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Sat July 31, 2010
Breaking News
Qassam missile from Gaza demolished top floors of empty Sapir College building in Shear Hanegev Saturday night • Obama warns Palestinian leader Abbas his rejection of direct peace talks with Israel could undermine US-Palestinian ties and influence Washington's position on recognizing a Palestinian state • It would also affect international donations to the Palestinian Authority • Iranian oil minister: China has invested $29 b. in oil and gas projects with another$10 b. on the way for big new refineries • Israel launches three air strikes on Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian Grad-missile-mortar attacks Friday • Hamas central Gaza commander Issa Batran who was also in charge of Qassam missile manufacturing was killed • Two Palestinian mortar shells and a missile fired at Eshkol far district Friday • Earlier, a Palestinian made-in-Iran Grad missile from Gaza exploded in a residential area of Ashkelon early Friday, damaging buildings, setting vehicles on fire • Seventeen shock victims evacuated to hospital • Three American soldiers killed by roadside bomb in Afghanistan • In August, 63 US troops and 22 members of other NATO forces were killed in Afghanistan • Funerals with military honors held for six Israeli airmen who died in helicopter training accident in Romania • Afghan Taliban threatens to behead informers revealed by WikiLeaks disclosure of 92,000 classified military documents •
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 31, 2010, 9:37 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Grad missile   Iran   New Hamas army 
Hamas new military command center bombed

Israeli bombers struck Palestinian targets in Gaza city, Deir el Balach in the east and Rafah in the south Friday night, July 30 - in the wake of a Palestinian Iranian-made Grad missile which damaged a high-rise apartment building in Ashkelon, leaving 17 people in shock.

One senior Hamas officer was killed and 8 injured in the raid of an Iran-funded command center set up after Hamas called up all men aged 18 to 25 for its new Palestinian Popular Army.

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Obama's Secret Afghan Policy Switch
Saudis and Pakistanis will lead negotiations with Taliban for ending war.
more
Digital war between US and Britain
WikiLeaks' disclosures are the face of a US-British battle of interests.
more
US Mandate for Saudi King
Taliban returns to Kabul, Assad rides high in Beirut, Baghdad.
more






Headlines
Who leaked the confidential US documents?
DEBKAfile DEBKA-Net-Weekly
July 27, 2010, 3:15 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Britain   US-Afghanistan   Wikileaks 
US Marines battle Taliban in Helmand, Afghanistan

Who profited from dropping 91,000 confidential documents in the lap of Wikileaks.org website this week?
Why only classified US military documents? And how does the leak tie in with the undercover Washington-London feud in Barak Obama's term in office?
DEBKA-Net-Weekly digs deep for sources and motivations in its coming issue out Friday, July 30
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here.

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Crashed Israeli helicopter drilled perilous strikes on Iran-style mountain tunnels
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
July 30, 2010, 10:31 AM (GMT+02:00)
Israeli Air Force helicopter in Romanian search area

The six airmen who died in a Sikorsky "Yasour" CH-53 helicopter crash over the Romanian Carpathian Mountains Monday, July 26, were flown home Friday, July 30, for burial with full military honors. debkafile reports: The Israeli Air Force had been drilling high-risk attacks on precipitous cliff caves similar to the mountain tunnels in which Iran has hidden nuclear facilities.This maneuver requires exceptionally skilled pilots.

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Pirates or rogue Iranian Guards suspected in Hormuz tanker blast
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 29, 2010, 8:07 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Blast on tanker   Hormuz   US-Iran 
Japanese M.Star tanker shows attempt to ignite oil holds

The Japanese supertanker M. STAR was damaged in an attack near the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday, July 28. One lifeboat was blown off the ship and a large dent made in its hull.
debkafile: Most unusually, US Navy and Iranian officials agreed that the the damage to the tanker, the first attacked in the strategic straits, was caused by an explosion by an unknown hand and must be contained before it gets out of control.

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Ahmadinejad: US and Israel plot wars within three months
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 27, 2010, 2:23 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Ahmadinejad   Obama   Two wars 
Muscle-flexing by accusing America

debkafile's Iranian sources quote President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying: "We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot, according to which they seek to launch a psychological war on Iran. They plan to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months," he said, without specifying which countries were the subjects of the alleged conspiracy, only hinting that Israel was directly involved.

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Ex-CIA chief Hayden: Military action against Iran "seems inexorable"
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 25, 2010, 10:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden

Ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sunday, July 25, that during his tenure (under President George W. Bush), a strike was "way down the list" of options. But now it "seems inexorable" because no matter what the US does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.
debkafile: The White House's shift owes more to Saudi King Abdullah's ultimatum than to Israeli leaders' powers of persuasion.

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Hizballah saber-rattling over its expected indictment in Hariri murder
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 25, 2010, 1:53 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Hariri murder   Hizballah   Israel 
Scene of the Hariri assassination in 2005

Hizballah's leader Hassan Nasrallah used threats of violence to toss back the bomb placed under his movement by word that the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon intends to indict high Hizballah security officials for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

debkafile's military sources report that the tribunal's investigators have linked eight of the 20 cell phones found at the scene of the murder to Hizballah's special security and intelligence apparatus and senior commanders.

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Israeli generals win US high-tech ballistic missile tracking system
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
July 18, 2010, 8:41 PM (GMT+02:00)
US AN-TPY-2 radar, coordinated US-Israeli early warning nerve center

A ballistic missile fired at Israeli from any spot in the Middle East, be it Iran, Syria or South Lebanon, can now be tracked from launch by top Israeli commanders by means of the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense System (ALTBMD) developed to protect NATO forces against missile threat and provided Israel by the United States.

For the first time, Israel's war commanders will be forewarned of an approaching ballistic missile, its estimated launch point and impact target.

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Syria massacres Kurds aided by Turkey's Israel-made drones
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
July 17, 2010, 10:27 AM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian troops are locked in battle with Kurdish fighters since Assad's army blasted four northeastern Syrian Kurdish towns in late June, debkafile's exclusive sources report. Hundreds of Kurds are reported dead. The Syrian forces are backed by Heron spy drones Israel sold Turkey, which becomes the first NATO member to share advanced western military technology with a state that sponsors terror. In intense exchanges with Washington, Israel asks NATO command to take this up with Ankara.

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Analysis
Moscow pledges Tehran oil products - against US embargo
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 15, 2010, 11:16 AM (GMT+02:00)
Sergei Shmatko opens Russian energy lifeline for Iran

Countering the new US energy sanctions against Iran, Russian and Iranian ministers Wednesday, July 14 signed energy-related agreements, including sales to Iran of Russian petroleum products and petrochemicals. debkafile's Moscow sources: These pacts offset the impact of Barack Obama's new US sanctions for hitting Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps' prime source of income and void Binyamin Netanyahu's trust in energy sanctions to remove Tehran's nuclear threat.

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Hizballah advances 20,000 troops to Israeli border
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
July 11, 2010, 4:42 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  France   Hizballah   Israel   Lebanon 
Hizballah ammo bunker in Al-Khiam

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps on vowing that Iran will not be allowed to establish an outpost on Israel's borders, but he has not lifted a finger to stop this menace ensconcing itself in the north - even though this is a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701. Iran's proxy has therefore won the first round of its drive to recover the forward positions lost in the 2006 war and stands ready for the next.

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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)
Tags:  Iran   Persian Gulf   USS Nassau 
USS Nassau: More US naval-air-marine muscle off Iran

Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran's shores, debkafile's military sources report. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 marines and sailors, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.
Our sources add: In the face of the USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit around the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, Iran called off its "aid ship" to Gaza.

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Egyptian President Mubarak has cancer of the esophagus
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
July 7, 2010, 3:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
Egyptian and French presidents meet in Paris

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, 83, arrived in Paris this week - officially for meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri. But our Middle East sources sources say he went for medical tests at the exclusive Percy Military Hospital of Clamart, outside Paris.
His son, Gemal Mubarak, 52, has been quietly endorsed as successor by Egypt's military and intelligence leaderships. He must now show he is fit to fill his father's shoes.

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