Israel, the mid-east, and Russia - Part 2

[Shammu]

Hundreds protest outside Israeli Embassy in Greece

Some 1,500 protesters, chanting "Killers out of Lebanon," marched to the Israeli Embassy in Athens on Tuesday to protest Israel's weeklong bombardment of Lebanon. The protesters waved Lebanese and Palestinian flags as they marched between the US and Israeli embassies.

A small group of demonstrators threw rocks and red paint at riot police buses outside Israel's embassy, but police did not respond and the incident ended in less than a minute. The protest was otherwise peaceful.

Hundreds protest outside Israeli Embassy in Greece

[Shammu]

Israel says Hizbollah, Iran co-ordinated abduction
19 July 2006

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Hizbollah on Tuesday of coordinating its abduction of two Israeli soldiers last week with Iran, enabling Tehran to divert attention away from its nuclear programme.

"Unfortunately this Iranian trick succeeded," Olmert said in a statement.

"The G8 decision focused on Lebanon and did not deal with the Iranian issue," he added, referring to a meeting of Group of Eight leaders in St Petersburg where the Lebanon crisis took centre stage.

Olmert reiterated he would not negotiate with Hizbollah and said it was too early to talk about a new international force to stabilise Lebanon.

"The headlines sound good (on the force) but our experience shows this is an idea without any basis. . . I want to be cautious on this issue and it seems to me that it's too early to discuss it," he added.

The crisis erupted when Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, captured the two Israeli soldiers and also killed eight others last week in a cross-border raid. Israel has responded with a wave of air strikes and blockade of Lebanon.

Paraphrasing Olmert, the statement, issued by his office, added:

"The prime minister said the timing of the attacks in the north was not by chance and was co-ordinated with Iran with the aim of diverting international attention from the Iranian issue."

Israel says Hizbollah, Iran co-ordinated abduction

[Shammu]

FBI eyes Hizbollah in US as tensions with Iran rise

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent 52 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI is trying to ferret out possible Hizbollah agents in the United States amid concerns that rising U.S.-Iranian tensions could trigger attacks on American soil, FBI officials said.

Relations between Washington and Tehran, which soured after the 1979 Islamic revolution, have deteriorated further recently over Iran's nuclear program and its support for Hizbollah, the militant Islamic group whose capture of two Israeli soldiers last week prompted Israel to launch retaliatory strikes in Lebanon.

American law enforcement officials are concerned the Lebanon-based Hizbollah, which has so far focused on fund-raising and other support activities inside the United States, could turn to violence in solidarity with Iran.

"If the situation escalates, will Hizbollah take the gloves off, so to speak, and attack here in the United States, which they've been reluctant to do until now?" said William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Detroit.

Detroit is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States.

"Because of the heightened difficulties surrounding U.S.-Iranian relations, the FBI has increased its focus on Hizbollah," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson in Washington.

"Those investigations relate particularly to the potential presence of Hizbollah members on U.S. soil."

There is no specific or credible intelligence pointing to an imminent U.S. attack by Hizbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group, Bresson added.

But Iran's Hizbollah -- which claims links to the Lebanese group -- said on Tuesday it stood ready to attack U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters in Toronto that agents were keeping a close eye on Hizbollah, especially "when the international situation heats up."

AMERICAN MUSLIMS WORRY

Muslim American groups worry that fear of Hizbollah violence in the United States could again cast an unwelcome spotlight on their community, which has often felt a target of surveillance or discrimination since the September 11 attacks.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, said his advocacy group fielded almost daily complaints from Muslims who felt singled out or intimidated by government officials.

Muslim American groups say that while they support fighting against terrorism, they are concerned the focus is unfairly on them.

"There are individual concerns that the government does interviews with individuals, with kind of subtle threats that they could be arrested or deported if they don't cooperate. That is really the concern for a lot of these groups right now," said Salam al-Marayati, head of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"That fact in itself will alienate, frustrate and perhaps even push these young people further to the margins, which creates a very problematic situation for all of us," he said. "In a way, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Marayati, who consults regularly with government officials, said they were listening to his concerns, but should do more to show Americans that their Muslim compatriots are just as determined as they are to fight terrorism.

"Since the relationship is not publicized, people think we're not contributing and Muslims continue to be seen as a problem in our society as opposed to part of the solution," he said.

FBI eyes Hizbollah in US as tensions with Iran rise

[Shammu]

Iran may threaten oil weapon, Arabs will not
   
     

By Ghaida Ghantous
Reuters

DUBAI — Iran could threaten to use its oil weapon if Syria gets drawn into the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah fighters but Arab producers will not withhold their crude exports to exert pressure, analysts said on Tuesday.

"The only oil that could disappear from the market if this crisis develops is Iranian oil," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Council in Dubai.

"If there is an attack on Syria and if Iran is connected to this attack, militarily or politically, they could decide to stop oil exports for a few days," Alani said.

Tehran has threatened to use its oil exports as a weapon to defend itself in its standoff with the West over Iran's nuclear programme. Iran could face economic sanctions over Western suspicions it is seeking nuclear arms, a charge it denies.

Alani said any use of Iran's oil weapon now would be brief. "It would be a token interruption and not a sustainable one, just to really undermine the psychology of oil markets and to show the Iranian muscle if the question of the nuclear issue begins to be under pressure in the future," he added.

Iran, OPEC's second biggest producer, supplies the world with more than 2.4 million barrels per day, making it the fourth biggest exporter.

Traders say a loss of this amount would be hard to replace as, except for about 2 million bpd of spare crude oil capacity in top exporter Saudi Arabia, OPEC is pumping flat out.

Syria and Iran are the main backers of Hizbollah, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid sparked attacks on Lebanon.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned last week of a "fierce response" if Israel attacked Syria, which exports only about 200,000 bpd of oil.

The worsening conflict helped to send oil prices to record highs over $78 a barrel last week as traders feared the violence could spread across the oil-producing region. Oil held firm above $76 on Tuesday.

Iran's position on Strait of Hormuz

Another source of worry for markets is Iran's commanding position on the Strait of Hormuz, a channel at the mouth of the Gulf that is a conduit for roughly two-fifths of globally traded oil.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned last month that oil exports in the Gulf region could be seriously endangered if Washington made a wrong move over his country.

Oil-exporting Gulf Arab states then adopted a contingency plan in case of a blockage of shipping through the mouths of the Gulf and the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia and other US-allied Gulf members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have made clear in the past that they do not intend to repeat the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which wreaked economic chaos on the industrialised world.

"This is not an option at all," former Kuwaiti oil minister Ali Al Baghli said. "Arab countries decided not to use this weapon again." In 2002, Iraq and Iran called for a one-month ban on oil exports in protest against Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states refused, saying oil was not a weapon and that its revenues should be used for the development of Arab countries.

Analysts say the 1970s embargo — sanctioned by Saudi Arabia's then King Faisal to punish the West for backing Israel in the Arab-Israeli war — had backfired because it led to a crash in oil prices, the backbone of Arab economies, and encouraged energy development outside the region.

"I don't think the Arabs will think about this alternative or strategy at any stage or for any reason. They will definitely not cut the oil,"  Alani said.

Iran may threaten oil weapon, Arabs will not

[Shammu]

Saudi Arabia wary of Iranian actions in Arab world
Web posted at: 7/19/2006 3:11:37
Source ::: AFP

RIYADH • Saudi Arabia, which has indirectly blamed the Iranian-backed Hezbollah for Israel's onslaught against Lebanon, is wary of Tehran using Arab states to pursue its own agenda, experts said yesterday.

The oil-rich kingdom last week accused the Shi’ite movement, without naming it, of "adventurism" that put all Arab countries at risk by capturing two Israeli soldiers and triggering Israel's offensive.

"It is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventurism by certain elements," an official source said.

"The kingdom is not concerned by the extension of Iran's influence per se but by the fact that it uses Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to pursue its political interests," commentator Qenan Al Ghamdi said.

"When these countries land in trouble, it is Saudi Arabia that bears the consequences, as happened in Lebanon in the past and will happen again now" after the devastation caused by Israel's attacks, he said.

Saudi Arabia sponsored and hosted the Taef accord which ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990 and has since helped fund its reconstruction. In the current crisis, it has offered $50m in immediate aid.

Even if Syria, which is an ally of Shiite Iran and likewise a supporter of Hezbollah, is attacked by Israel, Saudi Arabia would also end up footing the bill, Ghamdi said.

A member of the appointed Shura (consultative) Council, who asked not to be named, said Saudi Arabia could not sit back and watch Lebanon being used "as an arena for settling scores or waging proxy wars".

He was referring to the host of disputes pitting Iran and Syria against the United States and Israel.

All efforts by Saudi Arabia and the Lebanese to put the country back on its feet are going down the drain as Israel pounds Lebanon over an action in which neither the Beirut government nor other Arab states had a hand, he said.

"Lebanon has been turned into an arena for easing Western pressure on Iran and Syria," the former over its controversial nuclear programme and the latter over its continued role in its smaller neighbour, the Shura member added.

On Monday, the Saudi cabinet said Riyadh was undertaking a series of contacts to halt "Israel's war on Lebanon" and implicitly criticised the United States for blocking UN action on the crisis.

Saudi Arabia's decrying of "adventurism" – a stand in which it was joined by US allies Egypt and Jordan – came a few months after it accused Shiite and non-Arab Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs.

Saudi Arabia wary of Iranian actions in Arab world

[Shammu]

Blair points finger at Iran and Syria
MICHAEL SETTLE, Chief UK Political Correspondent    July 19 2006
Tony Blair yesterday directly accused Iran and Syria of being involved in the Hizbollah attacks and gave a strong hint he suspected Tehran was masterminding the assault on Israel.
In his Commons statement, the Prime Minister directly linked the weapons used by the terrorist group with those deployed against British troops in Iraq.
Updating MPs after returning from the G8 summit in St Petersburg, Mr Blair said: "Hizbollah is supported by Iran and Syria, by the former in weapons – weapons incidentally very similar if not identical to those used against British troops in Basra – by the latter in many different ways and by both financially."
Later, the PM's spokesman pointed out Mr Blair's remarks were "considered" and not off the cuff but stressed he did not want to elaborate because the immediate focus had to be on trying to bring about a ceasefire and a lasting peace.
The spokesman said Britain's "belief" was based on the experience of what "Iran and Syria has been up to in the past" and on the "assessment of those on the ground". British officials have previously accused elements in the Iranian regime of the proliferation of sophisticated explosives capable of piercing the armour of British vehicles. The devices, with infra-red triggers, have been blamed for the deaths of at least 14 British soldiers in the past year. Tehran has denied involvement.
In the Commons, Mr Blair explained how the Hizbollah attacks were not a spontaneous act on the back of what had happened in Gaza but part of "a deliberate strategy to make sure this conflict was widened".
The Prime Minister said there was "no doubt at all" that Tehran was supporting terrorist activity in the region and noted . . . "think how much more dangerous it would be if we had Iran with a nuclear weapon."
Meanwhile, it emerged Americans would be charged for their evacuation. To get on the ship when it arrives, they must sign a note pledging to reimburse the US government. They will be charged the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus – about £100.

Blair points finger at Iran and Syria

[Shammu]

Missile cache that could hit Tel Aviv
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent    July 19 2006
Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have "several dozen" missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, Israel's most heavily-populated city, but have so far been refused permission by Iran to launch them because of fear of retaliatory airstrikes.
Intelligence sources said yesterday that up to 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen are now manning and guarding the Zelzal 1 and 2 missiles, which are considered too politically sensitive for Hizbollah to control outright.
The Zelzal missiles have ranges of 200 and more than 300 miles respectively and could hit targets as far south as Beersheva as well as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They are among the 12,000 rockets and missiles allegedly supplied by Tehran to the Islamic militia group via Syria to allow them to exert pressure on Israel's northern border and inflict casualties in its settlements in Galilee.
Iran is believed to regard the long-range weapons as an insurance policy against an Israeli pre-emptive strike on its nuclear facilities while it is happy to allow Hizbollah to launch smaller missiles and Katyusha "Grad" rockets on lesser targets which are closer to Lebanon.
An Israeli source said: "The question for the ayatollahs in Tehran is whether the shock value of hitting Tel Aviv is worth the risk of a renewed diplomatic offensive by the West to freeze its nuclear programme."
Tehran has, however, already sprung one surprise by allowing Hizbollah to launch the ship-to-shore missile which last week struck an Israeli gunboat, killing four crewmen.
Israeli warplanes yesterday struck an army base outside Beirut in bombings that killed at least 17 people and Hizbollah fired more rockets at northern Israel, killing an Israeli, casting a shadow over a flurry of diplomatic efforts aimed at stemming the escalating violence.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a visiting UN delegation that "Israel will continue to combat Hizbollah and will continue to strike targets of the group" until captured soldiers are released and Israeli citizens are safe from attacks.

Missile cache that could hit Tel Aviv

[Shammu]

Syria trying to get back into Lebanon
By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday accused Iran and Syria of "inspiring" Hizbollah's attacks on Israel and said Damascus was trying to use the crisis to regain its hold over Lebanon.

Under pressure for a stepped-up U.S. diplomatic role, Bush was sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region. But U.S. officials sought to temper expectations over her trip, which Israel's U.N. envoy said would begin on Friday.

Bush stuck to his view that U.S. ally Israel was acting in self-defense after Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid and unleashed rocket attacks, but cautioned it against taking actions that might lead to the collapse of Lebanon's fragile government.

Voicing suspicion that Damascus was trying to reassert influence in Lebanon more than a year after ending its 28-year military presence there, Bush said: "It's in our interest that Syria stay out of Lebanon and this government survive."

In his first public comments on the Middle East conflict since returning from a G8 summit in Russia, Bush called Hizbollah's attacks the "root cause" of the week-old conflict.

"Part of those terrorist attacks are inspired by nation-states like Syria and Iran," he said. "And in order to be able to deal with this crisis, the world must deal with Hizbollah, with Syria, and to continue to work to isolate Iran."

The White House earlier pressed Iran and Syria, Hizbollah's supporters, to exert their influence over the group to halt rocket fire and return the soldiers. Israel has responded with waves of air strikes inside Lebanon.

DIPLOMACY

Bush spoke to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah about the Lebanon crisis on Tuesday and the two agreed to help ease the Lebanese people's hardship, a White House official said.

Rice said she would travel to the region "when it is appropriate and when it is necessary and will be helpful."

Though she gave no hint of the timeframe for her visit, Israel's U.N. ambassador Dan Gillerman told Fox News she was expected to go to the Middle East on Friday after visiting the United Nations to speak with Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Hizbollah and its Arab allies say Washington is buying time for Israel to intensify its military operations.

Analysts say Iran may be using Hizbollah to show it can hurt U.S. allies and interests if Washington goes ahead with efforts to get U.N. sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program.

But Bush singled out Damascus for his toughest criticism.

"Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks to me," he said. "There's suspicions that the instability created by the Hizbollah attacks (on Israel) will cause some in Lebanon to invite Syria back in."

U.S. officials signaled reluctance to join in international calls for an immediate ceasefire that would leave Hizbollah's rockets within range of northern Israel.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution backing Israel, condemning Hizbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and calling for Iran and Syria to be held accountable in the conflict.

Scores of anti-Israel protesters gathered outside the White House gates on Tuesday waving Lebanese flags.

Syria trying to get back into Lebanon

[Shammu]

War against Israel has only just begun, says Iranian speaker
(DPA)

18 July 2006


TEHERAN - The Iranian parliament speaker said on Tuesday the war against Israel has only just begun and there is nowhere in Israel safe from Hezbollah attacks.

“The war has just begun, today is the day of resistance, today is the day of liberation of Palestine and there will be no safe spot in the occupied territories (Israel) anymore from Hezbollah attacks,” Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel said at a anti-Israeli gathering in the Palestine Square in downtown Tehran.

“The day has come when everybody returns home, the day when Palestinians return home, return to the land of their origins and its is also the day when the Israelis have to return to the countries where they originally came from,” the speaker added.

Thousands of Iranians attended the state-organized gathering and declared their readiness to be dispatched to Lebanon to fight against Israel.

“We call on the United States and the West to cut their support for the Zionist regime, otherwise there would never ever be peace and reconciliation with over 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide,” the speaker said.

Hadad-Adel, who is head of the Abadgaran (Development) party which currently dominates parliament and of which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a leading member, once again declared Iran’s full solidarity with Lebanon and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah.

“There will be no help which we would not render to Lebanon and the resistance (Hezbollah),” the speaker said.

He compared Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and said that ”the Ayatollah’s blood was running in Nasrallah’s veins.”

“Inshallah (so God wills), we will soon hold our thankfulness prayers in Qods (Jerusalem),” Hadad-Adel said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said, meanwhile, on state television that an exchange of Lebanese and Palestinian hostages with Israeli soldiers could help end the ongoing conflict.

“Ceasefire would in the first place require serious consideration of the legitimate demands of the resistance (groups) in Lebanon and Palestine. The key issue could be the exchange of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners with Israeli soldiers,” Mottaki said.

The Iranian foreign minister said on Monday that Iran would support comprehensive ways to end the crisis in Lebanon under the condition, however, that the legitimate demands of the people and Hezbollah were realized.

Mottaki also said that diplomatic efforts by several countries were underway to find a “proper approach” to solve the crisis and Iranian officials were discussing the issues with “various parties.”

War against Israel has only just begun, says Iranian speaker

[Shammu]

Iran Hezbollah ready to attack US, Israel

TEHRAN - Iran's Hezbollah, which claims links to the Lebanese group of the same name, said on Tuesday it stood ready to attack Israeli and US interests worldwide.

"We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year," said Iranian Hezbollah's spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli, speaking by telephone from the central seminary city of Qom.

"They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardize Israel and America's interests. We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three ... we welcome it," he said.

Iranian religious organizations have made great public show of recruiting volunteers for "martyrdom-seeking operations" in recent years, usually threatening US interests in case of any attack against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

But there is no record of an Iranian volunteer from these recruitment campaigns taking part in an attack.

Iran's Hezbollah (Party of God) says it is spiritually bound to Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas in Lebanon but its command structure and funding are unclear.

Despite Iranian Hezbollah's insistence that it takes orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, government ministries say Hezbollah does not implement official policy. Iran's government has said it hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

While Iran did fund and support Lebanese Hezbollah during the 1980s, Tehran says it has not contributed troops or weapons in the latest violence. Israel says Iranian armaments have been fired against it.

Iran Hezbollah ready to attack US, Israel

[Shammu]

Peres: No Israel plans to attack Iran, Syria

LONDON - Israel is not planning to attack Iran or Syria, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said, noting that the Jewish state already had its "hands full" with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

It is up to the international community to tackle Tehran, Peres told BBC television in an interview broadcast late on Tuesday.

Asked whether his country would hit Syria or Iran, he said: "No, I don't think they will attack us... and we shall not attack them because I think Iran is a world problem."

He continued: "It is not for us to deal with. We don't want to convert it into an Iranian-Israeli conflict. We have our hands full anyway."

Israel has accused Iran and Syria of arming Hezbollah and Hamas militants with the guns and bullets that are aimed at the Jewish state.

"The missiles, the rockets. All of them are coming either from Iran or Syria," Peres said.

He defended his government's decision to strike Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

"We would not attack Lebanon either, we wouldn't attack even Hezbollah, we wouldn't attack even Hamas if they wouldn't attack us and they wouldn't provoke," he said.

"It is not our choice it is our lack of alternative that brought us to this confrontation."

Peres was speaking as the crisis in Lebanon entered its second week, with Israel's bombardment showing no sign of letting up.

In addition, Israel has been operating inside the Gaza Strip for three weeks since June 28, when troops rolled back into the territory in a bid to retrieve a soldier abducted by militants and halt rocket attacks.

Peres: No Israel plans to attack Iran, Syria

[Shammu]

Israeli tells Christian group that radical Islam is the enemy
July 18, 2006 10:08 PM

WASHINGTON

Thousands attending a Washington banquet for the new group Christians United for Israel have been told that the war on terror is really a war against radical Islam.

The Israeli ambassador to the United States says Muslim radicals were the enemy on Nine-Eleven and are the enemy today in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said Iran "must be stopped and will be stopped" from building a nuclear weapon.

Senator Rick Santorum warned that Iran's leaders believe they must destroy Israel to bring about the return of Shia Islam's "hidden or 12th imam."

Rabbi Arnold Scheinberg told Christians United for Israel that their gathering shows Christians support and stand by Israel.

Israeli tells Christian group that radical Islam is the enemy

[Shammu]

Israeli troops attack Hizbollah posts at border
Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:14 AM BST143

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Some Israeli troops crossed just over the border into southern Lebanon on Wednesday to carry out localised attacks on Hizbollah guerrilla outposts, the army said.

"These are restricted, pinpoint attacks," an army spokesman said. "This is not out of the ordinary. This has been happening close to the border." He did not say whether the outposts were occupied by Hizbollah fighters.

Israeli troops have crossed into southern Lebanon several times in recent days to destroy Hizbollah posts, returning soon afterwards. The army has not ruled out the possibility of a major land offensive at some stage.

Israel began air attacks on Lebanon after Hizbollah guerrillas seized two soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid a week ago.

Since then, fighting has killed at least 235 people in Lebanon and 25 in Israel.

Israeli troops attack Hizbollah posts at border

[Shammu]

Israel Says 1500 Hezbollah Missiles Fired Accuses Iran Of Helping Abductions
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

URL of this article: http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/printer/printer_6965.php
Wed, 19 Jul 2006, 00:53

London: Hezbollah has fired 1,500 missiles and rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon since it triggered the conflict last week, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on British television Tuesday.

"We should stop the shooting of missiles over our heads, over our villages and towns. They fired until now fifteen hundred missiles and rockets," Peres told Sky News.

"We are trying to control the roads (...) of Lebanon because all the 12,000 missiles and rockets that they have collected came from Iran and Syria," Peres said.

The veteran politician also said that Israel did not intend to send ground troops into Lebanon, as it has done several times in the last three decades.

"We're not going to penetrate Lebanon on the ground," Peres said.

He insisted that the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah is an enemy of the Lebanese people acting independently from their national interests, and that Israel, by contrast, wanted good relations with the Lebanese.

"The only enemy they have is an army within an army called Hezbollah. Lebanon is not our enemy. We have nothing to ask from Lebanon, we have much to hope from Lebanon. We hope to live as good neighbors," he said.

"We didn't attack Lebanon, and we are not going to organize Lebanon, we are not going to play a role in their politics," he said.

Founded in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the Shiite Muslim group kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday, triggering waves of Israeli bombing that have so far left more than 200 people dead and closed Beirut's airport.

Quoting Israeli intelligence sources, the London specialist magazine Jane's Defence Weekly said Hezbollah probably had a total of 10,000 to 15,000 rockets provided by Syria and Iran.

The estimates square with claims made by the militia's leader, Hassan Nasrallah on May 23, when he said Hezbollah held 12,000 rockets.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday accused Iran of helping coordinate Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers last week in a bid to distract attention from the contested Iranian nuclear programme.

"The moment for the abduction owed nothing to chance, it was determined with Iran to distract the attention of the international community from the Iranian nuclear programme," Olmert said, according to army radio.

"Unfortunately the manoeuvre succeeded and the whole world remembers the decision of the Group of Eight on Lebanon (at their summit in Saint Petersburg) while the Iranian nuclear issue was not examined," he said at a meeting for Israeli diplomats posted abroad.

Israel Says 1500 Hezbollah Missiles Fired Accuses Iran Of Helping Abductions

[Shammu]

Arming of Hezbollah Reveals U.S. and Israeli Blind Spots
By MARK MAZZETTI and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, July 18 — The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.

While the Bush administration has stated that cracking down on weapons proliferation is one of its top priorities, the arming of Hezbollah shows the blind spots of American and other Western intelligence services in assessing the threat, officials from across those governments said.

American and Israeli officials said the successful attack last Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, an American intelligence official said.

At the same time, American and Israeli officials cautioned that they had found no evidence that Iranian operatives working in Lebanon launched the antiship missile themselves.

But neither Jerusalem nor Washington had any idea that Hezbollah had such a missile in its arsenal, the officials said, adding that the Israeli ship had not even activated its missile defense system because intelligence assessments had not identified a threat from such a radar-guided cruise missile.

They said they had also been surprised by the advances that Hezbollah had made in improving what had been crude rockets — for example, attaching cluster bombs as warheads, or filling an explosive shell with ball bearings that have devastating effect.

The Bush administration has long sought to focus attention on Iranian missile proliferation, and regularly discusses with journalists intelligence evidence of those activities. But American officials in Washington made clear this week that they were reluctant to detail Iran’s arming of Hezbollah in the current conflict.

The reason, according to officials across the government, was a desire by the Bush administration to contain the conflict to Israeli and Hezbollah forces, and not to enlarge the diplomatic tasks by making Iranian missile supplies, or even those of Syria, a central question for now.

Still, some officials in Washington admitted to being blindsided by the abilities of Hezbollah’s arsenal.

“You have to acknowledge the obvious — we’ve seen a new capability in striking the naval vessel and in the number of casualties that have been sustained from the Hezbollah missile attacks,” a Bush administration official said.

“In the past, we’d see three, four, maybe eight launches at any given time if Hezbollah was feeling feisty,” the official added. “Now we see them arriving in large clusters, and with a range and even certain accuracy we have not seen in the past.”

The officials interviewed agreed to discuss classified intelligence assessments about Hezbollah’s capabilities only on condition of anonymity.

While Iranian missile supplies to Hezbollah, either by sea or overland via Syria, were well known, officials said the current conflict also indicated that some of the rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal — including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa on Sunday — were built in Syria.

“The Israelis did forensics, and found several were Syrian-made,” said David Schenker, who this spring became a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy after four years working on Middle East issues at the Pentagon. “Everybody recognizes that Syria has played an important role in facilitating transshipment — but not supplying their own missiles to Hezbollah.”

Officials have since confirmed that the warhead on the Syrian rocket was filled with ball bearings — a method of destruction used frequently in suicide bombings but not in warhead technology.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said one Western intelligence official, speaking about the warhead.

But it was Friday’s successful launching of a C-802 cruise missile that most alarmed officials in Washington and Jerusalem.

Iran began buying dozens of those sophisticated antiship missiles from the Chinese during the 1990’s, until the United States pressured Beijing to cease the sales.

Until Friday, however, Western intelligence services did not know that Iran had managed to ship C-802 missiles to Hezbollah.

Officials said it was likely that Iran trained Hezbollah fighters on how to successfully fire and guide the missiles, and that members of Iran’s Al Quds force — the faction of the Revolutionary Guards that trains foreign forces — would not necessarily have to be on the scene to launch the C-802.

At the same time, some experts said Iran was not likely to deploy such a sophisticated weapon without also sending Revolutionary Guard crews with the expertise to fire the missile.

An administration official said intelligence reports have concluded that a small number of Iranians are currently operating in Lebanon, but the official declined to disclose their number or mission.

Arming of Hezbollah Reveals U.S. and Israeli Blind Spots