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Iran to launch military exercise, test long-range missiles
Photo by: Ho New / Reuters
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was scheduled to launch a large-scale military exercise entitled the “Great Prophet Mohammad War Games 6” on Monday, Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
Revolutionary Guard Brig-Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that the purpose of the drill was to test the IRGC forces defensive preparedness as well as to practice the use of advanced equipment.
Hajizadeh added that Iran’s arsenal of missiles, including the country’s long range missiles, would be tested during the exercise. Among Iran’s arsenal of missiles is the Sajjil, with a range of nearly 2,000 km, which would allow it to Read more…
Netanyahu speech eyed for sign of U.S.-Israel rift
President Barack Obama meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, May 20, 2011.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Congress on Tuesday, many will be watching to see whether he escalates a war of words with the White House over how to make peace in the Middle East.
Netanyahu has a mostly sympathetic ear in Congress, where few lawmakers in either party speak up for the Palestinians, hewing to decades of Read more…
Netanyahu: Israel willing to ‘cede parts of our homeland’ for true peace
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would be prepared to compromise and “cede parts of our homeland” for true peace with the Palestinians, but added that he did not believe the latter was ready to be a true partner for peace.
A Palestinian government that comprises representatives of Hamas, a movement that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, is not a government with which it would be possible to make peace, said Netanyahu.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Knesset, on May 16, 2011. |
| Photo by: Emil Salman |
Addressing the Knesset a day after an unprecedented wave of demonstrations marking Nakba Day, on which Palestinians annually protest the creation of the state of Israel, Netanyahu said Israel must stop blaming itself for the conflict and start looking at the “reality” of the situation with “open eyes”.
The root of conflict was not the absence of a Palestinian state, said Netanyahu, but Palestinian opposition to the creation of the State of Israel.
“This is not a conflict about 1967 but about 1948, when the state of Israel was established,” said Netanyahu. “The Palestinians call this a day of catastrophe, but their catastrophe is that their leadership has not succeeded in reaching a compromise. Still today, they don’t have a leadership Read more…
Egypt and Israel Headed for Crisis
Israeli officials have expressed alarm at a succession of moves by the interim Egyptian government that they fear signal an impending crisis in relations with Cairo.
The widening rift was underscored yesterday when leaders of the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation pact in the Egyptian capital. Egypt’s secret role in brokering the agreement last week caught both Israel and the United States by surprise.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the deal “a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism”.
Several other developments have added to Israeli concerns about its relations with Egypt, including signs that Cairo hopes to renew ties with Iran and renegotiate a long-standing contract to supply Israel with natural gas.
More worrying still to Israeli officials are reported plans by Egyptian authorities to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza, closed for the Read more…
Israel and Hamas Consider Cease-Fire
JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas signaled on Sunday that they were willing to restore calm after days of intense fighting, and while militants in Gaza fired about 10 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, most fell in open areas close to the border and Israel did not immediately respond.
“We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas deputy foreign minister, told Israel Radio Sunday.
That represented a sharp reduction in activity since Hamas fired an antitank missile at an Israeli school bus on Thursday, critically wounding a 16-year-old boy and setting off Israeli aerial, artillery and tank fire against targets in Gaza that killed 18 Palestinians, 10 of whom were militants and the rest civilians, according to officials in Gaza.
Hamas and other militant groups fired about 130 mortar shells and rockets, including several mid-range ones, at southern Israel over the previous three days.
Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Sunday that Israel had received several messages indicating that Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, was interested in a cease-fire.
“If they stop firing on our communities, we will stop firing,” Mr. Barak told Israel Radio.
Hamas spokesmen offered similar messages. Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, told Israel Radio, “We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip, but also that the Israeli Army cease operations against our people.”
Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman, said that Israel appeared to have accepted the idea of reducing hostilities. “The factions will be committed to Read more…
Israel to deploy ‘Iron Dome’ anti-rocket system
“I authorised the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery of “Iron Dome” for an operational trial,” Defence Minister Ehud Barak said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.
The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent days, some of them striking deep into Israel.
The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive.
The system, developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with the help of Read more…
Iran to build permanent naval base in Syria
Just two days after two Iranian warships reached the Syrian port of Latakia via the Suez Canal, Friday, Feb. 25, an Iranian-Syrian naval cooperation accord was signed providing for Iran to build its first Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port, debkafile’s military and Iranian sources reveal.
The base will include a large Iranian Revolutionary Guards weapons depot stocked with hardware chosen by the IRGC subject to prior notification to Damascus. Latakia harbor will be deepened, widened and provided with new “coastal installations” to accommodate the large warships and submarines destined to use these facilities.
Iran has much to celebrate, debkafile’s military sources report. It has acquired its first military foothold on a Mediterranean shore and its first permanent military presence on Syrian soil. Tehran will be setting in place the logistical infrastructure for accommodating incoming Iranian troops to fight in a potential Middle East war.
According to our sources, the Read more…
As Arab world shakes, Iran’s influence grows
Michael Slackman
New York Times
MANAMA, Bahrain — The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said.
While it is far too soon to write the final chapter on the uprisings’ impact, Iran already has benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said. This week Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since its revolution in 1979, and Egypt’s new military leaders allowed them to pass.
Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally and a Sunni nation that jousts with Shiite Iran for regional influence, has been shaken. King Abdullah on Wednesday signaled his concern by announcing a $10 billion increase in welfare spending to help young people marry, buy homes and open businesses, a gesture seen as trying to head off the kind of unrest that fueled protests around Read more…
Earthquake Shakes Up Suez Canal as Iran Warships Approach
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale shook up residents at the entrance to the Suez Canal early Monday morning, 48 hours before two Iranian ships, a frigate and a supply vessel, are expected to enter the canal.
The National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research reported that tremors from the 3 a.m. quake lasted for 27 minutes, but caused no damage.
The ships had originally been expected to enter the Suez today (Monday), but Egyptian officials announced the delay this morning, without explanation.
Iran inexplicably announced Sunday morning that two of its warships had crossed the Suez, a report that was thoroughly denied by Egyptian authorities. Iranian media did not mention the ships on Monday, and the false report may have been Read more…
‘Something big’ transferred to Gaza Strip
Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Egypt and Israel have information a large quantity of weapons, including new and sophisticated firepower, was smuggled from Egypt into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in the last two days, according to informed Middle East security officials.
Israeli security officials fear a growing state of anarchy exists along the Gaza-Egypt border, with Islamist groups there taking advantage of the chaos in Egypt amid mass protests threatening the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian security forces have been focused largely on quelling the riots.
“Something big was brought into the Gaza Strip,” said an informed security official.
The official said it was not known yet exactly what was transferred into Gaza, but he speculated it may have been a large quantity of antiaircraft missiles.
The Sinai borders the Gaza Strip as well as Israel’s southern border with Egypt.
Israeli officials say Israel agreed to allow the Egyptian army to move two battalions, or about 800 soldiers, into the Sharm el-Sheikh area on Sinai’s southern tip, far from Israel.
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