Hizbollah's 'open war' threat to Israel

[Sari Galin]

By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent

Hassan Nasrallah, the bespectacled Lebanese Shia cleric who co-ordinated Hizbollah's war with Israel in the summer of 2006, blamed the Jewish State for Mughniyeh's death.

Zionists, if you want this type of open war then let the whole world hear: let it be an open war," Nasrallah told a vast crowd of mourners gathered in the Shia stronghold of south Beirut's crowded suburbs.

His message was relayed by video link because of fears he could be targeted for assassination by Israel.

Among the mourners was Manouchehr Mottaki, foreign minister of Iran which has funded, armed and trained Hizbollah since its founding in the early 1980s.

Mr Mottaki read out a condolence note on behalf of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

Israel, which has officially denied any involvement in Mughniyeh's assassination, was braced for reprisals, putting its foreign embassies on high alert and stepping up security along its border with Lebanon.

"We have begun evaluating the situation with representatives of the army and police, with everyone who is in charge of security in cases like this," Avi Dichter, Israel's internal security minister, said.

Mughniyeh was implicated in many notorious terrorist incidents involving Hizbollah or its proxies, including the bomb attacks on American diplomatic and military facilities in Beirut in 1983 that left more than 350 dead.

"We have the right, like all human beings, of self-defence and, God willing, we will do whatever is required to defend our brothers, leaders, people and our country," Nasrallah said.

He said the group's initial investigation into the killing showed that Israel was behind it.

Nasrallah gave no details but said it was an attack outside the "natural battleground" - referring to the Lebanon-Israel border.

Naim Kassem, Nasrallah's deputy, led prayers over Mughniyeh's coffin, flanked by other members of Hezbollah's leadership, at a mosque in Beirut's southern suburb.

Pallbearers in military uniform carried the casket, draped in Hezbollah's yellow flag, into the street for a funeral procession attended by tens of thousands of men and women and led by a military band.

The funeral took place shortly after a well attended rally by the anti-Syrian ruling coalition in Lebanon to mark the third anniversary of the killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

A sizeable crowd waving red, white and green Lebanese flags, gathered in pouring rain at Martyrs' Square in the centre of Beirut for speeches by anti-Syrian leaders, including Hariri's son and political heir, Saad.

Hariri's assassination on Feb. 14, 2005, plunged Lebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war and led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country.

Anti-Syrian politicians blame Damascus for his death. Syria denies any role.

Moughniyah was the most senior member of Hezbollah to be killed since its previous secretary-general, Abbas Mussawi, died in a 1992 Israeli helicopter ambush in southern Lebanon.

Around 8,000 members of the Lebanese armed forces were deployed to keep the two gatherings separate.

[Sari Galin]

"Хезболлах" и Израиль готовятся к войне

В Эр-Рияде полагают, что ее уже не избежать

Илья Кононов

Иран снова угрожает Израилю уничтожением. На этот раз руками «Хезболлах». О том, что очередной вооруженный конфликт между израильтянами и ливанской радикальной партией действительно назревает, свидетельствует целый ряд факторов.

«В скором будущем мы станем свидетелями уничтожения сионистского режима – этой раковой опухоли – руками солдат «Хезболлах», – заявил в минувший понедельник главнокомандующий Корпусом стражей исламской революции Ирана Мохаммад Али Джаафари. А вчера стало известно о том, что армия Израиля уже начала подготовку к отражению возможных ударов.

По данным израильских СМИ, в районе Хайфы у самой границы с Ливаном на днях была размещена батарея ракет «Пэтриот», предназначенная для защиты от возможных обстрелов с ливанской стороны. Ссылаясь на свои источники в силовых структурах, сразу несколько изданий сообщили о том, что батарея приведена в полную боеготовность. По состоянию на вчерашний день официальные армейские представители никак не комментировали эту информацию.

Между тем если она действительно верна, то в столь высокой степени готовности к отражению атак израильские «Пэтриот» не были уже почти два года. Последний раз они были задействованы летом 2006-го, когда в ходе вооруженного конфликта с Израилем «Хезболлах» выпустила по его территории более 4 тыс. ракет. В последнее время радикальная организация ни раз указывала на то, что обладает всеми возможностями для возобновления боевых действий. А на днях лидер «Хезболлах» шейх Хусейн Насралла заявил, что вторая ливанская война и не прекращалась – идет «открытая война».

Поводом к нынешнему росту напряженности стала гибель одного из высокопоставленных представителей боевого крыла «Хезболлах» Имада Мугнии. На прошлой неделе он был подорван в своем автомобиле в Дамаске. Радикальное ливанское движение и поддерживающий его Тегеран немедленно обвинили в этом Тель-Авив. И хотя доказательств тому пока нет и израильтяне отвергли какую-либо причастность к убийству, противостояние враждующих сторон явно перешло в более активную стадию.

О том, что ситуация действительно накалилась до предела, свидетельствует и еще одно обстоятельство. Такая влиятельная арабская страна, как Саудовская Аравия, решила предостеречь своих граждан от поездок в Ливан. Тех же, кто уже находится на ливанской территории, Эр-Рияд призвал быть «предельно бдительными» и воздерживаться от поездок по стране. Нынешние «нестабильные политические условия и условия безопасности» могут представлять реальную угрозу для саудовцев, говорится в распространенном в понедельник заявлении МИД королевства.

[Понч]

Shun@ ha4i, qamin p4i...

[Sari Galin]

Ahmadinejad in new attack on 'savage animal' Israel

by Hiedeh Farmani

TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Wednesday called Israel a "dirty microbe" and "savage animal", as Iran stepped up its rhetoric against the Jewish state after the murder of a top Hezbollah commander.

"World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region," Ahmadinejad told a rally in the southern city of Bandar Abbas broadcast on state television.

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, on Monday had predicted Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah would destroy Israel in the near future.

Ahmadinenjad's latest tirade came a week after the murder in a car bombing in Damascus of Imad Mughnieh, a top Hezbollah commander hailed by Iran as a great martyr who was killed by Israel.

Israel has denied any involvement in his murder although it welcomed the death of Mughnieh, who was on America's most wanted list for a string of anti-Israeli and anti-Western attacks.

The head of US intelligence Mike McConnell has suggested that elements within Hezbollah and Syria could have been responsible.

In a sign of Iran's respect for Mughnieh, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki attended his funeral in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut last week and gave a speech.

"They (Israel) assassinate pure and pious people and then they celebrate it, like what happened to the son of Lebanon who had stood against the savage onslaught of the Zionists and broke the Zionists' horns," said Ahmadinejad.

He also accused world powers of establishing Israel to create a "scarecrow" to frighten and dominate other nations in the region.

The Iranian president has provoked international outrage by repeatedly predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear. He also courted more controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust.

The United States accuses Iran, along with its regional ally Syria, of arming and financing Hezbollah, as well as working to destabilise Lebanon in its current political crisis.

Overwhelmingly Shiite Iran jubilantly cheered Hezbollah's resistance against Israel in the 2006 war in Lebanon but insists it only gives the group political support and not military aid.

Iran's embassy in Riyadh meanwhile vehemently denied reports in the Saudi press that Mughnieh had been travelling around the world on an Iranian diplomatic passport, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Mughnieh was suspected of masterminding the abduction of Western hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s and of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people.

He was also linked to the bombing of the US marine barracks at Beirut airport in 1983, in which 241 American servicemen died and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, in which a US navy diver was killed.

Israel has also sounded the alarm over the Iranian nuclear programme, which it says is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Tehran insists the atomic drive its only aimed at producing electricty.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad defiantly vowed that Iran has no intention of ceding to the main demand of the UN Security Council that it suspends uranium enrichment operations and proclaimed the country had defeated world powers.

"With the help of God, the Iranian nation with its unity, faith and determination stood and defeated the world powers and brought them to their knees," he told cheering crowds in the speech.

"World powers should know the Iranian nation considers nuclear energy its undeniable and definite right and will not accept any imposition or any additional cruel rules."