03/24: Stratfor - "Tehran's Power Play on the Water"

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<i>Due to the lenth of yesterday's thread - I am going to start one for today ~ Dutch

Yesterday's thread:

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=234741 </i>



<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Tehran's Power Play on the Water</font>

March 24, 2007
Stratfor
Stratfor Global Intelligence Brief
http://www.stratfor.com/ </center>
Iranian forces reportedly operating in Iraqi waters captured 15 sailors and members of the British marines on March 23 in the Persian Gulf. This incident comes as the U.N. Security Council is preparing to vote on a new resolution imposing additional sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its controversial nuclear activities -- meaning it likely represents an Iranian attempt to underscore its resolve in the face of mounting international pressure. It also could complicate U.S.-Iranian negotiations on Iraq. </b>

Analysis

Iranian forces reportedly operating in Iraqi waters captured 15 sailors and British marines on March 23. The British personnel reportedly had completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship around 10:30 a.m. local time when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters.

The capture comes as the U.N. Security Council prepares to vote on a new resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its controversial nuclear activities -- meaning it probably represents an Iranian attempt to underscore its resolve in the face of mounting international pressure. The incident also could complicate U.S.-Iranian negotiations on Iraq.

By capturing the British personnel, the Iranians are likely signaling that they are not about to be intimidated by the impending resolution the U.N. Security Council regarding Tehran's nuclear activities. The international body will vote March 24 on the resolution, which would slap additional sanctions on Iran, and is expected to pass.

The precise location of the incident remains unclear, though some reports indicate it may have taken place on the Shatt al Arab, a narrow waterway that empties into the Persian Gulf. The HMS Cornwall, the British navy frigate from which the British marines operated, would most likely have been too far away to intervene if the inspection actually took place in the waterway.

The Shatt al Arab lies between Iraq and Iran; its boundaries are often disputed by both countries. During the operation, the Cornwall would have been keeping tabs on every vessel in the vicinity. At the first sign of trouble, it would have sought to aid the boarding party. The Cornwall would have not been able to intervene in the narrow, shallow waters of the Shatt al Arab, however. Similarly, its Sea King helicopter would not have been able to do much more than observe as the Iranians escorted the British boats to Iranian territory.

This incident is similar to one in June 2004, when the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Shatt al Arab seized eight British personnel and three British patrol boats being delivered to Iraqi forces. Iran claimed the boats were operating on its side of the waterway. The British personnel were released after four days, but Iran confiscated the patrol boats.

The capture of the British soldiers comes within days of the latest Iranian naval exercises in the Persian Gulf. It also comes as concerns mount in Tehran regarding U.S. moves to separate the nuclear and Iraq issues, leaving Tehran's unable to use the nuclear controversy as a bargaining chip in talks on Iraq. This, combined with concerns over developments in Iraq affecting Tehran's Iraqi Shiite allies likely pressed the clerical regime to escalate matters. Iran is also concerned that the United States is supplying Saudi Arabia with state-of-the-art naval military equipment. Meanwhile, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf said March 20 that they are planning to build two oil pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, thus depriving Iran of a chokehold on global oil shipments.

The Iranians have tried to demonstrate their ability to interdict traffic in the Persian Gulf. Just March 23, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country would use all its power to strike back at states threatening Iran. His remarks referred not just to physical attacks on Iran, but to efforts to isolate Iran politically and economically, too.

Most tellingly, former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's Friday sermon said that while the West can slap on additional sanctions, Iran will stand its ground. Rafsanjani, the No. 2 man in the Iranian government, generally has advised Tehran to exercise caution on both the nuclear and the Iraqi fronts. He also warned Washington that "In case the Americans enter a new scene, they will create a basic problem for themselves, for our country and for the entire region and I am confident that after some time following a tyrannical act, they will start analyzing and thinking as to where they have made a mistake."

Rafsanjani's hardened posture suggests Tehran wants to maintain its ability to exploit the nuclear card and block the U.S. move to separate the Iraqi and nuclear issues. While there has been first contact in terms of official and public dialogue between Washington and Tehran, it will be a long time before the two sides move toward some sort of accommodation on the issue, something which also explains Rafsanjani's tougher tone.

While Iran has much to gain in Iraq, it is also concerned by the splintering away of the Basra-based Fadhila party from the ruling Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). The fracturing of the Shiite alliance hampers Tehran's ability to do business in Iraq, and Iran suspects the British, who are based in Basra, may be behind Fadhila's parting with the UIA. Going after British forces represents a low-cost operation in that the Iranians are unlikely to face any serious reprisal. And while the Iranians eventually will release the 15 British personnel, they will only do so after ensuring Tehran's message has been relayed.

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<B><font size=+1 color=borwn><center>Iran Protests ‘Aggression’ in Case of Seized Britons </font>

By ALAN COWELL
Published: March 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/24/w...c265548d4e3e0f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss </b></center>
<i>LONDON, March 24 — One day after its forces seized 15 British naval personnel near disputed waters, Iran accused Britain today of “blatant aggression,” further ratcheting up diplomatic tensions. Britain demanded “the immediate and safe return” of its personnel. </i>

<b>Iran Seizes 15 Britons on Patrol in Persian Gulf (March 24, 2007) In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said the Britons — eight sailors and seven Royal Marines — had violated “the sovereign boundaries of other states,” the state-run IRNA news agency said, adding that Iran was carrying out “further investigation of the blatant aggression.”</b>

Britain denies that its forces were outside Iraqi territorial waters where the Royal Navy patrols under United Nations Security Council auspices to hunt for smugglers. The captured personnel in two inflatable boats had just conducted a search of a cargo ship when Iranian vessels surrounded them at gunpoint, according to British and American official accounts.

In the diplomatic dispute that followed on Friday, both Britain and Iran called in one another’s ambassadors in London and Tehran to protest and demand explanations. The diplomatic overtones widened today when the 27-nation European Union demanded the release of the British personnel, hours before a scheduled United Nations Security Council vote in New York on Iran’s contentious nuclear program.

Britain’s Press Association news agency said one of the captured personnel was a woman, but gave no further details. Iranian news agencies said the 15 Britons had been transferred to Tehran, where a senior Iranian military official was quoted as saying they had “confessed to illegal entry into Iran’s waters.”

“The said personnel are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran waters,” Gen. Ali Reza Afshar was quoted as saying by the ISNA semi-official news agency.

The incident happened near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway along the Iran-Iraq border.

In Berlin, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said, “We demand the release of the British soldiers.” He added that he was confident the United Nations Security Council would approve tougher sanctions in the nuclear dispute with Iran.

The European Union is meeting to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding and Mr. Steinmeier said it would issue a statement supporting Britain, a member of the body, in its dispute with Iran over the captured military personnel.

The incident has revived memories here of events in June 2004, when Iran captured and held eight British marines and sailors for three days in the Shatt al-Arab region.

The group was shown on Iranian television wearing blindfolds.

In the latest incident, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, said: “We have asked for a full explanation on what has happened and we are leaving them in no doubt that we want the immediate and safe return of our personnel and their equipment.”

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<B><center><font size=+1 color=green>Why Iran Seized the British Marines</font>

Friday, Mar. 23, 2007
By HOWARD CHUA-EOAN/NEW YORK
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1602389,00.html?xid=rss-world </center>
The most ominous detail about Iran's seizure of 15 British Royal Marines in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway on Friday morning is that the servicemen were reportedly taken into custody by the navy of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is a powerful, separate branch of the Iranian armed forces. Soaked with nationalist ideology, it has grown into a state within a state in Iran, with its own naval, air and ground forces, parallel to official government institutions. </b>

The IRGC is directly controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate font of religious and political power in Iran. The IRGC also has its own intelligence arm and commands irregular forces such as the basij — a voluntary paramilitary group affiliated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and the Quds force, which has been accused by the U.S. of supplying material to Iraqi insurgents bent on killing American soldiers.

The IRGC is also known for its clandestine activities including logistical support for militant organizations like Lebanon's Hizballah, which it helped to set up in the 1980s, and several Shi'a militia groups in Iraq. The IRGC's activities are often a thorn in the side of Iran's Foreign Ministry, which is forced to repair the ruptures in Tehran's diplomatic relations with countries the Guard has inflamed with its self-directed adventures. Nevertheless, it has been one of Iran's main instrument in projecting power and influence over the last few decades.

Because the IRGC's actions are always interwoven with the religious-nationalist ideology of Iran's hardliners, extricating the British may be complicated. The Royal Marines, assigned to HMS Cornwall, had been on an anti-smuggling procedure sanctioned by the U.N. but were apparently taken into custody anyway by Iranian naval vessels in the Shatt-al-Arab, a 120-mile stretch of salt marsh disputed between Iraq and Iran. It is the second such incident.

In June 2004, Iran took eight British marines and sailors from their patrol boats, keeping them for three days, saying they had breached the maritme border. While they were held, the servicemen were paraded around blindfolded and forced to apologize on Iranian TV, before being released. At that time, the Iranian presidency was held by Mohammad Khatami, considered a moderate more accommodating to the West. The current administration in Tehran is led by Ahmadinejad whose confrontational stance has been the bane of Washington. (In a recent speech, U.S. Treasury Secretary Stuart Levey charged that the Revolutionary Guard's "control and influence in the Iranian economy is growing exponentially under the regime of Ahmadinejad."

He noted the Guard is taking over regular government functions such as management of the Tehran airport and building a new Tehran metro. The growing economic clout may be why IRGC's current commander in chief, Rahim Safavi, is considered a pragmatist in Tehran political circles. However, his public comments hardly reflect that political pragmatism.

Britain has demanded the immediate release of its detained marines. For Iran's part, the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini called the incident an "illegal and interventionist" entry into Iranian territorial waters by British forces and a "suspicious move... contrary to international rules and regulations." State run television reported that the British charge d'affaires had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Friday, and "asked that this not happen again."

There were also more belligerent commentary. According to the semi-official ISNA news agency, General Ali Reza Afshar, a veteran IRGC officer and the proaganda and cultural affairs chief of the Iranian armed forces, said the detained Britons had ?confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters." He said: "The arrest of the British forces illegally entering Iran's waters showed that our country's armed forces are at all times prepared for our defense... America and its allies know that if they make a mistake in attacking Islamic Iran, they will not be able to control the dimensions and timing of a war."

As Iran increases the volume of its militancy, the rest of the nations on the gulf have grown more and more nervous. The public speculation about a potential war between the U.S. and Iran have added to that anxiety, as have incidents like the taking of the British marines and an earlier event in March when the Saudi Arabian navy engaged an Iranian submarine. No shots were fired but the Saudis found the sub near the Saudi city of Jubail, a coastal industrial center that is the site of major Saudi petrochemical and oil installations, as well as the location of the King Abdul Aziz naval base.

The Saudis minimized the incident, accepting the Iranian explanatin that the sub's closeness to Jubail was a mistake. The Saudis also did not want to further stress relations between Riyadh and Tehran. But an Arab surce in the gulf believes that the incident may have been an Iranian political message to the U.S. and the world — a reminder that Iran has assets in the gulf to threaten American and its allies there.

This week's Shatt al-Arab incident occurs amid a contretemps over Ahmadinejad's proposed trip to the U.N. Security Council to argue for his country's right to pursue the development of nuclear energy, a goal that has met with international opprobrium. According to CNN, the Iranian president has cancelled his weekend trip because Washington has not issued visas for the crew of his plane. (The U.S. State Department insists that all visa requests were honored.) At the same time, Tehran remains in the middle of a dispute with the United States over the detention in January of six of its officials in the Iraqi city of Erbil, taken from what Iran claims was its consulate there. U.S. military officials in Iraq insist it was not a consulate officially recognized by Iraq and that the six had illegal passports, did not have diplomatic credentials and that one had an official ID card from the Quds force, which is part of the IRGC. The U.S. says the six detainees are being investigated in regard to aiding Iraqi insurgents. Reported by Scott

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<i> Sen. McCain surely "sounds french" - I wonder, is it on his mother's side; or is it it on his father's?</i>



<b><center>Friday, March 23, 2007 1:10 p.m. EDT

<font size=+1 color=blue>McCain: U.K. Should Take 'Action' Against Iran</font>

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/23/131337.shtml?s=lh </center>
U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, R-Ariz., says there isn't much America can do about Iran's decision to take British military personnel into custody this morning.</b>


But he says there is something the British can do.


During an interview with WLS Radio in Chicago Friday, McCain said Britain should threaten "very decisive action" for what he calls a gross violation of international law by the Iranians. And he says the United States can only provide moral support.


Officials in Britain say Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors who had boarded a ship suspected of smuggling cars in the Persian Gulf off the Iraqi coast.


McCain says this incident eerily reminds him of the Iran hostage crisis - when American citizens were taken hostage at the U-S Embassy in Iran. That lasted a year-and-a-half.

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<i>This article is simular to one posted above - but it gives a bit more information(s) as well as adds *new* information to the seizure ('event') of the Brit Marines ~ Dutch</i>



<B><font size=+1 color=purple><center>Iran insists British sailors were in its water, denounces ''blatant aggression''</font>

ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
March 24, 2007 6:09 AM
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=564986476858049206 </center>
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The Iranian military questioned 15 detained British soldiers Saturday and said they confessed to illegally entering the country's territorial waters as Iran accused Britain of ''blatant aggression.''

Britain has demanded the return of the sailors and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast.</b>

The eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines were brought to Tehran for questioning, and a a top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said they ''confessed to illegal entry into Iran's waters.''

''The said personnel are being interrogated and have confessed to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters,'' Afshar was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA and the semiofficial ISNA news agency. He did not say what would now be done with the sailors.

The British sailors, who included at least one woman, had just searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m. near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranian vessels surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.

The seizure of the British sailors came at a time of heightened tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions and allegations that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. Still, Britain was treating it as a mistake rather than a provocation.

In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office on Friday, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Iranian envoy ''was left in no doubt that we want them back.''

The European Union also called for the ''immediate liberation'' of the captured sailors.

Iranian hard-liners called for the 15 Britons to be held until Iran wins political concessions from the West.

Several conservative student groups have called on the Iranian government not to release sailors until five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year are freed and U.N. plans for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program are canceled. Some 500 Iranian students gathered on the shore near where the soldiers were captured, shouting ''Death to Britain'' and ''Death to America,'' the Fars news agency reported.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote later Saturday on new sanctions against Iran over its refusal of U.N. demands that it suspend uranium enrichment. The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and insists it will not halt the program.

With tensions running high, the United States has bolstered its naval forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. U.S. officials have expressed concern that with so much military hardware in the Gulf, a small incident like Friday's could escalate into a dangerous confrontation.

In his comments on the sailors, Afshar added a warning that the United States would not be able to control the consequences if it attacks Iran.

''The United States and its allies know that if they make any mistake in their calculations ... they will not be able to control the dimensions and limit the duration of a war,'' Afshar said.

In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the same waterway. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, then released unharmed after three days.

Earlier this week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, warned this week that if Western countries ''treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack.''

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini accused the British of ''violating the sovereign boundaries'' of Iran, calling the entry a ''blatant aggression.''

He accused Britain of trying to cover up the incursion, saying it should ''refrain from putting the blame on others.''

The seizure of the Britons took place in an area where boundaries between Iraqi and Iranian waters have long been disputed. A 1975 treaty set the center of the Shatt al-Arab - the 125-mile-long channel known in Iran as the Arvand river - as the border.

But Saddam Hussein canceled the 1975 treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through a terminal near the mouth of the channel.

Britain's Defense Ministry said the Royal Navy personnel were in Iraqi territorial waters when they were seized. Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain also said it was ''very clear'' they were in Iraqi waters.

''We've been on operations there for several years,'' Aandahl said. He said coalition vessels respect the 1975 treaty.

The sailors, from the frigate HMS Cornwall, are part of a task force that maintains security in Iraqi waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council.

The Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said he hoped the detention was a ''simple mistake'' stemming from the unclear border.

But the Iraqi military commander of the country's territorial waters said the British boats may not have been in Iraqi territory.

''We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,'' Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim told AP Television News in the southern city of Basra.

''We don't know why they were there. And these British troops were besieged by unknown gunboats, I don't know from where,'' he said.

The news agency Fars said navigational equipment on the seized British boats ''show that they (sailors) were aware that they were operating in Iranian waters and Iranian border guards fulfilled their responsibility.''

AP-WS-03-24-07 0902EDT

This whole situation sounds completely phony to me. A british WARSHIP is just going to let a couple of dinky little gun boats capture ship's company from a boarded ship?

I don't buy it. This is being used more by the US/UK than by the Iranians.

'Eddie

Eddie Willers said:

This whole situation sounds completely phony to me. A british WARSHIP is just going to let a couple of dinky little gun boats capture ship's company from a boarded ship?

I don't buy it. This is being used more by the US/UK than by the Iranians.

'Eddie

Click to expand...

And I suppose that you would just "chalk up" the British military personal who were among the Iranians as "Collateral Damage?" Rememebr these boats were all "bow to bow" with each other. And "Naval Arty" is an "area weapon!" It cannot pick out individuals; it kills everything with-in it's effective area of destruction.

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>EU Pledges Support for Britain's Captured Soldiers, Marines</font>

Saturday, March 24, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260884,00.html </center>
BERLIN — European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday pledged "support and solidarity" for Britain over the capture of 15 sailors and marines by Iran, and said the incident must not complicate a push to impose further sanctions on Iran because of its disputed nuclear program.</b>

"We are doing our utmost in cooperation with the British authorities," Solana told journalists at an EU summit in Berlin. "They have our support and solidarity."

Solana said a second U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions over Iran's refusal to halt its program to enrich uranium would go ahead regardless.

"The resolution will follow its course," he said. "It will probably be approved today New York time or tomorrow. It would be a tremendous mistake if these two things were mixed."

The approach to the resolution is "not going to change because of the events of the last days. Nobody wants to change that, not even the British government."

Iran says its uranium enrichment program is aimed at peaceful uses such as producing electricity, while the United States says it is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.

Germany, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, said Saturday it would demand the immediate release of 15 British naval personnel captured at gunpoint by Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards.


German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters the EU would "make clear we want an immediate liberation" of the British soldiers held by Iran.

The Foreign Ministry in Tehran insisted the Britons had been in Iranian waters and would be held for further investigations.

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<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>Iran Moves Seized Britons to Tehran; EU Urges Release </font>(Update1)

By Simon Kennedy and Ladane Nasseri
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aOrZVU6NopI0&refer=uk </center>
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- British sailors and marines detained yesterday in the Persian Gulf by Iran were transferred to Tehran, Iranian media said, as the European Union called for their release. </b>

The 15 military personnel were moved to the Iranian capital to explain their ``clear aggression,'' Iran's state-run Fars news agency reported today, citing the foreign ministry.

While the U.K. says the forces were carrying out ``routine boarding operations'' in Iraqi waters, Iran says they entered its territory.

The British forces have admitted to illegally entering Iranian waters, Iranian General Alireza Afshar said today, according to state-run Mehr News.

``The capture of British aggressors shows that our armed forces have complete readiness at all times to defend the country,'' Afshar was cited as saying.

Tensions have been rising between Western nations and Iran over its nuclear program, and the Islamic Republic has also been accused by the administrations of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush of meddling in Iraq.

The U.K. Foreign office today again summoned Iranian Ambassador Rasoul Movahedian to meet with Minister David Triesman to ``reiterate demands for the release'' of the sailors and marines, a ministry spokeswoman said, citing U.K. government policy that she not be named.

EU Comments

At a European Union summit in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the 27-member EU backed the U.K.'s demand. ``In the name of the EU, we want to make clear that we expect Iran to release them without delay,'' Steinmeier said.

The incident occurred as the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote today on a draft resolution that would freeze the assets of a state-owned Iranian bank and bar some exports from the country in an effort to persuade Iran to suspend its nuclear program.

Iran has defied two UN resolutions demanding a halt to uranium enrichment, which the U.S. and European governments say is intended to produce nuclear arms. Iran says it is pursuing an atomic program solely for civil energy generation.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana recommended keeping the UN resolution separate from the seizure of the British naval personnel.

``We have to separate both things,'' Solana told reporters in Berlin today. ``The UN resolution should pass either today or tomorrow. It would be a tremendous mistake if those two things were mixed. The UN resolution is not going to change because of the events of the last few days.''

``Our solidarity is total,'' Solana, referring to the U.K. ``All diplomacy is being done. We're helping as much as we can.''

Royal Navy

The Britons seized are a mix of Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines. It's not the first time U.K. naval forces have been involved in a dispute with Iran in the region. In June 2004, Iran held eight British servicemen for three days after capturing them and their three vessels in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which runs along the border between Iran and Iraq.

Iran said at the time the Britons were in Iranian waters and paraded them blindfolded on television, forcing them to make statements apologizing for their ``mistake.'' The U.K. crews said they were escorted forcibly into Iranian waters.

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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>U.N. Council ready to tighten sanctions on Iran</font>

By Evelyn Leopold
Reuters
Saturday, March 24, 2007; 11:57 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032400412.html </center>
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council was set on Saturday to tighten sanctions against Iran but without the presence of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had wanted to defend his country's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The package of sanctions, aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program, targets the country's arms exports, its state-owned Bank Sepah and the elite Revolutionary Guards.</b>

Late on Friday, Ahmadinejad canceled his appearance before the council because visas for his flight crew arrived too late for his private plane to arrive in New York before the vote, his U.N. ambassador Javad Zarif said. Washington disputes this.

Instead, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who took a commercial flight, is to address the council's suspicions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic energy program.

The meeting begins at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) and the vote is expected to be unanimous in the 15-nation body. The sanctions would be suspended if Iran halted enrichment.

"It is suspension for suspension," acting U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said. "It is not a high bar for Iran to meet."

Iran's foreign minister is expected to make proposals to the council that include a previous suggestion Europeans invest in its nuclear industry through a consortium under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog.

European negotiators had rejected the idea because Iran would control potentially dangerous nuclear fuel production.

In an interview with France TV 24, Ahmadinejad said: "Maybe they thought that with the propaganda we would back down. But we have not backed down and we will not back down."

INTENSE NEGOTIATIONS

Agreement came on Friday among major powers who drafted the text -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

To get the support of South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar, they added the importance of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction and highlighted the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Negotiations were intense in an effort to get a unanimous vote. Wolff spoke to Indonesia for hours on Friday on the wording for a nuclear-free zone, presumably because it includes Israel with its suspected nuclear weapons.

The new measures are a follow-up to a resolution adopted on December 23 banning trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles, as well as freezing assets of individuals and institutions associated with atomic programs.

Saturday's resolution is expected to affect Iran's economy but does not touch on its oil industry, the world's fourth largest.

It would impose an embargo on all conventional weapons Iran can sell and freeze the assets abroad of Bank Sepah, as the United States has already done, isolating it from international financing.

The text does not order but calls on nations and international financial institutions to restrict new grants, credits and loans to Iran, which the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund are unlikely to issue.

The resolution also calls for a voluntary travel embargo on Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders listed in the text and urges restrictions on the import of heavy weapons to Iran.

'Capture of UK sailors response to Iranian officers’ arrest'

Roee Nahmias
03.24.07
Israel News

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3380432,00.html

The decision to capture British sailors in the Persian Gulf was reached by the Iranian General Staff six days ago in response to the arrest of Iranian officers by US forces in Iraq, an Iranian military official said.

On Saturday the UK-based newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted the Iranian military source as saying that a plan to capture American or British coalition troops was formulated by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Security Council.

Stand-Off Over Nuclear Program

UK media: Iran may use sailors as bargaining chip / AFP

Islamic Republic threatening full-blown crisis over ‘invasion of its territorial waters’; The Times says sailors may have been victims of a deliberate ambush by Iran, perhaps seeking to use captives as hostages in stand-off between West over its nuclear program

The decision was reached after a report submitted to Iran’s ground forces commander warned that information on the activities of the Revolutionary Guards and the “Al-Quds Force” in Iraq was being leaked to British and American intelligence agencies following the arrest of senior “Al-Quds Force” officers by US troops in northern Iraq.

The kidnapping of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry envoy in Baghdad and the disappearance of Iranian Colonel Amir Muhammad Shirazi in Turkey (according to Iranian estimations Shirazi was kidnapped by Americans) , also played a part in the decision to kidnap the British soldiers.

Senior Revolutionary Guards officials suggested kidnapping US and British soldiers with the aim of eventually exchanging them in return for the captured Iranian officers. According to the military source, the Iranian General Staff initially asked to exhaust all the available diplomatic channels, adding that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari promised his Iranian counterpart that the officers would be released by the Iranian New Year, which was marked three days ago.

'There is now what looks like a hostage crisis'

However, in light of the failed diplomatic efforts, Revolutionary Guards’ naval forces were ordered to carry out the initial plan and seize one of the British ships combating arms smuggling in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, the Fars news agency reported that the British navy personnel have been transferred to Tehran to explain their "aggressive action.”

Fars said the British navy personnel, who it said included some women, were transferred to the Iranian capital around noon local time on Saturday.

British newspapers expressed concern that Iran would use the sailors as a bargaining chip.

"There were growing fears that the 15 British sailors and Royal Marines were victims of a deliberate ambush by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, perhaps seeking to use the captives as hostages in the increasingly tense stand-off between the West and Iran over its nuclear program," said The Times.

"There is now what looks like a hostage crisis," wrote The Guardian.

"These anti-smuggling patrols are relatively uncontentious, but they represent an opportunity for Iran to grasp.

"The source of a dispute matters less than the leverage Tehran thinks it can extract from it."

David

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<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Confusion Over Iran's Intentions </font>

March 24, 2007
BBC News
Frances Harrison
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6491513.stm </center>
This is not the first time Iran has seized British sailors for allegedly intruding into its territorial waters - the same thing happened to eight UK servicemen in 2004. But this time there are reasons why it could be more serious. The incident comes just two days after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave an unusually aggressive speech to mark the new Persian year. </b>

He said: "In case the enemies of Iran intend to use force and violence and act illegally, without a doubt the Iranian nation and officials will use all their capabilities to strike the invading enemies."

It was an oddly defiant and hostile tone to strike for a new year speech.

One commentator, Sayeed Laylaz, has drawn a parallel with President George W Bush's state of the nation address in January, which was followed immediately by a US attack on an Iranian office in Irbil in northern Iraq and the seizure of five Iranians who are still being held by the US.

Mr Laylaz points out that the speech of Mr Khamenei was swiftly followed by the capture of the British sailors.

Then there is the timing of the capture of the sailors, the day before a key vote in the UN Security Council on imposing a second raft of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

Iranian political scientists say there are factions in the Revolutionary Guards who are spoiling for a fight - extreme hardliners who think if a confrontation with the West is inevitable it is better it happen over the nuclear issue than Iran's human rights record.

There has also been more international condemnation this time, whereas in 2004 it was treated as a bilateral issue between Britain and Iran.

Trump card

Some in Iran argue that the authorities have much less to lose from aggressive behaviour now, with no negotiations currently underway on the nuclear issue.

Sayeed Laylaz compares Iran to a cornered cat that has no option but to strike back.

The argument is that Tehran is so isolated internationally that it needs an asset - a card to play to force the West to engage.

If this is the thinking it might explain why it is British military forces who've been seized and not Americans, because the British still have diplomatic relations with Tehran - unlike the US.

So far the Iranian authorities have not indicated clearly their intentions, what if any political capital they plan to make out of the captured sailors.

The worry is that the situation will worsen considerably if Iran links the fate of the British to that of the five Iranians held by the Americans in Iraq.

The US says those five men are elite Revolutionary Guards up to no good in Iraq. Tehran says they are diplomats.

The situation could complicated further if a clear link is made to UN action against Iran's nuclear programme.

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<B><font size=+1 color=purple><center>UK sailors could be 'used as hostages'From correspondents in London</font>

March 24, 2007 12:52pm
Article from: Agence France
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21438262-38200,00.html </center>
THE 15 British sailors seized by Iran could be held hostage and used as a bargaining tool ahead of the UN vote on sanctions against the country, UK media reported.

The Times said there were<u> "growing fears" that the sailors were the victims of a deliberate ambush by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and would be used as hostages in the stand-off between Western countries and Iran over its nuclear program</u>. </b>

Iran forces said they seized the group of sailors on Friday after they illegally entered its waters during an anti-smuggling exercise, though the British military insists they were well within Iraqi waters.

A senior Navy commander said he hoped the capture was a “misunderstanding” and that the area in question, in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, was a disputed zone.

“I hope we find that this is a simple misunderstanding at a tactical level.”

A BBC television correspondent on board HMS Cornwall said the group had been seized at gunpoint.

The UN Security Council will vote today on a resolution broadening its sanctions against Iran over the country's refusal to halt nuclear fuel work. The council is expected to adopt the resolution unanimously.

Iran's capture of the sailors could be a simple mistake, or "something more sinister", The Guardian said in its editorial.

"But whether by accident or design, the incident adds yet another potent ingredient to the explosive mixture of factors that make our dealings with Iran so dangerous.

"There is now what looks like a hostage crisis.

"Seizing sailors could be exactly the sort of symbolic act that appeases the need of hardliners in Iran's power structure for action."

The Sun, Britain's biggest-selling daily, urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to take personal charge.

A senior defence source told the tabloid: "They (the sailors) did the right thing. They were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. There was no point in putting up a fight. No shots were exchanged and from what we understand so far, none of our people have been harmed."

It is not the first time British sailors have been detained by Iranian forces.

In June 2004, six British marines and two navy sailors were detained for three days in Iran after being seized during another routine operation.

They were paraded blindfolded on television and forced to apologise for their “mistake”.

On that occasion Iran insisted that the British boats – which it has not yet returned – were intercepted only after they entered Iranian waters on the Shatt al-Arab.

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>US flags $38m bunker bomb</font>

By Scott Canon
March 25, 2007 12:00
http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/story/0,22049,21439088-5006003,00.html </center></b>
<center>$38m for one of heaviest bombs ever built
Attempting to penetrate 30m of soil
Drops JSF payload from 150 regular bombs to two </center>

<b>IF your goal is to blow up things like, say, a budding but deeply buried Iranian nuclear program, a bigger bomb would be better, right?

Maybe.

The US Air Force is spending $38 million on one of the heaviest bombs ever built, brawny enough to theoretically muscle its way into the side of a mountain or the stoutest of bunkers. </b>

Even without nuclear innards - stuffed, instead, with conventional explosives equal to the weight of a small elephant in a casing as heavy as a small whale - the bomb could take out some of the world's toughest targets.

The Pentagon expects to load the bomb next year on B-2 bombers.

In an age of bunkers - intelligence estimates put the number of hard and deep targets in the world at about 10,000 and growing - a weapon that can bust into an underground fortress becomes especially valuable.

"It's possible that this is worth doing," says Robert Pape, a professor of international politics at the University of Chicago and the author of Bombing to Win.

"But it might be only a marginally more efficient way of blowing things up."

If it works.

The physics of bunker-cracking is tough. Tests with a smaller bunker-buster found that even when dropped from 12,000m, it penetrated just 6m into the soil.

Iran's facility at Natanz, about 520 km south of Tehran, may be buried as deep as 30m.

The US Air Force, citing security reasons, will only say it expects the bunker-buster to go deeper than existing bombs.

John Pike, chief defence analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, says it will go through about 60m of reinforced concrete. Some see that as unrealistic.

But does a bomb even need to go that deep?

On the way to making a nuclear bomb, the Iranians would need to link thousands of high-speed centrifuges to separate the heavier and lighter isotopes in uranium gas - a delicate operation.

Simply giving that facility a good jolt, without destroying it, could cause the centrifuges to rip themselves apart.

Even nukes "have limited effectiveness at destroying the deepest or widely separated underground bunkers," said a 2005 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

For starters, the bomb's metal must be especially hard. The bomb needs to be slender, which leaves less room for explosives.

The guidance system needs to be accurate, which is more difficult with the increased weight of an oversized bomb.

The bomb also must hit the ground at the correct angle. (In tests, some smaller bombs skipped like stones on a pond.)

Adding more explosives helps, but at a rate of diminishing returns.

A 13 tonne device, for instance, blows up barely twice the packed earth as a two-tonner does.

"The upside of a bigger bomb is ... you might get by with one attack rather than two," Professor Pape says.

"Then you don't have to loiter over the target." Nuclear weapons have been contemplated for such targets, but scientists are sceptical about their ability to take out the deepest bunkers.

Plus they would bring radioactive and political fallout.

While the new bomb could be carried by either a B-2 or a much older B-52, most strategists picture it in the smaller stealth bomber.

Program manager Sandra Davis, of the Air Force Research Laboratory, notes that the sheer size of the bomb means "you need bigger machinery".

Drawing from its existing arsenal, the B-2 can carry from 16 to 80 bombs.

The B-2 soon will be able to carry more than 150 smaller bombs at a time, but just two of the new monsters can squeeze aboard.

Reconfiguring the bomb bay for the big bunker-buster would mean setting aside jets for that bomb. The Air Force has only 21 of the $2.6 billion stealth bombers in its fleet.

At any one time, roughly one in three is either being repaired or upgraded.

"You're only going to have two or three, max, available to carry these weapons," says Robert Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons.

Mr Pike sees it differently.

"It's a powerful coincidence that (the Pentagon claims) it's going to have this thing soon and we're possibly going to be bombing Iran," he says.

"There's a mission made for this bomb."

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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center><brown>Iran's seizure of British seamen causes standoff</font>

By Borzou Daragahi
and Rahim Mostaghim
Published: Saturday, March 24, 2007
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/03/24/a3.int.ship.0324.p1.php?section=nation_world </center>
TEHRAN, Iran - Diplomats struggled Friday to resolve a standoff prompted by Iran's seizure of 15 British seamen in the volatile, oil-rich Persian Gulf as a vote neared on U.N. sanctions that would punish the Islamic Republic for its nuclear enrichment program.

The Royal Navy sailors and marines, traveling in high-speed inflatable rafts through the cramped waters off the Iranian and Iraqi coasts, had just finished inspecting an Iranian-flagged dhow for contraband Friday morning when they were surrounded by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats, detained and hauled off to a nearby Iranian military base.</b>

Iranian officials say the Britons were being held for violating Iranian territorial waters. But British and U.S. military officials insisted that the Iranian gunships crossed into Iraqi waters. In a brief communication with a passing British helicopter, Iranians said the 15 men were safe, a U.S. official said.

<b>Iranian ambassador summoned </b>

Officials in London summoned the Iranian ambassador, demanding the prompt return of the Britons and their boats. Their counterparts in Tehran summoned the British charge d'affaires to accuse his nation's troops of violating Iran's territorial waters.

advertisement ''Our coalition forces have been up in those waters for years,'' said Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl, spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which is moored in the gulf. ''Both the Revolutionary Guard navy and the regular Iranian navy are well aware of us. For the Iranians to come over to Iraqi waters and apprehend these sailors is troubling.''

The United States and Britain have bolstered their presence in the Persian Gulf to support ongoing security operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to confront an ascendant Iran flexing its muscles throughout the region and developing nuclear technology.

The West suspects Iran is exploiting loopholes in international conventions to build an atomic weapons program under the guise of developing civilian nuclear energy. Iranians insist their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has issued a religious edict calling weapons of mass destruction un-Islamic.

The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran in December and is considering further measures that might ban arms sales to the Islamic Republic and freeze the assets of more than two dozen people and institutions tied to the nuclear program.

The nuclear issue has heightened security worries in the crowded gulf, where Iranian, British and U.S. warships jostle for supremacy. Iranian boats frequently inspect Iraqi, Saudi and United Arab Emirates-flagged vessels.

<b>Ship inspections called routine</b>

Aandahl, speaking by phone from Bahrain, said British and U.S. ships routinely inspect merchant vessels for contraband and secure Iraq's oil terminals from possible terrorist attacks under the mandate of Security Council Resolution 1723.

Neither British nor Iranian officials linked the incident to the expected Security Council vote. Ranking Iranian officials frequently take vacations and hand over duties to possibly less qualified underlings during the Persian new year holidays.

''I expect this to be resolved in days, not weeks,'' said Jon Alterman, a former U.S. State Department official who is director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ''The Iranians really do not have an interest in escalating this very far.''

Alterman dismissed suggestions that the seizure could be in retaliation for the alleged defection to the West of Iran's former deputy defense minister, and said it was unlikely to have been a response to U.S. detentions of Iranians in Iraq. He said it is more likely that the sailors were seized by Revolutionary Guard units engaged in smuggling in the Persian Gulf. The Iranians might be trying to get the British to patrol less aggressively in the area, he said.

Dutch, I think we can pretty safely presume that these 14 men and 1 woman are being tortured.

This will not end well.

Maureen

bump

bump

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>UN Council imposes financial, arms bans on Iran </font>

Evelyn Leopold | New York, United States
24 March 2007 11:04
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.asp...ng_news__international_news/&articleid=302923 </center>
The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear ambitions by targeting Tehran's arms exports, state-owned bank and elite Revolutionary Guards.

The new measures are a follow-up to a resolution adopted on December 23 banning trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles, as well as freezing assets of individuals and institutions associated with atomic programs.
</b>
Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry read a statement on behalf of the foreign ministers of major powers that offered further talks with Iran

"We propose further talks with the Islamic Republic of Iran to see if a mutually acceptable way can be found to open negotiations," Jones Parry said on behalf of his own country, the United States, France, Russia, China and Germany.

"In a region that has known too much instability and violence, let us find an agreed way forward that builds confidence and promotes peace and mutual respect," he said.

Speaking before Iran took the floor, US Acting Ambassador Alejandro Wolff accused Iran of terrorism and the threat by its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to to wipe Israel "off the map" and call the Holocaust "a myth".

"To forget the past, or even worse, attempt to rewrite it is to invite it to be repeated. We cannot allow that to happen," Wolff said.

Ahmadinejad cancelled his appearance before the 15-member council because visas for his flight crew were delivered too late for his private plane to arrive in New York before the vote. Washington disputes this.

Commercial flight
Instead, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who took a commercial flight, came to the council to address suspicions that Iran is developing nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic energy program.

All sanctions would be lifted if Iran halted uranium enrichment, which can be used to make a bomb as well as for energy purposes.

Saturday's Resolution 1747 may affect Iran's economy but does not touch on its oil industry. Iran is the world's fourth largest oil producer.

It imposes an embargo on all conventional weapons Iran can sell and freezes the assets abroad of 28 individuals, institutions and companies, including Bank Sepah, as the US has already done, isolating it from international financing.

The text calls on -- but does not order -- nations and international financial institutions to restrict new grants, credits and loans to Iran. Western diplomats believe the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will heed the call.

The resolution also calls for a voluntary travel embargo on Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders listed in the text and urges restrictions on the import of heavy weapons to Iran.

To get the support of South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar, they added the importance of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction and highlighted the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

South Africa's UN ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, who had submitted amendments that deleted all the sanctions, said he voted in favour because of Pretoria's opposition to nuclear weapons but criticised the resolution for penalising Iranian institutions beyond the nuclear sphere. - Reuters 2007

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<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>Israel: Lebanon cease-fire in jeopardy </font>
By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070324/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_un </center>
JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria. </b>

Defense Minister Amir Peretz Peretz met Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the start of Ban's first visit to Israel since taking office. The secretary-general is to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters on Sunday and hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Monday.

Peretz, greeting Ban at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, said a main subject of talks would be the status of Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought an end to 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14.

The war was triggered after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed Israel's northern border, killed three soldiers and returned to Lebanon with the two captured troops.

The resolution authorized deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force of up to 15,000 troops to help Lebanese troops police the southern border with Israel. It also calls for a halt in arms shipments to Hezbollah, and demands the "unconditional release" of the two Israeli soldiers.

"This is an unequivocal demand by the state of Israel," Peretz said Saturday. "We see it as the key to continuing the precise implementation of resolution 1701."

He added that failure to enforce the arms embargo "could cause the gravest damage, to the possibility of implementing the resolution and upset the stability existing today in south Lebanon."

Ban has criticized both Israel and Lebanon for violating the resolution, noting an increase of Israeli military overflights of its northern neighbor in February and early March. He has suggested an independent mission examine the monitoring of their border amid the Israeli allegations of Syrian arms smuggling.

Ban arrived in Israel on a Qatar Airlines flight from Egypt, where he held talks with President Hosni Mubarak, who is hosting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab foreign ministers this weekend for discussions on the Mideast peace process.

In Cairo, Ban said he welcomed the formation of the week-old Palestinian coalition government, which adds moderates and independents to an administration formerly made up entirely of members of the hard-line Islamist group Hamas. He urged the coalition to live up to the international community's demands that it recognize Israel and work toward peace.

The Palestinians have expressed hope that their more moderate coalition will lead to an end of year-old international sanctions. Western officials have begun to reach out to the new government — meeting Palestinian moderates while avoiding Hamas Cabinet ministers — but have not yet decided on whether to end the boycott.

Ban said he would not meet Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, citing a busy schedule. He said he would, however, meet with Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr, an independent.

Israel already has rejected the new Palestinian government because its platform does not explicitly recognize the Jewish state. It has called on foreign governments to maintain their embargo, imposed after Hamas won legislative elections last January.

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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>Israel tells UN chief Hezbollah and Syria jeopardizing Lebanon cease-fire</font>

STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
March 24, 2007 3:18 PM
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=564986631476872306 </center>
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's defense minister told the head of the United Nations on Saturday that the U.N.-brokered cease-fire in southern Lebanon is endangered by Hezbollah militants, who continue to hold two captured Israeli soldiers and receive arms shipments from Syria.</b>

Defense Minister Amir Peretz Peretz met Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the start of Ban's first visit to Israel since taking office. The secretary-general is to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters on Sunday and hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Monday.

Peretz, greeting Ban at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, said a main subject of talks would be the status of Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought an end to 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14.

The war was triggered after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed Israel's northern border, killed three soldiers and returned to Lebanon with the two captured troops.

The resolution authorized deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force of up to 15,000 troops to help Lebanese troops police the southern border with Israel. It also calls for a halt in arms shipments to Hezbollah, and demands the ''unconditional release'' of the two Israeli soldiers.

''This is an unequivocal demand by the state of Israel,'' Peretz said Saturday. ''We see it as the key to continuing the precise implementation of resolution 1701.''

He added that failure to enforce the arms embargo ''could cause the gravest damage, to the possibility of implementing the resolution and upset the stability existing today in south Lebanon.''

Ban has criticized both Israel and Lebanon for violating the resolution, noting an increase of Israeli military overflights of its northern neighbor in February and early March. He has suggested an independent mission examine the monitoring of their border amid the Israeli allegations of Syrian arms smuggling.

Ban arrived in Israel on a Qatar Airlines flight from Egypt, where he held talks with President Hosni Mubarak, who is hosting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab foreign ministers this weekend for discussions on the Mideast peace process.

In Cairo, Ban said he welcomed the formation of the week-old Palestinian coalition government, which adds moderates and independents to an administration formerly made up entirely of members of the hard-line Islamist group Hamas. He urged the coalition to live up to the international community's demands that it recognize Israel and work toward peace.

The Palestinians have expressed hope that their more moderate coalition will lead to an end of year-old international sanctions. Western officials have begun to reach out to the new government - meeting Palestinian moderates while avoiding Hamas Cabinet ministers - but have not yet decided on whether to end the boycott.

Ban said he would not meet Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, citing a busy schedule. He said he would, however, meet with Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr, an independent.

Israel already has rejected the new Palestinian government because its platform does not explicitly recognize the Jewish state. It has called on foreign governments to maintain their embargo, imposed after Hamas won legislative elections last January.

AP-WS-03-24-07 1812EDT

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An FYI: <i> Folks, in case you are wondering; I am "watching" the whole Middle east. Iran may well begin to esculate events with Israel from Syria, Gaza or Lebanon. ~ Dutch</i>



<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Lebanon Islamists recruit Palestinians to fight Israel </font>

by Nagib Khazzaka
2 hours, 28 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007032...st_070324201758;_ylt=A0SOwmiKpgVGjT4AAi0Tv5UB </center>
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) - Bearded young Palestinians parade with rocket-launchers during training in north Lebanon organised by Fatah al-Islam, a tiny group accused of terror attacks and links with Al-Qaeda. </b>

The new recruits also carry assault rifles and heavy machine guns as they march alongside militant Abu Salim, who hides his face under a red-and-white chequered headscarf.

"Our main objective is to combat the Jews in Palestine. We want to plant the banner of Islam in Palestine," Abu Salim told AFP.

He said Fatah al-Islam, which first came to be known last November, "offers military training to young Palestinians" in a field near the sea at the Nahr al-Bared camp that houses about 22,000 refugees.

The training generally takes place at night to maintain secrecy. The recruits learn how to handle the arms near one of the group's offices in the camp under the watchful eye of black-clad guards.

In a hangar, the militants are introduced to medium and heavy weaponry, including anti-tank rocket launchers and cannons.

The Palestinian group counts about 150 militants among its ranks, some of whom have fought against the US-led coalition in Iraq. The group also has the largest arsenal among the various armed factions in Nahr al-Bared.

Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker Abssi and other senior officials from the group were once members of the Damascus-based radical Palestinian movement Fatah-Intifada.

Lebanon has been shaken by a spate of political violence over the past three years, notably a series of assassinations targeting figures opposed to the country's once-dominant neighbour Syria.

Last week, Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh said detained members of Fatah al-Islam had admitted carrying out bus bombings in a mountain village on February 13 that killed three people.

But Fatah al-Islam denied any involvement in the attacks, and accused the government of preparing to launch an offensive against the dozen camps which house about half of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

The Lebanese armed forces do not have access to the camps which are controlled by Palestinian armed factions.

A member of Fatah al-Islam was killed and four other people wounded in clashes in Nahr al-Bared on Monday.

Abu Salim, who refuses to give exact figures about the group's arsenal, boasts that the militants were attracting a growing number of recruits from Nahr al-Bared and the 11 other Palestinian camps across the country.

"Young Palestinians who believe that Islam is their priority in life are attracted by our 'Jihad' (holy struggle). They come to take military courses and listen to our preachers," Abu Salim said.

About 20 youngsters stood outside a Fatah al-Islam office where the group's militants were accepting condolences for the militant killed in Monday's clashes.

Asked who the enemies of Fatah al-Islam were, one recruit replied: "All those who do not believe in the Koran and the Sharia," or Islamic teachings.

Ayman, holding a school bag in one hand, said he was "fascinated" by the Islamist group.

"The headquarters (of Fatah-al-Islam) are on the way from school -- I go there on my way to and from lessons."

The group seems to have adequate financing, but Abu Salim insisted that the main reason new recruits were attracted was Fatah al-Islam's religious message.

The group's flag is black, bearing a sole inscription: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God."

Abu Salim denied that his militants were linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network, although he said the two groups "follow the same (religious) line and methodology."

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<B><center>Kurds:



<font size=+0 color=purple>Kurdish leader Massoud Barazani to "Al Hayat": "We are not part of the Sunni-Shiite confrontation. We will not abandon Kirkuk and we will not accept the agenda of Turkey. Iran doesn't interfere in Kurdistan-Iraq, the interests of Syrians have changed." </font>

by Ghassan Charbel
Ghassan Charbel Al Hayat - 24/03/07//
http://english.daralhayat.com/Spec/...47b777-c0a8-10ed-0069-e4e9e2e40abf/story.html </center>
Amman - The president of Iraqi Kurdistan Province, the Kurdish leader Mr. Massoud Barazani considered that the American withdrawal from Iraq in the current situation, "will cause a catastrophe and a tragedy" or maybe "a fierce civil war". In an interview with "Al Hayat" he stressed that the ongoing developments in the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein "benefited Iraq as a whole, the Kurds seized the opportunity but our Arab Sunni and Shiite brethren didn't exploit it and that's not our fault."</b>

He admitted that Iraq witnesses a Sunni-Shiite confrontation but Kurds are not part of the conflict. He warned against hindering the referendum on the future of Kirkuk saying: "we won't accept the agenda of Turkey in the region." He suggested a common administration for Kirkuk with Turkmen, Arab and Christians; he added that no Kurd can abandon the region, criticizing Arab chauvinists and a group of Turkmen connected to the Turkish Intelligence Army.
Barazani was asked if he still has the dream of a nation, he answered that it's a legitimate right to the Kurd nation that is different from other nations. The dream will come true. He stated that he doesn't consider the relationship with Israel a crime but it violates the Iraqi constitution.
He insinuated apathy in the relation with Syria: "it seems that their interests have changed." He also announced that the Iranian interference, "if it exists, is in the other Iraqi regions that are not Kurdish."

Find below the full transcript of the interview with the participation of our colleague Nabil Ghichan:

Al Hayat: Are you concerned about the situation in Iraq?
Massoud Barazani: It's not a matter of concern but the situation is annoying and worrying.

Al Hayat: What's the reason behind your concerns? The failure to establish a nation, or the failure to reach an agreement among Iraqis?
Barazani: What worries me most or what I consider dangerous because it threatens the future of Iraq, is the sectarian conflict that has taken root dangerously.

Al Hayat: Does Iraq live a civil war? Can we call the current situation a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites?
Barazani: I don't know, but the result is tragic, if you want to give it a title it could be "a murder according to the identity card". I don't know exactly what a civil war is, it's a tragic or a sectarian war.

Al Hayat: Are we witnessing a Sunni-Shiite confrontation?
Barazani: Yes we are.

Al Hayat: Are Kurds part of this confrontation?
Barazani: No they aren't, in this confrontation we are part of the solution, we are part of the problem and not part of the confrontation.

Al Hayat: Are you afraid of the American withdrawal?
Barazani: At this stage, the withdrawal would cause a catastrophe.

Al Hayat: A catastrophe? Can you please clarify this idea?
Barazani: The American presence prevents the situation from deteriorating or from moving to a fierce civil war. Their presence is very important, it stops the foreign threats.

Al Hayat: From which party?
Barazani: From any country that has aspirations, an agenda or the intention to intervene militarily.

Al Hayat: So you consider that any American withdrawal would cause a catastrophe?
Barazani: Yes, if there is no order in Iraq yet, if the Iraqi government, the army and the security forces are not ready to control the situation, the withdrawal would lead to a tragedy.

Al Hayat: Are you afraid of broad invasions in case Americans withdraw? Will the Shiite try to control Baghdad for example?
Barazani: Everything is possible, Sunnis or Shiites may try to do that, there will be then a real fierce civil war.

Al Hayat: If the Americans withdraw, what would the Kurds do?
Barazani: We will try to prevent this from happening, if we fail, we won't be part of it and we hope that it won't happen.

Four years of war

Al Hayat: Four years after the outbreak of war in Iraq, was this war a mistake?
Barazani: The mistakes started after the war. I think that the decision of toppling the regime wasn't wrong because getting rid of any dictatorial regime in any country is good but the mistakes started with the issuance of UN Security Council resolution 1483 and the arrival of Paul Bremer as a civil governor in Iraq.

Al Hayat: There is a point of view that states that the American Administration didn't plan to establish a governing council but the failure of the Iraqi opposition to agree on a government, prompted it to choose this?
Barazani: That isn't true, the resolution 1483 transformed these forces into invading ones and according to it, they designated Paul Bremer as the supreme governor of Iraq. Iraqi forces didn't have the opportunity to form a government and we started talks with the forces to form an interim government, but we were surprised by the resolution 1483 and by the cancellation of all what we had agreed on.

Al Hayat: The mistakes started from here?
Barazani: Yes.

Al Hayat: Do you think that dismantling the Iraqi Army is one of the mistakes?

Barazani: Not only dismantling the army; first, the proscription to form an interim government and barring Iraqis from exercising their rights. It wasn't necessary to dismantle the army but to restructure it. Iraq doesn't need one million soldiers however, the culture of the army wasn't convenient, it was meant to oppress Iraqi people. That's why, it was necessary to restructure it and to re-educate it. It was wrong to dissolve the army without determining the future of Iraqis, without giving them the opportunity to live or without securing acquired rights and leaving them in the street.

Al Hayat: Did some of them join the resistance?
Barazani: Everyone chose a way, dismantling the army was a mistake, we needed it but with a lesser number and with a different culture and equipment.

Al Hayat: Was the decision of Debaathification a mistake too?
Barazani: During the conference, that organized by the opposition and held in London in 2002, before the collapse of the regime, I told to the participants that toppling the regime is a matter of time, but the problem will start after its collapse. We have a successful experience in Kurdistan, I hope that you will profit from it. On the personal level, 37 persons of my family were killed, my tribe lost 8200 persons and my nation lost 180 thousand persons, though, we didn't reject peace even with Saddam Hussein, we issued a general amnesty to all those who cooperated with the regime in the uprising of 1991. There are dispositions of revenge; if we take it as a mean to settle accounts, we won't achieve any result. This is the reason why I called upon them to agree on a group of names related to the former regime, they are now wanted by justice. The rest are citizens and any Baathist is not in the front but at the same time he is treated as an Iraqi citizen without allowing the Baath party to remain. It was important to determine the wanted names. The debaathification process was implemented in a wrong way.

Al Hayat: What did you feel when they executed Saddam Hussein? He was the cause of the catastrophe that befell your family, your tribe and your nation.
Barazani: I considered Saddam Hussein dead when he was taken off the hole without showing any resistance. It didn't surprise me when he was executed but I wished he was not executed on a the day of Eid (Muslim celebration).

Al Hayat: Did you know the date of the execution?
Barazani: No.

Al Hayat: Did the execution on the day of the Eid affect Iraqis?
Barazani: Of course, it wasn't desirable, they should have taken into consideration Muslims feelings and he shouldn't have been executed on this day. I'm not against capital punishment but not the day of Eid.

Al Hayat: Did you feel that you want to take revenge?
Barazani: I have never thought of revenge.

Al Hayat: Did you think of killing Saddam?
Barazani: When he was in power and we were fighting him, I sought to topple him but not for a personal reason. I support the cause of a nation, the cause of democracy in Iraq, the cause of Kurds human rights, I considered him against these causes so I tried to topple him and his regime but I didn't think of killing him personally.

Al Hayat: They announced the execution of Taha Yassin Ramadan. What do you feel when you see that the history of Iraq is full of executions and violence?
Barazani: The Iraqi history is full of executions; the person who comes to power executes his predecessor. I would have wished another history for Iraq but that is what happened.

Al Hayat: This is our history, this our present, do you have hopes for a different Iraq?
Barazani: We are working to be different and we must not lose hope although the process is not easy.

Kirkuk and the referendum

Al Hayat: We hear a lot about Kirkuk and the compulsory Arabization and the enforced prohibition of compulsory Arabization. Where is the truth?
Barazani: There is a misunderstanding of the subject. Kirkuk is an Iraqi region, its identity is Kurdish, and all historical and geographical facts prove this fact. Oil was first discovered in this region, that is why the successive regimes tended to treat the region in a non humanitarian way; they stripped Kurds from all their rights, 200 thousand Kurdish families were displaced, while others were obliged to change their affiliation to an Arab nationalism. Arab tribes were moved from South to the center and were established in Kirkuk, to no avail. After the collapse of the regime, it was agreed on resolving problems according to article 140 of the Constitution, the displaced would regain their regions and Arabs would return to their regions with their indemnities, genuine Arab and Kurds stay. After normalization they would conduct statistics and a referendum.
There is a big confusion, we are seen as if we refuse the presence of Arabs and as if we fire Turkmen. No, we are ready to establish a common administration in Kirkuk after normalization.

Al Hayat: Common administration with whom?
Barazani: With Turkmen, Arab and Christians.

Al Hayat: When is the date of the referendum?
Barazani: The process must end in 2007.

Al Hayat: Did the Kirkuk issue trigger any tension with the Sadr movement?
Barazani: A part of it, the government brought from south Arab tribes that belong to Sadr movement as said, but according to our meetings with them, Sadr movement agrees on the implementation of the article 140 of the Constitution.

Al Hayat: What does it happen if non Kurdish forces choose to hinder the referendum?
Barazani: If we comply with the Constitution, the process ends quickly but there are people who are against the referendum so everybody will take a strong position against the party who opposes it.

Al Hayat: Who is controlling military in Kirkuk?
Barazani: Americans.

Al Hayat: Is there any Peshmerga troops? ?
Barazani: They are not there, only American forces and the Iraqi army forces.

Al Hayat: In case there will be a civil war after the American withdrawal, do you expect the Peshmergas to enter Kirkuk?
Barazani: Why does a civil war have to break out? We are not thinking of a civil war, Arabs who are present are our brethren, Turkmen's too. Some predict a civil war and the truth is that there will be no civil war. Those who claim that Kurds will control Kirkuk are some marginal Turkmen and Arab groups. They don't represent Arab or Turkmen majority. They are groups who lost their gains with the collapse of the regime and they want to muddle but it will not stop the process.

Al Hayat: Is your problem in Kirkuk with Turkey?
Barazani: No, Kirkuk is an Iraqi region, Turkey has nothing to do with it and we don't allow Turkey to intervene in the issue of Kirkuk at all, because it's a foreign country and we won't accept its agenda in the region. It doesn't have the right to intervene in the Iraqi issue, does it?

Al Hayat: Turkey says that the creation of Kurdistan Province similar to a state threatens its security?
Barazani: This is a wrong perception, we don't threaten Turkey.

Al Hayat: Can Massoud Barazani abandon Kirkuk?
Barazani: Never

Al Hayat: Who is the Kurdish leader who can abandon it?
Barazani: No Kurdish can abandon Kirkuk.

Al Hayat: It's like saying that there is no Palestinian who will abandon Jerusalem?
Barazani: I'm not comparing Kirkuk to Jerusalem, there is a big difference but no Kurdish abandons Kirkuk.

Al Hayat: You cannot sign an agreement that states that Kirkuk is not part of Kurdistan whatever the temptations are, can you?
Barazani: I tell you, confidently, that it's impossible to accept any other solution.

Al Hayat: If you fail to annex the region to Kurdistan, will you keep the issue postponed?
Barazani: We agreed constitutionally on how to resolve the problem. The problem doesn't lie in Kirkuk only. There is a problem in the border between Anbar Province and Baghdad, Tikrit, Najaf and Karbala and there is a problem between Baghdad and Moussol. They all embody the changes the former regime have made for political reasons to make a demographic change. People who want to blow the situation out dangerously infringes the execution of article 140 of the Constitution and people who are keen to the interest of Iraq and to definitely resolve Kirkuk problem, should help implement this article.

A barrel of explosives

Al Hayat: Why do you describe the Kirkuk issue as a barrel of explosives?
Barazani: That's not true, there are Arab chauvinists and a group of Turkmen related to the Turkish Intelligence Army, they can't do anything because Arab do not support them nor Turkmen do, everybody agrees on the constitutional solution and interventions will cause problems in Kirkuk.

Al Hayat: The current Iraqi government complies with the agreement?
Barazani: Yes, it legally complies with it.

Al Hayat: What about the big political parties?
Barazani: They comply with it too.

Al Hayat: Including Sadr movement?
Barazani: Sadr movement complies with the Constitution and we have the right to take decisions against any party that doesn't comply with it.

Al Hayat: Does the invitation to form a Province in the south and another one in the center relieve you as a Kurd?
Barazani: We support the federal regime in all regions and we leave the further details to those who live in it.

Al Hayat: Your name figures on the list of wanted people for international terrorism? Did you face an assassination attempt? Have the party location been targeted?
Barazani: After the collapse of the regime on April, the location of Kurdish Democratic Party witnessed two suicide attacks and there were damages. Other operations occurred too but it has been a long time since we have faced an attack. On the personal level, they didn't succeed in reaching me.

Al Hayat: Do you have strict security procedures?
Barazani: Sure

Al Hayat: What do you say about the presence of Al Quaeda organization in Kurdistan?
Barazani: It doesn't exist because Kurds absolutely refuse this ideology, the operations that happened are caused by the infiltration from Moussol to Arbil and there is no Quaeda or any allied organizations in the Province.

Al Hayat: Aren't there Kurdish extremists allied to Al Quaeda?
Barazani: There are few numbers of them but they couldn't stay in Kurdistan.

Al Hayat: What's the problem of the Kurdish Labor Party?
Barazani: The problem is with Turkey, it's a political cause, if it is not solved politically the problem will remain.

Al Hayat: Does the party exist in your regions?
Barazani: They may have some locations on the border line but they are in remote regions and in tortuous mountains.

Al Hayat: I noticed that you were born in Mahabad Republic?
Barazani: To correct the information, Kurdistan Republic in Mahabad and it's a wrong designation.

Al Hayat: How old are you?
Barazani: I was born in 1946.

Al Hayat: Do you think that you have achieved part of your dreams in seeing Kurds enjoying security in Iraq and are respected with regard to their identity and tradition?
Barazani: Yes, to a large extent.

Artificial borders

Al Hayat: Do you still maintain the dream of a nation?
Barazani: I consider it a legitimate right because Kurds form a nation that is different from other nations, it's not less important than them, so its legitimate right is to have its independent nation. I don't consider it as a dream.

Al Hayat: Did it come true then?
Barazani: It will come true but I don't know when.

Al Hayat: Maybe it would require decades.
Barazani: At the end, this nation of 40 million people may have an independent nation.

Al Hayat: Is there a geographic connection?
Barazani: Sure, it's an artificial border and some villages are divided among countries.

Al Hayat: Have you ever felt the need to declare the independence of Kurdistan?
Barazani: I don't take risks, we will declare it or somebody else will declare it in the appropriate moment, that will allow it to resist and survive and I don't know when the time will come.

Al Hayat: Do you feel that you have achieved what Mullah Mustapha Barazani couldn't achieve?
Barazani: We achieved the survival of what he had planned and we are his disciples.

Kurdistan and Israel

Al Hayat: There are some news about Israeli infiltration to Kurdistan, on the security and economic levels, and it's said that Israel is working again on the minorities in the region?
Barazani: We are part of the Iraqi government. According to the Constitution we don't have the right to build any relation with any country and if Israel opens its embassy in Baghdad it will open its consulate in Arbil. Although I don't consider the relation with it as a crime but it's a violation of the Iraqi constitution. Israel has relations with all Arab countries.

Al Hayat: With all Arab countries?
Barazani: I think with all Arab countries, some are public and some are secret, if these countries have relations with Israel why does it have to be seen as a crime if others do that too? But I assure that there is no Israeli activity in Kurdistan.

Al Hayat: Aren't there security relations or armament? Do you need arms?
Barazani: We do have a lot of weaponry. We give arms to those who need them and hopefully we won't need arms.

Al Hayat: What about the relations with Iran?
Barazani: Our relations are normal, there are economic relations. In Kurdistan we don't have any problem with Iran.

Al Hayat: They are talking today about the intervention of Iran in Kurdistan-Iraq?
Barazani: They aren't in Kurdistan Province; the intervention of Iran, if it exists, is in other regions.

The role of Syria and Iran

Al Hayat: There are news about two foreign roles in Iraq, the Syrian role and the Iranian role, is Kurdistan apart from them?
Barazani: No regional country could implement its agenda in Kurdistan because the population refuses this trend. In addition, there is no basis to implement this agenda.

Al Hayat: How is your relationship with Syria?
Barazani: Our relationship with Syria is long-standing, but it's not as strong as it was before.

Al Hayat: Why?
Barazani: I don't know, it seems that their interests have changed.

Al Hayat: It's said that Kurds in Kurdistan-Iraq are the big winner of the collapse of Saddam because Arabs drifted toward Sunni-Shiite rift. Do you feel that these events are in your interest?
Barazani: Events were in the interest of Iraq but we seized the opportunity, while our Sunni and Shiite Arab brethren didn't benefited form the chance, it is not our fault. We still offer help but if they don't want to seize the opportunity why do you have to punish Kurds?

Al Hayat: In Kurdistan there is the Iraqi president and the president of the Province. How is the relation between you two?
Barazani: The relation is strong and we have put our differences away.

Al Hayat: On the ground, the institutions are divided.
Barazani: The unification process continues successfully.

Al Hayat: What about the situation in Kurdistan?
Barazani: We have registered an improvement but we still have a lot of problems such as fuel and electrical energy problems. The former regime didn't execute any program that serves the region, that's why we are starting from scratch.

Al Hayat: Do investors tend to go to Kurdistan?
Barazani: That's right, the opportunity is very important.

Al Hayat: What about security there?
Barazani: We thank our security apparatus and our populations that are cooperating together, security is perfect there.

Al Hayat: What about the immigration of Christians from Baghdad to Kurdistan?
Barazani: That's true, it doesn't include Christians only but Arab and Muslims and we have over 18 thousand Arab families that immigrated to Kurdistan Province and they are most welcome.

Al Hayat: Are you concerned about the Christian presence in Iraq since it is eroding?
Barazani: I don't advice them to immigrate outside the country.

Al Hayat: Are the rights of non Kurds guaranteed?
Barazani: Our constitution is under consideration and it will guarantee the rights of all citizens who live in the Province whatever their nationalism or their religion is.

American withdrawal

Al Hayat: Did the American tell you about an impendent withdrawal?

Barazani: They assured that they won't withdraw until the situation in Iraq is settled and stabilized because their quick withdrawal would cause a catastrophe.
Al Hayat: Who is responsible of the security in Kurdistan?
Barazani: The police.

Al Hayat: Are there unities from the army stationed in the Province?
Barazani: Yes, there are forces from the Ministry of Defense and there are Peshmergas.

Al Hayat: Are you relieved?
Barazani: I will feel relieved when the situation in Iraq becomes stable.

Al Hayat: Are you afraid of the arrival of big numbers of immigrants to the Province in case American forces withdraw?
Barazani: Kurdistan is ready to open its hearts to our Arab Iraqi brethren.

Al Hayat: Is it possible that the majority Sunni Kurds participate in the civil war next to Sunnis?
Barazani: I don't think so. In case a Sunni-Shiite war breaks up, we will not take part in the conflict, we will rather try to stop it.

Thanks, Dutch, for all your work! It's wonderful to be able to come here and find all the related articles, with up-to-date information, in one place. You are very much appreciated!

Well, this is about ready to get real bad real fast.... After posting on the other thread specific to the crisis, I figured it really belonged here as well...
-----------------------------------------
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1563877.ece

From The Sunday Times
March 25, 2007
Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’
Uzi Mahnaimi, Michael Smith and David Cracknell

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

The penalty for espionage in Iran is death. However, similar accusations of spying were made when eight British servicemen were detained in the same area in 2004. They were paraded blindfolded on television but did not appear in court and were freed after three nights in detention.

Iranian student groups called yesterday for the 15 detainees to be held until US forces released five Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq earlier this year.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper based in London, quoted an Iranian military source as saying that the aim was to trade the Royal Marines and sailors for these Guards.

The claim was backed by other sources in Tehran. “As soon as the corps’s five members are released, the Britons can go home,” said one source close to the Guards.

He said the tactic had been approved by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who warned last week that Tehran would take “illegal actions” if necessary to maintain its right to develop a nuclear programme.

Iran denounced a tightening of sanctions which the United Nations security council was expected to agree last night in protest at Tehran’s insistence on enriching uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons.

Lord Triesman, the Foreign Office minister, met the Iranian ambassador in London yesterday to demand that consular staff be allowed access to the Britons, one of whom is a woman. His intervention came as a senior Iranian general alleged that the Britons had confessed under interrogation to “aggression into Iran’s waters”.

Intelligence sources said any advance order for the arrests was likely to have come from Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards.

Subhi Sadek, the Guards’ weekly newspaper, warned last weekend that the force had “the ability to capture a bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks”.

Safavi is known to be furious about the recent defections to the West of three senior Guards officers, including a general, and the effect of UN sanctions on his own finances.

A senior Iraqi officer appeared to back Tehran’s claim that the British had entered Iranian waters. “We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” said Brigadier-General Hakim Jassim, who is in charge of Iraq’s territorial waters. “We don’t know why they were there.”

Admiral Sir Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy, dismissed suggestions that the British boats might have been in Iranian waters. West, who was first sea lord when the previous arrests took place in June 2004, said satellite tracking systems had shown then that the Iranians were lying and the same was certain to be true now.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2042328,00.html


Iran defiantly rebuffed international demands yesterday for the release of 15 seized British naval personnel, claiming that the sailors and Royal Marines had confessed to entering its waters in an illegal act of aggression, and were now to be prosecuted in the Iranian capital.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, claimed in a statement that the Britons were engaged 'in illegal and suspicious' activities, suggesting that Iran might claim they were spying.

Iran, the US and the UK have been involved in a tit-for-tat round of accusations. Washington and London accuse Iran of widespread interference in Iraq, including the supply of weapons that have resulted in the deaths of soldiers serving in the multinational forces there.

The West also accuses Iran of engaging in uranium enrichment to develop a nuclear weapon. Last night the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to impose tougher sanctions against Iran in the hope of sending a strong message that it will grow increasingly isolated by refusing to abort its nuclear enrichment programme.

A senior Iranian official told the Fars news agency that the 14 British men and one woman had been taken to Tehran for further investigation. He added that 'documents and evidence existed' - including from the sailors' own GPS equipment - that demonstrated that they knew they had strayed into Iranian waters.

The claims were hotly denied by British officials and US officials, who said that the two high-powered British 'ribs' - rigid inflatable boats - were 'miles' inside Iraqi waters when they were surrounded by Iranian patrol boats on Friday.

The British claim appeared to be backed up by an eyewitness account from an Iraqi fisherman who told Reuters that he saw the capture of the servicemen, following their inspection of a ship suspected of carrying smuggled cars. The fisherman added that the ship was anchored on the Iraqi side of the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, the border between the two countries.

It was also confirmed yesterday that the men had been detained by members of the naval force of the Revolutionary Guard, the organisation accused by both the US and Britain of channelling arms and other material to Shia militias in Iraq.

In London, Foreign Office minister Lord Triesman held an hour-long meeting with Iran's ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian - the second meeting in two days between British officials and Iran's ambassador - to demand the 'immediate release' of the seized Britons. The meeting was described as 'frank but friendly'.

The demand was supported by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who pledged 'support and solidarity' yesterday for Britain over the seizure, and said the incident must not complicate a push to impose further sanctions on Iran.

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says the country's nuclear programme is aimed only at generating power. The new package of sanctions targets Iran's arms exports, its state-owned bank, Sepah, and senior figures in the Revolutionary Guard.

'We are doing our utmost in co-operation with the British authorities,' Solana told journalists at an EU summit in Berlin. 'They have our support and solidarity.'

He said a second UN Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Iran would go ahead regardless. 'The resolution will follow its course,' he said.

The demand for the men's release was echoed by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister of Germany, which holds the EU presidency.

A spokesman for Iran's defence forces, General Alireza Afshar, said the 'arrest' was made by members of the Revolutionary Guard within the Iranian territorial waters on Friday, and added that the servicemen were being interrogated and were now 'facing prosecution' after confessing to an act of 'aggression' in Iranian waters.

He told Iranian radio that the arrested Britons were in 'good health' and that the 'confessions' would be made public.

Quote: "A spokesman for Iran's defence forces, General Alireza Afshar, said the 'arrest' was made by members of the Revolutionary Guard within the Iranian territorial waters on Friday, and added that the servicemen were being interrogated and were now 'facing prosecution' after confessing to an act of 'aggression' in Iranian waters."

Anybody see them doing a public execution ala Sadam Hussein? If so, what would the consequences be???

Matt said:

Quote: "A spokesman for Iran's defence forces, General Alireza Afshar, said the 'arrest' was made by members of the Revolutionary Guard within the Iranian territorial waters on Friday, and added that the servicemen were being interrogated and were now 'facing prosecution' after confessing to an act of 'aggression' in Iranian waters."

Anybody see them doing a public execution ala Sadam Hussein? If so, what would the consequences be???

Click to expand...

Where's the nearest Tomahawk or Trident carrying British sub? If the Iranians go that far, they can kiss whatever WMD facilities, key oil facilities and whatever troop concentrations they're foolish enough to keep good-bye. They may not be that dumb, but there's no way the British public is going to stand for either a hostage crisis a la 1979 Tehran or any show trials. This is all about those Iranians captured in the field inside of Iraq and Iranian operations within Iraq, along with the missing/defected officers out of Turkey. Add to that what's been going on at the border between US forces and Iranian forces and the kidnap attempt and killing of those U.S. troops earlier and a pattern starts to appear.

This could be just enough to start it all up.

Take the biggest bunker buster we've got and drop it in Amadini-jihads home!
No need to go after his nukes, no need to deal with his captured Brit marines. Just blast the shite head to kingdom come, give him his 72 virgins, and then ask them, OK who's next?!

geoffs said:

Take the biggest bunker buster we've got and drop it in Amadini-jihads home!
No need to go after his nukes, no need to deal with his captured Brit marines. Just blast the shite head to kingdom come, give him his 72 virgins, and then ask them, OK who's next?!

Click to expand...

That may have worked a year ago geoffs; but not now. It is too late, all the "players' have been delt their last hand. And the "final bets are being laid now.

When this starts, with-in hours the regional war will spann the globe. As Iran's creature terror cells beging to carry out their attcks on their assigned targets.

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Blair Convenes Cobra Team as Crisis in Iran Escalates</font>


March 25, 2007
Scotman
Brian Brady
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=462812007 </center>
The official notification, delivered in secure calls yesterday morning to senior Whitehall figures, was the latest dramatic behind-the-scenes move to get to grips with a crisis that is now engulfing the government.

After a day of shadow-boxing with a notoriously slippery regime, Tony Blair is set to up the ante: the plight of the Shatt al-Arab 15 is officially a crisis and he will need the Cobra team to handle it. </b>

The clutch of VIPs will gather in an operations room several floors below Downing Street as early as this afternoon to plot an escape from a military spat that now threatens to become an international incident.

The decision came just 24 hours after the crew of HMS Cornwall had been caught in the confusion of direct confrontation with Iranian vessels in the searing heat of the Gulf.

As the crew members were surrounded in their two rubber dinghies, the Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, frantically radioed back to his own top brass for instructions.

The response to the inquiry, which had been immediately patched through to Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall, was to hold fire.

The order to show restraint has been observed throughout the forces and the British government in the 48 hours since, but it is unclear how long both sides will be able to maintain control.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's first response to the gathering crisis on Friday was to keep to diplomatic conventions. After a hurried phone call to Blair, she immediately summoned Iran's ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, to her office to explain their behaviour.

After a meeting described by officials as "brisk but polite", Beckett emerged to stress that she was "extremely disturbed" by events.

It was an understated description of the deep concern now gripping the government. Not only was Blair's administration alarmed at the risk to the 15 military personnel, which included at least one woman, but it was in no doubt over Tehran's ability to use their plight to make a wider point.

During a flurry of diplomatic activity in the hours after the snatch, the Iranians' rhetoric repeatedly elevated their action, and the alleged motives of the British, to a multinational affair. It was the eve of a second UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions over Iran's refusal to halt its programme to enrich uranium. The Shatt al-Arab 15 were, from the start, pawns in a perilous international game.

"It looks like too much of a coincidence," a senior Foreign Office insider confirmed.

The response was a no- nonsense demand for Iran to relent - and Britain freely used the international community to back up its case. Beckett dispatched the UK chargé d'affaires, Kate Smith, to confront the government in Tehran, armed with the insistence that the British sailors had been in Iraqi waters.

In the meantime, Blair made a personal call to European allies, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, to secure a public denunciation of the Iranians' actions.

"It was impressed on everyone how important it was to raise the diplomatic temperature, rather than keep a low profile and let them make a song and dance of the situation," one defence official said.

"There is nothing to be gained in provoking a confrontation, because that would be playing into their hands. But neither should we let them have it all their way. We tried that before and we're still trying to get our kit back."

The smaller-scale precedent, the taking of six British marines and two sailors on the same waterway in June 2004, was a painful lesson. The personnel were only returned after they had been paraded blindfold on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally. Three years on, the government is still pressing Iran for the return of its boats and kit, including valuable radar equipment.

The degree of concern felt across Whitehall was demonstrated yesterday, when Movahedian was called back to the Foreign Office, this time to see Beckett's minister, Lord Triesman. The British were clearly attempting to warn off Tehran before it could begin to use the servicemen and women as a significant propaganda tool.

It was, however, a race against time - and through it all, the diplomats and the politicians were acutely aware that Tehran has built a foreign policy on disregarding diplomatic niceties.

Top level
COBRA is an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where its meetings are held.

Tony Blair, senior ministers, police and security chiefs all take part. It is called after events such as 9/11, 7/7

and can evoke emergency powers such as suspending Parliament or restricting movement.

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<B><center>Sunday, March 25, 2007. 11:33am (AEST)

<font size=+1 color=brown>US, Britain welcome sanctions on Iran</font>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1880898.htm </center>
The United States and Britain have welcomed the unanimous vote in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to tighten sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

The resolution, which followed weeks of negotiations, includes a ban on uranium arms exports.</b>

Washington says the vote shows the world is united and its time for Iran to comply or potentially face harsher measures.

The British ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, says the resolution sends a clear message to the Iranian Government.

"The unanimous adoption of Security Council Resolution 1747 reflects the international community's profound concerns over Iran's nuclear programs," he said.

"We deplore Iran's failure to comply with the earlier resolutions of the Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency and we call upon Iran once again to comply fully with all its international obligations."

But Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has branded it "illegal" and "unjustifiable".

"As we have stressed time and again, Iran's nuclear program is completely peaceful, we have expressed our readiness, taken unprecedented steps and offered several serious proposals to address and allay any possible concern in this regard," he said.

- BBC

=



<B><center>25/03/2007

<font size=+1 color=green>Analysis: Iranian President Ahmadinejad sends a signal</font>

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/841463.html </center>
The border between Iraq and Iran on the Shatt al-Arab waterway has been in dispute for decades. Thus, the possibility that British Royal Marines were inside Iranian territorial waters when they were abducted should not be entirely discounted. But it would be naive to think that the incident in the Persian Gulf was coincidental - especially in view of its timing. </b>

The incident occurred a day before the United Nations Security Council convened to decide on further sanctions in view of Tehran's refusal to heed the international demand it cease its nuclear enrichment program. In response, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled his appearance before the Security Council, where he was supposed to present Iran's position.

The cancellation may also be the result of excessive caution on the part of Iran's rulers, particularly in view of the disappearance from Turkey of Ali Askari, former head of the Al-Quds Brigade, the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard. Askari most likely defected to the West about six weeks ago. The Iranians say he was kidnapped.

Several months earlier, an elite U.S. unit raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil, northern Iraq, and arrested five Iranians, possibly intelligence agents. Iran maintains that they enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

Iran has attributed various subversive activities, carried out by opposition and separatist groups, to the CIA and MI6 agents. Above all hovers the possibility of a U.S. attack against Iran's nuclear installations.

Following the disappearance of Askari, Iranian analysts with ties to the regime wrote that Iran could respond with abductions of its own. It is possible that the arrest of the British troops is Iran's countermove. Such action against U.S. troops would have been unlikely because of concerns of a severe American response. From Iran's point of view, the British are a 'soft' target, and a convenient way to signal it will respond to any assault on its sovereignty.

If the British Marines are not released in a few days, as happened in a similar incident in 2004, the crisis my take a sharp turn for the worst.

Concerning the 38M bunker bomb post; If I remember right, I think I read something last October about the military testing a bunker busting bomb sometime this february. It was supposed to be the largest bunker bomb ever made. It sounds a lot like the 38 bomb which leads me to believe that this thing has already been made. Maybe we will see the "Test" real soon.