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Newsletter : 7fax0307.txt
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Iranian President Encourages Hamas Attacks
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhorted Damascus-based Hamas terrorist chief Khaled Mashaal Tuesday to keep up the attacks against Israel. Ahmadinejad also told Mashaal during his visit to Iran that the Hamas and Fatah terrorist factions leading the Palestinian Authority must end their mutual militia war.
Iran's Proxy War Against Israel Expands
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Iran is expanding its influence among the ranks of the Arab terrorist organizations targeting Israel. General Security Services (Shin Bet) Director Yuval Diskin told a group of foreign journalists on Monday that dozens of Hamas terrorists have arrived in Iran for advanced weapons and tactics training. He told the reporters that hundreds more Hamas terrorists are expected to follow the first contingent, as well.
The Iranian involvement in Hamas training is a development that Diskin characterized as a greater strategic danger to Israel than the thousands of weapons smuggled into the Gaza Strip across the Egyptian border. Diskin warned that Israel "will have to do something about it" if the process of Iranian involvement continues.
Iran pledged US $50 million to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government shortly after it was elected in 2006, when it became clear that the Western assistance to the PA was to be cut off. Also in 2006, Israel publicly charged that Iran had already been supporting Hamas with tens of millions of US dollars annually for the Hamas offices in Damascus.
The Islamic Republic currently supports the Shiite Hizbullah in Lebanon, which relatively successfully fought a direct war with Israel in the summer of 2006. Iran provides the organization with weapons, money and training. Despite the periodic bloody clashes elsewhere in the Middle East between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the Hizbullah itself funnels Iranian support to the Sunni Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Palestinian Authority. The PIJ has been sending its own men to Lebanon and Iran for training for some time, as well.
The PIJ claimed responsibility for two Kassam rockets that were launched from northern Gaza Tuesday morning. Four people were lightly injured in the attack. One rocket landed near the port city of Ashkelon and the other in farmland outside Kibbutz Zikkim, in the western Negev. The wounded were brought to Barzilai Hospital.
Later in the day, the PIJ boasted that it possesses longer-range rockets, which can reach farther north than Ashkelon. Abu Ahmed, spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades of the PIJ, told the Israeli news service Ynet that the terrorists "will continue to respond to all the enemy's crimes, even if it happens in the West Bank."
Syria Ready with Bio-Terror if U.S. Hits Iran
Damascus Reportedly Hiding WMD Among Commercial Pharmaceuticals
By WorldNetDaily.com
An American bio-defense analyst living in Europe has told World Net Daily that if the U.S.
invades Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions, Syria is ready to respond with weapons of mass
destruction – specifically biological weapons.
"Syria is positioned to launch a biological attack on Israel or Europe should the U.S. attack Iran," Jill Bellamy-Dekker told WND. "The Syrians are embedding their biological weapons program into their commercial pharmaceuticals business and their veterinary vaccine-research facilities. The intelligence service oversees Syria's 'bio-farm' program and the Ministry of Defense is well interfaced into the effort."
Bellamy-Decker currently directs the Public Health Preparedness program for the European Homeland Security Association under the French High Committee for Civil Defense. She anticipates a variation of smallpox is the biological agent Syria would utilize.
"The Syrians are also working on orthopox viruses that are related to smallpox," Bellamy-Decker said, "and it's a good way to get around international treaties against offensive biological weapons development. They work on camelpox as a cover for smallpox."
According to the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, camelpox is a virus closely related to smallpox that causes a "severe and economically important disease in camels," but rarely, if ever, causes the disease in humans.
Bellamy-Decker also told WND the North Koreans were working closely with the Syrians on their biological weapons program. "The Syrians have made some recent acquisitions in regard to their smallpox program from the DPRK," she explained. "Right before the recent Lebanon war, the Syrians had a crash program in cryptosporidium."
According to the Washington State Department of Health, cryptosporidium is a one-celled parasite that causes a gastrointestinal illness with symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and a low-grade fever. The symptoms can last for weeks and may result in weight loss and dehydration.
"Because cryptosporidium is impervious to chlorine," Bellamy-Decker continued, "you could infect the water supply by the bucket full of cryptosporidium, if you know where to get it. The resulting illness would put down a lot of civilians and military who might oppose you going into their country."
"The Syrians have a modus operandi of covert operations and deniability," she stressed, "so biological weapons are absolutely perfect for them."
WND asked Bellamy-Decker if the Syrians have any history of having used biological weapons. "I believe they are testing biological weapons right now, in Sudan, in the conflict in Darfur," she answered. "There is credible information about flyover activity in Darfur, where little parachutes have been dropped down on the population. This is consistent with dispersal methods in bio-weapons attacks. I've also seen evidence of bodies that have been recovered from Darfur that look as if they had been exposed to biological weapons."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum Feb. 28 to exchange expressions of support and solidarity. "The Syrians now consider biological weapons as part of their arsenal," Bellamy-Decker said. "The Syrian military is also beginning to plan the eventual integration of biological weapons in its tactical and strategic arsenals."
She referenced an April 2000 article published by Syrian defense minister General Mustafa Talas, titled "Biological (Germ) Warfare: A New and Effective Method in Modern Warfare." The article was republished in a Farsi translation in Tehran.
"All indications suggest that Syria's ultimate objective is to mount biological warheads on all varieties of the long-range surface-to-surface missiles in its possession," Bellamy-Decker maintained. "This is a goal that can probably be achieved within a few years, and it may already have been realized in part."
She argued that instead of producing large quantities of biological weapons agents, Syria is seeking to develop a smaller, but high-quality arsenal, which it can deliver accurately against military and civilian targets.
When asked how Syria might be expected to retaliate against Israel or Europe if the U.S. attacked Iran, she responded, "Syria has most likely forward-deployed some of their covert operatives. Smallpox does not need to be weaponized. Aerosol release is the way to go."
Bellamy-Decker explained the methodology of a terrorist bio-attack: "So with a good primary aerosol release in an airport in Israel or Europe and you could get 100 index cases. If you've made the strain sufficiently virulent, you could have a ratio of 1 to 13 for infectivity, where the normal ratio is 1 to 3. If every index case infects 13 other people, you unfortunately have a great first hit.
"A terrorist bio-attack could go global," she noted. "A good biological hit will spread rapidly with international travel. Smallpox is a better weapon than anthrax. Smallpox has been field-tested, it is highly stable, and highly communicable, especially if you look at some of the strains the Russians manipulated. Syria probably retained some of [its] smallpox strains from the last outbreak back in 1972."
Another risk is the possibility Syria's military might give bio-weapons to terrorists. "We are close to seeing a breakthrough where Syria could provide biological weapons to some of the terrorist groups they work with, like Hizbullah in Lebanon," Bellamy-Decker argued.
"The Syrians believe they can vaccinate themselves and they are working within the Syrian military. They're certainly not worried about releasing these biological weapons in a military setting, or even if civilians were infected as well, as long as they are vaccinated. I think it is a real threat."
Bellamy-Decker is presenting a paper at this week's Intelligence Summit in St. Petersburg, Fla. It is expected to focus on the sophisticated state of development of the Syrian bio-weapons program.
"The Syrians have developed a rather remarkable bio-weapons capability that has gone under the radar of U.S. intelligence," she said. "U.S. intelligence continues to insist that the Syrian capability is not highly developed. The Syrian program mirrors how the Russians have developed their program, as well as Iraq under Saddam Hussein, North Korea and Iran. The emphasis in the Syrian program is on latent potential and outbreak capability."
Bellamy-Decker explained we should not expect to find stockpiles of biological weapons. "Stockpiles are just not how biological weapons are done," she said. "With biological weapons, it is not the quantity, but the quality that counts. If you can produce a virulent, communicable strain, then you have a great biological weapon and it doesn't matter how much of it you have, it depends on what the weapon looks like."
Hundreds Hospitalized in Recent Months with Deadly Bacterium
By Ha'aretz
Hundreds of people have fallen ill in recent months and dozens died from an antibiotic-resistant bacterium, Channel 1 television reported Tuesday.
Infection expert Dr. Galia Rahav said that 130 people have been infected in Sheba Hospital alone and about a third of them have already died, though many were suffering from prior medical conditions.
The Health Ministry has refrained from issuing official figures on the scope of the epidemic, but the bacterium has been identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae. A senior health official told Ha'aretz that the ministry has not received unusual data on this or other deadly bacterium.
The ministry has formulated a program for treating patients infected with the bacterium and summoned hospital officials for a meeting to discuss treatment. A special staff has also been assembled to coordinate activity between various hospitals.
The program includes an outline for monitoring, isolation of infected patients, hygiene regulations to prevent transmission between patients and training laboratories to identify the bacterium. The bacterium is part of a group of deadly bacteria that has long been known to researchers.
It is known to cause severe infection, particularly in patients already suffering from an illness, and is among a growing number of bacteria discovered in recent years to be resistant to many antibiotics.
The Health Ministry said Tuesday that "the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a worldwide phenomenon... In recent years the number of infectious bacteria resistant to antibiotics has been growing, some of them resistant even to most known antibiotic treatments. These bacteria mostly harm patients who have been hospitalized for a long time and have undergone numerous antibiotic treatments."
BBC Poll: Israel as Satan's Bastard Child
By Ha'aretz
A BBC World Service-commissioned poll released this week proves, if nothing else, that the nature of the question pollsters ask will determine the answers they receive. It also suggested, without having to say so explicitly, that Israel is the bastard child of Satan, the troublemaking twin of its arch-nemesis Iran.
The poll, a survey of more than 28,000 people in 27 countries, asked respondents to rate 12 countries - Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the USA, Venezuela and the European Union - as having a positive or negative influence.
According to the BBC, the survey's results noted that "The country with the highest number of mostly negative responses overall is Israel (56% negative, 17% positive), followed by Iran (54% negative 18% positive), the United States (51% negative, 30% positive), and North Korea (48% negative, 19% positive)."
The report added that "Israel also stands out for having the largest number of countries (23 of 27) viewing it negatively. Iran is regarded unfavorably in 21 countries, the United States and North Korea in 20."
The BBC poll coincides with a Gallup survey of Americans' attitudes toward Israel and the Palestinians, as detailed by Shmuel Rosner in his current blog. As he notes, the poll shows sympathy for the Palestinian side rebounding, reaching its highest level since 1989.
Obama Woos U.S. Jews, Takes Hard Line on Iran
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has been campaigning for Jewish support and has taken a hard line on Iran, stating that a military option to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions is not out of the question.
The Illinois senator made his first major Middle East policy statement to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Choosing his words carefully, he stated, "While we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."
He also cast doubts on the proposed Palestinian Authority unity government. "The reports of this agreement suggest that Hamas, Fatah and independent ministers would sit in a government together, under a Hamas prime minister, without any recognition of Israel, without a renunciation of violence and with only an ambiguous promise to 'respect' previous agreements. We must tell the Palestinians this is not good enough."
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