WAR 5/15th ***THE***PERFECT***STORM***

[The Flying Dutchman]

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May 15th 2011

Thus it begins​

Israeli Troops Clash With Palestinian Protesters Along

Borders With Syria, Lebanon, Gaza Strip
By JOSEF FEDERMAN 05/15/11 09:34 AM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...pen-fire-palestinian-protesters_n_862100.html​

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JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops clashed with Arab protesters along three hostile borders on Sunday, leaving as many as 12 people dead and dozens wounded in an unprecedented wave of violence marking the anniversary of the mass displacement of Palestinians surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948.

In the most serious incident, the Israeli military said thousands of protesters approached Syria's border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. It said hundreds of people burst through the border, and soldiers opened fire to stop them. Dozens were wounded and six were reported killed.

As Israel's prime minister gathered his top advisers for an emergency meeting, officials accused Syria of fomenting the violence in an attempt to divert attention from the deadly crackdown on weeks of protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad.

"The Syrian regime is intentionally attempting to divert international attention away from the brutal crackdown of their own citizens to incite against Israel," said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman.

Deadly clashes also took place along Israel's nearby northern border with Lebanon, as well as in the Gaza Strip, near Israel's southern border.

The unrest came as the Palestinians marked the "nakba," or "catastrophe," the term they use to describe the uprooting they suffered at the time of Israel's founding on May 15, 1948.

On Facebook and other websites, activists had urged Palestinians and their supporters in neighboring countries to march on the border with Israel as part of nakba activities. Security officials tried to block such moves for fear of violence.

In Egypt, the army set up at least 15 checkpoints – guarded by tanks and armored vehicles – on the road between the Egyptian town of El-Arish and the Gaza border city of Rafah, turning back all who were not residents of the area.

In the fighting over Israel's creation, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted, and the dispute over the fate of the refugees and their descendants, now numbering several million, remains a key issue in the Mideast conflict.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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IDF: Northern Border Incidents Iranian Provocation

Reported: 16:43 PM - May/15/11
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/210450​

Spokesman Yoav Mordechai of the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday afternoon that the incidents along the Syrian and Lebanese borders were "violent provocations, supported by Iran, which succeeded in reaching the fence."

Mordechai also cited the armies on the other side of the borders for failing to try and stop demonstators and infiltrators from reaching the fence. In his words, "Neither Lebanon nor Syria succeeded in preventing the demonstation from getting close to Israel and damaging the security fence."



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Arab reports: IDF fire kills 6 in Lebanon, 1 in Gaza Strip

Published: 05.15.11, 16:33 / Israel News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4068946,00.html​

Lebanese TV network Almustakbal reported that six Lebanese citizens were killed and 60 injured from IDF fire, aimed at protesters in the village of Maroun al-Ras, near the Israel-Lebanon border.



Al-Jazeera network reported that one man was killed fire at the neighborhood of Shuja'iyya in the Gaza Strip. (Roee Nahmias)




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Syria condemns Israel shooting at Nakba Day demonstrations

By REUTERS
05/15/2011 17:15
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=220639​

BEIRUT - Syria condemned on Sunday Israel's "criminal activities" in the Golan Heights,Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon where Israeli forces had fired to disperse pro-Palestinian protests.

Israeli troops shot at protesters in three separate locations to prevent crowds from crossing Israeli frontier lines, leaving at least eight dead and dozens wounded.

State news agency SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying it called on the international community to hold Israel responsible for the incidents, the deadliest such confrontation along the borders in years.



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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9 killed as Israeli forces attack Nakba marches on
northern, southern and central borders

Sunday May 15, 2011 16:35 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
http://www.imemc.org/article/61245​

An estimated four people were killed Sunday on the Syria-Israel border, five killed on the Lebanon-Israel border, 52 injured in Gaza, and at least 24 injured in the West Bank as Israeli forces attacked Palestinian refugees trying to re-enter their former homes in what is now Israel. The day of protests was a commemoration of the ‘Nakba’ or ‘Catastrophe’, the day when Israel was created on Palestinian land 63 years ago.

The Israeli military confirmed firing at protesters on the Israel-Syrian border, as thousands of refugees tried to cross into the Golan Heights – a territory that was traditionally Palestinian, but is now a disputed territory claimed by both Israel and Syria. Many Palestinians who lived in the area found their towns and families split in half by the border.

Initial reports indicate that four people were killed by Israeli gunfire on the Syrian border, and dozens were wounded, as Palestinians crossed dangerous unmapped minefields to cross into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

Thousands of Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon also tried to cross the border with Israel Sunday morning, and were met with gunfire from Israeli troops stationed at the border. Local sources report that at least five people were killed, and ten wounded by Israeli gunfire in the Maroun al-Ras area.

In Gaza, according to local sources, around 1,000 Palestinian refugees and supporters from the Gaza Strip marched on the Erez border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, where they were fired on by Israeli troops, injuring at least 52 people.

Palestinian refugees from the West Bank also marched to the Qalandia checkpoint established by Israeli forces as the main border crossing between the West Bank and what is now Israel, although Qalandia’s location is far east of the internationally-agreed armistice line of 1967, and indicates a possible land grab by Israel if established as an actual border.

At least five Palestinian youth were injured when Israeli forces fired live rounds at a group of youth throwing stones during the largely peaceful demonstration of several thousand people at Qalandia. Dozens more were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas inhalation.

In Issawiya, in east Jerusalem, Israeli forces fired on a group of youth throwing stones during a march held in that neighborhood. Four people were detained.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, students from Bir Zeit university, near Ramallah, set tires on fire as some youth threw stones at Israeli soldiers at the Atara checkpoint.

In al-Walaja village, a site known for non-violent anti-Wall protests, several hundred Palestinians, internationals and Israelis marched to the site of Wall construction in the center of the village – at least five were detained – three internationals and two Palestinians.

At least 63 Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces at protests in the West Bank and Jerusalem since Friday.




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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‘Nakba’ rage goes beyond Palestine to Golan and Lebanon, Israeli troops open fire

Sunday, 15 May 2011
By DINA AL-SHIBEEB
Al Arabiya with Agencies
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/15/149183.html​

Israeli troops opened fire Sunday on more than 1,000 Palestinians marching on the northern Erez crossing with Israel, wounding at least 52 people, according to medics and an Agence-France Presse correspondent.

Witnesses said several hundred people had bypassed a Hamas checkpoint to come within a few hundred meters of a concrete border barrier, in a huge march to mark the 63rd anniversary of Israel’s creation in 1948, in what is known in Arabic as the “nakba” or “catastrophe.”

Meanwhile, Israeli troops on the Golan wounded at least 10 people as they fired live rounds and tear gas Sunday at protesters who broke though from the Syrian-held side of the plateau, medics and defense sources said.

Israeli media reported at least one dead and several wounded but there was no immediate confirmation of the toll, in one of the worst incidents for decades along a ceasefire line that has been quiet since a 1974 truce accord.

Medical officials said “between 10 and 20” of the protesters were wounded, with one feared dead, while three Israelis were said to have been slightly injured in the incident.

The incursion into the Israeli-held Golan Heights by thousands of protesters from Syria on Sunday was a “very serious and violent” incident, Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Liebowitz told AFP.

And in Lebanon, according to Reuters four protesters were killed and 11 wounded in a shooting incident at the Lebanese-Israeli border where Palestinians were demonstrating on Sunday, security sources said.

Reuters cameraman Ezzat Baltaji said he has on film three dead bodies.

Israeli forces had fired in the air to repel protesting Palestinians while the Lebanese army fired in the air in an attempt to stop protesters from reaching the border.


Further south, more than 5,000 demonstrators also held a mass rally in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt, an AFP correspondent said.

They waved Palestinian flags and held up huge replica wooden keys to homes they fled or were expelled from during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which followed the creation of the Jewish state.

Palestinians marked the occasion this year “with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine,” the Associated Press reported Prime Minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, as saying to a crowd of 10,000 in Gaza.

“To achieve our goals in the liberation of our occupied land, we should have one leadership,” Mr. Haniyeh said, praising the recent unity deal between former rivals Hamas and Fatah.

Hamas and Fatah’s recent reconciliation and unity pact angered the Israeli government, which froze payment due to Palestinian Authority.

The freeze on the revenues Palestinians are owed from tax revenues has resulted in the Authority being unable to pay employees their May salaries. The Palestinian Authority has also pleaded to the international community for funds.

Analysts said Mr. Haniyeh’s comments on Sunday would not be helpful to the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Haniyeh’s comments, said analysts, suggested that Israel should be eliminated.

Mr. Abbas has been trying to market Hamas to the international community as an acceptable political partner.

More than 760,000 Palestinians—estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants—were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict.

Around 160,000 Palestinians stayed behind and are now known as Arab Israelis. They number around 1.3 million people, or some 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Several million Palestinians who are living in refugee camps in various countries have urged the United Nations for the right to return, a demand Israel refuses to accept.

It is this dispute that remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Other issues include the return of territory that Israel seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and the status of Jerusalem, which Israel claims wholly.

Marches commemorating the “nakba” were also planned in the Abbas-ruled West Bank and Arab towns in Israel.

Israeli security forces were on high alert Sunday while the military sealed the West Bank for a day, barring Palestinians from entering Israel.
On Friday, police arrested 34 Palestinians on suspicion of public order violations, while 13 were rounded up preemptively as potential troublemakers.

A 16-year-old Palestinian, Mild Ayash, who was fatally wounded in “nakba” clashes in Jerusalem on Friday, died overnight, his family told AFP on Saturday.

“He died after being shot in the stomach; we are taking the body for burial now,” Maher Ayash, the uncle of the teenager, told AFP.

Another relative said that a Jewish settler in the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan, where youngsters hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, shot the teenager.

Meanwhile, a UN official said that a planned visit to Silwan on Saturday by visiting Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, was cancelled “because of the situation.”

In related news, one person was killed and several others injured as a truck driven by an Arab Israeli rammed into a bus and several cars in Tel Aviv, police said, amid reports that it was a deliberate attack.

Police were checking if it was an accident or a politically motivated attack as Palestinians commemorated the “nakba” anniversary.



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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4 Killed in Lebanon as Israel Fires Across Border

Published May 15, 2011
| Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/15/israel-opens-border-lebanon/​

MAROUN El-RASS, Lebanon -- Two Lebanese security officials say four people in Lebanon were killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire at protesters who approached the border with Israel.

The security officials said there were injuries as well. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Sunday's demonstration came as a large crowd of protesters also tried to cross into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from neighboring Syria.

The unrest came as the Palestinians marked the "naqba," or "catastrophe," the term they use to describe the uprooting they suffered at the time of Israel's founding on May 15, 1948.




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Signs of chaos in Syria's intense crackdown

ANTHONY SHADID
Friday, May 13, 2011 at 5:17 a.m.
( page of 4 )

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian forces carried out raids in towns on the outskirts of Damascus and a besieged city on the coast on Thursday, as the number of detainees surged in a government campaign so sweeping that human rights groups said many neighborhoods were subjected to repeated raids and some people detained multiple times by competing security agencies.

The ferocious crackdown on the uprising, which began in March, has recently escalated, as the government braces for the possibility of another round of protests on Friday, a day that has emerged as the weekly climax in a broad challenge to the 11-year rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
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Residents have reported that hundreds of detainees are being held in soccer stadiums, schools and government buildings in various towns and cities across the country, some of them arrested in door-to-door raids by black-clad forces carrying lists of activists.

Others have said the arrests are often arbitrary, sometimes for little more than a tattered identity card, in a campaign that seems motivated to bully people to stay indoors and to restore a measure of the fear that has buttressed the Assad family's four decades of rule. Many men have been forced to sign a pledge not to protest again, residents said.

“The reaction of the authorities has excluded any possibility of having a rational solution,” said Rassem al-Atassi, the president of the Arab Association for Human Rights in Syria, in Homs, the country's third largest-city and a center of the uprising.

Mr. Atassi himself was released last week after being detained for 10 days.

“I only see this crisis becoming worse,” he said. “There's no political solution.”

The brutality of the repression has led the United States and the European Union to impose some sanctions on figures in the leadership, though not on Mr. Assad himself. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton moved the United States a step closer to calling for the ouster of Mr. Assad on Thursday as she denounced the crackdown.

“The recent events in Syria make clear that the country cannot return to the way it was before,” Mrs. Clinton said before a meeting in Greenland among Arctic nations. “Tanks and bullets and clubs will not solve Syria's political and economic challenges.”

The Obama administration has criticized the Syrian government repeatedly and imposed some sanctions on several senior security officials, but it has not yet pursued aggressive diplomatic measures, including action at the United Nations Security Council.

Mrs. Clinton said that the United States would now pursue “additional steps to hold Syria responsible for its gross human rights abuses.”

“There may be some who think this is a sign of strength,” she said, “but treating one's own people in this way is in fact a sign of remarkable weakness.”

A senior official elaborated that sanctions were being considered on additional Syrian officials. That could include Mr. Assad himself.

Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Mr. Assad, said this week that Syrian officials thought that the American condemnations so far were “not too bad.”

In the meantime, its military has besieged Dara'a, the southern town where the uprising began with protests over the arrests of youths, as well as Baniyas and Homs.

The detentions have piled up so rapidly that assembling a tally has become guesswork. Syria's National Organization for Human Rights put the number at 9,000. Wissam Tarif, the executive director of Insan, a human rights group, said his organization had recorded 8,000 people arrested as of May 3. In the past week, he said, they had recorded 2,800 more — though, as with the National Organization, he said he suspected that the number was much higher.

“The numbers are in the thousands,” said Khalil Maatouk, a Damascus lawyer who works with prisoners and detainees. “Those who were released told me that the jails are packed, and they're using stadiums and government buildings to keep them all.”

The Syrian government has acknowledged the crackdown, calling it a response to an armed uprising of militant Islamists, saboteurs and even ex-convicts. American officials have acknowledged that some protesters are armed, though they are a distinct minority, and reports from refugees fleeing across the Syria-Lebanon border suggest that armed clashes between security forces and their opponents have erupted this week in Homs.

Amnesty International, based in London, said it had firsthand reports of torture and beatings of protesters detained by security forces. Ammar Qurabi, president of the National Organization for Human Rights, said people who took part in the rallies were detained, while those identified as leaders or as having chanted slogans against the government were tortured.

Indeed, human rights groups said the abuse might be part of the government's aim: many detainees are released after a few days so that they can share their experiences, spreading fear among those who might be willing to join the demonstrations.

The groups sketched a portrait of free-wheeling campaigns that sometimes seemed methodical and that other times showed little organization. Mr. Tarif said that in Baniyas, an oil industry town on the coast, security forces carried out a wave of arrests, collected information and then returned a few days later for another wave of arrests.

Other times, he said, young men were arrested, released and then picked up by a competing security branch, which still had their names on circulating lists. Some had even already signed a pledge, admittedly under duress, not to protest again. “The local branches aren't even coordinating,” Mr. Tarif said.

The crackdown has played out along a crescent from the Mediterranean coast through Homs to drought-stricken regions of southern Syria. On Thursday, most arrests were reported in Baniyas and the nearby town of Bayda, along with the towns on the outskirts of Damascus where protests have proved to be especially resilient. Many residents described a pattern in which the military entered first, followed by the security forces and then armed men in plain clothes, known as shabeeha.

The Syrian military said it had ended its operations in Homs, and residents reported that 10 tanks had withdrawn from the hardest-hit neighborhood, Bab Amr. After a day of shelling and gunfire, and sporadic shots heard before dawn, the area was relatively quiet on Thursday, a resident there, Abu Haydar, said by phone. “Most of the people have left Bab Amr,” he said. “It's too dangerous.”

Residents fleeing Homs for the Lebanese border said some had taken up arms against the security forces in Bab Amr.

“Men are not sleeping at home,” said Umm Amina, a 53-year-old woman who left the Homs region on Wednesday. “They all sleep outside on the street and keep their rifles next to them to protect their women and their houses from the shabeeha.”

The government has sought to forcefully keep campuses silent in Damascus and Syria's second-largest city, Aleppo, which has been relatively quiet so far. But while students in Aleppo said that dozens of their associates had been arrested in past weeks, hundreds of people were reported to have protested Wednesday night at the university there.

“We couldn't just watch news of the daily killing in Homs, Baniyas and Dara'a,” said a law student who gave his name as Maher. “We are university students from all of Syria's provinces, and we want to express our sympathy with our people.”




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[ted]

Thanks Dutch, I was wondering what would happen today.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Syrian Army Shells Homes, Hundreds Flee to Lebanon


Reported: 07:46 AM - May/15/11
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/210383​

The Syrian army began shelling homes Saturday in the southern village of Tal Kalakh.

At least a dozen families fled the village and traveled to the Lebanese border town of Wadi Khaled. Some of the family members were injured, according to a report broadcast on Voice of Israel government radio.



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[The Flying Dutchman]

Thanks Dutch, I was wondering what would happen today.

It's "just starting" Ted; things will get a lot more interesting in a couple or three more weeks (if the S doesn't HTF before then)

 

[ted]

I think that this is a bit of a slow start which to my thinking has a greater potential to keep building than a flash in the pan large start. The larger the start the more chance for a fizzle.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Heavy gunfire heard in Syrian protest town

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis<br />AMMAN (Reuters)
15 May 2011 14:43 GMT
http://news.stv.tv/uk/249656-heavy-gunfire-heard-in-syrian-protest-town/​

Heavy gunfire was heard in the Syrian border town of Tel Kelakh on Sunday, residents said, and authorities in neighbouring Lebanon tightened security after hundreds fled from Syrian troops deployed to crush protests.

The town, just a few miles (km) from Lebanon's northern border, is the latest focus of an intensified crackdown by Syrian troops and tanks, sent to quell demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hundreds fled across the frontier on Saturday, when activists said three Tel Kelakh residents were killed in shooting. A Lebanese security official said on Sunday border patrols had increased "to prevent illegal entry."

Assad has tried a mixture of reform and repression to stem protests against his autocratic 11-year rule, which broke out two months ago in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

The United States and European Union have condemned Assad's crackdown, in which rights groups say about 700 people have been killed by security forces, and imposed targeted sanctions on Syrian officials.

Assad lifted a 48-year state of emergency but also sent the army into the protest centres. With neither side emerging with a clear victory after more than eight weeks of unrest, the government promised on Friday to launch talks.

"The authorities say they want national dialogue and they conduct it with tanks," a woman who fled the porous border to the Lebanese side told Al Jazeera television.

Officials say the army has been deployed to counter "armed terrorist groups" backed by Islamists and outside powers who are responsible for most of the violence, during which 120 soldiers and police have been killed.

Troops backed by armour have now deployed in or around towns and villages across the southern Hauran plain, the central province of Homs and areas in the coast. The security grip has been also tightened in Damascus and its suburbs.

In a rare incident on Syria's frontline with Israel, state television said Israeli forces killed four Syrians taking part in an anti-Israel rally on the Syrian side of the occupied Golan Heights frontier on Sunday.

Israeli media reports said the incident occurred after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied side of the frontier from Syria during a demonstration to mark what Arabs call the "Nakba," or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in 1948.

Since coming to power on his father's death in 2000, Assad has reinforced Syria's alliance with Iran and continued to back militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, while holding indirect peace talks with Israel and maintaining quiet on the Golan Heights.

TANK SHELLS

Tel Kelakh resident Mohammad al-Dandashi said in a telephone call he had counted the sound of 85 tank shells fired since Saturday. "They seem to be random and not targeting a particular neighbourhood," he said as the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in the background.

"They are punishing us for demonstrating against the regime," he said, adding that nearly 20 soldiers could be seen on a hospital roof.

A woman from Tel Kelakh died of her wounds on Sunday, bringing the death toll from the violence there to four in the last two days.

Hundreds, mainly women and children, had fled into Lebanon, including at least seven who were wounded and transferred to hospital.

Across the country, diplomats and activists say 7,000 people have been arrested since the protests broke out. Authorities say thousands have also surrendered and been released under an amnesty which expired on Sunday.

Opposition leader Riad Seif, who was arrested earlier this month, was released on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that thousands of political prisoners remained in jail.

In their first statement since the protests erupted, 12 Kurdish parties said authorities needed to stop using violence against peaceful protesters.

Syria's main Kurdish parties said the authorities must take concrete steps to end repression and transform Syria into a democracy to solve the nation's political crisis, joining mainstream opposition demands.

"Syria is witnessing an awakening. The mass national movement for democratic change is calling for fundamental reform to end repression and single party rule," the statement said.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Trevelyan)



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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05/15/11, 6:18 PM

One Jew, Eleven Arabs Reported Dead in Arab Attacks

by Gil Ronen
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144184​

According to unofficial reports, six Arabs were killed in clashes with Israeli forces on on the Lebanese border Sunday. Four others were killed in an incident on the Syrian border, and one in Gaza, as Arabs protested the consequences of their failure to annihilate Israel in 1948.

In Tel Aviv, an Israeli man, 29-year-old Aviv Morag, was killed in what is believed to have been a terror attack by an Arab truck driver.

The IDF has yet to officially confirm any of the deaths. It confirmed that 3 IDF officers and ten IDF soldiers were injured.

According to the IDF, several riots broke out in various locations over the course of the day, causing “friction” between Israeli security forces, rioters and inciters:

Northern Region: During the midday hours, hundreds of Syrian rioters infiltrated the Israeli-Syrian border into the Druze village of Majdal Shams. In the center of the village, they rioted violently against IDF forces. “In an attempt to turn the rioters back to Syria, forces fired selectively towards rioters who were targeting security infrastructure and some were injured as a result,” the IDF stated.

Along the Lebanese border, several rioters attempted to breach the border fence and to infiltrate into Israeli territory. “IDF forces responded by firing warning shots,” according to the IDF Spokesman’s Unit.

IDF forces and Israel Police forces are currently operating to restore order in these locations.

The IDF said that it “sees the governments of Syria and Lebanon as responsible for any violence or provocation towards Israel that emanates from their respective territories.”

Central Region: Multiple violent riots broke out in several locations throughout Judea and Samaria. These riots included rock hurling, the throwing of firebombs and the burning of tires.

North of Jerusalem, at Kalandiya, approximately 600 Arabs are rioting violently. During this riot, rocks and firebombs were hurled at security forces, who have been responding with riot dispersal means.

The IDF noted that “throughout the day there have been several incidents during which rioters have been seen hiding behind ambulances for cover while hurling rocks at security forces. IDF forces have been responding with riot dispersal means to contain these riots and thus far have been persistent in their efforts.”

Southern Region: Riots have taken place at several sites in Gaza, where hundreds of Muslim rioters hurled rocks at IDF forces. Rioters arrived at a humanitarian aid crossing and caused damage to its structures. Soldiers fired in a controlled manner in their direction of the leading rioters, aiming at their legs, in order to disperse them and prevent them from entering Israeli territory. A number of rioters were injured as a result.

In addition, during the afternoon hours IDF forces identified a suspect planting an explosive device along the security fence in northern Gaza. IDF soldiers fired towards the suspect, identifying a hit.

Terrorist organizations are constantly operating with the objective to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and have previously attempted to execute terrorist activities near the various crossings carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Syria regime ‘organised’ border unrest: Israel (AFP)

15 May 2011
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/display...middleeast_May361.xml&section=middleeast&col=​

JERUSALEM - Israel’s army accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of “organising” Sunday’s violence on the Golan Heights as a way to divert attention from pro-democracy protests sweeping his country.

“The Syrian authorities organised this violent incident in order to divert world opinion away from what is happening in their cities,” army spokeswoman Avital Leibovitz told AFP.

Israeli troops wounded “dozens” of people when they opened fire at protesters from Syria forcing their way onto the disputed Golan Heights on Sunday, the military said.

The army said soldiers opened fire when “thousands of Syrian civilians breached the Israel-Syria border near the Israeli village of Majdal Shams.”

But Leibovitz later clarified that although there were thousands of protesters, only dozens had managed to cross the frontier, in an incident she described as “very serious and violent.”

“Thousands of protesters from the Syrian side of the border attacked our troops with stones and dozens of them entered into Israel,” she said, toning down an army statement that “thousands” had crossed.

“Our forces unleashed warning shots to keep them back” from Israeli-annexed territory on the plateau which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, Leibovitz said.

This was “a very serious and violent incident which threatens the security of the inhabitants of Israel and violates its territory,” she said.




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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05/15/11, 3:51 PM

Israel Blames Iranian Axis for Mass Infiltration into Golan

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144180​

Israeli military and government officials have blamed Syria and the Iranian-Hamas-Hizbullah axis for intentionally allowing hundreds of Syrian Arabs to cross into the Golan Sunday and causing a violent clash with the IDF. They called themselves “Palestinians.”

At least two people were killed -- an Israel citizen and a Syrian, who was killed on the Syrian side of the border.

Estimates of those who crossed the border ranged from hundreds to 2,000 or more. Some of them said their intentions were to reach Yafo (Jaffa) as part of the Nakba Day protests against the re-establishment of Israel as a Jewish state on May 15, 1948.

The infiltrators staged an unprecedented rally, waving Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags in the town of Majdal Shams, located near the border and on the road to the Hermon Mountain range.

The IDF explained it restrained from using force that might exacerbate the situation but had “opened fire in order to prevent the violent rioters from illegally infiltrating Israeli territory.

“A number of rioters have infiltrated and are violently rioting in the village. From initial reports, there are dozens of injured that are receiving medical care in a nearby hospital,” said the IDF.

Israeli citizens in Majdal Shams told Voice of Israel government radio that they do not want the Syrians in their town but also would not allow the IDF to evacuate them.

Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reportedly will try to evacuate them on condition that Israelis are not involved. An IDF spokesperson said that Syria rules its side of the border with an “iron hand” and easily can prevent anyone from crossing into Israel. He said that Syrian President Bashar Assad is trying to cause a disturbance, and government officials said Assad wants to draw attention away from the brutal suppression of the rebellion that has resulted in the murders of approximately 850 protesters.



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[The Flying Dutchman]

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'Syria attempting to create crises on border with Israel'

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
05/15/2011 15:40
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=220623​

An Israeli official commented on pro-Palestinians demonstrators crossing over from Syria into Israel as part of Nakba Day protests, saying "this is a cyclical and transparent act by the Syrian regime to create a crisis on the border with Israel in order to distract public opinion from the very real problems at home."

"Syria is a police state. This sort of thing could not happen without the support of the regime. It is clear they wanted this to play the Israel card, in order to silence their own democratic opposition," the official said.



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[Jonas Parker]

And now it has started... may God help us all.

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.debka.com/article/20934/

Palestinians, Syrians, Hizballah smash through three Israeli borders:
DEBKAfile Special Report May 15, 2011, 3:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Syria Golan Nakba Day Hizballah Lebanon Gaza
Majdal al Shams, Israeli Golan

Israeli forces on high alert for Nakba Day, Sunday, May 15, failed to seal three national borders on the Golan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against large-scale incursions. Dozens of Syrians and Hizballah invaders were able to overrun the Israeli Golan village of Majd al Shams and hoist Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square; Hizballah-sponsored Palestinian demonstrators breached the Lebanese-Israeli border and damaged IDF installations; and hundreds of Palestinians battered the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip.

The interlopers sustained dozens of casualties including fatalities from Israeli fire these events in which Israelis too were injured. In the Gaza sector 40-50 casualties are reported. Lebanon reports five demonstrators killed.

On the Syrian border, Israeli snipers and helicopters belatedly opened fire to halt the thousands attempting to cross the border, but dozens got through to Majd al Shams. Some were killed or injured by Israeli fire. Three Israel civilians were wounded. Israeli tanks were speeded to the Syrian border to halt the incident.
debkafile reports that despite the high IDF border alert for Nakba Day invasions from neighboring Arab countries, Israeli forces were not deployed in sufficient strength on the Golan border, even though debkafile reported Saturday, May 14 that Damascus planned trouble on the border with Israel as a diversion from the rebellion against the Assad regime.
We also quoted Bashar Assad's cousin Ramy Makhlouf as threatening Tuesday, May 10, that if the Americans and Europeans did not stop backing the Syrian anti-regime uprising, Damascus would go to war on Israel and/or arm West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs for action against Israel.

While attempting to block demonstrators at Ras a-Maroun from reaching Israel, the Lebanese army is also on high alert on the Syrian border. Fighting between Syrian forces and anti-regime protesters has escalated in Syrian border villages, centering on Tall Kalakh near Homs.

developing...

 

[ontheright]

DUTCH !!!!

See my thread here: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...m-83-Third-Intifada-against-Israel-on-May15th

A merge may be in order....gotta wonder if this is just one of the ongoing skirmishes or something larger

 

[denfoote]

And now it has started... may God help us all.

God already has helped!!!

Matthew 24:21-23 (New King James Version)

21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.

 

[ontheright]

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=220656


PM on Nakba Day: We're determined to defend our borders
By JPOST.COM STAFF
05/15/2011 18:45

In face of attempts to infiltrate Israel, Netanyahu says he instructed IDF to act with restraint but to stop all attempts to cross Israel's borders; "We must understand what we're up against."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday responded to the events of Nakba Day, particularly attempts to infiltrate Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, saying "we are determined to defend our borders."

Netanyahu stated that he had instructed the IDF to act with restraint, but to stop all attempts at infiltration and challenges to Israel's sovereignty.

RELATED:
Syria condemns Israel's 'criminal acts' against protesters
Photo gallery: Palestinian protesters mark Nakba Day
Protesters around world demonstrate to mark Nakba Day

The prime minister said that the Nakba Day protesters were not fighting for the 1967 borders as they claim, but were denying Israel's right to exist.

"We must understand who and what we are up against," Netanyahu said in a televised statement.

Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu criticized those who commemorate Nakba Day during the weekly cabinet meeting.

"The state was founded 63 years ago on the basis of the declaration of independence which promises equality of rights for all of our citizens regardless of religion, race and sex," Netanyahu said.

He added: "When one looks at the region today, Israeli Arabs are the only Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa that enjoy democratic rights, equality and civil rights."

"I regret that there are extremists among Israeli Arabs and in neighboring countries who have turned the day on which the State of Israel was established, the day on which the Israeli democracy was established, into a day of incitement, violence and rage."

"There is no place for that," the prime minister said.

 

[ontheright]

Good Listen
http://prophecytoday.com/media/open.html

 

[Woolly]

Here is an excellent biased reporting from the Huffington Post. To wit: "In the fighting over Israel's creation, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted, and the dispute over the fate of the refugees and their descendants, now numbering several million, remains a key issue in the Mideast conflict."

What is the truth? Wars always uproot people, that is just a fact! What is not presented are the facts that Israel repeatedly encouraged the Arab population to remain, and not abandon their homes. Many in the Arab population chose to become refugees in the belief that Israel would not survive. Now, they wish to portrey themselves as victims of Israel's heavy handedness. They are victims, in fact, but they are victims of the refusal of the Arab countries that they fled to integrate them into their own societies. Those countries thought it better to preserve an increasingly painful boil with which to beat Israel about the head.

If the Arabs want to know who really is at fault for the refugee problem they only need to look in the mirror when next shaving. In the meantime we can count upon the Huffington Post to continue to publish pro-Arab propaganda.

IMO,

Woolly

No reflection upon you Dutch. I do appreciate your renewd effort to bring us the news from all the 'hot' spots. The Libs just pi__ me off, is all. They are going to lead us all into another civil war if they continue on the path that they are on.

 

[Ragnarok]

Thanks Dutch!

 

[Housecarl]

Interesting analysis on the world in general....HC
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2011/05/6112202

A Darwinian world
Libya points to a new era of aggression and turmoil
BY BOB KILLEBREW

As these words are written, U.S., British and French warplanes are striking Libyan ground forces along the Mediterranean littoral; American and other NATO troops are pounding out “fragile and reversible” gains in Afghanistan; and unrest continues to roil governments in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria. To our south, criminal cartels and violent gangs murder government officials, civilians and one another in Mexico and points south. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whose state policy protects cocaine production and smuggling, invites into his country the Iranian Republican Guard and Hezbollah, while, over the horizon, China continues its naval buildup.

Whatever happened to the “peace dividend” and the long rest the world was supposed to get after the end of the Cold War? Those days are long gone, obviously, in the tectonic forces moving the world forward into a century more unstable than many had predicted.

Three years from now will be the centennial of the 1914 disaster that set the 20th century careering down the road to two world wars and the mass murders of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. We can hope that the 21st century is more peaceful, but it’s not looking good. For all the hope that globalization and the communications revolution would bring people together — and they have — at least part of the result has been to make aggression and murder more practical.

For defense planners, this is truly terra incognita. Competition between nation-states has not stopped, and power balances remain important to prevent miscalculation and war; we still need expensive military hardware such as ships and planes, and the rise of cyberwar has added a new and potentially devastating dimension to war as our society has become more and more dependent on computing.

Yet there is also a sense that the underpinnings of societies are under attack, and that old social realities are giving way to new and vigorous political movements. Here are five assumptions that military planners should take to heart as they plan for the next decades:

1. International boundaries don’t matter as much any more. With one or two exceptions, armed intervention across international boundaries into the internal affairs of other states is now accepted, provided a United Nations or regional justification of some kind can be found. It’s not just the U.S. or Western countries; the regular armed forces (or paramilitary police) of countries from Russia to Saudi Arabia have been moving across previously guaranteed borders for a decade or so without plunging regions into general war. In the electronic realm, of course, computer-generated and supported attacks on data systems have been going on for years. Most recently, outright attacks on state banking and information systems have become almost routine, with origins suspected in Russia, China and — in the case of the attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities — from the U.S. or Israel. The only frontier left to violate is space, and that is probably just a matter of time. The “Westphalian” ideal of noninterference in the internal affairs of states is as dead as a doornail.

2. Raw power still matters in a Darwinian international order. As borders have become less important, power — economic and moral, of course, but above all military — matters more and more. Georgia learned that lesson when the Russians invaded in 2008, and the Mexican government is relearning it as it fights the cartels. While some may believe that “soft” power and Facebook revolutions are the wave of the future, no revolution thus far has succeeded when government forces were committed against it; Libya may be an exception because of NATO support and, at this writing, Syria is an unknown. As the writer Bob Kaplan observed recently, in foreign policy, moral questions ultimately boil down to questions of military power, and with borders less relevant than before, military power is more important, not less, as the world adjusts to a post-Cold War century. The United Nations, the World Court and the various international trade organizations all play a role in reducing the potential for brutality and anarchy in a world where boundaries aren’t as important. But so far, no substitute has been found for a sufficient supply of good soldiers, ships and planes that will be the ultimate grantor of national safety in the years ahead.

3. Lines between peace and war and among crime, terrorism, insurgency and warfare will continue to blur. As the importance of traditional political boundaries fades, the vulnerability of societies to disruption and conflict will grow. Further, high-tech societies will spin off disaffected minorities who will have an exaggerated ability to attack important institutions and vital supply chains. The search for security will continue to intensify, aided by technological advances that will make intrusion into private life more pervasive if less obvious (and societies will be less sensitive about privacy, as is happening now). The result will be continued terrorist challenges to the state and to societies, ever-larger state security organizations and fewer distinctions among criminals, terrorists and large-scale criminal activities amounting to insurgencies. Integrated military and police forces will counter these merged crime and insurgent activities, producing paramilitary security forces that are prepared to fight everything from high-end, state-on-state warfare through drug running, kidnapping, corruption and other asocial activities.

4. Nuclear weapons will continue to be a game-changer. Pakistan is attempting to become the fourth-largest nuclear power in the world. North Korea continues its program to put nuclear weapons aboard intercontinental missiles. The Iranian nuclear program progresses, though slowed somewhat by computer network attack and international sanctions. The lesson the world’s tin-pot dictators will take from Moammar Gadhafi’s overthrow will be to continue their quest for nuclear weapons — built, bought or stolen. Military planners in the future will never be able to overlook the possibility that a nuclear weapon, or a homemade terrorist device, may fall into the wrong hands. The world will likely change a nanosecond after such a device is detonated in the downtown of one of the world’s great cities. Underlying the U.S.’s quest for a stable and peaceful world, and for similar efforts on the part of our allies, is the realization that a nuclear weapon in the wrong hands could drastically change the direction of the 21st century for the worse.

5. It’s the economy, fellows. Increasingly in this interconnected world, the root cause of instability is the large number of unemployed, often well-educated, young people who are frustrated by their inability to make a life for themselves and their families. Many years ago Barbara Ward, in “The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations,” highlighted the growing gap between rich and poor states and pointed out that, in the 1950s, rulers of undeveloped states were trying to jump-start their societies by using communist models. Those attempts failed — because communism doesn’t work — leaving behind frustration and an eventual swing to radicalism to justify the failures of broken economic models.

The winners in the 21st century will be those states that nurture and protect the entrepreneurial abilities of their people — or, put bluntly, that have laws encouraging ownership of property and the building of capital. The “Arab spring” began with the suicide of a frustrated sidewalk vendor in Tunisia. The inability of the Egyptian people to progress economically under Hosni Mubarak’s rule led to the rebellion against his government. There will be further rebellions unless people’s basic need for stability and economic security is addressed.

At this point, U.S. defense and economic policies should begin to merge. It will make no sense to help our allies fight insurgencies, for example, if the root causes of individual economic stability are not addressed by the host country acting in its own self-interest. In the future, helping states shift economies from socialistic, quasi-feudal nonsystems to ones that empower individuals and satisfy ambition will be as important — or more — than weapons and tactics.

The term “Darwinian world” describes a world order in transition from the Westphalian ideal that prevailed, more or less, through the Cold War. The question is what replaces it. It may be that the growing influence of world organizations — the United Nations, the World Court and other bodies — will eventually provide a framework for a new international order. Power, though, will still matter, and the U.S. and other like-minded democracies will be required to protect allies and occasionally impose penalties for overly aggressive or disruptive behavior — as we are seeing in Libya, as this is written. It won’t always be pretty, and it certainly won’t be comfortable to be the one carrying a big stick, but that’s the way the future is shaping up. AFJ

Col. Bob Killebrew is a retired infantryman and a regular AFJ columnist.

 

[artjs]

I also have been wondering about what these new issues will bring about

 

[Housecarl]

Well with the Russians, Germans and French playing "buddy buddy" the historical concerns of these four countries would naturally start to take some physical response....particularly when there are also concerns about the viability of the EU due to fiscal issues as well as NATO itself....HC

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wbj.pl/article-54499-stratfor-a-militarized-visegrad-group.html?typ=ise

STRATFOR: A Militarized Visegrad Group?

13th May 2011

Summary

The defense ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland — decided May 12 to form a battlegroup that would be led by Poland. This represents the first step toward militarization for the V4, which has found new relevance in the wake of Russia’s resurgence in its periphery. The move is sure to displease Russia, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is likely to discuss it with Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic during a visit May 13.

Analysis

Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said May 12 that Poland will head a new battlegroup of the Visegrad Group (V4) — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. The decision was made at the V4 defense ministers’ meeting in Levoca, Slovakia, on May 12. The battlegroup would become operational and be placed on standby in the first half of 2016, Klich said. The ministers also agreed that the V4 militaries should hold regular exercises under the auspices of the NATO Response Force, with the first such exercise to be held in Poland in 2013.

The decision to set up a V4 battlegroup is the first concrete step toward the militarization of the loose regional grouping that has had something of a renaissance in recent years. STRATFOR forecast that the common threat of a Russian resurgence in its post-Soviet periphery would push the V4 members toward greater collaboration in military affairs, but the May 12 meeting is the first indication that such collaboration is occurring.

The V4 initially was set up to help the former communist Central European states with their transitions to democracy and free-market capitalism, with the express goal of gaining membership in the European Union and NATO. Following their successful integration into both — all four had joined both alliances by 2004 — the V4 lost its coherence.

However, with Russia’s resurgence in its post-Soviet sphere of influence, especially its 2008 intervention in Georgia and repeated demonstrations that it would not hesitate to use its energy exports to Central Europe for political purposes, the logic behind the V4 has strengthened. Yet the only clear interaction among the V4 countries at the military and security level was a memorandum signed in September 2010 on air force training cooperation.

For all four countries, a coherent Europe-wide security alliance anchored by a strong U.S. presence is preferable to any regional grouping. But the latest NATO Strategic Concept, created at the end of 2010, shows an alliance lacking in coherence. For the V4, the main problem with NATO is that not all European states share their level of concern regarding Russian intentions on their eastern borders. Breaking off into regionally focused security groups with common security interests therefore makes sense.

The avenue for military cooperation the V4 has chosen is the EU battlegroups concept. Thus far, the concept has not been particularly effective, with the only significant grouping being the Nordic Battlegroup. Nonetheless, the Nordic Battlegroup is significant for a reason. Its development was driven by a regional security concern: Russia’s intentions in the Baltic region. A V4 battlegroup would have a similar logic.

Furthermore, Poland’s assuming a leadership role is a key issue. One of the V4’s problems is that thus far it lacked a clear leader. However, Poland is in a good position to lead the V4; it is set to take the EU presidency in June and has indicated that one of its main priorities during its six-month leadership of the union will be enhancing EU military capabilities. Also, of all the V4 countries, Poland has the closest military relationship with the United States, giving it access to considerable resources in terms of training and multinational coordination.

Russia will not be pleased with this development. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is in fact making an impromptu visit to Bratislava on May 12, ostensibly to attend Russia’s ice hockey world championship quarterfinal game against Canada, but is staying to meet with Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic on May 13. During his visit, Putin could mention Russia’s concern with the militarization of the V4 and could well suggest ways in which Moscow will look to counter the development.

A Militarized Visegrad Group? is reprinted with permission of Stratfor

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/05/israel

Israel
Unrest on the borders

May 15th 2011, 19:49 by D.L. | JERUSALEM


ON SUNDAY Israel got an unexpected and unpalatable taste of its nightmare scenario: masses of Palestinians marching, unarmed, towards the borders of the Jewish state, demanding the redress of their decades-old national grievance.

In three separate episodes during the day—on the Syrian border with the Golan Heights, on the Lebanese border and on the border with the Gaza Strip—those marching were met with live gun fire. At least a dozen Palestinians died. Scores more, most of them young men, were injured.

Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators traded stones and tear gas in East Jerusalem on the third day of street violence following the death of a young Palestinian, apparently shot by a settler or a security guard. Many were injuried and dozens arrested, but no more fatalities were reported.

Meanwhile in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, thousands of people marked "Naqba Day", the anniversary of the Israel's creation in 1948, in a huge gathering organised by the Palestinian Authority.

Naqba Day, falling close to Israel's independence day (which was celebrated last week), has often been a time of particular tension in the occupied territories and inside Israel-proper. This year police inside the country and the army in the West Bank were placed on high alert. Israel is worried that the Arab spring that is sweeping the region, and the Palestinian leadership's plan to seek statehood at the United Nations in September are likely to inflame popular emotion and lead to violence on the West Bank and possibly also in Israel.

The prospect of mass, unarmed "invasions" by refugee Palestinians from across the borders, though much discussed as a doomsday scenario, was apparently not seriously contemplated by the army. As a result, when a couple of thousand Palestinians, bused to the Golan border opposite the town of Majdal Shams, began clambering over the fence, only a small force of soldiers confronted them.

"I ordered the army to exercise maximal restraint," said Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in a brief televised announcement in the evening. "But no-one should be mistaken; we are determined to defend our borders and our sovereignty."

On the Golan border, severak Palestinians were shot dead. But the Israeli officer in command decided not to fire wholesale, and hundreds of people eventually poured through the broken fence and into Majdal Shams. Local residents, Druze citizens of Syria who live prosperously but carefully under Israeli occupation, rounded them up and escorted them firmly back over the border. "We’re not happy about this," Dolan Abu Salah, the town's mayor, told Israeli television.

On the Lebanese border, near the Israeli village of Avivim, Lebanese troops shot into the air in an effort to deter the crowd of Palestinians. When they approached nevertheless, Israeli soldiers fired, killing as many as ten people according to Lebanese reports. The fence was not breached.

On the Gaza border, the army said it had killed one man seen laying an explosive device. At least one other fatality occurred when a crowd of Palestinians marched towards the main checkpoint at Erez Crossing and Israeli troops there opened fire.

Israeli officials claimed to see the hand of Iran or Syria's beleaguered president, Bashar Assad, in the Golan and Lebanon border incidents. They pointed to the relative quiet on the West Bank, despite fears of serious disturbance there.

But behind the brave facade, many in Israel are seriously worried that the powerful phenomenon of masses marching in defiance of armed force may at last be spreading to Palestine after challenging so many regimes in the region.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2011/IDF_Spokesperson_update_riots_15-May-2011.htm

IDF Spokesperson update on riots
15 May 2011

Over the course of the day, several riots broke out in various locations, causing friction between Israeli security forces and the rioters and inciters.

Northern region:

During the midday hours, hundreds of Syrian rioters infiltrated the Israeli-Syrian border into the village Majdal Shams, and in the center of the village violently rioted against IDF forces. In attempt to turn the rioters back to Syria, forces fired selectively towards rioters who were targeting security infrastructure and some were injured as a result.

Additionally, along the Lebanese border, several rioters attempted to breach the border fence and to infiltrate into Israeli territory. IDF forces responded by firing warning shots.

In these incidents, three IDF officers and ten IDF soldiers were injured. IDF forces and Israel Police forces are operating to restore order in these locations.

Central region:

Violent riots broke out in several locations throughout Judea and Samaria. These riots included rock hurling, the throwing of fire bombs and the burning of tires.

South of Ramallah, in Qalandiya, approximately 600 Palestinians rioted violently, throwing rocks and flares at security forces who responded with riot dispersal means.

Furthermore, throughout the day there have been several incidents during which rioters hid behind ambulances for cover while throwing rocks at security forces.

Southern region:

Riots have taken place in several sites in the Gaza Strip, most notably adjacent to the Erez Crossing, where hundreds of Palestinian rioters threw rocks at IDF forces. The rioters arrived at the humanitarian aid crossing and caused damage to its structures. Soldiers fired in a controlled manner towards the legs of the leading rioters, in order to disperse them and prevent them from entering Israeli territory. A number of rioters were injured as a result.

In addition, during the afternoon hours IDF forces identified a suspect planting an explosive device along the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. IDF soldiers fired towards the suspects, identifying a hit.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use....
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=220705

Analysis: IDF worried border protests just beginning
By YAAKOV KATZ
05/16/2011 00:51

Demonstrations and violence in North likely just the promo for what can be expected in September ahead of Palestinian statehood declaration.

On Sunday, it was 1,000 Syrians who marched on the border with Israel. Next week, it could be 10,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who will march toward the Negev, or Palestinian refugees in Jordan who march toward the Jordan Valley.

The successful infiltration on Sunday by a group of just under 100 Syrians into the Druse village of Majdal Shams on the Golan is being viewed by the IDF as just the beginning.

RELATED:
PM on Nakba Day: We're determined to defend our borders
Abbas: Those killed in Nakba Day clashes are martyrs
'Shooting at Syrian protesters may violate int'l law'

As demonstrations like these gain momentum ahead of the planned declaration of statehood by the Palestinians in September, this type of protest could become a common occurrence along Israel’s various borders.

On Sunday, the IDF dealt with four simultaneous fronts – Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. While all expectations were for extreme violence in the West Bank – units that were training on the Golan Heights were transferred as reinforcements to the West Bank last week – it turned out to be the quietest of the four.

The surprise was Syria. While the IDF was aware of the demonstrations that were scheduled for the border area opposite Majdal Shams – known as the “Shouting Hill” since relatives shout to each other across the border – it did not expect it to be any different than in past years.

This was a mistake, since the Northern Command did not take into account the current instability in Syria and embattled President Bashar Assad’s possible interest in turning the spotlight away from his violent crackdown on his own people to Israel.

According to senior IDF officers, Assad’s regime quietly encouraged the demonstrators to infiltrate Israel, possibly with the hope that the IDF would shoot indiscriminately, kill dozens of people and shift the world’s and the Syrian people’s focus from his ruthlessness to Israel.

“Thankfully, this did not happen, thanks to responsible action by commanders on the ground,” one senior IDF officer said.

There is also concern in the IDF that global Jihad groups which operate in Syria will take advantage of the lawlessness on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights – made clear by the demonstrators’ ability to cross into Israel without being stopped by the Syrian military – to attack Israel. Some of these groups are believed to have an arsenal of short-range Katyusha rockets that could be used to fire into Israel.

The protesters who rammed the border appeared to have mostly been Palestinian refugees who live in camps near Damascus. It is difficult to imagine that they could have traveled to the border in such numbers without the regime either approving the demonstration or at the very least turning a blind eye to it.

In the short term, the IDF will need to launch a probe to discover where it went wrong, not just in its assessments but mostly operationally to determine how 100 or so foreign nationals succeeded in breaching a border and entering sovereign Israeli territory. In the long term, the concern within the IDF is that these types of civil disturbances and so-called border protests will become routine.

In Lebanon, for example, they could be used as cover and a way for Hezbollah to reestablish borderline positions, which it has not maintained since the end of the Second Lebanon War almost five years ago. On Sunday afternoon, Hezbollah operatives openly appeared near the border and evacuated some of the protesters wounded by the Lebanese Armed Forces.

If this happens also in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, it will place a massive burden on the IDF, which is already spread thin along Israel’s various fronts.

This could, however, become something of the norm as the September declaration continues to loom on the horizon; the violence along the Syrian border is likely just the promo for what can be expected later this year.

The IDF’s hands, though, will be tied in its options on how to counter such tactics. It will first need to invest more money in crowd dispersion equipment and technology, and invest time in training troops – not used to such missions – on how to use them.

The primary mission will be to ensure that the number of casualties stays minimal. If it doesn’t and the body count starts to rise, it will be easier for Israel’s detractors to make a case that the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East is really about Israel’s conflict with the Arabs and the Palestinians, and that the real problem is not the leadership in the Arab world but the Jewish state’s continued existence.

 

[Housecarl]

From a couple of days ago.....

Posted for fair use....
http://www.businessinsider.com/aircraft-carriers-getting-cranked-out-at-world-war-ii-pace-2011-5

The World Is Cranking Out Aircraft Carriers At WWII Pace
Robert Johnson | May 9, 2011, 9:11 AM | 8,059 | comment 35

At several billion dollars apiece they're expensive, and in response to today's conflicts they're often seen as obsolete, but aircraft carriers are being produced today at numbers not seen since World War II.

The latest generation of carriers in the United States Navy is called the Nimitz Class, after the five-star naval admiral Chester Nimitz, and is powered by a small nuclear reactor allowing it to go 20 years without re-fueling. The ship has a service life of about 50 years, carries a crew of over 5,000, and is incredibly expensive to maintain.

Nuclear powered carriers have long been the domain of the United States Navy, which has 11 in its fleet, but according to a report on Fox, countries around the world are adding carriers to their fleet in unprecedented numbers.

Britain, France and Russia, as well as, Brazil, India and China are all increasing their fleets carrier presence. The French carrier Charles de Gaulle has been elemental in France's recent Libyan campaign:

The whole idea is about being able to project power," said Rear Adm. Philippe Coindreau, commander of the French navy task force that has led the air strikes on Libya since March 22.

An aircraft carrier is perfectly suited to these kinds of conflicts, and this ship demonstrates it every day," he said in an interview aboard the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, which has been launching daily raids against Moammar Gaddafi's forces since the international intervention in the Libyan conflict began.

These new carriers will help countries not looking to become superpowers, project their power within their own regions.

The number of carriers worldwide is impossible to establish as ships of various sizes perform various capabilities similar to a full-size carrier.

The United States continues to set the bar for fully capable carriers, however, and will induct the Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in a new class of supercarriers in 2015.

The cost is expected to reach about $9 billion.

These new carrier contracts go to to established shipbuilders in their home countries. In the U.S. Newport News Shipbuilding Company (NNS), a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman (NOC), produces the ships and Westinghouse the nuclear reactors; in Britain, Babcock’s Appledore shipyard is one of five yards tapped for production of the hulls. The design and build in the UK is overseen by Aircraft Carrier Alliance (AKA).

These contracts then filter down to thousands of subcontractors.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://southasiaanalysis.org/\papers45\paper4485.html

Paper no. 4485

13-May-2011

China's Surface Warships Expansion Plans

by B. Raman

Xia Ping, head of the Personnel Department of the People's Liberation Army (Navy), is reported to have told a military conference at Beijing on May 9, 2011, that the PLA (N) would be recruiting more than 2000 PhDs in the next five years. This statement, coming in the wake of earlier reports of plans to step up the recruitment of technology-savvy cadres and officers to the PLA (N), has given rise to speculation that in addition to inducting an aircraft-carrier, the PLA (N) has embarked on a plan to expand its surface fleet to give it a greater power projection capability. Annexed is a commentary on the subject carried by the Party- controlled “Global Times” on May 11, 2011.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

ANNEXURE

Navy talent drive fuels carrier buzz

Source: Global Times
May 11, 2011
Comments

By Zhu Shanshan

A recent pledge by the navy to find top talents to upgrade its weaponry has led to new speculation that China plans to build its first aircraft carrier, a key move that would pave the way for a blue-water maritime force.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seeking to recruit more than 2,000 PhD degree holders in the next five years, Xia Ping, head of the Navy Personnel Department, said Monday at a military conference.

The military already cultivated more than 1,000 commanders and technical personnel to develop and operate new batches of marine weaponry, including "large surface combat ships," nuclear submarines and new warplanes, between 2005 and 2010, Xia said, without identifying the weapons.

Such plans to build a talent pool for large surface combat ships have served to reinforce widespread assumptions of the launch of an aircraft carrier later in the year, analysts suggested.

Indications of the carrier's development were believed to have begun in 2009 when Navy Commander Admiral Wu Shengli announced a development plan for large surface warships.

In an interview with the Xinhua News Agency that year ahead of the Chinese Navy's 60th founding anniversary, Wu revealed the army's ambition to accelerate its development of advanced weapons, including large surface warships.

But Wu did not specify if the plan included the development of an aircraft carrier, with media reports only citing him as defining large surface combat ships as those with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons.

Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor at the PLA National Defense University, told China Central Television that a large-scale destroyer already in service definitely falls into such a category, and an aircraft carrier with a displacement ranging from 60,000 tons to 100,000 tons based on US standards could also be included.

No further information was available on Tuesday when the Global Times contacted the Navy to ask if the training of talents has anything to do with the potential development of China's first aircraft carrier.

Li Jie, a researcher at the Chinese Naval Research Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday that a large-scale naval surface force mainly refers to heavy-tonnage vessels including cruisers, amphibious assault ships, destroyers and aircraft carriers.

"Dock landing ships are the most common ones in the current navy's fleet," Li said.

"China's future development of an aircraft carrier can't be ruled out," he said.

Liu Yong, from the China Security magazine, told the Global Times that the enhancing of human resources is aimed at paving the way for the future development of an aircraft carrier as part of a systematic project, which requires experienced pilots and commanders.

Chinese military officials have kept a tight lid on information related to the development of an aircraft carrier.

Geng Yansheng, a spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense, told reporters in March while unveiling China's military white paper that no relevant information was available on the subject.

In January 2010, the ministry dismissed rumors China was building a carrier.

But reports alleging that China's first aircraft carrier would take to the ocean for its initial sea trial in July have continued to circulate.

Li said the Chinese military is being cautious in revealing information, and recent announcements of a personnel training plan seemed to be another sign that authorities were releasing information updates at a carefully designed pace.

Liu said it is understandable for China to keep cautious on revealing information on its first aircraft carrier.

"An open and explicit timetable for the development of a carrier would put China in a passive position. There has to be some level of flexibility for a huge project involving an aircraft carrier, especially its construction, which if confirmed, would mainly depend on home-grown technology," Liu said.

Citing an anonymous US naval officer, Tokyo-based magazine The Diplomat said on Monday that China's first carrier could become a major symbol of the second phase of the development of China's navy.

The two-step process would see the "PLA Navy evolve from its current, mostly coast-bound status to a true 'blue-water' force capable of controlling distant waters and influencing events in adjacent lands," the magazine said.

The idea was echoed by Li, who said with the country's growing global clout came an urgent need for the navy to protect Chinese offshore interests with activities such as anti-terrorism drills.

However, Li warned that the Chinese navy is still under-staffed as it accounts for less than 10 percent of the military, totaling over 200,000 personnel, which is far less than the average proportion of one-third of other major forces in the world.

Huang Jingjing and Xinhua contributed to this story

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ashes-in-egypt/2011/05/15/AFaDOL4G_story.html

Scores wounded in latest religious clashes in Egypt
By Ernesto Londono and and Ingy Hassieb, Sunday, May 15, 1:48 PM

CAIRO — A day after dozens were seriously injured in the latest spate of clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians here, thousands of Christians on Sunday defied the request of the community’s leader to lift a sit-in demonstration.

Witnesses said the clashes began late Saturday after snipers opened fire from locations across the Nile River on Christians who have been camped outside the main state television building for nearly a week to demand better protection from the government.

The gunfire and subsequent clashes in a normally-safe downtown Cairo sector underscored the volatility and intensity of long-subdued rifts in Egyptian society that were unleashed by an uprising that ousted the ruling party here in February.

Saturday’s clashes came a week after a Muslim mob set fire to a Coptic Christian church in a low-income Cairo neighborhood, setting off hours-long clashes that left at least 12 dead and emotions raw.

“We are not leaving until we get our rights, even if only one of us survives by the end of this,” said Maher Talaat, 28, a Christian demonstrator standing outside the state television building Sunday. “

Tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians, who make up roughly 10 percent of the country’s population, date back decades. But the turmoil was kept largely under wraps by the police state that ceased to be when President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down.

Mityas Nasr, a prominent Coptic priest who has been at the sit-in for several days, said the violence began when a group of Muslims became angry when Christian guards attempted to search them near the gathering area. He said at least 80 demonstrators were severely wounded.

The leader of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, issued a statement Sunday urging demonstrators to go home, saying the unrest had “exceeded the mere expression of opinion,” and was “harming Egypt’s reputation and your reputation.” Thousands ignored the plea.

“Coptic youth are angry because the government has been slow to heed their request for their rights,” Nasr said. He lamented that Egypt now has “stand-by thugs, mercenaries who wait for signals to attack.”

The nominal source of the recent violence was the case of a Coptic woman who reportedly converted to Islam to be with a man she loved. Coptic leaders who were attempting to prevent her from leaving the church came under attack by Muslims. Such cases of alleged forced conversion have become controversial in Egypt in recent years because the Coptic Church and many Muslim leaders frown upon mixed marriages.

Christian leaders called for the sit-in outside the television building, which is across the river from the upscale Zamalek district, to urge the country’s interim military rulers to do more to keep them safe. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a well-regarded non-governmental organization, issued a report saying security forces could have done more to stop clashes last weekend in the Imbaba district.

“What we are witnessing here are the tensions of transition and uncertainty,” said the group’s executive director, Hossam Bahgat.

Bahgat said tactics employed by Egypt’s military rulers in recent months to quell unrest have been counterproductive. “The recent wave of violence should send a clear signal to the military rulers that a law banning protests and the resort to military trials for civilians are not effective means to maintain law and order,” he said.

Copts blame Salafis, Muslims who practice a dogmatic version of islam, for the recent violence and for forcibly converting Coptic women.

“Many of our girls have been kidnapped,” Talaat, the demonstrator said. “This is just our stand against the army and the Salafi population.”

Hassieb is a special correspondent.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13406821

15 May 2011 Last updated at 17:10 ET
Syria: Seven killed in Talkalakh in security crackdown

Syrians crossing the border from Talkalakh into Lebanon Hundreds have fled the violence in Talkalakh and attempted to cross the border into Lebanon

Syria Crisis

* 'I am always scared'
* Q&A: Syria protests
* Ruling family dynamics
* President's inner circle

At least seven people were killed in Talkalakh, western Syria, on Sunday during a crackdown by security forces, activists have said.

They died after "indiscriminate shelling" from the military, the Local Coordination Committees said.

Earlier, a resident told AFP news agency that three protesters were shot dead as they left a mosque in the town.

Hundreds have fled the border town since Friday as authorities try to crush a revolt against the government.

Across Syria, more than 700 people have died in more than two months of protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, activists say.
'Indiscriminate shelling'

The government says it is pursuing "armed terrorist gangs", which it blames for the deaths of soldiers, security service personnel and police officers.

However, reports from Syria are hard to verify independently as foreign journalists are not allowed into the country.

In Talkalakh on Sunday, activists said two women and five men were killed by the military during "indiscriminate shelling of four districts in the town".

At a nearby border crossing with Lebanon, a woman fleeing the violence was killed and five people injured, after gunfire from the Syrian side, Lebanese border officials told AFP.

The incident reportedly took place at al-Boqayah crossing, near the north Lebanon town of Wadi Khaled.

The Syrian government offered to launch a dialogue with the opposition on Sunday, after reportedly freeing several dissidents who had been held in connection with the unrest.

But the dialogue was rejected by the Local Coordination Committees, who said the government must stop shooting protesters first, Reuters news agency reported.

Elsewhere on Sunday, there were clashes at the borders with Syria, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, with Israeli forces opening fire on groups of protesters.

In one incident, thousands of Palestinian supporters from Syria entered the Golan Heights, Israel says.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576321640560914206.html

* MIDDLE EAST NEWS
* MAY 14, 2011

U.S. Presses Nuclear Case Against Damascus

* Article
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* Comments (12)

By JAY SOLOMON

WASHINGTON—The U.S. and its European allies, seeking to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end his violent crackdown on protesters, are lobbying the United Nations nuclear watchdog to formally accuse Damascus of covertly building a nuclear reactor.

Such a declaration by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, could lead the U.N. Security Council to censure and perhaps penalize Syria in the coming months if it fails to provide information on its alleged nuclear activities, including at a suspected reactor site bombed by Israel in 2007, said U.S. and European officials.
More on Syria

* Syrians Defy Week of Crackdown

"It is our longstanding view that the Syrian facility...was a nuclear reactor configured for plutonium production," said a senior U.S. official involved in the discussions.

The U.S. and European Union have been seeking ways to further isolate Damascus in the wake of a brutal offensive by Mr. Assad's security forces. Both Washington and Brussels have announced unilateral economic sanctions on senior Syrian officials in recent weeks, although not on Mr. Assad himself.

But the Obama administration and its allies have so far been stymied in their attempts to pressure Mr. Assad through the Security Council, according to diplomats involved in the discussions. Russia, in particular, has resisted U.N. action to punish Syria, a decades-long ally of Moscow. The IAEA is viewed as a separate channel through which to put pressure on Damascus, said these officials.

"We're looking to increasingly isolate Assad," said a European official briefed on the talks. "The IAEA is one of the routes."

Syria's ally, Iran, has been hit with four rounds of U.N. economic sanctions since 2006 as a result of Tehran's own standoff with the IAEA.

For more than three years, the IAEA has been seeking access to at least four Syrian sites the U.N. agency suspects of being part of a covert nuclear program. The facility in eastern Syria destroyed in late 2007 by Israeli fighter jets, Dair Alzour, was a nearly operational nuclear reactor built in collaboration with North Korea, U.S. intelligence agencies believe.

Damascus has repeatedly denied the charges. It has refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the suspect sites after an initial mission went to Dair Alzour.

Mr. Amano in recent months has publicly talked about the possibility of utilizing a special power of his office to demand immediate access to Syria. But IAEA officials worry privately that Syria could again refuse to comply, making Mr. Amano's office look weak.

The U.S. and Europe, subsequently, have advised the IAEA to declare in its quarterly report on Syria, due out next month, that its inspectors have concluded that the bombed facility was a reactor. Such a move could lead the IAEA's 35-member board to issue a resolution declaring Damascus in noncompliance with its commitments to the agency. Syria's case could then be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
Unrest in Syria

Despite the rising death toll from weeks of unrest, people across Syria continue to protest the government of President Bashar al-Assad. See events by day.

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Regional Upheaval

Track events day by day in the region.

View Interactive

* More photos and interactive graphics

Thousands of Syrians demonstrated after weekly prayers on Friday keeping up a two-month-old campaign of calls to end the autocratic rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Mr. Amano, in a speech earlier this month, suggested he might go this route. In Paris, he told a conference that "the facility that was ... destroyed by Israel was a nuclear reactor under construction," his most definitive comment to date on the nature of the Syrian facility. Mr. Amano's representative in Vienna, however, subsequently stated that the IAEA hadn't reached a firm conclusion on the Syria case and wouldn't comment on what action the agency might take.

Syria is proving an increasingly complex diplomatic challenge for the Obama administration and its allies as Damascus continues its crackdown on protesters.

Upon taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama sought to engage Mr. Assad in a bid to stabilize the Middle East and promote a broader Arab-Israeli peace process. The U.S. has taken a more cautious response to the Syrian political rebellion than it has to similar uprisings in Egypt and Libya, refusing so far to call for Mr. Assad to step down or to formally question his legitimacy.

Human-rights groups and U.S. lawmakers have pressed the administration to call on Mr. Assad to step down. U.S. officials, in private, fear Mr. Assad's overthrow could lead to widescale sectarian violence similar to the bloodletting that consumed Iraq after Saddam Hussein's fall.

Still, the scale of the violence inside Syria is forcing Washington to take an increasingly hard line. On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "Absent significant change in the Syrian government's current approach, the U.S. and its international partners will take additional steps to make clear our strong opposition to the Syrian government's treatment of its people."

Both U.S. and European officials have said Mr. Assad himself could be a target for future sanction measures. And some European officials have said it is possible their governments could change tack and formally announce that they think Mr. Assad should stand down in the coming weeks. One growing fear in Washington and Brussels is that Mr. Assad might survive, but so weakened that he could even further strengthen his military alliance with Iran.

"We used to think we could break Syria's relationship with Iran through diplomacy," said a European official. "Now we'll need to do so through pressure."

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20110515.aspx

China Expands Into The Wild West
May 15, 2011: On May 6th, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) held another counter-terrorism exercise. This one was in northwest China, where commandos from China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan held drills that showed off specialized skills needed to deal with heavily armed terrorists. What was also demonstrated was the emergence of China as a major Central Asian power.

Although Russia dominated Central Asia for centuries, China, and the booming Chinese economy, is now moving in. Chinese traders and businessmen are all over the place. The traders offer the best prices and the widest variety of goods. The Chinese businessmen offer the most attractive deals, although Kazakhstan turned down a Chinese proposal to rent a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of unused farmland, and allow Chinese farmers in to work it. This sort of thing scares Central Asians, who have a population of less than 65 million, compared to 1,400 million Chinese. But the Chinese are being allowed to build highways and railways that will connect all of Eurasia, as well as oil and gas pipelines carrying energy to China.

This is all good, as long as the Chinese don't try to export a lot of people. This is a real fear, because Russia conquered Central Asia in the 19th century, and held on to it until the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, in part to prevent any large scale Chinese migration. But now China is in the process of replacing Russian influence, and there isn't a lot the people of Central Asia can do about it. Despite that, the Central Asian states believe that the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) may help keep the Chinese under control. The SCO consists of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Iran as associate members, or "observers". Russia, and the Central Asian states, are trying to get India made a member, as a counterbalance to China.

SCO, unofficially, exists to keep the peace between China and Russia over economic activities in Central Asia. At the moment, China is winning the race to develop large oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. China needs the energy, and is willing to pay whatever it takes. Since the Central Asian nations are run by corrupt leaders, often dictators, the Chinese have an easy, if expensive, way to gaining control of natural resources. At the moment, Russia is more concerned with halting, or much reducing, the flow of opium, hashish and heroin from Afghanistan to Russia. These drugs have created millions of addicts and major social problems. Russia has supplied the United States with extensive information on the drug gangs in Afghanistan, and throughout Central Asia, and how the smuggling networks operate. Russia is also trying to get more cooperation from Central Asian governments as well. But in many of these countries, senior officials are on the drug gang payrolls.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/05/16/2011051600554.html

S.Korea, U.S. Plans for N.Korea Collapse Take Shape

Seoul wants the provisional governments of five North Korean provinces and a related committee to join annual South Korea-U.S. joint exercises. They are to take part in a drill to practice stabilizing the North and transferring power to a civilian administration after a hypothetical North Korean invasion has been successfully defeated and the North overrun.

Once power is transferred to a civilian administration, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the provisional governments will take charge of replacing North Korean government agencies.

"The plans for operations to stabilize North Korea in the wake of a full-scale war or a sudden change in the North are taking more concrete shape," a government source said Sunday. "As part of the plans it wants the committee for the five northern Korean provinces and other agencies to join the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise." The next drill takes place this August.

However, the ministry may first let only a handful of senior officials observe the drills, with their entire staff participating from next year. The provisional governments are largely nominal for the time being, and many members concurrently have other jobs and will need time to streamline their organizations.

Such stabilization operations have so far been limited to tabletop exercises, but once the agencies take part in the joint drills the approach will become more practical.

The two countries also staged drills preparing for collapse of the North Korean regime as part of the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle joint exercises in February.

englishnews@chosun.com / May 16, 2011 09:27 KST

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use......
http://www.voanews.com/english/news...Ballistic-Missile-Technology---121856789.html

UN: North Korea, Iran Share Ballistic Missile Technology

VOA News
May 15, 2011

A classified United Nations report says North Korea and Iran have routinely shared ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, and diplomats say China has sought to block release of the report.

The document, seen by Western journalists, says the illicit technology transfers passed through a neighboring third country, which diplomats identify as China, North Korea's closest ally. Beijing has not commented on the report, which also includes accusations the technology was transferred aboard regular air flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air - North Korea’s and Iran's national airlines.

The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against North Korea after two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Iran is also under international sanctions because of its uranium enrichment activities, which the United States and its allies suspect are weapons-related. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The U.N. report, authored by a panel of experts, was submitted Friday to all 15 members of the Security Council. But the document can only be released to the public by unanimous consent of the Council.

The New York Times newspaper said the Chinese expert on the panel refused to sign off on the new report, under pressure from Beijing.

The panel's findings were first reported by Reuters news agency, which quotes the document as saying further evidence of the transfers was seen at a North Korean military parade last October. The report said the warhead for the North's Nodong missile paraded through Pyongyang had a "strong design similarity with the Iranian Shahab-3 triconic warhead."

China has in the past attempted to block reports critical of North Korea, and Russia took similar steps last week to block an expert panel report on Iran. Both Moscow and Beijing have argued that the United Nations should not impinge on the sovereignty of member countries.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....for links in text please see article source....HC

Posted for fair use.....
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/ti...rab-democracy-its-not-happening-any-time-soon

Ted Koppel: Scrap the Notion of Arab 'Democracy,' It's Not Happening Any Time Soon

By Tim Graham | May 15, 2011 | 13:03

Former ABC anchor Ted Koppel raised eyebrows when The Washington Post's Sunday Outlook suggested getting rid of things in a "spring cleaning," and Koppel said "Democracy." (Or "Democracy," in quotation marks, as if that's less shocking.) Koppel began:

"Democracy." Let's dump it; toss it on the scrap heap of history. The concept remains worthy, but the word is rapidly being exhausted of all residual value.

Koppel tossed several buckets of cold water on the "Arab spring." This is par for the course for Koppel, of course, who began mourning the Soviet Union before it dissolved as a wonderful pillar of geopolitical stability, and projecting Eastern Europe as hardly a democratic wonderland. From our newsletter Notable Quotables, an interview on John McLaughlin One on One on June 3, 1990:

"We may well over the next 10 or 15 years come to view the Soviet Union as being the power, the only power, that has the capacity of keeping China out of Europe, the only power that has the capacity of keeping Moslem fundamentalism out of Europe, the only power, in fact, we may find ourselves looking back wistfully five or ten years from now at Eastern Europe and saying 'Boy, I remember when Eastern Europe used to be nice and quiet.' "

If you're from Poland or the Czech Republic or the Baltics, you might want to throw several buckets of cold water on Ted Koppel. Keep those words in mind as he sees through his rather faulty crystal ball only weeds in the Arab spring:

Five years from now, we are more likely to see another Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, or another Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, than to see a functioning representational government in any of the countries now undergoing the "Arab spring."

The instant transfer of political power is intoxicating, but it should not be confused with democracy itself. Neither can a functioning democracy exist without fair elections, and a social compact that accepts representational government and the discipline of abiding by its decisions.

Truth be told, our government's commitment to democracy in other countries is almost whimsically inconsistent: clearly greater in Libya than in Saudi Arabia, less in Bahrain than in Iran. We are constrained from actively promoting democracy in China by our enormous national interests there; but in Congo, where our interests are negligible and the outrages against democracy are constant, we do nothing. The misappropriation of the word is so great as to be silly. Perhaps the late George S. Kaufman had it right when he noted that "One man's Mede is another man's Persian."

Perhaps Obama-haters can take comfort in Koppel's crankiness about the current state of affairs, but it might be more accurate to consider that Koppel has never liked American foreign policy (unless he was Secretary of State). In The Wall Street Journal on April 28, he painted this picture:

Overshadowing all other concerns is the fear that Iran is poised to reap enormous benefits from the so-called Arab Spring. "Even without nukes," one top official told me, "Iran picks up the pieces. With nukes, it takes the house."

Hearing Israeli leaders express grave concerns about Iran and its nuclear potential is nothing new. What is new is a growing worry that America's adversaries will be less inclined to take warnings from Washington seriously. Each week that passes without the overthrow or elimination of Moammar Gadhafi is perceived in Jerusalem as emboldening the leadership of Iran and North Korea."Imagine," one source told me, "how Gadhafi must be kicking himself for giving up the development of Libya's nuclear program."

Koppel concluded with his typical Eeyore-like pessimism:

The outlook from Jerusalem these days is not encouraging. Iranian influence is growing throughout the Persian Gulf and beyond. Egypt's commitment to its peace treaty with Israel is uncertain. Syria could explode into total chaos at any moment. Jordan's stability is in question. Pakistan, a Muslim country with more than a 100 nuclear warheads, is confronting an uncertain future—made all the more unpredictable by the commencement of a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer. Whether any U.S. troops will remain in Iraq after the end of this year remains an open question. America is war-weary and facing a crushing deficit.

The only glimmer of good news for the Israelis may be that, when it comes to reliable allies in the region, Washington's list also keeps getting shorter.

About the Author
Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.