A website affiliated with the Iranian regime, Assar Iran, claimed Monday that Iran has more than 600 missiles pointed at targets in Israel. Missiles are also locked on United States positions in Iraq, according to sources in the Islamic Republic. The missiles, identified as Shihab-3s, will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked.
War is coming.
(Syrian President) Assad, in “Mafia terms,” needs to make his bones and he cannot survive by allowing this Israeli air strike to go unanswered.
He must hit Israel or risk losing his life in a coup, and when he hits Israel it will be the start of a war. He also hopes that the international community will step in and stop the war in a few days time and reward him in the negotiations after the war with the return of the Golan.
Remember Yoni’s rule number one for dealing with Arabs: never negotiate.
Where did they go?
From Ray Robison on 11 NOV 2006 looking at FMSO and other document releases as seen by the NYT, in an Update [I have removed bolding]:
UPDATE: Bumped from a few weeks ago due to renewed interest, thanks LGF, hotair, Floppingaces…several others
The article below comes from an Arabic reader who translated an article from a respected Arab media website. While I have no knowledge of the media source or the subject, I have high confidence in the translation and that the original article exists.
This article was posted on the Al Seyassah website on Monday the 25th of September 2006. Al Seyassah is Kuwaiti and one of the most reliable Arabic newspapers.
A Syrian nuclear program managed by Iraqi and Iranian scientists in the Al Haska area.
Brussels- From Hamid Geriafi
European intelligence sources based at the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels released information yesterday about the “presence of an active Syrian nuclear program in a secret location Northeast of the country, being supervised by nuclear scientists from Iraq, Iran and some scientists of the previous Muslim Soviet Republics, and it seems that the program has reached the stage of medium activity”.
The information, which Al seyassah got from British security sources in Brussels, revealed that “the brother of the Syrian president, Major Maher Al Assad -in charge of the Republican Guard brigade- along with his maternal cousin of the Makhlouf clan are supervising this program since the end of 2004 in the Northeastern district of Al Haskah situated next to the Iraqi and Turkish borders and which has a Kurdish majority”.
The information – of which the British security sources hinted that it might be coming from the German intelligence which is active in some Middle Eastern countries- revealed that “the Syrian nuclear program is relying on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Udai and Qusai supervised their transfer to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the US-British invasion in March 2003”. Therefore according to those sources, the international inspection teams or the British and US intelligence could not find one “nuclear needle” in Iraq even though everybody knew about the existence of a huge program since the end of the seventies, before the Israeli planes struck and destroyed its main reactor in the Tuwaitha area near Baghdad in 1981.
The British security sources in Brussels assure Al Seyassah that “Iranian nuclear scientists are cooperating with their expertise, equipment and materials in addition to approximately 60 Iraqi nuclear scientists” that had found refuge in Syria after the onset of the war in Iraq and around 20 scientists that had moved from the former Soviet republics at the beginning of the nineties after the collapse of the Soviet Union and after the first government of Gorbatchev pulled out its nuclear weapons from those new republics”.
The sources said that “the Iranians are supporting the Syrian nuclear program, which was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria, with materials, equipment and expertise which are more advanced than it originally was. The Iranian could have brought up an advanced plant to enrich Uranium, of which the West is totally unaware.”
That from Mr. Robison. Take it as you will, but this does fit with the work being done or purportedly being done in Iran to do final separation of uranium. Also in my previous missive, I do point out that not all of the 10,000 Mitutoyo nuclear separators have been found, that some were most likely diverted to Iran as part of the AQ Khan operation, some wound up in Libya and others are just not found. Iran announces 3,000 separators on line, now, years later, some of which are of the homegrown variety, no doubt. And if memory serves they only had about 1,500-2,000 out of the AQ Khan network when it was running. No one has released precise amounts of separators from Libya, but I do believe that 7,000-8,000 would have raised eyebrows, so I suspect a number < 3,000 to be involved. Some few got scattered around, and I am relatively certain NoKo would have bought a few, but its economic capacity for purchase is limited... its ability to duplicate complex things by hand, however, is another story all together. So, even given a couple of thousand more of the Mitutoyo type going to NoKo… where are the rest? Pakistan? In theory it had separators before setting up the AQ Khan network. I would doubt all went to them. That leaves a shorter list of those wanting such… I would put Syria into that mix… I considered the concept of Syria doing pre-processing of phosphate ore to ‘yellowcake’, then combining with Iran for final separation, then doing final casting and bomb creation with a group of scientists in Syria to be highly likely (in the ~30% probability range). Iran or Syria *alone* fall under that, in my estimation (~20% and ~5% respectively). Together these two countries can offer the entire nuclear separation to bomb finishing capability. Throw in NoKo, which is now likely (Israeli INTEL puts NoKo working with Syria as something that is seen , on the ground; US INTEL likewise on component shipping and personnel) that would push the combined skill set with Syria as optimal site over 50% probability (Syria, Iran, NoKo). Separately and in combination no other combination, in my estimation, goes over 50%. Syria has been working the second longest, after NoKo, and reliably traces its lineage to the mid-1980’s to acquisition of nuclear technology from China after failing to get better nuclear technology from Argentina. Oh, the main go-between in that? Monzer al-Kassar. I go on about him for a *reason*: he is one of the most highly connected individuals in transnational terrorism, organized crime, money laundering and narcotics trafficking that I have run across. His history starts with getting French hostages out by having money paid by the French to Iran… all the time he was indicted in France. He did the same for the Iran/Contra set-up and got his own entree to Latin America by that. I can trace no previous entrance of him into South or Central America before that. After that comes connections to Menem, the nuclear/missile deal with Menem, the expansion of Hezbollah into Argentina, the Jewish and AMIA Embassy bombings, and things start to get quite nasty from there. He is the point man for opening up the Medellin and Cali ‘cocaine for heroin’ traffic of the late ’80s and early ’90s. His work with Imad Mugniyah in Argentina would lead to Mugniyah utilizing Kassar’s narcotics contacts to then work on North American funding and recruitment cells in the US and Canada, with affiliation to Mexican drug gangs. The man has all the chips, calling cards, debts and other necessities to work out arrangements with ex-Russian Republics, Iran, al Qaeda (as seen by his business dealings circa 2001 in the UK). I have yet to place him with NoKo beyond the ‘supernote’ trade of the early 1990’s, but that really is quite enough to demonstrate some high level contact to get counterfeit US $100 banknotes circulated all the way down to Jerusalem and as far north as Ankara, mostly via the drug trade, but also via Hezbollah payments to individuals.
Collecting nuclear scientists and supplying them with equipment and transport? To a man who magically turns fruit into weapons off the coast of Somalia? To man who works with Lasnosky on trying to get diesel/electric subs for narcotraffickers and FARC? This is supposed to be a *problem* for him? I have no idea what he did with the Cukarova group in Turkey and getting technology funneled out of the US via S.America to Turkey as part of the BNL/BCCI scandals. After that everyone seems to lose track of it…
Why Syria? No one expects it there. Poor, weak little Syria… so necessary for ‘peace talks’ that it remains obstinately against them… but hey are ‘necessary’! Ask anyone and they will tell you so… but they can’t tell you *why* they are necessary. The permanent obstacle, and yet it is ‘necessary’. I have traced out their entire WMD complex as far as imagery allows. I am horrified by it. Nerve gas, biotoxins, specialized warheads, SCUD-D designs, and all the while working to get a uranium refining process up and running. The Swedes got gulled into letting them have a phosphate processing plant to ‘purify’ phosphate ore. That has the inverse of ‘concentrating’ the uranium in that ore… the Swedes didn’t get that until it was too late. Lovely little plant in Homs on the lake…
So am I surprised at Israel striking against the Syrian nuclear complex? No.
My only worry is that they might not have gotten it all, as Syria has stood up secondary facilities for chemical munitions and long-range missiles at Tal Snan and al-Baida. Both underground, like al Safira is, but much more innocuous. I have great respect for the amount of time and effort Syria has put into being the ‘necessary middle-man’ that blocks everything, gets everything they want and then puts down duplicate or secondary facilities once they understand what they are doing. I deeply respect that, as that is far deeper in understanding of what they can and can’t do and working within their limits than most give them credit for. I call it a ‘complex’ for a reason: it is more than one site, more than one place and it is ‘complex’ in structure. Saddam used brute force, Syria is finessing it and very well.
You can’t pin it on them directly… just like you can’t pin the Israeli Embassy bombing and AMIA bombings on al-Kassar. But his fingerprints and that of Mugniyah are all over them. Real professional terrorists are not caught, not cited, and work their profession as a profession. That is what Syria is doing with WMDs: treating it professionally, like a mafia hitman.
I would not like to wake up one morning and find *both* Syria and Iran having gone nuclear together.
Concentrate on one, ignore the other and that is what you get. Look at the distance a SCUD-D can go and start ordering up your own hit list. Throw in Hezbollah to protect *that* on the coast, along with the cruise missiles gotten from Iran/China, and you wind up with one nasty suspicion on why containing Israel via Lebanon is necessary, and making sure they can’t budge from the Golan, too… Heights are useful in defending Israel, but they also put you on a downward slope on the opposite side: great to defend with, hard to attack out of.
Let us hope the cross-border tribes of Western Iraq and the Kurds across that northern tier of Eastern Syria can help us here. Israel can only do so much. We need much better INTEL and it is time to work with the tribes to get it.
Sorry to take up your time with my private worries.
=====
Also, for fun, is an article on Syrian weapons purchases, which points out a few things most miss.
Take them as you will, but I feel we are missing the obvious because of the shell game being played by Iran and Syria. Iran is a fetish at this point and a huge distraction from their well connected and highly competent partner. Iran has the money, Syria the connections and competence… you ignore either at your peril, and together they are lethal.
AJ: you are PRECISELY correct about the team of Iran and Syria — they ARE playing a dangerous shell game!
BZ
I’m just grateful that Israel at least knows when to stop listening to PC experts and do what has to be done.
Shoprat: except that, if you read the article from Yoni, Israel will be agreeing, in November, to vacate the West Bank, etc etc. Go here to read Yoni’s info about Israel’s plans with regard to the Palestinian Authority.
BZ
They’re going to vacate the West Bank? Oh crimeny! That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever! 🙁
BTW: Graphic stolen for Fractured Friday. Thanks!
Well we’re starting to fight them over here. You’ve got the squirrel killing AK47 carrying muzzie camo Jihad guy in Dearbornistan last week. The two Floroida State students with the “fireworks” in their car.
And oddly both were buried in the MSM.
Like there is some kind of conspiracy out there to keep Americans in the dark to the threat of Islamic terror on the world.
But maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Gayle: purloin away!
Jenn: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean Islam isn’t out to convert you or kill you —
BZ