theoretically target Alaska.

Analysts said the North is trying to push the new US administration back to the negotiating table and to strengthen its bargaining position.

Nuclear disarmament talks with the North, involving the US and four regional powers, are deadlocked over how the communist state's atomic disclosures should be verified.

Reports of the planned launch also come amid rising tensions with Seoul. The North announced Friday it is cancelling all peace accords with its neighbour and on Sunday warned of a possible military conflict.

Ryoo Kihl-Jae, of the University of North Korean Studies, told Yonhap Pyongyang is angling for quicker dialogue with Washington amid frayed ties with Seoul.

Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses said there would be a significant time gap between preparations and any launch.

"North Koreans seek warmer ties with the Obama administration, not strained relations, at the beginning," he told AFP.

Baek said the North wants to get the attention of the US administration and gain the upper hand in upcoming negotiations with it.

North Korea staged an atomic test in 2006 and is thought to have enough plutonium for six or so bombs. Experts differ on whether it has miniaturised a bomb that could fit on a missile.

"I don't think the North Koreans are yet capable of producing a sophisticated nuclear warhead device to fit on a long-range missile," Baek said.

North Korea sparked regional alarm in 1998 by launching a shorter-range Taepodong-1 missile over Japan from its east coast launch site at Musudan-ri.

In July 2006 it launched a Taepodong-2 missile from there but US officials said it failed after about 40 seconds.

Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group think-tank, said the launch site being built at Tongchang could be completed by the end of this year and a launch could be held even before then.

He said any long-range missile launch "would get the attention of the Obama administration. There are so many things on Obama's plate, but this would force everyone to take notice."

Pinkston said any launch might put a satellite in orbit.

Whatever the motive, such an achievement would earn leader Kim Jong-Il "tremendous domestic political benefit" -- especially if it preceded South Korea's first domestic satellite launch planned for June.

NKorea may be set for long-range missile launch (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090203/twl-nkorea-may-be-set-for-long-range-mis-4bdc673.html)

Commander confirms Netanyahu war plans
Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:36:18 GMT

Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.

Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for "all possible scenarios", indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

The confirmation comes as US President Barack Obama seeks "new beginnings" with its arch-rival Iran. The US offer has been met with world praise but with fury in Tel Aviv.

Israeli media outlets late on Sunday began propagating wild scenarios that Iran is using the Lebanese Hezbollah to recruit Palestinian fighters to carry out terror attacks on Israel.

Citing anonymous sources, the reports began to surface after Tel Aviv countered an alleged bombing attempt outside a shopping mall in the northern city of Haifa.

"We are treating the attempted attack in Haifa with great gravity. A huge disaster was prevented by a miracle," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting after the bomb was defused on Sunday.

Israel has long accused Iran of arming Hezbollah and Palestinian groups via Syria, in an attempt to demonize the two Muslim countries.

Tel Aviv also accuses Tehran of developing nuclear weaponry -- a charge denied by the UN nuclear watchdog.

At a conference held in Tel Aviv, Golan also confirmed the likeliness of Israel staging another military confrontation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Although Israel does not consider rocket attacks from Gaza as a serious threat, there is the possibility of "dangerous" missile attacks by other countries, he said.

He failed to elaborate how such missile attacks would relate to Gaza.

His remarks came as reports claim that the soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans for "a major military conflict in the coming months."

The commander also revealed that Tel Aviv will install new warning systems across Israel in preparation for its war plans.

The last Israeli-waged war on the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, killed at least 1,350 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,450 others in the densely-populated sliver.

The aggression was the last in a series of operations carried out by the Israeli forces against the natives of the land since occupying Palestine in 1948.

Commander confirms Netanyahu war plans (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=89413&sectionid=351020202)

US, SKorea militaries gird for NKorean provocation

apnews/myway.com

The U.S. and South Korea put their military forces on high alert Thursday after North Korea renounced the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas since 1953. The North also accused the U.S. of preparing to attack the isolated communist country in the wake of its second nuclear bomb test, and warned it would retaliate to any hostility with "merciless" and dangerous ferocity.

Seoul moved a 3,500-ton destroyer into waters near the Koreas' disputed western maritime border while smaller, high-speed vessels were keeping guard at the front line, South Korean news reports said. The defense ministry said the U.S. and South Korean militaries would increase surveillance activities.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, the Yonhap news agency said. The Joint Chiefs of Staffs in Seoul refused to confirm the reports.

The show of force along the heavily fortified border dividing the two Koreas comes three days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test and fired a series of short-range missiles.

The test drew immediate condemnation from world leaders and the U.N. Security Council, where ambassadors were discussing a new resolution to punish Pyongyang. President Barack Obama called it a "blatant violation" of international law.

In response, South Korea said it would join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea called South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative a prelude to a naval blockade and a violation of the truce signed to end the three-year war that broke out in Korea in 1950.

On Wednesday Pyongyang renounced the 1953 armistice and the following day warned U.S. forces against advancing into its territory.

"The northward invasion scheme by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet regime has exceeded the alarming level," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "A minor accidental skirmish can lead to a nuclear war."

The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan, has denied it is planning military action. But U.S. and South Korean troops were placed on their highest alert level for more than two years.

The South Korea-U.S. combined forces command rates its surveillance alert on a scale to 5, with 1 being the highest level. On Thursday, the level was raised from 3 to 2, the second-highest level, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. He said the last time the alert level was that high was in 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test.

Won said both militaries were raising their surveillance activities, although he would not explain what that meant. South Korean media reported that the higher alert would involve increased monitoring of North Korea using satellites and navy ships.

The U.N. Command on Korea said it would continue to observe the armistice, saying it "remains in force and is binding on all signatories, including North Korea."

North Korea has repudiated the armistice several times before, most recently in 2003 and 2006.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young accused the North of "seriously distorting" the decision to join in the initiative.

Seoul has said its military would "respond sternly" to any North Korean provocation, and that it would be able to contain the North with the help of U.S. troops.

The South Korean military has dispatched "personnel and equipment deployment" along its land and sea borders, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

He said there has been no particular movement of North Korean troops in border areas.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. However, North disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast, and used that dispute to provoke deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

South Korea's mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said more anti-air missiles and artillery were dispatched to military bases on islands near the disputed western sea border with North Korea.

Yonhap said the destroyer has artillery guns, anti-ship guided missiles, ship-to-air missiles and torpedoes. Air force fighters are were on standby, the report said.

North Korea's West Sea fleet has 13 submarines and more than 360 vessels, Yonhap said.

The recent flurry of belligerence could reflect an effort by 67-year-old leader Kim Jong Il to boost his standing among his impoverished people.

It was also seen as a test of Obama's new administration, and came as two Americans, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, remained in custody in Pyongyang accused of illegal entry and "hostile acts." They face trial in Pyongyang next week.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said any new Security Council resolution must be stronger than the one issued after the North's first atomic test in October 2006, and contain sanctions.

A Russian Foreign Ministry official said Moscow did not want to see Pyongyang further isolated. Andrei Nesterenko said Russia opposed sanctions but did not object to a U.N. resolution.

Hong Hyun-ik, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute security think tank, said sanctions would not be effective unless China - North Korea's traditional ally - implemented them.

"Kim Jong Il must be scoffing" at the talk of sanctions, he said. "He knows the world will forget about any sanctions in the end."

France to step up strikes in Libya
AP 4/20/2011

PARIS – France vowed Wednesday to step up airstrikes on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces and acknowledged that it has military officers already working with Libyan rebels on the ground.

France and Italy joined Britain in announcing their commitment of military officers to help the rebels, who have failed to rout Moammar Gadhafi's forces despite weeks of NATO-led airstrikes.

Both France and Italy remained firm against sending ground troops into Libya, a dangerous and politically risky step. However NATO, which is leading the U.N.-sanctioned international military operation to protect civilians, is now acknowledging that airstrikes alone cannot stop the heavy shelling of cities by Gadhafi's forces.

Gadhafi's forces attacked a mountain town and a besieged coastal city Wednesday, part of a drive to crush pockets of resistance in the western part of the country that is largely under the Libyan leader's control.

"France has placed alongside our special envoy in Benghazi a small number of liaison officers," French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages said in an online briefing Wednesday.

The officers are working on technical, logistical, and organizational help, she said. She did not indicate how long they have been there.

French government spokesman Francois Baroin suggested less than 10 officers were involved and insisted the move conforms to the U.N. resolution authorizing the international military campaign in Libya. France sent a diplomatic envoy to Benghazi earlier this month.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Wednesday with visiting Libyan opposition leader Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who said he asked France "to intensify the support accorded to the Libyan revolution."

"We will intensify the strikes," Sarkozy responded, according to a presidential aide. The aide was not authorized to be publicly named according to presidential policy.

"We will help you," Sarkozy promised his Libyan visitor. He gave no details.

A NATO official said there has been no pressure from France to increase allied strikes, but that France might increase its own contribution. The official was not authorized to be publicly named.

In Rome, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said 10 military instructors will be going to Libya to help the rebels, but again ruled out sending Italian ground troops.

Britain said Tuesday it was sending up to 20 military advisers to help Libya's rebel forces. The military personnel, including officers with logistical and intelligence expertise, will work with the National Transitional Council, the political wing of the rebel movement.

While France helped lead the push for international intervention in Libya, it appeared wary of lobbying for a ground campaign.

"We do not envisage deploying ground troops in any way," Baroin said.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said the U.N. Security Council should weigh whether to send ground troops. "It's a real question that merits international reflection," he said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

But Baroin said France would not request another U.N. resolution on the subject.

Abdel-Jalil insisted that the ragtag Libyan rebel force and fledgling opposition governing council would respect international norms if they emerge victorious in the battle with Gadhafi.

"We promise to the international community that we will work to build a democratic state where the chief of state arrives in power not on a tank, but by a ballot box," he said. "We are also committed to working to fight terrorism and stop illegal immigration."

Tensions over waves of illegal migrants from North Africa entering Europe in recent weeks have strained relations among European neighbors and clouded the international campaign in Libya.

NATO's top military commander, U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis was in Prague for talks with Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg on Wednesday and Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra on Thursday. Stavridis' visit comes as NATO is seeking to get military contributions from member states that have not participated in the campaign in Libya.

The Czech government has said earlier it was not planning to contribute troops for the NATO mission in Libya, partly because it has not been asked to do so.

Border Clash Resumes Between Thailand, Cambodia
AP

Renewed fighting between Thai and Cambodian troops on the countries' disputed border has killed at least 10 soldiers and kept thousands of civilians out of their homes.

Officials from both countries said fighting that lasted several hours Friday resumed Saturday, and at least 10 soldiers had died over the two days. The fighting continued most of the morning and involved mostly long-distance shelling but also use of small arms.

Cambodia also accused the Thai Army of firing shells with poison gas, an allegation which could not be independently verified and was rejected by Thailand.

The fighting springs from decades-old competing claims over small swaths of land along the border, with nationalistic politics fueling tensions. Clashes have erupted several times since 2008, when Cambodia's 11th century Preah Vihear temple on the border was given U.N. World Heritage status over Thai objections.

Friday's fighting was the first reported since four days of fighting in February, when eight soldiers and civilians were killed near the Preah Vihear temple, about 100 miles east of the new flare-up.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said fighting resumed at about 6 a.m. Saturday at the same three locations where troops from both countries battled for several hours the previous day with artillery and small arms.

Wachira Kitphan, an official in Thailand's Phanom Dong Rak district, said both sides engaged in an artillery duel until about 8 a.m. Saturday.

Cambodian officials said that in addition to skirmishes Friday near the ancient temples of Ta Krabey and Ta Moan and a third point, artillery fell on villages and other areas as far as 13 miles inside its territory.

Each side blamed the other for the resumption of fighting.

Thai army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Siriya Khuangsirikul said three Thai soldiers were killed Friday and 13 were wounded, one critically. Cambodian defense spokesman Lt. Gen. Chhum Socheat said three Cambodian soldiers were killed and six wounded.

No reports of casualties from Saturday's clash were immediately available.

Cambodia's Bayon TV, which has close links to the government, showed footage Friday night of damaged houses and civilians being evacuated by farm vehicles to schools and Buddhist pagodas 30 miles from the front lines.

A statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Thailand said the country had "exercised its inherent right of self-defense on the basis of necessity, proportionality and strictly directed at military targets from where the attacks were launched by Cambodian troops."

Indonesia, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, called Friday for an immediate cease-fire and further efforts to resolve the border dispute. Fighting stopped by early Friday afternoon, but no cease-fire was reached, Cambodian officials said.

Tensions between the neighbors have been exacerbated in recent months in part by pressure from influential Thai nationalist groups that have protested in Bangkok, urging the government to take back disputed border territory. Hardcore nationalists insist a 1962 World Court ruling awarding the Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia was unfair.

The flare-up comes as the Thai military raises its profile in domestic politics ahead of a general election expected to be held by early July. The army had previously effectively vetoed an agreed-on plan to station Indonesian observers to monitor the border situation, flexing its muscles in the foreign policy field.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong sent a note to the president of the U.N. Security Council accusing Thailand of refusing to accept the Indonesian monitors so it could carry out "this deliberate act of aggression."

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called for a meeting of one of the bilateral committees the two countries have set up to discuss border issues.

Reiterating Thailand's stance on its dispute with Cambodia, Abhisit said it was not necessary for ASEAN or other multinational bodies to take up the matter, because then "it will be harder to solve."

Cambodia insists bilateral talks are unproductive and that a third party's participation would be useful.

Syrian Security Forces Open Fire at Funeral Procession, Witness Reports
foxnews.com

A witness reports that Syrian security forces killed at least six people when they opened fire on thousands at funeral processions Saturday.

Two witnesses say forces fired at crowds heading to the southern village of Izraa, killing two. Another witness says forces killed four people outside the capital of Damascus.

The crackdown comes one day after security forces killed at least 75 people in the deadliest day of monthlong protests against authoritarian President Bashar Assad.

The witness accounts could not be independently verified and they spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

In Washington, President Barack Obama condemned Friday’s use of force by Syria against anti-government demonstrators and said the regime's "outrageous" use of violence against the protesters must "end now."

In a statement, Obama said Syria's moves to repeal a decades-old emergency law and allow peaceful demonstrations were not serious in light of Friday's events.

He called on Assad to change course and obey the will of his people by giving them what they seek -- freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and the ability to choose their leaders.

Among the dead Friday were a 70-year-old man and two boys ages 7 and 10, Amnesty International said. In the southern town of Izraa, a man ran carrying the body of a young boy, whose hair was matted with blood from a gaping wound on his head, as another child wept and shouted, "My brother!" Footage of the scene was posted on the protest movement's main Facebook pace.

In other towns, protesters scattered for cover from sniper bullets, then dragged corpses through the streets. Mobile phone images showed the bodies lined up on the floor inside buildings.

The rallies, most marching out from mosques after Friday's noon Muslim prayers, erupted in towns and cities stretching along the breadth of the country, including in at least two suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

The death toll was likely to rise, as Ammar Qurabi, head of Syria's National Organization for Human Rights, said another 20 people were missing.

Friday's toll was double that of the previous deadliest day of the uprising, on April 8, when 37 were killed around the country. The heavier crackdown came after Assad warned a week ago that any further unrest would be considered "sabotage" after he made the gesture of lifting long hated emergency laws, a step he ratified on Thursday.

It was a clear sign that regime was prepared to escalate an already bloody response, with nearly 300 already dead in more than five weeks. Previously, Assad has mixed the crackdown with gestures of reform in a failed attempt to deflate the protests.

The bloodshed so far has only served to invigorate protesters whose demands have snowballed from modest reforms to the downfall of the 40-year Assad family dynasty. Each Friday, growing numbers of people in multiple cities have taken to the streets despite the near certainty that they would come under swift attack from security forces and shadowy pro-government gunmen known as "shabiha."

"Bullets started flying over our heads like heavy rain," said one witness in Izraa, where police opened fire on protesters marching in front of the mayor's office. The town is located in southern Daraa province where the uprising kicked off in mid-March.

Tens of thousands marched Friday in the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Hajar Aswad, the central cities of Hama and Homs, Latakia and Banias on the coast, the northern cities of Raqqa and Idlib, the northeastern Kurdish region, and in Daraa, witnesses said.

It was certainly one of the most robust gatherings to date, but it was difficult to gauge whether turnout was larger than heavy demonstrations a week ago. Because the protests were so quickly and violently dispersed Friday, it appeared that many gatherings were broken up before the masses hit the streets.

Amnesty International put the day's death toll at 75, mirroring reports from witnesses to The Associated Press.

Friday's witness accounts could not be independently confirmed because Syria has expelled journalists and restricted access to trouble spots. Witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

As it has stepped up its response, Assad's regime has seemed little affected by mounting international concern over the violence.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. calls on the Syrian government "to cease and desist from the use of violence against peaceful protesters" and to "follow through on its promises and take action toward the kind of concrete reform that they've promised."

Strike on Qaddafi Compound Badly Damages Buildings
foxnews.com

TRIPOLI – NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Muammar Qaddafi's seat of power early Monday, destroying a multistory library and office in his compound and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries.

Qaddafi's whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.

Monday's strike came after Qaddafi's forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at the besieged rebel city of Misrata in an especially bloody weekend that left at least 32 dead and dozens wounded.

The shelling of the only major city in western Libya in rebel hands continued early Monday morning, destroying two schools in the Abbad neighborhood. Residents said the attack lasted about an hour and they found what is believed to be a remnant of a 155mm shell.

The battle for Misrata, which has claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months, has become the focal point of Libya's armed rebellion against Qaddafi since fighting elsewhere is deadlocked.

A Libyan man walks past the remnants of a shell fired by pro-Gadhafi forces during the siege of the rebel town of Ajdabiya, Libya Sunday, April 24, 2011. Rebel fighters drove Moammar Gadhafi's forces to the edge of the besieged western city of Misrata on Sunday, taking control of the main hospital where government troops had been holed up, a resident said.
Video of Misrata civilians being killed and wounded by Qaddafi's heavy weapons, including Grad rockets and tank shells, have spurred calls for more forceful international intervention to stop the bloodshed.

In Brussels, a NATO spokesman said the alliance is increasingly targeting facilities linked to Qaddafi's regime with government advances stalled on the battlefield.

"We have moved on to those command and control facilities that are used to coordinate such attacks by regime forces," the spokesman said of the strike on Bab al-Aziziya, which has been hit last month, early in the NATO air campaign. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing regulations.

Qaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, struck a tone of defiance. He claimed Qaddafi has "millions of Libyans with him" and said NATO's mission was doomed to fail.

"In history, no country has achieved victory with spies and traitors and collaborators. ... NATO, you are the losers," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency JANA.

In Washington on Sunday, three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee said more should be done to drive Qaddafi from power, including targeting his inner circle with airstrikes.

Qaddafi "needs to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?"' Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the committee, told CNN's "State of the Union."

In last month's attack on Bab al-Aziziya, a cruise missile blasted an administration building, knocking down half of the three-story building. The compound also was targeted in a U.S. bombing in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen.

At least two missiles struck Bab al-Aziziya early Monday, and the booms could be heard miles away.

A multistory building that guards said served as Qaddafi's library and office was turned into a pile of twisted metal and broken concrete slabs. Dozens of Qaddafi supporters climbed atop the ruins, raising Libya's green flag and chanting support for their leader.

A second building, where Qaddafi received visiting dignitaries, suffered damage. The main door was blown open, shards of glass were scattered across the ground and picture frames were knocked down.

Just two weeks ago, Qaddafi had received an African Union delegation led by South African President Jacob Zuma in the ceremonial building, which was furnished with sofas and chandeliers. The delegation had called for an immediate cease-fire and dialogue between the rebels and the government.

NATO's mandate from the U.N. is to try to protect civilians in Libya, split into a rebel-run east and a western area that remains largely under Qaddafi's control. While the coalition's airstrikes have delivered heavy blows to Qaddafi's army, they have not halted attacks on Misrata, a city of 300,000 people.

Still, in recent days, the rebels' drive to push Qaddafi's men out of the city center gained momentum.

Late last week, they forced government snipers out of high-rise buildings. On Sunday, rebels took control of the main hospital, the last position of Libyan troops in the center of town, said a resident who asked to be identified only by his given name, Abdel Salam, for fear of reprisal.

Throughout the day, government forces fired more than 70 rockets at the city, he said.

"Now Gadhafi's troops are on the outskirts of Misrata, using rocket launchers," Abdel Salam said.

A Misrata rebel, 37-year-old Lutfi, said there had been 300-400 Qaddafi fighters in the main hospital and in the surrounding area that were trying to melt into the local population.

"They are trying to run way," Lutfi said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are pretending to be civilians. They are putting on sportswear."

Ali Misbah, a captured Libyan soldier who had been wounded in the leg, was held under guard in a tent in the parking lot of the Al Hikmeh Hospital, one of the city's smaller medical centers.

Misbah, 25, said morale was low among Qaddafi's troops. "Recently, our spirit has collapsed and the forces that were in front of us escaped and left us alone," he said.

Misbah said he and his fellow soldiers were told that they were fighting against Al Qaeda militants, not ordinary Libyans who took up arms against Qaddafi.

"They misled us," Misbah said of the government.

A senior Libyan government official has said the military is withdrawing from the fighting in Misrata, ostensibly to give a chance to tribal chiefs in the area to negotiate with the rebels. The official, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, said the tribal chiefs were ready to send armed supporters to fight the rebels unless they lay down their weapons.

Rebels on Sunday dismissed government claims that tribes in the area were siding with Qaddafi and that troops were redeploying voluntarily.

"It's not a withdrawal. It's a defeat that they want to turn into propaganda," said Dr. Abdel-Basit Abu Mzirig, head of the Misrata medical committee. "They were besieging the city and then they had to leave."

Top US military commanders express deep concern over Chinese military buildup

israelnationalnews.com

The threat from Chinese advanced weapons, including new stealth fighters and ballistic missiles, dominated concerns expressed by senior military officers at a Senate hearing this week on the military impact of delays and problems with the new fifth-generation F-35 jet.

Two senior officers in charge of U.S. air power voiced increasing worries that U.S. forces will not be prepared for a future conflict with China, during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee on Tuesday.

Air ForceLt. Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, said China’s rollout earlier this year of a new J-20 stealth fighter, which has made two or three test flights, is very troubling, along with another joint Russian-Indian stealth jet.

Both aircraft could be sold to Iran and affect a future U.S. intervention there against Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Those are discouraging in that they rolled out in a time that we thought there was maybe a little bit more time, although we weren’t sure of that,” Gen. Carlisle said.

The three-star general’s comments echoed earlier comments by Navy Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett, a senior intelligence official, who said of the J-20 in January that “we have been pretty consistent in underestimating the delivery of Chinese technology and weapons systems.”

U.S. military fighters will remain a pace ahead technologically of both the Chinese and Russian stealth jets. But if there are further F-35 delays, “then that pacing is in jeopardy,” Gen. Carlisle said.

In unusually candid comments on China’s growing military power, Gen. Carlisle said: “You need only look across the Pacific and see what [China] is doing, not just their air force capability, but their surface-to-air [missile] capability, their ballistic missile capability, their anti-ship ballistic missiles,” and new missiles that can reach U.S. bases in Guam and Japan.

“All of those things are incredibly disturbing to us for the future,” Gen. Carlisle said. “And again, … we not only have to be able to defeat those, we have to hold those targets at risk, and that’s where these fifth-generation aircraft come in.”

Asked during the hearing what “keeps you up at night,” Rear Adm. David L. Philman, Navy director of warfare integration, said: “Well, the China scenario is first and foremost, I believe, because they seem to be more advanced and they have the capability out there right now, and their ships at sea and their other anti-access capabilities.”

The Pentagon refers to China’s advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles that hit ships at sea, new submarines, anti-satellite weapons and cyberwarfare capabilities, as “anti-access and area denial” arms.

Adm. Philman said the J-20 rollout is a concern, but with 1,000 test hours on the F-35, the jet is a “far leap ahead from the Chinese fighter that’s flown three times.”

“But they will catch up. They understand. They’re a smart and learning enemy, and if we don’t keep our edge, then we will be behind, or at least lose our advantage,” Adm. Philman said.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and subcommittee chairman, said the Navy and Marine Corps are projecting a shortage of up to 267 warplanes in the coming years for the 10 aircraft carrier wings and three Marine Corps air wings.

The Role of Libya In The End Times
blogs.christianpost.com

Libya. Just the mere word itself conjures up negative images, including its leader and ruthless dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the government's participation in terrorism past and present, and Gadhafi's proclamation that Islam should reign from India to Spain. Even now, we watch the events of war in Libya as it races across our TV screens headlining the nightly news, with the ever-increasing conflicts in the Middle East seemingly fulfilling Jesus' phrase "you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars" (Matthew 24:6) thus pointing to His soon return. It would appear to be important enough that the President gave a speech to the world to explain what is going on in Libya and what his plans are for that country. But even as the President has outlined his plans for Libya, I am going to outline God's plans for Libya in the endtime. God has a clear plan for Libya. He has already decreed its outcome through one of the Biblical prophets of old, and God has revealed His 'purpose' in what will be the eventual devastating defeat of Libya...but it won't be done by NATO airplanes nor will it be accomplished through rebel uprisings, neither will it be at the hands of the United States or Israel...God Himself will powerfully intervene.

The country of Libya is in the Bible. Additionally, and unknown to many, it is an important player in the Bible's prophecies of the end of days. It was 2,600 years ago that the prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of the future that most every Biblical scholar agrees is speaking of the time period in which we are currently living.

Specifically, in Ezekiel 38, there is a list of nations that will come together at the end of days for the express purpose of destroying the nation of Israel. Among those nations is Turkey, who is identified by multiple ancient place names/locations that existed within that country's current borders (i.e., Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah). Also, Iran has been singled out by its ancient name Persia, as Iran was called 'Persia' until 1935. Finally, in Ezekiel 38:5, Libya is identified. Some Bible translations use the word Put, which is simply the Hebrew place name for the area currently occupied by present-day Libya. This coalition of nations, and the Bible implies many more nations with them, will make an all-out assault on Israel, intending to destroy her. God told Ezekiel that this event would occur in the "latter years" (Ezekiel 38:8). At the last moment it will look like Israel will be wiped out, but God will intervene and Libya and the other nations, including Iran, will suffer a 7-fold judgement from God - a great earthquake, pestilence, bloodshed, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone (Ezekiel 38:19-22). To be sure, God will not need airplanes and troops to get this accomplished.

The most remarkable thing, though, is that when God makes Libya, Iran, and other nations an example of His divine judgement, is that He also reveals His divine purpose. No less and no more than 7 times, God's perfect number, He makes similar statements as the one found in Ezekiel 39:7, "my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel...and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel." There you have the reason for God's intervention. God's coming judgement on Libya and the other nations with them will be to reveal Himself, to magnify Himself, to reveal His holiness, to glorify Himself, and to make Himself known in the eyes of many nations...all these phrases found in the Book of Ezekiel. God intervenes on behalf of Israel in order to reveal to the nations that He is God alone, that the prophecies of old that spoke of Him are true, and that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah who came to bring salvation to all of mankind.

And you say, "Jesus...in Ezekiel???" Yes! At the end of Ezekiel 39 it says that God will pour out His Spirit upon the house of Israel...and according to the Apostle Peter in the New Testament, only Jesus Christ has been given this authority to pour out the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:33, Peter said, in referring to Jesus upon His resurrection, "...being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He (i.e., Jesus Christ) poured out this which you now see and hear". On that day very soon, Jesus will gloriously reveal Himself to Israel and an unbelieving world as the one true Savior, Lord, Messiah, and God! Additionally, Revival will come to Israel. In Ezekiel 39:28-29, God states, "then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land (prophecy fulfilled May 1948), and left none of them captive any longer. And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, says the Lord God".

Finally, if the nations of the Middle East mentioned in Ezekiel 38 (i.e., Libya, Iran, Turkey, etc.) are right now coming into alignment with each other before our very eyes, and assuming that the incredible event described above occurs sometime during the Great Tribulation period as most Biblical scholars believe, how much closer are we then to the soon return of Jesus Christ when he 'catches away' those who have been 'born again'?

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Theology => Prophecy - Current Events => Topic started by: Soldier4Christ on March 04, 2008, 10:19:39 PM