Excerpts: Powell 's comment on Israeli nukes are speculation.Sunni Islam
ancient dispute newly add. Israel readies for Hizbullah,Hamas rockets
September 17, 2016

+++SOURCE:Al Arabiya 17 Sept.’16:”(US General)Powell’s ‘Israel has 200 nukes’
is ‘speculation’ “,by Associated Press

:SUBJECT: US General Powell say’s re possible Israeli nukes is’speculation’

FULL TEXT:In a private email exchange last year leaked this week by hackers,
former Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed Israel’s nuclear weapons
capability with a friend, saying the country has 200 warheads.

Though Israel is widely believed to have developed nukes decades ago, it has
never declared itself to be a nuclear state. The existence of its weapons
program is considered classified information by both the Israeli and US
governments.

Powell, a retired Army general who has served as White House national
security adviser and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The
Associated Press on Friday[16 Sept] through a spokeswoman he was referring
to public estimates of Israel’s nukes.

“Gen. Powell has not been briefed or had any knowledge from US sources on
the existence and or size of an Israeli nuclear capability,” the statement
said. “He like many people believe that there may be a capability and the
number 200 has been speculated upon in open sources.” It added: “This email
was written 10 years after he left government and has not received briefings
on classified matters.”

Powell, 79, would not say whether he still retains a security clearance.

In the March 2015 exchange from his personal Gmail account, Powell was
discussing a speech that day to a joint session of Congress by Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The conservative Israeli leader staunchly
opposed the deal then proposed by President Barack Obama to curb Iran's
nuclear weapons program.

“Iranians can’t use one if they finally make one,” Powell wrote to
Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds, a hedge-fund founder who serves on the board
of the Colin L. Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City
College of New York. “The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted
on Tehran, and we have thousands.”

Itai Bardov, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to
discuss Powell’s email or his nation's policy of not commenting on whether
it has nuclear weapons.

Asked about the issue at a briefing Friday[16Sept], State Department
spokesman John Kirby also declined to comment.

“I’m not going to discuss matters of intelligence," Kirby said. "We support
the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.”

Powell is not the first top-level US government official to publicly discuss
Israel’s nukes. Former President Jimmy Carter has said in interviews and
speeches that Israel has between 150 and 300 warheads.

But the issue is not supposed to be discussed openly by those who work for
the US government and hold active security clearances. Even members of
Congress are routinely admonished not to even mention the existence of an
Israeli nuclear arsenal, said Avner Cohen, a professor at the James Center
for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International
Studies at Monterey.

“It’s noteworthy that someone like Colin Powell said that,” said Cohen, who
has written extensively about Israel’s nuclear program. “Obviously, he was
privy to all kinds of intelligence on this issue. It’s kind of considered by
everybody to be a public fact, but the United States government as a matter
of policy has never said that.”

Cohen said US intelligence on Israel’s nuclear program carries “top level”
classification. As an indication of the subject’s sensitivity, he pointed to
the recent case James Doyle, a political scientist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico who lost his job after publishing an academic paper
in 2013 that included Israel on a list of nations that either “possess
nuclear arms or are in alliance with nuclear powers.”

Powell’s leaked email, which was among thousands of his messages posted
earlier this week to the website DCLeaks.com, provides fodder for defenders
of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as
secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The Democratic presidential nominee
has faced withering criticism from Republicans for exchanging emails with
her aides that contained sensitive government information.

Powell also used a private America Online email account to communicate with
senior US officials and foreign dignitaries while serving as the nation’s
top diplomat under President George W. Bush. A Republican, Powell said he
never discussed classified information over his private account.

DCLeaks.com has been alleged to be an outlet for hackers tied to Russian
intelligence. The website, which says it intends to expose the misuse of
political power, has released emails from other Washington political
figures.
The release of Powell’s emails is the latest in a string of leaks that
appear intended to influence the 2016 presidential election. The FBI is
investigating how thousands of Democratic National Committee emails were
hacked and published, an embarrassing breach that Clinton’s campaign
maintains was committed by Russia to benefit Donald Trump.

In his emails leaked this week, Powell called the GOP presidential nominee
“a national disgrace” and suggested his own Republican Party is “crashing
and burning.” He also lamented Clinton’s attempt to equate her use of
private email at the State Department with his.



+++SOURCE:Naharnet(Lebanon)17 Sept’16:”Sunni Islam Riven Anew by Ancient
Dispute”,by Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Sunni Islam ancient dispute newly addressed on social media
FULL TEXT:An old rift at the heart of Sunni Islam that once saw clerics
brawl outside a mosque in medieval Baghdad has emerged again, only this time
they are fighting it out on social media.

Clerics from around the world met in August in Grozny to define Sunnism and
oppose extremism at a conference hosted by Chechnya's eccentric strongman
Ramzan Kadyrov.

The gathering excluded the Salafis, the official school of thought in Saudi
Arabia, and was dominated by the Ashaaris -- the main school of Sunni
theologians elsewhere in the Middle East.

The clerics provoked outrage in Saudi Arabia when they issued a concluding
statement defining Sunni theology as Ashaari and Maturidi -- a similar
school of thought -- while not mentioning the Salafis.

The attendance of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious centre of
Islamic learning in Egypt currently being renovated with Saudi funds, only
fuelled the row.

"When you hold a conference to discuss who are Sunnis, how do you
intentionally ignore a cornerstone of Sunnis, the Salafi and Saudi
scholars?" said Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It prompted a sarcastic outburst from prominent Saudi cleric Aid al-Qarni on
Twitter.

"Oh wonder. The country of the two Holy Sanctuaries (in Mecca and Medina),
to which Gabriel descended to the Prophet and his companions, is not Sunni
according to the Chechnya conference!" he wrote.

The dispute dates back to the early Muslim centuries between supporters of
Ashaarism and Hanbalism -- the school of jurisprudence that gave rise to
modern day Salafism.

In 11th Century Baghdad, the Hanbalis and Ashaaris clashed outside a mosque,
throwing stones at each other. A passerby was killed.

When the vizier, the Caliph's first minister, summoned them to a
reconciliation meeting, the chief of the Hanbali faction cut it short.

"These people say I'm an infidel. And we say those who don't share our
belief are infidels," he said, according to a history of Hanbalis by
medieval scholar Ibn Rajab.

- 'Political issue' -While the argument is ancient, "in the last decade,
this is the most prominent example of the most pre-eminent Sunni religious
office, the Sheikh al-Azhar, declaring what Sunnism is theologically," said
H.A. Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, referring to the
Grand Imam.

Salafis -- also identified as Ahl al-Hadith -- subscribe to a literal
interpretation of Koranic verses and prophetic sayings that describe God as
having a hand or a foot. Ashaaris tend to interpret them metaphorically.

The Salafis accuse the Ashaaris of denying God's attributes and the Ashaaris
in turn accuse the Salafis of likening God to his creation by insisting he
has a hand.

The statement did mention Hanbalis, but merely as a school of Islamic law
rather than the theology that has historically been associated with it.

As the controversy grew, Kuwaiti Salafi preacher Naif al-Ajami uploaded a
video on YouTube denouncing the conference.

"The people who most deserve the title of Sunni are the Ahl Al-Hadith, known
today as the Salafis," he said.

Another prominent Saudi cleric, Salman al-Oudah, took to Snapchat to
criticise the conference.

After the backlash, the conference statement was amended to include mention
of "Ahl al-Hadith" as Sunnis.

Habib Ali Jifri, a popular Yemeni cleric who helped organise the conference,
denied that it meant to exclude Salafis.

"When the conference organizers saw the lies that it excluded Ahl al-Hadith
from being Sunnis, it included them along with the Ashaaris and Maturidis,"
he told Agence France Presse in an email.

But debate over the conference also assumed a political tone.

"It's a political issue: it's a political conference to marginalise Islamist
forces," Khashoggi told AFP.

The choice of venue exacerbated the controversy, said Hellyer.

Kadyrov is often criticised for human rights abuses. He is also viewed as a
proxy of Russia, which is propping Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's regime
against Saudi-backed rebels.

"The conference's conclusions were essentially theological -- however the
location of the conference resulted in political reactions, owing to
Kadyrov's political alignments," Hellyer told AFP.

Both Salafi and Ashaari scholars may support their rulers, or oppose them.

But in the Middle East, the preeminent Ashaari and Maturidi clerics of the
past century have been seen as close to their governments.

Salafis -- such as Saudi Arabia's clergy -- can also be supportive of
governments, but jihadists such as those of Al-Qaeda share their theology.

Jifri said he had no qualms about Kadyrov's sponsorship of the conference.

"Chechnya and Caucasus republics have been through a tragedy, partly caused
by the takfiri extremists who kill people in the name of Sunnis," he added.

+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon)17 Sept.’16:”Israel Readies for 1,500 Rockets a
Day from Hizbullah,Hamas”,by Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Israel readies for Hizbullah,Hamas rockets
QUOTE:”nationwide civil defense drill”

FULL TEXT:Israel's army estimates that thousands of rockets could slam into
Israel in any future conflagration, military sources said Friday16 Sept]
ahead of a nationwide civil defense drill.

"Total war on several fronts, destruction of essential equipment and
infrastructure and heavy rocket bombardment" all form part of the scenario
for the exercise, which runs from Sunday until September 21, the army said.

The drill is based on projections of the army's Home Front Command, which
estimates 1,500 rockets crashing into the country each day, military sources
said in a briefing to Israeli reporters, local media reported.

The projectiles could be launched simultaneously by Lebanon's Hizbullah
across Israel's northern border and to a far lesser extent from Hamas-ruled
Gaza in the south.

Hamas is said to have been left seriously weakened after a 2014 Gaza war
against Israel, but it still holds thousands of rockets, according to a
military official.

Hizbullah has at least 100,000 and probably more, said the official,
speaking on condition of anonymity.

Only around one in 100 rockets is likely to hit a building, military sources
say, with the rest falling on open ground or being intercepted by Israel's
Iron Dome missile defense system.

They say 95 percent of rockets fired will likely carry a light payload and
have a range of less than 40 kilometers (25 miles), but Hizbullah can hit
densely-populated central Israel with dozens of rockets each day.

The Home Front Command, tasked with leading and coordinating civil defense,
regularly publishes maps showing the maximum time, by location, that
Israelis have to take shelter after air raid sirens sound.

In Tel Aviv, Israel's seaside commercial and leisure capital, the time to
scramble to safety has been reassessed from 90 seconds at present to 60 in
the next conflict.

After a 2006 war with Hizbullah, an official inquiry criticized authorities
for lack of preparedness and organization in civil defense procedures.

During that conflict, the Lebanese, Iran-backed group rained about 4,000
rockets on Israel and sent a million civilians into shelters, many of them
dilapidated and cramped.

The 34 days of fighting took the lives of more than 1,200 on the Lebanese
side, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, almost all soldiers.
================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA