The Daily news Egypt – Egyptian officials say two US vessels have crossed the Suez Canal en route to the Mediterranean Sea to be close to Libya.

The nuclear-powered submarine USS Providence and Destroyer USS Mason entered the canal Saturday from the Red Sea.

The officials said the warships are part of the American carrier battle group led by the USS Enterprise. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

US military officials have ordered warships into the Mediterranean in case they are needed for Libya-related operations ranging from humanitarian assistance to possible military action.

There are at least five major US warships in the Mediterranean, including the USS Kearsarge with a contingent of US Marines on board.

Daily Times – Two Iranian warships, which entered the Mediterranean last month sparking an outcry from Israel, have passed through the Suez Canal back into the Red Sea, naval commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari
said on Saturday.

“The flotilla … has completed its mission successfully in the Mediterranean Sea and has returned to the Red Sea transiting through the Suez Canal,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Sayari as saying. It was the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that Iranian warships had entered the Mediterranean and Iran’s archfoe Israel described the move as a “political provocation.”

The frigate Alvand and supply ship Kharg passed through the Suez Canal on February 22 and docked two days later at the Syrian port of Latakia.

Sayari did not say when the warships began their return journey, but said it took them “10-12 hours to transit” the canal. He said the flotilla conveyed a message of “peace and friendship to friendly countries.” afp

Press TV – Wed Mar 2, 2011 6:42AM

Two US warships would be entering Egypt’s Suez Canal on Wednesday morning as the threat of military intervention in Libya looms large, an Egyptian official says.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious ship capable of carrying up to 2,000 Marines, and the USS Ponce assault ship will be passing through the Mediterranean shortly, Reuters reported Tuesday.

According to top US military officials, the Kearsarge warship will be carrying 400 Marines from the United States and will be joining the USS Enterprise, which is in the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal.

On Monday, the United States positioned naval and air forces around crisis-hit Libya as the Libyan regime’s bloody crackdown on anti-government protests continue to rage in the North African country.

The United States, along with Britain and France, has also sent hundreds of Special Forces to Libya’s east. The forces are setting up bases in the cities of Benghazi and Tobruk.

The move comes against the backdrop of heated discussions over the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya, and a NATO-backed military intervention. The potential intervention, on which no unanimous decision has been made, has raised concerns over dire consequences it might have in Arab states.

However, British envoy to the United Nations Mark Lyall Grant stated that the 15-member UN Security Council, which slapped sanctions on the Libyan regime last week, may decide to put up a no-fly zone in the North African country.

“We will look at what is happening on the ground, and we will look to take whatever measures we consider necessary to respond to events on the ground,” said Grant after the UN General Assembly suspended Libya from the UN Human Rights Council.

On Tuesday, the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) placed heavy emphasis on the need to tackle the growing crisis in Libya through peaceful means.

The organization also said it was against any military intervention in Libya by the United States and its Western allies.

Press TV – Feb 23, 2011 – A senior Iranian army commander says Israel has been outraged by the passage of two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in the country.

“The Zionist regime (Israel) was shocked by the presence of Iran’s naval ships in the Suez Canal and this is the reason that the regime has made propaganda in this regard over recent days,” Iran’s Deputy Army Commander Brigadier General Abdul-Rahim Mousavi told IRNA on Tuesday.

“The global arrogance should know that Iran’s Army is fully ready to defend the ideals of the Islamic Republic,” he added.

The Iranian commander also noted that after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, many countries believed that Iran’s Army would stop activities after a few months but all plots by arrogant powers have been foiled.

“Today, Iran’s Army is among the strongest armies in the region and the world,” he emphasized.

General Mousavi further pointed out that Iran has constantly made efforts to increase its military capabilities as it always predicted the ongoing events in the region and the globe.

The remarks came on the same day that two Iranian vessels, Khark and Alvand, crossed the Suez Canal, a strategic international shipping route in Egypt, and were heading towards the Mediterranean Sea.

The 1,500-ton patrol frigate Alvand is armed with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, while the larger 33,000-ton supply vessel Khark has 250 crewmembers and can carry three helicopters.

Iran’s Navy has announced that dispatching Iranian warships to the Mediterranean is aimed at strengthening friendly relations with other countries and conveying Iran’s message of peace and security in international waterways.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday expressed concerns over the passage of the two Iranian ships through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean.

“Israel views with gravity this Iranian initiative and other developments that reinforce what we have said in past years about Israel’s security needs,” he claimed in a statement released by his office.

“Today we are witnessing the instability of the region in which we live and in which Iran is trying to profit by extending its influence by dispatching two warships to cross the Suez Canal,” added the premier.

DEBKAfile Special Report – February 19, 2011

Cairo and Tehran connived to slip the two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sunday, Feb. 20, after a series of fake delaying tactics agreed between them to cover the flotilla’s movements. Egypt’s military rulers approved the passage of Iranian flotilla through the Suez Canal without inspecting their freights for banned cargo, taking advantage of the sandstorm over the region which obscured them from spy satellites and helped them to give monitors the slip. Tehran marked this landmark event with an official state TV statement Sunday that the ships had entered the Mediterranean and were on their way to Syria.  Sunday, Cairo was still saying they will only reach Suez Monday.

From earlier DEBKAfile reports: Cairo’s approval for Iranian warships transit of the Suez Canal  has brought Israel and Iran closer than ever before to a naval collision at sea.DEBKAfile reports: Israel has learned that the Iranian cruiser Kharg is carrying long-range missiles for Hizballah which it plans to unload at a Syrian port or Beirut harbor.

US State Department spokesman P.J Crowley said he was “highly skeptical” of the Syrian claim that the two ships’ visit was for training. “If the ships move through the canal, we will evaluate what they actually do. It’s not really about the ships. It’s about what the ships are carrying, what’s their destination, what’s the cargo on board, where’s it going, to whom and for what benefit,” Crowley told a news conference.

He was responding to questions in the wake of DEBKAfile’s disclosure that the Karg was carrying missiles for Hizballah and indicating that the US and all other UN members were authorized by UN sanctions against Iran to board and search Iranian ships suspected of carrying illegal weapons.

Heavy US and Israeli pressure failed to dissuade Egypt’s military rulers from letting the Iranian flotilla through Suez. So now the waterway has been opened wide for Iran to consign heavy weapons deliveries to Syria and Lebanon – in the first instance, and eventually to try and break Israel’s naval blockade on the Gaza Strip and bring Hamas the heavy munitions that were impossible to transport through smuggling tunnels.

Israel was closely monitoring the Iranian flotilla, whose visit to the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah on Feb. 6, preparatory to transiting Suez, was first revealed exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 481 on February 10.

Up until now, Saudi Arabia, in close conjunction with Egypt and its President Hosni Mubarak, led the Sunni Arab thrust to contain Iranian expansion – especially in the Persian Gulf. However, the opening of a Saudi port to war ships of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the first time in the history of their relations points to a fundamental shift in Middle East trends in consequence of the Egyptian uprising.  It was also the first time Cairo has permitted Iranian warships to transit Suez from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, although Israeli traffic in the opposite direction had been allowed.
Iran made no secret of its plants to expand its naval and military presence beyond the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to the Mediterranean via Suez: On February 2, Iran’s Deputy Navy Commander Rear Admiral Gholam-Reza Khadem Biqam announced the flotilla’s mission was to “enter the waters of the Red Sea and then be dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea.”

However, Israeli military intelligence which failed to foresee the Egyptian upheaval and its policy-makers ignored the Iranian admiral’s announcement and its strategic import, just as they failed to heed the significance of the Iranian flotilla’s docking in Jeddah.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Iran is rapidly seizing the fall of the Mubarak regime in Cairo and the Saudi King Abdullah’s falling-out with President Barack Obama (seeDEBKAfile of Feb. 10, 2011) as an opportunity not to be missed for establishing a foothold along the Suez Canal and access to the Mediterranean for six gains:

1. To cut off, even partially, the US military and naval Persian Gulf forces from their main route for supplies and reinforcements;
2. To establish an Iranian military-naval grip on the Suez Canal, through which 40 percent of the world’s maritime freights pass every day:
3. To bring an Iranian military presence close enough to menace the Egyptian heartland of Cairo and the Nile Delta and squeeze it into joining the radical Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Turkish alliance;
4. To thread a contiguous Iranian military-naval line from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea through the Suez Canal and the Gaza Strip and up to the ports of Lebanon, where Hizballah has already seized power and toppled the pro-West government.
5. To eventually sever the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, annex it to the Gaza Strip and establish a large Hamas-ruled Palestinian state athwart the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea.
By comparison, a Fatah-led Palestinian state on the West Bank within the American orbit be politically and strategically inferior.
6. To tighten the naval and military siege on Israel.

Press TV – February 17, 2011 – An Iranian Navy official has confirmed reports that two Iranian warships are to cross the Suez Canal, a strategic international shipping route in Egypt.

According to the official, the vessels are on their way to the Suez Canal.

He said that the Iranian officials were in contact with officials in Cairo to secure the Iranian vessels’ passage, adding that Egyptian authorities believed there was nothing wrong with the passage.

Earlier, a Suez Canal official said no Iranian warship was on the waiting list to cross the waterway.

“We did not receive any request for the passage of Iranian warships,” Authority Ahmed al-Manakhly, the head of the canal’s operations room, said.

“Any warship needs approval from the defense ministry and the foreign ministry. We have seen no such approval. Before they pass, I need to have such an approval in my hand,” he added.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had earlier claimed that the Iranian warships’ plan to sail through the canal was an act of provocation.

Fox News - Israel is monitoring two Iranian warships about to pass through the Suez Canal for Syria and warn they might act.

Israeli’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says that “Israel cannot ignore these provocations,” according to ynetnews.com.

Lieberman added that the warships was “a provocation that proves Iran’s nerve and self-esteem is growing from day to day.”

Iran announced plans to deploy warships near Israel and dock at a Syrian port for a year, IsraelNationalNews.com reports.

A senior Israeli official tells the site that “Israel will know how to deal with it.”

Intelligence officials believe that the Iranian warships might be involved in supplying radical Islamic groups in Yemen with weapons, according to UPI.com.

“Might act”? “Israel will know how to deal with it” …

Sure just like the Iranians will “know how to deal with it”…

Welcome to World War Three!

DEBKAfile February 8, 2011

A fresh surge of popular anti-Mubarak protest ripping across Egypt Tuesday, Feb. 8 has brought the country closer to a military coup to stem the anarchy than at any time since the street caught fire on Jan. 25.

Vice President Omar Suleiman warned a group of Egyptian news editors that the only choice is between a descent into further lawlessness and a military takeover in Cairo. The distinguished political pundit of the 1960s and 1970s Hasnin Heikal saw no other way out of the crisis but a government ruling by the army’s bayonets.

The arrival of US naval, marine and air forces in the Suez Canal’s Greater Bitter Lake indicated that the crisis was quickly swerving out of control.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the American force consists of the USS Kearsarge Expeditionary Strike Group of six warships. Helicopters on some of their decks are there to carry and drop the 2,200 marines of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit which has been bolstered by two special operations battalions.

The flotilla has a rapid strike stealth submarine, the USS Scranton, which is designed to support special forces’ operations.

The US strike force has taken up position at a strategic point opposite Ismailia between the west bank of the Suez Canal and its eastern Sinai bank. It is poised for rapid response in the event of the passage of about 40 percent of the world’s marine freights through the Suez Canal being threatened or any other extreme occurrence warranting US military intervention.

For a few hours Tuesday, it looked as though Egypt was finally going back to normal after a two-week popular uprising. But then, suddenly, thousands again took to the streets and squares of Egyptian towns – from the Western desert on the Libyan border up to the northern Sinai town of El Arish in the east, recalling Hosni Mubarak’s warning of chaos if he were to depart too soon.

They mounted their biggest demonstration of the campaign to oust Mubarak – in Cairo, Alexandria, the Delta Cities, the industrial belt around Mahalla-el-Kebir and the steel city of Heluan, shouting “Death to Mubarak!” and “Hang Mubarak!”
Although reforms and pay hikes have been pledged by the new Egyptian government, large groups of workers, mainly in Cairo, rebelled against state-appointed managements and set up “Revolutionary Committees” to run factories and other work places, including Egyptian state TV and Egypt’s biggest weekly “Ros el-Yusuf.”

The stock market and the pyramids remained closed and traffic blocked solid on the streets of Cairo.

The Pentagon is moving U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary, officials said Friday.

The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.

Pentagon officials emphasized that military intervention in Egypt was not being contemplated and that the warships were being moved only for contingency purposes in case evacuations became necessary.

In addition to the Marines, the Kearsarge normally carries around four dozen helicopters and harrier jets that would permit evacuations and other humanitarian operations, the officials said. More than 1,000 Marines from the Kearsarge were sent to Afghanistan last month on a temporary deployment, leaving roughly one-third still aboard, officials said.

In addition, the aircraft carrier Enterprise is in the eastern Mediterranean. The Pentagon originally announced that the carrier was heading through the Suez Canal for the Arabian Gulf, but the crisis in Egypt appears to have prompted a decision to keep it in the Mediterranean at least temporarily.

Source.

Haven’t most if not all US  citizens already been evacuated?