A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Week Ending November 11, 2010

November 5, 2010 Briefs
• Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility for two air cargo package bombs defused last week. Also UPS freight plane that crashed over Dubai September 3. Same explosive device used in all three.
• A suicide bomber killed 60 people, injured 80 injured in a mosque in near NW Pakistani Peshawar. The village elders opposed Taliban, formed private militia.
• Netanyahu heads for US Sunday. He is due to meet VP Biden and Sec. of State Clinton.

November 6, 2010 Briefs
• Saudi FM: Riyadh abandons mediation between Afghan government and Taliban after latter refused to break with Al Qaeda.
• US demand Syria open to inspection Deir A-Zer bombed nuclear site.
• Obama starts Asia tour in Mumbai, where he honors victims of 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
• Qassam from Gaza explodes in a Negev field Saturday.
• French FM Kouchner in Beirut reports situation in region is dangerous. Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri snubbed him.
• Iran's Khatami: US will take its dream of negotiations to the grave if it persists in hegemonic ways and plots against Iran/

Saudi Arabia's double standard on al Qaeda

6 Nov. Saudi Arabia, while giving Washington, Berlin and London three early warnings of an impending Al Qaeda -Yemen airborne terror offensive, was itself deeply immersed in its own back yard organizing, mustering bombers and arming Al Qaeda-Iraq for its biggest operation in the Middle East – the storm of anti-Shiite, anti-Iran violence which swept Baghdad Tuesday, Nov. 2 and left some 130 dead and 300 injured. Shiite Sadr City took the brunt of the attacks.
German explosives experts explained to Der Spiegel how the mechanisms of the parcel bombs worked and how they could have blown the cargo planes up in midflight had they exploded. They described the device discovered at the British East Midlands airport as being armed with a timer geared to a light-emitting diode for activating an acid igniter in a plastic syringe that was to have detonated the PETN explosive material packed in the photocopier's ink cartridge.
In separate Saudi activity, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni Awakening Council leaders, the very same ones who rallied to the American flag in 2007 and 2008 and helped make the Petraeus surge policy against the terrorists a success, were told to give the Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki a hiding and curb the spread of Iranian and Shiite domination through Iraq. They did so by a devastating terrorist assault on Baghdad.

November 7, 2010 Briefs
• Nazareth imam Nazim Abu Salim is indicted for inciting fellow Israeli Muslims to violence in the name of Al Qaeda. His followers convicted for murdering a Jewish taxi driver, attacking Christians, and plotting abductions.
• Iranian FM Mottaki said US Senator Lindsey Graham was joking when he talked about attacking Iran. He poses fresh conditions for talks with world powers. Turkey as venue instead of Vienna. Zionist nuclear program added to agenda.
• Illegally-built mosque in Israeli Bedouin town of Rahat demolished after ritual objects removed. Police used tear gas to break up stone-throwing mob.

Obama continues military buildup around Iran

7 Nov. Before taking off for Asia Saturday, Nov. 6, President Barack Obama ordered the Pentagon not just to beef up American and NATO military pressure on Iran but to do so as conspicuously as possible, debkafile's Washington and military sources report. In the last few days, three aircraft carriers, four nuclear submarines and marine assault units have piled up opposite Iranian shores.
Early Sunday, the influential Senator Lindsey Graham (R. South Carolina), member of the Armed Services and Homeland Defense committees, said: "The US should consider sinking the Iranian navy, destroying its air force and delivering a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guards." In an address to the Halifax International Security forum, he declared "They should neuter the regime."
At the same forum, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak was pessimistic about diplomatic engagement halting Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon. "Based on experience and looking at the example which they (the Iranians) are using, which is probably the North Korean example, you can easily see … the objective is to defy, deceive and deter the whole world," he said.

November 8-9, 2010 Briefs
• US closes air space to planes incoming from Somalia and Yemen.
• US Sen. John Kerry warns Assad of consequences if Hizballah seizes power in Lebanon.
• US is "deeply disappointed" by Israeli approval of 1,300 new homes in East Jerusalem suburbs. The homes are to go up in old-established suburb of Ramot and Har Homa.
• At least 30 killed, 80 injured in car bomb attacks Monday in Iraqi Shiite towns of Karbala, Najaf and Basra. The first two targeted Iranian pilgrims.
• Nearly 18,000 illegal immigrants infiltrated Israel through Egypt in 2010. Most came from Eritrea and Sudan.
• Prominent British charities finance Al Qaeda's Yemen-based Anwar Al Awlaki – report.
• The number of poor in Israel is growing. In 2010, 1.8 million families live below poverty line including 850,000 children.
• Defense authorities on alert for new Palestinian plots to abduct Israeli soldiers.
• Netanyahu rejects Obama's criticism from Jakarta of new housing construction Jerusalem as unhelpful to pursuit of peace: Jerusalem is no "settlement" he said. Peace efforts never affected in 40 years by building in city. It has nothing to do with settlement construction.
• Israel's top soldier: The IDF stands against a wide range of threats from terror to war in South and North. The nature of these threats has recently changed, said Gen. Ashkenazi. In a future war populations will have to be evacuated.
• Tzahi Hanegbi suspends his Knesset seat after Jerusalem court rules him guilty of moral turpitude and disqualified as lawmaker. He was convicted for perjury although charges of favoring political appointees were reduced.
• Two mortar shells fired from Gaza early Tuesday.
• Some 150 lawmakers from 50 countries gather in Ottawa for 2nd international conference for combating anti-Semitism. On agenda: "New globalizing, virulent, lethal anti-Semitism" recalling 1930s atmospherics.
• Former Swedish Dep. PM Per Ahlmark: The most dangerous anti-Semites in the past wanted to make the world "free of Jews". Today, they want to make the world "free of a Jewish state".

US Predators arrive in Yemen to hunt down Al Awakli

9 Nov. The Obama administration has elevated its military intervention in Yemen by deploying Predator drones against Al Qaeda strongholds at a secret new US base in Al Hodeyda on Yemen's Red Sea coast, debkafile's exclusive military sources disclose. The UAVs were brought in after two explosive parcels were mailed from Yemen last month, the handiwork of US-born Al Qaeda leader Anwar Al-Awlaki. CIA director Leon Panetta selected the site of the covert base in January. It was finished in April.
debkafile's Middle East sources note that it is the first time in seven years that US air strike forces are stationed on Arabian Peninsula soil.
Monday night, Nov. 9, Awlaki himself aired a 25-minute videotape on extremist websites. It was devoted to an unbridled attack on America. Muslims around the world were called upon to kill Americans. "Don't consult with anybody in killing the Americans," he said. "Fighting the devil doesn't require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance. It is either us or them."

November 10, 2010 Briefs
• Jaffa imam Muhammad Ayesh, member of extremist Israel-Muslim Northern branch, charged with security offenses.
• Ahmadinejad stresses no nuclear issues may be discussed in Iran's talks with world powers. Nothing but international problems and establishing peace.
• At least three killed, 26 injured in firebomb-mortar attacks on Christian homes in Baghdad early Wednesday.

All four top Hizballah figures face indictment in Hariri murder

10 Nov. Four of Hizballah's top commanders expect to be indicted by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon-STL for the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. debkafile's exclusive sources reveal their names: Musttafa Badr al-Din, Hizballah's No. 2 after Hassan Nasrallah; Wafiq Safa, Head of Hizballah's special security and intelligence apparatus, one of Nasrallah's closest cronies; Talal Hamiya, Head of the Special Duties branch of Hizballah's Jihad Council; and Ibrahim Muhammad Akil, incumbent military commander of southern Lebanon, i.e., the front against Israel.
If Hizballah makes good on its threat to forcibly overthrow the Lebanese government and so preempt its officers' extradition, Lebanon could fall under a government of terrorists also inculpated for political assassination by an international tribunal.

November 11, 2919 Briefs
• Meeting between Netanyahu and Secretary Clinton is affectionate with no sign of tension or rancor.
• The next clash with Hamas is unavoidable, said Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg Thursday handing over Gaza Division to Brig. Gen. Yossi Bechar.
• Huge explosion in central Karachi, Pakistan, destroying police station leaves at least 15 dead and scores injured. The station was located near the prime minister's office and US consulate.
• FM Lieberman: Syria is not a peace partner. There will be no more freezes on settlement construction.
• Clashes in Gaza and West Bank Thursday. Two Israeli women, a police officer injured by rocks hurled by rioting Palestinians around Kiryat Arba, Halhoul and Tekoa on West Bank. They were marking anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death.
• Israel Air Force and Shin Bet repulse Gaza terrorists planting explosive devices along border fence and sniping at IDF patrols.
• Earlier, heavy machinegun fire from North Gaza hit Kibbutz Zikkim factory and a parked car.
• Palestinians reported Israeli helicopter gun- and missile fire near Khan Younes in the South.

Palestinian Hamas "moderate" invites Ahmadinejad to visit Gaza

11 Nov. The Hamas government's deputy foreign minister Dr. Ahmed Yousef is actively campaigning for the Gaza regime to form a strategic partnership with Iran on the same lines as the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah alliance.
debkafile's Middle East sources report that Yousef heads the radical Hamas's "moderate" wing. His campaign and invitation to the Iranian president to visit Gaza, endorsed by the Gaza regime and Tehran, emerges as the key impediment on the path of US efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian talks. It has been welcomed in Tehran as advancing Iran's expansionist goals in the eastern Mediterranean.
The Hamas official laid the religious-ideological groundwork for his invitation with a new book entitled: The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. He explains that the contemporary affinity between Tehran and Hamas is neither random nor born of a marriage of convenience but rather predestined by the common aspiration for the divine ideal of an Islamic state.

Bodies found of F16I pilot and navigator from training accident over S. Israel

11 Nov. After an extensive search, the bodies were found in the Ramon Crater of Maj. Amihai Itkis, 28, from Sde Warburg and Maj. Emanuel Levy, 30, from Maale Adummim, the pilot and navigator whose F16I crashed Wednesday night during a dogfight exercise. The accident is initially thought to have been caused by a miscalculation by the air crew rather than a technical fault.
They were taking part in an exercise simulating an attack by enemy planes at high altitude in night conditions. Instead of gaining height the plane lost altitude and dived into a crash. The pilot did not signal distress. The F16I is the most advanced warplane of the Israeli Air Force. The IAF commander Maj. Gen. Idan Nechushtan has ordered an inquiry and grounded the F16Is taking part in the exercise.