generalspeaking

 Destabilizing Lebanon, Striking Israel

"We had nothing to do with the bombings in Tripoli. There's a high probability that it was Hezbollah but no certainty.
"This is not the beginning of something new. We've had other similar one-off rocket shooting by rogue global jihad organizations."
Israeli official

The IDF certainly conducted enough bombing missions in Lebanon in the 1980s when Israel invaded Lebanon with the purpose of routing the Palestinian militias that were bombing over the border into Israel, and in response to an attempted assassination of an Israeli ambassador in France. Those bombings were horrific enough, killing Lebanese who were non-combatants, often thanks to the penchant of Palestinian fighters lobbing off bombs and installing their rocket launchers in the midst of crowded refugee settlements, inviting an Israeli response.

This was with the use of conventional weapons. No legitimate government with a conscience would ever launch attacks against civilians using chemical poisons. Syria's Alawite regime clearly has no qualms about the use of such chemicals. Why else would they store them, representing the largest depot collections of such poisonous chemicals of any country in the world if they did not feel they would be useful to them?

The regime, needless to say, repeats its mantra conscripting terrorists into the mad scheme of chemical attacks; certainly not they. And the terrorists, the Sunni Islamists who have poured into Syria from Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, were armed by the United States, to do the bidding of whom else but the State of Israel. Which is why Syria warns darkly that should there be attacks launched against it by the West, they plan to target Israel for revenge.

Israeli intelligence analysts cite the deteriorating situation in Syria as affecting Lebanon and Israel. "Syria's disintegration has affected Lebanon and the deterrence balance that existed between us and Hezbollah is no longer tenable. There are also other elements within the Lebanese theatre which want to prove they are capable of causing problems", said Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute of Policy & Strategy, in Herzliya.

According to the Lebanese Army an "unknown group" was responsible for firing four rockets from Lebanon into Israel. Those were attacks that took occurred a day before the two explosions that took place in Tripoli at opposite ends of the city, in front of Sunni Mosques. Two long-range Katyusha rockets hit a kibbutz but there was no casualties. Another was destroyed by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defence system.

The attack did not go unanswered. Israel responded with a return volley on "terrorist targets" located between Beirut and Sidon. Areas that the IDF have close familiarity with. And which host a large contingent of Palestinian 'refugees'. Whose interests, needless to say, are represented by Hezbollah.

Neither Hezbollah however, nor President al-Assad are interested at this time in an all-out conflict with Israel, though there are no guarantees they won't strike pre-emptively to deliver a message to both Israel and the United States that Israel will be held ultimately responsible for any U.S.-led strikes against Syria as a result of the chemical attacks on two Damascus suburbs.

The Lebanese National News Agency reported that security forces in Lebanon arrested a suspect they feel was responsible for the double-Tripoli bombing that killed about 47 people and wounded hundreds of others. Clearly enough, this is the Hezbollah response to previous Sunni Islamist attacks on Shia Hezbollah supporters. The secular division is well enough known for its tit-for-tat vengeance.

The international community well understands the powder keg that still simmers in Lebanon. Its echoes have been seen in Iraq, in Bahrain, in Jordan and of course in Syria where sectarian hatred has risen to its vile fierceness of dehumanizing one to the other, justifying their slaughter. But the outsider to the Muslim world, resident within the Muslim world, is perennially identified as the spark that lights each conflict within the Muslim world.

The Syrians have an indelible message to the United States at this juncture where their latest atrocity has abraded Western sensibilities beyond its usual phlegmatic approach to Muslim internecine conflicts: "If you're contemplating any kind of military attack on Syria look what we can do to your friends the Israelis and look at how we can destabilize Lebanon", explained Mr. Bar.

Labels: Atrocities, Chemical Weapons, Conflict, Defence, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Security, Syria, United States

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 28, 2013