Middle East capitals are puzzled by the Obama administration’s willingness to cast the Arab bloc and its Syrian concerns aside and collaborate with Turkey on the Assad issue. Why is non-Arab Turkey the blue-eyed boy in Washington and not the Gulf Arabs? The answer in some Middle East capitals is that ...

Russia needs a presence in Syria to promote its interests in the Middle East, to keep the lid on Caucasian unrest and to pave the way to challenge the United States in the global arena.

Bent on Bashar Assad’s ouster, the US and the Gulf Arab powers are swinging around an array of options – all of them military. The coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday weighs the chances of, say, an international militia, protected zones, a Western-Arab air umbrella for the Syrian resistance or, most probably, arming the Syrian Free Army with heavy weapons.
Decisions hinge heavily on the regional and international frictions pulling the US, Russia, the Sunni powers, Iran and Israel into the Syrian maelstrom.
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A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel's Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their radar systems: the two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations in Israel's Negev and Turkey's Kurecik air base, and Israel's new EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine. debkafile's military sources report the test proved to be a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield's Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyin Erdogan has an ambitious new plan for a combined coalition effort to end the violence in Syria. But it all depends on President Obama's willingness to back it up with an air and naval umbrella against Syrian missile and air might backed by the Russian ...

Russia has a comprehensive long-term plan to overtake - or at least match - America as a world superpower and it therefore extends a helping hand to any Middle East and Arab power, principally Syria and Iran, willing to defy Washington. Moscow is also betting on Bashar Assad winning the Syrian ...

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been outspoken about a possible Israeli offensive being launched against Iran from April, but has not leveled about massive US war preparations. The question is no longer if armed hostilities are afoot, but when. Tehran too is gearing up with a new three-week "exercise" and calling allies to the flag, including Syria. There, the appalling bloodbath has reached a scale – 350 Saturday, Feb. 4 alone – which potentially rivals nuclear Iran as the trigger for a Middle East confrontation.

To pierce the layers of armor devised by Syrian, Russian and Iranian strategists to keep Assad afloat, the Western-Arab bloc is recruiting top Syrian generals to march on Damascus and unseat the dictator.

Israel's military (the IDF) is no longer hiding from view its preparations for an attack on Iran's nuclear program – most probably from the spring – and its expectation of armed hostilities erupting consequently on at least three fronts, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza. On Jan. ...

Hamas-Damascus, contrary to Western reports, is firmly maintaining its ties with the Assad regime and the Iranian officials posted to the Syrian capital and Beirut as well as Hizballah, debkafile's sources report. Neither is Hamas seeking to break its ties with Iran, its arms and cash supplier for years. Indeed, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is seizing on the coming Tehran visit by Hamas' Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as opening a back door for mending its fences with the Iranian leadership.

The Syrian ruler is still fully in control in Damascus, contrary to the reports propagated by the opposition. He is still backed by the high army command and supported by Iran and Russia. The Assad regime will be in danger only if two of those three backers turn against ...

The US and Israel, while bound tightly by military bonds, are at loggerheads over Iran. The Obama administration wants to cut Israel out of military action against Iran's nuclear sites and prevent it hitting back for an Iranian reprisal. Israel is withholding a commitment to abstain from striking Iran ...

When IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi accused Iran and Hizballah Wednesday, Jan. 11of of supplying Bashar Assad with arms for suppressing protest, Turkey had just closed the Iranian corridor carrying those arms through its territory after its contribution to the Syrian army's success in beating down Hama, Homs and Idlib. debkafile discloses that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also warned Tehran that Ankara would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would retaliate by posting NATO troops on the Iranian border.

US, Russian, French and British air and naval forces are gathering around the Syrian and Iranian coasts on guard for fresh developments at the two Middle East flashpoints. The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov put in earlier than planned at Syria's Tartus port Sunday, Jan. 8, together with two more Russian warships. British and French naval craft head to the Persian Gulf, while the giant US RQ-4 Global Hawk drone has begun monitoring Iranian coastlines from the USS Stenning aircraft carrier.

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Military tensions are building up around Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported an Israeli Eitan drone hovering for four hours over the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district – the expected jumping-off point for any foreign military intervention in Syria.  In the south, fierce battles raged Tuesday, Jan. 3 between Syrian troops and the mutinous 38th Mechanized Brigade in the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle. Sounds of gunfire were heard in Israel.

Qatar, encouraged by its successful participation in the campaign to overthrow Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, has established a Sunni Arab intervention force to expedite the drive for Syrian President Bashar Assad's ouster, debkafile's military sources report. The new, highly mobile force has boosted the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army with 2,500 ex-Libyan and active Iraqi terrorists and is commanded by the Libyan ex-al Qaeda militia commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj. Israel should be concerned that the new force may try and reach Gaza.

By Friday night, Dec. 23, Western intelligence sources were attributing the twin suicide car attacks which claimed 53 lives and injured more than 100 outside the Syrian Security Directorate in Damascus earlier in the day to President Bashar Assad and his security chiefs. His motive? To keep the Arab League team, just arrived for an effort to start brokering peace in Syria, busy in Damascus instead of inspecting Homs where the bloody military crackdown continued during the day.

As NATO cargo planes airlifted Libyan fighters to join the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army units in Turkey, Syrian forces armed with Russian spy satellite intelligence waylaid FSA rebels and deserters, killing them where they stood. A large-scale exercise prepares Syrian army to repel a combined offensive.

Extreme concern was quietly voiced Sunday, Dec. 18, by American and European official circles over the state of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's health – and especially its impact on present and impending events in Syria and other parts of the Middle East, including Iran, debkafile's Western intelligence sources report. Those sources say Erdogan is suffering from Rectosigmoid cancer. The prolonged treatment he needs is already affecting policy-making and has sparked the first signs of a power struggle within his ruling AKP party.
 

Syria has moved Scud missiles, some tipped with chemical warheads, to its border with Turkey, reinforced its tank units on the Jordanian border and airlifted from Russia three million face masks against chemical and biological weapons.