Iran says Israeli assault on Syria will have “serious consequences”

Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned of “serious consequences for Tel Aviv” from Israel’s air strike on a military site near Damascus Wednesday. He called on the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon to adopt an effective and practical measure against the attack.  Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called the attack a "blatant violation ... in line with the policy of the West and the Zionists.”

Russia slams Israeli attack on Syria. US forces in Jordan on alert

Israeli Air Force F-15 Eagle takes off

The Syrian announcement of an Israeli air strike on a military site near Damascus Wednesday, Jan. 30, drew strong condemnation from Moscow the next day: “Such action if confirmed would amount to unacceptable military interference in the war-ravaged country,” said the statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry Thursday. “If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violate the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it.”
Israel has made no comment on the Damascus statement which described in detail an Israeli air strike against a “military research institute” near the capital. Witnesses say it was a plant for manufacturing “unconventional weapons.” The facility was destroyed and two staff members killed.
Lebanese sources later reported a Russian Mig-31 fighter had crossed over Sinai Wednesday in the direction of Israel. It veered west over the Mediterranean after encountering an Israeli warning not to intrude into its air space and continued flying over Lebanon.
DEBKAfile’s military sources say that the only external military force in the eastern Mediterranean region is a fleet of 18 Russian warships, which includes landing-craft – among the largest in the Russian Navy – with 2,000 marines aboard.
According to various Middle East sources, the Syrian report of an Israeli air strike has touched off high military alerts across the region. Syria has put its Golan forces on the Israel border on combat readiness and the Lebanese and Jordanian armies are on alert. So too are the Russian fleet opposite Syria and the Lebanese army.
Our military sources report that Turkish units on the Syrian border are on high preparedness although Ankara played down the reports of the Israeli air strike in Syria, uncomfortable over the fact that the Israeli Air Force was the first external power to intervene directly in the Syrian conflict.
So too are the US air force units stationed at the Turkish Incerlik air base, the US special forces deployed at the Jordanian Mafraq air facility and the American, German and Dutch Patriot missile interceptors deployed in Turkey opposite Syria. Israel has been on high alert since last week.
The prevailing estimate in military and intelligence circles in Washington and NATO capitals is that the Israeli air attack on the Syrian military site near Damascus was but the opening shot for the coming round of military blows they expect to be exchanged in the near future between Israel, Syria and Hizballah, with Iran possibly waiting in the wings for a chance to pitch in.

U.S officials say North Korean will conduct a nuclear test 'soon'

The United States believes North Korea is ready "at any time" to conduct a nuclear test, American officials tell CNN.

"We think they are preparing for a test," one U.S. official told CNN Wednesday. "We are watching it all as closely as we can."

U.S. officials say they are bracing for a third test by Pyongyang "soon," although they caution it's near impossible to predict the timing.

READ: How close is North Korea to a nuclear missile?

"One thing for sure," a senior official told CNN. "They will definitely test a nuclear weapon. But the tricky thing is, nobody can tell you for your day planner that is when it will be."

One official explained the United States is not certain about the timing of a test because it would happen underground and the final preparations can't be observed by satellite.

But a level of activity has been seen at the site in recent days, including movement of people and equipment that typically would be expected ahead of a test, one of the officials said.

Last week, North Korea said that it planned to conduct a new nuclear test and carry out more rocket launches after the U.N. Security Council voted to tighten sanctions on the secretive regime. The U.N. action was in response to North Korea's successful launch of a three-stage rocket last month that put the satellite Shining Star-3 into orbit on the first anniversary of Kim Jong Il's death.

The launch also signaled that the North's long-range missile program now puts the United States within reach.

"If you go by what little activity we see and by their rhetoric, which is usually consistent with their actions, it's a good bet they will do (a test) soon," the senior official said. "The trash talk has reached such a crescendo that by their own ego, we don't see how they back down. But let me be clear, the physical signs don't show imminence, because the major activity is underground."

Declaring the sanctions to be tantamount to "a declaration of war," North Korea's threats of more missile and nuclear tests are part of what it said is a new phase of confrontation with the United States.

Pyongyang didn't say when it intends to carry out the nuclear test, which follows previous underground detonations in 2006 and 2009.

Satellite imagery shows activity at the Punggye-ri site, where those previous nuclear tests were conducted. The images were analyzed by 38 North, a website maintained by researchers at the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University. According to their analysis, the roads surrounding the site have been kept clear of snow for the past month and suggest that the North Koreans may have been sealing the tunnel into a mountainside where a nuclear device would be detonated.

Officials say they, too, have also seen the imagery, but say it does not indicate whether the activity is a "real" intention to test, or how soon it could be done.

The administration is not sure if Pyongyang's announcement threatening further tests is an official announcement of an impending launch or a preliminary statement to be followed by announcement of a window of time during which the test will be conducted.

Even announcements of such windows are not always reliable. Last month North Korea extended its original window for the rocket launch, only to launch it before the new time frame.

"The North Koreans are experts at keeping the world guessing," one senior official said. "It's really impossible to tell beforehand" when they will act.

The North Korean's recent launch of a satellite into space caught U.S. intelligence somewhat off guard in that they were under the belief North Korea had delayed the launch a bit for technical reasons.

It is believed that North Korea put out the story of technical issues in order to throw off monitoring of its activities.

But knowing the exact timing of the nuclear test, while helpful, is not critical from a strategic or tactical point of view, given the United States is not trying to physically stop the test, some in the U.S. government argue.

Israeli airstrike hits truck convoy in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel conducted a rare airstrike inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks, foreign officials said Wednesday, amid fears President Bashar Assad's regime is providing weapons to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

Regional security officials said Israel had been planning in the days leading up to the airstrike to hit a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful military force. Among Israeli officials' chief fears is that Assad will pass chemical weapons or sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah — something that could change the balance of power in the region and greatly hinder Israel's ability to conduct air sorties in Lebanon.

The regional officials said the shipment Israel was planning to strike included Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah by enabling the group to carry out fiercer attacks on Israel and shoot down Israeli jets, helicopters and surveillance drones.

Hezbollah has committed to Israel's destruction and has gone to war against the Jewish state in the past.

A U.S. official confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the strike.

The Israeli military declined to comment, and Syrian officials and state media were silent on the issue.

Top Israeli officials have recently expressed worries that if desperate, Assad's regime could pass chemical weapons to Hezbollah or other militant groups.

President Barack Obama has called Syria's use of chemical weapons a "red line" whose crossing could prompt a tougher U.S. response, but U.S. officials say they are tracking Syria's chemical weapons and that they still appear to be solidly under regime control.

The strike, carried out either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, appears to be the latest move in a long running race by Hezbollah to increase its military power while Israel seeks to limit it.

Syria has long been among the militant group's most significant backers and is suspected of supplying with funding and arms, as well as a land corridor to Iran.

This strike, however, comes as Assad is enmeshed in a civil war with rebels trying to oust him. The rebels have seized a large swath of territory in the country's north and established footholds in a number of suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, though Assad's forces still control the city and much of the rest of the country.

While Assad's fall does not appear imminent, analysts worry he could grow desperate as his power wanes and seek to cause trouble elsewhere in the region through proxy groups like Hezbollah.

Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

Earlier this week, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

If confirmed, the airstrike would be the first inside Syria in more than five years. In September 2007,Israeli warplanes destroyed a site in Syria that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a secretly built nuclear reactor. Syria has refuted the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008 but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and later build over it.

Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in 2006 after Syrian-backed militants in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier.

And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic JIhad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks, but never did.

The military in Lebanon, which shares borders with both Israel and Syria, said Wednesday that Israeli warplanes have sharply increased their activity over Lebanon in the past week, including at least 12 sorties in less than 24 hours in the country's south.

A senior Lebanese security official said no Israeli airstrikes occurred inside Lebanese territory. Asked whether it could have been along the border on the Syrian side, he said that that could not be confirmed as it was out of his area of operations.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A Lebanese army statement said the last of the sorties took place at 2 a.m. local time Wednesday. It said four warplanes which flew in over the southernmost coastal town of Naqoura hovered for several hours over villages in southern Lebanon before leaving Lebanese airspace.

It said similar flights by eight other warplanes were conducted Tuesday.

A Lebanese security official said the flights were part of "increased activity" in the past week but did not elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The U.N. Agency tasked with monitoring the Lebanon-Israeli border said in a statement Wednesday it had no information on any strikes near the Syria-Lebanon border. It did note, however, a "high number of Israeli overflights" on Tuesday.

"These air violations have continued on an almost daily basis," it said.

The area of Lebanon where the flights took place borders southern Syria.

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace are not uncommon and Lebanese authorities routinely lodge complaints at the U.N. against the flights.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war, and Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal. Despite hostility between the two countries, Syria has been careful to keep the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war and has never retaliated to Israeli attacks since.

In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime, to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.

Sources: Israel bombed Iran forces in Syria

TEL AVIV – Israeli fighter jets bombed targets in Syria and Lebanon that included weapons caches and senior members of the Iranian Quds Force, according to informed Middle East security sources.

Earlier, Beirut’s news agency claimed Israeli fighter jets conducted three separate aerial incursions into Lebanon’s airspace overnight, flying over the En Nakura area as well as the border village of Ramish.

But WND’s sources said the air strikes took place in Syria as well as Lebanon.

The Quds Force is an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps tasked with exporting Iran’s Islamic revolution. It reports directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Agence-France Presse quoted security sources today saying the Israeli air force bombed a weapons convoy just as it was crossing from Syria into Lebanon.

WND reported earlier today the Israeli navy intercepted a ship containing advanced weaponry destined for Lebanon, according to Middle Eastern security officials.

The officials said the weapons seizure took place three weeks ago and has been kept under wraps until now.

The officials said the ship flew a Qatari flag and was registered to a Qatari company. They said the ship contained advanced weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles.

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces said the incident is “not familiar” to the IDF.

The information of a purported seized weapons shipment comes amid foreign media reports that Israeli forces attacked a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight believed to be a weapons convoy.

The alleged attack took place during a period of growing concern over the fate of Syrian chemical and conventional weapons.

A spokeswoman for the IDF refused to confirm or deny the report.

“We do not comment on reports of this kind,” she said.

Syria: Israeli jets strike Jamaraya arms depot near Damascus leaving casualties

The Syrian government, by admitting that the Israel Air Force attacked the Jamaraya “Military Research Institute” (a euphemism for an arms deport), near Damascus, broke the barrier of silence the Israeli government had clamped down on its initial involvement in the Syrian conflict.  It also indicated that Bashar Assad may have decided to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Israel. The Syrian statement also refuted the report by foreign media from “Israeli sources” that Israeli jets had struck a convoy carrying sophisticated weapons from Syria to the Hizballah in Lebanon.

The Syrian statement was detailed: It said that the “Military Research Institute” developed Syrian army and Hizballah combat  capabilities, that two Syrian solders were killed and five injured in the raid, and that a building had been leveled along with serious damage to military vehicles parked outside.

Israeli warplanes were described as coming in low from the north to evade Syrian [and Iranian] radar after flying over the Syrian peaks of the Hermon ridge. The Israeli jets were reported to have flown back to home base by the same route.
Last week, DEBKAfile reports, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent two senior aides to Washington and Moscow with an identical message:  If Bashar Assad ventures to permit Syrian arms, conventional or chemical, to reach Hizballah, the Israeli Defense Forces will prevent their delivery by force.
 Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen Aviv Kochavi handed this message to Obama administration officials in Washington and National Security Adviser Yakov Amidror delivered it for Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report the message was sent out too late and soon overtaken by events:

1. Assad has passed the point of being accessible to outside influence or receptive to international condemnation. He no longer listens even to the advice of allies, such as President Vladimir Putin.

2.  The Syrian ruler is no longer interested in how the sophisticated weapons owned by Hizballah and stored in Syria are disposed of.  For years they were stored in Syrian military storehouses and kept from crossing the border into Lebanon by Israeli threats. Now, as far as Assad is concerned, Hizballah can collect the weapons systems or leave them where they are, whatever they wish. But they will have to take charge of keeping them secure since the Syrian army has no manpower to spare for this task.
3.  On the other hand, Assad acknowledges his debt to Hizballah for the great assistance it has rendered his war against the Syrian insurgency. He will therefore not deny his Lebanese ally assistance in preparing for war with Israel.
For all these reasons, the Kochavi and Amidror missions were a wasted effort.
Furthermore, two days earlier, President Barack Obama made it clear that he was not getting the United States involved in the Syrian conflict. In an interview to The New Republic,  he asked rhetorically: “In a situation like Syria I have to ask: can we make a difference in that situation?”

From that point on, it was obviously up to Syria’s neighbors to pick up the Syrian ball themselves, including the threat of chemical warfare.
After the Israeli air raid, the Pentagon pointed a finger at its authors, answering reporters’ question with a terse: Ask Israel.
By publishing the Israeli air raid, Bashar Assad seems to be treating it with all the seriousness of an act of war. His next step may well be to fight back.

Israel's comatose ex-leader Sharon shows signs of consciousness

JERUSALEM — Seven years after suffering a massive stroke, comatose former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has surprised his doctors by displaying "a certain degree of consciousness," an expert who examined him using an MRI scan said Sunday.

The results of tests conducted by a joint Israeli-American team did not mean the former general and right-wing politician turned peacemaker was about to wake up from the coma he has been in since a January 2006 stroke.

But doctors saw the responses displayed by Sharon, 84, in a two-hour exam Thursday as "encouraging" that there may some day be a cure for some comas, said Alon Friedman, a neurological director at Israel's Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.

Experts at Soroka, joined by a leading U.S. neurologist, Martin Monti, of the University of California Los Angeles, scanned Sharon's brain to test its function Friedman told Reuters in an interview by telephone.

"The chances of him getting out of bed are very, very slim," Friedman said.

But the machine detected some brain activity, when Sharon was shown photographs of his family and also when asked to imagine his home, he said.

These findings suggest that despite Sharon's comatose state "he might be listening, and some important information goes into his brain and is being processed," Friedman said.

Sharon "might be awake, and there is a chance that he is conscious," though due to paralysis suffered as a result of his stroke he cannot respond physically, he added.

"To some extent the patient is what we call 'locked in', he understands and responds with his brain but cannot activate any muscles."

Friedman said Sharon's eyes were open for at least part of the time when he responded to the sight of family photographs.

More surprising, the machine showed signs that Sharon had processed a request to imagine various scenes such as his home, Friedman said, adding that Sharon's brain had also shown signs of responding to his son Gilad's voice.

"The results of the tests are not clear but encouraging, and they surprised us," Friedman said, adding he saw the results as contributing to data about potential stimuli scientists hope may someday help them awaken certain patients from a coma.

"This is futuristic, and not the case at the moment," he said.

Sharon's stroke felled him at a critical juncture in Israeli politics.

Once a hard-line defense chief, Sharon made a dramatic political about-face with a 2005 Gaza pullout. His illness came just weeks after he made a dramatic exit from the right-wing Likud party to found a centrist faction in the hope of advancing peace moves with the Palestinians. 

SHARONS AWAKENING COULD BE RELATED TO THIS PROPHECY HERE:

Egypt: U.S. Embassy in Cairo Suspends Services Due to Security Concerns

The American mission in Cairo has suspended its services on Sunday due to security concerns surrounding the embassy.

"Due to security situation around embassy today, our public services will be closed, including visas, American Citizen Services, and IRC," the embassy said on its official Twitter account on Sunday.

It insisted however that routine operations will be ongoing even though the embassy will be closed to the public.

Clashes between protesters and security forces had erupted earlier near the embassy in light of the second anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

India successfully test-fires underwater missile

India's underwater K-15 (code named B05) missile piercing the waters of the Bay of Bengal after it was launched from a submerged pontoon off the Visakhapatnam coast, on Sunday. Photo: DRDO

India on Sunday successfully test-fired the underwater ballistic missile, K-15 (code-named B05), off the Visakhapatnam coast, marking en end to a series of developmental trials.

In its twelfth flight trial, the 10-metre tall Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) lifted off from a pontoon, rose to an altitude of 20 km and reached a distance of about 700 km as it splashed down in the waters of the Bay of Bengal near the pre-designated target point.

According to scientific advisor to the Defence Minister V.K. Saraswat, the missile was tested for its full range of 700 km and the mission met all its objectives. He said the impact accuracy of the medium range strategic missile was in single digit.

With the completion of developmental trials, the process of integrating K-15 missile with INS Arihant, the indigenously-built nuclear submarine, will begin soon. As many as 12 nuclear-tipped missiles, each weighing six tonnes will be integrated with Arihant, which will be powered by an 80 MWt (thermal) reactor that uses enriched uranium as fuel and light water as coolant and moderator.

India is only the fifth country to have such a missile -- the other four are the United States, Russia, France and China.

Meanwhile the reactor has been integrated with the submarine and it was expected to go critical in May/ June 2013. Once that was done, the harbour trials will begin.

Besides Arihant, three other nuclear-powered submarines were being constructed -- one at Visakhapatnam and two at Vadodara. India is also developing K-4 missile with a range of 3,000 km.

Johnathan Cahn's Inagural prayer breakfast PROPHETIC MESSAGE to the Nation

Pope's dove of peace almost ends in pieces: Seagull attacks bird seconds after Pontiff releases it from Vatican balcony

Releasing a dove is a symbolic appeal for peace. But when the Pope tried it yesterday, it led to quite a flap. 

Nobody had bargained on a resident seagull who apparently hadn't been listening to the Holy Father's sermon. 

It swooped in and attacked the bird of peace as soon as Pope Benedict XVI released the dove from a balcony at the Vatican. 

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Anticipation: Pope Benedict XVI holds the dove of peace up to the sunlight moments before it is released into the air above expectant pilgrims

Message of hope: A  young boy (right) releases the dove of peace next to the Pope during the Angelus prayer in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican

Ascendency: Young people from Youth Catholic Action look on as the dove takes flight in what was meant to be a symbolic moment

Watched by thousands of pilgrims below the fearsome gull, leading with its beak, chased and harried  the terrified dove as it tried to escape among the ancient pillars and porticos.

 

Some 2,000 youngsters from Rome had marched to St Peter's Square for the annual 'Caravan of Peace' which takes place on the last Sunday of January and finishes with the release of two white doves by the Pope shortly after the Angelus prayer. 

The poetic celebration takes a turn for the worse as the seagull swoops upon the unsuspecting dove

The crowd watched as the dove flapped and ducked the seagull's attacks looking for a hiding place among the coves and inlets of the Vatican facades

It is not the first time the Pope's prayers have not protected his birds of peace. Last year the two doves he released turned tail and flew straight back in through the open window. 

'They want to stay in the Pope's home,' Benedict had said. 

What he had to say about yesterday's  kerfuffle was not known. But someone must have said a quick little prayer, as the dove eventually made good  its escape.

  VIDEO  The Pope releases doves to mark Holocaust Day 

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Social Security Death Index has Adam Lanza dead on the 13th of January!!!???

North Korean parents 'eat their children' after being driven mad by hunger in famine-hit pariah state

A starving man in North Korea has been executed after murdering his two children for food, reports from inside the secretive state claim.

A 'hidden famine' in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae is believed to have killed up to 10,000 people and there are fears that incidents of cannibalism have risen.

The grim story is just one to emerge as residents battle starvation after a drought hit farms and shortages were compounded by party officials confiscating food. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has spent vast sums of money on two rocket launches despite reports of desperate food shortages in the country and concerns that 10,000 people have died in a famine

Undercover reporters from Asia Press told the Sunday Times that one man dug up his grandchild's corpse and ate it. Another, boiled his own child for food.

 

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Despite reports of the widespread famine, Kim Jong Un, 30, has spent vast sums of money on two rocket launches in recent months. 

There are fears he is planning a nuclear test in protest at a UN Security Council punishment for the recent rocket launches and to counter what it sees as US hostility.

One informant was quoted as saying: 'In my village in May a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.'

Farming communities, such as these pictured outside the capital Pyongyang last year, have been desperately hit by drought which has led to reports of people turning to cannibalism in a bid to ward off starvation

One official said the fields are in such a bad state from drought that he had to avert his eyes

The informant said the father killed his eldest daughter while his wife was away on business and then killed his son because he had witnessed the murder.

When his wife returned the man told her they had 'meat' but she became suspicious and contacted officials who discovered part of the children's bodies.

Jiro Ishimaru, from Asia Press, which compiled a 12 page report, said: 'Particularly shocking were the numerous testimonies that hit us about cannibalism.'

Undercover reporters said food was confiscated from the two provinces and given to the residents of the capital Pyongyang. 

A drought then left food supplies desperately short.

Cannibalism has also been reported in the vast network of prison camps inside North Korea, such as Camp 22, pictured, where 50,000 are believed to be imprisoned

The Sunday Times also quoted an official of the ruling Korean Worker's party as saying: 'In a village in Chongdan county, a man who went mad with hunger boiled his own child, ate his flesh and was arrested.

United Nations officials visited the area during a state-sponsored trip but local reporters said it is unlikely they were shown the famine-hit areas.

It has not the first time that reports of cannibalism have come out of the country. 

In May last year, the South Korean state-run Korean Institute for National Unification said that one man was executed after eating part of a colleague and then trying to sell the remains as mutton. 

One man killed and ate a girl and a third report of cannibalism was recorded from 2011. 

Another man was executed in May after murdering 11 people and selling the bodies as pork.

There were also reports of cannibalism in the country's network of prison camps. 

North Korea was hit by a terrible famine in the 1990s - known as the Arduous March - which killed between 240,000 and 3.5million people. 

Kim Jong-Un (third left) prompted fears of a nuclear test after meeting security and foreign affairs officials

Iranian-Hizballah convoy blown up on Syrian Golan. Border tensions shoot up

At least eight officers were killed in a mysterious twin-car bomb explosion Friday, Jan. 25 at Syrian regional intelligence headquarters in Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Some of the fatalities were Syrian, but Western intelligence sources disclosed to DEBKAfilethat most were high-ranking Iranian Al Qods Brigades and Hizballah officers. The blasts sent tensions shooting up on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria.  Israeli, Jordanian and US Special Forces posted in the kingdom went on high alert. Heavy Syrian reinforcements were seen streaming toward the two borders.
Syrian regime sources said the explosive devices were attached to the intelligence command building’s outer walls. But the Western sources report that two large bomb cars were lying in wait on both sides of the road leading to the Syrian HQ and were detonated as the two-car convoy of Iranian and Hizballah officers drove by. There were no survivors.
Those sources also refute reports that the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusrah fighting with the Syrian rebels claimed responsibility for the attack. This was a rare occasion when no Syrian opposition group issued any statement at all, they said. The speed with which Syrian army helicopters flew in to remove the casualties indicated their high rank.

In the view of a Jordanian military source, this attack by an unknown hand has delayed Bashar Assad’s advanced preparations for an all-out armored offensive to finally crush the revolt against his regime. His first targets were to have been the rebel-held villages along the Israeli and Jordanian borders.
The Syrian ruler was working to a plan of operations his generals had drawn up with Iranian Al Qods Brigades strategists.

Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that Iran would consider any attack on Syria an attack on itself: "Syria has a very basic and key role in the region for promoting firm policies of resistance [against Israel]... For this reason an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iran and Iran's allies."
Meanwhile in Iran itself, the Fordo underground uranium enrichment plant was again reported targeted for sabotage, according to an unconfirmed report published by Reza Kahlil, who is described as a former Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer who worked under cover as a double agent for the CIA until he escaped to the United States.

Kahlil reported that at 11:30 a.m., Monday, Jan. 21, the day before Israel’s general elections, a large explosion occurred 100 meters deep inside the underground plant, trapping 240 nuclear staff in the third centrifuge chamber.  Among them, he said, were Iranian and Ukrainian technicians.
There was no information about casualties or the extent of damage to the 2,700 centrifuges which have been turning out 20-percent enriched uranium.

Khalil cited his source as Hamidreza Zakeri, a former Iranian Intelligence Ministry agent, who said the regime believes the blast was sabotage and the explosives could have reached the area disguised by the CIA as equipment imported for the site or defective machinery.

None of the information about an explosion at Fordo has been verified either by US officials or regime sources in Tehran.
Thursday, Jan. 24, Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and Military Intelligence Director Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi ceremonially promoted Col. G., commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal, to the rank of major general in recognition of his unit’s “outstanding covert operations.”

Iran actively weighs Syrian-Israeli clash. Iron Dome posted in N. Israel

Tehran is looking seriously at a limited Syrian-Lebanese clash of arms with Israel – possibly using Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons as a trigger,DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources disclose.  Reacting to this news, Israel announced Sunday, Jan. 27, the deployment of Iron Dome anti-missile batteries some days ago to reinforce security in northern Israel and the key Haifa port. 

The Iranians see three strategic benefits in embroiling Israel in a limited war with its two allies, Syria and Hizballah:

1.  A new outbreak of armed violence would direct world attention away from the Syrian civil war:
2.   Israel would be sidetracked from a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities – even a “surgical operation” such as Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke of over the weekend – by being thrown into multiple battles with Iranian forces in Syria and Lebanon, the Shiite Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihadi in the Gaza Strip.
The clash would be programmed to end without winners or losers like Israel’s war against Hizballah in 2006 and its two anti-terror operations the Gaza Strip in 2009 and 2012. But meanwhile Israel would have its hands too full with threats on three borders to pursue military action against a nuclear Iran.

3. Tehran would buy another year’s delay for spinning out its talks with the Six Powers (US, Russia, France, Britain, China and Germany) on their nuclear controversy.
At the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said “Israel faced some of the gravest threats in its existence” and they continue to run riot “in the east, the north and the south.”
Behind his words, was an immediate neighborhood beset in last couple of weeks by al Qaeda’s advance in Mali - now checked by French intervention; the Algerian gas field hostage siege; and the discovery of the strong interface among the various African Al Qaeda branches, including Egypt, in operations, logistics, shared arms suppliers and the pooling of jihadist manpower in the different arenas.
Israel’s prime minister and security chiefs are clearly troubled by the perceived danger of the jihadist networks based in Egyptian Sinai and al Qaeda affiliates fighting in Syria joining up to attack Israel from two directions, the north and the south. This would be in keeping with the multiple, multinational terrorist threats surfacing in Africa.

With regard to Syria’s chemical weapons, after convening an expanded security-diplomatic cabinet meeting last Wednesday, Jan. 23, the day after Israel’s general election, Netanyahu remarked: “We have to look around us… What’s happening in Iran and the lethal weapons in Syria, which is falling apart…”
He left the specifics to Deputy Prime Minister Sylvan Shalom, who said Sunday that if chemical weapons reached Hizballah or Syrian rebel hands, “Such a development would be a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations.”

But even Shalom did not specify where the red lines would be – the handover of Syrian chemical weapons to Hizballah? And against whom would Israel take preventive action – Syria, Hizballah or both? And if they reached Syrian rebel hands, would Israel hit them or go straight for the poison gas arsenals?

Neither Netanyahu nor Shalom responded to the Iranian warning issued Saturday by Ali Akbar Velayati, a close adviser to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that an attack on Syria would be tantamount to an attack on Iran.
This warning was intended to drive home to Israel the message that an offensive against Syria would be treated as a direct confrontation with Iran.

This warning aimed at holding Israel back from a military strike against Syria - Syria, not the Assad regime. This is because an Israeli attack on Syrian rebels armed with chemical weapons would also serve Tehran’s purpose very well:  Iranian forces in Syria and Lebanon would use the opportunity to unite the Syrian army and the rebels against the common enemy, Israel, and so start the process of winding down the anti-Assad revolt.
Velayati also avoided mentioning Iran’s key ally in Lebanon, Hizballah. In his warning, he said: "Syria has a very basic and key role in the region for promoting firm policies of resistance [against Israel]... For this reason an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iran and Iran's allies."
This high-ranking Iranian figure took care not to draw attention to Hizballah because, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, parts of the Syrian chemical arsenal have already reached Hizballah and are stashed away in fortified bunkers in the terrorist militia’s Beqaa Valey strongholds, along with a lethal array of long- and medium-range ground-to-ground rockets that too were smuggled secretly across the Syrian border.
Some western intelligence sources – especially American – now believe Syrian chemical weapons were secreted to Hizballah during 2012. They were sent over in small packages to avoid attracting US or Israel notice.  By now Hizballah is thought to have accumulated a substantial supply of poison weapons.

Our military sources report that Israel’s military planners have long-range logistical plans ready for dealing with new situations such as this one. It has expanded its undercover penetration of Syria and Lebanon and is making rapid progress in erecting a sophisticated 57-kilometer security force along the Syrian border. This project may take months to complete. But meanwhile, Iran is working on its own plans for jumping the gun before it is finished with a military adventure.

Palastinian president Abbas says Israel's Liberman threatened to assassinate me

PA president claims he would be helpless to defend himself against Israeli attack; reminisces about his relationship with Arafat

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel’s former foreign minister of threatening to assassinate him, adding that he is defenseless in the face of Israeli threats.

During an extensive interview with Lebanese news channel Al-Mayadeen on Friday, excerpts of which were reported last week by Palestinian news agency Ma’an, Abbas said Avigdor Liberman and an Israeli deputy prime minister whom he did not name have publicly called for his physical removal.

“Israel sent other messages, death threats, etcetera — it’s not important,” Abbas told the channel. “Liberman sent messages [reading] ‘This man needs to be gotten rid of physically,’ and the day before yesterday another man, the deputy prime minister, said the same thing. This is well known in Israel, but Netanyahu comes out and says, ‘These men don’t represent us.’”

Last August, Liberman sent a letter to the United States, the European Union and the United Nations describing Abbas as an “obstacle to peace” and calling for his ouster. Prime Minister Netanyahu distanced himself from the letter — which nowhere mentioned physically harming Abbas — claiming it did not represent government policy. Liberman has also called Abbas “a political terrorist.”

In the interview, Abbas said he would be helpless in the face of an Israeli decision to eliminate him.

“This was no slip of the tongue,” he said, referring to Liberman’s supposed statements against him. “He can do it if he wants to. Why? Because we are still under occupation. I enter and exit with Israeli permission. I am exposed, and have nothing to protect me. The proof is that they can assassinate any man at any place.”

Addressing the death of his predecessor Yasser Arafat, Abbas said he had no doubt that the former Palestinian leader was assassinated, though it was yet unclear by whom.

“There is no doubt, he is a shahid (martyr),” Abbas said.

Abbas said he asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to appeal to Israel to allow 150,000 Palestinian refugees from the Yarmouk refugee camp to enter the Palestinian territories.

“Four days later I received a surprising answer: They agree, but on one condition. That any returning  refugee will give up his right of return. So I left it.”

A source in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office denied that Israel agreed to the entry of refugees from Syria.  

Referring to his personal relationship with Arafat, Abbas said that the deceased president’s good points highly outweighed his shortcomings.

“I always focused on his strong side and worked with him on that basis. Therefore, historically, we never had disagreements, neither personal nor political.”

Abbas noted that the first dispute with Arafat occurred when he was appointed PA prime minister in 2003, a position that never existed before and was created under American pressure to reduce Arafat’s authorities.

“It was not in my nature to fill that position, so I quit,” Abbas told Al-Mayadeen.