21-Oct-17: Early-morning rocket fire deep into northern Israel today and IDF believes the Syrians meant it this time

Damascus today: Iranians on the left, Syrians on the right, Iran's Maj. Gen.
Mohammad Bagheri in the middle shaking hands with Syria's top military
officer Gen. Ali Ayoub. The military agreement they signed is described
below [Image Source]

Israel's Syria border has been relatively quiet for decades. But the recent and ongoing geo-strategic changes in the Middle East (think: Iran) mean the likelihood of substantial changes there - for the worse - is on the minds of everyone in the Israeli security establishment.

Here's what we know about the events of today (Saturday).

Times of Israel, in a report entitled "Israel believes rocket fire from Syria may have been deliberate" says five rockets were fired across its border from Syria early this morning (Saturday). While earlier incoming rockets (there have been many this year already - most recently this past Thursday) have been called incidental to the ferocious blood-letting in Syria, today's

"may have been deliberately launched at Israel, rather than constituting errant spillover from clashes in Syria, military sources said late Saturday. Israel fired back into Syria, hitting three rocket launchers, in response to the rocket fire, and warned that further fire would prompt a more intensive response... Channel 2 news reported that although the IDF officially referred to “spillover” fire in its statements Saturday, there was “a growing sense” in the army that the Syrian fire was deliberate..." [Times of Israel, today]

Today's rockets were all fired into Israel around 5 am. Four fell relatively deeply inside Israeli territory and according to Times of Israel set off Code Red (Tzeva Adom) alarms in several locations. It's still believed at this stage that all crashed onto open ground without causing injury or damage, though one "landed close to an Israeli residential area."

Israeli suspicions start with the assessment that  no fighting was going on in any relevant part of Syria at the time of the fire. The Syrian army fully controls the specific area from which they were fired. And they landed far from the Syrian frontier.  And this:

Concluding a visit to Syria on Saturday, the commander of Iran’s armed forces signed a memorandum of understanding with Syrian officials in which the two allies announced plans for tighter military cooperation and coordination — notably against Israel. [Times of Israel, today]

More about that below.

All sides - Syria, Israel, Iran - have been making statements.

The Syrian defense ministry says Israel arranged for the rocket attack on its territory:

"The terrorists, acting at the behest of Israel, shelled empty ground to provide a pretext for this aggression..." [Turkish news site Daily Sabah, today]

The IDF doesn't think it attacked itself and issued this blunt warning:

“The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel and the security of its residents, and considers the Syrian regime responsible for what is happening in its territory... Even if this is just spillover, this is an exceptional incident and the continuance of such events will be met with a more fierce Israeli response... ” [IDF statement quoted by Times of Israel, today]

And Bagheri, the Iranian, said just three days ago from Damascus [source] where he arrived a day earlier that he was there to coordinate

“in order to fight our common enemies — whether they are the Zionists or the terrorists. We discussed ways to strengthen relations in the future and outlined the basic principles of this cooperation... We cannot accept a situation where the Zionist entity attacks Syria from the ground and the air”.

Associated Press today added to what we know about the unusual Syrian junket by Iran's most senior military officer:

The Chief of Staff of Iran's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, is on an official visit to Syria. He toured the front lines in the northern province of Aleppo and discussed military cooperation with President Bashar Assad... Syria and its strong backer Iran signed a joint memorandum of understanding for developing cooperation and coordination between the two countries' armies... [The] memo was signed between the two countries' chiefs of staffs [and] provides for exchanging military expertise and intelligence and technology information in a way that can boost the two countries' capability for fight terrorism, according to [Syria's] state news agency SANA. Iran has been one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's strongest supporters since the country's crisis began in 2011 and has sent thousands of Iranian-backed militiamen to boost his troops against opponents.

Meanwhile, Israel National News says the IDF fire in the hours after the Syrian rocketry "destroyed three Syrian artillery cannons".

19-Sep-17: An Iranian drone dispatched in Israel's direction from Syria is intercepted en route

An IDF Patriot battery ready for action [Image Source]

All the ominous recent talk about Iran's massively increased financial capacity - thanks to its JCPOA deal with the Obama administration
- to feed its voracious appetite for military adventurism in our part of the world just became significantly more worrisome this afternoon.

The Israeli Air Force intercepted what it believes to be an Iranian-built drone, sent by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, with a Patriot missile after it attempted to cross into Israeli airspace on Tuesday, the army said. The military also scrambled fighter jets to the area, but ultimately did not need to use them as the interceptor missile was able to destroy the target. [According to an IDF spokesperson] the air force monitored the unmanned aerial vehicle from its take-off from Damascus airport to the demilitarized zone that separates the Israeli and Syrian Golan Heights. [When it crossed] the Syrian border and entered the demilitarized zone — but not Israeli airspace — the IDF “decided to intercept it,” [the spokesperson] said. ["IDF Patriot intercepts apparent Hezbollah drone from Syria", Times of Israel, September 19, 2017]

The report says the Patriot interceptor missile was fired from a military site near the city of Safed.

Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi under watchful gaze of his
ideological masters [Image Source]

Iran has not been shy for decades about its genocidal (understand the word literally) intentions when it comes to the Jewish state:

Iran’s newly appointed army chief warned Monday that the Islamic Republic would raze the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if the “Zionist regime” makes “any wrong move.” In remarks delivered at an event in the city of Qom, General Abdolrahim Mousavi also echoed previous warnings that Israel will not exist in 25 years. Mousavi, who issued a nearly identical threat last month, was appointed in August as the commander of the Iranian army, an entity separate from the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps... [Source]

The sabre-rattling of Iran's entire power structure is generally taken seriously around here. An Associated Press report reminds us that Israeli leaders across the military and political spectrum are

worried that as the Syrian civil war appears to be winding down, Iranian and Hezbollah forces will maintain a permanent presence in the neighboring country. Netanyahu was to address the U.N. General Assembly later on Tuesday, with Iran at the top of his agenda... [Netanyahu] has repeatedly warned that Israel will not accept a military presence by Iran or any of its Shiite allies in the Syrian border area near Israel. Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting in Syria. But it has carried out dozens of airstrikes on alleged arms shipments bound for Hezbollah. It fears the group will gain sophisticated weapons and smuggle them from Syria into Lebanon.

From a 2014 report on the IDF's blog:

The Patriot surface-to-air missile system, officially known as the MIM-104, is an important part of Israel’s aerial defense. Designed by the American company Raytheon, this ground-to-air, long-range missile is able to intercept and shoot down all types of aircraft. Drones, helicopters and fighter jets can all be targeted from a distance of 160 km.

15-Feb-17: Things Iran is good at

Genuflecting: The caption to this revealing Iranian news photo is: "Minister
of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi 
and the Swedish Minister of European Union Affairs and Trade Ann Linde
seen in this Feb 11 photo meeting in Tehran" [Image Source]

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("W czym Iran jest dobry") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

There are some striking photos in the news today and yesterday, showing Swedish political leaders - among them, self-avowed feminists - bowing their heads to men, the females donning hijabs and head scarves and generally conveying a sense of deep deference to the Islamist regime ruling Iran with an iron fist - a posture rarely seen in international affairs or among people espousing the views that the Swedes claim to hold dear.

Sweden's prime minister Stefan Löfven led the visiting delegation, and has come under angry criticism from opposition politicians and female rights among others.

“This is disastrous for what is being called a feminist foreign policy,” says Jan Bjorklund of the Liberal Party. According to him, the Swedish government should have demanded not to make the hijab compulsory for the female members of the delegation. And if Iran did not agree to that, then the trade agreements should have been signed in Sweden or a third country. The Swedish government calls itself the “first feminist government”, but Linde has defended her decision to wear the hijab in Iran, saying that the only other option would be to send an all-male delegation. Swedish companies have been lining up to gain access to Iran’s lucrative market after the lifting of international sanctions... ["Sweden defends officials wearing headscarves in Iran", Tehran Times, February 14, 2017]

The Swedish delegation to Iran has had a significant impact outside
Iran. The caption reads: "Sweden's "first feminist government" has been
called hypocritical for wearing the hijab in Tehran"
[Image Source: Screen grab from a Sydney Morning Herald video]

But Löfven would have been heartened by the local reception his team got. They were

greeted with praise from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hailed the positive relationship between the two countries during a meeting with the Swedish premier in Tehran. "America and many European powers have played a role in causing traumatic events in Syria and Iraq, and the people of the region are aware of this interference and are rightly skeptical," Khamenei was quoted as saying by Iranian television... [Löfven] also met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani... who hailed the "moderation" in Sweden's foreign policy, ["Iran hails relations with Sweden during prime minister's visit to Tehran", DW (German State Radio), February 11, 2017]

The Swedes must have had the case of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali on their minds while in Tehran. He's an academic physician born in Iran who has taught at universities in Belgium, Italy and Sweden. His field is disaster medicine and he traveled to Iran in April 2016 to take part in a professional conference. With no warning and without any warrant, Iranian Ministry of Intelligence officials arrested him there and charged him with “collaboration with enemy states”. The New York Times reported earlier this week [click] that he is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison and faces the death penalty. 

An image from last Saturday in Tehran that has already gone massively
viral: Swedish "feminist" government officials' walk of shame

Djalali's wife and two children live in Stockholm so the case has a higher profile there than in the countries where most of this blog's readers live. His wife is surely wondering what, if anything, those Swedish feminists did that was helpful to his cause during their well-publicized visit with the Mullahs. We were unable to find any reference to it in the media reports of the "feminist: visit to Iran, but we may have missed it.

For the past year, there's been a serious rush of vendor delegations from Europe, Asia and North America visiting, and showing extreme deference to, the Iranian regime along with an impressive flow of cross-border business deals with the Iranians [click here for a Google search results listing]. No doubt that this is a happy time for the people in charge of Iran.

But beyond the embarrassed faces and unmistakable humiliation of the visitors on show, there are significantly more disturbing next-moves emanating from the Iranian regime as flagged, for instance, yesterday by the Washington Times:

Iran’s hard-line Islamic regime has escalated its overseas terrorist operations, establishing a network of over a dozen internal training camps for foreign fighters, the regime’s largest resistance group said at a press conference on Tuesday in Washington. The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued its intelligence report specifying the camps’ locations and the countries represented... The council’s largest member is the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK). It boasts an extensive spy network inside the mullah-run government, including the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its special forces wing, the Quds force, and has a track record of exposing clandestine parts of the Iranian national security apparatus.
The Quds force played a significant role in the Iraq War by training Iraqi Shiites on how to make bombs that killed scores of American troops. The Quds force is now directing thousands of Iraqi Shiite militia members in Iraq, some of whom have gone to Syria to fight for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The U.S. calls Iran the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. However, neither the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nor the Quds force is on the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations. The Treasury Department in 2007 designated the Quds force as a material supporter of terrorism, but National Council of Resistance of Iran officials say the U.S. government should go much further.
“The Iranian resistance has emphasized on countless occasions that the source and the epicenter of terrorism, fundamentalism and regional meddling is the fundamentalist regime ruling Iran,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the council’s Washington office. [“Iran growing network to train foreign terrorists, dissident group says”, Rowan Scarborough in Washington Times, February 14, 2017]

The Washington Times report goes on:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved a directorate inside the Quds force “in order to expand its training of foreign mercenaries as part of the regime’s strategy to step up its meddling abroad, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Afghanistan and elsewhere.” “The camps have been divided based on the nationality of the trainees and the type of training,” the council said. “Both terrorist training and also military training for militias are provided, enabling them to better infiltrate and advance the regime’s regional objectives.”

What skills can aspiring jihadists acquire under the Iranian auspices?

The training is divided into two types of courses; a crash-course of 45 days for troops that will be used to fight in paramilitary forces like the IRGC’s Basij force or a full training course which lasts from between 9 and 12 months... The full training course has many different sections: Heavy weaponry; Missile Launches; Marine Training; Theoretical Training (how to spend terror rhetoric); Survival Training; Commando Training; Paratrooper Training; Security Training... The report makes clear that the IRGC is in control of these terror training camps, in an attempt to export terrorism, destabilise other countries and take control in those countries. ["IRAN’S  IRGC’S TERROR TRAINING CAMPS REVEALED", Iran News Update,., February 15, 2017]

Here's something else the Iranians know to do well: fomenting yet more mischief in Gaza. It stems from the choice of a seasoned murdering terrorist to become the new head of Hamas in Gaza [we analyzed this here: "13-Feb-17: Another Shalit Deal milestone: Four terms of life imprisonment but this murdering jihadist now heads Hamas in Gaza"]

The implication of the selection means that Iran has retaken the reins in Gaza after a long hiatus during which Egypt, on one hand, and Turkey and Qatar, on the other, tried to fill the vacuum. Iran chose to take back the reins in Gaza because of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.  Iran fears that in the upcoming talks in Washington, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will discuss an aggressive option vis-à-vis Iran. It is doubtful if any “elections” were held in Gaza to choose Sinwar. The result is due to pressure by Hamas’ military wing on the political wing, and the announcement’s timing is Iran’s way of conveying a message before the Trump-Netanyahu talks. If that’s the case, don’t expect that Sinwar’s “election” foretells a new escalation from Gaza against Israel. Just the opposite, Iran will restrain Hamas in order to keep the Gaza front available for Iran’s own needs, and Iran’s alone. ["Iran Grabs the Reins in Gaza", Pinhas Inbari, JCPA, February 14, 2017]

Velayati on Aljazeera this past week [Image Source]

In the interests of fairness, we will point out that Iran does have its fans, and the Iranians don't necessarily see themselves as being the bad guys or in any great trouble. You can get a sense of that deep Persian self-appreciation from published pieces like "World owes Iran debt of gratitude for sacrifices in fight against terror" [PressTV, February 13, 2017] and "Lavrov: Exclusion of Iran from anti-terror coalition is a mistake" [Tehran Times, February 12, 2017].

Also this: Iran doesn't see any reason to discontinue its rapid development of long-range offensive missiles [reviewed here two weeks ago]. As Ali Akbar Velayati (a former Iranian foreign minister and today Supreme Leader Khamenei's Advisor on International Affairs) said three days ago in an Al-Jazeera television interview [translated into English by MEMRI here]:

"If America imagines that threats and sanctions will lead Iran to stop its missile program, this is a misconception, a mere fantasy... America is not strong enough to bring us to our knees... Mr. Trump is fickle and changes his policies every other day... Running a country like America is not an easy thing. All of Trump's predecessors faced similar problems. The most important things is that he has failed, especially with us in Iran. Mr. Trump does not possess special qualifications that would enable him to claim that he wants to take over the world. His policies are immature and have led him to a confrontation with the whole world"

This sounds like bluster - something the Iranians are also good at - but it's more serious than customary bluster given the threats that have emanated from Iranian leaders at various points since the JCPOA, the infamous unsigned "agreement" that has brought such unearned benefits to Iran, came into effect. For instance, this comment which we quoted in an earlier post ["28-Jun-16: Is Iran now threatening more nuclear plotting?"]

Discussing what president Obama has called snapback and "real consequences"] "Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the country will be able to “immediately” reverse its commitments under a final nuclear deal with world powers if it finds out that the other side has breached commitments under the [JCPOA]... Whenever Iran feels the other side has not honored its commitments, the “reversibility” of Tehran’s nuclear program will happen immediately, he said." [Tasnim News Agency, Iran, July 28, 2015]

We think they're good at that sort of thing too.

27-Jul-15: Even more peace from Iran's highest-level military force

Mr Salami [Image Source]

The transaction that we choose to call the Iran Nuclear Enablement Deal™ (a less nuanced, and therefore more realistic, title than the official one) is wending its way through Congress, US opinion and the political corridors of countries throughout the West. 

In those circumstances, and without dwelling on the peculiar manner aspects of this process are being reported in the mainstream news media, there's no reason for apologies about drawing the attention of readers of this blog to how the parallel process is going over on the Iranian side. 

We offered some initial insight, using Iranian sources and plain Iranian-to-English text, unembellished and exactly as it appears in the English-language Iranian news media, just a few days ago: see "22-Jul-15: Now that peace is on the way, what to make of blood-curdling Iranian incitement like this?" 

Today we offer the snarling, glowering Iranian news report below.  It went to air in Tehran just yesterday. And like the earlier report, it bears the imprimatur of FARS News Agency which calls itself:

"Iran's leading independent news agency, covering a wide variety of subjects in different, political, economic, cultural, social, legal, sports, military and other areas with the most up-to-date, independent, unbiased and reliable news and reports in Persian and English. Ever since its establishment in early 2003, it has been making its way towards daily progress and gaining reputation as a trustworthy source [etc]... As our English department was established in December 2005..." 

As Wikipedia points out, though FARS says it's independent, both CNN and Reuters say it's a "semi-official" government news agency.

Salami, gently preparing his fellow-Iranians for peace, November 2013
[Video grab from YouTube source]

IRGC Deputy Top Commander: US Unable to Take Slightest Hostile Move against Iran | July 26, 2015 | TEHRAN (Fars News Agency) - Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami played down the US officials' war rhetoric against Iran, warning that the US knows its slightest hostile move would receive a crushing response. Brigadier General Salami's remarks came after US State Secretary John Kerry threatened to use military action against Tehran if it fails to respect a historic nuclear deal sealed on 14 July. "Today the US knows that the slightest move against the Islamic Iran will ruin its house of dream," Brigadier General Salami said, addressing a ceremony in the city of Zahedan, Southeastern Iran, on Sunday.
He pointed to the US officials' catch phrase "all military option are still on the table" even after the Vienna nuclear agreement, and said, "The Americans have always resorted to bullying because they lack diplomatic skills..."...In relevant remarks on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a statement blasted US officials' recent comments against Tehran after the country and the world powers reached a nuclear agreement earlier this month, calling on them to kick the bad habit of threatening Iran.
"Unfortunately, the US secretary of state has spoken of the worn-out rope of 'the US capability to use military force'," Zarif said on Friday... "Therefore, it is better for the Americans to forget their old habit and leave the language of threats and sanctions against this great people once and for all," Zarif said. He also underlined the Iranian officials' united stance on different issues... and said the US had better avoid repeating its past mistake of sowing discord among the Iranian officials.

The FARS report notes, accurately, that the final agreement achieved (though never signed - FARS is silent on this, and so is much of the media elsewhere) in Vienna on July 14, 2015 received the endorsement of the UN Security Council by unanimous vote a few days later, "setting the stage for the lifting of Security Council sanctions against Iran", as they put it, accurately.

We think advocates of the Vienna understanding ought to give real thought to words like

"the US knows that the slightest move against the Islamic Iran will ruin its house of dream"

and what it means to unwind years of sanctions and restrictions on an energy-abundant, nuclear-hungry, terrorism-obsessed state that defines itself by its military might. But there are few signs that anyone who counts is taking the breast-beating seriously. 

Brigadier General Hossein Salami [background here] has a reputation for his elegant way with words. Under an easy-going, let's-just-be-friends headline ["IRGC Deputy Top Commander: US Unable to Intimidate Iran, We Welcome War with US"], he gently whispered

"We welcome war with the US as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success to display the real potentials of our power... We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios and this is no big deal... We warn their pilots that their first flight [to attack Iran] will be their last one and no one will be allowed to go back safe and sound..." [FARS, May 7, 2015]

No one was terribly surprised. After all, a year earlier, he was - if anything - even more blunt in addressing the US's close ally and bulwark of regional democracy:

Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime's control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here... Islam has given us this wish, capacity and power to destroy the Zionist regime so that our hands will remain on the trigger from 1,400km away for the day when such an incident (confrontation with Israel) takes place..." [FARS, March 11, 2014]

And two months before that, an Iranian analyst quotes him speaking (in Parsi, which the analyst translates to English) on Iranian TV:

"America, with its strategic ignorance, does not have a full understanding of the power of the Islamic Republic... We have recognized America’s military strategy, and have arranged our abilities, and have identified centers in America [for attack] that will create a shock... We will conduct such a blow in which they [America] will be destroyed from within". [Daily Caller, February 01, 2014]

The analyst interpreted those threats from Salami to mean "that terrorist Hezbollah forces — allies of Iran — have infiltrated the U.S. and have mapped out targets".

Being Mr Nice Guy has paid off for Salami. See page 89 [here] of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed in Vienna on July 14, 2015, and notice how it provides for his removal from the outlaw list.

Impressive, no?

12-Jun-15: Citizenship: is it becoming a counter-terrorism tool?

Bahraini passport [Image Source]

Last month, we noted here ["22-May-15: Yet another Australian "normal guy" joins barbarians as government announces passport-driven counter-strategy"] how Australia is evaluating a counter-terrorism strategy that involves passports.

The plan (detailed here) addresses "the growing threat of homegrown jihadi­sts" by threatening to strip "second-generation Australians involved in terrorism", as well as what are being called "dual nationals", in order "to tighten national security laws":

National security agencies are watching a large number of radic­alised second-generation Australians... [T]he government is examining ways to revoke or suspend the ­citizenship of hate preachers and foreign fighters, including Australians who have one or both parents born overseas, in a bid to tackle the growing threat of homegrown jihadists... Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said... "It is a privilege to be an Australian citizen even by birth and if people are involved in terrorist activities the government is examining what options might be available in terms of suspension of privileges..."  [The Australian, May 21, 2015]

There's been Australian criticism of the proposal:

Revoking citizenship is pointless and absurd | Andrew Zammit ("a researcher at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre") | The Age, Melbourne | May 28, 2015 | "There may be many terrorist suspects currently in Lebanon who hold Australian citizenship. Australia would not appreciate it if the Lebanese government said "not our problem", revoked their citizenship and deported them. But this is effectively what Australia could end up doing to other countries. Currently only a few countries, such as Britain, take this approach. If more countries adopt it, it could undermine the international counter-terrorism co-operation that is needed to tackle this global threat and that Australia itself benefits from...

DVD "Muslims in Australia Since the 1600s"
[Image Source]

And critical voices are being heard from leaders of Australia's Muslim community:

Silma Ihram, of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association, has also warned that some Muslim Australians could end up like the Rohingya people of Burma, left stateless or “shipped off to Cambodia”. She has joined the growing chorus of criticism by some government ministers and backbenchers, legal experts and community groups, over attempts to increase executive powers to revoke citizenship of suspected terrorists... "What the government is doing is to make this whole scenario of fear. Yes we have potential for [a terrorist] problem, no one is denying that. But the debate is had like the ‘reds under the bed’ so that [Abbott] can come out with solution and be voted back in"... Ihram said young Muslims were already contributing to Australian society with high levels of tertiary entrance rates and community participation but the government’s unhelpful rhetoric, such as Tony Abbott singling out the community, was isolating. "When the government suggests Muslims don’t have the same values Australians do – which is rubbish, [Isis] will say over social media to young Muslims, ‘they will never understand you, they will always fight against you’ and it all feeds straight into their rhetoric," Ihram said... "Everyone is going to lose so many freedoms under these laws." ["Tony Abbott using citizenship debate to win next election, Muslim leader says", The Guardian, June 8, 2015]

We quoted the same Australian lady three months ago ["26-Mar-15: Australia's rising pre-occupation with its death-cultists"] when she offered a stupefyingly simplistic cause-and-effect view of Australia's growing pre-occupation with terror:

Silma Ihram, a member of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association based in Sydney, says youths are drawn to IS because the Australian government "continues to create an us versus them" mentality... Ms Ihram, born Anne Frances Beaumont, is an articulate advocate for racial tolerance and the notion that it isn't Moslems but just some angry peripheral people that give Islam a bad name. A 2006 Australian movie review called her "Erin Brockovich in a hijab". 

At the time, we noted that, if she's right, this will all end up peacefully but it might all get a lot more serious if she's wrong.

A little closer to where we live, there's recent evidence that countering terrorism via citizenship and passports has some powerful advocates. This report appeared yesterday in Gulf Daily News, a newspaper published in the Kingdom of Bahrain:

"Terror cell 57 jailed for blasts" | Noor Zahra | June 12, 2015 | FIFTY-SEVEN men have been handed jail sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years after being convicted of being part of an Iranian-backed terrorist cell that orchestrated a bombing campaign in Bahrain. They were found guilty of arms smuggling and plotting a string of attacks on security personnel and landmark structures, including the Saudi Embassy and King Fahad Causeway, by Bahrain's High Criminal Court yesterday. The court heard that members of the cell received militia training in Iraq and Iran... Four of the 61 defendants were acquitted due to lack of evidence by judges, who revoked the Bahraini citizenships of all of those found guilty... Eighteen defendants found guilty are still at large and have been on the run since police first launched a series of raids targeting the group in May 2013. [The text of the verdict includes this:] "They tried to establish terrorist groups by recruiting Bahraini youth and using their connections with the Sadr movement in Iraq and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They then sent Bahraini youth to receive militia training in Iran and Iraq to carry out terrorists attacks in Bahrain and to overthrow the government..." In addition to life sentences for five defendants, judges sentenced 22 others to 15 years behind bars and handed 10-year sentences to another 30 defendants.

Though the Bahraini paper does not mention it, most if not all of the accused are Shi'ites, the branch of Islam espoused by 10-15% of Moslems worldwide and by the majority of people in Bahrain (and backed by Iran, a Shi'ite-majority country). A solid majority of Bahrain's Moslems, about 70%, are Shia. However the tiny island state of 742,600 (2006 official estimate) of whom nearly 300,000 are non-citizens to begin with, has been controlled since the 18th century by the al-Khalifa family. It's a self-declared monarchy, like most of the statelets in the oil-drenched Persian Gulf. The al-Khalifa clan are Sunni Moslems. Hence the instability, particularly since 2011.

From a website that helps aliens acquire US citizenship

What are other states doing?

• In Canada, The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act 2014 includes "new grounds to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are convicted of terrorism, high treason, treason or spying offences, depending on the sentence... The majority of revocation cases will be decided by the citizenship and immigration minister, or his delegate", according to the Canadian government's backgrounder on the legislation. "This includes cases of convictions of terrorism, treason and spying offences."
• The United States (according to this source) has not recently passed any laws that would penalise foreign fighters by revoking their citizenship. The United States Constitution makes change difficult though current US legislation does allow citizenship to be revoked if a citizen displays an "intent to relinquish their citizenship". Fighting in a foreign army may be deemed an indicator of such intent and thus lead to loss of US citizenship.
• Under French law, the government may strip citizenship from dual nationals if a person has been convicted of terrorism within 15 years of becoming a French citizen. This past January, France's Constitutional Court upheld the law in a case involving a French Moroccan dual national convicted of terrorism offences… the court ruled the removal of his citizenship was permitted (and not a prohibited form of discrimination) if and only if that person had held French citizenship for more than 15 years. If less than 15 years, the principle of equality would be violated. Le Monde says there have been eight cases of dual citizens being stripped of French citizenship since 1973.

3-May-13: Kenya discovers it is hosting a "vast network" of terrorists; convicts two Iranians and hopes for the best

The convicted Iranian terrorists [Image Source: Capital FM News, Kenya]

The BBC says two Iranians were found guilty in a Kenyan criminal court yesterday of "plotting to attack Western targets inside Kenya" and face up to 15 years in prison. They were arrested in the capital, Nairobi, in June 2012 in possession of 15 kilos of explosives

"in circumstances that indicated they were armed with the intent to commit a felony, namely, acts intended to cause grievous harm... Swift action by the Kenyan police in apprehending the men had averted mayhem and a massive number of deaths, the court magistrate said." [BBC]

The investigation showed that Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi shipped more than 85 kilos of explosives into the country. So their plans were not small-scale. Police say another accomplice is still at large.

For most, this will be one of those 'so what?' stories that don't really touch the lives of anyone we know. But then note what the BBC report slips in right at the end - that police investigations show that the convicted terrorists, which is of course not what the BBC calls them,

have a vast network in the country meant to execute explosive attacks against government installations, public gatherings and foreign establishments," said Sgt Erick Opagal of Kenya's Anti-Terrorism Police Unit... [BBC]

We have noted here over and again (for instance, "24-Mar-13: Seed of evil: Whitewashing terror at the BBC") how absurd it is that the BBC's editors are so shy about calling terrorists 'terrorists'. In fact, it's not really shyness but a mendacious and foolish kind of political correctness that does far more harm than any possible good.

A pity also that this BBC report did not say what other sources, notably Associated Press, did: that the Kenyan police discovered the two convicted Iranian agents

are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, an elite and secretive unit... Iranian agents are suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks around the globe in recent years, including in Azerbaijan, Thailand and India. Most of the plots had connections to Israeli targets.

Here's some more that AP reported but the BBC did not:

Several resorts on Kenya’s coast are Israeli-owned. Militants in 2002 bombed an Israeli-owned luxury hotel near Mombasa, killing 13 people. The militants also tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner at the same time.

A report a year ago in The Telegraph (UK), quoting a senior Kenyan detective "with close knowledge of the men's case" adds that the Iranian agents

"were driving around Nairobi, they went past the British High Commission, they went past the [Nairobi Hebrew Congregation] synagogue in town, they went to the Israeli embassy. It is very clear that they were casing these places, that they were up to no good. From what we saw, their intention was clear to plan and execute terrorism attacks... Had the attacks been successful, they would have matched an emerging pattern of Iranian actions against Israel taking place across the globe." [Telegraph]

Iran's normally garrulous English-language mouthpiece PressTV ("the first Iranian international news network, broadcasting in English on a round-the-clock basis... staffed with outstanding Iranian and foreign media professionals") has published not a word about the Iranian agents or their criminal conviction for terrorism.

26-Feb-13: What might be behind this morning's Grad rocket attack on Ashkelon

Iranian RGC test-fire an Iranian missile. The image comes from a Guardian report from July 2012, headlined "Iran tests missiles capable of hitting Israel" 

Far too many people claim to understand the daily events of this part of the world. The generalizing and pontificating leave us - as people who watch closely, live in the area and have experienced terrorism far too closely - unconvinced and skeptical. It would be better if the experts were more open to distinguishing facts from press releases and owned up to the frequently mutually-contradictory reports that characterize the terrorists' side of the narrative.

Here's what can be said today with utter confidence: at least one serious rocket - a GRAD - exploded in Ashkelon this morning, as we reported this morning ["26-Feb-13: A Gazan rocket attack on southern Israel this morning"]. That's fact, backed up with photographs and eye-witness reports. 

Now to the who, the why and the sometimes mischievous speculation.

Hamas says if there was a rocket attack today, it could not possibly have originated in their territory:

"This is only a lie. None of the Gaza Strip factions claimed responsibility for firing that missile, and the government is checking all the details," Ehab al-Ghussein said in a statement. Israel is attempting to divert attention from its crimes against the Palestinian people, most recently, the death of Arafat Jadarat after being allegedly tortured in an Israeli jail, the statement added. [Source: Ma'an News, a Palestinian news syndication agency based in Bethlehem, funded by European money and generally not sympathetic to Hamas]

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which owes its allegiance to the "moderate" president of the "State of Palestine" organization and admits to being affiliated with Fatah, claims its men did it, according to CNN which says it has an email letter to prove it. The Washington Post agrees, and Maan supports them:

"We must resist our enemy by all available means," the group said in a statement emailed to reporters. "We stress our commitment to armed struggle against the Zionist enemy." [Source: Ma'an News]

Is their claim of 'credit' true? Probably not. The rocket certainly came from a Gazan source, and almost nothing ever flies out of there without the local bully boys from Hamas being fully aware and on top. Hamas has no current desire to give its bitter rivals Fatah any credit for any of the things (terror, in one word) that Hamas claims to be doing better and more often. We think the Washington Post, CNN and Maan are being disingenuous or were fooled.

Mahmoud Abbas, who controls Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and who prefers that people call the Palestinian Authority, which he heads, the "State of Palestine" these days, implies that if there's trouble, it's probably Israel that is causing it:

A statement from Abbas’s office said that at a meeting Monday night with his security chiefs, he instructed them “to protect the security and safety” of Palestinians, noting that “the policy of the occupation is to aggravate the situation and drag the area into chaos.” Abbas sent a similar message at a meeting Tuesday of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Accusing Israel of escalating tensions, Abbas said: “We don’t want tension and escalation. We want to reach a peaceful solution...” [Source: Washington Post in the past hour]

Does Abbas really want to avoid tension and escalation and a peaceful solution? Certainly, if the question comes from the Washington Post who will then publish his answer. And maybe not so much when he's speaking to his own people in their native language.

But what if it were someone completely else, like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard? That's what Israeli journalist Avi Issacharoff, until recently, at Haaretz; now at The Tower, the new blog of The Israel Project, wrote earlier today (and some of what he writes is echoed in reports today published by the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, as well as in earlier reports of Iran providing rocket technology to Hamas):

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps are currently in the Gaza Strip, high-level Palestinian security sources tell The Tower . The Iranians, according to our security sources, are experts in missile production, and are in Gaza to help Hamas and Islamic Jihad develop long-range missiles. Israeli security and political officials declined to elaborate, telling The Tower only that this isn’t the first time delegates from Tehran had entered the Hamas-controlled territory... This morning’s rocket attack was apparently not carried out by Hamas, but by its rival Islamic Jihad, a smaller organization believed to be largely to fully under Iran’s control. Two weeks ago one of Islamic Jihad’s leaders in the West Bank, Sheikh Bassam al-Saadi, told me his group enjoys “warm and positive” ties with the Islamic republic [Source: The Tower]

Though he sounds confident about this Iranian Revolutionary Guard report, Issacharoff touches on a number of other dimensions more tentatively:

• Was today's attack intended to show solidarity with the fiery protests erupting across Judea and Samaria in the past weeks? He says maybe.
• Related to the months of simmering violence? To the Palestinian Arab prisoner hunger strikes? To the death of Arafat Jaradat? He says maybe.
• Will it affect relations between Israel and Hamas? Between Hamas and Islamic Jihad? He says maybe.
• Will there be an Israeli reaction? He says maybe.

We think he's right (maybe) about all the maybes; candidly, we tend to be more impressed with journalists who own up to not knowing everything about what's happening than with those who claim to have all the answers. 

We wonder about those Middle East experts (Jon Donnison of the BBC for instance) whose published reports declare with what seems to be unshakable confidence - even though based entirely on non-facts at this stage - that a Palestinian Arab security prisoner died because of bad treatment in an Israeli prison. Yet how many of them will even comment on the horrifying news released today that 

At least 141 people, half of them children, were killed when the Syrian military fired at least four missiles into the northern province of Aleppo, Syria... A Human Rights Watch researcher, who visited Aleppo last week to inspect the targeted sites, said up to 20 buildings were destroyed in each area hit by a missile. There were no signs of any military targets in the residential districts. [Source]

As we said at the top, too many people claim to understand daily events in this part of the world. For us, looking at how the explanations get fashioned and manipulated, simplified and generalized, then packaged into confident-sounding reports for radio, television, newspapers, websites and social networks by people who clearly know as much or less as we do, we remain mostly baffled.