Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

The Assad Bandwagon: Putin Fulcrum for Expanding His Middle East Assets
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked Monday, April 29, at cross purposes on the situation in Syria. It was clear to Obama from the word go that he had not the slightest chance of getting the Russian leader aboard for joint action with the United States for ending the Syrian bloodbath.
His offer to send Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow to discuss the matter with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was essentially a despairing bid to end the conversation on a positive note.
The US president knew Putin was holding the high cards on Syria compared with his own weak hand.
Even a decision at this late date to supply the Syrian rebels with heavy arms – directly or through an Arab third party - would no longer tip the scales against Bashar Assad’s army and unseat him but do more harm than good. They were more than likely to fall into the wrong hands – rebel groups tied to Al Qaeda - or end up in the Middle East’s black markets for weapons.
The Russian president’s bet on Assad – and sponsorship of the Iran-Syria-Hizballah axis – had clearly paid off, while Obama had forfeited the game by his policy of avoiding US military intervention in any Middle East conflict.
The scale of Moscow’s success in Syria comes out clearly in a step-by-step track of the state of the battlefield, such as the exclusive and systematic updates DEBKA-Net-Weekly has been offering week by week.
(Read the latest exclusive report appearing in this issue on how Iranian and Hizballah forces contributed to the strengthening of the Syrian army’s battlefield gains.)

Moscow scales down Obama’s options for Syria

This week, the Obama administration continued to be consumed by its concerns over the use chemical weapons in Syria and fears of US-supplied heavy weapons falling into the hands of al Qaeda-linked rebels and fellow Islamist militias.
Putin, less troubled by such anxieties, took the opposite tack.
1. He stepped up Russia’s supplies to the Syrian army of a wide range of heavy weapons: rockets, tanks, self-propelled artillery and light arms, with no thought of them possibly falling into the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorists. Assad is not being asked to pay for the merchandize at this time.
2. Putin is forwarding precise Russian intelligence updates to President Bashar Assad and his high military command covering the action on the different battle fronts and the military movements conducted by Syria’s neighbors, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and the US units deployed in those countries.
3. Moscow is coordinating its diplomatic and military moves in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
with Tehran and Hizballah in Beirut.
In contrast to Obama’s ifs and buts on US military options in Syria, Putin has unhesitatingly thrust both feet onto Syria’s blood-soaked terrain and taken one step after another to frustrate US military operations and render them unfeasible.
US is therefore left with diminished options for intervention in the Syrian war, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources – not much more than long-range missile strikes against Syrian regime and military targets, a tactic of dubious precision and effectiveness.

Short of military partners and regional assets

America is also fast running out of potential partners for military action, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources in Washington add, thanks to the president’s indecisiveness.
Washington can’t currently count on a single European NATO member or Middle East ally for joining such action, excepting only Israel and Jordan.
And even they are only prepared to plunge into the Syrian mess if a substantial US force is made available and deployed to the region.
(See last week’s DEBKA-Net-Weekly 585 – Obama's 20,000-Troop "Surge" to Shield Jordan from Syria). With regard to a choice of allies, therefore, America has moved far down the ladder compared with its situation on the eve of the Libyan campaign of 2011. Two years on, in 2013, most European Union members are not above accepting lucrative commissions for their military industries, but are otherwise unwilling to send troops to Syria - or in no position to do so due to economic constraints and cutbacks of their military forces.
As Commander-in-Chief, President Obama also finds himself short of air and naval assets present in the Middle East to back up a military operation against Syria. In the vast area from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, the US maintains a single aircraft carrier. For action against Syria, the aircraft carrier stationed opposite Iran would have to be moved close to Syria. This would stir strong objections from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even though they back the Syrian rebellion against the Assad regime.

Washington’s “Pivot to Asia” stays grounded

Obama’s phone call to the Russian president came on the day Putin was playing host to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Kremlin. This visit delivered another setback to a key Obama policy objective, his proclaimed "pivot to Asia," whose purpose was to reorient Washington’s foreign policy on Asia instead of the Middle East.
Russian and Japanese leaders ended the visit eager to go to work on a peace treaty between the two nations. They also signed a pile of documents for developing economic ties.
Putin announced that the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom would have a stake in building an LNG terminal in Japan, and that the Russian Far East would welcome Japanese investment in its energy industry and infrastructure.
After Moscow, Abe travels soon to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, where a major nuclear power technology deal is in negotiation.
The Obama administration’s bitterness over Putin’s role in the Syria civil conflict was exacerbated by the sight of Asian investment in energy markets flowing toward Moscow - not Washington.

Obama Does not Foresee U.S. Ground Troops in Syria
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Costa Rica, US President Barack Obama stated early Saturday that ground troops were not among the options under consideration for bolstering rebel forces fighting to overthrow Bashar Assad.

Moscow and Hizballah Team Up, use Lebanon As Their Syrian War Backyard
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

While all eyes were fixed last week on the wrangling over the evidence of Syria’s use of chemical weapons, two of Bashar Assad’s stalwart backers, Moscow and Hizballah, forged a furtive pact that was more far-reaching than their collaboration in the war for preserving the Damascus regime. In the immediate term, Moscow has acquired a potential client for its arms and a new sphere of influence in Beirut.
This little-noticed deal was put together after Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was closeted for three days with Iranian and Hizballah military officials in Beirut for briefings on the state of the Syrian conflict.
The closing session took place Saturday, April 27, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and military sources report, when the Russian official and Hizballah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah met to wrap up final arrangements for deliveries of Russian military assistance in the event of a major new turn in the Syrian conflict.
Examples were an outbreak of hostilities between Syrian troops and US forces massing on any of Syria’s borders (See last week’s DEBKA-Net-Weekly: Obama’s 20,000 troop surge for Jordan); US air and missile strikes against targets in Syria; or a decision by US President Barack Obama to let Syrian rebels have the heavy weapons they have long demanded.
(Tuesday, April 30, US Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said, "Options are ready… and if it becomes clear to me or if I'm ordered to do so we will act, but at this point, that hasn't occurred. We've been planning, we've been developing options, [and] we are looking to determine whether these options remain valid as conditions change.")

Moscow consolidates backing for Syria, benefits Hizballah

On the Russian side, Bogdanov reviewed the possible deployment of Russian marines to Lebanon and their transfer under Hizballah armed escort to Syria. Operating under directives from the Russian military general staff in Moscow, the marines would seize control of Syria’s main highways, military bases and the sensitive infrastructure vital for keeping the Assad regime and loyal Syrian military units fully functioning.
To consolidate Moscow’s unfolding ties with Hizballah, Bogdanov pledged Russian air cover against an Israeli Air Force attack. It would come either from Russian planes based in the Caucasus and the Black Sea regions, or missile interceptors carried aboard Russian naval ships.
Straight after his conversation with the Russian deputy foreign minister, Nasrallah placed his militia’s combat forces on war alert against Israel and started calling up reserves.
Monday, April 29, his deputy, Sheikh Naim Qassem was dispatched to Tehran to report to Hizballah’s Iranian bosses on the deals Nasrallah had set up with the Russian official.
The next day, in a speech broadcast on his Al Manar television channel, a swaggering Nasrallah conveyed a warning: “Syria has true friends in the world who will not let [the country] fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals,” he said, so putting Bashar Assad’s enemies on notice that Moscow and Tehran were both on hand with military assets for saving the Syrian ruler from any US or Israeli offensive for his downfall.

First Russian arms for Hizballah

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources disclose that, in another unprecedented gesture of favor for Hizballah, Bogdanov guaranteed his government would make up any weapons shortages incurred by the Shiite group – whether in fighting in Syria or against Israel – in the event of Iran’s supply route to its Lebanese proxy being cut off by hostilities in the Syrian arena.
Tuesday, Moscow suspended civilian air flights over Syria after Russian military sources reported that Monday, April 29, two missiles had targeted a Nordwind Airlines plane carrying 160 passengers, as it flew over Syria. The Russian official could not identity the source of the fire but was sure the intention was to bring the plane down. The pilots foiled this by evasive maneuvers.
No other sources confirmed the incident. But it provided Moscow with a pretext for rerouting future civilian flights through Lebanese instead of Syrian air space.

Hizballah gains its first world-class power patron

Moscow and Hizballah have conducted their transactions as highhandedly as though Lebanon had no president or government to consider. Their freedom to treat this small country as they please and use it as their private playing field is one of the less obvious consequences of the continually spiraling hostilities centering on Syria.
Power centers are on the move. Damascus no longer holds the whip hand for its small neighbor and traditional sphere of influence, but Moscow and Hizballah, who bestride Beirut as their stage with Tehran pulling strings in the background - and no interference by the US or Israel.
Hizballah has rewarded its new sponsor with a stake in Lebanon as their common back yard for the Syrian war.
Freshly empowered, the speech Nasrallah delivered Tuesday night, April 30, attracted more than usual attention for pointers to his next steps.
It was evident from his tone that Hizballah had gone up in the world: For the first time in its history, Hizballah, branded by the United States a terrorist organization, has gained the patronage of one of the five world powers, Russia. After seven years of defying a UN Security Council resolution to disarm, the Lebanese Hizballah, like Syria, now enjoys the protection of a veto-wielding power at that same UN Security Council.

Nasrallah guards his back against Israeli attack

However, while riding high, Nasrallah also took care to move out of the line of fire of potential enemies which may enter the Syrian war in future. He therefore made a point in his speech of segregating Lebanon, and therefore Hizballah, from current and future military action in Syria.
He “forgot” to mention the 5,000 armed adherents he has sent to Syria to fight the rebels alongside Assad’s army, and pretended he had never heard of the drone launched from Lebanon which Israeli warplanes downed opposite Haifa on April 25.
Israel’s surprise call-up of reserves for an exercise on the Lebanese and Syrian borders on the day of his speech was likewise brushed off: It was solely related to the Syrian war and had nothing to do with Hizballah, he said.
(See the separate article in this issue on Israel’s preparations for war in Syria.)
Our military sources can’t see the Hizballah leader’s pretense of aloofness from the Syria war holding up for long.
In any case, Jerusalem didn’t buy it. As the week wore on and the Russian-Hizballah deal took shape in Beirut, Israel’s official military statements fluctuated. Whereas the initial IDF communiqué Tuesday spoke of reservist forces massing for war along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon, the release of early Wednesday, May 1, was amended to refer to preparations for war with Lebanon. Syria had dropped out of the official announcement overnight.

Let the Headlines Speak
May 4th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Syrians flee 'massacres' in Baniyas and al-Bayda
Hundreds of Syrians have fled coastal areas where activists accuse government forces of carrying out massacres in a campaign of sectarian cleansing. Gruesome videos show mutilated and burnt bodies of women and children, allegedly from the town of Baniyas. On Thursday activists said at least 50 died in the nearby village of al-Bayda.

California firefighters tackling six major wildfires
More than 3,000 firefighters are battling six major wildfires in California, the state fire agency says. One of the fiercest blazes has shut the famous Pacific Coast Highway for the second time in as many days, with a 30-mile (50-km) stretch off-limits. The so-called Springs fire has reached the coast north-west of Los Angeles, threatening thousands of homes.

NRA comes out with guns blazing as convention opens
National Rifle Association Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre lashed out at members of the media and "political elites" during a Friday speech at the group's national convention in Houston, Texas Gov. Rick Perry showed off his marksmanship, and Sen. Ted Cruz challenged Vice President Joseph R. Biden to a debate about gun control.

Report: US believes Israel carries out airstrike into Syria
The United States believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria, CNN reported on Friday, citing two unnamed US officials. CNN quoted the officials as saying Israel most likely conducted the strike "in the Thursday-Friday time frame" and that Israel's warplanes did not enter Syrian airspace.

You Can 'Kill Some Christians Today,' Says Egypt's Secretary-General of Islamic Jihad Party
Mohamed Abu Samra, secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad Party, made the claim that "it is permissible to kill some Christians today," then gave his argument defending such a position. He justified this announcement by saying: "Those who came out with weapons, their blood is allowed for us [to spill], as a fighter is not considered dhimmi."

Israel reportedly rejects 1967 lines ‘precondition’
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni reportedly refused to accept the pre-1967 lines as the basis for a final Israeli-Palestinian border prior to negotiations.

Winning High School Runner Disqualified for…Giving Thanks to God?
Last weekend, Columbus High School Mighty Cardinals (Columbus, Texas) team member Derrick Hayes was preparing for sweet victory — but, despite his win, the excitement was ripped away after he was disqualified for making an apparently unacceptable gesture. His offense? His father, KC Hayes, claims that Derrick was punished for offering up a simple praise to God while crossing the finish line.

New evacuation ordered in California wildfire
A huge Southern California wildfire burned through coastal wilderness to the beach on Friday then stormed back through canyons toward inland neighborhoods when winds reversed direction.

Rhode Island legalizes same-sex marriage
Rhode Island on Thursday became the nation's 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed, as a 16-year effort to extend marriage rights in this heavily Roman Catholic state ended with the triumphant cheers of hundreds of gays, lesbians, their families and friends.

Three earthquakes hit off North Coast
A 3.9 magnitude earthquake hit just off the North Coast at 2:03 p.m. Wednesday. A 2.8 magnitude earthquake shook nearby two minutes later. At 5:30 p.m, a 2.5 magnitude earthquake hit.

Israeli Air Strike on Syria Against Long - Range Surface Missile Shipment
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Israel Jets Fly Over E. Lebanon, Head North Over Beirut, After Striking Targets in Syria
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Israeli military activity is reported in Lebanon Saturday, May 4 and not just over Syria.
US sources said earlier Israeli warplanes had struck targets in Syria including a chemical weapons depot outside Damascus, firing missiles remotely from Lebanese air space and the Golan starting Friday and continuing up until early Saturday, May 3. An Israeli spokesman confirmed only an air strike in Syria against a shipment of long-range surface missiles.
The latest reports from Lebanon point to expanding Israeli military activity inside Lebanon as well.
They describe Israeli warplanes as flying “at a medium altitude over the Eastern and Western Mountain ranges of the Beqaa Valley.” debkafile: Hizballah strongholds are located in this region which is close to the Syrian border. Other warplanes were described as heading north over Beirut.

One Lebanese source claimed Israeli ground troops had descended from the Mt. Dov-Hermon range, crossed the Lebanese border and entered the Shebaa Farms region.
None of these reports are confirmed by Israel, Lebanon or Syria. But debkafile notes that if Israeli troops have indeed penetrated Lebanon to a depth of 5-7 kilometers and reached the Shebaa Farms, they have taken up positions opposite the 30 Syrian Shiite villages guarded by incoming Iranian elite Basij militiamen.

debkafile reported exclusively Friday that thousands of Basij militiamen had just been airlifted from Iran to Syria, establishing an Iranian military presence opposite Israel from Syria as well as Lebanon. They joined a comparable number of Hizballah militiamen fighting for the Bashar regime.

Given the rush of adverse military developments across Israel’s northern borders, its operations in Syria and Lebanon are expected to continue and even expand.
This is also indicated by last week’s mobilization of thousands of reservists for an event termed by the IDF spokesman “a military exercise” beginning Sunday, May 5 along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.

The spokesman was clearly trying to misdirect attention from Israel’s preparations for an important military operation by announcing a routine drill.
debkafile adds: The initial claim by Syria, Iran and Hizballah of ignorance of any Israeli action is unlikely to hold up for long. They might keep up the act if the Israeli strike turned out to be a one-off against a single target - the picture the “Israeli official” tried to present after the event.
But if there is more to come, Bashar Assad, Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah will not let Israel go unchallenged. This threesome is undoubtedly on the phone at this moment working on their response.

Some of the earlier reports by US media claimed Israeli jets were seen Saturday before dawn circling over Assad's presidential compound in Damascus before moving on to target a weapons site. The Israeli jets reportedly received fire but returned to base unscathed.

debkafile’s military sources added that the start of the Israeli air force operation could have been fixed precisely by the sirens which went off suddenly over the Golan Friday afternoon and again before dawn Saturday. The IDF spokesman said they were set off by a “technical glitch.” They now prove to have been triggered automatically by Israeli aerial movements. For five days, Lebanon has been reporting Israeli warplane intrusions of its air space.

Iranian Basij Goons Imported for “duty” in Southern Damascus
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Iran began flying into Syria this week units of its paramilitary volunteer militia, known as Basij – “Mobilization of the Oppressed,” DEBKA-Net-Weekly's exclusive military sources disclose. These thugs are trained in “urban warfare” tactics for crushing any sign of unrest in the main cities capable of jeopardizing the ayatollahs’ hold on power.
It was decided by the Syrian general staff and the Iranian command in Syria to post the incoming units in two troublesome sectors - southern Damascus and a cluster of 30 Shiite Syrian villages opposite the border of southern Lebanon. There, they are relieving the Hizballah forces safeguarding the villages against rebel attacks, releasing them for combat duty on the Syrian battlefields.
This is the first time Iranian military units have been placed in direct juxtaposition with Syrian rebel fighters.
Judging by the number of landings, our military and intelligence sources estimate that so far around 6,000-8,000 Iranian troops have arrived in Syria or are on the way.
The Basij deployment in Syria has three major strategic implications:
1. Iran has undertaken to fully shoulder the defense of the Assad regime in Damascus. This makes even more remote the already unrealistic prospect of a rebel takeover of Damascus, or parts thereof, in the foreseeable future.
2. Deploying the Basij units in Damascus frees up Syrian army units to continue their operations for expelling rebel forces from the southern Syrian regions of the Horan and the Syrian Golan. This campaign aims at widening the "southern corridor" already cut through between Damascus to the Daraa on the Jordanian border.

Basij on Syrian-Lebanese border are a hands-off signal for Israel

3. The presence of Iranian forces on the Syrian-Lebanese border has a second objective apart from protecting the Shiite villages: They provide military backup for Hizballah’s heartland in southern Lebanon against a potential Israeli attack, at a time when a large part of Hizballah’s strength is away fighting in Syria. Their presence is a warning signal to Israel that if southern Lebanon comes under attack, Basij units will cross over from Syria and fight alongside Hizballah.
Our military sources provide an additional disclosure in this regard:
The Basij presence has made it possible to detach a third Hizballah division, the Al Mahdi Brigade, for Syria. It was sighted crossing the border on the night of Tuesday, April 30.
The soldiers of this brigade carried heavy weapons – BM-21 rocket launchers and heavy mortars. They were seen heading towards the town of Al Qusayr, 35 kilometers south of Homs, to take on the battle sector against the rebels fighting to the north of the town.
Al Qusayr is also important because of its situation in mountainous terrain overlooking the Syrian border with Lebanon 15 kilometers to the southwest.
This is the first time that an entire Hizballah brigade moved out of Lebanon into Syria complete with all its battle gear. The Al Qods Brigade which entered earlier picked up their equipment on arrival from the Syrian army. With the new arrivals, Hizballah now fields a total of 7,500 troops in the Syrian war.

Assad’s army makes important gains

This week saw important gains (unreported in the West) for the Syria army, which is now massively buttressed by its foreign allies’ military assets and extra supplies.
The government army’s 4^th and 14^th Divisions managed to open up the highway from Damascus to Aleppo along its full length. After clearing the route of the rebel positions and footholds, which gave the highway the name of “death road,” Assad’s troops began moving in on important rebel strongholds in the northern province of Idlib near the Turkish border.
Government troops also drove rebel forces out of central Homs and assumed control of the town. Around Damascus, they chalked up major achievements, notably dislodging the rebels from their encirclement of the city’s airports including Damascus international airport and regaining control.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources also report that from Monday, April 29, Russian and Iranian airlifts into to Syria increased from two landings a day to six – four from Iran and two from Russia.
While flying in the Basij units, the Iranian transports are also carrying heavier Scud D surface-to-surface missiles.
As the US, Israel, Turkey and Jordan argue over what to do about Syria’s chemical weapons, the stepped-up influx of Iranian and Hizballah troop reinforcements backed by airlifted supplies of manpower and heavy weapons from Russia and Iran, have changed the face of the Syrian conflict. Today, Iranian and Hizballah troops are powerfully supporting the Syrian army’s fight to save the Assad regime from the rebellion.

Evolution Fact or Fiction - Part 2
May 4th, 2013
CommentaryRoger Oakland
Categories: Creation - Evolution;Commentary

Disused Military Outposts on Syrian Border Opened Up and Manned
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

The muddled and conflicting communiqués tumbling out of Israel’s defense and military departments for two days this week (April 30-May 1) conveyed the impression that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz were at sixes and sevens.
Tuesday afternoon, thousands of reservists were told to drop whatever they were doing and report at speed to their units. They were to come fully equipped with combat gear ready for the outbreak of war on Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.
Tuesday evening, defense ministry “circles” put about a story that the defense minister had been kept in the dark about these military preparations – an unlikely tale, say our military sources. They “explained” that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief is not obliged to notify the minister of every troop movement.
Then, early Wednesday, May 1, a fresh official communiqué on the military exercise and call-up referred to preparations for war with Lebanon. The reference to Syria had been dropped.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly notes that this was the second time in ten days that the Israeli military appeared at odds with itself – and also in collision with the Obama administration, by projecting a situation that made direct action virtually unavoidable.

Disinformation disguised as discord

The first time this happened was on April 23, when Israeli’s top military intelligence analyst, Brig.-Gen. Itai Brun, offered the assessment that Syrian government forces had already used chemical weapons – probably nerve gas – against rebels.
President Barack Obama made two statements to push this assessment as far away as he could without, however, refuting it. On Tuesday, April 30, he said in Washington: "What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. We don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened.
“Evidence of their use would be a game changer,” he repeated, and “we would have to rethink the range of options I have on the shelf.”
Neither Netanyahu nor Ya'alon or any other leading Israel figure has come forward to defend Brun or comment either way on his assessment.
But DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military and intelligence sources have concluded that these apparently haphazard, blundering statements and steps were in fact very well coordinated. They emanated from understandings and accords quietly reached between the United States and Israel on the handling of the next phase of the Syria war.
As disinformation, this output may turn out to be smart – or wide of the mark. Elements of discord arising from the US president’s reluctance to embark on military action on Syria and Iran and the Netanyahu government’s urgency may also muddy the issue.

Military communiqués deliberately muddled

But it is important to stress that Israel’s top military command, up to and including Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, operates strictly within the bounds of directives from civilian government. So when Tuesday, the IDF officially announced its deployment on war readiness along the full length of Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, it was obeying to the letter the orders coming down from superior ministerial authority.
The first IDF communiqué was an exercise in misdirection. It announced that a surprise military drill had been launched and would continue through May 2. Thousands of reservists were being called up for the exercise starting Monday night, April 29, and continuing until Sunday, May 5.
Calling the operation a drill was a misnomer.
The reservists were ordered to report with full combat gear. Their missions were to back up the regular troops routinely serving at positions along the Syrian border and man the disused outposts, positions, bases and emergency storerooms strung along that border, reopened now for emergency use.
In one example, mobilized reservists broke open the Israeli outposts facing the Jordanian-Syrian border junction at the Yarmouk River, after they had been shuttered and mothballed for many years.
Adding an extra layer of support for the military lines with Syria is referred to in the IDF as a process of "thickening."

What happens if Obama rules out military intervention?

A small detachment of troops has been allocated to the Lebanon border, where this week the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah declared a war alert. (See a separate article on Hizballah’s transactions with Moscow.)
This flurry of military activity may be the preamble for a variety of possible steps, postulated here by DEBKA-Net-Weekly:
1. A final decision by President Obama on whether or not to intervene in the war in Syria.
2. US intervention could take a number of forms: Aerial bombardment of the Syrian bases and military compounds which provide the Assad regime with its firm backbone.
3. Targeting those same assets as well as chemical weapons facilities with missile strikes from the sea and from ground bases in Europe and the Middle East.
4. President Obama could decide to use a mix of those options synchronously.
5. He may decide to do nothing. Israel would then have to gear up to defend itself and Jordan unaided.
Signaling a major Syrian rebel reverse, Israeli radar screens this week picked up the movements of Iranian military cargo planes transporting military equipment landing for the first time in months at the Syrian military airport in Deir ez-Zor. This town near the Iraqi border is the 6^th biggest city in Syria and the largest in eastern Syria.
Its airport was under partial siege for months by rebel forces although they never had enough strength for its capture. Israeli military intelligence analysts judge that Iranian officers have started restoring damaged and abandoned Syrian military facilities in eastern Syria and wresting key locations from rebel control. They are using remnants and the skeletal command of the Syrian 17^th Division as the nucleus of the region’s restored military machine.
When this is done, the Syrian army will regain its positions for striking areas around Israeli and Jordanian borders from two points – from Deir ez-Zor in the east and Damascus in the north.

Chinese Soldiers March Into Indian Territory, Pitch Tents, Declare Land for China
May 4th, 2013
Daily NewsTruNews
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

China and India are once again at each other’s throats over an unmarked border in the Himalayas.

But this time, oddly, nobody seems to know why.

In mid-April, around 30 Chinese troops marched across the de facto border between China and India and pitched tents 19 kilometers inside Indian territory, just when relations between the two were going so well. The Indian government, which has so far exercised relative restraint, was accused by opposition politicians as being “weak, cowardly and incompetent” for not driving the troops off. The Chinese, on the other hand, deny that their soldiers ever crossed into Indian territory.

China and India haven’t been able to agree on how to carve up the Himalayas since they fought over the border in 1962, but this latest development has baffled experts.

California Bill Would Allow Students to use Bathrooms 'Consistent With His or Her Gender Identity'
May 4th, 2013
Daily NewsCNSNews.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Moral Decline

Ahmadinejad As Ayatollah Khamenei’s Punching Bag
May 4th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Reports from Iranian sources with links to Western media appeared this week claiming that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was taken into custody by a Revolutionary Guards Intelligence unit squad on April 29 and held for several hours.
On his way to Tehran’s 26^th international book fair Monday, April 29, he is said to have been informed that he was wanted urgently at the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office. On his way there, the president’s convoy was detached and steered in a different direction by three cars which entered the route. Ahmadinejad found himself taken to a secret Foreign Ministry building controlled by the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit. Ahmadinejad was then bundled into an office belonging to Hossein Taeb, the head of the Guards’ intelligence and reportedly grilled by Taeb, Asghar Hejazi, head of intelligence at the supreme leader’s office; Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader’s son; and Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the attorney general. They are said to have given him an ultimatum to back down from his accusations against regime officials before releasing him.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources cast doubts on this tale. Something appears to have happened, but it never went so far as his detention.
Whatever did, it occurred less than two months before Iran’s June 24 presidential election amid a vicious campaign of reciprocal threats and mudslinging between the rival camps of Ayatollah Khamenei and outgoing President Ahmadinejad and a week before candidates were due to register.

The president “is driving the supreme leader mad”

More than one attempt has been made to cow Ahmadinejad into dropping his sponsorship of the candidacy of Esfandyar Rahim Mashee, close friend, adviser and the father of his daughter-in-law – a man detested by the supreme leader. He has also been warned to abandon his smear campaign against prominent enemies.
The president took this campaign to its outer limit on April 21 when he accused Khamenei before a large audience of plotting his assassination. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Iranian sources learned that before he was publicly indicted in this way, Khamenei had secretly directed his advisers to draw up the script for Ahmadienjad’s “dignified” elimination if he continued to sow mayhem in the country.
The Iranian president is notorious for occasional delusional seizures like the vision he had of a halo around his head when he addressed the UN General Assembly.
But this time he got it right. Back in March, Revolutionary Guard commanders warned that a political assassination was in the works in the run-up to the presidential election.
Khamenei's followers are constantly braced for Ahmadinejad’s surprises. They believe him capable of suddenly stepping down or even canceling the presidential election. His critics are relentless.
The senior ayatollah Javadi Amoli has said “the president’s lies are getting the country into serious trouble." Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, a serious presidential candidate and relative of Khamenei, said that "with his crazy words and actions, Ahmadinejad is driving the Supreme Leader mad."

What has Ahmadinejad done with the multibillion oil revenues?

The most damaging criticism leveled against the president came from Assadollah Asgar-Ovladi, head of the chamber of commerce and one of the most influential figures in the economy. He attributed the disastrous and chaotic state of the Iranian economy to presidential mismanagement.
On Monday, April 22, Asgar-Ovladi commented: "He [Ahmadinejad] promised to distribute oil revenues among the citizenry but instead he even stole their bread.”
Although Ahmadinejad hands out a monthly subsidy of 45,000 toman to each citizen, prices have soared to 100,000 toman per month. Asgar-Ovladi said that Iran earned $700 billion from oil sales in the eight years of Ahmadinejad's tenure. “Where’s that money?” he asked.
Iran appears to be on the brink of economic collapse and political chaos, gradually paralyzed by international sanctions.
The poor cannot afford even to buy enough bread, their basic food, to feed their families, and its price continues to rise along with other basic products including medicines. Ahmadinejad's economic policy of canceling subsidies is held responsible for wrecking price stability.
Is the regime in Tehran in danger of falling? DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Iranian experts say no. Rivalries will not go past a safe point and the Iranian people may be hungry but not yet ready for revolution.
Will a new president herald change in Iran’s foreign or nuclear policy? Most unlikely: Khamenei is removing all bars to the election of the candidate most loyal to himself.
In the meantime, it suits the supreme leader’s book to pin the blame for all Iran’s ills on the recalcitrant president and use him as the national whipping boy.