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.
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.
Related articles
- Hezbollah’s role in al-Qusayr ~ (DOC) (syrianfreepress.wordpress.com)
- Lebanese fear Gulf expulsion (arabtimesonline.com)
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.
Related articles
- 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.
UN calls for record $5.2 billion aid package for Syria
Al-Akhbar | June 7, 2013
The United Nations on Friday launched a record $5.2-billion aid appeal to fund operations in Syria and neighboring nations, saying the number of people affected by the country’s brutal conflict was set to spiral.
The call for donations comes as the UN expects that 10.25 million Syrians – half the country’s population – will need humanitarian aid by the end of 2013.
The sum of aid being requested overshadows by far the $2.2 billion the UN sought in 2003 to help cope with the crisis sparked by the war in Iraq.
The $5.2 billion represents money needed across this year to pay for operations that have already been undertaken, are ongoing, or are due to be carried out until the end of December.
“The figure for the new appeal is both an expression of the alarm about the situation facing Syrians and an absence of a political solution,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR.
It also marked a more than threefold increase on the $1.5 billion which the UN previously had said that it needed to cover operations this year.
The UN has so far received $1.0 billion of that sum, after launching an appeal last December.
In the latest appeal, the world body said that a total of $3.8 billion was needed to help Syrian refugees who have spilled across the country’s borders to escape fighting in their homeland.
The figure for operations inside Syria meanwhile was $1.4 billion.
According to UN estimates, more than 80,000 people have been killed and some 1.6 million Syrians have fled the country since the civil war began in March 2011 after a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
“The numbers represented in this plan are staggering,” said Amir Abdulla, deputy executive director of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). “They’re not sustainable over the very long term.”
“They represent a tragedy for Syria and a burden on the region,” he told reporters.
The WFP, which has delivered 500 million meals in Syria so far this year, expects its weekly costs to rise from almost $20 million now to $36 million after September. It says it has a funding shortfall of about $725 million.
The WFP’s Syria Regional Emergency Coordinator Muhannad Hadi said: “We have reached a stage in Syria where some of the people, if they don’t get food from the World Food Programme, they simply do not eat.”
The overwhelming majority of the refugees have fled to neighboring Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, which are struggling to cope.
In Jordan, for example, one refugee camp is now the equivalent of the nation’s fifth-largest town.
With the revolt against Assad having morphed into a vicious, drawn-out conflict, the total number of refugees is expected to swell to at least 3.45 million by the end of this year, according to the UN appeal.
Within the country, a total of 6.8 million people are forecast to need aid this year, the majority of them people who have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting.
“These are huge numbers. They are not sustainable over the very long term, which is why we hope that there will be a solution to the situation inside Syria,” said Abdulla.
“We hope that the world will respond, as millions of Syrians displaced in their home country, and refugees in neighboring countries, basically have little else to rely on at this time,” he added.
Syria’s pre-war population was 20.8 million.
“By the end of the year, half of the population of Syria will be in need of aid,” underlined Edwards.
The nature of the Syrian conflict has affected aid efforts, with convoys often having to clear dozens of checkpoints manned by different militias from both sides.
“In other operations, there’s often a front line when you’re dealing with two opposing forces. In this instance you’ve a very complex situation where there are pockets. There is no clear line. You’re dealing with a fragmented opposition who don’t follow a monolithic command and control structure,” said Abdulla.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
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.
Related articles
- UK bid to blacklist Hezbollah fails to get EU backing (independent.co.uk)
- Why is the UK pushing the EU to designate Hezbollah as a “terrorist” group? (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Several injured in Syrian rocket attacks on Lebanon
Al-Akhbar | May 28, 2013
Several people were wounded Tuesday when a barrage of rockets launched from Syria hit Lebanon’s eastern Hermel region, one day after a girl was killed in a similar attack.
The National News Agency said that at least seven rockets struck Lebanon in third straight day of such attacks. They landed only hours after gunmen killed three Lebanese soldiers in nearby Ersal.
Three people were injured when one of the rockets struck a residential home, the NNA said. Several others were “slightly” wounded by another rocket.
The other five rockets landed in fields or uninhabited areas causing no casualties, the report added.
Similar rocket attacks on Hermel left a 17-year-old girl dead and other members of her family injured Monday.
Earlier Tuesday unidentified gunmen opened fire on young Lebanese soldiers manning a checkpoint in the eastern town of Ersal, near the Syrian border, before fleeing.
No one has claimed responsibility for any of Tuesday’s attacks, but rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian government have hit neighboring Lebanon on a number of occasions since the uprising began over two years ago.
Attacks on Lebanon have escalated over the past week as Syrian rebels threatened the country with strikes in what they describe as retaliation for Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war.
On Sunday, two rockets struck a southern suburb of Beirut injuring four Syrian workers. The rockets, launched from hills several kilometers southeast of Beirut, hit the Chiyah district where Hezbollah maintains strong support.
Without explicitly claiming responsibility for the incident, Ammar al-Wawi, a Syrian rebel commander, later told LBCI news that the country should expect more attacks, including on the airport, should Hezbollah fail to withdraw from Syria.
Why is the UK pushing the EU to designate Hezbollah as a “terrorist” group?
By Phil Greaves | notthemsmdotcom | May 22, 2013
A distinct increase of negative coverage has been forming in Western and Gulf press. This focus is specifically regarding Hezbollah’s direct involvement in the battle currently raging to take control of the Syrian town of Qusair; its overall role in Lebanon and the region, and its ties to both Syria’s President Assad, and the government of Iran.
As the Syrian conflict has gone on, Salafi/Jihaddi fighters from at least 30 different nationalities have poured through Syria’s borders, with the tacit approval of various state sponsors of the Syrian ‘opposition’. In turn, and for the best part of two years, compliant media have obliged in their attempts to subvert the Salafi/Jihaddi fundamentalist dynamic that has formed the core of the ‘opposition’s’ fighting force; finally relenting and admitting the fact not a single secular force is fighting against the Syrian Government. Contrary to this wilful ignorance or blatant subversion of facts; Western and Gulf media outlets now deem it their utmost priority to highlight not only Hezbollah’s direct involvement; but indeed, go to great lengths to highlight every single Hezbollah death, injury, movement or sneeze inside Syria.
Several issues need to be addressed in this somewhat disparate state of so-called ‘independent’ media when it comes to coverage of Hezbollah. The first and most glaring point is that demonizing Hezbollah and its supporters falls straight into the propaganda program of Israel and the United States, in their attempts to block resistance to US/Israeli/GCC occupation and expansion. The reasons behind this demonization are clear: the US and Israel are not, now, or anywhere in the future willing to allow Hezbollah to operate on Israels’ northern border unimpeded, and both wish to see the resistance group annihilated. The ‘news’ media will dutifully oblige its paymasters with the required public demonization through assumption of guilt and propaganda.
The Burgas Bombing and implicating Hezbollah
Since the Bulgarian Government announced its findings into the bombing of a tourist bus that killed five Israeli tourists, and a Bulgarian bus driver in July 2012; the western press, AIPAC and neo-con associated DC ‘think tanks’, and western government officials have gone into propaganda overdrive. Using somewhat vague statements from the Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, in a quite liberal manner; these parties with vested interests have determined culpability for the bombing fall’s on Hezbollah. One fundamental issue should be cleared before drawing any conclusion, that is, the Bulgarian Interior Minister’s statement on the issue post-investigation: (my emphasis)
“A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah,”
This is by no means a definitive statement, leaving room for interpretation suggests the Bulgarian minister is not so sure of his convictions. In this New York Times article ,we learn of the supposed damning ‘evidence’ that has led western officials and lackey media alike, to conclude Hezbollah’s’ guilt: (my emphasis)
With help from the United States and Israel, investigators here broke the case — and linked it to Hezbollah — using a tip from a secret source and some old-fashioned detective work, tracing the printer that had produced two forged licenses back to Lebanon….Europol determined that a fake Michigan driver’s license recovered at the scene had come from Lebanon….The identity of the Australian was the second major breakthrough. In September, a European intelligence service tipped off the Bulgarians about an Australian bombmaker of Lebanese descent, the former senior Western official said. The intelligence service said he had moved to Lebanon to join Hezbollah’s military wing. Mr. Tsvetanov said Tuesday that the Australian and the Canadian moved to Lebanon, one in 2006 and one in 2010.
These snippets of anonymous information are quite literally all the evidence that has been provided to date of Hezbollah association in the Burgas bombing. So because the fake ID’s were produced in Lebanon: that proves Hezbollah made them. And because the bombers alleged and, as yet unidentified, accomplices were from Lebanon: that also proves they are “tied to” Hezbollah. Clearly, the ‘evidence’ provided to date is circumstantial, at best. This lack of clear evidence will not stop either western, nor Israeli government officials, and, again, their lackey media and ‘think-tank’ counterparts in apportioning sole responsibility to Hezbollah, giving the ultimate desired outcome of guilt without trial, or indeed, any public evidence.
As investigative reporter Gareth Porter noted in February, the whole Bulgarian report is based on no more than an “assumption” or, “hypothesis” for Hezbollah complicity; yet this report form’s the basis for calls in the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Porter goes on to state:(my emphasis)
Major revelations about the investigation by the former head of the probe and by a top Bulgarian journalist have further damaged the credibility of the Bulgarian claim to have found links between the suspects and Hezbollah….The chief prosecutor in charge of the Bulgarian investigation revealed in an interview published in early January that the evidence available was too scarce to name any party as responsible, and that investigators had found a key piece of evidence that appeared to contradict it.
Karadzhova revealed how little was known about the two men who investigators believe helped the foreigner killed by the bomb he was carrying, but whom Tsvetanov would later link to Hezbollah. The reason, she explained, is that they had apparently traveled without cell phones or laptops…..Only two kinds of information appear to have linked the two, according to the Karadzhova interview, neither of which provides insight into their political affiliation. One was that both of them had led a “very ordered and simple” lifestyle, which she suggested could mean that they both had similar training.
The other was that both had fake Michigan driver’s licenses that had come from the same country. It was reported subsequently that the printer used to make the fake Michigan driver’s licenses had been traced to Beirut.
But Karadzhova’s biggest revelation was that investigators had found a SIM card at the scene of the bombing and had hoped it would provide data on the suspect’s contacts before they had arrived at the scene of the bombing. But the telecom company in question was Maroc Telecom, and the Moroccan firm had not responded to requests for that information.
That provenance of the SIM Card is damaging to the Hezbollah “hypothesis”, because Maroc Telecom sells its cards throughout North Africa – a region in which Hezbollah is not known to have any operational bases but where Al-Qaeda has a number of large organisations.
Morocco is also considered a “staunch ally” of the United States, so it is unlikely that the Moroccan government would have refused a request from the United States to get the necessary cooperation from Moroccan Telecom.
Clearly, anyone claiming Hezbollah was responsible for the Burgas bombing is pushing a somewhat skewed and misinformed agenda. Not only is the ‘evidence’ both flimsy and circumstantial; the chief prosecutor laid doubt on any possible Hezbollah role on live television. Why would Israel, or the US choose not to follow the SIM card? Or even bother to request the Moroccan telecoms company release the information?
Britain launches campaign in the EU
This brings us to recent reports of the British governments renewed attempts to persuade the EU to designate Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organisation. The UK is now pushing the EU for this designation to enable possible sanctions, and the Burgas bombing is a key component in the case against the organisation; the bombing is mentioned in virtually every article on the issue, and has been cited as a reason for Germany’s apparent sway in the UK’s direction.
For Israel, the United States and their GCC partners, the timing could not be better. Again, the hypocrisy is blatant. None of the NATO states that are pushing for terrorist designations against Hezbollah, have a negative word to say on the plethora of militant Salafi/Jihaddi groups they have abetted into Syria; (*other than Jabhat al Nusra*) these groups have not only attacked Syria’s security infrastructure and Government personnel, they have also openly committed massacres, hundreds of car bombings in built-up civilian areas, extra-judicial killings, rape, torture, and looting. But these are the good guys the west are supporting in their valiant fight for democracy in Syria? Or strict Sharia?
As these western/GCC proxies start to lose more and more ground against the Syrian Army, (and Hezbollah have been a key factor in that.) Israel pursues illegal military airstrikes against supposed “game changing” weapons, and the NATO states dutifully push their “diplomatic” pressure in the UN and the EU against Hezbollah under dubious allegation’s. These dynamics are inextricably linked to the Western/Israeli/GCC efforts to block the “Shiite crescent”.
In Lebanon itself, the US/UK et al accuse Hezbollah of being responsible for current conflagration on the Syrian border, which is also flaring up in northern Tripoli; without mentioning the fact Lebanon has been a key route for opposition militants to enter Syria. Since the very start of the Syrian crisis, northern Lebanon and the town of Qusair have been a rebel transit point and stronghold; allowing the free flow of heavily armed militant Salafi/Jihaddi fighters. But this seems to be what western leaders promote, and are indeed making great efforts to support. William Hague talks of “conflict spread” and propagates the falsehood that Hezbollah pose a threat to Lebanese internal security, while the UK and its allies arm, fund, promote, and provide diplomatic cover to the very Salafists Hezbollah is busy defending Shiite villages and Syrian civilians from. The West is supporting the very same democracy spreading Salafi/Jihaddi proxies that completely expelled all Christians from Qusair upon their arrival. Is the west and its allies, in its determination to overthrow the Assad government, and by extension destroy any resistance Hezbollah can muster against Israeli aggression, now supporting ethnic cleansing?
If Hezbollah, who up until the Syrian crisis; peacefully co-existed in a country belonging of 18 different sects no less, and being an active member of Lebanese government and its security infrastructure: are supposed terrorists. Then one has to ask: what are the extremist, sectarian militants the west is supporting supposed to represent? Freedom Fighters? Furthermore, and, considering the insurmountable volumes of evidence of western state-sponsored terror, one must also ask: what purpose, other than further ‘legal’ UN-endorsed western-led military aggression, does the designation of Hezbollah as “Terrorist” ultimately serve?
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From the Archives
British weapons and personnel doing much of the killing in Yemen
Press TV – June 18, 2019
A detailed report published by the Guardian newspaper has shown how Britain is massively contributing to Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen as it suggests that London is not only supplying the bombs that fall on Yemenis, but it provides the personnel and expertise that keep the war going.
The comprehensive report by Arron Merat published on Tuesday showed that Britain was doing much of the killing in Yemen as the country continues to provide Saudi Arabia with everything it needs to turn its southern impoverished neighbor into a graveyard.
“Every day Yemen is hit by British bombs – dropped by British planes that are flown by British-trained pilots and maintained and prepared inside Saudi Arabia by thousands of British contractors,” said Merat in the report. … continue
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