Egyptian, Israeli Cooperation Alleged in Intercepting Arms Shipment to Hizballah

Wednesday, November 11, 2009


Unattributed related reports: “Egypt: Covert Cooperation Against Iran”


Egypt played a key part in intercepting a shipment of Iran weapons.


Officially, the Israelis say it was pure chance that led to the detection of the vessel Francop flying the Antigua flag and carrying Iranian weapons earmarked for Syria and Hezbollah (Hizballah). But according to our sources, the real story is altogether different. Israeli military intelligence`s Unit 8200 which taps into communications alongside its American counterparts from the National Security Agency watched the shipment when it had already been loaded some weeks previously aboard an Iranian vessel owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The cargo, disguised as polyethylene, put in at Damietta in Egypt for three days, where it was unloaded and left on the wharf before being loaded again aboard the Francocorp supposedly bound for Limassol in Cyprus.


The Americans and Israelis then informed Egyptian intelligence whose agents secretly opened some containers. They confirmed the nature of the cargo (mainly consisting of 107 mm and 122 mm Katyusha rockets). That enabled the Israeli Navy to plan boarding the ship.


Indeed, Egyptian intelligence was not only privy to the operation but took part in it and cooperated with the Israelis. For public consumption, however, it was decided by all concerned to present the ship`s interception as an exclusively Israeli operation so as to avoid Hosni (Husni) Mubarak`s Egyptian regime coming under fire both domestically and abroad for lending a hand to Tel Aviv. Israeli officials and commentators briefed by the military were told the Egyptians had no knowledge of the nature of cargo and were hoodwinked by fake Iranian paperwork, including end-user certificates.


Long accused by Israel of turning a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza for years, the Egyptians have stepped up their efforts to prevent the traffic since the Israeli incursion in January. Israeli defense sources say that the number of rockets smuggled into Gaza by Egypt has dropped to 200 since the beginning of this year, as opposed to 700 last year. The Egyptians have also been discreet about efforts to halt the smuggling. (End one of two related reports)


(Begin two of two related reports) Francop`s Rich Arms Shipment


In addition to Katyusha rockets (see previous page), the freighter Francop boarded by the Israeli Navy on Nov. 4 carried anti-tank missiles as well as mortar shells, grenades and Kalashnikov assault rifles destined for Hezbollah (Hizballah). However, Israeli military intelligence experts who sifted through the cargo failed to find any anti-aircraft missiles. Had they existed, such missiles would have been a threat to Israel`s Air Force dominance, and target Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating across all of Lebanon (IOL 604). (End two of two related reports)


(Description of Source: Paris Intelligence Online in English -- Internet newsletter devoted to providing political and economic intelligence; URL: http://www.intelligenceonline.com)


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Commentary Terms Israeli Interception of Ship to Syria Piracy
Al-Quds al-Arabi Online
Friday, November 6, 2009


Commentary by Chief Editor Abd-al-Bari Atwan: “Israeli Piracy”


The Israeli commando unit`s interception of a ship headed to Syria, regardless of its cargo, is an act of piracy and a violation of international law. This act will only serve to legitimize and expand terrorism and destabilize the region and the whole world. Transpiration of arms shipment from Iran to Syria is just as logical as the transportation of weapons from Moscow to Iran, Serbia, or Syria, for there is no provision in international law that bans such activity. Otherwise, why were the armies of more than 200 member states of the United Nations supplied with arms? And international arms sales totaled more than $200billion, with Israel being the fourth on the list of arms-exporting countries.


Israel arrogates to itself the right to build advanced military industry, both conventional and nuclear, and to export its destructive product to various countries of the world that are willing to purchase its weapons, including India and China. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accompanied 10 representatives of the Israeli military industry on his recent African tour, which included the Nile riparian countries to arm them and incite them to divert the Nile waters by establishing dams that might reduce Egypt`s share of the Nile water in the future. At the same time, Israel seeks to deny others, particularly Arabs, the right to self-defense.


The Israeli acts of piracy at sea, in the air, and on land, are too numerous to be enumerated here, and all take place in broad daylight without international objection, particularly from the countries that claim to belong to the free, democratic world. At the same time, we see international conferences, military coordination, and unprecedented incrimination of starving Somalis who hijackships through crude means for ransom after the civilized West destroyed their country, and turned it into a failed state.


This is the second time in fewer than six months in which Israel has deliberately provoked Syria in a humiliating way. In the first provocation, Israel dispatched its fighter jets to destroy a military post in the Al-Kabir area in northeast Syria near Dayr al-Zawr under the pretext that it was a nuclear facility under construction with North Korean assistance. Now Israel intercepted a ship heading to a Syrian port.


We have not heard of any Syrian reaction to these acts of piracy, and may never hear any at all. For the Syrians are cagey about such Israeli acts of aggression, unlike their stand on other issues. Silence will not benefit the Syrians in this case, but might give quite opposite results. For the Syrian people, and all Arabs behind them, have begun to feel greatly embarrassed by the continuing insults and the absence of any response to them in one way or another.


Israel is preparing for a war to restore what has been left of its wounded pride following the defeat of its forces in the Lebanon war in the summer of 2006. It wants to emerge from its current crises, international isolation, and the increase in international hatred in the wake of its carnage in the Gaza Strip and condemnation of committing war crimes in the Goldstone Report. So it cannot be ruled out that it might resort to shuffling the cards by launching a dual aggression against Lebanon and the Gaza Strip to drag Syria and Iran to a wider war. This is why it does not want any new weapons, particularly antiaircraft missiles, to reach Hizballah. Israel wants the Lebanese airspace to remain clear for Israeli warplanes to flaunt its power undisturbed.


The following factors make this assumption likely:


First, the West`s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and stopping its uranium enrichment have reached a deadlock. Supreme Leader Ali Khamene`i has rejected the Western proposal forwarded at the Vienna talks to transport Iranian uranium to be enriched in Russia and France. In other words, Iran is going ahead with its nuclear projects and that the West and the United States have no choice but to accept these projects and live with them, or to confront them with a strangulating economic siege, military attack, or both.


Second, Israeli experts have for months been saying that Syria moved its stockpiles of weapons to Hizballah in Lebanon, and that HAMAS in the Gaza Strip has succeeded in developing rockets with a range capable of reaching Tel Aviv. This makes the possibility of invading Gaza inevitable because of the serious threat that HAMAS`s possession of such rockets poses.


Third, there has been a turnaround in the US stance on the Arabs and on the peace process. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed this stance during her latest tour of the region, unreservedly supporting Binyamin Netanyahu`s decision to build settlements, and giving up the condition for a settlement construction freeze for the resumption of the peaceful negotiations. So this turnaround means that the Obama administration is giving priority to the Iranian nuclear program and adopts the Israeli viewpoints of eliminating the Iranian program by military force.


The Arabs, and here I mean the regimes, are now divided into three main camps: The first camp fully supports the US and Israeli position, and consequently the destruction of Iran`s nuclear ambitions. This camp would prefer a military means to achieve this goal. The second camp (Syria) is allied with Iran, stands and coordinates with Iran militarily and politically. The third camp is composed of a group of countries that do not want any Arab role in confronting Israel or any other country. Some of these countries adopt this stand on the pretext of wanting to move closer to Africa; others on the pretext of focusing on economic development, and still others on the pretext of not wanting to anger the United States.


The absence of Arab action, the pursuit of peace as a sole strategy, and the dropping of all other options, even in theory, have encouraged Israel to display its current wanton disdain for Arabs.


Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa said during the economic summit in Kuwait that the Arab peace initiative will not remain on the table indefinitely and that he will personally look for other alternatives to confront the humiliating Israeli rejection of this initiative. We do not know whether Musa is looking for alternatives or has forgotten all about them, just as the other Arab leaders have forgotten their wounded dignity to stand up to Israel`s repeated provocations.


We do not expect an official Arab response to Israel`s interception of the ship, allegedly shipping weapons. For Israel has committed aggression against Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and no one moved a finger. The Egyptian response to that insult came in the form of destroying more tunnels and tightening the blockade on the Gaza Strip. Israeli warships` violation of the Egyptian territorial waters has become an ordinary act, but an attempt by a starving African to infiltrate into Israel via the border with Sinai is a serious matter that deserves death penalty.


The question that comes to my mind, and perhaps to the minds of millions of Arabs, is when will the Arab governments be capable of confronting these flagrant violations of their sovereignty and airspace? Will we see the day when an Arab commando unit will confront ships carrying weapons to Israel on the high seas and divert them to an Arab port to search them to see if they carry a cargo of weapons to an aggressive state that occupies Arab land and that commits war crimes against innocent Arabs and Muslims?


(Description of Source: London Al-Quds al-Arabi Online in Arabic -- Website of London-based independent Arab nationalist daily with strong anti-US bias. URL: http://www.alquds.co.uk/)