-0-bummer's- Visit-w/ timing of plans / events of Rebels etc

TWO HEADLINES WITH LINKS HERE SO LOOK BELOW THIS ONE FOR #2

http://www.debka.com/article/22826/US-drone-escapes-attack-over-Hormuz-Syria-threatens-to-bomb-Lebanon-Russian-marines-dock-in-Beirut

US drone escapes attack over Hormuz. Syria threatens to bomb Lebanon. Russian marines dock in Beirut
DEBKAfile Special Report March 14, 2013, 10:52 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: US drone Iran Syrian war Lebanon Russian warships
Russian warships dock in Beirut
Russian warships dock in Beirut



Middle East tensions are spiraling sharply six days before US President Barack Obama lands in the Middle East. Thursday night, March 14, an Iranian fighter jet tried to bring down a US Predator drone flying over Oman, i.e. the Straits of Hormuz - only to be warned off by flares from its US fighter escort.

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.

Their incursion threatened to engender a major spillover of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon.
The danger of hostilities inching close to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Moscow maintains a naval base, decided the Russian Navy to instruct three warships carrying 700 marines to Tartus to change course and put in at Beirut instead.

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#2

http://www.debka.com/article/22819/Al-Qaeda%E2%80%99s-Nusra-fights-to-seize-Syrian-Golan-in-time-for-Obama-visit

Al Qaeda’s Nusra fights to seize Syrian Golan in time for Obama visit
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 13, 2013, 10:16 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Barack Obama Israel Iron Dome Al Qaeda airport security Golan
One of Syrian military tunnels uncovered on Golan

Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, led a Syrian rebel operation Wednesday, March 13, to occupy Golan and cleanse it of every last Syrian troop loyal to Bashar Assad. The Islamists had two more objectives:

1. To be in position for cross-border attacks on Israel and Jordan – possibly in the course of US President Barack Obama’s March 20-22 visits to those countries.
2. To use the “liberated” Syrian Golan as launching pads for a war of attrition against Israel and Jordan - like Taliban’s campaign against NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their deadline for achieving this objective is March 15.
Jabhat al-Nusra kicked off its Golan operation Wednesday, debkafile’s military sources report, by murdering Gen. Nour e-Din Habib, commander of the Syrian Army’s 90th Brigade, parts of which remain on the Golan. He was struck down from a well-planned ambush against his convoy. Also killed in the attack was Col. Radouan Rifai, the brigade’s senior liaison officer with the Syrian 3rd Extended Division.
The purpose of the attack was to disable the brigade by wiping out its top command.
Our military sources add that, in the course of the fighting Wednesday, the Nusra front uncovered a secret network of large tunnels running from different points on the Golan up to the Israeli border. They are big enough for the passage of entire Syrian units with their tanks and heavy trucks, allowing them to pop up without warning against Israeli border units and use their surprise to mow them down and advance into the Israeli sector.
debkafile reported earlier Wednesday:

US President Barack Obama’s first engagement upon landing in Israel on March 20 will be a quick tour of the Iron Dome missile interceptor stationed at Ben Gurion international airport. After a round of handshakes, the officers and men operating the system will explain how it works.

The innovative counter-missile weapon is to be deployed there, not just as a spectacle to honor the US president for his contribution to its development, but out of necessity for his safety. Air Force One might be seen as fair game for the ground-to-ground missiles wielded by Al Qaeda units fighting Assad in Syria and its affiliates in the Sinai Peninsula at the very moment that the US President steps down to the strains of the IDF welcoming band.
In normal circumstances, personal security arrangements for a US presidential foreign visit are kept under close wraps and rarely visible to the public.

This time, debkafile’s counterterrorism sources report, the visit’s planners made an exception. They decided there was no option but to visibly install an Iron Dome battery inside the airport, because the first battery plus a Patriot interceptor stationed for more than two months north and south of Tel Aviv were not sufficient guarantee of security against rocket attack for President Obama’s arrival.

This decision set up two precedents:

1. Air Force One will land on the Ben Gurion airport runway on March 20 enclosed by two defensive rings of US and Israeli missile interceptors in the densest formation ever to guard an American president's arrival in Israel.

2. The Iron Dome battery will stay in place for the three days of Obama’s visits to Israel and Jordan. It will defend Jerusalem’s air space against rocket attack for the duration of his stay.
Still fresh in Israeli memories are Hamas attempts just five months ago to hit the airport and Jerusalem with rockets fired from the Gaza Strip on the orders of the Iranian general Gen. Hassan Shateri aka Hossam Khosh-Nevis. This Iranian officer was killed in January in Syria in unknown circumstances.
No one in US and Israeli security circles is seriously suggesting that Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad or Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah are planning to hit the Israeli airport with rockets on March 20. But neither is any responsible official prepared to expose the president to the slightest risk.

After all, in the more than 120,000 square kilometers of the Damascus-Baghdad-Amman triangle and the 62,000 square kilometers of the Sinai Peninsula, it may be possible to find a jihadist commander willing to act on an order from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zuwahiri to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden in on May 2 two years ago in Pakistan at the hands of American commandos.

Both groups of security experts appreciate that Zuwahiri has the motive for punishing the US president for ordering his death and, for the first time, the capacity to reach him from al Qaeda-controlled territory with surface missiles loaded with poison chemicals.
Even if their weapon did not touch President Obama, it would be enough for one to explode on an Israeli or Jordanian air field at the time of his arrival for the terrorist organization to chalk up a major strategic feat.

You can see that Trouble is Brewing.

http://www.debka.com/article/22817/Al-Qaeda-forms-volatile-1-000-km-chain-from-Baghdad-to-Damascus

Al Qaeda forms volatile 1,000-km chain from Baghdad to Damascus
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 12, 2013, 8:30 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Al Qaeda Gen. Benni Gantz Israeli security Syria Iraq
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Golan


Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz rated war as a “low risk” for the foreseeable future, but credited the risk of escalation as “very high,” in a lecture he delivered Monday, March 11 at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Institute for policy and strategy. “Almost every week, some incident occurs that could drag the region into a conflagration,” he warned.
debkafile’s military sources: Gen. Gantz’s distinction between “war” and “conflagration” stems from the differentiation Israel’s senior policy-making and military circles have begun making of late to support a misconception that a full-blown war is no longer on the cards at present. They support this rationale by arguing that full-scale war can only be fought by large regular armies, while a “conflagration” or “escalation” entails smaller units and less terrain.
The Egyptian army, which would be the key to a major conflict, is held up in this regard as being in no state to go to war, given their country’s disastrous political and economic plight. The generals, according to this theory, wouldl take into account the low state of their units and lack of logistical preparedness and simply decline to issue any order to embark on war against Israel.
So when Gantz talked about a conflagration, he was thinking in terms of the Islamist militias in Syria, Hizballah in Lebanon and the Salafists allied with al Qaeda cells in Sinai – none of which are capable of launching war on the classical dimensions of the past.

What this kind of thinking omits to take into account is that, while the regular Arab national armies which attacked Israel in the past are indeed crumbling, the militias in their countries are mushrooming dangerously. They are bursting out of their national boundaries, nourished with arms, manpower and funding from distant sources in and beyond the Middle East.
debkafile’s military sources point to the example of the Syrian army’s 17th Reserve Division, whose recent defeat in the battle for the Euphrates River in eastern Syria established a regional landmark. It removed the last gap in the 1,000-kilometer long chain of command formed by Islamist forces identified or associated with al Qaeda, which now runs contiguously from the northern outskirts of Baghdad to the eastern fringes of Damascus. The Syrian Golan, since it fell to the Islamist militias fighting with Syrian rebels, forms part of that chain. The Battle for the Euphrates was a landmark event in that it opened the way for al Qaeda to conduct itself as a transnational force in combat. And indeed, in a recent encounter, al Qaeda in Iraq claimed victory over Syrian military units which, having crossed the border into that country, lost the battle at the cost of 48 soldiers and 9 agents dead.

Therefore, any “conflagration” in Syria, for instance, could quickly spread to Lebanon, Iraq or the Golan; and a violent incident in Egypt may emanate from or spill over into Libya, Israel or Algeria.
This eventuality was intimated in another part of the Gantz lecture: “The only permanent factor we are seeing in the last two years is that nothing is permanent. Egypt, too, which underwent a revolutionary process, has not achieved permanence; old and familiar arenas are changing and are being replaced by newer, weightier, ones,” said the chief of staff. “The threats have not gone, only assumed new shapes and when we encounter them in the future, will demand of us enhanced strength.”
Gantz went on to say: “True, we aren’t preparing to fight a regular army, but when next challenged, we shall still have to crawl through the burrows of Gaza and reach every building in Judea and Samaria.”
The general omitted reference to Iran. This may have been because a nuclear Iran represents the prospect of all-out war with a national army and is therefore the exception to the theory embodied in his lecture.
Regarding Syria, he said: “The situation in Syria has become exceptionally dangerous and unstable. Although the probability of a conventional war against the Syrian army is low, the terrorist organizations fighting Assad may next set their sights on us. The Syrian army’s tremendous strategic resources may well fall into terrorist hands.”

And then there is this over at:

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=306523

IMF warns Palestinian finances 'increasingly precarious'
By REUTERS
03/15/2013 01:41
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International Monetary Fund calls for urgent action to help close Palestinian budget deficit and stabilize the PA economy, saying mounting PA debt can lead some to undermine the PA's ability to govern effectively.