Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi warned Sunday, Oct. 28: “The drone was definitely not the latest Iranian technology.” He was talking about the drone sent by Iran and Hizballah over Israel on Oct. 6 and implying it was not the last word in their armory - or even the last to reach Israel. debkafile: In mid-September, Tehran secretly shipped to Lebanon a batch of its most advanced Ababil-T UAVs for new missions, after developing a new stealth attack series with a range of 2,000 kilometers.

Washington acted fast to hold back Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Lebanese forces from avenging the assassination of Lebanon’s top intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan to save Lebanon from being ripped apart by a civil war. Assad and Nasrallah were allowed to get away with it.

Iran has located its global cyber war-room at Hizballah’s secret internal security apparatus headquarters in South Beirut, under the direction of Hassan Nasrallah’s brother-in-law Wafiq Safa ,debkafile’s exclusive intelligence and counterterrorism sources reveal. The hackers and cyber experts who recently attacked American banks and guided an Iranian stealth drone into Israeli airspace on Oct. 6, operated from this facility and its secret bunkers. No US or Israel action has been taken as yet against this threat to their national security.

Eight nations are embroiled on both sides of the Syrian civil war, although the governments concerned pretend they are keeping to a policy led by the Obama administration of non-intervention. Amid cross-border clashes with Turkey, Bashar Assad has embarked on a scorched earth policy against his country.

Instead of Netanyahu attacking Iran, Khamenei has developed a preemptive strategy for harassing Israel without going far enough to provoke an Israel counter-attack. The stealth drone Iran sent over Israel was not only invisible to Israel but also to US Navy and military radar in the region.

Two Bashar Assad external supporters took significant military steps Wednesday, Oct. 17. Russia started moving advanced S-400 interceptors over to its southern military region opposite Turkey, as Ankara’s clashes with Assad’s forces intensified. Hizballah began removing rockets and fighting units out of their South Lebanon positions opposite Israel and transferring them to the Homs front as back-up for Syrian forces. This attests to the rising scope and fury of the Syrian army’s onslaught on rebel forces.

Ten days after Hizballah launched an Iranian stealth UAV into Israeli air space undetected, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unveiled his new security doctrine in a Knesset speech confirming elections on Jan. 22, 2013. He said that his light but firm finger on the trigger had given Israel seven years without war.
Iran’s leader Khamenei, in contrast, handed Hizballah a $1 m prize for the sending the spy drone in a blatant act of belligerence. He rewarded the Iranian UAV designers with a Porsche car each.

Two days after an Iranian pilotless helicopter breached Israeli air space, Israel Monday, Oct. 8, rushed into position Patriot missile interceptor batteries in different parts of northern Israel, including Mt. Carmel, near Haifa. debkafile: The IDF has drawn initial lessons from the failure of air defense radar to detect the hostile UAV when it flew down Israel’s coastline from the north over Israel’s most sensitive military and industrial centers. The Patriots are there for more Iranian or Hizballah intrusions and to meet the current deterioration in Syria.

Before it was shot down, the large helicopter which breached Israeli airspace Saturday flew over the IDF’s southern facilities, Beersheba and the Israeli Air Force base at Nevatim. It likely had surveillance equipment for recording and beaming back to its Iranian controllers the electronic signatures of the Dimona nuclear reactor’s air defenses and the American X-band radar station linked to the US X-band station in Turkey – the “forward eyes” of the US-Israeli shield against Iranian ballistic missile attack. The UAV should have been shot down much sooner.

Hamas leaders Mahmoud A-Zahar and Deputy commander of its military arm Marwan Issa spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a detailed and binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, debkafile’s exclusive sources disclose. Israelis now ask what guarantees Cairo offers to offset the threat of an Iranian-orchestrated Hamas war operation against Israel from the Gaza Strip or Sinai.

Not all the Israeli units taking part in a major military exercise on the Syrian-Lebanese borders on Sept 19 returned to base after Iran airlifted elite al Qods fighting strength and weapons into Syria and Lebanon. An estimated two IDF divisions are in place in case Syria and Hizballah with Iranian reinforcements go on the offensive against Israel. The Iranian buildup continues. US intelligence sources have since accused Iran of “secretly transporting to Assad large quantities of weapons and military personnel by civilian aircraft - almost daily.”

As Israel and Hizballah teetered on the brink of war, Iran airlifted elite Al Qods units into Lebanon and Syria to shore up the war capabilities and retilt the military balance against Israel.

Gone are the days when Mahmoud A-Zahar, Gaza’s Hamas strongman, received a royal welcome in Tehran. When he arrived in the Iranian capital Sunday, Sept. 9 he found a chilly reception, although he brought with him in secret a large Hamas military delegation to persuade Iran’s leaders that Hamas could be trusted to pull its weight in reprisals for a potential Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program.  Tehran is nonetheless diverting support, arms and funding away from Hamas to the Jihad Islami.

The first US-Turkish backed steps for creating safe havens in Syria and possible Western bombardment of the Syrian army have brought the Middle East close to two dangerous junctures: The Syrian army’s use of chemical and biological weapons, and an outbreak of hostilities between Hizballah and Israel – which nearly happened in mid-week, debkafile reports.
Washington disclosed Friday that Syria’s chemical arsenal was bigger and more widely scattered than suspected hitherto and, therefore, the US may have lost count.

US, Iranian and Israel planners have moved past discussion on whether Israel can be prevented from attacking Iran before the November election and are now talking about their various versions of a second strike option, which all agree will be more devastating than the first.

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.

Seeing he cannot defeat the rebels, now boosted by an influx of foreign jihadists, Assad is stiffening his army and loyal militias with a large injection of Shiite volunteers from Iran, Lebanon, Africa and the Gulf. However, the foreign Sunni and Shiite fighters will soon be at each other’s ...

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.

Hassan Nasrallah has released a video clip recording Hizballah’s 2006 raid which ended in the deaths of eight IDF soldiers and the kidnapping of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Hot military pursuit for their rescue mired Israel in the ill-prepared, misconceived Second Lebanon war which Hizballah claimed to have won. debkafile: The tape is designed and timed as a warning to Israel that Nasrallah is free to launch his next war with a similar ending any time now, fully backed by Iran and Syria.

Although six governments are helping the Syrian rebels, Israel and Jordan are Assad’s primary targets for chemical weapon retaliation. Unmoved by US and Israeli warnings, he keeps those weapons ready for use at a time of his choosing.