Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts

Monday, June 10, 2013

Syrian Military Prepares For An All-Out Assault On Aleppo

End Of Days News

Syrian Military Prepares For An All-Out Assault On Aleppo

War News Updates Editor at War News Updates
*Syria Troops 'Preparing For Aleppo Assault' -- BBC* Syrian government forces are reported to be preparing for a major offensive on rebel-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo and its surroundings. A Syrian security source said it would start "in the coming hours or days". Opposition activists in the city told the BBC that military reinforcements, including Hezbollah fighters, had been sent to parts of Aleppo. Government forces backed by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist group, last week recaptured the town of Qusair. On Sunday, they retook the last remaining rebel-held ... more »

DISTRESS OF NATIONS: Protests over Syria turn deadly in Lebanon – growing chaos in Turkey

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DISTRESS OF NATIONS: Protests over Syria turn deadly in Lebanon – growing chaos in Turkey

END TIME HEADLINES at END TIME HEADLINES 
LEBANON – Lebanese troops blocked streets in Beirut with tanks and barbed wire for several hours on Sunday after the killing of a protester outside the Iranian embassy raised factional tensions already inflamed by the… Read More →

Monday, June 3, 2013

Hezbollah Forces Prepare To Attack The Syrian City Of Aleppo

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Hezbollah Forces Prepare To Attack The Syrian City Of Aleppo

War News Updates Editor at War News Updates
*In Syria, Hezbollah Forces Appear Ready To Attack Rebels In City Of Aleppo -- Washington Post* BEIRUT — Thousands of Lebanese Hezbollah militants were massed around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, according to rebels and a senior commander in the Lebanese Shiite movement, broadening Hezbollah’s backing of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and stoking fears of an imminent assault on the city. The commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said there were about 2,000 Hezbollah fighters in Aleppo province, ...more »

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Air force chief warns of ‘surprise war’ with Syria

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Amir Eshel says Assad’s ‘immense arsenal’ could be turned on Israel at any moment, accompanied by rockets from Gaza and Lebanon

Israel Air Force chief Amir Eshel (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash 90)

The commander of the Israeli Air Force, which has reportedly bombarded targets in Syria several times in recent months, warned Wednesday that war could break out on Israel’s northern border at any moment, demanding the full engagement of the IAF’s resources.
“If tomorrow Syria collapses, and I am not saying that will happen, we could find ourselves in the thick of it very fast and in great number,” IAF commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said, illustrating how the nature of surprise wars had changed for Israel since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Lebanese sources: Intense Israeli air, ground activity

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Lebanese sources: Intense Israeli air, ground activity 
DEBKAfile May 12, 2013, 4:16 PM (GMT+02:00)
Various Lebanese sources report intense Israeli military activity Sunday along the Israeli-Syrian and Lebanese borders. Witnesses describe Israeli warplanes as making aerial passes over south Lebanon, ground forces moving along the Golan border with Syria and attack helicopters flying over Mts Hermon and Dov and the Shaaba Farms.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Israel Air Force bombs Syrian chemical and other targets from Lebanon, Golan

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American sources reported Israeli air strikes Saturday, May 4, against a number of targets in Syria including a chemical weapons depot outside Damascus. They were carried out remotely from Lebanese air space and the Golan starting Friday and continuing up until early Saturday, May 3. Neither Damascus nor Jerusalem has yet confirmed the attacks in which according to US sources 16 IAF warplanes took part.  According to one report, Israeli jets were seen early Saturday circling over Assad's presidential compound in Damascus before moving on to target a weapons site. The Israeli jets reportedly received fire but returned to base unscathed.

Some sources say the target attacked was a convoy transporting chemical arms to the Lebanese Hizballah, which Israeli leaders have vowed to prevent.

DEBKAfile’s military sources say the start of the Israeli air force operation can be fixed by the sirens set off over the Golan Friday afternoon and again before dawn Saturday. The IDF spokesman said they were set off by a “technical glitch.” They now prove to have been triggered automatically by the Israeli aerial movements.

Friday, Lebanon reported a number of Israeli warplane intrusions of its air space.

DEBKAfile reported earlier that this week, thousands of Basij militiamen landed in Syria, establishing an Iranian military presence opposite Israel from Syria as well as Lebanon. They joined a comparable number of Hizballah militiamen fighting for the Bashar regime.

See this earlier DEBKAfile report:

US officials recently gave Israel a video demonstration of the new features which enable its biggest bunker buster bomb (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) to destroy Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo near Qom, in a bid to dissuade Israel from a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This is reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The video displayed the improved bomb, which Israel does not have, as hitting the ground near its target and setting off a massive underground explosion.

DEBKAfiles military sources report that this videotaped demonstration was in line with the Obama administration’s latest campaign to convince Israel that the US is getting ready to strike Iran itself.

Israeli planes hit targets in Syria, say US officials

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Illustrative photo of IAF F-15s flying in formation. (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

The CNN report followed Lebanese media reports of increased Israeli Air Force activity over southern Lebanon on Thursday and Friday.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the CNN report.
As many as eight Israeli warplanes reportedly entered Lebanese airspace, according to Hezbollah news outlet Al-Manar, while The Daily Star on Friday quoted the Lebanese military as saying that a succession of Israeli warplanes flew over the country, culminating in a pair of planes which circled South Lebanon for nearly three hours on Friday afternoon.
On Thursday, “two Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace entering above the sea west of Sidon and flying over all Lebanese areas as they conducted aerial maneuvers,” the Daily Star quoted a statement from the Lebanese Army as saying.
The Israeli army’s top intelligence analyst Brig. Gen. Itai Brun was the first  prominent figure to publicly declare that President Bashar Assad was using chemical weapons — he specified Sarin — against rebel targets. Brun’s public assertion caused initial dismay in the US, and was initially rejected by Secretary of State John Kerry, but soon afterwards confirmed by the US and other world powers.
US President Barack Obama had said such use would be a game-changer, and Obama has been weighing how to respond for several days. Israel has said repeatedly that it will intervene to prevent Syrian chemical weapons falling into the hands of terror groups such as Hezbollah.

Lebanon reports Israeli jet overflights

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The Lebanese media report that after noon Friday Israeli warplanes were sighted over southern Lebanon. Earlier Israeli fighter jets were sign flying over the Mediterranean opposite Beirut.

 

Monday, February 18, 2013

Syrian Islamists meet Hizballah head-on – take in arms from Bosnia, Kosovo

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Fagot anti-tank missile

Reports Monday, Feb. 18, that Hizballah has transferred 1,000 fighters to the Syrian district of Homs are a red herring to distract attention from six new major developments in the Syrian civil conflict - revealed here by debkafile’s military and intelligence sources:

1. Contrary to reports of Hizballah attacks on villages in the Homs region, the thousand Hizballah militiamen have moved in to defend the predominantly Shiite villages of the area whose population is loyal to Bashar Assad. They are there to relieve the Syrian army of the burden of defending these Shiites against rebel attack.
Hizballah has also undertaken to guard Shiite holy shrines in Syria.

2.  The Muslim factions of the Syrian revolt have received their first heavy weapons consignments, mostly Kornet and Fagot anti-tank missiles. Their improved armaments account for the new edge they display in battles with Bashar Assad’s army, although reports of their conquests are much exaggerated.

3.  These arms are coming from two sources: radical Islamist organizations in Bosnia and Kosovo, some of them associated with al Qaeda – at least ideologically. It is hard to say who is organizing and bankrolling the new weapons sea route to Syria. According to one theory, it is the Albanian mafia.

4. For the first time, Syrian rebels are taking in arms unsupervised by any of the Western or Arab agencies involved in the Syrian revolt.

5. Most of the incoming weapons are destined for the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra, the rebel faction identified with al Qaeda.

6. The Jabhat al-Nusra, newly armed with hardware from Bosnia and Kosovo, have pushed across the border into Lebanon, our sources reveal, and are harassing Hizballah in its home bases in the Beqaa Valley. Night after night in the last ten days, small bands of Islamist fighters, weighed down by heavy loads of rockets, are attacking Hizballah strongholds and isolated guard and watch posts and ambushing military vehicles.
Both are designated terrorist groups by the United States government.
The Syrian conflict has indeed spilled over the border into Lebanon. It is also turning more and more into a sectarian confrontation between extremist Sunnis and radical Shiites. 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Strikes on Syria arms transfers may continue, analysts say

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Soldiers affixing missiles to an Israeli jet before a flight over Lebanon in 2006. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90)
 
Israel is keeping a close eye on Syria and will act if it sees any indication that weapons are being transferred to Hezbollah, military experts said in an interview published Saturday.
 
A reported Israeli attack on a Syrian weapons convoy could be only the first volley in a series of upcoming strikes against Damascus and Hezbollah should the embattled regime try to transfer weapons to the Lebanese terror group, former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin told the Washington Post.
 
“Any time Israel will have reliable intelligence that this is going to be transferred from Syria to Lebanon, it will act,” the paper reported Yadlin saying.
 
He added the caveat that the decision to strike would still be made on a case by case basis.
 
Hezbollah has reportedly been preparing for the possibility of more attacks, the pan-Arab London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi reported Friday, citing an increase in Israeli fighter jets flying over southern Lebanese airspace and carrying out “mock raids.”
 
On Saturday the Lebanese army said Israeli “spy drones” had clocked over 17 hours over Lebanese territory in the past day.
 
Yadlin told the paper that Israel was looking out for four types of weapons: ballistic rockets, air-defense arms, land-to-sea missiles and chemical weapons.
 
Hezbollah reportedly already holds some of these weapons within Syrian territory, but cannot move them without risking Israeli action.
 
Yadlin said that the risk of escalation became greater as Assad’s rule grew languid.
 
“As the Syrian army becomes weaker and Hezbollah grows more isolated because of the loss of its Syrian patron, it makes sense that this will continue,” he said.
 
Israel has denied foreign media reports that it hit a weapons convoy or a research site outside Damascus late last month, though officials have hinted at Jerusalem’s involvement.
 
According to some reports, Israeli planes hit a convoy of Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles on the way from Syria to Lebanon. Syria reported that a research site at Jamarya, north of the capital, had been struck, and footage from the site seemed to show a bombed out building and charred vehicles, including what appeared to be a transport vehicle for an SA-17 battery.
 
An unnamed military official told the paper that the anti-aircraft missile could “pose a very big problem for the Israeli air force.”
 
“There are more tangible indications that such weapons could reach Lebanon,” as the fighting continues, the official said.
 
Yadlin, who now heads of the Institute for National Security Studies, told a security conference last week that Israel would likely come out more secure after the dust settled from the Syrian civil war. 
 



Thursday, February 7, 2013

Israel Faces Increasing Danger As Assad Weakens

End Of Days News

israel defense force
 
In July 2011 Israeli President Shimon Peres said that "Assad must go."

But Syria's southern neighbor is facing an increasingly dangerous situation on its borders as the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad weakens.

Israel will miss the Assads,” a veteran intelligence source told The London Times. In reference to keeping peace in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights he added: “The Assads, father and son, were very nasty people. But with them, we knew that a promise was a promise, and an agreement was solid as the boulders of Mount Hermon.”

As the Syrian civil war continues into its 23rd month, Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syria to secure the 47-mile border against the threat of Islamic radicals in the area.

Ranaan Gissin, who served as senior advisor to Israel’s former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, upped the ante when he told Al-Arabiya that "Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] from Iran, Hezbollah and other global jihads groups are taking control over some parts of the border" as Assad deploys his resources elsewhere.

Israel has already deployed a third Iron Dome missile defense system near its northern borders, strengthened its border fence while upgrading intelligence-gathering capabilities in the area, and bombed a Syrian military facility near Damascus.

The strike was partly meant to deter Hezbollah—the powerful Shiite group against which Israel fought a devastating 2006 war—from acquiring sophisticated antiaircraft and chemical weapons from Assad.
golan heights
Wikimedia Commons

Despite the increasing danger, Israel is not about to switch sides in the conflict.

Officials told UPI and The Times of London that Israel is considering further airstrikes in the area, including one on an Iranian electronic listening post in the Golan Heights.

At the end of the day, Israel wants to see Assad fall because it would weaken Iran.

"There is no doubt that the very falling of this central link in the Iranian array is a blow to Iran and Hezbollah, and something Iran is doing everything to prevent," a senior security official told Agence France-Press.

In August an IRGC member told The Wall Street Journal the Quds force—the foreign operations arm of the IRGC—is sending soldiers to Syria because "fighting for Syria is an integral part of keeping the Shiite Crescent intact," referring to the geographical link between Shiites from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.