Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Turkey and Iraqi Kurds Join Hands to Found Syrian Kurdistan
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Turkey’s decision for the first time in history to accept an independent Kurdish state on its Syrian doorstep was sealed on June 30 during a rare visit to Ankara by Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdish Regional Republic of Iraq (KRG).
Practical steps were approved in meetings the Iraqi visitor held with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
DEBKA Weekly's sources have obtained exclusive access to those historic steps:
1. Turkey will recognize the first ever independent Kurdish state in northern Syria. Its inhabitants number roughly three million, representing nine percent of the country’s total population.
2. The self-ruling entity will be organized on the same lines as the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. The capital of the new entity will probably be the northeastern Syrian town of Qamishli, next door to the Turkish city of Nusaybin near the Iraq border.
3. Turkey will guarantee the new mini-state a military and air umbrella. If necessary, Turkish troops will cross over to repel any threat from Bashar Assad’s army or any other armed force, such as hostile Syrian rebel militias, Al Qaeda in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra) or Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
The Turkish-Kurdish pact virtually reverses Ankara’s backing for the Syrian opposition and its military wing and turns it around in support of the Kurdish people.

Turkey will help build a Syrian Kurdish “peshmerga”

This turnaround has sparked a spate of bloody battles of late around the Syrian frontier town of Ras al-Ain and the nearby border crossing point into Turkey.
Ras al-Ain has a majority Kurdish population and is strategically important due to its proximity to the Turkish border. The Kurds have taken up arms to prevent the Syrian army and rebels alike from seizing control of the town.
Kurdish fighters are also engaged in bitter fighting with Al Qaeda for control of the northern Syrian oil and gas fields in Ramilan. Possession of those fields would endow both the Syrian and Iraqi autonomous republics with enough energy resources to support their economies. They would develop those resources in partnership and export the oil and gas to the Mediterranean and Europe through the Turkish pipeline the use of which Ankara has promised.
4. Turkey also undertakes to establish, train and arm Syrian Kurdish militias and build an independent army on the model of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga.
Up until two weeks ago, this epic Turkish-Kurdish pact would have been regarded as a wild pipedream by seasoned Middle East hands. Past Turkish governments paled at the very notion of a Kurdish military presence anywhere near the country’s borders.

Entire Kurdish nation committed to pact with Turkey

For decades, Ankara bent every military and intelligence asset to pushing the violent separatist PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) far from its borders lest it gains a foothold in or around Turkey.
Today, the PKK fighters are actually pulling back from Turkish borders.
5. The Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister, representing the senior Kurdish self-ruling entity, the KRG of Iraq, pledged the entire nation’s full adherence to the historic Kurdish pact with Turkey:
He promised additionally that -
a) PKK fighters would continue to retreat from Turkey into Iraq. They would not enlist with the new Syrian Kurdish army, operate in Turkey or contest the Turkish-Kurdish agreement.
b) All the Syrian Kurdish parties and militias allied hitherto with the PKK, like the Democratic Union Party-PYD, will strictly honor the terms of the Turkish-Kurdish pact. Before traveling to Ankara, the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister arranged for Salih Muslim, co-chairman of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party-PYD to travel to Ankara and personally present his movement’s commitment to the pact.
c) Prime Minister Barzani furthermore swore that the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, nascent Syrian Kurdistan and the Kurdish minority of Turkey would not make common cause for the creation of a continuous independent nation spanning the three countries.

Syrian Kurds mobilize to defend their enclave

A KRG spokesman stated Thursday August: “No one in the Middle East, especially Turkey, need fear that [an inclusive] independent Kurdish state will be proclaimed when the Kurdish National Congress convenes shortly in Arbil. We understand there may be some concerns in some countries, including Turkey, about the subject matter of this congress. We'd like to tell them that they should not be concerned."
The Syrian Kurds don’t expect to achieve their state without running into resistance. DEBKA Weekly's military sources report that on Thursday the Syrian Kurdish leadership announced a general call-up of all Syrian Kurdish men aged 17-45.

The Real Israeli - Palestinian Track - Indirect and Blanketed in Total Secrecy
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The opening of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, as presented by US Secretary of State John Kerry with a histrionic flourish in Washington Monday, July 29, was not the show - only the overture of a performance designed to go forward behind a dense curtain of secrecy.
It is a piece for only four actors, DEBKA Weekly’s Washington and Jerusalem sources reveal: Kerry, his special envoy Martin Indyk, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The grand premiere was the start and finish of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Indyk takes over now to conduct a shuttle mission between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Together, they will form a tight, four-cornered pattern designed by Kerry to be leak-proof.
This accounts for the somewhat eccentric ground rules the US Secretary laid down for the next lap of negotiations starting within two weeks, when he spoke to reporters Tuesday July 30, after President Barack Obama received Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Netanyahu's political adviser Yitzhak Molcho, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas political adviser Saeb Erekat, heads of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams.
Kerry’s first rule was that neither party would henceforth have direct access to him. They would have to go through Indyk, then Frank Lowenstein, Kerry’s adviser for overseeing the process and his liaison with Special Envoy Indyk.

Kerry’s two impossible goals

"Our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months," Kerry declared. The next morning, even US Ambassador Dan Shapiro admitted he was skeptical about achieving this objective in such a short time.
An interim accord will be a testing enough challenge for all the parties, say Middle East experts who have followed the ins and outs of peacemaking in many decades. By raising the bar to a final-status accord, Kerry may be riding for a fall.
Strangest of all was his next comment: "I will be the only one competent to comment publicly on the talks. No one should consider any other information reliable."
This statement caused many raised eyebrows: In the Middle East, unnamed sources leaking information are often seen as more credible than politicians or people in authority. When the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations hit their first snag, both parties will undoubtedly leak their sides of the argument, from unnamed sourcs, along with reciprocal accusations.
This is especially true when the issues are as deeply contentious as those listed by DEBKA Weekly's Mideast experts: the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state, scarce water resources, security arrangements, the Palestinian refugees’ “right of return,” the depth of the Israel’s withdrawal, and the Israeli government's highly questionable capacity to evacuate tens of thousands of Jewish West Bank settlers – not to mention Jerusalem.

Egyptian backing vital for Israel-Palestinian peace track

Prime Minister Netanyahu acted preemptively to blunt the opposition when he promised to put a peace accord to popular referendum. Wednesday, the Knesset Wednesday endorsed a new Basic Law enabling Israel’s first popular referendum, as promised - except that it was phrased to apply only to “sovereign territory,” thereby excluding Judea and Samaria which Israel never annexed.
There is no way the negotiators can cut themselves off from the turbulence raging in at least two Middle East trouble spots and other unresolved issues, like, for example:
1. The Iranian nuclear question. Prime Minister Netanyahu may find himself in political hot water at home if he goes forward on the Palestinian track while ignoring Iran’s nuclear ambitions which he has sworn to pre-empt.
The Obama administration is trying hard to revive diplomacy with Tehran to ease the pressure on Netanyahu to strike Iran. But even successful talks with Iran would not allay Israel’s concerns or provide any security guarantee against an Iranian nuclear bomb.
2. Egyptian and Saudi cooperation. Without the support of Cairo and Riyadh, Abbas cannot make the running in the talks with Israel – least of all sign accords.
Abbas turned up in Cairo Monday, July 29, shortly before the opening round of talks in Washington. But he failed to reach top Egyptian military figures and had to make do with interim President Adli Mansour, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy and the Head of General Intelligence, Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Fareed.

Egyptian general goes his own way, ignores US mediators

He was in Cairo, when European Union foreign policy coordinator Catherine Ashton arrived.
Her mission on behalf of Washington was to try and smooth ruffled feathers between Egypt's strongman, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the Obama administration, after Deputy Secretary of State William Burns was sent off last month with a flea in his ear.
Ashton submitted to the humiliation of being flown out in the dark by an Egyptian military helicopter and then driven around in circles by Egyptian vehicles with blacked-out windows. She spent two hours talking to ousted president Mohamed Morsi without discovering where he was being held.
Back in Cairo, she told reporters that she found the deposed president well with access to television and newspapers. However, Gen. El-Sisi, on the one hand, and deposed Muslim Brotherhood leaders, on the other, rejected her offer to try and broker their differences.
The general was found fully resolved to crack down on the Brotherhood and preparing very soon to end its public protests in the capital. The ousted rulers were equally determined to continue resisting the military takeover.
After the failed Burns and Ashton missions, Washington decided to send two leading Republican Senators, Lindsey Graham and John McCain, for another attempt to bridge the differences between Washington and Cairo.

Gen. El-Sisis wants to be president

DEBKA Weekly's sources in Washington and Cairo determine those differences stem from conflicting perceptions of their respective roles.
The US administration is groping for a precarious high-wire balance between prodding Egypt's generals to forswear violence and restore democratic government, and not jeopardizing its position of influence in Cairo’s future.
Gen. El-Sisi takes issue with the Obama administration’s refusal to acknowledge him as the most powerful figure in Egypt who is destined to rule the country in the coming years. If Washington is prepared to endorse his run for the presidency when the time comes, he will be America’s willing ally. But if not, El-Sisi will keep the Obama administration at arm’s length and remove any obstacles it may place in the path of his ambition.
In the meantime, he is sitting pretty, sustained by financial assistance from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and intelligence backup from Israel.
DEBKA Weekly’s sources reveal that the defense minister is on the move. Among other projects, his intelligence services are preparing to whip up popular demand for the US and Europe to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist movement like the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah.

The impact of continuing US non-intervention in Syria

The next phase of US-Egyptian relations will bear heavily on the course of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. John Kerry may appoint himself sole spokesman for the talks, but he can’t control Gen. El-Sisi’s coming actions in a period of fading US influence in Cairo.
3. The state of Syria’s civil war is just as relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian peace track as the unpredictable events in Cairo. There, Netanyahu and Abbas cannot miss the ascendancy of the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut bloc in the civil war, any more than the Obama administration’s long passivity.
On Wednesday July 31, military sources in Beirut confirmed DEBKA Weekly and debkafile reports that the Syrian and Hizballah armies had concentrated around Syria's largest city, Aleppo, ready for a major assault after completing their capture of Homs this week.
Middle East capitals are on tenterhooks to see whether President Obama lets Assad and his Lebanese ally retake Aleppo and rout the rebels, or finally decides to step in to save them from virtual extinction.
Because continuing US non-intervention would spell much more that a local defeat for the rebels; it would give Bashar Assad and his backers, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Russian President Vladimir Putin, decisive victory in the war, with important military and political ramifications for Syria’s neighbors.
Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians would be profoundly shaken and the Kerry team of diplomats would not be able to carry on as though they were conducting a Middle East peace project on a desert island.

Rouhani will Keep Faith With Hardline Khameini and Stick to Iran‘s Nuclear Drive
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Three US diplomatic veterans invested their considerable verbal skills and energies in a long open letter captioned “For a New Approach to Iran” that was published in early July, shortly after Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran on June 14.
Signed by William H. Luers, Thomas R. Pickering and Dr. Jim Walsh, the letter strongly advocated a reassessment of US policy on Iran and the pursuit of active dialogue for an accord on its nuclear program on the grounds of the big change allegedly overtaking the country.
Rouhani’s election was claimed to be a one-time opportunity for turning a new page with Tehran after what the three authors viewed as the defeat of Iran’s two most powerful government apparatuses: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader and the Iranian Republican Guards.
The letter does not offer a single hard fact to support this opinion.
Luers is the director of The Iran Project and an adjunct Professor at The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; Pickering, a retired United States ambassador, whose posts included ambassador to Israel and the United Nations; and Walsh is an expert in international security and a Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program-SSP.

Influential Washingtonians advocate turning a new leaf with Iran

The letter offering this unsupported view was lavishly praised by two former US National Security Advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft. Brzezinsky wrote: “I applaud the authors of this article for their advocacy of a more strategically creative diplomacy with Iran. The reckless alternatives that are being urged on the United States are potentially catastrophic." Scowcroft called on the Obama administration to use Rouhani's election to shape a new US policy toward Iran and reach an accord with it on the country's nuclear program.
This theme was picked up in the US Congress, where on July 18, 131 House members signed onto a bipartisan letter calling on President Barack Obama to try and advance opportunities for a diplomatic resolution with Iran in the wake of Rouhani’s election..
The letter, circulated by Representatives David Price (D-North Carolina) and Charles Dent (R-Pennsylvania), represented the biggest pro-Iran diplomacy initiative the Hill has seen in many years.
Ten days later, on July 27, Francois Nicoullad, who served as French ambassador to Tehran from 2001-2005, wrote in the New York Times that he believed Rouhani was the "main actor" in persuading Khamenei to suspend Iran’s secret nuclear program in 2003.

A foreign minister chosen to rebuild ties with the US

The former French ambassador did not explain that Rouhani initiated the temporary suspension in October 2003 when Iranian intelligence discovered the administration of George W. Bush seriously considering a military attack on Iran following the US invasion of Iraq eight months earlier.
Rouhani acted to abort a probable US strike on Iran’s nuclear program – not out of any change of heart on his country’s nuclear aspirations.
There is no evidence of any such change since he was elected president, although he takes pains to present a more moderate face than his predecessor. Rouhani’s expected choice of Mohammad Javad Zarif as his foreign minister was lauded by Western diplomats on July 31 as proof of his determination to rebuild relations with the United States.
A source close to Rouhani described Zarif as “Tehran's leading connoisseur of the U.S. political elite.” A senior Western diplomat who had repeated dealings with Zarif claimed,” He was always trying to do what was possible to improve relations in a very intelligent, open and clear way.”

No fault lines in Rouhani’s loyalty to hardline Khamenei

However, Rouhani’s election has changed nothing, DEBKA Weekly’s Iranian sources affirm, in Tehran’s complex ruling hierarchy, whereby the Supreme Leader calls the shots in foreign and security policy and, through the Revolutionary Guards, maintains tight control over the nuclear program.
The only political ripple discernible in Tehran since the presidential election is an attempt by 79-year-old former president Akbar Hashemi Rafasanjani, Chairman of Iran's Expediency Council, to gather ammunition from that election for his unending sniping campaign against the supreme leader to punish him for engineering his loss of the presidency in 2005 to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Our Iranian sources call this an irrelevance, because Rouhani shows no inclination to subscribe to the Rafsanjani cause or falter in his allegiance to the supreme leader. Just the opposite: The intelligence and political ministers he has chosen for his new security-oriented government of technocrats come from Khamenei’s close circle, suggesting a desire for rapport with the supreme leader rather than an independent, non-radical line. Khamenei may now exercise greater control on foreign and domestic policies alike than the president.
Appointing a foreign minister who can talk the Washington talk would be a smart tactic for opening doors to the Obama administration and gaining a sympathetic hearing for the lifting of sanctions. The West would be drawn into more rounds of fruitless negotiations, while Iran’s nuclear program advances apace.

Iran suspected of enriching uranium by laser

According to a report published this week, the Washington think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security-ISIS suspects Iran of secretly advancing toward uranium enrichment by laser, despite claiming to have stopped doing so in 2003.
This is in addition to enrichment by centrifuges.
The suspicion is based on growing evidence of construction activity at the plant in Lashkar Ab’ad where this sort of enrichment was secretly practiced before, and where such equipment as copper vapor lasers (CVL) designed to produce enrichment levels of 3.5-7 percent was housed.
The IAEA reported that the facility would have been capable of highly enriched uranium (HEU).
It appears that Iran is taking steps to hide the connection between the site and the bodies that deal in laser technology, one of which was targeted for past US and European sanctions for laser uranium enrichment activity.
The ISIS report recommends that until Iran provides the IAEA with satisfactory answers, organizations and individuals involved in the field should be targeted for sanctions. All countries should immediately halt any transfers of laser technology and equipment to Iran.

Iran’s nuclear “critical capability” by mid-2014

According to its July report, the ISIS also expects Iran to achieve the "critical capability" to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium by mid-2014, without being detected. According to the Washington-based think tank, Iran plans to install thousands more IR-1 centrifuges at its Natanz and Fordo enrichment sites to achieve this end.
Although The ISIS recommends increasing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections to at least twice per week, its report points to “inherent limitation and dilemmas” over this step.
If the United States and Israel hesitate to strike, out of fear of facing international opposition, "Iran could have time to make enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapons." Breakout times at critical capability would be "so short" that there would not be enough time to organize an international diplomatic or military response, says the report.

Putin Visit to Cairo Impending. El - Sisi Moves to Outlaw Brotherhood. U.S. in Blocking Mode
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Obama’s Nod to U.S. Military Intervention in Syria - Held Back Over Dispute With Saudis and Emirates
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

President Barack Obama has decided on an American military operation in Syria, but is held back by a fierce falling-out over goals with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, according to DEBKA Weekly's exclusive military and intelligence sources.
Those sources reveal eight features of the planned intervention:
1. US, British, French, Saudi and the United Arab Emirates will establish a no-fly zone over central and southern Syria, stretching from the Jordanian-Israeli borders up to and including Damascus.
2. A 40-kilometer deep military buffer zone will be drawn from the Jordanian-Israeli borders up to the southern and western outskirts of Damascus. The military units controlling this zone will hold the entire area of the capital within range of their artillery.
3. Those units would consist of Syrian rebel special forces and not include US troops. President Obama has determined not to allow American boots to step on Syrian soil.
4. Those rebel forces will be armed and trained in Jordan by US military instructors. US officers will oversee their entry into Syria and run their operations from Jordan.
5. For this purpose, the US Army has just finished building in the Hashemite Kingdom a huge training camp and logistical system, DEBKA Weekly's military sources report. All the weapons and equipment required to train and arm the rebel force are already stacked there.

Saudis suspect US plans to break Syria down into mini-states

6. The US air force units for imposing the no-fly zone over Syria are already in position at Middle East locations and ready to go at 36 hours’ notice.
7. A Druze unit trained by US military instructors will be a key component of the special rebel force. It was put up by the million-strong community populating 120 villages and towns in the Jabal al-Druze area of southern Syria, overlooking the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border triangle.
8. US forces deployed in the Middle East, especially in Jordan and Israel, are on the ready for possible reprisals should they be ordered by Syrian President Bashar Assad in retaliation for the no-fly and buffer zones.
This plan was scheduled to go into effect in the coming days. It was been held back by fierce objections from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
According to DEBKA Weekly's sources in the Gulf, their rulers suspect Washington of rejecting plans for preserving Syria as a united nation under Sunni rule in favor of breaking the country up into mini-states – Kurds in the north, Alawites in the West, a Sunni-ruled entity in the central-south with control over Damascus, and a Druze state in the southeast.
For Riyadh, this means a repeat of the nightmarish master plan to which President George Bush condemned Iraq – even though the Obama administration does not admit this intention.

Saudi signals more than one iron in the fire

The Emirates find alarming confirmation of this suspicion in Turkey’s consent for the first time to cooperate with Kurdish leaders and provide Syrian Kurds with a military and air shield for setting up their own autonomous state in northern Syria. (See the next item in this issue.)
They believe Ankara will be acting with the full knowledge of the Obama administration, in line with its plan to partition Syria into several fragments.
The Saudi rulers accordingly informed Washington that they would not stand for the Iraqi disaster being revisited in Syria. They are demanding a no fly zone to be imposed in northern Syria as well as the south to cover the Turkish border. Indeed Riyadh is stipulating the closure of most of Syrian air space as a condition for its cooperation.
Refusing to bow to Saudi, UAE and Kuwaiti demands, President Obama has suspended all US military plans for intervention in Syria until their dispute is resolved.
The sudden trip to Moscow made by the head of the Saudi intelligence service, Prince Bandar bin Sultan on Wednesday July 3, and his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, took Washington by surprise.
In the absence of details about their conversation, US officials can only speculate that Riyadh was signaling that it has more than one iron in the fire and could operate in harness with Russia just as well as with America.

Moscow Dangles for Tehran An Offer of Advanced Russian Air Defense Missiles
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Moscow and Washington have been competing for Tehran’s favors since Hasan Rouhani was elected Iranian president.
US media are throwing out hints that the new man is ready to extend an olive branch to the West after he is sworn in Sunday Aug. 4. (See a separate article in this issue).
In Moscow, various sources are trumpeting Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming visit to Tehran as the first ever by a Russian president - except that getting it pinned down has proved tricky.
At first, sources in Moscow said Putin would attend the Iranian president’s swearing-in ceremony next Sunday. That plan was quickly dropped when the invitation list showed no attendees of the Russian president’s rank, only second or third-tier leaders.
Two new dates were bandied about this week by sources in Moscow: August 12 or August 16. At length, an anonymous Russian official confirmed both dates: Putin’s visit to Tehran would span four days in all.
An official visit of this unusual length attests to a major push by the Russian leader to beat the Obama administration in the rush to the Iranian door.

Super-advanced Russian missiles may be offered Tehran

It will be long enough for him to sit down with Iran’s leaders and forge shared policies - not just on Iran’s nuclear program but on key Middle East and Persian Gulf issues in general. Furthermore, the Russian leader understands that deals on cooperation with the new president and exchanges between members of his entourage and the new ministers will not be binding without the blessing of Supreme Leader Aytatollah Ali Khamenei.
Four days give him enough time to get together with the boss.
Meeting the ayatollah in person is also important for his game of upmanship with the US president.
Washington sources talk excitedly about building a direct line from President Barack Obama to the new Iranian president, whereas Putin hopes to top this by getting to see the man who calls the shots in Tehran, the supreme leader.
Moscow is putting out bait to catch the fish. A second wave of reports swept the Russian media this week about advanced arms Moscow was contemplating offering Tehran - namely the sale of S-300VM Antey-2500 air defense systems, a member of the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile family.
The S-300s were originally developed for Soviet air defense forces, but when the ground forces wanted a comparable system tailored to their special needs, the S-300V was developed and later upgraded as the improved S-300VM version.

Tehran may like the Antey-2500 better than the S-300

By offering this weapon, Moscow hopes to persuade Tehran to drop its lawsuit against Russia for reneging on the $800 million contract signed in 2007 for the delivery of five S-300 antimissile batteries. The deal was revoked in 2010 by a law signed by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev which limited Russian military cooperation with Iran. Tehran filed a lawsuit with an international arbitrage in Geneva, demanding $4 billion in damages as compensation.
Moscow is not planning to revoke the 2010 law, which was enacted in keeping with a UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran over its nuclear program. But the Russians can get around it: The S-300VM systems are not listed among the weapons banned from sale to Iran and are not therefore covered by the law.
Tehran might in fact find the Antey-2500, more attractive than the S-300, military experts believe, because it is designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles. There is speculation that a possible Israeli attack on Iran would start with a massive missile attack on Iran’s key air defense sites and military air bases, before follow-up air strikes are directed at fortified nuclear enrichment facilities.
An S-300VM battery is capable of taking down aerial targets moving at a speed of 4,500kph and tracking and engaging up to 24 aircraft or up to 16 ballistic missiles simultaneously.
It has a range of up to 200km for aircraft and up to 40km for ballistic missiles. The system takes no more than 6 minutes for a trained crew to switch from travel position to combat position.

Saudi funding if Russian arms replaced US weapons sales to Egypt

The Saudis were a step ahead of everyone else in reading the emerging Russian-Iranian map, according to DEBKA Weekly's Gulf sources.
After a short trip to Paris, Chief of the Saudi General Intelligence Prince Bandar Bin Sultan landed Wednesday, July 31 on the Kremlin’s doorstep and was immediately received by President Putin.
The conversation between the head of this superpower and the spy chief of the strongest and richest nation in the Gulf region was much more than a polite exchange. Our Moscow sources disclose that it ranged over Iran, the Syrian war and the turmoil in Egypt.
An official communiqué said only that "A wide number of questions regarding Saudi-Russia relations were discussed as well as the situation in North Africa and the Middle East."
However, our sources learned that Prince Bandar was interested to hear about Putin’s planned Tehran visit and how far he was prepared to go to endorse Iran’s nuclear agenda.
Regarding Syria, the Saudi spy chief asked how Moscow would react if President Obama finally decided on limited military intervention in Syria (See the opening item in this issue on the disagreements between President Obama and Saudi leaders on this).
On the Egyptian question, Bandar asked how Moscow would respond to a decision by Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Fattah El-Sisi to run for president – in defiance of Washington and Brussels.
(See the item in this issue on the general’s election campaign).
Under discussion too, according to our military sources, was the substitution of Russian arms for US weapons in the event of a cutoff of US deliveries to Egypt. The Saudis would foot the bill.

Let the Headlines Speak
Aug 3rd, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Giant Pentagram Seen in Kazakhstan
Conspiracy theorists, start your engines: On the wind-blown steppes of central Asia, in an isolated corner of Kazakhstan, there's a large pentagram etched into the Earth's surface.  

Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu Says He Would Choose Hell Over 'Homophobic' Heaven
Speaking recently at the United Nation's launch of its "Free & Equal" campaign to promote fair treatment of LGBT persons, former archbishop and South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu declared that the issue was so close to his heart that he "would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven" and instead choose "the other place."  

Syria rebels seize arms dump near Damascus
Syrian rebels have captured an arms and ammunition dump in Qalamun, near Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. ...Several groups, including the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, were behind the capture of the depot of anti-tank weapons and rockets, according to the group.  

Germany ends spy pact with US and UK after Snowden
Germany has cancelled a Cold War-era pact with the US and Britain in response to revelations about electronic surveillance operations. Details of snooping programmes involving the transatlantic allies have been leaked to the media by former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden. The revelations have sparked widespread outrage in Germany, where elections are due next month.  

US worldwide travel alert over fear of al-Qaeda attack
The US state department has issued a global travel alert because of fears of an unspecified al-Qaeda attack. The department said the potential for an attack was particularly strong in the Middle East and North Africa. The US intercepted electronic communications between senior al-Qaeda figures, according to officials quoted by the New York Times.  

Study: Record Number 21 Million Young Adults Living With Parents
A new study from Pew Research finds that 36 percent of Millennials – young adults ages 18 to 31 – are living at their parents’ homes, the highest number in four decades. A record 21.6 million young adults were still living at home last year.  

UN: Syrian Rebels Suspected of War Crimes
United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay is calling for an independent investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by Syrian rebel fighters. Pillay said Friday that a U.N. team in Syria found evidence that rebels executed at least 30 people last month in Aleppo. Most of the victims were Syrian soldiers. She said the killings were captured on video, calling the incident "deeply shocking."  

Hassan Rouhani officially takes over as Iran president
Hassan Rouhani is set to officially replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. Mr Rouhani's election will be endorsed by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a ceremony in the capital, Tehran. The cleric, who won the presidential poll in June, has promised reform and to end Iran's international isolation.  

Egypt army 'restoring democracy', says John Kerry
US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Egypt's military was "restoring democracy" when it ousted elected President Mohammed Morsi last month. Mr Kerry said the removal was at the request of "millions and millions of people". His remarks came as police prepare to disperse two pro-Morsi sit-ins in the capital, Cairo.  

Dems Favor Federal Bailout of Detroit, But Majority of Public Opposed
A new national poll from Quinnipiac University shows that a majority Democrats believe the federal government should bail out Detroit, but an even larger majority of Americans oppose such a move. Fifty-one percent of Democrats support Washington providing federal assistance to Detroit, which last month became the largest American city ever to seek bankruptcy protection.  

Cleveland Police Disciplining 75 Cops After An Unarmed Couple Was Shot 137 Times
Cleveland police officials said Friday they're disciplining 75 of officers for their involvement in a police chase that ended in the shooting deaths of an unarmed man and woman, The Plain Dealer reports.  

Hezbollah leader slams Israel in rare public speech
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah emerged from hiding on Friday to deliver his first major speech in years, addressing a rally in his southern Beirut stronghold in support of the Palestinian conflict against Israel. "Israel poses a danger on all people of this region...including Lebanon, and removing it is a Lebanese national interest," Nasrallah told hundreds of supporters in his half-hour speech.