... Israel's sins and omit the rest are both misleading and dishonest..
Israeli intelligence: Iraq
financed attacks
GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT.COM
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Iraq recruited Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic allies to carry out the suicide attacks around the United States, according to Israeli intelligence.
Israeli officials and intelligence analysts said the suicide hijackings that downed the World Trade Center and destroyed parts of the Pentagon was too large an operation for any one group. The analysts said the operation was also too big even for a coalition of Islamic terrorists headed by Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is accused of masterminding the bombings of the U.S. embassies in eastern African in 1998.
Intelligence sources briefed the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on late Tuesday, hours after the catastrophe in New York and Washington. The sources were quoted as telling the Cabinet that a Middle East government was probably the sponsor of the attack.
The most likely sponsor for such an attack, the sources said, is Iraq. The Baghdad regime has long maintained an alliance with Bin Laden and Islamic groups.
"All the steps lead to him [Bin Laden]," Reuven Paz, a leading expert on Islamic terrorism, said. "Of all the countries, Iraq seems the most reasonable [candidate]."
In Baghdad, Iraqi state television appeared to welcome the bombings. The television said the spate of attacks demonstrated the vulnerability of the United States.
"The massive explosions in the centers of power in America, notably the Pentagon, is a painful slap in the face of U.S. politicians to stop their illegitimate hegemony and attempts to impose custodianship on peoples," the television said. "It was no coincidence that the World Trade Center was destroyed in suicidal operations involving two planes that have broken through all U.S. security barriers to carry the operation of the century and to express rejection of the reckless U.S. policy."
"The collapse of U.S. centers of power is a collapse of the U.S. policy, which deviates from human values and stands by world Zionism at all international forums to continue to slaughter the Palestinian Arab people and implement U.S. plans to dominate the world under the cover of what is called the new [world] order," the television added. "These are the fruits of the new U.S. order."
The Israeli Cabinet was informed that the United States might launch a massive attack on Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming days. The sources said such an attack could prompt a regional war.
On early Wednesday, Afghanistan appeared to have been a target of retaliation. Several bombings were heard in the Afghan capital of Kabul. U.S. officials denied that their country was responsible.
In the aftermath of the suicide bombings in the United States, Israel closed its air space. Israel also warned the Palestinian Authority to immediately stop all attacks against the Jewish state.
http://www.freedomdomain.com/Templemount/9_12a.html
ican711nm wrote:blatham wrote:Why did Israel, in contravention of International Law, drop cluster bombs into civilian neighborhoods? Because it is what they do.
Because bombing enemy combatants in civilian neighborhoods is what Israel does to defend its people, when enemy combatants shoot rockets at them from civilian neighborhoods.
By the way, Blatham, "in contravention" of what "International Law"?
A tad of research will answer that for you.
UN CHARTER Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Selective quoting is never good. That's why it's helpful to post a link to the complete story.
However, the article does seem to confirm that Hezbollah staged the attack, as well as a diversionary attack, and Israel reacted immediately, later in that day even with "dozens of targets throughout Lebanon, including Hezbollah outposts and several bridges over the Awali River".
I would say that is a massive attack. (So does the article.) And I would say that this was in a direct reaction to the initial Hezbollah attack, but not, as you put it, a "direct result of Hezbollah launching thousands of Syrian/Iranian furnished rockets into Israeli civilian neighborhoods".
blatham wrote:ican711nm wrote:blatham wrote:Why did Israel, in contravention of International Law, drop cluster bombs into civilian neighborhoods? Because it is what they do.
Because bombing enemy combatants in civilian neighborhoods is what Israel does to defend its people, when enemy combatants shoot rockets at them from civilian neighborhoods.
By the way, Blatham, "in contravention" of what "International Law"?
A tad of research will answer that for you.
In other words, Blatham, you don't know "in contravention" of what "International Law."
But Blatham have you done "a tad of research?" I think not, because otherwise you would be aware of this:
Quote:UN CHARTER Article 51
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Because bombing enemy combatants in civilian neighborhoods is what Israel does to defend its people, when enemy combatants shoot rockets at them from civilian neighborhoods.
Article 33
No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
Hezbollah's Rocket Strategy
By Andrew McGregor
Rockets are not new weapons, nor are they strangers to Middle East warfare. Size, range and destructive power are all factors in the development of rocket-based strategies, the ultimate of which was the "Mutually Assured Destruction" of the Cold War. The rockets used by Hezbollah in the ongoing conflict with Israel are much smaller and are usually integrated elsewhere within the tactics of the battlefield. Hezbollah is known for innovation, however, and has developed new strategic uses for their unguided rockets, employing them as political, economic and psychological weapons. As stated by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres on August 6, "Nobody understands why they started to attack, what the purpose of the attack was and why they are using so many rockets and missiles."
"Little Kate" (The Katyusha)
The chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee described why Hezbollah has been able to keep the rockets flying despite extreme military pressure from Israel: "Hezbollah separated its leadership command-and-control system from its field organization. It created a network of tiny cells in each village that had no operational mission except to wait for the moment when they should activate the Katyusha rocket launchers hidden in local houses, using coordinates programmed long ago" (San Francisco Chronicle, July 21).
The 122mm Katyusha (range: 20-25 kilometers) is the mainstay of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal. "Katyusha" is somewhat of a generic term today, covering a wide variety of small, unguided, solid-fuel rockets produced by a number of countries, including Iran. The Katyushas all have a common origin in the Soviet BM-8 and BM-13 truck-mounted rocket launchers that were used against the German army in 1941. Fired in short-range volleys of as many as 48 rockets at a time, they had an immediate military and psychological impact on German troops.
Hezbollah usually fires their version of the Katyusha one at a time from improvised launching facilities. Some Katyusha-type multiple-rocket launching systems were specifically designed to be dismantled into single units for guerrilla use. In 2001, the first truck-mounted launching systems were reported in Hezbollah's arsenal, making more effective volley-launches possible. There are some recent instances of volley-firing, such as the attacks on the Israeli town of Acre on August 3.
Once in the air, the cheaply-made Katyushas are remarkably difficult to stop. A few years ago, Israel and the United States cooperated in a joint project to develop a "Tactical High Energy Laser" (THEL) to bring down such rockets by igniting the warhead in mid-air through the use of a high-energy chemical laser. In tests the system successfully destroyed several Katyusha rockets, but mobility difficulties and technical concerns related to the chemical fuel led to a cut in funding for the project in 2004. Research is underway on a more-portable version with an electrically powered laser, but production of this costly system is still years away.
The unguided Katyusha is not intended to strike a specific target. Rather, it is designed to be fired with 16 or more of its kind in a salvo that rains destruction upon a certain area, preferably a troop concentration, massed armor or fortified emplacements. By firing Katyusha-type rockets singly (often into sparsely occupied parts of Israel) Hezbollah has forgone the tactical use of this weapon for strategic purposes. Here Hezbollah signals its mastery of media warfare; the media covers wars like a sporting event, with the scorecard being the most important element in determining who is winning. Besides the daily updates of the number of troops killed, the number of civilians killed and the number of air-raids launched, the media also dutifully records the daily tally of rockets fired. Despite causing insignificant physical damage, each rocket arrives like a message of defiance, a signal to the Arab world that Israel is not invincible. Hezbollah routinely looks for new uses for existing weapons in its arsenal, and in this case they have transformed a battlefield weapon into a means of political warfare.
Bringing Tel Aviv in Range
The introduction of longer-range Iranian-made Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets (also known as the Ra'ad, or by the Hezbollah name "Khaibar") has given the conflict a new dimension, with Hezbollah no longer restricted to hitting the thinly populated Israeli north. The 240mm Fajr-3 has a range of 45 kilometers and carries a 45 kilogram warhead, while the 333mm Fajr-5 has a range of 70-75 kilometers and carries a 90 kilogram warhead. Both systems are usually truck-mounted. The Fajr-5 was first used in the July 28 attack on the Israeli town of Afula, then again in an attack on the West Bank town of Jenin on August 3. At the extreme limits of their range, the Fajr-type rockets are accurate only to within a one kilometer radius.
An Iranian official recently confirmed that Zelzal-2 rockets, with a stated range of 200 kilometers (although this figure may be significantly exaggerated), had been provided to Hezbollah by Iran for use "in defense of Lebanon" (Haaretz, August 5). The 610mm Zelzal-2 is a 3,500 kilogram rocket with a 600 kilogram high-explosive warhead, first delivered to Revolutionary Guard units in Lebanon in 2002. Israeli intelligence believes the missile is capable of reaching the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. Although the rocket is unguided and difficult to use, the threat from the Zelzal-2 is taken seriously, with U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile systems deploying near Netanya to guard Tel Aviv. The Patriot system is useful only against larger, longer-range rockets, with no effectiveness against the smaller Katyusha types.
On August 3, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah made a televised offer to Israel to stop firing Hezbollah rockets in exchange for an end to Israeli air strikes in Lebanon. The Shiite leader warned, however, that Hezbollah would fire its rockets at Tel Aviv if the Israeli Air Force attacked Beirut (al-Manar TV, August 3). It is possible that Hezbollah requires Iran's permission to attack Tel Aviv. The largest weapons in Hezbollah's missile arsenal are likely to be at least partially manned by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Grapes of Wrath Revisited
The current Israeli operation bears a great similarity to Israel's 1996 "Grapes of Wrath" operation: a massive military response to Hezbollah's launching of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel despite the occupation of the Israeli "security zone" in southern Lebanon. Proclamations that it was time to end the "Katyusha menace" came to nothing as the offensive had little effect on Hezbollah's rocket capabilities and took few Hezbollah lives at a great cost to Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah rocket launches were carefully tallied by the Lebanese public as a measure of the movement's success on the battlefield. The Shiite movement was strengthened politically through armed resistance to Israel, while the Israeli government of Shimon Peres lost the next election.
Following the 2000 evacuation of the south Lebanese security zone, Israel refrained from responding directly to Hezbollah provocations along the border in mid-2001 and spring 2002. The Israeli government was aware that targeting Hezbollah would bring a flurry of rockets across the border, followed by an inevitable escalation and probable re-occupation of a region that Israel had just evacuated. For a time, at least, renewed war in south Lebanon carried too high a political price.
Conclusion
Hezbollah's rocket strategy has successfully disrupted all activities in northern Israel, forcing 300,000 Israelis into shelters or refugee camps, and impressing upon Israelis that building a wall around their country is not enough to ensure permanent security. Israel's war is incredibly expensive, and the deployment of the reserves creates an economic drain that is difficult for a small state like Israel to sustain. As long as Hezbollah can continue to send rockets across the border, it strikes an economic blow on its enemy. Continuing to fire the rockets also goads Israeli ground forces into military confrontation with the guerrillas on ground that Hezbollah has prepared for six years.
The size of Israel's proposed security barrier keeps changing with the realization that even an occupation up to the Litani River (a zone 28-35 kilometers deep) will keep only Hezbollah's short-range Katyushas from reaching Israel. A measure of this reality (and the importance of the "scorecard") was reflected in the August 1 televised remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "I believe one can say today…that there is no way to measure this war according to the number or range of the rockets being fired at us. From the very first day, neither I, nor the defense minister, nor the Israeli government, nor the military leadership—and this is to its credit—ever promised for even one moment that when the fighting ended, there would be absolutely no rockets within firing range of the State of Israel. No one can make such a promise" (Israel TV Channel 1, August 6).
The resistance of Hezbollah fighters, the severity of the Israeli bombing campaign and the inability of Israel to halt the rockets has resulted in unusually broad popular support for Hezbollah both in Lebanon and a politically frustrated Arab world. When ceasefire negotiations begin, it will now be difficult for the Arab regimes that opposed Hezbollah at the beginning of the conflict (particularly Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) to ignore Hezbollah's calls for at least diplomatic support from the Arab states. In the meantime, Hezbollah's rocket campaign continues to destroy little militarily while it accomplishes much politically, economically and psychologically.
Hezbollah rockets kill eight in Haifa
Sunday 16 July 2006, 13:27 Makka Time, 10:27 GMT
Smoke rises from a train station in Haifa after a rocket attack
Rockets fired by Hezbollah have killed eight people in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, according to medics.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, warned Lebanon of "far-reaching" consequences after the attacks by the armed Lebanese group on Sunday morning.
The Israeli army said that it had warned civilians to leave south Lebanon.
Shortly afterwards Israeli air force jets bombed the house of a senior Hezbollah official in southern Lebanon. An Aljazeera correspondent in Lebanon reported that at least 10 people were killed or injured in the attack.
In Haifa, Israeli medics said more than a dozen people had also been wounded in the Hezbollah attacks. The city of 260,000 was hit by at least 20 rockets, including one that struck a train station.
Israeli authorities have declared a 48-hour period of martial law in northern Israel.
Hezbollah said the latest attacks were in retaliation for Israel's killing of civilians and destruction of Lebanese infrastructure during the past five days.
"After the Zionist enemy exceeded all limits killing and destroying ... the Islamic Resistance announces that it bombarded the city of Haifa with dozens of Raad 2 and Raad 3 rockets at 9am (0600 GMT)," Hezbollah said in a statement.
Deadliest
The attacks are Hezbollah's deadliest rocket strikes in at least 10 years. Hezbollah usually hits Israeli border towns and this is the first time that Haifa has been reached.
In the last five days Hezbollah has fired about 400 rockets into Israel, killing at least 16 civilians.
Israel has killed at least 80 Lebanese civilians since Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed two others in a cross-border raid on Wednesday.
On Friday and Saturday the Israeli air force also struck several Hezbollah targets across Lebanon. The attacks levelled the group's headquarters in south Beirut and hit the movement's television station Al-Manar.
Hezbollah Rockets Kill 12 in Israel
Hezbollah rockets kill 12 in northern Israel; Israel strikes southern Lebanon, killing 14
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 6, 2006
By JOSEPH PANOSSIAN Associated Press Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(AP)
(AP) Hezbollah guerrillas unleashed their deadliest barrage of rockets yet into northern Israel, killing at least 12 people, while Israeli bombardment killed at least 14 people in southern Lebanon as fighting only intensified despite a draft U.N. cease-fire resolution.
Hezbollah and its allies rejected the draft resolution, saying its terms for a halt in fighting do not address Lebanon's demands _ in a signal that the nearly 4-week-old battle will burn on.
Both sides appeared to be aiming to inflict maximum mutual damage in the few days before the U.S.-French draft resolution is voted on by the U.N. Security Council.
Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets late Sunday on the port city of Haifa, injuring dozens of people, in the heaviest attack on Israel's third largest city since fighting began.
News reports said one person was killed, and emergency services said more than 30 people were injured. A Haifa fire department spokeman said one crowded residential district suffered five or six hits and there were many casualties.
Hezbollah fired a volley of 80 rockets at several other Israeli towns. One of them made a direct hit on a crowd of people at the entrance of the communal farm of Kfar Giladi, killing 11 people, rescue workers said.
It was the highest toll from a rocket attack since the conflict began on July 12. Israel's Channel Two television reported that nine of those killed were reserve soldiers.
A forest burst into flames from the 15-minute barrage and huge plumes of gray smoke rose into the air. Other rockets hit the nearby town of Kiryat Shemona, damaging a synagogue.
When word of the rocket strike reached the Israeli Cabinet during its weekly meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "Lucky that we are dealing with Hezbollah today, and not in another two or three years," according to a participant in the meeting.
In southern Lebanon, dozens of Israeli strikes hit communities and roads, with some villages bombed continually for a half-hour, security officials said. Explosions rang across Beirut as warplanes fired more than six missiles into the capital's southern districts.
Ground fighting also raged along a stretch of territory on southern Lebanese border that the Israeli army has invaded.
The U.S.-French resolution for a cease-fire marked a significant advance after weeks of stalled diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. But getting the two sides _ particularly Hezbollah _ to sign on will likely require a greater push. Israel has said it won't halt its offensive until Hezbollah rockets are silenced.
The plan also envisions a second resolution in a week or two that would authorize an international military force for the Israel-Lebanon frontier and the creation of a large buffer zone in southern Lebanon, monitored by the Lebanese army and international peacekeepers.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed the draft resolution was aimed at stopping the large-scale violence to allow a focus on the underlying problems in the conflict.
"It's the first step, not the only step," she said at a news conference in Washington.
Lebanon's parliament speaker, who represents Hezbollah in negotiations, said the plan was unacceptable since it would leave Israeli troops in Lebanon and does not deal with Beirut's key demands _ a release of prisoners held by Israel and moves to resolve a dispute over a piece of border territory.
"If Israel has not won the war but still gets all this, what would have happened had they won?" Nabih Berri said. "Lebanon, all of Lebanon, rejects any talks and any draft resolution" that do not address the Lebanese demands, he said.
Hezbollah's two key allies, Iran and Syria, also rejected the resolution _ suggesting they back a continued fight by the guerrillas.
"The United States, which has been supporting the Zionist regime until today, has no right to enter the crisis as a mediator," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a phone conversation with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Assad said the presence of international forces with extensive power in Lebanon would cause anarchy in the country, according to a report on Ahmadinejad's official Web site.
On a surprise visit to Lebanon, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said the U.S.-French cease-fire plan was "a recipe for the continuation of the war" unless Israeli troops first withdrew from Lebanon.
In a bit of saber-rattling, Moallem said Syria's armed forces were under orders to respond immediately to an Israeli assault on his country, something Israel repeatedly has pledged it would not do.
"If Israel attacks Syria by any mean, on the ground, by air, our leadership ordered the armed forces to reply immediately," he said after emerging from a meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.
In the day's deadliest Israeli strike in Lebanon, missiles also flattened a house in the village of Ansar, near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, killing a man and four of his relatives, Lebanese security officials said.
Another strike overnight killed three people in al-Jibbain, a village about 2.5 miles from the Israeli border, civil defense officials said.
A Lebanese army intelligence official was killed and 7 soldiers were wounded in an Israeli strike on Mansouri, about 6 miles south of the port city of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, security officials said on condition of anonymity. They said another five Lebanese soldiers were wounded in Debbin, about 6 miles north of the Israeli border. Earlier, the same officials had mistakenly reported those soldiers dead.
Several blasts hit around Tyre.
One strike killed a man in his early 20s who was sitting on a bench drinking coffee, according to Dr. Amir Farhar, at a Tyre hopital. A rocket fired by a pilotless aircraft blasted a van carrying bread out of the city, killing its driver, said Salam Daher, a civil defense official in the southern port city.
In the eastern Bekaa Valley, an Israeli drone struck a truck, killing a man inside, police officials said. Another person was killed in the town of Naqoura, near the border on the Mediterranean coast.
In Naqoura and several villages near Tyre, residents called rescue officials to report more people trapped under the rubble of crushed buildings, but crews could not retrieve the dead because of continued bombardment.
"We don't know how many and we can't get there," Daher said.
In a statement, Hezbollah announced the deaths of 3 fighters, but did not say when or where they were killed.
Israel also bombed two camps of a Palestinian militant group in Lebanon, the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. The group reported one person killed in the attack.
Hezbollah's long-range missile launchers are in the areas of Tyre and Sidon, but there was no indication the raging air assault of the last 24 hours has significantly eroded Hezbollah's capabilities to hit deep into Israel, said Ryszard Morczynski, a U.N. peackeeping official in Naqoura.
Arab foreign ministers were due to gather in Beirut for a crucial meeting on Monday that could see a stormy debate over the draft U.N. resolution.
Arab moderates Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are eager to see a stop to the fighting _ but they also cannot be seen to be forcing a surrender on Hezbollah, amid widespread public anger at home, directed at Arab governments for not supporting the guerrillas in their fight.
For Hezbollah, the resolution would be a tough pill to swallow, particularly language calling for the "unconditional release" of two Israeli soldiers captured by the guerrillas in a cross-border raid July 12. The abduction prompted the Israeli onslaught in Lebanon.
A cease-fire now would also open the way for the deployment of an international force whose chief aim would be to ensure Hezbollah is disarmed _ or at least that its weapons are moved far from the Israeli border.
The draft resolution makes only vague promises to eventually address the two key Lebanese demands, for a prisoner release and the resolution of Lebanon's claims on Chebaa Farms, a tiny border region controlled by Israel.
The cease-fire terms would also leave Israeli troops in Lebanon for the time being _ prompting Hezbollah rejection.
"If they stay, we will not abide by it (the resolution)," said Mohammed Fneish, one of two Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Cabinet.
The Lebanese government said it objects to portions of the draft resolution and demanded that some provisions be amended. But an aide to Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that did not mean a flat rejection.
So far, at least 591 people have died in Lebanon, including 508 civilians, 29 members of the army, one Palestinian militant and 53 guerrillas acknowledged dead by Hezbollah. Israeli security officials told the Cabinet on Sunday they had confirmed the deaths of 165 Hezbollah fighters and estimated 200 more had been killed, according to a participant in the meeting.
Sunday's strike brought to 90 the number of Israelis, 44 of them killed by rocket attacks and the rest soldiers killed in the fighting.
Great Posts-Ican- But I am very much afraid that Old Europe and his cronies wont read them. They are reflexive Anti-Semites and would have served the Fuhrer well as SS men rounding up those J E W S to ship them to the concentration camps!!!
BernardR wrote:Great Posts-Ican- But I am very much afraid that Old Europe and his cronies wont read them. They are reflexive Anti-Semites and would have served the Fuhrer well as SS men rounding up those J E W S to ship them to the concentration camps!!!
I don't disagree with most of your posts, Bernard, but I have to disagree with this one. I have not picked up on ANY anti-semitism from OE or the rest of his group. Anti-Israel yes, anti American yes, but that is not the same thing. I hope you'll retract this one.
