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 ...

Mahmoud Abbas must suspend his bid for Palestinian membership of the UN and its institutions to get hold of frozen American and Israeli cash transfers. The Palestinian Authority is not only broke because of his missteps, but also made irrelevant by the upheavals in the rest of the Arab ...

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga ended a visit to Israel this week with a promise from President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of help to establish a new alliance to combat the spread of fundamentalist Islam into the predominantly Christian African nations Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan. Their combined populations total 138 million. Israel agreed to supply drones, fast naval boats and electronic surveillance equipment to help Kenya "rid its territory of Islamist elements" and counter Iranian expansion.

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.

Fifty Libyan Muslim Brotherhood mercenaries arrived in the Gaza Strip from Tripoli last month - in time to take part in the Jihad Islami's last missile offensive against Israel starting Oct. 29, debkafile's military sources report. They arrived at the wheels of minivans on which were mounted the new Grad multiple rocket-launchers which Palestinian terrorists fired for the first time last month. These mobile rocket-launchers were last seen on the Libyan battlefield in use against Muammar Qaddafi's army.

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.

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.

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.

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.

American sources told Fox News early Sunday, Nov. 6 that all the senior Israeli ministers formerly against attacking Iran's nuclear sites are now for it, after updates on Iran's clandestine progress toward building a nuclear weapon. The ministers also believe new sanctions would not be tough enough. debkafile: Washington's uncritical references to Israeli plans signal Tehran that because of the level it has reached in its weapons-geared nuclear program, the US can no longer hold Israel back from exercising its military option.

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.

Regional leaders hope the US is ready for a fresh start to reestablish its influence after exiting Iraq. They count on an attack on Iran overturning the regimes in Tehran and Damascus although their rulers will fight to the death. NATO and Israel have embarked on joint maneuvers to ...

It is feared in Jerusalem that the war will develop from a Syrian-Hizballah attack on Israel. If the US opts out of a strike against Iran, it will be left to Israel to do the job singlehanded.

Israeli timed the unveiling of its first nuclear-capable missile, Jericho 3, for the run-up to the IAEA report on Iran, called in Vienna a game-changer. Washington is preparing harsh sanctions against Iranian oil exports and international banking for slapping down straight after the report.

A rush of military events was orchestrated Wednesday, Nov. 2, to persuade Tehran that the US, Britain and Israel are on the verge of a military operation unless it gives up its drive for a nuclear weapon - depending on President Barack Obama's okay. Israel would not participate in a US-led NATO strike on Iran but reserve its armed forces to defend the home front, guard the assault forces against Iran's allies and serve as a strategic reserve.

Israel successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday, Nov. 2. Foreign sources say the ICBM tested was an upgraded Jericho 3 able to carry a 750-kilo nuclear warhead to a distance of 7,000 kilometers - further with a smaller warhead. Soon after the test, the IDF announced the Israeli and Italian air forces had concluded a joint maneuver at Sardinia, and a large-scale exercise had just begun to prepare central Israel for missile attack.

Israelis are all of a sudden plunged into hot debate on the pros and cons of an IDF attack on Iran's nuclear sites. It was triggered by a report that the attack would go forward before winter. A senior cabinet minister then admitted he had sleepless nights over the 100,000 Syrian, Hizballah and Hamas rockets awaiting Israel when the attack begins.
So what is really going on? And what game plan?
The last  DEBKA-Net-Weekly provided some answers.
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