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.
 

Senior Israeli military officers, referring to the Syrian foreign ministry statement Monday, July 23, that Syria would only use chemical weapons against “external aggression” said this was a direct threat by the Assad regime to turn those weapons against Israel. There was no denial of their potential transfer to Hizballah against which Israel has vowed to use force. debkafile: Assad keeps carte blanche for chemical warfare. Obama warns Assad he will be held accountable if he makes tthe “tragic mistake” of using chemical weapons.

Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian armies and US Middle East forces were on the ready Sunday, July 22, in case Syrian chemical weapons moved toward Lebanon, debkafile reports. Acting in unison, those armies are watching out for the slightest movement, because it would take just two hours to cover the distance from Syria to the Hizballah-controlled Bakaa Valley of Lebanon. Their arrival there would mean a war. So the IDF prefers to stop the arsenal in its tracks before it reaches the Lebanese border.

The suicide bombing attack in Bulgaria which left five Israelis dead and more than 30 injured on July 18 is seen by Western intelligence and counter-terror sources as marking Hizballah’s regression to its old tactics. After a 17-year break, the Lebanese terrorist group is again sending suicide killers to murder Israelis and Jews. Israel’s counter-terror agencies failed to pick up on this. While they are catching up, Iran and Hizballah will take the chance for more violence - unless Israel restores its deterrence with a firm hand.

Tehran and Damascus have decided to initiate their war on Israel with terrorism, reserving chemical weapons for use first against the rebels and Jordan. Syria’s rebels have also procured chemical weapons from Libya.

Iran, Syria and Hizballah resolve to up their terror assaults on “strategic” Israeli targets in step with the worsening war situation in Syria and a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program, debkafile reports.
The Bulgarian bus attack was a “local” target – although seven Israelis were killed and more than 30 injured – whereas an Israeli plane or diplomat would be a “strategic” target. Nevertheless, US President Barack Obama and Israeli prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed that Israel will not react for now.

The fall of Damascus may be drawn-out, bloody and excruciating. It will also have wide regional repercussions, as debkafile shows in this exclusive video, because neither the Assad regime nor Iran will take it lying down.

Western military sources warned Saturday, July 14, that not only Israel, but Turkey and Jordan, too, should prepare for chemical missile strikes by a beleaguered Bashar Assad after missiles were test-fired this week in the Syrian war game against all three. There is disagreement in the West on Assad’s motives for moving his WMD out of storage. Some US officials say he is safeguarding them against falling into rebel hands; British officials report chemical weapons at Homs, Latakia and Aleppo deployed for ethnical cleansing.

Syria Thursday, July 12, test-fired advanced Scud D missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons and nerve gas and “hitting targets deep within enemy territory” as part of its war exercise. In Washington, US officials disclosed that Bashar Assad had moved parts of his huge arsenal of sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide out of storage. One warned of “the precedent of WMD being used under our watch,” calling it “incredibly dangerous to our national security."
debkafile: Chemical weapons have been transferred to Syrian units.
 

The first week of October is the latest agreed timeline for a US-Israeli decision to strike Iran because after that it will be too late. Iran’s nuclear breakout is now counted in weeks, nuclear diplomacy has fallen through and President Obama is closer than ever before to a decision. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources add that France has also begun transferring special forces to its UAE bases and Britain is completing preparations for deploying large ground, naval and air forces to Kuwait.
 

Israel was taken aback by US President Barack Obama’s invitation to Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi - in breach of Obama's assurances to US Jewish leaders, debkafile reports. His key assurance was not to invite Mursi to the White House until the Egyptian president met certain conditions, the foremost of which was a public and specific statement of Egypt's commitment to its 1979 peace treaty with Israel as a central theme in Morsi's earliest foreign policy speech.

Moscow has removed the gloves in its defense of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad.  Wednesday, July 4, senior Russian official Ruslan Pukhov warned: “If the Syrian regime is changed by force or if Russia doesn't like the outcome, it most likely will respond by selling S-300s to Iran."  This threat gave substance to the hints thrown out by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his June 25 visit to Israel about breaking the UN arms embargo against Iran. debkafile’s military sources disclose that Israel has developed counter-measures for this advanced Russian missile.

The Saudis, not invited to join negotiations either on Syria or Iran, have gone ahead with their own plans for beating Iran to the nuclear draw.

The US is piling up military strength in the Persian Gulf against potential Iranian attempts to block the Gulf of Hormuz, or otherwise retaliate for the European oil embargo in force since July 1. As the Revolutionary Guards staged a missile exercise against “enemy air bases,” more than 40,000 US troops were massed on two strategic islands facing Iran. The drums of war came with curtains on nuclear diplomacy. Iran and six world powers met for the last time in Istanbul Tuesday. Oil topped $100 for the first time in three weeks.