Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has run into major hurdles in his ploy for using a unity pact between his Fatah and the extremist Hamas as the fulcrum for a diplomatic offensive against Israel to climax in UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September. This is reported by debkafile's exclusive Middle East sources. The US and Russia have nixed Abbas' international moves until his unity partner Hamas recognizes Israel and Jordan's Abdullah accuses him of two-timing him with that same partner.

 

After anti-government protesters defied Bahraini security forces' efforts to dislodge them from Manama's main square, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa Wednesday, Feb. 16, asked for Saudi help, debkafile reveals. Riyadh has meanwhile stepped up security in the oil-rich Shiite regions of eastern Saudi Arabia. Jordan is confronted with the first outbreaks of Bedouin disaffection with the crown, Syria has geared up for Friday's Day of Anger and Libyan police fired tear gas and rubber bullets against first protesters in Benghazi.

The high jobless rate among educated young Saudis is the greatest peril to the throne. The class most likely to cause trouble is that of young educated Saudis who are bitterly frustrated by the dearth of jobs for high school and university graduates.
Unemployment in the oil kingdom stands ...

Jordan's King Abdullah's phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday Jan. 5 dealt marginally with stalled diplomacy with the Palestinians. He was more concerned about the devastating effect of Iran's advancing domination of Iraq in the face of America's inaction. That day, the anti-US radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada Sadr, a close ally of Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah, marched home from Iran; the new Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi paid his first visit to Baghdad.

Hard-pressed by Syrian and Turkish rulers, Jordan's King Abdullah II has sharply reduced the kingdom's military and intelligence collaboration with Israel after 60 years. debkafile's intelligence sources disclose Jordan has whittled cooperation down to the narrow border strip cutting down the middle of the Jordan River, retaining it only because it is a barrier against the flooding of the kingdom with hundreds of thousands of West Bank Palestinians. Abdullah next plans a state visit to Iran.

If Jordan finally goes over to the Iranian-led radical bloc, it will open the door to reviving the old Eastern Front against Israel and adding an Iranian military presence around its borders. Obama is concerned but fears any Israeli military action would jeopardize his nuclear dialogue with Iran.

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