(GLOBALRESEARCH) Destroying a Nation State: US-Saudi Funded Terrorists Sowing Chaos in Pakistan
Baluchistan, Target of Western geopolitical interests, Terror wave coincides with Gwadar Port handover to China. The Hidden Agenda is the Breakup of Pakistan
By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, December 24, 2013
landdestroyer.blogspot.com and Global Research 12 February 2013
Region: Asia
Theme: 9/11 & 'War on Terrorism', US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: PAKISTAN
[originally published in February 2013]
Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people. According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980?s, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.
The US-Saudi Global Terror Network
While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including Al Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond.
France 24?s report “Is Qatar fuelling the crisis in north Mali?” provides a useful vignette of Saudi-Qatari terror sponsorship, stating:
“The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.”
A month later Sadou Diallo, the mayor of the north Malian city of Gao [which had fallen to the Islamists] told RTL radio: “The French government knows perfectly well who is supporting these terrorists. Qatar, for example, continues to send so-called aid and food every day to the airports of Gao and Timbuktu.”
The report also stated:
“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment.
“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.”
These institutions are present not only in Mali, but around the world, and provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of militants for both the Persian Gulf monarchies and their Western allies to use both as a perpetual casus belli to invade and occupy foreign nations such as Mali and Afghanistan, as well as a sizable, persistent mercenary force, as seen in Libya and Syria. Such institutions jointly run by Western intelligence agencies across Europe and in America, fuel domestic fear-mongering and the resulting security state that allows Western governments to more closely control their populations as they pursue reckless, unpopular policies at home and abroad.
Since Saudi-Qatari geopolitical interests are entwined with Anglo-American interests, both the “investment” and “return on this investment” are clearly part of a joint venture. France’s involvement in Mali has demonstrably failed to curb such extremists, has instead, predictably left the nation occupied by Western interests while driving terrorists further north into the real target, Algeria.
Additionally, it should be noted, that France in particular, played a leading role along side Qatar and Saudi Arabia in handing Libya over to these very same extremists. French politicians were in Benghazi shaking hands with militants they would be “fighting” in the near future in northern Mali.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is Part of US-Saudi Terror Network
In terms of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as well as the infamous Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai, India attack killing over 160, both are affiliates of Al Qaeda, and both have been linked financially, directly to Saudi Arabia. In the Guardian’s article, “WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists,” the US State Department even acknowledges that Saudi Arabia is indeed funding terrorism in Pakistan:
Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.
“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” she said.
Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been financially linked to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Stanford University’s “Mapping Militant Organizations: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” states under “External Influences:”
LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates[25] These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran’s revolutionary Shiism.
Astonishingly, despite these admission, the US works politically, financially, economically, and even militarily in tandem with these very same state-sponsors of rampant, global terrorism. In Libya and Syria, the US has even assisted in the funding and arming of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, and had conspired with Saudi Arabia since at least 2007 to overthrow both Syria and Iran with these terrorist groups. And while Saudi Arabia funds terrorism in Pakistan, the US is well documented to be funding political subversion in the very areas where the most heinous attacks are being carried out.
US Political Subversion in Baluchistan, Pakistan
The US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been directly funding and supporting the work of the “Balochistan Institute for Development” (BIFD) which claims to be “the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.” In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID “Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights” BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a “media-center” for the Baluchistan Assembly to “provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly.” We must assume BFID meant reporters “trained” at NED-BFID workshops.
Image: A screenshot of “Voice of Balochistan’s” special US State Department message. While VOB fails to disclose its funding, it is a sure bet it, like other US-funded propaganda fronts, is nothing more than a US State Department outlet. (click image to enlarge)
….
Images: In addition to the annual Fortune 500-funded “Balochistan International Conference,” the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy has been busy at work building up Baluchistan’s “civil society” network. This includes support for the “Balochistan Institute For Development,” which maintains a “BIFD Leadership Academy,” claiming to “mobilize, train and encourage youth to play its effective role in promotion of democracy development and rule of law.” The goal is to subvert Pakistani governance while simultaneously creating a homogeneous “civil society” that interlocks with the West’s “international institutions.” This is how modern empire perpetuates itself.
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There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda drawn from foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and even a direct message from the US State Department itself. Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world – such as Thailand’s Prachatai – funding is generally obfuscated in order to maintain “credibility” even when the front’s constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes them.
http://www.bso-na.org/sitebuilder/images/bsona-929x195.jpg
Image: Far from parody, this is the header taken from the “Baloch Society of North America” website.
….
Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the “Free Baluchistan” movement are the US and London-based organizations. The “Baloch Society of North America” almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The group’s founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad.
Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province “occupied” by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments – he and his movement’s humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.
There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include “information secretaries” that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West’s operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered “Arab Spring.”
Image: A screenshot of a “Baloch Human rights activist and information secretary of BSO Azad London zone” Twitter account. This user, in tandem with look-alike accounts has been propagating anti-Pakistani, pro-”Free Baluchistan” propaganda incessantly. They also engage in coordinated attacks with prepared rhetoric against anyone revealing US ties to Baluchistan terrorist organizations.
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And while the US does not openly admit to funding and arming terrorists in Pakistan yet, many across established Western policy think-tanks have called for it.
http://landdestroyer.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/pakistanmap1.png
Image: Why Baluchistan? Gwadar in the southwest serves as a Chinese port and the starting point for a logistical corridor through Pakistan and into Chinese territory. The Iranian-Pakistani-Indian pipeline would enter from the west, cross through Baluchistan intersecting China’s proposed logistical route to the northern border, and continue on to India. Destabilizing Baluchistan would effectively derail the geopolitical aspirations of four nations.
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Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy, has published two pieces regarding the armed “liberation” of Baluchistan.
Harrison’s February 2011 piece, “Free Baluchistan,” calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating:
“Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.”
Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.” He states:
“China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power—but only up to a point. ”
He continues:
“To counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.”
While aspirations of freedom and independence are used to sell Western meddling in Pakistan, the geopolitical interests couched behind this rhetoric is openly admitted to. The prophetic words of Harrison should ring loud in one’s ears today. It is in fact this month, that Pakistan officially hands over the port in Gwadar to China, and Harrison’s armed militants are creating bloodshed and chaos, attempting to trigger a destructive sectarian war that will indeed threaten to “oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar.”
Like in Syria, we have a documented conspiracy years in the making being carried out before our very eyes. The people of Pakistan must not fall into the trap laid by the West who seeks to engulf Baluchistan in sectarian bloodshed with the aid of Saudi and Qatari-laundered cash and weapons. For the rest of the world, we must continue to uncover the corporate-financier special interests driving these insidious plots, boycott and permanently replace them on a local level.
The US-Saudi terror racket has spilled blood from New York City, across Northern Africa, throughout the Middle East, and as far as Pakistan and beyond. If we do not undermine and ultimately excise these special interests, their plans and double games will only get bolder and the inevitability of their engineered chaos effecting us individually will only grow.
Labels: AL-QAEDA, PAKISTAN, SAUDI ARABIA, TERRORISM
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(REUTERS) Insight: Saudi Arabia boosts Salafist rivals to al Qaeda in Syria
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN | Tue Oct 1, 2013 10:51am EDT
AMMAN (Reuters) - Alarmed by the rise of al Qaeda in Syria, Saudi Arabia is trying to strengthen rival Islamists with ties to Riyadh and this week helped engineer a consolidation of rebel groups around Damascus under a Saudi-backed leader.
That might bolster the opposition militarily as President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been pushing back, but it also underlines al Qaeda's expansion in Syria - and the proliferation of splits among Assad's enemies, just as world powers are trying to corral them into talks with his government.
Rebel and diplomatic sources said it was Saudi Arabia which nudged rebel brigades operating in and around Damascus to announce this week that they have united under a single command comprising 50 groups and numbering some thousands of fighters.
The formation of the Army of Islam in the capital's eastern fringe under Zahran Alloush, leader of the group Liwa al-Islam, strengthens Salafist jihadis owing allegiance to Riyadh against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda branch which has in recent weeks taken control of territory from other Islamist forces in parts of northern and eastern Syria.
While fighting for religious rule in Syria, local Salafists do not generally share the international ambitions of al Qaeda's jihadists, many of them foreign, who want to drive Westerners from the Middle East and unite Muslims in a single state.
The establishment of the Army of Islam follows last week's joint declaration by groups, mainly in the northeast but also including Liwa al-Islam, who agreed to fight for Islamic rule and also rejected the authority of the Western- and Saudi-backed opposition in exile, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC).
That accord was notably not signed by ISIL.
Zahran Alloush, who founded Liwa al-Islam, or the Brigade of Islam, with his father Abdallah, a Salafist Syrian cleric based in Saudi Arabia, has avoided declaring personal opposition to al Qaeda or to the SNC. But he criticized failures to bring unity to rebel ranks in explaining the creation of the formation:
"We have formed this army ... to achieve unity among the units of the mujahideen and avoid the effects produced by the divisions within the National Coalition," he told Al Jazeera television, referring obliquely to recent rebel in-fighting.
"The Army of Islam is the result of accelerating efforts to unify the fighting units operating in the beloved homeland."
SAUDI CONNECTION
Liwa al-Islam, several thousand strong, is among the biggest and best organized rebel groups, respected even among non-Islamist rebels for integrity and effectiveness. Alloush could not be reached for comment on the Saudi role in his new unit.
Saudi officials do not comment on their operations in Syria, where the Sunni Muslim kingdom has backed the uprising among the Sunni majority against Assad and his minority Alawite elite who are allied to Shi'ite Iran, Riyadh's rival for regional power.
However, rebel and diplomatic sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia, which furnishes arms and other supplies and funds to Assad's opponents, was behind the Army of Islam.
The commander of an Islamist rebel unit on the opposite side of Damascus from the Army's base of operations in the east told Reuters that Saudi figures had been in touch with various Salafist groups in recent weeks, offering support in return for a common front to keep al Qaeda allies from expanding their presence around the capital - a presence already detected.
"Saudi tribal figures have been making calls on behalf of Saudi intelligence," the commander, who uses the name Abu Mussab, said. "Their strategy is to offer financial backing in return for loyalty and staying away from al Qaeda."
While hoping to avoid outright confrontation with fellow jihadists, the Saudis had been gauging the willingness of local Salafist fighters in joining Saudi-backed formations, including a proposed Syrian National Army. This, Abu Mussab said, might oppose al Qaeda in the way the U.S.-funded Sahwa, or Awakening, movement of Sunni tribesmen fought al Qaeda in Iraq from 2007.
A Western diplomat following the conflict closely said: "Saudi Arabia is growing increasingly uncomfortable with more rebels joining al Qaeda ranks. The recent advances by the Islamic State have embarrassed the Saudis and the new alliance appears designed to stop al Qaeda from gaining influence."
He said Saudi strategy was two tiered: back less extreme Islamist figures in the exile SNC political organization and woo Salafist brigades on the ground with arms and money.
"Lots of these Salafist groups detest the Syrian National Coalition," he said. "But the Saudis do not see this as a contradiction as long as they stay away from al Qaeda."
Abdulrazzaq Ziad, a liberal activist based in Turkey, said the formation of the Army of Islam, announced with elaborate ceremony in an online video, has already irked al Qaeda: "We are already seeing from Facebook comments of people close to the Islamic State that they view the new formation as a rival."
A second diplomat based in the Middle East said: "We have seen in the last few weeks that every major group has stepped up its efforts to increase its sphere of influence. An alliance like this would not take place without Saudi blessing.
"Liwa al-Islam and its allies have not been comfortable with al Qaeda establishing a foothold in the Ghouta so their interest and that of Saudi Arabia converged," he said, referring to the Damascus suburbs where rebel forces are dug in round the city.
CONFRONTATION
The Salafist movement in Islam, founded on literal readings of early texts, is close to the Wahhabi school associated with the Saudi royal house. Its religious teaching influences al Qaeda but the militant network's Saudi founder, Osama bin Laden, turned against Salafists he saw as allies of a Saudi monarchy that had been corrupted by its alliance with the United States.
The Army of Islam seems to want to avoid fighting al Qaeda for now. After a man named Saeed Jumaa, described as a captain in the Army, told an opposition television station that there could be open conflict with ISIL if they "continue this chaos", Zahran Alloush took to Twitter on Tuesday to disown him.
Jumaa's comments were "dangerous", Alloush said, and were designed to create "strife among Muslims".
The Army of Islam has also avoided an outright break with the SNC: "We do not make enemies of those who are not enemies to us," Army spokesman Islam Alloush told Reuters. However, the group did share the others' criticism of the SNC that it should be directed by fighters inside Syria, not leaders in exile.
If Riyadh's aim is to thwart al Qaeda enemies by rallying local Syrian Islamists in the way Washington did with Iraq's Sunni tribal Sahwa, it may be miscalculating, said commentator Hazem Amin. Unlike the Iraqi fighters, he said, Syrian Salafists were increasingly embracing radical views close to al Qaeda.
"Syria is different," Amin wrote in al-Hayat newspaper. "The social fabric is less cohesive ... At its core, the new Syrian Salafism is jihadist in nature. It is moving towards extremism."
(Additional reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Dominic Evans and Alastair Macdonald)
Labels: AL-QAEDA, SAUDI ARABIA, SYRIA
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Britain Intervenes in Saudi Arabia’s “Internal Affairs”
By Tanya Cariina Hsu
Global Research, October 20, 2012
Last month, the British government opened an inquiry to re-examine relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the aftermath of last years’ Arab Spring protests. The UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) will examine Britain’s multiple trade, defence, security, counter-terrorism and human rights interests in the two countries, and one of the most important questions examined will be, “how the UK can encourage democratic and liberalising reforms in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, including its power to effect improvements”.
To repeat, the inquiry will ask how the UK can “encourage democratic and liberalising reforms in Saudi Arabia”.
Prompted in part by complaints from Bahrain’s Shi’ia opposition activists, the inquiry results are to be published next year. Concurrently, the Bahrain Federation of Expatriate Associations (BFEA)—which represents half of the population of 600,000 ex-pats—made a statement charging the opposition of systemic abuses against their community, property, schools, places of worship and security forces. The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report last year indeed found evidence in Bahrain of abuses, and King Hamed bin Isa al-Khalifa immediately promised reforms and an end to any such injustices.
The image of security forces travelling into Bahrain in armoured vehicles became, in Western parlance, ‘soldiers in tanks’—not the requested security units per rules of co-operation and protection between the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council member states. Saudi Arabia led the convoy with 1,000 men on March 13th 2011 in response to the unrest, and the United Arab Emirates dispatched 500 police to Bahrain’s streets to quell the crowds. The situation was unique in the Arab Spring uprisings in that Bahrain was the only Gulf State to experience significant protests, the other GCC members (Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia) having witnessed no uprisings and barely a protest.
The issue at the heart of the British inquiry is simple: How can the UK support democratic change in the region but not risk the multi-billion pound bilateral defence and trade partnership contracts? Can the UK afford upsetting one of her largest defence importers—the world’s largest oil producer and traditional ally—whilst at the same time criticise Saudi Arabia for protection of Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet?
There is a bigger problem, however. It is a matter of what is already legally established, rules of diplomacy in foreign relations not tossed aside arbitrarily.
Interference in another states’ domestic policies is prohibited and is expressly codified in diplomatic law, and the reciprocity of this moral obligation is fully expected. Such interference has led the US, Britain and others to increasingly persuade states in the Middle East and North Africa to sign agreements with one hand whilst extracting conditions on the other.
Professor G.R. Berridge, a leading authority on contemporary diplomatic practice, explained, “Non-intervention in ‘domestic affairs’ is perhaps the most basic rule of a system of states because it is the other side of the coin of ‘sovereignty’.” Article 2(7) of the United Nations Charter states the rule “baldly”, with the 1961 Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations taking non-interference in the matters of other states as an action diplomatically assumed, he said.
Complexities become more acute in relation to human rights but nevertheless “the rule has been weakened by the Western campaign for such rights” and has been thus subject to notorious difficulties. Although there are certain circumstances where interference can occur from an outside state, it must be authorised by the UN Security Council, should be deemed “the only means of ending massive and sustained abuse of human rights”, or is considered so essential to self-defence that it would “pre-empt imminent and devastating aggression,” Dr. Berridge stated. As he wrote in his book ‘Diplomacy: Theory and Practice’, intervention from outside risks being viewed “with the immediate intention either of influencing some aspect of its domestic policy or of changing its regime”.
On October 15th, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UK Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf al-Saud said the Kingdom would “not tolerate or accept any foreign interference in the workings” of the GCC, and “Saudi Arabia’s relations with the GCC is an internal matter”. Saudi officials said that the Kingdom is now “re-evaluating their country’s historic relations with Britain” and that “all options will be looked at”.
Separate to whether or not Bahrain insufficiently meets democratic standards, one wonders what, precisely, Britain hopes to achieve with this inquiry.
British intervention in matters involving Saudi Arabia and Bahrain do not meet the diplomatic criteria surrounding interference: the reason behind the inquiry appears a cost-benefit analysis between human rights at the expense of trade.
More specifically, the element of contractual coercion is outlined in UN Resolution 2526 (Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States): “No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind.”
The West has for decades routinely accused Saudi Arabia and other nations of all forms of human rights’ abuses whilst brushing its own under the carpet. By contrast, Saudi Arabia issues no such reports in condemnation of abuses in America, Britain or Europe, despite the high domestic homicide rates, rapes, drug use, and international human trafficking or hate crimes. The Kingdom issued no formal declarations of complaint when the Irish Republican Army bombed, killed, terrorised and maimed British subjects in London in the 1970s and 80s. Saudi Arabia did not attempt to intervene when Civil Rights protestors were brutalised, burnt and beaten by US forces in Alabama in the 60s. The Kingdom adheres to the non-interference policy as set forth in the Vienna Conventions: ‘hands off other states’ domestic affairs’.
Having left a terrible legacy of betrayal in the region post World War I in partnership with France and the United States, Britain risks reverting to Imperial-type in the desire for change in the Middle East. As we witness the 21st century carnage in the region and the lessons failed to be learnt, this inquiry—despite honest intentions in human rights—might reconsider the rule of diplomatic law established half a century ago.
Tanya Cariina Hsu is a British political analyst specializing in US-Saudi foreign policy.
Articles by: Tanya Cariina Hsu
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Labels: AL-QAEDA, BAHRAIN, SAUDI ARABIA, TERRORISM
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Saudis warn will intercept Israeli jets
Published: Aug. 9, 2012 at 6:53 AM
JERUSALEM, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia warned it will intercept Israeli fighter jets that enter its airspace en route to an attack on Iran, the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth says. The warning was relayed via Washington and raised by top U.S. administration officials who recently visited Jerusalem.
The Hebrew language daily reported Thursday sources in Jerusalem said it appeared the Obama administration was "leveraging the Saudi threat in an attempt to dissuade Israel from launching a unilateral offensive on Iran's nuclear facilities," the newspaper said.
Other sources said they believe Riyadh would permit Israeli jets to enter its airspace if Israel coordinates the military strike with Washington and doesn't carry out a military operation unilaterally.
In the event of a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites, Israel has three route options: a northern route, which requires flying over Turkey and Syria; a southern route over Saudi Arabia; or a central route over Jordan and Iraq.
Due to the deteriorated relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara since a 2010 Israeli commando attack in which nine activists on the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, which sought to break the Gaza blockade, were killed, it is unlikely Turkey would permit Israeli fighter jets to enter its airspace, Yedioth Ahronoth said. However, there is a possibility Turkey would "turn a blind eye" because of commitments to its NATO partner, the United States, the newspaper said.
Concerning the next leg of the journey, which would require entering Syrian airspace, the Syrian air force is still operational but its capabilities are considered weak. However Syria's air defense systems are considered to be advanced, the newspaper said.
The option of entering Jordanian and Iraqi airspace is considered to be the preferred route for Israel, though it isn't clear whether Jordan would turn a "blind eye" to Israeli jets entering its airspace heading east, or whether it would consider such an act a threat to its sovereignty, which may jeopardize the peace treaty between the countries, Yedioth Ahronoth said.
Labels: ISRAEL, SAUDI ARABIA, SYRIA
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