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Some clues as to what was discussed at terror trio’s meeting

March 5, 2010

Last week, we told you how a troika of terror heads–Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah–had a little dinner party.

Although some Western powers, including the U.S., continue a policy of engagement with Syria (Undersecretary of State William Burns visited Damascus just a week before the dinner party and the U.S. is sending its first new ambassador in five years), ties between Assad and Hezbollah remain strong. According to the Washington Institute, since the 2006 war with Israel, Hizbullah has procured an estimated 40,000 rockets and – with Syria’s help – reportedly improved the quality of its arsenal.

Syria also may have provided the Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla antiaircraft system, which is capable of downing Israeli F-16s.

Ha’aretz writer Yoel Marcus wrote that the well-publicized banquet was “certainly in Iran’s interest, but it is unclear whether it is in Syria’s.” After all, the Syrian regime is among those Iran would like to bring down: Not only is Assad not a Shi’ite Muslim like the Iranian mullahs, but he and his government are secular — something the Iranian regime wants to stomp out.

Marcus continues, showing just how “scary” Israelis find the troika (summary: not very):

As for Ahmadinejad, he has a big mouth – he does not understand that the more he threatens us with a second Holocaust, the more he spurs Israel to build greater means of deterrence and increases its willingness to use them. The reasoning, as Ronen Bergman wrote last week in Yediot Ahronot, which won the day when former Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the bombing of the Iraqi reactor and by which the Syrian reactor was bombed, is that a country calling for the destruction of Israel must not be given the means to do so. Our deterrence is based on force and the willingness to use it in the face of a threat to our survival.

Israel’s reputation is built on deterrence. Iran, full of itself, could presume that we will not act or we will not be allowed to act. But good intelligence on their part can depend on precedents where we did act in similar circumstances.

Trio of terror has a night out in Syria…

March 1, 2010

Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall at a formal banquet hosted by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad whose guest list included Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, AFP reports.

It was a rare public outing for Nasrallah, who keeps his schedule private due to fears that he’s on the list of terror leaders Israel is looking to assassinate. According to AFP, he “has seldom left his Lebanese stronghold and has made few public appearances.”:

With an Israeli death threat hanging over him, the Hezbollah chief has even avoided religious or political gatherings in Lebanon, and his televised speeches have been taped or broadcast from secret locations.

Apparently, though, the chance to discuss “the latest developments in the region, and Zionist threats against Lebanon and Syria” was enough to lure him out of his hiding place.

Iran and Syria are the main backers of Hezbollah, the only militia that has kept its military arsenal since the end of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

Assad and Ahmadinejad signed a visa-scrapping accord in Damascus on Thursday, signaling even closer ties and brushing aside US efforts to drive a wedge between the two allies.

There he goes again…

February 21, 2010

In keeping with the apparent preferred sport of Iranian leaders’–tossing invective toward Israel–on Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Hezbollah’s leader to wipe out Israel “once and for all,” if a regional war “breaks out” in the near future, the Associated Press reports.

According to the Iranian state news agency, Ahmadinejad told Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah that “the preparations should be of the level that, if they (the Israelis) want to repeated the mistakes of the past (by attacking), then their case should be closed once and for all and the region delivered from their evil ways forever.”

The slight problem with Ahmadinejad’s logic is that Israel hasn’t started wars with Hezbollah (you have to love the way AP uses the neutral term “breaks out” — as if war just sort of happens). Rather, Israel went into Lebanon after repeated cross-border attacks by Hezbollah, including the July 12 attack that set off the war: Hezbollah sent a barrage of rockets into northern Israeli towns and then sent a team of terrorists into the Jewish state (some military minds might call this “an invasion”), who killed three Israeli soldiers, wounded two, and dragged the bodies of an additional two soldiers–who were seriously wounded and may have died pretty much immediately–back across the border.

The purpose of Israel’s incursion was to recover the two soldiers, about whom Hezbollah refused to provide any sort of information, including signs of life. It wasn’t until a prisoner swap two years later that the families of the soldiers–Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev–discovered that the two–their sons, brothers, and husbands–had probably been dead the whole time.

In addition to such flagrant flouting of the rules of combat, Hezbollah actively attempts to emotionally torment Israeli civilians — beyond refusing to provide any information about captives, the organization has the lovely habit of erecting billboards just inside the Lebanese border with Israel that include graphic photos of dead and dismembered Israeli soldiers, with statements taunting Israelis and Israeli leaders.

We don’t think Israel is the one with “evil ways” from which we all need deliverance.

Hezbollah receives funding and other support from Iran. Its also closely allied with the dictator state of Syria, whom it recently joined in issuing threats against the Jewish state.

Israeli war victims go after Iran for $1 billion

February 18, 2010

What will this flag of Hezbollah turn into if Israeli war victims are able to cut off the the source of Hezbollah's funding and military assistance: Iran.

Eighty five Israelis who were wounded in Second Lebanon War are going after Iran in American courts since, they say, without Iran’s support, Hezbollah would never have been able to spark the war that injured them, UPI reports.

The claimants have filed legal suit in the US against Iran’s central bank and Iranian commercial banks for a total of $1 billion.

The group’s lead attorney told reporters:

“The central bank of Iran and the Saderat Bank are the chief monetary pipelines from Iran to Hezbollah … Without these funds, Hezbollah would not have been able to build and maintain its infrastructure, to train the terrorists in its ranks, or carry out massive rocket fire at Israel.

“These banks act freely and knowingly aid terrorism. They are responsible for the damages incurred on the civilians in these attacks.”

The suit is based in part on a 2007 U.S. Treasury finding the Saderat Bank knowingly transferred funds for terrorist activities to Hezbollah from 2001 to 2006 in London.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah went on Lebanese television to declare that the terrorist group plans on hitting Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion Airport.

Iran behind bomb targeting Israeli diplomats, Jordanian security says

January 19, 2010

Jordanian intelligence forces believes that last week’s failed attempt to bomb a convoy ferrying Israeli diplomats back to Israel from Jordan was directed by Iran, the Jerusalem Post is reporting.

According to the Post, Jordanian intelligence believes that the attack itself was carried out by local al-Qaida terrorists that Iran funded and smuggled explosives to. A taxi driver is being held on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

The Jordanians believe that the attack was an attempt at revenge for the killing of Iranian scientist Prof. Massoud Ali Mohammadi in Teheran last week, which the Islamic Republic blamed on Israel and the U.S., calling it a “Zionist-style” assassination.

Ali Mohammadi, who has been identified in media reports as both a local prosecutor and a nuclear physicist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle.

“We can see Iran’s fingerprints on the roadside bombing,” the Post quoted security sources as saying. “The investigation is continuing in various directions.”

Meanwhile, Israel has been on high alert in recent weeks ahead of the second anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah terror mastermind Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus:

A number of attempts by Hizbullah to avenge Mughniyeh’s February 2008 killing have been thwarted, including a plot last year to bomb Israel’s embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the Israeli defense establishment is concerned that Hizbullah will make an effort to strike an Israeli target ahead of the anniversary.

Security officials are also considering the possibility that the attack may have been carried out by al-Qaida or one of its affiliates, or a Palestinian terrorist group.

Last year, three Hamas activists were sentenced in Jordan to five years in prison for conducting surveillance of the Israeli Embassy in Amman.

One held in bomb targeting Israeli diplomats, more arrests expected in “Hezbollah-style” attack

Jordanian security forces are holding a taxi driver who they suspect planted an explosive device that targeted an Israeli diplomatic convoy traveling from the Jordanian capital city of Amman to Israel, Arab TV reported overnight.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, which left a large crater at the attack site just 13 miles from the Allenby Bridge, Jordan’s main border crossing into Israel.

The initial investigation suggests that the type and way the bombs were planted is reminiscent of the sort of road-side attacks Hezbollah used to target Israeli troops when they were operating in Lebanon prior to the unilateral Israeli withdrawal in 2000.

According to reports in the Israeli media, officials called the bombing “a well-planned ambush” and credited the fact that the device’s timing was apparently a few seconds off with preventing injuries or worse among those riding in the diplomatic convoy. After the bomb went off, the cars reportedly sped to a nearby Jordanian Army base. The Jordanian Army then imposed a closure on the area and carried out searches, arresting one person.

Israeli officials are still not sure what the taxi driver’s connection to the blast is, but have said that they expect the Jordanians to make more arrests soon.

Meanwhile, according to Yediot Aharonot, Jordanian investigators “are still uncertain whether the attack was carried out by global Jihad activists, Hezbollah members, or possibly Hamas men. According to some estimates, the attack involved the work of many terrorists, including planners, lookouts, and collaborators.”

The agencies involved still are avoiding official comment. A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in Amman said, “All I can say now is that everyone is fine.”

Egypt pressuring Israel to accept Hamas demands on Shalit

January 1, 2010

Ha’aretz reports:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has advised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept Hamas’ demands for a prisoner swap deal that would see the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Saudi daily Al-Madina reported on Friday.

According to the report, Mubarak told Netanyahu during their talks in Cairo earlier this week that Hamas would not give up on the list of prisoners it wants freed in the swap.

If Israel agrees to show some flexibility on the matter, Mubarak was reported as saying, then Egypt could guarantee that the deal go through and even convince Hamas to begin negotiating for a long-term cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s main resistance has been freeing a number of terrorists being held for involvement in some of the worst terrorist attacks, as we wrote last week, including notably Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Sadat:

Barghouti is believed to have master-minded multiple terror attacks and currently imprisoned for his roles in attacks that killed 5 people. (He was charged with the deaths of an additional 33, but was aquitted for insufficient evidence.) Sadat headed the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and is being held for his role in the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.  

In an unfortunate comment on the future prospects for peace-making with the Palestinian Authority, Barghouti is often named one of the strongest candidates to lead the PA.

Past Israeli policy dictated not releasing terrorists “with blood on their hands,” meaning those who were directly responsible for killing Israelis, but recent prisoner exchanges have departed from this. In 2008, Israel released Samir Kuntar, who had been in prison since a botched 1979 attempt at kidnapping an Israeli family. The cell he headed kidnapped the father and a daughter of the Haran family. The mother survived by hiding with their infant daughter and a neighbor who happened to be in the house but, tragically, the mother accidentally smothered the baby to death in an attempt to quiet her cries.

When police closed in on the terror cell and the two captives, Kuntar shot the father at close range and murdered the four-year-old girl by bashing her head against rocks.

When Kuntar was released in a 2008 prisoner swap that returned the bodies of two Israelis who’d been kidnapped by Hezbollah, PA President Mahmoud Abbas hailed him as  a hero, as did Hamas.

Round-up: Obama pushes Lebanon on smuggling, girl stabbed in West Bank, Chicago terror trial

December 15, 2009

During a meeting with the Lebanese President Michel Sleiman yesterday, President Obama pressed Lebanon to crack down on arms smuggling to Hezbollah. Israel has criticized the 12,000-strong UN Peace-keeper force stationed in southern Lebanon for doing nothing to stop arms from reaching the terrorist group, but the UN says that it’s not their job and that the Lebanese authorities are responsible for it.

A 20-year-old Israeli woman was stabbed in the back yesterday at the Gush Etzion junction, which is a 10-minute drive south of Jerusalem. The young woman was waiting at a bus stop when a terrorist jumped out of a cab at attacked her. The girl was taken the hospital; her attacker remained at large.

Prosecutors in the Chicago trial of an American charged with aiding and abetting the terrorists who murdered 166 people in Mumbai last November not only knew in advance what the planners intended to do, but sent them “congratulations” after the fact. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a 48-year-old businessman, is charged with helping fellow Chicagoan David Coleman Headley, 49, gather information to help the Mumbai terrorists carry out their plan.

Photos from boat seizure

November 4, 2009
A view of the "Francop" heading toward the harbor in Ashdod (ISRANET)

A view of the "Francop" heading toward the harbor in Ashdod. (ISRANET)

IDF soldiers inspect rocket launchers found among the weapons. (ISRANET)

IDF soldiers inspect rocket launchers found among the weapons. (ISRANET)

Cartons of weapons hiddens among sacks of cargo. (ISRANET)

Cartons of weapons hiddens among sacks of cargo. (ISRANET)

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