Iranian intelligence experts in Damascus have been disrupting the Syrian opposition movement's telephone and Internet links with the outside world and among fellow-protesters in the country. In the last two weeks, the US and Saudi Arabia have smuggled thousands of satellite phones into Syria for opposition activists. This also allows them to continue to transit images of Syrian brutality, debkafile reports.
A new Saudi-funded TV station representing the Syrian opposition began broadcasting on July 19.

New US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki quietly agree to at least 15,000 US troops remaining in Iraq after 2011in the guise of diplomats and other civilian personnel with America keeping control of four big air bases – two of them facing Iran. The Iraqi ...

Al Qaeda is carving out a roomy operations base in South Yemen, while Iranian Al Qods officers are helping Houthi rebels take over the north. Talks with the opposition are at an impasse as President Ali Abdullah Saleh, still recuperating in Riyadh from an attempt on his life, insists ...

After bringing Iran to a nuclear bomb capability, Ahmadinejad might as well go, as far as for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is concerned, especially as he has become ambitious. The shift of power to Khamenei leaves Barak Obama's strategy for engaging Iran high and dry.

Five years after the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid from Gaza, members of his family Saturday, June 25, chained themselves to the fence outside the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's residence in desperate protest.  debkafile: Their protest is misdirected to the wrong address: Even if Israel bowed to every Hamas demand, its leaders backed by Iran and Syria would set a new price as the pretext for holding on to this prime asset.
 

The chaotic slipstream of the Arab Revolt is keeping the sensitive oil industry and the nuclear arms race situation in constant turmoil.  Saudi Arabia is ready to cripple Iran's oil exports and strike Syria's energy resources. Berlusconi hopes to beat Obama to an deal for Libyan oil by secretly ...

On balance, Tehran has decided the Arab Revolt is not good for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nullifying Western influence is good, but the rise of Sunni strength is not, while the revolt engulfing Syria is endangering Iran's nearest and dearest ally. And can Tehran be sure the malaise ...

Turkey considers giving Bashar Assad a last chance before resorting to military action after receiving the promise of a US shield against Iranian or Syrian missile retaliation. Assad, for his part, is rigidly fixated on his harsh crackdown and a victory over the rebels against his regime.

Iran Tuesday, June 14, warned the US against military intervention in Syria. debkafile reports an American naval and ship-borne missile interceptor build-up in the Mediterranean along with US fleet movements in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas. The US Bataan with 2,000 marines, 6 fighter-bombers and 27 helicopters aboard is deployed opposite Syrian shores. Warned of a possible US operation against Syria, Hizballah is moving its ground-to-ground rocket arsenal from northern Lebanon to the center.

Two scandals are rocking the Israeli government: One arises from the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan's deadly attacks on the Netanyahu government; the other from US sanctions suddenly landing on Israel's richest plutocrats, the Ofer Brothers. Both have their roots in the Gulf oil emirate.

Bashar Assad's survival unscratched from the uprising against him would have been impossible without expert and active aid from Iran and Hizballah. It has left the radical Iran-led axis alive and kicking. And the Syrian experience has honed the Syrian-Iranian-Hizballah collaboration into a formidable pro-Shiite combined fighting force. Assad ...

With a new strategic partner in hand after losing Turkey and Mubarak's Egypt, the Israeli prime minister was in a position to underline Israel's continued adherence to its military option against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Secret Saudi-Israeli intelligence parleys are now joined by Jordan.

A large explosion set fire to an oil refinery unit in Abadan, Iran's biggest oil city, shortly after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Tuesday, May 24 to inaugurate a unit for expanding production capacity by 4.2 million liters a day. The blast was attributed by officials to a gas leak or technical fault. debkafile's Iranian sources report that it occurred when the president pushed the button to activate the new unit.
A short time after the blast he was shown live on state TV.

In Syria, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan is up against Iran's al-Qods boss, Maj.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani in backing the revolt against the Assad regime for which Tehran has lined up support.  Bandar's cameras are recording Assad's brutalities. In Yemen, the positions are reversed: Bandar has been helping President Abdullah Ali Saleh cling ...

The rupture between Iran's two top figures, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, is deepening. The latter is battling accusations of underhand dealings with the West, sedition against the regime, a coup conspiracy and… sorcery. Khamenei is blocking Ahmadinejad's efforts to run his close crony for the presidency.

After shelling, tank assaults and siege left 100 protesters dead in the last 48 hours without quelling the unrest, Western intelligence sources believe the menace to the regime has careered too far for President Bashar Assad to hold it at bay - an assessment shared by Ankara. The protest is likely to keep on spreading and evolving into armed rebellion. Those sources estimate the uprising as already encompassing 6-7 million Syrians (out of a population of 26 million) and a third of its area.

The long-expected feud between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad has burst into the open resulting in paralyzed government Iranian intelligence networks. A victory by the supreme leader would draw to an end the president's career. If the latter, he will supersede Khamenei.

After giving up on US and Israel ever confronting Iran, Saudi Arabia has struck out against the Obama administration for a Gulf campaign to cut down the Islamic Republic's drive for a nuclear bomb and its expansionist meddling in Arab countries, debkafile's sources report. King Abdullah is confident that combined Gulf missile, air force and naval strength are capable of striking deep inside Iran. Its nuclear program is seen in Riyadh as gaining momentum after recovering from a cyber war. 

The Egyptian prosecutor general's decicion to put deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons on trial -  the former for his life - indicates the powerlessness of the ruling supreme military council in the face of the street. This weakness emboldens the Muslim Brotherhood and opens the door to ...

Assad looks for scapegoat for his troubles after his fights against the burgeoning uprising against him reaches a stalemate. Tehran found a ready ear in pinning the blame on Saudi Arabia.