The Syrian ruler faces an unexpected Sunni revolt against his minority Allawite regime which is spreading fast and cannot be suppressed without using his Sunni-dominated military. Will Assad call on Tehran for help? Or Hizballah? Or the pro-Iranian radical Palestinian organizations? Or focus on saving Damascus? Those are the dilemmas facing him this week unless he stages a diversion by heating up the border with Israel. 

Qaddafi has spent $1.2 billion in a shopping binge for new weapons, some acquired through barter. Libyan rebels only sold arms, mainly chemical weapons to Hizballah and Hamas through Iranian middlemen.

The Saudi-led GCC forces in Bahrain to support the king face the onset of a Shiite guerrilla war organized by Hizballah on Iran's behalf. They all understand that this war will spread further.

Iran, Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood have set up two staging centers ion Khartoum and El Arish, Sinai for grabbing power in Cairo. The Palestinian fundamentalist Hamas has undergone a transformation in the last two years. Today, Tehran has made Hamas an important vehicle for carrying Iranian influence ...

The contest between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Sunni-Shiite split in the Arab world were ramped up Wednesday March 16 by the Bahraini security crackdown launched with tanks and helicopters to drive the mostly Shiite protesters out of Manama's main square and key points of the island-state while Saudi troops guarded strategic areas. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned: “The unexpected interference of foreign forces in popular uprisings in different countries including Bahrain will have dangerous consequences."

What led the Saudi-led GCC army units to jump unhesitatingly into Bahrain while the US and Europe dithered over Libya? Tehran won't take this lying down. In its latest issue out Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly outlines the potential military showdown between Iran and Saudi Arabia, explores US-Israeli intelligence blindness on Egypt, and reveals how the Libyan conflict is enriching both sides - Muammar Qaddafi and his opponents – as well as global arms traffickers.
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The murder of a mother, father and three of their children, aged, 11, three and a baby of a month, whose throats were slashed in their sleep at Itamar south of Nablus Friday night, March 11 was the first operation of a master plan drawn up at a secret radical Muslim Brotherhood summit in Khartoum last week attended by the Palestinian Hamas. Dismantled West Bank checkpoints and a low level of IDF vigilance made it easy for the perpetrators to commit their atrocity and escape.

Iran is moving in on the Arab revolt now in its third month. Its agents are whipping together the most radical domestic Muslim elements, Sunni and Shiite alike, as a vehicle for importing its own influence into the heart of the turbulent capitals. With funding from Tehran, Egypt's Muslim ...

King Abdullah warns his princes and fellow-Arab rulers not to rely on the United States to rescue them from domestic unrest or any other threats. He blames Washington for failure to quell Bahrain troubles.

After six years of unrelenting persecution, Ahmadinejad managed to rid himself of his arch-rival, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. He has placed himself in a strong position for choosing the next Supreme Leader after Ayatollah Khamenei.

President Barack Obama Saturday, March 5, asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to set out for Cairo on an emergency mission to help Egypt's military rulers regain control of a situation which is slipping into the hands of the increasingly radicalized protesters, debkafile reports. Friday, thousands of protesters seized control of Egyptian security police (Mahabis Namn El Dawla) headquarters, shutting down its operations across the country. Iran is transmitting large sums to the Muslim Brotherhood through Hamas.

 Ahead of the first Day of Anger planned in Saudi Arabia for March 11, a senior Iranian figure close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Riyadh Wednesday, March 2, against launching preventive security measures against, or cracking down on, the kingdom's two million Shiites who live and work in the oil regions of the east. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Iran of using its Lebanese surrogate Hizballah to shape events in the Arab world.

Just two days after two Iranian warships reached the Syrian port of Latakia via the Suez Canal, an Iranian-Syrian naval cooperation accord was signed Friday, Feb. 25  providing for Iran to build its first Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port, debkafile's sources reveal. It will include a large Iranian Revolutionary Guards weapons depot, anchorage for large warships and submarines and logistical infrastructure for incoming Iranian troops. The Syrian Navy chief said the move would "cripple Israel."

Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji, 180 kilometers north of Baghdad, was blown up early Saturday, Feb. 26, by an Al Qaeda cell activated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades, debkafile's Middle East sources report. Tehran is using the Middle East turbulence to generate fuel shortages in Iraq and boost oil prices worldwide. Thursday night saw the first signs of unrest in Saudi Arabia with demonstrations by young people and by Shiites living and working in the kingdom's eastern oil regions..

The two Iranian warships transited the Suez Canal and have reached the Mediterranean, Iran state TV announced Sunday, Feb. 20.  Cairo is still saying they will sail only Monday.  debkafile reports Tehran and Cairo have connived fake delays to obscure the ships' movements. Egypt's military rulers' permission for their passage was not contingent on an inspection of their freights for banned cargo. Sunday, the region was beset with a sandstorm which would have masked the flotilla from spy satellites.

Stuxnet is admitted for the first time as having attacked five Iranian targets. The admission has stirred up more trouble between Moscow and Tehran who are playing the blame game over the delay in activating the Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Tanks rolled into Pearl Square, Manama, early Thursday, Feb. 17, personally commanded by King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, hours after his police failed to break up a protest rally. At least four protesters were killed and dozens injured. debkafile: Unlike the other uprisings sweeping the region, Tehran is dabbling hard in Bahrain with an eye on Shiite revolts in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf. At home, Iran is expanding executions of protesters.

Monday night, Feb. 14, Iranian Basij heavies were still beating up thousands of anti-regime protesters who turned out in the streets of 30 cities during the day for the opposition's first substantial demonstration since 2009. In Tehran, one demonstrator was shot dead and two injured. debkafile reports exclusively that visiting Turkish president Abdullah Gul wanted to meet and greet them but Mahmound Ahmadinejad stopped him. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also voiced support for the Iranian protesters.

 

Iran is claiming the exclusive right to control passage in the Persian Gulf while shooting out a naval tentacle to the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Saudi King Abdullah is so furious with Barack Obama, accusing him of dumping America's best Arab friend, that he is willing to play ...

The UN Special Lebanon Tribunal was asked to define crimes of terrorism, conspiracy and premeditated murder at its first hearing in the Netherlands Monday, Feb. 7. Its responses will for the first time define terror as an international crime. debkafile's report that within days, pretrial Judge Daniel Fransen is to publish indictments in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafiq Hariri. The judges have therefore jumped the gun on Hizballah.  A showdown looms large in Lebanon too.