Bharat Rakshak

By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter

Qatar and India have signed an MoU that facilitates greater investments in the South Asian country.

A high-level Joint Monitoring Mechanism chaired by HE the Acting Minister of Business and Trade Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and T K A Nair, Principal Secretary to Indian Prime Minister, is set to decide on areas of Qatari investment in India.

Speaking to Gulf Times after concluding the MoU yesterday, al-Attiyah said, “We are looking at various sectors in India for investment. The total value of investments would depend on their potential.”

He said Qatar greatly value its relationship with India. The bilateral ties got a boost after the first meeting of the high-level Joint Monitoring Mechanism in New Delhi in February this year. “This is our second meeting here today,” al-Attiyah said.

The high-level panel was set up following the Doha visit of the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November last year. At that meeting the prime ministers of the two countries had agreed to set up a high-panel to steer bilateral relationships.

On the prospects of a free trade agreement (FTA) between GCC and India, al-Attiyah said, “It is just a matter of time. Negotiations are ongoing between the Gulf Co-operation Council countries and India. GCC countries, Qatar in particular, have a very strong relationship with India.”

He said Qatar would consider investing in India’s farm sector if there are opportunities to ensure food security in the region and the world at large.

Al-Attiyah said the prospects of boosting LNG supply to India figured in the talks between the two sides here yesterday.

“Qatar Petroleum is in touch with India’s Petronet on the issue. Qatar has a long-term SPA with India for the supply of 5mn tonnes per year. Subsequently, it was agreed upon to supply an extra 2.5mn tonnes considering India’s growing need for cleaner energy,” al-Attiyah said.

Nair said Qatar could consider investing in India’s infrastructure, which had a ‘huge potential’ to receive larger investments. Indian economy is rapidly growing, which necessitates better infrastructure. Qatar can also consider investing in India’s farm sector.

“We produce several fruits and vegetables, which can find a good market in Qatar. For a variety of reasons, the farm products’ processing and delivery systems in India are not modern. Qatar can invest in these and ensure that these products reach Doha among other places where they find good markets,” Nair said.

He thanked Qatar for hosting thousands of Indians in the country. “Qatar has taken several measures to ensure that Indians live comfortably in this country. Non-Resident Indian remittances are a strong support to Indian economy, particularly states like Kerala, which have a huge number of people living in Qatar and across the GCC region. We definitely recognise that,” Nair said.

The official said the growing energy needs of India figured in his talks with the Qatari side.

“The response from Khalid al-Attiyah was extremely encouraging. The co-operation between India and Qatar will become substantial. We are hopeful of that,” Nair said.

Indian Ambassador Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa was among the senior dignitaries present.

New Delhi: In a significant setback to India’s ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) discussions between the two sides have been postponed indefinitely.

The FTA talks were earlier scheduled to take place during minister of commerce & industry Anand Sharma’s visit to Oman at the end of this year or early next year for the Indo-Oman joint commission meeting. It has now been re-scheduled for February 1.

However, a source on conditions of anonymity told FE the dates will clash again as the commerce minister will be leading a high-level delegation to Hungary at that time. The talks have been pushed back thrice so far. “The India-GCC FTA has been a non-starter. Negotiations have stalled several times, and there is no convergence of views, especially in a few sectors, including polypropylene products and labour related issues. The UAE as well as Saudi government is not ready to include polypropylene in the negative list,” a source said. “Two countries from the GCC-Saudi Arabia and UAE-opposed Indian demands, and that caused the talks to fail.”

India has been seeking investments from the Gulf in the infrastructure sector, including ports, roads and other brown projects, said officials.

“If the FTA could be formalised between the two sides, both would benefit as it would remove restrictive duties and push down the tariffs on goods traded between the two sides,” officials pointed out.

Senior MEA officials said that even though both the sides had decided to finalise the FTA by early 2007, several rounds of meeting that have taken place so far merely reviewed the issues that need to be addressed by India and the member countries.

According to Shashi Tharoor, the minister of state for external affairs, “The India-GCC FTA is no exception. We have already completed two rounds of discussion on this FTA and expect further movement. The fact that discussions on this subject are underway points to the fact that this is not a far-off dream. Also, the GCC, as a body, is evolving. They are dealing with several issues among their members, including currency, taxation etc. In view of this, we may expect the discussions to evolve further.”

Besides Oman, GCC comprises of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Of the three components of FTA, broad understandings on investments and services sector have been reached with Oman. Oman wants time to examine duty concessions on trade of goods between...

His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah is going to pay a two-day official visit to Iran today, leading a high-level delegation. The visit, which comes at the invitation of Iran's First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, aims to further promote and cement historical relations between Kuwait and Iran."

Al Seddiq, wanted in the Rafik Hariri assassination case, had entered UAE with a fake Czech passport
The UAE will not extradite a fugitive former Syrian intelligence officer, accused of misleading a UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, to his country because he is not wanted by the court in Syria, an official source has said

Haaretz, an Israeli daily has reported a “secret” meeting between Yossi Gal, directior general of the Israeli foreign ministry and Omani Foreign Minister Yusef Bin Alawi Bin Abdullah on the sidelines of a water meeting in Muscat. There are no official comments about the meeting from both sides, but an Israeli diplomat has confirmed the two met.

Terrorist Safaraz Nawaz, picked up by Indian Intelligence agencies from Oman, told interrogators that he had met Ansari in Dubai where Ansari had gone in search of a job. In Dubai Nawaz met Wali alias Reehan alias Shameem, who is in charge of LeT operations in the Gulf region and who asked Nawaz to undergo training to fight for Muslims.

Nawaz also met Ali, an Omani national and one-time member of LeT, who felt the organisation had strayed from its original aim. Ali dissuaded Ansari and Nawaz from undergoing LeT training. But, motivated by Wali, Ansari went to Pakistan for a 21-day Daura-aam and three-month advanced Daura-khaas training.

It was after Ansari's revelation that Nawaz asked Thadiyantavide Nazeer to send boys for terror training in Kashmir. Now it is becoming clear that US citizen Headley, Pakistan nationals like Rana and Wali, Mumbaiite Ansari, Nawaz from Ernakulam and Nazeer from Kannur are part of one network which has declared war on India.

New Delhi: In a significant setback to India’s ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) discussions between the two sides have been postponed indefinitely.

The FTA talks were earlier scheduled to take place during minister of commerce & industry Anand Sharma’s visit to Oman at the end of this year or early next year for the Indo-Oman joint commission meeting. It has now been re-scheduled for February 1.

Robert Fisk: India may hold whip hand in this power game
Friday, 27 November 2009

Dubai has shocked investors by asking for a debt standstill at Dubai World, the government's flagship holding company

Allah was kind to Dubai yesterday. Just when the emirate's unspeakable wealth appeared on the point of collapse – stock markets, of course, naturally 'trembled' – along came the feast of Eid al-Adha and sent all the kings and emirs and sheikhs off to their diwans to celebrate the decision by the father of monotheism – the Prophet Ibrahim himself – not to kill his son Ismail. But then again, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al-Makhtoum, knew that the week-long holiday in Dubai would close down the local markets even if it couldn't stifle the rumours.

Among the latter came the old canard that Sheikh Mohamed will have to hand over his immensely profitable Emirates Airlines to his Abu Dhabi cousin, the ever-beneficent Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who seems to spend much of his time bailing out Dubai's outrageous tourist and oligarchical ambitions. Indeed, Dubai may have the tallest tower in the world and the largest man-made island but it would help if it paid off the Japanese company that has just built the emirate's first metro system – even if trains to the airport cannot carry passenger baggage.

There are, however, two basic truths about Dubai which, predictably, have not found their way into market speculation or newspaper analysis. The first is that Dubai may soon find itself a satellite not of its Abu Dhabi capital but of India. The biggest merchants in Dubai are Indian – they run the gold market, even the bookshops in Sheikh Mohamed's playpen – and west India is only two hours' flying time away. In fact, until 1962 – and you have to be an oldie to understand the emirates' economic world – the Indian rupee was the currency for most of the Gulf, including even Kuwait.

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Sheikh Mohamed's angry dismissal of his three top executives a week ago will not change this, although it might curb those who took too much advantage of the Dubai boom. The ruler may indeed have to reflect upon the future of Emirates, not to mention the invalid Dubai World, if he is to appease his friendly cousin up the road in Abu Dhabi, but in the end the emirs all know that Dubai – like the US and British banks that crashed so spectacularly this year – is too big to abandon. If Dubai World really defaults, then the rating agencies will start downgrading the whole shebang and the sheikhs and financial elite of the UAE will find it hard to get money.

There's always been a cosy relationship, of course, between haughty, starchy old Abu Dhabi and playboy Dubai. Sheikh Mohamed likes tourism and foreigners and racehorses and even the Russian oligarchs whose henchmen apparently fought a gun battle in the world's tallest building a few months ago.

Abu Dhabi, holder of the world's sixth largest crude oil reserves, believes in industry and art, occasionally poking gentle fun at its bling emirate to the east; the creation of Ettihad Airlines – ever expanding in the face of Emirates Airlines' success – was both a joke and a warning.

But deep in their golden mosques, the ruling family are asking themselves some serious questions this Islamic holiday. Why was the call for a moratorium on debt so crudely and unprofessionally put together?

As one fine source – Independent readers must take on trust how high up the ladder he is, but he should have known of this announcement and didn't – said privately last night: "It came as a shock and a surprise to everybody, not only to me but to anyone I know. All the information I had till yesterday was that everything was in hand. We had the finding for everything coming due this year – there was the $10 billion [£6 million] issued back in February and then nearly $8 billion over the past month – the money's there.

"So it's a puzzle, particularly since it was very clear, to people who knew, that the bond coming due in December was a litmus test. Everyone was planning to repay it. The people of Abu Dhabi didn't know this was going to happen. The market did not expect anything like this."

Too true. If Dubai World and all the other conglomerates symbolising Dubai were already in the process of being restructured, why Wednesday's extraordinary statement? There was talk in Dubai last night of a "Diwan revolution" although you'd think this had commenced when Sheikh Mohamed started ditching his top guys seven days ago. As one financial journalist in the Gulf put it: "To get a six-month standstill on payments for creditors, you can't just announce it before you've talked to them. They're not going to get the creditors to accept this in a couple of weeks."

Unless, of course, Sheikh Mohamed planned the whole fandango with Sheikh Khalifa. Unlikely, since Dubai's decision to allow foreigners to buy property in the emirate was taken without any reference to the nation's laws – or warning to Abu Dhabi. Or, rather than worrying about London and Tokyo, perhaps we should be watching the Indian stock market...

More from Robert Fisk

sum wrote:

New Delhi: In a significant setback to India’s ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) discussions between the two sides have been postponed indefinitely.

The FTA talks were earlier scheduled to take place during minister of commerce & industry Anand Sharma’s visit to Oman at the end of this year or early next year for the Indo-Oman joint commission meeting. It has now been re-scheduled for February 1.

Shyamd, how big a setback is this and did the Saudis sabotage this for other reasons (like to appease Paki sentiments)?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

May 28, 2009
Israeli PM Netanyahu vows to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb

Israeli president Shimon Peres' task in Washington on May 4-5 is to blunt the sharp edge the White House is honing to force Israel to toe the new Washington line on the Palestinians, Syria and Iran.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu can expect the full force of a bludgeon to be wielded in his White House talks on May 18.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that their host is fired up to be the first US president in decades of close friendship and cooperation to clash openly with Israel and the bulk of US Jewry. Oblivious to Israel's claim of US support for its security in a hostile regional environment, Barack Obama is expected to squeeze the Netanyahu government hard for immediate engagement on the Middle East conflict without further delay.

According to our sources, the White House staff is working at top speed on options for imposing its will.

Peres and Netanyahu will be informed that Washington is setting up two trilateral peace commissions to hammer out peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel with the Syrians.

US officials in both chairs will intercede with their own ideas to prevent them running into deadlock on disputed issues. DEBKAfile's sources confirm that the Obama administration will not spare the whip to force the parties into line.

The US president and his top advisers are convinced that the Palestinian problem is the main obstacle to accommodations for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. Defense secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Gen. James Jones are the leading advocates of this proposition, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more skeptical but ready to back the president's Middle East determination to place Israel in the first line of fire.

Some of DEBKAfile's US sources admit that President Obama is himself under pressure because, despite the high approval rating he gained for his first 100 days in office, his myriad policy initiatives have yet to show results.

His economic remedies have steadied the banking system but not yet filtered down to the general public, he faces a hard slog in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan before making headway, and Tehran is playing hardball at every turn on the road to dialogue.

The only arena where the White House can hope for quick results is the Israel-Palestinian-Syrian track.

The two peace conferences in preparation recall Bill Clinton's success in forcing the Serbs, Bosnians and Croats to sign the Dayton Accord of 1995, so terminating a war of three-and-a-half years.

The presidential envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was the architect of Dayton. George Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, is in line for a similar role today. During his two rounds of talks in Middle East capitals, Mitchell has shown a smiling, genial face, but said little, while in Washington, a State Department team is working overtime on a new American "road map."

It starts out with pressure on Israel to freeze settlement activity on the West Bank and construction in East Jerusalem. At a later stage, Israel would be pushed to abandon large sections of the West Bank, remove authorized communities as well as unauthorized outposts and hand over the historic nucleus of Jerusalem.

Finally, the Israeli government would be required to accept an independent Palestinian state, even if its government is dominated by the rejectionist terrorist group Hamas.

Peres and Netanyahu will find administration officials deaf not only on Israel's arguments on the Palestinian issue but on a nuclear-armed Iran too. They will see the US president no longer prioritizing the suspension of Iran's nuclear aspirations, but bent on establishing a new Persian Gulf order that formalizes Iran's rising power. Washington's objective now is negotiations for setting the boundaries of Iran's Middle East expansion and limits for its nuclear program.

Israel will have no say in this process. In fact, by elevating Iran to premier regional power, America is sidelining its longstanding friends, Israel and Egypt, and setting aside their security and strategic interests for the sake of deals with Iran.

Dennis Ross, US envoy for Iran, carried this message to the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, last week.

But Obama's new Middle East design is not without powerful opponents:

1. Tehran itself will not let Washington dictate the limits of its expanding influence but insists on dialogue taking place amid "equality and mutual respect." This attitude also governs its nuclear aspirations. US diplomats will have to make the running to temper the ayatollahs rather than the other way round.

2. Cairo and Riyadh will resist with all their might the US bid to anoint Iran the crowning Middle East-Gulf power. Both perceive Iran's nuclearization as the inevitable outcome of this policy.

They are also extremely concerned by Oabana's public endorsement of Turkey as the senior Muslim power in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia, a boost for Ankara's aspirations to resuscitate the Ottoman Empire.

3. Jerusalem will resist being cast into a peripheral role in the strategic and military processes going forward with regard to Iran, the Palestinians, Syria and their terrorist arms, Hizballah and Hamas, all of which bear pivotally on Israel's future existence. Like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Netanyahu government may not accept being crushed between two hostile regional powers, Iran and Turkey, whose aggressive pretensions Washington is promoting.

- Netanyahu is marshalling all Israel's resources, including an active role for President Peres, to avoid dropping into the role of second- or third-rate Middle East power whom no one consults.

Peres, whose rich diplomatic experience and international reputation make him a prime asset, has been pressed into service to become the first Israeli president to step out of his ceremonial role into active-policy-making.

- The Israeli prime minister will also take advantage of the interests Jerusalem shares with Cairo and Riyadh in frustrating the new Washington orientation – and not only with regard to Iran.

Netanyahu and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have arranged to put their heads together and are meeting before their separate trips to Washington.

- Israel has not abandoned its option of a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations and its economic infrastructure. US officials, led by the defense secretary, are accordingly pouring contempt on the extent of the damage Israel is capable of inflicting. Next, they will try and tie Israel's hands by discrediting Netanyahu and his administration.

- A final arrow in Netanyahu's quiver is the ability to enlist American public opinion, which is traditionally supportive and sympathetic to Israel, against Obama's Grand Middle East Design. He will seek to canvass support among friends in the US Congress and the Jewish community.

India should focus on the Middle East





P R KumaraswamyFirst Published : 26 Nov 2009 11:51:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 26 Nov 2009 12:31:30 AM IST

Despite less popular nomenclature, the Middle East developments have more far-reaching implications for India than commonly recognised. The region normally is noticed for all wrong reasons or only for wrong reasons; terrorism in Israel, Iraq and Algeria; Islamic upsurges in Egypt, Yemen; threats emanating from the Somali pirates to oil supplies from the Persian Gulf; political instability in Lebanon; or the nagging and seemingly endless nuclear controversy over Iran. Occasionally elections get attention in the Indian media.


Yes, the Middle East has its share of problems but it also offers a number of challenges and opportunities. Since the end of the Cold War the world has become complex and New Delhi is still learning to maintain close and friendly ties with countries, which are at competition, if not war, with one another. This is especially true for the Middle East.

No country would be able to remain indifferent to the impending fallout of the eventual American withdrawal from Iraq. Likewise, New Delhi would not be able to pursue closer ties with Tehran without worrying about the US factor. Its newly found bonhomie with Israel would have to factor in the cold winds from Cairo. Its overall energy security calculations would have to consider the growing Chinese presence and competition in the oil-rich Gulf region. It is no accident that Iran has been using the China angle to force India’s hands on the never-ending negotiations over the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Its closer military ties with the Jewish state have a bearing on India’s ties with as diverse a group as Egypt, Iran, Palestinians and of late Turkey.

Besides the geographic proximity and long political interactions, the region is important for a host of reasons. First, the Middle East is India’s prime trading partner. In 2007-08, it accounted for nearly 25 per cent of India’s total trade. Exports to this region stood at over $30 billion while imports stood at close to $72 billion. While the ongoing recession reduced the quantum of trade, the Middle East’s share in India’s overall foreign trade is unlikely to dwindle.

Second, a better picture of the region emerges in the energy sector. The region accounts of bulk of energy imports. Out of the $86 billion energy imports in 2007-08, as much as $58.8 billion came from the hydrocarbon-rich Middle East, with the Gulf region accounting for the lion’s share. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and UAE meet bulk of India’s energy needs. As India’s energy import dependency is expected to reach close to 90 per cent by 2025, the importance of the Middle East will only increase in the coming years.

Third, one need not overemphasise the role played by the expatriate population. Currently there are over four million Indian labourers in the Gulf and even without the hawala channel they contribute substantially to their families back home as well as to the Indian economy.

Fourth, Islam plays an important role in India’s ties with the Middle East. Even though most of the global Muslim population lives outside the region, the Middle East has become synonymous with the term ‘Islamic world’. The latest report by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life identifies India as having the third largest community of Muslims after Indonesia and Pakistan. Any upheavals and progress in the Middle East naturally reverberates worldwide. If al-Qaeda has negative implications, the inter-faith dialogues pursued by Qatar and Saudi Arabia for example highlight the growing awareness in the region for better and nuanced understanding of one another. The Middle East mainstream is still moderate and needs to be befriended and encouraged.

Despite these factors, the Middle East does not figure adequately in India’s foreign policy agenda. The high-profiled visit by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during the Republic Day celebrations in 2006, for example, was not followed up adequately. The reciprocal visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Riyadh is plagued by delays. There is also pending invitations from Israel, Iran and other countries of the region. Singh’s visit to Egypt earlier this year, which subsequently became controversial due to the Sharm el-Sheikh statement, was not a state visit as he was attending the Non-Aligned Summit hosted by President Hosni Mubarak.

The South Asian countries are becoming vital primarily because of the negative consequences. As we have seen, domestic instability and violence in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka often spill over into India. The Middle East on the contrary offers a number of incentives, opportunities and challenges.

Let there be no mistake. India’s great power aspirations will be tested in the Middle East. In the coming years, much of the great power rivalry involving the US, Russia, China and Japan will be fought over this region and its energy resources. The region will inevitably figure in India’s simmering discontent with the Obama administration over issues such as non-proliferation. The real implications of its energy cooperation or potential competition with China will be tested in the Gulf region. The maturity of its foreign policy establishment will be measured by how it handles the India-Israel-Iran and India-Iran-US triangles.

The time has thus come for a serious, nuanced and non-partisan understanding of the Middle East and its complexities. Erstwhile platitudes, historic bonhomie and civilisational rhetoric are important but would be insufficient to handle present dynamics and future challenges. The Middle East Institute @ New Delhi is a small step in this direction.

(The author teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University and is the honorary director of the Middle East Institute @ New Delhi. This commentary is published in partnership with www.mei.org.in)

First NATO Member to Share Intelligence with a Radical Islamic Regime


Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan has pledged Iran air force and intelligence back-up against a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. It is incorporated in a secret understanding Erdogan finalized with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran Wednesday, Oct. 28, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military and intelligence sources reveal.

He also guaranteed a Turkish intelligence tip-off to Tehran on US military movements in the Middle East in support of an Israeli attack, under an accord drafted three days earlier by intelligence and air force delegations representing the two countries.

Erdogan has thus laid down four historical precedents:

1. Turkey became the first NATO member to volunteer sensitive Western intelligence to a radical Islamic regime in a war contingency.

2. Not only did the Turkish leader trash his country's longstanding friendly ties with Israel, but he agreed to add a northwestern front to the northeastern lineup threatening the Jewish state. Israel will now find itself under the eagle eye of four hostile forward intelligence outposts, Syria and Lebanon in the north, the Palestinian Hamas in the south and now Turkey in the northwest.

The Iranians trust this reinforced intelligence loop around Israel for early warning of an impending Israeli attack and also for tracking Israel Defense Forces and US wartime troop movements. This real-time information from four directions will be invaluable for aiding Iran to calibrate its missile attacks.

3. Turkish-Iranian military cooperation has raised the anxiety level across the Middle East, flashing ominous signals to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf emirates.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Ankara sources add that Erdogan feels Egypt and Saudi Arabia deserve no better for the crime of spurning his role as mediator-in-chief for the region and Muslim world.


4. Turkish armed forces will be forced to enter into operational relations with an anti-Western Middle East nation for the first time ever.

Our sources further report that Thursday. October 29, four Turkish intelligence and air force officers were due in the Iranian capital to open a liaison office for detailed operational planning of the new accords with Iran. One is a specialist in air defenses.

The Turks went to a lot of trouble to keep their new pact with Iran dark, but the Iranians could not resist letting the cat out of the bag with broad hints trumpeting their biggest strategic coup in years. Tuesday, Oct. 27, Ahmadinejad said "the two friendly countries of Iran and Turkey share common interests and threats." He stressed that the two countries, through joint efforts "can conquer all threats and take advantage of all existing opportunities."

The next day, parliament speaker Ali Larijani was more outspoken: "Cooperation between Iran and Turkey can strengthen security in the region," he said. "Iran and Turkey's roles complete each other," he said pointing to regional developments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

The news of Turkey's military collaboration with Iran was a bolt from the blue for Israel because, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources disclose, its intelligence experts had not anticipated Erdogan taking ties with Tehran that far.

They confront its war planners with immense military complications. An important Middle East power has just joined the list of countries willing to actively line up behind Iran in war. Furthermore, from their long years as Israel's close ally, Turkish intelligence and air force officers are thoroughly familiar with all the IDF branches' methods of operation and tactics. Even a part of this knowledge imparted to Iran would profoundly impair Israeli planning for striking Iran. Finally, any thought of reaching its nuclear facilities through Turkish air space will have to be forgotten.

That night, Iran's Lebanese proxy Hizballah fired rockets into northern Israel's Galilee, transmitting the message that Tehran' did not propose to stand idle in the face of US or Israel military preparations, which it interprets as directed against itself. In the event, only one of the five rockets fired exploded outside the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, causing no damage.

But that may not have been all. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources quote some Middle East informants as placing Iran's hand behind the multiple bombing attacks on three Iraqi government offices in Baghdad's Green Zone Sunday, October 25, in which 155 people died and over 700 were wounded.

The operation was unusually professional and precise, hallmarks of Iranian intelligence terror operations which may have been carried out by agents it hired in Iraq or outside the country.

In that case, it would have been an object lesson to show Washington the horrific scale of widespread violence awaiting the Middle East and Afghanistan if an Israeli attack on Iran is allowed to go through.

Wednesday, Oct. 29, more than 60 members of Iraq's security agencies, including 11 high officers, were arrested in connection with the attack, the largest and deadliest the country has seen in two years.

They were apparently held for collaborating with the unnamed force which orchestrated it.

For two weeks, the Russian defense ministry and arms industry have been up in arms against the Kremlin's decision to freeze the sale of S-300 anti-missile missiles to Iran for which a contract was signed in 2005. Wednesday, Oct. 28, DEBKA-Net-Weekly sources in Moscow report, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin decided to put down the near uprising.

It broke out after DEBKA-Net-Weekly 416 disclosed in an item titled: Obama Opens Middle East Door Wide to Russian Arms, that Putin had accepted a US proposal to suspend the delivery to Iran of five S-300PMU1 missiles - 40-60 launchers each with four tubes, along with radar and fire-control units - in return for opening the Saudi market to Russian arms. A Saudi order for the more advanced S-400 intercept missiles and other sophisticated systems promised a windfall of 7-10 billion dollars for the Russian arms export giant Rosoboronexport - the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's exports/imports of defense.

Riyadh's only proviso was that Moscow withhold the S-300 batteries from Tehran, which Putin accepted, although the consignment was already on giant containers ready for loading on special trains bound for Iran.

Keeping the weapons out of Iran's hands at the last moment elicited a sigh of relief in Washington, Jerusalem and Riyadh. But the decision was not well received at the Russian defense ministry and at Rosoboronexport.

On Oct. 21, Russia's Interfax news agency, citing a Russian government source, reported Tehran has not yet paid the estimated $800 million for the sale contracted in 2005 because Moscow had not finally okayed the transaction. "The contract … was frozen indefinitely due to an array of circumstances … right after it was signed," the source said. "Much depends on an array of political circumstances since this contract has ceased to be simply a commercial deal."

This was an attempt to reassure the other clients of Russia's huge arms industry that the deal was not cancelled but would eventually go through.

The deal is off - though not quite


But two days later, Putin's decision came under big guns at home:

On Oct. 23, Russia's Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation issued a rare statement saying: "The Russian Federation plans to further implement the military-technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran in strict accordance with existing legislation and its international obligations." If the sale does get final approval from the Kremlin, delivery could begin immediately since the missiles have been fully readied for shipment in Defense Ministry depots. All the missiles earmarked for Iran have been drawn from Defense Ministry inventories.

A few hours later RIA-Novosti quoted an unidentified Defense Ministry official as saying that, since the S-300s are "defensive weapons" Moscow was under no international obligation [under UN Security Council arms sanctions against Iran] to scrap the contract.

He said Russia would suffer severe financial loss if it tore up the S-300 contract.

Russian military analyst Konstantin Makiyenko said that reneging on the contact had cost Moscow around $1 billion in lost profits plus $300 million to $400 million in fines and penalties.

By Wednesday, Oct. 28, a brusque comment from Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov suggested that Putin had managed to silence the revolt in the defense establishment and arms industry without giving ground.

"Russian has so far not supplied S-300 air defense missiles to Iran," he said. Asked when Russian would deliver them, Ivanov said only: "There have been no such deliveries to date."


"Iran can't be punished on all fronts”


Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov chose this moment to step into the dispute. He did not question the prime minister's decision, only sent his spokesmen to strongly urge Putin and president Dmitry Medvedev to call off their endorsement of Washington's drive for a fresh round of harsh sanctions against Tehran.

Lavrov was quoted as saying that it was inadvisable to punish Iran on all fronts; the ayatollahs must be left some room to maneuver else Moscow's entire policy toward Iran and the Muslim world would crash.

The foreign minister's advice produced a statement this week by the Kremlin's top foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, who said to Russian reporters: "Sanctions in relation to Iran are hardly possible in the near future." Foreign correspondents were not invited to the special briefing, at which Moscow signaled it was not prepared at this time to turn the heat up on Iran.

Asked if Russia would support further sanctions against Iran, Prikhodko quoted Medvedev's answer to US. President Barack Obama last month: "Sanctions seldom lead to the required result but in some cases the use of sanctions is inevitable." That formulation remains in force, said the Kremlin official.

But Moscow's last word on both the S-300 shipments and sanctions has yet to be heard.

First Published : 28 Nov 2009 12:35:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 02 Dec 2009 04:51:53 PM IST

Another 26/11 would bring immense public pressure on the government to retaliate, which would be matched by American pressure to remain unprovoked.

US pressure has worked earlier, notably after the 2001 attack on Parliament when India mobilised its military along the Pakistan border in 2002’s Operation Parakram. It annoyed the US no end because Pakistan moved 60,000 troops to the border, allowing so many al-Qaeda and Taliban types to slip into Pakistan and escape post-9/11 US military action in Afghanistan. The CIA learned that India was planning a brigade-level commando raid into PoK; the US, along with Britain and Germany, in June publicly withdrew all but essential diplomatic staff, delivering a veiled threat to India. The government started looking for a way out and declared Operation Parakram over after the successful J&K elections in August 2002.

Then there was last year’s siege of Mumbai.

The then foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, made some angry noises prompting former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to read the riot act to Pakistan; Islamabad retaliated with extortion when “unnamed military officials” said that any confrontation with India would hamper Pakistan army operations on the Afghan border. The CIA again noted two Indian Air Force violations of Pakistan airspace, as well as IAF preparations to hit terrorist camps in PoK, so the US vise on India was tightened.

The pressure to not retaliate was enough, perhaps, for the prime minister to require a multiple-bypass heart operation, but he had already told Parliament that war was not a solution, letting Pakistan off the hook.

You cannot help but wonder what happens after the next terrorist strike. With a pro- America prime minister who does not directly face the electorate and who gets visibly thrilled by grandiose American pronouncements about India-on-the-global-stage (notice no one making such lofty declarations ever makes promises about India becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council), there are no prizes for guessing whose pressure will be more effective. India is likely to remain, in the words of Ashley J Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at a US Senate hearing earlier this year, a “sponge that protects us all”. To quote Tellis: “India’s very proximity to Pakistan... has resulted in New Delhi absorbing most of the blows unleashed by those terrorist groups that treat it as a common enemy along with Israel, the US, and the West more generally”.

None of us wants to be a “sponge”. When the next terrorist strike comes, many of us will want to see some “payback”, even if it is a token muscular gesture. So let us examine what may initially seem an absurd proposition: why not leave Pakistan alone (for these days it is the bigger “sponge” for terrorism, to the extent that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate is repeatedly hit), and why not start talking of hitting targets in Saudi Arabia? Naturally no one would ever touch the holy places and of course the government should never do anything to distress or incite Indian Muslims. Also, Saudi Arabia is not a weak country; it has powerful allies.

Yet in the post-9/11 cacophony Pakistan is repeatedly called the epicentre of terrorism while no one talks much about the House of Saud’s role in promoting Islamism whether for religious reasons or geopolitical ones.

(Actually, several people pointed out that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi of Yemeni descent, and Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 911 explored the nexus between Saudi oil wealth, the Bush dynasty and terrorism).

When one gentleman, the venerable Ram Jethmalani, pointed out at a conference last Saturday that Wahabism was responsible for terrorism, the Saudi ambassador to India, Faisal-al-Trad walked out in protest; Law Minister Veerappa Moily had to sweettalk him into returning, saying that Jethmalani’s was not the government’s view.

There is something to what Jethmalani says, however. We have heard ad nauseam about how for decades the Wahabis have been promoting through petro-dollars their literalist and austere interpretation of Islam.

It is now a historical fact that most of today’s Islamists were spawned in the mujahideen resistance to the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979; that resistance was funded evenly by the Saudis and the Americans.

What people seem to overlook is that Saudi intelligence deliberately encouraged the growth and the agenda of the ISI during the resistance against the Soviet Union, according to Steve Coll’s excellent Ghost Wars; that the Saudis were never interested in moderates in the resistance; and that after the US abandoned Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the USSR, the Saudis encouraged the ISI to back extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar over others. And as radical Islam grew, the Saudis hint that they had to turn a blind eye to it so that the monarchy could be protected; that, however, does not explain the Saudis’ wilful support to the ISI’s agenda of promoting radical Islam, an agenda that combined two Pakistani strategic objectives: keeping India off-balance in Kashmir and controlling Kabul.

When the Taliban swept into power, they fulfilled these objectives perfectly; the ISI became more powerful and the Saudis more supportive, to the extent of pressing the Taliban case with the Americans. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan were the only countries to recognise the Taliban government (the Taliban showed its gratitude by allowing Saudi and UAE royals to hunt for bustards in the southern Afghan desert), knowing fully well that the Taliban could not care about governance or the welfare of its citizens; and when it came to the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t even pay its half of the bill for the Kabul-Kandahar road, leaving the US to pick up the tab (in contrast, several Indians have died building Afghan roads). The Saudis have always turned a blind eye to the Harkat- ul-Ansar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Toiba; it is no secret that the Saudis dislike India. No wonder their immense wealth is directly responsible for the ISI’s growth, nurturing and evolution.

Saudi Arabia is the benefactor and sustainer of the ISI in the same way that the ISI is the benefactor and sustainer of the LeT and other lethal anti-India groups. Saudi Arabia finances the global growth of Islamist ideologies, from which spring extremism and terrorism. So while some may argue that to get at the root cause of terrorism in India, one has to get at the ISI, this column would go one step further: for getting at the root cause of the Frankenstein called ISI, one has to start talking about getting at Saudi Arabia.

And next time there’s an attack on India, we could respond to US pressure by pointing the finger at the House of Saud. Or we could continue being the sponge for terrorism.

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DEBKAfile Special Report

December 4, 2009, 10:14 AM (GMT+02:00)
Nuclear-capable missile explained to Ahmadinejad

German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year. DEBKAfile's Iranian and intelligence sources report that this development is alarming because detonation is one of the most difficult technological challenges in the development of a nuclear weapon. Mastering it carries Iran past one of the last major obstacles confronting its program for the manufacture of a nuclear warhead.

After this breakthrough, the German BND intelligence believes it will take Tehran no more than a year to perfect its expertise and stock enough highly-enriched uranium to make the last leap toward building the first Iranian nuclear bomb or warhead. DEBKAfile's military sources confirm that simulated detonation of a warhead takes Iran to the highest level of weapons development.

Using the example of Israel and other nations, Western nuclear arms experts have claimed in recent years that since the emergence of simulated detonation technique, nuclear tests are no longer necessary.

With this hurdle overcome, Tehran has set about restructuring its defense ministry for the coming task of actually making a weapon.

The new Department for Expanded Technology Applications - FEDAT was set up to speed up the military nuclear program. It is divided into sub-departments for uranium mining (to increase the output of the Yazd mines), enrichment (to guarantee the quantity of high-grade uranium needed for weapons), metallurgy, neutrons, highly explosive material and fuel supply.

Wednesday, Dec. 2, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: "The Iranian nation will by itself make the 20 percent (nuclear) fuel (enriched uranium) and whatever it needs."

President Barack Obama has reminded Tehran that it has until the end of the year for a negotiated accommodation on its nuclear program that will uphold its international obligations. However, tor Iran's leaders, progress toward a nuclear weapon is now unstoppable by any diplomatic means.

Monday, December 7, 2009 INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

The West has 'lost' Iran and Turkey, with an assist from Russia and to China's benefit

By Dr. Assad Homayoun, Gregory R. Copley, and Yossef Bodansky, Global Information System
Iran is already a nuclear weapons power, with externally-acquired nuclear weapons.

Iran's present geo-strategic position is also transformed in importance by the end of the Great Game (or at least the component of it which began with the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813, transformed with the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, and arguably concluded with the new Russo-Iranian understandings of the past few years).

Effective 2010, Iran is part of the Russian-dominated Central Asian energy and strategic framework, as is Turkey. In a parallel, and overlapping, dynamic, the China-Iran historical link has returned to the fore, especially given the PRC's position as a major supplier of vital refined petroleum to Iran, and a client for Iranian crude oil.
The fact that the West has "lost" Turkey and Iran (and the fact that Iran is now working closely with Turkey on a range of issues, but motivated mutually by the energy network controlled by Moscow) to some extent empowers the Iranian clerical leadership, but this may be insufficient to paper over the differences between the competing, and possibly mutually destructive, clerical power factions. Even so, the fact that Iran, Turkey, and Russia have come together effectively ends the economic and strategic isolation of Iran, and helps it build its confidence in rejecting Western intervention and pressure over domestic nuclear power and weapons programs.

Thus, the Middle Eastern states in particular, but equally the Indian Ocean and Euro-Mediterranean states, must now consider that Iran's rise as a strategic power will continue. The only question which remains is whether the clerical administration will be able to retain power, whether it will gradually morph into a secular governance structure, or whether it will be overthrown by a truly secular force. There also remains the prospect for Iran's geographic dismemberment, and some in the UK and U.S. policy structures have openly pushed for the break-up of the Iranian state as a solution to the present situation.

This, however, could be equated to curing a disease by shooting the patient.

In mid-November 2009, Hojjat-ol-Islam Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejhei, a former Minister of Intelligence & Security, and presently Attorney General, said that the Islamic Administration was vulnerable only from inside.

Iran geographically is a large country of 1,648,195 square km., the 17th largest nation-state, and possesses a unique geo-strategic situation, with a population of approximately 73-million; a long history, strong intellectual and cultural tradition, nationalism, and bountiful natural resources, especially its vast resources of oil and natural gas. It has 12 percent of the world's proven reserves of petroleum and also has the world's second largest reserves of natural gas. Iran is located in a critical area between two zones of energy, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, which contains 70 percent of world's known energy reserves and 60 percent of its natural gas. It has a 1,570-mile coastline on the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, with command of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Iran rightly sees itself as an important regional power and indeed is the center of gravitation and the lynchpin state in the greater Middle East from Pamir to the Mediterranean Sea.

Iran has borders with 15 countries without a single true strategic friend along its long borders. It has been subjected many times to invasions of Russia and Great Britain in 19th and 20th centuries, and dismembered several times. For example, under the Treaty of Gulistan in 1814, Iran was forced to cede not only Georgia, but also eight other provinces, and under the Treaty of Turkemanchi, in 1828, Iran was forced to hand over additional Iranian territory to Russia. In 1907, Britain and Russia signed an agreement which divided Iran into zones of influence, but this agreement failed in its objectives due to activities of Iranian nationalists and other reasons. During World War I, and especially World War II, Iran was occupied, and the Soviet Union in 1945 openly and directly instigated separatists in Iran. The Red Army supported Azerbaijani and Kurdish republics in Iran, but Soviet activities were frustrated by U.S. President Harry Truman. Iraq invaded Iran in 1990s, using chemical and biological weapons and killing more than 400,000, maiming close to one-million.

The Iranians have not forgotten any of this; the current Islamic overlay on the country — so apparent to external analysts — in no way hides nationalist sentiment at home. Moreover, the Russians, who have forged a new Eurasian network following the unreported victory of Moscow in the Great Game, have also not abandoned their own caution over Iran and Turkey. Senior Russian officials do not believe that the pragmatically-based new relationships with Tehran and Ankara change underlying mutual suspicions. One very senior Russian Federation minister recently told Defense & Foreign Affairs: "We have been dealing with the Turks and the Persians for 500 years. We do not believe that they have changed, and they do not believe that we have changed."

Given the fact that Iran is located at the crossroad of Eurasia, and subject to many attacks in the past; and with five nuclear powers in the immediate vicinity, it is clear that Iranian officials and the public are conscious of the country's defense needs and its right to develop defensive capabilities to ensure the security of the state against internal disintegration and external aggression.

Here the issue is responsibility of a government. The Islamic Republic is unstable, and supports international terrorist groups. It not only denies the Holocaust of the Jews and others in World War II (a fundamental tenet of the reconstruction and unity of the post-War West), but is openly and repeatedly seeking the destruction of the State of Israel. These factors alone — quite apart from the domestic repression and inefficient economic and infrastructural policies of the Government of the Islamic Republic — give the international community pause; there can be no calm in the international community when such an unstable leadership has nuclear weapons. If Iran had a more responsible and responsive government — one which is not threatened by internal factions — then it seems clear that the U.S. and even Israel could live with a nuclear Iran. Now that Iran has crossed the Rubicon and is almost able to domestically produce nuclear weapons, the question arises as to what policy the West should adopt to prevent, or cope with, Iranian instability leading to a possible catastrophe.

It could be argued that Moscow would benefit from a more stable Iran, as a trading and strategic partner, but such stability and wealth could also make a secular Iran less dependent on Moscow, and more open to a revived rapprochement with the West. For the moment, Moscow finds its interests protected by the "dynamic instability" of Iran.

The Iranian (and for that matter Turkish) relations with the Russians are complex. Tehran and Ankara each recognize the strategic supremacy of Moscow in the region and are gravitating toward the Kremlin in order to benefit from the ascent of Russia. At the same time, there is a profound revival of historical sentiments in the three countries and this increasingly becomes a major influence on their respective strategy and policy formulation.

Russia, as noted, has a long history of bitter wars with both Turkey and Iran, as a result of which both countries lost both large amounts of territory and regional posture to triumphant Russia. This legacy is very much alive and is manifesting itself in growing mistrust and latent hostility between Russia and the two countries. It will be impossible for either Russia or Iran and Turkey to overcome and ignore this legacy while striving to consolidate strategic cooperation on the basis of contemporary circumstances. Yes, Turkey and Iran will continue to closely cooperate with Russia against the U.S.-led West, but they will continue to mistrust Russia as well.

In stark contrast, Persia — now Iran — and China have a long tradition of close cooperation and interaction along the Silk Road. These contacts can be traced back at least three millennia. With the exception of the Mongol surge, there has never been a major conflict between Persia/Iran and China, let alone war. That these countries are thousands of miles apart contributed to the absence of war. However, in Iranian political culture and tradition there is a profound difference between the hostile attitude toward Russia and friendship toward and trust in China.

Presently, the dependence of the PRC on imported oil and gas is growing. As the PRC economy expands, this dependence grows fast. The PRC considers Iran and Central Asia to be the main sources of imported energy. Originally, the PRC sought to transport hydrocarbons by a web of pipelines across Central Asia to China. However, the vast majority of the imported hydrocarbons are needed to feed the rapidly growing industrial base in south-eastern China, along the coast of the East China Sea. Hence, it would be significantly cheaper and simpler to deliver the growing volumes of hydrocarbons by tankers.

Enter Iran's new rôle in the PRC grand strategy. Iran is considered as the primary venue for reaching out to Central Asia. The evolving PRC energy policy is based on transporting hydrocarbons by pipeline to the coast of the Arabian Sea and onward by tanker to China. This grand strategic surge will be consolidated in a few years once the U.S. completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Then, a PRC-sponsored Iranian-Pakistani condominium is planned to be established in Afghanistan in order to get the hydrocarbons to the main ports in Gwadar and Chah-Bahar. Both Tehran and Islamabad are cognizant that in return for their cooperation in, and facilitation of, the PRC energy policy they would be provided with a PRC strategic umbrella against both the U.S. and regional foes (India, Israel, and even Russia). This grand strategy is the key to the growing PRC influence in Tehran. It is also the main source of the mullahs' confidence that they will be able to weather the U.S. pressure without having to give up too much to Russia, the current strategic power in the region. Given this background, what options could Western states consider in dealing with the present Iranian clerical leadership?


1. Negotiations and diplomatic engagement between the West and Iran experienced a miscarriage long ago. An apocalyptic Iranian Administration which believes in dissimulation (taghieh) and for foreign policy decisions consults with the Quran (estekhareh) is unlikely to be a partner for "peace" or even stable, mutually beneficial relations. It is not a normal and rational administration. Iran's strategy is to buy time. If Tehran's clerics engage in negotiation, it will be a means of deception to buy time to reach its strategic aim. As Sun-tzu put it, when an emissary of a state comes to the negotiation table and at the same time continues preparation, then be sure it will advance.
2. Sanctions will not be effective. Russia and the People's Republic of China (PRC) will not agree to meaningful sanctions because they both have economic and strategic interests in Iran, and even if they cooperated with the West for what the West believes would be effective sanctions, it would not bring the Islamic regime to its knees. Sanctions have failed in all other instances in the past 50 years, and Iran — especially with its new outlets via Russia and Turkey — is far less vulnerable than was, say, Chile, Serbia, or Rhodesia.

3. Neither war nor a military strike by Israel or the U.S., which some quarters have advocated, would be effective. A military strike would not solve the problem — which, it is stressed again, is about leadership and not about nuclear weapons — and, on the contrary, would be detrimental to the interests of the West in the region. It would bring incalculable harm to Israel than good, and would catapult the entire region into chaos, possibly leading to a military nuclear exchange. In the event of a military strike against Iran, the Islamic Republic would most probably attack U.S. interests in the region, simply because the clerics in Tehran and Qom do not believe that an Israeli military strike could be conducted without U.S. connivance and support. Iran would fire missiles at Tel Aviv and strategic Israeli targets, and proxy wars from HAMAS and Hizbullah would be waged against Israel. Most importantly, Iran would almost certainly use the cover of the conflict to attack the UAE and Saudi oilfields and refinery installations using its Shihab-3 and other medium-range ballistic missiles. It could take at least five-million barrels of Saudi oil a day out of the international market, thereby potentially increasing oil prices to up to $10 a gallon at the pumps, exacerbating the Western economic dilemma. It would thus be unwise for the Saudi Government to instigate war against Iran, which, in any event, it would not be likely to do. Iran may also attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. Any war in the region may start simply, but would be difficult to end.

4. A fourth option for the West would be to encourage a change of government in Iran from the inside. The best strategy, as all strategic philosophers aver, is to avoid a direct confrontation with power, and maneuver around it. A large segment of the Iranian people demonstrated during recent months, following the June 12, 2009, Presidential elections, that they would be ready to overthrow the clerical Government. They do not believe in the viability of meaningfulness of reform of the clerical administration. The Islamic Republic, through its domestic and foreign policies, has created two important enemies: the people of Iran and the U.S. and Israel. A military strike and aggression against Iran would — as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein discovered — cause many Iranians who would otherwise oppose the Government to unite in support of an administration which they hate. Indirect, psychological strategies and operations would support internal momentum. The UK and U.S. have clearly attempted this to some small degree in recent years, but often with the objective of fragmenting Iran. Those operations have proven inconsequential and counter-productive.

The foundation of the Islamic state structure is shaky. The element of fear of the Government is gone from the population. There is, in Iran, widespread challenge to the State, and disruption of the rule of "Supreme Leader" "Ayatollah" Ali Hoseini-Khamenei. The leadership is divided and it has created a political vacuum. Khamene'i on December 1, 2009, moved overtly for the first time against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since the June 2009 Presidential elections. He ordered Ahmadinejad to release five British yachtsmen who had been captured and detained for infringing Iranian sovereign waters a week earlier. Ahmadinejad complied, releasing the yachtsmen on Dec. 2.

The opening shots have been fired in the new round of internal conflict between the clerical groups in Iran. The leaders around Khamene'i favor removing Ahmadinejad — a delicate maneuver considering the President's influence in the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps: IRGC) and its Basij component — and replacing him with someone who remains loyal to the Islamic leadership but appears less threatening to Israel and the West. Some elements close to Khamenei have been promoting Tehran Mayor Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf as the ideal candidate.

The Iranian clerical leadership is aware that internal schisms are its biggest threat. It is significant that, in the face of this, however, there is unity in overarching strategic objectives in Tehran and Qom: retention of clerical rule; growing regional dominance and security; and projection of authority into the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean. These objectives demand a reintegration of Iran into the global energy markets, particularly through overland links to Europe and the PRC, and an ability to control oil and gas sea lanes through the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea (all Indian Ocean sea lanes). The strategic alliances with the PRC and Russia are critical elements of this, as is Iran's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Significantly, these parameters would also apply to a secular Iranian Government, should one emerge, but the difference is that an Iran under secular governance would more readily revive a comfortable modus operandi with the West, minimizing the need to destabilize the region. But it would be difficult for the West to demonstrate to Moscow that such a move would not reduce the delicately-balanced Russian influence and dominance of the Iranian market and resources, especially given the delicately-balanced Russo-PRC relations.

The PRC and Russia both provided significant intelligence and technical support to Tehran to manage hostile street crowds in most Iranian cities in the aftermath of the blatantly-manipulated Presidential elections of June 12. Moscow and Beijing both recognize that suppression of internal unrest was at the core of managing the most significant threat to the clerical leadership and therefore their respective influence in Tehran: the restive, and now emboldened, Iranian population.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that this message Iran's defense minister Ahmad Vahidi brought to Damascus where he is attending a session of the high Iranian-Syrian defense committee which went into its second day Thursday, Dec. 10. Syrian defense minister Ali Habib is in the chair.

The Iranian visitor indicated that Tehran expects an Israeli attack within a month. According to Iranian intelligence, Jerusalem will take its green light from President Barack Obama's forced admission after Christmas that his policy of dialogue and stiffer sanctions have failed in the face of Tehran's rejection of the international proposal to send its enriched uranium for overseas processing.

"The countdown for war is coming close to its end," said Vahidi to the joint defense committee. "And we must get our strategic partnership in shape ahead of time."

The leitmotif of the Iranian defense secretary's talks in Damascus was the fate Iran and Syria share and their strategic partnership as the only safeguards against what he called "'American-backed Zionist aggression." Syria must commit itself to joint military action against Israel, because “stronger defense ties between Iran and Syria are elements of deterrence in confronting the Zionist regime's threats to the countries of the region.”

For the first, time, Gen. Vahidi openly threatened to respond to a possible Israel attack on Iran's nuclear facilities by striking Israel's "chemical, microbiological and banned nuclear weapons" production sites.

His message brought forth a tepid Syrian response: The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Syrian Secretary of Defense Ali Habib as commenting early Thursday, December 10, that an attack on Iran by any party would be deemed an attack on Syria and draw commensurate retaliation.

But DEBKAfile's military sources point out that comment did not satisfy Tehran because it is short of clear language pledging specific military action. Iranian officials mean to stay in Damascus and keep up the pressure until they elicit a firm, binding Syrian commitment to strike Israel on its ally's behalf if Iran comes under attack.

Gen. Vahidi arrived in Damascus Tuesday aboard a special Iranian military aircraft. It carried the largest Iranian military delegation ever seen in the Syrian capital, representing every branch of Iran's armed forces, Revolutionary Guards Corps and intelligence.

Preparations for coordinated retaliation for a potential Israeli attack also brought a top Hizballah delegation incoming from Lebanon to Damascus Tuesday night, Dec. 8, headed by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

When they met, Syrian and Iranian military officials proposed that Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist organizations start heating up Israel's borders in the coming days to draw the attention from the world's focus on the Iranian and Syrian nuclear programs.

Sunday, December 6, DEBKAfile's Washington sources reported that the Obama administration was about to launch a campaign against Syria's covert military nuclear program based on the "smoking gun" of traces of highly processed plutonium found by UN inspectors at the bombed Syrian-North Korean facility at Dir a-Zur. The campaign will focus on this finding as evidence of Iran's covert nuclear activities and proliferation activities.

US Air Force spokesmen confirmed this week that the hitherto secret unmanned, high-altitude stealth jet, the "Beast of Kandahar," was present at the big US air base of Bagram, in Afghanistan. Photos of the Beast on the Bagram tarmac - outside its regular base at Kandahar near the Iranian and Pakistani borders - appeared in various Internet sites this week.

Designated RQ-170 Sentinel, it is the first jet drone ever developed for military use. France's EURO Demonstrator is a similar project which will be ready for test flights only in another two years.

Little is known about the Sentinel, which was manufactured by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program. USAF spokesmen disclosed only that its new deployment responded to secretary of defense Robert Gates' request for increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for combatant commanders in Afghanistan.

According to DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources, Washington had a reason for letting the Beast surface at this time in the form of a published photograph and a note about its ability to fly over the borders of Iran, China, India and Pakistan for collecting "useful data about missile tests, telemetry, signals and multi-spectral intelligence. The disclosure came on the heels of Iran's big air defense exercise for guarding its nuclear sites which ended in the third week of November; it appears to be a message to Tehran that all its war games, especially in intelligence and electronic warfare, were pointless since its skies are wide open to American drone activity against which Iran has no recourse.

Some of the Web sites, including the veteran Aviation Week, speculate about the Sentinel's configuration and features from the published image, describing it as "a tailless flying wing design" with sensor pods built into the upper surface of each wing.

Its designation denotes an unarmed drone rather than the armed Predator UAV which has been used to fire missiles at terrorist sites on the Pakistan-Afghan border. But this assumption is open to question in view of the impression of "a deep, fat center-body" which could house a bomb or missile bay.

Furthermore, its is painted medium grey like the Predator or Reaper, rather than the dark gray or overall black that would provide better concealment at high altitudes.

Both these features suggest the mysterious Beast of Kandahar may have secret functions other than pure reconnaissance.

Two Indian warships, guided missile frigate Ganga and stealth frigate Talwar will participate in the bilateral exercise. The Royal Navy of Oman task force would comprise the corvette Qahir Al Amwaaj with a helicopter, the missile boat Al Batnah, coastal resupply vessel Al Maded and landing ship Temsah. Several aircraft from Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) will also take part in the exercise, including maritime patrol aircraft and Jaguars.

A press release issued by the Indian Defence Ministry on Dec. 8 said, ‘The Naseem Al Bahr series of bilateral Naval exercises is a significant facet of the growing co-operation between India and Oman. This series of exercises between the Navies of the two nations commenced in 1993 and has grown in scope and complexity over the years. Six exercises conducted thus far have met the underlying aims of facilitating mutual learning and cross pollination of best practices.’ A wide range of exercises would be conducted during the sea exercise phase.

Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books

(Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images)
The mosque set on fire in the West Bank village of Kfar Yasuf, south of Nablus
James Hider, Jerusalem

Suspected Jewish settlers today attacked a mosque in the northern West Bank, burning holy books and spraying threatening graffiti in Hebrew on the building, Palestinian officials and Israeli police said.

Extremists broke into the mosque in the village of Yasuf, near the city of Nablus, and burned Muslim holy books and prayers carpets, while sprayed slogans on the floor reading “Price tag – greetings from Effi.”

The so-called price tag is the Jewish settlers’ policy of attacking Palestinians and their property in retribution for any Israeli government curb on settlement expansion. Effi is a Jewish name.

The dawn attack appeared to be the work of hardline settlers furious that the right-wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu has given in to US pressure to try and enforce a temporary freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where some 300,000 settlers live.

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While the attackers escaped, the Israeli government was quick to condemn the attack. "This is an extremist act geared toward harming the government's efforts to advance the political process for the sake of Israel's future," said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, whose department is overseeing the freeze.

When they discovered the desecration of their mosque, Palestinian villagers started throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, whom they often accuse of complicity with settlers when they carry out such attacks on them and their olive orchards. Two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were hurt in the clashes.

There have been rising tensions since Mr Netanyahu announced the proposed freeze last month, in an effort to meet US and Palestinians demands for a total halt on settlement construction, deemed illegal by the international community but often backed by the Israeli state.

Thousands of angry settlers gathered for a demonstration close to the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem this week, vowing to continue building and condemning Mr Natanyahu’s decision to bow to pressure from Barack Obama, the US president. They carried banners that said “Obama wants us frozen, God wants us chosen,” and “God’s Bible gave us this land.”

The settlers believe that the West Bank – which they call by its Biblical name, Judea and Samaria – should be part of a greater Israel, and are adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

They have torn up freeze orders delivered by the Israeli authorities to settlements in the West Bank, and blocked inspectors trying to enforce the building ban. Last week at the settlement of Qedumim, close to Nablus, residents prevented inspectors from entering while cheering as trucks of building materials were brought in.

A right-wing cabinet minister said that the freeze was largely a sham and that the settler population could grow by as many as 3,000 people in the next 10 months, the period of the proposed moratorium.

"This is neither a freeze nor a suspension," Benny Begin, the son of former prime minister Menachem Begin, told a conference in Tel Aviv, according to an Israeli newspaper. "Construction in Judea and Samaria will continue in the next 10 months."

"We are ... saying that we don't intend to restrict or suspend new building permits," he added.

And Mr Netanyahu has tried to temper anger by allocating special development grants to tens of thousands of the settlers, sparking anger from Mr Barak’s centrist Labour party, which has threatened to vote against the measure.

In my yet to be finished book on Dubai — tentatively titled Sand — I’ve placed close to 300,000 Indian. Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Nepalese and Bangladeshi workers in what is called Sonapur, a sprawling labour camp in Dubai. A fascinating character in the book is a journalist answering to the name Johann Hari, who visits Dubai and calls on the residents of Sonapur: “He shows me his room.

It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone.

The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp — holes in the ground — are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is “unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night.” At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.” Hari is for real. So is Sonapur and the conditions there he writes about.

The well-heeled — that includes Indians — in Dubai don’t care a whit about the residents of Sonapur.

Hari’s article which appeared in the Independent blew the lid off Dubai’s endearing slogan “Dubai Cares”. More from Hari: “Sultan is furious. He splutters: “You don’t think Mexicans are treated badly in New York City? And how long did it take Britain to treat people well?....

The workers here can leave any time they want! Any Indian can leave, any Asian can leave!” But they can’t, I point out. Their passports are taken away, and their wages are withheld. “Well, I feel bad if that happens, and anybody who does that should be punished. But their embassies should help them.” Hari’s entry into the UAE has been banned after the article appeared in the Independent in April this year. Hari wrote of not only the moral bankruptcy of Dubai but also of its impending financial bankruptcy. The Dubai Government (ie Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) has now washed its (his) hands of the Dubai World debt. But in 2003, it was as if another man was speaking: “I would like to tell capitalists that Dubai does not need investors, investors need Dubai and I tell you that the risk lies not in using your money but in letting it pile up… money is like water — if you lock it up, it becomes stagnant and foulsmelling, but if you let it flow, it stays fresh… When I encourage you to invest, I am not asking you to put your money into a fire — I guarantee that your money will be invested in carefully studied projects. I want to be frank with you — I have the courage to take decisions and to bear the responsibility for the consequences.

Do you have the courage to be frank and decisive?” Reality is “Dubai Cares” only for money, and money alone.

Hankering after money is not wrong in itself but for a region that depends on (and exploits) so much expat labour, ideas and industry, Dubai should fulfil some of its obligations towards these people who have made Dubai what it was till Dubai World broke. For a start, it could release all those jailed there for not being in a position to pay their debts.

On Wednesday Nov. 11, Saudi Arabia imposed a naval blockade on northern Yemen's Red Sea coast to keep Iranian ships from unloading arms for the Shiite Houthi rebels challenging Abdullah Salah's government in Sanaa. This step was the first in the transition of Yemen's civil war into a regional conflict pitting Saudi Arabia against Iran.

Riyadh is not working alone in this venture. DEBKA-Net-Weekly military sources report exclusively, that last week, a flotilla of a dozen warships, missile ships and naval commando units of the GCC (The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) entered the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden.

The Kuwaiti Navy deployed:

2 MK V interceptor craft

3 FPB 57 fast attack craft

1 support ship

The United Arab Emirates sent:

2 missile boats

The Omani Navy sent:

The Qahir Al Amwaj , an Oman Qahir-class corvette

These craft have set up an outer defense ring for the Saudi naval ships tightening the naval blockade and securing the shores of Yemen against foreign infiltration and arms deliveries.

The Saudi naval forces are composed of all the warships available to the Saudi Western Fleet based at the Red Sea port of Jeddah. The fleet throwing the blockade around Yemen has been fortified by an Al Riyadh-class frigate armed with four Harpoon sea-to-sea missile launchers. Around 1,000 Saudi marines of the 3,000-strong force deployed in this region have been detached for this new mission.

Two Indian warships, guided-missile frigate INS Ganga and stealth frigate INS Talwar, took part in the seventh Indo-Oman bilateral Naval exercise, Naseem Al Bahar 09, that concluded on Wednesday in Omani waters. According to a press release from the Press Information Bureau of India, the two Indian warships took part in the Naval exercise with Royal Navy of Oman task force vessels. "Several aircraft from the Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) also took part in the exercise, including maritime patrol aircraft and Jaguars," the press release said."This visit aims to further strengthen the strong maritime relationship between the two countries," said a statement issued by the Indian mission in Muscat.
The Naseem Al Bahr series of bilateral naval exercises is a significant facet of the growing cooperation between India and Oman. This series of exercises between the navies of the two nations began in 1993 and has grown in scope and complexity over the years. Six exercises conducted so far have met the underlying aims of facilitating mutual learning and cross-pollination of best practices.

Dubai: Millions of expatriates in Saudi Arabia, including Indians, heaved a sigh of relief as the government here has decided to issue permanent resident visas for workers families based on their financial status and not on their profession.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said permanent resident and visit visas were earlier issued only to engineers, doctors and executives and now it would only look at the financial status of an applicant, Arabic daily, Al-Yaum reported.
Resumption

“The Ministry’s office in Riyadh issued such recruitment visas for three days last week and stopped it temporarily. It is expected that the Ministry would resume the service next month,” a Ministry official told the paper.

Following the report, a large number of Indian workers have approached the Indian Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate in Jeddah to include their spouses’ names in their passports.

Indian missions are now issuing new passports after including the spouses’ names.

The news is a big relief for many of the seven million expatriates, who are unable to bring their families due to their profession written on their ‘iqama’ (identity cards).
“Great news”

“This is a great news for thousands of professionals like me who are unable to bring their wives and children to the kingdom because of the profession in iqama,” the paper quoted Shabeer Ali, a computer engineer based in Jeddah, as saying.

Mr. Ali said he was trying to bring his family to the kingdom ever since his marriage. “Until now I could not, because they look at the profession on my iqama, which is an electrician. I had presented my Masters degree certificate in computer science attested by the Saudi Embassy, as well as my salary certificate, but they rejected my application,” he said.

He did not know about this problem before coming to the kingdom.

“I know that there are thousands of expatriate workers who are highly qualified and earn good salaries but cannot bring their families because of their profession,” he said.

The Foreign Ministry official said the Ministry had stopped processing applications in order to implement the new criteria. — PTI

However, in May the UAE will assume the chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), a strategic group made up of 33 countries around the Indian Ocean. The symposium, which will be held in Abu Dhabi, is dedicated to keeping the ocean free of disruptions.

Piracy will be a key issue.

“The Indian Ocean will be the most important ocean in the world in the 21st century,” said Commodore Ranjit Rai, the former director of Indian naval operations.

He said the transfer of IONS to the UAE is “an attempt by India to bring the UAE and the GCC into the forum to breed understanding and help bring stability to the Indian Ocean”.

Cmdre Rai said the Straits of Hormuz were a choke point for the global economy.

“If they close even for a day the price of oil will jump and there would be widespread geopolitical consequences, so the GCC must be engaged,” he said.

The UAE already is leading Task Force 152, a multinational fleet that patrols the Gulf, although it is not specifically an anti-piracy force.

“There has been a shift of piracy from the Gulf of Aden into the Indian Ocean,” said Col Ala Abdulla Seyali, the commander of the Bahraini Coast Guard. “We are wary of piracy spreading to the Arabian Gulf.

India has invited oil-producing West Asian nations to set up storage facilities on the country’s coastline to help them serve their energy markets in Asia such as Japan
Utpal Bhaskar

New Delhi: The Sultanate of Oman may become the first investor to take up an Indian invitation to set up large crude oil storage facilities in the country, helping the world’s second fastest growing major economy reinforce emergency oil reserves and reduce its vulnerability to supply disruptions.

India has invited oil-producing West Asian nations to set up storage facilities on the country’s coastline to help them serve their energy markets in Asia such as Japan.

In turn, the facilities will augment India’s oil storage infrastructure, helping it meet domestic demand in the event of any short-term disruption in supplies, whether caused by a natural calamity or by unexpected global events.

“An Indian delegation is expected to leave for Oman in January next year to discuss the modalities of the joint venture arrangement,” said a senior official in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas who did not want to be identified.

Oman is among the few West Asian oil producers that’s actively engaged in the Indian energy sector. Oman Oil Co. (OOC), owned by the Oman government, is a partner with India’s Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL) in the 6 million tonnes per annum, or mtpa, Bina oil refinery in Madhya Pradesh with a 26% stake.

Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd is constructing three strategic storage facilities at Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Padur with a combined capacity of 5 million metric tonnes, equivalent to around 14 days of consumption.

“The proposal has been sent to all the Gulf countries and discussions are going on. They can invest and have a storage,” said petroleum secretary R.S. Pandey. “The arrangement with the foreign countries for the creation of crude oil infrastructure will be separate from the three strategic storage facilities being set up.”

Pandey declined to comment on the proposed Oman visit by the Indian delegation.

India depends on imports to meet its oil needs and is particularly vulnerable to supply disruptions. West Asia holds the key to energy security for India, the world’s fifth largest oil importer. India imports 75% of its requirements and accounts for some 3.5% of global consumption. It will become the third largest oil importer after the US and China before 2025, with energy demands expected to almost double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

OOC, the embassy of Oman in New Delhi and consulate in Mumbai could not be contacted for comment. Questions emailed to the OOC, the embassy of Oman and the consulate bounced back.

“An official offer has been extended to Oman. From a strategic view-point, such an arrangement works to our advantage as in emergency the crude stored in the facilities created through overseas participation can be given to the refineries to meet the domestic demand,” said a top executive at a government-owned oil refining company.

Japan is heavily dependent on West Asian oil producers such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Iran to meet its energy needs. Japan, the world’s second biggest economy, is the third largest oil consumer after the US and China.

“Creating crude oil storage facilities is extremely critical for India’s long term energy security,” said Gokul Chaudhri, partner at audit and consulting firm BMR Advisors. “If we are able to build this infrastructure, rather than it just being a stock point, we can optimally use it as a trading hub for commercial advantage.”

Such facilities should be built as part of a special economic zone, or SEZ, to eliminate the tax impact, said Chaudhri. SEZs offer attractive tax incentives to investors.

India has already emerged as a major Asian refining hub, with an installed refining capacity of 177.97 mtpa and is exporting petroleum products worth $25 billion (Rs1.17 trillion) annually. The new storage facilities could help India emerge as a hub for crude oil trading. Energy supply deficits in East Asia are a cause of concern for the growing economies of China, India, Japan and South Korea. West Asia supplies around 70% of Asian oil consumption.

Tuesday 8 Dec, 2009

Millions of dollars in cash is being smuggled from Kabul to Dubai every day in briefcases, bags and holdalls, a US ambassador to Afghanistan has warned.

Ambassador E Anthony Wayne revealed that $10 million of dirty money is being carried into the UAE each day - much of it drug earnings from Afghanistan’s booming heroin trade.

He revealed details of a US investigation that found an estimated $190 million in cash was smuggled from the Afghan capital in just 18 sample days, with most of it ending up in Dubai.

Wayne, the US ambassador in charge of economic affairs, made his comments in Kabul at the start of a four-day conference on cash smuggling.

In a hard-hitting statement, he said that the Afghan authorities should know about this money, should monitor it and should control it.

His comments were backed up by the Afghan foreign minister who said that both drug dealers and corrupt government officials were moving large amounts of cash into Dubai.

The ambassador added that the smuggling methods were “low tech”, with couriers hired to carry the cash in their personal luggage.

He vowed to help Afghan authorities to end the “scourge” of cash smuggling being used by people who wanted to return Afghanistan to “lawlessness and anarchy”.

He also vowed to help train Afghan officials to spot cash smugglers and revealed some of the bizarre methods the US government has spotted internationally - including couriers who swallow the cash to avoid detection.

Other “creative tactics” include hiding cash in sweet wrappers, bicycle tyres and even laundry detergent boxes. “Couriers have been caught with concealed bulk cash hidden in their shoes and taped to their bodies,” he added.

Their statements came as Indian police confirmed they had raided the home on Saturday of Naresh Kumar Jain, who ran the world’s largest money laundering operation from Dubai, according to US, Italian and Germany authorities.

Jain, who was arrested, had fled to India in recent months after allegedly running a massive money laundering operation in Deira for the last 20 years, much of it allegedly handing Afghan drug money.

Hossam Abd El-Rahman, managing partner and financial crimes consultant at Dubai’s Allied Compliance Consultants, said that the UAE Central Bank is awaiting an independent report that will assess its ability to stop money laundering.

“They are taking this seriously and Dubai has trained auditors to stop money laundering.

“They are not at the stage where they know everything, and they will have to improve some areas,” he said.

The Zaidi Shiites, a minority group that makes up about 45 percent of the population, is a uniquely Yemeni Shiite movement that is independent of the larger, mainstream Shiite sect that runs Iran