Israel Matzav

Al-Quds al-Arabi: Hezbullah has chemical and biological weapons

Two nights ago, Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a speech in which he intimated that Hezbullah would have a surprise for Israel if it attacked his terror organization again. This morning, the London-based Arabic daily al-Quds al-Arabi reports that Nasrallah's surprise is chemical and biological weapons. (Link in Hebrew from Maariv).

In it's lead column this morning, the newspaper's al-Bari Atwan notes that Nasrallah doesn't lie (maybe Olmert should take a lesson from him) and that when he promised Israel "a surprise that would change the face of the region" if it attacked him, his words should be taken seriously.

Atwan says that the surprise cannot relate to new missiles, because Nasrallah disclosed to an al-Jazeera interviewer just a few weeks ago that he has missiles that can hit any spot in Israel. Atwan also mentions that we already know that Hezbullah has 20,000 missiles.

In light of this, the newspaper reaches the conclusion that what Nasrallah has is weapons of mass destruction. The 'surprise' of which Nasrallah spoke is the ability to arm at least some of his missiles with chemical and biological ammunition.

Atwan also claims that the next war that breaks out in our region will be the "last war," the war of Gog and Magog (known as Armageddon to some of you) in which leaders "won't hesitate to use all of the weapons in their arsenal." The lesson that the Arabs have learned from the American invasion of Iraq is not to leave regimes in the line of fire, and that those Arab countries that are attacked will use a "Samson option" (let me die with the Philistines). Atwan says that just as Hezbullah did not hesitate to shoot missiles at civilian targets deep in Israel, so too it will not hesitate to use chemical and biological weapons.

While this is not enough to conclude that Hezbullah has chemical and biological weapons, it is conceivable that they could have gotten such weapons from Iran or Syria, and Israel's intelligence agencies do not have enough reliable intelligence on Hezbullah to be certain. For example, Israel did not know before the last war that Hezbullah had Chinese C-802 anti-submarine missiles.

I wonder what the Olmert-Barak-Livni government will have to say about this.... Never mind....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:05 PM