Wednesday, May 08, 2013
China Appears to be Reining in North Korea
Like "Lips and Teeth" No Longer?
For the first time, China appears to be responding to U.S. pressure to modify North Korea's behavior.
Iranian, Hezbollah Terror Cells Reactivated
Heightened Risk for US and Israeli Interests Worldwide
By Clare M. Lopez
Days before Israel reportedly struck inside Syria to destroy a shipment of dangerous Fateh-110 missiles with long range, precision-targeting capabilities, Hezbollah's Supreme Guide Hassan Nasrallah declared that Syria had "real friends" who were ready and able to defend the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, under attack since early 2011 by a coalition of Sunni rebels.
In an April 30 address on the Hezbollah satellite TV network, Al-Manar, Nasrallah hinted at a possible Hezbollah role on the ground inside Syria and, as he has done before, directly threatened both "America and the Zionist regime [Israel]."
This is not the first time that Nasrallah and his Iranian terror proxy, Hezbollah, have lashed out against the United States and Israel on orders from the "Supreme Leader" of the Iranian regime. What some have termed the "Shadow War" between Jerusalem and Tehran burst into the open in early 2012, with a series of plots involving Hezbollah and Iranian operatives across the globe.
Terror Network Identified
From Africa, Central Asia, and the Far East to Eastern Europe, the Shi'ite terror network has been identified by authorities in assassination, bombing, and Israeli embassy and personnel attack attempts. Many, thankfully, were thwarted, but in July 2012, five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed in Burgas, Bulgaria by a Hezbollah suicide bomber.
In the wake of the May 3 and May 5 Israeli air attacks against the shipment of the advanced surface-to-surface missiles intended for delivery to Hezbollah, Nasrallah's warning — and Hezbollah's recent operational tempo — might well be kept in mind.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al Mekdad was equally blunt on May 5, when he told CNN that Israel's air strikes were being interpreted as an Israeli "declaration of war" against the Assad regime and threatened retaliation. Clearly, the Syrian revolt – actually an internecine Sunni vs. Shi'a intra-Islamic sectarian war – is spilling over the country's borders. Not only are regimes across the Middle East region (as well as the U.S.) lined up behind their respective jihadi forces, but the fighting and the refugees increasingly are destabilizing Syria's neighbors.
A convergence of the Hezbollah/Iranian "shadow war" with the potential for retaliation related to the Syrian conflict could well point to a heightened risk for both American and Israeli interests worldwide.
The Washington Institute's Matthew Levitt believes that Iran has tasked Hezbollah with reviving the operational capabilities of its sagging international terrorist unit, the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO). In part due to Hezbollah's decision to keep a lower profile following its deep involvement in the 9/11 attacks, and in particular since the February 2008 assassination of Hezbollah's terror chieftain, Imad Mughniyeh, IJO performance had declined.
"Shadow War" Against Israel
The uptick in Hezbollah plots since 2012, however, points to a decision at the top level of the Iranian regime to rejuvenate IJO capabilities and terror activity, not only to avenge Mughniyeh's killing, but to respond to Tehran's tasking in the "shadow war" against Israel.
As Levitt described in a late April 2013 piece for the West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) "Sentinel" publication, the Cyprus trial that month of Hossam Yaacoub, a Lebanese-Swedish dual national Hezbollah operative, provided a revealing look at the terror group's current tradecraft training and procedures.
Under interrogation, Yaacoub admitted that he was recruited by Hezbollah in 2007 and underwent extensive training in building a cover story, conducting pre-attack casing of potential targets (frequented by Israeli tourists), and mastering communications codes and signals before being dispatched to Cyprus for the first time in 2009.
Although Yaacoub eventually was arrested in July 2012 by the Cypriot police before any attack there could be carried out, Levitt concludes that the lengthy, professional tradecraft training he had received, along with the "successful" Hezbollah attack against the Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria, together indicate a return to traditional tradecraft standards by Hezbollah.
Operating Under Diplomatic Cover
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives serve under cover in Iranian embassies worldwide; they are tasked with liaison to Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, narcotrafficking cartels and organized crime groups.
Together with the Iranian intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the Qods Force and Hezbollah operate as integral elements of the global Shi'ite terror network. That narcotrafficking, organized crime, terror network is very much present and functioning in the Western Hemisphere, where the Iranian presence is anchored by its outpost in Venezuela, which it uses as a staging ground for supervising an extensive network of Hezbollah operational cells whose activities stretch northward through Mexico and into the U.S. and Canada.
The accelerating pace of attack and counterattack by the Shi'ite terror network has alerted U.S. security officials and their Israeli partners that the threat to both countries' interests at home and abroad is becoming increasingly critical.
As the Syrian conflict spirals ever more out of control, with the U.S. already deeply involved in supporting the al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood rebels (and looking to become more so), the potential for retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah, acting alone or in conjunction with its Qods Force handlers, will only increase.
Given the renewed emphasis on operational tradecraft plus its well-established bases throughout the Western Hemisphere, Hezbollah is a menace to be monitored.
PFLP-GC Says Assad Approved Missile Attacks on Israel
A Damascus-based Palestinian terrorist organization, the PFLP-GC, says it has an OK from the embattled Syrian dictator to launch missile attacks against Israel.
The left-leaning group, which has in the past specialized in civilian airline bombings and mass murder of Israeli schoolchildren, has in recent years become an arm of non-Arab, Islamist Iran. The group's aging chief, Ahmed Jibril, recently referred to Iran has the "strategic hope" of the Palestinian people.
Read more.
The PFLP-GC (the GC stands for General Command) is an offshoot of the Marxist-Leninist/Pan-Arabist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which pioneered airline hijackings--and bombings--in the 1960s and '70s. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the February 21, 1970 bombing of Swissair Flight SR330, which killed all 38 passengers and nine crew members aboard the plane, and was probably also responsible for the September 8, 1974 bombing of TWA Flight 84, which killed all of its 79 passengers and nine crew members. The bombs in both cases were barometric pressure IEDs.
The PFLP's involvement in airline bombings might have been a response of sorts to criticism by Jibril--he split from the group in 1968 to form his "General Command"--that the PFLP's leadership, headed by Dr. George Habash, a Palestinian Christian physician, had become overly influenced by Palestinian intellectuals and had thus grown soft on so-called armed struggle (code for slaughtering civilians in the name of liberation).
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Bangladesh Disaster Death Toll Passes 700
Garment Industry's Worst-Ever Disaster
The factory building collapse death toll in Bangladesh has passed 700, and the actual total number of workers killed in the accident may never be known.
Read more.
Hungarian Anti-Semitism Rears its Ugly Head
Fascism and Racism Rising in Hungary
Like nothing changed--the fascist vermin are crawling out of the woodwork in Hungary and across Eastern Europe. And Hungary's vile prime minister is part of the problem.
Read more.
The Hungarian premier is a notorious rightwing demagogue who exploits and embraces fascist symbols and references that recall the Arrow Cross movement and regime of World War II.
Related: WJC Urges European Ban on Neo-Nazi Parties.
Putin Reacts to Israel's Raid on Syria, Bibi's China Visit
Strong Negative Reaction Reported
Israeli-U.S. moves seem to have boomeranged. Click here for the report.
Washington and Jerusalem seem to have forgotten something: Russia's proximity to Syria. They are within driving distance; and Russia feels safer with Shiite Iran/Hezbollah dominating Damascus than with a Sunni Islamist regime coming to power there. A deal, which only the United States can cut, must also cover Russia's naval installation at Tartus and compensation for loss of another major customer of Russian arms. Moscow is bent on preventing another Libya.
Israeli Military Intel Chief Made Secret Visit to China
'No Winds of War'
Israel is downplaying a seeming Syrian military response to the presumed Israeli airstrike on Syrian missiles bound for Hezbollah.
Read more.
There is still time to prevent Syria's civil/proxy war from destroying the entire country and engulfing the region. The United States and Russia need to cut a deal that will rid Syria of Iranian and Hezbollah forces and prevent Islamists from taking over the country. Syria should become a politically neutral, federated state of autonomous, demilitarized cantons, divided along ethnic and religious lines.
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