War and Conflict Journal
Iran War Creeping Upon Us
The world is slowly creeping toward the long-awaited and long-feared Iran War. What is this ‘Iran War?” At some point, Iran will be attacked, most likely by Israel, perhaps less likely by the United States or some coalition of Western powers. But the ongoing concerns regarding Iran’s continued nuclear weapons development and the collapse of any reasonable diplomatic scenarios will lead Israel’s leadership with the belief that they have no choice but to strike the Islamic Republic of Iran before they can attack Israel with the nuclear weapons Iran is developing.
Two recent developments in particular shows that Israel is growing increasingly concerned. First, the Israeli cabinet decided to fund a program to provide gas masks to all Israelis. This is an obvious preparation for the possibility of missile attacks on Israel from Iran and/or Iranian allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.
Second, on January 12, 2010, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran. It is widely assumed that Israel is behind this killing in an apparent attempt to delay the Iranian nuclear program.
See also: http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm
Israeli Mossad Hacked Syrian Computer Prior to Airstrike
Mossad Hacked Syrian Official’s Computer Before Bombing Mysterious Nuclear Facility
From Wired
November 3, 2009
Agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service hacked into the computer of a senior Syrian government official a year before Israel bombed a facility in Syria in 2007, according to Der Spiegel.
The intelligence agents planted a Trojan horse on the official’s computer in late 2006 while he was staying at a hotel in the Kensington district of London, the German newspaper reported Monday in an extensive account of the bombing attack.
The official reportedly left his computer in his hotel room when he went out, making it easy for agents to install the malware that siphoned files from the laptop. The files contained construction plans for the Al Kabir complex in eastern Syria — said to be an illicit nuclear facility — as well as letters and hundreds of detailed photos showing the complex at various stages of construction.
At the beginning — probably in 2002, although the material was undated — the construction site looked like a treehouse on stilts, complete with suspicious-looking pipes leading to a pumping station at the Euphrates. Later photos show concrete piers and roofs, which apparently had only one function: to modify the building so that it would look unsuspicious from above. In the end, the whole thing looked as if a shoebox had been placed over something in an attempt to conceal it. But photos from the interior revealed that what was going on at the site was in fact probably work on fissile material.
Early in the morning of September 6, 2007, Israeli fighter jets bombed the complex, located in the desert near the Euphrates river about 80 miles from the Iraq border. The attack, dubbed “Operation Orchard,” seemed to come out of nowhere and was marked by a resounding silence from both Israel and the United States afterward.
Israel claimed the incident never occurred. The United States claimed ignorance, but a State Department official suggested the target was nuclear equipment obtained by “secret suppliers.”
The Syrians were said to have been building the reactor with help from North Korea. The Israeli military’s intelligence unit, known as 8200, was reportedly tipped off to this by the U.S. National Security Agency, which intercepted conversations between Syrian officials at the reactor and North Koreans.
Israel’s concern about the facility really kicked into gear when it discovered that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Syria in 2006, according to der Spiegel. The paper alleges that Ahmadinejad promised the Syrians more than $1 billion to hasten their progress.
In early 2007, Iran’s former deputy Minister of Defense defected to Turkey and told the CIA that Iran was funding a top-secret nuclear facility in Syria in conjunction with North Korea. Days before the Israeli attack on Al Kabir, a ship from North Korea arrived in Syria loaded with uranium materials, according to the Mossad.
Israel’s attack on the facility commenced late in the evening of September 5, when 10 Israeli jets departed from a base in Northern Israel around 11 p.m. and headed west over the Mediterranean. Seven of them turned east to Syria, flying low, and took out a radar station with their missiles. About 20 minutes later they released their bombs on Al Kabir.
Afterward, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly sent a message to Syria through Turkey saying no further hostilities were planned.
Israel, Olmert said, did not want to play up the incident and was still interested in making peace with Damascus. He added that if Assad chose not to draw attention to the Israeli strike, he would do the same.
In this way, a deafening silence about the mysterious event in the desert began. Nevertheless, the story did not end there, because there were many who chose to shed light on the incident — and others who were intent on exacting revenge.
Syrian President Bashar Assad maintains that the facility was a conventional military installation. But Der Spiegel reports that in June 2008, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency analyzed soil at Al Kabir taken after the bombing and found traces of uranium that were “of a type not included in Syria’s declared inventory of nuclear material.” Assad says the Israelis dropped the samples from the air when they bombed the facility in order to frame Syria.
North Korea Launches First Missiles Since July
North Korea launched five short-range missiles into the sea and declared a “no-sail zone” for the week of October 12. The missile launches came as South Korea called for more talks on the Korean Nuclear Issue.
See also:
Iran War Scenarios Grow
The news out of the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit about the hitherto secret Iranian nuclear facility, coupled with Iranian missile tests near the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday raise the fears of a Western Powers/Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran.
See http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm for more information and links.
North Korea Releases South Korean Fishermen
In a possible sign that North Korea is more willing to work with the international community on several pressing issues, Pyongyang released four South Korean fishermen and their boat, which the North seized on July 30, after the fishing boat strayed into Northern waters.
Earlier this month, the Communist North freed two American journalists after a visit from former President Bill Clinton, and later freed a South Korean worker after more than four months of captivity. On Friday the two Koreas agreed to resume reunions of families divided by the Korean War (1950-1953).
See also:
http://warandconflictjournal.com/2009/07/north-korea-captures-south-korean-fishing-boat//
North Korea Captures South Korean Fishing Boat
July 29, 2009- North Korean naval forces seized a South Korean fishing vessel early on the morning of July 29, 2009, after it accidentally strayed into North Korean waters. The South Korean governement asked the Pyongyang regime to release the fishing boat and to return the four crewmen. The captured ship is 29 tons and is called the “800 Yeonan.” The South claims the ship strayed into North Korean waters due to a satellite navigation system error or malfunction.
North Korea Launches Four More Missiles
On July 2, 2009, North Korea launched four more short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan. Fears abound that the North Koreans may launch a ballistic missile toward Hawaii over the July 4th weekend.
North Korean Crisis Could Lead To War
North Korea continues to make threatening announcements and conduct threatening actions since the detonation a nuclear device on May 23. Since conducting that nuclear test, the Communist dictatorship has launched at least six short-range missiles into the sea, and made very belligerent, (even for North Korea!) threats and comments. On May 27, 2009, North Korea threatened to attack South Korea if ships from the North are searched as part a U.S.-led effort to stop vessels suspected of carrying missiles or weapons of mass destruction (WOMDs). North Korea also declared the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953 as invalid. South Korea decided to join the international effort to search North Korean vessels suspected of carrying missiles or WOMDs. South Korea had refrained from doing so in the past, but with the Northern nuclear test on May 23, the situation changed and the South decided to send a message to the North.
Also unusual in the world reaction to this North Korean nuclear test, is the public condemnation of the North by the closest things it has to friends; China and Russia.
Many analysts are saying that this is mere saber-rattling by Kim Jong-Il, just as in the past, and that things will quiet down, especially if the world tries to pay the North off to keep quiet for a while. While that is the most likely scenario, given past history, it should also be noted that absolute dictatorships often make very bad decisions in the case of war and peace. Hitler made several very unwise decisions that led to the destruction of Germany. Saddam Hussein thought Iran would be a soft target in the throes of its violent revolution, only to end up with an eight-year war and hundreds of thousands of dead. And Saddam also thought he could gobble up Kuwait without any fuss. Oh, and he really did not expect George W. Bush to invade in 2003. And those Generals in Argentina who believed the British would never fight for a few cold, remote islands in the South Atlantic. In each case, the dictators in question ended up out of power, and, in the cases of Hitler and Saddam, ended up dead because they miscalculated the results of starting wars.
The point here is, that while the world thinks that the North Korean leaders will not start a fight they cannot win; they may actually think they CAN win. Remember, Obama is a new president, untested in the eyes of much of the world, and the U.S. IS in the middle of two major wars. When the North Koreans attacked and seized the American ship, the USS Pueblo in the late 1960s, the U.S. was in the middle of the Vietnam War. North Korea gambled correctly, and no American military action against North Korea took place as a result. If Kim Jong-Il is looking at history as a guide, he may be looking at how his father embarrassed the Americans, not how Hitler, Saddam, and the Argentine Junta ended up!
For more information on this topic, go to:
http://www.historyguy.com/korean_nuclear_crisis.htm
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