Two of the Qatari ruler Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s wives ganged up on a third to fabricate a false coup because her son was elevated to the rank of crown prince. The son as chief of intelligence neglected to cherchez the harem for the conspirator.

Two car bomb attacks on Air Force Intelligence and Security Police Headquarters in Damascus killed at least 27 people and wounded 97 Saturday, March 17. A third bomb exploded on a bus carrying members of the pro-Iranian Palestinian Liberation Army in the Al Yarmouk suburb.
debkafile: As well as Syria and the Gaza Strip, Iran’s hand links a widening circle of Middle East violence. Russian technicians man the Pantsyr-1 air and missile defense batteries shielding Syria from foreign intervention.

British and Qatari special operations units are operating under cover with rebel forces in the Syrian city of Homs, debkafile’s exclusive sources report. They are not engaged in direct combat with the Syrian forces bombarding Syria's third largest city, but serve as tactical advisers and logistical aides. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is using this foreign military presence in Homs, revealed here for the first time, as grist for his own Syrian initiative.
More about this in the coming  DEBKA-Net-Weekly issue out Friday.
 

NATO allies dismayed by US Defense Secretary's cutting the Afghanistan war short by one year without notice. Taliban is playing hard to get over peace talks while Pakistan retaliates for being cut out by letting an Al Qaeda front-man run for parliament.

Qatar, encouraged by its successful participation in the campaign to overthrow Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, has established a Sunni Arab intervention force to expedite the drive for Syrian President Bashar Assad's ouster, debkafile's military sources report. The new, highly mobile force has boosted the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army with 2,500 ex-Libyan and active Iraqi terrorists and is commanded by the Libyan ex-al Qaeda militia commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj. Israel should be concerned that the new force may try and reach Gaza.

President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan have developed relations of mutual trust which allowed the US to set up its headquarters for the campaign to oust Bashar Assad in southwest Turkey. The next US-inspired step is to foment a campaign of civil obedience against the Assad regime, starting ...

By deploying US troops on the Jordanian-Syrian border, the Obama administration played the last piece of its master game for Bashar Assad's ouster – in conjunction with Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's latest issue out Friday offers glimpses of covert US action in Syria alongside counter-steps pursued by Damascus, Tehran and Hizballah.
The next in our series of US RQ-170 exclusives reveals not just how Iran tampered with the stealth drone technology but also with the satellite controlling it.

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The potential for a regional flare-up shot up Friday and Saturday, Nov-11-12, with the blasts at two Iranian arms bases which killed at least 32 Revolutionary Guards men including Iran's top missile expert, and the Arab League Foreign Ministers' decision to suspend Syria's membership over Bashar Assad's brutal military crackdown on civilians. Even he understands what the AL means by threatening "more steps to protect Syrian civilians." Middle East capitals are on edge for the next acts in the Iranian-Syrian crises.

In the last 48 hours, the Syrian engineering corps has laid minefields along the Jordanian, Turkish borders to cut down on the influx of weapons and armed manpower supporting the anti-Assad opposition and the outflow of army deserters.  debkafile's military sources add: By this action, Syria also aims to seal itself off against foreign military intervention. Since Muammar Qaddafi's death, Bashar Assad fears he is facing Arab military incursions backed by NATO.

Iran and Hizballah declare NATO would never attack Syria, yet they are making military preparations for this very eventuality. Syria's only option to stem arms smuggling to the opposition is to seize large parts of Lebanon and Jordan, thus provoking a NATO assault.

Libya may well be plunged in even bloodier strife after Muammar Qaddafi's passing. The meddling foreign hands backing rival individuals, militias and tribes will only exacerbate the divisions and animosities riddling the interim government of the NTC and the country at large.

Al Jazeera's Qatari owner Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani takes charge of editorial policy based on the vagaries of the Arab Revolt. He sacked two top editors and placed a safe family member at the top of the station's management.

The emir of Qatar had the Al Jazeera network which he owns run the Palestinian Papers to blacken the Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas in order to please Tehran. But the emir may not have been the only schemer behind the leaks. They may have been contrived ...

Iran last week further consolidated its anti-US coalition and honed its hard edge against Israel by important defense treaties with Syria (covering Lebanon) and Qatar, home to the biggest US air base outside America. These treaties open doors for Iranian troops to be stationed in all three countries. debkafile's military sources say they have already arrived in Syria and Lebanon.

The Iranian president remarked "the ...