Free Republic

Israel's intelligence community has assessed that the fall of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak would result in an immediate crisis with the Jewish state. The most important variable is Egypt's military. Both Mubarak's vice president and the leaders of the new cabinet come from the military, which Mubarak hopes will serve as the last defense against an Islamic takeover. Israeli government sources said the intelligence community has determined that the fall of the Egyptian regime would result in a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government that would sever relations with Israel. The sources said any post-Mubarak regime would try to scuttle or...

Israel's intelligence community has found that the Turkish organizer of the seven-ship flotilla that unsuccessfully sought to reach the Gaza Strip was linked to Al Qaida. The Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center deemed the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, a leading supporter of Al Qaida in its insurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The state-supported center, meant to be the open-source arm of the Israeli intelligence community, said numerous foundation members have been arrested by Turkish security services for trying to ship weapons to Afghanistan. "The IHH initiated a number of 'humanitarian aid' convoys...

The Israeli intelligence community has determined that Hizbullah received a shipment of solid-fuel rockets from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Officials said the solid-fuel rockets were said to have included the Fateh-110, with a range of more than 200 kilometers. "Hizbullah in 2010 is very different to Hizbullah in 2006 in terms of military capability, which has advanced a great deal," Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, a senior Israeli military intelligence officer, said. "Hizbullah is now regarded by the Syrians as a component of their defense establishment." On May 4, Baidatz, head of military intelligence's research department, told the Knesset Foreign...

Israel has become concerned over declining stability in neighboring Jordan. Government sources said the intelligence community has detected a sharp increase in Islamic unrest as well as insurgency activity. The sources said several opposition groups were believed to be cooperating to destabilize the Hashemite regime. "The situation in the kingdom is not stable and the friction between the government and the terror groups there is growing," former Mossad director Danny Yatom said. In 2010, Israel has come under at least two attacks in Jordan. In April, two Katyusha-class rockets were fired from the area around the southern Jordanian port of...

Syria has delivered advanced M600 rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon within the past year, Israeli defense officials said on Wednesday. The M600, a Syrian copy of the Iranian Fateh-110, has a range of 300km and carries a half-ton warhead. If fired from southern Lebanon it would be capable of hitting Tel Aviv. Latest claims of arms transfers to Lebanon follow recent accusations by President Shimon Peres that Syria Hezbollah gave long-range Scud missiles, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel's cities. Other government figures, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have since avoided repeating the claims and it is unclear...

Amid growing fears of another Middle East war, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has thrown down the gauntlet for Israel by vowing to hammer Ben-Gurion Airport if Beirut's Rafik Hariri International is hit, as it was in their last conflict in 2006. That was not likely an idle boast. Nasrallah was unusually specific in what targets Hezbollah would hit, thus signaling its capabilities. "He's never been as detailed and candid," said Lebanese political scientist and Hezbollah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb of the American University of Beirut. According to Israel's military intelligence, Hezbollah has in excess of 42,000 rockets and missiles stashed away,...

For the second time in the last year, Israel has publicized special precautions to deal with Hezbollah terrorist teams seeking revenge for one of their leaders killed two years ago. This time, there was only a vague mention that more security personnel will be assigned to Israeli government officials travelling overseas. Last time, it was additional security personnel assigned to four Israeli legislators (members of the Knesset, or parliament) travelling outside the country. A recent roadside bomb attack directed against Israeli diplomats in Jordan, was believed to be the work of Hezbollah. The attack failed, and the Jordanians are not...

Congressional Quarterly just reported a highly secret National Security Agency wiretap report on Rep. Jane Harman. Wait. Before we get to the content of the wiretap, all you ACLU types should be hitting the ceiling in rage. Because NSA wiretaps are the most carefully protected, super-secret operations carried on by the Federal government. Even during the Bush Administration, when the CIA carried on an unconcealed war on the Bush policy in the War on Terror through selective and politically damaging leaks to the New York Times, no wiretap recordings were released. Wiretaps of Members of Congress are even more sensitive,...

Iraq had chemical weapons and the means to deliver them ahead of last year's US-led invasion, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said in an interview published Monday. Iraq may have transferred the weapons to Syria or buried them in desert sands, Ya'alon said, speaking a month after a parliamentary investigation criticized Israeli intelligence gathering on Iraq. The parliamentary report found that Israeli warnings that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction were based on speculation and that Israeli authorities had little evidence to support this belief. The report did not specifically address the issue of whether or...