Dozens wounded in Beirut blast on the eve of Ramadan
Al-Akhbar | July 9, 2013
At least 53 people were wounded after a bomb exploded Tuesday morning in a parking lot in the densely-populated area of Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburb.
The bomb went off around 10:15 am local time.
Al-Manar television station said the explosion was from a car rigged with explosives stationed in a public parking lot of the Islamic Coop supermarket. The blast comes on a busy shopping day on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan.
Live footage from the station showed at least a dozen cars in the parking lot charred from the fire, as firefighters attempted to put out the flames.
Local news channels aired images of heavy black smoke rising over buildings on Muawad street in the Bir al-Abed neighborhood.
Residents of the area attempted to disperse the crowd gathered around the scene for fear of second bomb nearby, el-Nashra said.
Of the 53 people who were admitted to hospitals, 41 have been released while another 12 are still receiving treatment, Minister of Health Ali Khalil told reporters.
Politicians of all stripes quickly issued statements condemning the blast.
Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam called on Lebanese to remain “vigilant.”
“The ugly crime that took place in the Southern Suburb of Beirut is part of an evil scheme targeting Lebanon’s stability and the security of the Lebanese,” he said in a statement. “It is a barefaced attempt to foment strife.”
It remains unclear who was behind Tuesday’s blast, but there is no shortage of suspects.
Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar pointed the finger at Israel, which launched a 34-day war on Lebanon in 2006 which reduced much of Dahiyeh to rubble.
But Salafi radicals affiliated with Syria’s anti-government rebels are also suspected to have been behind a series of recent attacks on Lebanon.
The bomb was the second major attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah maintains strong support, in recent weeks.
Suspected rebels have upped a campaign against Lebanon in what they claim is retaliation for Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian conflict.
In May, two rockets launched from hills above the capital struck Beirut’s southern Chiyah district, injuring four Syrian workers.
Dozens of rockets fired from Syria have hit Lebanon in recent weeks, killing and wounding a number of people since they began over the course of the Syrian conflict, now over two years old.
And two roadside bombs detonated late last month targeted a convoy that reportedly belonged to Hezbollah in East Lebanon near the Syrian border.
The last deadly car bomb in Beirut occurred on 19 October 2012, when Internal Security Forces Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan was killed in a massive blast in the Ashrafieh neighborhood.
In the summer of 2006, the Bir al-Abed area in Beirut’s southern suburb received the heaviest air bombardment during the Israeli war on Lebanon.
One of the deadliest attacks in Bir al-Abed history was the 1985 attempted assassination of Sayyid Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, which killed more than 80 civilians.
A string of bombings between 2004 and 2008 killed a number of high-profile military and political figures in Lebanon.
Israel Targets “Hezbollah Cells” in Nigeria
Al-Akhbar | July 2, 2013
In mid-May, Mustafa Fawwaz, a 49-year-old Lebanese living in northern Nigeria, was headed to the Amigo Mall, a property he co-owns with his brother Fawzi. Hours later, police stormed his supermarket and placed him under arrest.
A few days later, 48-year-old Lebanese Ahmad Tahini was arrested at Nigeria’s Kano International Airport before his flight departed to Beirut. On May 26, the police arrested 51-year-old Talal Rawda at his home, in addition to another Lebanese Hussein Noureddine.
The Nigerian police claimed these four men were part of a “Hezbollah cell,” evidence of which was a weapons depot located inside a house in Kano.
After 40 days of detention, Noureddine was released. The court accused the three remaining Lebanese men of committing “terror-related crimes” and “providing direct assistance to a terrorist group.” The indictment stated: “You confessed that you belong to the armed wing of Hezbollah, which is an international terrorist organization. You have therefore committed a crime.”
Trumped-up Charges
The main charge that led to the men’s arrest linked them to a questionable weapons cache. But the weapons found by police were old and rusting, having clearly been stored in inappropriate conditions.
A source close to the defendants said that the house where the weapons were found was originally owned by a former army general who was active in the Nigerian civil war – 40 years ago. He denies that the men are linked in any way to the weapons or any armed activity.
The three Lebanese men have been charged with terrorism by virtue of their membership in Hezbollah even though the Nigerian government does not consider the party a terrorist organization. This is the lawyer’s defense for the upcoming July 8 court date when he’ll ask the court to drop all charges.
As usual, Israel is connected to this debacle. An Israeli security official told a Western newspaper, “The security cell that was arrested is part of a Shia terror campaign targeting the West and Israel.” It is interesting that the Israeli official did not limit his accusations to Hezbollah but rather included the entire Shia sect.
Yet perhaps the strongest evidence of Israeli meddling in the investigation came from a source close to the detainees who claimed that a Mossad team was allowed to interrogate and investigate the defendants.
Israeli Objectives
Israel has always paid special attention to Nigeria, having signed several trade and industrial agreements with the African country. Yet since 2006, visits by Israeli presidents and security officials to Nigeria focused on signing security agreements and finalizing weapons deals. Nigeria specialists say that the Mossad’s close relations with Nigerian security agencies is not concealed in any way.
Israel hopes to accomplish several goals with these accusations. It seeks to pressure international, and especially European, public opinion to list Hezbollah, or at least its so-called armed wing, as a terrorist group. Another aim is to create fissures in Hezbollah by falsely accusing Lebanese businessmen and shutting down their businesses.
The US and Israel have different ways of targeting Lebanese in Africa. While the US treasury department accuses Lebanese of supporting terrorist organizations, Israel colludes with African security agencies to fabricate charges.
Hezbollah fighting in Syria to defend Lebanon from bloodbath
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya | RT | June 26, 2013
Mainstream media fail to mention that key anti-government forces in Syria swore to kill all the Shiite Muslims and to march straight into Lebanon after Syria.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, announced his party’s entry into the Syrian conflict on May 25, 2013. The Syrian National Coalition immediately denounced Hezbollah while the US Department of State reacted to Nasrallah’s announcement on May 29 by demanding an immediate withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters from Syria. The rubber stamp Arab League would eventually, and very predictability, condemn Hezbollah’s entry into the Syrian conflict, whereas it has ignored the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and their allies.
Qusayr, situated on the road between Damascus and the Mediterranean coastline of Syria in the northwestern portion of the Syrian Governate of Homs, would become a central focus of Hezbollah’s involvement inside Syria. After the victory in Qusayr, the war hawk Charles Krauthammer would embarrassingly proclaim that the US was hesitating too much while Russia and Iran were taking charge of the situation in Syria with Hezbollah.
The US had not hesitated in reality, but had failed to topple the government in Damascus. Most probably prompted by the pressure of their Saudi and Qatari paymasters, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government would react to the victory in Qusayr by cutting its ties with Syria, calling for a no-fly zone, and attacking Hezbollah for its involvement in the Syrian conflict. As an indicator of the failure of its regime change project, the Obama Administration would leak to the press that it was considering a no-fly zone too. Ironically, Egypt’s President Morsi and many of the same people that criticize Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia for their involvement in Syria refuse to criticize Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, British, French, Jordanian, Israeli, and American involvement.
Hezbollah is also a Target of the Syrian Conflict
Undoubtedly Hezbollah did discuss its intentions to enter the Syrian conflict with its patrons in Tehran and coordinated with Iran and then, to a lesser extent, with Russia through Iranian officials and through consultations with Aleksandr Zasypkin, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, and then Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov during his April 2013 visit to Beirut. The involvement of Hezbollah in Syria, however, is purely defensive. Moreover, Hezbollah is one of the last external players to be involved in Syria.
It is the same type of reports that constantly claim there is a substantial Iranian military presence in Syria, but can never manage to give solid proof or any form of confirmation about their claims, that are the ones that simplistically de-contextualize Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria. For example, rockets were launched into Dahiyeh, the working class southern suburb of Beirut that is the political stronghold of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s capital district, and the town of Hermel, in Bekaa, hours after Nasrallah announced his party would enter the Syrian conflict.
Most reports about this failed to recognize the nature of the rocket attacks. The rocket strikes were more than a mere warning from the anti-government forces inside Syria, in fact they were part of a steady stream of escalation that deliberately aimed at expanding the war into Lebanon and spreading the fires of sedition. Attacks were being conducted in areas inhabited by Hezbollah supporters much earlier and before Hezbollah even intervened in Syria. Whether it is done intentionally or unintentionally, this type of reporting conceals the fact that Hezbollah intervened in Syria mainly to protect itself and Lebanon’s diverse population, and it fails to identify who the real perpetrators of the violence are. The mainstream media in places like the US and UK also fails to mention that key divisions of the anti-government forces inside Syria have sworn to kill all the Shiite Muslims they get their hands on, and to march straight into Lebanon after Syria.
From the beginning of the Syrian conflict Hezbollah agreed that the Syrian people should have the democratic freedoms that Hezbollah itself enjoys in Lebanon and it has agreed that Syria is in need of political reforms. Its entry into the Syrian conflict is aimed at preventing the takfiri death squads that have amassed in Syria from marching against Lebanon and committing the same type of crimes in the towns and homes of the Lebanese people they have been committing against the Syrian people. Because the takfiris have announced that they will purge the Levant of the Shiite Muslims and all others that they do not accept, the conflict was unavoidable. Rather than wait, Hezbollah chose to act in a war that the anti-government forces in Syria deliberately initiated against Hezbollah through a stream of assaults on the Shiites living on the Lebanese-Syrian border. As a preview of what is in store for the Shiites, after their defeat in Qusayr, the anti-government militias marched into Hatla and massacred many of its residents, including old people and young children who all had their throats slit. One video of the massacre titled “The storming and cleansing of Hatla” surfaced with the man filming it stating that all the Shia Muslims would suffer the same fate. What happened in Hatla, including stories about vicious rapes and mutilations, has only strengthened the support in Lebanon for Hezbollah’s intervention.
Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon and the Levant’s minority groups
On July 14, Nasrallah went on Lebanese television to say that Hezbollah was fighting to defend both the people of Lebanon and Syria from the abominations of “an American, Israeli and takfiri project to destroy not only Syria but the entire region.” Speaking on Al-Manar, he told his supporters and allies that the entire world had gone to Syria to fight in one way or another using their money or shipping weapons or through media warfare. It was only natural for Hezbollah as one of the main targets of the war to get involved. He added that the Lebanese government had unfortunately failed to protect the 30,000 Lebanese Christians and Muslims that have been attacked by the Syrian anti-government forces on their borders. Hezbollah acted to protect them.
Nasrallah’s sentiments are widely shared inside and outside Lebanon. According to Mohsen Saleh, a professor of political philosophy at the Lebanese University and an expert on Hezbollah, the threat of “takfirism” is now working to terminate all diversity in the region in league with Israel and the US. The Muslim Brotherhood is tied to this project too, but “it is now collapsing and in a state of decay” according to Saleh. “The Brotherhood came into power a hundred years too late,” he told me. While visiting him at his office, he explained that all of Lebanon’s different communities are afraid of the takfiris as they have witnessed their crimes in Syria. This is why the Maronite Catholic Church and the multitude of Christian denominations in Lebanon are increasingly standing behind Hezbollah. He confidently said that all of Lebanon’s different sects will improve their relations with Hezbollah due to the mutual threat they all face. When I asked Saleh about Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate, who is linked to Hezbollah’s rivals in Lebanon, he pointed out that Tamman Saeb Salam is not a puppet. In a discreet gesture of support distinguishing him from the Hariri camp, Tamman has said that Hezbollah will remain a resistance group no matter what happens due to its intervention in Syria.
The Druze community, which is the Lebanese group that is the most vulnerable to a takfiri attack in the country, is reconsidering its relationship with Hezbollah. The Druze community is also unhappy about the statements of Walid Jumblatt, its prime chieftain, which have been supportive of anti-government activities in Syria. Trying to please his Saudi paymaster in Riyadh, Jumblatt has gone as far as to say that he personally supports the Saudi-backed Jubhat Al-Nusra. Well aware of the dangers to their community, the Druze of Syria have shunned Jumblatt and continued to support the Syrian government.
Russian officials have also supported Hezbollah’s stance, Moscow views Hezbollah’s position as one that aims to protect the different people of Lebanon and Syria. Moscow does not want the takfiri brigades to enter the North Caucasus or to attack any of its sister-republics and allies in Central Asia. As opposed to the United States and its allies, Russian foreign policy in the Middle East openly promotes diversity and the protection of Christians and minority groups.
Unlike Hezbollah, the US Does Not Give a Damn about Arab Christians
Dr. Naji Hayek, a Lebanese Christian, sums it all up by stating: “Hezbollah is fighting for us, for me!” He made the statement after we watched Michel Aoun live on Orange TV declaring that he supported Hezbollah after fighting erupted in the Lebanese city of Sidon. If the takfiris make inroads into Lebanon, he assured me that he would pick up his gun and fight too. Hayek, a surgeon, a professor at the Lebanese American University, and an advisor to Michel Aoun—the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, the largest Christian political party in Lebanon—helped draft the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act and used to submit intelligence reports about Syrian activities in Lebanon to the US Senate. He was once a member of Lebanon’s National Liberal Party and a close friend of Samir Geagea, the Christian warlord extraordinaire allied to the US and Saudi Arabia. Hayek was even injured while fighting against the Syrians for Michel Aoun.
Things have changed since then and new alliances have formed. Syria is an enemy no longer and Samir Geagea is no longer a friend. Hayek told me bitterly that the US has never hesitated to manipulate and then drop the Christians in Lebanon. He even showed me a heated email exchange between him and Jeffrey Feltman, while Feltman was serving as a US assistant-secretary in the US State Department, where Feltman in reference to Hezbollah accused the Free Patriotic Movement of being aligned with “evil.” In retrospect, Hayek realizes that the US had different motives when the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act was drafted. Furiously, he talked about “the twenty-five year old kids working at the Lebanon Desk in the [US] State Department with [Bachelor of Arts] in history” that are disconnected from reality in the Middle East which he has had to deal with.
“I am not a fan of Bashar Al-Assad, but I support him one hundred percent, because the alternative in Syria is an extremist government,” Hayek emphasized. Should the Syrian government fall, Hayek’s fear was that the corrupt Hariri family and the March 14 Alliance would invite a Muslim Brotherhood government in Damascus to invade and occupy Lebanon. As a key interlocutor between Michel Aoun and the United States, he explained to me that the Hariri family had no problem with the Syrian presence in Lebanon and in fact they were opposed to a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and would obstruct his work in the United States. He explained that the reason for this was that the Hariris used the Syrian military to enforce their hegemony in Lebanon. “Hariri corrupted the Syrians,” he explained. The Hariri clan would bribe all the high ranking Syrian officers in Lebanon by paying them millions of dollars. The problems between the Hariris and Syria began when Bashar Al-Assad wanted to put an end to corruption in Syria and refused to let the Hariris continue with their game.
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Suspected Syrian rebels fire over 12 rockets at Lebanon
Al-Akhbar | June 22, 2013
At least 12 rockets fired from Syria struck a Lebanese border village Saturday, hitting some homes but causing no injuries in the latest attack on Lebanon by suspected rebels, state news reported.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said rockets struck the homes Mohammed Kouja, Walid Kouja, and Taj Eddeine in the northern Akkar village of Dababiyeh.
The army rushed to evacuate the town of frightened residents, the report added.
The attack comes one day after a rocket reportedly fired from a Lebanese village northeast of the capital struck a mountainous area near the presidential palace in Baabda.
The grad, fired overnight Monday, knocked out a power line and caused a huge rumble in surrounding areas. Authorities later in the day discovered what they believed to be the launch site of the rocket hidden in a brush covered area near Ballouneh.
A second rocket that failed to launch was reportedly found at the site. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and its target remains unclear, but Syrian rebels have upped a campaign against Lebanon in recent months in what they claim is retaliation for Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian conflict.
Monday’s attack was the second such case of rockets being fired by suspected rebels against Lebanese targets from inside Lebanon. Last month, two rockets struck a southern suburb of Beirut injuring four Syrian workers.
Those rockets, launched from hills several kilometers southeast of Beirut, hit the Chiyah district where Hezbollah maintains strong support.
But dozens of rockets fired from Syria have hit Lebanon in recent weeks, killing and wounding a number of people since they began over the course of the Syrian conflict, now over two years old.
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- Several injured in Syrian rocket attacks on Lebanon (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- I think you can assume this was aimed at dahyeh (hezbollah) by sunnis and fired from a christian area to frame the christians (niqnaq.wordpress.com)
US imposes sanctions on Hezbollah, citing Syria role, Africa influence
Press TV – June 12, 2013
The US has declared “sanctions” on four alleged “ambassadors” of the Lebanese Islamic resistance group Hezbollah, citing the movement’s role in pushing back foreign-backed insurgents in Syria as well as its rising influence in West Africa.
The US Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it was imposing what appear to be vague sanctions against the four Lebanese individuals whom it claims are “fundraising and recruiting for Hezbollah” in efforts to expand its influence in West Africa, as well as South America and Middle East, The Los Angeles Times reports Wednesday.
Citing US officials, the report states the four men were acting as Hezbollah “ambassadors” in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gambia.
The daily further quotes US Treasury officials as underlining “the alarming reach of Hezbollah’s activities,” pointing to the Islamic movement’s “growing military role” in the recent triumph of the Syrian Army over foreign-sponsored militant gangs that have waged a destructive war on the country in largely US-led attempts to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The mostly symbolic sanctions, according to the report, “grew out of an investigation of what Treasury said are Hezbollah’s expanding activities abroad, including in South America, the Middle East and Africa.”
The sanctions would supposedly “freeze any assets” the four men “may have in the United States and sever them from any contact with the US financial system.”
However, it is not even clear if and how much the Lebanese individuals, identified as Ali Ibrahim Watfa, Abbas Loutfe Jawaz, Ali Achmad Chehade and Hicham Nmer Khanafer, have under the control of American financial institutions.
The US government has in the past repeatedly “imposed” meaningless sanctions, in the form of freezing funds, against a number of Iranian individuals and officials that have absolutely no ties or holdings in the US or American financial institutions.
The development comes as the American government and some of its allies, including the Saudi Kingdom, have protested the supportive role of Hezbollah forces behind the Syrian Army to flush out mostly al-Qaeda-linked armed gangs that have terrorized the nation with massive weapons supplied to them through Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon by mostly Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms, with US and European blessings.
Syria’s Fake Sectarian War
By Shamus Cooke | Worker’s Action | June 7, 2013
The fate of Syria and the broader Middle East balances on a razor’s edge. The western media is giving dire warnings of an impending sectarian war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, a war that could drown the Middle East in a flood of blood.
Such a war would be completely artificial, and is being manufactured for geo-political reasons. When the most influential Sunni figures in Saudi Arabia and Qatar — both U.S. allies — recently called for Jihad against the Syrian government and Hezbollah, their obvious intentions were to boost the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia and its closest ally, the United States, by destroying Iran’s key ally in the region.
Will Sunni Muslims in Syria — who are the majority — suddenly begin attacking their Shia countrymen and the Syrian government? Unlikely. A compilation of data from humanitarian workers in and around Syria compiled by NATO suggests that:
…70 percent of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.”
The pro-Assad 70 percent is mostly Sunni. This data flies in the face of the constant barrage of western media distortion about what’s happening in Syria. Previous polling compiled last year by Qatar had similar results, and was likewise ignored by the western media.
The above article quoted a source familiar with the data:
The Sunnis have no love for Assad, but the great majority of the community is withdrawing from the revolt… what is left is the foreign fighters who are sponsored by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They are seen by the Sunnis as far worse than Assad.
Syrian Sunnis are likely disgusted by the behavior of the foreign extremists, which include a laundry list of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, as well as the terrorist bombing of a Sunni Mosque that killed the top Sunni cleric in Syria — along with 41 worshipers and 84 others injured. The Sunni cleric was killed because he was pro-Assad.
The recent calls for Jihad by the Saudi and Qatari Sunni leaders are likely in response to the Syrian government scoring major victories against the rebels. The rebels are now badly losing the war, in large part because they’ve completely lost their base of community support.
There are other key rebel supporters now taking urgent action to bolster the flagging rebel war effort. The leader of al-Qaeda, for example, made a recent plea for Sunnis to support the rebels against the Syrian government, while U.S. politician John McCain journeyed into Syria to meet with rebels — later identified as terrorists — to further commit the U.S. to the rebel side.
Meanwhile, The New York Times confirmed that the CIA had increased its already-massive arms trafficking program into Syria, while the European union agreed to drop the Syrian arms embargo, so that even more arms could be funneled to the rebels.
And to top it off, France now says it has proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against the rebels — a UN representative has suggested that just the opposite is the case — while the rebels are desperately trying to incite war between Syria and Israel by attacking the Syrian government on the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Also relevant is that the pro-Jihad religious leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking a giant gamble in their recent anti-Hezbollah proclamations, and risk triggering political instability to these already-shaky regimes, which are hugely dependent on the religious leaders for support.
Hezbollah is still revered throughout the Muslim world for its military defeat of Israel in 2006; and most Muslims will likely be uninterested in waging Jihad in Muslim majority Syria. Also, attacking the Syrian government and Hezbollah would mean allying with Israel and the United States, not an ideal situation for most jihadists.
It’s very possible that the Syrian tinderbox could drag the surrounding Middle Eastern countries into a massive regional war, with Russia and the United States easily within the gravitational pull.
The Syrian conflict could end very quickly if President Obama rejected U.S. support for the rebels and demanded his U.S. allies in the region do the same. Obama should acknowledge the situation in Syria as it exists, and respect the wishes of the Syrian people, who do not want their country destroyed.
Instead, the U.S. is considering arming the rebels even more.
U.S. Senator John McCain revealed the unofficial U.S. government policy for Syria when he said that he would tolerate an extremist takeover of Syria if it weakened Iran.
At this point an extremist takeover of Syria will cost tens of thousands of more lives, millions more refugees, while exploding the region into a multi-country orgy of violence.
The media will blame such genocide on Islamic sectarian violence, and ignore the obvious political motives.
Hopefully, the social movement in Turkey will force the Turkish government out of the western-controlled anti-Syrian alliance, while empowering other Middle Eastern countries to do the same.
Syria – Israel Is Losing the Battle
By Gilad Atzmon | June 7, 2013
In the last week we have been following desperate British and French attempts to push for military intervention in Syria. It is far from being a secret that both governments are dominated by the Jewish Lobby. In Britain it is the ultra Zionist CFI (Conservative Friends of Israel) – apparently 80% of Britain’s conservative MPs are members of the pro-Israeli Lobby. In France the situation is even more devastating, the entire political system is hijacked by the forceful CRIF.
But in case anyone fails to grasp why the Jewish Lobby is pushing for an immediate intervention, Debka, an Israeli news outlet provides the answer. Seemingly, the Syrian army is winning on all fronts. Israel’s military and geo-political calculations have proven to be wrong.
According to Debka, “the battle for Damascus is over”. The Syrian army had virtually “regained control of the city in an epic victory”. The rebels, largely mercenaries, have lost the battle they “can’t do much more than fire sporadically. They can no longer launch raids, or pose threats to the city centre, the airport or the big Syrian air base nearby. The Russian and Iranian transports constantly bringing replenishment for keeping the Syrian army fighting can again land at Damascus airport after months of rebel siege.”
But it isn’t just the capital. Debka reports that “Hezbollah and Syrian units have tightened their siege on the rebels holding out in the northern sector of al Qusayr; other (Syrian army) units have completed their takeover of the countryside around the town of Hama; and a third combined Syrian-Hizballah force has taken up positions around Aleppo.”
Debka maintains that senior IDF officers criticized the Israeli defense minister (Moshe Ya’alon) who “mislead” the Knesset a few days ago estimating that “Bashar Assad controlled only 40% of Syrian territory.” Debka suggests that the Israeli defense Ministry has drawn on a “flawed intelligence assessment and were concerned that the armed forces were acting on the basis of inaccurate intelligence.” Debka stresses, “erroneous assessments… must lead to faulty decision-making.”
Debka is clearly brave enough to admit that Israeli military miscalculations may have led to disastrous consequences. It reports, “the massive Israeli bombardment of Iranian weapons stored near Damascus for Hezbollah, turned out a month later to have done more harm than good. It gave Bashar Assad a boost instead of weakening his resolve.”
Debka is obviously correct. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that an Israeli attack on an Arab land cannot be accepted by the Arab masses, not even by Assad’s bitterest Arab opponents.
Debka maintains that the “intelligence focus on military movements in Syria especially around Damascus to ascertain that advanced missiles and chemical weapons don’t reach Hezbollah laid to a failure in detecting a major movement by Hezbollah militia units towards the Syrian-Israeli border.”
Israel is now facing a new reality. It is facing Hezbollah reinforcements streaming in from Lebanon towards the Golan heights and its border with Syria.
Israel, Debka concludes, will soon find itself “face to face for the first time with Hezbollah units equipped with heavy arms and missiles on the move along the Syrian-Israeli border and manning positions opposite Israel’s Golan outposts and villages.”
Debka is correct to suggest that instead of “growing weaker, Iran’s Lebanese proxy is poised to open another war front and force the IDF to adapt to a new military challenge from the Syrian Golan.”
Rather than The Guardian or Le Monde, it is actually the Israeli Debka that helps us to grasp why Britain and France are so desperate to intervene. Once again, it is a Zionist war which they are so eager to fight.
Sadly enough, it isn’t The Guardian or The New York Times that is there to reveal the latest development in Syria and expose Israeli lethal miscalculations. It is actually a ‘Zionist’ Israeli patriotic outlet that is providing the goods. I actually believe that this form of harsh self-criticism that is embedded in Israeli culture, is the means that sustains Israeli regional hegemony, at least monetarily. This ability to critically examine and disapprove of your own leadership is something I fail to encounter in Western media. Seemingly, the media in Israel is far more tolerant toward criticism than the Zionist dominated Media in the West.
British attempts to blacklist Lebanese resistance movement end in failure
Press TV – June 5, 2013
The UK government has failed in its desperate attempt at the European Union to blacklist the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah as a “terrorist group”, local media reported.
The failure came after Britain was unable to convince its European allies that Hezbollah was behind an attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, according to British media outlets.
The bombing happened last July in the Black Sea resort of Burgas, where five Israeli tourists, a Bulgarian driver and the bomber were killed.
This was considered as a crucial part of the UK government’s rationale to convince the EU to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
However, several EU countries voiced doubt over the evidence linking the resistance movement to the bombing.
Hezbollah enjoys a major political and social standing within the Lebanese society and the EU nation also voiced concerns that blacklisting it could create instability in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, after a one-year probe, the Bulgarian government too was unable to submit credible proof that Hezbollah was involved in the attack.
“An attack takes place and immediately all over the world, governments are saying it was Hezbollah,” said Elena Pavlova, a Middle East analyst based in Sofia. “Yet, we have waited a year and still no one has given any proof.”
Along with local journalist Ruslan Yordanov, she found al Qaida-linked martyrdom videos online, claiming responsibility a day after the bombing in Burgas.
They wonder whether evidence pointing towards alternative perpetrators was deliberately ignored to meet the demands of Israeli and Western governments seeking an excuse to ban Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has also dismissed allegations of involvement in the Burgas plot, and the attempt to blacklist the resistance movement has brought heated responses from Lebanon.
“Any listing of the group as a terrorist organisation will be considered as political provocation,” Lebanon’s acting foreign minister Adnan Mansour, who is seen as close to the Syrian government, said last week. “We know there are Israeli pressures practised on more than one international side in order to accuse Hezbollah of terrorism.”
Enough doubts remain to make several EU governments uncomfortable about blacklisting the group, and the support of all 27 members is needed for the motion to pass.
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15 Saudi ‘hijackers’ were CIA agents working for US: Scholar
Press TV – April 13, 2016
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
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- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
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