CONFIRMED: Israel's 2007 Air Strike in Syrian Desert Destroyed Nuclear Reactor

Initially thought by many to be some sort of a weapons cache, the IAEA had noted in the past that the facility did resemble a clandestine Syrian nuclear reactor project. Now the rest of the world has come to realize a stark reality that had long been suspected in intelligence circles, and that Israel deduced over four years ago...

Operation Orchard was a 2007 airstrike conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) upon a covert Syrian nuclear site in the Deir ez-Zor desert region of Syria. In the wake of the attack, the Bush Administration and CIA confirmed the site was a "military target", while Damascus of course denied it. But it soon came to the fore that the now-incinerated site was actually nuclear in nature... and that the Norks were involved somehow as well. 

before                                           after

The well-orchestrated IDF raid was executed with precision by the Israeli Air Force's 69th Squadron utilizing F-15Is/F-16Is with auxiliary drop-off fuel tanks and armed with 500lb bombs and Maverick missiles, all supported by an ELINT electronic intelligence aircraft.

A unit of elite Shaldag commandos were already on the ground at the Syrian desert site the day before, deployed to lay a kiss-o-death laser beam right on the target, marking it for destruction from above. Other reports had the Sayeret Matkal special-forces -where current PM Benjamin Netanyahu once led- also involved.

Later, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation in 2008 reported evidence of "significant" traces uranium as well as control-rod graphite, while noting numerous features indicative of an undeclared nuclear reactor. 

But as we came to expect from Mohammed ElBarradei -long a man of dubious principle, competence, and loyalties- his largely ineffective UN agency still somehow failed to confirm or deny the nature of the site, claiming that Syria "failed to provide necessary cooperation with the IAEA investigation".

Syria purported that they "had no nuclear secrets to hide". Back and forth they went, as with preceding/ongoing IAEA charades in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Now at at long last they are officially stating that the site that Israel reduced to rubble was in-fact an unfinished nuclear reactor. Earlier this year, photos released by a Washington, DC think tank betrayed a second covert nuclear site in Syria as well.

The Israelis steadfastly asserted that the project was built with North Korean help, but as with Saddam's reactor destroyed in 1983, tiny Israel somehow has saved us all from yet another heinous dictator armed with nuclear weapons... and again, to world condemnation. That's OK, they're used to such ingratitude and strategic ignorance amongst their myriad international critics.

I guess they better get rested-up for Iran- going to be a long night.

IAEA   BBC   AlJazeera   Wikipedia   Wall St Jounal

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North Korean Special Forces Spotted Across DMZ Sporting New Camo Gear

DMZ infiltration units...?

Backwards and broke, Pyongyang long-ago abandoned any idea of winning a conventional war with the South and their American allies... that is, ever since they saw US forces cut Saddam's armor into tinsel with shock-n-awe back in 2003.

So to remain a credible threat, the Norks rely on a three-pronged strategy of heavy artillery at the DMZ to pound Seoul into smithereens along with missiles that can menace the rest of the ROK... this while building the world's largest special forces, fiercely-loyal and highly-trained in asymmetrical warfare and infiltration strategies including Islamic-terrorist-inspired car bombs, roadside explosives, etc. 

The ambitious plans of the DPRK's Special Operations Force include myriad psy-ops, infiltration tunnels under the DMZ, up to 7000 commandos landing aboard midget subs and hovercraft on both southern coasts, others bypassing the DMZ in radar-evading low-tech wood-packed biplanes, troops simply walking over the border in South Korean uniforms, even Nork agents flying-in dressed as businessmen aboard Chinese commercial flights... all to wreak havoc and terror behind the lines of US and SK troops as they create a second front in the event of full-scale conflict [think "suitcase nuke" and you'll get an idea of the potential of the threat posed].

The DPRK has stationed 50,000 of these troublesome forces right at the DMZ, a number equal to all US special forces combined. Total North Korean special forces are now estimated at 200,000+...over double what they had just three years ago.

Unsettlingly it is then that today SK border surveillance is finding North Korean special forces troops in new camouflage gear apparently preparing for DMZ intrusion drills. Coming on top of recent escalations in the 60-year-old Korean War that has never officially ended, this offers reason for concern... although Seoul won't be standing idly by while Dear Leader plans their demise. 

The vile Stalinist regime in North Korea has always held an affection for special forces/asymmetrical warfare strategies, given that "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung fought as a guerrilla vs the Imperial Japanese in occupied WWII Korea and DPRK propaganda is steeped in the narrative.

The most famous incident involving such elite Korean People's Army troops would be the 1968 infiltration that had 31 North Korean commandos of the KPA's secret special forces Unit 124 on an assassination mission- one only halted mere meters from the South Korean President's "Blue House" residence near Seoul. Most of the Norks were killed in the ensuing gun battle with SK security personnel, but the group's leader was actually captured alive. 

And one of them did escape alive and return to North Korea, highly decorated and rewarded in spite of the mission's failure: Park Jae-gyong is today an aide to Kim Jong-il and vice minister of the North Korean People's Armed Forces...

More on recent developments in the escalating

North Korea - South Korea conflict -here-

Washington Post   Breitbart   Wikipedia   

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South Korea has "Had Enough", Currently Planning Military Attack on the North

"...a South Korean government who does not react 
would not be able to survive..."

The United States and South Korean militaries have long had a plan (with multiple revisions over the years) for fighting and winning an all-out war with the Norks: OPLAN 5027. Regrettably, a copy of this was snaked by North Korean hackers last year. Following that debacle, a new strategy is of course in the works.

But these days -despite never-ending belligerence emanating from the DPRK- fear of war on that scale has diminished on the SK/US side: the penniless Stalinist hell of North Korea is on the cusp of a possible leadership crisis, while also painfully aware that they simply cannot win a full-scale continuation of the Korean War. Any serious attack on the South would promptly lead to the demise of the so-called 'hermit kingdom', according to most observers... and the nefarious Kim regime knows it. 

So after taking some serious political heat in the wake of the first attack on a South Korean civilian area since 1953 -Yeonpyeong Island- the conservative administration of Lee Myung-bak in Seoul has lost interest in absorbing unprovoked aggression from Pyongyang... they're drawing a line in the sand as a new hawkish defense chief takes office.

CNS News:

President Lee Myung-bak's government is suffering intense criticism that its response to North Korea's Nov. 23 barrage on a South Korean island was weak, and over the stunning revelation that the South's spy chief dismissed information in August indicating the North might attack the front-line island of Yeonpyeong. 

Lee's nominee, Kim Kwan-jin, told a parliamentary confirmation hearing that further North Korean aggression will result in airstrikes. He said South Korea will use all its combat capabilities to retaliate. 

"In case the enemy attacks our territory and people again, we will thoroughly retaliate to ensure that the enemy cannot provoke again,"...

Yesterday former US Naval intelligence officer Dennis Blair confirmed that Seoul indeed sees no potential benefit in mantaining a failed strategy of appeasement with North Korea... and is preparing to deliver a long-overdue push-back.

Breitbart:

The former chief of US intelligence has warned that South Korea has lost its patience with provocations by North Korea and "will be taking military action." 

Retired admiral Dennis Blair, who was director of national intelligence until May, said he did not think that hostilities would escalate into a larger war with artillery attacks on Seoul because North Korea knows it would lose. 

"So I don't think a war is going to start but I think there is going to be a military confrontation at lower levels rather than simply accepting these, this North Korean aggression, and going and negotiating," he said on CNN's State of the Union. 

Blair said the North had gone beyond its usual pattern of brinkmanship with an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed four people November 23, and the sinking in May of a South Korean warship, which killed 46 sailors. 

"So South Korea is beginning to lose patience with the North, which there was a great deal of patience," said Blair, who just returned from South Korea. Asked what that meant, the retired admiral said, "It means they will be taking military action against North Korea." 

His comments came as South Korea was preparing to go ahead with live fire drills off its coasts, but not near the contested maritime border with the North in the Yellow Sea.

And where are Kim Jong-il's traditional supporters -the Chinese- on all this? Shooting themself in the foot, basically-

While WikiLeaks-exposed cables last month indicated Beijing was also frustrated with the Kim regime's unpredictable brinkmanship -and would possibly acquiesce to a Korean unification under SK control- all we've seen in public is a diplomatically-clumsy Chinese leadership acting like nothing has changed at all... an ill-advised and wholly-irresponsible approach that is starting to inflict some serious damage on China's aspirations as a world power...

Robert Haddick writing in Foreign Policy:

Beijing's ham-fisted approach to the North Korean issue is causing other countries in East Asia to rally around the United States in alarm over Chinese intentions, a result exactly contrary to China's long term policy goals in the region. 

With no change in its policy toward North Korea, China should prepare for more diplomatic isolation and a stepped-up security response by the United States and its neighbors. 

On Dec. 6, the Washington Post's John Pomfret described Beijing's clumsy approach to South Korea in the wake of the North's hour-long artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island. Four days after the attack, China sent State Councilor Dai Bingguo to Seoul, without an invitation or advanced notice. Upon landing, Dai demanded that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak abandon his schedule for the rest of the day in order to meet with him, which Lee refused to do. 

When the two met the following day, Dai told Lee to "calm down" and then delivered a history lecture on China-South Korean relations. Dai's diplomatic bungling was startling. 

After his departure, Lee and his new defense minister adopted a policy of military retaliation against the North. Lee then sent his foreign minister to a policy coordination meeting with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts. The United States proceeded with large military training exercises with South Korea and Japan. Soon after that, the U.S. and South Korean governments unveiled a completed free-trade agreement. 

China's actions regarding North Korea have done wonders to bring together the United States and its Asian allies...

And although plenty predictable, the official North Korean news agency's somewhat less-than-nuanced take is always good for a few chuckles:

The war confab of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers is, in fact, little short of a declaration of an all-out war aimed at the escalated skirmish, declared a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea in a statement released on Saturday. 

He went on to say: The U.S. imperialists and the puppet warmongers held a meeting of the chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea and the U.S. in Seoul on December 8 at which they discussed a very dangerous war scenario calling on the puppet forces and the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces to mount a military attack on the DPRK under the pretext of "deterring provocation" of someone. 

The U.S. imperialists openly approved the puppet forces′ plan to attack the DPRK by mobilizing all fighters and warships, etc. not bound to the existing "rules and regulations for battles," touting "their right to self-defence." 

They, at the same time, declared they would consider the proposal for supporting the puppet forces with "information about north Korea" and with "F-22 Raptors" advertised by them as the "most sophisticated fighters in the world" in case of a war between the north and the south of Korea.

Looks like one pugnacious pygmy dictator with a funky-looking Elvis 'do may be soon be getting an abject lesson in just how sophisticated the F-22 Raptor actually is: they'll never see it coming until things just start blowing-up.

UPDATE: Norks now threatening nuclear war...

Chosunilbo   Breitbart   The Guardian  Hannity

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Fresh North Korean Artillery Fire Heard Near Shelled Island: "Brink of War"

Shrill DPRK propaganda threatens "shower of fire"

The ever-belligerent Norks fired more large guns today in the vicinity of the South Korean island shelled on Tuesday. To most observers it appears that a fading Kim Jong Il is happy to blow up a few Southern fisherman in order to impress the military with his choice of under-achieving 27-year-old son Kim Jong Un
-reportedly not the sharpest knife in the drawer- as his designated successor in the world's only hereditary communist dictatorship. 

He's already made the kid a four-star general, and after visiting the artillery site on Monday the younger Kim is rumored to have ordered the attack himself...

AP-

Fresh artillery shots were heard Friday on the tense South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, three days after it was devastated by a North Korean attack and hours after Pyongyang warned that the peninsula was on the brink of war. 

The blasts happened just after the top U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured Yeonpyeong Island in a show of solidarity with Seoul and to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people. 

An official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said several new rounds of artillery fire were heard Friday on Yeonpyeong, which is just 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of the North Korean mainland. The military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several distant explosive sounds came from the direction of North Korea. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Seems the Kims are doing their best to frighten their enemies much as a rattlesnake would... and with a comparable moral code- (Yonhap News Service:)

Threatening "a shower of dreadful fire," North Korea said Friday it will wipe out its enemies if its sovereignty is violated, warning that the Korean Peninsula is inching to the "brink of war." The warnings by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea and the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) are the latest threats Pyongyang has issued since South Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold joint drills near the communist country in a show of force. 

The rhetoric raises already high tension after the communist country exchanged deadly artillery barrages with South Korea on Tuesday, killing two marines and two civilians here in one of the most violent clashes on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), denies initiating the clash, warning it will mount additional attacks if its territorial waters are violated. 

"The army and people of the DPRK are now greatly enraged at the provocation of the puppet group while getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire and blow up the bulwark of the enemies" if they violate the North's sovereignty, the committee said. 

In the Korean version of the statement released through the KCNA, the North said it is "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold," a possible reference to major military bases and civilian facilities in the South. 

It also said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday in what can seen as an admission of a deliberate attack on the South. 

"Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only," the committee said in the English statement. "The group should not run amuck, clearly understanding the will and mettle of the highly alerted army and people of the DPRK to wipe out the enemies." 

If the Chinese are serious about being a world leader, now might be an appropriate time to act like it and control their brats before somebody loses an eye... or worse.

Yonghap   AP  Gateway Pundit

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Tokyo Calls for Military Attacks on Pyongyang as Clueless Obama Dithers

Yet another traditionally-close US ally abandoned to fate...

Now DebkaFile is reporting that the Japanese -correctly observing that no response in the face of this second Nork attack only will invite more of them- are strongly promoting the idea of a prompt military reaction... or at least something of significance out of the UN security council.  

The (predictable) White House response...?  [crickets]. 

... the Obama administration was clearly not about to meet Japanese pressure for joint military action in support of Seoul or reinforce its fighting forces on the peninsula – even as a deterrent. 

Two South Korean marines were killed and 17 soldiers and 3 civilians injured as the flames engulfed the targeted island. A Pentagon spokesman also said it was too early to discuss redeploying US tactical nuclear arms to South Korea, a possibility raised by South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Tae-young Monday when North Korea's parade of its uranium enrichment and light water plants came to light. 

The Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's second demand in his call to President Barak Obama after the North Korean attack was to convene an urgent UN Security Council meeting. That too went unheeded. The session France announced would take place Tuesday night was indefinitely postponed. 

The Japanese prime minister maintained to Obama that North Korea must not be allowed to get away with two armed attacks on the South in the space of eight months without a military response. On March 26, North Korean torpedoes sunk the South Korean Cheonan cruiser. At least 46 seamen were lost. 

DEBKAfile's military sources reports fears that if no penalty is exacted from Pyongyang for its belligerent behavior, it will be encouraged to continue striking South Korea. 

...

DEBKAfile's military sources report that US Seventh Fleet headquarters at Yokosuka in Japan, together with the naval forces stationed there including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier. They have been covering South Korea's massive annual military exercises involving some 70,000 troops scheduled to last from Monday through Nov. 30. 

Our sources add that closely in tune with Pyongyang, Tehran will be encouraged by the Obama administration's inaction against North Korea to greater pugnacity against Israel whose position in the Middle East Iran sees as akin to that of South Korea in the Far East. Both are regarded in Iran as tied hand and foot by Washington and therefore in no position to defend themselves without the US sayso. 

Earlier, DEBKAfile report that Obama's lack of response to the Japanese call, despite the presence of 28,000 US troops on the Korean Demilitarized Zone border – even with limited military action - is bound to devalue the defensive umbrella against North Korea the US has pledged South Korea and Japan. 

US unresponsiveness is already resonating loudly in the Middle East and Persian Gulf which is beginning to take it as betokening feeble resolve in dealing with Iran and its nuclear weapons aspirations...

And it sure would be nice if the Chinese would grow up and handle this situation.  They're the ones that aspire to world leadership... and barely lifting a finger to handle a mess they helped create.

Hard to take their diplomacy seriously if they can't put a lid on this pugnacious crackpot and his reckless brinkmanship... now would be a good time- right here's their chance to be somebody...

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