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Posted: May 3, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

While no official word has been issued from any world capital
concerning the imminence of a U.S. offensive against Baghdad,
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military experts report that the region's armies
are all busy in one way or another getting ready for a surprise U.S.
strike on Baghdad and its regional backlash.

Our sources this week followed the heightened movements of men, tanks,
guns, missiles, warplanes and carriers:

Iraq

For most of the last month, Iraq has been massing troops in the west
along the Jordanian and Syrian borders for fear of a surprise U.S.
military assault on Baghdad by ground or airborne troops from bases in
Jordan, Israel and the Sinai, or from aircraft carriers in the eastern
Mediterranean, DEBKA reports. Two mechanized divisions and the
Republican Guard's Babylon armored division are deployed at the
al-Baghdadi base near the town of Arbuta. Additional anti-aircraft
units have reinforced this facility. Planes carrying chemical weapons
have been spotted recently at several Iraq airfields, mainly the
al-Sharaa military airbase 270 miles north of Baghdad and west of the
River Tigris.

Israel

In the last two weeks, according to DEBKA, Israel has stepped up
preparations for standing up to a nuclear, biological and chemical
attack. The Israel Defense Forces high command has ordered new units
to be set up quickly for training in locating, identifying and
neutralizing nuclear, biological and chemical substances. Thousands of
officers and soldiers, including reservists, have been drawn from
various branches of the military and attached to the new units. They
are undergoing lightening two-week NBC courses, at the end of which
they are assigned to permanent sectors.

One group has been based with commando forces as well as the armored,
mechanized infantry, artillery and combat intelligence corps. A second
group will be deployed at key points in Israeli cities, such as power
stations and water pumping facilities, and distributed among street
blocks.

Unit equipment and soldiers' personal gear are stored close to these
sectors of operation, readily available in an emergency. These
trainees, officers and men are told explicitly to prepare in the very
short term for an Iraqi attack that will include missile and bomber
strikes using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

TV and radio stations were ordered to set up alternative studios and
broadcasting facilities capable of functioning under Iraqi missile
attack.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources say Israel's high command has
given the national home-front service until May 25 to complete the
formation of the new units as well as their training and equipment.
The home-front command has received the rating of a combat post. Only
the northern command in charge of Israel's volatile Syrian and
Lebanese borders has been ranked higher.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources add that at the height of
Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank 10 days ago, Israel
secretly began deploying large armored contingents on its border with
Egypt in the wake of intelligence information on Sinai-related
Egyptian military preparations.

Egypt

Ten days ago, Egypt's Sinai Command was ordered to go on operational
footing in the Suez Canal cities of Ismailia and Suez, DEBKA sources
say. The Sinai Command goes on operational footing only when it
prepares for war. The Second and Third Armies under this command have
standing orders to meet an outbreak of full-scale hostilities by
pushing into Sinai and taking up positions to defend the Suez Canal.
The two armies have not as yet deviated from their regular routines,
nor have they called up reserves.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that Israel quietly asked
the United States to sound out Cairo on its military preparations and
find out if there was any intention of moving units into the Sinai,
where strict troop limitations have been in effect since Israel and
Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979. Egypt replied that military
preparations in the Middle East are advancing so rapidly that its high
command decided to take minimal logistic steps to make sure it would
not be caught off-guard.

Saudi Arabia

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources say Saudi Arabia has kept in place the
troop concentrations massed two weeks ago along its border with Jordan
– despite U.S. President George W. Bush's assurance to Saudi crown
prince Abdullah in Crawford, Texas, that no final date had been set
for a U.S. military offensive against Iraq. The Saudi high command is
taking no chances. Like other military commands around the Middle
East, it is not ruling out a surprise U.S. attack being launched at
any moment against Iraq. For his part, it appears that Abdullah wants
to show Washington he was serious about his proposal to involve Saudi
Arabia militarily in the West Bank. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's
military sources, more than half of the kingdom's combat units are now
in a state of readiness on the Jordanian frontier.

They are the 14th armored brigade and the 8th and 20th mechanized
brigades.

Saudi Arabia's paratroop brigade is on alert at the Tabuk base. The
12th armored brigade and 6th mechanized brigade have left Tabuk and
moved northwest to a point across from the Israeli and Jordanian
borders, says DEBKA.

Jordan

Over the past week, Jordanian units continued moving east toward the
Iraqi frontier. They positioned their 4th and 20th mechanized
divisions across from Iraqi bases and the H-3 airfield, according to
DEBKA sources. Elements of the divisions were deployed in the
northeast, near the point where the borders of Jordan, Iraq and Syria
converge.

Following the recent massive Saudi military deployments along the
kingdom's northern border with Jordan, the Jordanians moved their 3rd
armored division south from the Iraqi frontier to the Saudi border.

Syria

The Syrian army has taken up defensive positions in four main areas:
the Bekaa valley, Baalbek, the Beirut-Damascus highway and the
Israeli-Syrian border in the northern Golan Heights, near Mount Hermon
and Shebaa Farms.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report a full combat alert
declared this week for Syria's 1st armored regiment in the Damascus
area and the 2nd regiment in western Syria and Lebanon.

The 10th mechanized division and elements of the 51st armored
division, stationed until last winter in Beirut, have in the past few
days relocated from western and central Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley on
Lebanon's eastern border with Syria. Some have taken up defensive
positions along the Beirut-Damascus highway, DEBKA reports.

The 1st regiment commands the defenses of Damascus and the
Syrian-Israeli border on the Golan Heights.

The 2nd regiment secures Syria's eastern frontier and the Syrian
expeditionary force in Lebanon.

The 27th and 82nd armored brigades of the 3rd division, and the 87th
armored brigade of the 11th division are on the ground in Baalbek in
eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah political and logistic stronghold.

Syria's elite 14th division, comprised of special forces, has moved
east, says DEBKA, meeting at the Syrian, Lebanese and Israeli borders
in the northern Golan Heights, north of Shebaa Farms.

Damascus ordered these military steps after asking Iran to send new
shipments of Fajar-5 surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah units in
southern Lebanon. The missiles have a range of more than 30 miles and
can hit the Israeli port city of Haifa and its military, electronic
and oil industries, and essential utilities. Syria assured the
Iranians, in response to a query, that Hezbollah positions would be
authorized to fire the new missiles as of the first week in May.

According to DEBKA sources, this news sent U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell rushing over to Damascus in the middle of his Middle East
mission to defuse the Israel-Palestinian crisis. He sternly warned
Bashar Assad that Israel would lose no time in hitting vital Syrian
military assets if the Fajar missiles took to the air. Assad gave no
sign of his intentions, DEBKA says.

Quoted:
paraphrase

Quoted:

hmmmm, bandwidth bandits strike again.