-Caveat Lector- http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26283
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! FROM DEBKA INTELLIGENCE FILES U.S. making final break with Arafat? Sources: Arabs told that Yasser no longer deemed Palestinian leader ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- 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. © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com The Bush administration has decided on a final break with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly. DEBKAfile sources in Washington disclose that a firm message sent last week to the Arab governments with whom Washington deals makes it clear that the U.S. no longer deems Arafat the Palestinian people's representative leader. According to sources in Jerusalem and several Middle East and Gulf capitals, the decision was marked final and irreversible. There was more to the decision to pull the plug on Arafat than the discovery of his large-scale arms smuggling operations aboard the Karine-A and his association with Iran. When the U.S. government began a quiet investigation of the Palestinian leader's other links with terrorist bodies, it turned up a tangled clandestine web. A source close to the investigation said to DEBKAfile: "We now know that Arafat used his relations with the U.S. administration and intelligence going back 10 years at least to cover up his long-active reciprocal ties with terror groups operating in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and West Europe." In particular, he never really dropped his close association with Imad Mughniyeh, the Iranian-Lebanese terrorist, whom Iran's hard-line spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, appointed to his top terror operational staff. Mughniyeh started out in the 1970s as a member of Arafat's personal guard Force 17, and the two men never lost touch. Their relations intensified after Mughniyeh joined al-Qaida in the mid-1990s. He has since become Osama bin Laden's chief operations officer. Arafat's hidden links with Iraqi army intelligence elements working with terrorist organizations also came under close scrutiny. Our source commented: "We would not be too surprised to find him dealing indirectly, or even directly, with Osama bin Laden or his top men. For the time being, we are keeping our findings up our sleeves, but if, at some point, letting the public know serves the investigation, we won't stop at blowing the whistle on him." DEBKAfile's sources add that the Arab and European governments also were informed that Washington had imposed a freeze on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process until the Palestinian Authority has a new leader. A number of Middle Easterners and Europeans, in a last-ditch attempt to rescue Arafat, asked the Americans for permission to mediate the crisis. They were handed a list of pre-conditions: Arafat must publicly confess his personal complicity in the aborted Karine-A smuggling attempt, admit his direct contacts with the Iranian leadership and Mughniyeh and apologize for instigating those connections. Next, he must order the arrest, trial and sentencing – for real – of the organizers of the Karine-A gun-running attempt and, furthermore, direct Palestinian security services to disband – by force if need be – all the Palestinian terrorist organizations, including the Fatah-affiliated Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. The discredited Palestinian leader must also expose the Hezbollah and Iraqi military intelligence agents and cells working on his behalf in Palestinian-controlled West Bank and Gaza Strip areas and then deport them all. Finally, Arafat must hand over the terrorist cells he planted among Israeli Arabs and discontinue his subversive machinations in Egypt and Jordan. "What we want," said one American source, "is for Arafat to act like Musharraf and stifle terrorism. But we don't believe he'll do it." Saudi, Egyptian and European sources rejected U.S. terms as synonymous with Arafat's total capitulation and the renunciation of his Intifada and the national goals he set for the Palestinians in September 2000. Immediately after the U.S. decision became known last weekend, DEBKAfile's sources report the affected governments swung into action. To forestall the furious outbreaks of Palestinian violence expected to ensue, the Jordanian army went on top alert and Israel's high command was ordered to stand ready for a general offensive against Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – to be the biggest military operation Israel has ever mounted against the Palestinians. Israel's planning for this offensive entailed the reoccupation of Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and the destruction of the local terrorist infrastructure there. The idea was to block the Gaza border with Egypt and cut off Palestinian forces from their weapons depots in northern Sinai. Those depots are located, according to DEBKAfile's military sources, in el Arish, Egyptian Rafah and fishing villages on Sinai's Mediterranean coast, where Israel cannot bomb them. As Israeli forces prepared for action in the Gaza Strip, Egyptian special police forces – commandos in police uniforms – rushed to those depots and sealed them off against Palestinian access. On the West Bank, Israeli forces prepared their third incursion in six weeks into Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus. The offensive was scheduled for launching after midnight Jan. 28. At the last minute, Sharon called chief of staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz and ordered him to stand down, though not to disband the infantry and tank deployments. According to DEBKAfile's sources, the U.S. and Egypt held Israel back. Washington feared the Israeli operation would peak in the middle of President George W. Bush's first State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday night. Egypt asked for a few days' grace on the remote chance that Arafat could be persuaded to accept a brief halt in the almost daily terror carnage in Israeli towns. In the mean time, Egyptian officials were to enter in a debate with Israeli officials on what was frankly called the "post-Arafat era." One element of that debate was the Egyptian admission that the influence they held over Arafat and his decisions was a thing of the past. Israel's decision to hold its fire was affected most by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak suddenly breaking the ice overlaying relations with the Sharon government since it took office a year ago. On Jan. 27, Sharon's foreign policy adviser, Danny Ayalon, was invited to Cairo to meet the president's senior political adviser, Osama al-Baz. On Jan. 30, defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and his deputy, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, met Mubarak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The note Mubarak and al-Baz struck in these conversations was pessimistic, centering on the fear that Arafat intended setting off a bloody eruption of terror against Israel in order to push the entire Middle East into an overall conflict. The Egyptian ruler felt the time had come to reopen a direct line to Jerusalem. Mubarak had recalled his ambassador from Tel Aviv in November 2000 in protest of Israel's actions against the Palestinian uprising. At that time Cairo saw Arafat as an ally and believed they were working in unison. Along with Mubarak, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Jordan's King Abdullah II engaged in diplomatic maneuvering to meet the crisis. There was enough concern to warrant hasty arrangements for King Abdullah to spend two days in Riyadh this week, after a long period of no contact between the Jordanian and Saudi governments. King Abdullah's visit had three aims, not all connected with the Palestinian issue: To offer his help in reviving a fresh dialogue between the Saudi Crown Prince and the Bush administration and repair some of the damage in their relations. The Saudi ruler asked King Abdullah to relay a personal message to President Bush when they meet at the White House today. According to DEBKAfile's sources, Prince Abdullah had nothing new to say on the foremost bone of contention between him and Bush, America's war on global terror. He merely repeated his demand for the handover to Saudi authorities of all the Saudi nationals held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Washington's rejection of the demand this week further exacerbated the frictions with its erstwhile ally. Having to send messages to Washington indirectly, by means of the Hashemite king, further underlines the sharp decline in the once cordial friendship between Riyadh and Washington. To sound out the Saudi crown prince on an orderly transfer of authority from Arafat to an alternative Palestinian figure acceptable to Riyadh. Abdullah proposed making this a trilateral discussion including Egypt. He was turned down outright. The crown prince refused to hear of Arafat being replaced. To request the reining in of the Saudi intelligence agents who stirred up several days of riots in southern Jordan last month. The king offered in return to lift some of the strict controls he imposed at Jordanian crossing points into Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Abdullah promised to look into the matter and give the king a reply before he traveled to Washington. DEBKAfile's Middle Eastern sources report that over the last weekend Sharon made it clear to the U.S., Egypt and Jordan that while Israel held its army back this week, the gloves would be off if Palestinian missiles fell on Israeli population centers. That would mean total war with the Palestinian Authority. DEBKAfile's military experts confirm that Qasem-1 and Qasem-2, homemade versions of the Hezbollah's Katyusha missiles, have reached Palestinian bases on the West Bank and are configured for taking to the air very soon. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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