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Events in the mideast are heating up. Attached is a
clipping from http://www.debka.com/
that discusses Iraq's recent infiltration into Jordan.
Aside from the socio-political turmoil which we'd all
like to see resolved peacefully, once CNN gives this
full coverage, one can only guess the impact on oil futures.
- mark
28 July: Two days ago, DEBKAfile’s weekly intelligence newsletter, DEBKA-Net-Weekly, in conjunction with the second largest electronic news site in America, World Net Daily, broke the news of Iraqi commandos in Jordan.
This is undoubtedly the most important military development in the ten months of the Palestinian confrontation with Israel.
Friday, July 27, Koenig’s World Watch Daily picked up the story verified from a high-placed source in Amman. That source noted that certain unnamed forces were at pains to suppress the information.
Saturday, July 28, Koenig’s provided a follow-up to the DEBKA-Net-Weekly story. It cited the same high-placed Jordanian source as disclosing that a second Iraqi force was now poised on the Jordanian frontier, almost ten times the number of the first wave of invaders - an estimated 10,000-18,000 commando troops.
Also today, the important US investigative publication Global Strafor reported from Washington that the US is on the point of launching a military strike against Iraq.
The original report follows here:
Saddam’s First War Move
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources learn that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has secretly sent troops across the frontier in Jordan, striking the first spark for igniting a Middle East war.
Iraq military units have been infiltrating neighboring Jordan for the past 10 days. Their mission: to reach the Israeli border, cross the Jordan River and move into the main Palestinian cities of the West Bank – Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem – and fight alongside the Palestinians.
The invading units are highly trained and well-equipped commandos able to operate and survive in the field for long periods when cut off from their headquarters and sources of supply.
They are still in the Jordanian desert. What happens to them over this coming weekend could determine if a full-scale war erupts.
The first big Iraqi incursion into Jordan began on July 10 and went on for five days. The king at once proclaimed a supreme state of alert in all Jordanian army units. Israel poured troops into the Jordan Valley region, deploying them along the Jordan River and Jordanian frontier in order to block off the West Bank to Iraqi penetration.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, the Iraqi forces’ first entry point in Jordan was Wadi El Murbah in the central zone of its eastern border with Iraq. From there, they moved to Wadi Athner. A second penetration area was Wadi Hawran in southwest Iraq, not far from the points where the Iraqi, Saudi and Jordanian frontiers meet. The Iraqi forces advanced through the wadi, bypassing Jabal Unayzah in Iraq and coming out inside Jordanian territory near the town of Ruwayshid.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Amman and Jerusalem report that both Israel and Jordan view the Iraqi military operation as an act of war against them. While maintaining official silence, certainly on the Iraqi invasion of Jordan, both countries consider themselves in a state of war with Iraq.
Jordan did attempt in the first days of the incursion to encircle the Iraqi intruders and capture them. But some days of intensive effort with airborne support showed the Jordanian Special Forces that they are no match for 1,000 to 1,500 crack Iraqi commandos. Jordanian fighter planes sent into action were met by dozens of Iraqi fighters, put up over the penetration regions, from Al-Baghdadi, the main Iraqi air base in the central region, south of the town of Arrutba. When SA-6 surface-to-air missile batteries at two recently reopened Iraqi air bases, H3 in the northwest and H3 in the northeast, lit up their radar and locked on to the elderly Jordanian aircraft, lacking electronic counter-measures, they turned tail without snapping a single reconnaissance photo.
Jordan sent desert reconnaissance patrols and intelligence units into Iraq to bring back information on supply lines and reinforcements. What they found sounded even louder alarm bells in Amman: The elite Hummarabi division of the Republican Guard, equipped with T-72 tanks, was now in position between the Jordanian border and the two H bases. They also learned that the Iraqi army had sent at least four armored infantry brigades into the area.
Equally troubling, at the beginning of the week, the Iraqi force already in Jordan was sighted moving west, several groups having reached the sand dunes and wadis known as Abu Haffrah, about 80 km (50 miles) inside Jordanian territory.
King Abdullah decided to take command of the Jordanian forces still chasing the Iraqis intruders. That is why he looked so worried and tired – as though he had not slept for nights – in his public appearances in Amman in the past week. He also appeared in combat fatigues.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that the longer the king, a career officer before he ascended the throne, spent out in the field in eastern Jordan, the more anxious he became. He realized that overcoming the Iraqi force already inside the kingdom would not end his worries. There was still the next stage of Saddam’s plan to face up to, as indicated in the latest intelligence reports on his desk. Iraq had a second wave of troops poised ready to cross into Jordan. Furthermore, Saddam Hussein had secretly appointed his eldest son, Qusay, supreme commander of what the Iraqi president was now describing as “the Iraqi-Jordanian-Israeli front”.
At a military ceremony attended by top Iraqi generals, Saddam, the reports said, had sworn to spare neither effort nor money to provide Qusay with any reinforcements he might request.
Qusay is said to have set up his headquarters at al-Bagdad air force base, to the rear of the Iraqi forces deployed between the H bases and the Jordanian border.
Jordanian intelligence also reported a large concentration of Iraqi forces on the main roads leading from Iraq to Damascus and from Iraq to the Golan Heights.
The Jordanian king was forced to realize that he was not dealing merely with a small-scale invasion of mobile Iraqi forces, but with preparations by his eastern neighbor for war on a regional scale, far beyond the scope of the Jordanian army on its own.
What the intelligence reports omitted to mention was whether Saddam Hussein’s move had been coordinated with either - or both - Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat and Syrian president Bashar Assad.
DEBKA-Weekly-Net sources in Jerusalem and Washington report that at the beginning of the week, King Abdullah put his overseas connections to the test. He asked President George Bush for American intervention against the Iraqi threat. He also turned to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to invoke the secret Israeli-Jordanian defense pact signed by the late King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin that obliges Israel to act against military or terrorist elements endangering the existence of the Kingdom of Jordan or the Hashemite throne.
Several of DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources report that the ways in which the pact may be implemented are under discussion between Israel and Jordan in consultation with Washington, which has its own plans for building up the military pressure on Saddam Hussein.
A top Israeli official said in answer to a question from DEBKA-Net-Weekly:
“We may be back in the 1991 Gulf War, when the administration of Bush Sr. depended heavily on an Arab coalition and demanded that Israeli stand aside. We were therefore prevented from fighting back against the Scud missiles falling on Tel Aviv.
Now, too, Sharon has no wish to get involved in American regional considerations. Our only interest is to stop Iraqi forces from reaching the West Bank and linking up with the Palestinians.” Those words are the key to Sharon’s statement Thursday, July 26, to a group of Likud members in Ariel:
“At the end of the road,” he said, “there are American interests. They want to step up their campaign against Iraq and for this they need the backing of Arab states. They don’t want us (in the way), and I take this as a warning signal.”
These words are completely untypical. Sharon never says a word that is not upbeat when he refers to his relations with the Bush administration.
The coming weekend will be crucial in this regard.
The Jordanian-Iraqi clashes, if they continue, could be the first military step on the road to a Middle East war – without the world even noticing.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’sMiddle East experts point out that if even a small number of Iraqi commandos already in Jordan actually reach the West Bank, Abdullah’s situation will become complicated. He cannot interfere without being branded a collaborator with the Jewish state. But letting Saddam get away with the move and allowing Iraqi troops to cross the Jordan River would effectively reduce him to Saddam’s puppet.
Qusay’s appointment as supreme commander of the new front is another embarrassment. Qusay hates the Hashemites and would enjoy humiliating Abdullah. Forcing Abdullah to receive him as commander of Iraq’s invading force and cooperate with him would be tantamount to making the king bend the knee.
Saddam, meanwhile, appears to be in a win-win situation. He is making good on his promises to a series of PLO delegations visiting Baghdad in the last 10 months to open a second front against Israel to aid the Palestinian battle against Israel. This would show up the rest of the Arab world as shirking their sacred duty towards the Palestinian struggle.
He would also appear in the heroic light of sending an Arab army to fight Israeli head-on, instead of hiding behind long-range missiles.
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