Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said on Monday.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq.
US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centers of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops.
But the secret war in Iraq is about to get much tougher, in the hope that the Baathist-led insurgency can be suppressed ahead of November's presidential election.
US special forces teams are already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign fighters before they cross the border, and a group focused on the "neutralization" of guerrilla leaders is being set up, according to sources familiar with the operations.
"This is basically an assassination program. That is what is being conceptualized here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East.
"It is bonkers, insane. Here we are -- we're already being compared to [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams."
"They are being trained by Israelis in Fort Bragg," said a source in Washington.
"Some Israelis went to Iraq as well, not to do training, but for providing consultations," said the source.
The consultants' visit to Iraq was confirmed by another US source who was in contact with American officials there.
An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West Bank and Gaza with the US armed forces, but said he could not comment about cooperation in Iraq.
"When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work," the official said.
"Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist prejudices."
Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of Pentagon policy in Iraq, said on Monday there was nothing wrong with learning lessons wherever possible.
"When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it," Peters said. "But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win.
"Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area."
The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in Monday's edition.
One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin. In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army."
"He's been promoted a rank above his abilities," one critic said.
"Some generals are pretty good on the battlefield but are disastrous nearer the source of power," he said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS