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Found 1294 articles

Saudis reject Obama's plan for ties with Israel: Top urgency is Iran threat

September 26, 2009, 2:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

Saudi FM Saud al Faisal in Washington

Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal's rejection of the Obama administration's Middle East approach was a lot more comprehensive than a blunt refusal to improve relations with Israel to help restart peace talks. DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that in closed-door talks with US leaders, including secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the Saudi prince urged the US to get off their backs on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and deal more seriously and effectively with top-urgency action for stopping Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. Our Gulf sources note that the Saudi foreign minister thus reaffirmed in public the rejection of President Barack Obama's Middle East policies which he encountered when he met King Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3, namely, Israel must surrender on all core issues with the Palestinians before peace negotiations even begin.
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Assad slams the door on Obama and on talks with Israel

September 26, 2009, 2:44 PM (GMT+02:00)

US diplomat Fred Hoff spent year cultivating Syrian connections

Syrian president Bashar Assad like the leopard has not changed his spots. After Washington opened the door wide to reconciliation, lavishing goodwill gestures and a procession of emissaries over several months, Assad has abruptly slammed it shut. Wednesday, Aug. 12, he announced he was off to Tehran next week to congratulate his good friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his reelection as president and further cement their ties. He left behind him a trail of dashed hopes in Washington. The Obama administration had made a serious bid to detach Assad from his strategic bonds with Iran and make him the keystone for the president's comprehensive Middle East program.
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Israeli state comptroller's report will not affect Jonathan Pollard's fate

September 26, 2009, 2:44 PM (GMT+02:00)

Jonathan Pollard

The main conclusions of state comptroller Michah Lindenstrauss's report, published Thursday, Sept. 3, do not address intelligence and political realities and will therefore not affect the US decision never to release Jonathan Pollard from the life sentence without parole given him in 1985 for spying for Israel, or ease his exceptionally harsh conditions of imprisonment. The controller was asked to survey the manner in which successive Israel governments sought to secure Pollard's release during his 24 years of incarceration. DEBKAfile's Washington and intelligence sources find the former judge turned state comptroller lacked the broad experience necessary for examining one of the most sensitive intelligence issues of our time, which touch on the clandestine war conducted between the United States, China and Israel during a critical period of Cold War history.
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Israel and Sweden: An unnecessary diplomatic crisis

September 19, 2009, 2:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

Swedish foreign minsiter Carl Bildt

The blood libels beloved of anti-Semites through the ages echoed clearly from the unsupported op-ed article freelance reporter Donald Bostrom ran in the Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper last week. All the same, DEBKAfile's political sources say the diplomatic crisis which has since blown up between Israel and Sweden would have faded quickly had a lot less noise issued from Jerusalem and Stockholm acted with less arrogance. As it is, the European and some US media seized on the tiff and trotted freelancer Bostrom out to repeat the offending charge. Bostrom's article drew on one Palestinian family's claim in the 1990s that they suspected the Israeli military of stealing the organs of their son whose body was returned five days later after he was killed by Israeli forces. Their suspicion was based on a cut in his midsection. Another 20 Palestinian families then stepped up with the same charge. When asked, the Israeli military spokesman explained that in the 1990s, autopsies were routine for Palestinians killed in clashes to ascertain that Israeli troops had acted in accordance with their orders and rules of engagement.
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Obama thaw on Israeli settlement construction follows Iran setback, Saudi brush-off

September 3, 2009, 8:09 PM (GMT+02:00)

An Israeli West Bank community

The Obama administration signalled a new mood of compromise on settlement construction just ahead of the key talks in New York between Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak and prime minister's adviser Yitzhak Molcho and US envoy George Mitchell Tuesday, June 30. DEBKAfile's political analysts attribute this change to four new developments: The first two are: 1. The prospect of direct US-Iranian dialogue on the nuclear issue has vanished into the blue yonder as relations go from bad to worse in the aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election. A tough US stance against Israel as a bargaining chip with Iran is no longer relevant. 2. Saudi Arabia has made it clear that even if the Netanyahu government surrenders to the US demand for a total halt in settlement activity, Arab concessions will not be forthcoming. The Obama administration had factored Arab reciprocity into its campaign to halt Israel's settlement activity. When it was denied, the White House saw no point in continuing to lean on Israel.
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President Obama favored losing candidate in Iran's election

August 24, 2009, 5:03 PM (GMT+02:00)

Backers of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi

Friday night, June 12, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was already on his way to victory in Iran's turbulent presidential election although only the first votes had been counted. By Saturday morning, it was clear he had won a landslide for a second term, widening the gap with his closest rival opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. According to final results, the incumbent won 62.6 percent of the vote, Mousavi 33.75 percent. This contradicted Western predictions that the record-breaking turnout of 85 percent of Iran's 46 million eligible voters favored the challenger. Yet strangely enough, even then, Washington and the US media were still doggedly insisting that that the reformist Mousavi could still make it in a run-off, although that door had been finally slammed shut by the president's broad majority.
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First round in Internet war goes to Iranian intelligence

August 24, 2009, 5:02 PM (GMT+02:00)

Millions of sympathizers around the world looked forward to seeing Iran's protest movement using the Internet for the first online coup in history. Instead, the Iranian Islamic regime turned the tables: Its Internet police, arguably the largest in the world, pushed "control," "halt," "delete" and "send" buttons to activate a deadly weapon for suppressing the movement, as soon as it took to the streets to protest the June 12 election which was believed to have given Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a false victory. By Sunday, June 28, when the Guardian Council was to hand down its final verdict on their complaints, the street rallies had petered out. Part of the reason, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report, was their organizers' heavy reliance on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social sites to orchestrate their protest movement. They did not at first appreciate that Iranian intelligence Internet experts, operating from secret headquarters established months ago, were using their communications to shoot them down.
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Terrorism not ruled out in Air France crash mystery

August 24, 2009, 5:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

Divers pull Air France tail fin out of Atlantic Ocean

A week after Air France A330's unexplained fatal dive into the Atlantic June 1, DEBKAfile reports from Paris that US, French and Brazilian investigators have begun going through the list of more than 200 passengers on the flight from Rio to Paris with a tooth comb. They are looking at the victims' countries of origin, family, social and denominational associations for possible clues to the mysterious disaster. As long as the fog surrounding the tragedy remains impenetrable, a man-made disaster cannot be ruled out. Both the French defense minister and Pentagon have said there were no signs that terrorism was involved in the crash. This was short of an outright denial. But some terror experts are not excluding a terrorist attack.
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Al Qaeda again switches tactics for Lahore bombing

August 14, 2009, 12:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

Although Pakistan's Taliban took responsibility, the latest bombing attack in Pakistan's third city, Lahore, Wednesday, May 27, in which 27 people lost their lives and 294 people were badly hurt, was executed on its behalf by al Qaeda's new strike units. These units, made up mainly of fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have been reinforced lately by an influx of Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians and Libyans, who fought the Americans in Iraq. Their methods have changed four times in the last six months, adapted to their individual missions. DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts note that they are evidently being run by a proactive command, capable of great tactical flexibility. Al Qaeda is no longer satisfied with simple massacres. The last six months show that each operation is designed to make a separate point.
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