Iran building a separate troop landing terminal in Tartus – report

With Netanyahu due to meet Wednesday with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, in an effort to block a permanent Iranian presence in Syria, Saudi sources reveal that Iran has started building a separate terminal at the Syrian port of Tartus to accommodate Iranian and Hizballah landings.

Russia deploys advanced anti-missile system to Syria for first time

Russia has deployed an advanced anti-missile system to Syria for the first time, according  US officials.

Pentagon: Russian Warplanes Continue Bombing in Syria

Another day, another Russian deception: Fake withdrawal.

 

Russian warplanes continued bombing in Syria and “fewer than 10” departed the region following President Vladimir Putin’s stunning announcement that his forces had accomplished their mission and a partial withdrawal had begun, Pentagon officials said.

“We have seen some Russian aircraft depart Syria and return to Russia but we have not seen a large contingent of Russian forces” pulling out, said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. “So we’ll have to wait and see like everybody else what the Russians do in regard to President Putin’s reference to a partial withdrawal.”

Petraeus accuses Putin of trying to re-establish Russian Empire

Washington (CNN) One of America’s top former generals compared the situation in Syria Tuesday to a historic nuclear disaster, implicitly criticizing the U.S. for allowing it to worsen, and accused Russia’s President of trying to re-establish an empire.

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee, also recommended that the U.S. establish safe zones for Sunnis inside Syria and potentially put American boots on the grounds in Iraq to stop the spread of ISIS.

The former commanding general of U.S. forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan equated the situation in Syria today with one of the most deadly nuclear accidents in history.

As Kerry met Egyptian and Saudi leaders, planning advanced for a Russian naval base in Egypt

Consider American influence in the Middle East 90% gone. The Saudi’s no longer trust America to follow through on its commitments to the region and have instead turned to Russia and Israel. Both Egypt and Libyia were overturned by the Obama administration and likely won’t see normalcy for quite some time. Syria and Iran can now go largely unchecked in the region as America retreats and leaves Israel out in the cold.

Moscow’s request for a naval base in Egypt submitted last week by a visiting Russian general prompted US Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to hurry up and visit Cairo and Riyadh for an attempt to smooth their prickly relations over Washington’s policies for Syria and Iran. However, Sunday, Nov. 3, the day he stopped over in Cairo en route for Riyadh, saw a mighty buildup of Russian naval stgrength in the Mediterranean.

Russia’s Pacific Fleet flagship, the Varyag,and the powerful nuclear-fueled battleship Pyotr Veliky arrived to carry out “a number of tasks” with other Russian Navy ships in the region, according to the official statement form Moscow.

Iran secretly building in Port Sudan military supply base for Syria, Hizballah

A logistics base for handling tanks, missile systems, self-propelled artillery and other heavy weaponry bound for Syria and Hizballah is secretly under construction in a section of Port Sudan which Omar al Bashir has leased to Tehran, debkafile reports exclusively from its military sources.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards engineers in civilian dress are overseeing the hundreds of Sudanese workmen laboring flat out to build Iran’s second Red Sea base after Assab in southern Eritrea.

US drone escapes attack over Hormuz. Syria threatens to bomb Lebanon. Russian marines dock in Beirut

This was not the first time a US drone was threatened by Iranian aircraft over the Persian Gulf, but in reporting the incident, the Pentagon revealed that the drones flying in the neighborhood of Iranian shores are now escorted by US jet fighters.

A couple of hours earlier that evening, DEBKAfile received an exclusive report from its military sources that the Syrian high command had just issued an ultimatum, on the orders of Bashar Assad, demanding that the Lebanese government put an immediate stop to the passage of armed Sunni fighters from Lebanon into Syria, else the Syrian Air Force would strike the Lebanese intruders’ convoys and also their home bases.  Damascus claimed they were coming to fight the government alongside the al Qaeda-linked Jabrat al-Nusra.