Archivo de la etiqueta: Israel

West embargoes arms to Syrian rebels over their resale to al Qaeda

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map-syria-rebels-arms-pipeline An Arms Pipeline to the Syrian Rebels
More than 160 military cargo flights for Syria’s rebels, mostly from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have landed in Turkey and Jordan since January 2012.
By Sergio Peçanha – The New York Times

West embargoes arms to Syrian rebels over their resale to al Qaeda

DEBKAfile Special Report, March 30, 2013, 2:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Western arms pipeline to the Syrian rebels fighting Bashar Assad is starting to run dry since the discovery that some of the weapons are being resold and used by al Qaeda in its conquest of southern Syrian and takeover of positions on the Jordanian and Israel borders. French President Francois Hollande for this reason reversed his government’s policy. “We will not do it [send the Syrian rebel arms] as long as we cannot be certain that there is complete control of the situation by the opposition,” he said Friday, March 29.

That day too, Ankara announced that Turkish authorities had impounded 5,000 shotguns, rifles, starting pistols, gunstocks and 10,000 cartridges in the village of Akcakale before they were sent across into Syria.

Debkafile’s military sources: These steps are effectively putting in place a Western embargo on arms supplies to the Syrian rebels and not only the Assad regime. Saudi Arabia and Qatar remain their only sources of weapons.

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Iran Viewpoint

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Jamenei Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Photo: AFP

Iran Viewpoint: Strategic Assessment Of Leader Of Iran’s Latest Remarks 

By Mahdi Mohammadi,  – March 27, 2013

Two years ago, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing the audience at a university in the United States. During that address, he noted that in his opinion, in the absence of a credible military threat to accompany such options as sanctions, negotiations and intelligence operations, it would not be possible to change Iran’s policy on its nuclear energy program.

Since that day, the same allegation has been frequently heard from both Netanyahu and a group of other officials of Israel. It seems that by stressing on the need for credible military threat, they actually mean that a series of measures should be taken to make Iran really believe that in case of the final failure of negotiations as a result of Iran’s intransigent insistence on its positions, the road would end not in the recognition of Iran as a nuclear power, but in inevitable war. Form the viewpoint of Israeli officials, one of the most important problems in the current strategic standoff between the West and Iran is that Iran does not take the West’s threats seriously. By referring to “credible military threat” Israel is only pointing to one thing: the West must pose such a serious threat to Iran that it would be believed and taken seriously by the Islamic Republic.

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El enfado ruso

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cyprus-russian-money_full_600 Un ruso residente en Chipre se manifestaba el viernes pasado, día 22, con una tablet en la que se podía ver al presidente Putin con uniforme. Fotografía: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

El error de cálculo de la Unión con Chipre

Pavel Mása, LIDOVÉ NOVINY, 28 de marzo, 2013

La solución a la crisis chipriota puede considerarse como un intento de la UE para librarse de un paraíso fiscal internacional y limitar la influencia de Rusia en el Mediterráneo. Pero a largo plazo, Moscú podría sacar más partido de esta jugada, advierte un editorialista checo.

Rusia está furiosa. Cuidado, se va a enfadar. La mayoría de los depósitos extranjeros en Chipre pertenecen a empresas rusas (la cantidad total se ha estimado que oscila entre 20.000 y 30.000 millones de euros). El presidente ruso Vladimir Putin y su primer ministro Dimitri Medvedev han indicado claramente que consideraban como un gesto hostil la “confiscación”planificada de parte de los depósitos rusos.

Circassia: Struggling To Return Home

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Circxasianos_Day_National Circassians venerate Day of Commemoration, june 2011. Below is an article published by OnIslam

Circassia: Struggling To Return Home

The conflict in Syria has shown to have a large impact on Circassians and their renewed claims to return to their homeland

The increasing flow of Syrian refugees once again sharpened the Russia so-called “Circassian problem.” This issue comes up from time to time in the Russian public space and makes the Kremlin nervous.

In the 19th century, and after the end of a long and bloody war that resulted in the Russian occupation of Caucasus, the majority of Circassians committed hijra (migration) to the Muslim lands of the Ottoman Empire.

For this reason, today, 90 percent of Circassians live outside Russia, in countries such as Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Kosovo, and even Israel. About 700,000 Circassians live in Russia, with an estimate of several million others living overseas.

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The drone mania

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Drone_stock

When the Whole World Has Drones

The precedents the U.S. has set for robotic warfare may have fearsome consequences as other countries catch up

This article appeared in print as Standard Deviation

Kristin Roberts, National Journal, 22 March, 2013

[An interview with the author]

A slim aircraft glided through Israeli airspace, maintaining low altitude and taking a winding path to avoid detection. It flew over sensitive military installations and was beginning its approach to the Dimona nuclear reactor when it was blown from the sky by the Israel Defense Forces. The plane was pilotless, directed by agents elsewhere, and had been attempting to relay images back home. Whether they were successfully transmitted, Israelis won’t say, perhaps because they don’t know. But here’s what’s certain: It wasn’t American. It wasn’t Russian or Chinese. It was an Iranian drone, assembled in Lebanon and flown by Hezbollah.

The proliferation of drone technology has moved well beyond the control of the United States government and its closest allies. The aircraft are too easy to obtain, with barriers to entry on the production side crumbling too quickly to place limits on the spread of a technology that promises to transform warfare on a global scale. Already, more than 75 countries have remote piloted aircraft. More than 50 nations are building a total of nearly a thousand types. At its last display at a trade show in Beijing, China showed off 25 different unmanned aerial vehicles. Not toys or models, but real flying machines.

It’s a classic and common phase in the life cycle of a military innovation: An advanced country and its weapons developers create a tool, and then others learn how to make their own. But what makes this case rare, and dangerous, is the powerful combination of efficiency and lethality spreading in an environment lacking internationally accepted guidelines on legitimate use. This technology is snowballing through a global arena where the main precedent for its application is the one set by the United States; it’s a precedent Washington does not want anyone following.

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