As NATO in Brussels gave the go-ahead Tuesday night Dec. 4, for the deployment of Patriots to protect Turkey against Syrian missiles, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reported convoys of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons units heading out of Damascus under cover of dark and turning north up the road to Aleppo. They were ferrying self-propelled cannons and shells armed with poisonous sarin gas. Assad used the heavy winds, cloud and rain to obstruct Western attacks on the convoys.

Since the US has taken the lead in the coalition backing the Syrian rebellion, the rebels are going for strategic targets, including anti-air missiles for knocking Assad’s bombers out of the sky.

President Obama admires President Morsi and wants him aboard his burgeoning anti-Iran Sunni alliance. The Egyptian street is baying for his blood.

Thursday night, Nov. 29, the UN General Assembly grants Palestine non-member observer status within the 1967 borders by majority vote. But to which Palestinian rule does it apply?  Abbas’s Fatah is fading, whereas the extremist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a rising force. If it qualifies for a place in the Sunni Middle East grouping Egypt, Turkey and Qatar are building with US backing and Israeli approval, Hamas may become the beneficiary of the upgraded Palestinian status won by Abbas.

Israel’s operation was an intel coup to shut Iran’s gateway to Cairo via Hamas.

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.

Even before the Gaza conflict was over, the next major steps were in motion: US-manned Patriots and Awacs are in the pipeline for deployment on the Turkish Syrian border; Moscow moved its Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force opposite Gaza/Israeli shores, joining Tehran’s concern that the US-led coalition which wrecked Iran’s “southern front” in Gaza would turn against Syria and Hizballah. The US and Israel are braced for violent Iranian retribution; while Egyptian President Morsi’s troubles could undo the fragile Gaza ceasefire.

Obama has decided to break through the Syrian stalemate by sending scouts out to find a Syrian rebel with leadership qualities who is fighting Assad in Syria. When this leader is found and approved by the president, the United States will provide him and his militia with advanced hardware ...

Obama’s tactics for blocking Binyamin Netanyahu’s options for attacking Iran are now being applied to the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan to hold him back from direct military intervention on the side of the rebels in Syria and dragging American in too.

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.

Two Bashar Assad external supporters took significant military steps Wednesday, Oct. 17. Russia started moving advanced S-400 interceptors over to its southern military region opposite Turkey, as Ankara’s clashes with Assad’s forces intensified. Hizballah began removing rockets and fighting units out of their South Lebanon positions opposite Israel and transferring them to the Homs front as back-up for Syrian forces. This attests to the rising scope and fury of the Syrian army’s onslaught on rebel forces.

War tensions over Syria shot up again early Thursday, Oct. 11, when the Turkish army was placed on high readiness and its chiefs pledge stronger responses to Syria. An authoritative US source told debkafile that Turkey had - by forcing a Syrian civilian flight en route from Moscow land in Ankara and banning flights over Syria - begun creating a no-fly zone over Syria. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta again cited the threat of chemical warfare. US sources don’t expect Assad or Iran to take Turkish actions lying down.

Turkish air force jets forced a Syrian 35-passenger Airbus A320 bound from Moscow to Damascus to land in Ankara Wednesday night, Oct. 10. Ankara also announced Syrian air space was no longer safe for civilian flights – a signal that Ankara will stop civilian air traffic over Syria. Turkey has not indicated whether military aircraft or Iranian civilian planes frequenting Syrian skies are included in the ban, but it begins to look as though Turkey has take steps toward imposing Syria’s first no-fly zone.

Turkish artillery continued to pound Syria Thursday, October 4, with the aim of carving out a 10-kilometer buffer strip inside Syria, debkafile reports. Several Syrian army bases and positions inside this strip have taken direct hits and a large number of Syrian troops were killed or wounded. Turkey hopes its artillery barrage will help Syrian rebels create a 50-km long protected corridor between Aleppo and the Turkish border. Ankara and Damascus have both imposed a blackout to keep events under control and avoid a full-blown war.

The first US-Turkish backed steps for creating safe havens in Syria and possible Western bombardment of the Syrian army have brought the Middle East close to two dangerous junctures: The Syrian army’s use of chemical and biological weapons, and an outbreak of hostilities between Hizballah and Israel – which nearly happened in mid-week, debkafile reports.
Washington disclosed Friday that Syria’s chemical arsenal was bigger and more widely scattered than suspected hitherto and, therefore, the US may have lost count.

Turkey is finally getting its safe haven plan off the ground by bringing two Syrian rebel brigades under Turkish command for capturing large segments of northern Syria. The Free Syrian has meanwhile begun liquidating foreign Islamists including al Qaeda who have streamed into Syria to fight Assad.

Turkish army officers have assumed direct command of at least two Syrian rebel brigades fighting Bashar Assad’s government forces, according to debkafile’s exclusive sources. This step and its future expansion, discussed during CIA Director David Petraeus’ talks in Ankara, have sent military tensions rocketing on Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon. A high alert was declared for Israel units on the Syrian and Lebanese borders for a possible backlash after unusual military movements were detected in Syria and among Hizballah concentrations.

President Barack Obama is sending CIA Director David Petraeus in a hurry to Israel Sept. 3.
He will fly in from a visit to Ankara Sunday, where too he faces recriminations over US handling of the Syrian crisis. His visit to Israel is a non-binding gesture that will not stem the rising ill will between Jerusalem and Washington of Iran, because neither the White House nor US top soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey is backtracking or apologizing for his derogatory remarks about the IDF's ability to take Iran on.

Sunni and Shiite Soldiers of Allah are on the march against each other. They are preparing for a clash of arms in the embattled Syrian arena. A mobilization campaign is drawing foreign jihadists to fight Assad out of many corners of the Sunni world, including lands now ruled by ...

The disclosure Thursday night, Aug.16 by an American source that a worst-case scenario could require up to 60,000 ground troops for securing Syria's chemical and biological weapons sites was meant as psychological preparation for chemical warfare, say debkafile’s military sources, as Syria’s neighbors make ready.
Assad, armed with Tehran’s pledge of all-out support delivered by Saeed Jalilee, threatens to give Turkish PKK Kurdish rebels SA-8 anti-air missiles if any more Stingers are delivered to the Syrian rebels. Ankara: That would mean war.