First Shipment of Russian S-400's Arrives in Turkey……………..July 12, 2019
The Turkish defence ministry said on Friday that the first shipment of the Russian S-400 air defence system has reached an air base near the capital, Ankara, making Turkey the first NATO member to acquire an advanced Russian weapon.
Washington has repeatedly urged Turkey to cancel this purchase on pain of sanctions and exclusion from the US F-35 stealth fighter program.
Modern Turkey is prophesied to march with Russia during the End of the Age invasion of Israel!
She must completely shed her allegiance to NATO, which she has been doing since hardliner Erdogan won the Presidency in November, 2002.
Turkey has solidly moved under the "Gog - Magog" prophetic umbrella.
Nasrallah Boasts: Our Rockets can reach all of Israel, then Rules out War…...
July 12, 2019
July 12, 2019
Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted Friday in an interview: “Once we could strike targets south of Haifa. Today, we can say that if Israel had sites south of Eilat, we could hit them too. All of Israel is within range of our missiles,” he said.
He went on to rule out war with Israel in the near future, due to “the strength of deterrence,” but any future war “would place Israel on the edge of extinction,” he said.
How Long Can the US & Iran Sustain Their Cliff-Edge Stand-off?……….
13 July 2019
13 July 2019
US Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday, July 8, that the US is prepared “to protect our interests and protect our personnel and our citizens in the region.”
He went on to say: “Let me be clear: Iran should not confuse American restraint with a lack of American resolve.”:
Pence was speaking to an evangelical Christian group which supports Israel and questions what appears to be the Trump administration’s lack of response to the recent spate of Iranian-orchestrated attacks on Gulf oil targets.
According to Iranian sources, Tehran, far from being confused, is perfectly clear about the message coming from Washington.
Only the regime’s reaction is the reverse of US expectations.
Instead of bringing Iran to the table, it is strengthening the most hard-line elements of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in their conviction that the current US administration is ducking any kind of military action against the Islamic Republic for fear of instantly sparking an all-out war costing hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives and a comparable number of deaths across the Middle East, including Israel.
The US message is therefore interpreted as a mark of weakness.
The constant stream of threats traded between the Americans and Iranians do nothing to shift the conflict out of its impasse.
At this stage, the Iranians too are holding off from further attacks on Gulf oil and American military targets in Iraq, although the level of regional tension remains high.
Iran’s nuclear escalation is being doled out in calculated, reversible stages.
The warning that every 60 days, Tehran will peel another layer off its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, unless the Europeans came up to Tehran’s expectations of compensation for US sanctions - or unless those sanctions were eased – gives the Islamic regime a year to play with.
It leaves Tehran brandishing the option of withdrawing from any of half a dozen commitments in easy stages until its demands are met.
No one in Washington, Tehran, Riyadh and Jerusalem is under any illusions about the durability of this show of mutual restraint.
An unforeseen spark could at any time ignite the powder keg lurking behind it.
And it may already be around the corner.
This week, “intelligence noises” betokened Iranian preparations to settle accounts with the United States and its allies against well-defined targets:
• US forces in Iraq and Syria
• Saudi oil infrastructure
• Attacks on Israel from Syria carried out by elements of Hizballah and its pro-Iranian ally, an Iraqi Shiite militia.
• Reprisal for the capture by British marines of the Grace 1 supertanker at Gibraltar while carrying Iranian oil to Syria. (See a separate article below on the reported IRGC attempt to seize a British tanker.)
Alert to Iranian preparations for attack going forward at the east Syrian border town of Abu Kamal, Binyamin Netanyahu, who is both prime minister and defence minister, issued a timely notice on Tuesday, July 9, after a well-staged tour of the of the F-35 stealth fighter squadron at its Negev base.
After first conferring with Israeli Air Force chiefs, he advised [Tehran] to remember that these aircraft can reach anywhere in the Middle East,including Iran and Syria
Iraq Set to Export Oil via Syria in Hormuz Shutdown. Iran Too?………..
13 July 2019
13 July 2019
The Iraqi government is working on a contingency plan to find alternative routes for its oil exports should the Strait of Hormuz be closed by escalating hostility between the US and Iran.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi [pictured below]revealed this at a news conference on Tuesday, July 9.
He cited neighbouring Syria and Jordan as alternatives. “Right now, most of Iraqi oil exports [of 3.7 to 3.9 million barrels per day go through southern terminals,” he said. “We need to diversify our export routes.They are too few.”
Abdul-Mahdi did not specify when diversification would take place or how it would work.
Iraq and Syria are already connected by a network of oil pipelines running from the northern Kirkuk oilfields to the Syrian Homs refinery and the Mediterranean port of Banyas.
A few days earlier, the Iraqi prime minister revealed that the conglomerate of Shiite militias, the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU or Hashd al-Shaabi), is to be fully integrated in the Iraqi security forces as an “indivisible part subject to the same regulations.”
The PMU is to shut down its headquarters, offices and independent checkpoints.
Those failing to comply with this directive by July 31 will be deemed illegal organisations, said the Iraqi prime minister.
Those wishing to continue as political parties, must disband their militias.
According to reliable military sources, the PMU, which numbers some 150,000 combatants, has openly flouted previous decrees from Baghdad to integrate in Iraq’s armed forces, and has carried functioning as a separate armed entity with Iran’s support and funding.
The new decrees are expected to go the same way as the first lot. So why did Abdul-Mahdi bother?
He appears to have had his reasons.
On the one hand, the Baghdad government will be seen to be complying with the Trump administration’s demand to cut down the pro-Iranian pawn plaguing US civilian and military sites in Iraq for the past three months; on the other, he may have an ulterior motive.
Should it be necessary to reroute Iraqi oil exports through Syria instead of Hormuz, the PMU would be handy for guarding the pipelines running through the southern, western and northern regions of Iraq where the militia group owns a strong military presence.
This plan ties in with another revelation.
A commander of the Iraqi Army’s 8th Division was filmed this week greeting an officer of the Syrian Arab army over a fence at an undisclosed point on their common border.
During their conversation, they spoke of their shared mission of fighting terrorist groups like the Islamic State.
Reliable sources note that this kind of détente between Iraq and Syria may open a pathway for Iran to circumvent US sanctions on its oil exports by routing them through Syria, either directly or by hitchhiking secretly on the flow of Iraqi oil.
Tehran would then have an incentive for allowing the PMU to serve Baghdad and merging into its armed forces in line with PM Abdul-Mahdi’s decree.
US-Led Coalition’s New Armed Escort for Gulf Shipping. Yemeni Houthis Query Iran Ties…..
13 July 2019
13 July 2019
The newly inaugurated armed escort operation for protecting commercial shipping in the Gulf and Red Sea faced its first test early Thursday, July 11, when three IRGC boats tried to capture the British Heritage tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
They withdrew when the ship’s escort, the HMS Montrose frigate, trained its guns on them with verbal warnings.
This incident, as described by Washington and London, is firmly denied by the Iranian Guards as never having taken place.
After analysing the two claims, our military and intelligence sources perceive a US-British attempt to lure the Iranian boats into attacking the British tanker when it ventured into international waters after sheltering for a week on the Saudi coast.
However, upon scenting an ambush, the IRGC boats sped away from the scene in good time.
This incident occurred interestingly just two days after General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, unveiled a Pentagon plan for the ships of coalition partners to conduct patrols in vulnerable waterways, like the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb between Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti and Eritrea. [pictured below from orbiting satellite showing the narrowness of this crucial waterway]
“It will be clear in a couple of weeks which nations are willing to join the effort,” he said to reporters at Fort Myer, Virginia on Tuesday.
The US military’s main role would be to provide “maritime domain awareness” – intelligence and surveillance information – to the ships of the coalition partners for their patrols.
Any escorting of commercial ships would be done by military ships sailing under the flag of the commercial vessels, General Dunford said.
The Dunford plan shares some features with an American operation of 32 years ago, when US Navy vessels escorted Kuwaiti tankers beset by marine mines strewn by the IRGC in the Strait of Hormuz and adjoining waters.
Except that these days, the British and French Navies are co-opted to the US escort operation.
European governments have been so weak in countering Iranian aggressive behaviour that Iran had come to the conclusion that they would not oppose any Iranian military action.
In this one action, Iranian leaders realise that they could not count on E.U. support for direct Iranian military attacks against Israel and/or oil producing countries within the Middle East.
Suddenly, the prospect of Iran attacking Israel by using Palestinian proxy forces -- Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Authority -- grows ever more certain. The prophecy of annihilation of the Palestinians draws every closer,
Another innovation is the deployment of US, British and French naval commando forces at key Gulf ports, trained to rapidly intervene in any attempt by Iranian marines to seize a commercial ship.
The US-European negotiation for this partnership was long and arduousbecause the Americans stood by their demand, over UK and French objections, for “maritime domain awareness” to extend to the US forces deployed on the Syrian-Iraqi border regions, in the event of an Iranian attack.
London and Paris finally agreed to post small UK and French commando units in eastern Syria.
They are to be joined by contingents from the Czech Republic andPoland, the first East European fighting forces to serve in Syria, after the Trump administration persuaded Warsaw and Prague to come aboard.
Washington is pleased with the progress made in forming this [prophetic] international line-up for protecting commercial shipping in the Gulf and Red Sea regions and sanguine about its prospects of success.
This optimism is fuelled additionally by the belief that the US-Iranian Gulf crisis has opened up a real opportunity for ending the Yemen war by drawing the Houthi insurgents away from their affiliation with Tehran.
The leaders of this Yemen group are coming around to believing that they are being dragged by Tehran into its conflict with Washington and a situation that is detrimental to their long-range national aspirations.
American sources are hearing Houthi leaders voicing scepticism about the value to their cause of the missile attacks they stage for Iran on Saudi towns.
If this tendency gains ground and the Houthis figure that their service to Tehran brings them diminishing gains, Iran may find its options for using Yemen to launch attacks on Red Sea shipping and the Bab al-Mandeb Straits seriously curtailed.
Assad Shakes up Security Agencies Propping up His Regime…..
13 July 2019
13 July 2019
Bashar Assad, like his father and predecessor, Syrian president Hafez Assad, relies heavily on security agencies to keep the family and regime safe.
This week’s shake-up by the Syrian ruler of the command level of Air Force Intelligence, State Security and the Criminal and Political Security Services, are explained by his sense that pivotal events are afoot and the need to tighten up his support system.
Such events could run to a potential US-Russian accord on Syria’s future, although nothing of this nature is currently in sight; or the outbreak from Syria of an armed confrontation between Iran and Israel
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hinted at this possibility on Tuesday, July 9, when he toured the F-35 stealth fighter squadron in the Negev and warned that those planes could reach any corner of the region, including Iran and Syria.
Assad has no way of knowing how a confrontation between these two foes may turn out, or whether the two big powers will step in together to stop the fighting – or pull in opposite directions.
He has therefore lined up his defences for either eventuality.
According to Syrian sources, the shake-up includes Major General Ghassan Ismail’s replacement of Jamil Hassan as Air Force Intelligence Director, and Major General Hussam Louqa’s appointment as director of the General Directorate of Intelligence.
Major General Nasser al-Ali takes command of the Political Security Department, while another major general, Nasser Dib, was put in charge of the Criminal Security Branch.
Two key appointments took place inside the presidential palace: Major General Ali Mamlouk [pictured above] was named the president’s deputy for security-related affairs.
He was replaced as director of the National Security Bureau by Major General Dib Zaitoun. Both these officers had been close to Bashar’s father, Hafez Assad.
These appointments to positions of high trust were almost certainly approved by Iran.
Our sources recall that, not too long ago, on February 22, Assad paid a rare visit to Tehran and, after being closeted with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signed a bunch of military and strategic accords dictated by Iranian officials.
Iran’s Middle East commander, Al Qods chief General Qassam Soleimani, was at Khamenei’s side during the interview.
Very little is known about the content of the accords Assad signed with Iran on that occasion and the nature of his obligations.
However, it can be safely assumed that, before embarking on a top-level reshuffle of his security chiefs, the Syrian ruler applied first to Tehran.
Israel Report
Editor; Mike Claydon
Editor; Mike Claydon
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