Terrorism & Security

A policeman uses his mobile phone to take a photograph at the site of an explosion in the Ekamai area in central Bangkok on Feb. 15. Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week's bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday, two of three attacks Israel has blamed on Iran. (Kerek Wongsa/Reuters)

Israel says Bangkok, Delhi, and Tbilisi attacks all linked – to Iran

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.15.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The Israeli ambassador to Bangkok said today that bombs discovered in a house in Thailand were similar to those used in India and Georgia earlier this week, implying a link between the three attacks that Israel has blamed on Iran.

The Thai police said it was too early to draw links, The New York Times reports. After yesterday’s attacks, they caught two men carrying Iranian passports. They are still searching for two other suspects, whom they also believe are Iranian. One of them is said to have fled to Malaysia.

Itzhak Shoham, the Israeli ambassador, said the devices found in Bangkok were similar to the explosives used in New Delhi and Tbilisi, Georgia and had magnets that would allow them to be attached to metal objects. In both New Delhi and Tbilisi they were affixed to cars.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday at the Knesset that Iran is “undermining the world’s stability,” Haaretz reports.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Israel’s allegations were “baseless” and accused Israel of “trying to damage its relations with Thailand and fuel ‘conspiracy’ theories,” the Associated Press reports.

Will Hartley, the editor of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London, said the attacks were all “highly amateurish” and lacked the “sophistication” of a typical operation by either Hezbollah or Iran’s Quds Force, according to The New York Times.

In yesterday’s Bangkok attack, one bomb went off accidentally in a home and another shortly afterward while a man was carrying it. The day before, a bomb wrecked the car carrying an Israeli diplomat’s wife in New Delhi, injuring her and the driver. An attempted attack in Tbilisi was thwarted when the bomb was spotted and defused.

Thai National Security Council head Wichean Potephosree said the type of explosives indicated that the targets were individuals, not buildings or large crowds, according to AP.

CBS News reports that Israel's Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch implied the state would seek revenge for this week’s attacks.

"We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them," Mr. Aharonovitch said on Israel Radio. Israel’s Channel 10 TV quoted unnamed Thai officials as saying that the men captured in Bangkok confessed to targeting Israeli “interests,” according to CBS.

The attacks come amid weeks of heated talk about the possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Israel says are being used to develop nuclear weapons that could target Israel. Iran denies the charge.

Against that backdrop, these attacks come at a dangerous time, writes Jackson Diehl, editorial page editor for The Washington Post. If Iran is indeed behind them, it is taking a huge risk – not just politically, but economically. India, as the largest buyer of Iranian oil and the supplier of a vast amount of Iran’s rice imports, is a critical ally, particularly in light of recent sanctions.

The bomb in New Delhi will escalate tensions at a time when Israel is said to be considering a full-scale military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. But it could also endanger a vital economic lifeline for Tehran. That Iran would risk a strike in such a sensitive place suggests that its leaders are panicked.

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A policeman checks the identity of a motorcycle rider at a checkpoint near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, India, Feb. 14. Indian investigators were searching Tuesday for the motorcycle assailant who attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomatic car in the heart of New Delhi in an attack Israel blamed on Iran. (Saurabh Das/AP)

Iran accuses Israel of setting up attacks on its own diplomats

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.14.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unequivocally blamed Iran for bombing attacks on Israeli diplomatic targets in India and Georgia yesterday, intensifying an already contentious standoff between Israel and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran is behind these attacks,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an emailed statement, according to Bloomberg. “Israel will act methodically and take strong yet patient action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”

Iranian officials have accused Israel of a false flag operation, executing the attacks itself in order to “stir up sympathy from other countries,” Iran’s PressTV reports.

The past record of the Israeli regime clearly demonstrates that its elements have previously carried out such operations to gain popularity and evoke sympathy from other nations, said Deputy Chairman of the Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Ismail Kowsari on Tuesday.
Kowsari reiterated that Israelis stage such attacks against themselves in an attempt to accuse other countries, particularly Iran, and score political gains for their ominous objectives.

Neither the deputy chairman nor PressTV enumerated any such attacks, however, mentioning only the recent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist – one of at least four recent murders of nuclear scientists which Iran blames on Israel. However, the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israel is not expected to react harshly to yesterday’s bombings.

One reason for this is that if, as is widely believed, Israel is behind a recent series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran, government officials presumably knew that Iranian revenge attacks were likely and took that possibility into account. Though an innocent diplomat's wife cannot be compared to a scientist directly involved in Iran's nuclear program, Monday's attacks were still limited enough that they didn't violate the "rules of the game." Indeed, the modus operandi of the New Delhi bombing exactly mimicked that used to kill several of the Iranian scientists. Hence a direct [retaliatory] Israeli military strike on either Hezbollah or Iran seems unlikely.
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Nevertheless, two caveats are in order. First, these attacks may not be the last, but rather the first in a series. Second, it could be that the planners were capable of wreaking greater harm, but deliberately chose to cause only modest damage. Israel has repeatedly warned that a mass-casualty Hezbollah attack on Israeli targets overseas would spark a massive Israeli assault on Lebanon, and that is something Iran doesn't seem to want right now.

India is in a difficult spot, with strong ties to both countries.

Indian security experts say that India’s “less-than-stellar intelligence and surveillance capabilities” make it an easier place to stage an attack, the Wall Street Journal reports on its “India Real Time” blog.  “It would be fairly difficult to mount [Monday’s attack] in better policed countries and countries with a better intelligence apparatus,” Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, told the Journal. “India’s vulnerabilities to terrorism are very, very high.”

[Bharat Karnad, a professor of national security studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research] said that India could become “easy ground” for more such attacks if it doesn’t take strong measures. It also needs to send “strong messages to nations to fight their wars in their own land,” he said. Otherwise, “India could see many more attacks of this kind in the future.”

India will likely be under substantial pressure now to weaken its ties to Iran, which it has assiduously maintained despite European and US sanctions, India’s Economic Times reports.

The president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association will undermine willingness to deal with the  “elaborate” agreements necessary for the two countries to trade despite sanctions that have eliminated many channels of payment they used to use, Reuters reports.

India is Iran’s biggest oil buyer and supplier of rice and it is Iran’s second-largest arms supplier, according to Reuters. The Commerce Ministry is still planning to send a business delegation to Iran this month to look into ways to boost exports to Iran.

In Israel, the whole country has been placed on an increased state of alert, the Associated Press reports, and Israeli officials believe that yesterday’s bombings are the first in “a wave of terror.” This morning, Thailand's capital of Bangkok was rocked by a series of bombings, but there is little conclusive information available regarding those attacks, aside from an identity card found on one of the bombers indicating that he may be Iranian, according to a separate AP report.

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In this Nov. 29, 2011 file photo, terrorist suspect Umar Patek, center, is escorted by police officers as he arrives to testify for his wife, Ruqayyah binti Husein Luceno, who is on trial for immigration violations, at a district court in Jakarta, Indonesia. Southeast Asia's most notorious suspected bombmaker, nicknamed the "Demolition Man," is facing trial in Indonesia for his alleged role in the 2002 Bali bombing. (Tatan Syuflana/AP/File)

Bali nightclub bombings suspect stands trial

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.13.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The top remaining suspect in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings went on trial today, more than a decade after the attacks brought international attention to Jemaah Islamiyah, a previously overlooked Al Qaeda-linked group operating in Southeast Asia.

Umar Patek, believed to be a member of the group, is accused of building the bombs used in the attacks, which killed 202 people. He was captured in January 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan – the same town where Osama bin Laden was hiding when he was captured and killed by the US – and extradited from Pakistan in August. He began trial today in Jakarta. 

With Mr. Patek's capture and the trial and execution of the three "masterminds" of the 2002 Bali bombings, authorities say they've made substantial progress dismantling Jemaah Islamiyah, the Associated Press reports. At the time of Patek's arrest, he was one of the region's most wanted terrorists and carried a $1 million bounty.

Patek is also accused of a series of Christmas Eve bombings at churches in 2000, according to AP.

Reuters describes the Bali nightclub bombings as a "watershed" for Indonesia, forcing the secular state, which is also home to the world's largest Muslim population, to "confront the presence of violent militants on its soil." Almost 600 militants were detained after the bombings and most of them have been convicted. The militant threat was greatly diminished as a result, aided by the lack of popular support for violent militants.

Patek faces charges of premeditated murder, bombmaking, and illegal firearms possession, among others, but no terrorism charges because the country's terrorism law came into effect in 2003 and cannot be applied retroactively, according to BBC. Prosecutors said they will push for the death penalty, but Patek may be sentenced to life imprisonment instead.

The 1,540-pound bomb built by Patek – known as "demolition man" for his expertise with bombs – was hidden inside filing cabinets and loaded into a van, which was then detonated outside the two nightclubs, mostly killing foreign tourists. Patek told interrogators he built the bomb using basic household items, such as a rice ladle, a grocer's scale, and plastic bags, the Associated Press reports.

While homemade bombs are commonly used by militants all over, ones as powerful as the one made by Patek – out of household items – indicates an "enormous amount of care and expertise," according to AP. Patek told interrogators he learned to make bombs while at a militant academy in Pakistan from 1991-94 and later in Afghanistan. He was living in Indonesia when one of the plotters of the nightclub bombings asked him about making a bomb for the attacks.

He left Bali a few days before the attacks happened, heading to the Philippines, where he joined local extremist group Abu Sayyaf and trained militants and plotted attacks. Patek was in Pakistan, en route to Afghanistan, when he was caught. He hoped to fight alongside the Taliban or another militant group and had refused an offer to teach at a militant camp in Indonesia, AP reports. 

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Syrian security forces gather in front a damaged building at a security compound which was attacked by an explosion, in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, on Feb. 10. Two explosions targeted security compounds in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, killing 25 people and wounding 175 more. (SANA/AP)

Pressure for Western intervention in Syria builds with fresh assaults (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Correspondent / 02.10.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Conditions in Syria are deteriorating further, with explosions in the northern city of Aleppo killing 25 people and wounding 175 more, while tanks amassed in the flashpoint city of Homs, apparently to invade opposition neighborhoods that the Syrian Army has been shelling for days.  The worsening situation ratchets up the pressure on the Arab League and the West to intervene in the conflict, though both remain opposed to direct military involvement.

Reuters reports that the broadcast of the Aleppo explosions showed human remains on the street at the site of the attacks, as well as damage to a building and several cars.  Opposition members in Aleppo also said they heard two explosions within the city, followed by gunfire near a military headquarters and a military hospital, says CNN. According to state television, the explosions targeted Syrian military and security buildings. The opposition's confirmation lends credence to the story by the state news service, which has aired dubious reports in the past, as Al Jazeera English has pointed out.

Meanwhile, activists in Homs report that government tanks appear to be gathering outside dissident neighborhoods in preparation for an attack.  The Guardian reports that the roads in and out of Baba Amr, a besieged opposition neighborhood, were cut off, closing supply routes and avenues of escape for the suburb. The neighborhood has been the target of shelling since the weekend. Activists said that more than 100 people were killed in the bombardment on Thursday, although locals say that precise counts are impossible.

"We can't count the number of the dead in the rubble. When we pull someone from the rubble, we don't know if they were killed today, yesterday or before," [local resident Basil] Abu Fouad said by phone from a basement in Baba Amr.

"Communications have been completely cut off between neighbourhoods. The army have blocked access to the city. Some people tried to escape but they found all the roads were closed. There is no food left in the city. We don't have milk. All the water tanks have been targeted. We don't have medicines. If you go to the shops and try to get in, the snipers up on the roofs will shoot you," he said.

Reuters adds that Free Syrian Army rebels in Baba Amr are preparing defenses against a government assault.

The rising death toll will likely put greater pressure on the US, Europe, and the Arab League to intervene in the conflict in some capacity.  All remain opposed to direct military intervention, but calls have been increasing for providing support to the rebels, perhaps even in the form of munitions.

But determining whom to supply may be difficult, the Monitor reports, as the Free Syrian Army is only a loose military body without a cohesive command and control structure. There was recently a dispute between its commanders over who would coordinate the forces, which could reduce its ability to confront government troops.

Arming the rebels could also put Western nations in a proxy war with Russia and Iran.  Russia continues to sell weapons to the Syrian government, despite Western protests. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an accusatory William Hague, his British counterpart, that such sales are not illegal, writes The Telegraph.

The Telegraph also reports that leaders of Iran's Quds Brigade, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard, have been advising Syria on how to quash protests and gather intelligence on the opposition.  There are also reports in the Arab media that Iran-allied Hezbollah snipers from Lebanon have been brought in to back the government.

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A U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport in this 2010 file photo. (Massoud Hossaini/REUTERS/File)

US drone strikes in Pakistan on rise again

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.09.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

A US drone strike killed a senior militant in northwestern Pakistan today, one of two drone attacks on suspected militants this week.

Pakistani intelligence officials and Pakistani Taliban members told Reuters that the strike in the town of Miran Shah killed Bador Mansoor, a leader of a faction of the Pakistani Taliban with close ties to Al Qaeda. At least three others were killed in the strike, which came on the heels of a strike yesterday that killed 10 people.

Mr. Mansoor led a group of more than 200 Pakistani Taliban fighters in North Waziristan (see map here), a key sanctuary for militants, an insurgent told the Associated Press. Intelligence officials said they could not confirm for the AP that Mansoor was among those killed in the strike on Miran Shah’s bazaar.

Agence France-Presse reports that Pakistani intelligence described Mansoor as “de facto leader of Al Qaeda in Pakistan” since his predecessor, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a strike last June.

Drone attacks seem to be occurring more regularly since the resumption of the campaign on Jan. 10 after a nearly two-month hiatus. Drone operations were halted temporarily after a NATO airstrike mistakenly targeted a Pakistani military outpost in November, killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and infuriating Pakistan.

President Barack Obama openly acknowledged the drone program – dubbed the “worst kept secret in Pakistan and Washington” – after the campaign resumed. However, it has been obvious for years that the US has been behind the strikes in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal region, which butts against the Afghan border.

Amid the drone strikes, the Pakistani Army, NATO, and Afghan Army met yesterday to discuss coordination along the border – a sign of improving relations between the US and Pakistan, the Associated Press reports. Pakistan has indicated it is willing to reopen the border to NATO supply trucks. The border has been closed since the November airstrike.

The Associated Press reports that for most of the war in Afghanistan, 90 percent of NATO supplies came to Afghanistan via Pakistan, but in the last couple years NATO began shifting many of its shipments to an alternate route is more expensive and takes longer, but avoids Pakistan. Before the November strike, about 30 percent of “nonlethal” supplies for troops came through Pakistan, according to AP.

Gen. James Mattis, head of the US Army’s Central Command, is expected to travel to Pakistan later this month to meet with the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. He will be the first high-level US official to visit Pakistan since the November strike, The New York Times reports.

Although outward signs are just now appearing, relations have been warming for months, although the countries’ relationship will be more narrowly defined after the tumultuous diplomatic battle of the past year, according to the Times.

Intelligence officials from the two countries have resumed discussions about “joint targeting,” officials here added — probably a reference to C.I.A.-directed drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt. On the military side, Pakistan’s generals had started discussions over border coordination and the resumption of Coalition Support Funds, the main United States subsidy to Pakistani military operations.

A senior Pakistani security official also struck a cautiously positive note. “We have to meet, we have to talk, we have to bring this relationship back on track,” he said. “Both of us need each other. But from now on there will be no free rides, no carte blanche — things need to be institutionalized.”

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Argentina's President Cristina Fernández speaks during a national address while standing in front of a Falkland Islands' map at Government Palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday. Fernandez says she will formally complain to the UN Security Council about Britain sending one of its most modern warships to the Falkland Islands and accused British Prime Minister David Cameron of militarizing their long dispute over the islands in the South Atlantic. (Eduardo Di Baia/AP)

Argentina says it will take Falklands question to the UN

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.08.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Britain has rejected the possibility of talks with Argentina about the status of the Falkland Islands the day after Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced that her government would lodge a complaint with the United Nations about Britain's "militarization" of their ongoing dispute.

Britain announced last week that it would replace an aging ship patrolling the waters around the Falklands, which lie to the east of Argentina's southern tip, with one of its most modern warships. It also said that Prince William was being deployed there as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. Britain claims these waters as its territory.

"There is no other way to interpret the decision to send a destroyer, a huge and modern destroyer, to accompany the royal heir, whom we would have loved to see in civilian clothing instead of a military uniform," Ms. Kirchner said referring to Britain's actions as the "militarization" of the South Atlantic and describing it as a regional and global security issue, Bloomberg reports. 

Argentina claims that Britain stole the islands, which Argentines call the Malvinas, almost 200 years ago. The two countries went to war over the Falklands in 1982, after Argentina's military dictatorship launched an invasion. The islands' roughly 3,000 residents are considered British citizens. This April will be the 30th anniversary of the war.

Britain's Foreign Office responded to Kirchner's declaration with a statement. “The people of the Falkland Islands are British out of choice,” the department said in an emailed statement, according to Bloomberg. “They are free to determine their own future, and there will be no negotiations with Argentina on sovereignty unless the Islanders wish it.”

On Jan. 18, Prime Minister David Cameron said Argentina's attitude toward the islands is "like colonialism."

Argentina has recently tried to shore up regional and international support for its claim to the Falklands. The South American trading bloc Mercosur – which counts Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay as members – announced in December that it would close its ports to ships flying the Falklands flag, BBC reports. Chile, the main air transit point for the Falklands, recently declared its support for Argentina's claim. Falklands residents' concerns that Argentina would close its airspace to flights between Chile and the Falklands, however, have not materialized so far, the Guardian reports.

Fernández has mobilised much of South America and the Caribbean in a diplomatic and commercial squeeze. Ships flying the Falklands flag are barred from the region's ports, depriving the islands of bananas and other fresh fruit.

She sought to widen the row by including Spain in the list of British colonial victims. "It is an anachronism in the 21st century to still have colonies, there are only 16 cases in the world, of which 10 are British and we've seen in recent days how the Spanish claim regarding Gibraltar has been renewed."

A summit last week of left-wing Latin American leaders backed Kirchner's campaign. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said he would support Argentina in a military conflict if one arose, the Guardian reports.

Kirchner insists that Argentines want talks, not war, over the islands. She has said repeatedly that it was only the military dictatorship at the time, not the public, that wanted the invasion in 1982, according to the Associated Press.

"We continue to assert that you can't blame the Argentine people for a dictatorship's decision, in order to refuse to comply with what the United Nations has ordered, to sit down and negotiate and talk," she said yesterday.

There have always been tensions between Britain and Argentina, but the discovery of oil in the waters off the Falklands's coast has raised the stakes. British companies have lately been working to develop oil there. Kirchner accused Britain of "pillaging our resources" and creating "ecological chaos," The Wall Street Journal reports.

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (r.) speaks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during their meeting in Damascus on Feb. 7. Lavrov began talks with Assad on Tuesday just days after Russia and China blocked a United Nations Security Council effort to take stronger actions against Syria. (Reuters)

Russia: The time for Syrian democratic reforms has come (+video)

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.07.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in Syria today to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, just days after Russia and China blocked a United Nations Security Council effort to take stronger actions against Syria.

Mr. Assad’s supporters lined the streets of Damascus, waving flags – including a few Russian flags – to welcome Mr. Lavrov to the city, Reuters reports. Russia has been a staunch voice of opposition to international intervention in Syria. The Russian foreign ministry said Lavrov is there seeking “the swiftest stabilization of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come.”

In the days since its veto of the Security Council resolution, Russia has been in “full damage-control mode” amid an onslaught of international criticism, The Christian Science Monitor reports. Russian analysts defend Moscow's opposition, by saying the Western-backed resolution lacked a strategy for the “state collapse and social catastrophe” that is likely to follow if Assad is overthrown.

"The USA and the West insisted that the resolution had to be passed, allowing outside interference, in order to stop the massacre," of Syrian civilians, says Pyotr Romanov, a political analyst with the official RIA-Novosti news agency in Moscow. "But has anyone given any thought to what happens next? Are you really trying to tell us that good moral forces will come to power? People with no blood on their hands, who will bring anything decent, much less democracy? Please."

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"We were not against the resolution, but we wanted such a clause inserted to ensure that no military interference in Syria was intended, but our demand was not met," says [Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the State Duma's international affairs committee]. "We considered this to be a matter of principle, and we still do. . .  Russia feels a responsibility toward Syria, including military and technical cooperation, and our agreements stipulate mutual assistance in difficult situations. We don't have many such agreements with foreign states."

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said that Russia and China have lost “diplomatic credit" in the Arab world in the wake of their veto and said their vote implied to Mr. Assad that he had free rein for his crackdown on government opposition, Reuters reports.

Arabs would continue working to end the crisis but had a limited scope to act without international support, he said.

"We have put all our cards ... on the table. It is up to the United Nations to decide. The Security Council has failed," he said. "We have nothing else to do. We have 10 floors here (in the Arab League headquarters). Go find our planes or our tanks. What else do you expect us to do?"

Harvard professor Stephen Walt, writing in Foreign Policy, argues that last year's "triumph" in Libya – the UN Security Council's authorization of international intervention in order to protect civilians, which quickly became a tool for regime change – is now a major obstacle to international actions against Syria.

There are a number of reasons why the U.N. effort has failed thus far, but part of the blame lies with the liberal interventionists who abused the Security Council's mandate during last year's intervention in Libya.
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But what if the Libyan precedent is one of the reasons why Russia and China aren't playing ball today? They supported Resolution 1973 back in 2011, and then watched NATO and a few others make a mockery of multilateralism in the quest to topple Qaddafi. The Syrian tragedy is pay-back time, and neither Beijing nor Moscow want to be party to another effort at Western-sponsored "regime change." It is hardly surprising that Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin condemned the failed resolution on precisely these grounds. In short, our high-handed manipulation of the SC process in the case of Libya may have made it harder to gain a consensus on Syria, which is arguably a far more important and dangerous situation.

Moscow may have been motivated in part by a desire to shore up the Assad regime because of the billions of dollars of arms contracts between the two countries. But Reuters reports that many analysts say the veto was “driven less by love for Assad or hope of a return to Syria’s pre-conflict status quo than by Prime Minister Putin’s desire to show … that he will deft Western efforts to impose political change on sovereign states in regions of big power competition.”

Russia may be merely seeking a “controlled demolition” of the Assad regime, without Western intervention, rather than a desire to prop up the current government, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government’s onslaught has barreled on, emboldened by Russia and China’s defense. The BBC reports that the Syrian Army has been “pounding” Homs, one of a few rebel strongholds throughout the country. Residents worry that the artillery being fired on the city from its outskirts will soon turn into a ground assault, led by army tanks.

Activists told the BBC that at least 95 people were killed in Homs on Monday alone.

Turkey said it will launch an international effort of its own against Assad, BBC reports.

China, the other country that vetoed the UN resolution and thus also a target of international criticism, said it may send an envoy to Damascus.

"Today, China, because of its rapidly rising strength, sits at the main table on the global stage, and needs to get used to newly being in the limelight. The international community also needs to adjust to China's new role," said Ruan [Zongze, identified as a foreign affairs expert writing in The People’s Daily]. "Although this means that China will face even more difficult choices when it comes to handling complex international affairs, China must dare to speak its mind, and proactively create a just, rational global political process." 

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In this citizen journalism image provide by the Local Coordination Committees in Syria and released on Feb. 2, a Syrian rebel stands next to a destroyed government forces tank in Homs, central Syria. (Local Coordination Committees in Syria/AP)

Syria assault on Homs escalates. Does Assad think he has carte blanche now? (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Correspondent / 02.06.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues. Updated 11:01 a.m. Eastern time.

Shelling in the Syrian city of Homs killed at least another 17 people today, signaling that President Bashar al-Assad's regime saw Russia and China's vetoes of a UN Security Council resolution this weekend as a green light to crush the opposition. In response to the escalating violence in recent weeks, the US closed its embassy in Damascus today.

According to activists in the city, the Syrian military is firing shells and rockets at residential areas and a field hospital in Homs. A man named Omar in the Baba Amr neighborhood told BBC Radio in a telephone interview that the shelling began yesterday morning, but it is "more horrible now." A series of explosions can be heard in the background during the interview. 

Another resident of Homs, activist Majd Amer, made similar statements in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, saying that the shelling began in his neighborhood of Khaldiyeh at 3 a.m. "We did not sleep all night," he said, as explosions could be heard in the background. "The regime is committing organized crimes."

The Associated Press reports that the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) activist group and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say that at least 17 people have died in the shelling. The Syrian National Council put the tally higher, with at least 50 dead, according to the Italian news wire AKI. Weekend reports citing the LCC originally claimed more than 200 dead from shelling in Homs on Friday, but the group later revised its estimates down to 55, the BBC reported.

The Syrian government has denied that it is shelling the city, and claims instead that "armed terrorist groups" are attacking residents.

Syrian allies Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to end the violence in Syria. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vetoes a "travesty" and pushed for an international coalition to oust Assad through sanctions, arms embargoes, and humanitarian aid for Syrian citizens, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people's right to have a better future," Mrs. Clinton said during a visit to Sofia, Bulgaria on Sunday.

The Christian Science Monitor reported yesterday that analysts believe the vetoes would embolden the Assad regime to crack down and the opposition to move towards armed resistance. 

“The situation in Syria is going to escalate with greater bloodshed in the streets as a consequences of the vetoes which ended up giving the regime greater support,” Imad Salamey, associate professor of politics at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, told the Monitor.

The New York Times writes that the government indeed appeared to view the vetoes as supportive, as it hailed Russia and China's decision as a rejection of foreign intervention in Syria. A state newspaper also indicated that the government would step up its crackdown, as it promised to “restore what Syrians had enjoyed for decades.”

China denies that it was protecting the Syrian regime with its vote, reports Agence France-Presse. Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters that "China does not have its own selfish interest on the issue of Syria. We don't shelter anyone. We uphold justice on the Syrian issue."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also angrily rebuked critics of Moscow's decision to veto the UN measure, saying “There are some in the West who have given evaluations of the vote on Syria in the United Nations Security Council that sound, I would say, indecent and perhaps on the verge of hysterical. Those who get angry are rarely right.”

With Russia and China preventing any action through the UN Security Council, the US is looking for alternatives to protect the Syrian opposition, reports The New York Times. But experts warn that to do so, the US may be forced to give consent to arm them, increasing the risk of Syrian civil war and setting up a proxy war there, with US and Europe on the opposition's side and Iran and Russia backing Mr. Assad's regime.

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In this November 2011 file photo, a smoke trail of a missile test-fired by the Israeli army as seen from the central Israeli town of Yavne. Israel's steady stream of warnings against Iran troubles Western leaders, who fear that Israel may launch unilateral attacks against Iran that could destabilize the Middle East and shatter the international coalition pressuring Iran to rein in its nuclear program. (Ilan Assayag/AP/File)

Israel's public campaign against Iran has West on edge

By Arthur Bright, Correspondent / 02.03.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Israeli officials have ratcheted up the volume insisting that Iran poses a great danger to Israel and the West, with top Israeli government and military officials issuing multiple warnings yesterday about the Iranian nuclear program. Israel's public campaign against Iran is fueling concerns that Israeli forces may launch a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear facilities this year.

Haaretz reports that Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel's intelligence service Shin Bet, told a closed forum in Tel Aviv that Iran has attempted "three serious attacks" against Israeli interests in the past year in retaliation for the assassinations of four Iranian nuclear experts, which Tehran believes were executed by Israeli agents.

Although Israel denies being behind the murders, Mr. Cohen said, "It doesn't matter if it's true or not that Israel took out the nuclear scientists."

"A major, serious country like Iran cannot let this go on," he said. "They want to deter Israel and extract a price so that decision makers in Israel think twice before they order an attack on an Iranian scientist."

Elsewhere in Tel Aviv, Israeli vice prime minister and minister of strategic affairs Moshe Yaalon claimed that Iran was developing a new long-range missile that could reach the US eastern seaboard.  The Christian Science Monitor reports that if true, Yaalon's claim would mean Iran's missile program is much more advanced than previously thought. Separately, Israeli chief of military intelligence Gen. Aviv Kochavi said that Israel believed Iran has enough nuclear material to make four bombs.

And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a Tel Aviv conference that the world "has no doubt that Iran's nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness." Bloomberg reports that he also argued that "there is widespread global understanding" that if sanctions do not stop the program, "there will arise the need of weighing an operation” to strike Iran.

The rising chorus in Israel has alarmed Western leaders, who fear that Israel may launch unilateral attacks against Iran that could destabilize the Middle East and shatter the international coalition pressuring Iran to rein in its nuclear program. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes that US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes Israel will strike in April, May, or June. (Mr. Panetta has declined to comment on Mr. Ignatius's column.) Similarly, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said, "I worry that there will be a military conflict and that certain countries might seek to take matters into their own hands," according to The Telegraph. 

The Associated Press reports that Israel's allies are working hard to dissuade Israel from such a path. But former US diplomat Dennis Ross,who has a very close relationship with Israeli government, told The Telegraph that Israeli officials may not feel restrained by opposition – even American opposition – to a unilateral attack against Iran. "The Israelis view this [Iranian threat] in existential terms, he said. "If the Israelis feel this is an existential threat it doesn't matter what anybody says to them. They could do it unilaterally."

In a column criticizing recent talk by the Canadian government alluding to Israeli military intervention against Iran, Montreal Gazette columnist Michael Den Tandt argues that it's highly unlikely Iran would ever consider using weapons of mass destruction against Israel.  "The reason for that is simple," he writes. "Were they to do so, they and their country would be destroyed."

Israel possesses an estimated 200 nuclear weapons. The United States possesses thousands, and could within a few hours turn all of Iran into a radioactive pyre. By what logic can anyone assume the Iranians would unilaterally deploy nukes if they had them?

Far more plausible is that, in seeking nuclear weapons, the Iranians intend to forever alter the balance of power in the Middle East, creating for themselves an insurance policy of the kind enjoyed by Pakistan, North Korea, India and others. North Korea, charter member of Bush's axis of evil, went nuclear and was not invaded. Saddam Hussein had no WMD and was deposed and hanged. Gadhafi gave up his WMD and was deposed and shot.

Neither Pakistan nor North Korea can be said to be stable, clearly. Would either country deploy a nuke, knowing the retaliation that would follow?

And why would Iran be any different?

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