'Saudi Arabia planning nuclear plant'
Aug. 20, 2009
HERB KEINON and YAAKOV KATZ , THE JERUSALEM POST
HERB KEINON and YAAKOV KATZ , THE JERUSALEM POST
With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants.
The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.
Israel had no official response to the Saudi minister's announcement.
Over the last two years, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan and Egypt have all indicated an interest in developing nuclear programs, with Israeli officials saying, off the record, that if these countries did not want the programs now for their military capabilities, they wanted the technology in place to keep "other options open" if Iran were to develop a bomb. 
Israel has been careful not to take a public stand on civilian nuclear programs in neighboring states, partly because as one of the few countries in the world that has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is not keen on lobbying against nuclear know-how for peaceful needs going to countries that are willing to sign the treaty, since that would focus the limelight on Israel's own unique situation.
There is also a sense that if the programs were under the supervision of the US or France, which pledged two years ago to help Morocco develop a nuclear program, then there would be little concern that they would later be turned into military projects.
Nevertheless, defense officials said that Saudi interest in nuclear power was connected to Teheran's continued race toward nuclear power.
"The Saudis are genuinely scared of what will happen if Iran turns nuclear," one official said. "This is part of their response."
On the other hand, the officials said that Saudi Arabia's nuclear program was not of concern at the moment for Israel since the project was being established jointly with the United States and in the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency regulations.
Israeli defense officials have warned for several years that one potential outcome of Iran's success in defying the international community and establishing a nuclear program would be that other countries in the Middle East would follow suit.
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IAF jets battle one another in training competition
Aug. 20, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
An IAF jet.
In what could be considered the Israeli version of Top Gun, Israel Air Force fighter jet squadrons participated this week in a one-day competition to determine which one was superior.
In this year's competition, called "Skewer," Squadron 105 from the Hatzor Air Force base took first place. It will be awarded the trophy in a ceremony attended by the entire IAF top brass at the beginning of 2010.
The competition takes place over the Negev desert and tests mainly the formations of four fighter jets from each squadron. The objective, Maj. Chen, head of the competition, said this week, was for the pilots to accurately locate and strike targets scattered on the ground.
"We try to make the competition as real as possible," Chen, an F-15 fighter pilot, said. "The idea is to hit the targets while overcoming different threats in the air - such as enemy aircraft - and from the ground, such as ground-to-air missiles."
The scenario chosen, he said, is like any of the scenarios that the IAF might encounter in the event of a conflict with one of Israel's enemies in Gaza, Lebanon or Syria.
The squadrons receive points for direct hits against the targets - mostly old cars - and lose points if a plane is shot down or if they miss the target even by just several meters. Additional planes are deployed at a higher altitude to film all of the missile strikes so that they can later be analyzed by the IAF's Combat Aircraft Department.
"Squadrons take this very seriously and bring their best pilots, even from the reserves," Chen explained.
Squadron 105, which won this year's competition, is also called the "Scorpion Squadron" for its emblem of a scorpion. The pilots fly two-seater F-16C fighter jets and are assigned strategic operations. This squadron participated widely in the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
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Israel to send ship to NATO operation
Aug. 19, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
For the first time, IDF troops will actively participate in a NATO operation in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the Active Endeavor maritime counter-terror operation.
The decision to send an Israeli Navy ship was made recently by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and commander of the Navy Adm. Eliezer Marom. It has not yet been decided which ship would participate in the operation.
Last year, the navy sent an intelligence officer to sit in NATO's Active Endeavor operations room based in Naples. NATO launched Operation Active Endeavor in the wake of 9/11 and has succeeded in bringing together a number of countries from the Mediterranean, at a center in Naples to share information concerning naval terror and suspicious ships in the region.
Morocco and Algeria - like Israel, members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue - are also seriously considering sending officers to the Naples-based project. If that happens, it will be the first time that Israeli, Algerian and Moroccan officers were cooperating at such a high level.
Since its inception after 9/11, NATO forces have hailed over 100,000 merchant vessels, and boarded some 148 suspicious vessels.
While Israel has over the past decade participated in numerous NATO exercises - mostly at sea - it has never sent troops or navy ships to play an operational role in the military alliance's operations.
On Wednesday, for example, the INS Lahav sailed from the Aksaz Turkish Naval Base to participate in the Reliant Mermaid search-and-rescue naval exercise with the Turkish and American navies. The exercise focuses on search and rescue scenarios and is designed to improve interoperability and cooperation among participating countries.
Defense officials said that the decision to send a ship to participate in Active Endeavor has already been approved by the defense establishment and that Israel was currently waiting for final approval from NATO before dispatching the vessel.
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Report: Hamas Earns Enmity of Intl. Terror Ring
Av 30, 5769, 20 August 09 07:32
by Maayana Miskin(Israelnationalnews.com) The aftereffects of bloody fighting in Gaza last Friday continue to reverberate throughout the terrorist world, as various Al-Qaeda offshoots call for revenge. According to CNN's Arabic-language news site, several Al-Qaeda branches have placed a message on their websites accusing Hamas of “abandoning Islam,” and calling on their supporters to take revenge.
Friday's fighting saw Hamas forces face off against a Salafi Islamist group, Jund Ansar Allah (Warriors of G-d), in the southern Gaza town of Rafiah. Hamas forces raided a mosque affiliated with the Al-Qaeda inspired group shortly after Jund Ansar Allah leader Abdel-Latif Moussa declared Rafiah to be the beginning of an “Islamic emirate” in Gaza.
Moussa was killed in the subsequent fighting. While Hamas has claimed that Moussa died after detonating a bomb vest he was wearing, killing himself and a Hamas negotiator, Al-Qaeda sources denied the Hamas report. Instead, they termed Moussa a “martyr” who was killed by “the bullets and bombs of Hamas.”
Al-Qaeda members linked the recent fighting in Rafiah to Hamas's battles last year with a group calling itself Army of Islam. Regarding both cases of Gaza infighting, they accused Hamas of serving the interests of Israel, referred to as “the Jewish usurpers of the land of Palestine,” and of Western countries fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda linked sites called on the organization's leader and second in command, Osama Bin-Laden and Ayman a-Zawahiri, “not to keep silent on this horrible massacre.”
Hamas: Police, not Hamas Forces, Fought in Rafiah
In what appeared to be an attempt to distance itself from the increasingly criticized raid on Jund Ansar Allah, Hamas leaders released a statement saying that it was Gaza police officers, and not Hamas terrorists, who fought in Rafiah on Friday. Hamas controls the Gaza police force, but the force is not officially a branch of the Hamas terrorist movement.
In what appeared to be an attempt to distance itself from the increasingly criticized raid on Jund Ansar Allah, Hamas leaders released a statement saying that it was Gaza police officers, and not Hamas terrorists, who fought in Rafiah on Friday. Hamas controls the Gaza police force, but the force is not officially a branch of the Hamas terrorist movement.
However, human rights groups in Gaza slammed Hamas's statement as untrue, and said that the Al-Qassam Brigades, an armed terrorist group that openly affiliates with Hamas, played a part in the Friday raid. The groups criticized Hamas for using the Brigades forces instead of police, saying, “the Brigades cannot be a law enforcement body.”
Hizb U-Tahrir Backs Hamas
Hamas received support earlier this week from an unlikely source: Hizb U-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), a breakaway Islamist group that, like Jund Ansar Allah, seeks the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate and sees the Hamas leadership in Gaza as illegitimate. Hizb U-Tahrir leaders blamed Jund Ansar Allah for instigating the fighting, and criticized the group's methods, saying, “killing and fighting will never be a legal means of establishing an Islamic emirate.”
Hamas received support earlier this week from an unlikely source: Hizb U-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), a breakaway Islamist group that, like Jund Ansar Allah, seeks the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate and sees the Hamas leadership in Gaza as illegitimate. Hizb U-Tahrir leaders blamed Jund Ansar Allah for instigating the fighting, and criticized the group's methods, saying, “killing and fighting will never be a legal means of establishing an Islamic emirate.”
Hizb U-Tahrir ended its call for peace between Gaza groups with a call for violence against Israel, saying that both Hamas and Jund Ansar Allah must “turn their guns toward the occupation alone.”
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Fighting fit
Aug. 19, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
The turning point, as Col. Avi Moyal calls it, was on August 14, 2006, the day the cease-fire went into effect, ending the month-long Second Lebanon War with Hizbullah.
The IDF began to pull out of Lebanon and officers from Ground Forces Command were ready, deployed along the border with questionnaires for soldiers and commanders to assess their level of fitness during their operations against Hizbullah.
That is when the stories began to emerge. First came reports of small squads that had difficulty climbing the steep Lebanese hills, then a story of a company commander who had to return to Israel after his troops got muscle cramps trying to climb a crucial mountain to gain access to the Hizbullah-stronghold of Bint Jbail.
After hundreds of interviews and questionnaires, the conclusion was clear: IDF combat troops were in bad shape to the point that they had difficulty fighting against an enemy like Hizbullah.
The immediate lesson in the IDF was to appoint an officer in charge of combat fitness. Until then, the officer in charge of combat fitness also served as commander of a brigade. Combat fitness was always the second priority. The man chosen for the job was Col. Avi Moyal, who in the past three years has revolutionized the IDF in terms of fitness. Moyal - who served for 20 years as the fitness instructor for the elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) - has carried out this revolution from a small office inside the Wingate Institute near Netanya, together with a tiny staff.
His energy seems to be endless and over the past two years he has established spinning classes for the General Staff on the roof of the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv, jogging groups for senior officers on the Tel Aviv beachfront and lectures at faraway bases. He has also increased the IDF's participation in local marathons and also in some races around the world.
IN THE IDF he is called "Israel's Fitness Trainer." The name is not an exaggeration. When Ehud Olmert was prime minister, Moyal used to work out with him twice a week at Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) headquarters in Jerusalem. Now, he spends two mornings a week training Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. He was also the fitness trainer for the national soccer team and was rumored at one point to be a candidate to become its next head coach.
The first step after the Lebanon war was to create an official fitness scale for all combat units - basically a list of what commanders are allowed to do with their soldiers and at what stage of their training.
All training regimens need to be approved by Moyal and his team of fitness trainers.
"Soldiers are built in a long and slow process," a senior Ground Forces Command officer explains. "We can't draft a soldier today and tomorrow expect him to run 80 kilometers. This takes time."
Under this new scale, GFC completely changed the concept of long hikes. Until the 2006 war, infantry units used to take 80- and 90-kilometer treks during basic training. Now the length has been cut almost in half and instead the soldiers are carrying heavier loads - sometimes up to half their body weight - on their backs.
"We found soldiers who couldn't carry their necessary equipment into Lebanon," the officer says. "What we realized is that the soldiers didn't have problems walking the distance; it was the loads."
At the same time, Moyal took soldiers from almost every IDF unit and trained them to be fitness instructors. Last week, the largest course ever - of 82 instructors - graduated, bringing the total up to close to 500.
"These are regular combat soldiers who in addition to being fighters are also fitness trainers," the senior officer says. "Just like there are medics who are fighters, now there are trainers who are fighters."
DURING OPERATION Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, Moyal heard from commanders about intelligence that Hamas was planning to kidnap soldiers. He immediately drove to the border with a team of combat instructors and trained commanders and soldiers how to fend off a kidnapper.
One of the skills taught was how to fight off kidnappers not just with an assault rifle, but also when the soldier's ammunition runs out or when he is attacked from behind and by surprise.
Another course he is hoping to soon establish is a mandatory self-defense course for all female soldiers.
Moyal has already discussed the idea with Brig.-Gen. Gila Klifi-Amir, the General Staff's adviser on women's affairs, and the two are hoping to secure a budget for the program. Under the plan, all female recruits will participate in a week-long self-defense course to provide them with the skills to fend off potential attackers, rapists and kidnappers.
"This course will be aimed at providing the female soldiers with self-confidence to travel around the country in the framework of their military service as many of them need to," explains the senior officer.
After all the above, though, what Moyal really takes pride in is his flagship program called "Healthy Lifestyle in the IDF" under which soldiers in 25 units across the country were chosen to be tested for fat levels in their blood. The units found to be "overweight" received visits from civilian chefs who taught their cooks how to make healthy food, met weekly with dieticians, received detailed workout regimes and personal trainers and one-on-one talks with Moyal.
The results, the senior officer says, were astounding, and within the first six months, the weight levels in the units dropped by more than 30 percent. Despite the success, the program lost its budget. Moyal, however, did not give up and went straight to the General Staff before which he presented the results. The decision was to expand the program to 25 more units and to allocate a budget for the next three years.
MOYAL ALSO established several running groups. The first is made up of close to 400 career junior officers who meet every Friday on the Tel Aviv beachfront. The second group meets on Saturday and consists of officers with the rank of colonel and higher. The condition to join this group was that the officer had to bring his or her spouse.
"The purpose here is to change the culture," the officer says. "To do this we need to reach as many people as possible."
The culture change can be seen by the number of solders signing up for marathons over the past two years. In 2006, for example, 6,430 soldiers ran in marathons. In 2008, the number skyrocketed to close to 20,000. In 2007, nine soldiers ran in the Tiberias Marathon. This year, there were more than 150.
Moyal is also much more than just talk and he actually puts his feet where his mouth is, running with all of the groups he has set up. In addition, he runs almost daily with a different IDF unit. One day Givati, the next day Naval Commandos and a day later the elite Yahalom Engineering Corps unit.
What about you? Are you ready to run?
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