 Did some of the alleged spies help Israel with its bombing of Lebanon in 2006? Israel's ability to wage another war against the militant Shia movement Hezbollah may have been compromised by an unprecedented wave of arrests of people in Lebanon alleged to have been spying for the Israelis. Experts say the arrests appear to add up to a major strategic blow to Israel. Mobile phone footage circulating in Beirut shows one of the suspected agents being slapped and insulted as he was manhandled out of his house and into the boot of a car. Lebanese newspapers have reported that more than 40 members of more than a dozen spy networks have been detained so far in a campaign that has gathered pace over the past six weeks, and shows no sign of stopping. Israel has so far made no public comment on what could be one of its worst-ever intelligence setbacks.
Hardly a day goes by without agents from the Lebanese police, army or general security raiding homes or workplaces in different parts of the country, and taking suspects away. It could be a butcher or pharmacist in a remote south Lebanese village, a customs official in eastern Baalbek, or a high-ranking army officer from the north. Several alleged agents who knew they were on the wanted list fled across the border to Israel. Lebanon has asked the United Nations forces in the south, Unifil, to get them back. Some of those detained are suspected of providing Israel with information enabling it to strike Hezbollah targets during the 2006 war, which saw dozens of buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs and other parts of the country destroyed by Israeli air or missile strikes. Others are alleged to have been involved in trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of Hezbollah or other militant leaders past and present, including the current Hezbollah chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Surprise suspects Those detained have not been seen since they were taken away, and lawyers have not had access to them. But details of the allegations and reported confessions have leaked out in Lebanese newspaper reports as interrogations continue at army and police centres. The net has appeared to spread ever wider and has produced many surprise suspects. A retired general from the Internal Security Forces, Adib al-Alam, and his wife were among the earlier detentions. Reports alleged he had confessed to being an Israeli informant for the past 15 years. Lifelong militant Newspapers reported another startling penetration among the most recent arrests - a highly-decorated, twice-wounded Lebanese army colonel from the Christian area of Akkar in northern Lebanon, who commanded the military's Special Forces school.
Another unusual suspect was Ziad al-Homsi, the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a Sunni town in the eastern Beqaa valley. The townspeople were stunned and angered by his detention by army intelligence agents in the middle of the night. Mr al-Homsi, 60, was a pillar of his community and a lifelong militant for pan-Arab causes, who had trained at a Soviet military academy. The walls of his house are adorned with pictures of him as a young fighter battling the Israelis in south Lebanon, including one taken with Yasser Arafat in the Arqoub mountains there as long ago as 1969. "How can they accuse a man like him, who spent all his history fighting Israel, of working with the Israelis?" asked his daughter Salma. "My dad is innocent," she insisted. "There is no evidence that proclaims that he is spying for Israel. I think he is a victim of the elections in Lebanon." Mr al-Homsi was associated with the western-backed, anti-Syrian "14th of March" coalition that is fighting to retain its narrow majority in national elections on 7 June. Surveillance gadgets But the coalition did not take up his cause, and the arrests in general have not become an election issue, because they have been across the board - Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Palestinians are all among those detained, with no obvious political or sectarian bias. Lebanese security forces displayed hi-tech communication and surveillance gadgets said to have been found concealed in the homes of some of the suspects.
Explaining the sudden spectacular rash of arrests, Lebanese officials have said that unspecified technological breakthroughs made it all possible. That may be so. But many unanswered questions remain. One of the basic principles in setting up espionage networks is that their cells should not be linked in any way, so that the discovery of one does not lead to the kind of wider collapse that seems now to be taking place. Did the Israelis - who have said nothing to discredit the daily revelations in Beirut - break that fundamental rule? "Certainly it seems to have been a systemic failure by Israel," said security expert Alastair Crooke, who focuses on Islamic movements. "Maybe it was a chance find, maybe it was from one person that they interrogated leading to the uncovering of many others, but that in itself would be highly unusual." Most likely, the arrests were the product of months, perhaps several years, of counter-intelligence work. Present and vigilant But by whom? Is it just coincidence that the various different arms of Lebanese security suddenly began making this series of surprise detentions? Or were they being primed by other intelligence services? Hezbollah's own role remains obscure. Lebanese officials say it has not been involved in the campaign, and it has certainly taken a low and ostensibly passive profile during the revelations.
But Hezbollah is present and vigilant in many of the areas concerned. It also has strong ties with Iran and Syria, whose intelligence services are no slouches. One Lebanese analyst even went so far as to suggest that events may have come full cycle. Before the 1979 revolution in Iran, Israel's Mossad was deeply involved in training and advising the Shah's dreaded secret police, Savak - a legacy of expertise inherited by Tehran's current Islamic rulers, who were instrumental in establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon and retain very close ties with the movement. Whatever the case, the head of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces, Gen. Ashraf Rifi, said the dismantling of so many networks amounted to a strategic blow of the utmost seriousness, unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Other observers agree. "The loss of these eyes and ears within Lebanon is undoubtedly a major strategic setback for Israel," said intelligence analyst Alastair Crooke. "Networks of these sorts don't come off the shelf in a supermarket. You can lose them in ten minutes, but they can take 5, 10, 15 years to put in place. So the importance of this should not be underestimated."
In the meantime, Lebanon is left in a psychosis of uncertainty and speculation, with rumours that the arrests could spread higher and deeper into the country's establishment. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrullah, has urged remaining Israeli agents or informers to turn themselves in and "rejoin the homeland", in exchange for leniency. He has also called for the death penalty for those proven to have provided Israel with information that led to the loss of lives and property. Public consciousness of the affair is so high that it is hard to imagine that remaining Israeli spies would not be either paralysed or preparing to flee the country, if they have not done so already. In any future confrontation with Hezbollah, the Israelis would want to rely heavily on vital human intelligence. The indications are that their capabilities in that respect may have been severely compromised. |
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Lebanon's intelligence war with Israel
The loss of these eyes and ears within Lebanon is undoubtedly a major strategic setback for Israel 
23 die in Iraq mosque blast
Tehran, May 29: The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a crowded Shia mosque in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan has risen to 23, the Fars news agency said on Friday.
Mohammed Gholami, the head of the local Martyrs’ Foundation, told Fars that 23 people were killed in Thursday’s attack on the Amir al-Momenin mosque in Zahedan, the restive capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province.
In fresh violence, gunmen attacked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election campaign centre in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Friday, wounding three people, the official IRNA news agency said.
A top Iranian official accused the US of hiring the bombers. “Three people involved with the terrorist incident were arrested,” Jalal Sayah, deputy provincial governor of Sistan-Balochistan province, told the agency. “According to the information obtained they were hired by America and the agents of the arrogance.”
Ali Mohammed Azad, the governor general of Sistan-Baluchestan province, told IRNA that 125 others were wounded in the attack, which was carried out during evening prayers. “It was a terrorist attack and the bomb was exploded by a terrorist,” he said.
Fars quoted sources as saying the “suicide attacker exploded the bomb in the women’s section” of the shrine, the second biggest Shia mosque in Zahedan.
Fars said the mosque was a “gathering place for revolutionary Shias.” Thursday was a public holiday in Iran to mourn the death of Fatima Zahra, daughter of Prophet Mohammed.
The blast comes weeks ahead of the June 12 presidential election. The province shares border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and has a large ethnic Sunni Baloch minority.
Iran executes trio for mosque bombing
ran executes trio for mosque bombing | |
Three men convicted of bombing an Iranian mosque two days ago have been publicly executed, state media says. The bombing killed at least 19 people during evening prayers in the south-east city of Zahedan on Thursday. The three men, who were hanged on Saturday morning near the mosque, were already in custody before the attack. One Iranian official had earlier accused the US of hiring mercenaries to carry out the bombing - a claim dismissed by Washington. The men were arrested before Thursday's bombing in connection with other attacks, including a 2007 attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guardin which 11 people died. Authorities said they were tried and had legal representation. A spokesman for the Sistan-Baluchestan province's judiciary said the three people "confessed to illegally bringing explosives into Iran and giving them to the main person behind the bombing." Spokesman Hojatoeslam Ebrahim Hamidi added: "They were convicted of being 'mohareb' (enemies of God) and 'corrupt on the earth' and acting against national security," Irna reported. Part of a Shia mosque, Amir al-Mohini, was destroyed in Zahedan, a mainly Sunni Muslim city. A Sunni militant group had claimed responsibility, with Abdel Raouf Rigi, described as a spokesman for the Jundallah group, telling Saudi-owned TV channel Al-Arabiya that a suicide bomber had targeted a secret meeting of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards inside the mosque. When an Iranian official accused the US of being behind the bombing, a US state department spokesman denied any involvement. The bombing, described by the Iranian media as a suicide attack, came at a time of heightened tension ahead of upcoming presidential elections . A day after the bombing, the president's Zahedan campaign office was attacked by gunmen. | |
US man fined in Israeli spy case
 Kadish said he had made a mistake in sharing the confidential papers |
An 85-year-old former civilian employee of the US Army has been fined for passing classified documents to Israel in the 1980s.
Ben-Ami Kadish was spared jail because of his age and health, but ordered to pay $50,000 (£31,000) by a US court.
The judge said the case was "shrouded in mystery" and he was surprised it took the FBI so long to charge Kadish.
Kadish said: "I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States."
Prosecutors said that between 1980 and 1985 Kadish provided information about nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles to an Israeli agent, Yosef Yagur, who photographed the documents at Kadish's residence.
"Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr Kadish is shrouded in mystery," US District Judge William Pauley said during sentencing in Manhattan federal court.
"It is clear the (US) government could have charged Mr Kadish with far more serious crimes."
'A mistake'
Kadish was arrested in April 2008 and pleaded guilty to being an unregistered agent of Israel in December.
Court documents showed that Yosef Yagur was also the main Israeli contact for Jonathan Pollard, an American sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel in the 1980s.
The judge said he had given Kadish a lenient sentence, but that he had committed "a grave offence" and had "abused the trust" of the US.
Kadish told the court: "It was a mistake. It was a misjudgment."
Kadish was born in the US but grew up in Palestine before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Will Nigeria oil offensive backfire?
 For the past 13 days the Nigerian military has been mounting an offensive in the swampy creeks of the Niger Delta, pursuing oil militants who kidnapped 15 sailors, 18 soldiers and hijacked a petrol tanker belonging to the national oil company. They say the continuing military action is an attempt to rescue their men or confirm if they are dead. The militants started it, they say, and the military is just reacting, according to commander Gen Sarkin Yakin Bello, whose name means "lord of war" in the northern Hausa language.
But security and diplomatic sources have told the BBC the military action in Delta State is part of a new "get tough" approach which has been on the army's drawing board for months in an attempt to deal with key militant leaders from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). The clock is ticking on the offensive, as it is disrupting business, and may begin to have a bad effect on Nigeria's already depressed oil industry. The military action could backfire and stir up militancy in the western Niger Delta, observers say. It could also spark ethnic conflict in a race to secure lucrative patronage from government and business in the Delta. |
Spinning the Iraq War death toll
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Mindful of the political fallout from a rising American death toll in Iraq, the U.S. military has pulled back from widespread use of aggressive tactics on the ground this summer, helping to explain a modest reduction in the number of soldiers killed in July, according to intelligence and military sources.
The number of U.S. military fatalities declined to 80 in July after three months of a death toll in the triple digits (104 in April, 126 in May, and 101 in June). The lower death toll has been cited by some U.S. commanders in Iraq and Bush administration supporters in Washington as a sign that President George W. Bush's "surge" of U.S. troops is working.
But the sources told me that the lower death toll reflects not some impending victory but just a slowdown in the U.S. ground offensive after the early phases of the surge, which poured more than 20,000 additional troops into Iraq. The sources cited a variety of factors contributing to the decline in U.S. casualties.
One U.S. military source said American troops have not pushed as far from their forward operating bases as the U.S. news media has been led to believe. When Bush unveiled the surge, a key goal was to get American forces out of their secure bases and into small police outposts in Iraqi neighborhoods.
The exposure of U.S. troops to the additional hazard of such front-line assignments was a factor in the upswing of American deaths in the early months of the surge. This forward positioning also presented risks for U.S. logistical personnel who had to brave roadside bombs and ambushes to supply these isolated units.
Further complicating those assignments was the brutal summer heat – reaching temperatures of 130 degrees at a time when electricity in many Iraqi neighborhoods is spotty at best. By slowing or postponing these deployments, the dangers to the troops -- not to mention their discomfort -- were reduced.
Still, this source said the decline in violent incidents involving U.S. troops could be viewed as a combination of two factors: a drop-off in activity by Iraqi fighters as well as a pull-back by the Americans.
Another source said the precise reason for the reduced U.S. military activity inside Iraq wasn't entirely clear, but noted that the slowdown in the Iraqi theater was in sharp contrast to more aggressive operations in Afghanistan.
A decline in American activity in Iraq also has been noted by Israeli intelligence, another source said, raising some concern in Tel Aviv that the U.S. military was shying away from offensive operations to avoid higher casualties that would further undermine political support for the war in the United States.
The source said some Israeli officials want the Americans to keep taking the fight to the enemy.
- July heat
It's also possible that the brutal heat has a lot to do with the slower pace of the fighting, by discouraging operations by both fighters and U.S. troops. Since the war began, July has been one of the least deadly months for U.S. troops.
Indeed, compared to earlier July casualty reports, the July 2007 death toll of 80 was the worst of the war for U.S. troops. In July 2003, 48 American soldiers died; in July 2004, the death toll was 54; in July 2005, it was 54; in July 2006, it was 43. [For details, see icasualities.org.]
U.S. military officials and Bush administration war supporters, however, have cited the decline in American deaths this July -- compared with the previous three months -- as one of several positive indicators that Bush's surge strategy is making progress.
These supporters also have hailed signs of increased cooperation with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, once considered an "insurgent" stronghold. Over the past few weeks, the U.S. military has escorted analysts from several Washington think tanks to areas of relative calm in Iraq, leading to some glowing reports.
Typical was an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution, who portrayed themselves as tough critics of the Bush administration's strategy who, after a visit to Iraq, concluded that Bush's surge was succeeding.
"As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with," O'Hanlon and Pollack wrote in an article entitled "A War We Just Might Win."”
Yet the authors, and the New York Times, failed to tell readers the full story about these supposed skeptics: far from grizzled peaceniks, O'Hanlon and Pollack have been longtime cheerleaders for a larger U.S. military occupying force in Iraq.
Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war.
British journalist Robert Fisk called Pollack's book the "most meretricious contribution to this utterly fraudulent [war] debate in the United States." (Meretricious refers to something that is based on pretense, deception or insincerity.) [See Fisk's The Great War for civilization]
Why the U.S. can't leave Iraq
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More than most Americans, the anti-war movement examines the Iraq war in detail and it is realizing consciously what the U.S. political class already know. There are no mistakes. The U.S. is staring over a cliff and is going to go over. It cannot leave Iraq. If he can find a plausible reason, President Bush will be allowed to invade Iran as well. Everyone will then pretend that it’s all another tragic mistake.
Two factors make up the cliff that America nears:
• Simple supply and demand: the depletion of oil reserves, the necessity for the oil producers to conserve supplies and the inevitable effects of oil price rises on the world’s most intensive oil user.
• The U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This requires some explanation.
A reserve currency is one that all countries will accept for trade purposes. It is really a substitute for gold because there is not enough gold to underpin the world’s currencies. It is particularly useful for trading oil, which is normally priced in dollars. Most countries also hold much of their foreign currency reserves in dollars both for this purpose and because the U.S. has been regarded as a politically and financially stable country.
Unhappily, the U.S. is running a trade and current account deficit, that is, it pays other countries more dollars in trade and services than it receives. The U.S. is essentially a business running at a loss. You might wonder where it gets the dollars to pay for the difference between cash received and cash paid.
Firstly, it uses the capital inflows from foreign investors. This is like spending borrowed money because investors are entitled to take their money back. Secondly, it can print money. That’s right. To get a billion dollars cash, the government simply prints the banknotes or interest bearing treasury notes for any amount it needs. These are purchased both within the U.S. and by foreign investors and governments who can use them for trade generally, not necessarily with the U.S.
Now, it is not always a bad thing to print money; indeed, in an expanding economy it is essential to increase the “money supply”. Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is not expanding. The money supply increase is to support increased borrowing, both domestic and foreign. It is of concern to many that in March 2006 the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank ceased publishing M3 data, which is the broad measure of money supply. The fear is that this was to hide an inflationary borrowing.
Inflation in a reserve currency is a bad thing. Other governments’ reserves are devalued – they need more dollars to buy the same amount of oil and anything else priced in dollars. They might think it better to keep their foreign exchange reserves in euros, yen or a basket that corresponds more to their trade pattern. Investors don’t like inflation because both their capital investment and earnings are worth less. They will look for a more stable home for their investments.
Japan's industrial output jumps
 Demand for Japanese cars has slumped during the global downturn |
Japan's factory output has jumped at its fastest rate in more than 50 years, but higher unemployment figures have dampened hope of an early recovery.
Output rose by 5.2% in April from the previous month, the biggest monthly gain since 1953, official figures show.
The much bigger-than-expected rise is the second monthly increase in industrial production in a row.
However, separate figures showing unemployment hitting a five-year high dampened much of the optimism.
The jobless rate hit 5% in April, up from 4.8% in March.
U.S. role in the Georgian crisis
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The European Union needs to re-evaluate its relationship to both the United States and NATO.
I’ve said recently that U.S. plans to instal a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic are designed to cause trouble between Europe and Russia as well as distracting Europe from U.S. Middle Eastern outrages. These missiles, under U.S. control, are supposed to protect Europe and if you believe that, you probably believe in the tooth fairy.
U.S. negotiations for these missiles don’t appear to be going very well since the Poles and Czechs don’t much like the idea of being targeted in response by Russian missiles and the Russians have been musing about installing their missiles in Cuba for a re-run of the Cuban missile crisis and near nuclear war of the 1960s. That would not be popular with U.S. voters. What do do? Are there any trouble spots that can be stoked up to show Russia as an aggressor? What about Georgia and the South Ossetia separatists on Russia’s southern border?
So we’ve arrived at having a U.S./NATO-sponsored provocation with Georgia invading its breakaway semi-independent province. South Ossetia’s declaration of independence was supported by almost all its residents. The South Ossetian argument is that if the West and NATO supported Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, they should support its independence from Georgia. That sounds reasonable. No? Of course, no! The difference is that South Ossetia wants ties with Russia and the U.S. has been pressing for Georgia to join NATO.
Condoleeza Rice predictably, was quick to call on the Russians to withdraw from South Ossetia. President Bush says sanctimoniously that Georgia is a sovereign nation and that its territorial integrity should be respected. That is pretty rich (hypocritical) as we say in the UK. Before Condoleeza or anyone else in the U.S. takes that position they could prevail on President Bush to leave Iraq and Afghanistan where they are looting oil, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, driving millions of refugees from their homes and creating general disaster half a world away from their own country.
While she is about it, Condoleeza could also call on the Israelis to leave Palestinian and Syrian territory outside their 1967 borders and allow the ethnically cleansed Palestinians and their descendants to return and re-claim their property that was stolen by the Israelis.
To return to South Ossetia and Georgia, we should note that NATO rejected South Ossetia’s referendum in favour of independence. "What’s this? What does a national referendum, particularly in a non-NATO country, have to do with NATO?” you might wonder; “Isn’t NATO our warrior arm, dedicated to defend us against armed aggression?” Not any more. It’s now a political organization as well. The EU countries should seriously consider whether it is a good idea to allow its military arm to make political decisions, particularly when it is driven by U.S. rather than European interests.
NATO has also taken on a role in formulating conspiracy theories against Russia, for example Russia’s “Gas OPEC plans", reported by the Financial Times. There seems to be no evidence for this whatever and even if it were true, (a) What does it have to do with NATO and (b) Would it matter more than our existing oil OPEC? Russia still wants to sell its gas and can do so on any terms it wishes whether NATO or the EU like them or not.
The new non-Communist free-market Russia, that the U.S. and Europe wanted and got, is a disaster for NATO because it no longer has an enemy. The only way to save careers and maintain funding is for NATO officers to create enemies and new threats. Its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is no longer popular so a prod at Russia through South Ossetia has doubtless been designed to produce a response that can be spun as Russian aggression.
The new Russia is also a disaster for the U.S. Russia is creating strong economic ties with Europe. There is serious talk of a free trade agreement between the EU and Russia and the possibility of Russia becoming an EU member is being talked about. Russia is, after all, historically a part of Europe. You can imagine how the idea of such an economic superpower is perceived in the U.S. with its declining oil reserves and economy.
As matters stand, rather than having the purely defensive joint military force with the U.S. that was its original purpose, Europe finds itself supporting, through NATO, the U.S.’s aggressive foreign policies in the Middle East. Worse still, NATO is formenting trouble between Europe and Russia, which should be thought of as a valuable friend and future EU partner, rather than an enemy.
To be blunt, NATO has become a tool for the extension of U.S. influence and foreign policy. This is argued cogently by F. William Engdahl whose article I have resisted plagiarising. One might consider why Finland rejects NATO membership. The main reason given by opponents of membership in a poll 18 months ago is that Finland could be drawn into conflicts that have no direct bearing on their country. This seems to be a polite refusal to fight wars for the U.S. and Israel.
Indeed, Israel has recently joined a NATO exercise and Italy’s defence minister has proposed that Israel should join NATO. Certainly it might, when it withdraws to its pre-1967 borders, abandons its settlements on stolen Palestinian land and gives right of return to the Palestinians. Alternatively, a single state with right of return and equal rights might do.
The evidence is clear. NATO has become not only counter-productive to European interests but an immediate danger to the EU as an arm of the U.S. military-industrial complex. The South Ossetia conflict is an unmistakable warning. The U.S. and NATO provocateurs have shown their hand and have gone too far. Russia has acted with commendable restraint in relation to the U.S.’s outrageous attempts to bribe new EU countries to accept its missiles on Russia’s borders.
There can be no doubt that the U.S. and NATO are behind the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia but have misjudged Russian restraint for unwillingness to act. What they now have is called, I believe, “blowback”. The EU needs to reassess NATO from fundamental principles of its defensive needs. The current senior command of NATO has clearly been politicized by the U.S. This is unacceptable as also is NATO’s current role as tool of the U.S.
The EU should make some decisions about its links and future with Russia, its economically important and militarily powerful neighbour. The choice is simple: to have Russia as a friend in the short term and EU member eventually or make it an enemy. It is clear that the USA’s military-industrial complex needs Russia as an enemy, not only to stay in business but to prevent a European Union/Russian superstate developing. Europe needs to pursue its own peaceful interests, ideally keeping a good relationship with the U.S. while working with Russia toward closer economic integration. If the US does not like that, it is too bad. The U.S. has used up its global credibility and goodwill.
Russia has had a bad press in the West for the last 60 years, not always undeserved. We should recall, however, that the man who set Russia and the Soviet Union on its post-war course, created Churchill’s “iron curtain”, the nuclear arms race and the repressive character of the Soviet post-war state, was not Russian at all. Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, otherwise known as Stalin, was Georgian, born in Gori, just south of South Ossetia.