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Burying bad news? 

Now its US election day - compilation of Mid East events

Burying bad news?

Putin sacks defense minister

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has been dismissed without explanation. The new Minister, Sergei Shoigu, is the governor of the Moscow region and the former Minister of Emergency Situations. Sources in Moscow report the ministry is accused of a large-scale corrupt transaction worth $95 million for the sale of ministerial assets, including land, at lower than market prices.  Serdyukov himself is not named as complicit in the deal. He may have been fired because the deal was conducted on his watch.

 

(this of course may just be a front excuse).

 

Netanyahu is ready for independent decision on Iran attack

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he is willing to attack the Iranian nuclear program without support from Washington:  “If someone sits here as the prime minister of Israel and he can’t take action on matters that are cardinal to the existence of this country, its future and its security, and he is totally dependent on receiving approval from others, then he is not worthy of leading,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “I can make these decisions.”

 

 

Prince Muhammed bin Nayef is new Saudi Interior Minister

At 53, Prince Muhammed steps into his later father’s shoes as minister responsible for the war on terror, taking over from Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 72.  Crown Prince Salman is clearly going forward with the change of generations he started at the top of the Saudi royal government, while King Abdullah at 90 is too weak to stop the Sudairi branch of the royal family concentrating in its hands all the top positions in the kingdom.

 

 

Explosion on Gaza border fence injures 3 Israeli soldiers

The device blew up along with Palestinian gunfire from the southern tip of the Gaza Strip against a passing Israeli military patrol near Kibbutz Nirim early Tuesday. The patrol returned the fire.

 

 

Israeli forces on high alert after Syrian gunfire hit Israeli military jeep on Golan

Tension shot up on the Israeli-Syrian Golan border Monday night, Nov. 5, after Syrian small-arms fire from 1 kilometer over the Golan border hit the jeep of the Golani Brigade’s Patrol Battalion commander on a routine border patrol. There were no injuries. The jeep was badly damaged.  military sources: The incident occurred after a gunfight between Syrian troops and rebels over the Golan town of Quneitra ended in the town falling to the rebels.

Israeli air force planes are patrolling the Golan and Galilee skies of northern Israel after the Syrians were observed preparing aircraft and helicopters to fly to the aid of their defeated ground forces in Quneitra.

 

After the Syrian army’s 90th Brigade was forced to retreat, Damascus is reported by Western sources about to send reinforcements over to the Golan to recover Quneitra. IDF contingents on the Golan and the Israeli-Lebanese border are high alert in case the Syrian combat spills over the border.

 

Hizballah is now openly flaunting the presence of its regular troops in Syria. They are armed with heavy artillery and Chinese WS-1 multiple-launch rocket systems made in Iran. These “Katyushas,” shoot 302mm rockets at targets up to 100 kilometers away and can operate in the rugged mountain terrain of Lebanon, Syria and Israel and in harsh weather conditions, including snow.

Hizballah fighters are reported by sources to have already used this weapon with deadly effect in a battle with Syrian rebels over the town of Quseir opposite the Lebanese Beqaa Valley. It ended in Hizbalah’s capture of the town.

 

Coordination is tight: Hizballah forces on the ground get in touch with Iranian command headquarters in Beirut and Damascus to call up Syrian helicopters for air cover.

 

The Hizballah commander in Syria is Ibrahim Aqil, a veteran of the Hizballah militia and one of the most trusted by Hassan Nasrallah and Tehran.

Aqil took part in the 1983 assault on US Marines Beirut headquarters in which 241 American troops were killed, the highest death toll in a single event after World War II. In the year 2000, Aqil, then commander of the southern Lebanese front against Israel, orchestrated the kidnap from Israeli territory and murder of three Israeli soldiers, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sawad.

 

Hizballah’s expeditionary force in Syria has been assigned three missions:

 

1. To seal off the routes used by the rebels to smuggle fighters and arms from Lebanon into Syria, most of which run through the Beqaa Valley. This mission is near completion.

2.  To defend the clusters of Syrian Alawite and Shiite villages in the area of Hizballah control.

3.  To provide a strategic reserve force for the Syrian units defending the main hubs of Syrian highways running west to east from the Mediterranean coast to the Syrian-Iraqi border and crisscrossed from north to south by the route running from the Turkish border up to Damascus. Control of these hubs makes it possible for the Syrian army to move military forces between the different warfronts at high speed.

 

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