Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, and Sarah Baxter, Washington
ISRAEL’S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.
The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.
Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.
The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.
A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.
Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years.
“Israel — and not only Israel — cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” Sharon warned recently. “We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”
The order to prepare for a possible attack went through the Israeli defence ministry to the chief of staff. Sources inside special forces command confirmed that “G” readiness — the highest stage — for an operation was announced last week.
Gholamreza Aghazadeah, head of the Atomic Organisation of Iran, warned yesterday that his country would produce nuclear fuel. “There is no doubt that we have to carry out uranium enrichment,” he said.
He promised it would not be done during forthcoming talks with European negotiators. But although Iran insists it wants only nuclear energy, Israeli intelligence has concluded it is deceiving the world and has no intention of giving up what it believes is its right to develop nuclear weapons.
A “massive” Israeli intelligence operation has been underway since Iran was designated the “top priority for 2005”, according to security sources.
Cross-border operations and signal intelligence from a base established by the Israelis in northern Iraq are said to have identified a number of Iranian uranium enrichment sites unknown to the the IAEA.
Since Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, “it has been understood that the lesson is, don’t have one site, have 50 sites”, a White House source said.
If a military operation is approved, Israel will use air and ground forces against several nuclear targets in the hope of stalling Tehran’s nuclear programme for years, according to Israeli military sources.
It is believed Israel would call on its top special forces brigade, Unit 262 — the equivalent of the SAS — and the F-15I strategic 69 Squadron, which can strike Iran and return to Israel without refuelling.
“If we opt for the military strike,” said a source, “it must be not less than 100% successful. It will resemble the destruction of the Egyptian air force in three hours in June 1967.”
Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the Israeli military intelligence chief, stepped up the pressure on Iran this month when he warned Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that “if by the end of March the international community is unable to refer the Iranian issue to the United Nations security council, then we can say the international effort has run its course”.
The March deadline set for military readiness also stems from fears that Iran is improving its own intelligence-gathering capability. In October it launched its first satellite, the Sinah-1, which was carried by a Russian space launcher.
“The Iranians’ space programme is a matter of deep concern to us,” said an Israeli defence source. “If and when we launch an attack on several Iranian targets, the last thing we need is Iranian early warning received by satellite.”
Russia last week signed an estimated $1 billion contract — its largest since 2000 — to sell Iran advanced Tor-M1 systems capable of destroying guided missiles and laser-guided bombs from aircraft.
“Once the Iranians get the Tor-M1, it will make our life much more difficult,” said an Israeli air force source. “The installation of this system can be relatively quick and we can’t waste time on this one.”
The date set for possible Israeli strikes on Iran also coincides with Israel’s general election on March 28, prompting speculation that Sharon may be sabre-rattling for votes.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the frontrunner to lead Likud into the elections, said that if Sharon did not act against Iran, “then when I form the new Israeli government, we’ll do what we did in the past against Saddam’s reactor, which gave us 20 years of tranquillity”.
TEHRAN MINISTER MET MILITANTS BEFORE NEW OFFENSIVE
Iran’s foreign minister met leading figures from three Islamic militant groups to co-ordinate a united front against Israel days before a recent escalation of attacks against Israeli targets shattered fragile ceasefires with Lebanon and the Palestinians, writes Hugh Macleod in Damascus.
The minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, held talks with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in Damascus on November 15.
Among those who attended the meeting were Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader, and a deputy leader of Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for last Monday’s suicide bombing of a shopping mall in Netanya that killed five Israeli citizens.
Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine- General Command, was also present. “We all confirmed that what is going on in occupied Palestine is organically connected to what is going on in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Lebanon,” said Jibril.
Seven days after the talks, Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets and mortars at Israeli targets, sparking the fiercest fighting between the two sides since Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon five years ago.
Source: The Times (UK)
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Christmas behind Israel's wall
BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - The meticulously followed Christmas ritual dates back to Ottoman times.
(AFP/Awad Awad)
Every year on the morning of Dec. 25, the Latin Patriarch and a host of Church dignitaries head southward from Jerusalem via an ancient road to Bethlehem. But this year, the procession will pass through a metal gate topped with rolls of barbed wire, normally closed but opened briefly so as not to impede the tradition.
Flanking the gate are sections of 28-ft. high slabs of concrete that have made the northern approach of Bethlehem into a walled city. Half encircled by
Israel's barrier, residents in the city where Jesus was born worry that the obstacle will slow a renewed stream of pilgrims as well as sever Bethlehem's historic link to Jerusalem.
"Going to Jerusalem is now like going to Jordan," complains Ali Jubran, a construction worker from Bethlehem, as he puts finishing touches on a new checkpoint terminal. "If you want to pray [at the mosque], you have to present a passport."
Creeping gradually southward through the
West Bank, Israel has completed about half of the 411-mile matrix of concrete wall, electric fence, and patrol roads. Israel says it is necessary to keep suicide bombers from reaching its shopping malls and buses, but a
United Nations court ruled in an advisory opinion last year that it violated international law.
On the outskirts of one of Christianity's holiest cities, the barrier snakes through the hills, almost entirely closing off nearby Jerusalem. Israeli security officials have charged that Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem has served as the base for militants who have carried out deadly attacks in Jerusalem.
The five-year Palestinian uprising has been especially painful for Bethlehem, where the tourism industry that fuels the holy city's economy all but collapsed. Visitors started returning here over the past year because of the calm in fighting, but city officials worry that the barrier and new checkpoint terminal at the entrance is liable to scare off pilgrims.
Crossing "was never easy, and now it's going to be more difficult," says Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh. "This is an economic war against the city."
Traffic has been diverted from the old two-lane road to Jerusalem into a crossing complex with a parking lot, pedestrian terminal, and a massive sliding gate at another opening in the wall. Jerusalem-bound pedestrians pass through metal turnstiles and are inspected using surveillance cameras. The wall next to the exit is decorated with tourism posters, one of which says, "Have faith in Israel."
Israeli army officials say that foreign tourists during the Christmas holiday won't be subject to security checks. Palestinian residents, though, will still face the delays they have become accustomed to for the past five years.
"It's not easy passing through all those doors. You feel like a prisoner," says Kate Komseyeh, a resident of Bethlehem who commutes daily to Jerusalem where she works as a Greek-language teacher at St. Dimitri's School. "It's better without the wall. We can see Bethlehem from Jerusalem."
Residents of Bethlehem, a suburb of Jerusalem that attracts foreign diplomats and expatriates, drive 10 minutes up the road for hospitals, shopping, and schools. "Bethlehem and Jerusalem are twin cities. It's the first time in history that Bethlehem has been separated,'' says Jad Isaac, director general of the Applied Research Institute, a Jerusalem-based environmental group. "It will gradually cause Bethlehem to become ghettoized, a further deterioration of living conditions, and further immigration."
Municipal officials say that unemployment in Bethlehem is more than 50 percent due to the drop in tourism. On Tuesday, Palestinian gunmen briefly seized control of Bethlehem's city hall, demanding jobs in the Palestinian security services.
There are signs of life though. In an alleyway leading to Manger Square, a team of workers is laying cobblestones and cement after the municipality repaired sewer damage from Israeli tanks that roamed the Old City in 2002.
But estimates of the recovery differ. Mayor Batarseh says Bethlehem has experienced a 10 percent growth in tourism in recent months, while the Israeli Army said that the number of pilgrims in 2005 doubled to 200,000.
Just across from the Church of the Nativity, the Roman basilica built over the grotto that is the traditional spot of Jesus' birth, the signs over the storefronts of souvenir shops are shattered from gunfire. Gesturing to the empty stone plaza of Manger Square, Joseph Tabash complained that pilgrims go directly from the buses to the church and back. "Look outside. It's empty," says the gift-shop owner. "Go to any place in the world. Would you see a city center like this?"
Back near the entrance of Bethlehem, the neighborhood around Rachel's Tomb - the traditional burial spot of the Old Testament matriarch - has become a ghost town. Once bustling with markets and restaurants, Bethlehem's gateway district has been carved up by a cement wall corridor that allows Jewish worshippers to visit the holy site without being exposed to sniper fire.
In November, the construction of the wall nearly swallowed Johnny Anistas's villa, surrounding it on three sides. For five years, the family's gift shop and spare parts business on the first floor has been shuttered because of military blockades.
Now the isolation is physical. The wall's jagged crown is within spitting distance of the top floor window. "When we walk outside, we see the wall in our faces," he says.
"We can't live here anymore, but we don't want to leave our house. We're strong believers in God, but how much can God tolerate?"
Source: Yahoo! News
(AFP/Awad Awad)Every year on the morning of Dec. 25, the Latin Patriarch and a host of Church dignitaries head southward from Jerusalem via an ancient road to Bethlehem. But this year, the procession will pass through a metal gate topped with rolls of barbed wire, normally closed but opened briefly so as not to impede the tradition.
Flanking the gate are sections of 28-ft. high slabs of concrete that have made the northern approach of Bethlehem into a walled city. Half encircled by
Israel's barrier, residents in the city where Jesus was born worry that the obstacle will slow a renewed stream of pilgrims as well as sever Bethlehem's historic link to Jerusalem.
"Going to Jerusalem is now like going to Jordan," complains Ali Jubran, a construction worker from Bethlehem, as he puts finishing touches on a new checkpoint terminal. "If you want to pray [at the mosque], you have to present a passport."
Creeping gradually southward through the
West Bank, Israel has completed about half of the 411-mile matrix of concrete wall, electric fence, and patrol roads. Israel says it is necessary to keep suicide bombers from reaching its shopping malls and buses, but a
United Nations court ruled in an advisory opinion last year that it violated international law.
On the outskirts of one of Christianity's holiest cities, the barrier snakes through the hills, almost entirely closing off nearby Jerusalem. Israeli security officials have charged that Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem has served as the base for militants who have carried out deadly attacks in Jerusalem.
The five-year Palestinian uprising has been especially painful for Bethlehem, where the tourism industry that fuels the holy city's economy all but collapsed. Visitors started returning here over the past year because of the calm in fighting, but city officials worry that the barrier and new checkpoint terminal at the entrance is liable to scare off pilgrims.
Crossing "was never easy, and now it's going to be more difficult," says Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh. "This is an economic war against the city."
Traffic has been diverted from the old two-lane road to Jerusalem into a crossing complex with a parking lot, pedestrian terminal, and a massive sliding gate at another opening in the wall. Jerusalem-bound pedestrians pass through metal turnstiles and are inspected using surveillance cameras. The wall next to the exit is decorated with tourism posters, one of which says, "Have faith in Israel."
Israeli army officials say that foreign tourists during the Christmas holiday won't be subject to security checks. Palestinian residents, though, will still face the delays they have become accustomed to for the past five years.
"It's not easy passing through all those doors. You feel like a prisoner," says Kate Komseyeh, a resident of Bethlehem who commutes daily to Jerusalem where she works as a Greek-language teacher at St. Dimitri's School. "It's better without the wall. We can see Bethlehem from Jerusalem."
Residents of Bethlehem, a suburb of Jerusalem that attracts foreign diplomats and expatriates, drive 10 minutes up the road for hospitals, shopping, and schools. "Bethlehem and Jerusalem are twin cities. It's the first time in history that Bethlehem has been separated,'' says Jad Isaac, director general of the Applied Research Institute, a Jerusalem-based environmental group. "It will gradually cause Bethlehem to become ghettoized, a further deterioration of living conditions, and further immigration."
Municipal officials say that unemployment in Bethlehem is more than 50 percent due to the drop in tourism. On Tuesday, Palestinian gunmen briefly seized control of Bethlehem's city hall, demanding jobs in the Palestinian security services.
There are signs of life though. In an alleyway leading to Manger Square, a team of workers is laying cobblestones and cement after the municipality repaired sewer damage from Israeli tanks that roamed the Old City in 2002.
But estimates of the recovery differ. Mayor Batarseh says Bethlehem has experienced a 10 percent growth in tourism in recent months, while the Israeli Army said that the number of pilgrims in 2005 doubled to 200,000.
Just across from the Church of the Nativity, the Roman basilica built over the grotto that is the traditional spot of Jesus' birth, the signs over the storefronts of souvenir shops are shattered from gunfire. Gesturing to the empty stone plaza of Manger Square, Joseph Tabash complained that pilgrims go directly from the buses to the church and back. "Look outside. It's empty," says the gift-shop owner. "Go to any place in the world. Would you see a city center like this?"
Back near the entrance of Bethlehem, the neighborhood around Rachel's Tomb - the traditional burial spot of the Old Testament matriarch - has become a ghost town. Once bustling with markets and restaurants, Bethlehem's gateway district has been carved up by a cement wall corridor that allows Jewish worshippers to visit the holy site without being exposed to sniper fire.
In November, the construction of the wall nearly swallowed Johnny Anistas's villa, surrounding it on three sides. For five years, the family's gift shop and spare parts business on the first floor has been shuttered because of military blockades.
Now the isolation is physical. The wall's jagged crown is within spitting distance of the top floor window. "When we walk outside, we see the wall in our faces," he says.
"We can't live here anymore, but we don't want to leave our house. We're strong believers in God, but how much can God tolerate?"
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Saddam claims he is being tortured by Americans
By Stephen Farrell
SADDAM HUSSEIN accused American prison guards of beating him in custody in a courtroom outburst yesterday after hours of evidence about how his intelligence services tortured and murdered Iraqis.
The former dictator also told the court that he knew the name of the person who gave away the hiding place where he was captured in 2003.
“We all have been beaten and tortured by the Americans. Yes I have been beaten, everywhere on my body. The marks are still there,” he said. The White House described the claims as preposterous.
The allegations came as the deposed leader and his halfbrother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, repeatedly used the sixth day of hearings to air grievances about their conditions of detention and the alleged abuses meted out to their fellow prisoners.
Their complaints came after lengthy testimony about the alleged round-up and indiscriminate murders of 148 Shias in Dujail after an attempt on Saddam’s life in the village in 1982.
Ali Hassen Muhammad al-Heideri, a Dujail resident, said that villagers were taken to an intelligence jail, where he saw them tortured and killed on Mr al-Tikriti’s orders. From there, Mr al-Heideri said, the survivors were taken to Abu Ghraib before before being transferred to a desert detention facility near Samawa, at both of which numerous men, women and children died. Mr al-Heideri said that Saddam’s guards applied electric shocks to detainees and dripped hot plastic on to their skins, causing searing pain as it dried and was pulled off.
Saddam and seven co-defendants deny the murders.
Yesterday they repeatedly sought to undermine the witness’s credibility, goading him and accusing him of involvement in the assassination plot.
In a bizarre twist, one of the supposed 148 victims gave evidence in court yesterday, very much alive and testifying from behind a curtain that his name had wrongly appeared on a list of the dead after the alleged massacre.
The most dramatic moment was an angry exchange between Mr al-Heideri and Mr al-Tikriti when the latter insulted the witness by telling him that the shoe of his fellow defendant Taha Yassin Ramadan was “more honourable than you and all your tribe, you dog!” One guard entered the dock and grasped him by the arm. As he stared at the headscarved Mr al-Tikriti he was clearly heard muttering: “I am going to beat you.”
The case continues.
The Times (UK) : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1953080,00.html
SADDAM HUSSEIN accused American prison guards of beating him in custody in a courtroom outburst yesterday after hours of evidence about how his intelligence services tortured and murdered Iraqis.
The former dictator also told the court that he knew the name of the person who gave away the hiding place where he was captured in 2003.
“We all have been beaten and tortured by the Americans. Yes I have been beaten, everywhere on my body. The marks are still there,” he said. The White House described the claims as preposterous.
The allegations came as the deposed leader and his halfbrother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, repeatedly used the sixth day of hearings to air grievances about their conditions of detention and the alleged abuses meted out to their fellow prisoners.
Their complaints came after lengthy testimony about the alleged round-up and indiscriminate murders of 148 Shias in Dujail after an attempt on Saddam’s life in the village in 1982.
Ali Hassen Muhammad al-Heideri, a Dujail resident, said that villagers were taken to an intelligence jail, where he saw them tortured and killed on Mr al-Tikriti’s orders. From there, Mr al-Heideri said, the survivors were taken to Abu Ghraib before before being transferred to a desert detention facility near Samawa, at both of which numerous men, women and children died. Mr al-Heideri said that Saddam’s guards applied electric shocks to detainees and dripped hot plastic on to their skins, causing searing pain as it dried and was pulled off.
Saddam and seven co-defendants deny the murders.
Yesterday they repeatedly sought to undermine the witness’s credibility, goading him and accusing him of involvement in the assassination plot.
In a bizarre twist, one of the supposed 148 victims gave evidence in court yesterday, very much alive and testifying from behind a curtain that his name had wrongly appeared on a list of the dead after the alleged massacre.
The most dramatic moment was an angry exchange between Mr al-Heideri and Mr al-Tikriti when the latter insulted the witness by telling him that the shoe of his fellow defendant Taha Yassin Ramadan was “more honourable than you and all your tribe, you dog!” One guard entered the dock and grasped him by the arm. As he stared at the headscarved Mr al-Tikriti he was clearly heard muttering: “I am going to beat you.”
The case continues.
The Times (UK) : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1953080,00.html
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