organization:arab intelligence

The attack in Syria: Israel’s policy of ambiguity is nearing an end

Strike in Damascus international airport attributed to Israel ■ Why isn’t Russia taking action? ■ defense chief draws a new red line: No Iranian and Hezbollah military presence on the Syrian border

Amos Harel Apr 28, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/1.786074

What has been done up to now with a degree of ambiguity, not to say discretion, is now being done for all to see. Syria confirmed on Thursday, in a report from its official news agency, that the Israeli airforce struck a military compound next to the Damascus airport before dawn.

Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz implicitly acknowledged Israeli responsibility for the strike when he explained in a somewhat sleepy radio interview from the United States on Army Radio that “the incident totally fits with our policy for preventing weapons transfers to Hezbollah.” And all of this happened while Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was away on a visit to Russia, the chief sponsor of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Katz’s comments followed an earlier, first acknowledgement of its kind by Israel, after numerous reports in the Arab media of an Israeli airstrike in Syria in late March. And this past Tuesday, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer told journalists that about a hundred missiles, some intended for Hezbollah, were destroyed in that March airstrike. But it is still not certain that a deliberate decision has been made to abandon the policy of ambiguity that Israel has adhered to for the past five years, neither denying nor confirming its responsibility for such air strikes.
This policy of ambiguity seems to be based on the idea that Israel’s refusal to comment on these strikes makes them less of an embarrassment for the regime and thus does not whet the Syrians’ appetite for revenge as much. The recent deviations from this policy were likely random occurrences and not the product of long-range strategic thinking.

The initial reports from Damascus did not specify what types of weaponry was hit. Arab intelligence sources (quoted by an Amman-based reporter for Reuters) claimed that the targets this time were arms shipments from Iran being smuggled on civilian commercial flights via the international airport in Damascus.

#Syrie #Israël #Hezbollah

Have Arab regimes taken over Arabic #Wikipedia?
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2014/12/have-arab-regimes-taken-over-arabic.html

I have been noticing as of late: Arab intelligence services seem to have taken over Arabic Wikipedia. They really control the full text of the entries on issues and personalities that they care about. The entry of Qaboos is clearly written by his media office. Look at this entry of Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahab: it does not even mention the opposition to him by his own brother (who authored the first refutation of Wahhabiyyah ever), and it puts claims of wide travels and education by the illiterate man. Finally, it claims he was prolific when he actually never authored books or articles by collected Hadith to bolster his kooky Jihadi terrorist cause.

Captured Syrian rebel colonel ‘confesses’ to foreign hand in rout | The National
▻http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/syrian-rebel-colonel-confesses-to-foreign-hand-in-rout

Ahmed Nehmeh, a former Syrian air force colonel who defected to become a key link between Western and Arab intelligence agencies and moderate rebels in southern Syria, said the defeat in the strategic town of Khirbet Ghazaleh, last May, was deliberately arranged by the rebels’ international backers.

Col Nehmeh, head of the Free Syrian Army’s Derra Military Council (DMC), was taken prisoner by Jabhat Al Nusra after an ambush in Deraa on Saturday, and is to stand trial in a rebel court on charges of treason.

He appeared on Tuesday in the video confession uploaded to a Facebook site and on YouTube, looking tired and bruised after three days of interrogation. He had clearly been beaten.

It was not possible to verify whether the confession was extracted under torture.

(...)

According to Col Nehmeh’s confession, “the donor countries” – a reference to Western and Gulf states that have poured billions of dollars into the war – contacted him and he enacted their orders to pull rebel units out of the town.

The rationale for the move, he said, was that Al Nusra forces were playing a major role in the Khirbet Ghazaleh attack and stood to increase their influence on the southern front.

Rather than allow Al Nusra to make gains, Western and Arab intelligence agencies engineered a victory for forces loyal to the president, Bashar Al Assad.

That explanation dovetailed with rumours that have swirled around the Khirbet Ghazaleh debacle since it happened. The defeat, snatched from the jaws of victory, was widely seen as suspicious by rebels and opposition supporters in Deraa. It sparked serious divisions within what had been broadly united groups.

Bashar Zoubi, the leader of the Yarmouk Brigade, a powerful rebel unit ostensibly under Col Nehmeh’s command publicly called for him to face trial for mismanagement.

Col Nehmeh specifically named Jordanian intelligence, with which he was closely affiliated, living in Amman in a building protected by government agents. Jordan hosts the secretive Military Operations Command (MOC), an operations room staffed by Western and Gulf intelligence units dealing with the Syria crisis. Jordan officially denies the MOC’s existence.

C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Rebels
►http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?_r=1&hp

A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.