In his first address to the nation in two months, Syrian President Bashar Assad June 20 accused a "minute number of terrorists" backed by "conspirators at home and abroad" of exploiting legitimate demands for reform to serve longstanding plots for controlling Syria because of its geo-strategic importance.
While hinting at possible reforms, there was no suggestion that he might step down or dismiss his brother who has been leading the savage crackdown on the nearly four-month old protest.

Lebanon has a new government headed by Najib Mikati, ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hizballah. Formed suddenly on June 13, the 30-minister lineup has earmarked an unprecedented 18 portfolios – including defense and interior – to Hizballah loyalists and pro-Syrian politicians. While fighting the uprising against his rule, Bashar Assad has recaptured Beirut. The appointment of friendly Fayez Ghosn as defense minister places the army at the service of Damascus and portends trouble on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Turkey considers giving Bashar Assad a last chance before resorting to military action after receiving the promise of a US shield against Iranian or Syrian missile retaliation. Assad, for his part, is rigidly fixated on his harsh crackdown and a victory over the rebels against his regime.

Assad's decision to bank on the army to extinguish the revolt against him is paying off. The US and the West could have starved him of funds for his crackdown by an embargo on Syrian oil experts – but refrained from doing so. In any case, the Syrian economy ...

Iran Tuesday, June 14, warned the US against military intervention in Syria. debkafile reports an American naval and ship-borne missile interceptor build-up in the Mediterranean along with US fleet movements in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas. The US Bataan with 2,000 marines, 6 fighter-bombers and 27 helicopters aboard is deployed opposite Syrian shores. Warned of a possible US operation against Syria, Hizballah is moving its ground-to-ground rocket arsenal from northern Lebanon to the center.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is championing the Sunni Muslims of Jisr a-Shughour against the tanks and helicopters of his erstwhile allies Bashar Assad, Iran and Hizballah, to promote his ambition as a leading Muslim power. Sunni Muslims outside are avidly watching the Muslim Brotherhood's first challenge in any Arab uprising to an Arab army in battle, hoping for large-scale Syrian army defections in defiance of the ongoing massive purge of the rebellious town.

The Syrian crisis has taken a dramatic turn: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday night, June 10, decided to move his army into northern Syria where battles were blazing in Idlib, Maarat al-Numaan and Jisr al-Shuhour, debkafile's sources report. His government is considering defining its mission as the protection of civilian lives against a barbaric ruler citing the UN Security Council resolution on Libya. Refugee camps will also go up on the Syrian side of the border to stem the flow into Turkey.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's security machine is creaking judging by its failure to raise thousands of Palestinian and Syrian volunteers to brave the Israeli troops manning the Golan Sunday, June 5. debkafile's intelligence sources reveal that even the few hundred willing to turn out demanded an exorbitant fee: $1,000 for every demonstrator who cut a piece of razor wire from the Israeli border fence and $10,000 for the families of volunteers shot by Israeli troops before they reached their goal.

Israel border units went on night alert Sunday, June 5 after a day spent beating back hundreds of Syrian-Palestinians attempting to storm the Golan border. Syrian TV reported a sit-in protest, claiming Israeli fire killed 20 people and injured 150 injured in round after round of assaults. Twice they breached the fortified border fence at Majd al Shams and Kuneitra but refrained from stepping across. Israeli troops arrested three would-be intruders. Sunday night, Israeli troops were attacked from behind by Majd al-Shams residents hurling rocks. 

Two unforeseen events Friday, June 3 rekindled Syrian protests with full force - just as Syrian President Bashar Assad was preparing to celebrate the suppression of the uprising against his regime with active Iranian and Hizballah help: The leaders of the Syrian opposition-in-exile meeting in Antalya under Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's aegis struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood which brought 100,000 Brotherhood loyalists back on the streets in Hama and evoked a fresh bloodbath.

King Abdullah is determined to save his friends from the fate suffered by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. The second-generation Saudi royals have got together to pull the kingdom away from its long dependence on the US and command its own fate and interests, even at the price of clashing with ...

Bashar Assad's survival unscratched from the uprising against him would have been impossible without expert and active aid from Iran and Hizballah. It has left the radical Iran-led axis alive and kicking. And the Syrian experience has honed the Syrian-Iranian-Hizballah collaboration into a formidable pro-Shiite combined fighting force. Assad ...

Bashar Assad and Muammar Qaddafi look like surviving the "Arab Spring" revolts against them. Neither is buckling under the various batteries of US and Western pressure. Assad has begun regaining control of his country, while all five of Qaddafi's brigades have survived NATO pounding intact. To break the impasse, debkafile sources reveal that on the G8 sidelines, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev closed a secret deal: Assad would stay and Qaddafi must go.

The military and intelligence cliques of Assad's inner circle are sharply divided among themselves over the handling of the Syrian uprising: One group calls for a letup and compromise, while the other threatens to resist any easing of the crackdown by force.

The Saudis plan to carve out a new Arab republic in southern Yemen under their thumb and let civil war divide the country in two. They have dumped Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and US objectives in the country.

After sitting on the fence for six months amid the Arab uprisings, Moscow now takes a stand, capitalizing on the positions slipping out of the United States grasp in the turbulent slipstream of the Arab Revolt.

Israeli intelligence reports that young West Bank Palestinians are fired up by the Arab Revolt in other countries and preparing riotous disturbances against Israel. They may be timed to coincide with the next round of mass incursions planned by Syria, Hizballah and Hamas across Israel's borders.

Army and security services across the West Bank are out hunting for between five and eight Syria and Hizballah secret agents believed to have slipped across the Golan border under cover of the May 15 Palestinian mob incursion. debkafile's sources report that Hamas and Hizballah West Bank cell members drove them to their hideouts.
Syria plans its next mob border assault for June 5. Hamas is staging a mass offensive to smash the Gaza-Israel border fence Friday, May 20.

Syria's Bashar Assad and Hizballah had more than one objective in bussing thousands of demonstrators to Israel's Golan border Nakba Day, Sun. May 15. One was to show they could easily capture the enclave from Israel and the other, to put a spoke in Egypt's wheel for transferring Hamas' command centers from Damascus to the Gaza Strip. Israeli policymakers failed to appreciate this intelligence and so the IDF's Northern Command officers were taken off guard by the storming of Majd al-Shams.

On Sunday, May 15, Israel's enemies breached three of its borders – Syrian, Lebanese and Gazan - in an operation that caught its government, army and intelligence napping. Their reaction showed them to be muddled and incapable of an organized, rational tactical response to a multiple security crisis. The blanket directive to exercise "maximum restraint,"  a weakness which Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah will have noted, paves the way for the next Syrian step – a military and terrorist offensive to "liberate the Golan."