The arrival of a new Middle East player has startled Washington and Jerusalem: DEBKAfile's military sources disclose that when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan met Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus Monday, Oct. 11, they talked less about the Kurdish question and more about the role China is willing to play in the military-intelligence alliance binding Syria, Iran and Turkey. Chinese warplanes took part in Turkey's recent air maneuver after breaking their journey to refuel in Iran.
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Linking it to the new US drive into Pakistan was too artificial to work.
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They may have already been planted in Iran, Syria, Hizballah missiles.
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DEBKAfile Special Report
More fuel was thrown on the bubbling brew surrounding Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon this week by an Al Qaeda-linked group: "The whole of Lebanon will tremble if he sets foot there." Washington warns Americans in Lebanon to be vigilant and avoid large gatherings, and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri took off for Cairo for urgent consultations on the crisis blowing up over the visit.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's offer to trade a settlement construction freeze for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state was not only rejected by the Palestinians and ruled out by Washington. It was criticized at home. Opening up the question of whether Israel is a Jewish state or a democracy unnecessarily invites challenge, said the critics. In 1947 the UN enshrined the Jews' right to self-determination. Coupling it with the settlement issue is counter-productive.
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DEBKAfile's military and counter-terror sources report that Tuesday, Oct. 12, large-scale Israeli police, counter-terror squads, border police, first aid personnel and firefighters staged the most extensive exercise Israel has ever conducted against multiple terrorist attacks in its eastern and central regions including Jerusalem. The drill included an Al Qaeda penetration of crowded downtown Jerusalem with unconventional weapons - the first time Israeli has simulated an Al Qaeda infiltration of a large city.
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