If Russian personnel pushed the button of the anti-air missile that allegedly downed an Israeli done over the Lebanese Beqaa Valley, it carried a message from Moscow to Jerusalem to that Lebanon as well as Syria is under its protection.

Hizballah forces went on alert Thursday, Feb. 21, upon the expiry of a 48-hour ultimatum slapped down by Syrian rebels to halt the Lebanese group’s military support for Bashar Assad - or else. debkafile: Relevant to this chain of events is the Syrian claim that its anti-aircraft missiles downed an Israeli drone Wednesday over the Lebanese village of Deir al-Aachayer. Those events were touched off by the initial preparations in Moscow for a political process between Syria’s warring parties for determining the country’s future.

Contrary to reports of Hizballah attacks on Syrian villages in the Homs region, a thousand Hizballah militiamen have moved in to defend those Shiite, pro-Assad villages against rebel attack. debkafile reveals: Syrian rebel Islamists are receiving anti-tank missiles from Kosovo and Bosnia. They give the rebels an edge in battle with Syrian troops, but also arm Jabhat al-Nusra for a push into Lebanon to strike Hizballah in its Beqaa Valley strongholds. The Syrian conflict now confronts the Sunni Jabhat al-Nusra head-on with the Shiite Hizballah.

Tehran believes the precision of the attack which killed IRGC General Hassan Shateri is evidence of deep intelligence penetration, and has placed Israel in its sights for payback. DEBKAfile: The general's last assignment was the formation of a guerrilla army of 5,000 Revolutionary Guardsmen and 5,000 Hizballlah operatives to fortify the defenses of Bashar Assad’s governing institutions and secure the main Syria-Lebanon route. Iran is determined to get Hizballah’s advanced weapons transferred from Syria to Lebanon, whatever it takes.

President Barack Obama is not coming to Israel to advance new proposals or break the peace talks deadlock with the Palestinians, the White House said Wednesday night, Feb. 6. US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said earlier he was coming for consultation on major issues: preventing a nuclear Iran and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. debkafile: The visit strengthens Netanyahu’s hand in coalition negotiations, especially after the close rapport between Washington and Jerusalem on Israel’s military action in Syria.

Turkish interior minister Moammer Guler identified the suicide bomber who detonated an explosive Friday, Feb. 1 at the US embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard, as Ecevit Sanli, 31, a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), an outlawed left-wing terrorist group.  He was released from Turkish jail eight months ago. debkafile: The DHKP/C, which is associated with Lebanese terrorist groups and Syrian left-wing factions, was suspected of the attack killing five Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last July.

Obama was convinced that by sundering Assad’s military links with Hizballah, Iran would be isolated and Assad bereft of his regime’s most active support and shield.

The Israeli air strike on a military site near Damascus announced by Syria Wednesday, Jan. 30, was strongly condemned by Moscow as “blatantly violating the UN Charter and unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it.“ debkafile: High military alerts declared across the region including Syrian Golan units, the Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese and Israeli armies, US units in Turkey and Jordan and Russian warships off Syria. Western intelligence agencies predict more military action between Israel, Syria, Hizballah and possibly Iran.

The Syrian government stated Wednesday night, Jan. 30 that the Israeli Air Force planes had struck an arms depot at Jamaraya near Damascus leaving dead and wounded and damaging military vehicles. There was no Israeli air strike on a Hizballah arms convoy, said the statement from Damascus in response to earlier reports that Israeli air sorties Wednesday had destroyed Hizballah missile and arms convoys ready to cross from Syria into Lebanon. No comment from Israel.

Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel warned Tuesday, Jan. 29, that Syria is falling apart and no one knows what the next day may bring. Another senior Israeli officer told AFP that large Hizballah forces are parked outside Assad’s chemical weapons stores. If they seize them, Israel will have to decide on the spot whether to attack Syria or Lebanon. In Cairo, Egypt's army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, warned: “The state is on the brink of collapse.” debkafile: Israel sees nightmares on its doorstep.

Comments by US President Barack Obama and Ambassador Dan Shapiro lack a US commitment to step in against the Syrian chemical threat. Obama is concerned with juggling his global military priorities against a shrinking defense budget. debkafile: The onus for coping with the chemical peril is being passed by Washington to Turkey, Jordan and Israel. US aid will be confined to setting targets, providing intelligence and coordinating Israeli-Turkish-Jordanian military operations if necessary to take control of the dangerous arsenal. 

At a joint news conference Friday, Jan. 11, retiring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, cleaned the Pentagon’s Syrian desk ready for incoming Secretary Chuck Hagel.  Boiled down to essentials, their triple message was that Bashar Assad could not be stopped from using chemical weapons if he chose to do so, that securing the CW sites after Assad’s fall was the job of the “international community,” and that no US ground troops would be sent to Syria.

Zawahiri has evacuated his al Qaeda jihadists from Afghanistan and Pakistan and relocated them in Egypt, Sinai and Syria, out of range of US drones and special forces, which he judges are the two prongs of the incoming CIA chief John’ Brennan’s counterterrorism strategy.

Since the US pulled its fleet away from Syrian shores and the rebels’ arms supplies began drying up, Turkey and Israel assumed defensive postures vis a vis Syria, while the rebels began thinking about reconciliation with Bashar Assad.

“Syria’s chemical weapons are under control for now, but no one can tell what the situation will be five minutes from now,” a senior Israeli defense official told debkafile Tuesday, Jan.8. “The situation is dangerously fluid because there is no certainty about who is in control at any moment.” In late November, Israel sent the US satellite imagery showing a secret Syrian unit mixing sarin and filling 500-pound bombs for airplanes. debkafile: Those bombs are still active and ready for use at two hours' notice.

With a buildup of 16 Russian warships carrying thousands of marines on the Syrian coast “to deter the West from deploying ground forces in Syria” - and remain until Easter,  Syrian Bashar Assad could afford to brazen it out Sunday, Jan. 6,  in his first public speech in seven months. Syria no longer takes dictation from anyone, he said. Citizens must defend their country against “a war fought by a handful of Syrians and many foreigners.” He rejected dialogue with the opposition as “puppets fabricated by the West.”

The evidence is piling up that the US, Russia, the European Union and even China are luring al Qaeda and affiliated jihadists to Syria to vent their trouble-making capabilities on its killing fields in the hope that they will not return.

The early emergence of Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities confused the Americans, produces US warnings and Israeli threats. Turkey soon applied to NATO for Patriot missiles.

Obama again warns Assad not to use chemical weapons, but instead the Syria ruler starts moving them north and getting them ready for operations. US Congressman Mike Rogers says they are in condition use at a moment's notice.

Syria launches Scuds against the rebels as they near the Al Safira chemical weapons depot. Lavrov asserts that the weapons are under control – for now. Netanyahu goes to Amman for talks with King Abdullah.