Overnight, volume 6
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Overnight…
ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER -- Israel massed tanks and troops on the border Friday hours after calling up reserves, as the army announced plans for a ground operation to destroy Hezbollah's tunnels, hideouts and weapons stashes. more…
Israeli troops backed by artillery and tank fire seized control of a Lebanese border village on Saturday and recovered weapons from another town in Hezbollah territory, military officials said. more…
Hundreds of radical Shiite Muslims, some wielding assault rifles and rocket launchers, marched Friday in support of the Hezbollah movement and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in the capital's Sadr City district, home to loyalists of Shiite fundamentalist cleric Muqtada Sadr. more…
At least 10 rockets fired by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah hit towns across northern Israel on Saturday, injuring 10 people and damaging two houses, medics and the army said. more…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on the world community on Friday to take coordinated action to defuse the latest crisis between Israel and Lebanon. more…
As Israel continues to unleash its deadly firepower on a hapless Lebanon for a second week running, the United Nations remains paralysed and unable to take any action because of an indisputable fact of international politics: the unrestrained U.S. support for an intransigent Israel.
he Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah rejected on Friday a peace plan put forward by UN chief Kofi Annan providing for a ceasefire with Israel and the immediate release of the two captured Israeli soldiers. more…
The Israelis have a finite window of opportunity to do as much damage to Hezbollah as they can, in the shortest period possible.
I hope that we're doing whatever we can behind the scenes -- e.g. satellite intelligence, elint, perhaps side-scanning airborne radar from NW Iraq and/or the Med, ECM, etc. -- to help the IDF. If my hopes have any grounding in reality, our efforts will also have a relatively short fuse before the NYT breaks the story, pursuant to their anti-GWB jihad.
Obviously, Hezbollah made a potentially profound strategic blunder by teasing the bears. They misestimated just how uneasy the Sunni Arab states are of Iranian hegemonic ambitions, so when Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel gave the IDF a prima facie case for action, I think many Sunni Arab regimes were privately pleased to see an Iranian proxy get whacked. Is this also an intelligence revelation for us, suggesting a wedge issue we can use in out future efforts to neutralize Iran?
Now fulfillment of this breakthrough opportunity rests on the IDF's performance in the field. As previously expressed, I greatly hope that we're providing as much help as we can without directly joining the fight.