President Ahmadinejad is smearing his enemies while under persecution himself for insisting on pushing his own candidate for president in the June 24 election and bringing the economy to the brink of disaster.

Israeli jets were reported flying over Damascus by foreign sources in the last few hours Sunday (April 28). debkafile: Iran is pushing Bashar Assad hard to let Hizballah have sophisticated weapons, including self-propelled SA-17 interceptor missile systems.

The Al Qods Brigades chief, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, candidly Iran’s hopes and ambitions in a public lecture this week. He indicated that Syria is no longer the focus of Iran’s plans of expansion but rather Iraq, which has been chosen as the main vehicle for exporting the Shiite ...

Amid detailed coverage of Korean crisis through North Korean and American moves, important Chinese and Russian military movements are ignored. Moscow and China are unlikely to bring Kim Jong-Un to heel until Washington agrees to link the Korean case to its disputed policies on Iran and Syria.

The rebel fighters’ newly-acquired antitank guided missiles-ATGM (of both Russian and American manufacture) are knocking over the T-72 tanks of the 4^th Republican Guard Division and the 3^rd Division, the backbone of the capital’s defenses, while their portable MANPAD air defense systems have brought practically all takeoffs and landings ...

Iran and Russian step up their cooperation for boosting Assad’s army with continuous airlifts of war materiel, landed close to the war arenas against a prospective Western invasion of Syria. This could bring US and Israeli troops into direct confrontation with Iranian combatants.

After sustaining a succession of setbacks and rejections in the Arab Revolt, Hizballah faces its most agonizing debacle at the hands of its sworn enemies, Israel and the United States, if they go ahead with an operation against Assad’s chemical weapons.

Middle East tensions are spiraling six days before US President Barack Obama lands in the Middle East. Thursday night, March 14, an Iranian fighter jet tried to bring down a US Predator drone over the Straits of Hormuz – until a US fighter escort fired warning flares.  Syria threatened to bomb Lebanon unless Lebanese Islamists stopped pouring into Syria to fight with Jabhat a-Nusra. Three Russian warships carrying marines entered Beirut port for the first time after the Syrian Tartus port was judged unsafe.

The Syrian opposition and rebels have come to terms with their inability to beat Assad’s army on the battlefield and are ready to talk. Assad won’t hear of stepping down and is preparing to run for another presidential term in 2014. Moscow which is hosting the talks stands behind ...

Khamenei has cut short the brawl between Ahmadinejad and Speaker Larijani in the run-up to the June presidential election, by picking a bland, unassuming professor as his favorite candidate for next president.

Nigeria reported Wednesday, Feb. 20 that it had busted a terrorist group “backed by Iranian handlers” for gathering intelligence on locations frequented by Americans and Israelis and assassinations. Its leader had received $30,000 from Tehran to expand the group from the Muslim north of the country to the Christian South. In Cyprus, Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, 24, admitted at his trial that he was a Hizballah member, who spied on locations frequented by Israelis in Limassol and acted as Hizballah “courier” in EU countries.

Tehran believes the precision of the attack which killed IRGC General Hassan Shateri is evidence of deep intelligence penetration, and has placed Israel in its sights for payback. DEBKAfile: The general's last assignment was the formation of a guerrilla army of 5,000 Revolutionary Guardsmen and 5,000 Hizballlah operatives to fortify the defenses of Bashar Assad’s governing institutions and secure the main Syria-Lebanon route. Iran is determined to get Hizballah’s advanced weapons transferred from Syria to Lebanon, whatever it takes.

The Syrian and Israeli armies have been on a high state of preparedness for two months ready a) for Assad to pay Israel back for its attack and b) for Israel to strike weapons transfers to Hizballah in Lebanon. Israel meanwhile imposes no-fly zones over three Syrian borders.

Iran is squeezing Assad hard to push Hizballah’s weapons out of Syrian stores across the border into Lebanon. He is too heavily dependent on Tehran to refuse. Assad is also waiting for the weather to clear to settle his accounts with Israel with a limited military strike.

Turkish interior minister Moammer Guler identified the suicide bomber who detonated an explosive Friday, Feb. 1 at the US embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard, as Ecevit Sanli, 31, a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), an outlawed left-wing terrorist group.  He was released from Turkish jail eight months ago. debkafile: The DHKP/C, which is associated with Lebanese terrorist groups and Syrian left-wing factions, was suspected of the attack killing five Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last July.

Obama was convinced that by sundering Assad’s military links with Hizballah, Iran would be isolated and Assad bereft of his regime’s most active support and shield.

Tehran is looking seriously at a limited Syrian-Lebanese clash of arms with Israel – possibly using Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons as a trigger, debkafile discloses.  Israel reacted to this news by announcing Sunday, Jan. 27, the deployment of Iron Dome anti-missile batteries in northern Israel and Haifa port.  A clash would serve Tehran by sidetracking Israel from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities and help spin out its nuclear talks with the Six Powers. Israel has got plans ready for current military challenges.

The Turkish prime minister believes a resolution of the long and bloody feud with the Kurdish PKK will bring him the presidency in 2014. Iran will do its best to thwart a deal that grants more autonomy to Turkish Kurds as an undesirable precedent for stirring up its own ...

Moscow Monday, Jan. 21 said two Russian planes would land in Beirut Tuesday to evacuate 100 Russians from Syria, and contingency plans were in hand to lift 30,000 Russians from the embattled country. debkafile: This was decided after Bashar Assad told his high command to organize mobile armored strike groups for a big push to evict rebel forces from the places they captured. Russia and Iran have stepped up their arms deliveries to Assad’s army by sea and by air in support of Assad's coming offensive.

It was the first time in military history that any army had used the state-of-the art Airborne Radar Platform for repulsing a concerted enemy missile attack. Israel unveiled its Regional Airborne Radar Platform C2 in the Gaza operation to show its mettle against a blanket of Hamas missiles. It ...