Iran’s air defense chief Gen. Farzad Esmaili boasted Tuesday, Nov. 12, that the ongoing military exercise was “a strong slap to those countries that threaten [us].” debkafile: Tehran's six-day air defense drill is its answer to the joint US-Israeli maneuver for practicing defenses against an Iranian or Syrian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Patriot anti-missile launches from Palmachim Monday tested US-Israel ability to lock onto Iranian cruise missiles coming from the Mediterranean aboard Iranian military or civilian vessels or Hizballah speedboats.
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Most Palestinians groups met in Gaza City Monday night, Nov. 12, to approve a ceasefire after a three-day, 300-rocket assault on Israel. But the Salafists stayed away, instead firing 5 heavy Grad rockets against Netivot, Beersheba and Ofakim and taking delivery of a fresh load of Grads through the Sinai tunnels, assisted by Tehran’s proxy, Jihad Islam. Yet Israel, Egypt and even Hamas continued to delude themselves that a ceasefire can work - although Israel’s top command reckons it will collapse within days.
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Another shell landed near an Israeli position on the Golan Monday, Nov. 12, less than 24 hours after Damascus promised to silence the mortar battery responsible for “stray shells.” The promise came after Israel fired a Tamuz guided missile into Syria as a warning shot. Monday, Israeli tank fire knocked out the Syrian mortar battery. debkafile: Bashar Assad is provoking the Netanyahu government in the light of its restraint against heavy Palestinian missile fire from Gaza.
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Israel’s deteriorating security situation has erupted simultaneously on two fronts. Sunday, Nov. 11, the IDF fired a Tamuz precision guided missile at a Syrian mortar position as a warning after a stray mortar hit an Israel Golan defense post. It was the fourth incident in 10 days. On the Gaza front, the Palestinians shot Grad missiles at Beersheba – one was intercepted by Iron Dome – after shooting 60 missiles in less than 24 hours. They injured four Israeli soldiers Saturday, four civilians Sunday – apparent victims of Katyushas supplied by Hizballah.
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The resignation of acclaimed national American hero David Petraeus as CIA Director is presented by his friends as an honorable act in the light of an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, 39 - and nothing else. An FBI probe of Broadwell for accessing his e-mail is cited. Neither explanation is really convincing. Republican Party faithful, smarting under Mitt Romney’s election defeat, are trying to connect it to an alleged cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the murder of four US diplomats in Benghazi.
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Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi confirmed Nov. 9 that two Iranian SU-25 jet fighters had fired at an unarmed US MQ-Predator drone over the Persian Gulf a week earlier. debkafile: In September, Tehran twice warned that US targets would be at risk if Israel struck Iranian interests. After an Iranian missile factory was bombed in Khartoum, Iran and Sudan pointed the finger at Israel. In consequence, on Nov. 1, Iranian fighters shot at – and missed – the US drone.
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US President Barack Obama aims to launch direct, fast-track nuclear talks with Tehran in December with a three month deadline for their conclusion, debkafile reports. His advisers warn him that Iran’s campaign for its June 14 presidential election kicks off in March and Tehran cannot be expected to commit to a resolution of their nuclear controversy by then. Iranian strategists would prefer to hold off nuclear diplomacy for eight months until after their election “just as Tehran waited for the US vote.”
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Israel has given Damascus a final warning that a military response would be forthcoming if its fighter aircraft infringed the airspace over the Golan demilitarized zones, debkafile reports. The warning, further ratcheting up border tension, was relayed through the UN Disengagement Observer Force in an effort to contain any spillover of the Syrian civil war across Israel’s border. It applied to any ordnance flying across the border and the entry of Syrian forces to the Golan demilitarized zones.
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Sources in Tehran put out word Sunday, Nov, 4, that Iran had suddenly suspended 20-percent uranium enrichment. An Iranian lawmaker called it a "goodwill" gesture ahead of a new round of talks with the US directly after the presidential election. Two days before the vote, Tehran is transparently throwing its weight behind Obama by suggesting to the American voter that he can solve the nuclear crisis without resorting to war and is Iran’s preferred partner for talks.
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Israel, France and the UK lined up this week for possible military action on Syria and Iran after the US presidential election was over in four days time, debkafile reports. Binyamin Netanyahu spent two days (Oct. 31-Nov. 1) talking to President Francois Holland in France and, the next day, Defense Minister Ehud Barak landed in London, after the top US soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey spent several days in Israel. They all agreed on the unsustainability of current US Mid East on-hold policy after Nov. 6 - whoever was elected.
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Iran’s Saeed Jalili visited Beirut and Damascus for military coordination with Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah on their respective roles in retaliating for a potential US/Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites and the regime in Damascus being squeezed into a danger zone. They decided that in either case, the mutual Iranian-Syrian defense pact would be invoked.
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Iran’s fast-advancing mega-fortification for its nuclear sites gives Israel and its current military capabilities no more than three months for a disruptive - not destructrive - attack on its nuclear program with conventional weapons. A delay will make a tactical nuclear strike the only feasible option. That is the dilemma US President Barack Obama must resolve.
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The US has quietly crafted a new Kurdish state in northern Syria. It is linked to the self-governing Kurdish republic of Iraq and defers to its rulers. Turkey and Iraq feel betrayed by Barack Obama, fearing their own Kurdish minorities like Iran’s Kurds will be swallowed up by the long dreamed-of expanding Kurdish entity.
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The fall of Damascus may be drawn-out, bloody and excruciating. It will also have wide regional repercussions, as debkafile shows in this exclusive video, because neither the Assad regime nor Iran will take it lying down.
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The Saudis, not invited to join negotiations either on Syria or Iran, have gone ahead with their own plans for beating Iran to the nuclear draw.
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debkafile postulates Syria’s division into spheres of influence as the big powers move in.
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For the first time, a thread links the triple rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, with the two terrorist cells captured in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Sunday, Aug. 26, debkafile reports. Both were conceived by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP has ordered its Sinai cells and Egyptian and Palestinian offshoots to step up their attacks and hold Israeli towns, Eilat and Sderot, hostage against pursuit. Fears that chemicals held by the Saudi cell may have reached Sinai.