Israel on high alert for Iranian warships' Suez transit.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Israel on high alert for Iranian warships' Suez transit.
Kharg brings missiles

DEBKAfile Special Report February 18, 2011


Iranian Kharg with missiles for Hizballah

Cairo's approval Friday, Feb. 18 for two Iranian warships to transit the Suez Canal
on their way to the Mediterranean has brought Israel and Iran closer than ever
before to a naval collision at sea. debkafile reports: Israel has learned that the
Iranian cruiser Kharg is carrying long-range missiles for Hizballah which it plans
to unload at a Syrian port or Beirut harbor.

Friday, Israeli government and military officials were urgently casting about for
a way to prevent those missiles reaching the Lebanese terrorists.  Heavy US
and Israeli pressure failed to dissuade Egypt's military rulers from letting the
Iranian flotilla through Suez. So now the waterway has been opened wide
for Iran to consign heavy weapons deliveries to Syria and Lebanon - in the
first instance, and eventually to try and break Israel's naval blockade on the
Gaza Strip and bring Hamas the heavy munitions that were impossible to
transport through smuggling tunnels.

On February 16, debkafile reported:

Twenty-four hours after Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the Egyptian
upheaval had no military connotations for Israel, Tehran applied for the Iranian
frigate Alvand and cruiser Kharg to transit the Suez Canal on their way to Syria
Wednesday night, Feb. 16. Their passage was termed "a provocation" by Israeli
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In Beirut, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah
said he was looking forward to Israel going to war on Lebanon because then
his men would capture Galilee.

Israel was closely monitoring the Iranian flotilla, whose visit to the Saudi Red Sea
port of Jeddah on Feb. 6, preparatory to transiting Suez, was first revealed
exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly481 on February 10.

Up until now, Saudi Arabia, in close conjunction with Egypt and its President Hosni
Mubarak, led the Sunni Arab thrust to contain Iranian expansion ? especially in the
Persian Gulf. However, the opening of a Saudi port to war ships of the Islamic Republic
of Iran for the first time in the history of their relations points to a fundamental shift in
Middle East trends in consequence of the Egyptian uprising.  It was also the first time
Cairo has permitted Iranian warships to transit Suez from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean, although Israeli traffic in the opposite direction had been allowed.

Iran made no secret of its plans to expand its naval and military presence beyond the
Persian Gulf and Red Sea to the Mediterranean via Suez: On February 2, Iran's Deputy
Navy Commander Rear Admiral Gholam-Reza Khadem Biqam announced the flotilla's
mission was to "enter the waters of the Red Sea and then be dispatched to the
Mediterranean Sea."

However, Israeli military intelligence which failed to foresee the Egyptian upheaval
and its policy-makers ignored the Iranian admiral's announcement and its strategic
import, just as they failed to heed the significance of the Iranian flotilla's docking in
Jeddah.

debkafile's military sources report that Iran is rapidly seizing the fall of the Mubarak
regime in Cairo and the Saudi King Abdullah's falling-out with President Barack Obama
as an opportunity not to be missed for establishing a foothold along the Suez Canal
and access to the Mediterranean for six gains:

1. To cut off, even partially, the US military and naval Persian Gulf forces from
their main route for supplies and reinforcements;

2. To establish an Iranian military-naval grip on the Suez Canal, through which
40 percent of the world's maritime freights pass every day:

3. To bring an Iranian military presence close enough to menace the Egyptian heartland
of Cairo and the Nile Delta and squeeze it into joining the radical Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Turkish
alliance;

4. To thread a contiguous Iranian military-naval line from the Persian Gulf to the Red
Sea through the Suez Canal and the Gaza Strip and up to the ports of Lebanon, where
Hizballah has already seized power and toppled the pro-West government.

5. To eventually sever the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, annex it to the Gaza Strip
and establish a large Hamas-ruled Palestinian state athwart the Mediterranean, the
Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. By comparison, a Fatah-led Palestinian state on the
West Bank within the American orbit be politically and strategically inferior.

6. To tighten the naval and military siege on Israel.

[sirs]

Egypt says Iran ships can use Suez Canal
Fri Feb 18, 2011
By Marwa Awad

CAIRO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Egypt has approved the passage of two Iranian navy ships through the Suez Canal, an army source said, a move that could annoy Israel, whose foreign minister has called Iran's actions a provocation.

"Egypt has agreed to the passage of two Iranian ships through the Suez Canal," the army source told Reuters.

State television and Egypt's official news agency subsequently reported the news, without giving sources.

Iran's request was an early diplomatic test for Egypt's interim military government, which has close ties to the United States and has been ruling since Feb. 11 when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in the face of a popular revolt.

Egypt's Western allies are watching for hints of any shift in policy towards its Middle East neighbours, especially Israel with which it has a peace treaty.

The two ships would be the first Iranian military vessels to transit the canal since Iran's 1979 revolution.

To navigate the strategic waterway, naval vessels need the approval of Egypt's foreign and defence ministries.

It was not clear when the ships would enter the canal. They were not on the list of vessels scheduled to sail through on Saturday, a Suez Canal Authority official said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday that Iran's plan to send the ships through the canal en route to Syria was a "provocation".

Israel's state-funded Channel One television said later Lieberman, a stridently far-right partner in the conservative coalition, had spoken out of turn and the Defence Ministry "had preferred to ignore" the ships' approach.

There was no immediate comment from Israel after approval was given.

Egypt's military said the request stated the Iranian ships did not carry military equipment or nuclear or chemical cargo. It said they were in the Red Sea, at the canal's southern end. (Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Pfeiffer; editing by Andrew Dobbie)


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