RECOMMENDED DAILY NEWS SERVICESat September 3, 2011Breaking News
UN report finds Israel's Gaza blockade and sea flotilla interception legal, soldiers' response to violence "excessive" • Turkey could have done more to keep violent IHH extremiss off the Mavi Marmara • Israel rejects Ankara's ultimatum to apologize for nine Marmara deaths or face sanctions • Its offer of regret for deaths amid legitimate self-defense was rejected by Ankara • Qaddafi tells his supporters to prepare for a long guerrilla war • He spoke in new audio message broadcast on Syrian-based pro-Qaddafi channel based • He calls his home town of Sirte capital of the resistance Thursday, NATO bombed 24 targets Thursday in Sirte, Bani Walid and Waddan • Sarkozy and Cameron gathered world leaders in Paris Thursday to map out Libya's future • Their talks also ranged over the disposition of Libyan oil • Anti-Israel demonstrators disrupt live BBC prom concert in London conducted by Zubin Mehtan • Many members of the audience booed them back, but the live broadcast was interrupted twice •
TopicsDEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 2, 2011, 3:22 PM (GMT+02:00)Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan on an anti-Israel vendetta
For two years, Turkey has tirelessly maligned Israel, aided its enemies and schemed to destroy its army's strategic value as a key American ally. This campaign hit a serious contretemps in the UN report out Friday, Sept. 2 which justified Israel's Gaza blockade and its navy's interception of a Turkish vessel bent on breaching that blockade, although Israel was assailed for its "excessive response" to the violence of Turkish extremists. Ankara thereupon expelled the Israeli ambassador and suspended its military accords with Israel.
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Top Stories
- US confirms al Qaeda members' role in Libyan rebel command
- No Egyptian crackdown on Sinai terrorists. Jihad keeps Israel in suspense
- Assad locked in by international ultimatums may opt for war
- Israel's military deterrence seriously eroded
- Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv injures eight
- Pro-Al Qaeda fighters control Tripoli
- Tehran-backed Iraqi terrorists shoot Scuds at Kuwait
- IDF: Egyptian frontier no longer a border of peace
HeadlinesUS confirms al Qaeda members' role in rebel command. Qaddafi contacts them
DEBKAfile Special ReportSeptember 1, 2011, 12:47 PM (GMT+02:00)From Qaddafi's intelligence files
On Wednesday, Aug. 31, the Obama administration admitted that former al Qaeda extremists who fought US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were part of the rebel push to capture Tripoli. Further highlighting Al Qaeda's importance, Muammar Qaddafi instructed his son Saadi to contact self-styled Tripoli commander Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj, one of the a/m extremists, to discuss ways of ending the war. Qaddafi would have to follow in the West's footsteps and work with al Qaeda supporters if he plans guerrilla warfare against the rebels, the US and NATO.
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No Egyptian crackdown on Sinai terrorists. Jihad keeps Israel in suspense
DEBKAfile Special ReportAugust 31, 2011, 9:03 AM (GMT+02:00)Egypt's tanks stand idle against terrorists
The Cairo media's highly colored accounts Monday, Aug. 30 of 1,500 Egyptian commandos and tanks supposedly raiding Jihad Islami and al Qaeda cells in Sinai are pure fiction, DEBKAfile's military sources confirm. Israeli forces along the Gazan and Egyptian borders down to Eilat stand at the highest level of preparedness for a Jihad Islami group which left the Gaza Strip for Sinai on Aug. 24 to strike. The terrorists now hold the initiative thereby sapping the IDF's deterrent strength.
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Assad may opt for war to escape Russian, Arab, European ultimatums
DEBKAfile Special ReportAugust 30, 2011, 9:32 AM (GMT+02:00)Qatari emir gives Iranian president a piece of his mind
Monday night and Tuesday, Aug-29-30, three international heavyweights - Russia, the European Union and key Muslim nations – gave Syrian President Bashar Assad tough ultimatums for ending his barbaric crackdown on protest. Nevertheless, on Monday, his troops shot dead 17 people in Syrian cities - even as he received Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov who arrived in Damascus with a last warning from President Dmitry Medvedev. Pushed into a tight corner, Assad may opt for war on his neighbors.
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on your Android device!A terror attack every two days shows Israel's military restraint to be bankrupt
DEBKAfile Exclusive AnalysisAugust 29, 2011, 12:30 PM (GMT+02:00)Tel Aviv taxi wielded for terror
The policy of military restraint pursued by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak was shown in the Tel Aviv attack by a Palestinian terrorist yelling Allah Akhbar Monday, Aug. 29, to have crossed a dangerous red line: Civilians are being left in harm's way to serve diplomatic interests such as not further straining relations with the new rulers in Cairo. An Israeli defense official has admitted that Iran fears American – not Israeli – military strength, thereby confessing to Israel's loss of deterrence.
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Palestinian terror attack in Tel Aviv injures eight
DEBKAfile Special ReportAugust 29, 2011, 5:31 AM (GMT+02:00)
Eight people were injured in South Tel Aviv early Monday, Aug. 29, when a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus grabbed a taxi, ran over pedestrians, jumped out outside a night club and stabbed four Border Police officers, two seriously, at a checkpoint. He shouted Allah Akhbar and verses from the Koran throughout the attack . Several hundred teen agers were milling in and out of the Hauman 17 club in South Tel Aviv for a back-to-school party. The assailant was captured after a struggle.
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DEBKAfile in FacebookDEBKAfile on TwitterPro-Al Qaeda brigades control Qaddafi Tripoli strongholds seized by rebels
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportAugust 28, 2011, 11:47 AM (GMT+02:00)Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj, pro-Al Qaeda LIFG chief
Members of the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – LIFG, are in control of the former strongholds of Muammar Qaddafi captured by Libyan rebels last Sunday, Aug. 21,DEBKAfile reports from Libyan sources. Their chief Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj, an al Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, now calls himself "Commander of the Tripoli Military Council." A US source confirms that NATO's British and French special forces opened Tripoli's door to the rebels. Now, the LIFG is unlikely to relinquish power to the NTC.
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Iran stirs up new conflict: Its Iraqi terrorist arm shoots Scuds at Kuwait
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportAugust 26, 2011, 9:52 AM (GMT+02:00)Kuwait's Grand Mubarak Port under construction
Three Scud missiles flying from Iraq to Kuwait early Friday, Aug. 26 were launched by the Iran-backed Ketaeb Hizballah of Iraq. They exploded harmlessly, but DEBKAfile's sources report that the first such attack since the US 2003 invasion of Iraq carried a warning to Kuwait: Halt construction of the Grand Mubarak Port opposite the Iraqi shore - or else face a destructive barrage. It was also the first time any Middle East terrorist group had used Scud missiles.
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IDF: Egyptian frontier on peak alert, no longer a border of peace
DEBKAfile Special ReportAugust 24, 2011, 10:17 PM (GMT+02:00)Israel's frontier with Egypt - once a peace border
Israeli units on the Egyptian frontier went on peak alert Wednesday night, Aug. 24, following specific intelligence that Palestinian Jihad Islami was set to launch another cross-border attack from Sinai. Earlier Wednesday, Gen. Benny Gantz, Chief of Staff announced that Israel's Defense Forces were no longer treating the Egyptian frontier as a border of peace because of new threats. The new situation was exemplified by the terrorist attacks Palestinian gunmen launched from Egyptian Sinai on Aug. 8 killing eight Israeli civilians and injuring forty.
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Readers' Choice
The Potential for War Ripping through the Mid East
DEBKA-Net-Weekly #505August 19, 2011
After ruling out direct military intervention, most governments concerned in the drive to oust Bashar Assad find that arming the rebels and pumping thousands of Sunni volunteers into Syria are the only feasible option. But before this plan is up and running, he is expected to preemptively employ the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah for heating up the Lebanese-Israel border or even spark an all-out conflagration between the two long-time foes which ...
Read moreSaudi Abdullah and Obama are talking
DEBKA-Net-Weekly #505August 19, 2011Saudi King Abdullah and Turkish President Abdullah Gul
Saudi Arabia, which embarked on building a strategic Sunni Muslim bloc six months ago, has done a lot better in a shorter time than even king Abdullah's strategic and intelligence advisers predicted. Harnessing Turkey, a major military power and NATO member, to their grouping is an unforeseen windfall. By jumping aboard the Saudi grouping Turkey opened the door to rapprochement between King Abdullah and President Obama. They talked last week for the first time in months ...
Read moreAsif Shawqat Rises from a Double Purge
DEBKA-Net-Weekly #504August 12, 2011Ali Habib
The House of Assad has seized all-inclusive control of the ferocious assault on the opposition by getting rid of one general, defense minister Ali Habib, promoting another, chief of staff Dawoud Rajha, in his place, and so removing all the obstacles in the path of the president's brother-in-law Deputy Army chief Asif Shawqat for taking complete charge of the war on whole Syrian cities in the name of the ruling family.
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AnalysisUS defuses Egyptian-Israeli crisis: Egypt may post troops in E. Sinai
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportAugust 21, 2011, 12:53 AM (GMT+02:00)Field Marshall Muhammad Tantawi sought revision of Camp David accords
Intense diplomatic efforts by Washington Saturday, Aug. 20, have produced a compromise for resolving the Egyptian-Israeli crisis - moments before their 1979 peace accord was overturned. Cairo agreed not to recall the Egyptian ambassador from Israel, whereas the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak apologized publicly for the deaths of three Egyptian policemen. DEBKAfile discloses: Israeli also agreed to renegotiate the treaty's Sinai demilitarization clause banning an Egyptian troop presence.
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At least 7 Israelis killed, 33 injured in terrorist attacks near Eilat
DEBKAfile Special ReportAugust 18, 2011, 4:47 PM (GMT+02:00)Israel bus attacked near Eilat
Israel goes on highest terror alert after a string of terrorist attacks still ongoing near the Israeli-Egyptian border north of Eilat Thursday, Aug. 18 left seven Israeli soldiers and civilians dead and 33 injured. Five servicemen are in critical condition. Assailants from Sinai used automatic and anti-tank weapons, mortars and roadside bombs for attacks on two buses and civilian and military vehicles on Highway 12. All three gunmen who attacked the bus were located and killed in a firefight with Israeli police. More are sought.
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Israel sets up "September Commands" though no intel on Palestinian disorders
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportAugust 12, 2011, 12:56 PM (GMT+02:00)Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz
Israel's military, police and Shin Bet security service are drilling extreme scenarios of possible Palestinian disturbances, mass rallies or even terrorist attacks in September – although there is no specific intelligence of a security threat in the offing. The authorities have also set up "September Command Centers" so as not to be caught off guard. The intelligence updates fed them on Palestinian activities contain no signs so far of organized Palestinian preparations for disorders beyond some talk at local Fatah cell level.
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Iran's new Hamas commando brigade in Gaza
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportJuly 31, 2011, 9:04 AM (GMT+02:00)Hamas' first commando unit set up by Iran
A team of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers has just finished setting up Hamas' first commando unit especially trained to combat any Israel military force entering the Gaza Strip, DEBKAfile's military sources report. The new "Al Qods Brigades" unit of 400 men is to be the first of three. The urban guerrilla tactics imparted to Hamas drew heavily on the experience Al Qods is gaining in Syria, where its experts help President Bashar Assad crack down on protest.
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