Islamic State Jihadist on Eilat Rocket Attack: 'The Jewish Enemy Should Anticipate More' - by Aaron Klein and Ali Waked - http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/02/09/exclusive-islamic-state-jihadist-eilat-rocket-attack-jewish-enemy-anticipate/
Wednesday's rocket fire on the Israeli resort city of Eilat was "a natural reaction" to alleged Israeli involvement with the Egyptian army's clampdown on Sinai militants, Abu Baker Almaqdesi, a Gaza-based jihadist who fought for the Islamic State, told Breitbart Jerusalem in an interview.
Late on Wednesday, four rockets were launched toward the southern city, three of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. No damage or injuries were reported. Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic State Sinai Province posted an online statement taking credit for the rocket salvo aimed at Eilat.
Almaqdisi previously fought for IS in Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq, where he says he was injured.
Without offering evidence, Almaqdesi claimed that in recent days Israel Air Force drones have taken part in raids on chapters of Wilayat Sinai, the Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate. Some of the casualties, he claimed, were Gazans.
Breitbart Jerusalem submitted a request to the Israel Defense Forces for comment on the allegations of drone strikes in the Sinai.
Using anti-Semitic language, Almaqdesi, who spoke to Breitbart Jerusalem in Arabic, claimed that "the Jewish entity" - referring to Israel - "never stopped assisting the Egyptian army of infidels in their war against the mujahedeen, and tonight's salvo on Umm Rashrash [Eilat's Arabic name] was a natural reaction to those crimes."
The jihadist claimed the Eilat rocket attack wasn't a precedent. "Earlier this month, we fired at the Elojah crossing [between Egypt and Israel]. Our brothers are determined to continue to react to the crimes of the Jews, and we'll continue to launch rockets at Israel despite their airborne operations and despite the strain of the Egyptian army of infidels."
Almaqdesi claimed that only three days ago, an Israeli drone fired at a house in the Egyptian Sinai, which happened to be empty and therefore no injuries were caused.
"The Jewish enemy continues its attack on the mujahedeen and innocent civilians, so they should anticipate more from our brothers the Sinai mujahedeen."
Asked whether they plan large-scale attacks on Israel, Almaqdesi said: "It's the decision of the brothers in the leadership, but it is clear to all that the Jewish entity is just one player in the war on Islam. Though a major one. Therefore, no option is off the table. It's true that the Jewish police arrest our mujahedeen even inside Palestine and the forces of the treacherous collaborator Abu Mazen do it too, and even those who are falsely called Muslims in Gaza fight against us. But our organization proved that we could strike anywhere in the world. I can tell you that our weapons are now aimed at Israel more than ever before."
The Islamic State Sinai Province on Thursday released a statement taking credit the Eilat rocket attack: "A military squad fired a number of Grad rockets at communities of Jewish usurpers in the town of Eilat."
The group said the rocket attacks were meant "to teach the Jews and the crusaders a proxy war will not avail them of anything."
"The future will be more calamitous with Allah's permission," the statement said.
In a news-making interview last March, Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a Salafist movement senior official in the Gaza Strip allied with IS, threatened that it is only a matter of time before the Islamic State's branch in the Egyptian Sinai carries out a "big operation" in the Israeli resort town of Eilat and other parts of southern Israel.
Ansari was speaking on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio." He has since been arrested by Hamas and is reportedly in a jail in the Gaza Strip.
Is Iran Preparing for War? Tehran Conducts Second Missile Test in As Many Weeks, Report Says - By Marcy Kreiter - http://www.ibtimes.com/iran-preparing-war-tehran-conducts-second-missile-test-many-weeks-report-says-2488921
Iran conducted a missile test Wednesday in defiance of U.S. warnings against such actions, Fox News reported.
The test was conducted on the Semnan launch pad, the same launch pad from which a ballistic missile was fired last month, prompting the Trump administration to impose new sanctions, sources told Fox News. The launch pad is 140 miles east of Tehran.
Wednesday's test was of a short-range Mersad surface-to-air missile, which came down 35 miles away, a U.S. official told Fox.
Iran's Jan. 29 test involved a medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting and a statement from national security adviser Michael Flynn putting the Islamic Republic "on notice."
U.N. Resolution 2231 asks Iran not to conduct ballistic missile tests but does not prohibit them. The resolution was adopted days after acceptance of the nuclear deal that rolled back Tehran's nuclear program.
Iranian officials said they have the right to conduct missile tests.
The Treasury Department Friday imposed sanctions against multiple entities and individuals involved "in procuring technology and/or materials to support Iran's ballistic missile program, as well as for acting for or on behalf of, or providing support to, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force." Some of the companies hit are Chinese, prompting complaints from Bejing.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed the U.S. actions, saying Iran is not afraid of President Donald Trump and U.S. enmity against his country never has eased, Xinhua reported.
"Iran would not be crippled by the enemies," Khamenei vowed as the country prepared to celebrate the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution Friday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Lu Kang criticized the sanctions, saying they "harm the interests of a third party" and are "not helpful."
Trump has threatened to tear up the nuclear deal, which was reached in July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Tuesday Iran is not inclined to renegotiate the deal.
"It's clear that neither Iran nor Europe will accept a re-examination of the deal. So, we have difficult days ahead," Zarif said.
Trump has called the deal a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated."
Russia to give Syrian army high-precision weapons - http://www.debka.com/article/25918/Russia-to-give-Syrian-army-high-precision-weapons
Moscow signaled on Wednesday, February 8, that it has started - or is about to start - supplying precision weapons to the Syrian military in order to boost its capabilities against the Islamic State organization.
It came in an announcement by Ilyas Umakhanov, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council, who said, "Russia will continue an asymmetrical response (to terrorism) in Syria, which may include the regrouping of forces and means...and of course the supply of high-precision weapons to the Syrian government."
He added that "It is impossible to defeat terrorism only by efforts of one country. Terrorism has assumed a global character and, having achieved obvious victory in one place, there is no reason to create additional vacuums where terrorists can resume military operations."
It is clear that Umakhanov was referring to two main topics:
1. Military cooperation by the US, Russia, Syria and Turkey in the war against ISIS, with the first signs already visible on the fronts in northern and eastern Syria.
2. Russian estimation of the need to supply the Syrian military with the most advanced weapons to ramp up its capabilities to the same level as those of the other militaries taking part in the war against ISIS in Syria.
According to Russian media reports on Feb. 8, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said recently that more than 160 types of advanced weapons have been tested in the course of Moscow's military intervention in Syria, which started in September 2015. The reports did not specify where or when Shoigu made the comment.
debkafile's military and intelligence sources reveal the types of weapons that the Russians have decided to send the Syrian army.
They include small drones armed with precision bombs; shoulder-fired, laser-guided antitank and antiaircraft missiles; "loitering munitions" which follow their targets after being dropped from planes; small unmanned vehicles for clearing tunnels; advanced night vision equipment; laser and infrared sights; intelligence systems for locating targets; and long-range sniper rifles.
Loitering munitions combine the traits of missiles, drones and bombs. They are dropped from a plane and then controlled by a soldier on the ground or in the air. They can fly for many hours as long as they have enough fuel and electricity. The munitions use a GPS system to show their precise location, and are usually fitted with a video camera which shows targets in real time in high resolution, even in poor weather conditions or at night, via remote control.
As soon as the target is identified, the bomb is directed to its target, such as the window of a building, an armored vehicle or a group of fighters. In addition to the target, all of the bomb's sensors are destroyed when the bomb explodes.
Russia's announcement was a complete surprise to the highest levels of the Israeli government and military. During the six years of the Syrian civil war, the IDF, particularly its intelligence bodies and its air force, made great efforts to prevent the flow of such precision weapons to the Syrian military and to the Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria.
But now that the Russians have announced that they will provide those weapons to the Syrian military, it is obvious that some of the arms are bound to fall into the hands of the Iranians and Hezbollah.
Is a new Middle East war on Israel's horizon? - Jonathan Marcus - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38891358
The current frontier with Syria - the young lieutenant points out - is about a third of the way up the opposite escarpment. And just a couple of kilometers beyond that is another ridge, which is Jordan.
This is Israel's front line with Syria. The Syrian army was evicted from the Golan Heights when Israeli forces captured it in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israeli law was extended there in 1981 - effectively annexing this crucial strategic high ground. It is now a heavily fortified area.
We pull up alongside a platoon of Merkava tanks, key sensors and weaponry shrouded in tarpaulin covers against the winter damp.
Once things were fairly simple here. Israel faced the Syrian army across the ceasefire demarcation lines, monitored by UN observers.
But there was almost no need for them. This was Israel's most peaceful frontier since 1973. But the civil wars in Syria and the collapse of Syrian government control in many areas have changed all that.
'Closer than ever'
The geography here is not the only thing that is complicated. The war in Syria has altered the strategic map as well.
Opposite the southern Golan the ground is held by a local force - the Yarmouk Martyr's Brigade - which owes its allegiance to so-called Islamic State. Israeli troops see its fighters exercising and monitoring their positions, but there is rarely trouble.
What alarms Israel most is what is happening further north, with the victory of Syrian government forces backed by Iran and Tehran's ally, the Lebanese Shia militia group, Hezbollah.
Professor Asher Susser, a senior fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, summed it up in one sentence.
"The changes in Syria," he told me, "have brought Iran closer to Israel's borders than ever."
He told me that at least in theory it creates "the possibility of Iranian-Hezbollah co-operation not only along the border between Israel and Lebanon but along the border between Israel and Syria as well".
In his view there is "a dangerous potential for a long border from the Mediterranean, across Lebanon and Syria, with Hezbollah and Iran at very close quarters with Israel.
"Israel," he stressed, "has never faced that kind of situation on its northern border before."
'Iranian corridor'
So what exactly is Tehran's goal in Syria? For an answer I turned to Ehud Yaari, veteran Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel 2 Television News.
"The strategic objective of the Iranians today," he told me, "is to establish a land corridor between Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon; to reach the Mediterranean and the Israeli frontier."
This land corridor, he explained would go "from Iran via the Shia regions of Iraq, through the western Iraqi desert, linking up with Assad and Hezbollah.
"This," he stressed, "is strategically the major threat to Israel today".
Iran of course is not the only foreign country involved in the fighting in Syria.
Russian air power - along with Hezbollah fighters and other Shia militias on the ground - played a decisive role in propping up the Assad regime.
Russia has twice announced the scaling down of its military deployments, but actually shows every sign of being in Syria to stay.
Russian complication
The presence of Russian aircraft and especially long-range radars and air defense missiles greatly complicates the threat environment facing the Israeli air force.
It has struck at arms shipments going from the Syrians to Hezbollah on several occasions, having set a "red line" that rejects the transfer of sophisticated missile systems to the Shia militia.
Ehud Yaari told me that the presence of the Russians has not significantly affected the Israeli Air Force's freedom of action over southern Syria.
"There is an understanding," he explains, "a sort of a hotline between Israel and Russia where a Russian-speaking Israeli Air Force officer and a Russian officer in Syria are coordinating and making sure that you don't have any mishaps."
This arrangement, he insists, is working and this is fundamentally because the Russians' strategic interests and those of Iran are very different.
Mr Yaari says that the Russians are not very interested in protecting Hezbollah arms shipments or the security situation south of Damascus, close to the Israeli border.
Widening threat
How big a threat is all of this to Israel? A series of military briefings suggests that Hezbollah and its growing armament is seen as perhaps the primary challenge to Israel's security.
Hezbollah, due to its training and equipment, is now viewed as a fully-fledged army rather than a semi-amateur militia.
"It has lost heavily in the Syrian fighting but it has also gained invaluable combat experience," a brigadier told me.
It has established a well-entrenched infrastructure in southern Lebanon with a huge arsenal of missiles of varying ranges.
The fear among Israeli military experts is that under Iranian tutelage it might seek to establish a similar platform for operations in Syria as well.
There is a precedent here as Ehud Yaari explains.
"The major concern now is that the Syrian regime will be able to negotiate deals with the different factions of the rebels in the southern region of Syria so that they withdraw from border areas.
"This," he says, "is exactly what happened in other areas of Syria, especially in the countryside around Damascus."
Such a move could open the way to the entrenchment of Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards or other Shia militias sponsored by Iran in the south.
Putin key
At present this is more a potential rather than an actual threat.
Professor Asher Susser told me that, in the long-run, much depends upon how the Russians play the game of regional alliances.
"If the Russians and the Turks are on one side of the equation and the Iranians on the other," he told me, "that may put a limit on what it is that the Iranians can achieve."
This is why he believes that Israel's contacts with Moscow are so important.
"This," he told me, "is a relationship that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reinforced over the last year or two.
"Mr Putin and the Russians," he says, "have an understanding of Israel's strategic needs which, if they take them into consideration, may put a brake on this Iranian-Syrian project."
Nobody knows when or how the fighting in Syria will end. Several Israeli experts I spoke to hope for some kind of regional deal that might constrain the freedom of movement of Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
But agreement or not, the new actors on Israel's frontiers present a new and more complicated set of challenges.
Missiles need only 7 minutes to hit Tel Aviv - http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-official-only-7-minutes-needed-for-missile-to-hit-tel-aviv/
Mojtaba Zonour threatens attack on Israel if US launches military strike on Islamic Republic
A senior Iranian government official on Saturday warned Tehran would swiftly retaliate against Israel if the US launched a military strike against Iran.
Mojtaba Zonour, a member of Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and a former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps official, boasted an Iranian missile could hit Tel Aviv in under seven minutes, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Zonour said Tehran would strike the Israeli coastal city and "raze to the ground" a US military base in Bahrain "if the enemy makes a mistake."
"And only seven minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv," he added.
Zonour's comments came during a Revolutionary Guard military exercise aimed at testing its missile and radar systems. The exercise was taking place in a 35,000-square-kilometer (13,515-square-mile) area in Semnan province in northern Iran.
The Saturday exercise came a day after US President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions on Iran in response to a recent missile test. The sanctions target more than two dozen people and companies from the Persian Gulf to China.
On Saturday, another senior IRGC official issued a similar warning against the US.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Guard's airspace division, said: "If the enemy makes a mistake, our roaring missiles will come down on them," according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Hajizadeh said Washington criticism of recent Iranian missile tests was "a pretext to show their animosity towards us; we are making round-the-clock efforts to defend our country's security and if the enemy dares to make any mistake our roaring missiles will land on them."
Iran last Sunday test-fired a medium range missile, which the White House contends violated a UN Security Council resolution proscribing missiles that could carry a nuclear device.
The Islamic Republic has confirmed it tested a ballistic missile but denied it was a breach of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers or UN resolutions.
The Coming Clash with Iran - By Pat Buchanan - http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=993
When Gen. Michael Flynn marched into the White House Briefing Room to declare that "we are officially putting Iran on notice," he drew a red line for President Trump. In tweeting the threat, Trump agreed.
His credibility is now on the line.
And what triggered this virtual ultimatum?
Iran-backed Houthi rebels, said Flynn, attacked a Saudi warship, and Tehran tested a missile, undermining "security, prosperity and stability throughout the Middle East," placing "American lives at risk."
But how so?
The Saudis have been bombing the Houthi rebels and ravaging their country, Yemen, for two years. Are the Saudis entitled to immunity from retaliation in wars they start?
Where is the evidence Iran had a role in the Red Sea attack on the Saudi ship? And why would President Trump make this war his war?
As for the Iranian missile test, a 2015 U.N. resolution "called upon" Iran not to test nuclear-capable missiles. It did not forbid Iran from testing conventional missiles, which Tehran insists this was.
Is the United States making new demands on Iran not written into the nuclear treaty or international law - to provoke a confrontation?
Did Flynn coordinate with our allies about this warning of possible military action against Iran? Is NATO obligated to join any action we might take?
Or are we going to carry out any retaliation alone, as our NATO allies observe, while the Israelis, Gulf Arabs, Saudis and the Beltway War Party, which wishes to be rid of Trump, cheer him on?
Bibi Netanyahu hailed Flynn's statement, calling Iran's missile test a flagrant violation of the U.N. resolution and declaring, "Iranian aggression must not go unanswered." By whom, besides us?
The Saudi king spoke with Trump Sunday. Did he persuade the president to get America more engaged against Iran?
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker is among those delighted with the White House warning:
"No longer will Iran be given a pass for its repeated ballistic missile violations, continued support of terrorism, human rights abuses and other hostile activities that threaten international peace and security."
The problem with making a threat public - Iran is "on notice" - is that it makes it almost impossible for Iran, or Trump, to back away.
Tehran seems almost obliged to defy it, especially the demand that it cease testing conventional missiles for its own defense.
This U.S. threat will surely strengthen those Iranians opposed to the nuclear deal and who wish to see its architects, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, thrown out in this year's elections.
If Rex Tillerson is not to become a wartime secretary of state like Colin Powell or Dean Rusk, he is going to have to speak to the Iranians, not with defiant declarations, but in a diplomatic dialogue.
Tillerson, of course, is on record as saying the Chinese should be blocked from visiting the half-dozen fortified islets they have built on rocks and reefs in the South China Sea.
A prediction: The Chinese will not be departing from their islands, and the Iranians will defy the U.S. threat against testing their missiles.
Wednesday's White House statement makes a collision with Iran almost unavoidable, and a war with Iran quite possible.
Why did Trump and Flynn feel the need to do this now?
There is an awful lot already on the foreign-policy plate of the new president after only two weeks, as pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine are firing artillery again, and North Korea's nuclear missile threat, which, unlike Iran's, is real, has yet to be addressed.
High among the reasons that many supported Trump was his understanding that George W. Bush blundered horribly in launching an unprovoked and unnecessary war on Iraq.
Along with the 15-year war in Afghanistan and our wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen, our 21st-century U.S. Mideast wars have cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of dead. And they have produced a harvest of hatred of America that was exploited by al-Qaida and ISIS to recruit jihadists to murder and massacre Westerners.
Osama's bin Laden's greatest achievement was not to bring down the twin towers and kill 3,000 Americans, but to goad America into plunging headlong into the Middle East, a reckless and ruinous adventure that ended her post-Cold War global primacy.
Unlike the other candidates, Trump seemed to recognize this.
It was thought he would disengage us from these wars, not rattle a saber at an Iran that is three times the size of Iraq and has as its primary weapons supplier and partner Vladimir Putin's Russia.
When Barack Obama drew his red line against Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war, and Assad appeared to cross it, Obama discovered that his countrymen wanted no part of the war that his military action might bring on.
President Obama backed down - in humiliation.
Neither the Ayatollah Khamenei nor Trump appears to be in a mood to back away, especially now that the president has made the threat public.
IDF Conducts Drill Simulating Large-Scale Hamas Infiltration Of Southern Israel - by Jack Tonhaben - http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/02/05/idf-conducts-drill-simulating-large-scale-hamas-infiltration-southern-israel/
The IDF last week conducted a five-day drill simulating a confrontation with Hamas including infiltrations by Hamas terrorist commandos on land, sea and air.
The Gaza Division's large-scale exercise, held once a year, included hundreds of reserve soldiers.
According to a report in Hebrew-language website Ynet, it included scenarios in which dozens of terrorists enter Jewish communities through several entry points - attack tunnels, paragliders, and the sea.
Forces also drilled operating under incessant rocket and mortar fire on the Gaza periphery communities and the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon.
According to Ynet, there are fears Hamas may begin its next confrontation with a heavy barrage of bombs on border communities in an effort to debilitate army forces from responding.
During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, five Hamas marine commandos tried to infiltrate Kibbutz Zikim before they were killed by the IDF.
Israel's defense establishment has warned that the army must especially prepare for the strengthening of Hamas's marine commando unit, which is believed to have more divers today than during the 2014 war.
The drill included special units of the IDF, as well as the mandatory service battalions that routinely patrol and secure the Gaza Strip border fence and the communities close to the border.
The army also practiced an orderly evacuation of communities close to the border according to a plan formulated over the past year by the IDF's Home Front command and Southern Command.
"The Gaza Division drill was an excellent opportunity to strengthen the readiness and capabilities of the division's men in mandatory and reserve service. The division simulated various scenarios in its entire territory," said IDF Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Yehuda Fuchs.
The large-scale exercise was planned in advance as part of the IDF's annual training program.
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