Saturday, April 9, Hamas and its allies, acting now on Hizballah guidelines from Lebanon, fired 24 heavy Grad missiles and more than 50 mortars shells at seven southern Israeli towns. At least 20 Israelis were injured or suffered shock. After the IDF killed 17 Hamas and other commanders, Hamas asked for a ceasefire through the UN and its political echelons. Israel replied the request would only be addressed if it came from Hamas military leaders who show no interest in holding their fire.

The accord reached between Saudi King Abdullah and the Bahraini monarch Hamas bin Isa Al Khalifa for the oil island's virtual annexation by Riyadh has so incensed Tehran that armed Iranian-Saudi clashes with the potential for all-out warfare may be unavoidable, debkafile's sources estimate.
Shiite-ruled Iraq would back Tehran in the first Shiite-Sunni collision to be sparked by the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.  The annexation was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly on March 25.

Senior Libyan rebel “officers” sold Hizballah and Hamas thousands of chemical shells from the stocks of mustard and nerve gas that fell into rebel hands when they overran Muammar Qaddafi’s military facilities in and around Benghazi, debkafile’s exclusive sources report. The rebels offloaded an estimated 2,000 artillery shells carrying mustard gas and 1,200 nerve gas shells for cash payment amounting to several million dollars negotiated by Iran. The consignments may still be in Sudan en route for Lebanon and Gaza.

Qaddafi has spent $1.2 billion in a shopping binge for new weapons, some acquired through barter. Libyan rebels only sold arms, mainly chemical weapons to Hizballah and Hamas through Iranian middlemen.

The Saudi-led GCC forces in Bahrain to support the king face the onset of a Shiite guerrilla war organized by Hizballah on Iran's behalf. They all understand that this war will spread further.

The UN Special Lebanon Tribunal was asked to define crimes of terrorism, conspiracy and premeditated murder at its first hearing in the Netherlands Monday, Feb. 7. Its responses will for the first time define terror as an international crime. debkafile's report that within days, pretrial Judge Daniel Fransen is to publish indictments in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafiq Hariri. The judges have therefore jumped the gun on Hizballah.  A showdown looms large in Lebanon too.

A joint Hizballah-Hamas unit used the havoc in Egypt to storm the Wadi Natrun prison north of Cairo Sunday, Jan. 30, and break out 22 members of the Hizballah's spy-cum-terror network, tried and convicted in Egypt for plotting terrorist attacks in Cairo, the Suez Canal and Suez cities and on Israeli vacationers in Sinai in 2007-2008, debkafile reports. They are back in Gaza. Muslim Brotherhood inmates were also freed to boost the anti-Mubarak street protests now in their second week.

Hizballah's campaign against the Hariri Tribunal and the Lebanese government may have gone too far. Syria's Bashar Assad has withdrawn his support in favor of bolstering Saad Hariri and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is planning to murder him to save is own skin from the tribunal.

With minutes to spare, Hizballah called off its plan Wednesday night, Jan. 19, to lay siege to UN offices in Beirut and UNIFIL patrols in the South, debkafile's military sources report.  It was planned to blackmail the UN Secretary into reassessing the UN tribunal's indictments of Hizballah officials for the murder of Rafiq Hariri six years ago, after the tribunal warned that the state of Lebanon would be held accountable for flouting its orders, whichever government was in power.

Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech on the Lebanese crisis, said Sunday night, Jan. 16 that the "opposition-resistance" camp would form a government without Said Hariri, the prime minister he toppled last week, and "exercise its own national convictions." debkafile:  Hizballah's determination to finish the pro-Western Hariri for good is backed by the Syrian president as a means of derailing Obama administration goals for Lebanon.

Lebanon's ex-prime minister Saad Hariri arrived home in the middle of a hectic race by Hizballah's leader Hassan Nasrallah to install an alternative pro-Iranian-Syrian government in order to fend off indictments against his top officials for the murder of Saad Hariri's father six years ago. Hizballah believes a bloodless coup through parliament will enable him to invalidate the Special Lebanese Tribunal, whose prosecutor is expected to hand his findings to the pre-trial judge momentarily.

Despite the ill-fated American involvement in Lebanon of former years, the Obama administration believes he can beat Tehran at its own game by backing the pro-Western coalition headed by Saad Hariri and bringing his father's assassins, Hizballah, to justice. Tehran is banking on Hizballah's prowess as the strongest military ...

President Barack Obama is bent on bringing Hizballah officials to justice for their role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut five years ago – even after they toppled the Lebanese government.  If a transitional government in Beirut declares the international tribunal – STL – invalid, Washington intends to obtain its authorization for trying Hizballah suspects in abstentia, debkafile reports. Prime Minister Hariri flew Thursday from Paris to Ankara.

Backed from Tehran, Hizballah and its Christian ally Michel Aoun abruptly quit the Lebanese unity government Wednesday, Jan. 12, to pave the way for their seizure of power in Beirut. They struck as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's prosecutor prepared to hand over "within hours or days" indictments naming Hizballah officials in the Hariri assassination. The US and France are bolstering their naval units ready for a showdown over Beirut. Israel is on standby.

After studying Israel's military exercise near the Syrian-Lebanese border last week, Tehran transferred a team of Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Special Engineers from Syria to Lebanon for recommendations on how its lessons should be applied to Hizballah's war array, debkafile reports. Some 20-30 Iranian officer-engineers are examining Hizballah fortifications sector by sector. The Israeli exercise simulated a drive into Lebanon by IDF infantry and armored forces in the event of a large-scale Hizballah incursion into N. Israel.

In his speech Thursday, Dec. 16, Hassan Nasrallah sounded like his usual pugnacious self, damning America and forecasting an Israeli defeat in the next war. He even staged a dramatic backdrop of  "Israeli spy equipment" dismantled on two Lebanese peaks that very day. But, according to debkafile's sources, it was all a show to conceal his surrender to the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 murder and his instruction to high-ranking Hizballah suspects to turn themselves in.

The espionage devices found on Mount Sannine, northeast of Beirut and Barouk Mountain in the Chouf east of the capital, and dismantled by the Lebanese army Wednesday, Dec. 15 after receiving a tipoff from Hizballah, were there to detect and keep track of ground-to-ground missiles installed and operating in central and western Syria and all of Lebanon, debkafile's intelligence sources report. The photos released show no sign of the winter conditions prevailing in the region.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri ended his two-day visit to Tehran Monday, Nov. 29, with consent for Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers to take part for the first time in coordinating sessions between Lebanese army and Hizballah commanders, debkafile's military and Iranian sources report. Supreme leader AliKhamenei gave Hariri his new orders, indicating that the only way to save Lebanon from deathly internal strife was for him to consolidate relations with Hizballah "as the same front."

Lebanese Director of Intelligence Col. Wissam al Hassan has been a Hizballah mole has since 2004, keeping his masters a few steps ahead of American and Arab Middle East activities. The Lebanese tribunal found himself also in charge of Rafiq Hariri's security at the time of his murder in ...

Israeli Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin warned the Israel cabinet Sunday, Nov. 21:  "Tel Aviv will be a front line in the next conflict."  debkafile's military sources report he was referring to the thousands of missiles with enhanced ranges of 300 kilometers Syria and Hizballah have received from Iran and which Iranian engineers are outfitting with guidance systems to challenge Israel's aerial capabilities and missile defenses. Syria's chemical warheads are now fully guided.