“At the moment, [Syria’s] chemical weapons are under control,” said senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad Sunday, Dec. 23, echoing the statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Saturday that Syrian chemical weapons “are under control for the time being.” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu then predicted early far-reaching changes in the Syrian regime with effect on "the sensitive weaponry present there.” debkafile: A foreign force commandeered the chemical stocks at al Safira after forcing the Syrian army and rebels to hold their fire.

debkafile Exclusive: The Russians have given Bashar Assad his most sophisticated weapon thus far – the Iskander cruise missile which has a hypersonic ...

debkafile Special: Last week, the Azerbaijani police picked up six Iranian secret agents looking for the air bases housing the drones their government purchased from Israel. The agents carried cash, fake passports, automatic pistols, advanced electronic equipment for tracking aircraft and electronic warfare devices for jamming them. Their capture foiled an Iranian plot to trap one of the UAVs as it flew over the Azerbaijani-Iranian Caspian Sea border. As the agents’ clandestine handler, the Iranian culture attaché was barred form returning to Baku.

The Qatari rulers have again swung like a pendulum for and against President Obama’s Middle East goals, joined now by Egyptian President Morsi. Qatar is shifting is focus towards a radical solution of the perennial Palestinian problem, junking standing peace accords and processes.

Tehran is set on capturing an Israel drone like the American UAVs it has downed. Iranian spies in Azerbaijan went looking for the bases where drones purchased from Israel were held – and were arrested.

US, Israeli, Jordanian and Turkish special forces are on the ground in Syria, armed with special gear for combating chemical arms. They are close enough to count the convoys carrying poison gas weapons, augmented by US military surveillance satellites and drones able to pinpoint their position at any moment. But it is feared that Bashar Assad has moved the chemical arms to secret caches and so US and other Western forces are poised opposite Syria’s borders ready to strike for any unforeseen move.

President Barack Obama is holding back from ordering an attack on the Syrian army’s chemical units – just as the Syrian ruler is abstaining from issuing the “go” order to use those weapons. It seems that neither wants to go first. Stormy weather is a complicating factor which plays ...

If the US and Israeli are counting on swarms of drones to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear sites, they had better think again.

American officials said Wednesday, Dec. 4, that they believed bombs had been made ready with sarin gas, but not yet loaded onto fighter planes and Assad had not issued the “go” order. The USS Eisenhower Strike Group has reached the Syrian coast with 8 fighter bomber squadrons and 8,000 servicemen. With the USS Iwo Jima, the US has posted opposite Syria 70 fighter-bombers, 17 warships and 10,000 American fighting men – all in apparent readiness for US intervention in the Syrian conflict.

As NATO in Brussels gave the go-ahead Tuesday night Dec. 4, for the deployment of Patriots to protect Turkey against Syrian missiles, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reported convoys of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons units heading out of Damascus under cover of dark and turning north up the road to Aleppo. They were ferrying self-propelled cannons and shells armed with poisonous sarin gas. Assad used the heavy winds, cloud and rain to obstruct Western attacks on the convoys.

Iranian and Pakistani warships had planned a joint Red Sea drill to start Friday, Nov. 30 in Port Sudan. It was rumored in Khartoum that the Pakistani Shashmir carrying nuclear arms or nuclear-related equipment had docked Thursday ready to meet two Iranian warships. Washington then warned Tehran that the US-Iranian nuclear talks due to open Saturday, Dec. 1, would be called off, if this first ever joint drill between a Muslim nuclear power and a close nuclear candidate went ahead.

Thursday night, Nov. 29, the UN General Assembly grants Palestine non-member observer status within the 1967 borders by majority vote. But to which Palestinian rule does it apply?  Abbas’s Fatah is fading, whereas the extremist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a rising force. If it qualifies for a place in the Sunni Middle East grouping Egypt, Turkey and Qatar are building with US backing and Israeli approval, Hamas may become the beneficiary of the upgraded Palestinian status won by Abbas.

Israel’s operation was an intel coup to shut Iran’s gateway to Cairo via Hamas.

Tuesday, Nov. 27, the Middle East military spotlight swung around from Gaza to Syria with the start of US and NATO intervention. A game changer began unfolding with the site survey begun by a joint Turkish-NATO team for the deployment of Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems manned by American military teams. debkafile: Although billed for “defensive purposes,” the Patriots will in fact impede Syrian air bombardments over all of northern Syria, including the embattled towns of Aleppo and Homs.

Even before the Gaza conflict was over, the next major steps were in motion: US-manned Patriots and Awacs are in the pipeline for deployment on the Turkish Syrian border; Moscow moved its Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force opposite Gaza/Israeli shores, joining Tehran’s concern that the US-led coalition which wrecked Iran’s “southern front” in Gaza would turn against Syria and Hizballah. The US and Israel are braced for violent Iranian retribution; while Egyptian President Morsi’s troubles could undo the fragile Gaza ceasefire.

The Black Sea Fleet's naval task force has been ordered  to remain in the eastern Mediterranean ready to evacuate Russian citizens from the Gaza Strip. debkafile: Moscow used the same pretext as Washington, readiness to evacuate nationals in an emergency, to account for the presence last week of the USS Iwo Jima and two other warships in the east Mediterranean. Both flotillas are in fact on standby for developments in the Syrian crisis. The Iwo Jima has since moved quietly into waters off Syria.

The Gaza operation was an exercise in deception, designed by six intelligence chiefs to trigger two coups – one to restore Mohamed Morsi’s powers as Egyptian president and the other to purge Hamas of its pro-Iranian elements.

Barack Obama second term is a changed president. After approving Israel’s operation in Gaza he is no longer holding back from direct US military involvement in Syria and has big plans to plug the Sinai smuggling routes through which Iran arms and supplies its surrogates in the Gaza Strip ...

Iran suffered a serious setback in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli operation to get rid of Hamas’s pro-Iranian leaders. Tehran had conceived of the Gaza Strip as its gateway to the Muslim Brothers of Egypt and Jordan. Though small in time and scale - and relatively inconsequential in the large Middle East picture - the eight-day Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip helped elevate the US to the Middle East major league at Iran's expense.

For Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to obtain Hamas’s consent to a ceasefire Wednesday, Nov. 21, Israel made certain concessions. The most damaging was acceding to Egypt’s role as truce monitor and arbitrator between itself and Hamas and the address for complaints of violations, misunderstandings and brokering future negotiations for regulating future relations. By this step, Israel accepted Egypt’s superior authority and demoted itself to an equal footing with a terrorist group, Hamas.