Lebanon elects Hezbollah-backed president

Lebanon's new president, Aoun, and expected prime minister al-Hariri (Photo: AP)

And the march to hand over Lebanon to the Iranians continues ....

The story comes from YNET News.

Lebanon elects Hezbollah-backed president

After a 29-month presidential vacuum, Lebanese parliament elects former army commander Michel Aoun as president; under political deal, Saudi-backed Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri expected to become prime minister.

BEIRUT - The Lebanese parliament elected former army commander and strong ally of the militant group Hezbollah Michel Aoun as president on Monday, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum as part of a political deal that is expected to make Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri prime minister.

Aoun, 81, secured a simple majority of votes in the house after a chaotic session that saw several rounds of voting because extra ballots appeared in the ballot box each time.

He failed to get elected by a two thirds majority in the first round, as had been widely expected, but later managed to garner 83 votes out of 127 lawmakers present at the session, well above the absolute majority of 65 needed to win.

Members of parliament broke out in thunderous applause after Aoun finally was declared president by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. His supporters across the country erupted in cheers as they watched the proceedings on huge screens set up in the streets. Fireworks echoed across Beirut and brief celebratory gunfire could also be heard in the capital. Aoun, an MP, was shown smiling in his seat.

The Lebanese presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian in the country's sectarian power-sharing system.

Aoun's election is seen by many as a clear victory for the pro-Iranian axis in the Middle East, giving a boost to Hezbollah and the Shiite Lebanese group's ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Lebanon has been without a head of state for over two years after President Michel Suleiman stepped down at the end of his term in May 2014. Since then, 45 sessions to elect a new leader have failed due to political infighting that led to of a lack of quorum as Aoun's block and allied Hezbollah lawmakers boycotted the sessions because his election was not guaranteed.

In the end, it took an about-face by former prime minister Hariri, who formally endorsed Aoun for president last week—reportedly in exchange for Aoun promising him the position of prime minister.

Hariri's decision to endorse Aoun marked a major political concession reflecting the diminished role of Saudi Arabia in Lebanon. Saudi had backed Hariri and his allies through years of political struggle with Hezbollah and its allies.

Hariri's own financial misfortunes have also played a big part in bringing about the breakthrough. His political network in Lebanon was hit by a cash crunch caused by financial troubles at his Saudi-based construction firm, Saudi Oger.

Analysts say the position of prime minister, which he previously held from 2009 to 2011, should help him shore up his support ahead of parliamentary elections that are due to be held next year.

Car bomb kills at least three in a Shiite town in Lebanon

Lebanese civilian defense members and policemen inspect the site of a car bomb explosion in Hermel Photo: EPA

The Shiites in Lebanon are paying the price for having Hezbollah in their home towns and in their country as al Qaeda and Sunni-linked groups continue the terror in Lebanon.  Hezbollah's presence in Syria has brought the terror to Lebanon...I just hope every Shia Muslim in Lebanon knows that.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Car bomb kills at least three in a Shiite town in Lebanon


Shiite town of Hermel in northeast Lebanon victim of second bomb attack as explosion kills three people and injures 18 others

car bomb exploded on Saturday near a gas station in a Shiite town in northeast Lebanon, killing at least three people, officials said.

The bomb was the second to hit the town of Hermel, in the latest attack that appeared linked to the war in neighbouring Syria.

Lebanon's Red Crescent said three were killed and another 18 wounded. The organisation initially reported that four people were killed, but later revised the number downwards.

Footage on al-Manar television, associated with the Shiite group Hezbollah, showed a bright orange blaze as black silhouettes of people ran by. Blasts could be heard in the background. Eyewitnesses said Lebanese security was surrounding the area and preventing people from reaching it.

The blast occurred near a school run by a charity group for impoverished children, some of them orphans. An official speaking on al-Manar said no children were injured.

Lebanese groups backing different sides in Syria's sectarian civil war have carried out bombings and other attacks against each other.

Sunni militant groups have claimed responsibility for a relentless series of attacks on Shiite parts of Lebanon, including a bomb that exploded in Hermel in late January. They say it is in retaliation for the Shiite Hezbollah group sending its fighters into Syria's civil war to support forces of President Bashar Assad.

Lebanon's Sunni community has also been hit, most notably by a deadly double car bombing outside Sunni mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in August. A December car bombing in Beirut killed prominent Sunni politician Mohammed Chatah.

In a statement issued Saturday evening, the U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack and "underlined the need to bring perpetrators to justice."

Hezbollah Goes On Trial For Assassination....ONLY 9 Years After the Fact and Accused Are On the Loose

Only in the world of Islamic terrorism would it take a country nearly nine years to bring the obvious assassins of a former leader of the country to trial and again, only in a country that is influenced by that same terror group would all four of the suspected assassin masterminds and participants be no where near the courtroom.

Hezbollah and Obama are similar - nothing ever sticks to them.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Hariri killing meant to spread panic in Lebanon, Hague hears


Nearly nine years after a truck bomb killed former Lebanese PM and 22 others, the trial is starting for four Hizbollah suspects accused of plotting the sectarian assassination.

The huge explosion that killed Lebanese statesman Rafik Hariri and 21 others in 2005 was an act of terror meant to spread panic through the country, a prosecutor said at the start of a trial of four men charged with planning the attack.

The four members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah movement are accused of murder, terrorism and orchestrating the blast on Beirut's waterfront, which almost tipped the country back into civil war.

All four - Salim Jamil Ayyash, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra - remain at large and are being tried in absentia.

"The attackers killed innocent bystanders: a student, a hotel worker, a cousin, a father, a brother, a daughter, friends," said prosecutor Norman Farrell on Thursday.

"The attackers used an extraordinary quantity of high-grade explosives, far more than was required to kill their main target. Clearly their aim was not to ensure that their target was killed, but to send a terrifying message and to cause panic among the population of Beirut and Lebanon," he added.

Hariri was killed in the deadliest of a series of attacks against critics of Syria's military dominance in Lebanon.

His death triggered public protest and led to the establishment of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in The Hague, where prosecutors laid out their case on Thursday.

Hariri's Western supporters hailed the tribunal as a chance to close a long chapter of impunity in Lebanon, where bombers and assassins have operated since the 1975-1990 civil war with little prospect of facing justice in court.

"I've been waiting for this for nine years ... But it's just the beginning," said Anna El Hassan, whose husband Wissam, a Hariri ally, was killed in a bomb blast in Beirut in 2012.

The bomb which killed the billionaire former premier also drove a wedge between Hariri's Sunni Muslim community and Lebanese Shi'ites loyal to Syrian-backed Hezbollah, whose members now stand accused the killing.

That rift has been further poisoned by differences over Syria's civil war, which has drawn Lebanese Sunni and Shi'ite fighters onto opposing sides and has spilled over into deadly sectarian attacks in Lebanon's main cities.

The four men jointly face nine charges and could be sentenced to life imprisonment if found guilty after proceedings expected to last years.

"The evidence, including a considerable amount of telecoms data, leaves marks behind concerning the true identities of the perpetrators," said Farrell.

A large scale model of the scene of the bombing showed the St. George Hotel, in front of which a Mitsubishi van laden with up to 3000kg of high-grade explosives detonated, leaving a massive crater and sending plumes of black smoke into the sky.

The trial is being held in a converted basketball court in the former headquarters of the Dutch intelligence services, a building with its own moat on the outskirts of The Hague.

Coicidence? Al Qaeda Leader Just Happens To Die In Lebanese Jail This Week

Kidney failure.  Yup.  That's what the Lebanese are calling it...haha.  Just coincidentally, after ANOTHER terror bombing in Beirut this week, the leader of al Qaeda in Lebanon, Majid al-Majid, died today from "kidney failure".....yeah, and if you believe that, I have proof that Aisha was 24 when she married Mohammed.

My guess is that they have been torturing this dude since Thursday to give up all of the names of those that carried out the attack and in fact, some Hezbollah probably joined in on the "questioning" and oops, he died.

Can I get an allahu ackbar?

The story comes from DAWN.

Top Al Qaeda commander dies in Lebanese jail



BEIRUT: A Lebanese army general says the leader of an Al Qaeda-linked group that has conducted attacks across the Middle East before shifting its focus to Syria's civil war has died in custody in Lebanon.

The general says the detainee, Majid al-Majid, died on Saturday after suffering kidney failure. The general spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Al-Majid, a Saudi citizen was detained in Lebanon late last month and had been held at a secret location.

He was the purported commander of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and one of the 85 most-wanted individuals in his native Saudi Arabia.

The US State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organisation in 2012, freezing any assets it holds in the United States and banning Americans from doing business with the group.

Hezbollah Brings More Revenge Terror Death To Its Own Neighborhood, 4 Killed In Bombing In Beirut

There really should be no mourning or anger in Beirut over the latest terrorist bombing that claimed at least 4 lives as those people in that neighborhood asked for it...they invited it...they allowed Hezbollah in to run their neighborhood, they allowed Hezbollah to house rockets in their neighborhood...so when Hezbollah decided to go into Syria and kill Sunnis, did they really think no retaliation was coming?

Choke on your dead.  If you lie down with dogs, you will get fleas.  Or blown up.

The story comes from The Washington Post.

Bomb explodes in Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut, killing at least 4


BEIRUT — A car bomb killed at least four people in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday, a grim start to the new year as escalating tension between Sunnis and Shiites threatens to propel Lebanon into full-blown sectarian conflict.

The bombing in the Shiite neighborhood of Haret Hreik, which is controlled by Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, was the second in the capital within a week, affirming an increasingly frequent pattern of retaliatory bombings in recent months.

Ambulances rushed victims away from the scene of the blast — on a residential street lined with grocery stores and cafes — while soldiers searched parked cars amid fears of a second explosives-rigged vehicle.

The increasingly familiar scene of shattered glass and twisted metal left little doubt that Lebanon’s slide toward conflict is accelerating as the country becomes embroiled in the broader sectarian rivalries threatening to engulf the region.

While Iran-backed Hezbollah is deeply entangled in the Syrian conflict, having sent thousands of fighters to shore up forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Sunni Lebanese fighters have also crossed the border to back the rebels, leaving Lebanon polarized.

Thursday’s explosion did not appear to target any of the many Hezbollah offices or institutions in the area, but it was clearly intended to send a political message.

It came just six days after the assassination of a prominent Sunni politician in a car bombing in downtown Beirut, which many of his political allies blamed on Hezbollah. Tensions were then exacerbated Wednesday with reports of the arrest of Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, a Saudi national who heads the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. The local al-Qaeda affiliate had asserted responsibility for several attacks on Shiite targets, including a November bombing at the Iranian Embassy that killed 23 people.

“We aren’t afraid, and we aren’t leaving,” said 25-year-old Rasha Moussawi, who said she was thrown off her feet by the blast as she went to buy food, but escaped with minor injuries. “Even if there are 100 explosions, we will stay here for Hasan Nasrallah,” she said, referring to Hezbollah’s leader.

Speaking from the blast site, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil confirmed that at least four people had died. Seventy-seven were injured, 10 critically, he said.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the accelerating cycle of violence. Outside Bahman Hospital, where many injured were taken, a family clutched each other in grief after hearing of the death of a 27-year-old woman who relatives said had been out buying vegetables when the bomb exploded.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” her sister screamed, collapsing to the floor.

Security officials said they were investigating whether the blast was a suicide bombing after human remains were found inside the remnants of the vehicle. The army said the car, a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee, was packed with 64 pounds of explosives.

It was the third bombing in less than a year to hit Beirut neighborhoods that support Hezbollah. In August, meanwhile, 47 people were killed in a double car bombing targeting two Sunni mosques in the northern city of Tripoli.

An intensifying rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, compounded by the tensions ignited by the war in neighboring Syria, has aggravated long-standing disputes between Lebanon’s Sunni and Shiite political factions, said Rami Khouri, head of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut.

“Lebanon has become part of the wider regional confrontation, which is manifesting itself in these local bombings,” he said. “There is open warfare between these two groups, though who is setting them off we don’t know.”

No one immediately asserted responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but a Hezbollah lawmaker linked it to the turmoil in Syria.

“For us, this is an attack intended to destroy Lebanon,” Bilal Farhat told the local al-Jadeed television station, referring to the bombers. “They want Lebanon to be in chaos, with death and destruction, like Syria.”

Clashes immediately broke out in Tripoli after the blast, killing at least one person, according to the official National News Agency. The city has been the scene of frequent battles between pro- and anti-Assad gunmen.

“The disputes taking place on the ground in Lebanon are bigger than the internal security forces can solve,” the country’s caretaker interior minister, Marwan Charbel, warned Thursday.

Lebanon’s political factions have been unable to agree on the composition of a new government since April, leaving the country largely leaderless, and a new push by the biggest Sunni faction to form a cabinet independently of Hezbollah has drawn threats of action from the Shiite movement.

Adding to tensions was a pledge this week from Saudi Arabia to donate $3 billion to the Lebanese army, the only institution capable of challenging Iran-backed Hezbollah, the country’s most powerful military force.

“We hope that it doesn’t get worse,” said Ali Halbawi, 35, who lives a block from the bomb site. “But if the beginning of the year is something to judge by, then it is going to get worse.”

Lebanon arrests head of Qaeda-linked group: minister

 Civil defence personnel carry a wounded man at the site of explosions near the Iranian embassy in Beirut November 19, 2013. Reuters/File Photo

From DAWN.

Lebanon arrests head of Qaeda-linked group: minister


BEIRUT: Lebanese troops have arrested the leader of the al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed a double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut in November, the defence minister told AFP Wednesday.

Majid al-Majid, the “emir” of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, “was arrested by the intelligence services of the Lebanese army in Beirut”, Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn said, without specifying when the arrest took place.

“He was wanted by the Lebanese authorities and is currently being interrogated in secret,” the minister added.

Saudi Arabia's interior ministry also confirmed that Majid Mohammed Abdullah al-Majid, a Saudi citizen, was on a list of 85 suspects wanted by the kingdom.

The Azzam Brigades was designated in the United States as a “terrorist organisation” in 2012, and has in the past claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

The group was formed in 2009 and is believed to have branches in both the Arabian Peninsula and Lebanon, with the latter named after Ziad al-Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen who participated in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Lebanon branch has sporadically fired rockets into northern Israel since 2009 and the Brigades also claimed responsibility for the 2010 bombing of a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

It is named for the Palestinian mentor of the late al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. He was killed in a 1989 bomb blast.

According to Islamist sites, Majid was revealed to be the leader of the Brigades in 2012.

On Wednesday, a Twitter account belonging to Sirajeddin Zreikat, a member of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, appeared to have been suspended.

Zreikat had claimed responsibility in the group's name for the November 19 double bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut that killed 25 people.

The attack came amid rising tension in Lebanon over the role of the Iran-backed Shia movement Hezbollah in the war in neighbouring Syria.

Hezbollah, which like Iran is allied with the Syrian regime, has dispatched its fighters to battle the uprising alongside government troops.

In claiming the Iran embassy bombing, Zreikat warned of more attacks in Lebanon if Hezbollah kept sending troops to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

In 2009, Lebanese authorities sentenced Majid in absentia to life in prison for belonging to a different extremist group, the al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam.

That organisation was involved in heavy fighting with the Lebanese army in 2007 in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, in which more than 400 people were killed, including 168 soldiers.

After the fighting, many members of the group took refuge in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian camp, which is believed to house numerous Islamist extremists.

A Palestinian official in the camp told AFP on Wednesday that Majid had left Ain al-Helweh in mid-2012 for Syria.

“With the war in Syria, we decided that (non-Palestinian) Arab citizens would not be allowed to remain in the camp, after information that jihadists were fighting alongside the rebels,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“He left the camp with five Saudis and Kuwaitis and they went to Syria. We didn't know that he had returned to Lebanon.”

Beirut car bomb kills Lebanese anti-Syria figure, four others dead

It appears that Hezbollah has retaliated against some of Lebanon's anti-Syria leadership members as a massive car bomb killed five people today including one of the leaders of a coalition back the anti-Assad groups in Lebanon.  This fallen leader's last action before being blown up was to send a tweet that degraded Hezbollah.

If there is a silver lining in all of this, it's the fact that Hezbollah is now forced to carry out bombings in Beirut and not in Israel.

The story comes from Times of India.

Beirut car bomb kills Lebanese anti-Syria figure


BEIRUT: A huge car bomb rocked central Beirut on Friday, killing five people including an influential member of a coalition opposed to the Syrian regime, and leaving cars ablaze and buildings wrecked.

State news agency NNA said that Mohammad Chatah, 62, died as he headed to a meeting of the March 14 coalition at the mansion of ex-prime minister Saad Hariri, in the city centre. Dozens were injured.

Footage broadcast by Future TV showed people on fire, others lying on the ground, some bloodied, as well as the mangled remains of a burning car. Some people were seen walking around dazed and shocked. Ambulances as well as security reinforcements rushed to the stricken area, where large crowds had gathered.

The blast sent thick black smoke scudding across the capital's skyline and over the Serail, a massive complex that houses the offices of the Lebanese prime minister.

NNA news agency gave an initial toll of five people killed and more than 50 wounded in the blast, and said that more than 10 buildings in the area were badly damaged.

The Serail, which sits atop a man-built hill and towers over a vibrant city centre, was destroyed in the 1975-1990 civil war.

It houses the parliament building, banks, modern glass buildings, shops, cafes and restaurants.

"We were opening our store when we heard the blast. It was really loud. We are used to blasts in Lebanon but not in this area. Now we are not safe anywhere," said Mohammad, 23, a shop attendant in the stricken area.

Ziad, a 37-year-old businessman whose office is located near the scene of the attack, told AFP: "Chatah was a really respectful person. He was very nice. I was so shocked he has been killed."

Asked whether he felt safe in the country, which has suffered a string of explosions in recent months, Ziad said: "If I had the chance to take my wife and children somewhere else, I would."

The attack was a grim reminder that the violence that tore Lebanon apart during the civil war is never far away, and comes as a war is raging across the border in Syria.

The 33-month conflict, which has reportedly killed more than 126,000 people, has deepened political and sectarian divisions in Lebanon, and sparked often deadly fighting between opponents and supporters of the Syrian regime.

Chatah, an influential economist and former minister of finance and Lebanon's envoy to Washington, had served as adviser to ex-premiers Fuad Siniora and his successor Saad Hariri.

Hariri heads the anti-Syria March 14 coalition, a group which emerged after his billionaire father and ex-premier Rafiq Hariri was killed in a massive Beirut seafront car bombing in February 2005 that was blamed on Syria.

The coalition backs Syrian rebels who have been battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces since mid-March 2011 in a bid to topple his regime.

The powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, a nemesis of the March 14 coalition, has sent militants to fight alongside Syrian regime troops against the rebels, triggering the wrath of many at home.

An hour before he was killed Chatah, a Sunni figure, tweeted a message slamming Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah is pressing hard to be granted similar powers in security & foreign policy matters that Syria exercised in Lebanon for 15 years," he said, in reference to Syria's nearly 30-year military and political hegemony in Lebanon that ended after Rafiq Hariri's murder in 2005.

President Michel Sleiman warned in November that Hezbollah's involvement in Syria was a threat to Lebanon's "national unity and civil peace".

His comments to mark the 70th anniversary of Lebanon's independence came just two days after a double suicide bombing struck the embassy of Iran, an ally of both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime, killing 25 people, and weeks after bombings struck Hezbollah's southern Beirut bastion.

Lebanon has been without a government for months over deep divisions between Hezbollah and the parties opposed to its involvement in Syria. Friday's bombing came as Lebanese celebrated the Christmas festivities.

Israeli soldier killed as Lebanese sniper opens fire at border crossing

From The Telegraph.

Israeli soldier killed as Lebanese sniper opens fire at border crossing


An Israeli soldier was killed on Sunday when a Lebanese sniper opened fire in a normally quiet area of the border between the two countries, and a U.N. peacekeeping force said it was working with both sides to keep the incident from escalating.

Israel’s military said in a statement that a sniper from the Lebanese Armed Forces had shot at an Israeli vehicle driving near the Rosh Hanikra border crossing.

Israel has lodged a complaint with the U.N. force in southern Lebanon and had heightened its state of preparedness along the border, spokesman Peter Lerner said.

“We will not tolerate aggression against the State of Israel, and maintain the right to exercise self-defence against perpetrators of attacks against Israel and its civilians,” he said.

Lebanese sources said they had lost contact with the Lebanese soldier after the shooting, which took place at the western tip of the border region across which Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fought a 34-day war in 2006.

The U.N. force, UNIFIL, said they had been informed about “a serious incident” at the border.

“We are now trying to determine the facts of what happened and the situation is ongoing,” spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. “UNIFIL’s force commander is in contact with counterparts in the Lebanese and Israeli army, urging restraint.”

Tenenti said both sides were cooperating with UNIFIL after the incident, which he said appeared to have happened on the Israeli side of the Blue Line dividing Lebanese and Israeli forces.

Israel Retaliates In Lebanon For Rockets Fired Into Northern Israel, Terror Group Hit By Israeli Air Force

I absolutely love it.  It took nearly zero time for the Israelis to launch a retaliatory strike inside of Lebanon this morning in response to the firing of four rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel - the reports are pretty vague but the statement by the Israeli military confirms that their target was hit.

It's my guess that there's a whole pile of dead jihadis and rocket firing weapons smoldering as I type.

The story comes from DAWN.

Israel raid in Lebanon targeted Palestinian group: report


BEIRUT: An Israeli air force attack in southern Lebanon on Friday targeted the position of a Palestinian group close to the Syrian regime, hours after militants fired four rockets at the Jewish state, Lebanon's national news agency reported.

“The air force of the Israeli enemy launched a raid on a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) at dawn in the Naameh valley,” the agency said referring to the group headed by Ahmad Jibril and known for its support to Bashar al-Assad.

PFLP-GC spokesman Ramez Mustapha told AFP the “Israeli air force launched a shell on the Naameh valley around 4:00 am, without causing any victims or damage”.

But he denied any link between his group and rockets fired at Israel on Thursday.

An Israeli army statement earlier said its air force “targeted a terror site located between Beirut and Sidon in response to a barrage of four rockets launched at northern Israel yesterday”.

“The pilots reported direct hits to the target.”

Two of the four rockets fired from Lebanon on Thursday had hit populated areas, causing damage but no injuries.

Lebanon Turns Red With Blood, 12 Lebanese Soldiers Killed In Fighting With Sunni Cleric's Forces

It doesn't appear that Lebanon's version of an Arab Spring is going to be one of flowers and "democracy" as over the past 24 hours, 12 Lebanese soldiers have been killed by the followers of a Sunni cleric and the military still doesn't have the situation under control.

Perhaps the Lebanese military was expecting Hezbollah fighters to take on this uprising....oh, but wait, all of the Hezbollah jihadis are over in Syria trying to save Assad's ass.

The story comes from Times of India.

Lebanon clashes rage overnight; 12 soldiers dead


BEIRUT: Lebanon's military forces battling followers of a hard-line Sunni Muslim cleric closed in on Monday on the mosque where they are taking cover in a southern coastal city, the national news agency said. It said a total of 12 soldiers had been killed since fighting erupted a day earlier.

The clashes in Sidon, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Beirut, is the latest bout of violence in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria. It is the bloodiest yet involving the army. At least three of those killed are officers.

The National News Agency said the clashes also left fifty wounded. The report said it was not clear how many gunmen were killed or wounded in the clashes, nor whether there were civilian casualties.

The heavy fighting with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades has caused panic among residents of Sidon, Lebanon's third largest city, which until recently had been largely spared the violence hitting other areas.

The city streets appeared largely deserted on Monday, and local media reported many residents were asking for evacuation from the area of the fighting, a heavily populated neighborhood in the city. The news agency said a government building was hit. The local municipality said that the city is "a war zone," appealing for a ceasefire to evacuate the civilians and wounded in the area.

Many people living on high floors came down or fled to safer areas, while others were seen running away from fighting areas carrying children. Others remained locked up in their homes or shops, fearing getting caught in the crossfire. Gray smoke billowed over parts of the city.

The fighting broke out on Sunday in the predominantly Sunni city. The army says supporters of Sheik Ahmad al-Assir opened fire without provocation on an army checkpoint.

It tied the attack to the war in neighboring Syria. Al-Assir is a virulent critic of the powerful Shiite militant Hezbollah group, which along with its allies dominates Lebanon's government. He supports rebels fighting to oust Syria's President Bashar Assad.

Early on Monday, al-Assir appealed to his supporters through his Twitter account in other parts of Lebanon to rise to his help, threatening to widen the scale of clashes.

The tweets did not give a clear statement on how the battle began. It came after a series of incidents pitting the cleric's followers against other groups in the town, including Hezbollah supporters and the army.

Fighting also broke out in Ein el-Hilweh, a Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, where al-Assir has supporters. Islamist factions inside the camp lobbed mortars at military checkpoints around the camp.

Sectarian clashes in Lebanon tied to the Syrian conflict have intensified in recent weeks, especially Hezbollah sent fighters to support Assad's forces. Most of the rebels fighting to topple Assad are from Syria's Sunni majority, while the president belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Clashes in Lebanon have also mostly pitted Sunni against Shiite. The most frequent outbreaks have involved rival neighborhoods in the northern port city of Tripoli, close to the Syrian border.

The clashes in Sidon centered on the Bilal bin Rabbah Mosque, where al-Assir preaches. The cleric is believed to have hundreds of armed supporters in Sidon involved in the fighting. Dozens of al-Assir's gunmen also partially shut down the main highway linking south Lebanon with Beirut. On Monday, they opened fire in other parts of the city, with local media reporting gunshots in the city's market.

By Sunday evening, the army had laid siege to the mosque, sealing off access to it from all directions.

The military openly linked the clashes of Sidon to the conflict in Syria said in a statement Sunday. It said the attacks on its forces by al-Assir supporters were unprovoked, and accusing the cleric of seeking to "incite strife" in Lebanon. The military vowed to hit back with an "iron fist."

President Michel Suleiman called for an emergency security meeting later Monday.

Arab Spring....Coming To Lebanon?

The story comes from DAWN.

Clashes in Lebanon as PM Mikati’s resignation accepted


BEIRUT: Fighting intensified in northern Lebanon on Saturday as outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for a “salvation” caretaker government to take over, a day after he resigned due to a political standoff with the Hezbollah movement.

Local media reported that President Michel Suleiman had accepted Mikati’s resignation, which could plunge Lebanon into further turmoil and uncertainty three months before a planned parliamentary election.

The politically volatile country is struggling to cope with a spillover of violence and a wave of refugees from the two-year-old civil war in Syria, the country’s larger neighbour which has close ties to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Mikati’s resignation has sparked fresh clashes in Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli, where residents said fighting intensified on Saturday evening to include heavy weaponry such as mortar bombs.

Lebanese forces trying to clamp down on the unrest began returning fire in the districts where fighting had broken out, residents said, but were unable to halt the violence.

Tripoli is home to a Sunni Muslim majority largely supportive of Syria’s Sunni-led uprising, and they have sporadically clashed with a small enclave of pro-Hezbollah minority Alawites – the same sect to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The tensions have increased over the resignation of Mikati, a Sunni. Supporters of Mikati burnt tyres and blocked roads in Tripoli on Friday when he announced he would step down.

Security sources said one man in Tripoli’s Alawite neighbourhood was killed by sniper fire on Saturday afternoon.

No updated toll was available after clashes flared in the evening.

Deadlocked Government

Mikati’s resignation on Friday came after a ministerial meeting was deadlocked by a dispute with Hezbollah.

The Shia militant and political movement has dominated Lebanese politics in recent years and helped put Mikati into office after toppling the previous government.

“Now it is important for dialogue to begin and for a salvation government to be established during this difficult period,” Mikati wrote on his official Twitter page after handing in his resignation to the president. “I thank God that I left office the same way I came in, with integrity.”

Hezbollah opposed extending the term of a senior security official, Major General Ashraf Rifi, and the creation of an oversight body for the planned June election, which may now be delayed after the collapse of Mikati’s government.

Rifi, head of Lebanon’s internal security forces, is due to retire early next month. He, like Mikati, is a Sunni Muslim from Tripoli, and is distrusted by Hezbollah.

Putting together a caretaker government could take months.

It took Mikati five months to construct his government after he became prime minister in 2011 when Hezbollah and its partners
brought down the unity government of Saad al-Hariri.

But tensions over Syria have put him at odds with the group that brought him to power and which strongly backs Assad in the Syrian civil war.

Under Lebanon’s division of power, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the president a Maronite Christian and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.

Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a close political ally of Hariri who had frequently called for Mikati to step down, said the resignation “opens the possibility of fresh dialogue” between Lebanon’s political camps.

Mikati had sought to distance his country – which fought its own 15-year-long civil war – from Syria’s strife.

The influx of Syrian refugees, as well as Lebanon’s own political divisions, have caused a sharp slowdown in Lebanon’s economy and a 67 percent surge in its budget deficit last year.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for calm in a statement after Mikati’s resignation.

“At this challenging time for the region, the secretary-general calls on all parties Lebanon to remain united behind the leadership of President Suleiman,” the statement said.

“He also calls on them to work together with the institutions of the state to maintain calm and stability, to respect Lebanon’s policy of disassociation (in Syria) … and to support the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces in sustaining national unity, sovereignty and security.”

Al Qaeda, Barack Hussein Obama, Beirut, Drones, Iran, Lebanon, Middle East, Russia, Syria, US Foreign Policy, US Military,

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle

Today an US drone was shot at in International Air Space by Iranian Forces.  It was repelled by US fighter Jets which are now flying escort for US drones.

The Syrian High Command issued an ultimatum to the Lebanese government to stop supporting the rebels or they will send their Air Force to strike the convoys and bases.

The Russian Navy decided not to have 3 warships dock at Tartus but diverted them to Beirut.

From Debka:

Middle East tensions are spiraling sharply six days before US President Barack Obama lands in the Middle East. Thursday night, March 14, an Iranian fighter jet tried to bring down a US Predator drone flying over Oman, i.e. the Straits of Hormuz - only to be warned off by flares from its US fighter escort.

This was not the first time a US drone was threatened by Iranian aircraft over the Persian Gulf, but in reporting the incident, the Pentagon revealed that the drones flying in the neighborhood of Iranian shores are now escorted by US jet fighters. A couple of hours earlier that evening, debkafile received an exclusive report from its military sources that the Syrian high command had just issued an ultimatum, on the orders of Bashar Assad, demanding that the Lebanese government put an immediate stop to the passage of armed Sunni fighters from Lebanon into Syria, else the Syrian Air Force would strike the Lebanese intruders’ convoys and also their home bases. Damascus claimed they were coming to fight the government alongside the al Qaeda-linked Jabrat al-Nusra.

Their incursion threatened to engender a major spillover of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon.

The danger of hostilities inching close to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Moscow maintains a naval base, decided the Russian Navy to instruct three warships carrying 700 marines to Tartus to change course and put in at Beirut instead.

The Iranians are openly supporting and fighting for Assad.  Al Qaeda is striving to take the Golan Heights, itching for a fight with Israel.  The Russians don't know which way to turn.  Support Assad or flee from the violence.  The UN peacekeepers on the Syrian-Israeli border have fled to Israel.  A patrol was kidnapped by al Qaeda.

All this on the eve of President Barack Hussein Obama's visit to the region.  A good example of his foreign policy in action.

Senior Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Assassinated In Syria On His Way From Damascus To Lebanon

So this story was out yesterday that a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was assassinated when his convoy was hit inside of Syria.  The part that I don't think other sites took note of was his destination.

From the article at The Telegraph:

General Hassan Shateri was killed on Tuesday in an ambush on the way from Damascus towards the Lebanese capital

So here's my question - since WHEN are Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders and troops hanging out in Lebanon?  Another question - does this mean that the Lebanese government is complicit with all actions by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?  Hmmmm.   One has to wonder just how deep the Iranian influence is in Lebanon right now - I wonder, has Hezbollah taken full control in Lebanon and in order to safeguard or expand that control, has Iran sent the Revolutionary Guard into that country?

Iran commander assassinated in Syria

General Hassan Shateri was killed on Tuesday in an ambush on the way from Damascus towards the Lebanese capital, the Iranian authorities said. They blamed the attack on Israel.

Gen Shateri was also in charge of the Iranian of the Iranian Committee for the Reconstruction of Lebanon, set up after the devastating war in 2006 between Israel and the Iran supported Shiite Hezbollah militia.

He died "at the hands of Zionist regime mercenaries and backers," the force's spokesman, Ramezan Sherif, said in the statement.

The circumstances of his death and the purpose of his visit in Syria were still murky yesterday. The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir claimed Mr Shater had been "in Aleppo, to study projects to reconstruct the city"; a claim that was rejected as "laughable" by opposition figures in the city that is currently in the grip of full-scale war.

Last month, US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford accused Iran of fighting alongside Syrian president Bashar al-Assad against the Sunni-majority insurgency. "They are sending arms, they are sending other kinds of experts, and in fact we know that they are sending Iran Revolutionary Guard members," said Mr Ford.



Israeli jet planes were reported to have bombed a military base on the outskirts of Damascus last week. Western diplomats told the Daily Telegraph they believed that the Syrian regime may have been transferring surface to air missiles to Lebanon, into the hands of the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, with whom Israel is still at war.

Residents of the Shia district of Dahiyeh in the Lebanese capital Beirut expressed fury at the death of Mr Shatari who they said had been responsible for re-building their livelihoods. The neighbourhood that was flattened during the war with Israel now gleams with new mosques and high-rise buildings, paid for by Iran.

"He is famous here. He did such a good job here. He was a financial man with a good brain. He was a hiring master who brought in the construction companies," said one resident.

"Entire areas are still destroyed in the United States because of Hurricane Katrina. But here Martyr Shateri rebuild everything in just two years," said one commander.

Sources inside the Hezbollah militia told the Daily Telegraph they had known that Mr Shateri was targeted for assassination for a long time, and that arrests had been made of men suspected of planning an attack.

Israel has been accused using its secret service or proxy agents to murder Iranian targets before. Four Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in the past two years in what Iran, and many other countries have said are Israeli maneouvres in a proxy war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Gen Shateri was shot dead by rebels.

"We do not know exactly where he was shot, but we do know that a rebel group ambushed his vehicle while en route from Damascus to Beirut," the Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

US Secretary of State John Kerry offered a grim reminder of the costs of continued violence on Thursday saying that as 90,000 people may have been killed in the two years of fighting in Syria.

He spoke as it emerged that rebel fighters had shot down two fighter jets on Thursday, and the seized town of Shadadeh, near the Iraqi border, in a fourth straight day of blows to the Assad regime.

Mr Kerry said that Mr Assad should accept the "inevitability" of his departure.

A new peace plan proposes creating a 140-member senate body that would manage dialogue between the regime and the Syrian opposition and be supervised by the United Nations.

The plan, seen by the London-based newspaper Sharq al-Awsat, says that Faruq al-Sharaa, Syria's vice president, should head the senate and optimistically predicts an "immediate ceasefire".

Arab Spring Comes To Lebanon? Protesters Clash With Police in Beirut

Beirut is on the head of a pin right now as protesters over the assassination of the head of Lebanon's intelligence services was assassinated are calling for the overthrow of the current Prime Minister.  It's just another domino in the chain of Arab Spring scenarios across the Middle East where the Islamists continue to start fires in each and every country and then fan those flames into total chaos and then finally some sort of civil war.

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Lebanese protesters clash with police in Beirut


An official said security forces had fired in the air.

Witnesses said at least two protesters had fainted, apparently as a result of tear gas fired by security forces after protesters breached an outer barrier around the prime minister's offices.

Hundreds of protesters, waving flags from the anti-Syrian opposition Future Movement – a mainly Sunni Muslim party – and Christian Lebanese Forces as well as black Islamist flags, marched on Mikati's offices after the funeral of Wissam al-Hassan.

They accused Syria of being behind Hassan's killing and called for Mikati to resign.

During funeral orations for Hassan, angry former premier Fuad Siniora called on Mikati to resign, adding his voice to many others since Hassan was killed in a car bombing on Friday.

Siniora, parliamentary chief for opposition leader Saad Hariri, said the "government is responsible for the crime that killed Wissam and his chauffeur. That is why he must go."

"Mikati, you cannot stay in your post to cover up this crime," he said. "If you stay, it means you agree with what happened and what will happen."

The opposition has widely accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the attack, which killed two other people and wounded 126.

Syria's Assad Tries To Draw Lebanon Into War...Lebanon's Top Intelligence Official Victim of Car Bomb Attack

When the bombing first happened this morning in Beirut, Lebanon...there were many possibilities as to who carried out the car bombing but now the smoke has cleared and it was clearly an assassination attempt that succeeded in killing the most senior intelligence official in all of Lebanon and every finger in Lebanon is pointing to Syrian President Bashir Assad for the attack.

From the report at The Telegraph:

Gen Wissam al-Hassan, head of Lebanon's internal security forces and a known thorn in the side of the Bashar al-Asssad's Syrian regime, was fatally injured when a car packed with explosive detonated outside one of his homes.

The blast in the predominantly Christian quarter of central Beirut resulted in scenes reminiscent of the dark days of Lebanon's civil war.

Ambulances ferried scores of dead and wounded to several hospitals, where doctors struggled to cope with the influx of bloodied victims.

Within an hour Sunni Muslims took to the streets in protest, burning tyres in strongholds throughout the capital and in the eastern Bekaa valley region.

"We accuse Bashar al-Assad of the assassination of Wissam al-Hassam, the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese," former prime minister and opposition chief Saad Hariri told a Lebanese TV station.

Hariri's father, Rafik al-Hariri, was killed seven years ago in a bombing which an international tribunal has blamed on Damascus and Hezbollah.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a longtime critic of Damascus, said: "I openly accuse Bashar al-Assad and his regime of killing Wissam al-Hassan." The prospect that Syria's war might spread to Lebanon has increased after fighting broke out in February between supporters and opponents of Assad in the northern city of Tripoli.

Now, Lebanon is a patchwork of more factions than you can shake a stick at with Sunni Muslims, the Shia Hezbollah, the Christians and of course, the Druze - it's been a country that has literally been ripped apart by civil war in the past - perhaps on the bright side, this might just spur some Sunnis in Lebanon to retaliate not at Assad in Syria but at his little puppets in Lebanon...Hezbollah.  One can hope.

Beirut bomb blast kills Lebanon's most senior intelligence official


Gen Wissam al-Hassan, head of Lebanon's internal security forces and a known thorn in the side of the Bashar al-Asssad's Syrian regime, was fatally injured when a car packed with explosive detonated outside one of his homes.

The blast in the predominantly Christian quarter of central Beirut resulted in scenes reminiscent of the dark days of Lebanon's civil war.

Ambulances ferried scores of dead and wounded to several hospitals, where doctors struggled to cope with the influx of bloodied victims.

Within an hour Sunni Muslims took to the streets in protest, burning tyres in strongholds throughout the capital and in the eastern Bekaa valley region.

The prospect of violence exploding Lebanon sparked international appeals for calm.

French President Francoise Hollande's office released a statement saying: "The head of state calls on all Lebanese politicians to maintain unity in Lebanon and protect it from all destabilisation efforts no matter where they come from." The Vatican condemend the attack adding that the attack was "contrary to efforts and commitments to maintaining peaceful coexistence in Lebanon." Last night some Lebanon's most senior politicans openly accused the Assad regime of carrying out of an assasination plot.

"We accuse Bashar al-Assad of the assassination of Wissam al-Hassam, the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese," former prime minister and opposition chief Saad Hariri told a Lebanese TV station.

Hariri's father, Rafik al-Hariri, was killed seven years ago in a bombing which an international tribunal has blamed on Damascus and Hezbollah.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a longtime critic of Damascus, said: "I openly accuse Bashar al-Assad and his regime of killing Wissam al-Hassan." The prospect that Syria's war might spread to Lebanon has increased after fighting broke out in February between supporters and opponents of Assad in the northern city of Tripoli.

The war in Syria has pitted mostly Sunni insurgents against Assad, who is from the Alawite sect linked to Shia Islam.

Amid rising tension in Lebanon, Shia fighters with the Hezbollah group have been fighting on Assad's side, while Syrian rebels have used Lebanon to supply forces fighting the Syrian regime.

Yesterday's huge bomb rocked the central Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh at the rush hour time of 2.45pm, as parents went to collect their children from school.

The force of the explosion blew away the windows of almost every home and business along the narrow street. Entire balconies were sheared off the apartment buildings near the explosion, crushing vehicles below.

Residents staggered shell shocked around the scene as firemen worked to put out the flames that licked the buildings and ambulance workers dragged away the dead.

"My daughter! My daughter! My God where is my daughter!" a woman screamed, sobbing heavily as she searched through the wreckage of a building for her three-year-old child.

An elderly man sat alone in one of the damaged buildings, staring silently at his devastated living room as blood ran down his face from a cut on his forehead. The balcony on his third story home had crumbled away and the force of the blast had smashed all the French windows, his coffee glass table and television.

"The bomb exploded on a street outside one of his homes. He had been travelling and arrived there late last night," a personal friend of Gen Hassan told the Daily Telegraph.

The blast occurred only 200 meters from the headquarters of the Christian party, the Phalange which is outspoken against the Syrian regime. It was also just a few streets away from the home of the former Lebanese information minister, and key Damascus ally Michel Samaha.

Gen Hassan's Internal Security Forces had arrested Samaha earlier this year and accused of transporting up to 20 bombs into Lebanon from neighboring Syria with the intention of wreaking havoc across the country.

A close alley of the anti-Syrian regime 14 March bloc Gen Hassan had also lead the investigation of the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri that implicated Syria and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Khattar Abou Diab, a Middle East expert at the University of Paris, said the attack was clearly linked to the Syria crisis.

"This is now revenge against a man who confronted the Syrians and revenge against a district, a Christian district in the heart of Beirut. Regional powers are fighting in Syria and now also want to fight in Lebanon," he said.

Omran al-Zoabie, Syria's information minister rejected the accusations: "We condemn this terrorist explosion and all these explosions wherever they happen. Nothing justifies them." Syria had long played a major role in Lebanese politics, siding with different factions during the civil war. It deployed troops in Beirut and parts of the country during the war and they stayed until 2005.

The prospect that its civil war might spread to Lebanon has long been a source of concern for Lebanese politicians and citizens alike.

Clashes have frequently erupted in the Sunni majority town of Tripoli since February, escalating into a violence that has seen dozens killed.

But this is the first time that the violence has seriously reached Beirut.

The last serious assassination by car bomb to occurred in 2005 when Prime Minister Hariri was killed.

Tension between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Christians in Lebanon has continued after the civil war but has increased with the Syria conflict. Friday's event further polarized Lebanons multi-sect community, that is already divided between those supporting Assad and those backing the rebels trying to overthrow him.

U.S. Court Makes Iran Pay $813 Million To the Families Of Our Marines Slaughtered In 1983 Beirut Bombing

I'd rather see the mullah and Ayatollah of Iran pay with their lives but $813 million going to the families of the 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors killed in the 1983 Beirut terror bombing is a start.  Now, if we can get a $1.4 billion judgement against Hezbollah, I'll be smiling even wider.

From the report at Gulf News:

A US federal judge has ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million (Dh2,99 billion) in damages and interest to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon.

“After this opinion, this court will have issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of the 1983 Beirut bombing,” Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in a ruling this week, a copy of which was seen on Friday by AFP.

“Iran is racking up quite a bill from its sponsorship of terrorism,” the Washington judge added, noting that “a number of other Beirut bombing cases remain pending, and their completion will surely increase this amount.”

On October 23, 1983, 241 American soldiers, including 220 Marines, were killed in Beirut when a truck packed with explosives rammed through barricades and detonated in front of the US barracks near Beirut’s international airport.

The attack was one of the deadliest ever against Americans.

I'd hoped that this judge would make the stipulation that for every hour that Iran misses the deadline for paying these fines, we take out one Iranian commander from their military - if they want to take 148 hours to pay the tab, that's fine...we'll have 148 dead Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders dead in a heap, stacked like cord wood.  Sounds fair to me.

US court fines Iran $813m for 1983 Beirut attack


Washington: A US federal judge has ordered Iran to pay more than $813 million (Dh2,99 billion) in damages and interest to the families of 241 US soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon.

“After this opinion, this court will have issued over $8.8 billion in judgments against Iran as a result of the 1983 Beirut bombing,” Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in a ruling this week, a copy of which was seen on Friday by AFP.

“Iran is racking up quite a bill from its sponsorship of terrorism,” the Washington judge added, noting that “a number of other Beirut bombing cases remain pending, and their completion will surely increase this amount.”

On October 23, 1983, 241 American soldiers, including 220 Marines, were killed in Beirut when a truck packed with explosives rammed through barricades and detonated in front of the US barracks near Beirut’s international airport.

The attack was one of the deadliest ever against Americans.

The same day, in a coordinated attack, 58 French paratroopers were killed by a truck bomb at the French barracks in Beirut.

The twin bombings have been blamed on Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.

Lamberth, whose ruling was delivered on Tuesday, wrote that “no award — however many billions it contained —could accurately reflect the countless lives that have been changed by Iran’s dastardly acts.”

The nearly $813.77 million verdict is the eighth against Iran resulting from the 1983 bombing.

In 2007, under a law allowing foreign governments to be sued in US courts, the same judge ordered Iran to pay $2.65 billion to victims’ families, an amount he wrote at the time “may be the largest ever entered by a court of the United States against a foreign nation.”

“The court applauds plaintiffs’ persistent efforts to hold Iran accountable for its cowardly support of terrorism,” Lamberth wrote in this week’s ruling.

“The court concludes that defendant Iran must be punished to the fullest extent legally possible for the bombing in Beirut on October 23, 1983. This horrific act impacted countless individuals and their families, a number of whom receive awards in this lawsuit,” the federal court in Washington added.

Israel Sends Dire Warning To Hezbollah - Don't Even THINK About Retaliation To Israel Attack On Iranian Nukes

UN peacekeepers stand guard on the Lebanese borders Photo: REUTERS

I absolutely LOVE this strategy of warning Hezbollah and Lebanon long before any potential attack the Israelis make on the nuclear facilities in Iran - and believe me, this is one of the sternest warnings I've ever seen the Israelis make.

From the report at The Telegraph:

Any Hizbollah retaliation to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would prompt Israel to launch a war in Lebanon so ferocious that it would take a decade to rebuild the villages it destroys, a senior Israeli military officer has warned.

Now that's calling a spade a spade and it's another reminder to the Lebanon government that their embracing of Hezbollah into mainstream politics in that country will cost them in ANY kind of war or military operation.  Believe me, there are plenty on the Israeli side who have felt the sting of not being able to turn everything loose on Lebanon back in the last war - and the Lebanese know they are in deep, deep shit if Hezbollah acts independently in a retaliatory strike on Israel.

Israel warns Hizbollah over Iran


Any Hizbollah retaliation to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would prompt Israel to launch a war in Lebanon so ferocious that it would take a decade to rebuild the villages it destroys, a senior Israeli military officer has warned.

Despite the inevitable international outcry, Israel would be left with no choice but to lay waste to swathes of southern Lebanon because Hizbollah has entrenched itself so deeply within the civilian population, he said.

The unusually stark warning comes after months of heightened speculation that the Israeli government is considering unilateral military action against Iran's nuclear installations despite opposition from the United States.

Although the prospect of an attack in the next few months is unlikely until after Israelis vote in a September general election, Ehud Barak, the country's defence minister, recently insisted that military strikes had not been ruled out.

Israel has always been aware of the heavy price it could incur from such an attack, with Iran able to retaliate through Hizbollah and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza. Both Islamist movements have long been funded and armed by Tehran and have built up vast stockpiles of rockets capable of reaching deep into Jewish territory.

But Israel has also sensed an unexpected opportunity as a result of the Arab Spring, which has significantly diminished Tehran's regional clout.

Hamas has begun to reorient itself towards the resurgent Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and is seen as increasingly unlikely to join a regional war should Iran come under attack.

Unlike Sunni Hamas, Hizbollah remains far more dependant on its fellow Shia patrons in Iran but its popularity in the Arab world has suffered because of its support for the Assad regime in Syria, which has long backed the group.

Hoping to drive a wedge between Hizbollah and Lebanon's Sunni and Christian communities, the officer urged the Lebanese people not to be drawn into a war for which they, rather than Iran, would bear the brunt of Israel's anger.

"The situation in Lebanon after this war will be horrible," the officer, a senior commander on Israel's northern border with Syria and Lebanon, said.

"They will have to think about whether they want it or not. I hope that Iran will not push them into a war that Iran will not pay the price for but that Lebanon will."

Israel drew international condemnation in 2006 when it last launched military action against Hizbollah in an offensive that is believed to have killed more than 1,000 people, many of them civilians.

But the officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Israel had taken too cautious an approach in the conflict, leading to the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers.

No such mistake would be made in the next conflict, he said, especially as Hizbollah had built military sites in the centre of many villages and towns in southern Lebanon. Pointing to a satellite map of the town of Khiam, he identified a series of buildings that the movement had allegedly taken over for military purposes.

"In these villages where Hizbollah has infrastructure I will guess that civilians will not have houses to come back to after the war," he said.

"The Lebanese government has to take this into consideration. Many of the villages in southern Lebanon will be destroyed. Unfortunate, but we will have no other solution. The day after (we attack) the village will be something that it will take 10 years to rebuild."

Since the war in 2006, Hizbollah has acquired a stockpile of 50,000 rockets of greater sophistication and range than it had before and is capable of striking at Tel Aviv, more than 70 miles away, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.

The conflict in Syria has also made it easier for Hizbollah to smuggle weapons into Lebanon, the officer said, and there is concern that some of the Assad regime's stockpile of chemical weapons could end up in the group's hands.

Lebanon, Doing the Bidding of Hezbollah, Intercepts Ship Loaded With RPG's For Syrian Rebels

It appears that the al Qaeda elements in Libya sent a fairly large cargo of RPG's on a ship headed for a northern Lebanese port - those arms were for the Syrian rebels to fight against the Assad regime but the Lebanese intercepted the ship and the cargo.  This is a case of the Lebanese government stopping the arming of terrorists in Syria because of their allegiance to Hezbollah while, of course, for years, the Lebanese government didn't raise a finger to stop a single shipment of arms and rockets to Hezbollah coming in from Syria.


The story comes from The Jerusalem Post.

Lebanon intercepts Syria-bound smuggling ship


BEIRUT - Lebanese authorities have found weapons on board a ship intercepted in the Mediterranean which may have been trying to supply Syrian rebels, security sources said on Saturday.

They said the ship, the Lutfallah II, was on its way to Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli when it was intercepted and taken to Selaata port, north of Beirut, for inspection.

An overnight search uncovered weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and rifles in three freight containers, the sources said.

The Sierra Leone-flagged ship had sailed from Libya, via the Egyptian port of Alexandria, the sources added.

Syrian authorities have repeatedly said weapons are being smuggled from neighboring countries, including Lebanon, to arm rebels fighting President Bashar Assad.

Lebanon's mainly Sunni Muslim city of Tripoli has seen frequent demonstrations in support of anti-Assad protesters and insurgents. There have also been armed clashes between minority Alawites - from the same sect as Assad's ruling family - and majority Sunnis.

Last week, the Israel Navy intercepted the HS Beethoven cargo ship 260 km off Israel's coast, suspecting that it was being used to smuggle arms to Gaza. After a 12-hour search, the IDF declared that did not find any weapons aboard and allowed the ship to continue on its path.

Two weeks ago, Germany intercepted the Atlantic Cruiser, suspecting that it was being used to smuggle arms to Syria. The ship was towed to a Turkish port, where officials failed to find evidence of arms smuggling.

Head of Fatah-al-Islam In Lebanon Killed In Syria When His Own Bomb Blows Him To Bits

 Abdel-Ghani Jawhar was the head of Fatah-al-Islam

You know, it's quite a fitting end when an islamic terrorist dies from his very own bomb that detonates jussssst  a wee bit early and it's an even bigger bonus when a scumbag like this is busy trying to bomb the likes of Assad's troops in Syria.  Well, the head of Fatah-al-Islam, one of the largest terror groups in Lebanon, apparently had traveled to Syria to join the fight against Assad when his end came the other day.  Considering the fact that Abdel-Ghani Jawhar was blown into a hundred bits, does that mean he gets 72 virgins x 100 in paradise?

The story comes from The Telegraph.

Lebanon's most wanted Islamist terrorist 'killed planting bombs for Syrian rebels'

 Jawhar was said by security sources quoted in the Lebanese media to have been killed in Qusayr, near the embattled city of Homs. According to one report, he blew himself up when a bomb he was preparing detonated prematurely.

 He was the head of Fatah-al-Islam, a militant group that had fought the official Lebanese army and other militias. It is alleged to have loose ties with al-Qaeda, and is certainly part of a wider network of militant Sunni groups whose involvement in the Syrian opposition has alarmed not only potential western backers but also the opposition itself. “They are growing quickly, it’s true,” Bassma Kodmani, principal spokesman of the Syrian National Council, told The Daily Telegraph. She said groups of fighters from outside the country were coming in with “a different agenda”. Jawhar, believed to be in his 30s, originally joined the Muslim Brotherhood but became progressively more radical, becoming leader of Fatah-al-Islam two years ago.

 An expert bomb-maker, he was said to have masterminded attacks on both the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers. A second leader, Walid Boustani, who escaped from prison in Lebanon in 2010 and also went to Syria, is said to have been killed by members of the Free Syrian Army after an argument. Qusayr has been bombarded by the Syrian regime’s forces for months, but half remains under rebel control, despite a major tank assault which was beaten off last Thursday. Although the FSA, which answers to the Syrian National Council, is largely a mixture of defectors and local residents without political affiliation, some semi-independent units have been formed of more radical Islamists, including the Farouq Battalion, which operates in Homs and Qusayr. These have been increasingly accused of persecuting residents in pursuit of a religious agenda beyond the uprising’s goal of unseating the regime. On occasion it is overtly sectarian – targeting the non-Sunni, Alawite minority from which the Assad family comes. One Sunni businessman, who called himself “Abu Salah”, said he had fled Homs with his family after members of the Farouq battalion beat him for not attending Friday prayers at the local mosque, or protests afterwards. “Three times men with long beards came to my house,” he said. “One said to me: ’The people running the country are Alawites, they have no religion. Why don’t you come and join your Sunni brothers?’ He was holding a machine gun. When I told him I did not want to be part of it, three men beat me.” Abu Salah said he had noticed a change in the sermons preached in the Old City where he lived. “I was brought up a moderate Muslim. Now many of the mosques are Salafi. Some of the speeches I heard called for Syria to be an Islamic emirate.”

The regime has claimed the rebels are “terrorists”, blaming bombings in Damascus and Aleppo on al-Qaeda. Opposition groups claim the bombings were the work of Syrian intelligence, designed to discredit them, and that the regime is turning a blind eye to foreign jihadists entering the country for the same reason. A bomb in Damascus yesterday injured three people, while three security officers were killed, all in apparent defiance of the current ceasefire. On Monday, scores of civilians in Hama were killed in an assault by regime forces, apparently in retaliation for protests made in the presence of ceasefire monitors. There is little doubt that the Islamist presence – from the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood to radical Salafis – has grown as the uprising has dragged on. Probably only a small minority among the Islamists are aligned to the wider, al-Qaeda-led militant agenda, but even leaving that minority aside the presence of Salafis and other radical elements threatens the emergence of the pluralistic democracy demanded by the opposition’s leaders. Sheikh Hashem Minkara, a Salafi leader in northern Lebanon, said he knew followers were crossing to fight ’jihad’ in Syria. “I had a lot of people come to me and tell me they want to go to fight in Syria. I know for sure there is money. The family of FSA fighters from here are being given $330 per month.” Mrs Kodmani said that there was a difference between “home-grown” Islamists who the SNC was trying to ensure remained subject to their control, and foreign fighters. She said that without efforts to unify the opposition, such groups would play a bigger role. From Homs, a prominent activist, Waled al-Fares, issued his own warning: “If the world’s countries leave us and don’t care about us, we will ask all fighting Arabs to enter Syria.”

Israel Finally Lays It Out ....ALL Lebanese Targets Are Fair Game For Retaliation If Hezbollah Attacks

FINALLY! I have been waiting for this for seven years - for Israel to finally declare that every bloody thing in Lebanon is fair game for Israeli military operations if Hezbollah attacks Israel. I said many, many months ago that when Hezbollah entered the formal government of Lebanon, that Lebanon became a terrorist state and that Israel should then be free to bomb and attack any government building, any Lebanese troops or military installation and any other site in the whole country of Lebanon.

And that is what has now happened. According to The Jerusalem Post:

Israel will attack Lebanese government targets during a future war with Hezbollah, senior defense officials said amid speculation that a war could erupt in the North following a future strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“It was a mistake not to attack Lebanese government targets during the [Second Lebanon] War in 2006,” a senior defense official explained. “We will not be able to hold back from doing so in a future war.”

After the outbreak of the 2006 war, the official said, the US asked Israel to refrain from bombing Lebanese government targets so as not to weaken the prime minister at the time, Fuad Siniora, who was aligned with the West.

Israel complied and restricted its bombings to Hezbollah targets.

“This will not be the same in the future, particularly now that Hezbollah and the government are effectively one and the same,” the official said.

First off, the Lebanese government is gonna be shitting bricks over this announcement and will be nervous as cats on a hot tin roof over their lack of control over Hezbollah. Secondly, tough shit. It's time the Lebanese pay for harboring, abetting, and building up Hezbollah. You sleep with dogs, you get JDAMs up your ass.

‘Lebanese targets fair game in future Hezbollah war’


Israel will attack Lebanese government targets during a future war with Hezbollah, senior defense officials said amid speculation that a war could erupt in the North following a future strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“It was a mistake not to attack Lebanese government targets during the [Second Lebanon] War in 2006,” a senior defense official explained. “We will not be able to hold back from doing so in a future war.”

After the outbreak of the 2006 war, the official said, the US asked Israel to refrain from bombing Lebanese government targets so as not to weaken the prime minister at the time, Fuad Siniora, who was aligned with the West.

Israel complied and restricted its bombings to Hezbollah targets.

“This will not be the same in the future, particularly now that Hezbollah and the government are effectively one and the same,” the official said.

In general, the IDF has significantly boosted its “target bank” since the 2006 war. Today’s bank is said to contain thousands of Hezbollah targets, compared to the approximately 200 that the IDF had on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah abducted reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Hezbollah is believed to have amassed over 50,000 rockets and missiles, and most of the weaponry is thought to be stored in some 100 villages throughout southern Lebanon.

The new thinking regarding bombing government institutions is part of a revised IDF strategy on how to damage Hezbollah and facilitate a faster end to a war than the 34 days it took in 2006. The guerrilla group, which embeds its military capabilities within civilian infrastructure, does not have a clear power base, which if destroyed could help end such a war.

Talk of the possible bombing of Lebanese government targets comes as Israel prepares for a possible war with Hezbollah that could result from either an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities or a preemptive strike to stop the transfer of sophisticated weaponry from Syria to Lebanon.

Western countries have prepared various contingency plans for such a scenario, including the possible bombing of a convoy if it were detected, as well as the possible insertion of commando forces to secure the chemical stockpile if and when Syrian President Bashar Assad falls.