US Air Force beefs up strength in Qatar. Syrian troops, warplanes, tanks and artillery moved to sheltered sites
DEBKA
Wednesday, Aug. 28, the US, on the one hand, and Syria, on the other, were winding up their last military preparations ahead of an American operation against Syria,. Barring last-minute hold-ups, DEBKAfile’s military sources report the operation is scheduled to start Friday night Aug. 30 (edging into Saturday morning, according to local Mid East time.)
In the past 24 hours, the US Air Force finished a major buildup at the big US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. B-1B bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets were brought over from other US Mid East air facilities on the Omani island of Masirah and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
These squadrons were not assigned to the US military strike against Syria, say our military sources, but will stand ready to move in should unforeseen complications in the course of the US missile assault on Syria call for the introduction of extra assets from outside.
Israeli officials and spokesmen continued to insist Wednesday on low expectations of a Syrian counter-offensive against their country.
Nevertheless, the new US air force reinforcements in Qatar will stand ready to rush to the aid of US allies – Israel, Jordan and Turkey – in the event of their coming under Syrian Scud attack.
On the opposite side, the Syrian army Tuesday started scattering personnel, weapons and air assets to safe places to reduce their exposure to damage and losses from US assaults.
Our military sources report that personnel, tanks and artillery of the Syrian Army’s 4th and Republican Guard Divisions, which are held responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack on civilians, were being moved into fortified shelters built last year against potential foreign military intervention.
Syrian army command centers in Homs, Hama, Latakia and the Aleppo region were also being split up and dispersed, after a tip-off to Syrian and Russian intelligence that they would be targeted by the US strike.
Syria has also transferred its Air Force fighter planes, bombers and attack helicopters to fortified shelters which are armored against missile and air attack.
In Israel, the IDF continued Wednesday to deploy its anti-missile Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome systems more widely than ever before across the country. Iron Dome batteries were positioned in the heavily populated central region around Greater Tel Aviv.
DEBKAfile’s military sources reported that Israel’s Arrow and Patriot interceptors were linked to the US missile shield, with which their operation has been synchronized.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel was ready for any scenario. Although it takes no part in the Syrian civil war crisis, Israel would not hesitate to fight back for any attempted attacks – and would do so forcefully.
Wednesday morning, the machinery for distributing gas masks to the population broke down under the pressure of demands to distribution centers across the country. The Homeland Ministry’s website crashed. Former Interior Minister Ellie Yishay complained of a shortage of protective masks due to budget cuts. He said there are only enough to supply 40 percent of the population.
@ yamit82:
Always informative.
Laura Said:
Neither are good but with Al-Qaeda, Israel holds the countries they operate in Responsible. Our special forces and drones can handle them as our borders unlike Iraq and Afghanistan are not very long in comparison and in the south quite open and flat. The only caveat is if they come into possession of strategic weapons. Israeli special forces in cooperation with the Egyptian Army is clandestinely operating against them already in the Sinai for example. The Border with Syria is rather short on the Golan and can be defended quite easily. I don’t see them ever gaining control of Syria and if Assad goes I expect to see an all out civil war similar to the one in the 80’s and 90’s in Lebanon. In such a case Israel or the Americans will need to find a way of destroying their rocket and chemical weapons. We know where they are today and who controls them and they are monitored. Al-Qaeda can’t attack Israel and get control of Syria at the same time. The Syrians hate them the anti Assad’s hate them and we hate them. The Syrian Army will resist them. First gas attack from Syria on Israel and they are all toast within an hour. The alternative is not Assad or Al-Qaeda.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, you may be correct about preferring al-Qaeda to win in Syria and Assad broken. If so, that breaks Iran’s connection to the Shi’a Hezbolla and reduces Syria to something close to present day Iraq, which has been a non-functioning country dominated by competing gangs ever since the US sent Saddam Hussein into hiding then got him into the hands of the hangman.
All this is good for Israel. But I want Israel to have credible opportunities to take more land from Syria to the northeast and from Lebanon in the south. The Jewish state and the Jewish nation can never have too much territory.
But I also want Israel to have greatly improved relations with Russia and China, and this cannot happen so long as Israel and its Jerusalem-based judenrat is perceived as Washington’s little lapdog.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
I understand what you are saying, but is al qaeda a better choice to be on your border?
CuriousAmerican Said:
Knat-Al-Qaeda vs Elephant-Assad and Iran? Not a difficult choice expect for idiots like you.
Assad is on our border not yours. Assad is no less brutal than Al-Qaeda.
The Sea is the Sea and the dirty stinking diaper heads are still dirty stinking diaper heads no matter what you want to call them.
Assad is the forward advance attack dog of Iran against Israel and the conduit for support and supply of Hezbollah an Iranian proxy against Israel. Between Hezbollah and Syria they have 150-160 rockets and missiles in place to be used against Israel some with Chemical capabilities. Syria has a well trained brutal 300,000 man military with thousands of artillery and tanks. The have an aging but still lethal air force. and very good anti aircraft defense system.
Al-Qaeda has at most a few thousand lightly armed fighters along our borders. You want us to ignore Syria in favor of Al-Qaeda?
An attack against Syria is an attack against Iran and for them Syria is of the highest priority. Israel should Nuke Iran but not at the expense of not rendering Syria into a giant parking lot wasteland.
I would leave Arabs alone to kill each other and Muslim Sunni left to kill Shia. Attack them only of attacked first or like Iran an imminent existential threat to us and then not use proportional retaliation but to hit them preemptively with everything we got.
If the Arab Christians get wiped in the process which is probably your concern so be it, it’s not our concern.
Time for some historical payback and I say go for it…We may never have a better opportunity than the present.
I really care no more about Syrian civilians being gassed to death, ostensibly by what purports to be their own government, than most Europeans cared about the Jews who were locked into poison gas chambers, or machine-gunned in the pre-excavated trenches, or who were starved to death by the German Nazi government during World War 2.
And all things considered, I would prefer to see a greatly weakened Assad in solid control at least of the Alawite-inhabited western Syrian lands, than to see an al-Qaeda regime in control of the whole of Syria.
But if the USA, without benefit of US Congressional approval, engages in military operations against Assad and his military forces, and if Assad carries out his threat to attack Israel in response to such US air strikes, as did the late dictator of Iraq in 1991, then I want Israel, in retaliation to take and annex the small part of the Golan Heights that Syria kept at the end of the Yom Kippur war in 1973. In addtion, I want Israel to move north to take the rest of the Mount Hermon area, and if attacks come from southern Lebanon, then I want Israel to invade that place, take and annex the piece of land south of the Litani River gorge, which is a better and more defensible piece of real estate.
In fact, that should be Israel’s permanent policy: Attack Israel and we will conquer, annex, keep and make Jewish more and more pieces of your territories, thus, over time, making us stronger and our enemies weaker.
And no, I would not confer with the United States or any other foreigners any aspect of this permanent policy of the Jewish nation.
And come to think of it, that’s probably the best way to keep US secretaries of state and their designees from parking themselves in Israel for extended periods of time and acting as if they held power over the Jewish nation like the last British high commissioner of Palestine, before he departed in 1948.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Jordan says no Syria strike from its soil.
Amid Syria tension, Israeli cabinet orders limited enlistment of army reserve forces
This is a mistake. Assad is better than Al Qaeda.
They should knock out Iran
Whatever happened to the good ol days when attacks of the enemy weren’t divulged to the enemy first? Just because we have technology that provides instant info globally doesn’t mean you ‘announce’ to the world what the intentions are…..just do it!
Obama and the US Military should give the Syrians another week or two to hide and secure more assets. Don’t really want to harm these guys or their equipment.
This is a classic surprise attack scenario. Maybe it’s so obvious that it won’t be taken seriously by Assad and the Syrian military???