28/7/2014 IsraelDefense

The mobile autonomous tactical counter Rocket, Artillery & Mortar (C-RAM) system supports and assists troops in Gaza to return fire at the source of mortar fire, which have become a significant threat

The mortar threat has become a significant during the ground operation in Gaza. Many troops are within the range of Hamas' mortars and supper injuries as a result. The Green Rock system by IAI entered operational use in Gaza in record time, following the threats directed against the fighting forces.

So far the system performance proved itself and succeeded in detecting and pinpointing the source of fire, and thus the system helps protect the lives of soldiers in the field.

The system, revealed just a month ago, is a mobile autonomous tactical counter Rocket, Artillery & Mortar (C-RAM) system. The system is designed to support a variety of ground force protection missions, including fire source location, friendly forces fire correction, and detection of low-flying airborne targets such as UAVs, gliders and hovering platforms.

The system provides a complete low/high trajectory target, real-time intelligence and rapid response solution for tactical forces. Green Rock's mission is to locate fire squad positions, distribute selective warning alarms and enable an effective fire response.

The system, developed by ELTA systems, an IAI group and subsidiary, can be installed on a variety of mobile or stationary platforms such as armored personnel carriers, high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, and all-terrain vehicles. Green Rock includes a Phased-Array Pulse Doppler Radar which acquires and tracks the trajectories of ballistic munitions such as rockets, artillery and mortars, calculates the point from which they were launched, and predicts the location of the expected impact. This information is reported, via a communications system, to friendly forces to indicate and provide warning of relevant threats. Data can be also sent to precision weapons systems to allow a rapid and accurate response to source of the threat.

Aug. 11, 2014 – Defense News (AFP)

SYDNEY — Air strikes aimed at halting the advance of Sunni Islamic State militants in Iraq have been effective and the US is open to further requests for help, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Monday.

The United States has conducted three days of attacks by jets and drones on jihadists in northern Iraq whose onslaught has displaced 200,000 people since August 3, including all the residents of Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh.

Hagel said Washington was constantly assessing the situation after President Barack Obama authorized the action to help break the siege of Mount Sinjar, where thousands of civilian refugees from the Yazidi religious minority had been trapped.

“They have been very effective from all the reports we have received on the ground,” he said of the air strikes when asked in Sydney, where he is attending annual Australia-US defense talks.

“We are constantly assessing where we can continue to assist Iraqi security forces and where, as we build partnerships, we will work with the Iraqi government.

“The Iraqi government requested our help and assistance and we will continue to consider further requests from the Iraqi government,” he added.

US military planes have also been dropping food and water for civilians besieged by jihadists, with France and Britain on Sunday joining the desperate race to save them from starvation.

“Many of you know that President Obama spoke yesterday with French President Hollande and British Prime Minister Cameron and they too offered assistance,” said Hagel.

“We are coordinating a group of partners to assist in this effort.

“This is a humanitarian issue of great consequence for all over the world and I think great powers understand they have great responsibilities in this.”

Australian Defence Minister David Johnston said Australia’s help was currently focused on humanitarian relief and refused to speculate on the possibility of providing combat assistance.

“At this stage, we think that that is a considerable contribution,” he told a joint press conference with Hagel, with Australia likely to join airdrops of supplies later this week.

“We don’t telegraph our punches in any way shape or form and there has been no request for us to participate in combat.

“The situation for us at the moment is we are committed to helping the Americans and our friends who will join the Americans in providing humanitarian and disaster relief.

“Now what the future holds in what is clearly a very troubled, confused and difficult situation in Iraq, anybody can guess.”

August 11, 2014 by Brendan McGarry - defensetech.org

The U.S. military has turned to drones to help launch airstrikes against Islamic militants in northern Iraq.

The Defense Department acknowledged early on that aerial drones, known as remotely piloted aircraft in military speak, would be part of the effort to gather intelligence on and, if necessary, bomb militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda inspired Islamic group that controls much of the northern part of the country.

Read full article

Aug. 11, 2014 – Defense News (AFP)

WASHINGTON — The United States has begun urgently shipping weapons to the Iraqi Kurdish forces battling an advance by extremist Islamic State militants, a State Department spokeswoman said Monday.

“We’re working with the government of Iraq to increasingly and very quickly get urgently needed arms to the Kurds,” Marie Harf told CNN.

“This includes the Iraqis providing their own weapons from their own stocks, and we’re working to do the same thing from our stocks of weapons that we have.”

Separately, the US military confirmed that it had carried out another air strike late Sunday against an IS convoy it said was preparing to attack Kurdish forces protecting their capital Arbil.

Harf said the effort had been underway since last week, but did not say which US agency was leading the effort or how many and what type of weapons had been sent.

The United States has a consulate and other facilities in Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region, and last week President Barack Obama ordered air strikes to protect the city.

Efforts to support Kurdish peshmerga forces could complicated the United States’ ties to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which is also fighting the Islamic State but has tense relations with Arbil.

But Harf insisted that, in the current crisis, the two sides are working together.

“We have seen an unprecedented level of cooperation between the Iraqi forces and the Kurdish forces. We hadn’t seen that in the past. They’re helping each other out,” Harf said.

“So any way we can get the very urgently needed arms to the Kurds we are actively working on,” she said.

“We’ll work with the government of Iraq to do that, but we believe again there is such an urgent situation that we need to do this.”

US Central Command said that at 2000 GMT Sunday “US fighter aircraft struck and destroyed several vehicles that were part of an ISIL convoy moving to attack peshmerga forces defending Arbil.

“All aircraft exited the strike area safely,” it added.

Obama authorized air strikes on Thursday, warning that IS extremist militants were in a position to threaten US personnel in Arbil and commit “genocide” against minority religious groups.

The first US action was confirmed on Friday, part of what the White House insists will be a “limited” campaign to protect Arbil and Yazidi refugees.

11 août 2014 US Navy

MOSCOU, 11 août - RIA Novosti

Les systèmes de missile sol-air S-300 destinés à la Syrie seront détruits et recyclés, a annoncé lundi aux journalistes le directeur adjoint du Service fédéral russe de coopération technico-militaire Konstantin Biriouline.

"Les systèmes S-300 destinés à la Syrie seront recyclés. Cette décision a été adoptée au niveau de la direction politique du pays", a déclaré M. Biriouline.

Interrogé sur la possibilité de revendre ces armes à d'autres pays, le responsable du Service de coopération technico-militaire a fait remarquer que des propositions de genre avaient été formulées, mais que cette éventualité était peu probable.

En 2011, Moscou et Damas ont signé un contrat d'un milliard de dollars prévoyant la livraison de quatre systèmes S-300PMU-2 à la Syrie. Cependant, début septembre 2013, le président Vladimir Poutine a déclaré que la Russie avait suspendu la livraison de ces missiles antiaériens au régime de Damas.

La décision d'annuler le contrat a été prise suite à la résolution du problème des armes chimiques syriennes.

Aug 10, 2014 Spacewar.com (AFP)

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel is raising hackles among conservatives in the coalition government with plans to tighten rules on arms exports, amid tit-for-tat sanctions between the West and Russia.

"If you're not very careful, (selling arms abroad) can very quickly become a deal with death," Gabriel, who is also vice chancellor, warned recently on public television.

Normally, the position of deputy chancellor is largely a symbolic one.

But Gabriel, a Social Democrat, is taking advantage of the absence on holiday of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel to lobby publicly for a topic close to his heart.

Exporting arms was already an issue for his Social Democratic Party (SPD) during last year's general election campaign, but with the crisis in Ukraine, it has taken on added currency.

Gabriel believes that European sanctions against Moscow do not go far enough, and last week he blocked a major contract for German company Rheinmetall to provide a fully-equipped training camp to Russia.

The minister is not looking to change Germany's current laws on arms exports.

But he wants the authorities to be much more watchful when awarding export licences, particularly with regard to the country buying the weapons and their record on human rights.

- A discreet industry -

In 2013, Merkel's previous administration authorised 5.8 billion euros' ($7.8 billion) worth of arms exports, 62 percent of which were destined for non-NATO countries such as Algeria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with Gabriel particularly concerned about the latter.

But the minister's plan, seen by some as an attempt to reach out to the opposition Greens and far-left Linke party in the distant eventuality of a post-Merkel alliance, is rattling some conservatives.

The head of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party, Horst Seehofer, accused Gabriel of acting "without a concept and without a compass" and of endangering jobs.

"German companies will disappear from the market or relocate abroad," he warned.

The CSU is the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and the wealthy southern state is home to companies such as Airbus Defence and Space, tank maker Krauss Maffei Wegmann -- which plans to tie-up with French rival Nexter -- and guided missile maker Diehl.

Germany's defence industry is tight-lipped about its actual sales, preferring instead to publish its output.

In 2011, the most recent data available, the sector's output amounted to 22.6 billion euros.

It employs nearly 100,000 people directly while more than 200,000 are employed by sub-contractors and suppliers.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Germany is the world's third-biggest exporter of arms, after the United States and Russia.

Germany's own security and defence industry federation, BDSV, is more modest.

"We're definitely among the top 10," a spokesman said.

But according to the business daily Handelsblatt, weapons is one area where Germans are not proud of their export prowess.

- Fervent plea -

But in addition to exports of tanks or missiles, pacifists are angry about exports of small arms, such as the guns and pistols made by Heckler & Koch, which has annual sales of more than 200 million euros.

In a fervent plea to ban arms exports, former chancellor Helmut Schmidt described smaller hand-held weapons such as machine guns and hand grenades as "today's weapons of mass destruction".

Generally speaking, "I think it's perverse to send weapons instead of soldiers," he said.

Gabriel's SPD party colleague, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has for months been calling for Germany to become more directly involved in the resolution of international conflict hotspots.

As for the industry itself, "we would like the government to tell us what its position is," BDSV chief Georg Wilhelm Adamowitsch said recently.

Last week, defence technology group Rheinmetall issued a profit warning in the wake of Gabriel's decision to block its Russian contract, sending its shares sharply lower on the stock market.

Gabriel is to meet labour representatives of some of the market players in mid-August.

August 11, 2014: Strategy Page

The Iraqi government recently scored a victory in their campaign to prevent the Kurds in the north from selling any more of the oil the Kurds are now pumping and shipping out via Turkey. This win came in the United States where lawyers representing Iraq convinced an American court to block the sale of a million barrels of Kurdish oil in the United States. As of August 1 st this leaves a tanker carrying a million barrels of Kurdish oil stranded in a Texas port while lawyers representing Iraq and the Kurds continue to argue over whether the autonomous Kurds of northern Iraq can actually own and can sell oil pumped from Kurdish controlled oil fields. The U.S. court, for the moment, agrees with Iraq that all oil pumped in Iraq (which the autonomous Kurdish territory is still technically part of) is owned by the Iraqi government. The Kurds point out that the share of Iraq oil income promised them has been plundered by corrupt Arab politicians in the Iraqi government and that the only way to get their fair share is to pump it, ship it and sell it themselves. The Kurds currently have three tankers at sea filled with their oil but the Iraqi government has lawyers standing by to halt any sale of this oil.

The Kurds had hoped that the Iraqi government would relent because in June, when Iraq asked the Kurds to send some of their troops south to fight ISIL Islamic terrorists forces threatening to march on Baghdad, the Kurds did move south. But the Kurds want the Shia dominated Iraq government to stop opposing Kurdish efforts to export and sell oil pumped within the Kurdish controlled areas of northern Iraq. The Arab Iraqis, for the moment, do not believe Kurdish military assistance is worth that high a price.

In April 2013 Iraqi Kurds sold their first shipment of Kurdish oil (produced in oil fields developed by Kurds in Kurdish controlled territory.) This oil was trucked across the border to Turkey and sold for $22 million. The Iraqi government loudly protested this independent oil operation but the Iraqi armed forces were not powerful enough to stop the Kurds.

It was back in 2012 that the Kurdish government in northern Iraq announced that they would begin exporting oil via a pipeline through Turkey by 2013 and then ship it to buyers worldwide. The Iraqi government insisted that this would not happen. This is an Arab/Kurd conflict, part of a struggle that goes back thousands of years. The Kurds are relying on Turkish support, and in return are cooperating with Turkish efforts to deal with Turkish PKK Kurdish separatists, who have bases in northern Iraq. While the PKK goal of a separate Kurdish state is popular with most Kurds (even in northern Iraq), the survival of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq is considered more crucial, for now.

Iraq is producing 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, more than the Saddam ever achieved. Iraqi oil production had been stuck at 2.5 million barrels a day since the 1980s (production had peaked in the late 1970s at four million barrels a day). Iraqi has nine percent of the world's oil reserves, but decades of war and mismanagement had prevented necessary maintenance and construction in the oil fields. For the last few years the oil regions have been safe for foreign oil production companies to bring in their experts, and cash, in to get the job done, so Iraqi production has been steadily increasing. The goal is ten million barrels a day by the end of the decade. The Kurds plan to start exporting 80,000 barrels a day in by 2014, largely with the help of Turkish investors. Kurdish production is currently 120,000 barrels a day. The remaining problem is how to deal with the corruption that has diverted so much oil income into the pockets of thieving politicians and government officials. In Iraq, corruption is like the weather; everyone talks about it but not enough people do anything about it.

11/08/2014 Armée de l'air

Du 21 juillet au 1er août 2014, l’escadron d’hélicoptères 1/44 «Solenzara» a accueilli, sur la base aérienne 126 de Ventiseri-Solenzara, une délégation jordanienne de cinq militaires.

Pendant deux semaines, pilotes, mécaniciens navigants et sauveteurs-plongeurs jordaniens ont participé à des vols d’instruction aux côtés des équipages français, et ont profité de leur savoir-faire en matière de sauvetage maritime de jour et de nuit.

Les échanges bilatéraux entre la France et la Jordanie sont menés régulièrement. Dans le domaine de la recherche et du sauvetage (Search and Rescue – SAR). Les équipages des deux pays se retrouvent environ deux fois par an pour partager leurs expériences.

August 11, 2014: Strategy Page

The fighting in Gaza has left nearly 2,000 dead, over 96 percent of them Palestinian. Hamas says it won’t stop fighting until the Israeli-Egyptian blockade is lifted. Israel and Egypt refuse to do that until Hamas drops its support for terrorism and disarms. Since Israeli troops left Gaza (and Hamas took control in 2007) Gaza has become a sanctuary for Islamic terrorists. Most seek the destruction of Israel but a growing number seek to establish a religious dictatorship in Egypt. Hamas does not expect to get the blockade lifted but does see itself gaining respect (and cash donations along with more diplomatic support) in the Moslem world. At the moment Hamas is still designated an international terrorist organization by the UN, most Western nations and even some Moslem ones.

Israel has plenty of electronic and video evidence of Hamas using ceasefires to move weapons and personnel and prepare to continue firing on Israel. Broadcasting this evidence is opposed by Israeli intelligence officials because putting the evidence out there enables Hamas to see where and how they are vulnerable to detection. With this knowledge Hamas can better hide its activities in the future.

Hamas has fired over 3,300 rockets since July 9th. Some 70 percent landed in Israel but less than four percent hit populated areas (killing three and wounding 85 civilians) . Iron Dome intercepted about a quarter of the rockets fired at Israel as the Iron Dome computers predicted these would land in or near a populated area. About 20 percent of the rockets fired towards Israel were defective and landed inside Gaza or were aimed at targets in Gaza. This included some of the 11 percent of all rockets were fired at Israeli troops inside or near Gaza. Some 69 percent of the rockets were fired from northern Gaza (where most of the Israeli counterstrikes have been) while 13 percent were launched from central Gaza and the rest from southern Gaza. Over 80 percent of the rockets were fired from unpopulated areas but at least 18 percent were fired from locations that were clearly civilian (including schools, Mosques and medical facilities.) Hamas was believed to have had about 10,000 rockets in early July. Since then over 3,000 have been fired and over 4,000 destroyed before they could be fired. Israeli aircraft, helicopters, ships, armored vehicles and ground troops have attacked nearly 5,000 targets in Gaza since July 9th and about a third of those attacks were against rocket launching sites, often while rockets were being prepared for launch. Hamas rockets have killed three Israeli civilians and 64 military personnel (and 670 wounded) so far. Some 82,000 Israeli reservists have been mobilized and most have been sent to the Gaza border. Hamas considers each Israeli they kill a victory and plays that up in their media. The Israeli military casualty rate is about the same as the U.S. suffered at the height of the fighting in Iraq. In other words; historically quite low.

Some Israeli leaders want the ground troops to go back in and shut down Hamas once and for all. But that would involve a lot of combat and if Gaza were to be completely cleared of Islamic terrorists hundreds of Israeli troops would die and thousands wounded. Most Israeli politicians do not believe Israelis in general are willing to pay that high a price. Instead Israel will continue using its intelligence capabilities to find Hamas personnel and weapons and attack them with smart bombs and missiles. Other Islamic terrorist groups in Gaza are also being hit. But the Islamic terrorists are hiding among the 1.8 million civilians in Gaza. There are several hundred thousand buildings and hundreds of tunnels and bunkers. Less than one percent of these structures holds terrorist weapons or personnel and the Israelis already know that they cannot watch all of Gaza in great detail all the time. Israeli military leaders point out that there would be a lot of Palestinian civilian casualties because Hamas deliberately surrounds its weapons and key personnel with civilians. While some Palestinians answer the Hamas propaganda and volunteer for this duty, most do not and will flee if given a chance. For Hamas victory is simply surviving and still being able to issue victory statements. Israeli victory is suppressing terrorist capabilities. Ultimate victory is eliminating the terrorist threat but given the massive support for destroying Israel in the Arab world, ultimate victory remains a long term goal, not one that can be won right now in Gaza. Right now most media in the Arab (and Moslem) world portray Hamas as misguided but valiant fighters for a cause (the destruction of Israel) that still has a lot of popular support in the Moslem world. Most Westerners, especially journalists, don’t grasp that aspect of the situation and try to portray Gaza as a humanitarian disaster that only Israel can fix. Most Israelis are exasperated at the attitude of so many non-Moslems overseas and attributes it to ignorance, greed (oil-rich Arab states have spent billions to push the Arab point of view towards Israel) or anti-Semitism.

Despite the continued hostile attitude in the Arab world, Israel is seeing some progress. A growing number of Arab states officially classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. The most obvious of these is Egypt. This influences media coverage of the fighting in Arab media. This time around there is more emphasis on the suffering of Gaza civilians and not the Hamas fighters. Many Egyptian journalists and pundits openly call for Israel to destroy Hamas once and for all. A growing number of Arabs are giving up on Islamic radicalism as a solution for anything and many are calling for more international efforts to crush this latest round of Islamic terrorism.

Israel also wants to kill the military leadership of the Qassam Brigades (the military/terror portion of Hamas), who are believed to be the prime proponents of constant rocket attacks on Israel, despite ceasefires that the political leaders of Hamas have negotiated. The key Hamas official here is the head of the Qassam Brigades; Muhammad Deif. Israel see Deif the way the Americans did Osama bin Laden, as the one guy responsible for many attacks. There are at least ten key Qassam Brigades personnel Israel consider largely responsible for the persistent (despite five ceasefires) rocket attacks as well as the effort to send Islamic terrorists through tunnels into Israel. A growing number (up to a quarter) of the Hamas rockets are either damaged or launched incorrectly. This indicates the cumulative damage on the rocket supply and the personnel trained to launch them. In addition to a few remaining tunnels into Israel, Hamas is also believed to have several thousand rockets left and hundreds of Qassam Brigades fanatics willing to anything to launch them.

The current war between Israel and Hamas was only partly about the persistent rocket attacks against Israel. Israel made it clear, soon after the fighting broke out in early July, that  one of its primary objectives was to find and destroy all the tunnels Hamas had dug into Israel over the last few years. This could only be accomplished if Israeli troops were inside Gaza and able to search for the places where the tunnels started. Hamas boasted about how it had lots of these tunnels and planned to use them to get terrorists into Israel to capture or kill Israelis. So far Israel has found and destroyed 32 tunnels that extended into Israel and several more that were just used inside Gaza. Israeli intelligence, because of the several weeks Israeli troops were inside Gaza, has a better idea where additional tunnels are and Israel is hustling to come up with more effective detection methods. Currently the best method is using a large mobile drill (normally used for digging wells) to go deep dozens of times in an area where a tunnel is suspected until it is found. That method is being used now on the Israeli side of the border but it is slow work. The most obvious opportunity here is for better sensors. One idea is a series of wireless sensors buried a few meters down all along the Gaza border that will broadcast the unavoidable sounds the Hamas men would make as they dug towards the surface to “open” a tunnel on the Israeli side. For obvious reasons the Israelis are giving out any details on this sort of thing but at the moment it’s one of the best potential solution for the tunnel threat. Meanwhile Israel is trying to make the UN and other major Hamas donors (like Arab oil states) understand that a large chunk (over $10 million in the last few years) of their aid money has gone to this enormous tunnel project and that better management of aid to Gaza could reduce the amount being spent on tunnels and terrorism in general.

The tunnels are not a new problem. The Palestinians in Gaza have been building tunnels (mainly into Egypt for smuggling) since the 1980s. The Egyptians long tolerated this because the local Egyptian police and soldiers got bribed and that kept everyone happy. But tunnels into Israel were another matter, because these were not for smuggling but for killing or kidnapping Israelis. No bribes involved here, just murder and abduction (for ransom). Israeli combat engineers had been trained to destroy discovered tunnels, which was not easy because Hamas had booby-trapped some of them.

Lost amidst all the other stories is the fact that Israeli negotiators are trying work out a deal to get back the bodies of two Israeli soldiers that Hamas made away with. Israel is offering to release 25 Palestinians from prison for the bodies but Hamas wants a whole lot more. Earlier negotiations over the remains of dead Israelis went on for years.

Another story that does not get covered is the fact that most of Gaza is unharmed. Despite the thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles  and artillery shells fired into Gaza in the last month over 96 percent of the structures in Gaza are intact. Israel is using smart bombs and guided missiles meaning that most of the attacks destroy or damage individual structures, not entire neighborhoods as in the past (before smart bombs became standard). Images of all those intact Gaza towns and neighborhoods do not attract a lot of eyeballs and are not considered newsworthy. Another bit of non-news is the 40,000 tons of humanitarian aid (most of it food and medical supplies) Israel has allowed into Gaza since July 9th. Also non-news are the thousands of Israeli attacks called off at the last minute because civilians were detected in the target area.

In Egypt several thousand additional soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles have been sent to the Libyan border in the last week. This is all to deal with the growing smuggling activity there, much of it involving Islamic terrorist groups bringing in weapons stolen from army warehouses left unguarded during the 2011 revolution. Those weapons have been selling briskly on the black market in Egypt. The customers are gangsters, Islamic terrorists and people seeking some illegal protection. Meanwhile the military revealed that since the end of July soldiers and police had killed 61 Islamic terrorists in Sinai and arrested more than a hundred known or suspected Islamic terrorists there. The raids had also captured large quantities of weapons, ammo and bomb making material. Also seized was 650 kg (1,430 pounds) of marihuana. In the last year over 500 soldiers and policemen have died fighting Islamic terrorists.

August 10, 2014: Israel and Hamas agreed to another 72 hour ceasefire to begin at 9 PM GMT (11 PM local time). Hamas has fired over a hundred rockets since the latest ceasefire collapsed on the 8th.

August 9, 2014: Hamas managed to fire five more rockets into Israel, but there were no casualties or damage. Israel responded with attacks on at least 20 targets in Gaza. A bomb that hit a mosque killed three people, including a senior Hamas leader. Hamas has fired at least 70 rockets since the latest ceasefire collapsed on the 8th.

In Egypt a court dissolved the political wing of the Moslem Brotherhood (which was outlawed last September). This cuts off Moslem Brotherhood members from an legitimate participation in Egyptian politics. Earlier this year Egypt elected another military man, who replaces one who was overthrown in 2011. The government has arrested over 10,000 people since the coup a year ago but now the military is in charge legally. The newly elected president (Abdul al Sisi) is a former general and is determined to crush the Moslem Brotherhood and other more radical Islamic terrorist groups. Hundreds of Islamic radicals have been sentenced to death or long prison terms in the last year. This is all a repeat of what happened twenty years ago during the last Islamic radical uprising against a corrupt and inefficient government. The army promises it will be different this time, but they always do that and it never is. President Sisi has made it clear that he sees Islamic terrorism as the greatest danger the region faces. At the same time Sisi is making moves to get the economy going although it’s doubtful he will do anything about the corruption.

August 8, 2014:  Another ceasefire ended with Hamas firing 61 rockets at Israel. These resulted in two Israelis wounded by rocket fragments. Israel promptly responded with attacks on 70 terrorist targets in Gaza. The resumption of fighting was disappointing to Egypt, which is trying to persuade Hamas to make a long-term peace deal. While the Egyptian diplomats can appeal to Hamas as fellow Arabs, Hamas tends to have difficulty of hiding their contempt for Egypt, which Hamas considers traitors for classifying Hamas as a terrorist organization and cracking down on Islamic terrorist groups inside Egypt. Many Egyptians believe Islamic terrorism is a dead end strategy, but Hamas believes just the opposite.

In Egypt (along the Gaza border) several army raids left eleven Islamic terrorists dead and several smuggling tunnels destroyed.

August 5, 2014: Israel pulled its ground troops out of Gaza as another 72 hour ceasefire went into effect. Hamas announced that former Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha was found dead in a bombed building. Several days later rumors began coming out of Gaza that Taha had been executed. Medical staff and others saw his body at the hospital and morgue and despite orders to keep quiet, began talking. Taha was apparently being punished for secretly supplying Egypt with information on Hamas activities. Unwilling to admit that such a high-ranking official was a traitor, Hamas went with the “killed by an Israeli bomb” angle after putting Taha in front of a firing squad.

In Egypt (North Sinai) soldiers killed three Islamic terrorists and captured six others who were being sought. One raid also seized an SUV and sixteen motorcycles used for terrorist attacks. Elsewhere (outside Alexandria) five policemen and four Islamic terrorists died in a clash on a road to the beach.

August 4, 2014: Iran openly boasted of sending long range rockets to Gaza and ordered that an effort be made to get modern surface to air missiles into Gaza so Hamas can shoot down Israeli warplanes and helicopters. Actually, the shoulder fired missiles have been in Gaza for some time but Israeli aircraft have effective defenses against these missiles. Iran apparently wants to get larger and more effective anti-aircraft systems into Gaza. Iran has not commented on the fact that the Hamas use of rockets this time around has been a complete failure, with only three Israeli civilian (the main target for these rockets) deaths resulting mainly because of the Israeli Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

August 3, 2014: Israel pulled most of its troops out of Gaza.

August 2, 2014: Israel announced that one of its soldiers might have been captured. It later turned out that the soldier had been killed in combat while cut off from other troops.

August 1, 2014: A ceasefire in Gaza collapsed hours after it began when more rockets were fired at Israel.

11.08.2014 i24news.tv

Les sud-coréens pensent au dôme de fer pour se protéger de leur voisin du nord

La Corée du Sud serait intéressée par l'achat du dôme de fer, le système de défenses anti-missiles à courte portée, selon son fabricant, la société israélienne Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

La guerre actuelle avec le Hamas dans la bande de Gaza est une opération de démonstration de l'efficacité du dôme de fer, ont affirmé des responsables israéliens et des observateurs américains.

Le PDG de Rafael Yedidia Yaari a déclaré que la performance du système avait alimenté l'intérêt pour le dôme de fer à l'étranger, notamment de la Corée du Sud, en conflit avec son voisin du nord.

"La [Corée du Sud] est très inquiète, non seulement à propos de roquettes, mais aussi pour d'autres choses ... Vous pouvez certainement les inclure dans le club des pays intéressés", a déclaré Yaari à la radio de l'armée d'Israël, après avoir affirmé que des représentants de Rafael avaient visité Séoul pour promouvoir le dôme de fer.

Yaari n'a pas donné de détails sur le degré d'avancement d'un tel accord avec la Corée du Sud. Rafael n'a pas rendu public non plus les ventes du dôme de fer à l'étranger jusqu'à présent, mais a indiqué qu'il donnait la priorité à Israël, qui comprend déjà neuf batteries sur un total prévu de 12 unités d'interception.

Washington a également grandement financé le déploiement de batteries en Israël et les missiles intercepteurs. Des sources de l'industrie de la défense estiment que chaque batterie coûte environ 50 millions de dollars et que chaque missile d'interception entre 30 000 et 50 000 dollars.

Ont également participé à la production de Dôme de Fer les entrepreneurs de la défense israélienne Elisra Group et Israel Aerospace Industries. Le système utilise également des composants fabriqués par l'entreprise américaine de défense Raytheon.

Aug. 8, 2014 - By ANDREW TILGHMAN – Defense News

President Obama says it all the time – no combat troops will return to Iraq.

But many experts believe it will be extremely hard to achieve Obama’s newly expanded military mission there without more Americans on the ground.

“I think the slippery slope analogy is the right one for Iraq right now,” said Barry Posen, director of the Security Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On Thursday, Obama authorized a new open-ended operation in response to gains by the Islamic State militants in northern Iraq.

For now, the new mission relies on aircraft based outside Iraq. The U.S. will help defend the Kurdish city of Erbil from Islamic State fighters using “targeted air strikes,” Obama said. Those air strikes began Friday morning and included at least three separate bombings before noon, defense officials said.

The second mission is a commitment to protect some 40,000 Iraqi Yazidis who are trapped on a mountain surrounded by the militants. That began Thursday night with air drops of food and water for at least 8,000 people.

Military experts say tactical commanders will want more ground forces. Forward air controllers could provide more precise targeting information. U.S. advisers could support the Kurdish forces fighting the militants. And U.S. commanders may need to expand their intelligence effort on the ground.

In turn, U.S. forces might need a forward operating base with a security perimeter, more force protection and a logistical supply line. Medevac capabilities may require a helicopter detachment and a small aviation maintenance shed.

“You’re talking about a 10,000- to 15,000-soldier effort to include maintenance, and medevac and security,” said retired Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who served as executive officer to David Petraeus during the 2007 surge in Iraq and now is a professor of military history at Ohio State University.

“But that is the price you’re going to pay if you want to roll back [Islamic State]. You can’t just snap your fingers and make it go away,” Mansoor said.

Obama’s address to the nation Thursday night suggested that the city of Erbil will be a no-go zone for the militants, and he offered no timeframe for that commitment.

The biggest near-term military challenge stems from Obama’s commitment to prevent a “genocide” of the Yazidi people trapped on Mount Sinjar. The air drops providing food and water that began Thursday night are a short-term solution. Obama promised to use air strikes on Islamic State forces, if needed, to “break the siege” and “help refugees get the shelter and food and water they so desperately need.”

Getting the Yazidis off the mountain and safely transporting them to a secure location will require either an “an enormous helicopter air lift” or ground combat units to confront militants and secure a safe-passage corridor for the refugees, Mansoor said.

“That may require some kind of ground presence to escort them through enemy held territory,” Mansoor said.

“That is [IS] controlled territory. There could be major combat along the way. This could be very difficult,” Mansoor said.

'Leverage Locals'

The key to limiting ground-level involvement for U.S. service members will be coordinating with the Kurdish Peshmerga militia or other allied forces, said Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“I don’t think this is headed down a slippery slope whatsoever,” Gunzinger said in an interview Friday.

He pointed to the success at the early stages of the Afghanistan war in 2001 when U.S. aircraft, working closely with small U.S. special operations teams and friendly Afghan forces, toppled the Taliban regime.

“I think that kind of model could be effective in Iraq,” Gunzinger said.

That model may be even more effective today because the U.S. military has far more drones to provide a constant presence overhead.

Also, there is little evidence that Islamic State forces have significant anti-aircraft weaponry, making an aggressive U.S.-led air campaign easier, Gunzinger said.

The analogy of Afghanistan in 2001 was also cited by Seth Jones, a counter-insurgency expert with the Rand Corporation. “Leveraging locals is the key,” Jones said in an interview Friday, adding that additional ground forces may be limited to small elements of forward air controllers and special forces teams.

While the need for U.S. ground troops may be limited, Jones said, Obama’s plan poses another risk: If air strikes are successful in the area around Erbil, pressure may grow for the U.S. to provide similar air strikes in other parts of Iraq. “The slippery slope may be a much broader demand for air strikes,” Jones said.

It’s unclear how far Obama and his military leaders plan to take this current campaign.

“There is still some question about whether this is going to be a major air campaign to defeat [the Islamic State] or whether it is going to me more along the lines of strikes and raids to deny them access and prevent them from making further advances. I’m not sure,” Gunzinger said.

Obama’s language Thursday was ambiguous, Posen said. Despite his repeated aversion to sending “combat troops” back into Iraq, Obama has signaled a long-term commitment to support the Iraqi military and a continued belief in a cohesive, Democratic Iraq in which Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds share power under a Bagdad led government.

“Is this going to be a limited mission? Or is this the beginning of a project where we are once again going to fix Iraq, to build a homogenous, unified Iraq?” Posen said. .

“If they are going to succumb to that logic, if they are going to try to build the beautiful outcome that the Bush Administration failed to build, then they are not edging up to the slippery slope — they are diving over it.”

11/08/2014 Par LEXPRESS.fr

La France va examiner la possibilité de livrer des armes aux Kurdes et aux Irakiens, a déclaré ce dimanche Laurent Fabius en déplacement en Irak. Cette mesure serait mise en place "en liaison avec les Européens".

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