US President Barack Obama Tuesday, Feb. 28, vetoed plans submitted to him last week for Western-Arab military intervention in the Syrian crisis, debkafile reports. He is weighing an alternative plan for setting up “humanitarian corridors” in the most embattled areas. That too would be contingent on Russian endorsement, because Obama believes Moscow holds the key to Assad’s consent - or at least abstention from sending his army to attack the aid routes.  No Russian response as yet to feelers from Washington.

Military preparations for intervention in the horrendous Syrian crisis are quietly afoot in Washington, Paris, Rome, London and Ankara. President Barack Obama is poised for a final decision after the Pentagon submits operational plans for protecting Syrian rebels and beleaguered populations, debkafile reports. The deaths of two notable journalists helped galvanize the West into action. They died after Syrian artillery located their secret press center in Homs with the help of Russian spy satellites or Iranian electronic measures - and gutted it. 

Middle East capitals are puzzled by the Obama administration’s willingness to cast the Arab bloc and its Syrian concerns aside and collaborate with Turkey on the Assad issue. Why is non-Arab Turkey the blue-eyed boy in Washington and not the Gulf Arabs? The answer in some Middle East capitals is that ...

Western intelligence sources reporting in real time concluded Saturday night, Feb. 11 that Bashar Assad's loyal forces had by and large managed to subdue the rebellion against the regime, even though flare-ups are still to come. They are now purging the last pockets of resistance, especially in Syria's third largest city, Homs. The Syrian ruler will go on record as crushing his own people with the help of non-Arab Iran and Russia. For the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia this is a contretemps.

A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel's Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their radar systems: the two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations in Israel's Negev and Turkey's Kurecik air base, and Israel's new EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine. debkafile's military sources report the test proved to be a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield's Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyin Erdogan has an ambitious new plan for a combined coalition effort to end the violence in Syria. But it all depends on President Obama's willingness to back it up with an air and naval umbrella against Syrian missile and air might backed by the Russian ...

A senior US emissary promised Israel that its X-band radar station in Turkey would share data with Israel on a coming Iranian missile attack – contrary to the Turkish foreign minister's assurances to Tehran.

Iran will avoid a full-dress confrontation with superior US military might and trust to pinpoint harassment and provocations to carry the day. Tehran believes the apparent US-Israeli rift it’s a subterfuge to camouflage US-Israel war preparations against its nuclear sites.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey have alerted Washington to intelligence reports that Iranian Al Qods Brigades operatives are heading their way to blow up oil installations and American targets. They ask how the US intends to respond. For the second time in a week, a US spokesman Washington disclosed Jan 17 that Al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani secretly visited Damascus. debkafile reports: Part of his mission was to synchronize these Al Qods attacks with backing for Assad's crackdown on protest.

When IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi accused Iran and Hizballah Wednesday, Jan. 11of of supplying Bashar Assad with arms for suppressing protest, Turkey had just closed the Iranian corridor carrying those arms through its territory after its contribution to the Syrian army's success in beating down Hama, Homs and Idlib. debkafile discloses that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also warned Tehran that Ankara would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would retaliate by posting NATO troops on the Iranian border.

Military tensions are building up around Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported an Israeli Eitan drone hovering for four hours over the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district – the expected jumping-off point for any foreign military intervention in Syria.  In the south, fierce battles raged Tuesday, Jan. 3 between Syrian troops and the mutinous 38th Mechanized Brigade in the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle. Sounds of gunfire were heard in Israel.

Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.
debkafile's military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the narrow strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ. Estimates of the sizes of the two fields have been substantially upped of late. Both see prospects of becoming major gas suppliers to Europe.

As news of Erdogan's grave illness trickles out, will Obama find a new Middle East partner to replace the pro-Western democratic Islamic ruler he chose as a model for Muslim rulers in the Arab world?

As NATO cargo planes airlifted Libyan fighters to join the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army units in Turkey, Syrian forces armed with Russian spy satellite intelligence waylaid FSA rebels and deserters, killing them where they stood. A large-scale exercise prepares Syrian army to repel a combined offensive.

"Despite the efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, they have reached a point where they can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less," said US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in a CBS interview Tuesday, Dec. 20 marking a radical change in US administration policy. "That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis," he said. Instead of warning Israel against striking Iran, Panetta said: "If we have to do it we will deal with it."

Extreme concern was quietly voiced Sunday, Dec. 18, by American and European official circles over the state of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's health – and especially its impact on present and impending events in Syria and other parts of the Middle East, including Iran, debkafile's Western intelligence sources report. Those sources say Erdogan is suffering from Rectosigmoid cancer. The prolonged treatment he needs is already affecting policy-making and has sparked the first signs of a power struggle within his ruling AKP party.
 

Expanded Russian military support for the Assad regime was underscored by the deployment Friday, Dec. 16, of advanced Moscow-supplied Yakhont (SSN-26) shore-to-sea missiles along Syria's Mediterranean shore to fend off a potential invasion by sea. Last week, Russia airlifted to Syria 3 million face masks against chemical and biological weapons; and the Admiral Kutznetsov strike group headed out to Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Ankara; Syrian Vice President Farouk a-Shara in Moscow.

Syria has moved Scud missiles, some tipped with chemical warheads, to its border with Turkey, reinforced its tank units on the Jordanian border and airlifted from Russia three million face masks against chemical and biological weapons.

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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