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7 August 2013 Last updated at 13:46 GMT
Lebanon border: Blast injures four Israeli soldiers

Four Israeli soldiers have been injured in an explosion on the country's border with Lebanon.

They were wounded in "activity near the border" on Tuesday night, an Israeli military spokesman said.

The Lebanese army said the soldiers were inside Lebanon at the time. It called the incident a "new violation of sovereignty".

The Israel-Lebanon border area has been generally quiet since conflict in 2006 with Lebanese Hezbollah militants.

The United Nations drew up an unofficial "Blue Line" border in 2000 after Israel withdrew troops and ended a 22-year presence in southern Lebanon.

cut wire

The Israeli military did not say what had caused the blast or exactly where it occurred.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli infantry patrol "penetrated 400 metres (yards) inside Lebanon in the Labouneh area at 00:24 local time" (21:24 GMT Tuesday).

"An explosion took place and the soldiers were wounded, with blood found at the scene."

The official Lebanese news agency said the soldiers were injured by a landmine.

The French news agency AFP reported that barbed wire marking the border had been cut, and two blasts had occurred in a pine forest several hundred metres into Lebanese territory.

An unnamed Lebanese officer told AFP that "two devices, whose nature we do not know, exploded".

Lebanese officials have opened an investigation in co-ordination with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.

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asif iqbal said:

Can you believe the Israelis and fitted 2 x 32 cell Barak system on the corvette which is lighter than Type 056

And 8 harpoon and 6 torpedoes, too much and a overkill, doesn't leave it room to do anything well

Israel should have built 3 for surface action and 3 larger ones for air defence, 2006 war exposed this when one was hit by a C802, 64 air defence missiles and CIWS none engage the missile, supposedly it was "switched off" right in the middle of a war zone

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asif iqbal said:

Can you believe the Israelis and fitted 2 x 32 cell Barak system on the corvette which is lighter than Type 056

And 8 harpoon and 6 torpedoes, too much and a overkill, doesn't leave it room to do anything well

Israel should have built 3 for surface action and 3 larger ones for air defence, 2006 war exposed this when one was hit by a C802, 64 air defence missiles and CIWS none engage the missile, supposedly it was "switched off" right in the middle of a war zone

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THE ROVING EYE
Bandar Bush, 'liberator' of Syria
By Pepe Escobar

Talk about The Comeback Spy. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush (for Dubya he was like family), spectacularly resurfaced after one year in speculation-drenched limbo (was he or was he not dead, following an assassination attempt in July 2012). And he was back in the limelight no less than in a face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Saudi King Abdullah, to quote Bob Dylan, "is not busy being born, he's busy dying". At least he was able to pick up a pen and recently appoint Bandar as head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate; thus in charge of the joint US-Saudi master plan for Syria.

The four-hour meeting between Bandar Bush and Vlad the Hammer by now has acquired mythic status. Essentially, according to diplomatic leaks, Bandar asked Vlad to drop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and forget about blocking a possible UN Security Council resolution on a no-fly zone (as if Moscow would ever allow a replay of UN resolution 1973 against Libya). In return the House of Saud would buy loads of Russian weapons.

Vlad, predictably, was not impressed. Not even when Bandar brazenly insisted that whatever form a post-Assad situation would take, the Saudis will be "completely" in control. Vlad - and Russian intelligence - already knew it. But then Bandar went over the top, promising that Saudi Arabia would not allow any Gulf Cooperation Council member country - as in Qatar - to invest in Pipelineistan across Syria to sell natural gas to Europe and thus damage Russian - as in Gazprom's - interests.

When Bandar saw he was going nowhere, he reverted to his fallback position; the only way out in Syria is war - and Moscow should forget about the perennially postponed Geneva II peace conference because the "rebels" will be a no show.

Once again, Vlad did not need a reminder that the Saudis - in "cooperation" with Washington - have now taken over the "rebel" galaxy. Qatar has been confined to a (expensive) dustbin, as Vijay Prashad alludes to here. This is part of Washington's plan - if there is one - to isolate the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its shady jihadi ramifications/connections.

Wily Bandar, for his part, is not a fool to believe his own propaganda; he knows Moscow has more complex geostrategic interests other than just keeping Syria as a weapons client. And he might have suspected that Moscow simply does not bother with Gulf competition in Pipelineistan targeting European markets.

It's instructive to remember that in 2009, Damascus did not sign an agreement with Qatar for a pipeline via Syria; but they did sign the memorandum of understanding last year for the US$10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. So the point is for Damascus, the deal with Iran was much better; and if the pipeline is ever built Gazprom may even be part of it, in infrastructure and distribution. What Moscow has concluded is that Gazprom won't lose its energy grip over Europe to the benefit of Qatari natural gas. A case can be made that Gazprom holds more power over the distressed, decaying, virtually insolvent eurozone than the European Central Bank (ECB).

What Vlad does fear is a potential post-Assad utter chaos, to be fully exploited by Salafi-jihadis. It's never enough to remember that from Aleppo to Grozny it's roughly 900 kilometers. The next stop for the Global Jihad in Syria would be the Caucasus. And that's where Bandar Bush and Vlad the Hammer might converge; their mutual strategic interest is to reign in jihadis - although Bandar, in fact, is also weaponizing them.

The new Afghanistan

Moscow won't drop Damascus. Period. At the same time, as Bandar threatened, Geneva II seems more unlikely to happen than the Obama administration ceasing to drone Yemen to death.

As Asia Times Online has extensively reported, the name of the game, in practice, remains Syria as the new Afghanistan, with the House of Saud in control of all aspects of jihad (with Washington "leading from behind"). Deadly historic irony also applies; instead of clashing with the Soviet Union, now the Saudis clash with the Russian federation. Bandar is simultaneously the new Weaponizer-in-Chief, as well as Liberator-in-Chief of Syria. The Comeback Spy is not accounting for future, inevitable, ghastly blowback; what's alarming is that the Obama administration is right behind him.

Bandar Bush's visit to Moscow simply could not have happened without a green light from Washington. So what's the (muddled) master plan? The Obama administration seems to believe in a remixed Sykes-Picot - almost a century after the original. The problem is they are clueless on how to configure the new zones of influence. Meanwhile, they're letting the Saudis do the heavy lifting. The first step was to eliminate Qatar from the picture. It's astonishing how fast the emirate, up to two months ago a prospective mini-superpower, now has been reduced to less than an afterthought.

Yet Bandar by now may have seen the writing on the (bloody) wall; Bashar al-Assad will be in power until the 2014 elections in Syria, and may even win those elections. The Saudis might accept a form of compensation in Lebanon, with their protege, the cosmically incompetent Saad al-Hariri, back in power in a coalition government including the political branch of Hezbollah - not the other one which the European poodles branded "terrorist". This also seems unlikely.

So what is Bandar the Liberator to do? Well, he can always direct his private jet to Dallas and liberate his sorrows in a sea of single malt, provided by the House of Dubya.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He has also written Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at [email protected].

(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Scores are dead as Egypt descends into chaos following a brutal crackdown on massive sit-ins in support of deposed President Mohamed Morsi. Morsi supporters have been rallying since July 3 demanding his reinstatement.

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andyhugfan said:

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I hate to see this powerstruggle turning into a bloodbath where only muslims die from. Do Egyptians really think anyone can turn their country in a prosperous nation within one year? Morsi tried, but they gave him too little time. Egyptians are inpatient people who demand reform in very short terms. They sure are hotheaded. I see similarities in this struggle with the civil war in Algeria in the '90's. I can remember as a child visiting my fatherland that the eastern border of Morocco was heavily guarded. When I asked my father about that, he said their regime is killing people and we wont want barbarians coming in our country. Only later I realized what he meant with that.

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Well there goes my idea of visiting Egypt sometime. Perhaps in 10 years or so...

In the Netherlands we say: 'we have 16 million soccer coaches'. And I say they have 80 million presidents in Egypt

May Allah grant every martyr, protester or security personnel who died today and the previous times, eternal residence in heaven

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Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank
Analysis
AUGUST 9, 2013 | 1052 Print Text Size
Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West BankPalestinian militants in Saair, West Bank, on Feb. 25. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
Summary
There are growing indications that Iran, Syria and their local proxies may be attempting to build up militant capabilities in the West Bank to eventually threaten Israel. Physically transferring weapons into Fatah-controlled West Bank will remain a key challenge, as recent arrests of weapons smugglers in Jordan have shown. Though Iran and Syria face many constraints in trying to spread militancy to the West Bank, their quiet efforts are worth noting, particularly as Hamas and Iran are now finding reasons to repair their relationship after a period of strain.

Analysis
In the past several days, Jordanian authorities have reported two separate incidents in which groups of smugglers traveling from Syria have been caught with weapons and drugs in Jordan. A Jordanian security official speaking anonymously to local media said that five Syrian smugglers were caught the morning of Aug. 6 with anti-tank missiles, surface-to-air missiles and assault rifles in their possession. According to a Stratfor source, the arrests were made near Madaba in central Jordan. The smugglers, carrying Jordanian identity cards, allegedly hid the weapons in two pickup trucks loaded with watermelons, but when the two trucks traveled beyond the main produce market and kept heading south, the Jordanian police became suspicious. Jordan's state-owned Petra news agency said the army had thwarted another attempt to smuggle a large amount of drugs and weapons from Syria into Jordan earlier in the week.

Jordan is the primary supply route for weapons (mostly from Arab Gulf suppliers) meant for rebels in southern Syria. Therefore, weapons traveling the opposite direction -- from Syria into Jordan -- stand out. Jordan is already on high alert for attacks, given its own history with jihadist activity and the proliferation of jihadists in neighboring Syria. Moreover, Jordan's attempt to balance between supporting the rebels and maintaining a relationship with the Syrian Alawite regime could make the country vulnerable to attacks by militants on either side of the conflict. Jordanian authorities have thus tried to reinforce security on the Syrian-Jordanian border and have tightly restricted the movement of Syrian refugees in the north around the Al Zaatari camp, where militants could try to blend in with thousands of refugees.


However, Stratfor's own investigation into the latest weapons shipment traveling through Jordan reveals a different target altogether. Contacts in the area claim that the smugglers caught Aug. 6 were Palestinians from Syria who were affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The suspects allegedly were carrying weapons obtained from Syrian army warehouses in Sweida in southwest Syria. The weapons were to be transported through Jordan, from the Syrian border southward to Al Karak, to circumvent the large security presence around the Jordan River Valley. The final destination of these weapons, according to the contacts, was intended to be Hebron in the Fatah-run West Bank.

The smuggling operations fit with a pattern that Stratfor identified in November 2012, when Palestinian contacts in the region reported that Iran was working with Palestinian groups to try to transport munitions through Iraq and Jordan to the West Bank. To achieve this, Iran would likely work through Syrian intelligence and local Palestinian proxies. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the group the smugglers were allegedly affiliated with, has had a close working relationship with Syrian intelligence, and it is plausible that members would have been commissioned to transport the weapons from Syrian warehouses to the West Bank. Though the secular, left-leaning Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is at ideological odds with Islamist Hamas, those ideological lines can be blurred in such operations, especially when they are undertaken at the behest of the groups' Syrian patrons. Hamas has a limited presence in the West Bank, but it does enjoy support in some of the surrounding villages in the Hebron Hills, where the weapons were likely to be stored.

Iran and Syria's Plans for the West Bank

Both Iran and Syria would like to build up an additional source of militant leverage against Israel. The Iranian regime grew concerned with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region that led Hamas to distance itself from the Iran-Syria axis. When the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, and when Syrian Islamists were making gains in their rebellion against the al Assad regime, Hamas calculated that in this sectarian environment it was better to align with its ideological allies than to risk alienating itself by maintaining a close relationship with the Syrian and Iranian regimes. As sectarian tensions grew over the Syrian battle of Qusair in the spring, reports began emerging that some Hamas fighters had joined Sunni rebels in Syria against the regime. At that point, Iran had to worry about its leverage weakening among Palestinian proxies in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, all while Iran's main ally Hezbollah was heavily preoccupied with trying to hold its ground in Lebanon while fighting Sunni rebels in Syria.

But Iran also sought ways to maintain its leverage among the Palestinians. Even as Hamas tried to publicly distance itself from Tehran, it was Iran's supply of long-range Fajr-5 rockets to Hamas that nearly led to an Israeli invasion of Gaza at the end of 2012 and exposed a still robust relationship between the ideologically opposed allies. With Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood politically sidelined, the Egyptian military bearing down on Hamas in the Sinai Peninsula and cutting off the group's supply lines and Syria's Sunni rebels in a stalemate with the regime, Hamas is likely to find even more reason to remain close to Tehran. Iran, meanwhile, is trying to compensate for the sectarian challenges confronting its allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq by widening its militant proxy network wherever it can. Part of this strategy involves building up a presence in the West Bank to threaten Israel. This strategy also falls in line with Hamas' interest in undermining Fatah, especially as the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority engages in more peace negotiations with Israel that fail to acknowledge Hamas' authority in the Gaza Strip.

Challenges to Iran and Syria's Plans

Physically operating in the West Bank is not easy, though. Fatah is the dominant party in the West Bank and controls local security forces, who frequently arrest Hamas members. The Fatah leadership will continue endeavoring to prevent Hamas from making serious inroads in the West Bank that could end up further threatening Fatah's credibility. Moreover, Jordan's increased security presence on the border with Syria, Israeli-Fatah security collaboration and Israel's heavy security presence around the Jordan River Valley also make any route through Jordan highly susceptible to detection, as the recent arrests in Jordan indicate.

These challenges have not deterred Iran and Syria from trying to use their local networks to build up weapon caches in the West Bank so that eventually Palestinian militant factions can try to ambush Israel Defense Forces patrols. The inclusion of anti-tank weapons and man-portable air-defense systems in these weapons shipments to the West Bank would be particularly alarming to Israel. The threat has not yet materialized, but these efforts bear watching closely.



Read more: Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank | Stratfor
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