- While no official word has been issued from any world
capital concerning the imminence of a U.S. offensive against Baghdad,
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's
military experts report that the region's armies are all busy in one way
or another getting ready for a surprise U.S. strike on Baghdad and its
regional backlash.
-
- Our sources this week followed the heightened movements
of men, tanks, guns, missiles, warplanes and carriers:
-
- Iraq
-
- For most of the last month, Iraq has been massing troops
in the west along the Jordanian and Syrian borders for fear of a surprise
U.S. military assault on Baghdad by ground or airborne troops from bases
in Jordan, Israel and the Sinai, or from aircraft carriers in the eastern
Mediterranean, DEBKA reports. Two mechanized divisions and the Republican
Guard's Babylon armored division are deployed at the al-Baghdadi base near
the town of Arbuta. Additional anti-aircraft units have reinforced this
facility. Planes carrying chemical weapons have been spotted recently at
several Iraq airfields, mainly the al-Sharaa military airbase 270 miles
north of Baghdad and west of the River Tigris.
-
- Israel
-
- In the last two weeks, according to DEBKA, Israel has
stepped up preparations for standing up to a nuclear, biological and
chemical
attack. The Israel Defense Forces high command has ordered new units to
be set up quickly for training in locating, identifying and neutralizing
nuclear, biological and chemical substances. Thousands of officers and
soldiers, including reservists, have been drawn from various branches of
the military and attached to the new units. They are undergoing lightning
two-week NBC courses, at the end of which they are assigned to permanent
sectors.
-
- One group has been based with commando forces as well
as the armored, mechanized infantry, artillery and combat intelligence
corps. A second group will be deployed at key points in Israeli cities,
such as power stations and water pumping facilities, and distributed among
street blocks.
-
- Unit equipment and soldiers' personal gear are stored
close to these sectors of operation, readily available in an emergency.
These trainees, officers and men are told explicitly to prepare in the
very short term for an Iraqi attack that will include missile and bomber
strikes using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
-
- TV and radio stations were ordered to set up alternative
studios and broadcasting facilities capable of functioning under Iraqi
missile attack.
-
- DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources say Israel's high
command has given the national home-front service until May 25 to complete
the formation of the new units as well as their training and equipment.
The home-front command has received the rating of a combat post. Only the
northern command in charge of Israel's volatile Syrian and Lebanese borders
has been ranked higher.
-
- DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources add that at the
height
of Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank 10 days ago, Israel secretly
began deploying large armored contingents on its border with Egypt in the
wake of intelligence information on Sinai-related Egyptian military
preparations.
-
- Egypt
-
- Ten days ago, Egypt's Sinai Command was ordered to go
on operational footing in the Suez Canal cities of Ismailia and Suez, DEBKA
sources say. The Sinai Command goes on operational footing only when it
prepares for war. The Second and Third Armies under this command have
standing
orders to meet an outbreak of full-scale hostilities by pushing into Sinai
and taking up positions to defend the Suez Canal. The two armies have not
as yet deviated from their regular routines, nor have they called up
reserves.
-
- DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that Israel
quietly asked the United States to sound out Cairo on its military
preparations
and find out if there was any intention of moving units into the Sinai,
where strict troop limitations have been in effect since Israel and Egypt
signed a peace treaty in 1979. Egypt replied that military preparations
in the Middle East are advancing so rapidly that its high command decided
to take minimal logistic steps to make sure it would not be caught
off-guard.
-
-
- Saudi Arabia
-
- DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources say Saudi Arabia has kept
in place the troop concentrations massed two weeks ago along its border
with Jordan ñ despite U.S. President George W. Bush's assurance
to Saudi crown prince Abdullah in Crawford, Texas, that no final date had
been set for a U.S. military offensive against Iraq. The Saudi high command
is taking no chances. Like other military commands around the Middle East,
it is not ruling out a surprise U.S. attack being launched at any moment
against Iraq. For his part, it appears that Abdullah wants to show
Washington
he was serious about his proposal to involve Saudi Arabia militarily in
the West Bank. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources, more than
half of the kingdom's combat units are now in a state of readiness on the
Jordanian frontier.
-
- They are the 14th armored brigade and the 8th and 20th
mechanized brigades.
-
- Saudi Arabia's paratroop brigade is on alert at the Tabuk
base. The 12th armored brigade and 6th mechanized brigade have left Tabuk
and moved northwest to a point across from the Israeli and Jordanian
borders,
says DEBKA.
-
- Jordan
-
- Over the past week, Jordanian units continued moving
east toward the Iraqi frontier. They positioned their 4th and 20th
mechanized
divisions across from Iraqi bases and the H-3 airfield, according to DEBKA
sources. Elements of the divisions were deployed in the northeast, near
the point where the borders of Jordan, Iraq and Syria converge.
-
- Following the recent massive Saudi military deployments
along the kingdom's northern border with Jordan, the Jordanians moved their
3rd armored division south from the Iraqi frontier to the Saudi
border.
-
- Syria
-
- The Syrian army has taken up defensive positions in four
main areas: the Bekaa valley, Baalbek, the Beirut-Damascus highway and
the Israeli-Syrian border in the northern Golan Heights, near Mount Hermon
and Shebaa Farms.
-
- DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report a full combat
alert declared this week for Syria's 1st armored corps in the Damascus
area and the 2nd corps in western Syria and Lebanon.
-
- The 10th mechanized division and elements of the 51st
armored division, stationed until last winter in Beirut, have in the past
few days relocated from western and central Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley
on Lebanon's eastern border with Syria. Some have taken up defensive
positions
along the Beirut-Damascus highway, DEBKA reports.
-
- The 1st corps commands the defenses of Damascus and the
Syrian-Israeli border on the Golan Heights.
-
- The 2nd corps secures Syria's eastern frontier and the
Syrian expeditionary force in Lebanon.
-
- The 27th and 82nd armored brigades of the 3rd division,
and the 87th armored brigade of the 11th division are on the ground in
Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah political and logistic
stronghold.
-
- Syria's elite 14th division, comprised of special forces,
has moved east, says DEBKA, meeting at the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli
borders in the northern Golan Heights, north of Shebaa Farms.
-
- Damascus ordered these military steps after asking Iran
to send new shipments of Fajar-5 surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah
units in southern Lebanon. The missiles have a range of more than 30 miles
and can hit the Israeli port city of Haifa and its military, electronic
and oil industries, and essential utilities. Syria assured the Iranians,
in response to a query, that Hezbollah positions would be authorized to
fire the new missiles as of the first week in May.
-
- According to DEBKA sources, this news sent U.S. Secretary
of State Colin Powell rushing over to Damascus in the middle of his Middle
East mission to defuse the Israel-Palestinian crisis. He sternly warned
Bashar Assad that Israel would lose no time in hitting vital Syrian
military
assets if the Fajar missiles took to the air. Assad gave no sign of his
intentions, DEBKA says.
- ___
-
- Editor's note: DEBKAfile's
electronic news publication is a news-cum-analysis live wire, online round
the clock seven days a week. A weekly edition,DEBKA-Net-Weekly, is now
available through WorldNetDaily.com. Drawing on DEBKAfile's unique sources,
analytical talents and forward-looking insights, it is presented as a
compact,
intelligence-angled weekly package. It is available as a direct e-mail
feed or via the Internet.
-
- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27484
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