From BBC News

 

Last Updated: Wednesday, 12 September 2007, 20:38 GMT 21:38 UK

 

Israel's Syria 'raid' remains a mystery

By Jonathan Marcus

BBC diplomatic correspondent

 

During the early hours of last Thursday morning, a number of Israeli jets appear to have entered Syrian air-space from the Mediterranean Sea, possibly penetrating deep into the country.

 

Later unidentified drop tanks, which may have contained fuel for the planes, were found on Turkish soil near the Syrian border, indicating perhaps the Israeli jets' exit route.

 

The Syrian authorities are livid. They say that the aircraft were driven off but that they fired their weaponry into a deserted area.

 

The implication is that the planes effectively dumped their munitions so better to manoeuvre during their escape.

 

The Syrian government has briefed Western diplomats and complained to the United Nations.

 

But there have been no images of the empty countryside where the weapons are alleged to have landed.

 

Israeli sources are saying nothing.

 

Long-standing contacts are uncharacteristically silent, noting only that Israel's military censorship on this subject is as tight as they can ever remember.

 

Mood of satisfaction

 

From Washington has come some partial illumination of the shadows.

 

US officials indicate that at least one target in northern Syria was hit and despite the Israeli silence there does seem to be a perceptible mood of satisfaction in Israel; a sense that what they wanted to achieve was carried out.

 

So what actually went on during the early hours of Thursday morning? Why were Israeli jets over Syria at all?

 

And if they indeed released weapons, what were they firing at?

 

Initially experts suggested that this might simply have been an over-flight to trigger air defence radars and gather electronic intelligence.

 

Such a probe might be linked to new air defence missiles reportedly supplied to Syria by the Russians.

 

Other pundits wondered if a potential strike path to Iran was being tested out; though a southern route here into US-controlled Iraqi air-space would be more logical.

 

And neither option would explain why such aircraft might be armed with air to ground weapons.

 

North Korea link

 

As far as likely targets of any attack go there are two broad suggestions.

 

One, cited by the New York Times newspaper quoting a US source, suggests that the attack was in some way linked to North Korea.

 

The former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, raised the possibility that Syria is sheltering technology or materials relating to North Korea's nuclear programme.

 

When I spoke to Mr Bolton in London just the other day he strongly defended this thesis though he would not be drawn on the reliability of his sources.

 

Another suggestion is that maybe a missile store or factory with weaponry heading to Hezbollah in Lebanon was hit.

 

Israel has long complained that the Damascus government is at the very least turning a blind eye to such weapons supplies coming from Iran.

 

Maybe Israel decided to send the Syrian government a message that it would understand.

 

Muted response

 

What is intriguing is that the response of both the Syrian and Israeli governments has been muted - in the Israeli case largely mute.

 

The Syrians, while angry, are clearly embarrassed that something may have occurred that they failed to prevent.

 

Israel and Syria remain technically at war

 

Israel's deterrent capacity, weakened by the summer 2006 war in Lebanon, is partially restored.

 

But an explanation too is needed for Israel's silence.

 

Maybe it does not want to over-play its hand.

 

This apparent raid comes after a summer of tensions between the two countries which some feared might lead to open warfare.

 

During the past few weeks tensions have markedly declined.

 

Indeed prior to the bombing mission, if that is what it was, Israel reportedly sent messages to Syria via an intermediary, indicating that it was scaling down its forces on the Golan Heights.

 

Was this an effort to ensure that this "raid" was not interpreted by the Syrians as a prelude to a large-scale Israeli attack?

 

There are still more questions than answers in this affair. More information is slowly seeping out.

 

But in many ways it is remarkable that in an age of instant news and the worldwide web spreading information almost at the speed of light, there can still be episodes like this that remain shrouded in so many layers of mystery.

From Defence Talk

 

Israel keeps up blackout on mystery Syria air strike

Agence France-Presse | Sep 13, 2007

 

JERUSALEM (AFP): Israel on Wednesday maintained an official blackout on an apparent strike by its warplanes on Syria, amid reports that the mysterious attack targeted weapons financed by arch-foe Iran.

 

No official Israeli comment was issued on allegations that its military carried out an attack deep inside Syria last Thursday, despite confirmation of a strike by a defence official of Israel's main ally the United States.

 

Citing anonymous Israeli sources, an Arab Israeli newspaper, the Assennara, said on Wednesday that the jets "bombed in northern Syria a Syrian-Iranian missile base financed by Iran.... It appears that the base was completely destroyed."

 

The previous day CNN reported that the strike, which could also have involved the use of ground forces, was believed to have targeted weapons either coming into Syria or moving through Syria from Iran to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, Lebanon's Shiite militia that Israel fought in a war last year.

 

The New York Times also reported on Wednesday that Israel thinks Syria and Iran are buying nuclear material from North Korea and had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria, taking pictures of possible nuclear installations.

 

A US administration official said Israeli officials believe that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria, the newspaper said.

 

"The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left," the unidentified official was quoted as saying.

 

Syria on Tuesday lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations over the "flagrant violation" of its airspace in the early hours of September 6, when it said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes flying over the northeast of the country.

 

Earlier a US defence official said that Israel had carried out an air strike as a warning to Damascus.

 

"It wasn't big. It was a quick strike. They were engaged by the Syrians, they dropped their ordnance and scooted out of there," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

He said he did not know the target of the strike, but said the US military believed it was aimed at sending a message to the Syrians over their support for Hezbollah.

 

"The Israelis are trying to tell the Syrians: 'Don't support a resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebanon'."

 

Israeli officials have refused to comment on the report, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "specifically instructed ministers not to talk about the incident related to Syria at all," a senior Israeli government official told AFP earlier this week.

 

This silence -- uncharacteristic in a nation notorious for media leaks -- continued on Wednesday, with even visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying he was also being kept in the dark.

 

"I asked my hosts and they did not inform me," Kouchner told reporters in Jerusalem when asked about the reported strike, as he wrapped up his first visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

 

"If indeed... they have bombed a weapons convoy which was headed to Lebanon, we understand why they would do it," he said. "Everybody in Lebanon knows that large quantities of weapons arrive from the Syrian border."

 

Olmert bypassed his traditional interviews with Israeli newspapers ahead of the Jewish New Year that starts at sundown on Wednesday, leaving President Shimon Peres to mention Syria in only general terms.

 

"The central problem with Syria is Lebanon -- the question is to know whether Lebanon will be Lebanese or Iranian," Peres told public television. "The Syrians support Hezbollah and provide them with arms. As long as they continue on this route there will be tension in the air."

 

And Sylvan Shalom, a former foreign minister, told army radio: "Syria should draw the lessons from what happened and change its attitude to avoid being completely in the hands of Iran."

From Defence Talk

 

Speculation heats up over what Israel hit in Syria

Agence France-Presse | Sep 17, 2007

 

WASHINGTON (AFP): Speculation over the target of an Israeli air strike in Syria has deepened with weekend press reports highlighting a possible North Korean nuclear connection, or a "dry run" for an attack on Iran.

 

New accounts in US and British newspapers of the September 6 raid went much further than initial claims by US Pentagon officials, that the attack was a warning to Syria against rearming the extremist Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

 

The Washington Post quoted an unidentified US expert on the Middle East as saying the target was a northern Syrian facility officially described as an agricultural research center on the Euphrates River, near the Turkish border.

 

After interviewing Israeli participants in the mysterious raid, the expert "reported that the attack appears to have been linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement."

 

"The expert said it is not clear what the ship was carrying, but the emerging consensus in Israel was that it delivered nuclear equipment," the Post said Saturday.

 

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates refused to comment on the raid.

 

Neither would he confirm the veracity of leaked intelligence reports suggesting that North Korea may be helping Syria build a nuclear weapons facility.

 

"But all I will say is we are watching the North Koreans very carefully. We watch the Syrians very carefully," he said.

 

If North Korea were flouting its UN obligations to disarm its nuclear program and Syria were pursuing weapons of mass destruction, "I think it would be a real problem," Gates added.

 

Syria angrily denied as US "lies" suggestions that it was receiving nuclear material from North Korea, while the Stalinist state for its part said the reports were "groundless."

 

In London, the Sunday Times quoted an Israeli source as saying the raid destroyed what could have been a "devastating Syrian surprise for Israel."

 

"We've known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds (missiles), but Israel can't live with a nuclear warhead," the source told the newspaper.

 

The New York Times, citing a US administration official, reported that Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria to take pictures of possible nuclear installations staffed by North Korean engineers.

 

"The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left," the official said last week, according to the report.

 

North Korea could either be trying to evade UN inspections of its nuclear weapons program, or the material could be bound for Iran, the Sunday Times said.

 

Another British paper, the Observer, headlined its account Sunday: "Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran?"

 

It said the attack involved a flight through the airspace of Israel's ally Turkey by up to eight aircraft, including cutting-edge F-15s and F-16s equipped with 500-pound (227-kilogram) bombs and Maverick missiles.

 

Israel had shown that "if Syria's ally, Iran, comes close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the world fails to prevent it, either through diplomatic or military means, then Israel will stop it on its own," the Observer said.

 

In keeping with an official wall of silence on the event, Israel's military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told lawmakers Sunday he would not address the incident directly.

 

But he said the Jewish state had now recovered its "deterrent capability" following the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Israeli public radio reported.

You have to love the speak softly and carry a big stick mentality. The official Israeli silence is golden, while all the talking heads and anonomous sources speculate, they sit there with coy smiles.

From BBC News

 

The Syria-North Korea 'connection'

By Jonathan Marcus

Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News

Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 13:37 GMT 14:37 UK

 

Nearly two weeks on from Israel's incursion into Syrian airspace, the mystery surrounding the operation shows little sign of disappearing.

 

Press reports suggest strongly that the Israeli jets destroyed a facility near Syria's border with Turkey.

 

All sorts of details of the operation have "leaked" out, but still the precise nature of the "target" remains unclear.

 

By far the strongest theory though suggests a North Korean nuclear connection - a linkage which the North Korean authorities have strenuously denied.

 

The story put about by largely unnamed US sources and backed up by the former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, is that North Korea - under international pressure to scale down its own nuclear weapons programme - has recently transferred equipment or technology to Syria.

 

And it is this equipment - possibly at a fledgling research centre - that the Israelis hit.

 

'Political agenda'

 

All sorts of questions remain. Experts on North Korea's nuclear programme are highly sceptical about the alleged technology transfer.

 

Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, has gone so far as to describe the story as "nonsense".

 

Selective leaks are being used to play up the Syria-North Korea connection, he writes on the online site of the journal Foreign Policy.

 

"This appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war with Iraq, then it should," he writes.

 

Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations, another leading North Korea nuclear expert, was less dismissive when I spoke to him, but equally sceptical.

 

"I know that the Israelis have been worried for some time that the Syrians were eager to get nuclear technology from North Korea," he said.

 

"The North Koreans are looking to liquidate at least part of their enrichment programme, and perhaps want to offload the centrifuges and so on that they obtained from Pakistan."

 

So the Syrians might be "dabbling" with enrichment technology, but this would not represent "a near-term threat", Mr Samore says.

 

"There are North Koreans in Syria in connection with missile technology," he said, but on the nuclear front "we just don't know".

 

One thing he saw as strange, however, was the possible location of the "target" that the Israelis may have hit.

 

This seems to have been very close to the border with Turkey - an odd place for a potential nuclear research establishment.

 

Scepticism needed

 

Of course much of the controversy - given the fact that the Syrians and the Israelis have said very little (which is instructive in itself) - centres on the nature of the messengers, the shadowy leakers in Washington.

 

Only one of them, Andrew Semmel, a senior non-proliferation official, has gone on the record, and then there is the involvement of the controversial Mr Bolton.

 

Critics suggest that at least some of these people have a strong desire to derail the Bush administration's current negotiations with Pyongyang.

 

For whatever reason, the latest round of the six-party nuclear talks involving the two Koreas has been postponed at the last minute, apparently at the North Koreans' request.

 

But as Mr Samore pointed out: "Just because John Bolton is using this for political purposes doesn't mean that it is not true."

 

This episode once again highlights the problems for the media in dealing with this kind of story, problems that were exemplified - one has to admit in retrospect- by the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

 

Journalists need copy. But they also have to weigh up what they are told. Official sources cannot simply be discounted.

 

But on the other hand, a sufficient degree of scepticism needs to be deployed. And just sometimes, that mighty media machine has to admit that it just does not know.

From Times Online

 

From The Sunday Times

September 16, 2007

Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’

Secret raid on Korean shipment

 

It was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

 

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

 

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

 

The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.”

 

The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.” The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.

 

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

 

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

 

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

 

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

 

According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.

 

The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.

 

“This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”

 

An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday’s Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

 

The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.

 

According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.

 

Early in the summer Ehud Barak, the defence minister, had given the order to double Israeli forces on its Golan Heights border with Syria in anticipation of possible retaliation by Damascus in the event of air strikes.

 

Sergei Kirpichenko, the Russian ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar al-Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack, but suggested the target was the Golan Heights.

 

Israeli military intelligence sources claim Syrian special forces moved towards the Israeli outpost of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights. Tension rose, but nobody knew why.

 

At this point, Barak feared events could spiral out of control. The decision was taken to reduce the number of Israeli troops on the Golan Heights and tell Damascus the tension was over. Syria relaxed its guard shortly before the Israeli Defence Forces struck.

 

Only three Israeli cabinet ministers are said to have been in the know � Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. America was also consulted. According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel’s F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.

 

Once the mission was under way, Israel imposed draconian military censorship and no news of the operation emerged until Syria complained that Israeli aircraft had violated its airspace. Syria claimed its air defences had engaged the planes, forcing them to drop fuel tanks to lighten their loads as they fled.

 

But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.

 

Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack.

 

There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had “several other” customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.

 

Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed “Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern”.

 

“I’ve been worried for some time about North Korea and Iran outsourcing their nuclear programmes,” Bolton said last week. Syria, he added, was a member of a “junior axis of evil”, with a well-established ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction.

 

The links between Syria and North Korea date back to the rule of Kim Il-sung and President Hafez al-Assad in the last century. In recent months, their sons have quietly ordered an increase in military and technical cooperation.

 

Foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs are taking note. There were reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang and sightings of Middle Eastern businessmen from sources who watch the trains from North Korea to China.

 

On August 14, Rim Kyong Man, the North Korean foreign trade minister, was in Syria to sign a protocol on “cooperation in trade and science and technology”. No details were released, but it caught Israel’s attention.

 

Syria possesses between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles, which it has bought from North Korea over the past 15 years. Diplomats believe North Korean engineers have been working on extending their 300-mile range. It means they can be used in the deserts of northeastern Syria � the area of the Israeli strike.

 

The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex intelligence analysts. Syria served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea. The same route may be in use for nuclear equipment.

 

But North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid, leading some diplomats to cast doubt on the likelihood that Kim would cross America’s “red line” forbidding the proliferation of nuclear materials.

 

Christopher Hill, the State Department official representing America in the talks, said on Friday he could not confirm “intelligence-type things”, but the reports underscored the need “to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business”.

 

By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake.

 

As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.

 

This weekend President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Ali Akbar Mehrabian, his nephew, to Syria to assess the damage. The new “axis of evil” may have lost one of its spokes.

Interesting linkage ...

 

From DefenseNews

 

Posted 09/21/07 07:16

Report: N. Korea Training Syrian Missile Engineers

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, SEOUL

 

North Korea has trained Syrian missile engineers and the Arab nation has bartered farm products and computers for missiles from the Stalinist state, a report said Sept. 21.

The two countries have recently strengthened missile cooperation, with Syrian engineers staying in Pyongyang to acquire technology, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

The barter system began in 1995 due to Syria’s worsening financial woes, Yonhap said, quoting unidentified North Korea watchers.

Syria has shipped cotton, food and computers to North Korea in return for buying short-range missiles, it said.

The U.S. has accused North Korea of being a leading global proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. But the cash-strapped country has refused to stop missile exports, a major source of hard currency earnings.

North Korea has sold about 100 missiles to Syria, Iran and other countries each year, Yonhap said.

In July last year, the North test-fired seven missiles, including the Taepodong-2, which in theory could reach the U.S. west coast. This year, it tested a series of short-range missiles.

North Korea’s missile launches have heightened tensions in the region in the past decade. In 1998, it sparked alarm in Japan by test-firing a long-range missile over that country.

Chicago Tribune

September 23, 2007

Chicago Tribune Article

 

Powder Kegs Seen Across Middle East

 

From Iran to Israel, fuses abound

 

By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent

 

BEIRUT--Israeli jets strike a mysterious Syrian target, fueling speculation that Syria is joining Iran in the quest to acquire nuclear weapons. Another anti-Syrian politician is assassinated in Lebanon. The U.S. detains another Iranian in Iraq. And all the while a frenzied arms race is gathering pace, with countries from Iran to Libya racing to spend billions on sophisticated new weaponry.

 

Although the Bush administration insists a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would risk triggering a region-wide conflagration, many in this region fear such a war could happen anyway.

 

"The sky over the region seems heavy with the clouds of war," warned the independent Lebanese daily Al-Akbar in a recent editorial.

 

The dangers were illustrated by the Israeli air strike earlier this month against a mystery Syrian target, the details of which have not been confirmed.

 

Unusually, Israeli officials have refused to comment on the raid, leaving Syria to offer its version of events: that the jets were spotted over Syrian territory, that Syrian anti-aircraft gunners opened fire on them, and that in their haste to escape, the jets jettisoned missiles on an empty field.

 

That version has been given little credence in the Arab world and in Washington. Some reports have suggested the jets struck weapons destined for Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement, others that the planes hit a fledgling nuclear facility being supplied by North Korea. Citing anonymous U.S. officials, The Washington Post reported Friday that Israel and the U.S. had shared intelligence before the strike about the presence of North Korean nuclear experts in Syria.

 

Nerves set on edge

 

Few analysts doubt that the target was significant. "It was an act of outright aggression against a state, and you don't do that over something simple," said Timur Goksel, a veteran of the UN force in southern Lebanon who now lectures in conflict studies in Beirut.

 

The incident has set nerves on edge in this region, where memories of the war unleashed in Lebanon last summer by Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers are still fresh.

 

"We're living under a volcano, and this volcano might last forever. But there's a good possibility it will erupt for a very simple reason, and that it could escalate into a major conflict," said Mustafa Alani, director of security studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

 

The center has just completed a study on the chances of a regional war, he said. It concluded that the chances of what Alani called "an accidental war" that would escalate to include the U.S. and Iran were "high."

 

"There are a number of flash points that make us believe an accidental war is likely," he said.

 

Among those are the Persian Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian warships patrol in close proximity; Iraq, where the U.S. accuses Iran of supporting Shiite militias; the elevated tensions between Israel and Syria; the possibility that Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities; and Lebanon, which has been thrown into further turmoil by the assassination of an anti-Syrian legislator on the eve of a presidential election.

 

In some ways, there already is a proxy war in the region, with conflicts between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, between Sunni and Shiite militias in Iraq and the tensions in Lebanon all falling within the context of the broader struggle for influence between the U.S. and Iran.

 

"The other point of view is that we are already at war," said John Pike of the Washington-based GlobalSecurity.org.

 

Concerns that the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq before the country's problems are resolved are encouraging an arms spending spree by Arab nations.

 

The U.S. is planning arms sales in excess of $50 billion to the region over the next 10 years, including $30 billion destined for Israel and more than $20 billion to Saudi Arabia and other gulf nations. Saudi Arabia announced the additional purchase of $8 billion worth of British Typhoon fighter jets.

 

The Syrians are reportedly sealing a $900 million deal to buy upgraded anti-missile systems from Russia. At a military parade in Tehran on Saturday, Iran unveiled a long-range missile capable of hitting Israel. Days earlier, Iran warned that it is ready to retaliate if Israel attacks Iran.

 

Sending a message

 

The Israeli strike on Syria may nonetheless have diminished the chances of an imminent confrontation by reminding everyone in the region who is the dominant military power, according to Goksel.

 

Syria's muted response to the raid has underscored that it is in no position to wage war against Israel's superior force, he said. The strike also sent a message to Iran that Israel is capable of striking at will.

 

Goksel, like many others in the region, thinks a rerun of last summer's war is likely. In that conflict, Israel failed to eliminate Hezbollah as a threat to Israel's northern border.

 

Both sides now say they have recovered their deterrent capacities.

 

Hezbollah is embroiled in Lebanon's domestic political turmoil and almost certainly has no wish right now to provoke another confrontation, said Hilal Khashan, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut. But the next war could be much bigger, perhaps involving Syria, the main transshipment point for Iran's military supplies to Hezbollah.

 

"Israel ... failed to conclude the last war on its terms," he said. "The next time, it has to win convincingly."

 

Paradoxically, the tensions crackling across the region may sustain a balance of peace, if only because so many players are so acutely aware of the risks of war, said David Hartwell, Middle East editor for Jane's Country Risks.

 

"At the moment there's certainly enough distrust that little incidents could be misconstrued and escalate," Hartwell said. "But there's also enough acknowledgment in the region that any kind of conflict is in no one's interests.

 

Though, he added, "that doesn't mean it won't happen."

From Stratfor

 

Israel, Syria and the Glaring Secret

By George Friedman

 

What happened in the Middle East on Sept. 6?

 

The first reports came from the Syrians, who said their air defenses fired at an Israeli warplane that had penetrated Syrian airspace and dropped some ordnance on the country's North. The plane then fled toward the Mediterranean at supersonic speeds, the Syrians said, noting that sonic booms had been heard.

 

A Syrian delegation was meeting Turkish officials about the same time, and the Turks announced that two Israeli fuel tanks had been dropped inside of Turkish territory, one in Gaziantep province and the other in Hatay province. That would mean the aircraft did come under some sort of fire and dropped fuel tanks to increase speed and maneuverability. It also would mean the plane was flying close to Turkish territory or over Turkish territory, at the northwestern tip of Syria.

 

The Israelis said nothing. It appeared at first glance that an Israeli reconnaissance flight had attracted Syrian attention and got out of there fast, though even that was puzzling. The Israelis monitor Syria carefully, but they have close relations with the Turkish military, which also watches Syria carefully. We would assume they have intelligence-sharing programs and that reconnaissance in this area could have been done by the Turks or, more likely, by Israeli reconnaissance satellites. Yet, an Israeli reconnaissance flight seemed like the only coherent explanation.

 

What was most striking from the beginning was the relative silence on all sides. The Israelis remained mum, not even bothering to leak a misleading but plausible story. The Syrians, after threatening to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council, have been less vociferous than one would expect. The United States had nothing official to say, but U.S. sources leaked a series of incompatible explanations. The Turks, after requesting an explanation for the fuel tanks, dropped the matter.

 

The leaks, which seemed to be coming from the Americans, raised the scope of the operation from a reconnaissance to something more. It was U.S. sources who said up to eight aircraft were involved in the operation. Early on, a leak originating in the United States implied that there might have been Israeli commandos involved as well. U.S. leaks also mentioned that a shipment of cement had been delivered to Syria from North Korea a few days before the incident and implied that this shipment might have contained nuclear equipment of some sort that was the real target of the attack. All three countries were silent officially on the intent of the attack, but the Americans were filling in some blanks with unofficial hints.

 

The media also were filled with a range of contradictory speculation. One story said this was a dry run for an Israeli air attack against Iran. Another said the Israelis were demonstrating their ability -- and hence the U.S. ability -- to neutralize Syrian air defenses as a signal to Iran that it, too, is vulnerable. Some stories also claimed that new missiles, not nuclear materials, were being shipped to Syria. There were many other explanations, but these were either pure speculation or were deliberately being fed to the media in order to confuse the issue.

 

Officials finally started to go public last week. Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was consulted in advance and supported Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's action in Syria. U.S. President George W. Bush went out of his way -- commenting directly and through his press secretary -- to make it understood that he also knew a raid had been carried out, but had absolutely nothing to say about it. That drew attention to two things. First, the United States knew what was going on. Second, the United States was going to keep the secret -- and the secret was an important one. Between Netanyahu and Bush, the reconnaissance theory was dead. An important operation occurred Sept. 6. It remains absolutely unclear what it was about.

 

Another leak appeared via the Sunday Times, this time with enough granularity to consider it a genuine leak. According to that report, the operation was carried out by Israeli commandos supported by Israeli aircraft, under the direct management of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. It had been planned since June, just after Barak took office, and had been approved by the United States after some hesitation. The target was in fact nuclear "material" provided by North Korea, according to that leak.

 

All of this makes perfect sense, save one thing. Why the secrecy? If the Syrians have nuclear facilities, the Israelis should be delighted to make it public. Frankly, so should the United States, since the Bush administration has always argued that nuclear proliferation to rogue states, including Syria, is one of the key problems in the world. The Syrians should be spinning the story like crazy as well, denying the nuclear program but screaming about unprovoked Israeli-U.S. aggression. The silence from one or two parties makes sense. The silence from all parties makes little sense.

 

Looked at differently, Israel and the United States both have gone out of their way to draw attention to the fact that a highly significant military operation took place in Northern Syria, and compounded the attention by making no attempt to provide a plausible cover story. They have done everything possible to draw attention to the affair without revealing what the affair was about. Israel and the United States have a lot of ways to minimize the importance of the operation. By the way they have handled it, however, each has chosen to maximize its importance.

 

Whoever they are keeping the secret from, it is not the Syrians. They know precisely what was attacked and why. The secret is not being kept from the Iranians either. The Syrians talk to them all the time. It is hard to imagine any government of importance and involvement that has not been briefed by someone. And by now, the public perception has been shaped as well. So, why the dramatic secrecy designed to draw everyone's attention to the secret and the leaks that seem to explain it?

 

Let us assume that the Sunday Times report is correct. According to the Times, Barak focused on the material as soon as he became defense minister in June. That would mean the material had reached Syria prior to that date. Obviously, the material was not a bomb, or Israel would not have waited until September to act. So it was, at most, some precursor nuclear material or equipment.

 

However, an intervening event occurred this summer that should be factored in here. North Korea publicly shifted its position on its nuclear program, agreeing to abandon it and allow inspections of its facilities. It also was asked to provide information on the countries it sold any nuclear technology to, though North Korea has publicly denied any proliferation. This was, in the context of the six-party negotiations surrounding North Korea, a major breakthrough.

 

Any agreement with North Korea is, by definition, unstable. North Korea many times has backed off of agreements that seemed cast in stone. In particular, North Korea wants to be seen as a significant power and treated with all due respect. It does not intend to be treated as an outlaw nation subject to interrogation and accusations. Its self-image is an important part of its domestic strategy and, internally, it can position its shift in its nuclear stance as North Korea making a strategic deal with other major powers. If North Korea is pressed publicly, its willingness to implement its agreements can very quickly erode. That is not something the United States and other powers want to see happen.

 

Whether the Israelis found out about the material through their own intelligence sources or North Korea provided a list of recipients of nuclear technology to the United States is unclear. The Israelis have made every effort to make it appear that they knew about this independently. They also have tried to make it appear that they notified the United States, rather than the other way around. But whether the intelligence came from North Korea or was obtained independently, Washington wants to be very careful in its handling of Pyongyang right now.

 

The result is the glaring secrecy of the last few weeks. Certainly, Israel and the United States wanted it known that Syria had nuclear material, and that it was attacked. This served as a warning to other recipients of North Korean nuclear technology -- most especially Iran. At the same time, the United States did not want to publicly embarrass North Korea, out of fear that the North Koreans would simply chuck the disarmament talks. Moreover, Damascus had no interest in publicizing that it had thoughts of a nuclear program, so it quieted down.

 

We should note that if this theory is true, and the United States and Israel discovered the existence of a Syrian nuclear program only from North Korean information, this would represent one of the most massive intelligence failures imaginable by both Israel and the United States. Essentially, it would mean that, unless this was the first shipment of material to Syria, Israel and the United States failed to detect a Syrian nuclear program on their own. That is possible, but not likely.

 

It is a neat theory. It might even be a true theory. But it has problems. The biggest problem is why Syria would be trying to obtain nuclear technology. Sandwiched between Israel and Turkey -- a country that has not had great relations with Syria in the past -- and constantly watched by the United States, the probability of it developing a nuclear capability undetected is infinitesimal, and the probability of Israel not taking it out is nonexistent. Moreover, Syria is not Iran. It is poorer, has less scientific and other resources and lacks the capability to mount a decadelong development effort. Syria actually plays a fairly conservative game, taking its risks in Lebanese politics and allowing jihadists to transit through the country on their way to Iraq. Trying to take on Israel or the United States in a nuclear gambit is not the Syrians' style. But certainly they were caught doing something, or they would be screaming to high heaven.

 

There has been persistent discussion of nuclear material in Syria, which, if we took the words seriously, would tend to indicate that something radioactive, such as enriched uranium or plutonium, was present. If what was delivered was not equipment but radioactive material, the threat might not have been a Syrian nuclear program, but some sort of radioactive device -- a dirty bomb -- that might be handed off to Hezbollah. The head of Israel's military intelligence was quoted as saying something about the attack having re-established Israel's deterrence power after its failures in the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. Perhaps the problem was that the material was being transferred from North Korea to Syria on its way to Lebanon, possibly to use against Israel.

 

That would explain Syria's relative silence. Concern that the deal with North Korea will fall apart might keep the United States quiet. But a Syrian transfer of such material to Hezbollah normally would set Israel to raging at the Syrians. The Americans might have kept quiet, but the Israelis would have leaked much earlier than this. Israel would want to use the threat as a tool in its public relations war.

 

Another reason for the silence could be psychological warfare against Iran. The speculation above might be true in some variant, but by remaining ominously silent, the Israelis and Americans might be trying to shake Iran's nerve, by demonstrating their intelligence capability, their special operations ability and the reach of their air power. With the Israelis having carried out this attack, this very visible secrecy might be designed to make Iran wonder whether it is next, and from what direction an attack might come.

 

Normally such international game-playing would not interest us. The propensity of governments to create secrets out of the obvious is one of the more tedious aspects of international relations. But this secret is not obvious, and it is not trivial. Though it is true that something is finally being leaked three weeks after the attack, what is being leaked is neither complete nor reliable. It seems to make sense, but you really have to work hard at it.

 

At a time when the United States is signaling hostile intentions toward Iran, the events in Syria need to be understood, and the fact that they remain opaque is revealing. The secrecy is designed to make a lot of people nervous. Interestingly, the Israelis threw a change-up pitch the week after the attack, signaling once again that they wanted to open talks with the Syrians -- a move the Syrians quickly rebuffed.

 

When events get so strange that interpretation is a challenge, it usually indicates it was intended that way, that the events are significant and that they could point to further instability. We do not know whether that is true, but Israel and the United States have certainly worked hard to create a riddle wrapped in a mystery.

From DefenseNews

 

Posted 10/02/07 17:15

Israel, Breaking Silence, Confirms Strike in Syria

By REUTERS, JERUSALEM

 

Israel broke nearly a month of official silence and confirmed Oct. 2 it carried out an air strike deep inside Syrian territory on Sept 6.

The incident stoked tensions between the long-time foes after months of speculation they could restart peace talks.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made clear in a television interview broadcast on Monday that he had not ruled out a military response to the Israeli raid.

Israel had until now refused to confirm or deny that any air strike had taken place, though the incident was publicly confirmed by Syrian officials.

Israeli officials confirmed an air strike inside Syria on Sept 6, but military censors continued to censor other details, including what was targeted and which forces took part in the operation.

Some U.S. officials have linked the raid to suspicions of secret nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea. Damascus and North Korea have denied any nuclear ties.

Other reports suggested the raid may have targeted Iranian arms bound for the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla movement.

Syria has accused Israel of making excuses for war by spreading what it described as false reports that the air raid targeted a site linked to weapons of mass destruction.

In an interview with the BBC, Assad said the Israeli air raid showed Israel’s “visceral antipathy towards peace.”

He said Syria reserved the right to respond to the attack, identifying the target as an unused military building.

“Retaliate doesn’t mean missile for missile and bomb for bomb. We have our means to retaliate, maybe politically, maybe in other ways. But we have the right to retaliate,” he said.

Diplomats in Damascus say at least four Israeli warplanes crossed deep into Syria during last month’s operation.

Syria and Israel are formally at war. Peace talks between them collapsed in 2000 over the scope of an Israeli pullout from the Golan Heights, a plateau which the Jewish state captured from Syria in 1967.

From Aviation Week

 

Israel used electronic attack in air strike against Syrian mystery target

Oct 8, 2007

By David A. Fulghum and Douglas Barrie

 

Mysteries still surround Israel’s air strike against Syria. Where was the attack, what was struck and how did Israel’s non-stealthy warplanes fly undetected through the Russian-made air defense radars in Syria?

 

There also are clues that while the U.S. and Israel are struggling in the broader information war with Islamic fundamentalists, Tel Aviv’s air attack against a “construction site” in northern Syria may mean the two countries are beginning to win some cyberwar battles.

 

U.S. officials say that close examination of the few details of the mission offers a glimpse of what’s new in the world of sophisticated electronic sleight-of-hand. That said, they fault the Pentagon for not moving more quickly to make cyberwarfare operational and for not integrating the capability into the U.S. military forces faster.

 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said last week that the Israelis struck a building site at Tall al-Abyad just south of the Turkish border on Sept. 6. Press reports from the region say witnesses saw the Israeli aircraft approach from the Mediterranean Sea while others said they found unmarked drop tanks in Turkey near the border with Syria. Israeli defense officials finally admitted Oct. 2 that the Israeli Air Force made the raid.

 

U.S. aerospace industry and retired military officials indicated the Israelis utilized a technology like the U.S.-developed “Suter” airborne network attack system developed by BAE Systems and integrated into U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle operations by L-3 Communications. Israel has long been adept at using unmanned systems to provoke and spoof Syrian surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, as far back as the Bekka Valley engagements in 1982.

 

Air Force officials will often talk about jamming, but the term now involves increasingly sophisticated techniques such as network attack and information warfare. How many of their new electronic attack options were mixed and matched to pull off this raid is not known.

 

The U.S. version of the system has been at the very least tested operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last year, most likely against insurgent communication networks. The technology allows users to invade communications networks, see what enemy sensors see and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions where approaching aircraft can’t be seen, they say. The process involves locating enemy emitters with great precision and then directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages that allow a number of activities including control.

 

Clues, both good and unlikely, are found in Middle East press reports. At least one places some responsibility for the attack’s success on the U.S.

 

After the strike, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Watan reported that U.S. jets provided aerial cover for Israeli strike aircraft during the attack on Syria. Similar statements of American involvement were made by Egyptian officials after the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel.

 

More interesting is the newspaper’s claim that “Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the-art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli jets entering Syrian territory,” it said. “Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions.”

 

Syria’s most recent confirmed procurement was of the Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) short-range mobile SAM system. It uses vehicle-mounted target-acquisition and target-tracking radars. It is not known whether any of the Tor systems were deployed in the point-defense role at the target site struck by Israeli aircraft. If, however, the target was as “high-value” as the Israeli raid would suggest, then Tor systems could well have been deployed.

 

Iran bought 29 of the Tor launchers from Russia for $750 million to guard its nuclear sites, and they were delivered in January, according to Agence France-Presse and ITAR-TASS. According to the Syrian press, they were tested in February. Syria has also upgraded some of its aging S-125s (SA-3 Goa) to the Pechora-2A standard. This upgrade swaps out obsolete analog components for digital.

 

Syrian air defense infrastructure is based on for the most part aging Soviet SAMs and associated radar. Damascus has been trying to acquire more capable “strategic” air defense systems, with the country repeatedly associated with efforts to purchase the Russian S-300 (SA-10 Grumble/SA-20) long-range SAM. It also still operates the obsolescent S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) long-range system and its associated 5N62 Square Pair target engagement radar. There are also unconfirmed reports of Syrian interest in the 36D6 Tin Shield search radar.

 

There remains the second mystery of the actual site of the target and its use. Israeli news reports contend it was a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in north central Syria, and not Tall al-Abyad farther north. The site of the attack has been described as a transshipment point for weapons intended for the Hez­bollah in Lebanon to restock missile stores that were used in last summer’s fighting with Israel. Others contend it is a site with nuclear materials that may be associated with Iran’s nuclear bomb program. Mentions are also made of a North Korean ship arriving in Syria only days before the attack and the presence of North Korean workers in Syria for several months.

 

“There are always indications the North Koreans are doing something they shouldn’t, Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-intelligence Agency (NGA), told Aviation Week & Space Technology in response to a question about the shipment of nuclear materials from North Korea to Syria, which were subsequently bombed. “They are a high priority. We work as a key element . . . on the trafficking of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and high-interest arms shipments anyplace.”

 

It’s part of a growing NGA role in spotting the proliferation of weapons technology “which may be coming from East Asia to the Middle East . . . that we don’t want to cross borders.” Other crucial boundaries for surveillance include the borders in all directions in Afghanistan and Iraq—which includes Syria and Iran—as well as semi-governed areas such as the Horn of Africa. The use of automation to aid rapid analysis is improving, but that’s being balanced by the fact that “the sheer volumes of data we are ingesting now . . . continue to increase by a couple of orders of magnitude on an annual basis,” he says.

From DefenseNews

 

Posted 10/14/07 13:37

Israeli Air Strike Was On Syrian Nuke Reactor: Paper

By REUTERS, NEW YORK

 

Israel’s air strike inside Syria last month was directed at a site judged by Israeli and U.S. intelligence analysts to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing U.S. and foreign officials who had access to the analysts’ intelligence reports, all who spoke under condition of anonymity, the Times said the reactor was apparently modeled on one in North Korea used for stockpiling nuclear weapons fuel.

The targeted Syrian facility appeared to have been much further from completion than an Iraqi reactor the Israelis destroyed in 1981 in an attack the Sept. 6 incident echoed, according to the Times, again citing U.S. and foreign officials. It also said Bush administration officials had been divided over the attack, with some seeing it as premature.

Some officials said the facility was years away from being used to produce spent nuclear fuel that could eventually be used for weapons-grade plutonium. The internal Bush administration debate over a possible Israeli attack on the reactor began last summer, the Times said.

It remained unclear how far Syria had gotten with the plant before the attack, what role North Korea might have played and whether a case could be made it was intended to produce electricity, the newspaper said.

U.S. and foreign officials refused to be drawn out on whether they suspected North Korea of having sold or given the plans to Syria, but some officials said it was possible a transfer of technology occurred several years ago.

Israel confirmed earlier this month it had carried out an air strike on Syria, but the two countries have given little information on the target.

Information on the raid has been under under tight wraps in both Washington and Israel, the newspaper said, restricted to a handful of officials, and Israeli media have been barred from publishing information about it.

But a senior Israeli official said the attack was meant to “re-establish the credibility of our deterrent power,” the Times said. Several U.S. officials told the paper the strike may also have been intended for the attention of Iran and its nuclear program.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined to comment on the Times story. Israel also refused to comment, the Times said.

U.S. officials said the partially constructed Syrian reactor was identified earlier this year in satellite photographs. Those officials also suggested Israel brought the facility to U.S. attention.

The newspaper also reported that Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration contended that the same intelligence that prompted Israel’s attack on the reactor strengthened the case for U.S. reconsideration of negotiations with North Korea over ending its nuclear program, as well as Washington’s diplomatic posture with Syria.

From Aviation Week's ARES blog

 

U.S. Watches Israeli Raid, Provides Advice

Posted by David A. Fulghum at 11/21/2007 7:55 AM

 

There are new details of Israeli’s attack on Syria that suggests the U.S. had knowledge of the event and perhaps some back-channel involvement. The Pentagon was monitoring the electronic emissions coming from Syria during Israel’s Sept. 6 attack and, while there was no active Pentagon engagement in the operation to destroy a nuclear reactor, there was advice provided, say military and aerospace industry officials.

 

The first event in the raid involved slipping Israel’s strike aircraft over the border into Syria without alerting the air defenses. The actual target, a nuclear reactor, was at Dayr az-Zawr. But the main attack was preceded by an engagement with a single Syrian radar site at Tall al-Abuad near the Turkish border. It was struck with a combination of electronic attack and precision bombs to allow the Israeli force to enter and exit Syrian airspace unobserved.

 

Subsequently the whole Syrian radar system went off the air for a period of time that included the raid, say U.S. intelligence analysts. However, there was “No U.S. active engagement other than consulting on potential target vulnerabilities,” says a U.S. electronic warfare specialist. Elements of the attack included some brute force jamming, which is still an important element of attacking air defenses, U.S. analysts say. Also, Syrian air defenses are still centralized and dependent on dedicated HF and VHF communications networks which made them vulnerable.

 

The analysts don’t believe that any part of Syria’s electrical grid was shut down. They do contend that network penetration involved both remote air-to-ground electronic attack and penetration through computer-to-computer links. “There also were some higher-level, non-tactical penetrations, either direct or as diversions and spoofs of the Syrian command and control capability, done through network attack,” says a U.S. intelligence specialist.

 

More details are available in Aviation Week’s Nov. 26 edition.

With reporting by Robert Wall, both in Tel Aviv.

From Aviation Week

 

Israel Shows Electronic Prowess

Nov 25, 2007

By David A. Fulghum, Robert Wall and Amy Butler

 

The U.S. was monitoring the electronic emissions coming from Syria during Israel’s September attack; and—although there was no direct American help in destroying a nuclear reactor—there was some advice provided beforehand, military and aerospace industry officials tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.

 

That surveillance is providing clues about how Israeli aircraft managed to slip past Syrian air defenses to bomb the site at Dayr az-Zawr. The main attack was preceded by an engagement with a single Syrian radar site at Tall al-Abuad near the Turkish border. It was assaulted with what appears to be a combination of electronic attack and precision bombs to enable the Israeli force to enter and exit Syrian airspace. Almost immediately, the entire Syrian radar system went off the air for a period of time that included the raid, say U.S. intelligence analysts.

 

There was “no U.S. active engagement other than consulting on potential target vulnerabilities,” says a U.S. electronic warfare specialist.

 

Elements of the attack included some brute-force jamming, which is still an important element of attacking air defenses, U.S. analysts say. Also, Syrian air defenses are still centralized and dependent on dedicated HF and VHF communications, which made them vulnerable. The analysts don’t believe any part of Syria’s electrical grid was shut down. They do contend that network penetration involved both remote air-to-ground electronic attack and penetration through computer-to-computer links.

 

“There also were some higher-level, nontactical penetrations, either direct or as diversions and spoofs, of the Syrian command-and-control capability, done through network attack,” says an intelligence specialist.

 

These observations provide evidence that a sophisticated network attack and electronic hacking capability is an operational part of the Israel Defense Forces’ arsenal of digital weapons.

 

Despite being hobbled by the restrictions of secrecy and diplomacy, Israeli military and government officials confirm that network invasion, information warfare and electronic attack are part of Israel’s defense capabilities.

 

They’ve been embraced operationally by key military units, but their development, use and the techniques employed are still a mystery even to other defense and government organizations. It remains “a shadowy world,” says an Israeli air force general. Israel is not alone in recent demonstrations of network warfare. Syria and Hezbollah showed some basic expertise during the Lebanon conflict last year.

 

“Offensive and defensive network warfare is one of the most interesting new areas,” says Pinchas Buchris, director general of the Israeli defense ministry. “I can only say we’re following the [network attack] technology with great care. I doubted this [technology] five years ago. But we did it. Now everything has changed.

 

“You need this kind of capability,” he says. “You’re not being responsible if you’re not dealing with it. And, if you can build this kind of capability, the sky’s the limit [for sophisticated intelligence gathering and clandestine operations].”

 

So far, the most sophisticated example of nonkinetic warfare is the penetration of Syrian air defenses by Israeli aircraft on Sept. 6 to bomb a site—analyzed as a nascent nuclear facility—without being engaged or even detected. Commercial satellite pictures of the target on the Euphrates (about 90 mi. from the Iraq border) taken before and after the raid show that a large building (the suspected reactor building) in the center of the site has disappeared and the ground has been bulldozed flat.

 

The incident is attracting attention because “the Syrians have an extensive air defense system that they’ve been building for decades—since the [1967] Six-Day War,” says an Israeli defense planning official. “It may be the largest in the world.”

 

That ability of nonstealthy Israeli aircraft to penetrate without interference rests in part on technology, carried on board modified aircraft, that allowed specialists to hack into Syria’s networked air defense system, said U.S. military and industry officials in the attack’s aftermath. Network raiders can conduct their invasion from an aircraft into a network and then jump from network to network until they are into the target’s communications loop. “Whether the network is wireless or wired doesn’t matter anymore,” says a U.S. industry specialist (AW&ST Nov. 5, p. 32; Oct. 8, p. 28; Feb. 19, p. 31). Now development of the technology in Israel is being confirmed.

 

“The raid on Syria was a strategic signal, not a threat,” says a retired senior military official who flew combat in the region for decades. “This [raid] was about what we perceived are their capabilities [for developing weapons of mass destruction] and about deterrence more than creating damage.”

 

He contends that Syrian procedures even contributed to the successful bombing raid.

 

“Part of the vulnerability of the Syrian facility was that they kept it so secret that there weren’t enough air defenses assigned to it,” the official contends.

 

Israel’s capabilities are similar to the “Suter” network-invasion capability that was developed by the U.S. using the EC-130 Compass Call electronic attack aircraft to shoot data streams, laced with sophisticated algorithms, into enemy antennas. The passive, RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft then monitored enemy signals to ensure the data streams were having the intended effect on the target sensors. Israel duplicated the capability when it fielded its two new Gulfstream G550 special missions aircraft designs. Both were modified by Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta Div. in time for the 2006 Lebanon war. The ground surveillance radar version can provide data streams from large active, electronically scanned array radars, while the intelligence version provided the signals surveillance and analyses.

 

Buchris contends that it’s not manpower and technology that limits development, but constructing systems (that can put invasive data streams into enemy networks and then monitor the results) and making them operational.

 

The new G550 radar and electronic surveillance aircraft, for example, are still “in the process of being integrated into the intelligence system,” the planning official agrees. “The name of the game is balance of systems, intelligence, training, communications and forces. It has to be conducted like an orchestra. If one instrument is out of tune, it doesn’t sound right.”

 

The special mission aircraft were used during the war with good results, but military officials expect better future exploitation as they are plugged into the Israel Defense Forces’ network. Another handicap in developing Israel’s network attack capabilities is that they haven’t directly enlisted the research potential of their universities as the Pentagon has done in the U.S.

 

“I know that in the U.S., universities are involved in these kinds of issues,” Buchris says. “But in Israel, we are not. It’s totally different. How the Israeli system works, you can’t share with anybody. I don’t want to go into the issues [of technology development, personnel training and who runs the organization]. It’s very interesting. It’s very sensitive. Any such capabilities are top secret.”

 

That secrecy is causing Israel problems. Compartmentalization means that those who know about the new capabilities aren’t allowed to tout their usefulness. Yet at least low-key publicity is needed to ensure government funding for additional development and acceptance of their operational use.

 

“Now I have to find a way to explain these capabilities to other people so that they understand,” Buchris says.

 

Israeli officials won’t address the raid on Syria directly.

 

“We want to ease feelings with Syria,” says Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee. “We don’t want them to feel humiliated.” Moreover, Israeli analysts aren’t really sure who to blame. “No one really knows whether President [basher al-] Assad is the one who calls the shots. It may be senior army generals or other figures with influence. We don’t want a confrontation.

 

“It’s sensitive enough that the Army made an unprecedented decision to change an important exercise in the Golan Heights to another site,” Hanegbi says. “And, it was equally unusual for them to announce it. That’s a symptom of the atmosphere.”

 

Israeli officials reject any suggestion that the Syrian and Iranian nuclear programs were or are linked in any way.

 

“I don’t think Iran knew anything about what Syria was doing,” says a long-serving member of the Israeli parliament with insight into military affairs. “I don’t think they would have told the Iranians. They didn’t need Iranian assistance because they had help from the North Koreans.”

 

However, John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, disagrees. “I’d be very surprised if the Syrians were to engage at least without Iranian acquiescence,” he says. And, “it may be beyond that,” he tells Aviation Week. Since Syria alone lacks both the funding and expertise for a nuclear weapons program, it would logically turn to Pyongyang for technology and oil-rich Tehran for funding, he says.

 

Moreover, Bolton says the use of network attack is a clever move by the Israelis. He contends that it will serve as a deterrent for Iran. Or, at the very least, it sends a message that even the advanced, Russian-built air defense systems won’t protect Iran’s nuclear activities.

 

“I think it is very telling, obviously, in its potential impact on Iran since they’ve been supplied by the Russians with air defense equipment as well,” Bolton says. He describes the Syrian facility as a “clone” of North Korea’s primary nuclear plant in Yongbyon, and it share the same dimensions. The roof was covered with materials to mask it, apparently unsuccessfully, from overhead collection. Prior to his work at the U.N., Bolton was undersecretary of State for arms control during 2002 when construction of the Syrian site was said to have begun.

 

An indication of North Korea’s involvement in the Syrian facility was a condemnation of the raid issued by the government there. “This was an almost automatic response,” he says. “It is not because North Korea and Syria share a common border. To me, it was an inadvertent tipoff from North Koreans that they had involvement with that facility.”

 

Israeli analysts closely watch foreign aid to Syria and that country’s support of Hezbollah during last year’s fighting in Lebanon and Israel. Of key interest was a signals and communications intercept operation that was run by the Syrian military. The intelligence products on location, makeup and intent of Israeli operations—much of it obtained from cell phone intercepts—were passed to Hezbollah.

 

In this case, they point to the involvement of Chinese and Russian advisory groups operating in Syria.

 

“When you’re talking about selling high-tech systems, they need support and staffing,” says a senior Israeli government official. “You can’t just talk about an air defense system. You also have to talk about communications, networking and intelligence gathering,” which includes the skills of communications and signals intelligence gathering and analysis.

 

“I can tell you that now, when I go into a [ministry] meeting, I have to take the battery out of my cell phone,” the government official says. “We’re aware of [traffic intercept during the Lebanon fighting]. There’s also the issue that in the north of Israel you have very large Arab communities. Most wouldn’t be involved, but you’re talking about a half-million people up on the border. That means there are people with the ability to watch and pass on information.”

 

[CV32: The November 2007 issue of Defense Technology International also reports that the Israelis were able to effectively jam the Syrians' Pantsyr SAM systems].

From Russia Today

 

Excerpt:

 

"In September, the [Pantsir-S1] system made the headlines when Israel conducted an air strike on Syria. According to Israelis, some military targets deep in Syrian territory were hit despite being protected by Pantsirs. The media was calling the system ineffective.

 

The head of the construction bureau, Aleksandr Ribas, says at the moment there were no Pantsir system in Syria at the moment: “I assure you that if it was there, none of the planes would have reached the target. More than that, they simply would not even dare go there,” he says."