Crossfire War – GAZA – TEHRAN – SINAI WATCH – West Asia – North – Northeast Africa Theatre: Tehran – Damascus – Riyadh – Tripoli – Khartoum – Sinai – Gaza/Rafah – Suez – Cairo – Jerusalem; Egypt Rushes Police Reinforcements to Rafah Terminal to Confront Massive Demonstration Planned By Hamas – Iran on Saturday – Spearhead Units to Attack Egypt’s Control of Rafah Terminal
Night Watch: RAFAH TERMINAL – Debka reports the Egyptian government is rushing police reinforcements from Cairo and Suez towns to the Rafah Terminal crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in order to confront massive demonstrations planned for Saturday by Hamas. The Palestinian terminal crossing has been closed by the government of Egypt President Hosni Mubarak ever since Hamas’ military defeat two months ago of Fatah, the enormously corrupt Palestinian political-military authority nominally headed by President Mahmoud Abbas who I suspect is working with Tehran-Damascus-Hamas behind the scenes and Jerusalem probably knows it but they remain in contact with him discussing latest regional developments. And one of the most important new battlefields has been Mubarak’s closure of the Rafah Terminal, used for years by Hamas and other Palestinian extremist groups to smuggle fighters and explosives into the Gaza Strip and from there to the West Bank. [DEBKA]
This is not the first confrontation or closure but the current one has been going on for two months, has caused enormous economic hardship on the Palestinian population in Gaza, and intensified their sense of extreme desperation. Hamas is right now distributing leaflets, using loudspeakers and minarets calling on heads of households to gather, en masse, for the Saturday demonstration planning for a turnout of 100,000 people. It is also being reported spearhead units have been formed to break through the barriers erected by the Egyptian police and forcibly open the terminal knowing a lot of violence will take place. I would be extremely surprised if the demonstrators are not heavily armed even with rocket propelled grenades (rpg) and machine guns. Debka has consistently reported the massive arms smuggling of weapons into Gaza and that Hamas now seems to have approximately 13,ooo trained men for war and obviously not just against Israel.
Ever since Crossfire War went online, in November 2004, crossfirewar.com has been a chronicle of President Mubarak’s rejection of countless overtures from every Islamic head of state, foreign minister, ambassador, from Rabat to Kuala Lumpur, or the Arab League, to do something anything to support the war against the West-India and to do more to support Palestinian people and each time Mubarak has refused even the recent overture-threat from Tehran. Of course, Iran knew this new Rafah confrontation was coming, planned by Tehran’s leading representative group Hamas so on Saturday the Jihad begins against Mubarak. Palestinian groups, after the break through, will attempt to meet Palestinian communities in the Sinai Peninsula where I suspect they are militarily prepared to receive them and engage any Egyptian police then army response.
Mubarak of course knows Iran is supporting the demonstration against him and will soon after declare war on Iran but he is leading a divided country with a police force and military of divided loyalties. With the enormous amount of smuggling from Egypt to Gaza, literally tons of it each month, proves Tehran has more contact with Egypt’s military than Mubarak. The largest, deadliest civil will not be in Iraq-Lebanon-Palestine but in Egypt, with the governments in Tripoli-Khartoum openly supporting and arming anyone or groups opposed to Mubarak and wants either his overthrow or death. Mubarak’s predecessor was assassinated by a Lieutenant in the Egyptian artillery in 1981 just two years after the Islamic revolution in Iran led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Tehran named a street after the assassin.
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