Jordan's Abdullah in Ramallah for talks on Syria, Hamas, Israel-Palestinian issue Monday, Nov. 21, Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Ramallah at very short notice for his first visit in more than a decade. He came wearing two hats – one for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and one for the Obama administration. His talks with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority will cover Mahmoud Abbas' approaching reconciliation with the rival Hamas and an attempt to revive the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace dialogue. DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that the Jordanian King is on a mission for the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel to pull Abbas back to stable relations with Washington before he crosses the brink and aligns the Palestinian Authority with the fundamentalist Hamas. In the light of imminent events in Syria, this step will take the PA across the Middle East divide and place it in the Iranian-Syrian Middle East orbit. The American envoy offered the Palestinian leader a last chance to save his people from this dangerous course: Invite King Abdullah to Ramallah and inform him – not Washington – that the PA had chosen to resume negotiations with Israel, a choice which would automatically freeze his evolving ties with Hamas. Washingtonreckoned that the dramatic impact of the royal visit to the West Bank would sway Palestinian opinion into accepting an alliance with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States as preferable to the Hamas option. Hale left Ramallah without a final answer. But soon after, Palestinian sources let it be known that Abbas had never sought Fayyad's departure or ever wanted him replaced by a Hamas candidate. T The day after Abdullah told Assad to go, the "Free Syrian Army" launched its first organized attacks on Assad's military command centers, government facilities and party headquarters in and around Damascus. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jordan's Abdullah in Ramallah for talks on Syria, Hamas, Israel-Palestinian issue Monday, Nov. 21, Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Ramallah at very short notice for his first visit in more than a decade. He came wearing two hats – one for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and one for the Obama administration. His talks with the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority will cover Mahmoud Abbas' approaching reconciliation with the rival Hamas and an attempt to revive the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace dialogue. DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that the Jordanian King is on a mission for the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel to pull Abbas back to stable relations with Washington before he crosses the brink and aligns the Palestinian Authority with the fundamentalist Hamas. In the light of imminent events in Syria, this step will take the PA across the Middle East divide and place it in the Iranian-Syrian Middle East orbit. The American envoy offered the Palestinian leader a last chance to save his people from this dangerous course: Invite King Abdullah to Ramallah and inform him – not Washington – that the PA had chosen to resume negotiations with Israel, a choice which would automatically freeze his evolving ties with Hamas. Washingtonreckoned that the dramatic impact of the royal visit to the West Bank would sway Palestinian opinion into accepting an alliance with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States as preferable to the Hamas option. Hale left Ramallah without a final answer. But soon after, Palestinian sources let it be known that Abbas had never sought Fayyad's departure or ever wanted him replaced by a Hamas candidate. T The day after Abdullah told Assad to go, the "Free Syrian Army" launched its first organized attacks on Assad's military command centers, government facilities and party headquarters in and around Damascus. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iran flies Palestinian terrorists to Syria for raids into Israel Under cover of a four-day military exercise starting Friday, Nov. 18, Iran is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile's Iranian and counter-terror sources to be transferring Palestinian terrorist units into Syria after training them at IRGC Al Qods facilities for cross-border raids into the West Bank and Israel. Tuesday night, Nov. 15, FSA mounted an organized assault on the "Syrian Air Force Intelligence Command" at Harasta near Damascus - the Assad regime's primary covert tool of repression - using anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns. No official information was released about the scale of casualties or damage. Western intelligence sources following events in Syria report that most of the buildings were torched, an estimated 10 Syrian soldiers were killed and at least 30 injured before a combat helicopter was lofted to break up the battle. Wednesday, Nov. 16, a second FSA assault group armed with the same weapons hit ruling Baath party headquarters in Idlib. Sunday, Nov. 20, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad issued his routine warning of a "Middle East earthquake" if attacked. Split into groups of twelve, they were taught combat tactics behind enemy lines. Three of these groups have been flown back to Damascus. Friday, Nov. 18, straight after the International Atomic Energy Agency called on Iran to halt uranium enrichment and cooperate in disclosing its nuclear work, Tehran announced the start of a big four-day war game. Contrary to many reports, the exercise is not limited to testing the air defenses of Iran's nuclear sites and infrastructure but rather a large-scale war game,DEBKAfile's military sources report, staged by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and including operational intelligence and combat units of the Iranian army, disciplinary (security) forces and trained popular troops. From Sunday, Nov. 20, the maneuver is extending to Iran's five main cities, Tehran, Mashad, Urmieh, Kerman and Bushehr. When the exercise winds down next week, three Iranian military planes will fly the rest of the Palestinians fighters to Syria.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 21, 2011, 1:34 AM (GMT+02:00)
President Barack Obama's special envoy David Hale was in Ramallah Sunday, Nov. 20 to warn Palestinian leaders against further moves towards appeasing Hamas after Abbas offered to fire Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in favor of a Hamas appointee.
Hale warned Abbas that if he goes through with this move the US followed by West Europe will sever ties with the Palestinian Authority. He will not be forgiven for hitching his cart to Hamas, thereby strengthening the hand of Syria's Bashar Assad and enhancing Iranian influence with the Palestinians at the most crucial peak of the West's confrontation with Damascus.
These leaks Sunday night were taken to mean that Abbas was beginning to step back from his high-speed rapprochement with Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based political chief of Hamas. Abdullah's visit to Ramallah will determine if he is willing to go all the way.
The pro-American Jordanian king, who is backed politically and militarily by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and Turkey, emerged in the last week or two as the unified Arab spokesman on the Syrian crisis.
He was the first Arab ruler in a BBC interview broadcast Monday, Nov. 11to tell Bashar Assad publicly to resign. While the Saudis and Qataris steered the Arab League into suspending Syria and arm anti-Assad rebels, they chose Jordan's Abdullah to be the public voice representing the League consensus on Syria to the Arab world.
This was no chance happening. The Arab world backed by the West is piling on the diplomatic, economic and military pressure to force the Assad regime into breaking point. It is fully coordinated with Israel's Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu and will be redoubled in the coming days.
Factored into this squeeze on Assad were the warnings Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz twice addressed to the Hamas rulers of Gaza in the last ten days: He has said the IDF will no longer put up with missile attacks by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip disrupting life in southern Israel.
Sunday, he spoke of the coming military operation against Gaza and said it would be would be instigated by Israel and be "orderly and painful."
These warnings carried a message to Abbas that the IDF was poised for a military operation against Hamas which would scuttle any understanding he forged with the Palestinian fundamentalists and he would be smart to back down in good time.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 21, 2011, 1:34 AM (GMT+02:00)
President Barack Obama's special envoy David Hale was in Ramallah Sunday, Nov. 20 to warn Palestinian leaders against further moves towards appeasing Hamas after Abbas offered to fire Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in favor of a Hamas appointee.
Hale warned Abbas that if he goes through with this move the US followed by West Europe will sever ties with the Palestinian Authority. He will not be forgiven for hitching his cart to Hamas, thereby strengthening the hand of Syria's Bashar Assad and enhancing Iranian influence with the Palestinians at the most crucial peak of the West's confrontation with Damascus.
These leaks Sunday night were taken to mean that Abbas was beginning to step back from his high-speed rapprochement with Khaled Meshaal, the Damascus-based political chief of Hamas. Abdullah's visit to Ramallah will determine if he is willing to go all the way.
The pro-American Jordanian king, who is backed politically and militarily by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates and Turkey, emerged in the last week or two as the unified Arab spokesman on the Syrian crisis.
He was the first Arab ruler in a BBC interview broadcast Monday, Nov. 11to tell Bashar Assad publicly to resign. While the Saudis and Qataris steered the Arab League into suspending Syria and arm anti-Assad rebels, they chose Jordan's Abdullah to be the public voice representing the League consensus on Syria to the Arab world.
This was no chance happening. The Arab world backed by the West is piling on the diplomatic, economic and military pressure to force the Assad regime into breaking point. It is fully coordinated with Israel's Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu and will be redoubled in the coming days.
Factored into this squeeze on Assad were the warnings Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz twice addressed to the Hamas rulers of Gaza in the last ten days: He has said the IDF will no longer put up with missile attacks by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip disrupting life in southern Israel.
Sunday, he spoke of the coming military operation against Gaza and said it would be would be instigated by Israel and be "orderly and painful."
These warnings carried a message to Abbas that the IDF was poised for a military operation against Hamas which would scuttle any understanding he forged with the Palestinian fundamentalists and he would be smart to back down in good time.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 20, 2011, 8:01 AM (GMT+02:00)
By this step, Iran and Syria are fighting back for the armed campaign the opposition Free Syrian Army-FSA began launching last week on Syrian military installations and command centers.
May 10, shortly after the Syrian uprising erupted, Bashar Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf, a tycoon who controls 60 percent of the national economy, issued this warning: "Without stability in Syria, there will be no stability in Israel."
DEBKAfile's intelligence report that Damascus and Tehran appear to have decided this was the moment to make good on the threat.
In the intervening months, 300 "volunteers" were recruited in Syrian Palestinian refugee camps and transferred to Iran for courses in guerilla combat against strategic and urban targets. They were trained at al Qods elite unit facilities, some at their marine base.
The "popular troops", say our military sources, refer to the Bassij militia, whose task it is to preserve stable authority in cities in times of war or crisis, plus the Palestinian units recruited in Syria.
Monday, 21 November 2011
Abdullah II on a rare West Bank visit
Abdullah II on a rare West Bank visit
Al Qods trains Palestinians in anti-tank arms
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