Iraq Will Soon Be Handed Over To The Antichrist (Revelation 13)

Analysis Battle for Mosul Will Determine Fate of ISIS and Iraq's Political Future 

How the fight for the city plays out will make Islamic State decide whether to persist with its current strategy or scatter its forces across the Middle East and operate like Al-Qaida.

Zvi Bar'el
25.02.2017 | 01:59

The battle for western Mosul is intended not only to liberate the city from the clutches of the Islamic State group, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared recently. It is also the battle that could be the turning point in ISIS' status in Iraq and the entire region.

When Mosul is completely freed, after 2.5 years of ISIS control, the organization will have to make a strategic decision, perhaps the most important in its brief history: Should it regroup in the areas it controls in northeastern Syria? Or should it start scattering its forces into other Arab countries and revert to Al-Qaida’s modus operandi – a method that relies on a structure of branches and cells, and drops the strategy of occupying territories?

According to the most recent estimates in Iraq, it seems that ISIS forces in Mosul number no more than 2,500 fighters (compared with earlier estimates that ranged from 5,000 to 7,000). The earlier estimates may have been erroneous due to intelligence difficulties. But it is more reasonable to assume that Islamic State has already thinned out its forces and transferred some to Syria.

At the same time, many fighters – mostly Iraqis – have dropped out of the organization; they have simply taken off their uniforms, hidden their weapons and become ordinary citizens.

Despite the lower ISIS numbers, the expectation is that the war in western Mosul will last for many weeks, if not months.

This is a difficult urban arena: Some 750,000 civilians live in crowded conditions, in narrow lanes amid dozens of neighborhoods. These make it difficult to wage an air or artillery war, and hamper the ability of armored vehicles to maneuver.

The Iraqi strategy, coordinated with the U.S. Army, is built on sending in many infantry soldiers and pushing ISIS into neighborhoods where it is easier to attack it from the air.

If the usual desired ratio between attacking and attacked forces is 5:1, in Mosul the Iraqi army is aiming for a ratio of 20:1. So, even if the number of Islamic State fighters stands at 2,000, the Iraqi force could number between 40,000 and 50,000 soldiers.

The Iraqi army, which is working together with local militias, does not have any great difficulty in achieving this numerical advantage, and the air cover at its disposal will be nearly unlimited. However, what remains to be seen is the nature of the fight ISIS will put up.

In eastern Mosul – which was liberated last month – the level of resistance was relatively muted. Even so, it still took three months of fighting to liberate that part of the city. From reports on civilian websites, it appears that the organization is well prepped for the second part of the battle: It has reportedly set up high concrete roadblocks; laid mines in hundreds of locations; placed sniper positions along essential routes; and stockpiled shoulder–launched anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft machine guns.

The major concern is about the use of civilians as human shields, which could lead to an unprecedented number of dead. However, there is also the possibility that ISIS will not fight to the last bullet, and will instead withdraw its forces in early stages of the fighting.

To allow for this possibility, the Iraqi army has started using intensive psychological warfare, including radio and television broadcasts, distributing photos of slain ISIS fighters lying in the streets, and disseminating information about the magnitude of the deployment expected to enter the city.

In the meantime, it is not clear which of the options the Islamic State leadership will choose.

The actual war inside the city has yet to begin. However, on its northern and southern outskirts, the Iraqi army has successfully taken some important strategic positions. According to statements by high-ranking Iraqi commanders, the army is expected to enter the city within a week.

But as the end of the military campaign draws nearer, concerns are increasing about happens the day afterward.

The inhabitants of the western part of the city are extremely frightened by events in the eastern part, in which there were many cases of soldiers abusing civilians. There are also reports of accounts being settled with people suspected of having collaborated with Islamic State. Many civilians are trying to flee from western Mosul, but are afraid to return to the eastern part because of unbridled rampaging by militia members and even soldiers from elite units.

Last week, the separatist Shi’ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr announced his plan for stabilizing Mosul after its liberation, thereby forcing the Iraqi government to start examining the questions of the future of the city and surrounding area.

In Sadr's 29-point plan, he stresses the need to preserve the unity of the state; to bring about a national reconciliation between all religious and ethnic groups; and make law and order subject to the authority of the state, not local militias. He also demands that all foreign forces leave after the war ends – not only the Americans, but also the Iranians and others. He also calls for establishing international bodies to supervise the rehabilitation of the city and raise the tremendous amounts of money needed for this.

This fascinating document even proposes putting together delegations of heads of tribes, which will move from southern Iraq to Mosul in order to bring the different groups closer together. Sadr is demanding that the Shi’ite militias (which operate under the auspices of Iran) are absorbed into the regular Iraqi army, in order to prevent a situation in which there are a number of different armies operating in the region.

If the retaking of Mosul will, to a large extent, determine the fate of Islamic State, the way the city operates after the war will determine Iraq's political future. Thus far, apart from Sadr’s document, no orderly plan has been formulated that clarifies the arrangements for rehabilitation, sources of funding and, above all, the division of control within the city.

In comparison to Syria, where at least one world power – Russia – is able to dictate at least the structure of government, dealing with these questions in Iraq will fall exclusively on the shoulders of the government. And although it is showing unity and determination in the war against ISIS, it has yet to succeed in enlisting the trust of the Sunnis.

The Antichrist Unifies Iraq

A Historic Settlement of Iraq's Differences

Stratton

Summary

The fight for Mosul is far from finished, but Iraqi politicians are already well into planning what will come next for their country. Though organizational and funding challenges could push Iraq's scheduled 2017 parliamentary elections off into the next year, the country's political parties have begun to assemble their blocs. The incipient coalition-building efforts have been unusually peaceable, unwittingly keeping with the loose framework that Ammar al-Hakim, head of Iraq's comprehensive Shiite coalition, the National Alliance bloc, laid out in October. Known as the "historic settlement," the plan provides a loose framework to reconcile Iraq's various religious sects and political factions once the country is rid of the Islamic State, emphasizing compromise and renouncing violence. However optimistic the historic settlement may seem, Iraq's competing parties are apparently heeding it, and they have so far limited themselves to verbal battles rather than enlisting the help of militias. Still, recent conflicts among Shiite and Kurdish political parties hint at the rivalries that will come to light as election season approaches.

Analysis

Iraq has much at stake in the next round of legislative elections, regardless of when it takes place. For one thing, the Iraqi people, weary after years of violence and upheaval, have pinned their hopes on the next vote to help usher in a new era for the country. For another, the elections will be a measure of Iraq's progress in restoring order after the bitter battle against the Islamic State. Legislative elections have long functioned as an indicator of the country's stability. Under Saddam Hussein's rule, Shiites and minority communities, including Kurds, were sidelined from the electoral process, which was neither free nor fair. After Saddam's administration fell in 2003, turnout among the Sunni population dropped — to just 2 percent in Anbar province during the 2005 vote — as competing militias and al Qaeda attacked Sunni voters in an effort to discredit the elections. Though conditions improved in the 2010 and 2014 elections, neither vote was free of sectarian violence. Facing the momentous task of rebuilding the war-torn country, Iraq's government knows that the success of the next elections will be essential to prove its stability to the international community. To that end, al-Hakim has taken his pacific plan on a tour of the Middle East to try to convince Iraq's regional allies of the country's future prospects and win financial support for the costly reconstruction process ahead.

The Shifting National Alliance

But already, Iraqi parties' differences are starting to show. Though the National Alliance is still Iraq's main Shiite coalition, its constituent parties are competing for dominance within the bloc. Vice President Nouri al-Maliki recently discovered that his party, State of Law, is losing ground in areas where it used to command the most power. During a recent tour of Maysan, Basra and Dhi Qar provinces in southern Iraq, the former prime minister and founder of State of Law faced angry protesters, evidence of al-Maliki's waning influence in the area. In the 2014 elections, by contrast, State of Law handily won in these provinces, securing between 32 and 40 percent of the vote in each location. Al-Maliki's hostile reception is none too surprising, even in his former electoral strongholds. After all, he is best known today for presiding over Iraq during the Islamic State's incursion into the country; before that, many Iraqis associated him with corruption and empowering Shiites at the expense of the country's minority populations.

Nevertheless, he is still a powerful figure in Iraq's political system, and his influence is far-reaching. Al-Maliki used his clout in the judicial system to regain his position as vice president after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's anti-corruption campaigns swept him from office in 2015. Along with State of Law, which still dominates Iraq's 328-seat parliament with 92 seats, al-Maliki also heads the Reform Front party, albeit unofficially. Earlier in the year, that party spearheaded efforts to unseat prominent ministers from Iraq's government.

For other Shiite parties in the bloc — especially those led by Muqtada al-Sadr — State of Law's loss could be their gain. As al-Maliki's reputation has suffered in recent years, al-Sadr, whose supporters booed the vice president during his trip to southern Iraq, has steadily amassed influence despite his controversial past. Although the Shiite parties stand to benefit from banding together to pass legislation, they will have a hard time uniting their respective constituent pools given the deep mistrust between them.

Deepening Divides in Iraqi Kurdistan

A similar factional rivalry threatens to limit Kurdish parties' gains in the upcoming elections. Iraqi Kurdistan's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is finding itself increasingly at odds with the autonomous region's other political groups. Its main rival party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, for instance, has taken Baghdad's side in a dispute over the Kurdistan Regional Government's oil profit-sharing agreement with Iraq. In addition, a leader from the Gorran party recently criticized the KDP for its treatment of the peshmerga, provoking a backlash from the ruling party. As the rifts between the Kurdish parties widen, Arbil's internal divisions are becoming more stark than its differences with Baghdad.

In the runup to Iraq's next round of elections, rivalries will continue to emerge between the country's political parties, and alliances will keep shifting. But political infighting is a dramatic departure from sectarian violence — and for the Iraqi people, a welcome one. The coalition-building process, along with the preparations for the legislative vote, will help determine whether Iraq will continue reconciling its differences politically or will fall back into its pattern of sectarian conflicts.

Antichrist Tries To Unify The Muslim Nations

Iraqi Shia cleric Al-Sadr implores Egypt, Saudi Arabia to strive for unity with Iran

Daily News Egypt

Prominent Iraqi Shia cleric, politician, and militia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr has asked Egypt and Saudi Arabia to protect holy places from extremists, in a statement issued on Saturday evening on the occasion of the prophet Muhammed’s birthday.

“We, in Iraq, provide heavy protection of holy places in various cities across the state. It is a great honour for us to carry out this mission,” he said, referring to holy sites in Najaf and Karbala cities.

In the statement on his Facebook page, he implored Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran to strive for Islamic unity—something that he personally supports and seeks.

Relations between Sunni and Shia Muslim-majority countries tend to be fraught with tensions, despite attempts, and sometimes empty words, by politicians to placate hostilities. Whichever sect is the minority in a country is often treated like second-class citizens.

One of the most renowned religious destinations for Shia Muslims in Egypt, which has a Sunni majority, is Al-Hussein Mosque. The state has restricted Shia residents from coming to this mosque as they please and has closed it on religious occasions affiliated to their sect, citing security concerns.

Al-Sadr called on the Egyptian government to protect this mosque, open it to visitors, and eliminate extremists from the area. He also reached out to Al-Azhar University with the idea of engaging in religious dialogue between scholars from various Islamic sects and branches.

The cleric’s statement carried clear significance to the ongoing dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran—the latter is backing the Houthis in Yemen while Saudi is supporting the government in the bloody conflict.

He made a bold suggestion that, rather than fighting the Houthis, Saudi Arabia should send its forces in Yemen to launch war on Israel and liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli occupation.

Al-Sadr then asked the Saudi government to protect the prophet’s grave in Medina from the “terrorist ideologies that are dominant in the country”, saying that these tendencies are “abnormal”. He offered his contribution and cooperation to protecting the gravesite.

In April 2013, during former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s reign, the ministries of foreign affairs and civil aviation set regulations restricting the activities of Iranian tourists in Egypt. They were limited to set touristic sites such as the ancient city of Luxor and Red Sea resort areas like Sharm El-Sheikh.

During this time the religious arm of the Al-Nour political party, the Salafi Call, warned of a “Shia tide” in Egypt and called for a ban on any contact with Shia Muslims.

Even after the ouster of Morsi, Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa refused to allow Shia Muslims to celebrate Ashura inside mosques, calling on authorities to implement this decision.

Russian Nuclear Horn Extends Into Egypt

Russia signs deal to build Egypt’s first nuclear plant

AFP 10 hours ago

Cairo (AFP) – Russia signed two agreements Thursday to finance and build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, in a televised ceremony attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The signing comes three weeks after what is widely believed to have been an Islamic State group bomb downed a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 on board, and “carries a message on the weight or relations between us and Russia”, Sisi said.

“For a long time, Egypt has dreamt of having a peaceful nuclear programme for the production of electricity,” Sisi said of the project.

Under the second deal, Sisi said Russia will grant a 35-year loan to the North African country, the Arab world’s most populous. He did not say how much the loan will amount to or what its terms are.
Sergei Kirienko, director general of Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, said the agreement is for the construction and operation of four 1,200 MW reactors, making the country “a regional leader in terms of technology.”

However, he said details of the credit agreement were still under discussion.

Sisi announced the project in February during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, when a memorandum of understanding was signed.

The plant is to be built in Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast in the northwest of the country.
Egypt laid the foundation for the facility during the regime of president Hosni Mubarak, ousted in January 2011, but work was halted due to disputes with local residents after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

On Thursday, speaking of the airplane tragedy, Sisi said the “Egyptian people understand the concerns of the Russian people and their leaders regarding the security of their citizens.”
Just a day earlier, IS said it had smuggled a bomb on board the airplane, which had taken off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg.

Moscow had announced Wednesday that traces of explosives had been found in the wreckage and vowed to hunt down the perpetrators.

But Egypt has been reluctant to acknowledge that a bomb caused the crash and said no definite conclusions should be drawn until the probe into the tragedy is complete.

On Thursday, Sisi promised that the investigation was being handled in a “totally transparent manner”.

Small Horn Terrorizes The Russian Horn (Daniel 8:9)

Bomb planted by ISIS on aircraft likely caused Russian plane crash

Thursday, 5 November 2015 – 8:51am IST | Place: New York | Agency: Reuters

 

The US and European security sources stressed they had reached no final conclusions about the crash.

Debris of the Russian plane crash Reuters

Evidence now suggests that a bomb planted by the Islamic State militant group is the likely cause of last weekend’s crash of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, US and European security sources said on Wednesday.

Islamic State, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria and is battling the Egyptian army in the Sinai Peninsula, said again on Wednesday it brought down the airplane, adding it would eventually tell the world how it carried out the attack.

The Airbus A321M <AIR.PA> crashed on Saturday in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on its way to the Russian city of St Petersburg, killing all 224 people on board.

The US and European security sources stressed they had reached no final conclusions about the crash. Britain on Wednesday cited the likely possibility of an explosive device as the cause of the crash, but made no mention of any group that may have been responsible.

“We have concluded that there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft,” Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said after a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Hammond’s remarks came as Britain prepares to host a visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this week. Egypt, a close ally of the United States and the most populous Arab country, dismissed a similar claim of responsibility for the crash by Islamic State on Saturday.

“It is believed to be an explosion but what kind is not clear. There is an examination of the sand at the crash site to try and determine if it was a bomb,” said an Egyptian source who is close to the team investigating the black boxes.

“There are forensic investigations underway at the crash site. That will help determine the cause, to see if traces of explosives are found.” Sisi has described Islamist militancy as an existential threat to the Arab world and the West and has repeatedly called for greater international efforts to combat the militants.

Hammond said Britain is “advising against all but essential travel by air through Sharm el-Sheikh airport. That means that there will be no UK passenger flights out to Sharm el-Sheikh from now.” Remarks earlier on Wednesday by Britain’s Cameron, who was due to hold talks in London with Sisi on Thursday, of concerns “the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device” drew criticism from Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

He told CNN he was “somewhat surprised” by the British statement. “This is a matter for the investigation to clarify and we should not prejudge or take any measures that might have implications,” Shoukry said. “Implication also that the fact that a very large number of Egyptians who rely heavily on the tourist industry.”

Britain said it was working with airlines and Egyptian authorities to put in place additional security and screening measures to allow Britons in Sharm el-Sheikh to get home, but that would take time and there would be no flights returning from the resort on Thursday.

“SOMETHING STOWED” ON BOARD

A Russian aviation official said the investigation was looking into the possibility of an object stowed on board causing the disaster.

“There are two versions now under consideration: something stowed inside (the plane) and a technical fault. But the airplane could not just break apart in the air – there should be some action. A rocket is unlikely as there are no signs of that,” the Russian official said.

Security experts and investigators have said the plane is unlikely to have been struck from the outside and Sinai-based militants are not believed to possess the technology to shoot down a jet from a cruising altitude above 30,000 feet.

Any evidence that a bomb knocked the plane out of the sky would deal a heavy blow to tourism in Egypt, a pillar of the economy that is struggling to recover after years of political turmoil, and would also undermine Sisi’s assertions that Cairo has brought under control Sinai Province’s insurgency.
Sinai Province has killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police since Sisi, as army chief, toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Sisi was elected president last year on promises he would stabilise Egypt and rebuild its shattered economy. Critics say his tough crackdown on Islamists will only create more radicals in Egypt, which has fought militants for decades.

REVENGE FOR RUSSIAN AIRSTRIKES?

Investigators have extracted and validated the contents of the flight data recorder, one of two so-called black boxes recovered from the Russian plane, Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry said. The ministry said the second black box, which contains the cockpit voice recorder, was partially damaged and much work was required to extract data from it.

Sinai Province has said it had brought down the airliner “in response to Russian air strikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land.” In an audio message posted on a Twitter account used by the group, Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate insisted on Wednesday it was behind the crash. The claim could not immediately be authenticated.

“We, with God’s grace, are the ones who brought it down, and we are not obliged to disclose the mechanism of its demise,” the speaker said. Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launched air raids against opposition groups in Syria including Islamic State on Sept. 30. The hardline group has called for war against both Russia and the United States in response to their air strikes in Syria.

Late on Wednesday the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) directed all Irish airlines on Wednesday not to fly to or from the Sinai Peninsula until further notice. The Russian-operated plane was registered in Ireland and the IAA is taking part in the official investigation into the crash.

Russia Takes Opportunity To Make More Nuclear Allies (Daniel 7:7)

Russia signs nuclear deals with traditional U.S. allies in Middle East

By Jack Caravelli
Published July 30, 2015

Washington Free Beacon

The Russian government has signed major nuclear cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan since the start of this year, increasing its influence among traditional U.S. allies in the region.

In June, Russia closed a major deal on nuclear cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Since the end of the last decade the Saudis have been implementing plans to construct as many as 16 commercial nuclear power plants. The Saudis have signed agreements with other nuclear nations, including the United States, France, China and Argentina, to help construct the reactors.
Russia is now expected to play a sizable role in operating the nuclear plants, which are still to be built.

The Saudis have indicated that a nuclear program will free up oil reserves to be used almost exclusively for foreign sales that generate hard currency earnings.

In February, Russia and Egypt secured a preliminary deal in which Russia signaled its willingness to assist Egypt in building its first nuclear power plant. The agreement was announced during President Vladimir Putin’s February visit to Cairo, during which he also solidified Russia’s overall political and trade relationships with his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Current plans call for the power plant to be built near the northern Egyptian city of El Dabaa. Russia, which has extensive experience with nuclear energy, has offered to provide training and nuclear-related research for Egyptian engineers.

Shortly thereafter, the Jordanian Atomic Energy Commission and Russia’s Rosatom, the state-run nuclear energy corporation, agreed on a plan for the construction of Jordan’s first nuclear power plant. Under the agreement two nuclear reactors of 1000 megawatts each would be built.

Russian nuclear horn ready to expand (Dan 7)

 Russian Foreign Ministry Official Warns of Threat of Nuclear Expansion
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber May. 17 2015 20:37 Last edited 20:38

A Russian Foreign Ministry official has said that the country may be compelled to increase its nuclear capacities in response the United States’ alleged attempts to undermine international disarmament efforts, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported Sunday.

“Negative trends that undermine strategic stability and the prospects of nuclear disarmament are taking hold in the world,” Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Foreign Ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. “These negative factors do not come from us. They come from the United States.”

Ulyanov cited the United States’ missile defense program Prompt Global Strike, its reluctance to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and a “serious imbalance” of conventional weapons in Europe as factors that could compel Russia to increase its nuclear potential, but added that this was not the case for the time being.

Last week, NATO military commander Philip Breedlove accused Russia of making irresponsible nuclear threats, media reported at the time.

President Vladimir Putin said in March that Russia had been prepared to put its nuclear forces on alert to ensure the annexation of Crimea. A Foreign Ministry official also said that month that the country had the right to deploy its nuclear arsenal to Crimea, although he was not aware of any plans to do so.

Meanwhile, in another iteration of heightened military rhetoric, Alexander Grushko, Russia’s envoy to NATO, said last week that Russia was prepared to bolster its military presence in Crimea to counter the organization’s increased activities in eastern Europe, RIA Novosti reported.

Poland and the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — said last week that they were seeking the establishment of permanent NATO deployments on their territories to deter Russian military activity.

These NATO states have repeatedly accused Russian fighter jets and military ships of lingering at their borders. Earlier this month, Latvia’s military claimed that two Russian naval ships, a military transportation aircraft and a submarine were lurking on the edge of the country’s territorial waters. Lithuania has also complained of Russian naval activity in its exclusive economic zone.

Contact the author at g.tetraultfarber@imedia.ru 

Russian Nuclear Horn Gets Bolder (Dan 7)

 

Two Russian Nuclear Bombers Fly Into Alaskan Airspace

Two nuclear-capable Russian bombers entered U.S. airspace for the first time this year in the Alaska air defense zone. Despite the intrusion, no U.S. jets were sent to intercept or shadow the incoming bombers.

The Washington Post reports that the two Russian bombers flew into the U.S. airspace last week. However, they noted that no U.S. jets were sent to shadow the planes like in previous encounters. Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), is remaining mum on the incident but notes that no planes were dispatched last week to the area in question.

As Fox News points out, the incident marks the first Russian incursion on U.S. airspace this year. However, last year Russian bombers were intercepted at least six times with long-range aircraft detected by NORAD on at least 10 other occasions. It is noted that this is probably the first of many Russian bombers that will be seen in U.S. airspace this year. Russia has been frequenting the area as part of a new training and influence operation.

Senior military officials have noted the increased presence of Russian aircraft in U.S. airspace in addition to the incursions on Canadian and EU airspace. Northern Command commander Adm. William Gortney has spoken on the Russian issue and says that the country is developing a very capable military program, noting that both flight missions and numbers of locations for the flights “have gone up” and that the military is getting stronger in the region.

Aside from interactions with the U.S., Russia is also making threatening gestures in the European Union with a number of fighter jets being intercepted. However, Russia isn’t only making a stance in the air, Sweden recently detected a Russian submarine in Swedish waters that caused a stir across the country.

With campaigns aimed at flexing military muscle, the U.S. and other countries in the cross-hairs with Russia can expect to see more Russian military training exercises near their coasts or airspace.

This is the first time that the U.S. has not sent a jet to intercept the Russian bombers. The latest bomber mission identified near Alaska last year was described as provocative and dangerous by the Pentagon. Therefore, a US RC-135 intercepted the bomber and shadowed it back to Russian airspace.

What do you think the U.S. should do about the breech of airspace by the nuclear-capable Russian bombers? Should NORAD have dispatched U.S. jets to shadow or intercept the bombers, or did they do the right thing by ignoring the symbolic threat?

The Russian Nuclear Horn Expands (Dan 7:7)

Russia building nuclear reactors – and influence – around the globe

By Hannah Thoburn

April 29, 2015

Russia has been notoriously brazen in using state-owned companies as instruments of national power. President Vladimir Putin’s natural-gas wars with Belarus and Ukraine made headlines and sometimes left substantial parts of Europe in the cold. But Moscow’s exploits in other energy-related areas have been less noticed.

Recent revelations about the concerted Russian effort to buy up uranium resources across the globe may change that. For Moscow’s state-owned nuclear-energy company, Rosatom, has made successful inroads into markets around the world. It is Rosatom — not France’s Areva or the United States’ Westinghouse — that has 29 nuclear reactors in various stages of planning and construction in more than a dozen countries, the largest number of nuclear reactors being built internationally. In contrast, Areva, though largely owned by the French state, has not sold one reactor since 2007.

Much of Rosatom’s success can be ascribed to the strong support provided by the Russian government. Moscow recognized roughly 10 to 15 years ago that Rosatom’s work enables Russia to add another energy-related means of extending its long-term political influence throughout the world. Unlike oil or gas projects, Russia’s nuclear developments need not be in neighboring countries or even in its region — a fact that broadens the Kremlin’s investment options.

Globe-trotting deals

The countries that Russia and its state-owned nuclear company have signed agreements with in the past year are diverse indeed. The most recent deal is with Jordan, a land-locked, energy-poor Middle Eastern nation, which just agreed to have Rosatom complete two nuclear reactors by 2022.


Less than a month before the Jordanian agreement, Putin finalized a deal with Hungary for Rosatom to build and install two reactors to the already existing Soviet-built plant at Paks in south-central Hungary. The deal has come under intense scrutiny from the European Union over the source of the nuclear fuel, but looks set to go ahead.

Only days before the Hungary deal, Putin used his visit to Egypt to conclude a preliminary agreement with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Moscow is set to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, in the northern city of Alexandria.

In November, Russia signed a contract with Iran to build two more reactors at the Bushehr site, where Russia has already built one reactor that is now operational. The deal left open the possibility of Rosatom building an additional four reactors at a site yet to be determined.

India has long had a relationship with Rosatom, as New Delhi has worked desperately over the past years to increase its electricity production capacity. A Russian-built reactor came online at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in 2013, a project conceived under the Soviet regime. Another reactor is to begin operation at Kudankulam later this year. Two more nuclear reactors are planned for construction at the same site. When Putin visited India in December 2014, the two governments confirmed that their cooperation in the nuclear sector would continue, with at least 10 more reactors planned in the coming years.

In northern Finland, Rosatom has started preliminary work on a site where a new nuclear plant is scheduled to come online in 2024. Turkey’s first nuclear plant, also built by Rosatom, is set to break ground this spring.



Rosatom is also looking toward Latin America. While Putin was touring South America in July 2014, the Russian leader and Argentine President Cristina Kirchner signed nuclear energy cooperation agreements and in April 2015 agreed to have Rosatom build a reactor at the Atucha-3 plant outside Buenos Aires. In February 2015, Rosatom concluded an agreement with Brazil’s National Nuclear Energy Commission to provide supplies of Molybdenium-99, an element used in many nonmilitary nuclear applications.

Crucial Moscow support

So why, tender after tender, are Russia and Rosatom having more success than Western nuclear firms? There are four key reasons:

Favorable financing. Though Russia may be hurting for cash because of international sanctions, Moscow is still willing to undertake projects that promise long-term gains. The returns are expected to be more than financial. The Putin regime sees these projects as part of its national strategy. It is willing to heavily subsidize Rosatom and also provide loans to countries too poor to afford its products. These subsidies mean that Rosatom can sell nuclear reactors at a far lower price than its competitors.

Rosatom’s Build, Own and Operate scheme. Many developing countries are keen to develop nuclear power as a source of comparatively cheap energy but are unable to raise the funds to build reactors. In addition, they have neither the desire nor the expertise to operate the reactors once they are built. The build, own and operate deals remove these obstacles and put the responsibility on the Russians. But they also hold the countries hostage to Russian desires and demands. Under these controversial deals, Russia and Rosatom provide nuclear fuel, processing when it has been depleted, education for workers and technicians, maintenance and installation of any needed upgrades. Turkey’s new plant at Akkuyu is the first set to be built under these conditions.




Rosatom’s relative freedom from governmental oversight. In comparison to the world’s other large companies engaged in nuclear construction, Areva of France, Westinghouse of the United States and TEPCO of Japan, Rosatom is not dissuaded from building in certain countries. In contrast, U.S. companies are prevented from building reactors in all but the 46 countries with which the United States has already concluded so-called 123 Agreements on the sharing of nuclear expertise. Countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, where Rosatom is building reactors, are not on that list, effectively keeping U.S. companies from even competing for those deals.

Deal sweeteners. In certain circumstances, a nuclear deal with Russia is only part of a larger package. Vietnam’s collaboration with Russia, for example, has also allowed it to purchase submarines and other military equipment from Moscow.

West versus Rosatom

For all these reasons, competing against Russia and Rosatom has become increasingly difficult for Western corporations, which are steadily falling behind.

France’s Areva, for example, is in serious financial straits and must address recent revelations of technological problems with one of its reactor designs. Westinghouse is hamstrung by Americans’ reluctance to build new reactors. Foreign buyers often want to see how the reactor models they decide to build are running in a company’s base, and Westinghouse has nothing to show them. Japanese companies have been adversely affected by the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant.
Meanwhile, Rosatom, backed by the full power of the Putin government, is expanding its international reach and, in doing so, widening the scope of Russian power. As it has begun to do in other arenas — media and finance, for example — Europe and the United States must identify and counter Russian influence in the energy sphere.

Sooner or later, Washington’s and Brussels’ instinct to ignore these challenges will not only seriously undermine Western businesses, it will also cede to Russia the international influence it so ardently seeks to purchase.

Middle East Nuclear War Averted In Egypt in 1973

The Last Nuclear Moment

Nuclear Jericho Missiles Were Ready to Be Launched in the Yom Kippur War of 1973

 

By Avner Cohen
 

Published: October 6, 2003

Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the world has come to the nuclear brink only twice. The first, and better known, was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The second, and much less discussed, occurred in the early days of the Yom Kippur war, which began 30 years ago today.

The shock Israelis felt at the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Oct. 6, 1973, can best be compared to that felt by Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Israel was caught totally unprepared: the government had assumed that its intelligence services would be able to alert it at least 48 hours before any invasion.

Yet, while Israeli intelligence had detailed knowledge of Egyptian and Syrian war plans, and Prime Minister Golda Meir had even been secretly warned of an imminent war by King Hussein of Jordan on Sept. 25, the information was not translated into military preparedness. This colossal failure — due to a combination of arrogance, self-deception and misperception — is part of Golda Meir’s legacy.

Only in the early morning of Oct. 6 did the Israeli leadership finally understand that it was facing a full-scale attack by Egypt and Syria that very evening. (And even then they had the estimated time of the attack wrong; the war actually started at 2 p.m.) By the next morning, the Egyptian Army had crossed the Suez Canal and columns of Syrian tanks had penetrated deep into the Golan Heights. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers had died in a heroic but hopeless effort to save small, isolated strongholds along Israel’s borders.

The hope was that with the arrival of Israel’s reserve troops, the military situation would turn around. While this happened to some extent on the Syrian front, things were still a disaster at the Suez. Israel’s first attempted counterattack on Oct. 8 was a miserable failure. At the end of that day, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was heard murmuring about ”the end of the Third Kingdom.” The commander of the air force, Gen. Benny Peled, warned that with the rate of losses his forces were enduring, within a week Israel might no longer have any effective air power. It was arguably the darkest day in the history of the Israeli Army.

It was in the early hours of Oct. 9 that senior Israeli military leaders brought up the idea of using Israel’s doomsday weapons. By that time Israel had lost some 50 combat planes and more than 500 tanks — 400 on the Egyptian battlefield alone. According to a new book by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, when the prime minister’s top military aide heard those ideas, he begged the army’s deputy chief of staff, tears in his eyes, ”You must save the people of Israel from these madmen.”

Later that morning, at the end of a somber briefing before the war cabinet, Mr. Dayan raised the nuclear option with the prime minister. No detailed record has surfaced as to what exactly Mr. Dayan proposed, but we know he gave an overall assessment that Israel was fast approaching the point of ”last resort.” And certainly Mr. Dayan wanted the United States to take notice that things had reached such a point. That he meant using nuclear weapons (albeit in coded language, as at the time nobody dared call them by name) was confirmed in an interview last week by Naftali Lavie, who was Mr. Dayan’s spokesman during the war.

This set the stage for a moment that defined Golda Meir’s other legacy, her nuclear legacy. Supported by other members of her war cabinet — notably the ministers Israel Galili and Yigal Allon — she refused to concede to Mr. Dayan’s gloom and doom rhetoric. Her idea, instead, was to fly secretly to Washington and, as Henry Kissinger later wrote, ”for an hour plead with President Nixon.”

Mr. Kissinger flatly rejected that idea, explaining such a rushed visit ”could reflect only either hysteria or blackmail.” By that time, American intelligence had signs that Israel had put its Jericho missiles, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads, on high alert (the Israelis had done so in an easily detectible way, probably to sway the Americans into preventive action).

Mr. Kissinger instead started to arrange air supply to Israel, and within three days a tremendous United States airlift to Israel was in action. The tide was turned. By Oct. 21 the Israelis were within 20 miles of Damascus and had crossed the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian Third Army. A permanent cease-fire was established within a few days.

Like John F. Kennedy a decade earlier, Golda Meir had stared into the nuclear abyss and found a path back to sanity. Mrs. Meir’s decision not to accept Mr. Dayan’s pessimism not only avoided a nuclear catastrophe, it demonstrated to the world that Israel was a responsible and trusted nuclear custodian.

Ultimately, Mrs. Meir’s nuclear legacy goes far beyond those days in October 1973. Her prudence contributed significantly to the creation of the nuclear taboo — the recognition that nuclear weapons are not like any other weapons humanity has ever invented; that under virtually any circumstances they must never be used.

In this sense, her legacy is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.