Under cover of its four-day military exercise starting Friday, Nov. 18, Iran is reported exclusively by debkafile to be transferring Palestinian terrorist units into Syria after training them at IRGC Al Qods facilities for cross-border raids into the West Bank and Israel.
Iran and Syria are hitting back for the rebel Free Syrian Army-FSA's armed offensive on military installations and commands centers.  Bashar Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf warned last May: "Without stability in Syria, there will be no stability in Israel."

Exhaustive investigations into the deadly explosion of the Sejil-2 ballistic missile at the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Alghadir base last Saturday, Nov. 12  point increasingly to a technical fault caused by the computer system controlling the missile and not the missile itself. The head of Iran's ballistic missile program Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam was among the 36 officers killed in the blast. debkafile: The IRGC is investigating the possible Stuxnet virus infection of this computer system as the cause of the explosion.

Iran has squirreled away 50 million barrels of oil in giant tankers on the Red Sea as its trump card for fixing prices and bypassing sanctions. America wants Israel to harass the tanker fleet and its warship escorts, including submarines, stationed there since July, and chase them away from Israel's ...

Our experts believe the explosion occurred during an advanced experiment on a new Iranian missile and warhead designed to rival Israel's Jericho-3 ballistic missile. A technical malfunction caused the detonation heard as far as Tehran. The test was important enough to keep the entire Iranian leadership standing by for ...

Iran launches a large-scale war game Sunday, partly in Syria and with the participation of Palestinian volunteers who will practice invasions of Israel. Supreme leader Khamenei has reverted to assassinations of opposition leaders overseas and repressive measures at home to stifle rising dissent against the Islamic regime.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose Wednesday, Nov. 16 that none of the experiments Iran was conducting was based on a neutron source.  "It's always simultaneous explosions on heavy metals and certain other activities which cannot be explained," he said. DEBKAfile notes his stress on the lack of evidence that Iran was developing tactical neutron bombs, but it did confim experiments with uranium- and plutonium- based explosives, i.e.,large nuclear bombs, not small, tactical warheads.

The first Western spy satellite images two days after the explosions at the Alghadir Revolutionary Guards base 45 km west of Tehran further deepen the mystery of their cause. The latest  DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday proposes some intriguing answers. In seconds, the vast 52-square kilometer (20 sq. mile) area around the base was laid waste, as though ravaged by a nuclear blast – except for the absence of radioactivity. The Guards have placed the area off-limits and posted special operations units to bar entry.

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By April 2012 Iran will have five nuclear bombs or warheads, says intelligence reaching US president Barack Obama and relayed to Jewish leaders at a closed meeting in New York Sunday, Nov. 13, debkafile's sources report.  The window of opportunity for stopping Iran attaining a nuclear weapon will shut down in late March, after which military action would generate radioactive contamination across the Gulf oil region. Our sources refute claims that Saturday's Iranian base blasts were caused by the CIA or Mossad.

The potential for a regional flare-up shot up Friday and Saturday, Nov-11-12, with the blasts at two Iranian arms bases which killed at least 32 Revolutionary Guards men including Iran's top missile expert, and the Arab League Foreign Ministers' decision to suspend Syria's membership over Bashar Assad's brutal military crackdown on civilians. Even he understands what the AL means by threatening "more steps to protect Syrian civilians." Middle East capitals are on edge for the next acts in the Iranian-Syrian crises.

Brig. Hassan Moghadam, head of Revolutionary Guards missile development and sections of Iran's nuclear program, was killed in the explosions that hit two IRGC bases 46 kilometers west of Tehran Saturday, Nov. 12. The official fatality figure was 32.  The bases are located in Malard, a town in the Shahryar district. The Moadarres facility was the first to be hit, while the second and bigger blast occurred at Amir-al-Mo'menin where ambulances were denied entry due to its sensitivity.

The US president and Israeli prime minister are working amicably on plans for a military attack on Iran's nuclear sites and Revolutionary Guards command. They agree that speed is essential and the campaign must end in days rather than weeks.

Iran's preparations for retaliation for an attack on its nuclear sites can be summed up in numbers: Tehran has amassed 400 WMD-capable ballistic missiles, and divided the country into 12 war sectors, each able to function independently. The Revolutionary Guards have marked 102 US Middle East military targets for ...

Not only has Iran managed to mount nuclear warheads on its Shahab ballistic missiles, they have been successfully tested four times. The IAEA report was only updated to the end of 2009, thereby missing this critical Iranian advance.

There is almost no record of the views and orientation of the new Saudi crown prince and defense minister. However, Princes Nayef and Salman will be running the oil kingdom's foreign and defense affairs in the coming decade, taking the lead for the entire Gulf region as Iran becomes ...

British government ministers have been told to expect Israeli military action in the wake of the UN watchdog report  "as early as Christmas or very early in the new year," the London Daily Mail reported Thursday, Nov. 10.  They were told Israel would strike Iran's nuclear sites "sooner rather than later" – with "logistical support" from the US. A major US concern is said to be that a nuclear-armed Iran would spur Saudi Arabia and Turkey into developing their own weapons.

For the second time in four days, Iran has threatened to annihilate Israel. Sunday, Nov. 6, Tehran said four missiles would be enough to kill a million Israelis. Wednesday, Nov. 9, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, deputy commander of Iran's armed forces, said an American or Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would not only result in the Jewish state's extinction - "Dimona is the most accessible target" - but generate a response that "would not be limited to the Middle East." debkafile's sources report signs of exrreme edginess in Tehran.

The IAEA circulated its Iran report Tuesday night, Nov. 8. It establishes that Iran is clearly working on developing atomic weapons: Its clandestine computer-simulated and practical tests on nuclear detonators, uranium enrichment at hidden sites and tests for adapting nuclear warheads to missiles have no explanation other than work on nuclear weapon components. Israel may decide to delay its military option to give sanctions a chance - even though Washington has dropped them.

Germany has put its Air Force Tornado warplanes in intensive training for a possible attack on targets in Iran, after taking part last week in a joint drill with the Israeli Air Force and other NATO members at the Italian Decimomannu air base on Sardinia.

Iran, for its part, is gearing up for a gloves-off reprisal against its attackers. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's latest issue out this Friday has exclusive details on this menacing military buildup.
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New revelations from US intelligence sources confirm day by day that Iran has attained a nuclear weapon capability: Implosion experiments at Parchin were uncovered Sunday; its six-year old ability to build detonators for triggering a nuclear chain reaction, reported Monday. Stuxnet  which invaded Natanz in June 2010 delayed but did not derail Iran's forward march towards a weapon. The US president and Israeli prime minister vowed never to let Iran attain a nuclear capability. So what are they going to do now?

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) new agency Fars headlined a threat Sunday, Nov. 6: Four Iranian missiles can destroy tiny Israel, said the paper in Tehran's first reaction to the flood of conflicting reports about a possible Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites. The writer is close to Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, says debkafile, Iran's leaders are divided on their assessment of the seriousness of an Israeli or American military threat to their nuclear program.