Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal

25 July 2012 6:11 PM

There is a degree of panic, and rightly so, over whether the Syrian tyrant Basher al Assad will use chemical weapons against either his own people or foreign attackers. His regime has this week threatened to do the latter, thus finally confirming what was long suspected but never openly admitted, that Syria possesses chemical weapons. It is believed to have mustard gas as well as nerve agents such as tabun, sarin and VX. The fear is either that the Assad regime uses them or that they fall into the hands of Hezbollah, al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist groups. Either prospect is utterly nightmarish. Even Russia says it has told Syria it is unacceptable to threaten to use them.

In the last few days, this has been much discussed. What has not been raised, however, is the question of how Syria managed to develop such a chemical weapons stockpile in the first place. No-one in the western media seems remotely curious about how Syria has managed to arm itself to the teeth with them beneath the radar of international scrutiny.

Dr Danny Shoham, at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, is an expert in chemical and biological warfare. In a Middle East Quarterly article in 2002, Guile, Gas and Germs: Syria’s Ultimate Weapons, he set out the extraordinary history of Syria’s chemical weapons programme.

Analysis: Bandar’s return affirms hawkish turn in Saudi foreign policy

 

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
For over two decades, America’s relations with its most important Arab ally were primarily mediated by just one man: Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005. But on June 26, 2005, Bandar, a personal friend of the Bush family, submitted his diplomatic resignation, after being recalled to Riyadh by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Almost immediately, Bandar, known for years in Washington’s diplomatic circles as a flamboyant socialite, disappeared from public view. It is said that he faced serious health problems, going in and out of hospitals. Others claim that he fell out of favor with Saudi Arabia’s autocratic ruling elite, and in 2009 there were even unconfirmed reports that he was under house arrest after allegedly trying to organize a military coup against King Abdullah. Last week, however, Bandar returned to the limelight in spectacular fashion: in a plainly worded statement, Saudi authorities announced that the Prince had been appointed Director General of the Mukhabarat Al A’amah, the Kingdom’s main intelligence agency.

Is North Korea Making EMP Weapons?

Electromagnetic Pulse (Photo credit: arbyreed)

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InnovationNewsDaily Staff

North Korea may be developing electromagnetic pulse weapons or bombs that could take out power grids — not to mention military and civilian electronics.

Such speculation comes from a Chinese military analyst’s article in the journal Bauhinia, according to the Washington Times. The Chinese military pointed out that North Korea has always planned to develop small nuclear weapons capable of creating such electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) — likely targeted at South Korean and U.S. military forces based in the southern half of the Korean peninsula.

The possibility of using EMPs as a weapon arose during early days of U.S. and Soviet nuclear testing during the Cold War. Nuclear blasts from those tests created EMPs as a secondary effect that led to some unexpected damage for civilian power grids and facilities.

Several countries, such as the U.S., have also investigated the possibility of making EMP weapons that don’t require nuclear blasts. But North Korea’s weapon-making efforts have recently focused upon expanding its nuclear arsenal.

Iran News Round Up July 20, 2012

English: Key Petroleum Sector facilities (2004) Iran (Wall Map) 2004 “Iran Country Profile” Iran map with insets: Population Density, Ethnoreligious Distribution, Key Petroleum Sector Facilities, Southern Caspian Energy Prospects and Strait Of Hormuz (2.5M) (source: CIA map) http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iran_country_profile_2004… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  .
 
(E) = Article in English

Diplomacy

• Egypt‘s President Mursi denies entry visas to Iranian citizens. 
• Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, temporary Tehran Friday prayer leader, condemns “massacre of Muslims in Myanmar”:
  • “They are killing Muslims in a savage way and the president of Myanmar is doing so by saying ‘We do not consider Muslims as citizens…’ Sometimes a suspicious death happens at a remote place in the world and they start screaming but in this case, they are silent, which makes us believe that the United States is guilty of this crime as well…”
  • “Syria is paying the price of supporting the innocent Palestinians, Hezbollah and the Islamic Iran… The unholy and ominous alliance of the United States, Britain, Europe, the reactionary Arabs, and al-Qaeda, this murderous group and some neighboring countries of Syria, which are dreaming of reestablishing their past empire [Turkey] are behind the crimes… They can’t beat the Syrian people with this terrorist act, just as the Islamic Republic solidly remained in its place after the blast at the office of the Islamic Republican Party.”
  • Discussing arrest of Ayatollah Nimr in Saudi Arabia and suppression of the Shi’a in Bahrain, Khatami continued: “The Khalifa and al-Saud clans should know that an infidel government may survive but injustice is not lasting…”
• [E] Iran’s embassy in Sofia denied Israel’s allegations about Tehran’s involvement in a terrorist attack in Bulgaria, and stressed Iran’s strong opposition to any kind of terrorist act.

Military and Security

• Fars News slams Ambassador Bolton’s statements in the wake of terrorist incident in Bulgaria. 

Trade

• Bakeries in Iran use wheat imported from India.

Gitmo prisoner returns to Sudan after 10 years

-Khartoum,Sudan- (Photo credit: Vít Hassan)

By Ben Fox and Mohamed Osman – The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Jul 11, 2012 14:51:57 EDT

KHARTOUM, Sudan — A man who spent a decade as a prisoner in the U.S. detention facility for militants in Guantanamo Bay returned Wednesday to his native Sudan after completing a shortened sentence for aiding al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Ibrahim al-Qosi was getting reacquainted with his wife and two daughters and other family members and will spend some time in a government-sponsored reintegration program in the capital, Khartoum, before returning to his hometown, said his lawyer Paul Reichler.

Al-Qosi, who recently turned 52, had not seen his family since he was captured and sent to the U.S. base in Cuba in early 2002. His release brings the prison population down to 168.

“I guess you call this probably the best birthday present he ever received,” Reichler, a Washington-based specialist in international law, said in a phone interview from Greece, where he was speaking at a legal conference.

The Pentagon and state-run media in Sudan confirmed al-Qosi’s release.

Al-Qosi admitted serving food and providing other services at a militant camp. He was among the first prisoners taken to the Guantanamo, the hastily arranged detention center to hold men suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban after the invasion of Afghanistan.

From a high of nearly 700, the population is now down to less than 170. President Obama vowed to close the prison but has been prevented from doing so by Congress.

Al-Qosi, who moved to Afghanistan in 1996 to work with Islamic militants, struck a deal with U.S. military prosecutors in July 2010, pleading guilty to providing material support to terrorism and conspiracy in exchange for a 14-year sentence that would be shortened to two years from his conviction. It spared him the possibility of a much longer sentence, perhaps even life.

He was never accused of any specific acts of violence. He worked as a cook and helped gather supplies for a militant camp. His lawyer said he may have accompanied Osama bin Laden as part of an entourage but was never a member of the terrorist leader’s inner circle. Bin-Laden, founder of al-Qaida, was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan last year.

Convicted al Qaida operative released from Guantánamo, repatriated to Sudan in plea deal

English: Frame grab from the Osama bin Laden videotape released by the Department of Defense on Dec. 13, 2001. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The United States sent home to Sudan on Tuesday one of Guantánamo’s longest-held prisoners, a 52-year-old confessed al Qaida foot soldier and sometime driver for Osama bin Laden whose release was seen as a crucial test case of the Barack Obama-era war court.

Ibrahim al Qosi pleaded guilty to terror charges in July 2010 in exchange for the possibility of release after serving a two-year sentence.

U.S. troops spirited him from the remote base days after his war crimes sentence ran out and dropped him off in the capital city Khartoum about 8 p.m. Miami time Tuesday night, Wednesday in Sudan, U.S. government sources said.

The Pentagon has not yet disclosed the transfer — which reduced the number of foreign prisoners at the Navy base in Cuba to 168 — to give Sudanese officials time to put the returnee in a rehabilitation program in the Horn of Africa nation. But the repatriation demonstrated that the Obama administration is still in the business of deal-making and downsizing the prison camps even as the Defense Department is planning to spend $40 million on an undersea telecommunications cable to the base in southeast Cuba.

Now-grown “child soldier” Omar Khadr could go next, to a lock-up in his native Canada. The White House is also reportedly considering transferring some Taliban captives at Guantánamo to Afghanistan as part of a regional peace accord there.

The release of Qosi was the first of a convicted war criminal since the Bush administration sent home Yemeni Salim Hamdan in 2008. Qosi’s attorney argued the U.S. had no reason to fear the Sudanese man.

“He is now in his 50s, eager only to spend his life at home with his family in Sudan — his mother and father, his wife and two teenage daughters, and his brothers and their families — and live among them in peace, quiet and freedom,” said Washington, D.C., attorney Paul Reichler, who defended Qosi without charge for seven years.

Former CIA spy advocates overthrow of Iranian regime

Reza Kahlili, living in the shadows with a fake name and disguise, worked from inside the Revolutionary Guard. He warns of terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. and a plot to destroy Israel.

Former CIA spy Reza Kahlili lived a double life until the mid-1990s, passing along Iran’s secrets to the CIA and recruiting Revolutionary Guards for the agency. In a sense, he resumed his double identity after publishing his 2010 memoir. (Reza Kahlili / July 7, 2012)

By David Zucchino

July 6, 2012, 6:33 p.m.

Los Angeles Times
ARLINGTON, Va. — His disguise consists of a blue surgeon’s mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap that reads “Free Iran.” A small modulator distorts his voice. He uses a pseudonym, Reza Kahlili.
He lives in fear, he says, because his years as a paid spy for the CIA inside Iran have made him an assassination target of Iran’s government. He worries about his wife and children, who live with him in California.
At the same time, implausibly, he has become one of the most influential and outspoken voices in the U.S. advocating the overthrow of the Iranian government.
For the last two years, Kahlili has gone semipublic with a memoir, a blog, op-ed pieces and invitation-only speeches at think tanks. He warns that Iran operates terrorist sleeper cells inside the United States and is determined to build nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. The U.S. should respond, he argues, by supporting the opposition inside Iran.
He travels furtively between appearances, working as a Pentagon consultant and as a member of a domestic security task force.

Containing the Islamist Revolution

When politicians are in election mode, they can see nothing but victory. All decisions, all considerations, are subservient to one question: how they can convince voters to check their name at the ballot box. As someone who ran for office nine times, I know what I am talking about. But for the candidate who wins the election, and for the voters, there is always the day after.

The rise of anti-Western Islamist movements — exemplified this week by the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi in Egypt’s presidential election — represents a grave threat to U.S. interests and values in the Middle East. The next president of the United States, on the day after the election in November, will have to cope with this new reality. If he is to be successful, he must develop a strategy that takes into account the new state of affairs in this region and develop a long-term strategy to unite America’s friends and confront its enemies.

Unfortunately, the new reality in the greater Middle East is bad for the United States and its allies, including my country. Most importantly, the president should recognize that Islamist forces are on the move: They have seized control from Waziristan to the Atlantic Ocean in almost uninterrupted territorial contiguity. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya are at the midst of a brutal and destructive battle for their identity. Their future territorial integrity is in doubt. In these five countries, and now in Egypt, the Islamist and extremist forces have the upper hand. The media has already replaced the term “Arab Spring” with “Arab Awakening.” Sooner rather than later, it will be replaced again by “Islamist takeover.”

In no country are these Islamist forces friends of the United States. The extremists among them despise its culture and way of life. They deplore its status as a global superpower. The pragmatists are ready to receive U.S. financial and military aid, but will not heed U.S. advice on foreign and domestic policy.

As Islamist movements gain strength, America’s traditional allies are wavering about how to confront this new threat. They doubt the loyalty of the United States, and wonder if they will enjoy American backing and support when they need it most. They are exploring other options to protect their interests.

Nor are there any glimmers of progress when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The Israeli government continues to expand and foster settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians — to whom everybody, including their Arab brothers, have given a cold shoulder — are swept into a dangerous despair and growing radicalization. The lack of a serious Israeli-Palestinian dialogue is leading to a binational state, which would signal the end of the Jewish national dream and the Palestinian one.

The complete international illegitimacy of the settlement project and of the occupation aimed to protect it — combined with the combustibility of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — is a liability for U.S. foreign policy. It will remain so even if other parts of the world become a higher priority to the United States than the Middle East.

Both U.S. presidential candidates and their advisors need to begin thinking about the day after the election, and how the next American president will deal with this complex reality. As one who lives in the midst of it, here is my advice.

What to Expect From Mexico’s Election

Enrique Peña Nieto, político mexicano. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Interviewee: Shannon K. O’Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies

Interviewer: Brianna Lee, Production Editor June 29, 2012

Mexicans head to the polls on July 1 to vote in a presidential election that looks likely to return to power the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ran the government from 1929 to 2000. Polls show PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto in a wide lead over rivals Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), despite the emergence of the “YoSoy132″ student movement that has rallied against the PRI’s legacy of corruption. Peña Nieto’s “rhetoric is that he is from a different generation, it’s a different PRI,” says CFR Mexico expert Shannon K. O’Neil, but, she says, “it’s hard to tell.” The new president will need to accelerate the economy’s “stable but fairly slow growth” and will inherit a violent drug war that has led to increasing insecurity for Mexicans, O’Neil says. On combating the drug cartels, she says that “the focus will probably change, but the actual policies implemented will see a lot of continuity.”

Is it a foregone conclusion that Enrique Peña Nieto is going to win, or is there still room for surprises?

It’s becoming increasingly hard to imagine a scenario where he doesn’t win. There is still, depending on the polls, roughly 15 percent of the population that says they’re undecided, and for most polls that would be enough of a percentage to change the results, assuming that that whole 15 percent didn’t go to Peña Nieto, but that’s kind of a large assumption.

The Failure of the Moscow Talks – What’s Next?

 

Cascades of gas centrifuges are used to enrich uranium ore to concentrate its fissionable isotopes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

INSS Insight – Asculai, Ephraim: The Istanbul-Baghdad-Moscow talks on Iran’s nuclear program are over. As expected, they did not achieve anything of significance, besides deciding on further, lower level talks. Indeed, the P5 1 and the Iranian delegations shared one objective: they did not want the process to end, thereby necessitating a decision on different tracks. The Iranians are successfully playing for time, as they have done for so many years, and the members of the P5 1 group are also trying to delay any inconvenient decisions, each group member for its own reasons. Most noticeably, the US delegation would like to postpone any major decision until after the November 2012 presidential elections. For their part, the Iranians need time to advance their nuclear program and produce as much enriched uranium as possible. Although according to many reports the sanctions are hurting Iran, they are still not hurting Iran badly enough, and the Iranians are able to bear them.

The ultimate aims of both sides are, of course, diametrically opposite. The Iranians want to retain the capability to enrich uranium to military-grade levels and to gain the ability to produce several nuclear weapons in short order, should the Islamic Republic’s authorities so decide. The Iranian strategy is very simple: they want the world to recognize the legitimacy of the Iranian uranium enrichment program. Even under limited conditions, such recognition would enable Iran to retain its technical capabilities, to perfect the enrichment process, and to leave them a potential for a breakout (defined as the start of the process to produce military-grade enriched uranium), whenever they decide to do so. In addition, the Iranians could well construct concealed facilities and secretly produce enriched uranium to whatever levels they choose to achieve.

The P5 1 want to prevent this possibility, but their remaining options are few. It is nearly impossible to envision the Security Council taking any further action against Iran, because Russia and China would likely vote against it. The first and most probable option for the West (the P5 1 minus Russia and China) is to impose the July sanctions on oil and hope for the best. The next option is to increase the sanctions considerably and wait for the Iranians to blink. The third option is military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

What would the Iranians do? Although the present sanctions have hurt Iran considerably, there are those who think that Iran can shoulder them indefinitely and will therefore continue with its present tactics of preventing a showdown while enriching uranium.