Saudi Arabia is exploring dialogue with its great regional rival Iran for ending the Syrian conflict and assuring Lebanon’s political future, debkafile’s Gulf sources report. Riyadh has given up on US policy for Syria in view of Russia's and Iran's unbending support for Bashar Assad; his battlefield gains aided by Hizballah and Iranian Bassij forces; and Turkey’s failure to react to the Reyhanli bombings. These perceptions generated a get-together between the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers Monday, May 13. in Jeddah.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev won the dubious distinction of being the first terrorist operatives to import al Qaeda terror to the United States through a route outside the Middle East – the Caucasus. debkafile: The pair were double agents, hired by US and Saudi intelligence to penetrate the Wahhabi jihadist networks which spread across the Russian Caucasian, with the help of certain Saudi financial institutions. Instead, the two former Chechens betrayed their mission and went over secretly to the radical Islamist networks.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal sat down with President Obama two days after the Boston bombings to discuss how to take the heat off the Saudi connection and possible deport the bombers.

FBI Special Agent Richard Deslauriers told reporters Tuesday, April 16, that the probe had no leads 18 hours after two explosions blew up at the annual Boston Marathon’s finishing line, killing three people and injuring 176 – 17 critically. debkafile discloses that suspicion has fallen on a terror cell of three Saudi nationals, very possibly tied to Al Qaeda in Arabia, who shared an apartment outside Boston. Two are in police hands – one of them with badly burned hands in hospital – a third is on the run.

Syrian rebels in Aleppo are obtaining their first heavy weapons – 220-mm MLRS rocket launchers – through a large-scale supply operation run by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, debkafile reports exclusively. In Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, his agents snapped up Russian-made MLRS (Smerch) and Hurricane 9K57 launchers capable of firing scores of 220-mm rockets to a distance of 70 kilometers. Bandar hopes these weapons will expedite the rebels' capture of the big Syrian air base of Nairab near Aleppo.

The Saudis are backing the Salafists against Egypt’s ruling Brotherhood and their support from Barack Obama and against Qatar’s expanding influence. The army refuses to help President Morsi suppress violent protest.

The Saudis have a long reckoning with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and harbor a deep grudge against Barack Obama for helping to overthrow Hosni Mubarak.

The traditional special relationship is fading under Saudi mistrust of Obama’s intentions toward a potential insurgency against the throne, especially in the Shiite oil regions. Elements of good cooperation survive.

Qatar is pouring petrodollars into Egypt to outdo Saudi Arabia’s bid for a land bridge to Egypt and to gain high-end assets such as control of the Suez Canal and the acquisition of Egyptian coastal resorts. Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jassim said the emirate would double its grants and loans to Egypt from $2.5 to $5 billion bringing the grand total in a single year to $7 billion.  Hamad denied this generosity was tied to plans to invest in the Suez Canal, but no one believed him, especially in Riyadh.

Iranian and Pakistani warships had planned a joint Red Sea drill to start Friday, Nov. 30 in Port Sudan. It was rumored in Khartoum that the Pakistani Shashmir carrying nuclear arms or nuclear-related equipment had docked Thursday ready to meet two Iranian warships. Washington then warned Tehran that the US-Iranian nuclear talks due to open Saturday, Dec. 1, would be called off, if this first ever joint drill between a Muslim nuclear power and a close nuclear candidate went ahead.

Tuesday, Nov. 27, the Middle East military spotlight swung around from Gaza to Syria with the start of US and NATO intervention. A game changer began unfolding with the site survey begun by a joint Turkish-NATO team for the deployment of Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems manned by American military teams. debkafile: Although billed for “defensive purposes,” the Patriots will in fact impede Syrian air bombardments over all of northern Syria, including the embattled towns of Aleppo and Homs.

Eight nations are embroiled on both sides of the Syrian civil war, although the governments concerned pretend they are keeping to a policy led by the Obama administration of non-intervention. Amid cross-border clashes with Turkey, Bashar Assad has embarked on a scorched earth policy against his country.

Tehran has shifted its expansionist focus from Bahrain to punishing Saudi Arabia for backing the Syrian rebels fighting Bashar Assad. Iran is hitting the Saudis through their back door by buying up South Yemeni anti-government rebels.

The Muslim Brotherhood has scheduled Oct. 10 for the start of mass protests against King Abdullah II and ordered its members to start mobilizing at least 50,000 demonstrators for daily demonstrations until he bows to their will. The king has until then to accept the MB’s demand for Jordan’s transition to a constitutional monarchy and electoral reform. debkafile also reports. Israel is worried about the Arab Spring throwing up another Islamist state next door. Saudi royals fear they are next in line.

King Abdullah faces a Muslim Brotherhood ultimatum to announce before the end of September his acceptance of constitutional rule and democratic elections or go down under an Arab Spring insurrection.

For the first time, a thread links the triple rocket attack on the Israeli town of Sderot, with the two terrorist cells captured in Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – Sunday, Aug. 26, debkafile reports. Both were conceived by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP has ordered its Sinai cells and Egyptian and Palestinian offshoots to step up their attacks and hold Israeli towns, Eilat and Sderot, hostage against pursuit. Fears that chemicals held by the Saudi cell may have reached Sinai.
 

Khamenei hastened to accept the Saudi offer to negotiate a non-aggression pact, using it as a lifeline and new lever for diplomatic maneuvering. But he insists on Saudi Crown Prince Salman visiting Tehran next month as the condition for continuing negotiations.

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.

An Iran war has become inevitable since international diplomacy gave Iran the time and freedom to accelerate its progress towards a nuclear bomb. While rapidly fortifying its nuclear facilities against bombardment, Tehran is also raising the level of uranium enrichment, developing dirty bombs and sending terrorists to blow up Israelis abroad. Sanctions have failed to force Iran to give up its drive for a nuclear weapon or the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. These dangerous developments are generating the current an eve-of-war climate.

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 ...