Aug. 5, 2006 - Who Will Disarm Hezbollah? Not the Lebanese Army
Posted Friday, Aug. 04, 2006
Despite the furious diplomatic debate over how and in what sequence it
will be implemented, the peace plan for Lebanon requires the following:
Israeli forces will withdraw; an international force will be deployed
in southern Lebanon; Hezbollah will be disarmed; and protection of the
border will be handed over to the Lebanese Army.
In essence, though the Lebanese Army is envisaged as the foundation of the long-term solution, it has remained remarkably silent during the three-week war on what is, legally at least, its own territory. And the reasons for its passivity may hold important clues to the final shape of a peace agreement.
A few days after the Israelis began their air raids and artillery bombardment, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr talked tough: "The Lebanese army will resist and defend the country," he said in a televised address. "If there is an invasion of Lebanon, we are waiting for them." Twenty-four days into the conflict, the Lebanese army is still waiting, and has made no move against the Israeli invasion.
To have stood up to the advancing Israeli armored columns, of course, would have been suicidal: The poorly equipped Lebanese military, whose annual budget is $542 million, is vastly outgunned by the Israelis, who spend more than $9 billion a year on keeping one of the world's most advanced armies equipped with cutting-edge American technology. "There is no way we are going to get the army into this conflict because within an hour it would be decimated," said one government official. "The only official orders the army has are to 'react if attacked directly' and it has already been attacked directly. The army can do nothing."
The Lebanese Army is weak not just by neglect, but also by design, however. Like the Lebanese government, the military allocates power and position on the basis of maintaining the delicate sectarian consensus that ended decades of bloody civil war. Domestic political stability rather than military effectiveness has been the guiding principle of its development. "The Lebanese army is a mirror of all the country; its job is to maintain stability in the country," said Retired General Salim Abu Ismail, a former military attache to Washington and the managing editor of Al Defaiya Defense Magazine. "During the Civil War, every sect had a portion of the army. In the late '80s, we had at least two armies, one Christian, one Muslim."
The makeup and capability of the Lebanese Army render it unthinkable, say military observers and government officials, for it to forcibly disarm Hezballoh or take control of southern Lebanon. More than one third of the army's personnel is Shi'ite, drawn from a community in which Hezbollah is overwhelmingly popular. And as long as it is the only force fighting the Israelis inside Lebanon, Hezbollah's support would be even wider, making it even less likely that the government could order the Army to move against it. "The Lebanese Army will never be given any orders to disarm any militia, especially under these circumstances when Hezbollah is being attacked by Israel," said Gen. Ismail. "The Lebanese army is not going to fight other Lebanese. There would be civil war."
Instead, government officials say, the only way that the Lebanese Army would deploy to the south would be as part of a political framework agreed to by Hezbollah. On present indications, that would require a cease-fire agreement that included a prisoner exchange and settling of border disputes. The Lebanese Army could then work with an international force to ensure that Hezbollah abided by the cease-fire, and that no new militias move into southern Lebanon as the PLO did in the 1970s and 1980s. "You can't just throw a force down into southern Lebanon and have it create peace," said Dr. Mohammed Chatah, a senior advisor to the Lebanese prime minister. "There has to be peace first."
France and the U.S. are currently butting heads over the sequencing of a peace process — Lebanon's view, requiring a deal with Hezbollah as a precondition for deployment, appears to be closer to that of France — and the outcome of that debate may be dictated by events on the battlefield.
But even once consensus is achieved, the long-term role of the Lebanese Army in protecting the border would require a massive modernization that would take at least three years and cost upward of $1 billion, according to Dr. Riad Kahwaji, the Lebanese founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a think tank in Dubai. Right now, its 1960s-era American and Soviet armor is so obsolete that spare parts are no longer available. Its only air force consists of 16 very old Huey helicopters that pilots call "flying coffins"; it has no navy except for four or five patrol boats; no border sensors; no night vision goggles; and minimal special forces. "The Lebanese army needs to focus on becoming more flexible," said Kahwaji. "Weapons smuggling, drug trafficking, al-Qaeda infiltration, this can only be dealt with by special operations."
On the positive side, however, the Lebanese army seems to be recovering its independence after the 15 years of Syrian domination. Although the Defense Minister, Elias Murr, is sometimes allied with Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, there has been an extensive purge of pro-Syrian officers in the past year, according to Kahwaji. That's been especially true in military intelligence, often the most political — and powerful — branch of Arab militaries.
Time.com
Aug. 5, 2006 - Hezbollah Launches Deep Rocket Strike on Israel
Hezbollah Launches Deep Rocket Strike on Israel
Friday, August 04, 2006
The deep rocket attack came as Lebanese security officials said that an Israeli airstrike killed at least 28 civilian workers who were loading vegetables onto trucks near the Syrian border. Israeli officials said two buildings in the area were targeted because they were believed to be weapons storage depots.
In earlier strikes, Israeli warplanes destroyed four key bridges on Lebanon's last untouched highway, severing the country's remaining link to Syria.
Meanwhile, Israel confirmed three soldiers were killed in fighting along the border as its troops pressed ahead with the goal to reach the Litani River to establish a Hezbollah-free buffer zone.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a staunch pro-Syrian and close ally of Hezbollah, charged that Israel is trying to pressure Lebanon to accept its conditions for a cease-fire, which include Hezbollah's disarmament and ouster from a swath of south Lebanon.
"The Israeli enemy's bombing of bridges and roads is aimed at tightening the blockade on the Lebanese, cutting communications between them and starving them," Lahoud said.
CountryWatch: Israel | Lebanon | Syria | Iran
He blamed the new raids on Israel's failure to win quick victory in the south, where Israeli soldiers have been mired in ground battles with Hezbollah guerrillas for several days.
An Israeli army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, said Israel targeted the bridges to stop the flow of weapons from Syria.
In Israel, no casualties were immediately reported in the Hezbollah attack near the town of Hadera, about 30 miles north of Tel Aviv, the nation's commercial center. Over 200 rockets hit Israel Friday, police said.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to hit Tel Aviv if Israeli warplanes hit the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Israeli resumed air strikes on Beirut Thursday, after first targeting the city at the beginning of the war.
Hezbollah is believed to have missiles that can reach Tel Aviv, but such an attack would likely trigger a massive Israeli response.
More Israeli airstrikes flattened two southern Lebanese houses Friday and more than 50 people were buried in the rubble, security officials and the state news agency said.
The number of dead was not immediately known.
Five Lebanese civilians were killed and 19 wounded in the Israeli airstrikes north of the capital, in Christian areas where Hezbollah has little support or presence, including the picturesque coastal resort of Jounieh.
In separate air raids near Beirut's airport and southern suburbs, a Lebanese soldier was killed and two soldiers and four civilians were wounded, security officials and witnesses said. The predominantly Shiite Muslim sector is largely controlled by Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel said Hezbollah facilities and a Hamas office were targeted.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed in heavy fighting in a southern Lebanese village where the militant group had been launching rockets, the army said. It later said another soldier had died.
International aid agencies said Friday said the road bombing would slow down aid shipments to needy civilians in central Lebanon and the coastline around the capital, Beirut, where the bulk of the population lives.
Border crossings in the east have been shut by airstrikes. Israel has imposed a naval blockade and has hit the international airport to seal off Lebanon's sea and airspace.
"This is Lebanon's umbilical cord," Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program told The Associated Press. "This (road) has been the only way for us to bring in aid. We really need to find other ways to bring relief in."
The European Union said Israel and Hezbollah must guarantee the safety of aid workers if it is to continue helping people made homeless by the fighting.
Emergencies services at the al-Qusair National Hospital on the Lebanese-Syrian border and the National Hospital in the Syrian city of Homs said at least 28 people were killed in the farm attack near al-Qaa, a town about six miles from a Hezbollah stronghold.
Ali Yaghi, a Lebanese civil defense official at the scene, said at least 12 workers were wounded and some were likely buried under rubble.
Syria's official news agency reported that 33 were killed, 23 of them Syrians. That toll included 18 men, 2 elderly women and 3 young girls, it said, reporting 10 wounded.
The Israeli army said it had attacked two buildings where it suspected weapons were being stored, and it was checking reports that it had hit a vegetable storehouse and civilians.
More than three weeks into the fighting, six Israeli brigades — or roughly 10,000 troops — were locked in battle with hundreds of Hezbollah guerrillas in about 20 towns and villages in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah's leader offered to stop attacking if Israel ends its airstrikes.
Israel's United Nations ambassador, Dan Gillerman, said that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's offer of a truce was "a sign of weakness ... and he may be looking for a way out."
Gillerman warned against a threat by Nasrallah to launch rockets on Israel's commercial center, Tel Aviv.
"We are ready for it, and I am sure that he (Nasrallah), as well as his sponsors, realize the consequences of doing something as unimaginable and crazy as that," the Israeli ambassador said in a TV interview.
The offensive in Lebanon began after another cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers.
According to an Associated Press count, at least 530 Lebanese have been killed, including 454 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry; 26 Lebanese soldiers; and at least 50 Hezbollah guerrillas. That figure does not include some Friday attacks as the death toll could not be verified.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that 1 million people — or about a quarter of Lebanon's population — had fled the fighting.
Seventy-five Israelis have been killed — 44 soldiers and 31 civilians. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled their homes in the north, Israeli officials said.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said the United States and France have "come a long way" in negotiating a Security Council resolution that calls for an immediate end to Middle East hostilities,said.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed support Thursday for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon as the first phase in ending the conflict. It was the most concrete signal yet that the U.S. may be willing to compromise on the stalemate over how to end the fighting.
Israel, backed by the United States, has rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire, saying it wants an international force or the Lebanese army to deploy in southern Lebanon to prevent future Hezbollah attacks.
Aug. 5, 2006 - Thousands of Shiites Rally in Baghdad for Hezbollah
Thousands of Shiites Rally in Baghdad for Hezbollah
Friday, August 04, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Thousands of Shiites chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.
No violence was reported during the rally in the Sadr City neighborhood.
The demonstration was the biggest in the Middle East in support of Hezbollah since the Israeli army launched an offensive July 12 after a guerrilla raid on northern Israel. The protest was organized by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement built around the Mahdi Army militia has been modeled after Hezbollah.
Al-Sadr summoned followers from throughout the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq to converge on Baghdad for the rally but he did not attend.
Demonstrators, wearing white burial shrouds symbolizing their willingness to die for Hezbollah, waved the group's yellow banner and chanted slogans in support of its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has attained a cult status in the Arab world for his defiance of Israel.
"Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah," the crowd chanted.
"Mahdi Army and Hezbollah are one. Let them confront us if they dare," the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq.
Many walked with umbrellas in the searing afternoon sun. Volunteers sprayed them with water.
"I am wearing the shroud and I am ready to meet martyrdom," said Mohammed Khalaf, 35, owner of a clothes shop in the southern city of Amarah.
Al-Sadr followers painted U.S. and Israeli flags on the main road leading to the rally site, and demonstrators stepped on them — a gesture of contempt in Iraq. Alongside the painted flags was written: "These are the terrorists."
Protesters set fire to American and Israeli flags, as well as effigies of President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, showing the men with Dracula teeth. "Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy.
Iraqi government television said the Defense Ministry had approved the demonstration, a sign of public anger over Israel's offensive and of al-Sadr's stature as a major player in Iraqi politics.
"I consider my participation in this rally a religious duty. I am proud to join this crowd and I am ready to die for the sake of Lebanon," said Khazim al-Ibadi, 40, a government employee from Hillah.
Although the rally was about Hezbollah, it was also a show of strength by al-Sadr. Many people worried the presence of so many Shiite demonstrators — most of them from the Mahdi Army — would add to sectarian tensions in the city, which has seen almost daily clashes between Shiite and Sunni extremists
Fox news
Aug. 5, 2006 - Israeli Forces Step Up Gaza Offensive, Search Houses
Israeli Forces Step Up Gaza Offensive, Search Houses
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel stepped up its month long offensive (attack) against militants in the Gaza Strip Friday, conducting house-to-house searches and attacking Palestinian sites with air strikes and tank shells, officials said.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Three Palestinians, including two Hamas members were killed before dawn Friday and two others were killed just after midnight in an Israeli airstike on the southern town of Rafah.
The two dead were a woman in her 60s and her son, said Dr. Ali Musa, the director of the local hospital. Five other people, all civilians, were seriously wounded, he said.
The Israeli army said its aircraft fired at several armed Palestinians.
Musa said the missiles hit the house of a family as they were trying to flee the area as Israeli ground forces came closer. Palestinian security officials said Israeli troops and tanks had moved to the eastern edge of Rafah.
Friday's pre-dawn searches came a day after dozens of Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza, and Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians in clashes and air attacks. One of the casualties was an 8-year-old boy, Palestinian officials said.
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in two separate incidents before daybreak Friday, hospital officials said. The Hamas militant organization said two of the casualties were Hamas members.
The Israeli army said in a statement its forces targeted 25 gunmen carrying anti-tank missiles who were planting explosives in the army's area of operations. It didn't mention casualties.
Israeli aircraft also hit two houses in Gaza City with missiles. Residents said the military warned occupants to leave before the attacks, and no one was hurt.
Also Friday, Palestinian and Israeli officials and European monitors agreed to reopen the Gaza-Egypt border crossing on Saturday and Sunday for one-way traffic into Egypt, said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
The crossing was intended for students to return to schools, for businessmen and for humanitarian cases, he said.
It would be the second time since the latest fighting erupted in Gaza June 25 that the terminal would be opened, but the previous time was for Palestinians returning home from Egypt. Earlier agreements to reopen the crossing from Gaza to Egypt broke down at the last minute.
Israel, which has been criticized for creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, said it opened another border checkpoint to allow 160 truckloads of food and medical supplies into Gaza, as well as gasoline and diesel.
The United Nations said Thursday it was concerned that "with international attention focusing on Lebanon, the tragedy in Gaza is being forgotten." It called on both Israel and the Palestinian militants to recognize their obligations to protect civilians during hostilities, but singled out Israel for criticism.
The U.N. said Israel fired an average of 200-250 artillery shells per day into Gaza, and has killed 175 Palestinians since fighting began more than a month ago. The statement also called on Palestinian militants, who fire an average of 8-9 rockets into Israel each day, to stop.
Fighting on two fronts Thursday, against Islamic militants in Gaza and against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, Israel had one of its heaviest days of fighting since Hamas-linked militants captured a soldier from an Israeli army post near the Gaza frontier more than a month ago.
As the tanks took up positions, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at groups of gunmen, killing four. The strikes wounded 26 Palestinians, at least 10 of them militants, security and hospital officials said.
Forces later fired a tank shell at residents gathering in the area after daybreak, killing an 8-year-old boy and wounding three people, including a 4-year-old girl, hospital and security officials said. The bodies of three more dead people were brought to the hospital early Thursday, but they were not believed to be militants, medics said.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after a June 25 cross-border raid by Hamas-linked militants who tunneled into Israel and attacked an army post, killing two soldiers and capturing a third. Israel has demanded the release of the soldier and an end to the firing of homemade rockets at Israel by Gaza militants.
Israeli ground forces have moved in and out of several parts of the territory regularly since then, confronting armed militants and leaving behind considerable destruction.
Jul. 6, 2006 - Bear patrol
A New Jersey cat named Jack is being praised for a heroic deed. Jack recently chased a small bear up a neighborhood tree. Jack's owner originally thought the cat was merely
watching the bear until the bear climbed down and Jack chased it up another tree!!!
