Showing posts with label Yochanan Visser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yochanan Visser. Show all posts

Thursday, January 17, 2019

ANALYSIS: How Israel is Working to Defeat the Iranian Axis - Yochanan Visser ISRAEL TODAY

ANALYSIS: How Israel is Working to Defeat the Iranian Axis

Thursday, January 17, 2019 |  Yochanan Visser  ISRAEL TODAY
On Tuesday, during the appointment ceremony of incoming IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu told Iran to get out of Syria fast.
 "I'm telling you, get out of there fast. We won’t stop attacking," Netanyahu told participants in the ceremony.
His comments followed an official statement at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday in which Netanyahu confirmed the latest Israeli action against Iran in Syria.
“Just in the last 36 hours the air force attacked Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons at the international airport in Damascus. The accumulation of recent attacks proves that we are determined more than ever to take action against Iran in Syria, just as we promised,” Netanyahu told his cabinet.
The Israeli leader claimed the IDF and IAF had “worked with impressive success to block Iran's military entrenchment in Syria” and had struck “Iranian and Hezbollah targets hundreds of times.”
In interviews with Israeli broadcasters and The New York Times (NYT) the outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot revealed more about how the Israeli military had succeeded to trim the Iranian military build-up in Syria and Lebanon.
Eisenkot said that the Israeli military had carried out “thousands of strikes” against the Iranian axis in Syria and in 2018 alone had used more than 2,000 missiles and bombs to stop Iran from building up its forces in the war-torn country.
The outgoing IDF commander also confirmed Israel could try to assassinate Qassem Soleimani the shrewd commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Soleimani is the driving force behind the attempt to encircle Israel and has established umbrella organizations of Shiite militias in both Syria and Iraq which are functioning as Iran’s proxy army in the region.
Eisenkot claimed the Israeli military had effectively stopped the Iranian military build-up in Syria and confirmed Iran is now increasing its entrenchment in Iraq where the IRGC-founded Hashd Al-Shaabi organization of predominantly Shiite militias is controlling the northern part of the country after the defeat of ISIS’ Caliphate.
The turning point in the covert war between Israel and Iran came when Soleimani ordered the launch of 30 missiles at northern Israel in the night of May 10, 2018.
None of these missiles reached their target but it gave the IAF the opportunity to deliver a devastating blow to the Iranian axis in Syria.
A fleet of 28 F-15 and F-16 warplanes launched missiles and dropped bombs at “80 separate Iranian military and Assad regime targets in Syria,” according to Eisenkot.
The former Chief of Staff claimed that as a result of the carefully prepared operation, which was dubbed ‘Operation Chess” by the IDF, Soleimani decided to withdraw his forces from the Golan Heights and to shift his focus from Syria to Lebanon and Gaza.
The destruction of Hezbollah’s attack tunnel project (Operation Northern Shield) and the revelation that Iran was actively helping Hezbollah with the conversion of crude rockets into GPS-guided missiles dealt another devastating blow to Soleimani’s Israel project, however.
The exposure of the underground missile facilities Hezbollah built with Iranian help in the Beirut area forced the Iranians and Hezbollah into dismantling the project, according to the Israeli government.
Operation Northern Shield has so far resulted in the destruction of six attack tunnels which were already crossing the Israeli border. The operation not only deprived Hezbollah from an important weapon but also delivered a mortal blow to the Iranian plan to surprise Israel in a future multiple-front-war.
The IDF operation also restored Israel’s deterrence vis a vis Hezbollah as it bore all the hallmarks of psychological warfare. 
It was no coincidence Eisenkot waited for four years before ordering the destruction of the tunnels at the moment Hezbollah neared their completion.
The video of a scared Hezbollah operative who came to inspect an IDF robot which was equipped with a small explosive device and a camera was another example of the psychological warfare the IDF uses against the Iranian axis.
The images of the Hezbollah men fleeing after the device exploded in his face were very humiliating for the Iranian proxy. 
Then there is Gaza where the Iranians acted via its IRGC branch Islamic Jihad and its newfound ally Hamas in the beginning of November 2018.
Soleimani reportedly ordered the escalation on November 9 and 10 and asked the Palestinian terror organizations to open up a new front in southern Israel.
Eisenkot now revealed why he opposed a new ground operation in Gaza.
The former IDF chief told NYT that he thought Israel should focus its attention on winning the war against Iran and called Hamas “a weak enemy”.
“When you fight for many years against a weak enemy, it also weakens you,” Eisenkot claimed while adding the IDF is making “continuous and kinetic efforts” to degrade the military capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
His successor  Maj-Gen Aviv Kochavi is expected to continue Eisenkot’s sophisticated and intelligent warfare.
“The IDF is getting an excellent Chief of Staff,” President Reuven Rivlin said during the appointment ceremony of Kochavi while PM Netanyahu praised the incoming IDF chief of staff for his out-of-the-box thinking.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2018

ANALYSIS: Russia Makes Israeli Airstrikes in Syria Virtually Impossible - Yochanan Visser israel today

ANALYSIS: Russia Makes Israeli Airstrikes in Syria Virtually Impossible

Wednesday, December 19, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  israel today
Things heated up on the Israel Lebanon border on Tuesday when soldiers of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) prevented IDF soldiers from erecting a barbed wire fence on the Israeli side of the so-called Blue Line, the UN recognized international border between Israel and Lebanon.
It took an intervention of a UNIFIL unit to prevent things from spinning out of control.
The LAF falsely claimed that IDF soldiers had entered Lebanese territory on four places and said the Israeli action constituted a “violation of Lebanese sovereignty” while it warned Lebanese civilians to get out of the area.
The Lebanese military later announced it was ready for “all possibilities”.
UNIFIL, meanwhile, confirmed at least two of the four discovered attack tunnels which Hezbollah dug in the years after the Second Lebanon War crossed into Israel and that this constituted a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
Israel Today asked local IDF commanders for entrance to the sites where the Israeli army is conducting drilling for the destruction of the Hezbollah tunnels but the request was denied. Only CNN was permitted to enter one of the sites and to make video images of one of the tunnels.
Israel is currently trying to convince the US Administration of President Donald Trump to withhold financial aid to Lebanon as long as the Lebanese government doesn’t start with discovering and destroying the entrances of the tunnels on Lebanese soil.
UNIFIL reportedly refuses to get involved with the closure of the attack tunnels fearing reprisals by Hezbollah and tensions with the local Arab population, according to the Lebanese paper al-Akhbar which is affiliated with Hezbollah.
Israel is also using ‘Operation Northern Shield’ to launch a public relations campaign which aims to generate international pressure on the Lebanese government which Jerusalem expects to act against the Iranian attempt to provide Hezbollah with more guided missiles.
Iran and Hezbollah have built underground facilities in Lebanon to produce these missiles or to convert crude rockets into GPS guided projectiles, according to the Israeli government.
Israeli experts have warned that the Iranian attempt to provide Hezbollah with guided missiles will eventually lead to war if the international community doesn’t take action.
The UN Security Council will discuss the tunnel issue on Wednesday and Israel - which is not a member of the Council - is pushing the United States to put the Iranian missile facilities in Lebanon on the agenda as well.
On Tuesday the IDF released new video footage of a recently discovered tunnel which revealed that Hezbollah is trying to seal off the tunnels since the IDF discovered them.
The Israeli military is now filling the discovered tunnels with explosives in preparation of their destruction.
“From the moment the terrorist tunnels are exposed, IDF soldiers are working on learning about them through various means, including photography and research capabilities,” the IDF’s spokesmen unit said in a statement.
The IDF is expecting to expose dozens of additional terror tunnels and thinks Operation Northern Shield will continue for weeks if not months.
The Israeli air force (IAF), meanwhile, continues to conduct reconnaissance flights in southern Lebanon according to Lebanese media.
An IAF jet was spotted in the skies above the south Lebanese city of Sidon on Tuesday while breaking through the sound barrier.
This reporter also witnessed how the IDF is moving artillery from the Syrian border to the front with Lebanon.
This was another indication that Israel now considers the Lebanese front more hostile than the one with Syria and could act against the Iranian military build-up in Lebanon when the international community fails to contain the threat Iran and Hezbollah pose to the country.
The IAF has significantly reduced its activities against Iran in Syria since a crisis with Russia erupted over the downing of a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane in September.
Since the Russians delivered the S-300 anti-aircraft missile shield to the Syrian army the Israeli military has refrained from carrying out airstrikes against Iran-related targets in Syria and instead used missiles to destroy weapon convoys bound for Hezbollah and targets related to the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The sharp reduction in Israeli military activity in Syria is also related to a change in the rules of engagement by both Russia and the Iranian-backed pro-Assad coalition.
Damascus has warned Israel that any attack in Syria will now be answered by an attack on a target in Israel while the Russians have warned the Israeli government that it has stationed Russian military personnel on bases and facilities belonging to the Quds Force of the IRGC.
Veteran war correspondent Elijah J. Magnier reported this week that “Russia has informed Israel that there are Russian officers present at every Syrian or Iranian military base and that any strike against Syrian or Iranian objectives would hit Russian forces as well. Putin will not allow his soldiers and officers to be struck down by Israel’s direct or indirect bombing”.
His report was later followed by an article by the Russian outlet Kommersant which said that Moscow is allowing Hezbollah units and Shiite militias in Syria to use Russian flags as protection against Israeli air strikes.
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Thursday, December 6, 2018

How Israel and the US are Working to Contain Iran - Yochanan Visser ISRAEL TODAY

ANALYSIS: How Israel and the US are Working to Contain Iran

Wednesday, December 05, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  ISRAEL TODAY
On Tuesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces launched operation ‘Northern Shield’ on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon.
The operation is meant to destroy a number of Hezbollah attack tunnels which have been built in recent years as preparation for a future offensive against Israel which Hezbollah believes would end in the occupation of the northern Galilee.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the tunnels had already penetrated Israeli territory but emphasized they were not yet “operationally ready” and therefore posed "no immediate threat to Israel".
The operation against Hezbollah was launched hours after Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met US Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo in Brussels, Belgium where he discussed “a list of developments in the region” with the Secretary.
One of these developments is Iran’s increasing belligerent activity in Lebanon where it has built underground missile facilities which manufacture guided ballistic missiles.
The Iranians are now also supplying Hezbollah with weapons by using planes which fly directly to Beirut National Airport in Lebanon. The carrier uses civilian aircraft and is controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps which has apparently decided to change the supply routes to Hezbollah.
Before taking off from Ben Gurion National Airport, Netanyahu made clear Israel and The United States were now working in tandem to contain Iran’s “aggression”.
We are in continuous contact with our American friends, I will discuss with Mike Pompeo a list of developments in our region, and (actions) we are taking together to halt the aggression of Iran and its proxies in the North. We will of course also discuss other issues,” the Israeli PM told reporters.
On his visit to Brussels, where Pompeo attended a NATO defense ministers meeting, Netanyahu was accompanied by Mossad head Yossi Cohen and Meir Ben Shabbat the director of Israel’s National Security Council.
The Israeli leader has been warning against the growing Iranian threat to Israel for a long time and risked the fall of his government when he refused to launch a ground operation against the Iranian-backed Palestinian terror groups in Gaza after they pounded Israel with 460 missiles within two days three weeks ago.
When he faced harsh criticism over his decision not to invade Gaza the Israeli PM and DM made clear he had intelligence he could not share with the citizens and even with politicians.
After the resignation of Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman Netanyahu told the public in Israel that the Jewish State was in a complex security situation which demanded “very difficult decisions”.
“On the issue of security, I have made difficult decisions, some of them very difficult, and I bear full responsibility. And when such decisions are made, they deal with matters of life and death. In matters that sometimes even touch upon the very existence of the state,” the Prime Minister said at the time while emphasizing that the Israel military was “in the middle of a campaign.
Three weeks later, it has become clear that Netanyahu looks at the overall picture of Israel’s difficult security situation and prefers to contain the growing Iranian threat via smart and sophisticated military operations which could prevent a multiple-front-war with Iran and its proxies.
For this reason, Israel is working with the Trump Administration which has shifted its focus from battling ISIS toward containing Iran in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
It is reasonable to believe that Netanyahu asked Pompeo to use his leverage over the Lebanese government to contain Hezbollah on the eve of Operation Northern Shield in order to prevent another war with the Iranian-backed Shiite terror organization.
Another indication the Israeli leader doesn’t want a war with Hezbollah currently is that he apparently ordered the IDF not to use explosives to destroy the attack tunnels underneath the Israeli border. The Israeli army is using heavy drill equipment instead.
Operation Northern Shield comes a few days after the Israeli military launched unprecedented missile strikes on Iranian and Hezbollah related targets in Syria.
Late Thursday evening last week, the IDF used surface-to-surface missiles and LORA long-distance artillery shells to destroy 15 Iranian and Hezbollah military targets in Syria among them the headquarters of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in Al-Kiswah south of Damascus.
The missile offensive lasted for 70 minutes and was answered by the launch of one rocket which fell in open territory on the Israeli Golan Heights.
By using missiles instead of aircraft the Israeli military indicated it has changed tactics in Syria now that the Russians have supplied the S-300 anti-aircraft missile shield to the Syrian army.
The US military, meanwhile, has started battling the Iranians and its proxies in east and north Syria as well as northern Iraq by using proxies as well.
The Americans are training and equipping 30.000 men of the Syrian Democratic Forces who will confront the Quds Force and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in northern and eastern Syria while the U.S. uses local Iraqi Sunni militias against the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi umbrella organization of predominantly Shiite militias in northern Iraq.
After his meeting with Netanyahu Pompeo emphasized the importance of restoring America’s deterrence vis a vis Iran and its allies.
“We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence,” Pompeo said after condemning Iran for a new test with a ballistic long-range missile which can carry multiple warheads last weekend.
Iran recently supplied ballistic missiles to Hashd al-Shaabi militias which can reach Tel Aviv and which are now stationed on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. This is the same mountain from where Saddam Hussein lobbed Scud missiles at Israel during the First Gulf War.
PHOTO: Heavy machinery (R) work on the border between Israel and Lebanon near Metulla, northern Israel, on December 4, 2018. Photo by Basel Awidat/Flash90
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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

ANALYSIS: Iran and Israel Preparing for Multi-Front War - Yochanan Visser Israel today

ANALYSIS: Iran and Israel Preparing for Multi-Front War

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  Israel today
Iranian leaders stepped up their war of words against Israel and the United States over the weekend while new information shows both the Israel Defense Forces and the Islamic Republic are actively preparing for a multi-front war in Israel.
The new war of words started when Iran’s so-called moderate president Hassan Rouhani toldparticipants in an Islamic conference that Israel was a “cancerous tumor” and “a fake regime” founded by Western nations.
While calling upon the Islamic world to establish a “joint force” that could win the “battle against criminals”  Rouhani claimed Israel had killed and displaced the (non-existing) “historic nation of Palestine.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu responded to Rouhani’s belligerent rhetoric by warning Iran that Israel knows how to defend itself against the “murderous Iranian regime”.
His statement drew a prolonged response by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who on Sunday claimed “the Zionist regime is clearly weaker than 10 and 20 years ago,” while bragging Hezbollah and Hamas had won the wars in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014 and in 2018 during what he called “the two-day war”.
On Monday, Khamenei again used his Twitter account to blast the United States and Israel.
The Iranian dictator wished Israel and the U.S. “to hell” and predicted the victory of “the resistance”.
“ To hell with the U.S. and Zionist regime for threatening the Iranian nation. Their threats and atrocities have so far failed and will continue to fail; the sanctions will also be defeated by the grace of resistance,” Kkamenei’s tweet stated.
Rouhani’s remarks drew the condemnation of both the U.S. and the European Union (EU) which saidin a statement that the Iranian president’s remarks “were totally unacceptable” while reassuring Israel that the 28-nation bloc would remain fundamentally committed to the security of the Jewish state.
The EU also seemed to admit for the first time that Iran is a real threat to Middle Eastern countries and Israel in particular when it said that there are “current and emerging threats in the region.”
New information indeed underscores the scope of Iran’s threat to stability in the Middle East and to the existence of the State of Israel.
The Syrian news site Zamanalwsl keeps track of Iran’s belligerent activities in Syria and on Tuesday reported that the Iranians together with the regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad are reconstructing military facilities which had been destroyed by the Israeli air force (IAF).
One of these facilities is the headquarters of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps near the international airport of Damascus.
The Iranian regime is spending a huge amount of money in Syria where it has established a 80,000 member strong Shiite brigade which aims to ‘liberate’ the Israeli Golan Heights.
According to various sources the Mullah’s spent between $15 and $20 billion annually in Syria in order to realize their dream of a Shiite crescent and to achieve their ultimate goal: the annihilation of Israel.
The Islamist regime in Tehran is also heavily involved in a project that aims to change the demographic situation along the border with Israel where until recently Sunni rebel groups were controlling the region.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported on Sunday that the Assad regime has issued Syrian citizenship to hundreds of thousands  Iranians and foreign Shiite fighters who fought alongside with the Syrian army during the prolonged offensive which restored Assad’s control over two-thirds of the country.
These Iranians, most of them members of the Quds Force, as well as Shiite fighters and their families are settled in the houses of displaced Sunni Syrians who were deported to the predominantly Sunni province Idlib in northern Syria under so-called reconciliation deals. 
Those who wished to remain in their hometowns are now one by one murdered by the Syrian regime the news site Syria Direct reported from Daraa.
The silent ethnic cleansing in southern Syria “contravenes the understandings reached between Israel and Russia this year, according to which the Iranian and Shi'ite forces must withdraw from southern Syria. The issuance of identity cards to these fighters may be aimed at enabling them to stay there, ostensibly without violating the understandings,” according to MEMRI.
There’s more.
Hezbollah, which became an integral part of the Syrian military in the beginning of 2017, is currently building scores of military facilities and training camps near the border with Lebanon.
The facilities also house members of the Iranian Quds Force which is commanded by Qassem Soleimani the man who oversaw virtually every major battle in Iraq and Syria in recent years.
Hossein Salami the deputy commander of the IRGC openly admits that the Quds Force together with the so-called Basij militia, a division of the IRGC which had been operating in Iran only until now, are heavily involved in Syria and other Arab countries where Iran tries to expand the Islamic Revolution.
'Today, the branches of the strong tree of Basij are empowered in the Islamic countries, defeating the sinister goals of the US, Israel and al-Saud,' Salami told members of the IRGC in Tehran on Sunday. 
The IRGC commander also claimed that Iran has become so powerful that it has the ability to “chase the enemy, if necessary, and inflict an unforgettable defeat on it.”
As for the southern front in Israel, there too Iran continues its military build-up.
 As we reported earlier this month, Iran was most likely behind the one-day war in southern Israel which started when Hamas took a page out of Hezbollah’s playbook for wars and targeted an Israeli bus with a Kornet anti-tank missile.
The attack on the bus, which had unloaded a group of 50 IDF soldiers minutes before it exploded, was followed by an unprecedented missile offensive against civilian targets in southern Israel.
The Hebrew language news site Walla in Israel now reported that ISIS-branch Wilayat Sinai had intercepted a new shipment of Iranian Kornet anti-tank missiles and other GPS guided weaponry bound for Gaza.
Wilayat Sinai refuses to hand over the weapons to Hamas and could use them in the continuing battle against the Egyptian army or against the IDF in the future.
The Israeli army is now conducting a massive drill in preparation for a multi-front war according to  reports in the Israeli media on Sunday while the US military is reportedly building up a large mainly Kurdish proxy force which will be used to curb Iran’s presence in Syria.
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