Shiite unrest is bursting its bounds in the oil-rich Eastern Provinces of Saudi Arabia, dangerously close to the largest oil installations in the world. Tehran is signaling Riyadh that they can be disrupted by sabotage and not just by Iranian missiles.

The fall of Damascus may be drawn-out, bloody and excruciating. It will also have wide regional repercussions, as debkafile shows in this exclusive video, because neither the Assad regime nor Iran will take it lying down.

Western military sources warned Saturday, July 14, that not only Israel, but Turkey and Jordan, too, should prepare for chemical missile strikes by a beleaguered Bashar Assad after missiles were test-fired this week in the Syrian war game against all three. There is disagreement in the West on Assad’s motives for moving his WMD out of storage. Some US officials say he is safeguarding them against falling into rebel hands; British officials report chemical weapons at Homs, Latakia and Aleppo deployed for ethnical cleansing.

Moscow has removed the gloves in its defense of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad.  Wednesday, July 4, senior Russian official Ruslan Pukhov warned: “If the Syrian regime is changed by force or if Russia doesn't like the outcome, it most likely will respond by selling S-300s to Iran."  This threat gave substance to the hints thrown out by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his June 25 visit to Israel about breaking the UN arms embargo against Iran. debkafile’s military sources disclose that Israel has developed counter-measures for this advanced Russian missile.

The Saudis, not invited to join negotiations either on Syria or Iran, have gone ahead with their own plans for beating Iran to the nuclear draw.

Saying “An Islamist flood threatens us all, the Russian president put before the Israeli prime minister propositions of a secret conduit through Moscow to Tehran and help for mending Turkish-Israeli relations in return for a Russian stake in Mediterranean oil.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has often before exploited his many medical problems for manipulation. Although “enjoying” ill health, he is very much in control of affairs of state in the Islamic Republic, although a crop of would-be successors are waiting in the wings for him to go. The radicals have a profound interest in keeping Iran's nuclear program, his pet project, afloat after he is gone, and are exploiting gossip about his ill health to speed matters up.

Russian President Vladimir Putin started putting his plans for Russia to displace the US at key Middle East points at the Moscow nuclear talks and the G20 summit in Mexico where he enlisted China and Iran to defeat Washington’s plans. Starting out with a scheme of revenge for Libya, his ...

Tehran can afford to brush off diplomatic efforts to rein in its nuclear program for two reasons: 1) It is so far advanced that unless stopped, Iran will by December have enough enriched uranium for seven or eight nuclear bombs as well as complete dirty bombs, and 2) It ...

debkafile postulates Syria’s ...

Military tensions around Syria shot up again Monday, June 18, with an Iranian report that a joint Russian-Chinese-Iranian exercise is to take place in Syria, called “the biggest of its kind ever staged in the Middle East,” with 90,000 personnel, 400 air planes and 900 tanks taking part.  debkafile: This would be the first time Russia and China have deployed substantial military strength in the Middle East. It points to their determination to deter a US-lead military operation against the Assad regime.

Tehran has gained recognition of its big power status from a conversation between its senior negotiator Jalili and the EU’s Catherine Ashton without even having to attend the next negotiating session in Moscow.

Tehran early Sunday June 10 accused Syrian rebels of arming themselves with chemical weapons originating in Libya and acquiring training in their use - sending shudders of alarm through the West and Israel. They fear the Assad regime is preparing the ground for chemical assaults to finally crush its foes. Both sides to the conflict are talking about chemical warfare openly. If they go through with it, President Barack Obama will have to reconsider non-intervention and turn to limited force to stop the escalating horror.

After the UN gridlock on the Syrian crisis Thursday, an American delegation headed by Fred Hoff drew a blank in talks at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow Friday, June 8, with Syrian expert, Mikhail Bogdanov. Russia flatly rejected President Barack Obama’s proposal to post 5,000 armed UN monitors in Syria, most of them Russian troops.  Moscow and Tehran calculate that the higher the flames of civil war in Syria, the more the US will be blamed for the bloodshed.They therefore refuse to join any international effort to stop it.

A new contact group, a Syrian military council for provisional rule under the group’s orders, and Russian-Iranian moves to make Assad step down – these are the key points of Obama’s plan for Syria, part of his grand design that also embraces Iran and its nuclear program.

Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalilee wins his spurs as leading presidential contender by his radical nuclear posture against the six world powers.

Iran stalled the US Secretary and UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for a contact group based on five permanent Security Council members and Iran to handle the Syrian impasse, refusing to join the group so long as it faces nuclear conditions. Tehran's non-cooperation on Syria reflected its flat-out rejection of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that Iran come to the nuclear talks in Moscow “ready to take concrete steps” to curb its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Baku, Azerbaijan Wednesday, June 6, amid Ali Khamenei and Vladimir Putin’s deep disapproval of President Ilam Aliyav’s pro-Western orientation and fast-growing ties with Israel. Frictions center on Baku’s $1.6 billion arms transaction with Israel and even more, debkafile reports, on the fact that the deal is matched by expanding Azerbaijani investment in Israel’s Mediterranean gas and oil projects. This tradeoff is marked for expansion.

Two radical developments arising from the Syrian conflict are revealed by debkafile: In an astonishing about face, Turkey has abandoned its 14-month support for the Syrian revolt alongside the West and made common cause with Russia, i.e. Bashar Assad.  Further exacerbating fears of a “proxy war” involving Israel, Iran and Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah is preparing to transfer its Scud D missiles, capable of hitting any point in Israel, from Syria to Lebanon. Israel has threatened to stop their crossing by force.

Despite the deep secrecy surrounding the incident, debkafile reports exclusively that unidentified commandos this week kidnapped five top Hizballah commanders, naming them as Ali Safa, a senior officer of Hizballah’s intelligence service and nephew of Hassan Nasrallah; Hussein Hamid, Dep. Commander of Hizballah forces in South Lebanon;  Ali Zerayb, member of its Jihad Council; Hassan Arzouni, chief of intelligence in the Bint Jbeil district bordering on Israel; and Aras Shoeib, head of training in the Beqaa Valley of E. Lebanon.