U.S., Israeli warships cross Suez Canal toward Red Sea

[Luis Miguel]

Report: U.S., Israeli warships cross Suez Canal toward Red Sea

19.06.10

Egypt opposition angered at government for allowing the fleet of more than 12 ships to cross Egyptian manned waterway, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports.

More than twelve United States Naval warships and at least one Israeli ship crossed the Suez Canal towards the Red Sea on Friday, British Arabic Language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday.

According to the report, thousands of Egyptian soldiers were deployed along the Suez Canal guarding the ships' passage, which included a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The Suez Canal is a strategic Egyptian waterway which connects between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years, Al-Quds reported.

Egyptian opposition members have criticized the government for cooperating with the U.S. and Israeli forces and allowing the ships' passage through Egyptian territorial waters.

They said they viewed the event as Egyptian participation in an international scandal, and added that the opposition would not sit with its arms crossed while the country allowed a fleet of U.S. and Israeli military ships to cross.

Hmmm, what are they up to?

 

[Windmill knight]

Report: U.S., Israeli warships cross Suez Canal toward Red Sea

19.06.10

Egypt opposition angered at government for allowing the fleet of more than 12 ships to cross Egyptian manned waterway, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports.

More than twelve United States Naval warships and at least one Israeli ship crossed the Suez Canal towards the Red Sea on Friday, British Arabic Language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday.

According to the report, thousands of Egyptian soldiers were deployed along the Suez Canal guarding the ships' passage, which included a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The Suez Canal is a strategic Egyptian waterway which connects between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years, Al-Quds reported.

Egyptian opposition members have criticized the government for cooperating with the U.S. and Israeli forces and allowing the ships' passage through Egyptian territorial waters.

They said they viewed the event as Egyptian participation in an international scandal, and added that the opposition would not sit with its arms crossed while the country allowed a fleet of U.S. and Israeli military ships to cross.

Hmmm, what are they up to?

I have a very bad feeling about this. Moving fleets costs time and money, so chances are that if they are sending the ships to Iran it's because they plan to use them. Maybe preparations are going all very quietly and undisturbed now that the world is distracted with circuses (but no bread) from the World Cup.

 

[Seamus]

Here is an article that may be related:

U.S. Navy expands 5th Fleet's gulf base

MANAMA, Bahrain, June 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy is doubling the size of its Persian Gulf naval base at Manama, which officials say will greatly enhance the capabilities of the U.S. 5th Fleet, which has headquarters in the island state.

Officials are reluctant to link the $580 million expansion to the confrontation with Iran across the gulf.

They say the project has been in the works since 2003 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But it coincides with a sharp increase in Iranian naval activity in the gulf in recent weeks.

Work on the upgrade began late in May and is scheduled for completion in five years. The expansion will allow U.S. forces to cope with the growing number of threats in the region's strategic waterways.

It will allow the Bahrain facility to handle up to 30 percent more ships than the 300 vessels a year it currently deals with as U.S. naval operations are ramped up, in large part because of the Iranian threat.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which oversees Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and controls strategic missile units, have had a series of naval and air maneuvers in the gulf in recent weeks.

These involved the firing of an array of missiles, including anti-ship weapons, and focused primarily on the Strait of Hormuz.

This is the narrow gateway in and out of the gulf through which some 40 percent of the world's oil supplies pass. Iran has threatened to close the U-shaped bottleneck if it is attacked by the United States or Israel.

The United States maintains at least one carrier task force in the region, along with various other units, as well as Air Force assets, largely deployed in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

If the strait was closed, U.S. naval forces in the gulf would need to operate without seaborne resupply from forces in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.

On April 21, an Iranian Fokker F-27 maritime surveillance aircraft circled the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Oman, at the eastern end of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian aircraft rarely operate there and it was the first time one had approached a U.S. warship. The twin-engined aircraft, believed to be unarmed, circled the carrier for 20 minutes, apparently taking photographs.

Iran's State-run Press TV reported May 10 that the Revolutionary Guards test-fired domestically produced anti-submarine torpedoes during exercises tracking U.S. submarines in the southern gulf.

Press TV reported May 27 that the IRG detected a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine in the Strait of Hormuz.

Other naval exercises involved small high-speed craft operating in swarms in mock attacks on larger vessels, a tactic the Americans expect to be used against their ships if hostilities break out. These would be likely in the strait, where large ships have difficulty maneuvering.

Iran has reportedly been able to acquire a record-breaking British speedboat, known as Bladerunner 51.

U.S. officials fear the Iranians plan to reverse-engineer a fleet of these craft and arm them with Russian-made Shkval, or Squall, torpedoes, which have a running speed of 225 mph, for hit-and-run attacks on large warships.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Iranian freighters, owned by a network of dummy companies to disguise the vessels' nationality, have been used to evade U.S.-led arms embargoes to deliver military-related cargoes to Iran, including the prototype Bladerunner 51 in early 2009.

The rhetoric on both sides has become more heated in recent months as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has pressed for a fourth round on U.N. sanctions on Iran.

CNN reported in April that the Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, was updating plans for military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Pentagon further ratcheted up pressure for military action a few days later when U.S. Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said for the first time that an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure would "go a long way" toward delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

U.S. allies in the region, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have reportedly been pressing Washington to strike Iran. The Arab states in the gulf are particularly vulnerable to Iranian action and want to see it defanged.

Framed to paint Iran as the aggressor of course.

 

[rylek]

Israel is under continuous pressure still related to the massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara and trying to do anything to shift attention away.

Something is in the air, we'll have to wait and see what come of this.

 

[Luis Miguel]

Framed to paint Iran as the aggressor of course.

Israel is under continuous pressure still related to the massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara and trying to do anything to shift attention away.

Something is in the air, we'll have to wait and see what come of this.

I have a very bad feeling about this. Moving fleets costs time and money, so chances are that if they are sending the ships to Iran it's because they plan to use them. Maybe preparations are going all very quietly and undisturbed now that the world is distracted with circuses (but no bread) from the World Cup.

Another important factor to be considered IMO is the Iranian Aid Flotilla to Gaza (now delayed), this very well could be used as a detonator/excuse to begin a big scale conflict with Iran. Some news websites are speculating that this warships could be gearing up for a confrontation with the flotilla but IMO that just doesn't make too much sense.

Also they are starting to disseminate propaganda to make Iran look bad and the provocateur - as Seamas pointed out -, and there are some events that are calling the attention of the people, we have the World Cup - as Windmill Knight said -, the oil spill, the storms and floods around the world, the flotilla Zionist attack... so it really feels that something is starting to build up and the pieces on the chessboard are starting to move.

There's another thing that came to my mind, how could a hypothetic nuclear war would affect the time of "arrival" of the ice age? Just a thought.

 

[Buddy]

Something is in the air, we'll have to wait and see what come of this.

Yep, I just read this on SoTT:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/210873-There-Will-Be-War

If I've learned anything in life, its that when bad stuff happens, there are normally warning signs before. Whether or not you see those warning signs. Several of us have been feeling a building up of something.

Reminds me of that tell-tale bit of rubbing, rubbing, rubbing that takes place when grasshoppers switch to locust mode.1

I was just asking myself the other day: is all the rub rub rubbing 'in the air' the sound of humans getting ready for war?

------------------
1
What transforms the relatively benign grasshopper into the apocalyptic swarms of soldiers we call locusts is a simple thing: proximity to other grasshoppers initiated by feeding behavior.
_http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2010/05/rubbing-rubbing-rubbing.html

 

[mkrnhr]

There is indeed this impression of chess pieces being moved in the dark before the final movement, like before a storm. Usually i'm suspicious of such events as football world cup or Olympic games (ironic name) to be a mediatic cover for big political moves. However, since the attack on the freedom flotilla and the British Petroleum ecocide, it seems to be relatively calm.

 

[pete02]

I too have been fearing something happening soon. :/

There was also the fact that Obama now wants the ability to shut down our internet and that has me feeling like they want to keep us blind to who is really responsible for any attack that might happen. I could easily see them perpetrating another attack on the US and blaming Iran for it. Obama would instantly shut down the internet access claiming national emergency and people over here would have no way to know who was really responsible for it. I'm sure I could take an educated guess but without SOTT and other internet sources I wouldn't be able to really offer proof of anything. Besides that, most of America would ignorantly jump on board with another war anyway I'm afraid.

 

[Luis Miguel]

Iran on war alert over "US and Israeli concentrations" in Azerbaijan

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 23, 2010, 1:23 PM (GMT+02:00)

In a rare move, Iran has declared a state of war on its northwestern border, debkafile's military and Iranian sources report. Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps men and equipment units are being massed in the Caspian Sea region against what Tehran claims are US and Israeli forces concentrated on army and air bases in Azerbaijan ready to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
The announcement came on Tuesday, June 22 from Brig.-Gen Mehdi Moini of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), commander of the forces tasked with "repelling" this American-Israeli offensive. He said: "The mobilization is due to the presence of American and Israeli forces on the western border," adding, "Reinforcements are being dispatched to West Azerbaijan Province because some western countries are fueling ethnic conflicts to destabilize the situation in the region."

In the past, Iranian officials have spoken of US and Israel attacks in general terms. debkafile's Iranian sources note that this is the first time that a specific location was mentioned and large reinforcements dispatched to give the threat substance.

Other Iranian sources report that in the last few days, Israel has secretly transferred a large number of bomber jets to bases in Azerbaijan, via Georgia, and that American special forces are also concentrated in Azerbaijan in preparation for a strike.

No comment has come from Azerbaijan about any of these reports. Iranian Azerbaijan, the destination of the Revolutionary Guards forces reinforcements, borders on Turkey, Iraq and Armenia. Witnesses say long IRGC convoys of tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft units and infantry are seen heading up the main highways to Azerbaijan and then further north to the Caspian Sea.

On Tuesday, June 22, Dr. Uzi Arad, head of Israel's National Security Council and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest adviser, said "The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran is inadequate for thwarting its nuclear progress. A preemptive military strike might eventually be necessary."

debkafile's intelligence and Iranian sources point to three other developments as setting off Iran's war alert:

1. A certain (limited) reinforcement of American and Israeli forces has taken place in Azerbaijan. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem has ever acknowledged a military presence in this country that borders on Iran, but Western intelligence sources say that both keep a wary eye on the goings-on inside Iran from electronic surveillance bases in that country.

2. Iran feels moved to respond to certain US steps: The arrival of the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea and its war games with France and Israel, which included live-fire bombing practices against targets in Iran.

3. The execution of Abdolmalek Rigi, head of the Sunni Baluchi rebel organization (including the Iranian Baluchis), on June 20 was intended as a deterrent for Iran's other minorities. Instead, they are more restive than ever. Several Azeri breakaway movements operate in Iranian Azerbaijan in combination with their brethren across the border. Tehran decided a substantial buildup in the province would serve as a timely measure against possible upheavals.

It looks like the picture is getting clearer :S

Edit: Broken link fixed.

 

[Vulcan59]

John Helmer article on Ansarallah's targeted blockade of the Red Sea.

There is much more at stake. The effectiveness of the Houthi ship targeting campaign has so threatened the movement of vital cargoes into and out of Europe that shipping, port, and military officials in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece are now trying to avert a commercial disaster for themselves by arranging secret safe-passage deals with Yemen and Iran in exchange for which they are applying a blockade on Israel’s cargoes, vessels and ports.

This is the secret which is torpedoing the Pentagon’s multinational Red Sea naval escort plan, called OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN. As the secrecy of Israeli shipping companies spills out, along with the secret dealmaking of the international shipowners with the Houthis, American shipowners are already complaining bitterly at being cut out of the profits. “If the main beneficiary of the operation,” editorializes gCaptain of California, a leading US maritime platform, “is one of the largest shipping corporations in the world [Denmark’s Maersk], then there is a question of whose prosperity is Operation Prosperity Guardian truly guarding?”


Just how accurate is Houthi targeting of concealed Israeli shipping connections?

BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST PALESTINE, THERE ARE NO INNOCENT SHIPS AT SEA

by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with Since the start of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, it has been the claim of the Israelis, thei

johnhelmer.org