Biblical countries, in the news.

[Shammu]

Moscow takes Syria under its protection

by Ivan Safronov

July 28, 2006
Kommerzant, Moscow (original Russian) - 2006-06-02

The following report was published in the Russian daily Kommerzant in early June. It points to Russian military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean as well as support in the modernization of Syria's air defense system, the modernization of Syrian tanks and ground forces. The question is whether in the current context, this military build-up of Syrian capabilities, supported by Russia, will act as a deterrent to an attack on Syria by Israel. 

Russia is deepening the port of Tartus ( Syria) where it has a naval materiel and technical supplies center. This may be regarded as evidence of Russia's determination to make Syria a bridgehead for boosting its influence with Middle East.

Russia has had a naval materiel and technical supplies center in Tartus since the 1970s. Vladimir Zimin, advisor on the staff of the Russian Embassy in Syria, says that the port is being made deeper at present. Similar work is under way in the port of Latakia. All this may be regarded as evidence of Russia's determination to make Syria a bridgehead for boosting its influence with Middle East. The materiel and technical supplies center may eventually gain the status of a base of the Black Sea Fleet.

Defense Ministry sources, speaking anonymously, hint that Moscow has some far-reaching plans indeed. A group of ships under the missile cruiser Moskva (Black Sea Fleet flagship) is to be formed within the next three years. The group will be stationed in the Mediterranean Sea on the permanent basis. Among other tasks, it will participate in counter-terrorism operation Active Endeavor with NATO forces. Hence the necessity to make the Tartus and Latakia facilities ready for the Russian surface warships - ships of the Black Sea Fleet and eventually the Northern Fleet as well. (The latter will be used to reinforce the Russian Mediterranean naval group whenever necessary.)

But a source in the Naval Main Command said that establishment of a fully-fledged base in Tartus could help Russia with warships and tenders withdrawn from Sevastopol in the Crimea. In fact, once the bottom of the Tartus port is deepened, the port will be able to receive all ships of the Black Sea Fleet without exception.

Defense Ministry sources point out that a naval base in Tartus will enable Russia to solidify its positions in the Middle East and ensure security of Syria. Moscow intends to deploy an air defense system around the base - to provide air cover for the base itself and a substantial part of Syrian territory. (S-300PMU-2 Favorit systems will not be turned over to the Syrians. They will be manned and serviced by Russian personnel.)

According to our sources, Russia and Damascus reached an agreement on modernizing Syria's air defenses. Its medium-range S-125 air defense systems will be upgraded to the Pechora-2A level. The upgrade will certainly improve Syrian air defense, which uses hardware supplied to Syria back in the 1980s. Moscow is prepared to offer Syria more sophisticated medium-range Buk-M1s as well. Close-range Strelets systems sold to Damascus last year are all the Syrian air defense system has to show by way of sophisticated gear at this point (these systems use Igla SAMs).

Syria wants more than that. A contract for modernization of 1,000 T-72 tanks was drawn and signed. Yesterday, Arms-TASS news agency reported successful tests of T-90C tanks "in a certain Middle East country" and Rosoboroneksport's negotiations over their sale. Other Russian-Syrian arms talks under way concern two Amurs (Project 1650 diesel submarines), some SU-30MKI fighters along with YAK-130s, and modernization of MIG-29 frontal fighters. Damascus also aspires for a consignment of the latest Pantsir-C1 air defense systems designed in Tula.

Establishment of a base in Tartus and rapid advancement of military technology cooperation with Damascus make Syria Russia's instrumental bridgehead and bulwark in the Middle East. Damascus is an important ally of Iran and irreconcilable enemy of Israel. It goes without saying that appearance of the Russian military base in the region will certainly introduce corrections into the existing correlation of forces. Russia is taking the Syrian regime under its protection. It will almost certainly sour Moscow's relations with Israel. It may even encourage the Iranian regime nearby and make it even less tractable in the nuclear program talks.

Moscow takes Syria under its protection

[Shammu]

 General Report 1998 - Chapter V: Role of the Union in the world
Section 1: Common foreign and security policy (3/24)

666. In December the Vienna European Council expressed the opinion that the Secretary-General of the Council and High Representative for the CFSP should be appointed as soon as possible and be a personality with a strong political profile. It invited the Council to prepare common strategies on Russia, Ukraine, the Mediterranean region and the western Balkans, on the understanding that the first would be on Russia. Welcoming the new impetus given to the debate on a common European policy on security and defence, the European Council also noted that the CFSP should be backed by credible operational capabilities

Recommendation 666

[Shammu]

US plans USD 4.6 billion in Mideast arms sales

The Bush administration spelled out plans on Friday to sell USD 4.6 billion of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as USD 2.9 billion to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.

The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it would sell Israel its latest supply of JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to USD 210 million to help Israeli warplanes "keep peace and security in the region."

US plans USD 4.6 billion in Mideast arms sales

[Shammu]

Shabbat Shalom
18:55 Jul 28, '06 / 3 Av 5766

(IsraelNationalNews.com) The round-the-clock news updates of IsraelNationalNews.com discontinue at this time in honor of the Sabbath. Jerusalem candle lighting time is 19:02 (Friday).

The updates will resume Saturday night, several hours following the conclusion of the Sabbath at 20:19. During the Sabbath, the Jewish People are prohibited by Jewish Law from engaging in any type of work, including updating of the site.

Shabbat Shalom

[Shammu]

IDF official: Missiles fired at Afula were not Fajrs

A senior Northern Command official told Ynet that an initial investigation reveals that the missiles fired at Afula Friday were not of Fajr type.

The officer said that this was probably a Syrian missile that had been upgraded.

IDF official: Missiles fired at Afula were not Fajrs

[Shammu]

UNIFIL: Hizbullah undefeatable militarily

Top UN peacekeeping official says Israel would flatten whole villages, neighborhoods if Hizbullah continues firing rockets into Israel
Associated Press

A top UN peacekeeping official on Friday said he feared the war in southern Lebanon would continue until late August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hizbullah rockets keep landing in the Jewish state.

At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hizbullah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Israel's northern port of Haifa.

Hizbullah boasted Friday of a new kind of rocket it called the Khaibar-1 that it fired deeper inside Israel than the hundreds of others
since the outbreak of fighting more than two weeks ago.

"I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue in Haifa. Tyre will be taken off neighborhood by neighborhood," Morczynski said. "I think Israel is contemplating flattening villages, flattening every single house to deny Hizbullah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets."

He estimated that 80 percent of the roughly half-million people who live in southern Lebanon have already fled the embattled area. He also said he feared the civilian death toll in Lebanon was more than 600, well more than the official count of 400-plus.

'Hizbullah still strong'

"Hizbullah are still strong" 17 days into the conflict, peacekeeping chief, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini told The Associated Press. Pellegrini told the Times newspaper that "a military victory will never be possible."

And according to Morczynski's calculation, roughly 800 Hizbullah fighters operate in the southern region on any given day.

"They are mobile, well-prepared, devoted and willing to act," he said. "When there is shelling ... they are not sitting in their bunkers."

The Hizbullah stronghold of Bint Jbeil attests to the group's tenacity.

"In Bint Jbeil it looks like the Israelis have pulled out and are now preparing the ground to come in again," Morczynski said, after Hizbullah fighters had pushed the limited Israeli ground force to the southern edges of the town.

'Hizbullah communication intact'

Also, he said, there was evidence Hizbullah's communications were intact and their fire-and-run tactics were still effective. There was no sign that the guerrillas' supply of rockets was dwindling and Israel has had limited success in targeting their launchers.

Morczynski said the peacekeepers occasionally intercept Hizbullah communications. He recalled a typical such exchange: "Allah is great. My brothers this is number 13 and we are going to operation number 7. We hope that our brothers are safe for the day." Hizbullah uses numbers and letters as codes to identify the fighter and the location.

Hizbullah firepower would seem to be a combination of sophisticated missiles and the older Katyusha rockets, Morczynski said. Some rockets are launched from the back of trucks, while older ones are ferried on motorcycles and fired from portable triangular-shaped launchers.

"They have thousands of them. They are scattered everywhere - in caves, houses, bushes, abandoned buildings. They aren't all in one, two or three depots that you can hit and say now we have wiped them out," he said adding Israel wanted to clear Hizbullah from a two-kilometer strip along its northern border.

"The only way to prevent the launch of rockets is to erase all launching positions of Hizbullah. That is the only solution," Pellegrini said. "But it is difficult."

'Large-scale invasion possible'

Despite the sophistication of the Israeli military machine, the advantage seems still to lay with Hizbullah, Morczynski said. While it takes the Israelis only about two minutes to target the origin of a Hizbullah rocket and retaliate, it hasn't stopped the barrage and it is unclear how many fighters have been hit.

The thrust of the Israeli attack is still with its air force but Morczynski said he anticipated a large-scale invasion if the hostilities continued.

"It is clear that if the pace of the war continues as it is today it will continue until the end of August," Morczynski said.

While Israel is reluctant to wage a ground assault, he said it would be unavoidable in another two weeks because the Israeli Defense Force will need a victory.

"Now the war is going on too long without any big success. Something has to happen soon because they have to show some success to the Israeli public," he said.

UNIFIL: Hizbullah undefeatable militarily

[Shammu]

Emergency broadcast frequencies in the North
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jul. 28, 2006

Residents of northern Israel can tune their radios to emergency broadcast stations until the end of the Sabbath. The stations broadcast silence with the exception of emergency information and instructions.

The "silent broadcasts" can be received on the following frequencies:

Upper Galilee: 95.7 FM
Safed: 98.5 FM
Haifa: 100.2 FM
Tiberias: 95.2 FM
Karmiel: 92.8 FM

Emergency broadcast frequencies in the North

[Shammu]

U.N. official fears that Israel will `flatten Tyre'
BY KATHY GANNON, Associated Press

NAQOURA, Lebanon - A top U.N. peacekeeping official on Friday said he feared that the war in southern Lebanon would continue until late August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hezbollah rockets keep landing in the Jewish state.

At U.N. peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hezbollah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Israel's northern port of Haifa.

Hezbollah boasted Friday of a new kind of rocket it called the Khaibar-1 that it fired deeper inside Israel than the hundreds of others sent since the outbreak of fighting more than two weeks ago.

"I have no doubt that Israel will flatten Tyre if civilian casualties continue in Haifa. Tyre will be taken off neighborhood by neighborhood," Morczynski said. "I think Israel is contemplating flattening villages, flattening every single house to deny Hezbollah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets."

He estimated that 80 percent of the roughly half-million people who live in southern Lebanon have already fled the embattled area. He also said he feared that the civilian death toll in Lebanon was more than 600, well more than the official count of 400-plus.

"Hezbollah are still strong" 17 days into the conflict, peacekeeping chief Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini told The Associated Press.

And according to Morczynski's calculation, roughly 800 Hezbollah fighters operate in the southern region on any given day.

"They are mobile, well-prepared, devoted and willing to act," he said. "When there is shelling ... they are not sitting in their bunkers."

The Hezbollah stronghold of Bent Jbail attests to the militants' tenacity.

"In Bent Jbail it looks like the Israelis have pulled out and are now preparing the ground to come in again," Morczynski said, after Hezbollah fighters had pushed the limited Israeli ground force to the southern edges of the town.

Also, he said, there was evidence Hezbollah's
   
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communications were intact and their fire-and-run tactics were still effective. There was no sign that the guerrillas' supply of rockets was dwindling and Israel has had limited success in targeting their launchers.

Morczynski said the peacekeepers occasionally intercept Hezbollah communications. He recalled a typical such exchange: "Allah is great. My brothers, this is number 13 and we are going to operation number 7. We hope that our brothers are safe for the day." Hezbollah uses numbers and letters as codes to identify the fighter and the location.

Hezbollah firepower would seem to be a combination of sophisticated missiles and the older Katyusha rockets, Morczynski said. Some rockets are launched from the back of trucks, while older ones are ferried on motorcycles and fired from portable triangular-shape launchers.

"They have thousands of them. They are scattered everywhere - in caves, houses, bushes, abandoned buildings. They aren't all in one, two or three depots that you can hit and say now we have wiped them out," he said, adding that Israel wanted to clear Hezbollah from a two-kilometer strip along its northern border.

U.N. official fears that Israel will `flatten Tyre'

[Shammu]

Anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment is high
Bala Muhammad Makosa (babanjawad)

Published 2006-07-29 12:08 (KST)   

For the second time in less than a fortnight, millions of Nigerian Muslims took to the streets across the country on Friday to protest Israeli attacks on the Lebanese faction Hezbollah.

Under the overall command of Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, the July 28 protests were especially well attended in all the northern parts of the country.

In Kaduna state, in the heart of northern Nigeria, the protest was led by Malam Muktar Sahabi, one of Sheik Zakzaky's followers. Thousands of Muslims, including children, chanted "death to Israel and America" in the state capital.

In Sokoto state, Malam Munir Sokoto led an 8 a.m. procession that chanted anti-Israel slogans and called on Muslims around the world to rise up against Israel.

"We came out and took to the streets protesting against Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, under the command of our spiritual leader Sheik Ibrahim Zakzaky. We will continue to protest for death or success," said Sokoto in a phone interview.

In Kano, over 1 million Muslims took to the streets, dragging American and Israeli flags on the ground, and proclaiming a jihad (Holy War) against the Jews of Israel and those in Nigeria. They promised to take revenge soon for what they described as "Israeli illegal attacks on innocent Lebanese."

"If Nigerian Muslims will rise against Israel as Sheik Zakzaky commanded us, certainly the Jews sheltered in Nigeria would run on their heels," Sheik Turi said.

Speaking to the protesters at the end of the procession, Sheik Muhammad Mahmud Turi, second in command to Sheik Zakzaky, said they would continue the protests until success has been achieved. Sheik Turi also called on communities around the world to continue coming out in mass protests against Israel.

In a closing remark after the protest, Malam Sunusi Abdulkadir 'YanAwaki, urged the Nigerian government to cut diplomatic relations with Israel and America.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, July 22, Muslims across Nigeria began saying special prayers for Hezbollah's success.

Sheik Zakzaky is the spiritual leader of the Nigerian Hezbollah. He has led the Islamic Movement since 1979.

Zakzaky has vowed to mobilize Nigerians, especially the youth, against the American system of democracy in the country and establish an Islamic government, as Ayatollah Khomeini did in Iran.

In recent years, Sheik Zakzaky has gained the support of millions of Nigerian Muslims. Many Christians also support him because he is regarded as a fighter for human rights and as a spiritual leader who will rescue them from the yoke of the capitalist Nigerian leaders.

A spokesman for the movement said Nigerian Muslims would be out again next Friday to continue the protests against Israel.

Anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment is high
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No DUH!!

[Shammu]

Anti-Israel protest in Australia turns nasty
(DPA)

29 July 2006


SYDNEY - Prime Minister John Howard was mobbed and police clashed with Hezbollah supporters and other anti-Israel protesters in the west coast Australian city of Perth on Saturday.

Howard’s car was damaged by demonstrators as he left a meeting. Around 200 protesters waving Lebanese and Palestinian flags and shouting “we want peace” punched, kicked and threw projectiles at the vehicle as police struggled to keep order.

Police wrestled protesters to the ground and there was at least one arrest.

Protest organizer Muhammad el-Khatib said that he had family in Lebanon and that the Australian government should try and broker a ceasefire.

“There are mothers watching their children die,” el-Khatib told Australia’s AAP news agency. “Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon, they are freedom fighters not terrorists.”

The military wing of Hezbollah is banned in Australia but the political organization is not.

The current crisis was sparked when Hezbollah launched a cross- border raid July 12 in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two abducted.

Australia, a close ally of the United States, has been supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said last week that Israel faced a threat to its existence from Hezbollah and Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement, which both receive support from Iran and Syria.

“It’s very important that Australians appreciate, no matter how affronted we are by what Israel is doing, that they are dealing with Hezbollah and Hamas, who are committed to the abolition of Israel as a state,” the defence minister said.

Along with the US, Australia has urged that long-term problems be addressed and has not called for a ceasefire.

“We should feel enormous sympathy for the everyday Lebanese person,” Nelson said. “We should also feel some sympathy for the Lebanese government. But at the moment let us hope an appropriate longstanding resolution comes to this conflict. We can’t afford to have a situation where band-aids are being applied to it again.”

Anti-Israel protest in Australia turns nasty

[Shammu]

Israel Deploying Anti-Missile Batteries Near Tel Aviv, Report Says
Julie Stahl
Jerusalem Bureau Chief

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com ) - Israel is planning to deploy anti-missile batteries near Tel Aviv to intercept any longer-range rocket that Hizballah may fire at Israel's second-largest city, state-run radio reported on Friday. The army would not confirm the report.

Israel developed its anti-missile system following the 1991 Gulf War, when it was hit by at least 39 Iraqi Scud missiles. It has not been used against the incoming Hizballah rockets because they fly too low.

Earlier this week, Michael Cardash, deputy head of the Israeli Police bomb disposal unit, told journalists in Haifa that Israel believes Hizballah possesses two long range Iranian-made missiles that it has not yet used: the Fajr-5 and the Zelzal.


The Fajr-5 has a range of 75 kilometers (45 miles) and is packed with some 90 kilograms (198 pounds) of explosives - more than twice the amount of explosives packed into some of the rockets that have landed in Israel so far.

The Zelzal has a range of 220 kilometers (132 miles). Its warhead carries some 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of explosives.

The Israeli Air Force bombed a truck last week believed to have been carrying Zelzal missiles.

The Lebanese Mediterranean city of Tyre, south of Beirut, is about 135 kilometers (81 miles) from the northern Tel Aviv. Other northern Israeli cities are even closer.

Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said earlier this week that the time had come to fire rockets further south than Haifa, which has been hit by scores of rockets in the last two weeks, killing at least nine people there.

The rocket attacks on northern Israel continued Friday. About 45 rockets had landed in northern Israeli communities by mid-afternoon. On Thursday, 110 rockets crashed into Israel. Nearly 1,600 have landed in Israel so far.

The Israeli Air Force carried out more than 180 aerial attacks against Hizballah targets on Thursday and early Friday, the army said.

One of the targets hit this week was described as Hizballah's missile command center in the city of Tyre. That center was responsible for the rocket attacks on Haifa, reports said.

In a week when Israel suffered heavy casualties - 13 soldiers and airmen died and dozens of others were wounded - an unnamed Israeli officer was quoted on Friday as saying that Israeli troops had killed some 200 Hizballah gunmen during the last 17 days of fighting.

Meanwhile, the army issued another warning to residents of several villages in southern Lebanon, urging them to vacate buildings by mid-morning on Friday and move northward or risk getting caught in an army operation. That indicates that Israel is not slowing down its military operations in the region.

"The objective of these warning is to minimize the risk to civilians in southern Lebanon, an area used by Hizballah terrorists who exploit the local population as human shields," the army said in a statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said on Thursday evening that Israel had "entered into an unavoidable war, and we must win it."

The Israeli government approved the army's request on Thursday to mobilize thousands of reserve forces but also indicated that it did not intend to broaden the ground war in southern Lebanon.

Peretz said the mobilization was intended to prepare Israel "for any possible development."

Further south, the army announced that its forces had left the northern Gaza Strip after a two-day operation "to stop the launching of rockets at Israel and to destroy the terror infrastructure in the region."

Several Kassam rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel on Friday. Two children were lightly wounded by shrapnel, the army said.

The army said that it had killed approximately 140 armed gunmen in Gaza since launching operation "Summer Rain" there at the end of June, following the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border attack.

Palestinians have said that many civilians also have been killed in the Israeli raids. In both Lebanon and Gaza, Islamic militants mix with civilians to protect their lives and their weapons of war.

Israel Deploying Anti-Missile Batteries Near Tel Aviv, Report Says

[Shammu]

Israel hits Lebanon-Syria highway near border
29 Jul 2006 18:37:19 GMT
Source: Reuters

BEIRUT, July 29 (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike hit Lebanon's main road to Damascus on Saturday just 1 km from the border with Syria, cutting the highway in both directions, witnesses and security sources said.

Three air strikes hit the road between Lebanese and Syrian immigration offices, but on the Lebanese side of the border, they said. There was no information on casualties.

The Israeli military said it had struck the road to cut arms supply routes from Syria to Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

"The military attacked the road from Lebanon to Syria to prevent the smuggling of weapons," an army spokeswoman said.

Israeli aircraft have been pounding southern Lebanon, southern Beirut and other parts of the country in an 18-day-long war against Hizbollah.

Israel hits Lebanon-Syria highway near border

[Shammu]

Israel won't ask Hizbollah's immediate disarming
29 Jul 2006 17:19:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM, July 29 (Reuters) - Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said on Saturday.

Israel's position could make it easier to reach agreement with Western powers and the Lebanese government on the proposed deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Hizbollah would almost certainly reject a force whose mandate called for its disarmament.

"Disarming Hizbollah will not be part of the mandate for the (peacekeeping) mission for now," a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

"However it is supposed to strengthen the Lebanese army, the responsibility of which will be to implement (U.N. Security Council resolution) 1559 which calls for disarming Hizbollah eventually."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel saw the full implementation of resolution 1559 as "the only real way to solve the problem in Lebanon".

Asked if Israel was demanding Hizbollah's immediate disarmament, Regev said: "Hizbollah has to be disarmed as soon as possible."

France has emerged as the potential leader of a multinational force but has ruled out deployment until a ceasefire and political agreement have been reached, Western diplomats say.

Paris has so far been noncommittal about its a possible role in a peacekeeping operation to help end the 18-day-old war, in which at least 462 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, have been killed. Hizbollah has killed 51 Israelis, 18 of them civilians.

The Foreign Ministry official said Israel would demand that the proposed peacekeeping force in south Lebanon keep Hizbollah away from the border and prevent it from replenishing its stockpile of rockets from Syria and Iran.

The official told Reuters Israel was seeking a commitment to "start the process of implementing" resolution 1559, adding: "Disarming Hizbollah now is not what Israel is demanding."

Washington envisaged the deployment of a rapid reaction force to fill the void until a larger peacekeeping mission could be assembled and dispatched, Israeli officials said.

"Once the ceasefire and political agreement is reached, we will be able to talk about the multinational force and France's potential participation," a French diplomatic source said.

Israel won't ask Hizbollah's immediate disarming

[Shammu]

God's Army Has Plans to Run the Whole Middle East

By Amir Taheri
Posted Wednesday, July 26, 2006

‘You are the sun of Islam, shining on the universe!” This is how Muhammad Khatami, the mullah who was president of Iran until last year, described Hezbollah last week. It would be no exaggeration to describe Hezbollah — the Lebanese Shi’ite militia — as Tehran’s regional trump card. Each time Tehran has played it, it has won. As war rages between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran policymakers think that this time, too, they can win.

“I invite the faithful to wait for good news,” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Tuesday. “We shall soon witness the elimination of the Zionist stain of shame.”

What are the links between Hezbollah and Iran? In 1982 Iran had almost no influence in Lebanon. The Lebanese Shi’ite bourgeoisie that had had close ties with Iran when it was ruled by the Shah was horrified by the advent of the clerics who created an Islamic republic.

Seeking a bridgehead in Lebanon, Iran asked its ambassador to Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a radical mullah, to create one. Mohtashamipour decided to open a branch in Lebanon of the Iranian Hezbollah (the party of God).

After many meetings in Lebanon Mohtashamipour succeeded: in its founding statement it committed itself to the “creation of an Islamic republic in Lebanon”. To this end hundreds of Iranian mullahs, political “educators” and Islamic Revolutionary Guards were dispatched to Beirut.

Within two years several radical Shi’ite groups in Lebanon, including some with Marxist backgrounds, had united under the Hezbollah name and became the main force resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon after the expulsion of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1983.

Terror has been its principal weapon. Throughout the 1980s Hezbollah kidnapped more than 200 foreign nationals in Lebanon, most of them Americans or western Europeans (including Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy). It organised the hijacking of civilian aircraft and more or less pioneered the idea of suicide bombings against American and French targets, killing almost 1,000 people, including 241 US marines in Beirut and 58 French paratroopers.

The campaign produced results. After Hezbollah’s attacks, France reduced its support for Saddam Hussein. America went further by supplying Iran with TOW anti-tank missiles, shipped via Israel, which helped to tip the Iran-Iraq war in favour of Iran. In exchange Iran ordered Hezbollah to release French and American hostages.

Once the Iran-Iraq war was over, Tehran found other uses for its Lebanese asset. It purged and then reshaped Hezbollah to influence the broader course of regional politics while using it to wage a low-intensity war against Israel.

<snip>
To finish reading this, click on the link below.

God's Army Has Plans to Run the Whole Middle East

[Shammu]

Nasrallah: Israel temporary country

Hizbullah chief says during televised speech ‘Lebanese are standing strong, and it is clear the enemy has not achieved any military objectives’; adds: When in any Arab-Israeli conflict were two million Israelis forced to flee or enter bomb shelters?
Roee Nahmias

Hizbullah Chief Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday during a speech aired by Al-Manar TV "the bombardment of Afula is just the beginning. Many cities in (Israel’s) center will be attacked if the barbaric aggression against us continues. When in any Arab-Israeli conflict were two million Israelis forced to flee or enter bomb shelters?”

During the airing of Nasrallah’s speech sirens were heard in Carmiel; three rockets landed in the northern city, but no injuries or damage were reported in the strike.

The sheikh referred to Israel as a “temporary country.”

“Israel was established as a military state; the army was not established as an army of a country,” he said.

Rocket fired on Afula 

During his speech Nasrallah waved both Lebanese and Hizbullah flags and promised that Hizbullah would not break and that the situation on the ground is different than the picture Israel is trying to portray.

“It is clear that up to this point the Zionist enemy has not achieved any military objective; not only I say this, but they say this as well, as does the entire world and all the analysts. The destruction of infrastructure and the hurting of civilians is not a military achievement, but a barbaric one.

'Beginning of the end for Zionist entity'

“So far the enemy has only suffered military defeats, as was the case with the most important of its three Navy vessels off the Lebanese coast – which was struck. This was also the case during the ground war, when elite Golani Brigade forces were defeated,” he said.

“You can see the amount of damage we have caused them in photos showing soldiers evacuated on stretchers lying on their stomach because they were shot in the back while trying to escape. The most important loss of the enemy relates to the morale of its leadership and army, as the army is incapable of overcoming a small organization with a strong belief in its cause."

The Hizbullah chief added: “(Vice Premier Shimon) Peres said ‘this is a life or death war for Israel,’ and he is right because he knows that if the resistance will come out triumphant this time the Zionist entity will not have a future. When the (Israeli) nation will begin to lose faith in its army it will mark the beginning of the end for this entity.”

“The enemy’s only option is to pressure Lebanon in the hope that this will lead to political pressure that will thwart our efforts. In this framework (US Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice is returning to the region to impose her guidelines on us,” Nasrallah continued.

“We must realize that Israel is ready to stop the aggression because it fears the unknown; today more than ever Israel is acts under the influence of the US, and therefore Lebanon is in need of political resolve in addition to the resolve of its warriors in the battlefield.”

'You will not break our spirit'

As to the recent statements made by Lebanese officials according to which Hizbullah is fighting Syria and Iran’s war, Nasrallah said “It seems there are a number of people who fear the resistance’s victory – this victory will be for all of Lebanon; it will be dedicated to every Arab, Muslim and Christian in this world who protected Lebanon.”

The Hizbullah chief turned once again to the Arab countries and expressed his resentment over the fact that they are not supporting the struggle.

“We did not ask them to fight with us or defend us, but they should not be a burden either. We are not asking for their help, but if a certain (Arab) country should take a stand that would assist us – we would be thankful.”

Nasrallah also attempted to downplay Syria and Iran’s role in the war, saying the two countries are not proving aid to Hizbullah; he thanked Syria for absorbing thousands of Lebanese refugees.

The sheikh added: “To the enemy and the world I say: As long as the war continues we will be prepared; we will not break down or be defeated. To (George W.) Bush and (Ehud) Olmert I say – we will respond to you with greater force; you will not break our spirit.”

Nasrallah: Israel temporary country