Israel has asked the Obama administration to intervene with Cairo for the removal of Egyptian tanks deployed in Sinai without permission, fearing they are there to stay. This issue has become tangled up in broader issues: President Mohamed Morsi hints that substantial US economic aid is the key to the tanks’ removal, the launch of a major Egyptian offensive on al Qaeda-linked Sinai terrorists and his refusal of an invitation to visit Tehran. Israel has posted an Iron Dome battery in Eilat against more missile strikes from Sinai.

The disclosure Thursday night, Aug.16 by an American source that a worst-case scenario could require up to 60,000 ground troops for securing Syria's chemical and biological weapons sites was meant as psychological preparation for chemical warfare, say debkafile’s military sources, as Syria’s neighbors make ready.
Assad, armed with Tehran’s pledge of all-out support delivered by Saeed Jalilee, threatens to give Turkish PKK Kurdish rebels SA-8 anti-air missiles if any more Stingers are delivered to the Syrian rebels. Ankara: That would mean war.

Saudis offered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Mecca a non-aggression pact. Tehran rejection would lay Iran open to attack. The Iranian president sought counter-guarantees that Saudi Arabia would not be party to US or Israeli attacks. It is up to Khamenei to decide what next.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has set up house in Sinai and Gaza, dedicating itself to attacks on Israel. The Egyptian army’s big counter-terror offensive shows no signs of taking off, although its M-60 tanks looking like having come to stay on the Israeli border.

US Gen. Martin Dempsey said Tuesday, Aug. 14 Israel could “delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” debkafile: Israel's leaders and military chiefs don’t pretended otherwise, because even a US strike could no longer destroy those capacities. Today, an Israeli attack could delay Iran for a couple of years; an American strike, for 4-5 years. 2007 was the last moment for totaling the program. But the longer action is held off now the shorter the delay achievable in Iran’s bomb-building time table.

The United States last week began laying plans for the contingency of Syrian chemical warfare by setting up joint military, intelligence and medical working teams with Israel, Turkey and Jordan. All three are feared under threat by Syrian president Bashar Assad, debkafile reports - as are US military facilities there. The White House, the CIA and the Pentagon’s DIA are laying odds on a Syrian unconventional attack, and all three countries under potential threat have ordered their medical services to make preparations.

Israel willingly acceded to Cairo’s request for permission to deploy fighter planes and armored troop carriers in Sinai - a demilitarized buffer zone under their 1979 peace treaty – in support of President Mohamed Morsi’s counter-terror offensive against lawless Islamist bands. debkafile reports: It was soon realized in Washington and Jerusalem that the “offensive” was largely bogus and being used less for eliminating Salafi terrorists and more for purging the Egyptian military of pro-Western influence and promoting its takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, in conjunction with military chief Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, fired a row of top military, intelligence and police officials Wednesday, Aug. 8, after more armed Islamist attacks on Egyptian troops. Morsi replaced Intelligence chief Gen. Mourad Mowafi with Maj. Gen. Mohamed Shehata, and fired the governor of North Sinai, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, as well as other officials.  The president acted expeditiously to quell street protest over declining Sinai security but is not yet grappling with its root cause, Islamist terror.

Monday, Aug. 6, the head of Iran’s National Security Council Saeed Jalili touched down in Beirut shortly after Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani declared: "The fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful (Israelis) with it. Jalili (not Larijani as misreported earlier) came for urgent on-the-spot coordination with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah before continuing Tuesday to Damascus. They discussed  ways of stamping Iran’s mark on Syria after Bashar Assad’s exit. Military plans against Israel are part of their schemes.

The initial Egyptian and Israeli accounts of the attacks in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and the Israeli border crashed Sunday night, Aug. 5, don’t match up:  Egypt points the finger at the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip; Israel at Sinai salafists. debkafile postulates a third option: Tehran may have harnessed its Gaza Strip proxies and a Sinai al Qaeda cell for coordinated attacks on Egyptian and Israeli military targets to avenge Al Qaeda’s enlistment to the Western-Arab-backed revolt against Bashar Assad.

The Israeli Air Force struck two APCs seized by Sinai Salafis who first stormed an Egyptian post on the Egyptian-Israeli border Sunday night, Aug. 5, killing at least 15 Egyptian commandos, injuring many and kidnapping an unknown number. The gunmen then smashed the APCs through to the Kerem Shalom terminal. The one which got across was destroyed by the IAF.  debkafile: This appears to be the first Sinai-based Islamist reprisal against Egyptian troops for an Israeli counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s fast-advancing mega-fortification for its nuclear sites gives Israel and its current military capabilities no more than three months for a disruptive - not destructrive - attack on its nuclear program with conventional weapons. A delay will make a tactical nuclear strike the only feasible option. That is the ...

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called a “last war council” of top military chiefs Friday, July 27, ordered Iran's biggest fortification program ever to protect its nuclear sites.

US, Israeli, Saudi and Iranian war preparations are on fast forward, as the coming issue of DEBKA-Net-Weekly discloses in detail next Friday. All their leaders face agonizing decisions in the weeks ahead. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is on a tour of inspection to make sure US Middle East military forces are ready for an operation against Iran. Its timeline is now pared down to weeks because Iran's ongoing mega-fortifications threaten to make its nuclear facilities indestructible - even by American super-weapons.
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Hassan Nasrallah has released a video clip recording Hizballah’s 2006 raid which ended in the deaths of eight IDF soldiers and the kidnapping of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Hot military pursuit for their rescue mired Israel in the ill-prepared, misconceived Second Lebanon war which Hizballah claimed to have won. debkafile: The tape is designed and timed as a warning to Israel that Nasrallah is free to launch his next war with a similar ending any time now, fully backed by Iran and Syria.

Although six governments are helping the Syrian rebels, Israel and Jordan are Assad’s primary targets for chemical weapon retaliation. Unmoved by US and Israeli warnings, he keeps those weapons ready for use at a time of his choosing.

The team which set up the suicide bombing of a Bulgarian bus which killed five Israelis and the local driver has vanished without a trace. Even the bomber’s body did not yield up a scrap of information or lead to the perpetrators or their controllers.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz are rightly using a necessary austerity package as a lever for getting the country on track for a war economy, without saying so. They avoid discussing the consequences and duration of the new measures because they can’t tell how long a war, which they believe may be close, will last or how it will end. debkafile estimates that they are quietly building a $25-30 strategic financial reserve for the worst-case scenario.

The suicide bomber who killed six people in an attack on an Israeli bus at Burgas airport  July 18, had accomplices, was “extremely experienced” and may have entered Bulgaria from Europe’s Schengen passport-free area, said Bulgarian Prime Minister Boygok Borisov. He spoke Tuesday, July 24, at a new conference with visiting US presidential anti-terror adviser John Brennan. The European Union turned down Israel’s request to blacklist Hizballah as a terrorist organization after Israel blamed it and Iran for the attack.

The Defense Ministry’s Amos Gilead and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz administered tranquilizers Tuesday, July 24, to allay fears of war with Syria, Hizballah and Iran. Gilead said that the Assad regime was in full control of Syria’s unconventional weapons, while Gen. Gantz indicated that Israel has no plans for attacking Syria. Damascus’ threat of chemical warfare against external attacks was hence not applicable. By contradicting Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, the two security chiefs sowed confusion in the Israeli street.