Report: IAF struck Hezbullah weapons convoy in Lebanon
Foreign reports indicate that Israel's air force struck a Hezbullah weapons convoy in Lebanon around 3:00 am local time today.
Of course, the IDF has
refused comment.
A monitoring group also reported that a strike took place. Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the German news agency DPA that Israeli warplanes fired at least six rockets on depots in the area of Qutaifa, north-east of Damascus.
It was not immediately clear if the targeted sites belong to the Syrian army or its allied Lebanese Hezbollah movement, he added.
The reports have not been officially confirmed.
The Israeli army said that the military does not respond to foreign reports.
Hezbullah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah has issued a number of threats against Israel recently, but he's been
warned by Arab states not to try anything. Here's betting that this doesn't draw him out of his bunker either.
Labels: Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbullah, Hezbullah weapons, IAF, weapons shipment
Breaking: IAF attacked two targets in southern Syria last night - UPDATED
More to follow.
UPDATE 12:26 PM
And here's a little more.
Correction -
Artillery not Air Force.
UPDATE 12:31 PM
And a few more
details.
Israel attacked two military targets in Syria in response to what the army described as "unusual" cross-border spillover from the conflict ravaging the country in recent years.
The army said the original fire hit near the Golan Heights security fence, but did not threaten Israelis living near the Syrian-Israeli border. It said that the Israel Defense Forces do not intervene in the war in Syria but would respond to any incursion.
In April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel had conducted strikes against its northern neighbor. "We act when we need to act, including here across the border, with dozens of strikes meant to prevent Hezbollah [from obtaining] game-changing weaponry," Netanyahu said during a visit to an IDF military exercise in the Golan Heights.
This sounds like it was a warning to the combatants not to let things spill over, and not a strike against Hezbullah receiving advanced weaponry as has been the case in the past. If there's more, I will let you know.
UPDATE 2:10 PM
Syria has now confirmed.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Hezbullah, IAF, Syria
Breaking: IAF jets hit weapons convoy on Syria-Lebanon border
Israeli Air Force jets have attacked a weapons convoy traveling along the Syrian-Lebanese border. The intended recipient of the weapons was
Hezbullah.
The attack allegedly occurred on the Syrian-Lebanese border earlier
in the afternoon and struck a number of vital positions important to the
terror organization.
Citing Arab media reports, Channel 2 said
that the Israeli Air Force struck the weapons convoy near a Syrian
"rebel safe-haven" where Hezbollah militants were allegedly stationed.
If the reports are confirmed, it would not be Israel's first
military excursion into enemy territory to stop the transfer of weapons
to its arch nemesis Hezbollah.
Last month,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time that
Israel has taken action dozens of times beyond the northern border to
prevent Hezbollah from attaining “game-changing” weaponry.”
Waiting to see if the IAF will try to stop the
transfer of the S-300 anti-missile system to Iran by Russia.
Labels: Hezbullah, Hezbullah weapons, IAF, Lebanon, S-300 missile defense system, Syria, weapons shipment
Terrorist Samir al-Kuntar wiped out along with Hezbullah commanders in Syria
In what is said to be an Israeli airstrike, terrorist Samir al-Kuntar and several commanders of Hezbullah in Syria were wiped out around 10:00 pm last night in Damascus.
Let's go to the videotape.
Kuntar and five lesser lights were exchanged for the
mutilated remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
Kuntar was
returned to Lebanon in 2008 after nearly 30 years in an Israeli jail (his return was said to be the motivation for the kidnapping of Goldwasser and Regev, which
precipitated the Second Lebanon War in 2006), where he was greeted by
joyous celebrations, committed
one of the most heinous acts of terror in Israeli history.
In 1979, Kuntar (at left in the picture above) and three other
terrorists penetrated Israeli territory from Lebanon and entered the
town of Nahariya. They murdered a police officer and then entered the
home of the Harran family of Nahariya. From here, I am going to let the
words of the sole survivor of that attack -
Smadar Harran Kaiser - speak for themselves:
Abu
Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was
captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985
hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are
probably few who remember why Abbas's terrorists held the ship and its
400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a
Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli
prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I
know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.
It
was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of
Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro
and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my
family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu
Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be
prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his
terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on
April 22, 1979.
It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband,
Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2,
on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern
coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around
midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by
Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks
away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst
into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they
charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment.
In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As
they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the
stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed
the door.
Outside, we could hear the men storming about.
Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a
crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my
arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to
take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing
into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and
Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never
forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about
hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if
Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space
and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she
could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she
had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what
happened to my mother," I thought.
As
police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the
beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in
front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever
see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his
rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
By
the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too,
was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.
The
next day, Abu Abbas announced from Beirut that the terrorist attack in
Nahariya had been carried out "to protest the signing of the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty" at Camp David the previous year. Abbas
seems to have a gift for charming journalists, but imagine the character
of a man who protests an act of peace by committing an act of
slaughter.
Two of Abbas's terrorists had been killed by police on
the beach. The other two were captured, convicted and sentenced to life
in prison. Despite my protests, one was released in a prisoner exchange
for Israeli POWs several months before the Achille Lauro hijacking. Abu
Abbas was determined to find a way to free Kuntar as well. So he
engineered the hijacking of the Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt and
demanded the release of 50 Arab terrorists from Israeli jails. The only
one of those prisoners actually named was Samir Kuntar. The plight of
hundreds held hostage on a cruise ship for two days at sea lent itself
to massive international media coverage. The attack on Nahariya, by
contrast, had taken less than an hour in the middle of the night. So
what happened then was hardly noticed outside of Israel.
To
complete the record, Abu Abbas died in an American prison in Iraq in
2003 shortly after Smadar Harran Kaiser wrote the article above. I just
want to add to this from a web site I found about
why Samir Kuntar should never be released:
According
to Smadar Haran, her last memories of Danny and Einat, that day, were
when they were being led away at gun point by Kuntar. She could hear
from her closet space Danny telling Einat, "Don't be scared, my baby, it will be alright" and Einat replied to him in her little voice, "Dad, where is Mommy? I want Mommy."
Smadar's last memory of her 2-year-old daughter, Yael, was when her
little daughter was taken to the apartment hiding space. Right before
Yael had her mouth covered by her mother, she asked her mother "Where is my little pacifier."
There was no time to search for the pacifier. Minutes later
Smadar covered Yael's mouth to keep her from revealing the hiding space.
Smadar soon felt her daughter's tiny tongue licks and lip sucking on
the palm of her hand. She didn't know what to make of it at first but
hours later was told by doctors and paramedics that the reason Yael was
licking her palm while she covered her mouth was because she was gasping
for air.
After taking Danny and four-year old Einat hostage,
Kuntar and his group took them down to the beach. Samir Kuntar quickly
shot Danny in the back and then drowned him in the Mediterranean Sea to
ensure his death. While Kuntar drowned Danny, he forced terrified Einat to watch and cry. According to eyewitnesses, "Danny was murdered in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see." Little Einat would not have that horrible memory in her head for long. Kuntar, the brave Lebanese freedom fighter, crushed Einat's skull over and over upon the rocks with the butt of his rifle until she was dead.
...
During
the ensuing shootout between Kuntar's terror group and Israeli police,
two policeman were killed along with two of the Arab terrorists. Kuntar
and the fourth participant, Ahmed Al-Abrass, were captured. Ahmed
Al-Abrass was later free by the Israeli authorities in the infamous May
1985 Ahmed Jibril prisoner exchange deal in which 1,150 Arab prisoners
(some of whom had blood on their hands) were exchanged for three Israeli
soldiers. Kuntar was not included in the deal.
The Israeli
government determined at first to make a decision to execute Kuntar, for
his horrific crime, especially for the fact that he tortured and beat
to death the 4-year old toddler. Israeli Prime Minister at that time,
Menachem Begin , proposed a draft resolution to the Security and
Foreign Affairs Committee in the Israeli Keenest on April 24, 1979. He
demanded to eliminate a previous resolution stipulated by the Israeli
cabinet, which said no execution should be implemented against
terrorists as the international law prohibits it. The Israeli Foreign
Minister Izer Weizman and Transportation Minister Hayeem Landau
supported Beagin’s draft resolution. Abraham Sharer, who was the head of
the Likude parliamentary bloc also, called for Kuntar’s execution.
Isaac Shamir issued a statement on April 25, 1979 also calling for his
execution.
The Israelis tried to implement the execution sentence
on Samir Kuntar and the whole parliament agreed on them. The only
dilemma they were having was the Israeli law that doesn’t allow
execution except for the Nazis of the World War II and to those found
guilty of betrayal to their country. Furthermore, they did not want the
international community on their backs; also, they wanted to improve
their relationship with Egypt after the peace process. As a consequence,
the Israeli central court in Haifa sentenced Kuntar to 5 life sentences
plus 47 years to come up with the total of 542 years. During the trial,
Kuntar was waving victory signs, and called himself a hero.
Samir Kuntar has confessed proudly to his murder of the little girl and never once showed one ounce of remorse for his crime. Even
while serving his prison term, he has bragged repeatedly during
interviews about how proud he was for murdering the 4-year-old Israeli
child. While in prison Kuntar got married and even receives conjugal
visits. Below he stands proudly alongside other convicted Arab murderer, Marwan Barghouti.
But it is unlikely that the attack on Kuntar and his Hezbullah cohorts was a revenge attack.
Lebanon's al-Mayadeen reported that the IAF took out the entire building in which Kuntar and his friends were meeting using a long-range missile while hovering over the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). This likely would have rendered unnecessary any coordination of the attack with Russia. The silence of the Russian S-400's that 'protect' Syria is rumored to be a quid pro quo for Israel not attacking every time Russia violates its air space.
Syria has yet to admit that Israel is responsible for the attack or to condemn it, but that is likely coming soon. Kuntar was said to be attempting (unsuccessfully) to recruit Golan Druze to attack Israel.
Good riddance to the scum of the earth. I hope the bombers coated their bombs with pig lard.
Labels: Druze, Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, Golan Heights, IAF, Islamic terrorism, Marwan Barghouti, Palestinian terrorism, S-400 missile defense system, Samir al-Kuntar
What we hit last night
Last night, I reported that Israel
hit Hezbullah operations in Syria. That story now appears to be confirmed.
That would explain why the IAF attacked. The government has said in the past that it will attack shipments of game changing weapons. They did.
Labels: Hezbullah, IAF, Lebanon, Russia, Syria
Report: IAF striking multiple Hezbullah targets in Syria, casualties reported
I have not seen this elsewhere, but thought I'd post it so that you all can keep an eye out for updates during the night. It's time for me to go to sleep (still a bit jet lagged - normally I try to return to Israel on Thursday night or Friday and then sleep it off over the Sabbath).
There are two tweets out there that claim that the IAF struck multiple Hezbullah targets in Syria about two hours ago and that casualties have been reported. Here they are:
Recall that Israel is coordinating its activities in the skies over Syria with the Russians.
If you see something, report it!
Labels: Hezbullah, IAF, Lebanon, Russia, Syria
Report: Israeli satellites spying on Russian support for Assad
Defense News reports that
Israeli satellites are keeping a close watch on Russian efforts to prop up the Assad regime. You don't say....
Images captured earlier this month from the Eros-B, a dual-use
imaging satellite owned and operated by ImageSat International, reveal
high operational tempo at Latakia International Airport, where Moscow
has based some 12 Su-25 fighters, a similar amount of Su-24 bombers, 16
Mi-35 attack helicopters and a small amount of Su-30 and Su-34 aircraft.
Outsized
Antonov 124 and Ilyushin Il-76 cargo aircraft are seen offloading
additional cargo, all of which is protected by at least one SAM-22
surface-to-air missile system.
In an image dated Oct. 10, support
vehicles and open cockpit canopies indicate high levels of alert while
another image taken on the same day shows a foursome of Su-30 attack
fighters in so-called fast launch positions at the end of the runway.
Such
imagery taken by the relatively low end of Israel’s satellite force
represents a mere snapshot of the Jewish state’s persistent ability to
monitor areas of interest throughout Syria and beyond.
With more
than a handful of satellites orbiting the Earth at 90-minute intervals,
Israel has multiple opportunities every day to revisit suspected sites.
...
IDF officers and their Russian counterparts plan to hold their second
round of so-called deconfliction talks in Moscow later next month, with
an eye toward establishing a mechanism to prevent unintended
consequences in the event that Russian and Israeli aircraft are flying
in the same airspace.
Hmmm.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, drone, IAF, Russia, spying, Syria, Syrian uprising
ICYMI: Russia intercepts Israeli jets on Syrian border
Shavua tov, a good week to all of you.
A short-lived headline from last night that may have long-term consequences.
Hmmm.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Golan Heights, IAF, Russia, Syria, Syrian uprising
'Coordination'? Russia threatens to shoot down IAF jets targeting Hezbullah convoys
'Coordinating' with the Russians over Syria doesn't seem to be so much fun after all. According to
this story (translated from an Arabic original
here), the Russians have, in essence, threatened to shoot down any IAF jets targeting weapons convoys moving from Assad forces in Syria to Hezbullah in Lebanon.
“Moscow imposed on Tel Aviv a military coordination in advance for any
military operation carried against Syrian military targets or against
Hezbollah in Syria, to prevent any fatal accident. Senior military
officers on both sides will maintain regular meetings and contacts to
allow a smooth Russian military presence in Syria. Above all, Russia
would like to avoid shooting down an Israeli jet in case one of its
officers is hit by mistake while present in a convoy or in special
mission. Israel and Russia will also coordinate naval operations off the
coast of Syria, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, where there is a
large Russian naval base”, said a decision-maker source in Damascus.
You can bet that every weapons convoy to Hezbullah will now include a Russian officer.
According to the source, quoting a Russian envoy that referred
details of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “the promenade era of Israel
over the sky of Syria is ending. Israel agreed to stop hitting any
military target or convoy on Syrian land under any excuses or without
prior coordination with the liaison officers that will be established
starting form next October. President Putin opposed the U.S President
Barack Obama when he decided to hit President al-Assad. Therefore,
Netanyahu’s national security concern would be Russia’s priority. None
the less, Putin confirmed that Israel has the right to hit any military
convoy leaving Syria and entering the Lebanese soil if suspected of
carrying weapons to Hezbollah ».
“Russia is becoming the guarantor and the coordinator of rival
parties and countries, like Hezbollah, Syria and Israel as well as the
striking force against extremist groups the Levant, like Jabhat al-Nusra
(al-Qaeda in Sham) and the group called “Islanic State” (IS). Hezbollah
agreed to limit all military activities in Syria without hitting Israel
as long as the Russian forces are present on the ground and Israel
won’t hit Hezbollah in Syria” confirmed the source.
One has to wonder whether hitting such weapons convoys once they are in Lebanon is too late. That has been the presumed value all along of hitting them while they are still in Syria.
But the Russian intervention imposed a forced rhythm on the United
States and Europe to change the rules of the game. The international
focus needs to be orientated toward the fight against terrorism and not
to change Assad. With or without the Syrian President, ISIS and al-Qaeda
have no intention to leave the country. Therefore, the U.S current
method used to contain extremists by adopting a soft approach is not
successful. Russia believes a more rough methods are required and is
preparing to carry more raids in one single month, equivalent to nearly a
year of airstrikes carried by the coalition against terrorists”, said
the source.
In other words, because Obama never had a real policy, Russia will now 'have' to impose one. #ThanksObama.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Damascus, Hezbullah, IAF, Iran, ISIS, Islamic State, Nusra Front, Russia, Syria, Syrian uprising, Vladimir Putin, weapons shipment
Netanyahu: 'A deal with Iran won't stop us from attacking'
Prime Minister Netanyahu told an Air Force graduation ceremony on Thursday that a deal between Iran and the P 5+1
will not stop an Israeli attack on Iran.
"Whatever happens, Israel will always defend itself, and the Air Force plays a major role in this," Haaretz daily quoted Netanyahu as saying at a pilots' course graduation ceremony.
Netanyahu again expressed concern over the agreement and the
concessions the world is prepared to do in order for Iran to sign the
deal.
"These concessions are increasing Iran's appetite and every day it
raises the bar, with the intention of extorting more concessions," he
said.
"In recent days Iran ruler Ali Khamenei rejected even the most basic
conditions in the bad agreement drafted in Lausanne," Netanyahu added.
"He said no to the restrictions on the nuclear program in the coming
decade, no to conditioning the sanctions' revocation on Iran's keeping
the agreement, no to [supervisors'] access to military sites. Even if
Iran waives some of these demands in a few days, the powers' basic
concession will be huge and it will be a clear withdrawal from red lines
the powers had publicly set earlier."
Netanyahu said the supervision method the powers are discussing with
Iran is "full of holes" and will enable the Iranians to create a nuclear
bomb less than 10 years after the agreement's signature.
The agreement will bring a flow of billions of dollars to the Iranian
economy, enabling Iran to increase its subversion in the Middle East,
Netanyahu said.
"It's still not too late [for the powers] to come to their senses, to
insist on a good agreement and it's certainly not too late not to
advance a bad agreement," he added.
"As world leaders always say, no agreement is better than a bad agreement."
Meanwhile, the P 5+1 admit that next week's June 30 deadline for an agreement 'might slip.' And Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khameni continues to list the many things Iran won't give up.
Amid unease in Iran's conservative-dominated parliament that Tehran
is giving too much away, Khamenei, on Tuesday appeared to throw several
spanners in the works.
Western powers have stressed sanctions will not be lifted until the
IAEA has confirmed that Iran has carried out key steps under the accord.
But Khamenei, who will have the last word for Iran in the talks, said
banking and economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the US
must be lifted immediately after the agreement is signed.
"Other sanctions can be removed gradually by a reasonable timetable," Khamenei said.
He also reiterated that Iran would not permit the IAEA to visit
military sites or conduct "unconventional inspections" at other
facilities.
Khamenei also took issue with the length of time that some of the restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities would be in place.
In a further sign that Iran remains at odds with the West, Kerry
unveiled a highly critical annual rights report slamming Iran for
continuing to "severely restrict" civil liberties.
One cannot help but be suspicious that even if a deal is reached, Iran will violate and the West will do nothing in response.
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, IAF, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, P 5+1
Breaking Report: Israel bombs long-range rocket depot in Sudan
And here we go again:
Always nice to find a big story quickly in my Twitter feed when I'm swamped with work :-)
Labels: Hamas, IAF, rockets, Sudan
34 years ago today...
A couple of reminders: The United States was
not pleased with Israel's destruction of Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor.
You can watch a video interview with the lead pilot in the raid, Zev Raz,
here.
You can watch a five-part video called
Raid on the Reactor, which tells the Osirak story,
here. It includes some amazing footage.
Labels: IAF, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Menachem Begin, Osirak, Ronald Reagan
Did Israel bomb Sudan again?
No, that's not a picture of a
bonfire to honor the memory of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. It
has happened before. And last night it might just have happened again: Israel may have
intercepted another weapons shipment for Hamas in Sudan. This is Jonathan Schanzer.
Multiple Arab media outlets reported an explosion in an area west of
Khartoum on Tuesday night. By Wednesday, the Sudanese military claimed
it had
shot down an Israeli drone carrying two missiles.
The Israelis have neither confirmed nor denied. However, the Israelis
have historically targeted weapons in Sudan bound for the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
This was the case in 2012, when Israeli jet fighters struck the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Yarmouk facility in Khartoum housing
advanced Fajr-5 rockets. Israeli officials
denied any knowledge of that raid. But weeks later, war
erupted and Israel struck dozens of sites in Gaza believed to be housing the missiles that the air strike had missed.
The Yarmouk raid was not an isolated incident. In 2009, the Israelis
reportedly targeted Iranian weapons shipments in Sudan destined for
Hamas, conducting a strike on
a large truck convoy. Another strike in 2011
incinerated a car carrying two men believed to be involved in the Iran-Hamas weapons pipeline. Just last year, Israeli commandos
boarded the Klos-C
in the Red Sea, seizing a massive arms shipment from Iran destined for Sudan.
Hmmm.
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, IAF, Sudan
Report: Israeli strike in Syria meant to avoid being dragged into war
A report in a Kuwaiti newspaper - sourced to a Western diplomat - indicates that an IAF strike against a Syrian missile base on Friday night thwarted a plan to launch long-range missiles against Israeli targets in the Golan Heights in a bid to
draw Israel into a war.
The Western diplomatic source was quoted by Al-Jarida as saying
that the alleged Israeli raid targeted two brigades of the Syrian Army,
which housed long-range strategic weapons to be transferred to
Hezbollah.
The Western diplomatic source confirmed to Al Jarida
on Sunday that IDF fighter jets were behind the attack in the Qalamun
Mountain region near the Syria-Lebanon border. The IDF has refused to
address the claims, saying that its policy is not to respond to foreign
reports.
The source told Al Jarida that the "the raid
was a preemptive strike to prevent a plan to hit strategic targets in
the Golan, which would draw Israel into a war with Syria, and shuffle
the cards."
Hmmm.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Golan Heights, Hezbullah, IAF, Lebanon, Syria
Not just one raid on Syria-Lebanon border
I have now resolved at least some of the confusion regarding reported IAF raids on Syrian missile facilities over the past few days. There wasn't just one raid. There were
at least two.
The first set of strikes (which also remains the least confirmed)
targeted a Hezbollah weapons convoy traveling in the border area on
April 22, hitting at least three trucks and killing at least one
commander. The second set of strikes occurred during the overnight hours
of April 24-25, and are believed to have hit at least three targets in
heavily militarized areas of eastern Qalamoun, north of Damascus, which
host some of the Assad regime’s most loyal and well-equipped units. The
units hit include the 155th Scud missile brigade which has bases near
the Damascus suburb al-Qutayfa, and the 65th Armored Brigade in areas
around the Qalamoun town of Yabroud. In total, claims by Syrian rebels
and foreign media outlets suggest that this set of strikes included at
least three targets throughout the Qalamoun region, killing a number of
Syrian and Hezbollah troops.
...
In the past, these strikes have targeted anti-aircraft missiles,
advanced Yakhont anti-ship missiles, and long range surface-to-surface
missiles, with last night’s attacks likely aimed at targeting Scud B or
Scud D missiles from being transferred to Hezbollah.
That said, these strikes are the first of their kind to occur after
several key local and regional developments, mainly the launching of
Saudi-led intervention against Iranian proxies in Yemen, significant
losses by the Assad regime in northern and southern Syria, and
Hezbollah’s January 2015 announcement that the “rules of the game” with
Israel had changed. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah made that
announcement after Hezbollah attacked an Israeli military convoy in
broad daylight, from Lebanese territory, in which Israel refrained from
retaliating. Nasrallah claimed that the attack was an ‘eye-for-an-eye’
styled response to an Israeli attack on a Hezbollah-Iranian command
convoy in the Golan Heights on January 18th. Israel’s hesitancy to
respond was hailed by the group as a testament to its regional stature,
and had left many wondering how Hezbollah would respond to future
Israeli attacks against its interests in Syria.
Israel’s alleged airstrikes this week pose a major challenge to the
regional deterrence of the Iranian axis, particularly as an emboldened
Saudi Arabia increasingly hints at intervening in Syria. Unlike past
attacks, Hezbollah and the Assad regime have refrained from making
public threats or even confirming that the strikes took place. On the
one hand, this silence may signal that Nasrallah and Assad seek to
refrain from committing to retaliation against Israel and risking an
escalation. However, it is more likely that they do seek to retaliate
against Israel in some way, shape, or form, reserving the right to claim
responsibility at a time which suites them, and reduces the risk of a
massive Israeli response.
And this may only be the beginning.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Hezbullah, IAF, Syria
More on Israeli raid on Syrian missile position
In an earlier post, I blogged a cryptic report on an
Israeli raid on a Syrian missile storage site along that country's border with Lebanon.
Here are a few more details.
Hmmm.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Free Syrian Army, Hezbullah, IAF, Syria
Report: Israeli raid hits Syrian missile site on Syria-Lebanon border
Something doesn't quite smell right about this (an article dated Saturday describing a report from Thursday and I had not seen it on Twitter until about two minutes ago), but take it for what it's worth. The report claims an
IAF strike on a Syrian missile facility along the Syrian-Lebanese border.
An overnight Israeli raid has hit a missile depot in the strategic
western Syrian region of al-Qalamoun, Al Arabiya News’ sister channel Al
Hadath reported Thursday.
Qalamoun is located near the region bordering Lebanon.
Sources
also told Al Hadath that two Israeli raids had on Wednesday targeted a
convoy carrying arms belonging to Lebanese Shiite militant group
Hezbollah.
This is apparently the same area in which
Hezbullah has an airstrip on the Lebanese side of the border. Hmmm.
Labels: IAF, Lebanon, Syria
UN Observer Force crying over Hezbullah deaths
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights says that Israel carried out Sunday's strike with drones (not helicopters as previously reported) and says that the strike
violated the disengagement agreement.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights
released an official statement on Monday describing its troops' witness
accounts of the incident. According to the statement, the observers saw
two unmanned aircraft coming in from the Israeli side of the border and
crossing the demilitarized zone at UN position number 30 near the
village Masada in the northern Golan Heights.
The peacekeepers "observed two unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) flying from the Alpha side and crossing the ceasefire
line," UNDOF said in its statement, referring to the Israeli side of the
border.
The UN observers lost sight of the aircraft as
their approached the UN position, the statement said, and an hour later
saw smoke arising from the general direction of the position. The origin
of the smoke could not be identified, the statement added.
Soon after the observers saw the UAVs flying in
from the area of Position 30 and over the Jabbata crossing of the
cease-fire line.
"This incident is a violation of the 1974 Agreement
on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces," the UN said in its
statement.
Before the UN criticizes Israel, it needs to ask itself what Iranian and Hezbullah forces are doing in the Golan. The only Syrian forces in the area - the rebels - are apparently AOK with what happened.
Labels: drone, Golan Heights, Hezbullah, IAF, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, UNDOF
Confirmed: 6 Revolutionary Guards, 5 Hezbullah members, including Jihad Mughniyah killed in IAF strike, Hezbullah mobilizing
Lebanese sources are now confirming that six Iranian Revolutionary Guards and five Hezbullah members were
killed in an IAF air strike on Sunday. The Hezbullah members included Jihad Mughniyah, the son of Imad Mughniyah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards included Iranian commander
Abu Ali al-Tabtabani, the commander of operations in the Golan.
Jihad Moughniyah was killed with four other members of Hezbollah when
his convoy was hit, the sources said. His father, who was on the United
States’ most wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets,
was assassinated in Damascus in 2008.
Hezbollah issued a statement in which it admitted that 5 of its
members were killed including commander Mohammad Issa from ArabSalim.
6 members of the Iranian Revolutionary guards were also reportedly killed in the strike according to Lebanese media reports.
Hezbollah issued a statement after the incident :
“The Israeli enemy’s helicopters fired missiles at a group of
Hezbollah’s fighters who were inspecting the town of Mazraat al-Amal in
the Syrian Quneitra region,” Hizbullah’s media department announced in
the statement.
The strike “resulted in the martyrdom of a number of jihadist
brothers, whose names will be announced later, after informing their
honorable families,” the Hezbollah statement added.
Al-Jadeed ( New) television for its part said “Iranian commander Abu
Ali al-Tabtabani was among the martyrs of the Israeli raid on Golan.”
The original Hezbullah announcement in Arabic may be found
here.
The Hezbullah death toll has been
raised to nine.
Hezbullah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give a speech later tonight in which he will announce that
Hezbullah will retaliate against Israel.
1 hour ago
Information obtained by MTV: Nasrallah will tonight deliver a
speech in which he will announce that Hizbullah will retaliate against
Israel with a painful strike.
Bring it on, you fat pig. We're ready for you.
Labels: al-Qaeda, Golan Heights, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbullah, IAF, Imad Mughniyah, Lebanon, Nusra Front, Quneitra, Syria
Breaking: Israeli strike in Syria targeted head of Hezbullah's Syria operations
A short while ago, I reported that Israeli helicopters had
attacked al-Nusra forces on the Golan Heights. It now appears that there was a target there: The head of Hezbullah's operations in Syria.
By the way, the
son of Hezbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyah - who was allegedly killed by Israel himself - was also killed in Sunday's strike in the Golan Heights.
Two sources close to Hezbollah said that the son of former Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh was killed in the strike.
Mughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a car-bombing widely attributed to Israel in the foreign media.
AFP
cited an Israeli security sources as saying the strike had targeted
purported terrorists who were planning an attack on the Jewish state.
The IDF said in response that it does not comment on foreign reports and Syrian state media did not mention the attack.
Hmmm.
Labels: al-Qaeda, Golan Heights, Hezbullah, IAF, Imad Mughniyah, Nusra Front, Quneitra, Syria
