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Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has stressed that his group will not disarm even if the Shebaa Farms were liberated and acknowledged that a Hizbullah fighter was behind the downing of a Lebanese army helicopter last week. "Shebaa Farms are not a pretext to keep our arms. If the Farms were liberated now, the weapons will stay," Nasrallah said in a televised speech late last Thursday. "I am telling you that from now because we are speaking of resistance as a defense need for Lebanon," he added. The Shiite leader also stressed that Hizbullah will not surrender its weapons "as...

Two years after the Israeli-Hezbollah war which left much of south Lebanon's infrastructure in shambles, military analyst W. Thomas Smith, Jr. offers new insight into recent developments surrounding Hezbollah's quest for power in that country. Lending a trained eye to the strength and activities of Hezbollah, challenges faced by Lebanese Army and police forces, as well as sharing a portion of a personal conversation with President Michel Sleiman, Smith unveils the truth behind Hezbollah: He describes the extremist state within the legitimate state, and expounds on the regional dangers of the Shiia terrorist organization and its newly acquired political powers.

Q&A with ex-CIA agent Robert Baer on terror, the Iran crisis, and Hezbollah blasts When reports from US and Canadian intelligence sources surfaced in late June claiming that Hezbollah, a Lebanese political and paramilitary movement which the Canadian government calls a terrorist organization, was scouting Jewish and Israeli locations in Ontario for possible attack, Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, offered his usual blunt take. “They cannot have an operation fail,” said Baer, “and I don’t think they will. They’re the A-team of terrorism,” he told ABC News. The Lebanese Shia—Hezbollah, in other words—may even be the best car bombers...

ix Israeli jets flew over south Lebanon and broke the sound barrier twice over the port city of Tyre on Wednesday, a security official said. "Six Israeli warplanes flew all over southern Lebanon and the city of Tyre at low altitude for more than an hour and broke the sound barrier twice over Tyre," the official told AFP. The overflight prompted scared shoppers to flee Tyre's main market, an AFP correspondent said. Residents also poured on to the streets nervously watching the skies, little more than two years after the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah devastated much of...

NABATIYE, Lebanon — The children crowd forward around the glass case, eager for a glimpse of the martyr’s bloodstained clothes. His belt is here, and the shoes he died in, scarred with shrapnel. The battered desk where he planned military operations still has his box of pencils on it, his in-box, his cellphone. “May God kill the one who killed him,” an old woman says, wiping tears from her eyes as she stares through the glass. The dead man being shown such veneration is Imad Mugniyah, the shadowy Hezbollah commander. Until his death in a car bombing in Syria in...

CAIRO, Egypt — An Egyptian lawmaker and business tycoon was arrested Tuesday in the death of a Lebanese pop singer, Egypt's chief prosecutor said, accusing the man of paying a former police officer $2 million to kill her. Hisham Talaat, a lawmaker from the ruling party of President Hosni Mubarak, is accused of ordering the death of 30-year-old Suzanne Tamim, who was found decapitated in her Dubai apartment in July, chief prosecutor Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud told The Associated Press. The death made waves in Egyptian media in early August and prompted a media ban in Egypt last month, following reports that...

BEIRUT: Israel has informed the United States that it is prepared to withdraw from the northern side of Ghajar village, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Monday. Describing Israel's remarks as "a change in its policy for the past year and a half of not wanting to discuss the issue," the paper quoted an unidentified "government source in [Occupied] Jerusalem [who] said the decision was made after the Lebanese government delivered written assurances that UNIFIL [the UN Interim Force in Lebanon] would be given security and civilian control over the northern part of the village, which is in Lebanese territory."...

"My friend was stopped at a checkpoint on the road to Irbil from Baghdad. The people in the car had to show their ID cards to the masked men. "They could see she was Christian from her name. They dragged her from the car, pushed her to her knees and put a gun to her head. "They told her to convert to Islam, or die. She refused and started praying out loud. But they did not kill her, not straight away. They raped her and then she was shot in the head." Pascale (her name and the names of her...

Hizbullah sources confirmed the group was responsible for firing at a Lebanese military helicopter, killing a navigator and forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing, Channel 1 reported Thursday night. The helicopter was attacked as it flew over a Hizbullah stronghold in southern Lebanon, earlier on Thursday. According to a statement released by the Lebanese army, the helicopter was on a training mission when it came under fire from "armed elements" and was forced down in the highlands of the Iqlim al-Tuffah province. The statement said 1st Lt. Samer Hanna was killed and that the aircraft was damaged. No...

As my colleague Caroline Glick aptly noted two weeks ago, Russia's invasion of Georgia was an object lesson in the folly of relying on others to protect you. But lest anyone remain unconvinced, Claudio Graziano has kindly offered further proof. Graziano, an Italian general, commands the expanded UNIFIL force stationed in Lebanon under Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. On August 14, he gave a press conference on the resolution's implementation. His conclusions were simple: Israel, he said, is in "permanent violation," whereas Hizbullah is "one of [the] parties that agrees with 1701," and has...

A Lebanese army helicopter had to crash land today after being hit by gunfire. The pilot was killed and other crew members injured. An army statement said the helicopter came under fire from "armed elements" while on a training mission over Iqlim al-Touffah district, a mountainous ridge north of a zone where UN peacekeepers have a mandate to operate. An investigation was under way. Iqlim al-Touffah is a stronghold of the Shia Muslim group Hezbollah.

Lebanon has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over the disappearance 30 years ago of a senior Shiite cleric after a visit to Libya, officials said on Wednesday. Kadhafi was also indicted for allegedly "inciting the abduction" of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of Lebanon's Shiite community, investigating magistrate Samih el-Hajj said in a charge sheet. An "arrest warrant" was issued for the Libyan ruler and six other Libyan suspects who were also indicted for taking part in the alleged abduction, AFP reported. Sadr disappeared while in Libya with two companions Mohammed Yacoub and Abbas Badreddin...

What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero? Most Americans are familiar with the brutal murder of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer on the cruise ship Achille Laura in 1985. Terrorists led by Abu Abbas (who was later given safe haven in Baghdad by Saddam Hussein) took the ship captive and threw Klinghoffer overboard. But few recall that the ship was seized to bargain for the release of, among others, Samir Kuntar from an Israeli prison. Kuntar had taken part in an earlier terror attack. In 1979, as a 16-year-old, he and four others had...

Hizbullah leader warns Israel against attacking Lebanon, says 'war's outcome will be clear,' adds, 'Israeli enemy's army will witness things from our warriors in the field it has never seen since plundering entity was established'

From a giant representation of the olive-green cap he wore in the battlefield, to his personal assault rifle, his comb and the mat he prayed on, an exhibition commemorating the second anniversary of Hezbollah's latest war with Israel centered on the group's slain military commander, Imad Mughniyah. Displaying charred remains of captured Israeli gear and equipment along with some of Mughniyah's personal belongings, the exhibition seeks to glorify the man and what the Lebanese Shiite militant group regards as his greatest achievement, the "divine victory" of the summer 2006 war. Before his obscure assassination last February in Damascus, Mughniyah was...

Hizbullah warned Friday that revenge for the death of the group's terror chief Imad Mughniyeh was not far off. "Hizbullah will soon avenge the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh," said Sheikh Ahmad Morad, a member of the Hizbullah leadership in southern Lebanon. "The revenge will be shocking and huge surprises are in store," he added. "We will not allow Israel and its generals to enjoy stability." Morad was speaking at a Hizbullah rally in southern Lebanon. Mughniyeh was killed in February in a car bomb in the heart of Damascus. Israel has denied involvement. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister's Office issued...

His claims to have brought unprecedented calm to northern Israel notwithstanding, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday acknowledged in a stern warning to Beirut that renewed conflict with Lebanon’s Hizballah terrorist militia is a real possibility. Israel, said Olmert, practiced tremendous restraint during the 2006 Second Lebanon War as it did its best to differentiate between Hizballah and Lebanon, and only wage war against the former.

Lebanon's Hizbullah on Monday signed a new memorandum of understanding with another Lebanese group, in a bid to "preserve national unity and prevent sedition" in the country. The document was signed Monday between Hizbullah and the Salafist movement in a ceremony that was held at the Safir Metropolitan Hotel in Beirut. The Shiite movement was represented in the ceremony by the head of its political council Sayyed Ibrahim Amin As-Sayyed, while the Salafist movement was represented by Sheikh Hassan Shahhal. The new memorandum of understanding includes eight main clauses, emphasizing the need to stay united to confront sedition schemes and...

In terms of weaponry, strategic and political positioning, and its ever-expanding international reach; Hezbollah is “five times more capable today,” than it was at the beginning of the July 2006 war with Israel: A fact, according to experts, that prompted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to tell his troops during a Tuesday morning tour of positions along the Golan Heights, “It’s not for nothing that we’re training here.”

Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano on Thursday accused Israel of violating UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that brought an end to the Second Lebanon War. During a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Graziano cited the IAF forays over Lebanon and the village of Ghajar, which he called "a permanent violation of 1701" and "a permanent area under occupation." A further violation, according to Graziano, was Israel's failure to provide maps of all the locations where it dropped cluster bombs during the 2006 war. In contrast, he said...

Roadside bomb kills at least 18 in Lebanon It was the worst attack on the army since last summer, when it fought a 16-week battle with al- Qaeda-inspired militant group Fatah al-Islam, losing 170 soldiers. The gunmen, of Lebanese, Palestinian and other Arab nationalities, were holed up in the Nahr El-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, just north of Tripoli. Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Abssi and other fighters slipped away during the battle and remain on the loose.

The political language of Lebanon has been violated for many decades. What was coined as a “civil war” from 1975 was, in fact, a Lebanese-Palestinian battle. Syria’s occupation, as a hegemonic subjugation of Lebanon, was sanitized into “brotherly relations” and a “historic pact.” The 1989 Taif Accord was hailed as the end to the militarization of Lebanese society, with a call for disarming all private militias, but Hizbullah was exempted as the so-called ‘resistance’ against Israel. Today the ‘resistance’ has a political stranglehold over the Lebanese government. It exercises veto power over major decisions and enjoys the license to initiate...

Bomb in northern Lebanese city kills 18 TRIPOLI, Lebanon - A bomb ripped through a bus carrying civilians and members of the Lebanese military during Wednesday morning rush hour in the northern city of Tripoli, killing 18 people and wounding 46, security officials said. The officials said the dead included 10 off-duty soldiers, from a bomb planted on the side of a main street that detonated as the bus passed. The streets were filled with people heading to work, which contributed to the many casualties, the officials said.

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Lebanese security officials said a bomb has exploded on a busy street in the northern city of Tripoli, killing at least three people and wounding many. The officials said the target was a military bus in the central Nour Square. They said Wednesday's explosion happened as the streets were filled with people heading to work, causing many injuries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity for not being authorized to speak to the media. Tripoli has witnessed sectarian clashes in the past weeks that killed and wounded dozens of people. The city is also close to the Palestinian refugee camp...

An editor of an Egyptian independent newspaper said he was questioned by prosecutors Tuesday for violating a government ban on publishing information on the high-profile killing of a Lebanese pop singer. Sunday's edition of the Al-Dustour daily was barred from distribution by authorities because it included an article on arrest of an Egyptian in the slaying of singer Suzanne Tamim last month in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The article remained on the paper's Web site. Tamim was found stabbed and decapitated in her Dubai apartment on July 28. Her killing has been a top story in Arab media outside...

BEIRUT: Former President Amine Gemayel said in remarks published Thursday that Lebanon was being held hostage by Iran, adding that Hizbullah's authority stretched beyond that of the Lebanese state. "Lebanon is the captive of an Iranian strategy that is being implemented by Hizbullah," Gemayel told the Arabic daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat. Gemayel added that Hizbullah's arms were not aimed at liberating the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. "These weapons are part of a broader regional strategy ... Hizbullah is part of Iran's strategy and nothing else ... the entire situation will change if Iran reconciles with the West." The Phalange Party leader said...

SIDON: The British Museum's excavation team in Sidon have recently unearthed a new grave containing human skeletal remains belonging to a Canaanite warrior, archeology expert and field supervisor Claude Doumet Serhal told The Daily Star on Monday. According to Serhal, the delegation made the discovery at the "Freres" excavation site near Sidon's crusader castle. "This is the 77th grave that we have discovered at this site since our digging activities has started ten years ago with Lebanese-British financing," she said. According to Serhal, the remains go back to 2000 B.C., with a British archeologist saying the warrior had been buried...

(IsraelNN.com) The Hizbullah terrorist group slammed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Tuesday night for its intention to rescue any Israel Air Force pilot whose aircraft is shot down over Lebanon. According to a report published by the Lebanese daily newspaper al-Akhbar, Commander Claudio Graziano distributed to his troops a contingency plan in which UNIFIL soldiers would aim to reach the pilot before the terrorists could get to him. Failing that, if the pilot is captured by guerrilla forces, Plan B is an attempt to rescue him from enemy hands. However, if the pilot is being held...

Israel is sounding the alarm: The fragile balance of forces in Lebanon is unraveling. And the world is playing deaf. The Israeli-Lebanese relationship is reaching another critical turning-point; and not just over how Lebanon and Hizbullah are melding into a single new entity, with Beirut set to formally confer upon Hizbullah the right to "liberate or recover occupied lands" - meaning any territory it defines as "occupied," whether Mount Dov (the Shaba Farms) or Galilee. Lebanon is metamorphosing from hapless bystander to willing Hizbullah enabler, a transformation certain to have devastating consequences. The even more immediate crisis is that unless...

A draft policy statement that could secure Hizbullah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands" is expected to be approved by the Lebanese council of ministers on Monday before being presented to the parliament in the coming days. Some observers in Lebanon see the clause on "resistance" as a significant victory for Hizbullah, which has long resisted giving up its arms in its fight against Israel. "Lebanese officials from the president down had always legitimized Hizbullah's resistance as a national cause," Timur Goksel, a former senior UNIFIL adviser/spokesman who now teaches in...

(IsraelNN.com) Syrian President Bashar Assad's top aide and adviser, General Mohammed Suleiman, was assassinated on Friday, according to Arab news sources. Suleiman, who was also Syria's liaison officer to the Hizbullah terrorist organization in Lebanon, was shot and killed by an unidentified sniper in the Syrian port city of Tartous. Syrian authorities tried unsuccessfully to prevent publication of the news. The country's Albawaba newspaper, which reported the incident, speculated that Israel might have been behind the killing. Both Albawaba and the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper raised the issue of last February's assassination of Hizbullah second-in-command Imad Mughniyeh, who died in a...

In a display of Hizbullah's extended involvement in conflicts throughout the Middle East, Coalition Special Forces captured two members of the group during a raid over the weekend in eastern Baghdad. According to the Multinational Force Iraq, the raid targeted the home of an individual suspected of serving as a member of a Hizbullah cell - called "Kata'ib Hizbullah" or "Hizbullah Brigades" - suspected of making videos of attacks on coalition forces. The videos are then used to raise funds and resources for additional attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces. According to media reports, the Hizbullah Brigades have been active...

The political and military group's senior commander in southern Lebanon said in a rare interview that Hizbollah was far stronger now than when it fought the Israeli army in a conflict in 2006. Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, who leads Hizbollah's forces on Lebanon's border with Israel - the crucial battlefront of any future war, was speaking in the port city of Tyre. "The resistance is now stronger than before and this keeps the option of war awake. If we were weak, Israel would not hesitate to start another war," he said. "We are stronger than before and when Hizbollah is strong,...

Lebanon's newly formed national unity government has agreed on a policy statement that may allow Hezbollah to keep its weapons

Hizbullah is stronger than it was during the Second Lebanon War, the Telegraph quoted Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, the Shi'ite group's senior commander in southern Lebanon, as saying Friday. Kaouk told the the UK paper that Hizbullah was now "now stronger than before and this keeps the option of war awake." "If we were weak, Israel would not hesitate to start another war," he insisted. "We are stronger than before and when Hizbollah is strong, our strength stops Israel from starting a new war... We don't seek war, but we must be ready." The commander also spoke of Hizbullah's military reliance...

Where is Malcolm Kerr when we really need him? We have asked this question in my family many times during the past 25 years of intifadas, suicide bombings, checkpoints, insistent terror and increasing complication in the Middle East. The question is always followed by a sigh because Malcolm Kerr, a brilliant scholar of Middle East politics, was a famous casualty of those complications, gunned down in January 1984 as he stepped out of a lift on the way to his office at the American University of Beirut. Kerr, a neighbour and family friend for 20 years, had been president of...

A former American overseer of Iraqi prisons says several dozen inmates who were members of Saddam Hussein's military and intelligence forces boasted of helping transport weapons of mass destruction to Syria and Lebanon in the three months prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Don Bordenkircher – who served two years as national director of prison and jail operations in Iraq– told WND that about 40 prisoners he spoke with "boasted of being involved in the transport of WMD warheads to Syria. A smaller number of prisoners, he said, claimed "they knew the locations of the missile hulls buried in Iraq."...

A scheme to defraud state taxpayers out of millions of dollars was thwarted by some alert Regions Bank employees and one of the state's biggest road contractors — but not before some of the money was transferred to Beirut, Lebanon. FBI agents caught Ali Hassan Hammoud, 35, minutes before he was to board an Air France flight to Lebanon, but they were too late to stop the transfer to Lebanon of some of the $5.7-million stolen from the state treasury. The money was transferred in four installments after state officials received bogus paperwork directing them to ship the money to...

Lebanon's 'Soldiers of Virtue' By FOUAD AJAMI July 23, 2008 There have been a dozen prisoner exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel since the early 1990s, but Samir Kuntar was always a case apart. In 1979 Kuntar and his companions killed a policeman, kidnapped a young father, Danny Haran, and killed him in front of his 4-year-old daughter. Then Kuntar turned to the child and crushed her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle. In the mayhem, Danny Haran's wife, Smadar, hiding in her home, accidentally smothered to death the couple's 2-year-old daughter. Now Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah,...

There is something to be learned from the frenzied love-fest given in Beirut in mid-July to the most notorious of the Lebanese prisoners released by Israel. Samir Kuntar was sentenced to 542 years in prison for killing four people during a raid in 1979. Kuntar executed a father (Danny Haran) in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killed the little girl by smashing her head against a rock with a rifle butt. But to the Lebanese, Kuntar is a returning hero. He walked down a red carpet in Beirut. He was kissed by the Hezbollah leader and cheered like a...

There is something to be learned from the frenzied love-fest given in Beirut in mid-July to the most notorious of the Lebanese prisoners released by Israel. Samir Kuntar was sentenced to 542 years in prison for killing four people during a raid in 1979. Kuntar executed a father (Danny Haran) in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killed the little girl by smashing her head against a rock with a rifle butt. But to the Lebanese, Kuntar is a returning hero. He walked down a red carpet in Beirut. He was kissed by the Hezb'allah leader and cheered like a...

Since Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora bowed to Hizbullah's demands in Doha last month and agreed to grant the Iranian-controlled, Syrian-supported terror group control over his government, Lebanon has become an official agent of a terror group. That is, Lebanon, as a state, has become a sponsor of terror. But no one seems to notice or to care. Truth be told, on the surface the situation in Lebanon is quite complicated. There is a power struggle of sorts going on today between Saniora's pro-Lebanese sovereignty March 14th movement and Hizbullah. Even in its diminished status, the March 14th movement is...

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi said Tuesday that Baghdad looks for "balanced relations" with Iran. Abdul Mahdi also called for adopting a "clear vision" for Iraq's relations with "the two major non-Arab Muslim neighbors" Iran and Turkey. "We hope for a regional order in which all (Middle East states) would take part, including Iran," Abdul Mahdi told the daily al-Mustaqbal. He spoke of "increasing understanding by an increasing number of Arab leaders and states" of Iraq's stand. Such a trend leads to "rebuilding bridges, the opening of embassies and the signing of agreements. All these developments are in the...

Second day of fighting in northern Lebanon 26/07 12:01 CET euronews, France - Jul 26, 2008 Tripoli is predominantly Sunni, but has a sizeable Shi’ite Alawite community with close links to Hezbollah. Lebanon’s political impasse...

It is a tale of two Druze. One Druze is from Lebanon, his name is Samir Kuntar. He is a notorious terrorist, he is a child killer. Samir Kuntar was just released from an Israeli jail. Kuntar, four other living terrorists and one hundred ninety nine dead bodies were exchanged by Israel for two dead bodies, two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner by Hezbollah two summers ago. Another Druze is from Israel, his name is Amal Ganem. He is a border patrol officer, he is a hero. Amal Ganem shot dead the Arab terrorist who, in copycat fashion, drove a tractor...

Last Wednesday's pageantry in Beirut celebrating the return of Samir Kuntar marked a black day for Lebanon. It is hardly the first time an Arab terror outfit has held a street party for murderers - sweets were handed out in plenty of Arab capitals on 9/11. Still, it was surprising to see the participation of many members of Lebanon's pro-democracy March 14 movement, like Prime Minister Fouad Siniora who has become a significant US ally over the last three years. Now, Lebanon's friends in the international community, especially in Washington, who backed March 14's struggle and looked to it as...

Lebanon proposes to rebuild Nahr al-Bared, the Palestinian city-camp near Tripoli pulverised in a long siege last year in an attempt to kill Sunni militants holed up there. The new, as yet only imagined, town is intended to preserve the memories of the old, yet return the area to the control of Lebanon.

Jerusalem — Israeli security officials have said that Samir Kantar, the Lebanese murderer who was freed in a prisoner exchange after nearly three decades behind bars, should now fear for his life. "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," an official said. Another security official told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper: "Now that he is out of jail, we have no obligation towards Kantar, a loathsome murderer whose accounts will be settled in the end." Mr. Kantar, who will be 46 next...

It was July 15, 1958, and Second Lieutenant Simon L Leis Jr was nervous. As he waited for orders aboard the USS Taconic, he peered across the rough waters of the Mediterranean towards the yellow sands of Khalde beach, just five miles south of Beirut. Like the other members of the United States Marine Corps that day, Leis was preparing for battle. Briefed to expect the possibility of a hostile reception, the young leatherneck from Cincinnati, Ohio, knew little of the complexities surrounding Lebanon’s predicament. But when the call to arms finally came, he was ready. As whoops of anticipation...