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An Israeli Strike on Syria Kindles Debate in the U.S. By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A sharp debate is under way in the Bush administration about the significance of the Israeli intelligence that led to last month’s Israeli strike inside Syria, according to current and former American government officials. At issue is whether intelligence that Israel presented months ago to the White House — to support claims that Syria had begun early work on what could become a nuclear weapons program with help from North Korea — was conclusive enough to justify military action by...

14:06 PM 28 Tishrei 5768, October 10, '07 Rice Questioning Israeli Strike in Syria (IsraelNN.com) American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has questioned whether Israeli intelligence information on Syria that was presented to the Bush administration was sufficient enough to justify a strike in the northern part of the country. In what American media have billed as "one of the worst kept secrets," the IDF apparently bombed a shipment of nuclear warheads and may have killed North Koreans who were working with the Syrian government. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Vice President Dick Cheney thinks the Israeli information...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A sharp debate is under way in the Bush administration about the significance of the Israeli intelligence that led to last month’s Israeli strike inside Syria, according to current and former American government officials. A familiar administration divide: Vice President Dick Cheney says Israeli intelligence was credible, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice questions whether there was a real threat. At issue is whether intelligence that Israel presented months ago to the White House — to support claims that Syria had begun early work on what could become a nuclear weapons program with help from North...

Over the last few weeks, State Department officials have reported major diplomatic breakthroughs that will roll back North Korea's nuclear weapons program, allow Pyongyang to be removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terror list, and normalize relations between our two countries. North Korea reportedly has agreed to disable its nuclear facilities and has, as it has done many times before, promised to give a full accounting of its nuclear program. The latest deadline is Dec. 31, 2007. Congress has been asked to support this agreement, which State Department officials claim will benefit our nation and promote regional stability. Then,...

In its first official admission by a state official, Syria confirmed that an air raid carried out by Israeli fighter jets deep in Syrian territory on September 6 was, indeed, an attack on a Syrian nuclear facility, Israel Radio reported Wednesday morning. A Syrian envoy disclosed the nature if the target during a meeting of a UN committee where Israeli envoys were also present. A senior source in the Foreign Ministry confirmed the statement made in New York by the Syrian official. Since first announcing on September 6 that an incursion into Syrian airspace by IAF jets took place, Syria...

Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A high-ranking Syrian official confirmed that Israel's airstrike last month in northern Syria hit a nuclear facility, according to a document obtained Wednesday by FOX News. "Israel was the fourth-largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria," Syrian representative Bassam Darwish is quoted in the document as saying.

Syria is likely to use proxies to respond indirectly to the Jewish state's air strike last month on an undisclosed military facility, Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said yesterday. "In our view, Syria does not want to escalate the situation and embark on a conflict with Israel right now. However, we believe that it could work against Israel indirectly," said Yadlin during a security meeting yesterday. The information comes as a newly released book disclosed Syria recently formed a new guerrilla group modeling itself after the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The new group is preparing for "resistance attacks" against the...

Mysteries still surround Israel’s air strike against Syria. Where was the attack, what was struck and how did Israel’s non-stealthy warplanes fly undetected through the Russian-made air defense radars in Syria? There also are clues that while the U.S. and Israel are struggling in the broader information war with Islamic fundamentalists, Tel Aviv’s air attack against a “construction site” in northern Syria may mean the two countries are beginning to win some cyberwar battles. U.S. officials say that close examination of the few details of the mission offers a glimpse of what’s new in the world of sophisticated electronic sleight-of-hand....

One of India's top ranking generals assigned to liaise with the Iranian military recently returned to New Delhi from several days in Tehran - in a state of complete amazement. "Everyone in the government and military can only talk of one thing," he reports.  "No matter who I talked to, all they could do was ask me, over and over again, ‘Do you think the Americans will attack us?' ‘When will the Americans attack us?' ‘Will the Americans attack us in a joint operation with the Israelis?' How massive will the attack be?' on and on, endlessly.  The Iranians are...

Articles indexed to sept62007 (in order of time indexed.) Israeli official: Russia behind tension with Syria ^   Posted by knighthawk On News/Activism ^ 08/30/2007 2:14:47 PM PDT · 9 replies · 322+ views al Bawaba ^ | August 30 2007   Russia uses Syrian port to demonstrate its power in the Med  ^   Posted by sukhoi-30mki On News/Activism ^ 09/01/2007 7:34:04 AM PDT · 12 replies · 379+ views The Jerusalem Post ^ | Aug 31, 2007 | ALEX KOGAN   Syrian army says it fired on IAF craft violating its space ^   Posted by Nextrush On News/Activism ^ 09/06/2007 4:57:51 AM...

Russia was partly responsible for the high tension between Israel and Syria at the outset of the summer, head of the Diplomatic-Security Bureau at the Israeli Defense Ministry, Gen. Amos Gilad (ret.) was quoted as saying on Thursday. During an interview with Israel's Army Radio, the senior Israeli official said that recent messages sent from Tel Aviv to Moscow have caused the Russians to cease their activity, thus easing the tensions in the occupied Golan Heights. "At a certain time, the Russians caused the Syrians to believe that Israel was preparing for war," Gilad said. "I think that they have...

Analysis: Russia uses Syrian port to demonstrate its power in the Med By ALEX KOGAN Russia is expanding its military presence in Syria, developing an advanced naval port at Tartus and providing Syria with sophisticated missile technology. The story of Russia's return to Tartus, Syria's second most important port after Latakia, broke a year ago. It is Moscow's only foreign naval outpost situated outside the former Soviet Union. In June 2006 Russian media reported that Moscow had begun dredging at Tartus with a possible eye to turning what was largely a logistical base into a full-fledged station for its Black...

The Syrian army said Thursday that its air defenses had fired on Israel Air Force aircraft that violated Syrian airspace. The Syrian Army spokesman, quoted by the official Syrian Arab News Agency, did not say how the Syrian military fired on the aircraft or where the incident happened, other than saying it occurred at midnight Wednesday night. "We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggrssive act, and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," the Syrian spokesman said......

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria accused Israel of bombing its territory on Thursday and said it could respond to the Jewish state's "aggression and treachery". (snip) "It appears that the Israeli planes were on a reconnaissance mission when they got caught by Syrian defenses and were forced to drop their bombs and extra fuel tanks," said a Western diplomat in Syria's capital Damascus. He declined to be named.(snip) The Israeli military spokesman's office said in a statement: "It is not our custom to respond to these kinds of reports." The office has typically commented on such charges, but a security source...

Looks like it is just breaking

DEBKAfile's military experts conclude from the way Damascus described the episode Wednesday, Sept. 6, that the Pantsyr-S1E missiles, purchased from Russia to repel air assailants, failed to down the Israeli jets accused of penetrating northern Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean the night before. The new Pantsyr missiles therefore leave Syrian and Iranian airspace vulnerable to hostile intrusion...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran condemned the intrusion this week of Israeli aircraft into Syrian airspace, calling it shameful and provocative, Iranian media reported on Friday. They quoted foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying: "This shameful and provocative act aims at carrying the crises and internal problems outside the (Israeli) frontiers and creating insecurity in the region." Iran is Syria's main regional ally, and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki phoned his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, to express Tehran's solidarity with Damascus. Syria said on Thursday that its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes which had violated its airspace...

Syria was reportedly calling its reserve forces. The Daily newspaper an-Nahar, in an un-attributed report, said Syria has "called to service part of its reserve force." Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that Israel cannot always expose its military operations to the public. "The security sources and IDF soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage," said Olmert, according to Haaretz. "We naturally cannot always show the public our cards." The Israeli leader did not specifically refer to Syria's outrage after Israeli jets violated its airspace early Thursday. Olmert's remarks, however, come amid an ongoing...