Iran's leaders pin popular unrest on Western instigators in order to try protesters as traitors. More than 50,000 motorcycles have been purchased for Basijj thugs to break up street demonstrations, but the regime hopes to outnumber them by fielding 3 million government supporters.

How they cooperate is still moot. But Israel is preparing to face the music from Hizballah in the North, Hamas in the South and Syria in the northeast. Egypt secures the passage of Israeli warships through Suez, is conspicuously eager to join any US-Israeli action against Iran.

In a well-coordinated offensive, pro-government Basijj militiamen in civilian dress hurled rocks and eggs at the Italian and French embassies in Tehran Tuesday, Feb. 9, shouting death to their respective leaders. Some say the Dutch embassy was also targeted.
debkafile's Iranian sources say more violence is ahead, designed to raise international tensions around Iran to fever pitch to deter opposition leaders from staging their planned mass ...

Tehran's decision to raise its uranium enrichment level to 20 percent - taking it weeks away from weapons-grade production - in the teeth of international objections, has raised no cries of outrage in Washington or Jerusalem. Asked Monday, Feb. 7, whether president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement ...

debkafile Iranian and military sources report the new war threats from Damascus are backed by massive Iranian airlifts for boosting Syria's missile arsenal. Fresh supplies have also reached Hizballah and Hamas. Syrian war rhetoric was fanned by the delivery of 100 new medium-range surface-to-surface missiles from Iran. The Syrian foreign minister publicly confirmed debkafile's disclosure in December of a secret mutual defense pact binding Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. ...

Italian PM Berlusconi said Tuesday the state-controlled oil giant Eni SpA had withdrawn from developing  a southern Iranian oilfield (a small project) and promised to "block new investments in oil and gas."

His silence on current rather than future investments shows which way the wind is blowing. His Israeli hosts withheld comment on Rome's trade ties with Tehran.

 

The beaches of Ashkelon and Ashdown, twin Israeli ports up to 25 km north of Gaza, were evacuated Monday, Feb. 1 for fear that two large containers packed with explosives which drifted ashore were floating bombs with more on the way.  Israeli intelligence is investigating the incident to find out if the explosives were supposed to blow up against Israeli targets or Iranian deliveries to Hamas terrorists in Gaza which ...

 "Israel has no bigger friend," said prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Silvio Berlusconi, who begins an official visit to Israel with half a dozen ministers Monday, Feb. 1. According to the fat trade contracts current with Tehran, Italy would be better described as "Iran's biggest friend" - at least, in Europe, and supplier of key components for its nuclear and space programs, as well tunneling equipment and army trucks.

debkafile's Iranian sources report that the Basijj militia chiefs have a plan to seize the British embassy in Tehran. Western intelligence agencies monitoring Iran have warned London that radical groups are secretly preparing to overrun the British embassy buildings and living quarters and take the diplomats hostage, replicating the siege of the US embassy in 1979.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad favors the ...

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani questioned the wisdom of Ahmadinejad's 20 pc uranium enrichment boast. Other critics doubt whether it is true. The president will forge ahead to prove they are wrong, buoyed up by the European Union's soft posture.

Senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 50, died in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 20 and his body reached Damascus on Jan. 28, according to Izzat Rishq speaking at Hamas headquarters in the Syrian capital early Friday, Jan. 29.  He accused Israel of his assassination without specifying its circumstances.  ...

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, paid secret visits to Cairo and Jerusalem Thursday, Jan. 28, to prepare the ground for expanding US military intervention in Yemen against al Qaeda strongholds, thereby opening a fresh front in the war on Islamist terror organization.
He asked for an Egyptian expeditionary force to back up US special forces and the use of Egyptian airfields as jumping off bases for US air ...

"Two German diplomats using fictitious names were arrested" last month during clashes at the Ashura festival, an unnamed Iranian deputy intelligence minister said Wednesday, Jan. 27.

During the day, Israeli president Shimon Peres told the Reichstag he was sure Germany would come to Israel's aid if it came under attack from a nuclear-armed Iran. A day earlier, Chancellor Angela Merkel said time was up for Iran and February would see new and ...

Libyan defense minister Younis Jaber arrived in Moscow Tuesday, Jan. 26 to sign a $2 billion military acquisitions deal that makes his country the first in the Middle East to obtain the top-of-the-line S-300 PMU-2 interceptors. Russia is still withholding this key shield for its nuclear sites from Iran, which is why Tehran cancelled the Moscow visit of ...

Israel's president, prime minister and foreign minister are visiting Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest this week, apparently impervious to the European Union foreign ministers' decision in Brussels Monday, Jan. 25, to back away from sanctions for Iran's nuclear program outside the UN Security Council.  None have commented on the EU's abandonment of sanctions for Iran to the mercies of Russian and Chinese vetoes.

In his latest audio-taped message of Jan. 24, Osama bin Laden said he was responsible for the failed Detroit-bound airliner attack on Dec. 25. He vowed America would have no peace as long as there was "no security for the Palestinians."  But in al Qaeda's hottest arena, Yemen, Saudi Arabia turns out to have killed three of bin Laden's kingpins in a "mystery explosion" - and also produced evidence of Iranian backing for the Houthi rebels.

Iranian Guards train 5,000 Hizballah fighters to capture and hold five Israeli towns and regions ifs nuclear sites are attacked - or some other pretext. Syria would be involved.

If attacked, Iran will send thousands of Hizballah raiders across the border to capture and hold five sectors of northern Israel. They will be supported by missile barrages on Israeli military facilities and backed up by Syria.

Iran is more ready than before to go back to the negotiating table and buy enriched uranium abroad because of technological glitches in its enrichment processing. China is not averse to cooling the crisis climate surrounding Iran's nuclear program.