Nasser son-in-law "lost balance" in fatal London fallCAIRO
(Reuters) - The son-in-law of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, named by Israeli officials as a source for Mossad, "lost his balance" before a fatal fall from his London balcony, Egyptian state media said on Thursday.
Ashraf Marwan, who died on Wednesday, had been living in London for many years after leaving Egyptian government service late in the 1970s.
Israeli media say that Marwan, who was married to Abdel Nasser's daughter Mona, had passed a warning to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency on the eve of the 1973 Middle East war that Egypt and Syria were about to attack.
The Times of London reported that Marwan, 62, had feared for his life after he was publicly accused of being a spy for Mossad three years ago, but said there was also speculation that he may have committed suicide after a serious illness was diagnosed.
Egypt's MENA news agency quoted a source close to the family as saying Marwan suffered from balance problems recently and had been using a cane but had a "strong will" despite health issues.
"A friend of Dr. Marwan who is a member of the Egyptian expatriate community in Britain was on his way to visit him and saw him on the balcony talking on his mobile phone. Then he saw him during his fall after he lost his balance," the source said.
British police said they were looking into the death of an Egyptian in London, and it was being treated as "unexplained" but not suspicious.
"It's understood he may have fallen from a balcony," a police spokesman said. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.
Essam Abdel Samad, the head of the Union of Egyptians in Europe, said he had spoken to Marwan's maid, who said she was the only other person in the fifth-floor flat at the time.
"She said she was working in the kitchen and he was in his office and the first thing she knew was when someone came to the door and said he had fallen," he told the Egyptian satellite station al-Youm in a call from London.
Marwan worked as a senior information official for both Abdel Nasser and his successor, President Anwar Sadat, but Egyptian media have said he also had intelligence duties.
Gad Shimron, a former Mossad officer turned historian, said Marwan had warned Israel hours before the Egyptian attack in 1973 but Israel decided not to order a general mobilisation.
"We know now, from testimony given by Israeli spymasters and made public years after the Yom Kippur War, that Marwan was the man who tipped off the Mossad," he said.
(Additional reporting by Michael Holden in London)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Siege of Lebanon: After Gaza, the Next Domino?
By Peter Brookes
New York Post
BEWARE: The Gaza Strip may be only the first domino to fall this summer in Iran and Syria's push to establish an arc of influence across the Middle East, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon, already teetering on the brink of instability, could easily be next.
The United States, Europe and Arab states need to act immediately to shore up the embattled pro-Western, democratic Lebanese government. Syria, which occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, and Iran, which controls Islamist-terrorist Hezbollah, with help from al Qaeda, already have Lebanon under siege.
Last week saw another assassination of a leading anti-Syrian Lebanese figure - parliamentarian Walid Eido, killed with nine others in a horrific Beirut car bombing.
Eido was an outspoken member of the anti-Damascus March 14th movement, a key organization in effecting Syria's 2005 retreat from Lebanon. Eido is at least the seventh Lebanese anti-Syrian luminary assassinated since February 2005, when Damascus allegedly offed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a car bombing. As always, the Syrian regime denies any involvement.
Some observers suggest the political killings are (among other things) an ongoing plot to undo the March 14th movement's razor-thin majority in the parliament. Following Eido's death, it only holds 68 out of 128 seats in the parliament.
While Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government is calling for a special election on August 5 to replace the murdered lawmakers - including Pierre Gemayel, who was gunned down last November - Emile Lahoud, who occupies the Lebanese presidency thanks to Syrian sponsorship, continues to oppose a by-election.
Eido's killing was also the sixth, and biggest, bombing in or around Lebanon's capital, Beirut, in the last month - and came just days after the United Nations finally established a special court to try Hariri murder suspects - almost all of whom are assuredly Syrian.
In a bid to prevent any Lebanese role in the U.N. tribunal, Syria, Iran and their pawns have ensured political gridlock in Beirut since last November. Pro-Syrian protestors, led by Hezbollah, have besieged Siniora's government with protests, both physical and political, attempting to topple it.
Hezbollah, buoyed by its survival in last summer's war with Israel, has been pressing for a new government - one that would guarantee it enough seats in the Cabinet to assure it a veto on any decision.
Meanwhile, Sunni militants - linked to al Qaeda as well as Syria - have been battling the Lebanese army since May. Fatah al-Islam is holding up in Nahr al Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city. The group threatens to take the conflict to some of the other 11 Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon, home to as many 400,000 displaced persons, potentially lighting off a larger powder keg of violence in the country of 4 million.
In fact, early June already saw some fighting at Lebanon's largest refugee camp at Ain al Hilweh between another al Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Islam and the Lebanese army.
And Syria and Iran have re-armed Hezbollah since last summer's war, too - so Hassan Nasrallah's thugs are ready to go against either Israel or the Beirut government, if given the green light from their Tehran and Damascus masters.
Lebanon is clearly nearing a tipping point. The Siniora government may be able to hold out, fighting on multiple fronts, both politically and militarily, against determined foes sponsored by rogue states.
Or the joint efforts of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, splinter groups, Iran and Syria could bring the country to its knees, putting an end to the progress-albeit halting-Lebanon has made since throwing off the shackles of Syrian occupation.
If concerned outside powers don't bolster Lebanon's moderate forces against the Islamists, terrorists and the Tehran-Damascus axis, the odds are against the Siniora government surviving - especially in the aftermath of the Hamas victory to the south in Gaza.
States with a stake in Lebanon need to get on the stick - with a lot more than rhetoric - to prevent Lebanon from succumbing to Islamist/Syrian/Iranian aggression:
* An aircraft carrier on the Lebanese coast would remind Syria that it can't act with impunity. Why not make it French, signaling recently elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy's new foreign policy?
* Economic sanctions have a place, too - especially on Syria and Hezbollah's fund-raising in Europe.
* Also vital: Getting arms to the Lebanese army for crushing Fatah al Islamn - and deterring Hezbollah from acting militarily against the central government.
The fall of Gaza to the most radical elements of Hamas has already emboldened Islamist and jihadist forces across the Middle East. Lebanon's fall would only add fuel to the fire - meaning a tougher road ahead in Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terror.
By Peter Brookes
New York Post
BEWARE: The Gaza Strip may be only the first domino to fall this summer in Iran and Syria's push to establish an arc of influence across the Middle East, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon, already teetering on the brink of instability, could easily be next.
The United States, Europe and Arab states need to act immediately to shore up the embattled pro-Western, democratic Lebanese government. Syria, which occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, and Iran, which controls Islamist-terrorist Hezbollah, with help from al Qaeda, already have Lebanon under siege.
Last week saw another assassination of a leading anti-Syrian Lebanese figure - parliamentarian Walid Eido, killed with nine others in a horrific Beirut car bombing.
Eido was an outspoken member of the anti-Damascus March 14th movement, a key organization in effecting Syria's 2005 retreat from Lebanon. Eido is at least the seventh Lebanese anti-Syrian luminary assassinated since February 2005, when Damascus allegedly offed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a car bombing. As always, the Syrian regime denies any involvement.
Some observers suggest the political killings are (among other things) an ongoing plot to undo the March 14th movement's razor-thin majority in the parliament. Following Eido's death, it only holds 68 out of 128 seats in the parliament.
While Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government is calling for a special election on August 5 to replace the murdered lawmakers - including Pierre Gemayel, who was gunned down last November - Emile Lahoud, who occupies the Lebanese presidency thanks to Syrian sponsorship, continues to oppose a by-election.
Eido's killing was also the sixth, and biggest, bombing in or around Lebanon's capital, Beirut, in the last month - and came just days after the United Nations finally established a special court to try Hariri murder suspects - almost all of whom are assuredly Syrian.
In a bid to prevent any Lebanese role in the U.N. tribunal, Syria, Iran and their pawns have ensured political gridlock in Beirut since last November. Pro-Syrian protestors, led by Hezbollah, have besieged Siniora's government with protests, both physical and political, attempting to topple it.
Hezbollah, buoyed by its survival in last summer's war with Israel, has been pressing for a new government - one that would guarantee it enough seats in the Cabinet to assure it a veto on any decision.
Meanwhile, Sunni militants - linked to al Qaeda as well as Syria - have been battling the Lebanese army since May. Fatah al-Islam is holding up in Nahr al Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city. The group threatens to take the conflict to some of the other 11 Palestinian refugee camps across Lebanon, home to as many 400,000 displaced persons, potentially lighting off a larger powder keg of violence in the country of 4 million.
In fact, early June already saw some fighting at Lebanon's largest refugee camp at Ain al Hilweh between another al Qaeda affiliate, Ansar al-Islam and the Lebanese army.
And Syria and Iran have re-armed Hezbollah since last summer's war, too - so Hassan Nasrallah's thugs are ready to go against either Israel or the Beirut government, if given the green light from their Tehran and Damascus masters.
Lebanon is clearly nearing a tipping point. The Siniora government may be able to hold out, fighting on multiple fronts, both politically and militarily, against determined foes sponsored by rogue states.
Or the joint efforts of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, splinter groups, Iran and Syria could bring the country to its knees, putting an end to the progress-albeit halting-Lebanon has made since throwing off the shackles of Syrian occupation.
If concerned outside powers don't bolster Lebanon's moderate forces against the Islamists, terrorists and the Tehran-Damascus axis, the odds are against the Siniora government surviving - especially in the aftermath of the Hamas victory to the south in Gaza.
States with a stake in Lebanon need to get on the stick - with a lot more than rhetoric - to prevent Lebanon from succumbing to Islamist/Syrian/Iranian aggression:
* An aircraft carrier on the Lebanese coast would remind Syria that it can't act with impunity. Why not make it French, signaling recently elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy's new foreign policy?
* Economic sanctions have a place, too - especially on Syria and Hezbollah's fund-raising in Europe.
* Also vital: Getting arms to the Lebanese army for crushing Fatah al Islamn - and deterring Hezbollah from acting militarily against the central government.
The fall of Gaza to the most radical elements of Hamas has already emboldened Islamist and jihadist forces across the Middle East. Lebanon's fall would only add fuel to the fire - meaning a tougher road ahead in Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terror.
Analysis: A Decision Needed On Syria
by Anshel Pfeffer, Jerusalem Post
We have watched in horror a series of blunders that have weakened Israel ’s deterrence and her ability to defend the nation. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and (newly elected) President Shimon Peres with Yossi Beilin gave us the failed Oslo and deliberately built up the military capability of the PLO, known as Fatah. We watched the miserable judgement of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 at Camp David, begging Yassir Arafat to accept Judea, Samaria , Gaza , the Jordan Valley and that part of Jerusalem which was controlled by Jordan from 1948 to 1967. In 2004 we watched Ehud Olmert advise then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to abandon Gush Katif/Gaza.
We also watched Sharon surrender Gush Katif/Gaza in August 2005 and knowingly open the door wide for the Muslim Arab Palestinians to establish a global terror base. First, Sharon evicted 10,000 Jewish men, women and children after which he destroyed their homes, synagogues, schools, farms, industries and cemeteries. The bribe didn’t work as hordes of Arab Muslim Palestinians swarmed into Gaza , looted and destroyed the innovative greenhouses which had been left for the Palestinians to utilize for their livelihoods.
Now the Hamas and Fatah Muslim Arab Palestinians are tearing each other apart. Their civil war has destroyed what was left of a Palestinian society that had done very well with the Israelis governing, building education, health care and industries that provided excellent employment by the Israeli farmers’ innovative bug-free agricultural industries. Later, as Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert pledged to abandon all the territory vital to Israel ’s defense and especially the heart of Judaism’s ancient historical holy sites. We watched Olmert ship weapons and ammunition to Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (aka Abu Mazen) and his Force 17 Presidential Guard. Abu Mazen had inherited the leadership of Fatah - whose "militant" wing is the Al Aksa Brigades of Abu Mazen’s regime. Forty percent (40%) of Fatah and joined the more terroristic Hamas, bringing with them all their arms which were delivered to them by Ehud Olmert at the insistence of the State Department.
Now the Hamas Muslim Arab Palestinians have beaten the Fatah and are in full control and they are murdering each other with a delight only seen among Islamists. As of June 15th Hamas has taken over Gaza completely, capturing all the weapons, ammunition, trucks, etc. supplied to Fatah by the U.S. and Israel .
All of these former leaders, who led the Jewish nation of Israel into existential danger by their inept, corrupt, weak, cowardly, craven, pretend leaders should be indicted, brought to trial and, if found guilty of treason, should be executed or imprisoned for life.
Presently Olmert and his Kadima gang of defeatists are in seemingly secret negotiations with Bashar Assad of Syria to abandon the Golan Heights down to the shores of Lake Kinneret , the best security from attack by Syria . For 40 years Syria has not been able to attack Israel because from the Heights - especially from Mt. Hermon , Mt. Dov and the Sheba’a Farms observation posts, Israel can see if Syria begins military or terrorist movements toward Israel as soon as Syria moves one tank from storage.
This pathetically stupid failure of nerve and resolve is telling Israelis that he will sign a surrender paper with Syria ’s weak President, Bashar Assad, who could be overthrown in a year with another ruthless dictator taking his place and, of course, abrogating prior agreements - as do all Muslim leaders. None of the hundreds of treaties or agreements made by the Arab Muslim countries have been kept, even those they’ve contracted with each other....according to Shimon Peres.
Arab Muslim leaders - under Koranic law - can make and break a treaty with the Jewish State of Israel, given the Koranic Mandate that all territory once held by Islam must be re-taken by force. IF the Israeli people accept the judgement and decisions of the inept Olmert, along with Barak and Peres, in conjunction with the Labor Left, they will be responsible for the missiles that will inevitably follow.
by Anshel Pfeffer, Jerusalem Post
We have watched in horror a series of blunders that have weakened Israel ’s deterrence and her ability to defend the nation. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and (newly elected) President Shimon Peres with Yossi Beilin gave us the failed Oslo and deliberately built up the military capability of the PLO, known as Fatah. We watched the miserable judgement of then Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 at Camp David, begging Yassir Arafat to accept Judea, Samaria , Gaza , the Jordan Valley and that part of Jerusalem which was controlled by Jordan from 1948 to 1967. In 2004 we watched Ehud Olmert advise then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to abandon Gush Katif/Gaza.
We also watched Sharon surrender Gush Katif/Gaza in August 2005 and knowingly open the door wide for the Muslim Arab Palestinians to establish a global terror base. First, Sharon evicted 10,000 Jewish men, women and children after which he destroyed their homes, synagogues, schools, farms, industries and cemeteries. The bribe didn’t work as hordes of Arab Muslim Palestinians swarmed into Gaza , looted and destroyed the innovative greenhouses which had been left for the Palestinians to utilize for their livelihoods.
Now the Hamas and Fatah Muslim Arab Palestinians are tearing each other apart. Their civil war has destroyed what was left of a Palestinian society that had done very well with the Israelis governing, building education, health care and industries that provided excellent employment by the Israeli farmers’ innovative bug-free agricultural industries. Later, as Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert pledged to abandon all the territory vital to Israel ’s defense and especially the heart of Judaism’s ancient historical holy sites. We watched Olmert ship weapons and ammunition to Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (aka Abu Mazen) and his Force 17 Presidential Guard. Abu Mazen had inherited the leadership of Fatah - whose "militant" wing is the Al Aksa Brigades of Abu Mazen’s regime. Forty percent (40%) of Fatah and joined the more terroristic Hamas, bringing with them all their arms which were delivered to them by Ehud Olmert at the insistence of the State Department.
Now the Hamas Muslim Arab Palestinians have beaten the Fatah and are in full control and they are murdering each other with a delight only seen among Islamists. As of June 15th Hamas has taken over Gaza completely, capturing all the weapons, ammunition, trucks, etc. supplied to Fatah by the U.S. and Israel .
All of these former leaders, who led the Jewish nation of Israel into existential danger by their inept, corrupt, weak, cowardly, craven, pretend leaders should be indicted, brought to trial and, if found guilty of treason, should be executed or imprisoned for life.
Presently Olmert and his Kadima gang of defeatists are in seemingly secret negotiations with Bashar Assad of Syria to abandon the Golan Heights down to the shores of Lake Kinneret , the best security from attack by Syria . For 40 years Syria has not been able to attack Israel because from the Heights - especially from Mt. Hermon , Mt. Dov and the Sheba’a Farms observation posts, Israel can see if Syria begins military or terrorist movements toward Israel as soon as Syria moves one tank from storage.
This pathetically stupid failure of nerve and resolve is telling Israelis that he will sign a surrender paper with Syria ’s weak President, Bashar Assad, who could be overthrown in a year with another ruthless dictator taking his place and, of course, abrogating prior agreements - as do all Muslim leaders. None of the hundreds of treaties or agreements made by the Arab Muslim countries have been kept, even those they’ve contracted with each other....according to Shimon Peres.
Arab Muslim leaders - under Koranic law - can make and break a treaty with the Jewish State of Israel, given the Koranic Mandate that all territory once held by Islam must be re-taken by force. IF the Israeli people accept the judgement and decisions of the inept Olmert, along with Barak and Peres, in conjunction with the Labor Left, they will be responsible for the missiles that will inevitably follow.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Damascus ordered Sunday's Katyusha attack on N. Israeli Kiryat Shemona, causing no casualties. But there is more to come
A Katyusha rocket that did not explode in Wadi Taibeh north of Israeli border
The three 107mm rockets fired against Kiryat Shemona from Wadi Taiba Sunday, June 17, by a Palestinian radical group called Ansar Allah based in the Ain Hilwa refugee camp near Sidon was ordered by Syrian military intelligence as the first in a series, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Hizballah intelligence officers supplied the rockets and pinpointed the launching site to make sure they struck the Israeli town. Residents rushed for bomb shelters for the first time since the Lebanon War ended eleven months ago. A factory and parked vehicles were damaged.
The hit squad drove up in a rental Toyota, rigged the rockets and drove off.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that Syria and Hizballah are preparing an escalating series of rocket barrages against norhern Israel civilian and military locations in the coming weeks. It is a stage in an overall plan orchestrated by Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah to stage attacks in Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territory. Its objectives are to destabilize the pro-Western Siniora government in Beirut and whittle down Israel’s deterrent strength.
Rocketing Kiryat Shemona was Stage 3 of the plan. Two rockets damaged a factory and a parked vehicle in separate parts of Kiryat Shemona. A third landed near a UNIFIL position inside Lebanon.
Stage one is the five-week old radical Islamic, pro-Damascus uprising in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, which the Lebanese army has not yet subdued. Stage two was Hamas’ just-completed capture of the Gaza Strip from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that in the name of “restraint,” Israel’s government and military leaders refrain from connecting the dots of the campaign ahead and its links to Tehran and Damascus in time to foil it, in the same way as they glossed over Hizballah’s build-up for the 2006 Lebanon war.
According to our intelligence sources, a former Fatah officer called Jamal Suleiman is Ansar Allah’s leader. He moved to Damascus in the 1980s and returned to the Ain Hilwa in Lebanon in April loaded with cash. He then began recruiting for his Ansar al Allah, working to exactly the same Damascus-designed format as the Fatah al-Islam was embedded in the northern camp of Nahr al-Bared.
If Israeli leaders refuse to call a spade a spade, Fatah leaders are more outspoken. Sunday, Azam al Ahmad declared in an interview in Ramallah that the perpetrators of the crime [against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza] are the same people who sent assassins to murder the Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri, “Both come from the same hand [Syria],” he said.
A Katyusha rocket that did not explode in Wadi Taibeh north of Israeli border
The three 107mm rockets fired against Kiryat Shemona from Wadi Taiba Sunday, June 17, by a Palestinian radical group called Ansar Allah based in the Ain Hilwa refugee camp near Sidon was ordered by Syrian military intelligence as the first in a series, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Hizballah intelligence officers supplied the rockets and pinpointed the launching site to make sure they struck the Israeli town. Residents rushed for bomb shelters for the first time since the Lebanon War ended eleven months ago. A factory and parked vehicles were damaged.
The hit squad drove up in a rental Toyota, rigged the rockets and drove off.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that Syria and Hizballah are preparing an escalating series of rocket barrages against norhern Israel civilian and military locations in the coming weeks. It is a stage in an overall plan orchestrated by Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah to stage attacks in Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territory. Its objectives are to destabilize the pro-Western Siniora government in Beirut and whittle down Israel’s deterrent strength.
Rocketing Kiryat Shemona was Stage 3 of the plan. Two rockets damaged a factory and a parked vehicle in separate parts of Kiryat Shemona. A third landed near a UNIFIL position inside Lebanon.
Stage one is the five-week old radical Islamic, pro-Damascus uprising in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, which the Lebanese army has not yet subdued. Stage two was Hamas’ just-completed capture of the Gaza Strip from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that in the name of “restraint,” Israel’s government and military leaders refrain from connecting the dots of the campaign ahead and its links to Tehran and Damascus in time to foil it, in the same way as they glossed over Hizballah’s build-up for the 2006 Lebanon war.
According to our intelligence sources, a former Fatah officer called Jamal Suleiman is Ansar Allah’s leader. He moved to Damascus in the 1980s and returned to the Ain Hilwa in Lebanon in April loaded with cash. He then began recruiting for his Ansar al Allah, working to exactly the same Damascus-designed format as the Fatah al-Islam was embedded in the northern camp of Nahr al-Bared.
If Israeli leaders refuse to call a spade a spade, Fatah leaders are more outspoken. Sunday, Azam al Ahmad declared in an interview in Ramallah that the perpetrators of the crime [against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza] are the same people who sent assassins to murder the Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri, “Both come from the same hand [Syria],” he said.
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