'Never before seen' video from Hezbullah of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War
On Wednesday, July 12, 2006, seven IDF soldiers were killed on the Lebanese border - three in an attack by Hezbullah on their 'Hummer' and four when their tank drove over a mine. That attack was the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. (One soldier from the 'Hummer' survived - in the video below he's in the light blue checked shirt with the trimmed beard. His name is Tomer Weinberg). Hezbullah grabbed two of the bodies - those of Ehud Goldwasser (who was driving the 'Hummer' and seated in the front left seat) and Eldad Regev (who was sitting on the right). They may have been dead when they were grabbed. Their mutilated bodies were returned to Israel in 2008 in exchange for child murderer Samir al-Kuntar (later targeted by Israel and killed) and a few lesser lights.
On Saturday night, Hezbullah's Al Mayadeen television showed the first part of a three-part documentary on the 2006 war. The program contained video never before seen from the planning of the attack and the attack itself. Hezbullah has disclosed that the attack was planned by Imad Mughniyah, who thankfully is no longer among the living.
I'm posting the video (could not figure out how to post part of it). The 'never before seen' footage of the attack itself, which runs about 10 minutes, runs from 42:52 to the end. For those who want to see the entire program, there's a link after the video.
The video is in Arabic with some Hebrew from Israeli television (interviews). Sorry, no English.
Beirut barracks bomb preparer, Hariri assassination mastermind killed near Damascus
Israel may have been behind an explosion that killed Mustafa Badreddine, the Hezbullah commander who prepared the bombs for the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and who is said to the mastermind of the assassination of Lebanese President Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, among other crimes. Badreddine was killed in a blast near the Damascus Airport a few days ago.
An initial report by Lebanon's al-Mayadeen TV said that Badreddine,
55, died in an Israeli air strike. But a later statement by Hezbollah on
al-Manar's website did not mention Israel.
Israeli media reported that the government refused to comment on whether it was involved in Badreddine's death.
Israel has been accused by Hezbollah of killing a number of its fighters in Syria since the conflict began.
The
group was established in the wake of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon
in the early 1980s, and has called for the "obliteration" of Israel.
A number of Twitter accounts supporting Syrian rebel groups and the
al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front say Badreddine was killed in a battle
in Khan Touman, southern Aleppo, rather than in Damascus.
Khan
Touman was captured by a coalition of groups including al-Nusra Front
last week and has been subject to heavy shelling in recent days.
No official sources have commented on the reports.
Born
in 1961, Badreddine is believed to have been a senior figure in
Hezbollah's military wing. He was a cousin and brother-in-law of Imad
Mughniyeh, who was the military wing's chief until his assassination by
car bomb in Damascus in 2008.
According to one report,
a Hezbollah member interrogated by the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service (CSIS), described Badreddine as "more dangerous" than Mughniyeh,
who was "his teacher in terrorism".
They are alleged to have
worked together on the October 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps
barracks in Beirut that killed 241 personnel.
Badreddine is
reported to have sat on Hezbollah's Shura Council and served as an
adviser to the group's overall leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Badreddine was tried in absentia by the ongoing Special Tribunal for Lebanon, in The Hague, over the killing of Mr Hariri.
Any of the armed groups seeking to overthrow Mr Assad might have
sought to kill the man co-ordinating Hezbollah military activities.
However, suspicion is likely to fall on Israel, which fought a war
against Hezbollah in 2006.
Israel has been accused of killing
several of the group's leaders over the years, although it has never
officially confirmed its involvement.
Hezbollah military chief
Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in Damascus in 2008 that US
intelligence officials said last year was a joint operation by the CIA
and Israel's Mossad spy agency.
In January 2015, a suspected Israeli air strike in the Syrian Golan Heights killed six Hezbollah fighters, including Mughniyeh's son Jihad, and an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general.
And in December, Hezbollah said one of its senior figures, Samir Qantar, was killed when missiles fired by Israeli jets struck a block of flats in Damascus.
Israel
has also reportedly conducted air strikes aimed at preventing advanced
weapons shipments from Iran from reaching Hezbollah via Syria.
The 'no comment' is Israel's standard operating policy, but if Israel is involved in this, you can bet the Obama administration will make sure everyone knows about it.
The Israel Project's Omri Ceren provides more background by email.
Organizationally Badreddine was "dual hatted," per Matt Levitt, a Washington Institute director and the scholar who literally wrote the book on Badreddine [c]. He was both the head of Hezbollah's external global terror operations and the head of all Hezbollah activities in Syria [d].
Badreddine killed so many different people in so many different places that it's not actually clear if the Israelis were the ones who got him [e]. Under interrogation by Canadian security officials, a Hezbollah member once reportedly described Badreddine as "more dangerous" than his predecessor and cousin Imad Mughniyah [f]. He was unpopular even inside Hezbollah: Levitt tweeted he was "rash, hot tempered, impetuous, even unstable," and "was very close [to] Nasrallah, but widely disliked within Hezbollah," and was "a philandering playboy, not particularly religious" [g][h][i].
A couple of timelines: 1st, Badreddine's terror activities going back decades, 2nd, how the U.S. Treasury designated him as a terrorist starting in 2012, though last month
Badreddine terror activities timeline
1980s - In October 1983 he prepared the bombs for the Beirut barracks bombings, which killed 241 U.S. and 58 French servicemen. The targets were separate American and French buildings [j]. In December 1983 he was part of the Iran-backed cell that launched seven attacks in one day in Kuwait, killing 6 and wounding almost 90. The targets were the American embassy, a residential building for American company Raytheon, the French embassy, the Kuwaiti airport, the Kuwait National Petroleum Company oil rig, and a Kuwaiti power station [k].
1990s - He helped establish and then he coordinated Hezbollah Unit 1800, which facilitated terror attacks against Israel from the West Bank and Gaza [l].
2000s - He helped establish and the he coordinated Hezbollah Unit 3800, which launched attacks in Iraq against American, British, and Sunni forces [m]. In 2005 he masterminded Hariri's assassination in Lebanon, which killed Hariri and 21 others.
2010s - He's been coordinating all Hezbollah activities in Syria.
U.S. sanctions and designations timeline
2012 - Treasury designated Badreddine pursuant to E.O. 13224, labeling him a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" [n]. The Treasury notice cited him for "providing support to Hizballah’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world," assessed that he was currently "Hizballah's top militant commander," and noted that "the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon charged Mustafa Badr Al-Din with the attack... that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 21 others."
2015 - Treasury piled on more sanctions, this time pursuant to E.O. 13582 [o]. The Treasury note assessed he was "responsible for Hizballah's military operations in Syria since 2011," having sat with Nasrallah during meetings in Damascus throughout 2011 before expanding his role.
April 2016 - Treasury tagged him again, this time under the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act of 2015, making him subject to secondary sanctions [p].
Badreddine's assassination could lead to war between Israel and Hezbullah.
By the way, the picture of Captain John Testrake with a gun to his head was 'faked.' When I first posted that in 2008, I got a comment from Captain Testrake's son (see the post) reminding me that there were other people on board with guns at the time.
'Israeli sources': We killed Mughniyah, not the CIA
Who carried out the bombing in the video above? Seven years later, the denials have toned down, and there are now claims of credit. Two weeks ago, the Obama administration 'anonymously' told the Washington Post that the CIA was behind the Mugniyah assassination. That has apparently ruffled some feathers in the Mossad, who got word to Dan Raviv that it was really behind the terrorist's death.
One result was that some of those Israelis - apparently miffed that
the Americans were taking too much credit - went to the trouble of
speaking with Western officials and diplomats to offer corrections.
Basically,
using a phrase inspired by the blue-and-white flag of Israel, they
suggested that the assassination of Mughniyeh was "almost all
blue-and-white, and just a little bit red-white-and-blue."
Based
on what they told their Western contacts this month, the Israelis claim
that their Mossad and Aman (military intelligence) agencies managed to
pick up the trail of the elusive terrorist - despite plastic surgery
that changed his appearance. His biggest mistake was moving around
Damascus without bodyguards, and specifically an unguarded area in front
of his apartment building in the Syrian capital.
Contrary to the
recent reports, the Israelis claim to have designed and tested the bomb,
while respecting the CIA's insistence that it not be too large so as
not to kill any innocents.
According to this version, then-Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert kept track of the testing and - during a trip to
Washington - even showed some of the videos to George W. Bush, who was
impressed and enthusiastic about eliminating Mughniyeh. The CIA had
briefly withdrawn from the mission, but President Bush brought the
agency back in.
On the night of the assassination seven years ago
this week, the surveillance team in Damascus held off when noticing that
Mughniyeh was not alone. He headed into his apartment with his Iranian
handler and a Syrian general, Muhammad Suleiman, who was a senior
advisor to President Bashar al-Assad.
The Iranian and the Syrian
left, and half an hour later the Hezbollah man walked out alone. The
button was pushed at Mossad headquarters - a privilege Israel wanted,
because Mughniyeh had killed dozens of Israelis and other Jews in car
bomb attacks - and the terrorist was blown to bits. No one else was
hurt.
Assad's aide, General Suleiman, was assassinated less than six months later by a long-range sniper. Intelligence sources said
Israel did that because Suleiman had been in charge of Syria's secret
nuclear reactor, which Israel's air force had destroyed the year before.
According to the Israeli version of events, Vice President Dick Cheney
phoned Prime Minister Olmert to exchange praise for the Mughniyeh
assassination.
The United States helped build
the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA
facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was
contained and would not result in collateral damage.
“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.
The
extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli
intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who
over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most
spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy
in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.
The United States
has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which
Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail
about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car
bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the
2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most
high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.
Israel, of course, has said 'no comment.' So has the CIA. But over the past week we've been warned repeatedly about how Prime Minister Netanyahu would be 'jeopardizing' cooperation with the United States if he comes to Washington to speak to Congress in March. Cooperation like this? Well, maybe.
Really? This comes out right now? The “new” book by Robert B. Baer cited in the article was actually published in October — and it doesn’t say there was collaboration. Baer and unnamed others have been gotten to confirm it, apparently. But the timing is distinctly odd, given the recent dust-ups between Hezbollah and the IDF.
You might almost think someone was trying to add fuel to the fire.
Notice how the finger points at an event in the Bush years, and not at
cooperation since Obama took office, although there undoubtedly has been
such cooperation.
So Obama is burning the bridges between the US and Israel because he's ticked off that Netanyahu is coming to the US to tell Congress that Israel is opposed to Obama's weak policies on Iran. How short sighted!
This is getting embarrassing... for Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanese analysts say that Israel called Hezbullah's bluff with Sunday's strike along the Golan border.
"What happened is that the Israelis called Hizbullah's
bluff last night," said Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science
at the American University in Beirut.
"Hizbullah will not be able to retaliate, because if it
retaliates, it will be another war. Hizbullah is in Syria and it is not
ready for another war against Israel."
Khashan said the movement could resort to small-scale
attacks, like a roadside bomb on the ceasefire line with Israel it
claimed last year, but would avoid a more serious response.
"Nasrallah will say the Israelis are trying to provoke
us to help in their elections and we will not fall into their trap.
That's the best they can do," he added.
Sources close to Hizbullah told As Safir daily that the party's retaliation to Sunday's strike is "inevitable.”
But the officials said the retaliation would not lead to an all-out war.
“The party will take the time it sees necessary to set its next steps with calm and decisiveness,” they added.
In Israel, analysts made the same calculation.
Yes, but Hezbullah is not the sole arbiter of whether there will be a war, nor will it decide when and how Israel might respond to a Hezbullah revenge attack. What if Israel responds by flattening the Dahiyah (Hezbullah's Beirut stronghold) or Beirut Airport?
By the way, Naharnet (the source for the story above) is also claiming that an Israeli 'security source' has confirmed that Israel was behind the strike on the Syrian side of the Golan. Here in Israel, that has not yet been confirmed.
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.
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.
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.
Key target in Israeli strike apparently wasn't Jihad Mugniyeh, but Abu Ali Tabatabaie, head of Hezbo ops in Syria. V Big Deal.
— Lee Smith (@LeeSmithTWS) January 18, 2015
Hezbullah has all but admitted that the general charged with exacting 'revenge' on Israel for the death of Imad Mughniyah was an Israeli spy.
The accounts in the Lebanese and Arab news media, relying on unnamed
sources, identify the mole as Mohammad Shawraba, the man charged with
exacting revenge for Israel’s assassination of a top operative, Imad Mughniyeh, in 2008. They say Mr. Shawraba fed information to Israel that foiled five planned retaliation attempts.
The
Hezbollah official, Naim Qassem, who is often called upon to handle
difficult issues, made no mention of the specific allegations. In his
remarks on Al-Nour, a Hezbollah-affiliated radio station, he added that
Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful militant organization and political party, was able to contain any damage from espionage.
This
is not the first time that Hezbollah has admitted to spies within its
ranks. But this breach, if confirmed, comes at a time when the party has
grown from a tight, exclusive cell focused on fighting Israel to a much
larger operation that has significantly expanded its mission, sending
thousands of its Shiite fighters to Syria to prevent the overthrow of
its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, by Sunni insurgents.
That,
in turn, has angered Lebanese Sunnis, who call Hezbollah’s involvement
in Syria an abuse of the national consensus that supports the group’s
keeping an independent militia only for fighting Israel, known here as
resistance.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has said that the elusive head of the
terror group's "military wing", Mohammed Deif, is still "alive and well"
despite an IDF assassination attempt which killed his wife and son.
"The occupation will pay for its crimes against the Palestinian
people," declared Abu-Zuhri, who added a chilling warning to the people
of southern Israel.
"The residents of the Gaza periphery will return to their homes only
by the decision of the commander Mohammed Deif and one Israeli
commitment to stop the aggression and lift the siege," he threatened.
Adding to the threats, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said
Wednesday that "difficult days" are coming for both Israel and Gaza, as
an escalation in the violence is expected.
"(Prime Minister Binyamin) Netanyahu and (Foreign Minister Avigdor)
Liberman must prepare themselves for difficult days. They have never
seen such (difficult days) in this war or its predecessors," said
Barhoum.
Joined at the hip: New Iranian Defense Minister was behind Hezbullah's Beirut Marine baracks bombing
This probably makes President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry feel all warm and fuzzy, but patriotic Americans are and should be outraged.
Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah blew up the barracks of the U.S
Marines and French paratroopers stationed at the Beirut airport, killing
241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It wasn’t Hezbollah’s first
terrorist operation, but this attack, the most memorable in Lebanon’s
vicious and chaotic 15-year-long civil war, marked the Party of God’s
entry onto the world stage.
Three decades later, thanks to the efforts of Israeli Hezbollah expert
Shimon Shapira, we now know that one of the men responsible for the
attack was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander named
Hossein Dehghan—the man Iranian president Hassan Rouhani recently
tapped to be his defense minister. In other words, Hezbollah and the
Islamic Republic of Iran have been joined at the hip from the very
beginning, even before the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Iran's early involvement in Hezbullah puts the lie to the claim that Hezbullah was founded as a reaction to the Israeli presence in southern Lebanon.
The big bang theory of Hezbollah that puts the Israeli
occupation at the alpha point is based not in fact but in legend—it’s
an Israel-centric myth that makes the Jewish state Hezbollah’s
motivation and prime mover. In reality, the story of Hezbollah’s origins
is a story about Iran, featuring the anti-shah revolutionaries active
in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Israel’s intervention. Thus, to
uncover Hezbollah’s roots, it is necessary to mine the accounts of
Iranian cadres operating in Lebanon a decade before Israel invaded.
There we find that, contrary to the common wisdom,
Hezbollah didn’t arise as a resistance movement to the Israeli
occupation. Rather, it was born from the struggle between Iranian
revolutionary factions opposed to the shah. Lebanon was a critical front
for this rivalry between Hezbollah’s Iranian progenitors and their
domestic adversaries. Accordingly, an accurate understanding of this
history gives us not only the true story of Hezbollah’s beginnings, but
also an insight into the origins of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Those
early internal conflicts and impulses, played out in Lebanon as well as
Iran, also provide a roadmap for reading the nature of the current
regime in Tehran, its motivations and concerns, its strategies and
gambits as it moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon and challenging
the American order in the Middle East.
And Yasser Arafat's PLO was right in the thick of things - yes, in founding Hezbullah. Read the whole thing.
It's been a little more than five years since Hezbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyah was liquidated in his car in Damascus, and now an Arab newspaper claims to have new details about his death.
An investigation done by Arab paper Al-Akhbar
published Tuesday overnight reportedly reveals new details about the
assassination of Hezbollah’s field commander Imad Mugniyah.
The report in Al-Akhbar,
that claims the Mossad was "responsible for the operation from A to Z,"
details the last hours in the Hezbollah commander's life. According to
the Arab paper, Mugniyah was on his way out of a meeting with senior
Palestinian leaders in Damascus where they discussed "ways to develop
the capacities of the Palestinian resistance inside Palestine, and Gaza
in particular."
According to the report, Mugniyah's car, a 2006
silver Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4, was affixed with explosives to its trunk
door that were detonated by a team of local operatives that used a
nearby building under construction for surveillance on the targeted
parking lot. Al-Akhbar
reports the operatives involved in the assassination were not Syrian
citizens and traveled in and out of the country to implement the
operation, that lasted six weeks.
The team had a gateway car that they had to abandon when problems arose during their escape, according to Al-Akhbar.
I don't know why this report should be considered any more reliable than Syria's September 2011 claim to have arrested the 'spy' who helped Israel liquidate Mughniyah.Hezbullah actually believed that Syria had liquidated Mughniyah itself. Maybe Syria arrested that 'spy' so that Hezbullah would help Bashar al-Assad fight the Free Syrian Army? Maybe the Mossad pulled the whole thing off by itself? Who knows? No one who is talking....
And for those who have forgotten, let's go to the videotape.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the mayor of Jerusalem
condemned the attack on the club last Friday. More than a week earlier
President Shimon Peres criticized fans for inciting violence against
Arabs and Muslims. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a lifelong Beitar
supporter, said he was outraged by the fans’ behavior and vowed not to
attend another game.
These are welcome reactions. Not only is Beitar waging a battle against
its bad image, but many Israelis seem determined to no longer turn a
complacent ear to what they once dismissed as the predictable racist
clamor of rowdy sports fans. At last, Israel — itself a country built by
refugees fleeing discrimination — is banning, investigating and
legislating against racism in sports.
Monday morning, after the tense game against Bnei Sahknin, I heard
Beitar’s general manager, Itzik Kornfein, a former goalkeeper, repeat
the same message on several radio shows: He said he was determined to
clamp down on unruly fans but reminded listeners that the culture and
sports minister, the police and legal authorities would have to keep
battling discrimination after the “dust settles down.”
Only after examining the way Arafat went about creating his regime,
and the nature of the landslide that he won as a result of these
efforts, can we return to the question of whether he deserves the kind
of legitimacy he now enjoys among many leaders in the West.
In the full article, Polisar went into more detail:
What made the PA security forces particularly effective in stifling
dissent was their wide range of political activities. The intelligence
units,especially the PSS, sought to identify opponents of Arafat and the
PA,and to win their cooperation or their silence. Their officers engaged
in numerous tactics that are off-limits to police in democratic states:
Threatening political opponents, censoring the media, intimidating NGO
leaders and human rights activists, and enforcing business monopolies
given to Arafat’s allies. Though limited by the Oslo accords to the Gaza
Strip and Jericho, Palestinian intelligence units boasting 5,000 men
operated throughout the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, which was the
base of operations for the leading Palestinian newspapers and
human-rights activists. Top-ranking Israeli security officials approved
this departure from the written accords via the Rome Agreement, a secret
understanding reached with Dahlan and Rajoub in January 1994, which
conditioned the extra geographic latitude given to PA police on their
pledge to fight Islamic and leftist militants planning attacks against
Israelis from these areas.
In fact, the PA police did little to combat terrorism aimed at Israelis,
but were highly effective in silencing Arafat’s would-be critics,
weakening potential challengers, and intimidating the local population.
With the security forces lined up foursquare behind him, Arafat was able
to use them to enforce decisions made by the corrupt civilian
government, to intimidate judges, to bring the media around to
supporting the Palestinian Authority, and to persuade human rights
activists to temper their criticism—in short, to shape the institutions
of government and civil society in a manner most conducive to a
dictatorial regime. It is to the first of these, the civilian government,
which we now turn.
David Keyes, wrote Palestine's Democratic Deficit
for the New York Times and shows how Mahmoud Abbas has continued this
tradition (and how the West has abetted him, in the name of "peace.")
It should come as no surprise that the Palestinian Authority is
cracking down on basic freedoms. From the top down, a culture of
repression reigns supreme. President Abbas’s term ended four years ago.
He has clung to power as an unelected autocrat for nearly half a decade.
In November, a senior adviser to Mr. Abbas, Mohammad Shtayyeh, told me
that Mr. Abbas had no desire to continue ruling, but that he simply
could not leave because of the divisions in Palestinian society.
Suppressing criticism by resorting to a 50-year-old Jordanian law —
designed to punish critics of Jordan’s monarchy when it ruled over the
West Bank — has not helped burnish the questionable democratic
credentials Mr. Abbas so often claims when meeting Western leaders.
This is not the first time the Palestinian Authority has used antiquated
laws to clamp down on Internet activists. Last year, the Palestinian
blogger Jamal Abu Rihan was arrested for starting a Facebook campaign
called “The People Want an End to Corruption.” Like Mr. Awwad, Mr.
Rihan’s crime was “extending his tongue” against the Palestinian
leadership. In April, the university lecturer Ismat Abdul-Khaleq was
arrested for criticizing Mr. Abbas on Facebook. Days later, a
journalist, Tarek Khamis, was detained for criticizing the Palestinian
Authority’s treatment of Ms. Abdul-Khaleq. George Canawati, the director
of a Bethlehem radio station, and the journalist Rami Samar were
similarly detained for posting criticisms of the Palestinian Authority
on Facebook.
So long as Mr. Abbas says he is committed to peace, there appears to be
little pressure from the West on issues of human rights. Human rights
for Palestinians, it seems, continue to play second fiddle to the peace
process.
While it's true that this is less pro-Israel than it is anti-Abbas, it
is an important antidote to the regular opinion articles in the New York
Times blaming Israel for the lack of peace. It's also important to keep
in mind the next time you read Thomas Friedman write about how Israel
is risking its democracy by failing to make peace. Aside from the
dubiousness of the claim, why doesn't he express a similar fear about
the Palestinians, who have never had democracy to lose? (Answer:
Friedman only believes in blaming Israel.)
Amazing, isn't it? In the space of one day, the New York Times had two
very good opinion articles about the Middle East. Someone is slipping.
In 25 cities across five continents, community centers, consulates,
army barracks and houses of worship have been targeted for destruction.
Thousands have been killed. The perpetrators are agents of Hezbollah and
the Quds Force, sometimes operating separately and occasionally in
unison. All take their orders from Tehran.
Hezbollah's relationship with Tehran is "a partnership arrangement with
Iran as the senior partner," says America's director of national
intelligence, James Clapper. The Lebanon-based terror group provides the
foot soldiers necessary for realizing Iran's vision of a global Islamic
empire. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah says his organization was
founded to forge "a greater Islamic republic governed by the Master of
Time [the Mahdi] and his rightful deputy, the jurisprudent Imam of
Iran."
With funding, training and weapons from Iran, Hezbollah terrorists have
killed European peacekeepers, foreign diplomats and thousands of
Lebanese, among them Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. They have hijacked
American, French and Kuwaiti airliners and kidnapped and executed
officials from several countries. They are collaborating in Bashar
Assad's slaughter of opposition forces in Syria today.
Then, in February 2008, Imad Mughniyeh, the organization's military
commander and Nasrallah's close associate, was killed in a car bomb in
Damascus. The assassination of the man who topped the FBI's most-wanted
list prior to Osama bin Laden was a severe blow to morale, as well as to
Hezbollah's strategic capabilities. Nasrallah was convinced that the
Mossad was responsible, and vowed to take revenge "outside of the
Israel-Lebanon arena."
Israel also paid particular attention to former East German Stasi
agents who had maintained contacts with their Palestinian allies even
after the fall of communism. When East Germany collapsed, many of its
spies packed up whatever sensitive documents they could obtain and then
vanished. They used the sensitive information contained in their stolen
files to sustain a comfortable living for themselves even long after the
end of the Cold War. Israel set about locating them and offering
generous payments to anyone with useful information. Before long, a
former Stasi agent reached out to a Mossad agent in Berlin: He had the
Stasi file on Mughniyah, and it was available for a price. The meeting
between Mossad representatives and the ex-Stasi spy took place at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. A large file containing
Mougniyeh’s latest photographs was exchanged for a brief case containing
$250,000. Le Carré would have approved.
This was a major coup in the hunt for Mughniyah, but it required a
further lucky break to give Israel the information it needed to bring
Mughniyah down. As recounted by David Markovsky in his article “The
Silent Strike,” published last fall in The New Yorker, in 2007, Israeli
agents infiltrated the home of Ibrahim Othman, head of the Syrian Atomic
Energy Commission. Once inside, they bugged his computer. While Israel
had been looking for information about the Syrian nuclear weapons
program (and indeed, in September of 2007, bombed a nascent nuclear
reactor inside Syria), access to this computer allowed Israel to
compromise other computers inside the supposedly secure networks of
Syria’s rulers. Among the information obtained through this operation
were details of weapons transfers from Syria to Mughniyah.
These Syrian files, the ex-Stasi documents and the intelligence
trickling in from Mossad’s spies in Lebanon began to provide a detailed
picture of Mughniyah’s recent locations and activities. Israel was
getting closer, and in January of 2008 made a breakthrough — it
developed intelligence indicating that Mughniyah was having an affair
with a woman in Damascus, and would often spend time with her inside a
luxury condo in the Syrian capital. The condo, owned by a cousin of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was put under surveillance. It is
believed that Mossad was able to get photos of Mughniyah as he came and
went from this condo, and that they matched the Stasi files.
Ambassador Oren's article reminds us that Hezbollah doesn't just
threaten Israel, but the West too. Unfortunately too many in Europe
believe that silence in the face of Hezbollah's provocations is the way
to security.
Israel's shadow war with Iran: Phone calls from Lebanon to Burgas
The New York Times reports on a shadow war going on between Israel and Iran. The only Iranian operation that has been 'successful' was the one in the Burgas Airport in Bulgaria last month in which five Israelis were killed. That plot was orchestrated by Hezbullah out of Lebanon, although that cannot be proven... yet.
Analysts say the shadow war pitting Israel against Iran and Hezbollah has more in common with the cloak-and-dagger maneuverings of the C.I.A. and the K.G.B. during the cold war than the publicity-hungry terrorism campaign of Al Qaeda. It represents a return to the idea that the most effective attack is often an ambiguous one.
“They want just enough ambiguity that you can’t nail down that they did it, the seed of doubt that makes it difficult for Israel or the United States to respond,” said Andrew Exum, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security in Washington. The undercover conflict signaled “a return to the black arts of the cold war,” he said.
After the blast in Bulgaria, both Iran and Hezbollah denied involvement almost as quickly as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pointed the finger at them. American and Bulgarian officials backed the assessment off the record, but would not say so openly. There has been little hard evidence presented to show how or by whom the plots were coordinated.
Israeli intelligence has evidence of many telephone calls between Lebanon and Burgas in the two months before the bombing, according to a senior government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information is classified, with the volume intensifying in the three days leading up to it.
But they are no more prepared to expose the details of their counterintelligence work publicly than the attackers are to claim responsibility. “We know the sources in Lebanon,” though not the identity of those on the other end in Bulgaria, the official said. “They shouldn’t know that we know the numbers in Lebanon.”
Weeks after the attack, the Bulgarian investigation has largely stalled. Officials there have yet to identify the attacker, also killed in the blast, or his suspected accomplices. They are hesitant to declare Hezbollah responsible without ironclad proof, given that the European Union has never designated the group a terrorist organization.
European allies expect more concrete evidence than the volume of calls before taking steps against Hezbollah. They maintain “some skepticism that it was Hezbollah as an organization itself, and not, for instance, Iran using individuals with some Hezbollah affiliation,” said a senior security official in Germany.
Leslie Stahl asked Meir Dagan about one of the most impressive things that happened during Dagan's tenure - the liquidation of Imad Mughniyah. Here's what Dagan said.
Let's go to the videotape.
You didn't really think he was going to answer the question, did you?
Iran rejects as "sheer lies" accusations that it was involved in a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in India, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Islamic Republic's ambassador to New Delhi as saying on Monday, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu implicated Tehran and its ally Hezbollah in the attacks.
"Any terrorist attack is condemned (by Iran) and we strongly reject the untrue comments by an Israeli official," Mehdi Nabizadeh was quoted as saying by IRNA. "These accusations are untrue and sheer lies, like previous times."
In a strike virtually identical to attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists, U.S. sources say a passing motorcyclist attached a shaped charge to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi, India. The driver and the wife of Israel's deputy defense ministry representative to India were wounded.
Television footage showed flames pouring from a minivan with its back door blown out. The attack took place at 4 p.m. on Race Track Road, close to the Israeli Embassy.
A single source confirms that a failed attack against an Israeli car in Tblisi, Georgia used a similar method, but the bomb did not detonate. A worker at the embassy alerted local police after seeing a black plastic bag attached to the bottom of the Israeli envoy's car. The bag held a hand grenade.
No attackers have been identified in either incident. An unconfirmed report says that a third Israeli facility in Amsterdam may also have been targeted.
A day after the fourth anniversary of the untimely death of Imad Mughniyah - Shem Reshaim Yirkav (may the names of the wicked be obliterated) - two simultaneous bombs were planted outside the Israeli embassies in New Delhi, India and Tbilisi, Georgia. The good news is that the bomb in Tbilisi was neutralized and no one was hurt. In New Delhi, two people were injured, one of them the wife of an Israeli diplomat.
A day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah’s military commander, two seemingly coordinated attacks were launched on Monday against Israeli embassies overseas.
In the first attack, the wife of an Israeli diplomat was injured when a bomb exploded in her car in New Delhi, India. The woman succeeded in driving to the Israeli embassy where she was evacuated to a nearby hospital.
Local authorities were investigating the possibility that the bomb was planted under the car or alternatively that an assassin on a motorbike attached it to the vehicle as it was driving.
In the second attack, an embassy staffer in Tbilisi, Georgia discovered a bomb underneath his car as he was driving to the embassy Monday morning. The staffer – a local Georgian national – heard something during the drive, pulled over to the side of the road, noticed the bomb and called local authorities. The bomb was dismantled before exploding.
This is from Indian television. Let's go to the videotape.
Israeli Embassy Spokesman David Goldfarb confirmed that an explosion took out a diplomat's car and that one person was injured, but did not identify the victim.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor also would not discuss the identity of the nor the extent of the injuries because it was a security matter.
"We are looking into the incident and cooperation with local security forces is excellent," Palmor said.
Indian police said only that a car was on fire on the street outside the embassy. New Delhi media reported that two people were wounded. Television footage showed a charred minivan with blue diplomatic plates, its rear door apparently blown out.
The Foreign Ministry said that Israeli missions worldwide have been briefed on the event.
...
Israeli Ambassador to Georgia Yitzhak Gerber told Ynet that "We don't have all the details yet. The local authorities are looking into it, but so far it doesn’t look too dramatic.
"From what we know now, there was an attempt to place an explosive device on a car belonging to one of our local employees. He noticed it while he was on his way to us, and alerted the authorities. The device was defused."
Gerber added that "these kinds of things are part of the job. It's very unpleasant, but it's always in the back of our mind. Considering that yesterday was the day we bid farewell to Imad Mugniyah this was to be expected."
Thank God it sounds like everyone is going to be alright.
UPDATE 5:01 PM
Israel Radio reports that the wife of the Ministry of Defense's attache in New Delhi was lightly to moderately wounded, and that an embassy driver and two locals were also wounded.
The bomb was attached to the car.
The Prime Minister is blaming Iran and Hezbullah - more on that later.
Hezbullah believed to be targeting Israelis in Europe
Israel's Ministry of Tourism has asked Bulgarian and other European authorities to increase security around tourist destinations frequented by Israelis due to a threat of terror attacks from Hezbullah and Iran.
Security sources said that while there was no specific threat, there was intelligence suggesting that Israelis traveling in Europe would be targeted by terror groups.
According to the report, the defense establishment is concerned by Iranian threats to retaliate over what it calls "the systematic elimination" if its nuclear scientists.
Concerns over a possible attack in Bulgaria are compounded by defense establishment intelligence – backed by Western intelligence sources – suggesting Hezbollah is planning a terror attack on "an Israeli destination in Europe," possibly around the coming anniversary of the assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mugniyah.
Israel has increased its own security measures around Israeli sites across Europe as well, and according to security sources, previous attempted by Hezbollah to mount such attacks have been foiled.
Nevertheless, the Counter-Terrorism Bureau criticized the Transportation Ministry's move, saying it was the first time the ministry had issued this kind of travel advisory and adding that it did so independently.
The Counter-Terrorism Bureau is the only official government body authorized to issue security-based travel advisories.
CTB sources said that Shenar had briefed them on the information he had, but sans a credible threat or intelligence suggesting an imminent one, the CTB saw no need to issue a travel advisory. "The hysterical atmosphere in unnecessary," a CTB source said.
The Foreign Ministry also downplayed the Tourism Ministry's concerns: The latter's travel advisory has not been posted on the Foreign Ministry's website, unlike other Counter-Terrorism Bureau advisories.
Unfortunately, we have way too much experience with this sort of thing. In most European countries today, synagogues are set up so that cars cannot approach them, and armed guards stand outside. Often, there is a community center building which includes the synagogue and a Kosher restaurant and some of the tightest security I have ever seen (usually done by Israelis) on a non-Israeli site. I'm glad I don't live there.
Federal Judge holds Iran and Hezbullah jointly responsible for 9/11 with Al-Qaeda
A Federal Judge has found that Iran and Hezbullah assisted al-Qaeda in carrying out the 9/11 attacks (Hat Tip: Zvi S).
The long-awaited ruling came in the cases of Havlish, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., and Bingham, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., lawsuits filed by families of 9/11 victims. The cases provided clear and compelling evidence that Iranian officials at the top levels of the Tehran regime played a key role in planning and facilitating the 9/11 attacks and, even more specifically, that they provided direct and material support to al-Qa’eda without which the attacks could not have taken place. This week, Judge Daniels agreed.
...
Based on its last-minute discovery just days before the 2004 publication of its report of thousands of classified intelligence reports that described what the U.S. Intelligence Community knew about the Iran-al-Qa’eda relationship, the Commission called explicitly on the U.S. government to conduct further investigation of that relationship. As of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, however, there was no indication the U.S. government had conducted any such investigation nor did it appear to have any intent or willingness to do so.
So, taking the 9/11 Commission Report as its starting point, the Havlish team undertook that “further investigation,” relying primarily on open source material. In addition, the Havlish attorneys took 25 hours of sworn testimony (filed under seal) from three former Iranian intelligence officers, who described the direct participation of top Iranian government officials and also of Imad Mughniyah, the Hizballah terror chieftain assassinated in February 2008, who was the key liaison for training and terror operations between Iran and al-Qa’eda for many years.
As detailed on pg. 240 of the Commission’s final report, a “senior Hezbollah operative” (Mughniyah) accompanied some of the future 9/11 hijackers on their final airline flights around the Middle East, into and out of Afghanistan, Iran, and Lebanon. In addition to directing Mughniyah’s extensive involvement in recruiting, guiding, and training the hijackers, Iran provided critical material support to those hijackers by ordering its border and passport officials to not stamp their passports when they crossed Iranian territory, thereby ensuring the hijackers eventually could enter the U.S. with “clean” passports.
Nor did Iranian support to al-Qa’eda end with the 9/11 attacks. Top al-Qa’eda leadership, including Usama bin-Laden, family members, and other important commanders such as Saif al-Adl, fleeing the battles of Tora Bora in late 2001-early 2002, found safehaven inside Iran. There, Ayman al-Zawahiri’s decades-long personal relationships with key regime figures, including Iran’s current Defense Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, and a series of Iranian intelligence directors, smoothed the way for hundreds of al-Qa’eda operatives to live and continue directing terror attacks under the protection of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the IRGC’s Qods Force, and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Even after Usama bin-Laden, Saif al-Adl, and others returned to the wilds of the Afghan-Pakistan border region, Iran continued to provide support, training, and weapons (especially IEDs and the lethal EFPs or Explosively Formed Projectiles) to al-Qa’eda terror militias in Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Assuming this makes it into the mainstream media, I wonder whether it will have any effect on the willingness of Americans to attack or support an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
