Iran claimed to have launched a fresh battery of missiles in war games near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in a muscle-flexing exhibition meant to demonstrate its willingness and ability to defend itself against an invasion by Israel or the United States.
And Israel put its latest spy plane on display, which it claims can track [...]

read more....

An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be far more extensive than the 1980 raid. Some of the would-be targets for the Israeli Air Force (IAF) are hardened with concrete coverings and underground rooms. Dozens of planes would have to dodge radar and antiaircraft missile batteries to deliver multiple payloads of penetrating warheads—bought from the [...]

read more....

Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Orginally published in April 2006.
This paper will attempt to fill this gap in the existing literature by providing a rough net assessment of an Israeli strike on known Iranian nuclear facilities. It will do so by taking the strike on Osirak as a generic template for the strike [...]

read more....

Israel has just carried out a major aerial exercise, putting a hundred or so F-15s and F-16s into the skies over the eastern Mediterranean, evidently a rehearsal for a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The move follows the statement earlier this month by Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s deputy prime minister, that an Israeli attack on Iran’s [...]

read more....

DEBKAfile’s Western military sources do not believe that if Israel does attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will resort to the old-fashioned aerial blitz tactic employed in 1981 for bombing Iraq’s Osirak reactor. They therefore challenge the US officials’ conclusion that Israel’s aerial exercise in conjunction with the Greek Air Force over Crete in early June [...]

read more....

Israel has mounted a major long-range military air exercise – involving more than 100 F15 and F16 fighters – as a rehearsal for a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, American officials have indicated.
The fighters, along with refuelling tankers and helicopters able to rescue downed pilots, were mobilised during the first week of June over [...]

read more....

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with [...]

read more....

Is there a significant chance that Israel will attack by year end Iran’s nuclear facilities? The German magazine Spiegel argues so in a two-part article “Mission Doable“ and “‘We Will See a Middle East in Flames’“ (hat tip to Fabius Maximus):
While the Europeans continue to pin their hopes on diplomacy and are convinced that [...]

read more....

The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities — without the Americans, if necessary — is beginning to take shape.
Read More…

read more....

Imagine this: Ten fighter jets take off from a base in northern Israel, fly over Jordan, Iraq and into Iran to bomb air-defense missile systems, radar stations and nuclear facilities. They then leave Iranian airspace safely without sustaining any enemy fire.
Sounds implausible? If the IAF has its way, the possibility will become realistic in the [...]

read more....

According to the reports, the talks will focus on arms sales - including submarines, anti-aircraft missiles, the latest model MiG fighter jets and advanced surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
Israel is particularly concerned with a Syrian request for long-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could threaten IAF jets flying on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
The S-300 is [...]

read more....

In the aftermath of China’s devastating earthquake, Prime Minsister Wen Jiabao is running around the earthquake zone like a fireman, introducing himself as “Grandpa.” The Communist Party is seeking a PR coup that will help end China’s international isolation over Tibet. By Wieland Wagner in Shanghai more…

Photo Gallery: Destruction, Shock and Fear after the Quake
Earthquake [...]

read more....

The ferocity with which Israel responded to the threat posed by a nuclear weapons program in the hands of one of its worst enemies contrasts with the reluctance of the U.S. to attack North Korea’s nuclear facilities over years of off-again, on-again efforts to get the North to abandon the program.
Although the U.S. has repeatedly [...]

read more....