Tehran gave Bashar Assad its strongest avowal of support yet Tuesday, Aug. 7, while heaping threats on the heads of his enemies, especially the US, Turkey and Israel.  Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, sat alongside the Syrian ruler in Damascus at the end of their talks and vowed not to let Iran’s “close partnership with the Syrian leadership to be shaken by the uprising or external foes” or the “axis of resistance (Iran, Syria, Hizballah) be broken.” Assad pledged to purge Syria of terror.

Day by day, new Syrian militias spring up to fight the Assad regime – five in the last 48 hours. They fall into three main categories: a Syrian ethnic minority or another – Kurdish, Turkmen and Muslim Brothers; Islamists streaming in from Libya, the Gaza Strip and Sinai; or rebels groups armed and backed by Arab and Muslim intelligence bodies. US intelligence predicts their number will rise to 100 in weeks. Saturday, MiG fighter jets went into action against rebel positions in Aleppo to break the tie in fighting.

The US has quietly crafted a new Kurdish state in northern Syria. It is linked to the self-governing Kurdish republic of Iraq and defers to its rulers. Turkey and Iraq feel betrayed by Barack Obama, fearing their own Kurdish minorities like Iran’s Kurds will be swallowed up by the long dreamed-of ...

Assad hastened to redeploy his tank forces to block rebel control of the strategic highway and smash through the Aleppo districts harboring rebel forces.

Disquiet in Washington, Jerusalem and a row of Middle East capitals is gaining ground the longer the Saudi government stays silent on the reported assassination of the newly-appointed Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, purportedly in a revenge operation by a Syrian intelligence death squad.  Saudi rulers are feared too traumatized to respond to the report by the fear of clandestine Iranian penetration of the highest and most closely guarded circles of their government, possibly climaxing in Bandar’s assassination.

Foreign forces were piling up on Syrian borders Wednesday, July 25, bringing closer a confrontation which could spur the Assad regime into making good on its threat to use chemical weapons against “external aggression.” The immediacy of the peril, debkafile reports, has speeded the arrival of Russian warships to Syria to counter a potential Western, Arab or Israeli assault on the embattled country. London sources predict British military intervention, while Tehran is ready to fight off any attempt at regime change in Damascus.

The Defense Ministry’s Amos Gilead and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz administered tranquilizers Tuesday, July 24, to allay fears of war with Syria, Hizballah and Iran. Gilead said that the Assad regime was in full control of Syria’s unconventional weapons, while Gen. Gantz indicated that Israel has no plans for attacking Syria. Damascus’ threat of chemical warfare against external attacks was hence not applicable. By contradicting Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, the two security chiefs sowed confusion in the Israeli street.
 

Senior Israeli military officers, referring to the Syrian foreign ministry statement Monday, July 23, that Syria would only use chemical weapons against “external aggression” said this was a direct threat by the Assad regime to turn those weapons against Israel. There was no denial of their potential transfer to Hizballah against which Israel has vowed to use force. debkafile: Assad keeps carte blanche for chemical warfare. Obama warns Assad he will be held accountable if he makes tthe “tragic mistake” of using chemical weapons.

Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian armies and US Middle East forces were on the ready Sunday, July 22, in case Syrian chemical weapons moved toward Lebanon, debkafile reports. Acting in unison, those armies are watching out for the slightest movement, because it would take just two hours to cover the distance from Syria to the Hizballah-controlled Bakaa Valley of Lebanon. Their arrival there would mean a war. So the IDF prefers to stop the arsenal in its tracks before it reaches the Lebanese border.

Bashar Assad kept his cool after losing his closest intimates and senior axe men of his savage campaign against the rebels. He replaced them all in a jiffy and carried on his war without breaking stride.

Tehran and Damascus have decided to initiate their war on Israel with terrorism, reserving chemical weapons for use first against the rebels and Jordan. Syria’s rebels have also procured chemical weapons from Libya.

Iran, Syria and Hizballah resolve to up their terror assaults on “strategic” Israeli targets in step with the worsening war situation in Syria and a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program, debkafile reports.
The Bulgarian bus attack was a “local” target – although seven Israelis were killed and more than 30 injured – whereas an Israeli plane or diplomat would be a “strategic” target. Nevertheless, US President Barack Obama and Israeli prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed that Israel will not react for now.

The fall of Damascus may be drawn-out, bloody and excruciating. It will also have wide regional repercussions, as debkafile shows in this exclusive video, because neither the Assad regime nor Iran will take it lying down.

At least 11 Russian warships are heading for Syria from their Black Sea and North Sea bases; NATO’s rapid response Maritime Group 2 is on its way to the E. Mediterranean too, and five Israeli warships are already deployed. The French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle-R91 is making for the French naval base at Port Zayid, Abu Dhabi, opposite the Strait of Hormuz. In Riyadh, high Saudi officials are convinced a US strike against Iran is coming soon - before or after the November election.

Agreement on a Syria-led transition based on mutual consent that includes members of the current government” was reported by UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan from the Action Group on Syria meeting in Geneva Saturday, June 30. He avoided mentioning Bashar Assad, but was not able to conceal the gap between Washington and Moscow over the Syrian ruler’s fate: The US still wants him gone, while Russia is still adamant about propping him up.  That is the devil in the Annan peace effort.

Aviation Week reports: “Evidence is mounting that the US defense community and the Obama administration view 2013 as the likely window for a bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities.” The chaos of the Syrian government’s fall could be used “to disguise such an attack,” the journal suggests. “The tools…are all operational.” Friday night, top US and Russian diplomats failed to bridge differences on Syria ahead of a UN-sponsored Action Group parley in Geneva. Military preparations are building up for an attack on Syria.
 

Saying “An Islamist flood threatens us all, the Russian president put before the Israeli prime minister propositions of a secret conduit through Moscow to Tehran and help for mending Turkish-Israeli relations in return for a Russian stake in Mediterranean oil.

Another urgent bid for the US to lead an allied offensive against Syria’s ruling regime fell on deaf ears. It came Tuesday, June 26, from Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who is spoiling for action over the Syrian shoot-down of a Turkish military plane last Friday. Obama turned him down and urged US, British, Turkish and French covert operations to continue. Erdogan is forced to resort to the strategy employed by Binyamin Netanyahu on a nuclear Iran - tough rhetoric accompanied by inaction.

Unconfirmed first reports from British, French and Turkish sources say British special forces crossed from Turkey into northern Syria Tuesday, May 26, advancing up to 10 kilometers inside the country. Those sources also report heavy fighting around the Republican Guards compound guarding Bashar Assad's palace on Mount Qaisoun overlooking Damascus. This two-pronged assault on the Assad regime, if confirmed, began at the end of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Israel. It challenges his repeated objections to foreign intervention.

Al Qaeda infiltrators from Libya are spearheading much of this month’s anti-Israel violence from Sinai and the Gaza Strip - a dangerous development Israel, Hamas, Egypt and the US prefer to conceal. It appears to tie in with the arrival of al Qaeda’s ex-Iraq fighters in Syria as part of its leader's master plan. Deeply concerned to check the spillover from Libya into Egypt, Cairo has posted its elite counter-terrorist “999 unit” in El Arish, on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip and along the northern sector of its frontier with Israel.