Debka News

Seven people have been injured on a train in Switzerland Saturday, after a man attacked them with a knife, police have said.


 

Hizballah commits its elite Radwan Force to save the Syrian-Iranian Aleppo front from folding against rebel assault,after Moscow decided to withhold air cover in line with the new Putin-Erdogan deal in St. Petersburg. Putin also bowed to Erdogan’s demand on the Manjib front. 

Amid rising tension around the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Minister Friday announced the deployment of anti-missile weapons there, including S-400 air defense batteries, the most advanced interception systems of their kind. Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin vowed to take steps against clashes between Russian security forces and what he called Ukrainian bandits in North Crimea. Kiev denied any Ukrainian state forces were involved in military activity in the peninsula.

In a post to his WordPress blog, the hacker who calls him/herself Guccifer 2.0 uploaded an Excel file Friday revealing the cell phone numbers and private e-mail addresses of nearly every Democratic member of the House of Representatives, their staffs and campaign personnel. The same vandal claimed to have previously passed 20,000 Democratic National Committee e-mails to Wikileaks.
 Federal investigators speculate that “Guccifer 2.0” who claims to be Romanian and an “unknown hacker with a laptop,” may be acting for Russian intelligence in targeting the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.  In the new message, the hacker brands the US presidential elections a “farce” that is “being settled behind the scenes as it was with Bernie Sanders.” He added: "The big money bags are fighting for power today. They are lying constantly and don’t keep their word. The MSM [mainstream media] are producing tons of propaganda hiding the real stuff behind it.”

They are putting together a new anti-US bloc with Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Erdogan finds a strong ally to help him finally crush Kurdish statehood hopes.

The UAE gains control of Gulf of Aden and Socotra archipelago as forward base.

Neither Iraq nor US or the Kurds have enough fighting manpower for an offensive.

Less military force is available for this offensive even than for the Mosul operation.

It is also possible that engineers fixing a small local malfunction set off a domino series of hitches.

Russia's FSB security service announced Wednesday that it had foiled a series of attacks by armed Ukranians in Crimea, and minutes later President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev of choosing the path of terror instead of peace. On the same day, far from the eyes of the media, Russia sent large military forces, including dozens of armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers and tanks, to the peninsula that it took over in 2014.  No specific incident sparked the current crisis although there have been regular exchanges of fire between the Ukranian army and pro-Russian rebels in Donesk in eastern Ukraine. Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt has expessed concern that Putin plans to invade Crimea again, saying that Putin has a pattern of launching military operations when the world's attention is focused on other matters, mainly during major sporting events. With the Olympics underway and the US presidential election campaign heating up, it seems that another invasion may only be days away.                     
 

The Syrian military, using helicopters, dropped barrel bombs containing chlorine gas on the rebel-held Zubdiya neighborhood of Aleppo on Wednesday night. At least six people were killed and dozens of others were injured. Many of the casualties were children. The UN envoy to Syria collected pieces of clothes and dirt contaminated with the gas in order to investigate the attack. He also posted pictures of victims of the deadly bombing on social networks.       
 

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced Thursday that he will seek measures to help the government fight terror, including a faster process for deportation of foreign terror suspects. He said that he will push for adoption of the new measures in German law before the federal elections in the fall of 2017.  Among the proposed steps are ones to facilitate deportation of those posing a danger to public security; retain cellular telephone, landline and internet data; and shorten the time that refugees who have been refused asylum are allowed to stay in Germany before being deported. The interior minister is also supporting two bills that are likely to face opposition in the parliament and among the public. One bars women from wearing burqas, and the other bans citizens from having dual citizenship. Germany's police, meanwhile, plans to add 15,000 recruits by 2020 and install video cameras in the centers of cities and other crowded areas.
Fifteen people have been killed and dozens have been wounded during the latest wave of terror in Germany, which began on July 18. 
 

An Israeli sustained minor injuries when he was stabbed with a sharp object in the A-Tor neighborhood of Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon. The attacker escaped.  

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday night that President Barack Obama is responsible for the creation of Islamic State and that Trump's rival, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was Obama's partner in the establishment of the terrorist organization. Trump referred to the president using his full name, Barack Hussein Obama. He also slammed Clinton over the fact that the father of the terrorist who carried out the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub attended a campaign event where Clinton spoke. In response, Clinton said she did not know that the father was in the crowd and that he had not been invited. As for Trump's comment the previous day that some considered to be a joke about Clinton being assassinated, she said it only proves that he had "crossed the line" and that the Republican does not have the temperament to serve as commander-in-chief.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who claims that he possesses enough documentation to put Clinton on trial, alleged in an interview he granted to a Dutch TV network that Seth Rich, a Democratic party staffer murdered on July 15, was the source of the thousands of DNC e-mails released by the website last month. Assange announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who shot Rich.

The Pentagon said Wednesday night that a small number of US troops are involved in ground warfare against the Islamic State organization in Libya. It was the first time for Washington to confirm the involvement. Pentagon spokesman Gordon Trowbridge said the operations are essential "to exchange information with these local forces in established joint operations centers". He added that the role of the troops is to provide "unique capabilities" in the field of intelligence but asserted that they "are not on the front lines, nor are they on the ground in Sirte."       

The Mediterranean is fast filling up with bigger and more sophisticated warships than ever before, leaving the Israeli Navy lagging behind and short of the new kind of vessels needed to meet the changing challenges to its shores and marine assets, notably from seaborne terror. The IDF is therefore attempting to speed up the delivery of advanced US littoral combat ships.

Doctors in all of Israel's public hospitals launched a 24-hour strike at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. They will only perform emergency operations during the work stoppage. All-night negotiations between representatives of the doctors and the Finance Ministry were unsuccessful, and the two sides will meet again next week to continue their talks. The doctors claim that the country's Economic Arrangements Law will hinder their ability to provide high-quality services to patients as well as prevent the shortening of resident shifts. Health Minister Yaacov Litzman said the strike is unnecessary because the law's clause for the reduction of private work by department heads has been removed. He added that his ministry is engaged in intensive contacts with the Finance Ministry for expansion of the Health Ministry's budget and for the addition of more beds at hospitals. Meanwhile, a local court in Jerusalem ruled Thursday morning that doctors at the city's Hadassah Ein Kerem and Hadassah Har Hatzofim hospitals must return to work at 10:00 a.m.      

The talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Reccep Erdogen in St. Petersburg scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 9, are causing trepidation among Israel’s policy-makers and military leaders. Turkey appears to have opted to quit ties with the US and NATO and line up with a Russian-Shiite front led by Tehran in preference to an anti-Iran Sunni alliance.

The battle for Aleppo was locked in a draw Monday, Aug. 8 - contrary to the claims of Syrian rebel forces to have broken through the weeks-long government siege on the city and seized key positions from Assad’s army and its allies, Hizballah and pro-Iranian Shiite militias.