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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Syria-Lebanon-Iran
2 killed, 2 wounded in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon
2024-04-06
[An Nahar] An Israeli strike on the southern border town of Aita al-Shaab killed two people and injured one Friday, the National News Agency said, while another strike on Kfarkela injured one person.

One Israeli soldier and three Lebanese civilians were earlier maimed in overnight cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

The three Lebanese civilians were maimed in an overnight strike on the southern border town of Kfarhamam in the Arqoob region while the Israeli army said Friday that one soldier was maimed in a Hezbollah overnight attack on Metula.

Hezbollah said it attacked soldiers and military vehicles in the Malkia post and another military vehicle in Metula.

Later on Friday, Israeli warplanes raided Kfarkela, Tayr Harfa, Aita al-Shaab, the outskirts of Shebaa and houses in Zalloutieh and Yarin, while Hezbollah targeted the Hadb Yaroun post, a group of soldiers in Manara, and surveillance equipment in the Zar'it barracks.

An Israeli tank also shelled Kfarkela and al-Khiam.

On Thursday Hezbollah carried out five attacks on posts in northern Israel and the occupied Kfarshouba Hills and Shebaa Farms near Kfarhamam.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since Paleostinian krazed killer group Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 349 people in Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hariri meets US ambassador, Grand Mufti Daryan in Beirut
2024-02-14
[NAHARNET] Ex-PM and al-Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
Movement leader Saad Hariri
...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too....
met Tuesday at the Center House in Beirut with American Ambassador Lisa Johnson and Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan.

Johnson told news hounds as she left the Center House that the meeting with Hariri was "excellent".
"I didn't get blown up. So there's that"
Hariri, who had withdrawn from political life two years ago, arrived Sunday night in Beirut to prepare for the 19th anniversary of the martyrdom of his father Rafik Hariri and his lover companions on February 14.

Hariri had resigned as prime minister after unprecedented nationwide protests broke out in 2019 to demand the wholesale overhaul of Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
's political class.

He was designated the following year to form a technocratic government that would implement much-anticipated reforms, but he failed to broker a consensus and threw in the towel.

Media reports said Hariri will also meet with Parliament Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri
...Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, head of the Amal Shiite party aligned with Hezbollah, a not very subtle sock puppet of the Medes and Persians...
, who will seek to bring him together with ex-PSP chief Walid Wally Jumblat
...Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran vows to keep backing Hezbollah during regional tensions linked to Israel-Hamas war
2024-02-10
[An Nahar] Iran's foreign minister vowed after arriving in Beirut on Friday to keep supporting Hezbollah, saying Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
's security affects that of Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and the region.

Hossein Amirabdollahian was welcomed by representatives of Lebanon's Hezbollah as well as the krazed killer Paleostinian group Hamas
...one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
and the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
. Iran, a main backer of the krazed killer groups, has been calling on the U.S. to pressure Israel to stop its offensive in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip.

Hezbollah began attacks along Lebanon's border with Israel on Oct. 8 after 17 years of relative calm, a day after Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war. Hezbollah officials have said they will stop attacking Israeli military posts when Israel's attack on Gaza ends.

"Hezbollah and the resistance in Lebanon have courageously and wisely carried out their deterring and effective role," Amirabdollahian told news hounds at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport.

He said Iran will continue "its strong support to the resistance in Lebanon, as we consider Lebanon's security as the security of Iran and the region."

Amirabdollahian is scheduled to meet Lebanese officials and hold talks with Hezbollah leader Sayyed His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...
Shortly before he arrived in Beirut, Syrian state media reported that the country's air defense units shot down two drones near Damascus, the capital. State TV quoted a military statement as saying the drones came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian military statement gave no further details.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria accuses Israel of rare daytime strike, says 3 soldiers wounded
2023-03-13
[IsraelTimes] State media claims fighter jets target sites in Tartus province and near Masyaf in northwest of country.

Israel carried out a rare daytime strike against targets in northwestern Syria on Sunday morning, injuring three soldiers and causing damage, the state-run broadcaster SANA said.

While alleged Israeli attacks in Syria typically take place under the cover of darkness, Sunday’s strike was conducted at around 7:15 a.m., according to SANA.

There was no response from the Israel Defense Forces, in line with its policy of not commenting on specific air raids in the country.

SANA, citing a military source, said Israeli fighter jets launched a volley of missiles from over north Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
, targeting sites in the coastal Tartus province and near Masyaf in the Hama province.

The area around Masyaf, which is thought to be used as a base for Iranian forces and pro-Iranian militias, has been repeatedly targeted in recent years in attacks widely attributed to Israel.

The report did not elaborate on the soldiers’ conditions or the extent of the damage caused to the targeted sites.

SANA claimed that Syrian air defenses managed to intercept several of the Israeli missiles in the strike. Syria regularly claims to intercept Israeli missiles, though military analysts doubt such assertions.

Though Israel’s military does not comment on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country.

The IDF says it also attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Additionally, Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.

The last airstrike in Syria attributed to Israel was on Tuesday, when Syria said an airstrike targeted the Aleppo International Airport, leading it to be shut for several days.
Al Ahram adds:
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britannia-based war monitor, said that "two pro-Iran
...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence...
fighters were killed and three Syrian soldiers were maimed".

SANA did not say what sites were targeted, but the Observatory, a war monitor, said a "scientific research centre" were present in the areas.
And from An Nahar:
Israeli airstrikes targeting a weapons depot in Syria on Sunday killed two pro-Iran fighters and wounded three soldiers, a war monitor said.

"Israeli strikes targeted a weapons depot belonging to pro-Iran forces located... between Tartus and Hama provinces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Security guards foil attempt to smuggle ‘Islamic State drug’ from West Bank to Gaza
2023-01-31
[IsraelTimes] Defense Ministry says Captagon amphetamine pills were hidden in doors of office refrigerators

The Defense Ministry said security guards on Monday foiled an attempt to smuggle thousands of captagon pills from the West Bank to the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip this morning.

The ministry said the pills were hidden in the doors of office refrigerators. The shipment — en route to the Gaza Strip — was found at the Tarqumiyah Crossing, in the southern West Bank.

The drugs were handed over to police for further inspection.

Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant manufactured mostly in Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
and Syria. Much of it has been bound for illegal recreational use in Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
Israeli officials call it the "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
drug," as it was supposedly used by jihadists to prevent fear and fatigue during fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Captagon pills have previously been seized en route to the Gaza Strip.

Captagon is considered by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together, according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP.

More than 400 million pills were seized in the Middle East and beyond in 2021, according to official figures, with seizures last year set to top that.

Customs and anti-narcotics officials told AFP that for every shipment they seize, another nine make it through.
I guess everybody has a Secretary Mayorkas, hmmm?
That means even with a low average price of $5 per tablet, and only four out of five shipments getting through, Captagon is at least a $10 billion industry.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper killed by gunfire in south Lebanon
2022-12-16
[IsraelTimes] Member of UN force declared dead after convoy comes under fire, three others maimed; Irish PM says he is ’deeply shocked,’ Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
’s interim leader expresses ’deep regret’

An Irish soldier of the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon near the Israeli border was killed and three maimed after their convoy came under fire, Irish officials said Thursday.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Stephanie Saliba arrested over Riad Salameh's case
2022-12-10
[An Nahar] Lebanese actress Stephanie Saliba, who has links to Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, was arrested on Friday, a judicial official and the state-run National News Agency said.

The development is the latest in the controversy surrounding Salameh, who is being investigated for corruption as an economic meltdown and financial collapse convulse the tiny nation.

According to the National News Agency, a judge, acting on a request by Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim, ordered that Saliba be placed in jug after she showed up earlier in the day at the prosecutor’s office in Beirut for questioning. The report gave no reason for her arrest.

A judicial official said investigative Judge Iman Abdallah questioned Saliba over "illicit enrichment and money laundering."

Another judicial source meanwhile told Agence La Belle France Presse that Saliba "is currently detained pending investigation following orders from the financial prosecutor."

Saliba arrived in Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
on Wednesday after taking part in a film festival in the Saudi city of Jeddah and was detained after previously failing to appear for questioning, the judicial source added.

Salameh is being investigated in several European nations, including Switzerland
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
, La Belle France, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein, for potential money laundering and embezzlement. He has repeatedly denied corruption charges.

Reports in Lebanese media say the governor gave Saliba expensive gifts. But a second judicial source with knowledge of the Salameh probe said there was no proof the central bank chief had directly transferred any money to Saliba.

"The gifts she received from Salameh, whether it was a house or jewelry, do not amount to money laundering," the source added.

Earlier this week, Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun, who has been investigating Salameh, issued a search warrant for Saliba's home as part of her investigation of the governor.

Aoun refused to comment on the case when contacted by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named on Friday, saying only: "I did not issue the arrest warrant. I know nothing."

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati had on Thursday denied a media report claiming that he had mediated with security agencies to prevent Saliba’s arrest at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.

The daily had reported that Judge Aoun had circulated the search warrant to security agencies and that "political interferences at a high level, especially by caretaker PM Najib Mikati, prevented Saliba’s arrest upon her arrival... to Beirut’s airport."

Since 2019, Lebanon has been in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the country's political class.

Many hold the 72-year-old Salameh responsible for the crisis, citing policies that drove up national debt and caused the Lebanese pound to lose 90% of its value against the dollar. The Central Bank governor, who has held the post for the past three decades, still enjoys the backing of top politicians.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Mikati denies interfering to prevent Stephanie Saliba's arrest
2022-12-09
[An Nahar] Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday denied a media report claiming that he had mediated with security agencies to prevent the arrest of the actress Stephanie Saliba at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.

"What al-Akhbar newspaper has reported about an interference by PM Mikati in a file related to Ms. Stephanie Saliba is totally baseless," Mikati’s press office said in a statement.

The daily had reported that Mt. Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun had issued a search and investigation warrant against Saliba "based on Lebanese and European investigations into the embezzlement, money laundering and theft file in which Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is accused."

"The warrant was circulated to security agencies, but political interferences at a high level, especially by caretaker PM Najib Mikati, prevented Saliba’s arrest upon her arrival today to Beirut’s airport," the newspaper said.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Geagea: We will oppose the election of a March 8 President
2022-08-04
[ANNAHAR] Lebanese Forces
A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb...
chief Samir Geagea
...Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005...
said Wednesday that the next President should be sovereign and reformist, refusing a President from the March 8 Alliance or a consensual President.

"We will oppose with all our strength the election of a President from the March 8 Alliance," Geagea said in a presser as he accused the so-called Axis of Defiance of being the root cause of the crisis.

He considered that mismanagement, corruption and the dominance of Hezbollah on the country's strategic decisions are the main factors that contributed to the current crisis.

"Hezbollah has allied with the most corrupted parties to secure an internal cover for its illegal presence," Geagea said, slamming both Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
.

He added that if a President backed by the Axis of Defiance gets elected, Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
will be isolated and will lose all investments and international and Arab support.

Geagea also refused "a consensual President" that would "extend the hell we are living in to six more years."

He concluded his speech by urging all the opposition MPs to coordinate in order to agree on a President's name.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hariri says STL's Merhi-Onessi verdict is 'clearest condemnation of Hezbollah'
2022-06-17
[An Nahar] The life imprisonment verdicts issued Thursday by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years. It produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. That's three statements. Only the first is subjective....
are the "clearest condemnation of Hizbullah
...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
" in the 2005 liquidation of ex-PM Rafik Hariri, al-Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri
...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too....
said.

"After the conviction of Salim Ayyash in the crime of the liquidation of martyr premier Rafik Hariri and his lover companions, the Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon unanimously sentenced two other Hezbollah members, Hassan Merhi and Hussein Oneissi, to life imprisonment," Hariri tweeted.

"The penalty is the harshest one stipulated by the statute and rules, but it is the clearest in terms of condemning Hezbollah as a side responsible for orchestrating and executing the crime," Hariri added.

Hezbollah "cannot evade the responsibility of handing over the convicts" so that "the penalty can be levied against them," the ex-PM went on to say, warning that "history will not be merciful" on Hezbollah if it does not do so.

Merhi and Oneissi had been found guilty on appeal in March by the Dutch-based STL after they were initially acquitted. The court found Merhi and Oneissi distributed a video in which a fictitious group grabbed credit for the attack, in a bid to protect the "real perpetrators" from a covert Hezbollah network.

But the pair are unlikely to ever spend time behind bars as Hezbollah has refused to hand them over, as it has refused to surrender a third man, Salim Ayyash, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2020.

Presiding judge Ivana Hrdlickova said both Merhi and Oneissi were aware that Hariri would be killed in the attack, adding that the sentences reflected the "evil nature of terrorism."

"The appeals chamber therefore unanimously decides to sentence Mr Merhi and Mr Oneissi to life imprisonment, the heaviest sentence under the statute and the rules for each of the five counts on which they were convicted," she said.

The men were found guilty of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, and of being accomplices to commit a terrorist act, accomplices in the intentional homicide of Hariri and of the 21 other people, and accomplices in the attempted homicide of the 226 injured.

The attack on Sunni billionaire Hariri, who had stepped down as Lebanon's prime minister in October 2004, triggered protests that drove Syria out of Lebanon after a 29-year military deployment.

The court was born in 2009 out of a United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
Security Council resolution and eventually tried four suspects in absentia: Ayyash, Merhi, Oneissi and Assad Sabra.

Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IDF fires dozens of shells at targets in Lebanon after rocket attack on Israel
2022-04-25
[IsraelTimes] Military says rocket landed in open area near Kibbutz Matsuba, close to border, without causing damage or injuries; no warning sirens sounded and army says alert levels ’normal’

The Israel Defense Forces said early Monday that its forces attacked targets in Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
after a rocket was fired into Israel earlier in the night.

"IDF artillery is now attacking targets in Lebanon and firing at the launch area in retaliation for the rocket fired into Israeli territory," the IDF said in a statement.

Earlier, a rocket was fired into Israel from Lebanon landing in an open area near Kibbutz Matsuba, close to the border, without causing damage or injuries.

Hezbollah-linked media in Lebanon also reported that a rocket had been fired toward Israel.

No rocket warning sirens sounded in Israel as the rocket landed in an open area, and the military said that alert levels in the area remain "normal."

"We reacted in a quick, deadly and effective way," said Captain Yotam Zeituni, the commander of the artillery battery that responded to the rocket fire.

The United Nations
...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense...
peacekeeping force along the border, UNIFIL, urged restraint.

"A rocket was launched from Lebanon toward Israel early this morning. Israel Defense Forces are returning fire with dozens of shells. UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander @aroldo_lazaro urges calm and restraint in this volatile and ongoing situation," UNIFIL tweeted.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in Lebanon and no claims of responsibility.

There have been several instances of rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel in recent years with most blamed on Paleostinian factions in the country, not the Hezbollah terror group.

However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
it is unlikely that bandidos Lions of Islam in southern Lebanon would be able to fire rockets without at least the tacit approval of the Iran-backed militia, which maintains a tight degree of control over southern Lebanon.
An Nahar adds:
A Katyusha rocket was fired Sunday night towards northern Israel from the southern Lebanese area of Ras al-Ain south of the city of Tyre, Lebanese media reports said.
Related:
Ras al-Ain: 2022-04-01 The state of security chaos continues in the areas of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad
Ras al-Ain: 2022-03-23 Deaths, injures caused among opposition factions over smuggling in Ras al-Ain
Ras al-Ain: 2022-03-18 Tension breaks out between two Turkish-backed factions in Sere Kaniye
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Militiamen killed, injured in alleged ISIS attack in Syria
2022-04-12
[Rudaw] Several Iranian-backed holy warriors were killed and injured in a suspected Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) attack on the force in the Syrian desert, a conflict monitor reported early Monday.

Four members of the Iran-backed militia were killed and two others were maimed in an alleged ISIS offensive on a military site near al-Sukhna city in the eastern countryside of Homs, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The desert, also known as Badia, is a strategically valuable area as it contains Syria’s crucial gas fields and the east-west highway, which connects Deir ez-Zor to both Homs and Damascus.

No group has grabbed credit for the attack.

Security forces in Badia have arrested at least three members of the National Defense Forces for their suspected affiliation with ISIS, SOHR noted.

The recent attack comes a month after dozens of soldiers were killed and injured in an attack on a military bus in the Badia. ISIS was blamed for the offense at the time as well.

ISIS seized control of swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring a so-called caliphate in 2014, but the terror group was declared territorially defeated in 2017 and 2019 respectively. The terror group continues to launch deadly attacks from the Syrian desert, which extends from Syria’s capital of Damascus to the Iraqi border.

Sixty-one pro-regime soldiers and Iran-affiliated holy warriors were killed in alleged ISIS attacks in the desert since the beginning of the year, the monitor said last month, with 69 members of the terror group reported dead.

In its propaganda magazine on Thursday, ISIS claimed to have conducted two attacks in Syria from March 31 to April 6, killing and injuring four people.

Iranian-backed paramilitary groups and Lebanon Hezbollahstan
...In 2006 unknown persons blew up Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the car he was traveling in, the road he was traveling on, and a few innocent bystanders of no account whatsoever. The person or persons unknow weren't Hezbollah, you can bet on that. Really. Even though there was an international tribunal that said it was them...
's Hezbollah are fighting on the side of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
’s forces in the Syrian war, which started after a military crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests calling for his ousting. Tehran has been a strong supporter of Bashir al-Assad's government in Damascus.
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Sukhna: 2021-10-13 Air strike targets Iranian-backed militia in Syria's Deir ez-Zor
Sukhna: 2021-09-13 ISIS attacks government and Iranian-backed forces in Syrian Desert
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Homs: 2022-04-11 Palestinian woman stabs Israeli officer in Hebron, is shot dead
Homs: 2022-04-10 Israel raided some sites in Syria’s Hama
Homs: 2022-03-23 Al-Monitor: Islamic State takes advantage of Ukraine war to increase attacks
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