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Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Does Israel Need to Destroy All of Iran's Nukes?
Bennett Ramberg suggests that Israel doesn't have the capability to destroy Iran's nukes (Letters, June 4). We can't speak for the Israelis, but the conversation among them since Oct. 7, 2023, about the utility of strikes against the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites seems to have shifted in favor of raids that needn't destroy the 'totality' of the atomic-weapons program. Partial destruction with the threat of further escalation, which could include Iran's oil industry, could nullify Tehran's nuclear aspirations for years if not forever. This calculation would depend on whether Israeli means are sufficient to damage severely the enrichment sites at Natanz and Fordow. A principal reason Ali Khamenei hasn't yet tested a nuclear device is surely that he fears Israeli or Western intelligence penetration of his atomic program, which could precipitate military strikes. Fear of such penetration doesn't disappear with an Israeli strike. It wouldn't negate renewed, vengeful nuclear ambitions, but it would complicate them. Americans certainly prefer nonmilitary solutions to our foreign problems; Israelis, who often see the Middle East as an array of depressing, bad choices, aim more often for tactical victories that eliminate imminent threats. The Israeli way can lead to egregious mistakes, and the American has repeatedly led us to ignore Tehran's malevolence, including the death of hundreds of Americans.
The Independent
27-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Why Zelensky believes Russia is planning a major new offensive, not a peace proposal
Russia 's foreign ministry says it is drafting a peace proposal for Ukraine, but Kyiv believes Moscow is planning a major offensive. Volodymyr Zelensky claims Ukraine has obtained intelligence and open-source data indicating that Putin does not intend to end the war and is preparing new offensives. Analysts report increased Russian attacks in Ukraine 's eastern Donetsk region, with the fastest rate of advance this year. Analysts say Russia aims for decisive operational success this summer to influence peace negotiations, focusing on capturing territory in the Donbas region. Ukraine faces challenges, including disrupted supply lines, recruitment issues, and troop fatigue, while Russia recruits approximately 30,000 soldiers per month, according to Western intelligence estimates. 'Ample evidence' Russia preparing fresh offensive despite talk of ceasefire, claims Zelensky
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Western countries gave Mossad information used to track and killi Palestinian terrorists in 1970s
A secret coalition of western intelligence agencies supplied Israel with crucial information that allowed the Mossad to track and kill Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks in western Europe in the early 1970s, newly declassified documents have revealed. The support was offered without any oversight by parliaments or elected politicians, and, if not actually illegal, would have caused a public scandal. Israel's assassination campaign, conducted by the Mossad, Israel's principal foreign intelligence service, followed the attack by armed Palestinian militants on the Olympic Games in Munich in September 1972, which led to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes. At least four Palestinians linked by Israel to terrorism were killed in Paris, Rome, Athens and Nicosia, and another six elsewhere over the rest of the decade. The mission, which was dubbed Operation Wrath of God by some, inspired Steven Spielberg's 2005 Hollywood film Munich. Evidence of support from western intelligence services for the Israeli mission was discovered in encrypted cables found in Swiss archives by Dr Aviva Guttmann, a historian of strategy and intelligence at Aberystwyth University. Thousands of such cables were circulated through a hitherto unknown secret system codenamed Kilowatt, which was set up in 1971 to allow 18 western intelligence services, including those of Israel, the UK, the US, France, Switzerland, Italy and West Germany to share information. The cables circulated raw intelligence with details of safe houses and vehicles, the movements of key individuals seen as dangerous, news on tactics used by Palestinian armed groups, and analysis. 'A lot was very granular, linking individuals to specific attacks and giving details that would be of great help. Perhaps at the very beginning, [western officials] were unaware [of the killings] but afterwards there was a lot of press reporting and other evidence suggesting strongly what the Israelis were doing,' said Guttmann, the first researcher to view Kilowatt material. 'They were even sharing the results of their own investigations into the assassinations with the agency – Mossad – which was most likely to have done them.' Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, demanded that the Mossad show her reliable evidence that any targets were connected to Munich or had a role in the wider wave of attacks by Palestinian armed groups on Israeli planes, embassies and airline offices across western Europe and the Mediterranean at that time. Much of that evidence came from western intelligence services and reached Israel through the Kilowatt network. The first killing carried out by the Mossad was of a Palestinian intellectual who worked at the Libyan embassy in Rome. Wael Zwaiter was shot dead in the lobby of his apartment block in the Italian capital just weeks after the Munich attack. Defenders of Zwaiter have always claimed he was wrongly identified as a militant and had no links to terrorism. The Kilowatt cables show Israel had been told several times by western security services that the 38-year-old translator had been providing weapons and logistical support for the Black September Organization (BSO), which was behind the Munich attack and others. A second victim, Mahmoud al-Hamshari, the official representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization in France, was killed in Paris in December 1972. Hamshari also featured in the Kilowatt cables, which described his diplomatic and fundraising activities but also claimed he had recruited terrorist cells. The assassination in Paris in June 1973 of a key logistician for terrorist plots by the BSO and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an armed faction then based in Lebanon, was greatly aided by Swiss authorities, the cables revealed. Mohamed Boudia, a veteran of the Algerian war of independence against France who had placed his experience as a clandestine operator at the disposal of the PFLP and the BSO, was high on Mossad's target list. Boudia had organised a series of attacks including an abortive effort to bomb hotels in Israel and the destruction of part of an Italian oil terminal. Other plots targeted Jewish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union and Jordan's ambassador to London. Boudia, also a playwright and theatre director, was tracked by the Mossad after Swiss intelligence officials passed on the details of his car discovered when raiding a safe house in Geneva. An Israeli assassination squad tracked the vehicle and killed Boudia with a landmine on a Parisian street. 'I'm not sure the Israeli [assassination] campaign would have been possible without the tactical information from the European intelligence services. Certainly, it was of huge benefit. But it was also very important for the Mossad to know that they had that tacit support,' said Guttmann, who is publishing her research in a book later this year. In another example revealed by the cables, the British domestic intelligence service MI5 provided the Mossad with its only picture of Ali Hassan Salameh, a key BSO leader who was blamed for the Munich attack. In July 1973, the Mossad believed it had tracked Salameh to Lillehammer, a small Norwegian ski resort, and used the picture supplied by MI5 to identify its target. The man it shot dead turned out not to be the BSO leader, however, but a Moroccan waiter. Several of the Mossad operatives were detained by Norwegian authorities and the resultant outcry led Meir to wind up the Wrath of God campaign. Even afterwards though, western European services continued to supply Israel with detailed intelligence on potential targets, Guttmann said. A former member of the Israeli assassination teams told the Guardian last month that at the time he and other members had no knowledge of the source of the information that identified their targets but insisted he had absolute confidence that it was reliable. Palestinian former militants told the Guardian last year that they 'gave as good as they got' in what was dubbed the 'war of the spooks' between the Mossad and the clandestine networks of the PFLP and BSO that was waged across the Mediterranean and western Europe in the early 1970s. One Israeli agent was killed in Madrid and another badly injured in Brussels by Palestinian armed factions. Guttmann said the revelations in the Kilowatt cables raised important questions for today's war in Gaza, which began after the October 7 2023 surprise attack by Hamas in Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to 251 hostages being taken. More than 50,000 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, have been killed in the ensuing Israeli offensive. 'When it comes to intelligence-sharing between services of different states, oversight is very difficult. International relations of the secret state are completely off the radar of politicians, parliaments or the public. Even today there will be a lot of information being shared about which we know absolutely nothing,' Guttmann said. Mossad is believed to have been responsible for killing the political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran last year, while other Israeli security agencies have been involved in the assassination of a series of Hamas leaders in Gaza and Beirut. In the last year, Israel also killed the veteran head and dozens of top officials of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamist militant organisation.
The Sun
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
How India & Pakistan could spark nuclear war killing 125million as warring neighbours urged to step back from armageddon
INDIA and Pakistan are being urged to step back from armageddon as a nuclear war between the two rivals could kill 125million people. The fighting neighbours traded rocket and artillery attacks in an overnight blitz leaving dozens dead and fears of all-out conflict. 9 9 9 9 Pakistan's leader labelled the strikes an "act of war" and his country claimed to have shot down Indian fighter jets. Now, fears are abound that fighting could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons and kill tens of millions. Peace campaigners like the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are "gravely concerned" and have called for the two sides to step back from the brink. India and Pakistan only have small stockpiles of nuclear weapons compared to Russia or America - but they have a viscous rivalry and longstanding feud over Kashmir. New Delhi is estimated to have 180 nuclear warheads and can deliver them through land, sea, or air. Islamabad was last officially thought to have 170 weapons but could have grown that arsenal to around 200. Colonel Philip Ingram, a former British Army commander, said the West will be particularly nervous about a nuclear conflict. Ingram said: "Western intelligence in particular will be focused on the readiness and the outloading of nuclear stocks inside both Pakistan and India and monitoring what's happening to them very closely indeed. "The worrying thing about these two nations is that the tensions are very real. "The nuclear weapons are not there to protect them against attack from China or Russia or anyone else. "It's focused purely on each other." Ingram said escalation to using nuclear weapons could happen rapidly and powers like the US would step in to try and prevent their use. He said: "The US Secretary of State, flying into India and Pakistan, would carry out shuttle diplomacy between the two." But that might not be enough to overcome the animosity between the two enemies and their desire to escalate the conflict. One key rung on the escalation ladder would be troops crossing the border in a wider invasion, causing BILLIONS COULD DIE A 2019 academic article predicted how a nuclear war could start between the two countries featuring chilling echoes of what is happening today on the subcontinent. Following a terror attack in 2025, the authors predict in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that skirmishes would at first erupt before the Indian Army decided to invade Pakistan. Pakistani generals then panic and decide the only way they could repulse an attack is with nuclear weapons. 9 9 9 At first Pakistan nukes its own territory to wipe out the invading Indian tanks and soldiers. Sensing a knockout blow, New Delhi decides to launch nukes on Pakistani airfields, army bases, and nuclear weapons depots. Pakistan responds by nuking Indian naval bases and army garrisons - some in cities - and uses its entire arsenal. India then fires some 70 nukes on Pakistan, leaving 100 bombs in its arsenal to continue to deter China. The authors predict up to 125million people would die in the horrifying nuclear exchanges. But the environmental impacts of some 250 nuclear bombs exploding could kill many more, by creating a global famine. Billions could be killed as temperatures drop several degrees around the world and a global food shortage hits. WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE Most experts, including Ingram, think India and Pakistan will choose to deescalate the conflict. Ingram said: "I think this is something that will blow over relatively quickly, because I think both nations recognize the implications of what's going on, but that doesn't mean that the tension is going to simmer down. "We might see more skirmishes in coming days and weeks." Tensions have been simmering for decades and the two countries have been at war at least three times before. 9 9 In 2019, India conducted airstrikes on Pakistan after border skirmishes erupted out of Kashmir tensions - but the sides deescalated after that. India's Ministry of Defence said the strikes against the camps were in retaliation to a "barbaric" mass shooting in Kashmir last month, when 26 people were killed by gunmen. A spokesperson said: "These military strikes were designed to deliver justice to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families." In an article for the Atlantic Council, Alex Plitsas assessed strikes so far seemed calculated to allow the other side to save face. Plitsas said: "By publicly framing the strikes as counterterrorism-focused and avoiding sovereign Pakistani targets, New Delhi sought to limit retaliatory pressure on Islamabad." Pakistan has, meanwhile, kept its rhetoric cautious and vowed it has the The US, China, Britain, and UN have all called for peace. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: "I echo @POTUS's comments earlier today that this hopefully ends quickly and will continue to engage both Indian and Pakistani leadership towards a peaceful resolution." CONFLICT COULD HELP CHINA Ingram said the conflict risks pushing Pakistan into the arms of the "Axis of Evil" - the alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Ingram said: "It wouldn't surprise me if we're seeing Pakistan supplying some capability to Russia." Ingram said China could use the conflict as a way of testing its weapons on the battlefield to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan. He said: "China could stimulate a refocus of Western attention, you know, back to Pakistan, India, possibly North and South Korea, while China is focusing on Taiwan. "China would love to do that. It's within their playbook. It's the sort of tactics they'd use." Pakistan would likely not start sending weapons to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine as it needs to stockpile ammunition and guns for its own battles. Ingram said: "But I think we'll see closer relations building up, and they could come into this grouping that we are loosely referring to as the axis of evil. "And it's worrying that continues to grow." What is the Kashmir conflict about? The region of Kashmir has always been a contentious issue even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain. But the current conflict stems from how the region was split up as the two countries were gaining independence. Indian troops took two-thirds of Kashmir, while Pakistan seized the northern third. Since then, two wars have been fought between the two countries and the row has developed into one of the most intense geopolitical rivalries on earth. There are about 16 million people in Kashmir, split between the Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled zones.
