Israeli Report: Invasion of Iran May Be Necessary

(Photo Credit: Israel Defense Forces)

 

A worst-case scenario would begin with a war in the north that trickles south.

An Israeli government report is warning the country that it must prepare for the possibility of going to war with Iran—invading the Islamic Republic—in order to prevent it from becoming fully entrenched in Syria.

Middle East military heavyweights Israel, Iran on collision course over Syria

In this photo released by Lennart Preiss/MSC 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holds a part of a downed drone during his speech at the Munich Security Conference, MSC, in Munich , Germany, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018. (Lennart Preiss/MSC 2018/dpa via AP)

 

Iran and Israel are on a collision course over Tehran’s expanding footprint in Syria, raising the odds of a direct clash between the region’s two military heavyweights that could quickly draw in other combatants.

With Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Iran’s most potent military ally, emboldened by their success in upholding Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israel is growing more and more wary of being attacked by missiles not just from southern Lebanon but also from inside Syria.

Israel has been sporadically bombing Hezbollah positions in Syria for the past three years. But the situation reached new heights this month when what Israel said was an Iranian armed stealth drone was intercepted and downed over Israel and an Israeli F-16 fighter jet was in turn shot down by anti-aircraft fire from inside Syria during a retaliatory airstrike.

Hackers have ‘begun targeting nuclear power plants,’ cyber warfare expert warns

Computer hackers have begun targeting electric and nuclear power plants around the world, as well as other critical infrastructure sites in increasingly audacious attacks, a senior Israeli cyber security expert warned on Thursday.

Next 9/11 will be caused by hackers, not suicide bombers, cyber expert warns

Greater US-Israel cooperation urgently needed to counter threat of cyberterrorism infiltrating air traffic controls, says Dr. Gabi Siboni

An Israeli cyber expert warned Wednesday that “the next 9/11″ will be carried out by computer hackers infiltrating air traffic controls, rather than suicide bombers.

Col. (res.) Dr. Gabi Siboni said the US and Israel must increase cyber-defense cooperation in preparation of future terror attacks, and said distrust is preventing greater collaboration between the two allies.

Syrian Army Forms Suicide Unit

Suicide attacks on the rise worldwide

JERUSALEM—In what may be the first time since the Japanese kamikaze attacks of the Second World War, the army of an organized state—if Syria can still be considered such—has formed a suicide unit.

A video clip posted Dec. 30 on the Internet shows a small group of soldiers from the Syrian Army’s Mountain Battalion wearing pouches around their waists, presumably for explosives, facing the camera. All wear white headbands and masks.

“In the name of Allah, we, the commandos of the Mountain Battalion, declare from the peak of Mount Nabi Yunis the establishment of a martyrdom-seeking platoon,” declares one of them, reading from a paper. “This is our response to all the foreigners who have distorted the religion of Islam and have defiled the soil of our country.”

Liberated by the West

BERLIN/BAGHDAD (Own report) – Western aggressions in the Middle East and support from the West’s important regional allies have facilitated the rise of the terrorist organization, the “Islamic State” (IS), as observers point out. According to an expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the IS predecessor, “Al-Qaida in Iraq,” was able to develop into a “powerful organization” only after the US led aggression against Iraq (“liberation from Saddam”). Not until the chaos provoked by the war in Syria, which Germany also helped fuel (“liberation from Assad”) was the IS predecessor the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) in a position to conquer and control whole regions and set up a power base for its further expansion. IS could not have reached its current strength without the financial and logistical support furnished by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, two close allies of the West. The SWP reports that there are even “indications” that “the cross-border traffic between the IS-controlled territory in Syria and Turkey” is still “considerable” – thus also, presumably, the transport of supplies. Meanwhile Western governments are preparing a “long military operation” against IS.

Iran’s supreme leader tells students to prepare for cyber war

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has delivered a sabre-rattling speech to Iran’s ‘Revolutionary foster children’ (in other words, university students) to prepare for cyber war.

The supreme leader has urged his country’s students – whom he called “cyber war agents” – to prepare for battle, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Wednesday.

“You are the cyber-war agents and such a war requires Amman-like insight and Malik Ashtar-like resistance. Get yourself ready for such war wholeheartedly,” wrote Khamenei. The supreme leader was referring to two of Prophet Mohammad’s warrior companions in early Islamic history.

An electromagnetic pulse attack — the ‘other’ Iranian nuclear threat

Just what might happen if the Iranians got their hands on a nuclear weapon? Would they fire it at an Israeli city, causing tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties? Or would they use it as a geopolitical weapon, seeking to dominate the Middle East and forcing the hand of Western powers, either subtly or by overtly threatening death and destruction to those who fail to heed their dictates?

While political scientists and world leaders have debated the likelihood of those two possibilities, there is a third plausible scenario: The use of a nuclear weapon by Iran to carry out an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against Israel, the US, or Europe. Such an attack could cause severe damage to the electrical grid in the targeted nations, to the extent that the routines of daily life — centered around the use of electrical power — could be halted, for a short or even long period of time.