CAIRO (The Blaze/AP) — An official Iranian news agency says Iran is sending a submarine and a warship to the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
Press TV quotes the commander, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, as saying the deployment will serve the country’s interests and “convey the message of peace and friendship to all countries.”
The item on Press TV’s website Tuesday said the presence of the Iranian navy would “tighten security for all countries.”
Sayyari said the ships would also fight against pirates.
Somalia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden, is a base for many pirate gangs. The body of water is south of Iran.
Interestingly enough, however, Iran’s action comes on the heels of Israel sending two additional warships to the Red Sea border with Egypt following warnings that militants are planning another attack on southern Israel from Egyptian soil.
Israeli soldiers secure the area near roads leading to the sites of several attacks in the Arava desert, near the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat. Israel sent two more warships to the Red Sea border with Egypt, the military said Tuesday, Aug, 30, 2011, part of a greater military reinforcement there following warnings that militants are planning another attack on southern Israel from Egyptian soil. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, File)
By TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel sent two more warships to the Red Sea border with Egypt, the military said Tuesday, part of a military reinforcement there following warnings that militants are planning another attack on southern Israel from Egyptian soil.
Earlier this week, Israel’s military ordered more troops to the border area following intelligence reports of an impending attack, days after militants crossed into Israel through the Egyptian border and killed eight Israelis in a brazen attack that touched off a wave of violence between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip.
Relative calm has returned, but Israel has remained on alert since the deadly Aug. 18 raid, closing roads near the border and warning citizens against traveling to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, a popular vacation destination for Israelis.
Israel’s Home Front Minister Matan Vilnai said Tuesday that militants from the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad were in Sinai, waiting to strike.
“The Palestinian Islamic Jihad wants to carry out a terror attack along the Egyptian border,” Vilnai told reporters. “The Egyptian border is absolutely porous. We have known this for many years.”
The attack this month sparked calls to increase security on both sides of the frontier and created new tensions between Israel and Egypt, which have maintained cool relations since signing a 1979 peace treaty. The violence shattered the usual sense of calm that has held for decades along the border, though there have been sporadic attacks in Sinai.
Beyond announcing that two more warships were patrolling the border area, the military would give no further details.
Israel has a permanent naval presence with a base in Eilat, at the northern tip of the Red Sea on the Egyptian border. The Israeli military would not disclose the number of warships usually positioned on its maritime border with Egypt or from where the two extra ships were sent.
Access for ships to the Eilat naval base from the rest of Israel is possible only through Egypt’s Suez Canal. Egyptian officials there were not immediately available for comment.
No changes in security alignments have been observed on the Egyptian side of the border in the last two weeks. Earlier this month, the Egyptian government dispatched thousands of additional troops to Sinai as part of a major operation against al-Qaida inspired militants who have been increasingly active since longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February.
Palestinians in Gaza have acquired anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets from Libya, by way of an overland supply route that opened up between eastern Libya — after it fell to the rebels — and the Gaza Strip via Egypt, Israeli radio said citing military officials on Monday.
Meanwhile, Egyptian military said it had intercepted a large number of anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons on the Libyan border.
While the crisis in Libya has stirred Western concern about the fate of that country’s aging chemical weapons stockpiles, Israel has no indication so far that Hamas or other Palestinian factions have sought these, the officials said.
The Egyptian Writers Union issued a statement Wednesday asking the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to review issues regarding relations with Israel.
The union called for reviewing the killing of Egyptian prisoners-of-war in Israel – a possible reference to prisoners from the 1967 conflict – and pursuing compensation for past Israeli occupation of Egyptian land.
The union also called for reviewing agreements between the countries, such as the natural gas export deal and the Qualified Industrial Zones agreement.
Union President Mohamed Salmawy said he appreciates the SCAF’s understanding of the people’s anger over an Israeli border raid last week that resulted in the deaths of six Egyptian security and military personnel.
At the same time, Salmawy called on the SCAF and the cabinet to uphold the rights of Egypt and its martyrs and to respond to the Israeli aggression with any legal measures available.
The union statement also insisted that Israel officially apologize, without this precluding the pursuit of compensation for victims’ families.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry should also mobilize international public opinion to pressure Israel, which disregards all international and humanitarian norms and charters, according to the union.
The aid convoy for Gaza organized in May 2010 was a humanitarian initiative with people from more than 30 countries (including the United States and Israel) in ships sailing under the flags of several nations. While there were private Turkish citizens among participants, the flotilla was not organized or even encouraged by the Turkish government, asDanny Danon conjures without evidence (“Why Turkey should apologize to Israel,” Commentary, Aug. 15). Quite the contrary.
Nine people lost their lives when Israeli commandos used excessive, lethal force and violated all established norms of international law by attacking the convoy in the international waters of the Mediterranean, as the U.N. Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission concluded in its report on the incident. Eight of the nine killed were Turkish citizens, and one was an American citizen of Turkish descent.
As any country – including Israel – would be, Turkey was shattered by the loss of its citizens. We also were shocked that for the first time in our history, our citizens were killed by a foreign armed force during peacetime. What has increased our sorrow is that this deplorable action was caused by a country Turkey has long considered a friend.
Turkey rightly asks for a formal apology and appropriate compensation to the families of those killed. These acts will never fully ease the pain the families and the Turkish people feel, but they are essential to the normalization of relations, from which both Turkey and Israel benefit.
It is meaningful that Mr. Danon, rather than supporting the efforts to leave this incident behind, is appealing to audiences in the United States and that he defines the essential ingredients of normalization as acts of humiliation. He does not recognize that rather than humiliation, these steps represent the cornerstones of civility upon which any strong friendship rests.
The Western media has played a central role in obfuscating the nature of foreign interference in Syria including outside support to armed insurgents. In chorus they have described recent events in Syria as a “peaceful protest movement” directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad.
Recent developments in Syria point to a full-fledged armed insurgency, integrated by Islamist “freedom fighters”, supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command.
According to Israeli intelligence sources:
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. Instead of repeating the Libyan model of air strikes, NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)
The delivery of weapons to the rebels is to be implemented “overland, namely through Turkey and under Turkish army protection….Alternatively, the arms would be trucked into Syria under Turkish military guard and transferred to rebel leaders at pre-arranged rendez-vous.” (Ibid, emphasis added)
NATO and the Turkish High command, also contemplate the development of a jihad involving the recruitment of thousands of freedom fighters, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)
These various developments point towards the possible involvement of Turkish troops inside Syria, which could potentially lead to a broader military confrontation between the two countries, as well as a full-fledged “humanitarian” military intervention by NATO, which would be carried out in coordination with the Alliance’s support to the insurgency.
A detailed report on developments in Syria will be published shortly by Global Research
CAIRO (The Blaze/AP) — An official Iranian news agency says Iran is sending a submarine and a warship to the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
