Some clues as to what was discussed at terror trio’s meeting
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…
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Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 4:53 PM | Stand For Israel
Trio of terror has a night out in Syria…
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.
Comments (0) »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.
Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 7:26 AM | Stand For Israel
There he goes again…
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…
Read More » Comments (4) »Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 8:00 AM | Stand For Israel
Israeli war victims go after Iran for $1 billion
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.
Comments (1) »Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 3:41 PM | Stand For Israel
Iran behind bomb targeting Israeli diplomats, Jordanian security says
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.
Comments (0) »Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 6:50 PM | Stand For Israel
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