Tag Archives: hizbullah

Israel Warns Against Syrian WMD Transfer to Hizbullah

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In light of the events unfolding in Syria, Israeli officials are concerned the regime may try to transfer its advanced weapons – including non-conventional weapons – to the Lebanese-based terrorist organization Hizbullah. These could include long-range missiles, advanced anti-aircraft systems, and chemical weapons. Syria is believed to possess the world’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons, including sarin and the nerve agent VX. They have already been integrated in warheads mounted on advanced Scud missiles.
The weapons may be transferred to Hizbullah – possibly even at Iran’s behest – because Lebanon is currently perceived as more stable than Syria, a senior Israeli defense official said on Tuesday. For Israel, the transfer of such weapons – and especially chemical weapons – to Hizbullah would be tantamount to “a declaration of war.” Hizbullah “cannot be allowed to entertain itself with unconventional weapons,” the official said.

(Yoav Limor, Yoni Hirsch, and Daniel Siryoti – Israel Hayom)

Israeli Paratroopers Prepare for Airborne Strikes

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The Israeli military on Jan. 17 conducted its first full-scale parachute exercise in 15 years for at least 1,000 paratroopers in its airborne brigade as part of military preparations for “any possible scenario.”
“Every Western military which respects itself needs to know how to parachute large forces, bring them together and then launch an attack,” said airborne brigade commander Col. Amir Baram of the nighttime drop.
The most probable targets for airborne forces would be Hizbullah’s fortified missile depots in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Hizbullah possesses more than 42,000 missiles and rockets.
Hundreds of these are capable of hitting anywhere inside Israel, including all major cities and towns as well as strategic targets such as air bases.
The paratroop exercise dovetails into the special operations offensive concept the military is honing to hit Israel’s enemies on their own turf.
In December, the Israeli military formed a new formation known as the Deep Corps which combines all special forces units under one command for operations in hostile territory.

(UPI)

Syrian General Killed by Own Troops

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An intelligence general in Syria named Adel Mustafa was killed by his own men who refused to obey his order to shoot protesting civilians in the Bab Qebli suburb in Hama.

(AGI-Italy)

See also

To Syrian Rebels, Hizbullah Is the “Party of Satan” – Michael Weiss (Telegraph-UK)

The fact that Hizbullah has been for months facilitating the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on protestors – for instance, by bringing in mercenaries from Lebanon to shoot Syrian army soldiers who refused to fire on unarmed civilians – has got something to do with the mass loathing by the Syrian rebels for Hassan Nasrallah’s terrorist organization.

Hizbullah flags have gone up in flames in Syria alongside not just Iranian ones, but Russian and Chinese ones as well.

Activists in Damascus say that rebels captured eight Hizbullah agents in Zabadani earlier in the week as the latter were emptying a warehouse full of guns. Those agents are now said to be dead.

Syrian Exiles’ Message to Israelis

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Rahim and Amar made their way to the U.S. earlier this year after having been imprisoned by the Syrian regime. Under Syrian law, meeting with Israelis constitutes treason. “If authorities find out that I spoke to you, they will butcher my family,” Rahim tells this Yediot Ahronot reporter. Amar says: “We have no ideological hatred for Israel or for Jews….It’s true that for years they taught us to hate Israel and fight it, but many Syrians already realized that they are being taught to hate Israel to divert attention away from the oppression in the country.”
“The alliance between Syria and Iran that threatens the Middle East will come to an end after Assad is gone. Most Syrians despise Iran,” he adds. Both Rahim and Amar tell of Iranian-speaking snipers who do not speak Arabic being deployed across Damascus and helping in repressing the protests. ( Orly Azoulay – Ynet News)

Stormy Weather Ahead for Hizbullah

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Despite Hizbullah’s repeated reassurances, it seems that the actual level of popular and political support for the group is not as solid as Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah would like us to believe. Nasrallah’s continuing support for the Assad regime has been widely criticized, both within Lebanon as well as regionally. Political commentators and pundits – especially in Lebanon and within the Gulf – have publicly denounced Hizbullah’s support for the Assad regime.
With Assad gone, Hizbullah could lose both political backing as well as logistical and operational assistance. Hizbullah may have a hard time building good relations with the same Syrian opposition forces that it earlier accused of being on the American and Israeli payroll. A regime change in Syria might also provide a powerful second-wind to the forces of Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution” of spring 2005. The writer is a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. (Benedetta Berti – Jewish Chronicle, UK)

Report: Hizbullah in Dire Financial Straits

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    According to the French daily Le Figaro, based on information obtained by French intelligence agencies, the uprising in Syria has significantly reduced the flow of money to the Lebanese terror group Hizbullah.
Moreover, the report said, Iran has recently cut its financial aid to Hizbullah by 25% due in part to the international sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.
Hizbullah’s financial woes are also the result of corruption. The report said Hizbullah’s investment manager had embezzled close to $1.6 billion.
Le Figaro also claimed that the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 was planned by top Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh, without Nasrallah’s knowledge.

(Ynet News)

Bashar Assad in the Balance

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Based on the actions of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s longtime friends, the collapse of the regime is not far off. With the notable exception of Iran, Syria’s closest allies – terrorist organizations and states alike – are jumping ship, or at least readying the lifeboats. In recent months, Hamas, which had been based in Damascus since 1999, has started divesting its assets and withdrawing its personnel from Syria.
Hizbullah in Lebanon is also taking steps to mitigate the damage of regime change next door. Since this summer Hizbullah reportedly has been moving its heavy weapons positioned in Syria into Lebanon, including its long-range Iranian Zilzal, and Fajr 3, 4 and 5 missiles. “There’s so much stuff coming across the border Hizbullah doesn’t know where to put it,” one well-informed observer in Beirut told me in June.
Before the uprising, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Assad were friends who once vacationed together with their respective spouses. In November, Turkey started to provide safe haven to military defectors known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a policy that exponentially increased desertions. It’s difficult to imagine Turkey providing sanctuary to Assad opponents across the frontier without being confident that the regime would fall. The writer is director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2002 to ’06 he served as Syria advisor to then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. (David Schenker – Los Angeles Times)

Arab Spring Is Really About the Revenge of the Sunnis

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Through the bullet and the ballot box, Shiite parties have risen to power from Baghdad to Beirut – thereby extending Iran’s reach into the heart of the Arab world. But as a popular – and now military – uprising in Syria becomes more powerful, the Shiite ascendancy is coming to an end. Having greatly damaged the Sunni front by sweeping away Mubarak, the “Arab Spring” is now greatly helping it by weakening the Assad regime in Syria.
For Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, the purpose of overthrowing Assad is to break the “Shiite crescent”: bringing Damascus under Sunni rule, repudiating its alliance with Iran, and cutting off Hizbullah from its logistic base in Syria, thereby allowing Lebanon’s Sunnis to regain power along with their Christian allies.

(Edward Luttwak – Foreign Policy)

Mysterious Explosions in Southern Lebanon

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    Hizbullah has been establishing as many arms depots as possible in urban areas and in non-residential regions in southern Lebanon under the noses of UNIFIL and with the quiet backing of the Lebanese army, as part of the preparations for the Third Lebanon War.
Israel, which invests great intelligence resources in Lebanon, is seeing this. The Israeli aircraft that hover across Lebanon record, day after day, Hizbullah’s military buildup with arms deliveries which mostly arrive from Syria.
In the past two years, some of these arms depots started to explode under mysterious circumstances. 

(Ronen Bergman - Ynet News)

Hizbullah Waits and Prepares

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Many analysts believe that Iran could direct Hizbullah to unleash its military might against Israel, pummeling it with thousands of long-range rockets, placing the Jewish state’s heartland on the frontline for the first time since 1948. The two sides have been making feverish preparations for another encounter, one that neither Hizbullah nor Israel wants but that both believe is probably inevitable. The rate of recruitment into Hizbullah’s ranks has soared and some receive advanced training in Iran. Military instruction is interspersed with religious lessons, teaching the importance of jihad, martyrdom and obedience to Hizbullah’s religious figurehead, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader of Iran.
Hizbullah has evolved into the most formidable nonstate military force in the world. It has amassed as many as 50,000 rockets, including guided missiles that can strike targets in Tel Aviv, and Hizbullah fighters are being trained to cross the border into Israel in the next war.

(Nicholas Blanford – Wall Street Journal)