Iranian general in Sanaa to organize Yemen rebel counter-offensive for Saudi-led attacks
DEBKAfile Special Report March 28, 2015, 10:42 AM (IDT)
Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani with Afghan recruits in Tikrit
Tehran took less than 48 hours for a
decision to hit back at the surprise air and naval attack launched by
Saudi Arabia, he Gulf and Egypt Thursday, March 26, to contain the
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels’ sweep through Yemeni cities.
debkafile’s
military sources report that Iran’s top war commander, Al Qods Brigades
chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, landed in the Yemeni capital Sanaa Friday,
March 27 to organize a counter-offensive and open Iran’s third direct
Middle East warfront after Syria (in support of Bashar Assad) and Iraq
(with the US against ISIS).
The Saudi-GCC-Egyptian intervention found the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels
at the gates of the big port of Aden, which commands the Straits of Bab
el-Mandeb, the vital gateway for oil shipping between the Indian Ocean
and Gulf through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean. Certain Yemeni army
units have joined the rebels. They are armed with advanced US weapons
that were supplied for the war on al Qaeda and now serve the revolt
against a Yemeni regime recognized by Washington.
This rebel force had already seized most of Yemen’s cities and stretches of its Red Sea coast.
Soleimani’s arrival in Sanaa signaled Tehran’s determination not to give
up an inch of the ground gained by its proxies, while underscoring its
demand for dominance as the leading Middle East power, promised by
Washington in return for accepting a framework deal on its nuclear
program.
US officials persist in their public pretense that the
diplomatic and the military arenas are unconnected. So the deal is
presented as close to signing by the March 31 deadline, while the flames
of Shiite-Sunni violence are allowed to spread into another corner of
the Middle East.
In the coming hours, Egyptian and Saudi naval and marine forces are
planning landings in Aden, according to their military sources. They
will fight to contain the Houthi march across Yemen and prevent the fall
of its last major town, after two days of Saudi and Gulf air strikes
against rebel positions around Yemen.
debkafile’s
military sources report that the Saudi and Gulf air forces and Egyptian
sea units managed in their first 48 hours to cut off Iran’s air and sea
supplies to the Houthi rebels. Gen. Soleimeni will need to find a means
of breaking the Saudi-Egyptian blockade and restoring supply routes.
Above all, he must determine whether or not to co-opt Iranian air and
sea forces to the Yemeni front and so leading them into head-to-head
battle against Saudi Arabia and its ten Sunni allies.
Egyptian and Iranian warships maneuvering for control of the Strait of
Bab el-Mandeb were reported to have clashed Thursday, the first day of
the Sunni intervention in the Yemen conflict.
From outside the region, Pakistan stands ready to step into the contest,
promising Friday “a strong response” to any threat to “Saudi
integrity.” This opened the door for the Pakistani army to be drawn into
the wars of Arabia against Iran alongside the majority of Arab Sunni
nations.
Islamabad was responding to a Houthi warning to invade the
southern Saudi provinces of Asir, Najran and Jizan, for which they
counted on a welcome by the local Saudi populations, most of which
belong to the minority Ismaili sect, that is closer to the Iranian
Shiite and Houthi Zaydi than to the dominant Sunni faith of the Saudi
royal regime.
Friday night, President Barack Obama spoke with Saudi King
Salman and reaffirmed US support for the military action taken in Yemen
by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies, the White House said in a
statement.
Obama and King Salman agreed that their goal is to achieve
lasting stability in Yemen through a negotiated political solution, the
statement said. Obama also underscored his commitment to Saudi Arabia's
security.
Labels: Conflict, Egypt, Intercession, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
Safeguarding the Western Public
"When I go home to West Virginia, my people say, 'What do you expect to be done that will be different from what we have done in that region of the world for thirteen years?"
"If money or military might hasn't changed it what makes you think you can change it now?"
"[America spent $20-billion to build up a 250,000-man army in Iraq] and the first time they were tested they turned tail and ran, turned over the arsenal that we equipped them with and now it is being used against us."
"The only thing that I know we're sure of is that the training [of 'moderate' rebels in Syria] and those weapons will probably be used against us in the future given everything that's happened in the past."
"How can I go home to West Virginia and make sense out of this at all?"
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat
 |
| Fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant pictured marching in Syria [AP] |
"Define the enemy for me."
Ted Poe, Texas Republican
"I call them the Enemy of Islam because that's what they are."
Secretary of State John Kerry
"Are they the enemy of the United States?"
Ted Poe
"They are the enemy of humanity. [The war will last] however long it takes [to defeat them]."
John Kerry
U.S. President Barack Obama said
that support from both Republicans and Democrats "shows the world that
Americans are united" in combating the Islamic State group.
Evan Vucci/Associated Press
"The regrettable reality is that to mount the kind of attacks which ISIL in Syria and in Iraq has in mind for Australia, all you need is a determined individual who will kill without compunction, a knife, an iPhone and a victim."
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
The reliably trenchant Islamist jihadists most certainly do represent themselves as the 'enemy of humanity', and they do so as as passionately engaged Islamist psychopaths. They do so, responding to the dictates of the Koran that it is fundamentally incumbent upon Muslims to surrender to the faith by embarking on a number of imperatives; one is the hajj, in memory of the hegira undertaken by the Prophet Mohammad, the second is jihad, and the two are inextricably intertwined.
Present-day jihadis are merely replicating in modern history what the Prophet Mohammad embarked upon in ancient history, by the sword persuading reluctant tribes to surrender - to Islam, the religion he constructed through an intimate conversation with Allah. To claim, as Barack Obama and his secretary of state are so delicately fond of doing -- lest they insult the Muslim ummah, much less the American Muslim demographic that Islam as a religion of peace has spawned violent jihad -- that terrorist jihadis do not express Islamic tenets, is to be deliberately obtuse.
American lawmakers in a majority-approving vote
(78-22 Senate, 319-108 House) gave the president the power to train and equip what is described as 'moderate' Syrian rebels whom the administration appears to hope to be able to persuade to turn their conflict from that of attempting to destroy the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, to that of a response to what they hold to be a far more dangerous regime threatening Syria and Iraq and the entire Middle East.
The recruitment, according to General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US. Joint Chiefs of Staff, should take about five months, the training an additional eight months. What further atrocities might the Islamic State wreak in that period of time, given their lightning-swift and successful march on Mosul? On the other hand, it is indeed Muslims who should meet Muslims in the battle for control of Muslim territory, allegiance and power.
The minute that Western military engages directly in ground conflict as opposed to helping to train national troops, is the minute that the entire Muslim community choruses the brutalities imposed upon Muslims by the West. The response, rather to face the intractable brutality of organized psychopathy threatening "humanity" and its most dearly held values of the sanctity of human life, is that of encouraging, aiding, training, arming and standing back.
Those who oppose the deadly carnage of fanatical Islam must be as determined to bring them to heel as the Islamists are to revel in Islamist-approved slaughter.
Once again France has dispatched its fighter jets as it did on its own in Mali, to destroy Islamic State logistics depots. France has stated it will restrict its air forays to Iraq and not venture into Syria. Leaving Syrian air strikes to the United States which has vowed it will launch them there, bypassing the authority of the Syrian president who had felt confident that he would finally gain recognition of legitimacy in his own war against Syrian Sunni citizens and rebels alike.
And managing to courageously withstand the verbal assault of Moscow insisting that the territorial integrity of Syria must be respected, for to do otherwise would represent a violent assault on all the international norms of legitimate state behaviour. That accusation should have been the clue for a bit of riotous hilarity on the part of the Western alliance.
Taking the experience of Australia as a template for the near future, where armed police have been authorized to take over security at Parliament House in Canberra in reflection of Australian Islamic State terrorists having instructed supporters in Australia to attack the building and members of the government, the United States will certainly exercise a need to react similarly.
And through that process perhaps create a more suitable arms-length relationship with their favoured Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Labels: Australia, France, Intercession, Islamism, Middle East, United States
Speaking in Confidence ... With Confidence
"Great nations need organizing principles, and 'don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
"Peace, progress, and prosperity. This worked for a very long time."
"And yeah, we don't want to see the world go to hell in a handbasket, and they don't want to see a resurgence of aggression by anybody."
(former) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
 |
| Interviewed by The Atlantic, Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized President Obama’s shorthand description of his foreign policy.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
In discussing the current American administration's careful doctrine on addressing global crises, the former Secretary of State is frank and frankly dismissive of her former boss's caution in engaging the United States in the affairs of the international community. Of course, he has his challenges, with one catastrophe on the world stage coming to the fore after another. It has been an impossibly busy and furiously troubling few years, to be certain.
She submitted to an interview with
The Atlantic, the results of which were published on its online website. Making such an appearance in the public eye and stating uncategorically what she would and would not do under similar circumstances herself, appears as positive an indication as any that she is still seriously mulling whether she will contest the next American presidential election, trading on her appearance and popularity in the public eye, her experience and her ambition.
She stoutly defended Israel's battle in Gaza against Hamas, arguing against her president's decision to withhold help from rebels in Syria to build a defence capable of confronting the onslaughts against his own civilian population by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. She had disagreed with Barack Obama's opinion that supplying the rebels with arms would not have stopped al-Qaeda's incursion across Syria and within Iraq today.
Failure of the administration to act on her recommendations as secretary of state, which also happened to jibe with the opinion of then-defence secretary Leon Panetta led, in her opinion, to the current situation:
"the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled", she explained. Americans, she said, want to take care of themselves in a manner rewarding to those who work hard and respect the rules. But they also want to be involved in the greater world community.
Despite her criticism of the man she once answered to as secretary of state, she expressed respect for President Obama's intelligence, sympathizing with the difficult decisions he must grapple with daily, from the Oval Office. As an example, she pointed out that while on vacation at Martha's Vineyard, she was aware that the president had to attend to issues respecting Iraq, Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, terrorism and Ebola in Africa.
"He's thoughtful, he's incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the economic front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to pull us out of the hole we're in", she explained. It wouldn't do much for her judgement, after all, to completely malign someone she once agreed to work with.
That said, they seem no longer to be personally involved, even as a gesture that they once worked in close tandem for their common cause. While Mrs. Clinton will happen to be at Martha's Vineyard for a book-signing at a local book shop Mr. Obama is known to visit often, he is not expected to attend that book signing, nor did Hillary Clinton plan to go out of her way to meet with her old adversary-colleague while in town.
Labels: Intercession, United States, World Crises
Syrian rebels allowed to attack Latakia from Turkish soil under Turkish air cover. Iran raises Cain in Ankara
Syrian rebels allowed to attack Latakia from Turkish soil under Turkish air cover. Iran raises Cain in Ankara
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 29, 2014, 10:45 PM (IST)
Intense fighting for Kasab in northwest Syria
Turkey has ratcheted up its intervention in the Syrian war to an unprecedented level, according to exclusive
debkafile
military and intelligence sources. For the first time in the three-year
conflict the Turkish army is allowing Syrian rebel forces, including
the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, passage through Turkish territory
for their offensive to capture the northwestern Syrian coastal area
where the Assad clan’s lands are situated.
Ankara’s support for the rebels is inclusive: Turkish troops are
posted at the roadside with supplies of ammo, fuel, food, mechanical
repair crews and medical aid for rebel forces as they head north. The
Turkish air force gives them air cover and Turkish agents arm them with
surveillance data on Syrian military movements ahead.
The Syrian fighter jet shot down on March 23 just inside the Turkish
border was in fact downed in a dogfight with Turkish warplanes, while
trying to bomb the rebel convoy heading for the new combat arena. Both
sides preferred to stay quiet about the incident and its causes.
The rebels receiving Turkish military support are disclosed by our
sources as belonging to two militias: The Syrian Revolutionaries Front
under the command of Jamal Maarouf, which has gathered in remnants of
the disbanded Free Syrian Army; and the Islamic Front, sponsored until
recently by Saudi intelligence. They number around 4,000 fighting men
including elements of the Nusra Front.
With powerful Turkish backing, this force has been able to carve a
very narrow corridor into northwest Syria from the tall Jabal al-Zawiya
in the Idlib region up to a point near Syria’s northern Mediterranean
coast, thereby severing the northwestern link between Syria and Turkey.
This was the first time rebel forces had gained full control of a
strategic corridor. First, they had to battle through and capture the
towns of Kazab, Khirbet and Samra northwest of the coastal town of
Latakia.
The Syrian army is throwing air, armored and heavy artillery strength
against the rebels to stop them firming up their positions in those
towns, while also aiming to regain command of the Syrian-Turkish border
region.
The fighting Saturday, March 29 was most intense around Kasab.
This new development in the Syrian war raises two questions:
1. For how long can the Syrian rebels hold out against constant battering by superior military strength?
2. If the rebels are thrown out of their new positions, will the
Turkish army come to their aid? If so, it would be Ankara’s first
outright military incursion into Syrian territory and the first
intrusion by a NATO member in its civil conflict.
Our sources in Ankara report that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is in
favor of going ahead. He is vehemently opposed by the Turkish chief of
staff.
It is this argument which triggered the banning of YouTube by the
Turkish government Friday, March 28 - not the important municipal
elections taking place Monday.
A leaked
recording published anonymously purported to reveal a conversation
between Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, spy chief Hakan
Fidan and a general discussing how to drum up a pretext for a Turkish
attack inside Syria. A voice identified as that of Fidan appeared to
suggest a missile assault as the pretext for a Turkish invasion.
Erdogan and Turkish intelligence chiefs are convinced that the leak
was orchestrated by generals who are against deeper Turkish involvement
in the Syria war.
In the meantime,
debkafile’s
Iranian sources report that Tehran was so jittery about this turn of
events that a Iranian military delegation was rushed to Ankara, arriving
Saturday, to force Erdogan to take his hands off the Syrian war by
any means, including a threat to suspend oil supplies.
The two sides are still talking.Labels: Conflict, Intercession, Iran, Syria, Turkey
