Report: German Intelligence Agency Spied on FBI, US Arms Companies

Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service spied on the FBI and U.S. arms companies, a public radio station in the country disclosed Wednesday.

Intel: ISIL sold crude oil to Assad regime, had covert ties with Iran

LONDON — France has determined that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was selling crude oil to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Federation uniting former Soviet republic is only way to end crisis in Ukraine, Russia says

Russia on Sunday set out demands for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in Ukraine, saying the former Soviet republic should be unified in a federation allowing wide autonomy to its various regions as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Paris in another bid to calm tensions.

After a brief call on French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Kerry sat down with Lavrov at the residence of the Russian ambassador to France to go over Moscow’s response to a U.S. plan to de-escalate the situation as Russian troops continue to mass along the Ukrainian border.

‘Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius’

As exactly was discussed here several times, and in a most recent post:

Exclusive: Obama’s Secret Iran Détente

Paris legislator Meyer Habib, a friend of Netanyahu, called his FM in Geneva to warn of likely response should accord be signed, Israeli TV reports

A French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday.

“I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.”

Nuclear accord ‘possible this week’, says Iran’s Zarif

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (pictured) told FRANCE 24 Tuesday that an agreement with the international community over the country’s nuclear programme could be reached at talks in Geneva later this week.

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Zarif also said that Iran could use it its influence to encourage non-Syrian forces fighting in Syria to withdraw from the country.

Israeli intelligence: Iran testing chemical weapons in Syria

The Israeli intelligence community has determined that Iran was testing a range of chemical weapons in Syria amid the war against President Bashar Assad. Officials said the tests included those of CW warheads on artillery shells fired toward Sunni rebel strongholds in August.

“In fact, Assad’s regime has become a full Iranian client and Syria has become Iran’s testing ground,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “Now the whole world is watching. Iran is watching and it wants to see what would be the reaction on the use of chemical weapons.”

Australian military planners in Washington work on Syrian war plans

NEITHER Kevin Rudd nor Tony Abbott will talk of armed intervention in the Syrian crisis, but Australian officers are already working with US allies on a plan if one is needed.

No such plans are being made in Canberra, but concerns are growing in the wake of chemical weapons claims and strong words from the Prime Minister.

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Asked on Channel 10’s The Project whether he supported Australian intervention in the country in the wake of reports up to 1300 were killed in a chemical massacre, the PM would not go that far, but left the door open.

UK and France: only weapons will make al-Assad talk

BRUSSELS – Britain and France have said the only way to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to talk is to threaten him with arming rebels.

The foreign ministers of the EU’s top military powers – William Hague and Laurent Fabius – made their case in a joint letter, seen by EUobserver, sent to EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton on 21 March.

Desert War

BERLIN/PARIS/BAMAKO (Own report) – The German Foreign Minister has confirmed Berlin’s readiness to become involved in the war in Mali. To his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Guido Westerwelle offered Germany’s “political, logistical, medical, and humanitarian” support for the intervention in France’s former colony. However, the German Minister of Defense, Thomas de Maizière, declared that there would be conditions to be met. Only when “the prerequisites are clarified and fulfilled” would Berlin be able to take part in the military mission. These statements from the German government show evidence of a dual strategy. On the one hand, Berlin is insisting on concessions to strengthen its position in French-dominated West Africa, and on the other, a German participation is supposed to thwart French-British unilateralism, as in the case of Libya. Berlin feels threatened by this sort of unilateralism, because since some time, Paris and London have been strongly enhancing their military cooperation, leading some in the German capital to suspect – not without reason – that this could be a means to escape Germany’s EU predomination, at least in the domain of military policy. In the meantime, the war in Mali has intensified after only a few days.