Bus Bomb in Tel Aviv was a False Flag Attack

 

Photo – Russia Today (rt.com)

Opinion By: S. Brennan

http://worldunitednews.blogspot.com/

The Bus bombing in Tel Aviv today (November 21st, 2012) was a false flag attack to drum up sympathy and support for an Israeli government that is committing Mass Murder in the Gaza strip.

I’m sure there are some inside Gaza or the West Bank that would love to claim responsibility for the bombing, but in truth the only ones that will gain from this crime are the Israeli and Western governments image, as they search for ways to hide their acceptance of ethnic cleansing in the current Gaza massacre.

Israel, and the Western governments that back the despotic regime are being challenged by an informed public that demands justice for the Zionist War Crimes being committed in Gaza.

Repercussions of a Planned Invasion on Gaza

Moving forward with the pre-planned Israeli ground invasion of Gaza will spark an exponential outcry by the global public to demand immediate cessation of relations with Israel.

The international political landscape would be changed immediately under this scenario and the implications will certainly destroy the credibility of every western government leader should nothing be done to villianize Hamas before they begin their pre-planned invasion. The establishment will never admit that Israel is wrong so they have been scheming of ways in which to change the direction of public opinion.

You can be sure that evil minds have been hard at work to find a way in justifying a ground war on Gaza and since the scenario needs to be within the confines of Israeli control, they decided to come up with the elusive bus bomber.

The type of minds are we dealing with here are absolutely evil in every way. Consider that these monsters can commit indiscriminate mass murder on the women and children of Gaza and get away with it time and again. Israel is a lunitic state that is out of control…and your Western leaders approve of their despotic actions!!

Bombs Placed on a Bus

The story is so full of holes that one has to wonder at the shear insanity at play trying to convince the World that it was an outside terrorist attack. Itis only a matter of time before they blame someone for the attack, and we all know whom they will blame…

As the story goes, a bomb was PLACED inside public transportation (Bus) as opposed to a suicide bomber and when it was further investigated a SECOND bomb was found that did not go off. These bombs were planted in one of the most security control freak states in the World!

Afterwards, Israeli police claimed that they are looking for 2 men, which contradicted eyewitness claims of one person fleeing the scene. Later the police arrested someone but then let him go…starting to sound familiar.

Hamas did not claim responsibility for the bombing incident although with the anguish and grief they are experiencing during these grievous times, I’m sure they would love to or at least express some sort of gratification to ease their suffering. If Hamas was going to carry out an attack inside Tel Aviv they would have attacked a significant structure such as the Knesset or IDF Military Building and you can be damn sure it would have been huge!

Internationally, we already know who will be blamed by the Western Zionist Controlled Media, and we also know what our bullshit western leaders would say publicly AGAIN and that is, Israel is justified for committing a holocaust on the Palestinian people.

However, what these ass holes have failed to see is that hundreds of millions of people around the World are politically, socially and intellectually awake and have already seen through this self inflicted, FALSE FLAG ATTACK in Tel Aviv. I don’t believe the Israeli officials side for one second, do you. This attack was carried out by Israeli Mossad, end of story!

 

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Syria without Assad will turn into Salafis terror hub: Analyst

 

Members of the terrorist Free Syrian Army (file Photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/11/271548/syria-salafis-terror-hub-without-assad/

A political analyst warns that if the Salafi-Jihadists fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad take control of Syria, the Arab country will turn into a “breeding ground” for terrorism in the region.

“Syria without Bashar Assad would mean a country in the hands of the Salafi-Jihadists who will undoubtedly turn the country into a graveyard for the Alawites and the moderate Sunnis and a breeding ground for terrorism and extremism in the region,” Iranian academic Dr. Ismail Salami wrote in an article published on Press TV's website.

“The fact is that the al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafi-Jihadists have already swarmed into the country and are already fighting against Bashar Assad’s government,” he added.

Referring to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s call on his followers to fight against Assad last February, Salami said, “The grand plan is to turn Syria into a safe haven for the Salafis.”

In a two-hour video released on Jihadists websites in October, Zawahiri repeated his call and said, “I incite Muslims everywhere, especially in the countries that are contiguous to Syria, to rise up to support their brothers in Syria with all what they can and not to spare anything that they can offer.”

The analyst said videos of Salafi-Jihadists beheading Syrian troops and civilians in cold blood have caused outrage among humanitarian organizations which have condemned the attacks as “war crimes.”

“This shocking footage depicts a potential war crime in progress, and demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by the armed group in question,” Amnesty International said.

Salami added that the Middle East region is being “systematically and consciously devoured by an act of extremism funded and promoted by Washington and some Arab regimes.”

"Without envisaging any foreign intervention and the domino effect it will have on the region and on the world as President Bashar Assad predicts, Syria is being eroded from within and without by different forces which have mobilized despite the rift in their ideologies but each with a unique agenda," Salami added.

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Lebanese Army imposes ceasefire between rival Tripoli factions

 

Lebanese army tanks deploy in the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods where clashes are taking place between Sunni and Alawites in the coastal city of Tripoli, northern Lebanon, on October 23, 2012. (AFP Photo/Joseph Eid)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/lebanon-tripoli-army-ceasefire-syria-089/

The Lebanese Army has deployed soldiers to Tripoli, claiming a ceasefire has been arranged there following three days of deadly fighting between Sunni and Alawite gunmen. Both claim loyalty to different sides in the Syrian civil conflict.

­The army says an agreement for a ceasefire was reached between rivaling factions in the city.

"The army will restore security, and we urge Tripoli's residents to fully comply with security forces and deal with things wisely, because security forces will start erecting checkpoints in Tripoli and staging patrols to arrest anyone who disrupts security," read a statement issued Tuesday.

The Army Command announced on Tuesday that its units had arrested about 100 gunmen, including 34 Syrians and four Palestinians, in security sweeps in Beirut and Tripoli. Fifteen troops, including two officers, were wounded during the raid, the statement added.

Soldiers also seized weapons while raiding properties in Beirut and Tripoli where gunmen were staying. Army units continue to raid the “hideouts” in order to restore calm in the two cities, the announcement said.

The army is implementing a security plan laid out by the Command to suppress violence on the streets.

The rival districts have been gripped by frequent fighting between pro- and anti-Assad militias as tensions spilled over the border from Syria.

The Sunday fighting in Tripoli involved the neighboring areas of northern city Bab al-Tabbaneh, a Sunni Muslim stronghold that supports the Syrian opposition, and Jebel Mohsen, an Alawite district that backs Assad government.

Security is the main concern in recent days, as the country was hit by violent attacks and riots triggered by the assassination of Lebanese security official Wissam al-Hassan in central Beirut on Friday.

The powerful car bombing claimed the lives of the official and his bodyguard, along with others, and wounded more than 100 people.

The assassination also sparked mass disturbance among Prime Minister Najib Mikati's opposition as people suspect he played a role in the high-profile killing. Mikati is a Sunni Muslim who earlier had personal ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while his cabinet includes many politicians close to Damascus.

 

AFP Photo/Joseph Eid

 

AFP Photo/Joseph Eid

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Beirut blast: Who serves to gain?

Lebanese security forces and rescue workers gather at the site of an explosion in Beirut's Christian neighbourhood of Ashrafieh on October 19, 2012. (AFP Photo/Patrick Baz)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/beirut-blast-syria-israel-829/

The deadly blast in Beirut which killed eight and wounded 118 more has risked destabilizing Lebanon while civil war rages in Syria. Middle Eastern analyst Ali Rizk told RT that the one with the most to gain from the attack was not Syria, but Israel.

RT: So you are there in the city, how would you assess the situation there right now?

Ali Rizk: Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy to Syria, he was here in Beirut just two days ago. In his statements, he said that he was very afraid that the conflict or unrest in Syria could not stay within Syria’s borders forever, and that eventually, if it continues, it will go beyond these borders.

Now, two days after he made these statements, this massive, massive blast – I was at the scene for a couple of hours –we already have the political element coming into play. Some elements of the March 14th movement, which is known to be anti-Bashar al-Assad, even before it was known who was killed in this explosion, they quickly pointed the fingers at the Syrian government. And now with [senior Lebanese intelligence official ]Wissam al-Hassan, the head of internal security has been killed or targeted, is known to be pro-March 14th [and not an ally] of the Syrian government. This will only lead to more and more fingers [being pointed] from March 14th, and from their Western allies being pointed at Syria. [It is] similar to the situation we witnessed when [former Lebanese prime minister] Rafik Hariri was assassinated.

­Named after the date of the Cedar Revolution, the March 14th alliance was a coalition of political parties formed in the wake of the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. United by their anti-Syrian stance, the group pushed for a lessening of Damascus’ influence on internal Lebanese affairs, the establishment of a commission to investigate Hariri’s assassination, the resignation of security officials, and the organization of parliamentary elections. The Cedar Revolution secured a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese soil that same year.

RT: What do you make of the accusations that the Syrian government is behind the blast?

AR: The question that must be raised in all cases is who benefits from such an act? If the Syrian government goes ahead with [such] acts – we don’t have any information – but if it does…I think it’s only endangering itself and committing suicide. Is the Syrian government as such a suicidal government? I myself don’t [think] so.

The side which benefits maybe would be Israel. This might be a coincidence, but it might not be. Hezbollah actually sent an unmanned drone into Israeli airspace just a few days ago. So could this be a response from Israel…because many are saying that Israel doesn’t have the ability, that it now cannot actually wage a war against Hezbollah and against Lebanon. So has Israel resorted to creating internal instability inside Lebanon with the aim of keeping Lebanon preoccupied with itself and taking it out of what we refer to here as the resistance axis, which includes Iran, Syria and Hezbollah? We also must not forget the potential of Israel playing a role.

The fact that many of the al-Qaeda elements and the extremists who are fighting the Syrian government inside Syria, it is said that many of them have fled over here into Lebanon from the city of Homs and taken refuge. The explosion we saw today – car bombings – indeed do bear the traces of al-Qaeda, it affiliates and even some foreign intelligence sources.

RT: As you mentioned, after the Special Envoy to Syria did warn that the Syrian conflict could spread beyond Syria itself. You’ve just been talking about Israel, we’ve seen the events in Lebanon, and of course we’ve been reporting about the impact on Turkey. Which other countries now could be affected by the Syrian crisis?

AR: The Syrian crisis, as I said, could affect the whole region. We also have Iraq. Iraq could be very much involved, especially taking into consideration al-Qaeda and its presence there. The whole region could be set ablaze. Even some of Syria’s foes, like the United States and the Obama administration, have warned of the regional repercussions of the ongoing Syria unrest. So I think the whole region is exposed, and so for this reason it is necessary for there to be a judgment to the initiative by Lakhdar Brahimi, who focused on seeking a ceasefire on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

 

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Turkey declares War on Syria

 

Russia Today Report: Turkish parliament authorizes military assault on Syria ‘when necessary’

Source; Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/turkish-parliament-military-syria-651/

Turkey’s parliament has authorized cross-border military operations into Syria ‘when necessary’ following a random mortar-shelling incident on the Turkish-Syrian border, reports Hürriyet Daily News.

The Turkish army has been retaliating by shelling Syrian military positions since Wednesday.­

The government-initiated debates in the Turkish parliament took place behind closed doors. The cabinet of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan claimed the Syrian military had launched an act of aggression against Turkey.

The motion signed by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says that the Syrian crisis “affects the stability and security in the region” and accuses Damascus of conducting assaults into Turkish land.

“This situation risks and threatens our national security. In this respect, the need for taking precautions and acting quickly against any threats to Turkey has arisen,” says the document.

In accordance with Article 92 of the Turkish constitution, the government demanded a one-year authorization to send Turkish troops to foreign countries, which was granted.

On Wednesday at least three mortar bombs fired from Syria killed five civilians and wounded at least eight in the Turkish town of Akcakale. This became a second mortar attack on the Turkish town since last Friday. Back then Foreign Minister Davutoglu said he would take action if there were a repeat.

After a heated debate an urgent parliamentary session has opted to apply the new law.

The motion was supported by 320 deputies, while 129 voted against it.

Originally the bill targeted militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighting for independent Kurd state for the last three decades. The Kurds have bases in northern Iraq, de-facto not controlled by the government in Baghdad. The Turkish military has conducted a number of air and ground assaults on Kurdish positions in Iraq, most of them considered successful.

The debates around the move have sparked sharp negative reaction among the Turkish population. While a small group of anti-war protesters rallied outside the Turkish parliament in Ankara, a real anti-war storm has been initiated by Turkish and foreign activists on social networks both inside and outside of Turkey. The hashtag #savasahayir (no to war) quickly spread beyond Turkish borders into global social networking.

 

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Turkey Attempts to Trigger a NATO-led War against Syria

 

By: Tony Cartalucci

Land Destroyer Blog
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/
Source: Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkey-attempts-to-trigger-a-nato-led-war-against-syria/

After over a year of harboring foreign terrorists and supporting their operations near and across the Turkish-Syrian border, NATO-member Turkey has claimed it has retaliated with military force against “targets” inside Syria for an alleged attack on Turkish territory that it has blamed on the Syrian government.

Despite heavily armed listed-terrorist organizations operating in large numbers on both sides of the Turkish border with Turkey’s explicit approval and logistical support, the government in Ankara appears to have excluded the possibility that these terrorist forces, not the Syrian military, were responsible for the attack which consisted of mortar rounds the armed militants are known to widely use.

 

Image: Terrorists operating in Syria pose next to a large mortar. Mortars of all sizes are a favorite of terrorists operating in and around Syria in NATO’s proxy bid to effect violent regime change. The mortars fired into Turkish territory could just as likely have come from terrorists Turkey itself is funding, arming, and harboring on behalf of long-planned NATO machinations. Unlike the Syrian government, the terrorists, Turkey, and by consequence, NATO, all have an actual motivation for launching the initial attack that has caused Turkey to retaliate and predictably call on NATO to intervene.

The New York Times itself, in its article titled, “Turkey Fires Artillery at Syrian Targets in Retaliation for Civilian Deaths,” concedes that:

It was unknown whether the mortar shells were fired by Syrian government forces or rebels fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish response seemed to assume that the Syrian government was responsible.

Turkey’s immediate, unwarranted act of military aggression, along with knee-jerk condemnations from the US bear all the hallmarks of an orchestrated event – or at the very least an attempt to opportunistically seize upon an isolated incident to disingenuously advance the West’s collective geopolitical agenda.

Syria clearly has no interest in threatening the security of Turkey, nor any reason to attack Turkish territory which would surely give NATO the excuse it has been looking for to directly intervene on behalf of its faltering terrorist proxies.

Turkey Has Longed for a Pretext to Start War with Syria

It was previously reported that Turkey was intended by NATO, and more specifically, Wall Street and London, to lead efforts in carving out “safe havens” in Syria’s north, and to do so either under a false “humanitarian” or false “security” pretext.

This has been confirmed by Fortune 500-funded, US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution which has blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria and Iran. In their report, “Assessing Options for Regime Change” it is stated (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution

 

Image: The Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

Brookings continues by describing how Turkey’s aligning of vast amounts of weapons and troops along its border in coordination with Israeli efforts in the south of Syria, could help effect violent regime change in Syria:

In addition, Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned properly. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Turkish leaders have clearly spent much time fabricating various excuses to meet Washington’s demands in this regard by fabricating or taking advantage of violence Turkey itself is fostering along its own border with Syria.

The report would also mention Turkey’s role in helping undermine, subvert, and carve out the ancient northern city of Aleppo:

Because creating a unified national opposition is a long-term project that will probably never fully succeed, the contact group, while not abandoning this effort, may seek more realistic goals. For example, it might concentrate maximum effort on breaking Asad’s hold on, say, the elite of Aleppo, which is the commercial capital and which is also the city where Turkey has the greatest leverage. If Aleppo were to fall to the opposition, the demoralizing effect on the regime would be considerable.

Should this option fail, the United States can simply accept a bad situation in Syria or escalate to one of the military options below. -page 6, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

The military options include everything from perpetuating violence to, in Brookings’ own words, “bleed
it, keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention,” to Libyan-style “no-fly zones,” to a full military invasion. It is clear, upon reading the Brookings memo, that the conspiracy has indeed begun to unfold since its writing – with various military options being prepared and various co-conspirators positioning themselves to execute them.

The Brookings Institution’s “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who has been threatening to partially invade Syria for months in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on “humanitarian concerns,” examining Turkey’s abysmal human rights recordin addition to its own ongoing genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.

 

Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing “suspected” rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya’s Qaddafi and Syria’s Assad have been accused of doing, in all of their hypocrisy, have been calling for a partial invasion of Syria based on “humanitarian concerns.”

….

This latest exchange between Turkey and Syria is not the first. Turkey has fabricated stories before involving Syrian troops “firing across” the Turkish-Syrian border. The New York Times published these bold accusations before admitting further down that “it was unclear what kind of weapons caused the injuries on Sunday around six miles inside Turkish territory,” and that “there were conflicting accounts about the incident.” As are all the accusations used by NATO, the UN, and individual member states to justify meddling in Syria’s affairs, these tales involve hear-say from the rebels themselves.

It is clear that Turkey, NATO, and the UN are continuously attempting to set a pretext for the establishment of “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” intended to circumvent the UN Security Council which has seen attempts to green-light military intervention vetoed multiple times by Russia and China.

That the UN has failed utterly to condemn the combined provocations and meddling in Syria’s affairs illustrates the absolute failure of supranational, let alone, global governance.

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Several Syrian soldiers killed in Turkey attack

 

Syrian troops in the capital Damascus carry the coffins of comrades killed during the unrest in the country. (File photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/04/264874/syrian-soldiers-killed-in-turkey-attack/

Reports say several Syrian soldiers have been killed in a new attack by Turkish forces on a military post near the border town of Tel Abyad.

The Turkish forces fired artillery shells at targets in the Syrian territory during the early hours of Thursday.

The exact number of the Syrian soldiers killed in the attack has not been reported.

Turkey’s attack follows a Syrian mortar strike that killed five people in the southeastern Turkish town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province on Wednesday.

Syria said it had started an investigation into the cause of the mortar attack on the Turkish territory.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi also sent a message of condolence to the Turkish people and families of the victims.

The minister stated that Syria respects the sovereignty of its neighbors and wants its own sovereignty to be respected in return.

In addition, Zoabi called on some foreign countries, especially Turkey, to stop the flow of weapons and terrorists into Syria.

Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament is scheduled to discuss Thursday a motion for cross-border military operations inside Syria “when deemed necessary.”

Damascus says certain Western and regional countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, are supporting the insurgents fighting against the Syrian government.

On Wednesday, NATO ambassadors held an emergency meeting in Brussels over the Turkish-Syrian border clashes and said in a statement, “The alliance continues to stand by Turkey and demands the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts against an ally.”

In July, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with the Turkish Cumhuriyet daily that Turkey “has supplied all logistic support to the terrorists who have killed our people.”

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Spying on Americans: 64 Drone Bases on US Soil

 

By: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Source: Global Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/spying-on-americans-64-drone-bases-on-us-soil/

We like to think of the drone war as something far away, fought in the deserts of Yemen or the mountains of Afghanistan. But we now know it’s closer than we thought. There are 64 drone bases on American soil. That includes 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed.

Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (.pdf) – it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon’s unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots.

The medium-size Shadow is used in 22 bases, the smaller Raven in 20 and the miniature Waspin 11. California and Texas lead the pack, with 10 and six sites, respectively, and there are also 22 planned locations for future bases. ”It is very likely that there are more domestic drone activities not included in the map, but it is designed to provide an approximate overview of the widespread nature of Department of Defense activities throughout the US,” Michael Haynes from Public Intelligence tells Danger Room.

The possibility of military drones (as well as those controlled by police departments and universities) flying over American skies have raised concerns among privacy activists. As the American Civil Liberties Union explained in its December 2011 report, the machines potentially could be used to spy on American citizens. The drones’ presence in our skies “threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities.”

As Danger Room reported last month, even military drones, which are prohibited from spying on Americans, may “accidentally” conduct such surveillance — and keep the data for months afterwards while they figure out what to do with it. The material they collect without a warrant, as scholar Steven Aftergood revealed, could then be used to open an investigation.

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the U.S. military from operating on American soil, and there’s no evidence that drones have violated it so far.

This new map comes almost two months after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) revealed another one, this time of public agencies – including police departments and universities – that have a permit issued by the Federal Aviation Agency to use UAVs in American airspace.

“It goes to show you how entrenched drones already are,” said Trevor Timm, an EFF activist, when asked about the new map. “It’s clear that the drone industry is expanding rapidly and this map is just another example of that. And if people are worried about military technology coming back and being sold in the US, this is just another example how drone technology is probably going to proliferate in the US very soon.”

Domestic proliferation isn’t the same as domestic spying, however. Most — if not all — of these military bases would make poor surveillance centers. Many of the locations are isolated, far from civilian populations. Almost half of the bases on the map work only with the relatively small Raven and Shadow drones; their limited range and endurance make them imperfect spying tools, at best. It’s safe to assume that most of the bases are just used for military training.

Privacy concerns aside, the biggest issue might be safety, as we were been reminded on Monday when a giant Navy drone crashed in Maryland

 

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Israel seeks war on Iran to keep lid on 9/11

 

 

By: Dr. Kevin Barrett

http://www.truthjihad.com/

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/20/262683/israel-seeks-iran-war-to-keep-lid-on-911/

Almost every politically-aware person on the planet is puzzled by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bizarre obsession with Iran. Netanyahu is risking his political career, his reputation, and Israel's future by intervening in the US presidential elections.

He is using all of Zionism's considerable might - including organized crime assets like “Las Vegas Godfather” Sheldon Adelson - to force Obama to attack Iran; or, failing that, to make sure that Obama is defeated by the Zionist puppet Romney. There are even rumors of Israeli-sponsored assassination attempts on Obama.

Even the rabidly pro-Zionist Jewish Daily Forward has editorialized:

“It’s difficult to recall a time when an Israeli prime minister has inserted himself into a presidential election campaign in the way that Benjamin Netanyahu has. It’s even harder to recall a time when a trusted ally openly urged the American president to undertake a questionable, unpopular and highly risky war. We sure hope Netanyahu knows what he’s doing, because the stakes for him - and for the two nations he professes to care about the most - could not be higher.”

The Jewish Daily Forward has good reasons to wonder whether Netanyahu knows what he's doing. The editorialist cites polls showing that the American people strongly oppose attacking Iran, even if war breaks out between Iran and Israel and only US intervention could save Israel! These polls show that American voters no longer give a damn whether Israel, which has chosen to live by the sword, finally dies by the sword. As Dave Lindorff observes, Netanyahu's mad obsession with pushing the US into yet another unwanted war for Israel “may have fundamentally undermined the long-standing 'special relationship' between the US and Israel.”

And still Netanyahu continues on this seemingly suicidal course. He even orders the Mossad and its CIA assets including Gladio veteran Terry Jones to unleash a rabidly anti-Islam film, spammed into the faces of every Muslim on the planet via millions of dollars of computer server time and intelligence agency expertise - an obvious attempt to fan the flames of Islamophobia and pave the way to a US war on Iran for Israel. Obama, who is on record saying he hates Netanyahu and that Netanyahu is a liar, and who knows that Netanyahu manufactured the “Innocence of Muslims” crisis to try to get Romney elected, responded by refusing to meet with Netanyahu in New York, and going on the David Letterman Show instead. A more blatant snub could hardly be imagined.

So, what in the world is Netanyahu really up to? Does he actually believe that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, even though the CIA has certified that it does not?

Of course, he doesn't really believe such nonsense. Even hard-line Israeli strategists admit that Iran appears to be only developing nuclear expertise, not actual weapons. Furthermore, Iran has not attacked another nation in centuries.

Since the “nuclear crisis” is a hoax (like alleged Iraqi WMD in 2003), then what is the real reason for Netanyahu's Iran obsession? Is it the Iranian government's support for anti-Zionist resistance groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and its calls for an end to Zionism through free and fair elections?

Perhaps. Iran's open commitment to principled anti-Zionism represents the nearly unanimous position of the people of the Middle East, who have never accepted the genocidal Zionist entity as a legitimate state. Israel has been able to bully every other government in the region into shameful silence. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not be silenced. Threats to level Iran with bombs seeks to send a message to future Middle Eastern governments: Do not give a voice to your people's resistance to Zionism, or else!

But while starting a war might seek to punish Iran for its anti-Zionism, such a war would carry terrible risks for Israel. In the impossible event that all goes well for Israel on the battlefield, the suffering of the people of Iran would probably shame the world into turning against Zionism even more sharply than the world turned against apartheid in the 1980s.

But there is no guarantee that things would go well for Israel on the battlefield. Iran has the capability to riddle Israel with rocket attacks, or even to take out Israel's Dimona nuclear facility and perhaps render Israel and much of the surrounding region permanently uninhabitable. And Israel does not have the capability to seriously damage Iran's nuclear energy program without US help. If the US intervened on the side of Israel, Iran could shut the Straits of Hormuz, and possibly sink many, if not all, of the ships there with Sunburn missiles, driving gasoline prices over USD 10 a gallon and paralyzing the world economy. Additionally, Iran has the capability to massively attack the US bases that surround it, killing thousands, if not tens of thousands, of US soldiers. A US president, especially one who dislikes Netanyahu and puts America's interests ahead of Israel's, would be very unlikely to help Netanyahu attack Iran.

Given that a war on Iran is an all-loss proposition for Israel, why is Netanyahu fanatically fanning the flames of war, to the extent that even his American Zionist cheering section is baffled and embarrassed by his behavior?

Some question Netanyahu's intelligence, arguing that he is just a furniture salesman who has been promoted far beyond his level of competence. While there may be some truth to this - I certainly wouldn't want to overestimate Netanyahu's intelligence - I don't think he's quite that stupid. I think Netanyahu has a very good reason to prefer war with Iran, despite all its risks, to peace. I think he does know what he's doing.

Netanyahu needs the 9/11-triggered 100-years-war on Islam to continue for the very good reason that if it does not, the State of Emergency still in place in the US will be lifted, and Americans, unencumbered by the National Security restrictions of wartime, will quickly learn what really happened on September 11th, 2001. That possibility poses a very real existential threat to Israel - and to Netanyahu.

As Alan Sabrosky, former Director of Strategic Studies at the US Army War College, told Press TV: “I have had long conversations over the past two weeks with contacts at the Army War College, at the Headquarters Marine Corps, and I have made it absolutely clear in both cases that it is 100 percent certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation. Period. If Americans ever know that Israel did this, they are going to scrub them off the earth.” And even if Israel were “scrubbed off the earth” peacefully through a one-state solution, Netanyahu would certainly hang for his role in the 9/11 attacks.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu and Zionism, Dr. Sabrosky isn't the only US National Security insider leaking the truth about 9/11. A very large number of military and intelligence people have come forward.The two biggest recent leaks are revelations by CIA asset Susan Lindauer that the CIA had detailed foreknowledge of 9/11 and attributed the controlled demolitions of the three NYC skyscrapers to “those goddamned Israelis”; and the assertion by Gwenyth Todd, who worked beside Richard Clarke on the National Security Council, that Clarke (who was publicly fired from an earlier job for being an Israeli spy) is the top suspect as hands-on controller of 9/11 from the US end. Yes, you heard that right: Richard Clarke's colleague on the National Security Council, Gwenyth Todd, suspects Clarke of masterminding and running the 9/11 attacks. If Todd and other high-level sources are right about this, Clarke's book title Your Government Failed You is an understatement.

Some of the same high-level sources who point to Richard Clarke as the US boss of the Israeli-instigated 9/11 false flag operation also claim that President Obama, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dempsey, and other powerful Americans are considering exposing the truth about 9/11 during a second Obama term. In other words, Obama's re-election could put Israel out of business, and get Netanyahu hanged from the nearest lamp-post.

No wonder Netanyahu is “overplaying his hand” by doing everything he can to get rid of Obama. And no wonder Netanyahu is desperately trying to throw gasoline on the “clash of civilizations” fire and trigger war with Iran. A huge Middle East war, no matter how destructive, would maintain the wartime State of Emergency in the US and impeded the inexorable revelation of America's biggest state secret: That American traitors, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Richard Myers, and others, helped Israel blow up the World Trade Center, bomb the Pentagon, and kill 3000 Americans on 9/11.

--------------

 

Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is http://www.truthjihad.com/

 

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Netanyahu's Secret War Plan: Leaked Document Outlines Israel's "Shock and Awe" Plan to Attack Iran

By: Richard Silverstein

Source: Global Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32380

In the past few days, I received an Israeli briefing document outlining Israel’s war plans against Iran. The document was passed to me by a high-level Israeli source who received it from an IDF officer. My source, in fact, wrote to me that normally he would not leak this sort of document, but:

“These are not normal times. I’m afraid Bibi and Barak are dead serious.”

The reason they leaked it is to expose the arguments and plans advanced by the Bibi-Barak two-headed warrior. Neither the IDF leaker, my source, nor virtually any senior military or intelligence officer wants this war. While whoever wrote this briefing paper had use of IDF and intelligence data, I don’t believe the IDF wrote it. It feels more likely it came from the shop of national security advisor Yaakov Amidror, a former general, settler true-believer and Bibi confidant. It could also have been produced by Defense Minister Barak, another pro-war booster.

I’ve translated the document from Hebrew with the help of Dena Shunra.

Before laying out the document, I wanted to place it in context. If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll know that after Bibi’s IDF service he became the marketing director for a furniture company. Recent revelations have suggested that he may have also served in some capacity either formally or informally in the Mossad during that period.

This document is a more sophisticated version of selling bedroom sets and three-piece sectionals. The only difference is that this marketing effort could lead to the death of thousands.

This is Bibi’s sales pitch for war. Its purpose is to be used in meetings with members of the Shminiya , the eight-member security cabinet which currently finds a 4-3 majority opposed to an Iran strike. Bibi uses this sales pitch to persuade the recalcitrant ministers of the cool, clean, refreshing taste of war. My source informs me that it has also been shared in confidence with selected journalists who are in the trusted inner media circle (who, oh who, might they be?).

This is Shock and Awe, Israel-style. It is Bibi’s effort to persuade high-level Israeli officials that Israel can prosecute a pure technology war that involves relatively few human beings (Israeli, that is) who may be put in harm’s way, and will certainly cost few lives of IDF personnel.

Bibi’s sleight of hand here involves no mention whatsoever of an Iranian counter-attack against Israel. The presumption must be that the bells and whistles of all those marvelous new weapons systems will decapitate Iran’s war-making ability and render it paralyzed. The likelihood of this actually happening is nearly nil.

There will be those who will dispute the authenticity of this document. I’m convinced it is what my source claims, based on his prior track record and the level of specificity offered in the document. It references cities by name and the facilities they contain. It names new weapons systems including one Israel supposedly hasn’t even shared with the U.S.

No, it’s real. Or I should say that while it’s real, it is the product of the Israeli dream factory which manufactures threats and then creates fabulist military strategies to address them. The dream factory always breaks the hearts of the families of those whose members fall victim to it. It never produces the result it promises, nor will it do so here.

Remember Bush-era Shock and Awe? Remember those promises of precision-guided cruise missiles raining death upon Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Remember Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” ceremony on the deck of the USS Lincoln, only six or seven years premature? Remember the promises of decisive victory? Remember 4,000 U.S. dead, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?

Now, think of what an Israeli war against Iran could turn into. Think about how this sanitized version of 21st century war could turn into a protracted, bloody conflict closer to the nine-year Iran-Iraq War:

The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders. The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan—will be taken out of action. The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal. This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal.

A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran. 300km ballistic missiles would be launched from Israeli submarines in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The missiles would not be armed with unconventional warheads [WMD], but rather with high-explosive ordnance equipped with reinforced tips designed specially to penetrate hardened targets.

The missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride. Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility.

A barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles will pound command and control systems, research and development facilities, and the residences of senior personnel in the nuclear and missile development apparatus. Intelligence gathered over years will be utilized to completely decapitate Iran’s professional and command ranks in these fields.

After the first wave of attacks, which will be timed to the second, the “Blue and White” radar satellite, whose systems enable us to perform an evaluation of the level of damage done to the various targets, will pass over Iran. Only after rapidly decrypting the satellite’s data, will the information be transferred directly to war planes making their way covertly toward Iran. These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our U.S. ally. This equipment will render Israeli aircraft invisible. Those Israeli war planes which participate in the attack will damage a short-list of targets which require further assault.

Among the targets approved for attack—Shihab 3 and Sejil ballistic missile silos, storage tanks for chemical components of rocket fuel, industrial facilities for producing missile control systems, centrifuge production plants and more.

While the level of specificity in this document is, in some senses, impressive, in one critical aspect it is deficient. Muhammad Sahimi points out that the current chief of the Revolutionary Guards, when he assumed his position in 2007, deliberately addressed the issue of over-centralization of command and control by dividing the nation into 31 districts. Each of these has its own independent command and control facilities and mechanisms. So Israel wouldn’t be able to knock out a single facility and paralyze the IRG. They’d need to knock out 31 separate sets of facilities–a much harder task.

There seems also to be an assumption that Iran’s leaders and nuclear specialists live nice domestic lives and that Israeli intelligence knows where they all live and can easily target them. In truth, the most senior Iranian military and scientific figures live clandestine lives and it’s hard for me to believe even the Mossad knows where they are and how to target them.

So it appears that Netanyahu believes he’s fighting Saddam circa 2003. During that war, the Iraqi Revolutionary Guards were centralized and knocking out one C&C center could decapitate the entire military apparatus. But Iran has learned from Saddam’s mistakes. It isn’t fighting the last war as Bibi appears to be. It is preparing for the next one. While Israel may have new tricks up its sleeve that no one in the world has yet seen, if it doesn’t understand the nature of the enemy, its defenses, its structure, etc. then it can’t win.

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Sinai rejoins anti-Israeli resistance front

Israeli troops near border with Egypt's Sinai desert on June 18, 2012.

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/10/255530/sinai-rejoins-antiisraeli-resistance/

The Sinai Peninsula has rejoined the Arab and Islamic Resistance as this great awakening spreads inexorably across the region toppling, Western imposed security states and replacing them with governments of greater popular legitimacy.

Egypt and other countries in the region are contributing to righting the historic wrong done to the Palestinian people as millions around the World are employing an increasing variety of resistance strategies in solidarity with this region’s central cause of liberating Palestine from the crumbling but ultra-violent Zionist colonial project.

Historically, the 23,000 sq. mile triangular Sinai Peninsula has been an area of Resistance against a series of occupiers and despots since it was joined to Egypt during in Mamluk Sultanate (1260-1517) when the Ottoman sultan, Selim the Grim, won the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya, and added Egypt to the Ottoman Empire.

Following the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty's rule over the rest of Egypt in 1805, the Ottoman Porte, faced with increasing resistance from Sinai, transferred administration of the restive Peninsula to the Egyptian government, by this time under the control of the colonial power, the United Kingdom. The British occupied Egypt since 1882 and imposed the border in an almost straight line from Rafah on the Mediterranean to Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba which has remained the eastern border of Egypt. At the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egyptian forces invaded Palestine from Sinai to support the Palestinian Resistance in their struggle against the imposed entity of Israel.

Last week’s Sinai operation by “terrorists in Bedouin clothing” against the occupiers of Palestine resulted in the deaths of 16 Egyptian guards protecting the Israeli border as well as several of the Fedayeen, signals again that the Sinai Peninsula has returned to its historic role in confronting colonialism on Egypt’s border. The Egyptian people, if not yet fully their leaders, are returning to their historic struggle to liberate Palestine.

The regime of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak would purposefully undermine the relationship between the Egyptian and Palestinian people. However, over the past 18 months, much of the Sinai has become more Resistance oriented, as police stations in the Sinai were dismantled, the gas line with Israel repeated severed, and Bedouin tribes and others began to stockpile weapons arriving from Libya and from Israel’s black market and elsewhere. The area is becoming a major Resistance base with fighters vowing to repel any attempt by the US and Israel to retain control.

No proof positive has been proffered to support a number of claims being made regarding those responsible for the Sinai attacks and other recent attacks against Israeli installations that number more than 30 just since last year’s Tahrir revolution.

A spokesman for the Hamas government has claimed that the Sinai attack was an Israeli “attempt to tamper with Egyptian security and drive a wedge between the Egyptians and the residents of the Gaza Strip.” Tarek Zumar, a spokesman for the group, claimed that Israel was behind all recent terror attacks against the Egyptians “because it wants to make changes along its border with Egypt.” The day after the attack, and relying on its own intelligent sources, Hamas announced that: "This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its Zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago."

An American critic of Israel’s influence over the US Congress, who is an Assistant Staff Director on a Congressional Committee, emailed that “We are looking into what Israeli leaders knew about the Sinai attack and when they knew it, but no definite responsibility for this operation has been established.” The Muslim Brotherhood has also blamed Mossad for the attack.

One of the reasons the Egyptian public is increasingly calling for abolishing or at least re-negotiating the “Treaty of Shame”, as the Camp David agreement is commonly known, is that Egyptian security forces in Sinai are not enough to protect the borders. Under Camp David’s “Peace Agreement”, it is Israel, and not the Egyptian government who determines how many Egyptians security personnel can stand guard at Egypt’s border.

On 8/4/12, Egypt’s new pro-Palestinian President, Mohamed Morsi, responded to the attack by sacking the pro-Israeli intelligence chief Murad Muwafi, as well as the governor of Northern Sinai Abdel Wahab Mabrouk. The same day, Morsi ordered his defense minister to relieve the head of the country’s military police, as his spokesman said to “turn a page” in the Palestinian struggle and also as a confidence building move in the face of a predicted Zionist campaign to blame the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack. There has been a relentless campaign by Zionist leaders since Mubarak’s ouster, to weaken the Egyptian public’s determination to isolate Israel and cancel their government’s relations with the occupiers of Palestine.

Supporters of Morsi’s rival in the presidential election, Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander, have called for Egyptians to rise up against the Brotherhood and President Morsi as a result of the Sinai operation. Such attacks underscore the divide between new pro-Palestinian government and the military, which continues to hold enormous political power and has limited the president's authority.

The Resistance operation comes only a week after Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh made a rare visit to Egypt to meet with Mohamed Morsi to discuss easing travel restrictions on Gaza imposed by Israel's siege, restrictions respected by Mubarak for years. That meeting, coupled with Morsi meeting both Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last month, resulted in the opening the Rafah border for 12 hrs a day and increasing the daily limit on passengers from Gaza to 1,500. By opening the border, Morsi was following through on a campaign promise he made during the run-up to Egypt's hotly contested election. With the advent of the Arab Spring, a number of Egyptian pro Resistance organizations demanded the complete opening of the Rafah crossing to all traffic, including commercial. During his campaign Morsi stated that “the time has come to open the Rafah crossing to traffic 24 hours a day and all year round.”

Unfortunately, following the most recent operation, the Rafah crossing has been indefinitely closed just like it was under the deposed Egyptian president which will cause great hardship to Gazans and amounts to nothing less than Israeli style “collective punishment” as claimed by Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official.

As one Gazan young woman, Rana Baker, a member of the Gaza-based BDS organizing committee recently observed, “It is worth recalling here the official Egyptian stance on the murder of two Egyptian security guards in an Israeli raid along the Israeli-Egyptian border last year. Not one Egyptian helicopter took off in search of the assailants and not one bullet was aimed at “suspects” from the Israeli side. Not only did the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) bury the incident as if it had never happened, but it went as far as to quell Egyptian protestors at the Israeli embassy in Cairo almost a year ago today. Days later, the SCAF erected a high wall around the embassy to “protect” it against “extremists.”

The Gaza Strip has now been closed off, as it was during the time of Hosni Mubarak. The siege is now expected to intensify following the indefinite closure of the Rafah and Karm Abu-Salem border crossings. The siege is now expected to intensify following the indefinite closure of the Rafah and Karm Abu-Salem border crossings.

Robert Satloff , Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), founded by AIPAC, presented the Zionist lobby’s reaction to the Sinai operations and the expanding geography of Resistance. He offered the following suggestions presented on their website and in Lobby publications:

“The US must undertake firm communication to Egypt’s Morsi that if he wants international support to bolster his flagging economy, he cannot pander to the worst instincts of Egyptian public opinion. Indeed, any serious effort to prevent terrorist infiltration in Sinai requires coordination with Israel, and this will not proceed in an environment of public vilification.”

“Second, US policymakers should reaffirm to the Egyptian military that Washington views securing Sinai as an essential aspect of Egyptian-Israeli peace, and that continued provision of substantial military aid, which has exceeded 35 billion over the past three decades, is absolutely contingent on the investment of adequate personnel and resources to do the security job. Failure to direct the right people and resources to the peninsula will trigger an overall reassessment of the US military assistance package, with an eye to updating this 1980s-era relationship for the current environment.”

Satloft’s views are reflective of the vast disconnect between reality and expectations of Zionist officials and their shills, over what the past 18 months has birthed in the Middle East with respect to Resistance to the continuing colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

With the Sinai Peninsula returning to the era and culture of Resistance, the liberation of Palestine draws ever nearer and more certain, perhaps sooner than later.

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Security breakdown in Sinai: Army battles it out with militants

Egyptian security forces stand by their Armoured Personell Carriers ahead of a military operation in the northern Sinai peninsula on August 08, 2012 (AFP Photo / Stringer)

Source: Russia Today

http://www.rt.com/news/sinai-egypt-troop-deployment-274/

Clashes in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula are raging for the second day as the military attempts to combat militants who have taken a foothold in the region since Mubarak’s ouster.

The violence has spurred the largest military deployment in the Sinai Peninsula since 1979. Around 60 tanks, 15 armored personnel carriers, missile batteries and hundreds of soldiers have been sent into the main Northern Sinai town of Al-Arish on Thursday as Egyptian security forces continue to battle with Islamic militants.

The deployment is believed to be the largest since Egypt signed the 1979 Camp David Accords with Israel. As a result of the accords, prior approval is needed before deploying troops on either side of the border, a condition which served to virtually demilitarize the Sinai Peninsula.
Militants ramped up their attacks by attacking five joint military-police checkpoints on Wednesday, prompting the Egyptian military to launch airstrikes from Apache helicopters. Nile TV reported the airstrikes killed at least 20. It was the first time Egypt had deployed its air force in Sinai since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The military also began sealing off some of the 1,200 illegal tunnels that currently permeate the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip.
The security operation was launched in response to a weekend attack when masked gunmen killed 16 Egyptian border guards before slipping across the border into Israel.

On Thursday Egyptian Intelligence asked Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to hand over three members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades- Hamas paramilitary wing for providing indirect help to militants in Sinai, al-Quds newspaper reports.

Mossad reportedly transferred a list of nine alleged militants connected with Sunday’s attack to Egyptian Intelligence on the same day. The nine suspected militants are said to be affiliated with "The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine," reports Haaretz, citing Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau.

Marzook maintained that Mossad was responsible for the attack, backing a claim that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood made earlier this week. The Muslim Brotherhood accused Mossad of “seeking to abort the [Egyptian] revolution since its inception.” Israel maintains Hammas are behind the attacks, an accusation they have denied.

Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi, who took the oath of office on June 30 to become the country’s first freely elected president, said those behind Sunday’s “cowardly” attack would pay dearly. Morsi, who is a longstanding member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has not publicly blamed Mossad for the assault.

In a move to assert his authority, on Wednesday Morsi said he had forced his director of General Intelligence Services to resign and had dismissed the governor of Northern Sinai. As the military is constitutionally out of Morsi’s reach, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Ruling Military Council, fired Hamdy Badeen, the head of Egypt’s Military Police.

Egypt’s armed forces further called on locals and Bedouin tribes in Sinai to help security forces restore order in the region.

The resolute response from both Morsi and the country’s military rulers shows Egypt’s authorities are taking the deteriorating security situation in the region seriously.

Many analysts have attributed the growing Islamist presence in Sinai to the security vacuum resulting from former president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster last year.

Despite the recent flare-up in the violence, the Egyptian military actually launched “Operation Eagle” in August 2011 to re-establish control in Sinai, a move which saw 2,500 Egyptian troops and 250 armored personnel carriers deployed to Sinai.
With Mubarak’s security apparatus virtually disintegrating in January of last year, a tacit understanding between Israel and Egypt was reached regarding the need to bolster the latter’s military presence in the region, Ahram online reports.

An Egypt-Israel gas pipeline was sabotaged almost a dozen times in under a year, while militants believed to be connected with Islamist groups carried out a series of attacks on Egyptian police stations and checkpoints.

Egypt’s decision to send in reinforcements and intensify its clampdown follows a claim by Israel that Sunday’s brazen attack was a “wake-up call” for Egypt to get a grip on the threat of growing lawlessness on what is, in effect, a bridge between Asia and Africa.

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