Centaur94

Egypt supporting Israel in efforts to stop Teheran's race to nukes.

2006-09-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913657427&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

IDF tackling Iran's WMD threat
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 19, 2006

With Iran racing to obtain nuclear weapons, the IDF Home Front Command (HFC) has shifted its focus since the war in Lebanon and is now investing most of its efforts in confronting the threat of non-conventional weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a high-ranking officer revealed Monday.

The officer said the HFC was in the process of developing new technological means to deal with chemical and biological threats. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the HFC was in the process of developing mobile air-purification containers that could be brought to areas infected by chemical or biological weapons and purify the air.

# Expert: Tactical nukes needed to blast Iranian defenses

According to an officer involved in the development, the containers would minimize the number of dead and wounded during a chemical attack since they would quickly purify air infected by deadly chemical agents.

Part of the reason for the shift in the HFC's focus was due to the defense establishment's realization that following the war in Lebanon - during which close to 4,000 missiles were fired at the North - Israel was facing a major threat from ballistic missiles. Iran has developed the Shihab-3 missile that can reportedly carry a 500 kg.-650 kg. warhead and has a range of between 1,550 to 1,620 km.

"As was demonstrated during the war in Lebanon, the other side is investing all of its resources in missiles," a high-ranking IAF officer said Monday. "We therefore need to provide answers to deal with this threat offensively but also defensively, once the missiles are already launched."

The growing assessment within the defense establishment is that facing a nuclear Iran, Israel will find itself in a "lose-lose situation," as one senior defense official put it. "If Iran is attacked, long-range missiles will land in Israel," the official said. "If, on the other hand, nothing is done militarily, Israel will find itself under a constant nuclear threat from Iran."

The Post has further learned that in high-level talks with Israeli officials, senior Egyptian officials close to President Hosni Mubarak have given their discreet support for international efforts to stop Iran's race to obtain nuclear capability.

The Egyptian officials told their Israeli counterparts that according to their estimates, Iran will obtain a nuclear bomb within five years and must be stopped. Unlike Egypt, Israel has said that the point of no return regarding Iran's nuclear program was a few months away and at the point when the Islamic Republic would have independent research, development know-how and the ability to continue its program without outside help.

While the Egyptians gave their support to Israeli diplomatic efforts to stop Iran, the officials also called for the denuclearization of the entire Middle East. The assumption within the defense establishment is that an Iranian success at developing nuclear weapons would lead to a race among other countries in the region - including Egypt and possibly Saudi Arabia - to also begin their own independent nuclear programs.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran said that reports it was ready to consider temporarily freezing uranium enrichment were "just a misconception," but did not rule out that the proposal was being discussed in negotiations with Europe.

Iran has been largely silent amid signs from European officials of some progress in the crucial talks over Iran's nuclear program. Europeans are seeking a freeze in enrichment to avoid imposing United Nations sanctions on Iran and allow broader negotiations to begin.

Iran's comments Monday did little to clarify its position on the suspension issue.

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official warned against UN sanctions, saying his country would respond by cutting international inspections of its nuclear program.

Government spokesman Gholan Hossein Elham said in Teheran that any mention of Iran agreeing to suspend its nuclear program, even temporarily, was "just a misconception." Both sides of the negotiation "have not reached any conclusion in this regard," Elham said.

AP contributed to the report.

Sheikh Salah: Jerusalem will be Muslim

2006-09-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

Sheikh Salah: J'lem will be Muslim
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 15, 2006

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913638192&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Sheikh Raid Salah, head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, urged Hizbullah and Hamas not to release kidnapped IDF soldiers Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser, and Gilad Shalit.

Salah declared that the organizations should release the soldiers only after Israel releases all the security prisoners currently incarcerated, and said that Israel should also release Israeli Arabs imprisoned for security reasons.

At the movement's annual rally, held in the soccer stadium in Umm el-Fahm, Salah also said that the day "was not far off" that Israeli rule over the Temple Mount would be thrown off, and Jerusalem would become the capital of a new Muslim caliphate.

Salah said God was punishing former prime minister Ariel Sharon and President Moshe Katsav for their attempts to "harm" the Temple Mount. Katsav's current legal troubles, he said, were a divine punishment for a proposal Katsav had made to divide authority over the Mount between Jews and Muslims.

In response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments about Islam, which have sparked protests throughout the Muslim world, Salah condemned the statements, and hoped that they had been unintentional.

Police said that the rally, which drew about 50,000 people this year, was smaller than in previous years.

things only evil and inhuman -- True today as it was 700 years ago

2006-09-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Debbie Schlussel: Out of Respect for Cemeteries?!: We Did Nothing @ Taliban Funeral

2006-09-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Debbie Schlussel: Out of Respect for Cemeteries?!: We Did Nothing @ Taliban Funeral; They Bomb Other Muslim Funerals

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/001382print.html

By Debbie Schlussel

Isn't it about time we stopped letting our enemies go . . . out of respect for Islam, funerals, Ramadan, women/children, mosques, UAE Princes, etc.? These are all things the Islamofascists DON'T respect when it comes to us or even their fellow Muslims.

Yesterday, on NBC Nightly News (and MSNBC), Kerry Daniels reported that our drones did nothing to Taliban leaders gathered at an Afghani funeral . . . out of respect for cemeteries/funerals and for Islam. Daniels updated his report, this morning, with this drone photo of the funeral.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/talibanfuneral.jpg

talibanfuneral.jpg
U.S. Army Photo Shows Drone View of Taliban Leaders @ Funeral

Reported Sanders:

The picture above, declassified at NBC News' request, shows 190 members of the Taliban at a funeral. It's believed by U.S. Army officers that several of those gathered were top Taliban leaders. But the U.S. was unable to take out the men standing in formation.

Why? Under the rules of engagement, the U.S. cannot bomb a cemetery.

One officer involved says, "We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture." But in the end, that excitement turned to frustration. The unmanned Predator drone, flying undetected overhead, continued to feed back pictures as the Taliban dispersed, heading off in tiny groups, too small to effectively target.

Now, check out the what Taliban Muslims do at other Muslims' funerals/cemeteries. THEY HOMICIDE BOMB THE HELL OUT OF THEM!

Our men are being blown up by their bombs and attacks, and we do nothing because it's a funeral at a cemetery?! It's time to take off the coat and tie and get muddy. Or we will lose this war. And our freedom.

Posted by Debbie on September 13, 2006 11:39 AM to Debbie Schlussel

Bibi: Iran president more dangerous than Hitler

2006-09-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3303129,00.html

Bibi: Iran president more dangerous than Hitler

Likud chairman tells international counter terrorism conference ‘Hitler went out on global campaign first, and then tried to get nuclear weapons. Iran is trying to get nuclear arms first - therefore it is much more dangerous’

Yaakov Lappin
Latest Update: 09.12.06, 21:10

Knesset member Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be more dangerous than Adolf Hitler.

Speaking at the sixth International Counter Terrorism Conference, organized by the Interdisciplinary Center's (IDC) Institute for Counter Terrorism, Netanyahu told the audience: "Al-Qaeda can't develop nuclear weapons, while the militant Shiite movement is galloping forward towards developing nuclear terror."

He added: "Hitler went out on a world campaign first, and then tried to get nuclear weapons. Iran is trying to get nuclear arms first. Therefore from that perspective, it is much more dangerous."

Netanyahu said he was not downplaying the Holocaust. "Hitler was defeated because he could not develop weapons of mass destruction. But Iran stands close to developing nuclear weapons. Does the world understand? In Europe, where I returned from, there are glimpses of understanding," he said.

Preparing the ultimate weapon

"International terrorism is a mistaken term, not because it doesn't exist, but because the problem is international militant Islam. That is the movement… that operates terror on the international level, and that is the movement that is preparing the ultimate terror, nuclear terrorism," Netanyahu said.

The opposition chairman warned that if international terrorism goes nuclear, it could turn "the terror we know today to something marginal."

He described the "Iranian component" as the most "dangerous and fanatical component."

Netanyahu added that Sunni al-Qaeda and Shiite Iran were "competing for the leadership of the combative Islamist movement."

"The free world, when faced with fanatical ideologies, and when it understood the danger, eventually used its power to remove the danger. It won in the war against Nazism and communism in the Cold War. I believe that here too there will be a victory," Netanyahu said.

He described the 9/11 attacks on New York, using "two fully fuelled passenger 150 ton aircrafts to smash into the Twin towers" as the "equivalent of a tactical small nuclear bomb. But no one questions that if they had nuclear weapons, al-Qaeda would have wiped out Manhattan, and wiped out a good portion of Washington."

Describing the psychology of militant Islam as "pathological," Netanyahu said the difference between Islamism and communism was the willingness of Islamists to commit suicide, and the "love of death."

'Suicidal regime'

While the Soviet Union in history backed away from self destruction, Netanyahu said, the West may now be facing a "suicidal regime" in the form of Iran, which is willing to sacrifice itself for its ideology. Recognizing the danger was the first step in dealing with it, he added.

Professor Raymond Tanter, Founder of the Iran Policy Committee, expressed hope that the Iranian people and anti-regime movements would themselves topple the Iranian regime, which he branded as "fascist."

"I think military action is highly problematic, diplomacy is failing, sanctions won't work either," Tanter said. He argued that Iranian opposition movements should be removed from the terror list, and be allowed to work freely to bring down the Iranian government.

The conference on global terrorism attracted representatives of militaries and governments from around the world, including Berham A. Sahukar, a retired Indian army Lieutenant Colonel from the Parachute Regiment.

Speaking to Ynetnews, Sahukar addressed some of the similar threats faced by both India and Israel.

"The major threat that we both face, though it is similar, but different in a way, is the threat of Islamic radicalism, the Islamist threat of terrorism, and the constraint of countering both these threats as democracies – both Israel and India are thriving secular democracies, which value human rights to a very great extent. We have an additional constraint, in that we have a very large Muslim population, the second largest Muslim population after Indonesia, and most of them are moderate Muslims, who we don't want to radicalize at all."

Sahukar added that both Israel and India faced the threat of non-conventional terrorism, either biological, chemical, or nuclear, coming from "Someone setting off something in Kashmir or even in Delhi. Many Islamist groups operating from Pakistan view India, the US, and Israel as one entity against Islam. Many of the Pakistani terrorist group websites show the flags of India, Pakistan, and Israel being skewered by the sword of Islam."

Addressing the threat posed by al-Qaeda to Israel, Colonel (Res.) Lior Lotan, Executive Director of the ICT, said that while al-Qaeda initially chose to attack the "far enemy," the United States, it has now set its sight on the near enemy, moderate Arab states and Israel: "The capability is there. The motivation is increased. Most importantly, Israel as a target came from the bottom to being a top priority. I say to the Israeli authorities, we should never fear to deal with this, and we never deal with it out of fear."

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Iran resumed weapons airlift to Hizballah

2006-09-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Iran resumed weapons airlift to Hizballah via Beirut Friday as soon as Israel ended its air blockade

http://debka.com/headline_print.php?hid=3238

September 9, 2006, 11:41 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran’s first post-blockade arms flight departed Dubai Friday, Sept. 8, to test the ground at Beirut international airport for Israeli air force or UN reactions. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the forbidden goods were unloaded and sailed through the airport unhindered. Tehran therefore determined to send two further bulk consignments in the next 48 hours aboard commercial flights from the Persian Gulf. Our sources report the arms crates listed were on the documents as “computer equipment. Handle with care.” They were offloaded onto trucks which drove in convoy to Hizballah headquarters in Baalbek. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, determined to end Israel’s air blockade on Lebanon, promised solemnly that UN monitors would control incoming passengers and goods at Beirut airport. But he failed to make the Siniora government follow through on this pledge. The Lebanese prime minister immediately barred the airport to UN inspections. The five German air monitors agreed on were only allowed to establish a checkpoint for controlling arms smuggling at a distance of one kilometer from the international airport. DEBKAfile reports they are standing idle because the trucks carrying forbidden cargoes are able leave the airfield and bypass their checkpoint by alternative routes. At the same time, DEBKAfile’s diplomatic sources report the Israeli government and the UN are colluding to present the expanded UNIFIL project as a big success and a satisfactory formula for enabling Israeli troops to quit Lebanon and fully implementing UN resolution 1701. In actual fact, the UN deployment by land and sea does nothing to curtail Hizballah’s recovery and rearming. Its only achievement thus far is the acceleration of Israel’s disengagement from the Lebanon scene empty-handed. Our military sources disclose that Iran is sending Hizballah fresh supplies of anti-tank weapons and for the first time a large quantity of anti-air missiles. The war materiel is coming in by land, sea and air. The promised Italian, French and Greek rival presence, on the strength of which Israel lifted its air blockade, has been pushed by the Lebanese government out to sea and restricted to a 12-km radius from the coast. The European warships can keep an eye on big freighters approaching Lebanese ports, but cannot keep track of the small vessels reaching Lebanon ports from the northern Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia. That is where Iranian cargo vessels have been unloading large quantities of arms for Hizballah outside the European fleets’ limits in the last two weeks. Furthermore, Friday, as soon as Israel was persuaded to lift its sea blockade, three Lebanese and Syrian ships crammed with arms for Hizballah departed the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli and after a short voyage hugging the Lebanese coast put into the southern Lebanese port of Sidon, where willing Hizballah hands unloaded their cargo. On land, the Lebanese-Syrian border is wide open. Three or four arms truck convoys cross into Lebanon every day.

Read in Russian

2006-09-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

Read in Russian

http://www.online-translator.com/url/tran_url.asp?lang=en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcentaur94.blogspot.com%2F&amp;amp;direction=er&template=General&cp1=NO&cp2=NO&autotranslate=on&psubmit2.x=55&psubmit2.y=13

http://www.online-translator.com/srvurl.asp?lang=en

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's cluster bombs limit defeated!

2006-09-06T21:29:00.000-07:00

Senate Rejects Limits on Cluster Bombs
- By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, September 6, 2006

(09-06) 16:25 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules.

On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.

Unexploded cluster bombs — anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area — litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon after Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah militants.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have long sought to keep cluster bombs from being used near concentrated areas of civilians. They say that as many as 40 percent of the munitions fail to detonate on impact — they can still can explode later — leaving innocent civilians and children vulnerable to injury or death long after hostilities have ceased.

Relief organizations and the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center reported finding evidence that Israel used three types of U.S.-made cluster bombs during the war with Hezbollah militants. Israel also manufactures its own cluster munitions.

"For too long, innocent civilians, not enemy combatants, have suffered the majority of casualties from cluster munitions," Leahy said. "The recent experience in Lebanon is only the latest example of the appalling human toll of injury and death. Strict rules of engagement are long overdue."

But Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said, "The rules of engagement properly belong with the Department of Defense and the commander in chief."

Stevens argued that the amendment would restrict "the ability of our military to use these munitions to protect our people."

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/09/06/national/w095205D51.DTL

Al-Qaida terrorist has Jewish roots - Adam Yehiye Gadahn

2006-09-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaida terrorist has Jewish roots

JPost Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST

Sep. 3, 2006

A man who starred in a video released by al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri on Saturday, inviting Americans to convert to Islam, has been identified as Adam Yehiye Gadahn, an American with Jewish ancestry.

According to Wikipedia, he was born Adam Pearlman on September 1, 1978, the grandson of a prominent Jewish surgeon and the son of musician Phil Pearlman, who converted to Christianity and changed his named to Gadahn (apparently derived from the Biblical figure Gideon.) He grew up in Santa Ana, California, converted to Islam and, in 1995, posted an essay on the USC Web site describing his conversion. According to his parents, Gadahn moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghani refugee.

The FBI believes he attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator and English spokesman.

It was the second time Gadahn has appeared in the same video with Zawahri. In a July 7 video marking the one-year anniversary of bombings against the London transit system, Gadahn said no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525995106&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

2006-09-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

'Hezbollah is arming Gaza for a new war on Israel', says Israel's spy chief
By Michael Hirst and Clancy Chassay

(Filed: 03/09/2006)

Israel's spy chief has given a warning that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip are garnering increasing numbers of weapons and tactical expertise from Hezbollah fighters since the war in southern Lebanon erupted earlier this summer.

Yuval Diskin, the director of Shin Bet, Israel's equivalent of MI5, said Egypt's Sinai Peninsula was being used as a terrorist base and fast becoming a haven for arms smugglers preparing to shift their wares into the Gaza Strip.

He added that within Gaza terrorists were building rocket hideouts, a bunker network and an anti-tank missile arsenal as they prepared for an escalated confrontation with Israel.

(read more here...)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/03/wmid03.xml&site=5&page=0

How UNIFIL helped Hezbollah

2006-08-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/622bqwjn.asp?pg=1

What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47

DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N.
"peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly
published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to
Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli
troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly
2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the
Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet,
throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see
precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces
soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even
specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of
their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old
when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence
regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah
"fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and
Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from
various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side
ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of
official information was available in real time. But the specific
military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N.
source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not
publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the
European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions
of concern for the safety of Israeli troops, provided the IDF
intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government
websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day
by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government
representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at
least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior
military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave
danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military
official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been
provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the
war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where
Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were
firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never
described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity
whatsoever.

Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL
posting from July 25:

Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant
reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel
carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside
Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint
Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.

Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF
stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly
reinforced during the night and this morning with a number of tanks
and armored personnel carriers."

This partiality is inconsistent not only with UNIFIL's mission but
also with its own stated policies. In a telling incident just a few
years back, UNIFIL vigorously insisted on its "neutral ity"--at
Israel's expense.

On October 7, 2000, three IDF soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah
just yards from a UNIFIL shelter and dragged across the border into
Lebanon, where they disappeared. The U.N. was thought to have
videotaped the incident or its immediate aftermath. Rather than help
Israel rescue its kidnapped soldiers by providing this evidence,
however, the U.N. obstructed the Israeli investigation.

For months the Israeli government pleaded with the U.N. to turn over
any videotape that might shed light on the location and condition of
its missing men. And for nine months the U.N. stonewalled, insisting
first that no such tape existed, then that just one tape existed, and
eventually conceding that there were two more tapes. During those nine
months, clips from the videotapes were shown on Syrian and Lebanese
television.

Explaining their eventual about-face, U.N. officials said the decision
had been made by the on-site commanders that it was not their
responsibility to provide the material to Israel; indeed, that to do
so would violate the peacekeeping mandate, which required "full
impartiality and objectivity." The U.N. report on the incident was
adamant that its force had "to ensure that military and other
sensitive information remains in their domain and is not passed to
parties to a conflict."

Stymied in its efforts to recover the men while they were still alive,
Israel ultimately agreed to an exchange in January 2004: It released
429 Arab prisoners and detainees, among them convicted terrorists, and
the bodies of 60 Lebanese decedents and members of Hezbollah, in
exchange for the bodies of the three soldiers. Blame for the deaths of
those three Israelis can be laid, at least in part, at the feet of the
U.N., which went to the wall defending its inviolable pledge never to
share military intelligence about one party with another.

UNIFIL has just done what it then vowed it could never do. Once again,
it has acted to shield one side in the conflict and to harm the other.
Why is this permitted? For that matter, how did the U.N. obtain such
detailed and timely military intelligence in the first place, before
broadcasting it for Israel's enemies to see?

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is president of the Zionist Organization of
America, Greater Philadelphia District.

(c) Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.