US Patriots relocate from Gulf to Jordan. Israel and Turkey pool Syria intelligence

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 28, 2013, 9:45 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags:  Israel-Turkey,  Intelligence,  Patriots,  Jordan,  US Middle East,

US Patriots moved to Jordan-Syrian border

 

Israel and Turkey agreed last week to start pooling their incoming intelligence on the Syrian civil war, debkafile’s intelligence sources report exclusively. Exchanges will take place at the highest level between Mossad Director Tamir Pardo and Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey’s MIT.

The United States will also provide additional security for Syria’s southern neighbor by the relocation of US Patriot missile interceptors from West Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to northern Jordan opposite the Syrian border.

US Patriots were deployed on the Turkish-Syrian border last year.
The new Patriot deployment indicates that the Obama administration is now treating the peril to its allies from Syria as greater than the Iranian menace.

Things are also on the move in the Turkish-Israeli arena.
Advantage was taken of the Israeli delegation’s visit to Istanbul Monday, April 22, for negotiations on the amount of compensation to be paid out to the families of the nine Turks who died in a clash of arms with Israeli naval commandoes in May 2010, when their ship, the Mavi Marmara, was stopped from completing its mission to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

As first reported by the last DEBKA-Net-Weekly, the negotiating session was brief. Criteria for determining the amounts of the payouts were settled in less than an hour. A joint Israeli-Turkish group is to calculate the sums and refer their estimates back to the delegations for approval.
The two delegations then got down to the brass tacks of the most pressing issues of interest to them both.

A day earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry had urged Turkey to hurry up and restore its relations with Israel because of the urgent security interests they shared with one another and the United States in the Middle East:

The turbulence in Syria and Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb posed extreme perils to all three nations.
The delegations responded by launching into an intense discussion of ways to further their military and intelligence cooperation for the common benefit.

One immediate decision was for Turkey and Israel to set up a joint mechanism for sharing intelligence on the Syrian conflict.

Turkey and Israel are reputed to have the best Syrian intelligence in the business, but their methods of gathering information, its content and their sources vary.

The Turks use Syrian rebels and Lebanese informants operating in Syria. They don’t command the electronic resources which Israel possesses. The two agencies also maintain contact with different rebel militias.

It was quickly recognized that both agencies have much to gain from a arrangement for sharing their input without further delay.