After US intelligence admitted it cannot detect or stop a Syrian chemical attack, US experts now estimate that Iran will not be able to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one or bombs before mid-2014 “without detection by the West.”  debkafile: Barack Obama is preparing the world for the “surprise” of an Iranian nuclear test.  The new, delayed dateline, moreover, is based on a false supposition. Already today, Iran has acquired or produced enough enriched uranium to build five nuclear bombs.

As US intelligence gropes in the dark in Syria – unable to pin down the rebel leader or a suitable candidate to follow Sadat - Saudi secret service chief Prince Bandar uses Al Arabiya TV to release “classified Syrian security documents” for his propaganda campaign against Assad and other ...

Al Qaeda’s Ayman Zuwahiri is preparing a string of terrorist attacks in the five weeks up to the presidential election as the sequel to the Sept. 11 Benghazi murders, says US intelligence. He seeks to influence the poll’s results, while building up his reputation as master of spectacular terrorist operations. debkafile: The Benghazi attack exposed al Qaeda networks' striking expansion across a broad region - Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Mali and Egypt (Sinai) - from which most US personnel have been quietly lifted out.

As the US tenses for more al Qaeda terror in Africa in the wake of the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, our researchers have turned up information indicating that the ambassador was running members of the group which murdered him as penetration agents against al Qaeda.

Word of upgraded underwear bombing devices and double agents should never have been released because without inside intelligence, the key PETN explosive is undetectable by airport security scanners. Running double agents inside terrorist cells is the most tricky and hazardous of undercover operations because no one ever has the whole picture. Compromising the penetration of al Qaeda’s Yemen cell has therefore caused inestimable damage to the counter-terror efforts against al Qaeda. Hence the dismay in US intelligence agencies on both these counts.

Two Iranian traders were arrested in Kuala Lumpur for using counterfeit $100 bills for their purchases. Their suitcases with the equivalent of $356,000 in fake dollars were seized. They claimed they had been issued with the cash by the Iranian national bank in Tehran and had no idea the bills were not genuine greenbacks. Iran is threatening to sever trade ties with Malaysia over the incident.  US and Chinese secret agents are in the Malaysian capital to trace the fake currency’s provenance.

The Thai police's capture of a Lebanese-Swedish Hizballah suspect thwarted a terrorist attack on Bet Habad in Bangkok, involving the taking of hostages and blowing up the building - on the same lines as al Qaeda's 2008 assault on the Mumbai Habad center which killed 8 Israelis and Jews - only more ambitious. Habad Bangkok is much larger; its hostel has dozens of rooms. A second team was to have hit the Khao San Road restaurants popular with Israelis and Americans. The terror alert is still in force.

The al Qaeda leader never wavered from his basic conception that only a mega-attack on an American city devastating enough to rock the US economy would make Washington withdraw its forces from the Middle East. This is confirmed in the files taken from the Abbottabad villa after he was killed on May 2. Otherwise the materials examined so far contribute no hard intelligence to the war on al Qaeda or the prevention of another mega-attack in the US.

The US president's counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said the fatal UPS mail cargo flight crash over Dubai on September 2 is to be re-examined to find out if it was not caused by an explosive package collected from Yemen. He disclosed this in an interview to CNN Sunday, Oct. 31. debkafile's counter-terror sources report that if this is what happened, US intelligence missed picking up on al Qaeda's air package plot for two months.

debkafile cites US intelligence Saturday night, Oct. 2, as using the term "imminent" for a possible Mumbai-style multiple terrorist strike originating in Pakistan a week after four European countries, the UK, Germany, France and Sweden went on high terror alert. The State Department plans will soon publish an advisory to American travelers to avoid public places anywhere in Europe. Two Osama bin Laden tapes in 24 hours may hold the coded trigger for the attack.

Syria has posted the advanced early warning radar received from Iran - not on its own soil but on the highest peak of neighboring Lebanon, according to debkafile's military and intelligence sources. From Mount Sannine in central Lebanon, the new facility provides early warning against a possible Israeli surprise attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and extends the span of Iranian and Syrian electronic surveillance to Israeli air space to the south and the eastern-central Mediterranean to the west.

Evidence has reached debkafile that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air in an al Qaeda attack, exactly one month after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. French and Hizballah passengers were also targeted.

The bodies were found strapped to their seats with their heads and limbs blown off, typical sign of ...