Pre-tribulation Rapture Believers Safe House

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SE Turkey sees rise in terror attacks. Police officer killed
DEBKAfile July 23, 2015, 6:07 PM (IDT)

A Turkish police officer was shot and killed and a second wounded on Thursday in the mainly Kurdish South Turkish city of Diyarbakir, a day after two police officers were killed in a suicide bombing attack attributed to the Islamic State near the Syrian border. The dissident Turkish Kurdish PKK took responsibility for both attacks. It is accused by Ankara of links with ISIS.

My comment

The populations of this region will eventually align with the little horn of Daniel's visions as he moves to expand his holdings [Ezekiel 38:6] .... just the same as he will add Egypt to his Middle Eastern kingdom

• Obama slams ‘lobbyists, money’ working against his Iran deal
• BIN EXCLUSIVE: Sanhedrin Calls Obama to Trial on Mt. Zion
• Iran: ‘We Will Trample Upon America’

Top News

• JULY 23, 2015
  Israel envoy to US lobbies Congress against Iran deal
  
  
  
  Israel's Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, July 29, 2014 (photo credit: Ron Sachs)
  Israel’s ambassador to the United States implored congressional Republicans on Wednesday to scuttle President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and Western powers as the White House dispatched senior administration officials to Capitol Hill to make the case for the accord.
  
  The intense lobbying on both sides of the issue reflected the importance of the pact for Obama, seeking a foreign policy capstone in the final months of his presidency, and the fierce opposition from Israel to the accord with Tehran. Congress this fall will cast the most significant national security vote since 2002, when it backed President George W. Bush on invading Iraq.
  
  Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said Ambassador Ron Dermer’s main argument during a nearly hour-long meeting with 30-40 House Republicans was “pay less attention to all the details” like centrifuges and years, and “pay more attention to who’s on the other side of the ethical debate, and that is Iran.”
  
  
• JULY 23, 2015
  Kenyan Pastors to Obama: Don't Bring 'The Gay Talk' Here
  
  
  Seven hundred Kenyan evangelical pastors have written an open letter asking the president not to come to their country and talk about the gay agenda.
  
  Mark Kariuki is the key architect of that letter. He leads an alliance representing 38,000 churches and 10 million Kenyan Christians.
  
  "We do not want him to come and talk on homosexuality in Kenya or push us to accepting that which is against our faith and culture," Kariuki said.
  
  "Let him talk about development; let him talk about cooperation; let him talk about the long-time relationship Kenya has had with America," he said. "But about our beliefs and culture-- keep off!"
  
  "The family is the strength of a nation. If the family is destroyed, then the nation is destroyed," he said. "So we don't want to open doors for our nation to be destroyed!"
  

My comment

The American President sails in rough waters with no anchor ... and his actions are placing the USA into jeopardy .... not good for America

US ‘fleeced’ in Iran deal, Corker tells Kerry
The times of Israel, July 23, 2015

Republican Senator Bob Corker accuses Secretary of State John Kerry of allowing the United States to be “fleeced” by Iran during the negotiations on the nuclear deal agreed last week.

“I believe we’ve been fleeced and in the course of being fleeced you turned Iran from being a pariah into Congress being a pariah,” Corker says at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the agreement.

“A few weeks ago, you said that no deal was better than a bad deal,” he adds. “What you say now is that somehow if Congress were to turn this down, the only option is war.”

Corker also targets the administration’s attitude toward Israel and the Gulf states, about whom he says Kerry speaks “with a degree of disdain.”

He tells Kerry: “I believe that you have crossed a new threshold in US foreign policy where it is now the policy of the United States to allow a state sponsor of terror to develop a sophisticated nuclear program.”

Secretary of State John Kerry found himself on the defensive Thursday at a Senate hearing where he was hard-pressed to find support for the Iran nuclear deal from either side of the aisle -- and sharply sparred with Republicans who accused him of being "fleeced" and "bamboozled."

Sen. Barbara Boxer stands up to her Republican colleagues and declares to John Kerry: "If you were bamboozled, the world has been bamboozled. That's ridiculous and unfair and wrong." And to her colleagues: "You can disagree for sure with aspects of this agreement, but i think we need to stay away from that kind of rhetoric."

Transcript:

SEN. BARBARA BOXER: I support the right of my colleagues to say anything they want, but you have sat there and you have heard two of my colleagues go after you with words that I am going to repeat. You were "fleeced one said. The other said you have been "bamboozled."

So putting aside the fact that I think that's disrespectful and insulting, that's their right to do. there are other ways to express your disagreement, but that goes to your core as a human being and your intelligence, and I think you are highly intelligent.

Let me ask you, and if you could answer yes or no, and I know it's hard for you, secretary Kerry for you to do so because we're senators and it's not our way and then I can get through the rest of my list. So my colleagues think you were fleeced and bamboozled, and that means everybody was fleeced and bamboozled, everybody, almost everybody in the world.

My comment

The whole world has been bamboozled .... by Obama and Kerry

The Iranians won the prize

Jordan launches war on ISIS in Iraq, Turkish warplanes hit ISIS in Syria. US, Israel involved in both ops
DEBKAfile Special Report July 24, 2015, 11:08 AM (IDT)
Tags: US-ISIS, Israel-US, Jordanian military, Turkey, Syria, Iraq,

F-16 warplane in action against ISIS

The Middle East woke up Friday, July 24, to two new full-fledged wars launched by Jordan and Turkey for cutting down the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as is forces advanced on their borders. The United States and Israel are involved in both campaigns. Jordanian armored, commando and air forces are already operating deep inside Iraq, while Friday morning, Turkey conducted its first cross-border air strike against ISIS targets in Syria.

Clashes between Turkish troops and Islamic fighters erupted at several points along the border. Both governments also conducted mass arrests of suspected Islamists. The Jordanian police picked up ISIS adherents, while 5,000 Turkish police detained 250 Islamist and outlawed Kurdish PKK suspects in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Saniurta. Jordan Friday shut down its only border crossing with Iraq.

Earlier this week, Turkey permitted US warplanes to us the Incirlik air base in the south for bombing missions against ISIS, and Israel handed over to Jordan 16 Cobra combat helicopters and assured Jordan of air force cover for its anti-ISIS operation.

Read more about this new chapter in the war on ISIS in the DEBKAfile report of Thursday, July 23.
In the first publicized Israeli military hardware transaction with an Arab nation, Israel has handed over “around 16 Cobra” combat helicopters in support of Jordan’s war on the Islamic State. This was confirmed Thursday, July 23, by a US official close to the transfer. It was also the first time US-Jordanian-Israeli military cooperation in the struggle against ISIS was publicly disclosed.

“These choppers are for border security,” said the unnamed US official.DEBKAfile’s military and counter-terror sources disclose that the Cobras are needed for a large-scale Jordanian aerial-commando operation launched in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, which borders on the Hashemite Kingdom. This operation is designed to carve out a security belt tens of kilometers deep inside Iraq as a barrier against Islamic State’s encroachment.

Amman approached Washington for combat helicopters to back the operation and was told that the US is short of these items and would turn Israel to pitch in. The US first provided mechanical overhauls for the aircraft before they were incorporated free of charge in Jordan's existing Cobra fleet.

The transfer was announced while US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was touring the Middle East. He arrived in Amman Tuesday, July 21,after talks in Israel, and visited Baghdad unannounced Thursday, July 23 for an update on the war on ISIS

The mounting Islamist threat to Jordan is coming now from two directions – the Iraqi province of Anbar and Syria. ISIS forces have grabbed positions in southern Syria near the intersection of the Jordanian, Iraqi and Syrian borders. They have also moved up to the eastern Syrian town of Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border and, since mid-May, have gradually detached small groups from the captured central Syrian town of Palmyra and quietly built up positions in the south near Jabal Druze.

This buildup has been tracked by US, Jordanian and Israeli surveillance.

The Islamist domestic threat to the Hashemite Kingdom is no less acute. Jihadist sleeper cells have been planted in Jordan ready to strike strategic targets for a reign of terror to coincide with the onset of external Islamic State attacks staged from Iraq and Syria.

Our military sources report that US-Israeli-Jordanian cooperation is channeled through the US Central Command Forward-Jordan from its headquarters north of Amman. It is staffed by US, British, Jordanian, Saudi and Israeli officers working together to defeat ISIS.

Ya'alon: Iran Deal Poses Serious Threats to the West
Defense Minister warns that the West is allowing Iran's terror regime to enter the family of nations through the front door.
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By Elad Benari

First Publish: 7/24/2015, 3:14 AM


Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon
Ariel Hermoni, Defense Ministry
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned on Thursday that the West was taking huge risks with the nuclear deal recently signed with Iran.

"The time that has passed since the signing of the agreement with Iran continues to disclose the size of the risks that the West took upon itself, and its willingness to agree to unprecedented concessions towards the bloody regime in Tehran," said Ya'alon.

"As time passes it becomes clear that this agreement poses serious threats to the Western world that cannot be underestimated, in the face of an ambitious and ruthless regime of terror that will not hesitate to act against and within those countries with which it signed this bad deal,” warned the Defense Minister.

"The free world, instead of fighting with determination against this terrorist regime, allows it to enter the family of nations through the front door," Ya’alon stressed. "It should be remembered that terrorism is terrorism is terrorism, and the Iranian regime that employs terrorism will not cease and desist but only increase terrorism if it detects weakness and lack of determination to deal with it in different ways, as is the case now.”

“Those who choose to ignore terrorism directed at someone else will find themselves facing the terror that comes to their doorstep faster than expected,” he warned.

Ya’alon’s warnings are not the first time Israel has warned against the nuclear deal and its implications.

The deal ignores Iran's key nuclear installations where its nuclear weapons testing is said to be being held, and likewise stipulates that the West will train Iran to block sabotage on its nuclear program. Thedeal also lifts the UN arms embargo on Iran and lifts sanctions against its top terror commander.

The validity of Ya’alon’s warnings could be illustrated by the comments made by senior Iranian officials after the deal was signed.

On Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Commander of Iran's paramilitary Basij Force, said that the Iran deal will only make Iranians hate the U.S. more.

"Any Iranian who reads the Vienna documents will hate the US 100 times more," Naqdi declared.

Iran has shown an increasingly open belligerent tone despite the deal, with an aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei saying Tuesday that Iran won't let international inspectors visit its covert military sites such as Parchin, where Iran's illicit nuclear weapons testing is thought to be occurring.

And Khamenei himself declared last weekend that Iran will not respect the United States any more as a result of the nuclear deal.

"We have repeatedly said we don't negotiate with the U.S. on regional or international affairs; not even on bilateral issues," he said. "There are some exceptions like the nuclear program that we negotiated with the Americans to serve our interests."

"We will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon," he continued, referring to the Iranian terror axis in the Middle East. "Even after this dealour policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change."

A/P - Reuters
JULY 26, 2015
Rouhani mocks US claim that all options are still on the table; great work John Kerry

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani addresses the nation in a televised speech after a nuclear agreement was announced in Vienna, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, July 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday called on Washington officials to stop using threatening language against Tehran, hitting back at comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Rouhani’s statement, published by the semi-official Fars news agency, came after Kerry said Thursday that the military option remains on the table vis-a-vis Iran, in case it does not adhere to the agreement on its nuclear program reached with world powers earlier this month.

“The US should know that it has no other option but respecting Iran and showing modesty towards the country and saying the right thing,” Rouhani told a crowd in the western Iranian city of Sanandij on Sunday.

Kerry said in a Washington Post op-ed jointly written with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz published Thursday that the nuclear deal “extends the time Iran would need to develop a nuclear weapon, provides strong verification measures that give us ample time to respond if Iran chooses that path, and takes none of our options off the table.”

“The table they are talking about has broken legs,” Rouhani retorted Sunday.

Assad in a position to strength after Vienna deal with Iran. Tehran revitalizes his depleted army
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 27, 2015, 9:19 AM (IDT)
Tags: Bashar Assad, Iran in Syria, Turkey, US-Syria, Syrian army,

Assad finds a winning streak

Syrian President Bashar Assad, in his first public speech in a year, could afford Sunday, July 26, to admit that his overstretched army had been forced to give up “critical areas” in a civil war that was dragging into its fifth year at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, because he was confident that he is on a winning streak.

This confidence he gained from three recent developments:
1. The nuclear accord Iran signed with the six world powers led by the Unite States on July 14 has granted him and extra lease of life. The Syrian dictator, Tehran’s senior ally, can now count himself safe from US efforts to depose him - never mind if he cheated on his chemical weapons stocks and continues to use them in battle - after the Obama administration effectively anointing Iran leading Middle East power and strategic partner.

In his speech, Assad congratulated his best friend in Tehran for pulling off this feat in Vienna and commended the “positive changes in western attitudes to the {Syrian] conflict.” He noted that the “US and its allies now understood they shared an interest” with his regime “in defeating ISIS-style jihad terrorism.”
From the early days of the Syrian war, Assad claimed he was fighting Islamic terrorism and, if the world failed to understand this point, they too would be attacked.

2. He now feels vindicated by Turkey’s entry to the civil war over the weekend in cooperation with the US. The two powers have declared war on the Islamic State and the Kurdish military amalgam of the Syrian YPG and outlawed Turkish PKK. Since these are the two most powerful fighting forces imperiling his regime in Damascus, this outside intervention in the Syrian war is welcome for taking some of the heavy lifting off the shoulders of the Syrian army.

Furthermore, Washington has promised Tehran to withhold from the third element fighting the Assad regime, the Syrian rebel movements, weapons powerful enough to tilt the scales of the civil war in their favor

Sunday night, July 26, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu informed Turkish media editors: “Turkey has no plans to send ground troops into Syria, but has agreed with the United States that air cover should be provided for moderate rebels fighting Islamic State forces there.”

The Syrian ruler and Tehran can therefore stop worrying. The Syrian insurgents, some of which were backed by the US for years in their fight against Assad, will now have to be satisfied with air cover alone – and even then, only if they stop fighting Assad and turn their guns on the Islamists.

3. With the new lease of life given his regime by these radical shifts in the strategic landscape of the long Syrian war, Assad could afford to talk down his regime’s surrender of territory, “as a question of priorities. It was necessary to specify critical areas for our armed forces to hang onto,” while voicing gratitude for the “important and effective assistance” rendered by Iran and Hizballah for enabling him to adopt this tactic.
As to his most acute problem, the flagging powers of his armed forces: “The problem facing the military,” he explained coolly, “is not related to planning but to fatigue. It is normal than an army gets tired, but there’s a difference between fatigue and defeat.”

But he dodged any mention of the mass desertions and defections to the enemy which have shrunk his army. Neither did he reveal how he proposes to remedy this problem.

However, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence source are able to fill this gap: Shortly before the speech he delivered in Damascus, Assad was presented by Tehran with a new rehabilitation plan for his army, updated to the latest events. Instead divisions and brigades, it would reorganized with the assistance of Iranian and Hizballah officers into three armored commando super-divisions, one each for the northern, southern and Damascus fronts.

The 4th Division, which is the Republican Guard, would continue to defend Damascus. The 14th Division, which is made up of Special Forces, would have its “tired” officers replaced by younger, fresher commanders fighting under superior Iranian officers.

The immediate consequence of the Vienna nuclear accord on the ground has therefore been to revitalize the Assad regime in Damascus, rejuvenate his army and bring Iranian military forces closer than ever before to the borders of Israel and Jordan.


My comment

If this change in Assad's fate materializes because of the USA blunder to embolden Iran I would say that the rebel forces fighting his government in Syria will only serve to accelerate these forces to confederate serving the Islamic State [ISIL]

....we will see

An Orthodox Jewish worshipper prays at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Where are the Babylonians? Where are the Romans and the Byzantines? Where are the Ottomans? Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin, Nasser— their legacy is dust. We are still here. And not only are Jews a living people: We are a thriving people despite all the internal and external threats to our existence.

Jewish survival is not only miraculous. It is a clarion call to the world that Jews are a people and a nation. It is a renaissance that no other people could have accomplished. As I stood at the Kotel that evening, I smiled. There are major challenges and obstacles that stand in the way of Jewish survival—from the threat of Iranian nukes to the alarming increase in both Jew hatred in Europe and the erosion of Jewish identity in America. But we move ahead with confidence because we have a track record of both suffering but also success. Yes, we celebrate the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba for their heroism and their struggle to fight for Jewish independence.

But let us also respect our ancestors in the Diaspora who kept the flame of faith alive and would not allow a nation to fail. We remember the sacrifice of those who died to defend Jewish dignity, honor and sovereignty. We shall move ahead. We shall live on. I will never forget that night—of lamentation but also celebration-- in Jerusalem.

Christians in Middle East facing worst persecution as population drops sharply
Monica Cantilero 26 July 2015
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Reuters
An Iraqi Christian boy fleeing the violence in Mosul stands inside the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Chaldean Church in Telkaif near Mosul, in the province of Nineveh, on July 20, 2014.


More Christians are facing religious persecution in the Middle East than at any time since early history, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center.

This has resulted in a sharp decline of the Christian population in the region, according to the New York Times. In Iraq, only less than half a million Christians are left since many have already left after being targeted by extremists for more than a decade, a Times report said.


The problem turned from bad to worse with the rise of the Islamic State as it intensified the Muslim persecution of Christians and other minorities as part of its campaign of terror in the region, the report said.

Now, "Christianity is under an existential threat," said Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat in the US House of Representatives and an advocate of Eastern Christians.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad has allowed Christians to leave the country since the civil war broke out in 2011.

Nearly a third of Syria's estimated 600,000 Christians have fled, having been driven out by terrorist groups like the Nusra Front and now ISIS, the Times said.

Assad has used the ISIS rise to solidify his own support among those who remain, contending that he is the only thing stopping the group from taking over Syria, according to the report.

"When Christians saw Christians being beheaded, those who saw Assad as the enemy chose the lesser of two evils," Samy Gemayel, leader of the Kataeb party in Lebanon, told the Times.

The number of Christians in the Middle East—in countries like Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan—has dropped to roughly 4 percent of their respective population from a high of 14 percent, according to the Guardian.

The British publication pointed out that the persecution of Christians started not with ISIS, but 10 years ago after the US- and British-led invasion of Iraq.

Prior to the invasion, "under Saddam Hussein's rule, Christians in fact enjoyed what they now recall as a golden age. They were free to worship and played a full role in society. However, the removal of the dictator let loose an ugly Shia-Sunni power struggle," The Guardian said.

ISIS is justifying its persecution of Christians and other minorities through its own twisted version of the early history of Christians in the Middle East, the paper said.

Recently posted videos by the group claim Christians are second-class citizens in the caliphate who have to pay the "jizya" tax or convert. Those who refuse would be killed, the narrator warned, as footages of the persecution of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in Libya are shown.

The embattled Christians and other minorities are now looking up to US and other Western countries to save them from annihilation.

"How much longer can we flee before we and other minorities become a story in a history book?" said Nuri Kino, a journalist who founded the advocacy group Demand for Action.

The group said the beleaguered Christians and minorities need urgent support from the West.

This sentiment was expressed after the UN Security Council met this spring to discuss the situation of religious minorities in Iraq. Following the meeting, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other activists expressed anger at the United States for its apparent indifference to the plight of minorities in Iraq and Syria.

"If we attend to minority rights only after the slaughter has begun, then we have already failed, said the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein.

Since October 2013, the US has only provided $416 million in humanitarian aid, far from what is needed, he said.

"Americans and the West were telling us they came to bring democracy, freedom, and prosperity," said Louis Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon who spoke before the Security Council, in an email. "What we are living is anarchy, war, death, and the plight of three million refugees."

Top News

• JULY 28, 2015
  Obama slams Huckabee for invoking Holocaust in his criticism of Iran deal; Huckabee responds with facts
  
  
  
  Huckabee has come under fire from both Jewish groups and the Democratic party after making the comparison between the Holocaust and the Iran deal. However the Republican presidential candidate refused to back down, continuing to make his case against the Iran deal on Twitter. He tweeted a series of messages Sunday with quotes from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which they threaten Israel with a holocaust.
  
  
• US President Barack Obama on Monday condemned rhetoric about the Iran deal from leading members of the Republican party, including GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, who has drawn criticism for comparing the accord to the Holocaust.
  
  Huckabee called Barack Obama “feckless” and “naive” in an interview with Breitbart News on Saturday, adding that by signing the deal the President “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
  
  Speaking at a press conference in Ethiopia on Monday, Obama said that such "outrageous attacks" have become "all too commonplace" among Republican politicians.
  
  The US president described Huckabee's comments as “part of just a general pattern we have seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren’t so sad.”
  
  Huckabee has come under fire from both Jewish groups and the Democratic party after making the comparison between the Holocaust and the Iran deal.
  
  However the Republican presidential candidate refused to back down, continuing to make his case against the Iran deal on Twitter.
  
  He tweeted a series of messages Sunday with quotes from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which they threaten Israel with a holocaust.

ISIS wipes out the Syrian army’s main strategic arsenal, flattens heart of Al Safira complex
DEBKAfile Special Report July 29, 2015, 8:55 AM (IDT)
Tags: ISIS, Syrian army, Scuds, chemical weapons,

Syrian "barrel bombs" dropped on targets

As the US and Turkey got started on a new air campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, the jhadis pulled off their most devastating attack yet on the Syrian army’s biggest arsenal. They subjected the giant Al-Safira military complex north of Aleppo to a steady blitz of an estimated 50 Grad missiles from Monday night to Tuesday, July 28.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Facility No.790, a large depot of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons, including chemicals, was set on fire and flattened.
Al Safira was important and big enough to be guarded by 1,800 members of the Syrian Air Force’s elite intelligence unit (not part of the air force) which comes under the direct command of President Bashar Assad.

Wednesday morning, flames continued to burn over the facility and explosions still shook buildings far away.

Some sources attributed the attack to Turkish Air Force bombers. In fact, it was the Islamic State which kept the complex under steady Grad missile fire, that was precise enough to raise suspicions of an inside leak betraying the exact locations of key targets, including subterranean structures, workshops for manufacture and repairs and large stockpiles of weapons.

Our sources list the items and sections of the Al-Safira military complex which ISIS demolished:

• The Syrian army’s strategic stock of Scud D surface missiles.
• Parts of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons production plant and stocks.
• The production line for “barrel bombs” newly set up by Iranian engineers, which had become the most frequently used Syrian air force’s weapon against rebel forces.
• A big helicopter pad where the Syrian choppers would load up on barrel bombs and distribute them among air bases across the country.
• The storage facilities in a part of the base known as the “Suleiman area” which housed chemical artillery shells.
• Many Iranian engineers and technicians were known to be present at Al Safira at the time of the attack. No information is available on casualties.

Our military sources say that never in the course of the four years plus of the Syrian conflict has the Assad regime’s army suffered a loss on this scale of its essential stock of hardware. It will undoubtedly affect its combat effectiveness and especially its fire power.

Iran orders from China 150 J-10 fighter jets that incorporate Israeli technology
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 30, 2015, 10:41 AM (IDT)
Tags: Iran, Air force, China, Russia, warplanes,

Chinese Chengdu J-10 for Iranian air force

Iran is about to conclude a transaction with China for the purchase of the Chengdu J-10 multirole jet fighter, known in the West as the Vigorous Dragon, according to an exclusive report from DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources. Beijing has agreed to sell Tehran 150 of these sophisticated jets.

While the Chinese J-10 is comparable to the US F-16, our sources report that it is virtually a replica of the Lavi, the super-fighter developed by Israel’s aerospace industry in the second half of the 80s. Israel sold China the technology, after Washington insisted on Its discontinuing the Lavi’s production. The US also objected to the sale of the Lavi’s avionics, claiming that it contained some American components.

The Chinese plane comes in two versions – the multirole single-seat J-10A and the two-seat J-10B, which serves for training, ground assaults and electronic warfare.

Iran has additionally weighing the purchase in Moscow of 250 highly-advanced Sukhoi-Su-30MK1 twinjet multirole air superiority fighters, known in the West as Flanker-H.

On Wednesday, July 29, an Indian Air Force Su-30MK1 took part for the first time in a British air maneuver, Rainbow, where it dueled with the European Typhoon fighter.

The sophisticated Flanker has been found to have a major shortcoming. To carry eight tons of ordnance, it must use both of its AL-31FP engines, and the transition from one to two – and the reverse - often causes engine failure.
The Indian Air Force has reported three such malfunctions in a month, as well another shortcoming: The time needed for making the aircraft serviceable is too long. As a result, only half of the Indian fleet can be airborne at one time.

In a confrontation, the Iranian Air Force may find that, because of these drawbacks, the Chinese Su-30MK1 is outmatched by its American and European counterparts in the service of the Israeli, Saudi and UAE air forces.

On July 22, DEBKAfile revealed that Moscow and Tehran had concluded a giant transaction for the acquisition of a fleet of 100 IL78 MK1 (Midas) in-flight refueling planes for extending the range of its warplanes up to 7,300 km and able to refuel 6-8 planes at once.

DEBKAfile: The scale of Iran’s multibillion acquisitions from China and Russia – 550 warplanes in all so far - indicates that Tehran’s top spending priority upon receipt of the funds released by the removal of sanctions, is to be a spanking new air force.

« Breaking News »
Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front attacks Western-backed rebels in N. Syria
DEBKAfile July 31, 2015, 4:49 PM (IDT)

The al Qaeda-linked Syrian Nusra Front Friday attacked Western-backed rebels on Friday, escalating tension between rival insurgent groups near the Turkish border. Warplanes of the US-led coalition bombed the Nusra positions near Azaz, north of Aleppo. The fighting, believed to have killed at least 13 people on both sides, raises a major complication for US-Turkish plans to drive Islamic State militants from northern Syria.

Turkey and Syria
Erdogan’s dangerous gambit
By bombing the Kurds, as well as Islamic State, Turkey is adding to the chaos in the Middle East
From the print edition


TURKEY’S allies in the West have felt increasingly queasy about its wayward president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At home he has become authoritarian and wants to change the constitution to give himself more power.

Abroad he has been indulgent towards militants passing through his country to fight in Syria. In the year since the jihadists of Islamic State (IS) declared their caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, and America gathered a coalition to “degrade and ultimately destroy” them, Mr Erdogan has refused to let NATO allies use Turkish bases.

Perhaps he feared that the jihadists would target Turkey. Or perhaps he thought they were useful pawns in the violent geopolitics of the Middle East. Such illusions should have been blown away on July 20th, when a suicide-bomber killed 32 people in Suruc, a Turkish town on the border with Syria.

Within days Turkey said it would allow America to use its base at Incirlik, and its own jets bombed IS. There is now talk of creating a buffer zone in Syria to cut off IS’s last supply lines.

Many hope Mr Erdogan has at last had a moment of clarity about the IS menace. So far, though, he has only added to the murk of the region’s wars. His air force has mostly bombed the Kurds who, in various guises, have proved to be the most resolute fighters against IS.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting an on-off insurgency against Turkey for decades, invited retribution by breaking a two-year ceasefire and killing several policemen and soldiers, in reprisal for Turkey’s supposed collusion in the Suruc bombing, which hit a Kurdish cultural centre. But Mr Erdogan is being reckless, too. By deliberately stirring nationalist, anti-Kurdish sentiment, he is endangering the chance of a lasting settlement of the Kurdish question and weakening the fight against IS.

Why the caliphate endures

Under attack from America and an impressive list of allies, IS should by now be in full retreat. There are cracks in the caliphate, to be sure, but it has endured and has at times even taken new territory. Its resilience creates a myth of God-given invincibility that radicalises admirers around the world, draws recruits and spawns copycat groups.

The caliphate survives because its defeat is nobody’s priority. America’s aim is to limit its military commitment in the Middle East. For Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, the big threat is Iran. Iran’s main mission is to prop up the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad. Mr Assad’s first concern is holding other rebels at bay. The rebels’ obsession is to get rid of Mr Assad.

The hardest fighting against IS in the past year has been waged, in Iraq, by Shia and Kurdish Peshmerga militias; and, in Syria, by the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), an offshoot of the PKK. The Syrian Kurds’ valour in defending the town of Kobane, in full view of television cameras just across the border in Turkey, earned much admiration and the direct support of America’s air force.

Though Turkey sheltered Kobane’s fleeing civilians, it watched with indifference as Kurdish fighters desperately fought off IS; it only grudgingly allowed Iraqi Kurds to reinforce them.



An interactive guide to the Middle East's tangled conflicts
With the most powerful army in the region, Turkey could tip the scales against IS. But it, too, has had other priorities (see article). At first Mr Erdogan made it his personal mission to get rid of Mr Assad; later, he worried about preventing Kurds from making more gains.

When the Kurds evicted IS from the border town of Tel Abyad, Turkey warned them not to cross the Euphrates and link up with another Kurdish enclave to the west. The “Islamic State-free zone” in Syria that Turkey is urging looks more like a Kurd-free zone.

Many suspect Mr Erdogan of using the crisis for his own political advantage at home. When his Islamist-tinged Justice and Development (AK) party first came to power in 2002 Mr Erdogan was a reformer who sought a deal with the Kurds. But in June’s election he was denied a majority by the strong showing of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a slick left-leaning group with strong Kurdish links.

So Mr Erdogan is now playing the anti-Kurdish card. He has disowned a “road map” to peace negotiated by AK and the PKK. He says peace talks are “not possible”, and wants to strip away the immunity of HDP MPs. By bombing PKK bases in Iraq, Mr Erdogan may be trying to cut the support for HDP before calling new elections this autumn to gain the votes he needs to change the constitution.

If so, Mr Erdogan’s vainglory risks placing Turkey on the pyre of the Middle East. The AK party should ignore the president’s scheming, get on with forming a coalition with centrists and resume peace talks with the Kurds. The PKK must restore the ceasefire: more than three decades of fighting produced only misery.

Now that the PKK has abandoned its old separatism, negotiations on devolution and language rights offer the best prospect of peace. If Turkish and Kurdish guns were pointed at IS, rather than at each other, it would be better for Turkey, the Middle East and the world.

Hizballah presses elite Radwan Force for conquering Galilee into saving stalled Zabadani battle
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 1, 2015, 12:10 PM (IDT)
Tags: Hizballah, special forces, Syrian war, Nusra Front, Lebanon, Israel,

New "ninja" uniforms for Hizballah's Radwan Force

Hizballah’s elite Radwan Force was originally designed to push in from Lebanon and conquer the Israeli Galilee. DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources report that on Thursday, July 30 Hassan Nasralla saw he had no option but to press this high-value contingent into service ,to extricate the combined Hizballah-Syrian armies from their month-long failure to recapture the key town of Zabadani - or even breach the defenses set up by the Al-Qaeda affiliated rebel Nusra Front.

This standoff with heavy casualties over the key town, which commands the main Damascus-Beirut highway, has become a symbolic make-or-break duel between the Iran-backed Shiite Hizballah and Al Qaeda’s Sunni Nusra Front. Nasrallah loses it at the cost of his organization’s credibility as a formidable fighting force.

Defeat would make western Damascus and eastern Lebanon more vulnerable to attack. And for Iran’s Lebanese proxy, it would leave an embarrassing question hanging in the air: If Hizballah under Iranian command combined with Syrian troops and backed by heavy artillery fire and air strikes can’t win a relatively small battle against no more than 1,200 rebel fighters across a nine-km square battleground, how much are its leaders’ boasts worth when they claim unbeatable prowess for winning major battles, including a war on Israel?

To save face in this landmark showdown, Hizballah decided to press into battle its most prestigious unit, named for Al-Hajj Radwan, the nom de guerre of Hizballah’s renowned military chief Imad Mughniye, whom Israel took out in February 2008.

Eight months ago, the Radwan Force lost its senior commanders. An Israeli air strike on Jan. 18 targeted a group of high Iranian and Hizballah officers on a visit to Quneitra on the Syrian Golan. They were surveying the terrain before relocating this elite unit to confront IDF positions on the Israeli Golan border. Iranian Gen. Ali Reza al-Tabatabai and the Hizballah district commander Jihad Mughniye (son of Imad) lost their lives in the Israeli raid and the plan was provisionally set aside.

If the Radwan Force manages to haul Hizballah out of its impasse in Zabadani, it may next be assigned to take up battle positions on the Golan.
But for now, its mission in the battle for Zabadani has three dimensions:

1. To disarm the enemy by commando raids, a tactic to be borrowed from the rebels defending the town. On the night of July 24, the rebels preemptively struck Hizballah and Syrian army positions around the town and captured some of them. The decision to deploy Radwan appears to have come in response to that painful setback.

2. To pull off a quick battlefield success at Zabadani, in view of intelligence reports that the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Syria were preparing together to open a second front in Lebanon, in order to relieve the rebel force pinned down in Zabadani.

The two groups plan to cross into Lebanon and start attacking pro-Hizballah Shiite populations in the Beqaa Valley and the North. They propose to cut through the Bequaa Valley and head up to the important northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast.

3. Syrian President Bashar Asad is under extreme pressure for a battlefield success after admitting in a public speech last week to the loss of strategic territory to rebel forces and shrinking military manpower. He has earmarked a Zabadani victory - both as a turning-point for his flagging fortunes and for holding back the constant draining of his army by desertions and defections.

Our military sources reveal that, after Assad leaned hard on the Lebanese government and army to round up Syrian troops who went AWOL, Lebanese security forces went into action. They are picking up Syrian army deserters and putting them on buses driving in armored convoys into Syria. It doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up the fate of these unwilling returnees.

Saudi and UAE armored brigades and commando forces land in Aden as Houthi insurgents fall back
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 4, 2015, 10:14 PM (IDT)
Tags: Yemen war, Saudi army, UAE, Aden, Iran,

The UAE's French-made Leclerc tanks in Aden

After clinching its conquest of the Yemeni port of Aden – contrary to all Western predictions - Saudi Arabia teamed up with the United Arab Republic and, together, on Tuesday, Aug. 4, landed by sea and air two armored brigades and several commando battalions. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this was the first time that any Gulf nation had shown itself capable of a sea landing on this scale.

Tuesday night, the roads heading north out of Aden resounded with the thunder of convoys of heavy Saudi Abraham M1 tanks and long lines of heavy French made Leclerc tanks contributed by the UAE army.

The landings from the Red Sea were covered by intense gun and missile fire from the multi-Arab fleet of Saudi, Egyptian and UAE missile vessels and warships offshore.

Among the heavy vehicles freighted in by air were hundreds of armored personnel carriers, some of them Russian-made BMD3s, others Humvees made in America - and all fitted with short-range ground-to-ground missiles - as well dozens of US-made mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles designed to withstand roadside bombs.

To speed the arrival in Yemen of mountains of armored military reinforcements, plus equipment, supplies, ordnance and medical evacuation services, the Saudis and UAE hired an Abu Dhabi firm specializing in airport construction, Within 48 hours, the Aden airport which had been badly damaged in the fighting was ready for large transport planes to come in to land.
Tuesday night, the workmen were busy on a second project, preparing Al-Anad, Yemen’s biggest airport 48 km north of Aden, for Saudi and UAE fighter-bombers to take off for air strikes.

The newly-arrived tanks, APCs and commando fighters were meanwhile advancing rapidly toward Yemen’s next largest town, Taiz.

Our military sources report that the Houthi insurgents have nowhere near the quantity or quality of equipment and weaponry to withstand the assault coming their way from a combination of armored, naval, air and commando firepower, and so they began falling back.Their patron, Iran, was caught unawares by the massive onslaught and is in no shape to render immediate assistance for redressing the huge imbalance which now charactises the state of the Yemen war

DebkaFiles, August 5, 2015
War with ISIS at Stalemate

A year-long U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State has failed to reduce the size of the terror army, and its fighters remain in control of key cities, raising concerns the war is at a "stalemate."

Top officials in the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill are sharply at odds over the state of the U.S. mission today. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said recently that "ISIS is winning." The president's special envoy to the 62-nation counter-ISIS coalition says ISIS is losing.

Yet another official, the nominee to lead the U.S. Marine Corps, says the war is essentially a tie. Under questioning by McCain, Lt. Gen. Robert Neller said he does not believe ISIS is winning or losing.

"I believe they are in a stalemate right now," Neller said.

By the numbers, little has changed in the ISIS force size. A year after the U.S.-led air campaign began on Aug. 8, 2014, U.S. intelligence estimates ISIS has 20,000-30,000 fighters, the same number of fighters the CIA estimated last September. The unchanged estimate, first reported by the Associated Press, was confirmed to Fox News by a senior military official.

Asked about the estimates at a press briefing Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said he did not have the latest figures but did not dispute the numbers.


The White House defended its strategy on Monday.

"We have seen significant progress in terms of rolling back ISIL gains inside of Iraq, and the latest statistic is that up to 25 percent of the populated area that was previously controlled by ISIL is now [an area] where ISIL can no longer enjoy freedom of movement," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, citing data the Pentagon announced in April.

Despite calling the war against ISIS a tie, Lt. Gen. Neller said he would not change the current strategy.

"I think we're doing what we need to do right now," he said.

Neller, like other senior military officers and administration officials, believes Iraqis must ultimately retake the cities lost to ISIS over the past year.

"They're the ones that are going to have to do this," Neller told McCain.

"General, they can't do it themselves, we know that, the Iraqis cannot do it themselves. That is why they are losing," McCain shot back.

A year into the campaign, the administration still cannot decide what to even call the enemy: ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State or Daesh.

But defenders of the strategy cite progress.

"I do believe that Daesh's momentum has been checked strategically, operationally, and, by and large, tactically," retired Marine Gen. John Allen, the president's envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, said recently at the Aspen Security Forum.

As of Aug. 1, the U.S. military has carried out 4,563 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, or about 78 percent of the coalition's 5,827 airstrikes. Of the nearly 9,000 targets destroyed, the list contains hundreds of armored Humvees and tanks -- originally gifts from the U.S. military to Iraq when it withdrew in 2011.

The U.S. military has trained 11,000 members of the Iraqi security forces. In June, President Obama approved a Pentagon recommendation to send 450 additional troops to the al-Taqaddum Airbase outside of Ramadi to train more Iraqis and reach out to local Sunni tribesmen, who once allied with the U.S. to defeat ISIS's predecessor Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But in Syria, finding a capable ground force has been more challenging. Unlike the 11,000 Iraqi troops trained by the U.S. military in Iraq, in Syria the number is much smaller.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter told lawmakers recently that only 60 Syrian fighters were being trained by the U.S. military.

A portion of those 60 fighters, known as the New Syrian Force, since graduating from U.S. training have made their way into Syria to battle ISIS. But Syria is littered with differing factions, including a number of Islamist groups battling the Assad regime. On Friday, the New Syrian Force found itself in a gun battle with Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. There were numerous reports that the leader of Division 30, which contained members of the U.S.-trained fighters, was abducted. The Pentagon and State Department could not confirm those reports. A senior military official, though, confirmed that five U.S.-trained rebels were captured by al-Nusra.

The Pentagon did confirm Monday that U.S. airstrikes supporting the handful of U.S.-trained rebels against al-Nusra took place last Friday. This comes on the heels of a policy shift in which the Obama administration will allow the U.S. military to take "defensive" action to support its trained force against not only ISIS, but al-Nusra and the Assad regime. For the first time, armed drones began flying out of Turkey over the weekend, according to the Pentagon.

Critics of the Syrian train-and-equip program say it was launched too late. Ambassador Frederic Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former adviser on Syria to Obama, recently said the president did not accept a recommendation three years ago for more support to raise an army of 50,000.

Meanwhile, in the past year, the Islamic State has captured Ramadi, the capital city of Sunni-majority Anbar Province. Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, also remains in firm control of ISIS despite initial plans to launch an offensive in the "April, May timeframe" -- a period long since passed.

In other areas of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has been rolled back. In March, the coalition took back Tikrit, with help from Shia-led forces, some allegedly backed by Iran.

Today, along the 560-mile Turkish-Syrian border, only 68 miles remain in ISIS controlled hands, according to senior administration officials. This comes as ISIS has been rolled back from the strategic border towns of Kobani and Tal Abyad, which has hurt ISIS' ability to resupply its de factor capital of Raqqa. On July 4, U.S. airstrikes bombed a number of bridges leading into Raqqa, further hampering the group's movement. The U.S. appears to have found a capable ground force in northern Syrian among its Kurdish fighters, some of whom coordinate airstrikes directly with the U.S.-led coalition.

Finding a capable ground force elsewhere in Syria and Iraq to combat ISIS has been challenging. After the fall of Ramadi in May, Carter questioned the Iraqi military's "will to fight" after a numerically superior Iraqi Army retreated to ISIS.

The outgoing head of the U.S. Army believes the U.S. and its allies will not defeat the Islamic State anytime soon.

"I think it's a 10-year problem at least. It's a problem that's gonna be there for a while," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno told Fox News' Jennifer Griffin.

DebkaFiles, August 5, 2015
Kurry continues to defend his Iran deal with Iran

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg published in The Atlantic on Wednesday, Kerry said that the proposed nuclear deal with Iran is as “pro-Israel” as it gets, and that should Congress block the agreement it would only reaffirm the Iranian leadership’s mistrust of America.

Regarding Iran’s open animosity to Israel, Kerry said that while “they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment” that doesn’t necessarily mean “that translates into active steps” and pointed out that Iran has not ordered Hezbollah to use its arsenal of 80,000 missiles in Lebanon against Israel.

The discussion about Iran’s hostility toward Israel in connection with the nuclear deal is “a waste of time here,” opined Kerry.

The secretary of state also defended comments he made last Friday in which he warned that should Congress vote against the Iranian nuclear deal signed last month in Vienna, Israel could find itself more isolated in the international arena and “more blamed.”

It was, he explained, more of a head’s up to Israel than a threat.

“If you’ve ever played golf, you know that you yell ‘fore’ off the tee,” he said. “You’re not threatening somebody, you’re warning them: ‘Look, don’t get hit by the ball, it’s coming.’”

Kerry insisted the deal, which has been vehemently criticized by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not going far enough to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, is the best that Israel could have hoped for.

“I’ve gone through this backwards and forwards a hundred times and I’m telling you, this deal is as pro-Israel, as pro-Israel’s security, as it gets,” Kerry said. “And I believe that just saying no to this is, in fact, reckless.”

The top US envoy, who led the American team in negotiations with Iran alongside diplomats from the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany, cautioned that if Congress votes to block the deal it will only serve to play on the doubts and mistrust held by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said and warned that congressional intervention to stop the deal “will be the ultimate screwing.”

On the other hand, Kerry revealed, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had personally assured him that “If we get this finished, I [Zarif] am now empowered to work with and talk to you about regional issues.”

However, if Congress stops progress on the deal they would “shut that down, shut off that conversation, set this back, and set in motion a series of inevitables about what would happen with respect to Iranian behavior,” Kerry said.

As for restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the secretary of state, who sponsored that last round of talks that failed in 2014 after nine months of negotiations, still offered some hope of a solution.

“Doable,” he said. “But not unless somebody wants to do it.”

The US Congress is expected to vote on the Iran deal by September 17. Congress can pass a motion of disapproval, which US President Barack Obama has already said that he would veto. An override of the veto requires two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate.


My comment

This man is delusional and is attempting to protect the political agenda of Obama and his own legacy

The Iranian Muslims have skunked the administration hands down which is not a good thing for the USA .... a sign of the times?