GAZA STRIP - The U.S. has asked Hamas not to talk about contacts with Obama administration officials, a source close to Gaza-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh told London's Arabic-language al-Quds al-Arabi, according to a report in YNet news.

The unnamed source said exiled Hamas leadership in Damascus, presumably Khaled Meshaal, is overseeing the secret contacts with the Americans and that revealing the contacts would "rouse the Jewish lobby and other pressure groups in the U.S. and cause them to pressure the administration to suspend all talks with Hamas."

"This is a sensitive subject," the source said. "The Americans don't want anyone to comment on it because this would catch the attention of pressure groups and cause problems," he said.

According to a Washington-based Arabic-language newspaper, a senior U.S. official will be traveling to an unnamed Arab country to hand deliver a letter from the Obama administration to Hamas officials.

The Washington paper said the U.S. administration has decided it must work with Hamas because of its status in the Arab and Islamic world

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Third US carrier, 4,000 Marines augment US armada opposite Iran
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 28, 2010, 10:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

USS Nassau: More US naval-air-marine muscle off Iran

debkafile's military sources report that Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran's shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.
The USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, tasked with supporting the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet area of operations, is cruising around the Bab al-Mandeb Straits where the Gulf of Aden flows into the Red Sea. Its presence there accounts for Tehran announcing Sunday, June 27 that its "aid ship for Gaza" had been called off, for fear an American military boarding party would intercept the vessel and search it. This would be permissible under the latest UN sanctions punishing the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.
The third US carrier group to reach waters around Iran consists of three vessels:
1. The USS Nassau Amphibious Assault ship is not just an enormous landing craft for the 3,000 Marines aboard; its decks carry 6 vertical take-off AV-HB Harrier attack plans; four AH-1W Super Cobra, twelve CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, as well choppers convertible to fast V-22 Osprey airplanes capable of landing in any conditions.
This vast warship has 1,400 cabinets for sleeping the entire Marine-24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard.
2. The amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde which carries 800 Marines equipped for instantaneous landing.
3. The amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland which carries 400 Marines and 102 commandos trained for special operations behind enemy lines.

debkafile adds: The USS Ashland was the target of an al Qaeda Katyusha rocket attack in 2005 when it was docked in Jordan's Aqaba port next door to the Israeli port of Eilat. One of the rockets exploded in Eilat airport. The ship exited harbor in time to escape harm.
These new arrivals are a massive injection of naval, air and marine muscle to the strength Washington has deployed in the Persian Gulf-Red Sea-Indian Ocean arena in recent months. The USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group consisting of twelve warships is cruising in the Arabian Sea opposite Chah Bahar, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards biggest naval base not far from the Iranian-Pakistan border. It is there that most of Iran's special commando units are housed.
Also posted in the Arabian Sea, further to the west, is the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Strike Group.

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Turkish Forces Kill Kurdish Civilians

by Avi Yellin
The Turkish press reported on Monday that security forces shot dead two villagers gathering herbs in northern Kurdistan after mistaking them for Kurdish resistance fighters.

According to the state-run Anatolian news agency, the killings coincided with an increase in rebel activity by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas against Turkish military targets.

The villagers were collecting thyme when security forces opened fire at Hassa in Hatay province, the agency said without specifying when the killings took place. A third villager was reportedly wounded in the incident.

The nearby Mediterranean port of Iskenderun was the scene of a PKK rocket attack that killed six soldiers at the end of May.

Since then, Kurdish freedom fighters have initiated daring attacks on foreign military positions in portions of their homeland occupied by Turkey and on a bus carrying military personnel in Istanbul.

More than 45,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the conflict since the PKK launched a revolt against Turkish rule in 1984 with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in their ancestral homeland. The United States has announced that it sides with Turkey in the conflict. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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TAU Works on Computer Chip Implant to Treat the Brain

by Hana Levi Julian
A team of scientists at Tel Aviv University is working on a project that involves implanting a computer chip into the brain in order to treat conditions such as depression and Parkinson's disease.

Professor Matti Mintz, a member of the Psychobiology Research Unit at the Department of Psychology, is part of a European consortium that is working on issues relating to neurophysiology, human behavior and mental health.

TAU colleague Professor Yossi Shaham-Diamond is also involved, working on the issue of adding sensors while miniaturizing the size of the deep brain electrodes used to deliver the stimulation. Two other TAU scientists, Professor Hagit Messer-Yaron and Dr. Mira Kalish, are also involved in the project as well as partners from Spain, Austria and England.

The Rehabilitation Nano Chip (ReNaChip), as it is called, is designed to help doctors connect computer software to the brain. If it is successful, the chip will deliver deep brain stimulation precisely to the areas where it is needed. It is hooked up to tiny electrodes implanted directly into the brain - only the electrodes are implanted. The chip itself can be placed just under the skin, "like pacemakers for the heart," explained Mintz, "ensuring the brain is stimulated only when it needs to be."

However, scientists are working towards a chip that can be made small enough to be "etched" on to the electrodes themselves, rather than have to be hooked up.

It is hoped that such technology may someday be used to treat neurologically-based conditions such as depression, Parkinson's disease and possibly diseases involving damage to specific areas of the brain. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Saudi King's Visit to Obama: Price of Peace and Price of Oil

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
U.S. President Barack Obama faces a tough diplomatic test Tuesday when he hosts Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who wants to see more action and fewer words for a new Arab state in place of Israel's post-1967 borders. Iran and the price of oil also are on the agenda.

The Arab world has increasingly expressed disappointment with President Obama since his "reaching out to Muslims" speech in Cairo a year ago. "The king wants to have from Obama the assurance that he is going to solve the issue," according to Khaled Al-Maeena, editor of the Saudi daily Arab News and a member of the king's delegation who was quoted by Reuters.

Last year, President Obama visited the oil kingdom and caused an uproar in the United States and Israel by bowing to the monarch, whose visit to Tuesday is his first to an American president since 2002, when as Crown Prince he met George W. Bush at his Texas ranch.

The monarch then was the personal emissary of the kingdom and almost walked out of the meeting, according to an American official in attendance, because of the lack of readiness of Bush and then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to give carte blanche acceptance of the Saudi 2002 peace initiative. The Arab world has insisted on an "all or nothing" reply to the plan, which would require Israel to accept a divided Jerusalem as well as approximately 5 million foreign Arabs claiming ancestry in the Jewish State.

President Obama's visit to King Abdullah last year also was not a royal success. The President suggested that the king allow Israeli aircraft to fly over Saudi air space, a proposal that was outrightly rejected.

With solid support from the Palestinian Authority and the Arab world not to make any concessions in the Saudi 2002 proposal, King Abdullah comes to Washington armed with the country's huge oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia's increased oil sales to China this year might have been a factor that influenced Beijing to back new United Nations sanctions against Iran, and the United States - and Israel - might have to pay the price. "Arab leaders often request U.S. action on the Palestinian front in return for support on other issues," Reuters reported Monday.

It quoted a Washington think tank researcher that President Obama might ask Saudi Arabia to increase oil production in order to lower prices and thereby hurting Iran's income from its oil exports. Although Saudi Arabia and the United States share a common concern of Iran's development of nuclear capability, King Abdullah might insist that President Obama press Israel to accept his plan in return for hiking oil production.

Regardless of the pleasantries that are normally transmitted at White House meetings, veteran journalist Thomas Lippmann thinks that there will no "game-changing agreements." The former Washington Post correspondent, writing for The Race for Iran, said that the Saudis are disappointed with President Obama's lack of follow-up on his promises in his Cairo speech.

"The dissatisfaction was reflected in a stinging speech delivered to an audience of diplomats and journalists by Prince Turki Al Faisal, former ambassador to the United States," Lippmann wrote. He said that Faisal charged that the United States has forfeited the "moral high ground" in the Middle East through "negligence, ignorance and arrogance."

On Iran, Lippmann wrote, "The Saudis are like the Americans in that they know what they want but do not know how to achieve it. They want the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraq, stop supporting extremist groups and, most important, stop enriching uranium. They do not believe the latest round of economic sanctions will deter Iran, but they oppose military action by the United States -- or, worse yet, Israel -- to halt the nuclear program." (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Hizballah teaming up with Mexicans to infiltrate US?

Lebanese terrorist militia Hizballah is eager to threaten not only Israel, but its allies in the US as well. What better way to reach them than to team up with the top infiltrators of American borders, the Mexican drug cartels?

According to congresswoman Sue Myrick (R-NC), Hizballah agents are coming to Latin America, learning Spanish and then working with drug cartels in the Mexico-US border region to obtain falsified US entry passes. She warned Hizballah could start threatening the southern US from Mexico just as it threatens northern Israel from Lebanon.

Myrick, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she has called on Homeland Security to investigate the matter.

Hizballah has been operating drug trafficking rings in South America for years. The largest operate along the Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay border.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has also befriended the terror group. Several years ago he invited Hizballah to operate freely in his country.

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British to train new Jerusalem Arab police unit

Israel's Ynet news portal revealed on Tuesday that the private British security firm Saladin Security has been hired by the European Union to train a new 80-man Palestinian police unit that will deployed in Jerusalem.

The Palestinians will essentially be trained as commandos, and will be tasked initially with protecting EU facilities on the eastern side of Jerusalem. According to the report, the unit will eventually police the streets of Arab neighborhoods in the Israeli capital, and be a model for new police units in other Palestinian towns.

EU officials said they had already applied for and received licenses from Israel for the Saladin Security instructors to carry weapons in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials deflected questions regarding the story, and EU and Saladin personnel refused to comment.

Israelis responding to the Ynet story fear this is the first sign that their government is preparing to bow to international pressure and surrender the eastern half of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority. Past public opinion polls showed that the vast majority of Israelis oppose dividing Jerusalem under any circumstances.

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Hamas spy: Deportation is death
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
06/29/2010 14:58

US Dept. of Homeland Security seeks to deny asylum to Green Prince.

Hamas spy Mosab Hassan Yousef fears he will be killed if he is deported from the United States to the West Bank. The oldest son of one of Hamas' founders, he was an Israeli spy for a decade, and he abandoned Islam for Christianity, further marking him a traitor.

He is scheduled to plead his case Wednesday to an immigration judge in San Diego, California, four months after publishing memoirs that say he was one of the Shin Bet security agency's best assets and was dubbed The Green Prince, a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists' signature green color.

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Yousef's case seems straightforward: Helping Israel find and kill members of the militant group would make him a marked man back home. Nearly two dozen members of Congress wrote Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano this week that Yousef would be in "grave danger" in the Middle East. Former CIA Director James Woolsey says his deportation would discourage other potential spies.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that such an action would set us back years in the war on terrorism," Woolsey wrote in a letter released by Yousef's attorney. "Mosab's deportation would be such an inhumane act it would constitute a blight on American history."

But the Department of Homeland Security isn't convinced and wants him gone, calling him "a danger to the security of the United States" who has "engaged in terrorist activity."

Yousef, 34, settled in Southern California after stepping off a plane in Los Angeles with a tourist visa in January 2007. He remains free while his application for asylum is considered.

"Exposing terrorist secrets and warning the world in my first book cost me everything. I am a traitor to my people, disowned by my family, a man without a country. And now the country I came to for sanctuary is turning its back," he wrote on his blog last month.

Asylum applicants can close their hearings to the public, but Yousef welcomes the publicity. He urges supporters to contact the Homeland Security attorney assigned to his case and invites anyone in the San Diego area to attend the hearing.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency within Homeland Security that is arguing the government's case, declined to comment, saying in a statement that it "respects the privacy of all individuals involved in the immigration litigation process."

Homeland Security: Yousef is a terrorist danger

Homeland Security called Yousef a terrorist danger when it denied asylum in February 2009 and, in court documents provided to The Associated Press by Yousef's attorney, says he "discusses his extensive involvement with Hamas in great detail" in his recent memoir. It cites a passage in which Yousef identifies five suspects in a 2001 suicide bombing to a Shin Bet official and admits that he drove them to safe houses. It was not more specific in its pre-hearing briefing about the threat he may pose to the U.S.

Yousef says his intelligence work for Israel required him to do anything he could to learn about Hamas and that neither he nor Israel knew they were suspects in the suicide bombing when he gave them rides.

"Yes, while working for Israeli intelligence, I posed as a terrorist," he wrote. "Yes, I carried a gun. Yes, I was in terrorist meetings with Yassir Arafat, my father and other Hamas leaders. It was part of my job."

Israel has not commented on Yousef's claims, though members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee wrote him this month to thank him and recognize his work for Shin Bet.

His attorney, Steven Seick, said Shin Bet will not have a representative address the immigration judge but that the now-retired officer who recruited and supervised him, Gonen Ben-Itzhak, is expected to testify.

Ben-Itzhak wrote that hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians owe their lives to Yousef for preventing violence. The officer is identified only by a pseudonym, Loai, in court documents.

The government does not plan to call witnesses, Seick said.

Yousef's attorney wanted an FBI agent to support Yousef's claim that he gave information about Hamas and terrorism. The FBI refused but said it would not object if Yousef testifies he met twice with agency personnel.

In his book, Yousef describes growing up admiring Hamas and hating Israel, leading him to buy a couple machine guns and a handgun in 1996. He said the guns didn't work and that he was arrested by Israeli forces before he killed anyone.

Yousef says he started working with Shin Bet after witnessing Hamas brutalities in prison that left him disillusioned. He gravitated toward Christianity after his release in 1997, joining a Christian study group after a chance encounter with a British tourist at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.

Yousef says he joined his father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, at many meetings with Palestinian leaders and reported them to Shin Bet. His father, a senior Hamas leader who is serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison, disowned him in March.