AN AXIS RESURGENT
By AMIR TAHERI
February 28, 2004 -- IN a reversal of its policy not to enter into military alliance with any foreign power, the Islamic Republic of Iran has just concluded a defense pact with Syria. Signed in Damascus yesterday, the pact commits Iran to Syria's defense against "the Zionist entity," which in the Iranian lexicon means Israel.
The idea of a pact was first raised by Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of Iraq last April. The Syrian leader paid three visits to Tehran, pressing the Iranian leadership to come to the help of his beleaguered regime.
Sources in Tehran say the Iranians were at first reluctant to commit to a course that could make war with Israel almost inevitable. All changed sometime last November when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian "Supreme Guide," decided that the only way to deal with the perceived threat from America was to raise the cost of any attempt by Washington to implement further "regime changes" in the Middle East.
According to our sources, Iran's decision to strengthen its commitment to Syria is one of several factors behind President Assad's recent decision to adopt a tougher stance against both the United States and Israel.
Iran's defense minister, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani (who signed the pact with his Syrian counterpart, Lt.-Gen. Mustafa Tlas), told reporters in Damascus yesterday that its "arrangements" also extend to Lebanon, where Syria maintains an army of 30,000 and Iran supports the Hezbollah (Party of God).
From Damascus, Shamkhani went to Beirut, where he presided over a war council attended by the entire political and military leadership of the Hezbollah. Top of the agenda was closer coordination between Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which are supported by Iran.
The pact has three sections. One spells out the strategic partnership of the two nations on "military and intelligence" issues, including a framework for joint staff conversations, exchange of information, joint planning and exercises, and reciprocal access to segments of each nation's weapons systems.
The second section provides mechanisms whereby Iran and Syria will assist one another against aggression by a third party. The full text of the section has not been released, but Shamkhani and Tlas made it clear that "mutual defense" includes the commitment of troops and materiel to deal with any clear and present danger against either nation.
The third section is a memorandum on technical and scientific cooperation that commits Iran to build a national defense industry for Syria. The text also commits Iran to supply Syria with a wide range of weapons, including fighter-bombers and theater-range missiles, on a lend-lease basis. Iran has also agreed to train an undisclosed number of Syrian officers and military technicians, especially in the use of a wide range of missiles.
In a Thursday speech in Damascus, Shamkhani explained that Iran and Syria felt threatened by U.S. and Israeli "aggression."
"In the existing strategic configuration in our region, Syria represents Iran's first line of defense," Shamkhani said. "Iran, in turn, must be regarded as Syria's geo-strategic depth."
Iran already has a military presence in both Syria and Lebanon. The Iranian military mission in Damascus consists of over 500 officers and experts in weaponry and military intelligence. The Corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has a contingent of 1,200 men in Lebanon on missions including training, deployment and maintenance of certain categories of weapons, and military intelligence. Each year Iran also trains an unspecified number of Syrian officers and military technicians, plus hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and cadres.
The new pact is presented by the state-controlled media in Iran and Syria as a response to the close military ties between Israel and Turkey.
Iranian and Syrian analysts believe that Washington plans a new regional military alliance to include Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, seven regional countries are scheduled to sign an association accord with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) later this year. The leaders of the countries concerned (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan) have been invited to a NATO summit to be held in Istanbul in May.
As the only regional countries left out (along with Lebanon, which is de facto a Syrian dominion), Iran and Syria fear that their isolation could render them vulnerable to attack by either Israel or the United States.
The Irano-Syrian pact is scheduled to last for a period of five years but could be renewed with mutual consent.
To come into effect, the text must be approved by the Iranian and Syrian parliaments, which should happen early this summer. Syria's parliament, controlled by the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath (Renaissance) Party was never a problem. The new Iranian Majlis (parliament) is not expected to be a problem either since it will be controlled by groups loyal to the "Supreme Guide" and opposed to concessions to the United States.
The recent defeat of the so-called "reformist" camp in Iran is certain to concentrate control of foreign policy in the hands of Khamenei and his special foreign policy adviser, Ali-Akbar Velayati.
In a series of speeches and articles last year, Velayati urged the leadership to adopt "a position of strength" vis-?-vis the United States and Israel. His argument is that the Bush administration is committed to the overthrow of the Khomeinist regime and that the only way to counter its "conspiracies" is to raise the stakes to a point that would be unacceptable to American public opinion.
The Iran-Syria pact is only part of Velayati's grand vision. A more important part is Iran's decision to acquire a credible nuclear deterrent, probably within the next two to three years, thus raising the stakes even higher.
It is no exaggeration to suggest that the new Iranian tough line has been encouraged by the reaction of both the United States and the European Union to the recent election in Iran, in which only handpicked pro-regime candidates were allowed to stand.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has expressed his "sadness" but insists that rapprochement with Tehran would continue regardless. The European Union has gone further by suggesting that the controversial election represented nothing but a dark patch in an otherwise serene sky. As for Washington, the announcement by CIA chief George Tenet that the Iranian regime is "secure" is seen by the hard-line Khomeinists as an admission of American despair.
Just three months ago, the Iranian and Syrian regimes had their backs to the wall. Now, however, they manifest a new self-confidence. And that could lead either to a serious dialogue with Washington or, more likely, a sharpening of the conflict with it, especially in Iraq, Lebanon, and the occupied territories.


E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

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Israeli Bank Raid Hits Terrorists Pocket

DEBKAfile Special Report

February 27, 2004, 9:32 PM (GMT+02:00)


Israel's first dip into Palestinian terrorist bank accounts Wednesday, February 25, raised a storm in international banking circles greater than if Israeli troops had pushed into Bethlehem to avenge two recent Jerusalem bus blasts in which 18 Israelis and a foreign worker died.
Washington slapped the Sharon government's wrist, claiming its action in downtown Ramallah could destabilize the Palestinian banking system and should have been coordinated with Palestinian financial authorities, namely the pro-US finance minister Salim Fayad.
Israel responded that six months of painstaking intelligence-gathering had gone into pinpointing more that 400 accounts held by Palestinian terrorist groups and funded mostly by Syria, Iran and the Hizballah. Advance notice would have jeopardized the operation.
Some of the accounts belonged to the Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Jerusalem bus blasts as well as for the shooting ambush Thursday, February 26, at the Erez checkpoint from the Gaza Strip to Israel, killing an Israeli military reservist, wounding two, and halting the passage of Palestinian workers to their jobs in Israel.
Israeli officials cited the US presidential directive calling for a worldwide clampdown on terrorist financing which has so far netted no more than $130 million. Palestinian banks, they said, had been hijacked to finance Palestinian terrorist groups.
DEBKAfile's Washington sources reveal the US was under heavy pressure to have Israel's "armed robbers" pulled out of the banks - not only from Fayed, but from international banking heavyweight Palestinian-born Abdul Majid Shuman, head of the Arab Bank of Amman, one of the biggest in the Middle East, whose two Ramallah branches were stormed Wednesday together with the Cairo Amman Bank. Shuman called every head of government and international bank he could find, including the World Bank and Jordan's King Abdullah II who is on a visit in Malaysia, to insist that they intercede with the Bush administration to stop the Israeli operation. He warned the king that the Jordan-based institution's business reputation would suffer if Israeli troops could march in at will and examine confidential accounts.
Nonetheless, for 13 hours, no one interrupted Israeli police computer experts as they logged onto banking networks and examined accounts, or the officers stuffing up to $8 million into large holdalls in amounts corresponding to the targeted accounts.
Armed troops secured the operation outside. More than 40 Palestinians were injured when tear gas was used to break up stone-throwing mobs.
Ramallah, seat of Yasser Arafat's headquarters, was already tense, under assault from internal strife in the ruling Fatah. DEBKAfile's Palestinian sources report Mohammed Dahlan, interior minister in Mahmoud Abbas's short-lived government, has mounted a telling revolt against Arafat's leadership. Monday,February 23, 11 leaders of Fatah-North Gaza Strip resigned in a body. Threats to quit are coming from branch leaders in Gaza City, central and southern Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank centers of Nablus and its surrounding villages, Ramallah's environs and Arab Jerusalem.
The uprising forced Arafat to call the first Fatah Central Council meeting in 13 years. The session took place Wednesday night in Ramallah while Israeli police were going through the city's banks. It broke down after all-night debates failed to settle the crisis. Council members demanded immediate elections for a clean sweep of corrupt veterans. Arafat agreed but refused to set a date. He understands that electing young activists to Fatah's ruling institutions will wipe out his majority. Dahlan's "parliamentary revolt," if pulled off, would therefore be tantamount to a putsch.
After the bank operation was over, defense minister Shaul Mofaz announced the impounded funds would be spent on benefits for ordinary Palestinians. The hated roadblocks could not be removed as long terrorists stalked the borders, but facilities would be improved, as would also health services, school transport and food.
This will hardly mollify the Jordanian-Palestinian tycoon Shuman who is smarting after the second Israeli assault on his property. Exactly one year ago, Israel troops impounded $10,000 of Hamas funds from a financial institution he owns in the Jerusalem village of al Azariya.
Israel's bank raids will not halt the transfer of funds to terrorist groups. They will only divert a larger flow outside the banking system that will be harder to stem. Still, a large chunk of cash is now missing from their warchest
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Middle East "Super Monday" in Washington

DEBKAfile Special Analysis
February 28, 2004, 9:25 PM (GMT+02:00)
Javier Solana - these days a welcome visitor to DC
Monday, March 1, several hives of activity will focus on the Middle East's most intractable conflict and the next stage of the Bush design to remake the region.
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's two senior aides, Dov Weisglass and his new national security council director Giora Eiland, will be in Washington, officially to present the essentials of the prime minister's initiative for Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians by means of the partial evacuation of Israeli dwellers from the Gaza Strip and from isolated locations in the West Bank and the construction of a fence - both for protection against terrorists and as a divider.
To ease acceptance, the fence was shortened by 80 km and underwent major surgery to straighten out loops curving into the West Bank. The biggest sacrifice is the section that was supposed to guard Israel's international Ben Gurion airport, the densely populated Modi'in-Re'ut-Maccabim region, and highways linking it to Jerusalem, from terrorist attack. These vital areas will be denied the protection of a defense barrier separating next-door Palestinian areas.
The European Union's foreign affairs executive Javier Solana will land in Washington on the same day as the Israeli delegation. He will be coming to hear arguments from secretary of state Colin Powell and the president's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice in favor of Europe joining forces with the United States in the execution of a regional strategy and the Sharon plan.
All parties are aware that Israel will be at the receiving end of demands for further "adjustments" to make the Bush strategy attractive to the European Union.
Therefore, the fate of the Weisglass-Eiland presentation depends largely on the outcome of Solana's talks with US leaders.
Not entirely by chance, Friday, February 27, Irish foreign minister Brian Cowan handed visiting foreign minister Silvan Shalom in Dublin with a plan that Solana will also discuss with his American hosts. Ireland is the present EU president. The plan centers on the deployment of NATO forces in areas evacuated by Israel, NATO being a euphemism for European troops. Long dreamed of by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and embodied in the Geneva proposals developed by Israeli dove Yossi Beilin and Palestinian Yasser Abd Rabbo, every Israeli government has rejected the notion in the past. Shalom explained to the Irish minister that the presence of foreign troops would hold Israel back from pursuing terrorists and prejudice its national security.
As he spoke, the subject was being thoroughly explored in the White House, according to DEBKAfile's Washington sources, by President George W. Bush and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder when they met to bury their pre-Iraq War hatchet.
Solana will almost certainly take up the American offer. He will not miss the opportunity to gradually forced Israel back, step by step, into a comprehensive withdrawal - not only from the Gaza Strip but also from the West Bank under the US-European aegis. Every peace proposal he ever initiated always hinged heavily on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
The erosion has begun. Sharon's proposed removal of 17 of the 19 Gaza Strip Jewish settlements has morphed in diplomatic parlance to total withdrawal of settlers and troops alike. The most unobtrusive casualty of this projected stampede is the security strip along the Israel-Egyptian frontier that was enshrined in the 1979 peace treaty signed by the late Menahem Begin and Anwar Sadat, for which they shared a Nobel Prize and which holds up to the present day. Eliminating the border crossing at the southern tip of Rafah would push the Israeli frontier 70 km north almost up to the Mediterranean town of Ashkelon.
And that is just for starters. Powell, Rice and Solana are both old hands at the negotiating table. Concessions made at the outset are likely to snowball. The European official will not miss the chance of building on the Gaza withdrawal and partial removal of West Bank settlements. He will get his chance when Washington asks to hear what concessions Europe requires from Israel to get the Europeans behind the United States on other issues like Iraq and Syria.
Both sides will be keen to accommodate one another and increase Bush's Middle East momentum. The mission that takes Weisglass and Eiland to Washington is therefore not the presentation of the Sharon plan but rather to hear what further concessions are demanded before the Israeli prime minister is invited for his oft-postponed visit to the White House.
The Bush administration faces a far tougher challenge to its plans for the region on the Arab side of the Middle East. Monday, too Mark Grossman, the state department's Number Three, heads out for Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain and Turkey, to sell the president's democratic reforms program to key Arab leaders as well as Ankara. His trip follows a little-noticed declaration delivered in unison last week by two moderate Arab leaders, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Together, they flatly rejected the Western model of democracy that "does not suit a region largely driven by Islamic teachings." They affirmed that the US "Greater Middle East Initiative" is not compatible with the "its specificities and Arab identity." Bahrain has since endorsed this declaration.
To make sure the message is audible in Washington, 22 Arab League foreign ministers meet in Cairo this same "Super Monday" to draft a common stand against "the controversial American plan to spread democracy in the region." It will be tabled at the Tunis Arab summit on March 29-30.
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>> AHEM...

Al Qaeda Builds a Euro Army
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly Feb. 20 Updated by DEBKAfile
February 25, 2004, 3:10 PM (GMT+02:00)
Zawahiri and bin Laden - elusive voices on tape
Warnings of al Qaeda's continuing threat came Tuesday, February 24, from Washington and London as well as one of its top leaders. Addressing the Senate intelligence committee, CIA director George Tenet spoke of the spread of al Qaeda's radical agenda to local groups who now threaten the United States and are capable of 9/11 scale attacks.
British interior secretary David Blunkett, announcing new stringent measures to combat terror, said a terrorist attack on Britain was "inevitable."
Pointing up these statements, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri gave not one but two signs that his group was still after "Crusader" blood. Two recorded audiotapes reached the rival Arab TV stations, al Jazeera and al Arabiya. In one he threatened the United States with fresh attacks; the other condemned the French for banning the headscarf for Muslim schoolgirls. The Egyptian terrorist chief declared that the claim by US president George W. Bush that two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership has been crushed was untrue.
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His assertion had been confirmed previously by the preliminary findings of a joint defense department-CIA inquiry ordered by the US President.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's counter-terrorism sources in Washington, al Qaeda's backbone and that of its partner, al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad are intact and fully operational. The Egyptian half of al Qaeda in particular has led a charmed existence. Since America's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, only two senior Jihad operatives have been killed and not a single active member captured. The team found this discovery alarming enough to rush to Bush and warn him: "We have a gap in our intelligence the size of a big black hole."
Even more disquietingly, al Qaeda is discovered to be recruiting manpower in Europe at a brisk pace in a push into the continent personally advocated by Osama bin Laden. The Saudi-born terrorist has thus gained the upper hand in a debate within his organization's top leadership over its next focal arena. Bin Laden urged fostering the war on the "far enemy" (Europe) as against concentrating the movement's fury on the "near enemy" (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, South Asia).
The European arena, often neglected by American counter-terrorism agencies, is showing a dangerous dynamism. Data assembled for a preliminary assessment show al Qaeda in the process of evolving from terrorist networks and cells into a professional fighting force with military features.
According to French counter-intelligence, al Qaeda has recruited in France alone between 35,000 and 45,000 men and is organizing them into military-style units. They meet regularly for training in the use of weapons and explosives, combat tactics and indoctrination and are controlled from local and district command centers under the organization's national French command.
In Germany, Al Qaeda has recruited 25,000 to 30,000 men. The British domestic intelligence agency MI5 estimates 10,000 faithful have joined up in Britain, providing Blunkett with more than ample cause for concern.
Al Qaeda is a lot less active in Italy where counter-terrorist agencies hunt its cells to earth relentlessly. Moreover, al Qaeda does not need an important foothold in Italy because it already maintains a thriving presence next door in the Balkan countries of Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, from which weapons, money and false documents are easily secreted to its European bases.
But unknown numbers are enlisting in Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden and Norway.
Recruitment across Europe continues apace and in greater secrecy than ever as a result of a switch to new recruiting techniques and appeal to fresh target-populations for building the Euro army. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's counter-terrorism sources, the authors of the interim report found that al Qaeda, intent on beating surveillance and penetration by intelligence services, no longer selects combatants at its usual hunting grounds in mosques, Islamic culture centers and Muslim immigrant neighborhoods. Instead, native Europeans freshly converted to Islam are targeted.
The new campaign is styled "the white recruitment drive" or "coffee shop conscription". Operational cells and recruiting agents patronize ordinary cafes on the high streets of Europe's major cities where they blend into the crowds. The new conscripts defy identification by European intelligence services because their Islamic lives are lived completely underground. There is therefore no way of finding their addresses telephone numbers. Unit-level meetings or training sessions, attended by 30 or 40 men, may take place under cover of social activity such as a holiday camp in a remote part of Europe. Tracking them down is getting harder as bin Laden's new Euro army expands at the rate of tens of thousands and when "white" recruits may already form some 25 percent of the total.

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