Saturday morning, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman visited the site of the Lebanese-Israeli border clash of Tuesday, Aug. 1. debkafile reveals that Iranian intelligence and commando officers toured the border area 24 hours before him, part of a high-ranking Iranian delegation led by Ali Akbar Velayati which rushed to Beirut after the clash. Their Lebanese army escort included heads of the same 9th battalion which started the clash by shooting across the border and killing Lt. Col. Dov Harari.

Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah is drumming up proofs of Israeli culpability in the 2005 Hariri murder to get his own associates off the hook and force Lebanese prime minister Sa'ad Hariri to declare war on Israel.

Feverish preparations are afoot in Tehran for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first visit to the Lebanese capital. Reporting this, debkafile's Iranian sources define the trip's purpose as a confrontational exercise to warn the US and Israel that full implementation of the tough new UN, US and European sanctions will provoke an Iranian war on Israel - waged from Lebanon. Ahmadinejad's trip is expected before September - with the Syrian and Qatari rulers in tow.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps on vowing that Iran will not be allowed to establish an outpost on Israel's borders, but he has not lifted a finger to stop this menace ensconcing itself in the north - even though this is a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701. Iran's proxy has therefore won the first round of its drive to recover the forward positions lost in the 2006 war and stands ready for the next.

Syria has posted the advanced early warning radar received from Iran - not on its own soil but on the highest peak of neighboring Lebanon, according to debkafile's military and intelligence sources. From Mount Sannine in central Lebanon, the new facility provides early warning against a possible Israeli surprise attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and extends the span of Iranian and Syrian electronic surveillance to Israeli air space to the south and the eastern-central Mediterranean to the west.

Three top US emissaries, Sen. John Kerry, Rahm Emanuel and Jeffrey Feltman, are in the Middle East to try and allay war tensions as Lebanon and Syrian play up Israel's homeland missile defense exercise which began Sunday, May 23. As the exercise began, OC Northern Command, Brig. Gady Eisenkott, said: "No party concerned has an interest in another showdown, but the IDF could be ready to fight within hours. [If confronted] Israel could take on both the Syrian-Lebanese front and Gaza."

In introductory interviews to Islamist websites, Saleh Al-Qaraawi, the newly-appointed al Qaeda chief in the Levant (Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories) threatens to loose a fresh wave of attacks on US and Israeli targets as well as UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon. debkafile's counter-terror sources report Al Qaraawi is presented as Commander of the "Abdullah Azzam Brigades" and an appointee of al Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.  
 

Israeli spies caught in Lebanon are the passive operators of computerized surveillance devices and have no information to spill to Lebanese spy chiefs.

Evidence has reached debkafile that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air in an al Qaeda attack, exactly one month after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. French and Hizballah passengers were also targeted.

The bodies were found strapped to their seats with their heads and limbs blown off, typical sign of ...