http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=train
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=trains
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=train&btnG=Search+News
Thanks to a special freepmailer for pointing to this train incident.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/14/content_6529941.htm
“Terrorist attack supposed to be cause of Russian train derailment”
www.chinaview.cn 2007-08-14 15:18:13
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “MOSCOW, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) — A terrorist attack was supposed to be the cause of the derailment of a train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, which injured 60 passengers late on Monday, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.
The passenger train derailment in Novgorod region “was caused by a homemade bomb explosion,” officials of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office at the incident site was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying.
A criminal investigation has been launched under terrorism charges into the bomb blast that derailed the express train, said Sergei Bednichenko, head of the Northwestern Federal District Prosecutor’s Office, at the scene.
Sixty people were injured when the passenger train on the Moscow-St. Petersburg route derailed in Novgorod region late Monday, and 25 were sent to hospitals, the press service of Russian Railways reported on Tuesday.”
” . . .In this context, we should be paying attention to what a senior Syrian official told the New York Sun about a month ago. Should the Golan not be in Syrian hands by August-September, Syria would be allowed to embark on a “resistance” campaign, including raids and attacks on Jewish targets, the official said.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3437324,00.html
Arab official: Syrian general mulling war with Israel
Diplomats say head of Syrian military intelligence has convinced Assad that only war will bring Israel to negotiation table
Smadar Peri (excerpted)
In Damascus, it is forbidden to photograph him and diffuse pictures that can identify him. He has tight security around him at all times and avoids attending public events. General Asef Shawkat, the head of Syrian military intelligence, has good reasons to be in hiding. “If military confrontations break out between Syria and Israel, that would be the fulfillment of the general’s plan,” a Lebanese official told Yedioth Ahronoth.
Having opened the doors of the Syrian Army to Iranian experts, now he is seeking to relocate hundreds of young Syrians eligible for army service to the Golan Heights. “In any case,” he recently told President Bashar Assad, “there is no chance of a political channel to return the Golan Heights.” That was Shawkat’s pretext to sideline the old guard within the ruling Baath Party, most of whom are well-versed in peace negotiations with Israel. Former foreign minister and Vice President Farouk al-Shara has been marginalized and Foreign Minister Walid Moallem has been banned from hosting American, Arab and European officials. Arab officials believe Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law, wants to drag Israel into a conflict in Lebanon, and possibly Syria, next month. . .
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/893269.html
Last update - 03:45 14/08/2007
Intelligence attempts to clarify Assad’s intentions
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent (excerpted)
. . . A senior security source told Haaretz Monday that “as far as we can assess, Assad does not really want war with us. He is concerned about a scenario that will drag us and them [Syria] to war, either through mutual escalation on the Golan Heights, or through growing tensions between the United States and Iran.”
. . . Syrian forces have also been reinforced along the border, and training of units has been stepped up. In discussions held in recent weeks, under strict gag orders, a number of intelligence assessments have been evaluated. Various sensitive questions on the preparedness of the home front have been deliberated, including the possibility of distributing gas masks to the public, and systems for dealing with dangerous materials stored in factories in the area around Haifa Harbor. A decision has been made at this stage to refrain from taking any unusual steps. Since January, the defense establishment has been collecting gas masks distributed to civilians before the Gulf War in 1991 as part of a plan to refurbish and redistribute them. The proposal was rejected, however, out of concern that this might suggest to the Syrians that Israel was planning to initiate a war and was preparing its home front for possible retaliatory strikes.
. . . In closed meetings, Barak and Ashkenazi have said that the intelligence assessments regarding the likelihood of war with Syria in the near future are constantly changing. It appears that even they are finding it difficult to form a clear opinion on the matter. Both Barak and the chief of staff are concerned by the situation in the region. However, in their limited public statements on the likelihood of war with Syria, the main aim is to radiate calm.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557431453&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
IDF assessment: Syria thinks Olmert wants to launch war
Herb Keinon and Josh Brannon, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 13, 2007 (excerpted)
Damascus does not believe Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s public statements of reassurance that Israel has no intention of attacking Syria, and is genuinely concerned about an Israeli preemptive attack, according to official Israeli assessments. Olmert’s attempts over the last few weeks to calm Syrian jitters have not been overly successful, and Syrian President Bashar Assad still believes he plans to attack, according to these estimates. . .
Assad, according to this school of thought, believes Olmert’s public comments that Israel has no belligerent intentions toward Syria are merely part of a “conspiracy” to lull the Syrians into complacency. This Syrian concern, according to these assessments, has been fanned by the largest IDF maneuvers in the Golan Heights in some five years. The Syrian jitters are indeed so real that, according to some reports, the Syrian military has canceled large-scale summer training exercises so as not to give Israel a pretense for military action.
Military sources said intelligence shows Syria was nearing the end of an accelerated deployment of a large rocket arsenal of Katyusha and Scud missiles, including Scud D and other improved missiles supplied by Iran, that can deliver 500-kilogram payloads to Tel Aviv with a destructive force large enough to damage entire blocks of buildings. According to the military sources, launchers now known to be located on the Syrian side could potentially unleash a barrage on IDF installations, infrastructure and civilian targets with missiles numbering in the hundreds within an hour.
IDF officials have said off the record that thwarting such a potentially catastrophic bombardment would be problematic for the Israel Air Force, and that ground forces would therefore need to get deep into Syrian territory quickly to stop the firing at its sources. Also, according to the officials, Syria had accelerated training periods for its troops, emphasizing guerrilla tactics utilized by Hizbullah against the IDF. The sources said Syrian commandos equipped with advanced antitank missiles had learned from Hizbullah and were known to be stationed along the length of the border. However, the latest Military Intelligence assessment said these forces remain in a defensive position, and that Syria did not attend to initiate an all-out war with Israel. . .
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435543,00.html
Syrian rockets aimed at Tel Aviv
Long-range rockets already in place on Golan; is Syria preparing for war?
Ron Ben Yishai (excerpted)
The latest official IDF intelligence branch assessment, adopted by the Israeli government, is that Syria is not planning to attack Israel. At least not in the coming months. The accelerated preparations for war undertaken by the Syrian army recently, according to the assessment, are not aimed at launching an offensive, but rather, stem from fears in Damascus that the IDF plans to attack Syria. As proof of this, IDF intelligence researchers point to the fact that the Syrian army has not fundamentally changed its deployment, which is still mostly defensive, vis-à-vis Israel.
However, intelligence officials estimate that there is still a risk of a war breaking out even in the near future as a result of a wrong estimate (here or there) regarding the other side’s intentions – a “miscalculation” as it is referred to by IDF intelligence officers. This is why Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made sure to declare Wednesday that he was not seeking war. This is the official assessment. Yet this is not the complete picture. The truth is that there is no certainty within Israel’s intelligence community that Syria is not planning to initiate a military confrontation with Israel. Quite a few researchers in the IDF intelligence branch and Mossad suspect that Syria is waiting for a convenient point in time – which is not necessarily in the distant future.
We’re not talking about the kind of war we’re familiar with like the Six Day War or Yom Kippur War, but rather, a Hizbullah-style war – but on an immense scale. These arguments and assessments are being taken very seriously by officials in Jerusalem, and this is the reason why the cabinet tasked with monitoring home front preparedness convened again Wednesday for its third or fourth session in order to discuss the possibility of a massive Syrian missile offensive. . .
Teheran is investing efforts to convince Syria that Israel is about to§ attack it “in order to erase the shame of the defeat in Lebanon” or as part of the clash that will develop as a result of an American assault on Iran’s nuclear sites. The Iranians tell the Syrians that President Bush intends to strike in the summer or fall, and they expect Damascus to join Iran’s counter-attack on western interests in the region. Therefore, Teheran says, there is a need to prepare and possibly even launch a pre-emptive strike, before Israel possesses effective systems for intercepting rockets. Iranian figures who visited Syria convinced Damascus that the Israeli home front is the Zionist enemy’s Achilles heel and that hitting it gravelly would force Israel to accept the Arab dictates on the Golan. In this context, we should be paying attention to what a senior Syrian official told the New York Sun about a month ago. Should the Golan not be in Syrian hands by August-September, Syria would be allowed to embark on a “resistance” campaign, including raids and attacks on Jewish targets, the official said. . .