NATO allies dismayed by US Defense Secretary's cutting the Afghanistan war short by one year without notice. Taliban is playing hard to get over peace talks while Pakistan retaliates for being cut out by letting an Al Qaeda front-man run for parliament.

Monday night, Jan. 2, Al Qaeda claimed to have established its first Jerusalem operational cell calling it the "Sunni Youth Movement Cell in Greater Jerusalem." Bulletin No. 1 with details of the organization and its targets was promised in the next few days. debkafile's counter-terror sources report Israeli security services are taking the development very seriously. They tie it in with Palestinian plans for a West Bank uprising and the jihadist trend spreading through Palestinian centers in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Qatar, encouraged by its successful participation in the campaign to overthrow Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, has established a Sunni Arab intervention force to expedite the drive for Syrian President Bashar Assad's ouster, debkafile's military sources report. The new, highly mobile force has boosted the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army with 2,500 ex-Libyan and active Iraqi terrorists and is commanded by the Libyan ex-al Qaeda militia commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj. Israel should be concerned that the new force may try and reach Gaza.

Egypt's military rulers have their hands too full with the breakdown of order in Egypt's cities to attend to the rising Islamist power in parliament. In any case, we reveal that while the Muslim Brotherhood won the election, the liberal bloc came second – not the Salafis and Mubarak ...

The bid to replace toppled Arab regimes with pro-Western Arab democracies was a complete flop, the US and NATO intelligence chiefs meeting secretly in the third week of September agreed. In Libya, in particular the NATO operation on the side of the rebels opened the door for elements identified ...

The consensus of US and Western intelligence chiefs at their closed door meeting in Langley was that NATO should count itself out of further military interventions in Arab uprisings in the coming year – especially in Syria - after its mistakes in Libya. Reliance on Turkey was seen as a letdown. The Yemeni crisis was judged more dangerous to broader regions of the Middle East and East Africa than the Syrian conflict.

A Saudi tip-off gave the CIA led its drone to strike the convoy carrying two American al Qaeda operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. The price tag: Washington must let Abdullah Ali Saleh return to Yemen without making a fuss. The White House welcomed this first sign of a ...

Away from the optimistic hype surrounding the "Arab Spring" – especially in Libya - and the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, the coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday reveals how Western intelligence chiefs secretly sized up the consequences of both at their first conference in ten months.
Their outlook was far from rosy. The West is nowhere near its goals in the Arab world and the war on al Qaeda faces big obstacles in new places.
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The tip-off which enabled two Hellfire missiles fired by US drones to locate and kill the US-born Anwar al-Awkali reached US intelligence as a result of a power struggle within Al Qaeda's leadership in Yemen. Killed too was a second US-born al Qaeda operative. debkafile's counter-terror sources disclose that the internal strife was sharpened by the recent arrival in Yemen of the new Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zuwahiri, who determined to purge AQAP ranks of its American element ahead of his next plans.

Former Al Qaeda adherent Abdel-Hakim Belhaj is groomed by the US and other NATO allies as future ruler of Libya. They have cast him as the role model of the new Islamist elite "converted to democracy" for future government in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries targeted by the Arabian Spring.

On Wednesday, Aug. 31, the Obama administration admitted that former al Qaeda extremists who fought US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were part of the rebel push to capture Tripoli. Further highlighting Al Qaeda's importance, Muammar Qaddafi instructed his son Saadi to contact self-styled Tripoli commander Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj, one of the a/m extremists, to discuss ways of ending the war. Qaddafi would have to follow in the West's footsteps and work with al Qaeda supporters if he plans guerrilla warfare against the rebels, the US and NATO.

Members of the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – LIFG, are in control of the former strongholds of Muammar Qaddafi captured by Libyan rebels last Sunday, Aug. 21, debkafile reports from Libyan sources. Their chief Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj, an al Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, now calls himself "Commander of the Tripoli Military Council." A US source confirms that NATO's British and French special forces opened Tripoli's door to the rebels. Now, the LIFG is unlikely to relinquish power to the NTC.

Muammar Qaddafi's ouster has opened Tripoli's door to al Qaeda, a covert component of which is harbored by the rebel NTC. The jihads are not averse to playing both sides of the Libyan dividing in hooking up with Qaddafi too. This will depend on AQIM's broader interests in North ...

Thursday, August 18, Israel had its first taste of a sophisticated al Qaeda-style coordinated terrorist attack modeled on the atrocities common in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel's intelligence services, army (IDF) and police were taken by surprise by the scale and slick organization of the multiple assaults staged near Eilat on the highway running south parallel to the Egyptian border by gunmen of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees and Palestinian organizations linked to al Qaeda. Defense Minister Barak: "Gaza is the source of the terror."

Israel goes on highest terror alert after a string of terrorist attacks still ongoing near the Israeli-Egyptian border north of Eilat Thursday, Aug. 18 left seven Israeli soldiers and civilians dead and 33 injured. Five servicemen are in critical condition. Assailants from Sinai used automatic and anti-tank weapons, mortars and roadside bombs for attacks on two buses and civilian and military vehicles on Highway 12. All three gunmen who attacked the bus were located and killed in a firefight with Israeli police. More are sought.

Monday, Aug. 15, three Egyptian army brigades of 1,700 men backed by tanks, an equal number of special policemen and 3,400 security personnel drove into the northern Sinai towns of El Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah thereby launching a mission to retake Sinai from rampant Islamists, who were also responsible for sabotaging a gas pipeline. debkafile: In their first clash with Islamic Liberation Army gunmen, three Egyptian officers were kidnapped, one gunman was killed and 11 detained.

The extremist Somali rebel Al Shabaab exited Mogadishu to escape the famine, regroup after lost battles and asses its relations with al Qaeda. Some militia leaders urge reconciliation with Saudi Arabia; others stronger ties with al Qaeda's Yemeni leader Anwar al-Awlak. Either way, it is too soon for Mogadishu ...

Kuwait prepares for war on Shatt al-Arb outlet to Persian Gulf after Iranian proxy threat against mega-port. Al Qaida threatens Paris, tries to hitch a ride on Britain's mob riots. And Saudi Arabia is braced for dangerous Sunni street protests against the throne.

An al Qaeda branch known as the Al-jamaa Al-islamiya Al-Mokatila is widely believed to be closely associated with rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil and suspected of murdering the rebel commander Maj. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Younis on his behalf. This confirms Muammar Qaddafi's long-held allegations that al Qaeda is part of ...

The Islamic domination of Cairo's Tahrir Square was closely coordinated with al Qaeda-linked attacks in Sinai, as radicals use the post-revolution turmoil to gain strength in Egypt, including the violent Al-Takfir wal-Hijra, believed moribund for decades, which has set up shop in Sinai.