Yemen targets northern fighters

SOURCE-ALJAZEERA
Yemeni troops, backed by tanks and fighter aircraft, have launched a major offensive on the stronghold of Shia fighters in northern Yemen.

A second day of clashes on Wednesday came a day after the government vowed it would strike at the north's Houthi fighters with an "iron fist".

Government forces fired missiles on the headquarters of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the fighter's leader, in mountainous Saada province, tribal sources and fighters said.

Tribal sources told Al Jazeera that the army had launched air, artillery and missile attacks on the Malaheedh, Mahadher, Khafji and Hasama districts.

A statement from the Yemen's Supreme Security Committee said: "The state will strike these elements ... with an iron fist until they surrender themselves to justice."

'All-out war'

Mohammed al-Qadhi, the foreign correspondent for Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper, said that hundreds had fled the fighting.
"They're launching an all-out war right now and we've heard reports from Sadaa that the military is using planes to attack the strongholds of the rebels and so many people are fleeing," he told Al Jazeera.

"The skirmishes and the clashes have been going on since last June, between the two sides.

"So many people have been fleeing to Sadaa town and this has put pressure on the camps of the refugees there."

The five-year-old battle between Yemen's Sunni-led government against the Shia Muslim Houthi fighters is one of a widening series of conflicts threatening to destabilise the country.

Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is also combating a wave of al-Qaeda attacks and rising secessionist sentiment in the south.

'Repeated attacks'

Officials say the Houthi fighters, who belong to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, want to restore a form of clerical rule prevalent until the 1960s in Yemen when it was overthrown in a military coup.

A government committee criticised the fighters for not abiding by an agreement to end hostilities announced by Ali Abdullah al-Saleh, the Yemeni president, in July 2008.

In comments published in the press on Monday, al-Saleh blamed the fighters for the flare-up of violence in the north, saying he was "pained by attacks undermining security, repeated attacks targeting civilians, vandalism".

But Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the fighters, was reported by The Associated Press as saying that the group is only fighting for improved living conditions and wants the Yemeni army out.

"We will continue the fight until the army is withdrawn from the province," he was quoted as saying.

"We are only defending ourselves."

Regional stability

Over the past few weeks, local officials say the fighters have taken control of more of Saada province from government forces.

Last week, they seized an important army post near Saada's provincial capital on a strategic highway linking the capital Sana with Saudi Arabia after 12 hours of intense combat.

They have also taken control of several more towns.

Local officials said on Tuesday that the fighters seized key army posts near al-Malahidh crossing, about 20km south of the Saudi border.

The stability of Yemen is a crucial concern for both Saudi Arabia, which shares a border with Yemen, and the US.

Riyadh fears the conflict could make the kingdom's own Shia tribes directly across the border more restive

Hezbollah chief becomes Facebook star

SOURCE-DAWN.COM
BEIRUT: Love him or loathe him, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has earned himself celebrity status — at least on Facebook, where a good 20 forums are dedicated to the Lebanese Shia militant leader.

Many are favourable to Nasrallah but others are extremely hostile to the controversial figure, whose organisation is claimed by Israel to have a stockpile of 40,000 rockets.

‘May God bless you Nasrallah,’ ‘Nasrallah deserves to burn in hell,’ ‘God is with you, oh symbol of dignity and the resistance,’ and ‘Nasrallah is a goddamned Nazi’ are just some of the comments posted on forums dedicated to the charismatic 49-year-old, who has headed Hezbollah since 1992.

He has not appeared in public for over a year and resides in an undisclosed location in Beirut but his visibility on the social networking site could hardly be higher.

The Facebook groups have titles ranging from ‘Fans of Hassan Nasrallah’ to ‘Support the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah,’ and they are loaded with fervent comments in English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic, many from subscribers identifying themselves as Lebanese or Israelis.

In July 2006, Israel launched a devastating 34-day war against Hezbollah after the militant group kidnapped Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid. Three years on, the ‘July War’ remains a hot topic for the online forums.

A French-language forum entitled ‘For the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah,’ demands the Israeli government get rid of Nasrallah ‘to avenge the blood of Ehud and Eldad,’ whose remains Israel reclaimed in 2008 in a comprehensive prisoner swap with Hezbollah.

Visuals, too, send strong messages: some groups show a softer side of the Shia leader, posting pictures of the child Nasrallah smiling in a garden by a bowl of fruit, or carrying a little girl in his arms. Others display cartoons of Nasrallah dressed in a bikini, portrayed as a cockroach or at the centre of a target.

People are ‘free to express what they want’

Hezbollah maintains that people are ‘free to express what they want. If they want to express their love for Sayyed Nasrallah, the party will not forbid them to do that.’

The Lebanese themselves are divided on how they feel about Nasrallah.

For some Facebook members, the Hezbollah leader is ‘fighting to protect the fatherland against Americanisation, Zionism.

‘He is the cedar in our Lebanese flag, the master of all,’ reads one post, in a reference to the symbolic tree of Lebanon.

But on a forum called ‘Hezbollah out of Lebanon right now!’ members using screen names openly express their hostility towards the pro-Iranian group, which they say is ‘a major threat to Lebanon.’

Israelis, too, have much to say on Hezbollah, which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by the Jewish state and Washington though its political wing forms a bloc of 13 MPs in Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament following elections in June.

‘Take the advice: Kick Nasrallah out and you can have living standards like we have in Israel,’ writes one subscriber, who identifies himself as an Israeli soldier.

‘Look, before 2006, Lebanon was booming,’ writes Avi. ‘Your economy was good, many tourists came and so on. After 2006 Lebanon was wasteland because of Nasrallah.’

A rush of heated reactions flowed in moments after Avi’s post surfaced, accusing his country of having ‘destroyed Lebanon’ and slamming Israel as Lebanon’s ‘first enemy.’

‘Avi, shut up and find yourself a hole where you can hide! May God protect Nasrallah!’ writes Nihal.

The 34-day July War killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and destroyed much of Lebanon’s major infrastructure.

Sanctions Unlikely to Stop Iran's Nuclear Quest

SOURCE-TIME
Unless Iran responds positively to President Obama's offer of talks on its nuclear program by next month, it could face what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls "crippling sanctions." That was the message from Administration officials touring the Middle East in recent weeks. And it's backed by congressional moves to pass legislation aimed at choking off the gasoline imports on which Iran relies for almost a third of its consumption, by punishing third-country suppliers. It sounds impressive and, for an undiversified economy like Iran's, potentially calamitous. But a number of Iran analysts are skeptical that new sanctions will break the stalemate.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has promised to present a new package of proposals on the nuclear issue to Western negotiators in the coming weeks. But that package is unlikely to reflect any shift in Tehran's rejection of the U.S. demand that it forgo the right to enrich uranium as part of its nuclear-energy program. "If the U.S. position remains unchanged," says Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii, "Iran may well come to the table, but only in order to demonstrate to its own people that its regime has been recognized, not to seriously engage with U.S. proposals or give ground."



Iran's postelection turmoil has left Ahmadinejad politically weakened, and his focus in the coming weeks will be on assembling a government and stabilizing a divided regime, rather than on seeking a compromise with the Western powers he blames for the election debacle. "Iranians have never responded well to deadlines and red lines," says Farhi, "and there's no reason to believe they will do so now."

In a TV interview two weeks ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Iran, "You have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil nuclear power. You do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon. You do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control." But both the Iranian government and its opposition believe that Iran is due the same rights as any other signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which includes the right to enrich uranium to the levels necessary for reactor fuel, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "There is no disagreement among political leaders in Iran on proclaiming Iran's right to enrich uranium," says Farhi. Iran's previous government had shown flexibility on the pace of an enrichment program, but not on the principle. Explains Farhi: "It is simply not feasible for any political leader in Iran to accept an arrangement that denies Iran the rights enjoyed by others, that treats Iran as a special case."


Iran's current enrichment efforts are monitored by IAEA inspectors and certified as within permissible limits. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, recently wrote to Congress that "it is unlikely that Iran will have the technical capability to produce [weapons-grade uranium] before 2013". Blair added that U.S. intelligence believes Iran has not yet decided whether to produce weapons-grade materiel, and would be unlikely to do so while its nuclear effort remains under international scrutiny. But with hawks painting Iran's nuclear program as a grave and gathering danger and the Israelis threatening to take preemptive military action, the Obama Administration is under pressure to produce results from its efforts to engage Iran.

Effective sanctions, say Administration officials, require participation by Iran's key trading partners. That's a problem, since neither Russia nor China is convinced that there's an imminent danger of Iran producing nuclear weapons. Coalition of the willing–style sanctions of the sort envisaged by the congressional legislation may have limited impact because they're unlikely to be implemented by neighbors such as Turkey and Iraq. And the use of naval power to enforce a blockade could easily provoke a war that the U.S. military is eager to avoid.

But even if "crippling sanctions" were somehow imposed, Tehran still might not back down. "If it were possible to choke off the gasoline supply into Iran, the likelihood is that Iran's existing refinery capacity would be used first and foremost to ensure that the needs of the security forces and the regime are taken care of," says Dr. Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor and former National Security Council Iran specialist. "Those who are going to suffer most will be the ordinary Iranians with whom we sympathize. You can argue that this might spur them to revolt, but more likely is that if their fuel rations are suddenly cut in half, ordinary Iranians will be very upset with the West."

"The economic well-being of the Iranian people has never been a first-tier priority for the Iranian regime," says Carnegie Endowment Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour. "The last three decades have shown us that this regime is willing to endure tremendous hardship rather than compromise for reasons of economic or political expediency."

Farhi points out that Iran's regime began making preparations for U.S. petroleum sanctions as early as 2007, diversifying its sources of supply, moving to upgrade its refineries and implementing a comprehensive rationing system, all of which can help the regime manage the impact of a fall in gasoline imports.

So what can the West possibly do? A number of Iran watchers recommend that in the postelection turmoil the Obama Administration should simply reset its clock. "We should continue to allow the rifts between political élites, and the rift between the people and regime, to widen on their own," suggests Sadjadpour. "As Napoleon once said, 'If your enemy is destroying himself, don't interfere.' The truth is, we don't know how sanctions on refined petroleum could play out, and our bottom line should be to do no harm to the prospects for political change in Iran."

Easy enough for policy analysts to say, but not for a President. "A lot of people are going to be putting immense pressure on President Obama to set a deadline and take firm action," says Sick. The Administration may have no good options beyond continuing to explore diplomacy, he warns, but "it's extraordinarily difficult to sell that to a chorus of people shouting 'Do something!'"

ISRAEL AND US TRYING TO STOP RUSSIA FROM SELLIN S300 SAM TO IRAN

SOURCE ALJAZERA
As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum.

Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system.

It is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world today and air power experts say it represents a formidable defence against conventional aircraft.

In 2005, Iran sought to buy five batteries of the S-300 from Russia in a deal believed to be worth around $800 million.

The S-300 would significantly boost Iran's defence capability at a time when it is concerned about the US military's presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli threats to target its nuclear facilities.

But the S-300 deal has yet to go through and Israel has been engaging in some diplomatic wrangling in an attempt to ensure that it does not.

In early June 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Russian-speaking foreign minister, visited Moscow.

He was on a mission to convince Russia to put an end to its arms deals with Iran and Syria and, in particular, to halt the sale and delivery of Russia's S-300 missile system to Iran.

Lieberman had a bargaining chip: If Russia went ahead with the sale to Iran, Israel might continue to provide hi-tec weapons to neighbouring Georgia, which engaged Russia in a war last year.

Filmmaker Abdallah el-Binni investigates this high-stakes game of brinkmanship as it threatens to spread to other countries in the region.BELOW IS THE FOUR PART REPORT .

Hamas rockets 'a war crime'- HRW

SOURCE- ALJAZERA

Rocket attacks carried out against Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters amount to war crimes, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.

The US-based organisation accused Hamas of endangering civilians in the report published on Thursday.The 31-page dossier examined attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups since November 2008 that killed three Israeli civilians and severely wounded dozens of others.



"Hamas forces violated the laws of war both by firing rockets deliberately and indiscriminately at Israeli cities and by launching them from populated areas and endangering Gazan civilians," said Iain Levine, HRW's programme director."Under the laws of war, such weapons are indiscriminate ... Hamas should punish those responsible"

Iain Levine, HRW programme director

"Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable and amount to war crimes," he said.

The homemade Qassam and Soviet-designed Grad rockets used by Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip cannot be aimed with any reliability, the report stated.

"Under the laws of war, such weapons are indiscriminate when used against targets in densely populated areas.

"As the governing authority in Gaza, Hamas should publicly renounce rocket attacks on Israeli civilian centres and punish those responsible, including members of its own armed wing," Levine said.


Cross-border attacks

Israel cited persistent rocket fire from Gaza as its reason for launching the 15-day offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.
HRW noted that in the past it had documented numerous violations of the laws of war by Israeli forces in Gaza, but stressed that "violations by one party to a conflict never justify violations by the other".It said Hamas has "significantly limited rocket attacks in recent months, but has not renounced attacks that deliberately or indiscriminately target civilians - serious violations of the laws of war - or brought to justice those responsible for initiating such attacks."

The Israeli military is conducting 15 criminal probes into troop conduct during its offensive on Gaza earlier in the year in which 1,400 Palestinians died, including allegations children were used as human shields.But the Israeli foreign ministry has said evidence so far showsed troops "pursued legitimate objectives with appropriate precautions," while Hamas committed "grave violations of international law".

Israel and Hamas have both rejected accusations of war crimes

Iran in arms race with Israel

SOURE:ALJAZERA
By Paul Beaver
Iran is one of the world's most significant nations in terms of history, culture and intellectual capacity, and is matched in the Middle East perhaps only by Israel.

It is a small wonder, then, that when Iran's hard-line and irascible president talks of building military capability and destroying Israel, Tel Aviv feels its survival is menaced and that Tehran's regime is its nemesis.

For all of its 61 years in existence, Israel has considered itself in a permanent war of survival. It has developed a national system which places great emphasis on its military and intelligence capabilities.Starting from scratch, Israel has developed technologies which are truly world-leading, especially in the delivery of shock and awe on any potential enemy.

For the early part of its statehood, Israel had shared the support of the United States, as its protector and military hardware supplier, with the Shah's Iran.

When a belligerent Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq, both the Shah and Israel were uneasy and often co-operated in exploiting technology, both US and home-grown in Israel.There is documented evidence that Israel supplied Iran with communications equipment and the supporting paraphernalia needed to allow both countries (and probably the US Central Intelligence Agency) to eavesdrop on Iraq.

The great divide

The Iranian Revolution changed all that and since 1980, Israel and Iran have grown apart. So far apart, in fact, that there is a real risk of armed conflict between the two states.What makes the world sit up and take note is that Israel is a nuclear power with delivery systems which can reach Iran – and Iran is, according to US experts, just two years away from creating a nuclear strike capability of its own.

US experts believe Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons material in the next few months.

For Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia – and even the Gulf states - this is particularly worrying as any nuclear-tipped missiles would fly overhead no matter who launches them.In addition, Israel has a sophisticated - and tested - anti-missile system called Arrow, which could knock out a potential Iranian first strike. The problem for Israel's neighbours is not the technology but where the debris might fall if the Arrow were ever to be used.

Israel has watched with growing horror as the rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, stokes tensions and as Tehran appears to be determined to create a full nuclear weapon capability.Israel has taken steps to improve its nation's defences and its long-range strike capability. There is no doubt that the Israeli military could mount a successful air strike against targets in Iran and certainly that the Jericho series of ballistic missiles could hit targets with great accuracy.

Unwanted scenarios


Ballistic arsenals:
Iran vs Israel
Short range ballistic missiles <1000km
Israel:
Jericho I - 500 km
Iran:
Mushak 120- 130km
Mushak 160- 160km
Mushak 200- 200km
Shahab 1- 300km
Shahab 2- 500km



Medium range ballistic missiles 1000 - 3000km
Israel:
Jericho II: 1500km
Iran:
Shahab3: 1300km
Shahab4: 3000km
Ghadr 101: 2500km
Ghadr 110: 3000km
IRIS: 3000km
KH-55: 2900-3000km

Intermediate-range Ballistic missiles 3000-5500km
Iran:
Shahab: 5500km

Intercontinental-range ballistic missiles > 5500km
Israel:
Jericho III: 4800-6500km
Iran:
Shahab 6: 10,000km

Source: Center for Strategic & International Studies

But it is also clear that any such first strike would provoke clear and rapid hostile reactions around the world, especially from moderate Arab nations with whom Israel seeks accord and co-operation against Iran, as well as by the European Union and others opposed to first strike operations – in favour of a self-defence option.
The Middle East peace process would be indirectly destroyed and Iran's proxies in Lebanon and Gaza would probably enter the fray against Israel.

Israeli interests worldwide could also be threatened.

Iran is not yet in a position to launch a first strike against Israel. This is perhaps a key concern because Israel has a reputation for not allowing a first strike capability to develop.It has a record of destroying the Egyptian ballistic missile industry under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the late Egyptian president; destroying French-built Iraqi nuclear reactors outside Baghdad at Osirak in 1981, and interdicting the supply of arms moving through Sudan as recently as January this year.

Nevertheless, Iran has had a series of short-range ballistic missiles for three decades, having developed them for the 'War of the Cities' during the war with Iraq. Much of the technology was originally bought from Pakistan and later North Korea.There is Russian and Chinese technology extant as well – even technology bought commercially in electronics supermarkets in Japan as a report in Jane's Defence Weekly revealed 15 years ago.

But creating a weapon in sufficient numbers and capability to destroy key targets in Israel is a different matter.Even if Iran had a nuclear device now, it would take some time to 'weaponise' it to create a first strike capability. North Korea is struggling with same problems which leads many to believe there is a union of need between the two otherwise unlikely bedfellows.

Black market technologies



An Israeli strike against Iran could drag in proxies into a wider Middle East conflict [EPA]
Iran's defence industries have created good technologies of their own since the US-inspired arms embargo which followed the cessation of hostilities with Iraq in 1988. Battlefield weapon systems were developed from black market Russian missiles and by some clever adaptations of US technology.For example, Iran's military took medium-range air-to-air missiles (originally exported to Iran in the time of the Shah for the F-14 Tomcat and F-4 Phantom fleets) and reconfigured the guidance systems from air-to-air to air-to-ground.

Israel has also seen Iran, under Ahmadinejad, support both Hezbollah and Hamas. Recent military operations in South Lebanon in 2006 and against Hamas in Gaza in 2009 have witnessed a haul of Iranian-supplied systems.Israel has put extreme diplomatic pressure on Russia about the extent of weapons sales to Iran. The unlikely alliance between Iran and Syria has also contributed to Israel's unease and feeling that it is - like in the early 1960s - surrounded by potential aggressors.Washington's anti-Iran stance under George Bush, the former US president, led to speculation that the US would provide the technology for Israel to launch a conventional bombing raid – or rather series of raids – against Iranian nuclear facilities in known locations near Shiraz and Isfahan.

What to bomb?

The problem for Israel in mounting such operations would not be the technology of reaching the target areas, nor destroying those seen, or even the opposition of neighbours, but actually detecting the right facilities.

Iran, using North Korean advisers, has managed to bury and hide its main facilities. This makes a first strike difficult in military terms while the risk of collateral damage makes it impossible in political terms.Israel has been trying a charm offensive with some moderate Arab states. It has highlighted that the physical and political fallout stemming from Ahmadinejad's more aggressive posture would be damaging for all.Israel's case has not been helped by Operation Cast Lead, the name it gave its offensive against Hamas in Gaza last January.

Ahmadinejad's inauguration for a second term after the disputed elections is another factor. Traditionally, leaders under pressure in hard-line states have used military adventures to divert public opinion.One only has to remember the actions of the Argentine Junta in 1982 when it invaded the Falkland Islands or actions in Northeast Africa over several decades.Military and intelligence organisations look at a nation's potential threat by examining key attributes.These are 'military capability' – could a nation actually carry out a military strike; "political will" – does a nation actually want to expend that much treasure and 'blood'; "an understanding of the consequence" – does the nation's leadership understand where the ripple caused by its casting of a stone into the pool of peace would stop?

Hard-line versus unpredictable



Hard-line and unpredictable stances in Iran and Israel could lead to war, analyst says [EPA]
Taking each nation in turn – Israel has the military capability of a nuclear or non-nuclear strike against Iran and hence the war experience of 1967, 1973 and 1982 to fall back upon.The current government in Tel Aviv is hard-line enough to both take the action and to ride out the political storm.But it is also pragmatic and - despite its inability to understand the West's clear opposition to its housing policies in Jerusalem and the West Bank - guarded in its use of military force on a regional scale.US posture is also a determining factor in any decision to strike. The fate of three US tourists apparently being held by Iran could further bolster the position of US hawks on Iran in the Obama administration.

Iran, on the other hand, is completely unpredictable, especially given the competing power structures within the country.It has a recent history of meddling in the affairs of its neighbours, like the fledgling Iraq, and launched a million men and young boys in human waves against Saddam Hussein's armies dug in along the border in the 1980s.The religious leaders of the time seemed quite happy to allow this wholesale slaughter without any sign of remorse. So the question remains, would Iran's leadership launch a nuclear strike against Israel?Today, it cannot because the technology is not there. Will it at some time in the future if Iran were to ever develop such means?

The rest of the world can only hope that sense prevails in Tehran and the internal situation is resolved in a way that does not 'force' Ahmadinejad to take the 'nuclear option' – not literally, but by creating the conditions for war in order to reinforce his own embattled and increasingly fragile position as leader.

Paul Beaver is an independent defence and security analyst based in London. In his 30 years of commenting on strategic matters he has held senior positions in several organisations, including Jane's Information Group

Israeli strike on Iran just a matter of time?

RT....Despite all diplomatic efforts the US has undertaken to dissuade Israel from striking Iranian nuclear facilities, the attack now seems virtually inevitable.
In light of Israel’s recent military preparations, it can only be a matter of when.
The recent visit of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Jerusalem only proved Israel is determined to act, taking “no option” off the table regarding Iran’s nuclear program.


“This is our position. We mean it,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, pointing out at the same time that the current priority should be diplomacy.
When it comes to the US mediating role, diplomats appear to have used up their tools.
“Mr. Obama has no new strategic thinking on Iran. He vaguely promises to offer the country the carrot of diplomacy – followed by an empty threat of sanctions down the road if Iran does not comply with US requests. This is precisely the European Union’s approach, which has failed for over six years,” American diplomat John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, wrote in the aftermath of the meeting in The Wall Street Journal. “There is no reason Iran would suddenly now bow to Mr. Obama’s diplomatic efforts, especially after its embarrassing election in June.”
Calling the outcome of Gates’ visit to Israel “polite but inconclusive”, Bolton says, “It will be no surprise if Israel strikes by the year’s end.”
Indeed, recent actions from the Jewish state – including long-range air force maneuvers and the recent movement of Israeli warships and submarines through the Suez Canal – are eloquent enough.
As for Iran, it shows no sign of halting its nuclear ambitions. Rejecting calls to curb its uranium enrichment, it continues to insist the program is for legitimate energy needs. This makes Israel believe that, in just a few months, Tehran will produce enough uranium for a warhead. However, Western intelligence has put that capability several years away.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has put up to 40,000 rockets on the Israeli-Lebanese border and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, The Times reports.
“Hezbollah’s rearming is in the name of resistance against Israel. The real reason, however, probably has more to do with its ally Iran. If Israel carries out its threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the main retaliation is likely to come from Hezbollah in Lebanon,” the British newspaper writes in its online edition.
However, Amos Harel from the Israeli online edition of Haaretz.com does not deem a military conflict with Lebanon possible under the current circumstances:
“It will be exceedingly difficult to rally international support for a Third Lebanon War, particularly if it were to erupt over surface-to-air missiles, which are already today deployed in Syria. And if a confrontation erupts between Israel and Iran, Israel is unlikely to ignite a secondary front that would divert resources from the main theater,” Harel believes.
Whether or not Tel Aviv considers the Lebanese option “it could be that Israel is indeed accelerating its preparations for a strike, out of a circumspect reading of the situation and a growing belief that Washington will not come to its aid,” concludes Amos Harel