Senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 50, died in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 20 and his body reached Damascus on Jan. 28, according to Izzat Rishq speaking at Hamas headquarters in the Syrian capital early Friday, Jan. 29.  He accused Israel of his assassination without specifying its circumstances.  ...

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, paid secret visits to Cairo and Jerusalem Thursday, Jan. 28, to prepare the ground for expanding US military intervention in Yemen against al Qaeda strongholds, thereby opening a fresh front in the war on Islamist terror organization.
He asked for an Egyptian expeditionary force to back up US special forces and the use of Egyptian airfields as jumping off bases for US air ...

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan has engineered a fresh assault on the already crisis-laden relationship between Turkey and Israel by putting up members of his ruling AK Islamic party to accuse the Israel military of planting bugs at Turkish military headquarters in Ankara for covert surveillance on Iran and Syria.
Erdogan is determined to stamp out the last remnants of the once-warm ties between Turkish ...

"Two German diplomats using fictitious names were arrested" last month during clashes at the Ashura festival, an unnamed Iranian deputy intelligence minister said Wednesday, Jan. 27.

During the day, Israeli president Shimon Peres told the Reichstag he was sure Germany would come to Israel's aid if it came under attack from a nuclear-armed Iran. A day earlier, Chancellor Angela Merkel said time was up for Iran and February would see new and ...

Israel's president, prime minister and foreign minister are visiting Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest this week, apparently impervious to the European Union foreign ministers' decision in Brussels Monday, Jan. 25, to back away from sanctions for Iran's nuclear program outside the UN Security Council.  None have commented on the EU's abandonment of sanctions for Iran to the mercies of Russian and Chinese vetoes.

Jordan's Abdullah II has mobilized his security services and ordered an urgent crackdown against a rising terror threat after two serious breaches caught them napping: The Jordanian triple agent Khalil Al-Balawi, who blew himself up at the CIA Forward Base Chapman in Afghanistan on Jan. 14, killing seven US agents and a Jordanian intelligence officer, and the roadside blasts which just missed Israeli diplomatic vehicles on a Jordanian road last Friday, Jan. 15

Iranian Guards train 5,000 Hizballah fighters to capture and hold five Israeli towns and regions ifs nuclear sites are attacked - or some other pretext. Syria would be involved.

If attacked, Iran will send thousands of Hizballah raiders across the border to capture and hold five sectors of northern Israel. They will be supported by missile barrages on Israeli military facilities and backed up by Syria.

debkafile's military sources report that a bitter feud within the Popular Committees, climaxing in a failed attempt to murder the group's leader Zakaria Doghmush, triggered the mortar volleys against the Kerem Shalom goods crossing and missile attack on Ashkelon Thursday, Jan. 8.  It also marks weakened Hamas control.