RECOMMENDED DAILY NEWS SERVICETue September 6, 2011Breaking News
Erdogan suspends trade, military and defense ties with Israel following expulsion of diplomats • Turkish vessels will increase visits to eastern Mediterranean, he said • Earlier defense ministry official denied complete cutoff of ties Turkey over flotilla row • The consulate in Istanbul will continue to handle trade relations • Barak sees no reason for Israel's enemies to launch all-out war and is certain they will never dare think of using chemical weapons now or in the future • Home Front chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg earlier warned that risk of total regional war is increasing, including potential use of WMD • Eisenberg also said Gaza terrorists used new weapon in recent round of attacks prompting Israel's instruction to public to shelter under two roofs – not just one • Two Libyan convoys pass through Niger this week – one reaching capital of Niamey said carrying 6 high-ranking Qaddafi officials • One identified as Gen. Mansour Daw, head of Revolutionary Guard responsible for Qaddafi and family's security • Two senior White House officials, Dennis Ross and David Hale are on their way to Israel for talks with Netanyahu • Pakistan working with CIA arrests top al Qaeda operative Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta and two others • His job was targeting US economic interests worldwide • Greece warns Turkey against sending warships into Cypriot oil well areas in the eastern Mediterranean • Documents discovered in Libya reveal UK complicity in rendering terror suspects back to Qaddafi regime for torture • UK to probe close MI6 ties with Qaddafi regime as team sent to Tripoli to reopen diplomatic mission • In Syria, 34 protesters shot dead Sunday and Monday by Assad's troops • Israel PM's aides reject Gates' criticism, stressing his proactive care for Israel's interests and efforts to revive the peace process • Gates was quoted as calling Netanyahu not only ungrateful but endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel's growing isolation • The US received nothing in return, especially with regard to the peace process, said Gates shortly before his retirement this summer •
TopicsDEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 6, 2011, 10:39 AM (GMT+02:00)Gen. Eyal Eisenberg's wake-up call
Home Front Commander Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg warned Monday, Sept. 5 of the increasing peril of a total Middle East war in the wake of the Arab revolts and Israel's rift with Turkey. His comments shocked Israel's policy-makers and defense establishment out of their placidity. The defense minister's adviser Amos Gilead, hurriedly denied this prediction. "Israel's security situation has never been better," he said insisting "The Arab regimes around us are stable."
DEBKAfile: The general's wake-up call was both apt and timely.Read more
Top Stories
- Barak to Abbas: Zero tolerance for Palestinian Sept. 20 outbreaks
- Iran runs nuclear payload tests
- US sources: Turkey's anti-Israel vendetta hides economic slump
- Turkey wants to freeze Israel out of the US missile shield
- Al Qaeda role in Libyan rebel command
- Assad locked in by international ultimatums may opt for war
- Israel's military deterrence seriously eroded
- IDF: Egyptian frontier no longer a border of peace
HeadlinesBarak to Abbas: Zero Israeli tolerance for Palestinian Sept. 20 outbreaks
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportSeptember 5, 2011, 10:40 PM (GMT+02:00)Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in sharp warning to Palestinians
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas surprised a group of Israeli intellectuals whom he received in Ramallah Monday, Sept. 5, by informing them that he had met Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Amman on Aug. 24.DEBKAfile's sources disclose that the Barak-Abbas conversation in Jordan was more businesslike than diplomatic. It revolved around the Palestinian UN application to be submitted on Sep. 20 and clear security limits laid down by Barak for the Palestinian popular street response. Jordan's intelligence chief was also present.
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Iran runs nuclear missile payload tests, moves onto 60 pc fuel enrichment
DEBKAfile Special ReportSeptember 5, 2011, 1:14 PM (GMT+02:00)Advanced IR-2m centrifuge
Iran's 20 percent enriched uranium production exceeds its needs. DEBKAfile' reports that this disclosure by Iran's atomic energy agency head Fereydoon Abbas enables the program to move into the production of 60 percent grade fuel, one step before weapons grade. This progress plus the relocation to an underground location near Qom of accelerated enrichment brings forward to the spring of 2012 the potential completion of between two and four bombs and Tehran's ability to conduct a nuclear test.
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US sources: Turkey's sharp economic downswing undercuts its regional status
DEBKAfile Exclusive ReportSeptember 4, 2011, 9:55 AM (GMT+02:00)US warns Turkey its warships are no much for Israeli navy
DEBKAfile's US sources disclose that the Erdogan government may act as though it calls the shots in the region to cow Israel, but Turkey is fast sliding into deep economic slump. In Washington, the Erdogan government's threat to incite an "Arab revolt" against Israel is seen as beyond acceptable diplomatic bounds, while its other threat on maritime movement in the Mediterranean is ridiculed: "The Turkish Navy is no match for Israeli missile boat technology, electronic jamming and tracking systems, submarines and close air cover."
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on your Android device!Turkey maligns Israel to freeze the IDF out of the US anti-Iran missile shield
DEBKAfile Exclusive AnalysisSeptember 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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US 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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DEBKAfile in FacebookDEBKAfile on TwitterAssad 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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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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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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