Iran warns Israel of ‘unimaginable losses’ if Syria hit
Iran warned its arch-enemy Israel of “unimaginable losses” if it attacks Syria and vowed that it was standing by the Syrian people.
“We hope the Zionist regime does not make the mistake of attacking Syria, because extending the front would definitely make the Zionist regime face unimaginable losses,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
“Iran is standing by the Syrian people,” he said of the Islamic republic’s sole regional ally.
“We have offered and will offer Syria and Lebanon spiritual and humanitarian support,” Asefi insisted, reiterating Iran’s denial that it is providing military and financial assistance to the Hezbollah movement.
The Israeli army has said Hezbollah militants had used an Iranian-built radar-guided anti-ship missile in an attack on Friday on an Israeli warship off Lebanon’s coast.
The attack marked the Lebanese militia’s first successful strike on an Israeli warship, dealing an unprecedented blow to the Jewish state’s military. One Israeli sailor was killed and three more were missing, feared dead.
An Israeli military intelligence official has also alleged that around 100 members of Iran’s powerful ideological army the elite Revolutionary Guards were in Lebanon, acting as military advisors to Hezbollah.
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Hizbollah rockets Haifa and Israel bombs Beirut
Chavez: U.S. support for Israel to lead to Holocaust
“The U.S. empire’s desire to dominate has no limits and that could take this world to a real Holocaust. May God save us.”
Putin thinks Israel ‘pursuing wider goals’
Guardian: The framing of Hizbullah
…To suggest Hizbullah attacked on the orders of Tehran and Damascus is to grossly oversimplify a strong strategic and ideological relationship. Historically there has been an overlap of interests between Syria, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. Together they form a strategic axis – the “axis of terror” to Israel – that confronts US-Israeli designs to redraw the map of the region.
But the nature of that relationship has changed much over the years. Since Syrian forces left Lebanon, Hizbullah has become the stronger party. It has never allowed any foreign power to dictate its military strategy.
It is ironic, given Israel’s bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, that Hizbullah is often dismissed in the west as a terrorist organisation. In fact its military record is overwhelmingly one of conflict with Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory. This is just an example of the way that the west employs an entirely different definition of terrorism to the one used in the Arab world and elsewhere, where there is a recognition that terrorism can come in many forms.
The attempt to frame Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation is very far from political reality in Lebanon, from public opinion across the Arab and Islamic world, and from international law.
Israeli tanks enter northern Gaza
GAZA (Reuters) – Several Israeli tanks on Saturday entered the northern Gaza Strip, often used by militants for firing rockets into Israel, Palestinian witnesses said.
The Israeli army said it did not have forces in northern Gaza.
Palestinian witnesses said the tanks moved into an area east of the town of Beit Hanoun.
Wider regional war already under way, most observers agree
WASHINGTON ˆ A new Middle East war is under way, Middle East analysts and scholars say, with the next, imminent step very likely to be another Israeli invasion and at least temporary occupation of southern Lebanon.
The only question, they say, is whether Syria will get involved in the fighting — considered a serious possibility — and how the conflict will affect the international faceoff with Iran over its nuclear program.