Trump recognizes Golan to counter Iran’s first steps for annexing Lebanon to Syria

 

US President Donald Trump’s declared recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan on Thursday, March 21, had a time-sensitive object, unconnected to the Israeli election or Binyamin Netanyahu’s run for reelection, as his rivals contended. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources reveal that it was an arrow aimed by the US president at Iran, Syria, Iraq and Hizballah, and the machinations plotted at Syrian President Bashar Assad’s meeting with Iran’s supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khameini on Feb. 25. Present at their meeting, our sources reveal, were two figures, Al Qods chief Qasem Soleimani, supreme commander of Iran’s Mid East fronts, and, for the first time, a high-ranking Hizballah military official, who is a senior strategic adviser to Hassan Nasrallah.

Potential Shifts on US Strategy in Syria

 

The Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs is denying a Wall Street Journal report that claimed at least 1,000 US troops would remain in Syria. Gen. Joseph Dunford released a statement calling the claims “factually inaccurate” and assured the public of the Pentagon’s commitment to a steady withdrawal: “We continue to implement the president’s direction to draw down U.S. forces to a residual presence.” President Trump made waves across the national security community when he announced his original plan in December of the complete withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops from Syria. Later, the administration announced that 400 troops would most likely stay in southern Syria to monitor possible Iranian arms shipments to Lebanese-based terror groups such as Hezbollah. No specific estimates have been made as to the number of troops, although Pentagon officials have confirmed that any new amount will almost certainly will be lower. Although the President initially supported shifting troops from Syria to Iraq, concerns from Iraqi politicians about the US using its regional presence to spy on Iran have negated any support for such an initiative.

Iran lays out 16-point war plan for the supreme goal of toppling Netanyahu

 

Iran’s National Security Adviser Ali Shamkhani Saturday, Feb. 23, unveiled a plan to overthrow the prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu by a full-scale war from Syria and other “resistance fronts.” Tehran’s overt intervention in Israel’s April 9 election named the Israeli prime minister’s removal as the strategic goal of the “resistance axis.”

A day earlier, a senior IRGC general Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh claimed that Iran had hacked and seized control of half a dozen US drones over Syria and Iraq.

Moscow & Tehran prepare to arm Hizballah, including with Iranian air defense missiles

 

Hizballah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last week proposed that Iran re-arm the Lebanese army with new weapons including anti-air missiles. Zarif responded that Tehran is ready to assist Lebanon “in every field” – including the military sphere. He spoke in general terms, but DEBKAfile’s military sources report that, behind closed doors, the Iranian foreign minister offered the Lebanese army a set of Iranian Bavar 373 air defense missile systems, which are a close replica of the Russian S-300s deployed around military and nuclear sites across Iran. Iran nay decide against sending these missiles to Lebanon, lest they are destroyed by Israel, but the offer in itself is raising raised the military temperature around Lebanon. Quite simply, all the parties concerned are aware that the Lebanese government will decline this offer, because by closing the Iranian door they will open it to the start of Russian weapons supplies to Lebanon and Hizballah. Tehran has no objection to advanced weapons reaching Hizballah from Russia. The Iranians will claim that it is par for the course. Kurdish forces in Syria are armed by the Americans to fight Islamic State terror, and Hizballah is fighting the same foe.

New Lebanese government dominated by Hizballah

Prime Minister Saad Hariri heads the new Lebanese government set up on Thursday after a nine-month stalemate over the pro-Iranian Shiite Hizballah’s demands.

Israeli Report: Invasion of Iran May Be Necessary

(Photo Credit: Israel Defense Forces)

 

A worst-case scenario would begin with a war in the north that trickles south.

An Israeli government report is warning the country that it must prepare for the possibility of going to war with Iran—invading the Islamic Republic—in order to prevent it from becoming fully entrenched in Syria.

Invading Israel

An IDF entry point to a Hezbollah tunnel from Lebanon (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Iran’s war against Israel is heating up rapidly: Iran is moving beyond threats and mobilizing for hostilities.

Jerusalem—On Nov. 13, 2018, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was on the edge of collapse. In one 25-hour period, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas launched over 400 rockets, missiles and mortars into Israel from the Gaza Strip. It was the largest single-day barrage ever. For those Israelis within range of the missiles, it was the last straw. I spoke to Israelis who experienced the attacks, and most of them emphasized the need to push back against Hamas to stop the incessant fire. Living under the constant threat of war and the stress of having less than 10 seconds to get to a bomb shelter is clearly taking a toll.

Netanyahu: US will run economic war against Iran, leaving military drive to Israel

 

That the US retains the economic side of the war on Iran leaving the military campaign for Israel to manage – in the words of Prime Minister/Defense Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – defines the new reality set out by the Trump administration.

Iran-backed militias in Syria push closer to Israel border

IDF forces at Israel’s border fence with Syria.

 

Iran-backed militias fighting alongside the Syrian army have moved within three miles of the Israeli border.

“The Iranian-backed militias are trying to consolidate their sphere of influence all the way from southwest of Damascus to the Israeli border,” said Suhaib al Ruhail, an official from the Liwa al Furqan rebel group that operates in the area, according to Reuters.

America’s Withdrawal From Syria—and the Middle East

U.S. forces, accompanied by Kurdish People’s Protection Units fighters, drive their armoured vehicles near the northern Syrian village of Darbasiyah, on the border with Turkey on April 28, 2017. (DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Breaking with advisers and generals, President Trump decides to pull troops out of Syria. Is this the beginning of the end of American power in the Middle East?

United States President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that all American forces will soon be withdrawn from Syria. In a video released on Twitter, Mr. Trump declared victory over the Islamic State and, as a result, has determined to withdraw the 2,000 troops currently inside Syrian territory.

“We have defeated isis in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency,” Mr. Trump tweeted, which was quickly followed by the video.

Trump orders US troop pullout from NE Syria. Israel left alone against Russia, Iran

 

DEBKAfile notes that this is not the first time that President Trump has decided to pull the 2,000 US troops out of Syria. He decided this in March but was persuaded to hold off by Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They explained that, as soon as American troops were out of the way, the Russians would move in and take control of the Syrian-Iraqi border and pro-Iranian forces would swarm across. Iran would be gifted its biggest military triumph ever by achieving a land bridge under its control up to the Mediterranean. Hizballah too would be further strengthened.

U.S. Fears Iran Planning ‘Massive Regional War’ in Middle East

Israeli Merkava tanks parked near the border with Lebanon, after the area was declared a closed military zone by the Israeli army / Getty Images

 

Trump vows support for Israeli defensive operations after identifying Iran as source of tunnels into Israel

The Trump administration disclosed that Iran is behind the construction of several underground tunnels leading into Israel that Hezbollah militants and other terror forces have been using to conduct attacks, according to multiple U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon and communicated fears that Tehran is preparing to lead a “massive regional war.”

Iranian air freighters now routed to Beirut instead of Syrian air bases

 

Day by day at least one, if not two, Iranian transport aircraft, are landing at Beirut international airport in the past week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Flights to Syrian air bases have all but ceased. On their return flights, they refuel at Damascus airport. Most of the incoming aircraft are Boeing 747s of Qeshm Fars Air, which serves Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Intelligence watchers, speculating about the reason for the accelerated Iranian air runs to Beirut and the nature of their cargoes, suggest that they are anxious to avoid encounters with the USAF aircraft circling Syrian skies (as DEBKAfile first revealed on Nov. 22). Another conjecture is that, since the Russian- S-300 air defense systems won’t be operational before the end of January, Iran and Russia agreed that it would be less hazardous for Iranian air deliveries to be routed to Beirut than to risk possible Israel air strikes over Syria.

Iran trains squads for terrorizing US forces in Syria. US air/naval buildup for striking back

 

Iran’s proxy militias in Syria are being trained and armed for terrorizing US forces in eastern Syria, starting with IEDs like the bombs that bedeviled American forces in Iraq in 2004-2006. The mastermind of this campaign is Iran’s Mid East commander, Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that US commanders in Syria were forewarned of the coming campaign after it was approved by Tehran as retaliation for the sanctions re-imposed by the Trump administration.

They learned that terror squads, detached from the Iraqi and Afghan militias encamped in the eastern Syrian Deir ez-Zour province, had in the last few days completed their specialist training by Al Qods and Hizballah bomb experts. They were taught how to blow up American military installations, bridges and transportation routes and how to plant IEDs outside buildings and on the roads frequented by US military traffic.

U.S. Declares War on Russia’s New Middle East Order

(Photo Credit: U.S. Treasury Department)

 

Treasury Department details how Russian, Iranian companies funneled oil to Syria to fund Hezbollah, Hamas.

This afternoon, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control laid out an elaborate network through which the Central Bank of Iran funneled cash through Iranian and Russian companies to buy Iranian oil that was then shipped to Syria for the purpose of propping up the Syrian government and the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas.