DEBKA-Net-Weekly - Israel - Mossad - ASSORTED ARTICLES

DEBKA-Net-Weekly – Israel – Mossad - ASSORTED ARTICLES

Vol. 8, Issue 342, March 28, 2008

Suddenly, Iraq Hits a New Crossroads
PM Maliki Flouts Washington, Rides Alone in Basra

All of a sudden, Monday, March 24, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki plunged the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra into bloody strife. And, just as suddenly, the offensive led against recalcitrant Shiite militias and gangs in Iraq’s second largest city became a turning-point in America’s five-year Iraq campaign.

The prime minister had decided to gamble his seat and his Shiite Dawa party on a lone offensive, without the US army, with the immediate prospect of sparking fraternal Shiite strife. Within 24 hours, the death toll climbed to scores, and the first tongues of flame were licking at Basra’s Shiite neighbors Kut, Samawa and Nasiriyeh and striking sparks in Baghdad’s sprawling Shiite Sadr City.

Unless it can be quickly extinguished or resolved, Iraq is clearly veering into a second sectarian war –- on top of the Sunni versus Sunni conflict waged by Iraqi tribes against al Qaeda.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iraq sources report that the Iraqi prime minister decided to take up the cudgels against his rival coreligionists in Basra after listening to US President Dick Cheney sing the praises of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr during his two-day visit a week ago.

The truce, which the Shiite cleric’s Medhi Army militia extended in February for a second six-month period, contributed to the post-surge decline in violence in Iraq.

One of the points the vice president hammered home in all his meetings - with US diplomats led by Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi commander Gen. David Petraeus and his command, and the Iraqi government and its prime minister - was the importance of bringing Shiite Sadrists back into government and the top echelons of power in Baghdad.

Cheney made it clear that their leader, Moqtada Sadr, four years ago America’s most unyielding foe in Iraq, is now perceived as the only strong Shiite leader capable and willing to come to terms with Sunni Arab politicians, who like Kurdish power brokers find him acceptable.



Maliki takes extreme umbrage against Washington



Sadr is moreover prepared to fight off Iranian expansion in the oil-rich South.

Notwithstanding the radical cleric’s harsh rhetoric against American “occupation forces” and his demand for their withdrawal, Cheney argued that, in the final reckoning, he was pragmatic enough to work with the Americans and the Saudis to contain Iran’s influence and presence. The cleric has been quoted as saying “Iraqi Shiism is preferable to Persian Shiism.”

Most recently, prime minister Maliki bent over backwards to lend the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s epic visit to Baghdad on March 2 the character of a national holiday attended by millions of cheering Iraqi Shiites welcoming him in the streets of Baghdad.

As it turned out, Ahmadinejad’s cavalcade drove through nearly deserted streets. Moqtada Sadr had quietly told the community to stay at home, thus showing the prime minister humiliatingly who really governed the Shiite masses.

As Cheney flew out of Iraq, Maliki’s advisers warned DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Baghdad sources that the Iraqi prime minister did not propose to take any of this lying down.

Monday, he abruptly took his bureau, his senior staff, his advisers and himself to Basra, along with 15,000 loyal troops. There and then, he launched war on rival Shiite militias.

His arrival in the oil town and the belligerent language he aimed at the Mehdi Army – alone of all the lawless groups which rule the roost there - left Sadr little choice but to fight back.

On the second day of the government offensive, he declared a civil disobedience campaign, in the form of a general strike in all the Shiite regions of Iraq.

The next day, as bloody battles spread outside Basra, 30 Sadr-allied lawmakers, the largest bloc in parliament, demanded the prime minister’s resignation and threatened a vote of no confidence in his government over its crackdown against their movement.

The prime minister responded by giving the Basra militias 72 hours to lay down their homes and surrender.

The Sadrists walked out of parliament.



Hizballah plants a joker in the Iraqi pack



The Iraqi prime minister finds himself at war not only with the Medhi Army, but a hodgepodge of Shiite groups all jockeying for control of the Basra region and its oil treasure. They are not always distinguishable from the smugglers and crime rings believed to illegally siphon off at least one-tenth of South Iraq’s oil, which accounts for 70 percent of the national export.

Three major Shiite parties, members of the Shiite umbrella United Iraqi Alliance, which dominates parliament, have a hefty stake in the region.

The Mehdi Army is the most popular, although it has split of late into factions, more than half of which still defer to Moqtada Sadr. They control ports, customs and customs police.

The Fadhila Party, whose leader Mohammed al-Waeli is governor of Basra, dominates the oil companies based in the region, elements of local security forces and port installations.

The Badr Brigade belongs to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, which was founded in Tehran when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq.

Its leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is closest of the three to prime minister Maliki and his Dawa Party.

The joker in the pack is the newest Shiite arrival to Iraq, the Hizballah Brigades of Iraq, which is supplied with orders, fighters, weapons and funds from the headquarters of its Lebanese parent, with the backing of the al Qods Brigades of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Hizballah’s new armed wing, unnoticed in the West, has set up operations in Baghdad, Nasiriyeh and Kut as well as Basra and its oil port.



The government offensive veers out of control



South Lebanon’s stewpot of conflicting forces also contains 20 or so major indigenous tribes which exercise a strong pull on local allegiances. At least one of these tribes runs its own oil smuggling network.

Maliki’s urge to show the Americans who’s the boss of Iraq’s Shiites overlays another strong motive: He cherishes an ambition to link South Iraq’s oil industry to that of South Iran to form the foundation for the two countries’ future strategic interdependence. He has been hindered in this scheme by the chaotic assortment of militias, gangs and tribes enjoying free rein in the region.

Washington would like to see this plan fade away altogether, but can hardly interfere directly while maintaining that it is up to the Iraqis themselves to decide on the disposition of their oil resources.

Equally, the Americans cannot openly object to Maliki exercising central authority in the unruly Basra region.

The Iraqi leader has craftily timed it for a couple of weeks before Ambassador Crocker and Gen. Petraeus deliver their latest report to Congress on the state of the Iraq war.

Maliki believes that his Basra venture, if it ends well, will leave them no choice but to hold it up as proof of their success in raising an Iraqi army capable of acting on its own to quell disorder in Iraq’s second largest city. The Americans can hardly admit it is a setback to their plans.

Like most things in Iraq, the battles raging in and around Basra, far from making this point, have quickly swung out of control. There is no knowing how it will end.

Two oil pipelines have already been damaged, with immediate effect on international oil prices.

Thursday, a bomb exploded underneath the Zubair-1 pipeline that sends crude oil from the Basra Zubair oil field to tanks for Iraq's two exporting terminals on the Gulf: al-Umaiya and Basra.

Tuesday night, a bomb damaged a domestic oil pipeline that links the Noor oil field in the southern Maysan province to the refinery in Basra.

For now, the prime minister does not look like bringing his expedition to a happy end.

Undeterred, he went on Iraqi state TV Thursday night vowing to fight to the end. "There will be no retreat!" he declared.

U.S. President George W. Bush, seeing political advantage in going along with Maliki’s effort, praised him for his "tough battle against militia fighters and criminals," citing it as evidence that Baghdad is taking advantage of security gains by U.S. forces and the “progress Iraqi forces made during the surge.”


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Saudis Prepare For the Worst
After Cheney Finally Buries the NIE’s Exoneration of Iran

In case anyone was left in doubt, US Vice President Richard Cheney charged Iran this week with trying to develop weapons-grade uranium.

He said to an ABC interviewer in Ankara Monday, March 24: "Obviously, they're also heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment, the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade levels.”

Two days earlier, Cheney departed Riyadh for Israel. As soon as he took off, King Abdullah rushed the Saudi Shura Council into urgent session to hear an alarming report, in the form of the King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology’s proposals, which were based on “the probabilities of leaking nuclear and radiation hazards in case of unexpected nuclear attacks in Iran.”

The Shura Council discussed the report without reaching conclusions.

The US vice president undoubtedly shared with the Saudi king and the Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos, whom he also visited, the information he gave to the ABC interviewer.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Gulf sources, he went further and let them know that Washington is not averse to direct action by any Gulf or Middle East force against Iran. The US, he indicated, would support such action by diplomatic and military means.

These rulers were allowed to infer from this statement that the Bush administration no longer views as credible the National Intelligence Estimate released last November, which forced the American military option off the table by concluding that Iran had suspended its covert weapons program in 2003.

Cheney also implied that Washington would not object to someone else exercising this option.



Radioactive fallout – a hot Gulf topic



border=0 v:shapes="_x0000_s1029">Highly credible sources in the Gulf stressed at the same time that on no occasion did Cheney state explicitly that America would attack Iran. The Saudi and Omani rulers may have taken this for granted, but it was never said outright. As for the Shura Council’s urgent need to discuss nuclear radiation, Saudi sources stress that in no way did it imply that Riyadh had solid information and a date for a prospective US attack on Iran.

Nonetheless, Cheney’s veiled comments set up a wave of jitters in the region, coming as the did on the heels of homeland defense and medical drills mounted by Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain to withstand Iranian missile attacks on their capitals and oil fields, or radioactive fallout from foreign strikes at Iranian nuclear sites.

The royal house took the opportunity to show the public that plans to protect the country for any contingency were in hand. The Shura Council session was called straight after the US vice president’s visit to Riyadh to bring anxieties out in the open and demonstrate that preparations had been made to defend the kingdom.

As for the US leaders’ talks in Israel, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that there is no doubt that the Iran issue dominated all conversations. This is apparent from his choice of interlocutors: prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi, Mossad director Meir Dagan and Military Intelligence-AMAN commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin.



More US navy and air power head for Gulf



He wound up his visit by dining with all the heads of Israel’s defense and intelligence establishments at Barak’s private residence. This gave him the chance to wrap up all his business in Israel on such issues as Syria, Hizballah and Hamas, as well as Iran.

Three additional topics stood out in Cheney’s conversations with the Gulf rulers:

1. He encouraged them to conclude long-term accords with India, including nuclear cooperation. Without saying so outright, Cheney typically let his hosts know that Washington would not object to the Gulf nations and New Delhi concluding mutual defense pacts extending India’s nuclear shield to their region.

2. Although less than nine months remain for the current administration, Cheney said the Bush administration would look with favor on requests from Gulf governments for additional military assistance, and make every effort to fill applications before the January 2009 transition of the presidency.

3. The Vice President promised the US Navy’s and Air Force presence in the Persian Gulf would be expanded in the coming weeks. The American Fifth Fleet’s command base in Bahrain would be augmented with additional aircraft carriers and warships.

Five days later, on Thursday, March 27, it was announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln had departed March 13 from Everett, Washington, for a scheduled seven-month deployment to the Persian Gulf to join the USS Harry Truman. The group first made a port visit to San Diego to load its air wings, extra equipment and 1,500 more crew members before embarking on its journey to the Persian Gulf.


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Bush and Mubarak Presidencies Wind Down
Leaving a Black Hole of Terror in Sinai and Gaza

Two significant state visits are on the line: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s White House trip in the second half of April and US President George W. Bush’s visit to Cairo in May. These visits are scheduled to take place in the twilight of both their presidencies, depending on Cairo’s delivery of a security package for lawless Sinai, terror-ridden Gaza and Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

Cairo is bidding for US help and Israeli compliance for lifting its ambitious scheme off the ground and keeping it alive in the coming three weeks. That is a tall order for an extremely tricky package enclosing a delicate set of interlocking informal deals which are still in negotiation.

Given so many uncertainties, Egyptian defense minister Gen. Hussein Tantawi has just spent an unusually long seven days in Washington, about which both hosts and guests kept mum. He was later joined by his colleague, intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report their errand as being to prepare the way for Mubarak to visit the White House in the second half of April as guest of President Bush.

Mubarak will be the first Arab ruler to take leave of the US president in person.

Seen from Cairo, Egyptian president’s American trip will also initiate international events marking his own impending farewell from the presidential palace after 28 years’ occupancy, during which he maintained friendly ties with four US presidents.

He has not fixed a public date for stepping down. Some of his advisers guess it will take place soon after Bush’s successor is sworn in next January. Also kept officially vague is the name of Mubarak’s successor and the way the transition is to be implemented. But it is common knowledge that the baton will be passed to his son, Gemal (Jimmy) Mubarak, whose appointment will be ratified by popular referendum.

The exchanged state visits are meanwhile hedged round with a thicket of thorns.



Purging Sinai of terrorists



Their tight schedules hinge on several pre-conditions, one being that Egypt’s military, security and intelligence services succeed in a few short weeks in cleansing Sinai’s rugged mountains and deserts of the terrorist and paramilitary forces roaming at large there.

They include al Qaeda cells, Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami bands and smuggling rings using the largely uninhabited peninsula as a thoroughfare for the transfer of weapons and other war materiel to Middle Eastern, East African and Persian Gulf destinations.

Some rings are run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards intelligence, some by al Qaeda, others by Muslim crime rings based in Europe.

The Gaza Strip is integral to this problem and part of the package Mubarak hopes to wrap up.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources report that if he can deliver, he will be able to receive Bush, when he is in the Middle East for Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations in May, for a state visit to Egypt. It will have to take place at the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh since both American and Egyptian intelligence warn that Cairo is too dangerous.

After failing in this task in the four years since al Qaeda’s first attack on Sinai’s holiday resorts killed 32 tourists, Mubarak will need a conjuring trick to pull it off now.

This was the main issue tossed back and forth between the Egyptian ministers and US officials led by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in Washington.

The fact that Gen. Tantawi led these talks signaled that failure and the end of the eight-year reign of Gen. Suleiman and his intelligence services as the security bulwark of the Mubarak regime. The reins have passed to the army and its chief, who has long maintained that Suleiman was not up on military matters. Tantawi also argued that the intelligence minister’s handling of Sinai was misconceived and lax, impairing not only Egypt’s strategic grip on Sinai but also its ability to keep the Suez Canal safe.

Monday, March 24, a rare shooting incident on the vital waterway very nearly got out of hand.



Safeguarding Suez shipping



The US Navy's chartered ship Global Patriot was preparing to enter the Suez Canal after dark on its way to the Mediterranean, when it was approached by a small Egyptian motorboat. The Fifth Fleet, which did not mention casualties, said “The ship warned the small boats – via bridge to bridge radio and a series of warning steps – to turn away. One small boat continued to approach and shots were fired.

Cairo reported an Egyptian trader on the motorboat, one of a swarm trying to sell goods to passing ships, was killed and two others wounded.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report that security in and around Suez has deteriorated so sharply that American ships navigating the canal are constantly on guard for attacks by explosive boats piloted by suicide bombers. Aware that al Qaeda cells are scattered through the towns on Suez shores, US craft have standing orders to shoot any small boats coming too close after warning them to move off.

Tantawi brought with him to Washington a new plan for Sinai-Suez security, drawn up by the Egyptian military command.

He proposed marking the peninsula off into 10 squares. In each, an Egyptian military, police and intelligence team would be posted to crack down on local terrorist networks.

Joint US-Egyptian naval and air forces would secure Sinai’s Suez, Red Sea and Mediterranean coastlines. They would cooperate in operations to purge the smuggling racketeers, missile and firearms gunrunners and the bands of terrorists entering and exiting Sinai at will.

The picturesque and apparently serene sea and diving resorts would be fenced in and armed with surveillance sensors for tracking illicit traffic.

Since this plan called for adjustments in the Egyptian-Israeli 1979 peace treaty which stipulated Sinai’s demilitarization, Israel input was called for. The Egyptian ministers reported that Ret. Gen. Amos Gilead, political adviser at the defense ministry, had paid several visits to Cairo with a group of Israeli officers to inspect the plan. They received the impression that the Olmert government, to give Egypt a chance to finish its clean-up of Sinai, was quietly willing to allow a troop build-up beyond the quota stipulated in the peace treaty. It had also consented to suspending Sinai’s demarcation of A, B and C areas - and their various li mitations on the number and movements of Egyptian security personnel - up until the end of 2008.



Dealing with Hamas without recognition



Israel’s condition for these concessions was a deal with Cairo to contain Palestinian missile and terror aggression from the Gaza Strip.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Jerusalem and Washington sources, all the parties concerned concur that Gaza is the spanner in the works, not least because the definition of its status varies from one party to the other.

American circles close to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and a number of Egyptian officers define the situation thus:

With no breakthrough in sight in Israel’s peace talks with the Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the US administration might be advised to review its negative attitude toward the Palestinian fundamentalist terrorists and, working through Egypt, seek an accommodation that would satisfy Israel.

The difficulty here is that indirect US recognition of a terrorist group, a problematic world precedent, would be implicit in this arrangement.

According to the circle around Rice, the Israeli officials involved in the Cairo dialogue are dead set against any sort of recognition - but not averse to a long-term ceasefire and the partial lifting of the blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza, so long as the arrangement is not formalized.

Israeli circles confirmed that prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak regard an unwritten, unacknowledged truce with Hamas preferable to Israel’s reoccupation of the main part of the Gaza Strip to halt Palestinian attacks.

This new Israeli openness accounts for the three weeks of virtual truce between Israel and Hamas and the IDF’s abrupt interruption of its Hot Winter operation in mid-course on March 3.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources stress that if this arrangement was confirmed, it would be the first time the United States or Israel had agreed to participate in a deal under fire with a terrorist group, without requiring the dismantlement of its infrastructure.



Completing three Herculean tasks



Time for these chancy moves is running out fast.

The Hamas imbroglio is further complicated by Egypt’s local elections on April 8.

Once again the regime is contending with the chronic threat by the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian armed wing, to sweep an election.

Mubarak had special committees set up to whittle down the 5,200 Brotherhood candidates to 483, so pre-empting an almost certain landslide. To prevent protesters rioting in the streets, which are already restless over the rising price of bread, the president ordered his security services to impose order with an iron fist.

The usual method to achieve this in Egypt is by mass arrests. Our Cairo sources report that thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members have been thrown into jail including 1,000 disqualified election candidates. Their leader, Muhammad Mahdi Akef has warned that an explosion is imminent.

Cairo believes that one way to placate the Muslim Brotherhood might be to ease restraints on Hamas, which it needs to do anyway in the negotiations for an indirect deal with Israel. Earlier this week, Egypt released the last batch of Hamas gunmen rounded up in Sinai. More concessions to Hamas may be in store. If the Brotherhood refuses to be pacified, Mubarak may postpone the elections.

But for now, he needs to get a deal on Sinai and Gaza, however tenuous, in the bag in time for his White House trip, i.e. within two weeks, to be hailed by the administration as the world leader who cracked three Herculean problems, the Black Hole of Sinai, the Gaza impediment and the status of Hamas.

To be heralded as a hero by the Arab world, the Egyptian president must do more: Hamas must be brought into a security accord leading to the patching up of its quarrel with Abbas’ Fatah and accord on a Palestinian unity government.

Mubarak believes the Israelis may be persuaded to go along with this, as long as its concurrence is not formalized in documents.

But what if one of the elements drops out and the package falls apart, what then?

Mubarak’s Washington visit depends on his not arriving empty-handed, and so does the Bush trip to the Middle East.


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Half an Arab Summit
Plagued by a Semi-Boycott, Damascus Lines Its Borders with Troops

Bashar Assad has inexplicably responded to the partial boycott of the Arab League “summit” taking place in Damascus Friday and Saturday, March 29-30, by lining up army units on Syria’s borders with Iraq, Lebanon and Israel, as well as pushing contingents across the border into Lebanon proper.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that a group of Syrian armored divisions has been posted along the Beirut-Damascus highway at Zabadani, under the command of the president’s younger brother, Maher Assad, commander of the presidential guard.

Last Monday, DEBKAfile’s military sources (see HOT POINTS below) revealed that the bulk of Palestinian terrorist forces under Syrian and Iranian command had been shifted out of the Damascus area and sent into Lebanon too, taking up battle positions in the Beqaa Valley.

Another 10,000 Syrian troops have been positioned at Kurdish centers along the Iraqi border following last week’s riots in Qamishli on the Kurdish New Year, in which several Kurds were killed.

Syrian forward positions on the Israeli border have also been beefed up.

Finally, military patrols have been posted in all of Syria’s main cities kitted out for subduing riots.

This rush of military activity appears to denote the Assad regime’s extreme nervousness as it prepares to host reluctant Arab governments, most of whom prefer to send junior officials rather than top men.

It also demonstrates that three years after being thrown out of Lebanon, Syrian forces are still going strong in the country, in the face of Security Council resolutions, the efforts of the United States and France and the extreme displeasure of Arab rulers, led by Saudi Arabia.

It is the main reason why the Damascus conference will be attended by the smallest number of Arab rulers in Arab League summit history. The Saudi and Jordanian Kings Abdullah as well as well as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak were also deterred by the prospect of Assad hosting with full honors the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As we write these lines, the only top men whose presence in Damascus is assured are Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi and President Abdallah Salah of Yemen.

Even Tehran is only sending its foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Lebanon is boycotting the event to punish Damascus for forcing the country to live without a president for five months.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza will on hand in the Middle East during the conference, mainly to make sure that Mahmoud Abbas at the head of the Palestinian delegation does not stray from Washington’s side on peace talks with Israel.


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Terror – A Paying Concern
Turkey’s Kurdish PKK – Terrorists-cum-Mafia

The fallout from the terror campaign waged by Turkey’s Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) transcends a single country; it directly affects Iraq, Europe, as well as the United States.

After the recent Turkish incursion of northern Iraqi Kurdistan to crush PKK havens was abruptly curtailed by Washington, US Vice President Richard Cheney made a detour to the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Irbil during his visit to Baghdad earlier this month. He went there to warn President Masoud Barzani it was time to put a stop to PKK terror operations against Turkey and deny them sanctuary in Kurdistan.

If the Iraqi Kurds did not take action before the spring thaw in the Kurdish mountains, Cheney could not promise PKK bases would be safe from further Turkish incursions.

The Kurdish leaders understood him to be advising them to undertake the task themselves, rather than leaving it to Turkish troops.

Turkey’s high command has a precise breakdown of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party’s sources of revenue.

Of concern to Europe in particular are disclosures made at a recent lecture by Gen. Ergin Saygun, deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff. He reported that the PKK has a yearly income of 400-500 million euros, which is obtained from drug dealing, human trafficking, money laundering, smuggling and donations, mainly in Europe.

He described the Kurdish group as “a terrorist organization which is also an organized criminal mafia.” It subsists on revenue from illegal sources – according to Saygun, they are arms trafficking, not only for their own fighting men but also for fellow terrorist and criminal organizations.

About terrorist groups in general, the Turkish general had this to say: “They claim they represent ethnic groups or great belief groups. So they carry out their activities in the name of the ideologies of Islam, people’s independence, minority rights, Jihad, democratic rights and freedoms, thereby seeking legitimacy for their activities. We should not fall into this trap.”

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report: While the US has provided real-time intelligence for Turkish attacks on PKK bases in northern Iraq, little attention has been paid to its activities on the European continent, where most of the funding for the Kurdish Workers’ Party’s attacks is raised by fronts and criminal networks.



Funds raised in Europe by 400 affiliates



According to recent NATO figures, the illicit narcotics trade is the most profitable. It ranges from production in Pakistan and distillation in Iraq to street sales in Europe. This recalls the Taliban of Afghanistan and the Hizballah of Lebanon, both of which makes a pretty penny off their countries’ poppy fields

The PKK’s second most profitable activity is human trafficking.

According to Turkish authorities, the Kurdish terrorists use a network of 400 affiliates in Europe – mainly in Germany – to raise funds through legitimate or semi-legitimate commercial activities and donations.

The network includes affiliate or sympathizer organizations, such as the Confederation of Kurdish Associations in Europe (KON-KURD, headquartered in Brussels) and the International Kurdish Businessmen Union (KAR-SAZ, in Rotterdam).

The PKK also has a vast European propaganda and fundraising network that includes two news agencies, four television stations, thirteen radio stations, ten newspapers, nineteen periodicals, and three publishing houses.

Revenues from its criminal activities and fronts pay the group's weapons purchases in Europe. Between 1984 and 2006, Turkey confiscated a total of 40,045 PKK weapons, on most of which identifying marks had been deleted. Nevertheless, some were traced to Italy, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, and Russia.

Moreover, of the 8,015 mines captured by Turkey, 4,857 came from Italy and 2,268 from Russia and the ex-Soviet republics.

Such large quantities of weapons, often stored in military depots, should not have disappeared without alerting the authorities. The British Foreign Office acknowledged in January 2008 that the PKK and its affiliate organizations had been active in Britain and other European countries since 2001. As a result, London announced that "foreign terrorist organizations would not be allowed to exploit the territories of the United Kingdom to fundraise any more."

Most European states have also officially recognized the PKK as a terrorist organization. Accordingly, they are taking some concrete steps against the group. For example, in January 2008, a local Berlin court found a Turkish citizen guilty of leading an underground PKK cell in Bavaria since 1994 and sentenced him to nearly three years in prison.

Clearly, the Americans feel it is high time to deal seriously with the PKK - not just for the sake of Ankara but to curb its criminal activities in Europe and the region.


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HOT POINTS
A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Weeks Ending March 27, 2008


Merkel’s Israel visit highlights defense commitment, but no support for showdown with Iran



16 March: German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives in Israel Sunday, accompanied by seven of her top cabinet ministers. She will launch joint German-Israel cabinet-level consultations to take place in the two capitals in turn once a year and Tuesday, become the first German chancellor to address the Israeli parliament. Her four-day trip honors Israel’s 60th anniversary.

DEBKAfile comments: This initiative marks the Merkel government’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. At the same time, the chancellor, while promising pressure on Tehran, is known to hold fast against an extreme showdown with Iran over its covert military nuclear program. Her statement on the eve of her trip - "The threats to which the Israeli state is exposed are also threats to us"- neatly bridges the two positions.



Israel A Force may buy vertical-takeoff planes to dodge Hizballah-Hamas rockets



17 March. The expanding Palestinian and Lebanese Hizballah’s missile threats to its southern and northern air bases have persuaded Israeli’s Air Force to consider switching its procurement plans from 100 US F-35A stealth jets to the F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) version, designed to serve the US Marine Corps when under fire.

Israel’s southern and northern air bases have come within range of rockets from Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas from the Gaza Strip, respectively, and possibly from the West Bank too. “Air base survivability is no longer hypothetical,” said one retired air force general.



Only 4 percent of Israelis support Olmert’s policy of restraint towards Hamas



18 March. The “Peace Index” survey conducted in February 2008 also found that no more than 30 percent of Israelis believed the government headed by Ehud Olmert could be trusted to uphold national security. The survey was conducted by Prof. Ephraim Yaari and Tamar Herman of Tel Aviv University’s Peace Research Institute. They also reported that 71 percent of those canvassed were opposed to Israel accepting an informal truce with Hamas and 53 percent said Palestinian rockets was not a factor in their decision to live in Israel.



New poll shows rising Palestinian support for violence – report



19 March. Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki told the New York Times in Ramallah that 84 percent of the Palestinians polled supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in which 8 young students were killed,.

He reported 64 percent supported the Hamas’ missile offensive against Israeli towns and 75 percent though the negotiations between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas were without benefit and should be terminated.

Shikaki said he was shocked by the survey taken last week because it showed greater Palestinian support for violence than any other he had conducted in the past 15 years.



US Military Option on Iran Is Back on the Table



19 March: The talks US Vice President Dick Cheney is holding in Oman, Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem focus on two aspects of the Iranian nuclear threat:

1. The Bush administration’s decision to distance itself from the National Intelligence Estimate released last December. Its conclusion that Iran’s nuclear arms program was shelved in 2003 and so rendered America’s military option superfluous is now deemed a mistake.

2. The administration now buys British, German, French and Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran is indeed pressing forward with programs for building nuclear weapons, warheads and ballistic missiles for their delivery.

The vice president will listen closely to his hosts’ ideas about joint efforts for containing Iran’s aggressive expansionist thrusts across the Persian Gulf and Middle East and halting its progress towards nuclear armaments.

The vice president’s choice of capitals for his tour is a pointer to the fact that the military option, off since December, may be on again.

Oman hosts the big American air bases, which are the core of the defense system for the Strait of Hormuz and the US Navy, Marine and Air Force units deployed in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia is the senior Gulf and Arabian trendsetter and the key to pan-Arab endorsement for a US offensive against Tehran. Riyadh has opposed military action until now.

Israel is the only regional nation willing to actively participate in an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, and its military has been putting together plans for going it alone.

Turkey is a pivotal element in any war plan because American warplanes and missiles heading for Iran will have to transit its airspace and take off from air bases on its soil.



Hizballah more than trebles its rocket arsenal to 40,000



22 March: Hizballah’s heavy armament will figure large in the talks US Vice President Dick Cheney is holding with Israeli leaders on the Iranian nuclear threat

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Hizballah has built up its rocket arsenal to three and-a-half times its pre-2006 Lebanon War stocks. Some of the 40,000 rockets – most of Syrian manufacture in recent months - can hit Israel targets as far south as Beersheba.

Not only is Tel Aviv within range, but Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza can between them cover most of Israel except for its southernmost tip at Eilat.

Syria has also been sending Hizballah quantities of anti-air weapons, including shoulder-borne rockets and scores of Russian-made anti-aircraft ZSU-100 automatic 14.4 mm caliber cannon, which are most effective against low-flying aircraft, helicopters and drones.

On his arrival, Cheney pledged that his government would not pressure Israel to take steps that threatened its security. "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is Israel's right to protect itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction."



Cheney discusses Iran’s nuclear threat and expansion drive with Israeli officials



23 March: The visiting US Vice President joined thousands of pilgrims from around the world at an Easter service in Jerusalem Sunday, March 23.

Israel’s opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu reported that the fate of Jerusalem came up in their discussion of the Iranian threat and Tehran’s pursuit of forward bases in the region, from Gaza to Lebanon, including Jerusalem. Any part of the city evacuated by Israel would be overrun by Hamas, Iran and its affiliates, Netanyahu warned. They would pose a menace to peace, Israeli’s security and the freedom of worship for millions of non-Islam believers who now flock to the city’s holy sites.

On his arrival Saturday night for two days of talks, Cheney said the US wants a new beginning for the Palestinians, but will never pressure Israel to take steps that would jeopardize its security.

The Vice President’s most important discussion - centering on Iran and its heavy rearmament of Hizballah (40,000 extended-range surface rockets and Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons) - takes place with defense minister Ehud Barak. Cheney has also asked to meet the Mossad director and the chief of staff.



US and Saudi Arabia agree to bring oil prices down to $85-90



24 March: DEBKAfile’s Gulf sources disclose that US Vice President Dick Cheney persuaded Saudi leaders to raise production in order to curb rocketing world oil prices, during their talks in Riyadh on Saturday, March 22.

King Abdullah thereupon convened the Supreme Council for Petroleum and Mineral Affairs Sunday, to underline the kingdom’s commitment to stabilizing the international oil market “by ensuring adequate supply.”

While the extent of this downward trend is hard to predict, oil producers are looking favorably at prices of $85-90 in the short term, which are realistic given the protracted US dollar slump.



Barak: Israel’s army and intelligence poised for instant response to Hizballah attack



24 March: DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak placed the armed forces on guard in view of indications that Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah may seriously intend making good on his threat of “open war” against Israel, whom he accuses of the Feb. 12 killing of Imad Mughniyeh.

The Israeli Air Force, according to our sources, has prepared two command and control airplanes capable of reacting to terrorist attacks in places far from Israel. Magen David Adom nationwide has doubled its usual complement of ambulances and crews on standby.

Barak was reacting to fast-moving events across the northern border.

1. Syria has pushed Palestinian terrorist groups under its shared control with Iran – an estimated 3,000-strong – into the Lebanese Beqaa Valley. They have taken up battle positions and delivery of large quantities of the latest weapons and ammunition.

2. Syria has speeded up arms shipments to Hizballah – notably anti-aircraft weapons.

3. Syrian armored divisions are massed along its Lebanese border.

Israel’s military chiefs read these moves as meaning that Hizballah and Syria are preparing to attack Israel and absorb reprisals. They are taking into account large-scale, multiple-casualty attack on an overseas Israeli or Jewish target coordinated with strikes inside Israel.



Cheney: Hamas, with Syrian-Iranian support wants to torpedo peace



24 March: Before heading for Turkey, Monday, March 24, US Vice President Dick Cheney met Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem a second time. Sunday night, defense minister Ehud Barak told the Vice President that Iran’s military buildup endangers the stability of the region and the entire world and that no option should be taken off the table regarding its nuclear program.

In Ramallah, Palestinian leaders asked Cheney to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion. He responded that terror and rockets against Israel not only killed innocent people but also Palestinian hopes for a state.



Top Hamas missile expert in group released by Egypt



25 March: DEBKAfile’s military sources report Hamas terror heavyweights were in the last batch Egypt released of 124 operatives captured in Sinai after Hamas smashed through the border wall earlier this year. Among them were Nafez Abu Najj, Hamas’ director of missile production, Saber Darimali, commander of its leaders’ guard unit, and at least two deputy heads of Hamas intelligence. Their return to Gaza was a concession made by Cairo to the Palestinian jihadists amid truce negotiations in which Israel is an indirect partner, despite its denials.

Officers of Israel’s southern command voiced dismay at the government’s failure to intercede and prevent the return to the fray of the hard core of Hamas’ command echelon. The 124 Hamas operatives were picked up on their way back from big purchasing expeditions for missile and arms for smuggling into the Gaza Strip along with Hamas fighters back from training in Iran and Syria.



Mixed signals from Jerusalem ahead of Rice visit



26 March: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel over the weekend before the Arab Summit opens in Damascus. She will make sure of Israeli concessions to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to make it worth his while to stick to the US-promoted peace track.

Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak has announced permission to deploy in Jenin, a West Bank terror stronghold, 600 Palestinian security men trained in Jordan under a US program. He will also authorize the delivery of 20 APCs from Russia for Abbas’ security forces and may also remove a couple of temporary roadblocks. Easing travel restrictions for Palestinian businessmen, he described as “a calculated risk” to improve the cl imate of talks with Palestinians. But he stressed that Israel will retain overall responsibility for West Bank security.