Iran Massively Ramping Up Arming of Hezbollah in Preparation for Major Assault on Israel - http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/13/israeli-officials-iran-is-massively-ramping-up-arming-of-hezbollah-in-preparation-for-major-assault-on-israel/
Senior Israeli officials warned on Monday evening that, over the last few weeks, Iran has considerably stepped up its operations to arm Hezbollah in order to prepare its terrorist proxy for a large-scale conflict with Israel.
According to the officials, cited by Israel's Channel 2, new intelligence has revealed that Tehran has accelerated its proxy war with Israel on all fronts. Iranian delegations have been arriving in the Gaza Strip, and in recent months, the commander of Iran's Basij paramilitary volunteer militia spoke of arming the residents of the West Bank to rise up against Israel. Iran has reportedly already begun arming members of Hamas in the West Bank.
Iran has also been attempting to establish a new front for Hezbollah with Israel on the Golan Heights, linking it to the existing one in southern Lebanon, according to the report.
Israeli officials have said that the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran, now under discussion in talks between world powers and the Islamic Republic, will release billions of dollars that Tehran will use to finance the arming of its terrorist proxies.
The officials expressed their concerns on the heels of the announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to lift the ban on selling advanced anti-aircraft S-300 systems to Iran. The S-300 is said to be the best defense Iran could possess against Israel's current arsenal of fighter jets, making the task of carrying out a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations far more difficult, if the Israelis make the decision that a military strike is necessary.
Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, tried to calm concerns over the lift of the ban, saying that the S-300 system was designed exclusively for defensive purposes, "and is not intended in any way for offensive purposes, and therefore does not endanger any of the countries in the region, including Israel."
Israelis living and serving security in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip report that Hamas snipers have been harassing them in recent weeks as a scare tactic, which appears to be evolving into a major offensive. Only very few of these incidents have been reported - and dismissed by military officials as "stray bullets" - although witnesses have spotted snipers shooting out of the windows of high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip.
While the rebuilding of terror tunnels which the Israeli military demolished in last summer's war continues apace, the cash-strapped Palestinian extremists have now hit on stealthy sniper fire as a less expensive, less detectable and easier means of unnerving Israelis across the border.
The shooters take aim from a hidden firing position and, before they can be located and pinned down, flit to the next point and resume shooting at an unpredictable target. This tactic is designed to unsettle the Israeli civilians living in the region and the troops securing it, while boosting morale in the ranks of their own military wing after the devastation it suffered last year.
The extensive use of snipers may be Hamas' next surprise tactic for IDF strategists, as they analyze the lessons of the last round of fighting, debkafile's military sources suggest - albeit not the only one. Its military arm is also busy shooting new, more advanced rockets out to sea to test their range.
In the last stage of last year's operation, an IDF Givati Brigade auxiliary company discovered two Austrian Steyr HS.50 snipers rifles in a two-story building outside the southern Gaza town of Khan Younes. This weapon had a basic effective range of around two kilometers using 0.5 inch caliber bullets.
The Austrian manufacturer sold Iran thousands of these sniper's rifles between 2006 and 2009. Only a small part of this transaction was disclosed. However, a substantial quantity was shipped in unopened crates to the Gaza Strip via Sudan and the smuggling tunnels of Sinai to their destination in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' Ezz e-din Al-Qassam armed wing.
To disguise the Steyr's provenance, Hamas pretended it was homemade under the label Ghoul.
If Hamas deployed its large arsenal of hundreds or thousands of Steyr rifles for shooting out of apartment windows, from battle stations or fast-moving vehicles, it could seriously disable Israeli civilian life in towns, villages, on the roads, the railway and the fields around the enclave..
The models the IDF spokesman reported to have reached Hamas are outdated and have undoubtedly been overtaken by a new generation of rifle, which would be semi-automatic, with 1 inch caliber magazines, and an effective range of more than three kilometers. It is likely to be fitted with a thermal laser range-finder for night combat.
If and when the Steyr rifle reaches such West Bank towns as Tulkarm and Qalqilya, Hamas would have a weapon capable of immobilizing Israeli life within a wide radius. The armed sniper's easy mobility would present IDF counter-terror units with a new predicament.
Rafael has developed an electro-optic device called Spotlite which pinpoints snipers with 95 percent accuracy, but it only works after he fires the first shot and stays in place. Once he is on the move, he becomes almost impossible to intercept.
Deal for S-300 batteries was blocked in 2007 amid strong opposition from US and Israel; system could hamper strike on nuclear facilities
President Vladimir Putin on Monday lifted a ban on supplying Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems, the Kremlin said, after Tehran struck a deal with the West over its nuclear program.
Israeli officials responded with dismay to the report, saying the supply, if it goes ahead, would change the balance of power in the region.
Israeli officials said supply of the system to Iran could prevent any military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, Channel 2 news reported. The TV report also cited unnamed American officials responding with concern to the news.
A decree signed by Putin removes a ban on "the shipment from Russia to Iran" of the S-300 missiles, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Russia signed a 2007 contract to sell Tehran the S-300 system, but the weaponry was never delivered amid strong objections by the United States and Israel.
Moscow blocked deliveries of the surface-to-air missiles to Tehran in 2010 after the United Nations slapped sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program barring hi-tech weapons sales.
Iran then filed a $4 billion suit against Moscow at an arbitration court in Geneva.
The decision to lift the delivery freeze comes after Tehran and international powers including Russia made a major breakthrough this month by agreeing an outline deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program.
The Lausanne framework marked a crucial advance in a 12-year standoff between Iran and the West, which disputes Tehran's denial that it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. However, Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have strongly condemned the deal for placing inadequate limitations on Iran's ability to research and produce nuclear weapons.
Global powers must resolve a series of difficult technical issues by a June 30 deadline for a final deal, including the steps for lifting global sanctions imposed on Iran, and lingering questions over the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will have the final say on any deal, has plunged the accord into doubt suggesting that "nothing is binding" while President Hassan Rouhani demanded that sanctions be immediately lifted when any deal is signed.
Global powers Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States have said sanctions will only be gradually eased and want a mechanism to ensure they can be swiftly imposed if Iran breaks its word.
Despite the dispute over the S-300 missiles, Moscow and Iran have remained on good terms, with Russia agreeing to build new nuclear reactors for Tehran and both sides supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The S-300, developed by the Soviet Union in 1979, is a series of Russian long-range surface-to-air missile systems produced by NPO Almaz. The S-300 system was constructed for the Soviet Air Defense Forces in order to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles. Subsequent variations on the model were developed to intercept ballistic missiles.
President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi was spurred Sunday, April 12, to make a clean sweep of his top military intelligence, navy and Second Field Army command (responsible for Sinai and the Suez Canal) by another two deadly attacks in northern Sinai by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the lslamic State's local branch. They claimed 13 deaths, seven of them Egyptian troops, including two officers, and injured more than 50.
The Sinai terrorists have played havoc with Sinai security since pledging loyalty to and gained support from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Egyptian military, even after being substantially reinforced and imposing a state of emergency, has been unable to stem the deadly spiral and paid for it with a heavy toll of casualties.
In the first attack Sunday, six soldiers, including two officers, were killed when a roadside bomb struck their armored vehicle traveling south of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai. Twelve hours later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance of a large police station in el-Arish, killing seven people, including five policemen, and injuring at least 40, many of them civilians.
In a third smaller attack, militants clashed with soldiers at a mobile checkpoint in Rafah, south of el-Arish, wounding one police officer and two soldiers.
Saturday, April 11, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdas, using the methods of its new parent, released a video clip depicting an Egyptian soldier being shot dead and the decapitation of an Egyptian civilian. Both victims were snatched during an attack on April 2, which left 15 soldiers dead, on an Egyptian army position in the El Arish vicinity.
debkafile's military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.
Before the thunder of the blasts died down in Sinai, the Egyptian president announced a major reshuffle of his military, security and intelligence ranks.
The most senior officer to be sacked was military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah El-Badry. He was replaced by Gen. Mohamed al-Shahat, a former commander of the Second Field Army, which is the current backbone of the army force fighting the Islamists terrorists in northern Sinai.
Gen. Nasser al-Assi is the new commander of the Second Army. Our military sources report that al-Assi spent some months in northern Sinai on a personal assignment on behalf of the president and returned to Cairo with new recommendations for combating the terrorists.
In another key change, Rear Admiral Osama El-Gendy was replaced as commander of the Egyptian Navy by Rear Admiral Osama Mounir.
The navy's role is increasingly prominent since Egyptian warships were deployed in the last two weeks off the coast of Yemen to secure the strategically vital Bab el-Mandab Strait -- the gateway to the Suez Canal - against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel control. Their guns have been trained on the Yemeni port of Aden in a running barrage to prevent the rebels and their allies, the mutinous Yemeni army's 212nd Brigade, from overrunning the town.
The Navy's role in the Yemen war makes a change of commanders in mid-combat highly unusual.
However, it had become just as urgent at this stage to shift Rear Adm El-Gendy from the Navy to the top post in the Suez Canal Authority, to take charge of one of the most important seaways in the world, which had became a highway from the rampant smuggling of the arms and fighters nourishing ISIS terrorist outposts in Sinai.
debkafile reports that ships from Libya and Jordan carry the contraband by sea and unload it at secret dropping-off points on the Sinai Peninsula's western Mediterranean and the eastern Gulf of Aqaba coasts. Some of the goods are conveyed from Libya via the Suez Canal via the towns of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, whence smuggling rings based on the banks of the waterway collect them by boat.
Tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Sinai are also an important smuggling route for supplying terrorist groups. The Egyptian military reshuffle was accompanied by an amendment to the penal code by presidential decree which raised the penalty for building or using cross-border tunnels to life in jail. The penalty also applies to people with knowledge of tunnels who fail to report them to the authorities. The Egyptian government was authorized to seize buildings at the top of tunnels and equipment for digging them.
Saudi Arabia's government insists it is not at war with Iran despite its three-week air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, but the kingdom's powerful clerics, and its regional rival's theocratic government, are increasingly presenting the conflict as part of a region-wide battle for the soul of Islam.
The toxic rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is playing out on the battlefields of Yemen and Syria, and in the dysfunctional politics of Iraq and Lebanon, with each side resorting to sectarian rhetoric. Iran and its allies refer to all of their opponents as terrorists and extremists, while Saudi Arabian clerics speak of a regional Persian menace.
The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran does not date back to Islam's 7th century schism, but to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which toppled a U.S.-backed and Saudi-allied monarchy and recast alliances across the region. The standoff worsened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled a Sunni-led dictatorship that had long been seen as a bulwark against Iran's efforts to export its revolution.
But even if today's power struggle has more to do with politics than religion, the unleashing of increasingly sectarian rhetoric on both sides has empowered extremists and made the region's multiplying conflicts even more intractable.
Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe, a Saudi cleric with 12 million Twitter followers and rock star status among ultra-conservative Sunnis, says the Saudi-led coalition launching airstrikes in Yemen is at war with the enemies of Islam. In a sermon viewed nearly 94,000 times on YouTube, he refers to them as "Safawis," a reference to a 16th century Persian dynasty that oversaw the expansion of Shiite Islam.
"It is they, who until today, bow in prayer to shrines," al-Arefe says, referring to the Shiite practice of praying at the tombs of religious figures. Saudi clerics who follow the country's strict Wahhabi doctrine view such rituals as akin to polytheism and advocate the destruction of shrines.
The Saudi government says its coalition of 10 Arab countries is bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen to restore the country's internationally recognized president, who was forced to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and the U.S. accuse Iran of arming the Houthis, but Tehran says it only provides aid and political support.
The Houthis are Zaydis, a Shiite offshoot considered close to Sunni Islam, and Yemen's conflict has less to do with sectarianism than with north-south tensions, political corruption and a flawed post-Arab Spring political transition.
Hard-line Saudi clerics like al-Arefe say their problem is not with Zaydis, who make up about 30 percent of Yemen's population, but with the Houthis, who have been "corrupted" by the ideology of "Safawis," a clear reference to Iran.
"Who are the ones killing us in Iraq today, except them? Who are the ones killing us in the Levant today, except them?" al-Arefe said in the same sermon. In Syria, Saudi Arabia is a leading backer of the mainly Sunni rebels, while Iran is a key ally of President Bashar Assad, who hails from the Alawite community, another Shiite offshoot.
In Iraq, Saudi Arabia has had troubled relations with the Shiite-led government that emerged after the U.S.-led invasion, and which enjoys close relations with Iran. Those tensions burst into the open on Wednesday, when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi defended his country's ties to Iran and said he saw "no logic" in the Saudi operation in Yemen.
Asked about efforts to attain a cease-fire in Yemen, al-Abadi said his understanding from the White House is that "the Saudis are not helpful in this. They don't want a cease-fire now."
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, fired back, saying the Iraqi prime minister is entitled to his opinion about Saudi involvement in Yemen but would be better off focusing on Iraq's domestic problems, in particular its need for reconciliation with Sunnis and Kurds.
Fredric Wehrey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the war on the Houthis has allowed the kingdom to position itself once again as the defender of Islam, particularly after some conservatives were critical of its involvement in U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
"It did stir a lot of ambivalence and even outright criticism from people who say, 'Well you know, ISIS is bad but at least ISIS is standing up to the Shiites and the Iranian menace,'" Wehrey said.
"Now this war on the Houthis is a godsend to them because they are able to stir up this new Saudi nationalism, this pan-Sunni fervor, and it's to show they are defending the Sunnis... for domestic benefit."
Since 1979, Iran has also presented itself as a defender of Islam, not the conservative Saudi version which underpins the monarchy, but a revolutionary interpretation of the faith opposed to Western colonialism, Israel and monarchical rule.
President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, has said the Saudis are colluding with the U.S. to dominate the region. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the Saudi-led airstrikes "genocide" and compared them to Israel's strikes on Gaza during last summer's war with the Palestinian Hamas militant group.
The Saudi-Iranian struggle is playing out across the region. Lebanon has been without a president for nearly a year, as the Iranian-allied Hezbollah and the Saudi-backed Sunni bloc repeatedly fail to reach a compromise.
Kuwait's parliament voted overwhelmingly to join the airstrikes in Yemen, while nine lawmakers -- all Shiite -- voted against, saying the intervention violated the constitution's requirement that the country only engage in defensive wars.
Kuwaiti lawmaker Faisal al-Duwaisan, who voted for military action, said in remarks carried in local papers that "the war is not against Kuwait's Shiites," but that the government should "protect national unity from the treason of Shiites and their insult."
In Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia sent troops to help the Sunni monarchy quell a 2011 uprising by the tiny island's Shiite majority, at least three people have been arrested for criticizing the Yemen airstrikes.
Among those detained is prominent activist Nabeel Rajab, who wrote on Twitter that war only leads to more bloodshed and hatred, and who shared photos of a burnt corpse and a child buried under rubble. He's being investigated for illegally disseminating footage and information related to Bahrain's participation in the airstrikes.
Immediately after the first airstrikes were launched in the early hours of Mar. 26, Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority sanctioned the military operation as a war to defend religion. The Council of Senior Religious Scholars issued a fatwa, or edict, declaring that any soldier killed in the fighting is a "martyr."
"One of the greatest ways to draw closer to God almighty is to defend the sanctity of religion and Muslims," the council's fatwa said.
Saudi Sheikh Naser al-Omar went one step further, telling his 1.65 million Twitter followers that "it is the responsibility of every Muslim to take part in the Islamic world's battle to defeat the Safawis and their sins, and to prevent their corruption on earth."
In a video posted on his Twitter account Tuesday, he tells dozens of Saudi men seated in a mosque that their "brothers" in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan are fighting a jihad, or holy war, against the "Safawis."
"No one can logically imagine that in this battle with the enemies of God, one can't find a place or role to play," he said. "You may not have the ability in direct killing, but... you can help with financial support or with words online."
Senior Israeli officials warned on Monday evening that, over the last few weeks, Iran has considerably stepped up its operations to arm Hezbollah in order to prepare its terrorist proxy for a large-scale conflict with Israel.
According to the officials, cited by Israel's Channel 2, new intelligence has revealed that Tehran has accelerated its proxy war with Israel on all fronts. Iranian delegations have been arriving in the Gaza Strip, and in recent months, the commander of Iran's Basij paramilitary volunteer militia spoke of arming the residents of the West Bank to rise up against Israel. Iran has reportedly already begun arming members of Hamas in the West Bank.
Iran has also been attempting to establish a new front for Hezbollah with Israel on the Golan Heights, linking it to the existing one in southern Lebanon, according to the report.
Israeli officials have said that the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran, now under discussion in talks between world powers and the Islamic Republic, will release billions of dollars that Tehran will use to finance the arming of its terrorist proxies.
The officials expressed their concerns on the heels of the announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to lift the ban on selling advanced anti-aircraft S-300 systems to Iran. The S-300 is said to be the best defense Iran could possess against Israel's current arsenal of fighter jets, making the task of carrying out a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations far more difficult, if the Israelis make the decision that a military strike is necessary.
Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, tried to calm concerns over the lift of the ban, saying that the S-300 system was designed exclusively for defensive purposes, "and is not intended in any way for offensive purposes, and therefore does not endanger any of the countries in the region, including Israel."
Sniper fire from Gaza as part of Hamas' massive buildup for next war - http://www.debka.com/article/24529/Sniper-fire-from-Gaza-as-part-of-Hamas'-massive-buildup-for-next-war
Israelis living and serving security in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip report that Hamas snipers have been harassing them in recent weeks as a scare tactic, which appears to be evolving into a major offensive. Only very few of these incidents have been reported - and dismissed by military officials as "stray bullets" - although witnesses have spotted snipers shooting out of the windows of high-rise buildings in the Gaza Strip.
While the rebuilding of terror tunnels which the Israeli military demolished in last summer's war continues apace, the cash-strapped Palestinian extremists have now hit on stealthy sniper fire as a less expensive, less detectable and easier means of unnerving Israelis across the border.
The shooters take aim from a hidden firing position and, before they can be located and pinned down, flit to the next point and resume shooting at an unpredictable target. This tactic is designed to unsettle the Israeli civilians living in the region and the troops securing it, while boosting morale in the ranks of their own military wing after the devastation it suffered last year.
The extensive use of snipers may be Hamas' next surprise tactic for IDF strategists, as they analyze the lessons of the last round of fighting, debkafile's military sources suggest - albeit not the only one. Its military arm is also busy shooting new, more advanced rockets out to sea to test their range.
In the last stage of last year's operation, an IDF Givati Brigade auxiliary company discovered two Austrian Steyr HS.50 snipers rifles in a two-story building outside the southern Gaza town of Khan Younes. This weapon had a basic effective range of around two kilometers using 0.5 inch caliber bullets.
The Austrian manufacturer sold Iran thousands of these sniper's rifles between 2006 and 2009. Only a small part of this transaction was disclosed. However, a substantial quantity was shipped in unopened crates to the Gaza Strip via Sudan and the smuggling tunnels of Sinai to their destination in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' Ezz e-din Al-Qassam armed wing.
To disguise the Steyr's provenance, Hamas pretended it was homemade under the label Ghoul.
If Hamas deployed its large arsenal of hundreds or thousands of Steyr rifles for shooting out of apartment windows, from battle stations or fast-moving vehicles, it could seriously disable Israeli civilian life in towns, villages, on the roads, the railway and the fields around the enclave..
The models the IDF spokesman reported to have reached Hamas are outdated and have undoubtedly been overtaken by a new generation of rifle, which would be semi-automatic, with 1 inch caliber magazines, and an effective range of more than three kilometers. It is likely to be fitted with a thermal laser range-finder for night combat.
If and when the Steyr rifle reaches such West Bank towns as Tulkarm and Qalqilya, Hamas would have a weapon capable of immobilizing Israeli life within a wide radius. The armed sniper's easy mobility would present IDF counter-terror units with a new predicament.
Rafael has developed an electro-optic device called Spotlite which pinpoints snipers with 95 percent accuracy, but it only works after he fires the first shot and stays in place. Once he is on the move, he becomes almost impossible to intercept.
Israel alarmed at news Russia to supply Iran advanced air defense system - http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-alarmed-at-news-russia-to-supply-iran-advanced-air-defense-system/
Deal for S-300 batteries was blocked in 2007 amid strong opposition from US and Israel; system could hamper strike on nuclear facilities
President Vladimir Putin on Monday lifted a ban on supplying Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems, the Kremlin said, after Tehran struck a deal with the West over its nuclear program.
Israeli officials responded with dismay to the report, saying the supply, if it goes ahead, would change the balance of power in the region.
Israeli officials said supply of the system to Iran could prevent any military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, Channel 2 news reported. The TV report also cited unnamed American officials responding with concern to the news.
A decree signed by Putin removes a ban on "the shipment from Russia to Iran" of the S-300 missiles, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Russia signed a 2007 contract to sell Tehran the S-300 system, but the weaponry was never delivered amid strong objections by the United States and Israel.
Moscow blocked deliveries of the surface-to-air missiles to Tehran in 2010 after the United Nations slapped sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program barring hi-tech weapons sales.
Iran then filed a $4 billion suit against Moscow at an arbitration court in Geneva.
The decision to lift the delivery freeze comes after Tehran and international powers including Russia made a major breakthrough this month by agreeing an outline deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program.
The Lausanne framework marked a crucial advance in a 12-year standoff between Iran and the West, which disputes Tehran's denial that it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. However, Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have strongly condemned the deal for placing inadequate limitations on Iran's ability to research and produce nuclear weapons.
Global powers must resolve a series of difficult technical issues by a June 30 deadline for a final deal, including the steps for lifting global sanctions imposed on Iran, and lingering questions over the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will have the final say on any deal, has plunged the accord into doubt suggesting that "nothing is binding" while President Hassan Rouhani demanded that sanctions be immediately lifted when any deal is signed.
Global powers Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States have said sanctions will only be gradually eased and want a mechanism to ensure they can be swiftly imposed if Iran breaks its word.
Despite the dispute over the S-300 missiles, Moscow and Iran have remained on good terms, with Russia agreeing to build new nuclear reactors for Tehran and both sides supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The S-300, developed by the Soviet Union in 1979, is a series of Russian long-range surface-to-air missile systems produced by NPO Almaz. The S-300 system was constructed for the Soviet Air Defense Forces in order to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles. Subsequent variations on the model were developed to intercept ballistic missiles.
After terrorists claim 13 lives in Sinai, El-Sisi reshuffles top army, navy, intelligence and Suez Canal chiefs - http://www.debka.com/article/24527/After-terrorists-claim-13-lives-in-Sinai-El-Sisi-reshuffles-top-army-navy-intelligence-and-Suez-Canal-chiefs
President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi was spurred Sunday, April 12, to make a clean sweep of his top military intelligence, navy and Second Field Army command (responsible for Sinai and the Suez Canal) by another two deadly attacks in northern Sinai by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the lslamic State's local branch. They claimed 13 deaths, seven of them Egyptian troops, including two officers, and injured more than 50.
The Sinai terrorists have played havoc with Sinai security since pledging loyalty to and gained support from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Egyptian military, even after being substantially reinforced and imposing a state of emergency, has been unable to stem the deadly spiral and paid for it with a heavy toll of casualties.
In the first attack Sunday, six soldiers, including two officers, were killed when a roadside bomb struck their armored vehicle traveling south of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai. Twelve hours later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance of a large police station in el-Arish, killing seven people, including five policemen, and injuring at least 40, many of them civilians.
In a third smaller attack, militants clashed with soldiers at a mobile checkpoint in Rafah, south of el-Arish, wounding one police officer and two soldiers.
Saturday, April 11, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdas, using the methods of its new parent, released a video clip depicting an Egyptian soldier being shot dead and the decapitation of an Egyptian civilian. Both victims were snatched during an attack on April 2, which left 15 soldiers dead, on an Egyptian army position in the El Arish vicinity.
debkafile's military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.
Before the thunder of the blasts died down in Sinai, the Egyptian president announced a major reshuffle of his military, security and intelligence ranks.
The most senior officer to be sacked was military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah El-Badry. He was replaced by Gen. Mohamed al-Shahat, a former commander of the Second Field Army, which is the current backbone of the army force fighting the Islamists terrorists in northern Sinai.
Gen. Nasser al-Assi is the new commander of the Second Army. Our military sources report that al-Assi spent some months in northern Sinai on a personal assignment on behalf of the president and returned to Cairo with new recommendations for combating the terrorists.
In another key change, Rear Admiral Osama El-Gendy was replaced as commander of the Egyptian Navy by Rear Admiral Osama Mounir.
The navy's role is increasingly prominent since Egyptian warships were deployed in the last two weeks off the coast of Yemen to secure the strategically vital Bab el-Mandab Strait -- the gateway to the Suez Canal - against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel control. Their guns have been trained on the Yemeni port of Aden in a running barrage to prevent the rebels and their allies, the mutinous Yemeni army's 212nd Brigade, from overrunning the town.
The Navy's role in the Yemen war makes a change of commanders in mid-combat highly unusual.
However, it had become just as urgent at this stage to shift Rear Adm El-Gendy from the Navy to the top post in the Suez Canal Authority, to take charge of one of the most important seaways in the world, which had became a highway from the rampant smuggling of the arms and fighters nourishing ISIS terrorist outposts in Sinai.
debkafile reports that ships from Libya and Jordan carry the contraband by sea and unload it at secret dropping-off points on the Sinai Peninsula's western Mediterranean and the eastern Gulf of Aqaba coasts. Some of the goods are conveyed from Libya via the Suez Canal via the towns of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, whence smuggling rings based on the banks of the waterway collect them by boat.
Tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Sinai are also an important smuggling route for supplying terrorist groups. The Egyptian military reshuffle was accompanied by an amendment to the penal code by presidential decree which raised the penalty for building or using cross-border tunnels to life in jail. The penalty also applies to people with knowledge of tunnels who fail to report them to the authorities. The Egyptian government was authorized to seize buildings at the top of tunnels and equipment for digging them.
Saudi-Iran Rivalry over Yemen Deepens Mideast Sectarianism - Aya Batrawy - http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/saudi-iran-rivalry-yemen-deepens-mideast-sectarianism-30368937?singlePage=true
Saudi Arabia's government insists it is not at war with Iran despite its three-week air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, but the kingdom's powerful clerics, and its regional rival's theocratic government, are increasingly presenting the conflict as part of a region-wide battle for the soul of Islam.
The toxic rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is playing out on the battlefields of Yemen and Syria, and in the dysfunctional politics of Iraq and Lebanon, with each side resorting to sectarian rhetoric. Iran and its allies refer to all of their opponents as terrorists and extremists, while Saudi Arabian clerics speak of a regional Persian menace.
The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran does not date back to Islam's 7th century schism, but to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which toppled a U.S.-backed and Saudi-allied monarchy and recast alliances across the region. The standoff worsened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled a Sunni-led dictatorship that had long been seen as a bulwark against Iran's efforts to export its revolution.
But even if today's power struggle has more to do with politics than religion, the unleashing of increasingly sectarian rhetoric on both sides has empowered extremists and made the region's multiplying conflicts even more intractable.
Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe, a Saudi cleric with 12 million Twitter followers and rock star status among ultra-conservative Sunnis, says the Saudi-led coalition launching airstrikes in Yemen is at war with the enemies of Islam. In a sermon viewed nearly 94,000 times on YouTube, he refers to them as "Safawis," a reference to a 16th century Persian dynasty that oversaw the expansion of Shiite Islam.
"It is they, who until today, bow in prayer to shrines," al-Arefe says, referring to the Shiite practice of praying at the tombs of religious figures. Saudi clerics who follow the country's strict Wahhabi doctrine view such rituals as akin to polytheism and advocate the destruction of shrines.
The Saudi government says its coalition of 10 Arab countries is bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen to restore the country's internationally recognized president, who was forced to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and the U.S. accuse Iran of arming the Houthis, but Tehran says it only provides aid and political support.
The Houthis are Zaydis, a Shiite offshoot considered close to Sunni Islam, and Yemen's conflict has less to do with sectarianism than with north-south tensions, political corruption and a flawed post-Arab Spring political transition.
Hard-line Saudi clerics like al-Arefe say their problem is not with Zaydis, who make up about 30 percent of Yemen's population, but with the Houthis, who have been "corrupted" by the ideology of "Safawis," a clear reference to Iran.
"Who are the ones killing us in Iraq today, except them? Who are the ones killing us in the Levant today, except them?" al-Arefe said in the same sermon. In Syria, Saudi Arabia is a leading backer of the mainly Sunni rebels, while Iran is a key ally of President Bashar Assad, who hails from the Alawite community, another Shiite offshoot.
In Iraq, Saudi Arabia has had troubled relations with the Shiite-led government that emerged after the U.S.-led invasion, and which enjoys close relations with Iran. Those tensions burst into the open on Wednesday, when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi defended his country's ties to Iran and said he saw "no logic" in the Saudi operation in Yemen.
Asked about efforts to attain a cease-fire in Yemen, al-Abadi said his understanding from the White House is that "the Saudis are not helpful in this. They don't want a cease-fire now."
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, fired back, saying the Iraqi prime minister is entitled to his opinion about Saudi involvement in Yemen but would be better off focusing on Iraq's domestic problems, in particular its need for reconciliation with Sunnis and Kurds.
Fredric Wehrey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the war on the Houthis has allowed the kingdom to position itself once again as the defender of Islam, particularly after some conservatives were critical of its involvement in U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
"It did stir a lot of ambivalence and even outright criticism from people who say, 'Well you know, ISIS is bad but at least ISIS is standing up to the Shiites and the Iranian menace,'" Wehrey said.
"Now this war on the Houthis is a godsend to them because they are able to stir up this new Saudi nationalism, this pan-Sunni fervor, and it's to show they are defending the Sunnis... for domestic benefit."
Since 1979, Iran has also presented itself as a defender of Islam, not the conservative Saudi version which underpins the monarchy, but a revolutionary interpretation of the faith opposed to Western colonialism, Israel and monarchical rule.
President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, has said the Saudis are colluding with the U.S. to dominate the region. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the Saudi-led airstrikes "genocide" and compared them to Israel's strikes on Gaza during last summer's war with the Palestinian Hamas militant group.
The Saudi-Iranian struggle is playing out across the region. Lebanon has been without a president for nearly a year, as the Iranian-allied Hezbollah and the Saudi-backed Sunni bloc repeatedly fail to reach a compromise.
Kuwait's parliament voted overwhelmingly to join the airstrikes in Yemen, while nine lawmakers -- all Shiite -- voted against, saying the intervention violated the constitution's requirement that the country only engage in defensive wars.
Kuwaiti lawmaker Faisal al-Duwaisan, who voted for military action, said in remarks carried in local papers that "the war is not against Kuwait's Shiites," but that the government should "protect national unity from the treason of Shiites and their insult."
In Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia sent troops to help the Sunni monarchy quell a 2011 uprising by the tiny island's Shiite majority, at least three people have been arrested for criticizing the Yemen airstrikes.
Among those detained is prominent activist Nabeel Rajab, who wrote on Twitter that war only leads to more bloodshed and hatred, and who shared photos of a burnt corpse and a child buried under rubble. He's being investigated for illegally disseminating footage and information related to Bahrain's participation in the airstrikes.
Immediately after the first airstrikes were launched in the early hours of Mar. 26, Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority sanctioned the military operation as a war to defend religion. The Council of Senior Religious Scholars issued a fatwa, or edict, declaring that any soldier killed in the fighting is a "martyr."
"One of the greatest ways to draw closer to God almighty is to defend the sanctity of religion and Muslims," the council's fatwa said.
Saudi Sheikh Naser al-Omar went one step further, telling his 1.65 million Twitter followers that "it is the responsibility of every Muslim to take part in the Islamic world's battle to defeat the Safawis and their sins, and to prevent their corruption on earth."
In a video posted on his Twitter account Tuesday, he tells dozens of Saudi men seated in a mosque that their "brothers" in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan are fighting a jihad, or holy war, against the "Safawis."
"No one can logically imagine that in this battle with the enemies of God, one can't find a place or role to play," he said. "You may not have the ability in direct killing, but... you can help with financial support or with words online."
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