Bharat Rakshak

In steps that point to Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Pakistan’s unsustainable national course, its fears of Iran and its renewed interest in its security relationship with the United States, the Washington Post reports that Saudi Arabia is stepping up its cooperation with Indian authorities on the sensitive question of Pakistani or Indian nationals suspected of terror activities and hiding in Saudi Arabia — in some cases people who are traveling on false documents apparently provided by people with access to the resources of the Pakistani state.The Saudis are doing India some other favors as well, reports the Post. They want India’s help in putting pressure on Iran, and are helping India replace any oil lost as a result of declining purchases from what Saudi thinks of as the hated Persian heretics. There is even talk of Saudi good offices being used to help India expand its commercial networks in the Arab world. Historically, the Indian subcontinent had close economic links with the Arabs, and a revival of those connections would help India’s economy and partially offset China’s rising profile.The Saudis are pretty good at foreign policy, and this shift seems to reflect several calculations.
1.The Saudis are really, really worried about Iran. Helping steer India away from reflexive “non-aligned” third world opposition to western power projection in the region helps clear the path for what many Saudis deeply hope will be an effective western military strike that puts Iran in its place.
2.The Saudis don’t like radical terrorism. Worries about Al-Qaeda at home and in neighboring Yemen have killed any illusions some Saudis may have had about terror groups. The Saudi state is theologically hardline but geopolitically moderate. It worries about Pakistan’s connections with terror groups and would like Pakistan to distance itself from groups whose violence endangers the Saudis at home.
3.The fears of terrorism, Iran and the Arab Spring have led the Saudis to put new importance on their relationship with the US. From the Saudi point of view, with Europe weak and China very far away, the US is the only possible ally that can help the Saudis with the problems that keep them up at night. Helping India with terrorism and to pull it away from Iran pleases Washington but also strengthens the configuration of forces that the Saudi authorities think are best placed to protect their state and their regime.
But it’s as important to understand what this isn’t as to see what it is. The Saudis are not turning their backs on Pakistan completely. Ties between the two countries are extremely deep. These two Sunni Islamic states that were aligned with Washington during the Cold War and that cooperated against the Soviets in Afghanistan have a lot of history together. Many observers believe that the Saudis provided financial support and other assistance in Pakistan’s nuclear program, and there are many indications that a range of prominent Pakistani politicians nurture close links with the Saudis, links from which they derive substantial benefits of various kinds. This isn’t going anywhere, but we can expect the Saudis to use their influence to try to cool Pakistan’s ardor for using radical groups as instruments of policy.

Jhujar wrote: The Saudis are pretty good at foreign policy, and this shift seems to reflect several calculations.

shyamd wrote:Guest Post 1: 'India and the Persian Connection' by A Durai

RamaY wrote: - Can Iran return the clock to <700AD?

RamaY wrote:
The key is that India can replace Pakis on the 2nd item but not the 1st item. So Pakis will always have better value proposition to KSA than India.

* In the event of Iran-GCC war, they want India to remain neutral, while Pakis support KSA/GCC.
- More the reason for India to support Persians

* How much influence KSA has on Pakistan? Is it relationship of ==s or KSA>Pak or Pak>KSA especially in the matters of military and nuke power? What happens if Pakis decide to extend their strategic depth to the holy lands and provide nuke cover?
- Time for India to provide ICBM/Surya technology to Pakis?

* What should be the Bharatiya/Persian relationship?
- Need for strong navy
- Iran+Afghanista+Russian+CAR alliance to control China+PoK+Pak alliance to access ME?
- Can Iran return the clock to <700AD?

Turkish military sows confusion over downed jet

By Jonathon Burch

ANKARA | Thu Jul 12, 2012

(Reuters) - Turkish armed forces statements over the loss of a warplane off the Syrian coast last month are fuelling speculation the military may be revising its initial assertion the plane was shot down by Syrian air defenses in international airspace.

Turkish government spokesman Bulent Arinc, seeking to allay confusion over apparent contradictions emerging in official accounts of the plane's loss along with its two pilots, reasserted the original version to reporters on Thursday.

"It is better not to come to different conclusions by getting hung up on certain nuances. We are talking about an important subject. The Turkish jet was downed, the Syrian government which downed it has said 'we downed it'," he said.

But Turkish newspapers homed in on a military statement issued hours after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan himself complained on Wednesday of a "campaign inside Turkey and ... a campaign abroad" to misrepresent the June 22 incident.

The General Staff referred in the statement to the aircraft which "Syrian official authorities subsequently claimed to have shot down". The use of the word 'claimed', absent from previous accounts, aroused confusion over an incident which many Turks had initially feared could lead to a war.

The loss of the aircraft raised tensions between Syria and Turkey, which has been harboring Syrian rebel forces and refugees on its territory and has called for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey dispatched its own air defense systems to its long frontier with Syria.

Turkey said after the incident that its aircraft was testing Turkish air defenses. Some analysts have speculated that, flying low and fast as it was near the boundaries of both states, it could have been probing Syrian defenses.

Further adding to uncertainty over the plane's fate, the armed forces statement declared that no traces of "petroleum-based, combustible or fire accelerant substances, organic and inorganic explosive substance residues, or any kind of ammunition" were found on debris from the wreckage floating on the sea's surface.

Hurriyet daily, quoting an unnamed retired Turkish admiral, said this statement meant there was no possibility of the jet having been brought down by a missile. Retired Brigadier-General Ali Er Was quoted as saying the statement could mean the plane had, for instance, crashed on an evasive maneuver.

CONFUSION

The military has offered no clarification of its statement, despite several enquiries by Reuters.

"Okay, so how did this plane crash?" ran the front-page headline of the liberal daily Radikal on Thursday. "19 days later the discourse has changed," Milliyet said. "The military said 'claimed'," ran the headline in Cumhuriyet.

Syria said hours after it crashed into the Mediterranean that it had shot down the F-4 jet in self-defense and without knowing that it was a Turkish aircraft. It said it shot the plane at close range with anti-aircraft fire after it flew into its air space at high speed and low altitude.

Turkey has said it violated Syrian air space accidentally for a few minutes but maintains its plane was shot down by a missile in international air space and without any warning.

With many questions still unanswered, the military and government's handling of the incident may not be enough to satisfy everyone.

"The confusion sparked is not the kind to be forgotten easily, and with such clumsy moves Turkey is overshadowing its own thesis, supported by its NATO allies, that its plane was shot down without any warning, even if it had violated Syrian air space," wrote Murat Yetkin in Hurriyet Daily News.

(Writing by Jonathon Burch)

Sir John Sawers said that covert operations by British spies had prevented the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons as early as 2008.

However, the MI6 chief said it was now likely they would achieve their goal by 2014, making a military strike from the US and Israel increasingly likely.

Sir John gave a secret briefing to the Cabinet in March about Iran’s growing military threat but this is the first time his views on the issue have been made public.

It is extremely rare for the head of MI6 to disclose details of operations by the intelligence service.

Sir John made the remarks at a meeting of around 100 senior civil servants in London last week in only his second public speech since he was appointed to the post in 2009.

Speaking at the Civil Service Live event in Olympia he said that Iran was now “two years away” from becoming a “nuclear weapons state”.

He said that “when that moment came” Israel or the United States would have to decide whether to launch a military strike.

“The Iranians are determinedly going down a path to master all aspects of nuclear weapons; all the technologies they need,” he said. “It’s equally clear that Israel and the United States would face huge dangers if Iran were to become a nuclear weapon state.”

Sir John said that without MI6’s work dealing with the threat, “you’d have Iran as a nuclear weapons state in 2008 rather than still being two years away in 2012.”

Sir John said it was up to MI6 to “delay that awful moment when the politicians may have to take a decision between accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or launching a military strike against Iran.”

When that moment came, he said: “I think it will be very tough for any prime minister of Israel or president of the United States to accept a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Iran has previously accused Israel and the US of trying to disrupt its nuclear programme through covert operations by Mossad, MI6 and the CIA.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been apparently assassinated in recent years while a powerful computer virus known as Stuxnet attacked the computer systems of their nuclear facilities.

Britain and America denied the allegations but Israel has remained silent on the issue.

Sir John disclosed that MI6 has “run a series of operations to ensure that the sanctions introduced internationally are implemented, and that we do everything we can within the Middle East to slow down these remaining problems.

“I take great pride in the fact that, in the last ten years, over a number of jobs, I’ve been involved in an issue of global concern, and I feel that I as an individual [have made] an impact in the outcome of events.”

The session – which was open to visitors to the event – was titled “Unclassified chat: Sir John Sawers CMG” and was reported in Civil Service World, a publication which is dedicated to senior Whitehall officials.

Disclosure of his remarks came as the US stepped up their sanctions against front companies suspected of supplying appaernt nuclear materials to Iran after an international oil embargo started earlier this month.

His warning of a nuclear Iran in 2014 could throw the Coalition into turmoil just before the next general election.

The Liberal Democrats have ruled out supporting any military action against the regime but David Cameron has repeatedly said that “all options” are on the table.

Senior Conservatives believe that the issue could finally cause the Coalition to split as Britain would be forced to support any American action.

In March, Sir John spoke to more than 20 ministers about the latest intelligence on the growing fear that Israel is poised to launch a pre-emptive strike against Tehran.

The secrecy around the briefing was so high that ministers were ordered to leave their mobile phones outside the Cabinet room.

There are claims that basic mobile phones, without specialist anti-eavesdropping security, can be converted into “listening devices” by foreign intelligence agencies.

The highly unusual briefing was thought to have raised questions about Israel’s military capacity to destroy Iranian nuclear sites, which are buried deep underground.

The MI6 chief was also understood to have warned about the potential threat to Britain from a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

That came after Foreign secretary William Hague warned that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons threatened to trigger a “new Cold War” that posed an even greater threat of nuclear conflict than the stand-off between the USSR and the West.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Hague said that Iran was threatening to spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East which could be more dangerous than the original East-West Cold War as there are not the same “safety mechanisms” in place.

“It is a crisis coming down the tracks,” he said. “Because they are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme…

“If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, then I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons.

“And so, the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented would have begun with all the destabilizing effects in the Middle East.

“And the threat of a new cold war in the Middle East without necessarily all the safety mechanisms … That would be a disaster in world affairs.”

The General Staff of Turkey’s Armed Forces on Friday backed down from its previous claim that its fighter jet was downed last month by Syrian forces.

“The actual cause of the incident will be established after the plane wreckage is raised from the seabed,” the General Staff said in a statement.

"No traces of explosives or flammable products were found on the debris recovered from the sea."

According to some media reports, the F-4 Phantom probably crashed due to human error after the pilots failed to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the Syrian missile.

Syria has insisted it engaged the F-4 Phantom "according to the laws that govern such situations" after it strayed into its airspace. Turkey says the plane was in international airspace.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi has said his country's forces may have mistaken the Turkish jet for an Israeli one.

Klaus wrote:X-posting from GDF

Ralph Peters geopolitical map of the Middle East is being given a legitimacy through this report on Resource Distribution. Resource Distribution in a New Middle East

It is a wonder as to how the US Geological Society is also used to provide data for the Anglo-Saxon think-tanks. The advisor is a high school academic, it shows how deep the culture of critical thinking for the interests of one's own MIC goes.

KLNMurthy wrote: Am I missing something or petroleum is not included among resources?

Had multiple email IDs; each meant for specific persons
Shaurya Karanbir Gurung
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 5
Terror mastermind Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal, used multiple email IDs and SIM cards, each meant to communicate only with specific persons.

Jundal’s pan-India network of sleeper agents and modules in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are being slowly unearthed as sleuths have fanned out across the country to follow up on leads emerging from his interrogation. He had also set up a new module of the Indian Mujahideen (IM).

A special cell of the Delhi Police has found that Jundal had been using nine email IDs and four SIM cards (one from Pakistan and three from Saudi Arabia). “Call details in respect of various SIM cards have been obtained through diplomatic channels and the same are being analysed. The mirror images, a technical term for call details available on SIM cards, have been converted into DVDs and are being analysed,” the special cell told Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav today.

The magistrate extended the police remand of Jundal and allowed the Delhi Police to retain him till July 20. The claims of the National Investigation Agency and the ATS, Mumbai, seeking his custody were turned down.

Investigators are now clear that Jundal was part of a larger conspiracy and he is in knowledge of several plots and plans being hatched by Pakistan-based terror groups under the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

The Delhi Police has dispatched special teams to various places in India to gather further information. Jundal had been running several small modules. Just ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, he arranged for the shootout at Jama Masjid. A motorcycle-borne youth had fired at a bus carrying foreign tourists. Shooter Mohd Adil, a Pakistani youth, was arrested in November last year. He had named Jundal as the key member.

The Delhi Police told the court, “Information gathered from Jundal needs to be analysed in a centralised manner with a view to establish his links with other invisible handlers of the LeT and the IM.”

The probe

n Call details of various SIMs have been obtained and are being analysed

n It is also being established how he managed to collect a big haul of weapons

n He is in the know of several plots being hatched by Pak-based terror groups

n His police remand has been extended till July 20

Pranav wrote:The Syrian opposition: who's doing the talking? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... he-talking

This article from the Guardian takes a deeper look into the backgrounds of many of the Syrian opposition figures. Here is a an excerpt about the SNC's most senior spokesperson Bassma Kodmani.

---------------------

Syrian conflict declared a civil war by the Red Cross
The conflict in Syria was effectively declared a civil war by the Red Cross on Sunday, as the "most intense" fighting since the start of the uprising was reported in Damascus.

By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent and Alex Spillius
15 Jul 2012

The Red Cross had previously designated Idlib, Homs and Hama as war zones, but the change in status means international humanitarian law applies wherever fighting occurs throughout the country

Combatants will now be officially subject to the Geneva Conventions, and will be more exposed to war crimes prosecutions, after the ICRC declared that the conflict was a "non-international armed conflict", or in lay terms a civil war.

Sean Maguire, a spokesman for the ICRC, said that both sides would be reminded of their obligations "to protect civilians from fighting, treat the wounded and sick without discrimination".

The categorisation was made after the ICRC determined that the armed opposition to Bashar al-Assad's regime had reached a sufficient level of organisation and capability.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy clashes in the capital in what was described as the "most intense" fighting there since the start of the anti-regime revolt in Syria.

"The regular army fired mortar rounds into several suburbs" where rebels of the Free Syrian Army are entrenched, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "They have never been this intense."

Kofi Annan, the international envoy of Syria, and Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, set off on a trip to Russia and China on Monday in a bid to persuade them to back tougher action against Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, but hopes for a breakthrough are slender.

The Syrian government went on the offensive yesterday by attempting to claim a propaganda victory after UN observers called into question opposition claims of a civilian massacre in the village of Tremseh.

Local activists had accused regime forces of slaughtering as many as 220 civilians in what would have been the worst massacre of the 16-month uprising against Mr Assad.

Although a team of monitors that reached the scene encountered scenes of heavy destruction and found evidence of mass fatalities, they concluded that the vast majority of the dead were rebels or opposition activists.

Their findings were swiftly trumpeted by the Assad regime, which accused Western leaders and Mr Annan of rushing to draw fallacious conclusions.

But while the observers' report suggested that the government's narrative was closer to reality than the opposition's, the events that unfolded in Tremseh last Thursday remain murky.

Nor was the regime's position entirely vindicated. The UN stood by its accusation that government forces had used tanks and helicopter gunships in breach of a pledge made by Mr Assad a week ago not to use heavy weapons.

Reaching the village 48 hours after the killings, the observers spoke of encountering scenes of devastation and seeing chilling traces of the ferocity of the government's onslaught amid the ruins.

"There were pools of blood and blood spatters in rooms of several homes together with bullet cases," said Sausan Ghosheh, a spokesman for the monitoring team.

"A wide range of weapons were used, including artillery, mortars and small arms."

The findings appeared to suggest that a number of the victims were shot at close range, echoing opposition claims of execution-style killings carried out by the pro-Assad Shabiha militia, whose ranks are largely drawn from president's Alawite minority.

But the observers also reported that the attack appeared to target "specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists" -- a significant departure from the narrative of some opposition activists.

Tremseh lies along the same sectarian fault line as two other Sunni villages – Howl and Qubeir – whose inhabitants were allegedly massacred by army soldiers and militiamen from surrounding Alawite communities.

In both cases, photographic evidence was produced to show a large number of women and children among the dead. But video footage from Tremseh indicated that nearly all the dead were men of fighting age.

If, as now seems likely, the killings were the result of a lopsided battle, they would represent one of the most catastrophic rebel defeats of the campaign.

Opposition sources conceded that most of the dead were fighters and confirmed that the battle had been triggered by a rebel ambush on an army convoy.

But they claimed that few of the dead were formal rebels, saying that most were male inhabitants of the village who had taken up arms to prevent an Alawite attempt to "cleanse" Tremseh.

Lacking the sophisticated communications equipment that most rebels in the Free Syrian Army have, the rebels were unable to call for reinforcements resulting in a heavily one-sided battle, one activist said.

The death toll remained in dispute, with the government saying that 37 opposition fighters and two civilians were killed. Opposition activists said that between 100 and 150 died, but conceded that they only knew of "at least seven" civilian fatalities.

Presented with a rare opportunity to portray itself as misrepresented, the Syrian government launched a public relations offensive to absolve itself of guilt.

"What happened in Tremseh was a military operation, not as massacre," Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian foreign ministry's spokesman, told a press conference."

He also furiously denounced a letter written by Mr Annan to the United Nations Security Council that urged members to unite in action against the regime for its use of heavy weaponry in Tremseh. A similarly worded letter was sent to the Syrian foreign ministry.

"The least that can be said about this letter about what happened in Tremseh is that it did not rely on facts," Mr Makdissi said. "As diplomatically as possible, we say that this letter was very rushed."

The dispute over Tremseh is likely to complicate international efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis, with Russia almost certain to seize on it as evidence that the opposition, rather than the regime, is responsible for most of the bloodshed.

The mandate for the 300-man observer mission to Syria is due to expire on Friday with no sign of an end to international divisions.

Russia wants the mandate to be renewed for a further three months. But it is resisting Western efforts to bolster it with a Security Council resolution threatening the Assad regime with sanctions if it fails to take steps to end the violence and form a transitional government with the opposition.

Meanwhile, the president of Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, stepped up pressure on America to take action by accusing President Barack Obama of stalling so as not to jeopardise his November re-election prospects.

"We cannot understand that a superpower ignores the killing of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians because of an election campaign that a president may win or lose," Abdelbasset Sayda told CNN.

Johann wrote: The only problem with this article is that it fails to address how utterly irrelevant the SNC is to what is going on *inside* Syria.

The Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are the ones driving the Syrian civil opposition and armed resistance respectively.

Pranav wrote:

Johann wrote: The only problem with this article is that it fails to address how utterly irrelevant the SNC is to what is going on *inside* Syria.

The Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are the ones driving the Syrian civil opposition and armed resistance respectively.

US facilitating arms flow to Syrian rebels - http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/7389

Austin wrote:What are the chances that Syria might be broken into Alwaites and Sunni nation , where Alwaite , Christians ,Shiah and others can have their own niche and Sunni majority would have their own.

I suspect most Alwaites , Shiah and Christian wont be too happy to be under Sunni majority led nation where it might be another Saudi Barbaria type ruler ruling over Syria with backing from West but under guise of democracy

Philip wrote:Above posts have shown how the entire Arab Spring has been a sinister plot by vested western entities with their own agenda.