November 26-27, 2010 Briefs: Hariri walks into the Iranian web abandoned by US, Israel, Saudi Arabia November 28, 2010 Briefs: WikiLeaks documents Israeli arguments for striking Iran Few shockers in WikiLeaks' first batch of classified diplomatic files November 29, 2010 Briefs: Iran nuclear scientist killed by blast was Iran's top Stuxnet expert November 30, 2010 Briefs: November 30, 2010 Briefs Continued: - Assad: Iran won't use nuclear arms against Israel because the Palestinians would also be harmed. Hariri opens door to Iranian-Hizballah takeover of Lebanon's armed forces December 1, 2010 Briefs: Riyadh signals: Secret Saudi-Israeli meetings on Iran must go on December 2, 2010 Briefs: Sarkozy: North Korea to supply Iran with nuclear bomb components Carmel fire fatalities rise to 42 with finding of missing fireman's body. First foreign planes in action 
An Iranian diplomat and 3 Nigerian businessmen stand trial in Abuja.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
27 Nov. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri begins a suicidal trip to the Iranian capital Saturday, Nov. 27, to the accompaniment of falling Western holdings across the Middle East, DEBKAfile's military analysts report. Finding the US, Israel and Arab moderates unwilling to rescue him from Syria and Iran he, like Samson in Philistine captivity, decided to let them collapse too when he is crushed by Hizballah.
Iran will therefore face the world powers at the nuclear talks starting Dec. 6 much empowered by the victual conquest of Lebanon.
Nothing Hariri can do now will stop Hizballah seizing control of Beirut and other strategic regions of the country including the Lebanese-Syrian border crossings in early December to prevent the Special Lebanese Tribunal issuing indictments against Hizballah high-ups for complicity in the Rafiq Hariri assassination five years ago.
DEBKAfile Special Report
28 Nov. The first batch of WikiLeaks released Sunday, Nov. 28, quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak as estimating in 2009 that 18 months remained as a "window of opportunity" for destroying Iran's nuclear sites.
"The fate of the world rests on stopping Iran," he said.Barak asked rhetorically how a lack of firm response to North Korea would be interpreted by Iran's leadership, speculating the US government would be viewed as a 'paper tiger'," the diplomatic cable reads.
Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on September 11, 2001," said Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin in May, 2009.
US Ambassador Dan Kurtzer told Washington that Israeli evaluations tended exaggerate.
According to another disclosure, Russia was prepared to withhold the S-300 air defense missile from Iran in return for the supply of $1 billion worth of Israel UAVs.
DEBKAfile Special Report
28 Nov. According to the advance headlines from the first batch of quarter of a million WikiLeaks confidential US files, mostly diplomatic cables, US officials are quoted as referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "Hitler," French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the emperor who has no clothes, the Afghanistan President Hamid Sarkozy as "motivated by paranoia" and UK Prime Minster David Cameron as "lightweight." The WikiLeaks site came under cyber attack ahead of publication.
Although these backhanded remarks are unflattering, they are hardly surprising. DEBKAfile finds that Ahmadinejad has earned his epithet honestly by threatening to wipe Israel off the map.
The US President Barack Obama is described as overly attuned to the East while letting relations with Europe slide. He is not alone. His predecessors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush shared the view that Europe is a spent force and Asia is on the rise.
DEBKAfile World Exclusive 
29 Nov. Prof. Majid Shahriari, who died when his car was attacked in North Tehran Monday, Nov. 29, headed the team Iran established for combating the Stuxnet virus rampaging through its nuclear and military networks. His wife was injured. The scientist's death deals a major blow to Iran's herculean efforts to purge its nuclear and military control systems of the destructive worm since it went on the offensive six months ago. Only this month, Stuxnet shut down nuclear enrichment at Natanz for six days from Nov. 16-22 and curtailed an important air defense exercise. Another Iranian nuclear scientist, Prof. Feredoun Abbassi-Davani, and his wife survived a second coordinated attack with serious injuries.
Iran's nuclear chief Ali Salehi warned that the perpetrator is playing with fire.
- US diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear program would lead to material falling into terrorist hands.
- Assad told US senators who called Hamas is terrorists:.
If you want me to be effective and active I must have ties with all existing players.
- Netanyahu told US senator he supports land swaps with Palestinians.
- He doesn't want to rule West Bank only control attacks from there.
- US embassy cable from Baku: IRGC chief Gen. Jafari slapped Ahmadinejad during a heated debate.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
30 Nov. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri ended his two-day visit to Tehran Monday, Nov. 29, with consent for Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers to take part for the first time in coordinating sessions between Lebanese army and Hizballah commanders, DEBKAfile's military and Iranian sources report. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei gave Hariri his new orders, indicating that the only way to save Lebanon from deathly internal strife was for him to consolidate relations with Hizballah "as part of the same front."
What this concession means is that henceforth the Lebanese chief of staff Gen. Jean Kahwaji, must coordinate all his operational decisions and actions with Hizballah's Iranian chief commander, Gen. Hossein Mahadavi of the Al Qods Brigades, as well as with Hizballah's new Israeli front line commander, Hashim Safi Al-Din, Hassan Nasrallah's cousin and a staunch pro-Iranian loyalist. But Hariri, with Hizballah's threat of civil war hanging over his head, did not have much choice.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
01 Dec. Riyadh has signaled its intention for the secret Saudi-Israeli meetings on Iran taking place for more than a year to continue after the changing of the guard at the Mossad, DEBKAfile's intelligence sources reveal. This message Tamir Pardo found on his desk as he prepares to take over from Meir Dagan this week as head of Israel's external spy agency. It means that, regardless of WikiLeaks disclosures, the Saudis stand by their conviction that Iran's nuclear program must be destroyed.
The meetings between Saudi General Intelligence Director Prince Muqrin bin Abdaziz and Meir Dagan, most of which were held in the Jordanian capital Amman, dealt extensively with clandestine cooperation between the two agencies and plans for attacking Iran. Arab and Western sources reported they reached agreement in the course of the year for Israeli fighter-bombers to transit Saudi air space on their way to bombing Iran's nuclear facilities and use a specially-built landing strip in the Saudi desert for refueling.
They were intercepted early Thursday heavily armed with weapons and explosives.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
02 Dec. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has quietly warned that North Korea is using its crisis with the South to cover up its planned transfer to Iran of nuclear weapons systems parts and extra-fast centrifuges for uranium enrichment that could help Tehran go into bomb production in the first half of 2011, DEBKAfile's sources report. He has asked pro-Western Persian Gulf leaders to try and persuade President Barack Obama to take strong military action against North Korea – not just because of its aggression against the South, but to abort Pyongyang's nuclear aid to Tehran.
In Sarkozy's opinion, Iran only agreed to meet the Six-Power representatives on December 6 for talks as a gambit to play for time until the North Korean nuclear supplements are in hand. He told the Gulf rulers that he had been informed by highly credible sources that the items from North Korea would help Iran solve the technical problems plaguing the program and holding up its progress.
02 Dec. The body of the missing fireman found Friday, Dec. 3, raised the number of dead from the Carmel fire to 42. After battling dry, high winds through the night, firefighters closed the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway to traffic early Friday, Dec. 3, as the huge fire which enveloped the northern reaches of Mt. Carmel Thursday continued to blaze out of control and spread amid winds changing direction ever hour. Haifa's Danya neighborhood is threatened anew. More communities stand by for evacuation at Hof Hacarmel near the sea after the first 17,000 escaped their homes and were housed in provisional shelters. Numerous invitations to host them pour in from across the country.
The 41 victims, young trainees at a prison warders' course summoned to help evacuate the 500 inmates, were burnt alive as the flames changed direction and trapped them from several directions. The inmates had by then reached safety. Haifa police commander Ahuva Tomer was critically injured.
The widely-spaced focal centers confirm the suspicion of arson.
The first crop-sprayer planes used by the Israeli fire brigade went up with first light, quickly joined by the first of some 20 planes from a dozen countries across the world carrying firefighters and fresh stocks of extinguisher materials in response to Israel's appeal for aid for the worst fire disaster in its experience.
The first planes landed Friday morning with specialist manpower from Greece, Cyprus, Jordan and Bulgaria. Turkey has offered two planes. New York has pledged a planeload of materials for extinguishing fires. President Barack Obama promised aid and sent condolences.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Summary of DEBKA Exclusives in the Week Ending December 3, 2010
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