Another shell landed near an Israeli position on the Golan Monday, Nov. 12, less than 24 hours after Damascus promised to silence the mortar battery responsible for “stray shells.” The promise came after Israel fired a Tamuz guided missile into Syria as a warning shot.  Monday, Israeli tank fire knocked out the Syrian mortar battery. debkafile: Bashar Assad is provoking the Netanyahu government in the light of its restraint against heavy Palestinian missile fire from Gaza.

Bashar Assad is running a smoothly operating war machine while the rebels are running out of manpower and steam. The population is adapting to the hardships of a long-term war with increasing resilience.

Because the powers concerned about Syrian bloodshed stick to a hands-off policy Assad and al Qaeda win a free field to fight it out.

Washington acted fast to hold back Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Lebanese forces from avenging the assassination of Lebanon’s top intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan to save Lebanon from being ripped apart by a civil war. Assad and Nasrallah were allowed to get away with it.

Russia has won from Baghdad the same privilege as Iran for using Iraqi air space as a corridor for delivering military supplies to Bashar Assad in Damascus. The huge arms deal Putin and Maliki signed this month provides Syria with a reserve arsenal across the border in Iraq.

The car bomb which murdered anti-Syrian Lebanese security chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan and seven others Friday, Oct. 19, in Beirut also dissipated hopes in the West and Israel of the Syrian civil war sundering the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah axis, or that liquidating Iran’s nuclear scientists and cyber warfare would turn Tehran away from a nuclear bomb.  The Syrian bloodbath grows wider and more malignant and Tehran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon. A reduced joint US-Israel war game begins Sunday.

Eight nations are embroiled on both sides of the Syrian civil war, although the governments concerned pretend they are keeping to a policy led by the Obama administration of non-intervention. Amid cross-border clashes with Turkey, Bashar Assad has embarked on a scorched earth policy against his country.

The revised estimates compiled by US and French intelligence agencies on the relative strength of Syrian government and rebel forces have given Washington and Arab capitals backing the Syrian opposition pause.  The Obama administration built its policies around an estimated 70,000 rebel fighters, whereas the new figure, disclosed by debkafile’s intelligence sources, appears to be around 30,000 – one tenth of them Al Qaeda-linked jihadis. Challenging Washington, French President Frances is urging direct intervention now to save the Syrian revolt.

Turkey and three Gulf nations as well as France and Britain are pushing hard for a no-fly zone to be imposed on Syria to protect safe havens. Obama continues to resist direct US military intervention. Without a US lead, the no-fly plan is a non-starter.

Russia has indeed left Assad high and dry by shutting down its early warning stations which warning Syrian air and missile defense batteries of oncoming threats and turning back a Russian warship carrying SA-17 missile interception batteries for Syria.

Sunni and Shiite Soldiers of Allah are on the march against each other. They are preparing for a clash of arms in the embattled Syrian arena. A mobilization campaign is drawing foreign jihadists to fight Assad out of many corners of the Sunni world, including lands now ruled by ...

Seeing he cannot defeat the rebels, now boosted by an influx of foreign jihadists, Assad is stiffening his army and loyal militias with a large injection of Shiite volunteers from Iran, Lebanon, Africa and the Gulf. However, the foreign Sunni and Shiite fighters will soon be at each other’s ...

Hillary Clinton leads a powerful State Department and Pentagon faction pushing for US military intervention in Syria. It is beginning to take effect. Obama called British and French leaders to tie up the ends of the assignment for small special operations teams to go into Syria and secure chemical ...

Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar, having concluded that the battles for the cities have made no headway toward removing Assad or breaking his army, has formed a new strategy aimed at capturing his ultimate retreat, the Allawite Mts..

The disclosure Thursday night, Aug.16 by an American source that a worst-case scenario could require up to 60,000 ground troops for securing Syria's chemical and biological weapons sites was meant as psychological preparation for chemical warfare, say debkafile’s military sources, as Syria’s neighbors make ready.
Assad, armed with Tehran’s pledge of all-out support delivered by Saeed Jalilee, threatens to give Turkish PKK Kurdish rebels SA-8 anti-air missiles if any more Stingers are delivered to the Syrian rebels. Ankara: That would mean war.

The United States last week began laying plans for the contingency of Syrian chemical warfare by setting up joint military, intelligence and medical working teams with Israel, Turkey and Jordan. All three are feared under threat by Syrian president Bashar Assad, debkafile reports - as are US military facilities there. The White House, the CIA and the Pentagon’s DIA are laying odds on a Syrian unconventional attack, and all three countries under potential threat have ordered their medical services to make preparations.

Iran’s Saeed Jalili visited Beirut and Damascus for military coordination with Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah on their respective roles in retaliating for a potential US/Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites and the regime in Damascus being squeezed into a danger zone. They decided that in either case, the mutual Iranian-Syrian defense pact would be invoked.

Syrian rebels were stretched too thin and short of arms for winning Aleppo or for using Syrian army withdrawals from the rest of the country to establish safe havens. The opted for winning Aleppo – and have mostly likely lost.

Tehran gave Bashar Assad its strongest avowal of support yet Tuesday, Aug. 7, while heaping threats on the heads of his enemies, especially the US, Turkey and Israel.  Saeed Jalili, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, sat alongside the Syrian ruler in Damascus at the end of their talks and vowed not to let Iran’s “close partnership with the Syrian leadership to be shaken by the uprising or external foes” or the “axis of resistance (Iran, Syria, Hizballah) be broken.” Assad pledged to purge Syria of terror.

Monday, Aug. 6, the head of Iran’s National Security Council Saeed Jalili touched down in Beirut shortly after Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani declared: "The fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful (Israelis) with it. Jalili (not Larijani as misreported earlier) came for urgent on-the-spot coordination with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah before continuing Tuesday to Damascus. They discussed  ways of stamping Iran’s mark on Syria after Bashar Assad’s exit. Military plans against Israel are part of their schemes.