Intelligence circles in the Middle East and Europe were fully abreast of Gen. David Petraeus’s fondness for the company of strong, ambitious women like Paula Broadwell and were not against exploiting those women’s garrulity for their own ends.

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. 

Obama is keen on Muslim Brotherhood collaboration in the war on al Qaeda and other terrorists, including those sponsored by Tehran, and offered to build a hi-tech security radar fence to defend the Suez Canal from the terrorists and smugglers infesting Sinai.

CIA director David Petraeus arrived in Cairo to lead a new anti-terror campaign against al Qaeda in cooperation with Egyptian security. It was launched after the discovery that Ayaman al-Zawahiri has set in motion a new wave of terror after reconstituting his old Egyptian Islamic Jihad and turning Sinai ...

US President Obama wants a settling of accounts with the terrorists who murdered four diplomats in Benghazi before his next debate with Mitt Romney orbefore the Nov. 6 election at latest. Counter-terrorism and intelligence chiefs explain the operation requires time-consuming planning for coordinated attacks on multiple targets in several ...

President Obama will throw his last bid to stop an Israeli attack on Iran when he meets Netanyahu in New York Sept. 28. In the same week, Iran is due to have completed its stock of 270 kilos of 20-percent enriched uranium for a single nuclear bomb.

Turkish army officers have assumed direct command of at least two Syrian rebel brigades fighting Bashar Assad’s government forces, according to debkafile’s exclusive sources. This step and its future expansion, discussed during CIA Director David Petraeus’ talks in Ankara, have sent military tensions rocketing on Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon. A high alert was declared for Israel units on the Syrian and Lebanese borders for a possible backlash after unusual military movements were detected in Syria and among Hizballah concentrations.

Cutting through the US-Israeli debate over where to put “red lines” for Iran, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday night, Sept. 3 that Iran would hit US bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, even if the Americans were not involved in the attack. debkafile: Iran should have enough 20-percent enriched uranium for a bomb by next month. So Tehran expects an Israeli attack before the Nov. 6 US presidential election and has laid down its own red line for war.

President Barack Obama is sending CIA Director David Petraeus in a hurry to Israel Sept. 3.
He will fly in from a visit to Ankara Sunday, where too he faces recriminations over US handling of the Syrian crisis. His visit to Israel is a non-binding gesture that will not stem the rising ill will between Jerusalem and Washington of Iran, because neither the White House nor US top soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey is backtracking or apologizing for his derogatory remarks about the IDF's ability to take Iran on.

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 ...

The US exit from Iraq at year's end leaves in place 30,000 fighters of Iran's Al Qods Brigades trained in elite guerilla warfare. At least half are disguised as private security personnel for Iraqi ministers and politicians in Baghdad, providing Tehran with a strong lever of manipulation. America's Iraq war therefore draws to a close as thousands of Al Qods operatives take up positions in the Green Zone, the Baghdad enclave built at great cost for US headquarters in Iraq.   

The Pakistani and US intelligence chiefs met in Washington to ease the strains between their governments. Their effort faced a mission impossible in view of the Saudi effort to distance Islamabad from its ties with Washington and strengthen the Taliban as the backbone of a future international Sunni militia.