Israel and Syria - Several news items that look towards Isaiah 17

[Shammu]

'Syria won't hesitate to a start war with Israel to regain Golan'
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST    Oct. 6, 2007

Syria will not hesitate to start a war with Israel in order to restore its control over the Golan Heights, A-Baath, the official newspaper of President Bashar Assad's government, warned Saturday.

In an article to mark 34 years since the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, A-Baath said: "Our people and our leadership are determined to liberate our conquered lands using all means, methods and ways."

Meanwhile, ABC News quoted American officials as saying that the IAF raid in Syria during September was planned for several months and was postponed a number of times due to heavy US pressure.

According to the report, Israel presented US officials with satellite imagery which clearly showed North Korean nuclear technology in a Syrian facility. According to a US source, Washington officials were astonished by the imagery and by the fact US intelligence had not picked up on the facility previously.

"Israel tends to be very thorough about its intelligence coverage, particularly when it takes a major military step, so they would not have acted without data from several sources," said ABC News military consultant Tony Cordesman.

A different source told ABC News that Israel had planned the strike as early as July 14, and in confidential meetings with high ranking US officials, debated over the appropriate response. Several officials supported Israel's decision to strike, although others, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, firmly opposed it and offered to publicly condemn Syria for operating a nuclear facility instead.

US officials who initially opposed the raid, according to ABC , apparently feared the negative influence it might have over the whole region. Consequently, officials in Washington persuaded Israel to push back the raid, but in September, Israel feared that information about the facility might be leaked to the press, and went ahead with the strike, despite objections by Washington.

'Syria won't hesitate to a start war with Israel to regain Golan'

[Shammu]

This should be interesting to see where this leads.....

A top Turkish official warned Thursday that consequences "won't be pleasant" if the full House approves the resolution.

"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said Egemen Bagis, foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball."

There is some very threatening language by Turkey in this news!!

I know that Iraq needed to be neutralized -- and they ARE neutralized now. There is no organization, that entire nation is herding cats (without electric or water...)

Egypt neutralized -- check
Jordan neutralized -- check
Iraq neutralized -- check

Turkey as ticked off as possible and willing to join the troops? -- check

I can't think of any other countries that need to turn on a dime for this, but if there are, I am sure that our congressional people will find a way!

I trust the Lord in this and am in awe at how it is all lining up, and admit that I am amused that our government is playing the useless fool in making it happen.

Remember Turkey is apart of the revived Roman empire.

[Shammu]

UN nuclear agency seeks details on Syria

Mon Oct 15, 10:38 AM ET

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday it has no information to support a recent media report that Syria may be building a nuclear reactor, but said it expects any country that has details to share them with the agency.

"We would obviously investigate any relevant information coming our way," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

In what appeared to be an indirect rebuke to the U.S., Fleming said in a statement that the nuclear agency "expects any country having information about nuclear-related activities in another country to provide that information to the IAEA."

The New York Times, citing U.S. and foreign officials, reported Sunday that an Israeli airstrike on Syria last month targeted a partially built nuclear reactor that was years away from completion.

It said the nuclear reactor was modeled on one North Korea had used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, though the role of any North Korean assistance in building it remained unclear. North Korea has denied involvement in any such activities in Syria.

Satellite photographs detected the partly constructed Syrian reactor earlier this year, the Times said, citing American officials.

The Syrian reactor was years away from being able to produce spent nuclear fuel that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium, the newspaper said.

Syria's nuclear program has long been considered minimal, and the country is known to have only a small research reactor.

"The IAEA has no information about any undeclared nuclear facility in Syria and no information about recent reports," Fleming said.

She said the agency was in contact with Syrian authorities to verify the authenticity of the report.

UN nuclear agency seeks details on Syria

[Shammu]

Syrian officials admit site attacked by Israel nuclear

Israeli reps at UN Disarmament Commission meeting overhear Syrian official say facility targeted by Air Force last month nuclear
Ynet

Syrian officials have admitted that the site attacked by the Israeli air force last month was a nuclear facility, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, three Israeli diplomats present at a recent United Nations Disarmament Commission meeting overheard the Syrian representative clearly say that Israel's attack targeted a nuclear facility.

The Israeli delegation to the talks, headed by Miriam Ziv, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director general for strategic affairs, accused Syria of smuggling mass amounts of weapons into Lebanon in violation of the UN Security Council's resolution. In response a Syrian representative said Israel was the aggressor and mentioned its attack on a "nuclear facility."

Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari also took part in the meeting.

According to foreign sources, Israel launched the attack on the suspected nuclear site near Dayr az-Zwar in northern Syria a few days after a shipment of nuclear material arrived there from North Korea.

Until now Syria has vehemently denied the existence of a nuclear project in its territory, claiming the site in Dayr az-Zwar was actually an agricultural research facility.

Syrian officials admit site attacked by Israel nuclear

[nChrist]

Oooooooophs!  Syria lied!  Who would have THUNK it possible?   

EVERYONE!

[Shammu]

N.Korean, Syrian officials hold talks

Sat Oct 20, 9:23 PM ET

DAMASCUS, Syria - A high-level North Korean official held talks in Damascus on Saturday with senior officials of Syria's ruling Baath Party on ways to develop relations between the two countries, Syria's official news agency reported.

Neither Choe Thae Bok, the speaker of North Korea's parliament, nor his Syrian hosts made any mention of suspicions in Western media that the two countries might be cooperating on a secret nuclear program. The suspicions grew after an Israeli airstrike on a target in Syria last month.

Choe held separate talks in Damascus with Abdullah al-Ahmar and Mohammed Saeed Bkheitan, both assistant heads of the Baath Party command. His delegation also visited Quneitra, on the Syrian side of Golan Heights and reaffirmed North Korea's support for Syria's efforts to regain the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

In their meeting, Al-Ahmar and Choe discussed how "the policies of aggression, occupation and hegemony" were causing threats to security and stability in the region and world, SANA said.

The news agency said Choe also expressed support for Syria's efforts to "confront the external schemes surrounding the region." The report did not elaborate.

Choe's trip comes amid lingering suspicions that North Korea may be providing nuclear assistance to Syria.

Israeli warplanes struck a target deep in northeastern Syria on Sept. 6. Israel gave no more details, and Syria had said it was an unused military building that was hit.

Since the bombing, however, Western news media have quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying that the airstrike hit some sort of nuclear facility linked to North Korea, which is now in the process of dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

On Friday, The Washington Post cited American officials as saying the site in Syria's eastern desert near the Euphrates River had characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor similar to North Korea's facility.

North Korea provides missile technology to Syria, but has strongly denied accusations that it has shared its nuclear expertise with other countries. Syria also has denied receiving any North Korean nuclear help or embarking on any nuclear program.

The two countries accused U.S. officials of spreading the allegations for political reasons.

Last month, a high-level Syrian delegation visited Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

North Korean state media said Choe's current overseas trip will also include a visit to Italy.

N.Korean, Syrian officials hold talks

[Shammu]

Meridor: We must be ready to preempt threats
Hilary leila krieger, jerusalem post correspondent
THE JERUSALEM POST
Oct. 23, 2007

Israeli Ambassador to the US Sallai Meridor declared Monday that Israel should always be prepared "to preempt, to deter and to defeat if we can" when speaking about the threats facing the country.

Chief among those threats was Iran, said Meridor, who called for a unified international as well as domestic American front to counter the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

"This will take a united United States on this matter, that they would not have the illusion today that come January '09, they [Teheran] have it their own way," he said, referring to the inauguration of President George W. Bush's successor, who could potentially change US policy on Iran.

Meridor said "very little time" remained to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to avoid the worst-case scenarios, outlined by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of an Iranian bomb or a war with Iran.

"There may be a third way still, but only if the diplomatic and economic steps could be dramatically - not incrementally - intensified," he said, adding that 33 percent of Iran's trade is with Europe.

Meridor's comments appeared to put Israel at odds with America's approach to UN Security Council sanctions, in which the US is pushing for a gradual increase of pressure on Iran through a series of sanctions resolutions so long as Teheran refuses to halt uranium enrichment. A third such resolution is currently being considered.

Israeli sources said that to their knowledge the administration is also calling for tougher sanctions.

The ambassador said Iran would only stop its quest for nuclear capabilities when "the cost [is at] a level that in their minds will put at risk the accomplishments of the [1979 Islamic] revolution."

Meridor began his remarks at an American Jewish Committee luncheon by saying, "As strong as we are, we should always be prepared to preempt, to deter, to defeat if we can, to protect, and not assume that threats have evaporated. They have not."

The ambassador's comments come two days after outgoing Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, during a visit to Washington, also pointed to preemption as an option for Israel, though he was speaking about Lebanon as opposed to the general strategic picture painted by Meridor.

The talk comes amid growing speculation on how far the US and Israel will go to prevent a nuclear Iran and whether effective preemptive military action is possible. The White House tried Monday to tamp down accusations that the administration was ratcheting up the rhetoric on Iran and paving the way for a strike on its nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, US Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at the same Washington Institute for Near East Policy conference as Kaplinsky, declared, "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." His remarks followed Bush's own warning that a Teheran with nuclear know-how could lead to World War III.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto rejected the depiction of Cheney's comments as "stepping up rhetoric," instead characterizing them as a reiteration of long-standing American policy.

Meridor: We must be ready to preempt threats

[Shammu]

Syrian general to pilots, Be prepared for war

In a speech at flight school graduation, Syrian chief of staff tells new pilots 'we'll never relinquish our right to return occupied land'

Roee Nahmias
Latest Update:    10.23.07, 13:19
Israel News

"Be prepared to fend off all external aggression that seeks to harm the homeland," General Ali Khabib, the Syrian chief of staff, instructed pilots at a ceremony marking their graduation from flight school Monday.

He also told the pilots to "maintain a high level of readiness and always be ready for the homeland's calling".

"Syria will never relinquish its right to return occupied land," the general continued. "As President Bashar al-Assad emphasized, Syria is interested in gaining back of all of its rights – including the return of all of its territory and sovereignty."

During his speech—a month-and-a-half after an IAF raid deep into Syria—Khabib also attacked the US: "The mask has been removed from the real intentions of the US and her allies in their invasion of Iraq.

"This has allowed Arabs to understand the Zionist plans and plots in the region and has made clear that talks about peace and about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not genuine and are merely attempts to market what is being referred to as a 'peace conference," he said.

The general concluded by saying that "they are neglecting the main principle of the conflict in their attempts to solve it—the need to end the Zionist occupation of conquered Arab territory in accordance with international resolutions."

Syrian general to pilots, Be prepared for war

[Shammu]

Syria to issue ID cards to Golan residents

1 hour, 39 minutes ago

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ordered ID cards to be granted to Syrians citizens living in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.

"The Syrian president has issued orders to grant Syrian ID cards to Syrian citizens of the occupied Golan Heights," the official news agency reported.

The move aims to "ease the suffering" of the Druze people living on the Golan, caused by "harassment and Israeli human rights violations," SANA added.

The Golan Heights was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed in 1981 despite UN Security Council resolutions demanding a withdrawal from occupied territories in exchange for peace.

More than 18,000 Syrians -- most of them Druze, a sect of Islam -- live on the Golan and have refused to take Israeli nationality.

Israel and Syria remain officially at war. Peace talks between the two countries collapsed in 2000 over the status of the Golan, and each country blames the other for tensions in the Middle East.

Syria to issue ID cards to Golan residents

[Shammu]

Israeli media hears Syrian call for war

By Stan Goodenough
Oct 23, 2007

A speech by the Syrian chief of staff was interpreted by Israeli journalists Tuesday as a call for that country's air force to prepare for war with Israel.

The Ynetnews website quoted General Ali Khabib telling graduating pilots they need to "be prepared to fend off all external aggression that seeks to harm the homeland."

"Syria is interested in gaining back of all of its rights – including the return of all of its territory and sovereignty," the general said, referring to the Golan Heights which Israel captured and extended sovereignty over four decades ago after the Syrians used it as a platform from which to attack the Jewish state.

Syria occupied the heights for just 19 years.

Tension between the two countries has ebbed and flowed since earlier this year when Israeli intelligence services first reported that Damascus dictator Bashar el-Assad was looking for a fight.

In the ensuing months, IDF tank units have on the Golan have been bolstered, and Israel has carried out a number of large-scale military exercises under the very noses of the Syrians.

For its part, Syria has reportedly been deploying SCUD surface-to-surface missiles –some reports say with non-conventional warheads - as well as advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft batteries, in readiness for conflict. Documents of state have been moved out of the Syria capital, and areas that for four decades have been virtually no-man's-land - like the town of Kuneitra - have suddenly come back to life.

While some Syrian officials have said that their country is only preparing for a defensive war in the event of an Israeli attack, other voices have been more belligerent, with some threatening to start a war of attrition similar to the Lebanese Hizb'allah in order to drive Israel off the Golan.

Analysts believe Assad may need to make some sort of military move to quell accusations of weak leadership at home.

Israeli media hears Syrian call for war

[Shammu]

General Ali Khabib telling graduating pilots they need to "be prepared to fend off all external aggression that seeks to harm the homeland."

Khabib sounds like his Iranian friend, the Hitler wanna-be himself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Syria has made her bed of sins, just as all other nations have. Khabib will have a new outlook on all of this soon, I'm sure. I pray that many unbelievers would understand the Truth before it is too late for them. The real problem at the heart of the Arab/Israeli conflict is godlessness and unbelief. Their love has grown cold and peace is not found within them.

[Shammu]

In a war, Syria can strike anywhere in Israel

By Reuven Pedatzur

The next war with Syria, if there is one, will be different from every other war we have known. Granted, there might be tank battles on the Golan Heights, as in the past, but it is doubtful that the war will take place solely at the front, while the civilian rear stays out of it.

If, as expected, the fighting expands to include the home front, residents of Haifa, Hadera and Tel Aviv will be targets for the Syrian army's rockets and missiles. Anyone who wants to imagine what is liable to happen in the streets of our cities if war breaks out with Syria and degenerates into mutual attacks on the civilian rear need not look far. The 4,000 rockets Hezbollah launched during the Second Lebanon War, which paralyzed the lives of some one million residents of the North, provide an example of an attack on Israel's home front.

The Syrian army has about 1,000 ballistic missiles of the Scud B, C and D models, whose ranges are between 300 and 700 kilometers. These missiles can reach anyplace in Israel (the distance from the southern Golan Heights to Tel Aviv is some 150 kilometers). The Syrian missiles are armed with chemical warheads, and Syria is also thought to have experimented with biological weapons. To these must be added Syria's SS-21 missiles, which have a shorter range (about 80 kilometers), but are much more accurate. The Ramat David airfield, for instance, is within range of these missiles. And, having learned a lesson from the Second Lebanon War, the Syrians have protected their missiles by putting them into concrete bunkers.

Even more problematic, from the Israel Defense Forces' perspective, is the Syrian army's store of rockets. Faced with thousands of rockets, both 220mm (whose range is about 70 kilometers) and 302mm (with a range of 90 kilometers), the IDF has no real answer - just as it had no answer to the thousands of rockets launched by Hezbollah. And to these must be added Hezbollah's approximately 20,000 rockets, which the organization will almost certainly use if war breaks out: Cooperation between Syria and Hezbollah has grown even closer since the war.

The Israel Air Force will try to destroy the ballistic missiles and their launchers (the launchers number no more than a few dozen), but it will be powerless in the face of thousands of rockets.

Over the last decade, the Syrian army has gradually become less armored and less mechanized; it is more and more based on infantry, commando units and antitank weapons. The idea behind this structural change is that Syrian forces will wage a defensive war on the Golan Heights and thereby bleed the IDF. The plan is to let the IDF attack and then engage in "close combat," during which they will wear out the attacking forces via numerous antitank missiles borne by infantry troops, including the advanced Metis and Kornet models.

In addition, the Syrian army has positioned tens of thousands of BM-21 rockets, which have a range of about 20 kilometers, at the front. These are liable to exact an extremely heavy price from the IDF.

In recent years, many villages, containing thousands of houses, have been built on the Syrian heights. If the IDF advances toward Damascus, it will have to fight in a built-up area. The residents will be evacuated as soon as the fighting begins, and they will be replaced by Syrian commandos, who will lie in wait for the IDF's tanks and armored personnel carriers. Numerous irrigation channels, dug in order to water the local fields and orchards, will also constitute a barrier against the IDF's tanks.

Therefore, every possible scenario for a war with Syria indicates that the price paid by the IDF, and almost certainly by the civilian rear as well, will be extremely high. Those who failed in a war against a guerrilla organization numbering only a few hundred fighters ought to be very cautious about going to war against a regular army that has learned the lessons of the Lebanon war and intends to exploit every Israeli weakness that it revealed.

In a war, Syria can strike anywhere in Israel

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters, the below portion of Scripture says it all:
______________________________________

Isaiah 17:1 NASB  The oracle concerning Damascus. "Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city And will become a fallen ruin.

Isaiah 17:2 NASB  "The cities of Aroer are forsaken; They will be for flocks to lie down in, And there will be no one to frighten them.

Isaiah 17:3 NASB  "The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, And sovereignty from Damascus And the remnant of Aram; They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel," Declares the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 17:4 NASB  Now in that day the glory of Jacob will fade, And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

Isaiah 17:5 NASB  It will be even like the reaper gathering the standing grain, As his arm harvests the ears, Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain In the valley of Rephaim.

Isaiah 17:6 NASB  Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree, Two or three olives on the topmost bough, Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree, Declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

Isaiah 17:7 NASB  In that day man will have regard for his Maker And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 17:8 NASB  He will not have regard for the altars, the work of his hands, Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, Even the Asherim and incense stands.

Isaiah 17:9 NASB  In that day their strong cities will be like forsaken places in the forest, Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel; And the land will be a desolation.

Isaiah 17:10 NASB  For you have forgotten the God of your salvation And have not remembered the rock of your refuge. Therefore you plant delightful plants And set them with vine slips of a strange god.

Isaiah 17:11 NASB  In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in, And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom; But the harvest will be a heap In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

Isaiah 17:12 NASB  Alas, the uproar of many peoples Who roar like the roaring of the seas, And the rumbling of nations Who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!

Isaiah 17:13 NASB  The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters, But He will rebuke them and they will flee far away, And be chased like chaff in the mountains before the wind, Or like whirling dust before a gale.

Isaiah 17:14 NASB  At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning they are no more. Such will be the portion of those who plunder us And the lot of those who pillage us.

[Shammu]

More Nuclear Sites in Syria?
10-25-2007 16:32:59

While proof of a Syrian nuclear site is trickling down, including in this Washington Post article, the question now remains: what exactly do we know about the Syrian nuclear program?

Last night, The Croissant ran a story from the Kuwaiti Al Seyassah about potential new secret nuclear sites in Syria. Here is an excerpt:

Western sources think that Syrian intelligence provided some information on the facility bombed on September 6 by the Israeli air force in order to focus the attention just on this particular site while work goes on at other secret sites. Observation satellites have allegedly located in Syria at least 2 other sites similar to the one destroyed last month.

Back in December 2006, I wrote an article for The Examiner on Syria's nuclear program. Here is an excerpt:

Indeed, while world attention is rightly focused on the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea, Syria has been quietly -- but quickly -- advancing its own secret nuclear program.

The first signs appeared in 2003 when the Russian Foreign Ministry inadvertently revealed that a Russian-Syrian agreement for the delivery of a nuclear power plant in an undisclosed Syrian location had been signed.

In 2004, Syrian President Bashar Assad made a point to say that Syria would not dispose of its WMD program until Israel did the same. "Since some of my country is occupied," Assad added, "Syria can legitimately use all the necessary means to liberate its territories."

German magazine Der Spiegel revealed in March 2004 that Swedish authorities and the CIA were investigating a very likely Syrian nuclear program secretly developed in Homs in the northern part of the country. That July, investigators looking into the Pakistani nuclear network of A.Q. Khan pointed out that Syria may have procured centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to produce a bomb.

This fact was confirmed in May 2006 in a declassified report to the U.S. Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria also got help from Saddam Hussein's regime.

Keep in mind that Syria's economy was very dependent on Iraq's trade, especially oil-smuggling revenues. Sunday Telegraph journalist Con Coughlin affirmed in a September 2004 article that 12 Iraqi nuclear scientists -- who were transferred to Syria and given new identities before the war -- were on their way to Iran to assist their counterparts there in building a nuclear weapon. "The results of the research would then be shared with Syria," Coughlin added.

But what really broke the camel's back was a recent report from the well-informed Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al Seyassah. It quoted European intelligence sources as saying that "Syria has an advanced nuclear program" in a secret site located in the province of Al Hassaka, close to the Turkish and Iraqi borders. British sources quoted by the paper believe that "it is President Assad's brother, Colonel Maher Assad and his cousin Rami Makhlouf, who supervise the program."

More Nuclear Sites in Syria?

[Shammu]

IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria

Mohamed ElBaradei accuses Jewish state of 'taking the law into its own hands', says 'if countries have information that another country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us'
AFP

Chief UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei Sunday accused Israel of taking "the law into their own hands" with a raid on Syria, and demanded more information about what was hit.

Neither Israel nor the United States has furnished "any evidence at all" to prove that the Syrian site bombed last month was a secret nuclear facility, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

"That, to me, is very distressful because we have a system; if countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate," he said.

"But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community."

Israel has said it bombed a military target inside Syria September 6, but has provided no additional details, amid speculation that the target may have been a site storing nuclear materials from North Korea.

ElBaradei said he had been told by Syria that the site was a military facility and "has nothing to do with nuclear."

"I would hope if anybody has information, before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on," he said.

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has acknowledged for the first time that Israeli warplanes may have violated Turkey's airspace during the incursion into Syria, an official said Sunday.

Olmert apologized to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the two men met in London Tuesday, the Israeli official said.

Turkey had demanded an explanation from Israel after it was embarrassed by the discovery of jettisoned fuel tanks on its territory in the aftermath of the raid.

IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria