Biblical countries, in the news.

[Shammu]

Mideast conflict a proxy war for US, Iran: Lebanese minister
(AFP)

28 July 2006


PARIS - A Lebanese minister on Friday called the fighting in Lebanon a proxy for the broader conflict between Iran and the United States.

Speaking to the French language television channel TV5, Lebanon’s Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade said: “We have the impression that for the last two weeks we have been taking part in the start of an Iran-US conflict, but it’s Lebanon, it’s the Lebanese people, it’s the Lebanese state that will ultimately pay.”

He said the “game of massacre” had to stop and attention should be given to assembling “all the ingredients of a ceasefire which would enable Lebanon to stop being the ground on which the big conflicts of the Middle East take place”.

His reference to an Iran-US conflict stems from the support given by Iran to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and the position of Israel as a close ally of the United States.

Mideast conflict a proxy war for US, Iran: Lebanese minister

[Shammu]

Engage Iran, Syria urges Italy
From: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Paris

July 29, 2006
 

THE European Union must engage Syria and Iran and use them to find a solution to the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview with a French newspaper on Friday.
"It is important that Syria and Iran help us to resolve the problems," D'Alema told Le Monde.

"At the meeting of European foreign ministers on August 1, we must ask ourselves how to develop an initiative which engages these two countries in an active and positive manner in the search of a solution," he said.

On Wednesday, world powers attended a crisis conference on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in Rome. Neither Israel, Iran or Syria were invited.

Earlier this week, French President Jacques Chirac told Le Monde that he held Iran partially responsible for the conflict and branded the Syrian regime as "at odds" with security and peace in the region.

Engage Iran, Syria urges Italy

[Shammu]

Syrian journalist to Ynet: We notice Israeli deployment in Golan Heights

The Syrian army has identified intensive IDF operations in the Golan Heights, a senior Syrian journalist told Ynet.

"We see efforts to rehabilitate military bases in the Golan that have not been in use in over a decade. We see Israel soldiers rehabilitating these bases and transferring equipment to there," he added.

Syrian journalist to Ynet: We notice Israeli deployment in Golan Heights

[Shammu]

UN withdraws some observers from Lebanon border

International body removes forces from two posts along border in wake of recent strikes on UN personnel
Reuters

The UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon has withdrawn unarmed observers from two of its observations posts along the border with Israel, the United Nations said on Friday.

A UN statement did not say how many observers were affected by the shift.

The move left four of the numerous UN patrol bases in the area unoccupied.

UN observers five days earlier had been pulled out of a base at Maroun al-Ras after a peacekeeper was seriously wounded by Hizbullah small arms fire, and a second base was left unmanned after it was destroyed by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday that killed all four observers on duty there.

The four dead were part of the UN truce Supervision Organization, a unit of about 155 observers under the command of the UN interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which has about 1,990 troops in the area.

"All UNIFIL positions in the area of operation remain permanently occupied and maintained by the troops," UNIFIL said in a statement released in Naqoura, Lebanon, and in New York.

UN withdraws some observers from Lebanon border
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Well DUH!!!!! it's about time!

[Shammu]

Ma'alot residents hurt in rocket strike

Six people sustain light injuries, ten more suffer from shock after rocket hits residential building in town
Raanan Ben-Zur

Hizbullah continues to fire rockets at Israel: After sustaining numerous rocket attacks throughout Friday, Israel's northern communities came under fire again Friday evening.

One rocket directly hit a residential building, lightly injuring six people and causing ten more to suffer from shock. Another rocket struck a school in town, causing substantial damage but no injuries.

Additional rockets landed near Ma'alot and in the Nahariya area.

105 rockets since morning

Four rockets landed in and around Nahariya earlier. Three of the rockets landed in open areas and one hit a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Rescue teams and firefighter were dispatched to the scene and are working to extinguish the flames.

Car destroyed by rocket in Nahariya

Firefighters have also struggled to contain the fires that broke out in the Afula area after long-range missiles were launched at the town at about 3 p.m.

In an earlier barrage on Safed, one person was seriously injured. The man was initially evacuated to the Ziv Hospital in town and later transferred to the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv.

The police reported that since the morning hours 105 rockets landed in Israel's territory. The strikes injured 42 people, including four that sustained moderate wounds and 12 that were lightly injured. The rest were treated for shock.

Ma'alot residents hurt in rocket strike

[Shammu]

Fajr-5 missiles fired at Israel

Escalation: Police report that Hizbullah fired five Fajr-5 missiles, 'never before seen in Israel,' at Afula Friday afternoon. Sources say missiles may have been aimed at Hadera, Netanya. Massive rocket barrages fired by Hizbullah at Israel's north Friday afternoon
Sharon Roffe-Ofir

Hizbullah steps up attacks: Hizbullah steps up attacks: For the first time since the fighting in the north began 17 days ago, Hizbullah launched five Pajr-5 missiles at Israel Friday afternoon. Police officials said that long-range missiles of this type can carry a larger amount of explosives than the rockets that had been fired at Israel so far.

The missiles landed in open areas between Afula and the Beit Shean Valley, causing no injuries.

A short while later sirens were heard in the Haifa and Krayot area and residents were ordered into shelters and protected areas. Some rockets landed in open areas near Haifa. In a separate barrage a rocket landed in Nahariya, hitting a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Another rocket struck a public building in town and damaged it. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

Up until today, in 17 days of fighting, dozens of 22o millimeter-diameter rockets were fired at Israel, including several Pajar-3 rockets. A police official said earlier that the missiles that landed in Afula today were "of an unknown type, something between the Fajr-3 and the Zilzal missile." However, sappers that were dispatched to the place examined the missiles and reported they were Fajr-5 missiles equipped with 100-kilograms of explosives each.

Ynet has learned that some of the rockets fired in the barrages on the Western Galilee on Thursday included 220 millimeter-diameter rockets. Up until now Hizbullah had launched these rockets only at Haifa. One of them had hit a train depot and killed eight employees at the place.

The missiles that were located near Afula are equipped with more explosives and can travel to longer distances than the rockets used until now. Security officials that arrived at the missiles' landing site said they have never encountered such missiles before. They claimed that Hizbullah may have been trying to land the missiles in the Hadera or Netanya region, but that due to the IDF's operation in southern Lebanon, launch cells were forced deeper into Lebanese territory and pushed away from the border.

According to the officials, due to the large distance, the missile – which was aimed at Haifa, landed in an area near Afula instead.

In a statement issued by Hizbullah Friday afternoon, the organization said that it fired a rocket barrage at several targets in northern Israel. In addition, the organization published a message that was sent by its gunmen to their leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which they vow to "stand firm along Palestine's border."

Rockets on north

Shortly after the missiles landed in Afula, four rockets landed in and around Nahariya. Three of the rockets landed in open areas and one hit a vehicle that immediately caught fire. Rescue teams and firefighter were dispatched to the scene and are working to extinguish the flames.

Two people were lightly to moderately wounded when four rockets fired by Hizbullah from south Lebanon hit a residential neighborhood in Kiryat Shmona at around 14:30 p.m.

Four vehicles caught fire and a number of people suffered shock. Additionally, rockets landed in open areas near Carmiel, Maalot and Rosh Pina, incurring no casualties.

Following the rocket strikes a number of fires ignited which fire fighting crews were working to extinguish.

Fajr-5 missiles fired at Israel

[Shammu]

Hamas, Hizbullah not on Russia's terror list

State publishes list of groups it regards as terrorist organization, fails to include Hamas or Hizbullah. Official says movements do not represent threat to Russia
Associated Press

Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations and did not include the Palestinian movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hizbullah group, both of which are regarded as terrorists in Washington. Groups on the list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaeda and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.

The Russian Federal Security Service's top official in charge of fighting international terrorism, Yuri Sapunov, said that Hamas and Hizbullah were not a major threat to Russia and were not regarded as terrorist groups worldwide. But he said that Russian security agencies took account of international lists of terrorist groups when exchanging intelligence with foreign counterparts.

Sapunov told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that the list of 17 "Includes only those organizations which represent the greatest threat to the security of our country." Also on the Russian list were groups linked to separatist militants in Chechnya and Islamic radicals in Central Asia. Russia in the past has come under criticism for its refusal to list Hamas and Hizbullah as terrorist organizations.

Russian angers US, Israel

President Vladimir Putin earlier this year provoked US and Israeli anger by inviting leaders of Hamas to Moscow. The meeting made no progress in softening the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist or foreswear violence.

The European Union considers Hamas a terrorist organization and along with the United States slapped financial sanctions on the new Hamas-led government. But it does not list Hizbullah as a terrorist group.

Israel is currently engaged in a fierce ground and air offensive in Lebanon against Hizbullah fighters, who in return are firing a barrage of rockets into northern Israel. Israeli forces have also attacked the Gaza Strip to target Hamas gunmen.

The fighting over the last few weeks has caused devastation and hundreds of civilian casualties.

Hamas, Hizbullah not on Russia's terror list

[Shammu]

 Letter from Jerusalem Bishop
Dear Friends,

For the past forty years we have been largely alone on this desert fighting a predator that not only has robbed us of all but a small piece of our historic homeland, but threatens the traditions and holy sites of Christianity. We are tired, weary, sick, and wounded. We need your help.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have seen and we have been the recipients of the generosity of our American and British friends. We cherish the support of everyone throughout the world who stands with us in solidarity. Daily, I hear from many of them who express outrage at the arrogant and aggressive positions of President Bush, Secretary Rice, Senator Clinton, and Prime Minister Blair. I am saddened to realize just how much the deserved prestige of the United States and Britain has declined as a result of politicians who seem to devalue human life and suffering. And, I am disturbed that the Zionist Christian community is damaging America’s image as never before.

Little more than a week ago, we were focused on the plight of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, four and five generations have been victims of Israeli racism, hate crimes, terror, violence, and murder. Garbage and sewage have created a likely outbreak of cholera as Israeli strategies create the collapse of infrastructures. There is no milk. Drinking water, food, and medicine are in serious short supply. Innocents are being killed and dying from lack of available emergency care. Children are paying the ultimate price. Even for those whose lives are spared, many of them are traumatized and will not grow to live useful lives. Commerce between the West Bank and Gaza has been halted and humanitarian aid barely trickles into some of the neediest in the world.

Movement of residents of the West Bank is difficult or impossible as “security measures” are heightened to break the backs of the Palestinian people and cut them off from their place of work, schools, hospitals, and families. It is family and community that has sustained these people during these hopeless times. For some, it is all that they had, but that too has been taken away with the continued building of the wall and check points. The strategy of ethnic cleansing on the part of the State of Israel continues.

This week, war broke out on the Lebanon-Israeli border (near Banyas where Jesus gave St. Peter the keys to heaven and earth). The Israeli government’s disproportionate reaction to provocation was consistent with their opportunistic responses in which they destroy their perceived enemy.

In her recent article, “The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel,” American, Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst says, “The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength.” She continues, “A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer’s brutal murder of a thirteen year old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post (one of nearly seven hundred Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the Intifada began) is not a society with a conscience.” The “situation” as it has come to be called, has deteriorated into a war without boundaries or limitations. It is a war with deadly potential beyond the imaginations of most civilized people.

As I write to you, I am preparing to leave with other bishops for Nablus with medical and other emergency supplies for five hundred families, and a pledge for one thousand families more.

On Saturday we will attempt to enter Gaza with medical aid for doctors and nurses in our hospital there who struggle to serve the injured, the sick, and the dying.

My plan is that I will be able to go to Lebanon next week - where we are presently without a resident priest - to bury the dead, and comfort the victims of war. Perhaps as others have you will ask, “What can I do?” Certainly we encourage and appreciate your prayers. That is important, but it is not enough. If you find that you can no longer look away, take up your cross. It takes courage as we were promised.

Write every elected official you know. Write to your news media. Speak to your congregation, friends, and colleagues about injustice and the threat of global war. If Syria, Iran, the United States, Great Britain, China and others enter into this war - the consequence is incalculable. Participate in rallies and forums. Find ways that you and your churches can participate in humanitarian relief efforts for the region. Contact us and
let us know if you stand with us. I urge you not to be like a disciple watching from afar.

2 Corinthians 6.11:
“We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return - I speak as to children - open wide your hearts also.”


In, with, and through Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal
Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem

Letter from Jerusalem Bishop

[Shammu]

 Israel says it killed activists smuggling arms to Hezbollah

RAMALLAH, July 28 (KUNA) -- Israeli warplanes struck a car boarding a leading activist of Hezbollah in the Lebanese eastern Bekaa valley on Friday killing him and wounding several other activists, the Israeli newspapers Yedioth A'hronoth reported.

Quoting military sources, the mass-circulation said in a report posted on its website that the air strike killed Nour Shalhoub and wounded several members of Hezbollah who were in the same targetted car on a road in the lush plain.

Shalhoub, the source said, was involved in smuggling "strategic arms to Hezbollah including long-range missiles." Israeli warplanes have carried out recurring raids targeting roads leading to the Syrian border in the vast valley.

Israel says it killed activists smuggling arms to Hezbollah

[Shammu]

Memories of the Holocaust tearing at many Germans
By Nicholas Kralev


FRANKFURT, Germany -- Memories of the Holocaust and the need to help resolve the raging conflict between Israel and Hezbollah are tearing at many Germans and even causing divisions in the ruling coalition over the prospect of sending German troops as part of a U.N. security force on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
   
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats are warming up to the idea after initially rejecting it, but the Social Democrats are putting up a stiff resistance.
   
Meanwhile, the country's largest Jewish organization warned the government, which was formed in the fall as a "grand coalition" after neither party managed to secure a clear majority in parliament, not to put Germans in a position to possibly point a gun at an Israeli.
   
"Many survivors of the Holocaust are still living in Israel, and I don't know how they would react if German troops had to act against an Israeli soldier who was defending his country," Stephan Kramer, secretary-general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a radio interview.
   
Wolfgang Gerhardt, foreign policy spokesman of the opposition Free Democrats who would have been foreign minister in a coalition with the Christian Democrats, also linked Germany's participation in an international force in the Middle East to the Holocaust.
   
"The dramatic historical precedent of the extermination of the Jews makes any role as an intermediary very difficult for German soldiers," he said.

Foreign ministers from the United States, Europe and the Middle East agreed Wednesday in Rome to put together a force under a United Nations mandate, and the European Union offered a "substantial contribution." But except for France, it was not clear who else would participate.
   
Mrs. Merkel's first public comment on the issue last weekend was, "I don't envisage this at the moment." She also said that Israel has a right to defend itself but criticized the bombing of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon.
   
Another Christian Democrat, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, said a day later that Germany "could not refuse" a call from the international community to join a peacekeeping force.
   
Volker Kauder, secretary-general of the Christian Democratic Union, agreed with Mr. Jung. "If peace in the Middle East is at stake, nothing must be ruled out," he said.
   
But another Christian Democrat, Elmar Brok, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament, said sending German troops is not realistic because "it would lead to complete overstretch by the German army."
   
Germany currently has 7,700 troops in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Congo and the Horn of Africa.

Memories of the Holocaust tearing at many Germans

[Shammu]

IAF takes out launcher used to fire missiles at Afula area
By Ze'ev Schiff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies

Israel Air Force warplanes on Friday took out the launchers used by Hezbollah to fire a new kind of missile at the Afula area, the furthest south that the guerilla group has reached since it began battering the north of Israel more than two weeks ago.

The initial investigation revealed that the missile has a range of 90 kilometers. The northern district police said that this kind of missile had not landed in the area before. The level of damage caused by the missile impact and the size of the warhead is also unprecedented, suggesting that it could have weighed up to 100 kilograms.

Security officials are looking into the possibility that the missile could have originated in Iran, and may even be a Zelzal missile, which has a range of up to 200 kilometers. Hezbollah has moved some of its rocket and missile launchers further north inside Lebanon following IAF attacks to destroy them.

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IAF planes fired more than 30 missiles at suspected Hezbollah hideouts in hills and mountainous areas in southeastern Lebanon on Thursday night and Friday. The day before, the IAF scored a direct hit against Hezbollah's missile command center deployed in Tyre, which was responsible for firing rockets on the Haifa area.

The IDF believes that at least 200 Hezbollah operatives have been killed since the fighting began more than two weeks ago, a military source said Friday.

IAF warplanes struck three buildings in a village near the market town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon as they renewed attacks on suspected Hezbollah targets Friday, killing a Jordanian citizen and a Lebanese couple and wounding nine people, including four children, Lebanese security officials said.

Israel Defense Forces troops also killed five Hezbollah operatives in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbail before dawn Friday, Israel Radio reported.

Israeli jets staged four bombing runs that left roads damaged in
southeastern Lebanon, the security officials said. No casualties were reported.

Israeli artillery pounded the border village of Arnoun on Friday. The village is outside Nabatiyeh and next to the strategic Crusader's Beaufort Castle, which has a commanding view of the border area. More than 40 shells struck the village, sending up clouds of gray smoke, witnesses said.

Israel launched its military blitz against Hezbollah on July 12, in response to the militants' capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack.

Lebanon's health minister estimated Thursday that as many as 600 civilians have been killed so far, though the official toll stood at 382.

A total of 33 Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting and 19 civilians were killed in Hezbollah's unyielding rocket attacks on Israel's northern towns, the IDF said.

Direct hit against missile command center in Tyre
The IAF scored a successful direct hit Thursday against Hezbollah's missile command center deployed in Tyre, which has been primarily responsible for targeting Haifa and its surroundings. The regional command center was located on the 12th floor of a Tyre building that the IAF destroyed.

The IAF bombings continued as Israel Defense Forces artillery pounded townships in the south. According to reports from Lebanon, two women were killed in the attacks.

The western sector of south Lebanon, which was quiet until recently, was also shelled on Thursday, and residents of more villages were ordered to leave their homes. For instance, residents of the Christian village of Ain Abel, near the border, were ordered to leave, presumably in order to allow the IDF to tighten the blockade on Bint Jbail.

Hezbollah maintains a number of regional command centers in southern Lebanon similar to that destroyed on Thursday. The organization calls them planning units. The unit in Tyre controlled a large number of 220mm rockets manufactured in Syria, which had caused most of the Israeli civilian fatalities.

The impact of the attack on Hezbollah's bombardment capabilities against Haifa and its surroundings is not yet clear. Nevertheless, Tyre will continue to be a target for the air force.

The attack against Tyre has not affected Hezbollah's ability to launch short-range rockets against northern Israel; most of the group's rockets in southern Lebanon are of the short-range variety, about 100 of which are being launched against Israel on a daily basis, with most falling in empty fields.

It is possible that Hezbollah, under constant air force pressure, will try to carry out previous threats by its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and launch Zelzal-1 rockets against targets south of Haifa. The missile is capable of ranges of 125 km.

Ministers at Thursday's government meeting discussed the possibility of terrorist activity aimed at Israeli and Jewish targets abroad. Hezbollah will seek authorization from Tehran for any such action, which would result in a broader Israel Air Force attack against strategic targets, which Israel has avoided thus far.

Syria continues to try to expand its resupplying effort of Hezbollah. Four Syrian trucks crossing the border into Lebanon were attacked by air Wednesday night.

Mossad, IDF disagree over damage to Hezbollah
The heads of two Israeli intelligence agencies disagree over how much the Israel Defense Forces assault has damaged Hezbollah, although both say the group has been weakened.

The Mossad intelligence agency says Hezbollah will be able to continue fighting at the current level for a long time to come, Mossad head Meir Dagan said.

However, Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagrees, seeing Hezbollah as having been severely damaged.

The IDF believes that at least 200 Hezbollah operatives have been killed since the fighting began more than two weeks ago, a military source said Friday.

Both intelligence chiefs agree that Hezbollah remains capable of command and control and still holds long-range missiles in its arsenal, they said at a security cabinet meeting Thursday.

IAF takes out launcher used to fire missiles at Afula area

[Shammu]

Egyptian Cleric Sheik Muhammad Nassar on a Children Show: The Infidels Invent Nuclear Missiles but The Lord Sends Earthquakes That Swallow Them Up

Following is an excerpt from a children's program hosted by Egyptian cleric, Shiek Muhammad Nassar, which aired on Al-Nas TV, on June 22, 2006. Sheik Nassar is identified by Al-Nas TV as a preacher at the Egyptian ministry of Religious Endowment:

Sheik Muhammad Nassar: Children, our Lord has soldiers of which we are not aware. They are not human soldiers. The winds are soldiers, and the earthquakes are soldiers. The infidels today think they built missiles and invented the atom - but our Lord shakes them and sends the sea upon them, and the sea rises and floods a city, because this sea is a soldier. He sends an earthquake that splits the earth, and swallows them up with all their missiles and possessions. Why? Because Allah never abandons His believers.

The Infidels Invent Nuclear Missiles but The Lord Sends Earthquakes That Swallow Them Up

[Shammu]

Annan mulls peacekeeping contributors
EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for a meeting Monday of countries that could contribute troops to an international force on the Lebanon-Israel border.

France, Britain and other Security Council members are pressing for a resolution demanding an immediate halt to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah fighters, and establishing a force to help the Lebanese army take control of southern Lebanon, where the militant Islamic group is based.

Diplomats said informal discussions were expected to continue over the weekend and the council could begin discussing a draft resolution in earnest next week.

But the council first needs to know which countries, if any, are prepared to provide troops.

Annan told reporters Friday that he has decided to hold a potential troop contributors meeting on Monday.

"Obviously it will be preliminary discussions because we do not have the mandate of the Security Council yet," Annan said.

The invitation list is expected to include contributors to the current 2,000-member U.N. force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the 25 members of the European Union, which has publicly offered to help.

France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Turkey have said they are considering joining a U.N.-run multinational force. Diplomats in the continent's other capitals are discussing whether to add their countries to the roster ahead of a hastily arranged EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

Annan mulls peacekeeping contributors

[Shammu]

Hezbollah will not retreat: MP

TEHRAN – In separate interviews with the Mehr News Agency published on Friday two MPs and a political analyst voiced their views about Israel’s continuing attacks on Lebanon and the resistance of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

MP Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said that Israel’s extensive attack on Lebanon is aimed at disarming Hezbollah, something that is considered as the group’s red line.

Therefore, in order to confront every new measure by the Zionist regime, Hezbollah will adopt newer strategies to “breach Israel’s security perimeters,” he added.

Since Israel faces a greater threat against its security it is keen to bring an end to the war, Falahatpisheh opined.

He added that Hezbollah will not retreat from its stances in case of a possible ceasefire.

“Hezbollah has refused to withdraw in the face of a military attack and will not accept a back-down from its principles under political pressure.”

MP Gholamreza Karami said that a ceasefire would be to the benefit of Israel, adding that the Zionist regime is seeking a pretext to pronounce itself the winner of the war that it waged on Lebanon.

He called on Islamic states and international organizations to adopt a more active diplomacy to prevent further assaults by Israel against the Lebanese people.

The spokesman for the Islamic Revolution Devotees Society, Lotfollah Foruzandeh, said that Israel is going deeper and deeper into the Lebanese quagmire.

The Zionist regime is getting more vulnerable each day, he said, adding that Israel does not want a protracted war.

“The Zionists thought they could defeat Hezbollah with their high-tech weapons but the three-week long resistance of the Lebanese Hezbollah showed that they were mistaken.”

Hezbollah will not retreat: MP

[Shammu]

Arms deal sets collision course with US

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
July 29, 2006

RUSSIA has signed a $US2.9 billion ($3.8 billion) arms deal with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela risking a confrontation with the US, which has imposed an arms embargo on the South American country.

The outspoken Mr Chavez, who has claimed that America wants to assassinate him and who has pledged aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina and cheap heating fuel for London's poor, told reporters in Moscow on Thursday that his country could develop its own nuclear program.

"Maybe some day we will start using nuclear energy," he said, according to Interfax news agency. He did not specify when or how he might obtain nuclear power, but his ambitions will rile a Bush Administration already concerned by Iran's nuclear program.

Moscow has agreed to build nuclear power plants for Tehran, despite Washington's claim that the scheme is a front for a nuclear weapons program.

After Mr Chavez's meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Russia's state arms exporter Rosobornexport said it would sell 24 military planes and 53 attack helicopters to Venezuela in one of a series of deals between the countries worth an estimated $US2.9 billion.

Moscow has recently stepped up arms sales to Venezuela, saying last month that it would license the AK-47 rifle for production in Caracas.

After their meeting on Thursday, Mr Chavez told Mr Putin: "Russia has stretched out its hand to us in the face of international pressure, and even an embargo that was to be imposed on us.

"It gives our soldiers a special spirit of firmness when we hand them Kalashnikov rifles that replace old, 1940s guns."

In an attempt to soften the blow of such deals for Washington, Mr Putin said that co-operation between Moscow and Caracas "is not directed against other states", but added: "Russia will be a secure partner for Venezuela." He said that Russian investment into Venezuela could reach billions of dollars, while expressing admiration for the country's economic growth rate of 8 per cent.

The two men also announced that the Russian oil firm Lukoil would build a gas pipeline in Venezuela's south and drill for oil near the Orinoco River.

Mr Chavez again launched a vitriolic attack on the US. "After almost 200 years, we can say that the United States was designed to fill the entire world with poverty as if in the name of freedom," he said, according to Interfax.

"The United States' empire is the greatest threat which exists in the world today.

"This is a senseless, blind and dumb giant, which does not know the world, does not know human rights, and does not know anything about humanity, culture, conscience, or consciousness."

He said the "winds of war" were blowing in the Middle East and were a "product of hegemony and imperialistic aspirations, which reveal Washington's bid for power over the whole planet".

He added that during a recent visit to Belarus, Russia's neighbour, he had seen a monument to Lenin. The left-wing leader said: "He will always be in our heart and our ideas."

On Wednesday Mr Chavez travelled to Izhevsk where he met Mikhail Kalashnikov, in the wake of the deal to buy 100,000 rifles invented by the weapons designer.

Arms deal sets collision course with US