Gulf rulers led by Saudi Arabia say that by packing up its bags and leaving, the US military abandoned Iraq the country to an Iranian power grab led by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and released its sectarian demons. They are therefore determined to go it alone against Iran.

Tehran was galvanized by the capture of the US drone into a spurt for spreading its diplomatic wings and showing the departing Americans who is the boss in Baghdad. An Iranian delegation sought to persuade Riyadh to help stabilize the regime in Damascus by forcing Bashar Assad to co-opt ...

The US will not review its reconnaissance drone flights over Iran for fear they will also be downed and captured like the RQ-170. Iran could not have accomplished this coup alone because it would have required the technology for filtering through billions of coded communications relayed from Langley to ...

Iran's electronic trap for snaring the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, one of the world's most secret drone programs in almost perfect condition, must be accounted a huge military and intelligence coup and a landmark in the long tussle over Tehran's nuclear program. It may have acquired the technology for its ...

The US is to shelve its covert war against Iran's nuclear program and any plans for a direct military attack until it discovers how Iran came to capture the top-secret RQ-170 reconnaissance drone complete with its secrets. Israel too will have to revamp its plans of attack before risking ...

Israel has flatly refused to give the Obama administration a promise to abstain from attacking Iran's nuclear sites. US and Israeli military experts disagree on most things except that there would be no real military obstacles to reaching all of Iran's nuclear sites.

The hidden wars the United States, NATO, Arab League members and Israel are waging against Iran, Syria and Hizballah rose to a record pitch in the last two weeks. Aspects of these covert operations are revealed exclusively in the latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly, out lat Friday.  In Syria, these operations teeter on the brink of overt combat. In Iran, unseen hands are eroding regime stability.  

Read also about the Western-Arab plan to bisect Syria into pro-and anti-Assad entities.

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Russia has handed Syria top-of-line weapons for beating foreign measures for undermining Bashar Assad. Iran footed the bill for those purchases and will certainly earmark some for its Revolutionary Guards and Hizballah.

As Islamabad frets over a possible US raid to seize its nuclear arsenal, Moscow, with Beijing's support, steps in to woo Pakistan and back Iran against US punishment for its rogue progress towards a nuclear bomb.

The Lebanese Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has briefed his unit commanders on updated operational plans for firing 10,000 rockets at Tel Aviv and Israel's air force and reserve mobilization bases in a surprise attack, debkafile's military sources report. "The Zionist enemy cannot stand up to a salvo on that scale," he said and assured them that Hizballah is capable of fighting Israel without Iranian or Syrian help. To boost morale, Nasrallah disclosed the arrival of advanced weapons from Libya and unveiled plans to capture parts of Galilee.

Sunday morning, Oct. 30, Jihad Islami denied knowledge of a truce Egypt called for 0600 Sunday morning. By 0700 hours it had launched eleven Grad missiles and two mortar rounds from the Gaza Strip at Ashdod, Gan Yavne, Lahavim, Ashkelon and Shear Hanegev. This was the second day of its massive assault. Saturday, more than 35 missiles, most heavy Grads, battered eight towns, killed an Israel and injured seven. Schools there are closed Sunday amid a high security alert.

Tehran has come around to deciding that Bashar Assad will have to be forced out of the Syrian presidency and may be willing to join forces with the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to accomplish this – provided the foursome can get past a whole thicket of animosities.

Moscow has perfected mechanisms for helping Iran and now Syria beat international sanctions. Its price is to funnel their trade through Russian banks and agents – in rubles and/or yuans. For example, the Iranian Oil Bourse - IOB has been transacting petroleum, petrochemicals and gas deals in various currencies ...

Moscow has sold Iran the highly-advanced Avtobaza truck-mounted systems capable of jamming aircraft radar and the electronic guidance instruments of attacking missiles. The deal, announced in Moscow Tuesday, Oct. 25, substantially boosts Russian military assistance to the Islamic Republic, especially of defensive weaponry.  The US and Israel suspect the Avotbaza jammers are only the first installment of the complete  ELINT-electronic signals system for disabling planes and missiles over the entire Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijan's election to a UN Security Council non-permanent seat brings to the world body a government with lively relations with Israel. It also highlights the rivalry between the Israeli and Turkish military industries for the Baku market. Russia, Iran and Armenia, too, are looking askance at the rapid arming of Azerbaijani armed forces with Israeli drones, 60 of which roll out of Azerbaijan factories in two months. The partners are now discussing the sale of Israeli missile-bearing drones and spy satellites.

The US exit from Iraq at year's end leaves in place 30,000 fighters of Iran's Al Qods Brigades trained in elite guerilla warfare. At least half are disguised as private security personnel for Iraqi ministers and politicians in Baghdad, providing Tehran with a strong lever of manipulation. America's Iraq war therefore draws to a close as thousands of Al Qods operatives take up positions in the Green Zone, the Baghdad enclave built at great cost for US headquarters in Iraq.   

Has Syrian President Bashar Assad started murdering his own generals? Three have disappeared. One body was discovered in hospital riddled with bullets and may have been liquidated by rebels. After quelling mass demonstrations, the regime faces rising opposition guerilla attacks. Fearing a descent into civil war, the Allawites and Druzes have formed armed militias to protect their domains. Strapped for cash by sanctions, the Assad regime is borrowing from Iranian banks.

The motivation for the foiled Iranian-instigated plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington at his favorite eatery, Café Milano in Georgetown, is revealed by debkafile's Iranian sources as a bid by a super-radical faction at the top of the Iranian regime to draw the United States into a limited military clash. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the plot when his son and heir Mojtaba, 42, and the Al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani presented him with their "grand plan."

Khamenei's son and heir Mojtaba and Al Qods leaders hatched the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Whether it succeeded or not, they hoped to provoke a limited military clash with the United States and Saudi Arabia to ward off the spread of popular uprisings into Iran ...

The Israel-Hamas prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit and the exposure of the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador opened two new US fronts against Iran: The relocation of Hamas HQ from Damascus to Cairo which deprived Iran and Syria of their Palestinian lever and a pretext for the Saudis ...