assad emerging stronger according to bnd

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http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/815649/israel-pret-a-attaquer-en-cas-de-chute-du-regime-assad.html


Israël prêt à attaquer en cas de chute du régime Assad... 

23/05/2013

Israël est prêt à attaquer la Syrie, en cas de chute du président Bachar el-Assad, pour empêcher que des armes perfectionnées ne tombent entre les mains de groupes jihadistes ou du Hezbollah, a déclaré hier le chef de l’armée de l’air israélienne. « Dans l’hypothèse où Israël devrait affronter le Hezbollah et ses soutiens iraniens, a ajouté le général Amir Eshel, il faut s’attendre à un conflit long et douloureux. Nous devons être prêts à affronter tous les scénarios, avec seulement quelques heures de préavis. » Des avions israéliens ont attaqué des objectifs en Syrie au moins trois fois cette année pour détruire, selon des sources proches des services de renseignements, des armes antiaériennes et des missiles sol-sol destinés aux miliciens chiites du Hezbollah. Par ailleurs, un haut responsable du ministère israélien de la Défense a assuré hier que la « stabilité » sur le plateau du Golan occupé et la « force de dissuasion de l’armée israélienne » dans le secteur sont intactes malgré la multiplication récente des tirs syriens.

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 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-believes-assad-regime-regaining-lost-power-a-901188.html

 Syrian Rebels in Trouble: German Intelligence Sees Assad Regaining Hold

Matthias Gebauer 

Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad's regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has fundamentally changed its view of the ongoing civil war in Syria. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that the BND now believes the Syrian military of autocrat Bashar Assad is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will. BND head Gerhard Schindler informed select politicians of the agency's new assessment in a secret meeting.

It is a notable about-face. As recently as last summer, Schindler reported to government officials and parliamentarians that he felt the Assad regime would collapse early in 2013. He repeated the view in interviews with the media.

At the time, the BND pointed to the Syrian military's precarious supply situation and large numbers of desertions that included members of the officer core. German intelligence spoke of the "end phase of the regime."

Since then, however, the situation has changed dramatically, the BND believes. Schindler used graphics and maps to demonstrate that Assad's troops once again possess effective supply lines to ensure sufficient quantities of weapons and other materiel. Fuel supplies for tanks and military aircraft, which had proved troublesome, are once again available, Schindler reported. The new situation allows Assad's troops to combat spontaneous rebel attacks and even retake positions that were previously lost. The BND does not believe that Assad's military is strong enough to defeat the rebels, but it can do enough to improve its position in the current stalemate.

Severing Rebel Supply Lines

The assessment appears to be consistent with recent reports from Syria, where government troops have been able to regain the upper hand in the region stretching from Damascus to Homs, including coastal areas near Homs. Furthermore, fighters loyal to Assad have expelled rebel fighters from several districts on the edge of Damascus and cut off their supply lines to the south. Currently, the regime is in the process of severing rebel supply lines to the west.

Meanwhile, the BND believes that rebel forces, which include several groups of Islamist fighters with ties to al-Qaida, are facing extreme difficulties. Schindler reported that different rebel groups are fighting with each other to attain supremacy in individual regions. Furthermore, regime troops have managed to cut supply lines for weapons and evacuation routes for wounded fighters. Each new battle weakens the militias further, the BND chief said.

Should the conflict continue as it has in recent weeks, says Schindler, government troops could retake the entire southern half of the country by the end of 2013. That would leave only the north for insurgent fighters, where Kurdish rebels have tighten control over their areas.

 

Lowering Expectations

 

Schindler's report on the state of the rebel groups allows little room for hope that serious talks between the insurgents and the Assad regime will take place soon. The BND says there is no functional chain of command between opposition leaders abroad and the militias inside of Syria. The fighters on the ground simply don't recognize the political leadership, says the BND.

The United Nations is currently doing all it can to encourage both sides to engage in peace talks in Geneva, though no date has been set. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is once again travelling to the Middle East on Wednesday to plan for such negotiations.

At a meeting of the "Friends of Syria" in the Jordanian capital of Amman, Westerwelle is set to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry among others. But over the weekend, he sought to lower expectations, saying that it isn't clear yet whether the Assad regime is even prepared to engage in talks.

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http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-assad-preparing-missile-strike-against-tel-aviv-in-case-attacked-again-1.524664

Assad preparing missile strike against Tel Aviv in case attacked again 

The Syrian army is deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles aiming at Israel in the aftermath of the alleged Israeli strikes, The Sunday Times reports. 

May.19, 2013

Syria is making preparations to strike Tel Aviv in case Israel launches another attack on its territory, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles, the report said, adding that it has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out.

The Sunday Times said that the information was obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles which are capable of carrying a half-ton warhead.

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On Wednesday, The New York Times quoted a senior Israeli official warning of further attacks against Syria in case Bashar Assad decides to take action against Israel. The official also said Israel is determined to prevent any transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that Syria would supply his organization with 'game-changing weapons' in response to recent air raids near Damascus attributed to Israel. Another recent report claimed that Iran convinced Assad to allow Hezbollah to open a front against Israel in the Golan Heights, and also agreed to supply and assist any group that wishes to fight Israel.

turkish agent provocateur in german terror plot

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http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48154

GERMANY: Terror Plot Emerges as Secret Service Game

By Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Aug 20 (IPS) - It was announced as a terror plot busted. German police had captured three young Muslim men in the small village Medebach-Oberschledor, some 450 km southwest of Berlin Sep. 4 in 2007. The police declared they had seized 730 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide, enough to make 550 kg of explosives.

The three men, and a fourth, who was captured a year later in Turkey, wanted to bomb U.S. military and other facilities in Germany, and to kill "as many U.S. soldiers as possible," one of the accused later confessed.

The four men told court their plans were in retaliation against the U.S. war on 'Islamic terrorism', especially the abuse of hundreds of Muslims detained at Guantanamo prison. German authorities and the media dubbed the four men 'the Sauerland group', in reference to the region where they were captured.

The Sauerland group were declared to be members of the Islamic Jihad Union, an alleged terrorist organisation based in Uzbekistan.

Almost two years later, the case is before the higher regional court in Duesseldorf, some 460 km southwest of Berlin, and should come to a close early 2010.

But now, the case has ceased to be "the serious terrorist threat" it was called. It is now a mysterious puzzle of secret service games, prosecutors' alarmism spread by the media, and basic failures of justice.

The supposedly dangerous group members have emerged as no more than some muddle-heads. They had no links whatsoever to international Islamic terror groups.

"No Islamic chief villain...in Pakistan or somewhere else influenced the group," says Hans Leyendecker, one of Germany's top investigative journalists. "Its members are dumb, narrow-minded young men who hate the U.S."

Moreover, the fifth member of the group, yet to be captured, has been described as a Turkish national known only as Mevlut K. He now appears as an informer of the Turkish national intelligence organisation (MIT, after its Turkish name). He was the key figure in the plot, according to confessions by other members of the Sauerland group.

"Without Mevlut, we would not have been able to go as far with the preparations as we did," Attila Selek, one of the accused, told the court. 'K' had procured 26 fuses for the bombs the group was supposed to make, Selek said. Only, the fuses were useless. German police investigations showed that all but two were too humid to work.

Fritz Gelowicz, another member of the terrorist group, said the four men were informed of K's links with the MIT. "We knew that Mevlut had links with several secret services," Gelowicz told the court. "We though that these links were good for us."

K apparently did not hide his links to the Turkish secret service. On at least one occasion K told the group they were being monitored by the German security agencies. "Then he told me he was stealing this information from secret services," Selek told the court.

Despite warnings that the German police were constantly informed of their actions, the four men continued their preparations until they were captured.

Numerous sources have confirmed that the German foreign intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) knew in 2004 that Mevlut K worked for the MIT. That year, the sources said, the MIT proposed to the BND that K be infiltrated into Islam movements in Germany. The BND reportedly rejected the Turkish plan.

Despite the confessions about K's involvement, German justice failed to order his capture for a long time. Mevlut K. is believed to be living in Turkey.

German authorities only issued an international warrant against Mevlut K. Aug. 13, several weeks after depositions by the other four members of the group had been widely circulated.

The Sauerland group could have been "an orchestration to make believe that a huge terrorist threat" was looming over U.S. military facilities in Germany, says Rene Hellig, leading commentator with the Neues Deutschland daily.

Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray calls it a fake case orchestrated by Uzbek security services.

"I should make plain that regrettably it is a fact that there are those who commit violence, motivated by a fanatic version of their faith," Murray wrote in his personal blog. "Sadly the appalling aggression of the U.S. government and allied war policy has made such reaction much more frequent. They may or may not have been planning to commit explosions. But if they were, the question is who was really pulling their strings, and why?"

Murray says there is no evidence of the existence of Islamic Jihad Union, alleged to have been directing the Sauerland group, other than that given by Uzbek security services. "There are, for example, no communications intercepts between senior terrorists referring to themselves as the Islamic Jihad Union," he said.

Murray said the planned attacks the Uzbekistan government attributed to the group since the spring of 2004 "are in fact largely fake and almost certainly the work of the Uzbek security services, from my investigations on the spot at the time." (END/2009)