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Monday, October 06, 2008

 
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Lebanese prime minister alerts US to Syrian terror plot as pretext for invasion

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

October 6, 2008, 10:36 AM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian troop deployment on Lebanese border

Syrian troop deployment on Lebanese border

Damascus is plotting a large-scale terror attack or the assassination of a Lebanese figure to drum up another pretext for invading northern Lebanon, according to Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora. Reporting this, DEBKAfile’s Beirut sources disclose that two senior US officials, deputy secretary of state David Hale and assistant defense secretary Mary Beth Long were sent post haste to Beirut in response to this warning, arriving on Oct. 5. Two brigades of the 4th Syrian Mechanized Division, numbering up to 10,000 men have been poised on the Lebanese border since last month, as DEBKAfile revealed on Sept. 20, and are now on combat readiness.
More...


Dow Jones falls below 10,000 points first time in four years

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 6, 2008, 5:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

On Wall Street, Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 300 points Monday, Oct. 6, to fall below 10,000 for the first time since 2004. It followed the selloffs in the first sessions in Asia, Europe and Russia since the US $700 bn bailout plan was enacted last week. Tel Aviv's morning recovery abruptly reversed to a 4.5 percent decline. Earlier, London’s FTSE slumped more than 8 percent, French stocks plummeted by 6 percent, the German DAX by 5.3 percent and Russia's ruble-denominated MICEX stock market was suspended after dropping more than 15 per cent.
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Washington calls off planned diplomatic outpost in Tehran

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 4, 2008, 12:02 PM (GMT+02:00)

Secret US-Iran understandings go up in smoke

Secret US-Iran understandings go up in smoke

Saturday, Oct. 4, the Bush administration indefinitely shelved its plans to set up a diplomatic outpost in Iran. Tehran has taken advantage of America’s financial crisis to ditch informal understandings.

Israel has lost out twice: First by heeding the Bush admninistrations's demands to refrain from military action against Iran and rely on international diplomacy. Now that this option is bankrupt, Israel is left alone with the prospect of an unstoppable nuclear-armed Iran.
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Russian nuclear missile cruiser to dock at Syrian port on Yom Kippur eve

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

October 1, 2008, 11:58 PM (GMT+02:00)

Peter the Great is armed with nuclear missiles

Peter the Great is armed with nuclear missiles

Russian Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo disclosed Wednesday, Oct. 1, that a four-ship squadron led by the Peter the Great nuclear missile cruiser will call in at the Libyan port of Tripoli and “other Middle East ports” before heading out to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with Venezuela.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the flotilla will visit Tartus, Syria, on Yom Kippur eve. Prime minister Ehud Olmert will be wasting his time if he intends asking president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin during his Moscow visit to drop their plan for a permanent base at a Syrian port.
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Sergei’s Courtyard in downtown Jerusalem to be transferred to Russia

October 5, 2008, 10:24 PM (GMT+02:00)

Caretaker prime minister Ehud Olmert will announce the transfer during his Moscow visit starting Monday, Oct. 6. His Kremlin talks are expected to focus on Russia’s return to the Middle East as contributor to Iran's nuclear program and Syria’s arms supplier. The picturesque site of Sergei’s Courtyard in downtown Jerusalem houses Israeli government ministries. It was built in the early 20th century as part of the Russian Orthodox Church Compound as a grand lodging for visiting Russian royals.

The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has petitioned the High Court of Justice to block the transfer.
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TOP STORIES

NATO chief does not expect Israel to abandon its “supposed nuclear arsenal”

October 6, 2008, 2:54 PM (GMT+02:00)

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday he doubted that the world could stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb. Therefore, as a result of Iran's nuclear activities, he would never expect Israel to abandon its own, "supposed nuclear arsenal." Scheffer added: "As we all know, Israel never admits to what it has, but I do not see very many arguments for the Jewish state to abandon its potential."
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“Hizballah Brigades of Palestine” - new Gaza-West Bank terror group

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 5, 2008, 1:08 PM (GMT+02:00)

Local undercover officers of the Iranian-sponsored Hizballah established and funded this “new” Palestinian terrorist organization for “operations” under their orders, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report. It described itself in a statement issued Saturday, Oct. 4, as a “Sunni jihad group which has nothing to do with politics”, and whose members are “former members of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jhad and leftist parties.”
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First Russian live missile fire air exercise near Alaska

October 4, 2008, 9:57 PM (GMT+02:00)

Russian strategic nuclear-armed bomber

Russian strategic nuclear-armed bomber

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that starting Monday, Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95 MS Bear-H strategic bombers will fly missions carrying the maximum combat payload and firing all cruise missiles aboard over sub-Arctic Russia and Belarus, close to Alaska.

As part of the exercise, Russian ships armed with nuclear missiles docks at Syrian ports Wednesday, Oct. 8, Yom Kippur Eve, before continuing to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with Venezuela, as DEBKAfile reported on Oct. 1. Click HERE

Read our Special Report below on Russia’s maneuvers.
Full article


Bush will treat as done deals key issues only broached in Israel-Palestinian talks

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

October 3, 2008, 6:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

A handshake behind Israel's back

A handshake behind Israel's back

US president George W. Bush went over Israel’s head last week and promised Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to hand on to his successor as done deals the issues covered in the talks Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni held with Palestinian leaders, DEBKAfile’s Washington sources reveal.

Olmert and Livni, who is Kadima’s nominee for prime minister, have told the Israeli public that nothing had been agreed in the talks.
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Full Articles and Analyses

Russian live missile fire air exercise near Alaska

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 4, 2008

Not since 1984, just before the fall of the Soviet Union, has Russia ventured to launch dozens of nuclear bombers for an exercise in which Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire live cruise missiles. Exercise Stability 2008 will take place Oct.-6-12 over sub-Arctic Russia uncomfortably close to the US state of Alaska, and Belarus.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the exercise is part of a month-long war game described by Russian air force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik as “practicing the strategic deployment of the armed forces including the nuclear triad.”

As part of the exercise, our sources reported exclusively on Oct. 1, that Russian ships armed with nuclear missiles will dock at Syrian ports Oct. 8, on the eve of Yom Kippur, before continuing to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with Venezuela.

More than 60,000 troops and 1.500 tanks and APCs, as well as land-based and submarine-launched nuclear missiles, were tested in the first phase of the war games.

(“Nuclear triad” refers...
In full


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Iranian Early Warning Station, Anti-Air Base on Lebanese Peak

Iranian Early Warning Station, Anti-Air Base on Lebanese Peak

July 12, 2008

Mt. Sannine, Central Lebanon

Mt. Sannine, Central Lebanon

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .

In the past few weeks, Hizballah at the behest of Iran and Syria has commandeered the 7,800-foot Mt. Sannine, a strategic asset capable of determining the outcome of the next war, as DEBKA-Net-Weekly 356 revealed.

Radar-guided missile positions and an early warning station have since been deployed on its summit, which are capable of monitoring and threatening US Sixth Fleet movements in the eastern Mediterranean and Israel Air Force flights.

This development was serious enough for Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak to repeat three times in as many days that the IDF is keeping a close watch on events in the northern front, especially the deepening ties between Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah. Barak travels to Washington this week.

Mt. Sannine, which dominates the roads connecting Beirut and Damascus, is one of the most prized strategic assets in the region. It was fought over for...
In full


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Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia

Would Obama come to terms with Iran as a nuclear power?

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Iran Achieves a Four-Front Missile Command, Breakthrough on Nuclear Missile Warheads

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

October 4, 2008

Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari, chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps

Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari, chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps have created a separate missile command, in which Syria’s missile force is to be integrated. The joint command was formalized in a new mutual defense treaty signed by the Syrian defense minister, Gen. Hassan Turkmani in Tehran last week.

Israeli military sources judge the operational merger of Iranian and Syrian missile corps to be a major strategic hazard to the Jewish state.

Western and Israeli military experts connect it with other indications that Iran’s program for developing missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads has gone into high gear and reached an advanced stage. They believe the Iranians have beaten most of the technical difficulties holding it up.

On May 26, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which often goes easy on Iran, released a harsh report confirming Iran’s progress in “missile warhead design.”

The new missile command was cautiously announced last week by the...
In full


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Israel backs Georgia in Caspian Oil Pipeline Battle with Russia

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 8, 2008

Georgian tanks and infantry, aided by Israeli military advisers, captured the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, early Friday, Aug. 8, bringing the Georgian-Russian conflict over the province to a military climax.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin threatened a “military response.”

Former Soviet Georgia called up its military reserves after Russian warplanes bombed its new positions in the renegade province.

In Moscow’s first response to the fall of Tskhinvali, president Dimitry Medvedev ordered the Russian army to prepare for a national emergency after calling the UN Security Council into emergency session early Friday.

Reinforcements were rushed to the Russian “peacekeeping force” present in the region to support the separatists.

Georgian tanks entered the capital after heavy overnight heavy aerial strikes, in which dozens of people were killed.

Lado Gurgenidze, Georgia's prime minister, said on Friday that Georgia will continue its military operation in...
In full


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Iranian Early Warning Station, Anti-Air Base on Lebanese Peak

Would Obama come to terms with Iran as a nuclear power?

Merkel Recognizes Israel’s Capital – But Opposes Military Steps against Iran


Secret US-Iranian Dialogue Brings Oil Prices down, Shakes up Mid East Alliances

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 354 Updated by DEBKAfile

July 8, 2008

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .

Oil prices suddenly slumped Tuesday, July 8, as predicted by DEBKA-Net-Weekly on June 27, under the impact of the secret American-Iranian talks embarked on last month to solve burning issues by diplomatic engagement.

These talks between the US and Iranian delegations, representing President George W. Bush and Iranian supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have yielded ad hoc understandings on controversial issues. One is an agreement not to allow the price of oil to rocket past $150 the barrel.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive Gulf and Iranian sources disclosed that the bilateral negotiations were deliberately masked by the war fever engineered by Washington in the form of a stream of leaks indicating that a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations was imminent.

At the same time, neither nation has sheathed its military option. Those understandings are ad hoc and could...
In full


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Iran Has Technology for a Nuclear Warhead to Fit Shehab-3 Missile

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 351 Updated by DEBKAfile

July 8, 2008

Urs Tinner, evidence against him destroyed

Urs Tinner, evidence against him destroyed

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .

Some Western military and intelligence were shocked to learn that Iran had the blueprints for making a nuclear warhead that could fit onto its Shehab-3 missiles. The discovery was released by the former UN weapons inspector, David Albright, Sunday, June 16, ahead of the report on his investigation of the nuclear smuggling ring run by the father of the Pakistan nuclear bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan. He alleged that the nuclear blueprints passed to Libya, Iran and North Korea included “previously undisclosed designs for a compact warhead that could fit on Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles.”

On May 22, Swiss President Pascal Couchepin, disclosed that, last December, the destruction had been ordered of a batch of 30,000 documents detailing construction plans for nuclear weapons, gas ultra-centrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium and guided missile delivery systems , evidence in a criminal...
In full


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