Captured Hamas Operative Reveals Startling Iran Connection, New War Plans - By Ahuva Balofsky -
http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/46746/captured-hamas-terrorist-reveals-startlingly-deep-iran-hamas-relationship-terror-watch/#WlM7KIxtxjD8yjiE.97
"Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Him flee before Him." (Psalms 68:2)
A Hamas operative nabbed by the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and police last month has revealed a wealth of information on the terror group's plans for the future. The news was only cleared for publication Tuesday.
Ibraheem Adel Shehadeh Shaer, 21, a resident of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, was caught in July trying to sneak from Gaza into Israel via the Erez border crossing. Shaer works as a tunnel-digger for Hamas's armed wing, and has also served in the group's logistics support division, helping provide military equipment and explosives to fighters during Operation Protective Edge.
Shaer provided investigators with extensive details of Hamas's emergency procedures, plans for future tunnel use, and working relationship with Iran.
According to a Shin Bet statement, Shaer told investigators he had been working in recent months on some of the terror tunnels being rehabilitated and expanded under the Gaza Strip, and claimed to have been shown a tunnel stretching from Rafah towards the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
He gave security officials information on digging locations, access shafts, diggers and the routes of the tunnels during questioning. Shaer also revealed a new road built not far from the Gaza-Israel border is intended for use in surprise terror attacks, allowing speeding vehicles to storm over the border.
Shaer confirmed that material for Hamas's war infrastructure is being brought into Gaza under the guise of humanitarian reconstruction programs following last summer's Operation Protective Edge. During the 2014 conflict, Israel worked to destroy Hamas's network of terror tunnels, causing the group to change its tactics.
Among other things, Shaer claimed Hamas terrorists have begun keeping explosives in their homes for fear Israel might destroy its weapons caches. Shaer said he had at one point stored several 50-kilogram charges in his home himself.
According to the Shin Bet, Shaer has been involved in various types of warfare training, including combat training, command methods, use of advanced weapons and sabotage. He said he was privy to many details about Hamas activities and the organization's senior figures in recent years, and offered information regarding Hamas's links to Iran.
Shaer told the Shin Bet that Iran has provided cash, advanced weapons, electronic equipment and military training to terror groups in Gaza. The equipment sent was meant to interfere with control signals for Israeli drones flying over the Gaza Strip, while the training included the use of paragliders capable of penetrating Israeli airspace.
In addition, Shaer provided details about Hamas's elite units, its anti-tank and anti-aircraft capabilities, the location of its observation posts, and the three-kilometer range of its photographic capabilities into Israel.
An indictment was filed against Shaer in a Beer Sheva court on July 31, for being a member of, and engaging in activities, with a banned organization, attempted murder, contact with an enemy agent, forbidden military training, and various firearms charges.
Israel is working at speed to convert Boeing 767 into a long-flight refueling tanker - http://www.debka.com/article/24799/Israel-is-working-at-speed-to-convert-Boeing-767-into-a-long-flight-refueling-tanker
US defense and air industry sources report that the Israeli Air Force may give up on the US Boeing's KC-46A Pegasus as its future refueling tanker for long-range flights because of delays in its delivery. Israel had first planned to take the Pegasus to replace its converted Boeing 707 when delivery was first to the US Air Force was scheduled for August 2017. But this week, the company put the date back by another eight months and the price increased by half a billion dollars.
American sources point out that if Israel wants to retain the option of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities when Barack Obama exits the White House in January 2017, it can't wait for the brand-new US Pegasus tanker, which doubles as a military transport plane, to come off the Boeing production line and be delivered to its air force. The Boeing 707 in current service, after a multibillion investment in its conversion to a long-flight refueling tanker, no longer meets the fluctuating conditions in the Middle East. Work is therefore going ahead on the conversion of the Boeing 767 as its replacement.
On July 22, debkafile's military sources revealed a mammoth transaction for Iran to purchase Russian UL78 MK1 (Midas) tankers with a range of 7,300km. (The distance from Iran to Israel is 1,200km). Each tanker is capable of spontaneously feeding 6-8 fighter craft.
This purchase represented Tehran's aspiration - not just to draw level with Israel but to outdo its air force in range and fueling capability. This transaction no doubt spurred the decision by Israel's defense chiefs to go ahead on its own project, instead of waiting for the American KC-46A to become available.
Israel Aerospace Industries [IAI] is therefore working at top speed on the Boeing 767, a long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner with a range of 7,000 to 11,000 km. The converted aircraft will be designated 767-200ER MRTT.
In an interview published by the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Aug. 8, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said: "Ultimately it is very clear, one way or another, Iran's military nuclear program must be stopped. We will act in any way, including taking military action, and are not willing to tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. We prefer that this be done by means of sanctions, but in the end, Israel should be able to defend itself."
After Zarif's visit, Hezbollah troops pulled back from Zabadani in first retreat from Syrian war - http://www.debka.com/article/24811/After-Zarif's-visit-Hizballah-troops-pulled-back-from-Zabadani-in-first-retreat-from-Syrian-war-
A miles-long convoy of 200 trucks began rolling out of the Hezbollah and Syrian positions around the strategic town of Zabadani, 30 km west of Damascus, early Thursday, Aug. 13. Their exit, after failing to break the Syrian rebels' grip on the town in weeks of fierce fighting, marked the Lebanese Hezbollah's first retreat from a major Syrian battleground, debkafile's military and intelligence sources report.
They were the first of the 8,000 Hezbollah troops fighting in Syria for three years to quit and return home to Lebanon. The withdrawal followed the instructions given by the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif after he met Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut Tuesday and President Bashar Assad in Damascus the next day.
It was deemed unavoidable in the light of the Hezbollah army's failure to break through the defenses thrown up by the rebels barricaded in Zabadani, led by the radical Islamist Ahrar al-Sham. Even the elite Radwan Force, designed to conquer the Israeli Galilee, which Nasrallah deployed there two weeks ago made no headway.
According to our military sources, the Hizballah convoy is removing from Syria around 1,000 fighters, and masses of hardware including armored personnel carriers, various types of rockets, heavy artillery (in picture) and crates of ammo.
Extending the 48-hour ceasefire for Zabadani and two other Syrian villages up until Saturday, Aug. 15 - ostensibly for the evacuation of wounded rebels from Zabadani and the supply of food and water to the beleaguered town - was arranged to give Hizballah enough time to organize its withdrawal.
Hezbollah's combat performance on other Syrian warfronts, such as the Qalamoun Mountains on the Lebanese border and the southern town of Deraa, has not been too brilliant either. Most military experts give it a rating of medium minus.
Whether or not Iran's Lebanese proxy goes on to pull all its forces out of the Syrian war depends very much on the behind-the-scenes decisions reached by the US, Russia and Iran in their latest joint initiative for winding down the Syrian war.
Without going into explanations, Zarif gave it straight to Nasrallah and Assad: Just as you trusted Iran before, trust us this time too to look after your interests in the decisions the big powers are making for ending the Syrian war.
The Hezbollah leader has no choice but to obey his masters in Tehran. Assad has more options and his response is yet to come. In more than four years of fighting a full-scale war, the Syrian ruler has proved wily and durable enough to consistently turn military failings into political strengths.
US Secretary of State John Kerry gave the Iranian foreign minister's efforts a hearty vote of confidence when, on Aug. 11, he announced to reporters: "I just got a message today from my counterpart from Iran. He's in Beirut meeting with government officials there. You know where he was last weekend? He was in Kuwait and Qatar. He is reaching out to those countries. Are we going to turn our backs on the possibility that Rouhani and Zarif might in fact want to try a different approach?"
Kerry typically concealed more than he gave away:
1. Zarif's trips were not in pursuit of any "different approach" but a mission to seek out an agreed solution to the Syrian war.
2. He was entrusted this mission jointly by Washington and Moscow, which Kerry is shy to admit, because it would confirm the Obama administration's election of Iran to the rank of top regional power.
3. He omitted to mention Zarif's long conversation with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which hardly attested to Tehran's "different approach."
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY ALL NEW PROPHECY AND CREATION DESIGN WEBSITES. THERE IS A LOT TO SEE AND DO..........
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.