I may not be a fan of the Egyptian regime, but i think they made the right call here. That will be a lesson Hezbollah & Hamas will not forget soon.

The prosecution in a trial of 26 alleged Hizbullah members charged with planning attacks in Egypt demanded the death sentence on Tuesday, a judicial source said.

The men are accused of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and tourist sites, and of spying, along with other charges.

Source : www.exclusive-analysis.com

Summary/Forecast: Despite Syrian government denials of a bomb explosion targeting Iranian pilgrims, the target selected and the timing point to a deliberate attack, quite possibly planned outside Syria, and intended to threaten Syria’s ties with Iran and embarrass both countries.

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     NOVEMBER 12, 2009

               SPEAKERS: GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS,

                         UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND

                         MICHAEL O’HANLON,

                         DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH,

                         BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

                         LIZZIE O’LEARY,

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Source: lefigaro.fr

Propos recueillis à Damas par Étienne Mougeotte

Le président syrien s’entretient du Proche-Orient, vendredi à Paris, avec Nicolas Sarkozy. Il estime que ses relations avec Washington ne se sont pas encore suffisamment améliorées.

LE FIGARO – Monsieur le président, vous effectuez votre deuxième visite en France en moins de dix-huit mois. Et le président Sarkozy est venu entre-temps à Damas. Qu’attendez-vous de ces relations désormais excellentes entre la France et la Syrie ?

Bachar el-ASSAD. Nous disons toujours que l’Europe a un rôle à jouer s’agissant du Proche-Orient. Historiquement, il n’y a pas de doute que la France a toujours eu un rôle de pilote en Europe. Il est évident que lorsque le président Sarkozy a mis en avant son dynamisme politique, toute l’Europe l’a suivi. Un an et demi après la reprise des bonnes relations entre la France et la Syrie, nous avons d’abord bâti un climat de confiance et nous pouvons, à présent, élaborer une vision plus claire pour l’avenir.

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By Ofer Aderet | Der Spiegel

BERLIN – The Mossad espionage agency used Trojan Horse programs to gather intelligence about a nuclear facility in Syria that the Israel Defense Forces destroyed in 2007, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported yesterday.

According to the magazine, Mossad agents planted the malware on the computer of a Syrian official while he was staying in London, at a hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Kensington.

The program copied details about Syria’s illicit nuclear program and sent them directly to the Mossad agents’ computers, the report said.

Israel’s raid on the al-Kabir site in Syria’s eastern desert on September 6, 2007 is said to have knocked out the country’s nearly-completed reactor.

Israel has refused to comment on, confirm or deny the strike, but after a delay of several months, Washington presented intelligence purporting to show the target was a reactor being built with North Korean help.

Der Spiegel further reported on Monday that prior to the strike, IDF intelligence unit 8200 had tapped conversations between officials at the Syrian reactor and North Korean experts.

Source : Der Spiegel

to read the article please click here

Source: Radio Zamaneh

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the elite corps largely responsible for the crackdown on the protesters of the June presidential elections, published an announcement today to warn against the proposed protest march being organized by the opposition for November 4.

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Israel is planning to carry out military attacks in Iran after December, a French magazine reported Thursday overnight.

According to a report in Le Canard enchainé quoted by Israel Radio, Jerusalem has already ordered from a French food manufacturer high-quality combat rations for soldiers serving in elite units and also asked reservists of these units staying abroad to return to Israel.

The magazine reports further that in a recent visit to France, IDF Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told his French counterpart Jean-Louis Georgelin that Israel is not planning to bomb Iran, but may send elite troops to conduct activities on the ground there.

These, according to the magazine, may involve sabotage to nuclear facilities as well as assassinations of top Iranian nuclear scientists.

      Russia’s Federal Customs Service foiled an attempt to smuggle warplane parts to Syria, RIA Novosti reported today.
     “Several” people were detained at the Krasnodar aiport in southern Russia for trying to ship parts for MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters to Syria, the state-run news service cited a customs official as saying, without providing any more details immediately.

Powerful military force also a vast conglomerate that is accountable only to the Supreme Leader

Associated Press

A consortium connected to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard bought a majority share in the country’s telecommunications company yesterday, Iranian state media reported, bringing the strategic sector under the elite military force’s control.

The Etemad-e-Mobin consortium’s $7.8 billion purchase gives it a 50 per cent plus one share stake in the Iranian Telecommunications Company.

The deal underscores the guard’s increasing clout in Iran since hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – himself a former Guard member – came to power in 2005. Over that period, companies affiliated with the guard have been awarded more than 750 government contracts in construction and oil and gas projects.

State television said Etemad-e-Mobin was selected over another Iranian consortium that had submitted a bid for the majority stake. A third group was eliminated after authorities decided it did not hold the necessary security credentials.

The telecom share sold yesterday is part of the government’s project to privatize sectors still in state hands. But reform-minded politicians, and even some conservatives, have complained that institutions affiliated with the ruling system are being awarded stakes in the privatized firms, while the private sector is left out.

The purchase gives the Revolutionary Guard, whose forces led the violent crackdown on the massive street protests after the disputed June presidential election allowed Ahmadinejad a second term in office, control over the country’s telecommunications network.

During the demonstrations, the government routinely interrupted mobile phone networks.

On top of its enormous military power, the guard is a vast military-based conglomerate accountable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Washington Times | By Richard Sale

Syria is reorganizing its foreign intelligence operations and sidelining officials with unsavory pasts in an effort by President Bashar al-Assad to consolidate control and improve Syria’s relations with the United States, Middle East specialists and former and current U.S. officials say.

Richard Norton, a Levant specialist at Boston University, former CIA counterterrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro and two serving U.S. intelligence officials who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to talk to the press told The Washington Times that the task of overseeing Syria’s foreign intelligence operations has been transferred from the heavy-handed military intelligence agency, known as the Mukhabarat, to Syria’s General Intelligence Agency (GI), which formerly handled domestic matters and now oversees relations with the United States and Saudi Arabia.

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United Press International

Damascus in a report submitted to the United Nations claims Israel is burying nuclear waste, and possibly more, in the occupied Golan Heights.

     The Syrian Foreign Ministry in a report linked to allegations of human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories blames Israel for “the crime” of disposing of nuclear, radioactive and other hazardous waste in tunnels throughout the Golan Heights.

     The Damascus complaint says the move is part of an effort to prevent Syria from reclaiming the territory occupied and later annexed by Israel, the government-backed Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reports.

     Apart from the disposal of radioactive waste, reportedly from Israel’s Demona reactor, the Syrian government now claims Israel is hiding nuclear warheads, nuclear mines and radioactive bombs throughout the Golan Heights.

     Damascus claims Israeli forces are supervising the activity, while Israeli military officials say they are simply digging anti-tank ditches in the region.

     Golan Heights is one of the more contentious issues concerning regional peace. Israel views the territory as an important strategic asset, while Damascus said it would not move forward with a peace settlement with Israel until the area is returned to Syria.