Iran has located its global cyber war-room at Hizballah’s secret internal security apparatus headquarters in South Beirut, under the direction of Hassan Nasrallah’s brother-in-law Wafiq Safa ,debkafile’s exclusive intelligence and counterterrorism sources reveal. The hackers and cyber experts who recently attacked American banks and guided an Iranian stealth drone into Israeli airspace on Oct. 6, operated from this facility and its secret bunkers. No US or Israel action has been taken as yet against this threat to their national security.

Instead of Netanyahu attacking Iran, Khamenei has developed a preemptive strategy for harassing Israel without going far enough to provoke an Israel counter-attack. The stealth drone Iran sent over Israel was not only invisible to Israel but also to US Navy and military radar in the region.

Ten days after Hizballah launched an Iranian stealth UAV into Israeli air space undetected, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unveiled his new security doctrine in a Knesset speech confirming elections on Jan. 22, 2013. He said that his light but firm finger on the trigger had given Israel seven years without war.
Iran’s leader Khamenei, in contrast, handed Hizballah a $1 m prize for the sending the spy drone in a blatant act of belligerence. He rewarded the Iranian UAV designers with a Porsche car each.

An Iranian cyber offensive has hit US banks, Israeli military defenses, Saudi oil and Qatari gas websites. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the US will retaliate for a “cyber Pearl Harbor.” The Wall Street Journal reports 100 Iranian hackers are conducting the offensive. debkafile: Tehran is telling Washington that US-led sanctions will continue to be punished and further pressure on Syria’s Bashar Assad will be met with assaults on Israel’s military or even nuclear sites. Without a response, Iran will keep going.

The Iranian drone was not brought down by an Israeli airborne missile. After a losing cyber battle with the drone’s Iranian remote controllers in Lebanon, Israel sent two helicopters up to draw a steel cable under the intruder, trap it and haul it down to earth. The drone landed ...

Two days after an Iranian pilotless helicopter breached Israeli air space, Israel Monday, Oct. 8, rushed into position Patriot missile interceptor batteries in different parts of northern Israel, including Mt. Carmel, near Haifa. debkafile: The IDF has drawn initial lessons from the failure of air defense radar to detect the hostile UAV when it flew down Israel’s coastline from the north over Israel’s most sensitive military and industrial centers. The Patriots are there for more Iranian or Hizballah intrusions and to meet the current deterioration in Syria.

Before it was shot down, the large helicopter which breached Israeli airspace Saturday flew over the IDF’s southern facilities, Beersheba and the Israeli Air Force base at Nevatim. It likely had surveillance equipment for recording and beaming back to its Iranian controllers the electronic signatures of the Dimona nuclear reactor’s air defenses and the American X-band radar station linked to the US X-band station in Turkey – the “forward eyes” of the US-Israeli shield against Iranian ballistic missile attack. The UAV should have been shot down much sooner.

Israeli intelligence and air force waged a cyber battle Saturday, Oct. 6 with unidentified parties, most likely Hizballah or Iran, which sent a satellite-guided unmanned helicopter into Israeli air space through the Mediterranean.  debkafile reports exclusively: For 30 minutes, control of the helicopter swung back and forth between Israeli cyber operators and unknown agents over southern Israel. Finally, four Israeli F-16 fighters shot the trespasser down, the while Israeli cyber experts tried to identify its satellite controller.