Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (1427)	1/9/2002 9:51:35 AM
From: Scoobah	Respond to of 32591

Palestinian Security Chief Dahlan Supervised Karine-A Loading from Dubai DEBKAfile Exclusive 9 January: DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Israeli intelligence officers due in Washington Wednesday, January 9, carry incriminating proofs of Yasser Arafat’s direct complicity in all the stages of the foiled Karine-A gun-running operation. Headed by Lt.-Col Yossi Kuperwasser, head of Army Intelligence (Aman) Research Department, the group is charged with placing the evidence before the assistant secretary of state William Burns and US defense department and intelligence officials. They will demonstrate that Mohamed Dahlan, the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security Chief in the Gaza Strip and one of Arafat’s most senior lieutenants, was present in the emirate of Dubai when the Karine-A arrived and supervised the loading of the contraband munitions. He did not show himself to the ship’s crew, relaying his orders through Iranian and Palestinian go-betweens in the emirate and the PLO representative in Greece, Adel Awadallah, named in Monday’s interview with the ship’s captain Omar Akawi as his contact man, who also flew to Dubai. Dahlan stayed under cover in the emirate until the ship was fully loaded on the Iranian island of Kish. It was he who ordered the captain to set a course for the Suez Canal. The Palestinian security chief also made sure Akawi received the recognition passwords for the three smaller vessels to offload the cargo in the Mediterranean opposite Alexandria, Egypt. The information laid before the US administration includes Dahlan’s itineraries and timetables for setting up the smuggling operation through a network of operatives, intermediaries and contacts, from a base he set up in Libya. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the Gazan security chief left for Cairo early last week, after telling his associates that he would go on to Tripoli. Instead, he flew from Cairo to Dubai aboard the private plane of a Gulf businessman. In the view of those sources, there is no way Egyptian security authorities could have missed Dahlan’s frequent travels in and out of Cairo, which accounts for Egyptian foreign minister Ali Maher’s vehemence in shooting down Israel’s version of the affair. The Israeli intelligence officers will also bare the involvement of the Palestinian tycoon who is Arafat’s personal financial aide, Muhamed Rashid, in financing the purchase of the vessel and its cargo. This information is less detailed than the intelligence on Dahaln’s role because the investigation is still in progress. But it is enough to link Arafat to the arms smuggling conspiracy and account for the blistering condemnations leveled at him by prime minister Ariel Sharon and chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz on Sunday, January 6, in Eilat. Senior DEBKAfile sources in Jerusalem say Sharon had had no intention of exposing the roles played by Dahlan and Rashid in setting up the arms-running operation but changed his mind when US State Department spokesmen cast doubts on the data Israel passed to Washington on the Karine-A affair. ________________________________________

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (1427)	1/9/2002 7:35:08 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Chaim, are you still in Israel? Israel Gears up to Counter Nuclear, Chemical and Bio Attack 9 January: The Israeli government perceives the threat of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack as tangible enough to earmark a sizeable amount, the equivalent of US$100 million, for measures to protect the population. According to DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, intelligence supporting this reading has reached Jerusalem from more than one source, including the United States, where the nuclear-bio-chemical terror alert first declared for a period running from mid-December to mid-January has been extended by a further three months until the end of April. US intelligence believes that the escape of thousands of al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad fighters from Afghanistan to the Middle East has magnified the threat to Israel. The fugitives, who have fanned out through Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt and the Horn of Africa, may have kept unconventional weapons with them in their flight, or have access to hidden caches in the region. The terror alert sounded by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last month touched also on cruise missiles capable of delivering chemical or biological warheads, including anthrax spores in terrorist hands – and not only in Iraq. He defined Europe and the Middle East as additional potential targets for this kind of terrorism. US spokesmen have of late been playing down a possible US-led offensive against Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein thinks they are merely throwing sand in his eyes, he may well launch a pre-emptive strike to forestall the American move. The Israeli government’s decision today ties in with an earlier DEBKAfile report of a US boat docked in Haifa port with a cargo of vaccines and counter-measures for biological, nuclear and chemical warfare. Public funds will be needed to organize the distribution of the vaccines and medicines. The budgeting decision was made public - both to impress the country with the seriousness of the danger and to calm fears. ________________________________________