Hezbollah Is A Terrorist Group

[Rasputin]

'حزب الله' به استفاده از بمب خوشه ای متهم شد


روستای عرب اسرائيلی مقر در طول جنگ چندين بار مورد اصابت قرار گرفت
بازرسان سازمان دیده بان حقوق بشر می گویند شواهدی یافته اند که نشان می دهد حزب الله در حملات ماه ژوئیه به شمال اسرائیل، از بمب خوشه ای استفاده کرده است.
این گروه مدافع حقوق بشر، تکه های مهمات و تجهیزات را یافته و با روستائیانی که شاهد حملات بودند گفتگو کرده است.

دیده بان حقوق بشر اعلام کرده که اسرائیل تاکنون به دلایل امنیتی از انتشار عمومی این اسناد ممانعت کرده است، اما اکنون پلیس اسرائیل هم به دست آمدن شواهدی را تایید کرده که نشان می دهد، 113 راکت حاوی بمبهای خوشه ای در جریان جنگ لبنان به اسرائیل شلیک شده است.

بر اساس یافته های سازمان دیده بان حقوق بشر، هر بمب خوشه ای می تواند چندین بمب کوچک را پخش کند و حتی پس از پایان درگیری نظامی هم خطرات زیادی برای غیرنظامیان دربردارد.

پیشتر اسرائیل، به خاطر استفاده از بمب خوشه ای در لبنان، به شدت مورد انتقاد قرار گرفته بود.

سازمان ملل متحد اعلام کرده که هنوز نزدیک به یک میلیون بمب کوچک (عناصر تشکيل دهنده بمب خوشه ای) در مناطق جنگزده لبنان پراکنده است و هر روز باعث تلفات و آسیب هایی می شود.

سازمان دیده بان حقوق بشر ابراز نگرانی کرده که این شواهد نشان می دهد این سلاح که کاربرد آن به موضوعی بحث برانگیز بدل شده، در اختیار گروه های پیکارجو هم قرار دارد و در نهایت تاکید می کند که استفاده از بمب خوشه ای علیه نواحی غیرنظامی را هرگز نمی توان توجیه کرد.

مناقشه 34 روزه اسرائيل و حزب الله روز جمعه 14 اوت در پی تصويب قطعنامه آتش بس در شورای امنيت سازمان ملل پايان يافت.

مناقشه در پی ربوده شدن دو سرباز اسرائيلی توسط نيروهای حزب الله آغاز شد و با بمباران شديد جنوب لبنان و ورود نيروهای ارتش اسرائيل به آنجا همراه بود.

نيروهای اسرائيلی اکنون جنوب لبنان را ترک کرده اند.

[Rasputin]

On Sept. 8, The Memphis Daily News printed a freelance feature titled "Despite Beating, Former CBU Student Continues Protests Against Middle East Violence," which recounted the summer activities of Kyle Kordesmeier among Palestinians on the West Bank and Jerusalem.

It is not clear whether Kordesmeier, who recently graduated from Christian Brothers University, is malicious or simply naïve. I am not familiar with the particular events he describes, and must take his story at face value, but a close look at his own account leaves one wondering whether he actually believes his own rhetoric.

At the outset of the story, Kordesmeier claims that his "goal in Palestine is to non-violently position myself between the Israeli military and Palestinian civilians who are at risk of being injured, killed or imprisoned."

Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that Kordesmeier is affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which is Palestinian-led and claims to be committed to "resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles," according to its Web site, www.palsolidarity.org.

I find it shocking that a responsible newspaper like The Daily News would uncritically allow him to deliver his version of reality using biased terminology to describe events devoid of context that possibly could provide another perspective.

The Daily News story relates his account of his beating with considerable sympathy, quoting him as saying, "I screamed that I was an American tourist and that I did not deserve to be treated this way."

Why should Mr. Kordesmeier, and by extension your freelance reporter, believe that being an American tourist absolves him of behaving in accordance with the laws of the country he is visiting? He was obstructing an arrest and he was arrested for it; I can only imagine that Memphis police would take as dim a view of that type of behavior as did the Israeli Police.

In the view of some, there are no terrorists. Islamic suicide bombers are freedom-loving militants who aim to promote peace by blowing themselves up in buses, cafes, kindergartens and shopping malls.

This summer, the Israeli military was engaged in a two-front war against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist organizations sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, and had good reason to be, as quoted in the article, "more aggressive" in their counterterrorist actions. As thousands of rockets were fired at Israeli population centers in the north and south of the country, Israeli security services were thwarting dozens of attempted terrorist attacks daily.

And so, at the height of Israel's war against Hamas and Hezbollah, Kordesmeier decided that his most significant contribution to peace would be to stand between singing women protestors and the Israeli police in front of the American Consulate in East Jerusalem which, incidentally, is not in Palestine. (The Palestinians have never declared independence, so there is no state of Palestine. There may be one in the future, but to refer to it as already existing is simply inaccurate. In its broadest sense, Palestine is the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River.)

In most Western democracies, attempting to interfere with police officers making an arrest is likely to elicit the same type of police violence as Kordesmeier experienced. Well-intentioned or not, obstructing arrest is a crime, and it is generally a poor idea to confront police officers while they are making an arrest.

The security barrier to which Kordesmeier referred in the article, the so-called Apartheid Wall, was built beginning in 2002 in response to the rising surge of successful suicide terror infiltrations into Israel. About 3 percent of the barrier is constructed of concrete (in areas where terrorists could otherwise snipe into Israeli population centers and roadways), but the majority of the barrier is a metal fence monitored by Israeli military personnel, who continue to prevent between 30 and 40 attempted terror infiltrations daily.

This is not a recent or fleeting phenomenon.

Since September 2000, three weeks after the late chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yassir Arafat, rejected an initiative at Camp David that would have enabled him to declare Palestinian statehood with 97 percent of the territory of the West Bank, 1,123 people have been killed by Palestinian violence and terrorism.

The Israel Magen David Adom (equivalent to the American Red Cross) has treated 7,844 casualties from September 29, 2000, to May 1, 2006 - with 999 people killed, 642 severely injured, 940 moderately injured and 5,263 lightly injured. These numbers do not include military personnel. They do include 18 Israeli citizens killed abroad in terror attacks directed specifically against Israeli targets.

The Palestinians have had numerous opportunities to negotiate with Israel and declare statehood, the most recent of which was the summer of 2005, when Israel voluntarily and unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip and left its authority entirely in the hands of the Palestinian Authority.

Rather than actualizing the national aspiration of statehood at that time, the Palestinians turned Gaza into a haven for terrorists, and began to use the territory to launch hundreds of kassam rockets at the civilian population in the nearby Israeli town of Sderot.

In conclusion, if you wish to cover the complex issues of war and peace in the Middle East, please choose a balanced and well-informed perspective rather than the summer adventures of a perhaps well-meaning but certainly ill-advised young man.

[Rasputin]

Hollywood's 'security celebs' new voting bloc for Republicans

IT'S pretty sad when a Democrat can't rally the traditional stronghold of Hollywood, plump his coffers and sail to victory. It's even more daunting when you have zero personality, like Treasurer Phil Angelides, and when your challenger has pumped Tinseltown's pocketbooks from his years as an uber-action star.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been ably flexing his fundraising muscle in his gubernatorial re-election campaign after the state's Democratic voters inexplicably pushed through the man least able to beat him in the primary. And while Angelides has secured the traditional support from Hollywood party stalwarts such as Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty, Schwarzenegger has a good share of heavyweights in his corner, including donors Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Brian Grazer, Jerry Zucker, Dennis Hopper and Lawrence Gordon, according to campaign finance reports for this election cycle.

The Hollywood split can be explained by Schwarzenegger's industry ties or his centrism that appeals more to industry moderates, but trends may also be indicating a new class of Tinseltown voters: the security celebrities.

The coveted "security moms" voting bloc is married women -

Democrats and Republicans - with children whose ballot choices are driven by concerns about national security and terrorism. The security celeb is also a product of the 9-11 terrorist attacks - not only are there the security concerns of other Americans, but the added knowledge that radical Islamists see Hollywood as the bane of civilization, thus making them additional targets.
Two years ago, I heard producer and director David Zucker of "Airplane!" fame talk about his conversion to a "Sept. 11 Republican." A lifelong liberal with a keen interest in protecting the environment, security concerns prompted Zucker to switch to the GOP, making an anti-John Kerry television ad in 2004 and two new commercials for next month's midterm elections.

"I still can't believe I'm a Republican," Zucker told The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles earlier this month. "There are just certain things ingrained in our Jewish roots. Our fathers voted for Roosevelt, and we voted for JFK, Humphrey and Clinton. But the Democratic Party has changed."

Though the security celeb doesn't necessarily make the GOP crossover while making his concerns known, such as James Woods or Ron Silver, the security celeb may also be motivated by the left's increasing animosity toward Israel. As many left-wingers were marching in the streets against the Jewish state during the recent Hezbollah war, Spielberg's foundation donated $1 million toward relief efforts in Israel. Adam Sandler also donated 400 PlayStation consoles to Israeli children whose homes were hit by Hezbollah rockets.

Perhaps the most visible recent statement of the security celebrities was a full-page ad taken out in the L.A. Times in August, signed by dozens of Hollywood types including Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Bernie Mac, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton, William Hurt, Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Sam Raimi and Paramount chairman Sumner Redstone, as well as former Paramount chairwoman and longtime Democratic contributor Sherry Lansing.

"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad read. "If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."

Predictably, this prompted outcries from left-leaning blogs to boycott the involved celebrities, ironically putting them in territory most often dominated by right-wing pundits: complaining about celebrities' political involvement. "Hollywood supports Israeli mass murder," chirped one IndyMedia site.

The security celebs are not a huge voting bloc, but a sign of the times, as the tide slowly shifts among traditional liberals who are concerned about the threats to Israel and Western society - and also seeing many of their brethren on the left take the wrong side.

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah Items Sell Big In Syria

Damascus, Syria (AHN) - It would be expected in southern Lebanon to find key chains, magnets and other Hezbollah paraphernalia, but in Damascus the scale to which tourists and shoppers can purchase the Shiite group's mementos is unsurpassed. Walking the streets near the famous Umayyad Mosque, shops boast to have the best Hezbollah products in the world.

"That one there is only 150 Syrian Pounds ($3)," a shopkeeper yells out to a foreign tourist who seems interested in purchasing the item.

"I also have posters, key chains and many more Hezbollah things that I am sure you will want," the shop owner adds.

The westerner takes a look and hands the man some money and walks off with a brand new key chain, painted with the flag of Hezbollah on one side and a picture of their chief, Hassan Nasrallah, on the opposite.

Syria, one of Hezbollah's main supporters, is a haven for those seeking to find trinkets from the Shiite group. Although illegal according to American law to purchase Hezbollah items, as the group is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, Americans flood the markets of Damascus in search of the Shiite group's priceless items.

[Rasputin]

Speaking with the enemy

CAIRO - Since coming to power, the US administration of President George W Bush has largely shunned diplomacy with those it perceives as enemies. Ensconced in a moral certitude that is belied by its attachment to any number of allies of ill repute, the administration has sat in the corner holding its breath, hoping that those who oppose its stated goals - foreign monsters such as Syria, Iran and North Korea - will simply vanish if they cannot be forcibly removed.

There is apparently no setback grave enough to persuade the



administration to change course and opt for dialogue over
confrontation. Take North Korea's recent testing of a nuclear bomb. It would seem that this reversal - nuclear proliferation to a founding member of President Bush's "axis of evil" (along with Iraq and Iran) - would inspire a rethink of the refusal to hold bilateral talks, part of Pyongyang's price for forgoing its weapons program.

Instead, Bush quickly restated his conviction not to hold talks with North Korea and worked to tighten sanctions and further isolate a country that is already so isolated that it might as well be on Mars.

Even to some of Bush's closest allies, the current policy seems self-destructive. Former US secretary of state James Baker, now heading the Iraq Study Group, appointed by the president to re-evaluate US policy in Iraq, recently called for the administration finally to stop cutting off its nose to spite its face.

"I believe in talking to your enemies," Baker said, in reference to North Korea. "It's got to be hard-nosed, it's got to be determined. You don't give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."

Six years of uncommon obstinacy has been particularly corrosive to the administration's stated goals the Middle East. In short, Bush's vanity has set Iraq on fire, sentenced the Arab-Israeli peace process to death by neglect, indirectly sparked a nascent civil war in Palestine, and ushered in the destruction of Lebanon.

The administration has played off these crises as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East", as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stone-heartedly said during the Lebanon war, or more recently, as Bush has said of the near-genocidal violence in Iraq, "just a comma" in history.

The "creative chaos" theory that some believe underpins neo-conservative-inspired administration thinking in this regard was explained by Bush during the Lebanon war. "This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic," he said. "Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. Transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve."

Whether the administration buys its own rhetoric is an open question. What is not in question is that these crises have strengthened those it views as the dastardly representatives of the "old" Middle East - Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and anti-American Islamist opposition movements from Cairo to Casablanca. In two years, Bush will himself be a "comma" in history, and his successor will inherit this ill-favored wind.

Continuing to ignore Syria and Iran seems particularly foolish, given how badly pressure on them has backfired. Syria has shrugged off US sanctions, weathered investigation into last year's killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, and reaped enormous political capital from Hezbollah's victory over Israel. In the meantime, Iran continues to ignore US-led demands that it cease its nuclear program and ups its rhetoric against Israel. And both, of course, savor no small measure of Schadenfreude at America's failure in Iraq, even if its instability troubles them.

But there remains an obstinate, if misguided, logic to US policy, as summarized by Syria expert Dr Joshua Landis: "The resistance to opening the door to discussions with Syria [and Iran] stems from the stubborn hope among Bush advisers that it is not too late for this plan and that a turnaround in their Middle East fortunes may yet materialize," he wrote. "They hope it is not too late for a regime-change opportunity in Syria.

"The Bush administration clearly believed the war in Lebanon this summer could have developed into just such an opportunity. This is why Rice made her famous faux pas that the bombing of Lebanon and the screams of its citizens were simply 'the birth pains' [sic] of a new Middle East."

The political isolation of America's enemies is accompanied by attempts to persuade the international community to adopt Washington's own economic sanctions against them, as it recently did against North Korea. And in each case the US has made it clear that the isolation of its enemies will only end when they fulfill a set of political demands steep enough to ensure that they are one of the good guys, albeit with little guaranteed in return save America's good graces. Thus, even after the debacle of removing Saddam Hussein, the US in essence maintains an across-the-board policy of "regime change" with those that oppose its stated foreign policy.

Condi's long, strange, diplomacy-free trip
The topsy-turvy logic of US policy thus allows the nation's chief diplomat, Rice, to tour the Middle East as she did early this month, without ever talking to anyone with whom she has serious differences. Rice's itinerary did not include Damascus or Tehran or a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah of Hamas, or with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the most powerful figure in Lebanon. As a result, Rice's trip produced no tangible gains.

Her visit was billed as an attempt to re-energize the "peace process", but Rice spent her vacation trying to isolate Syria from America's Arab allies and to scare the Sunni regimes into uniting against the chimeric Iranian-led "Shi'ite crescent". Her goal, as she put it, was to strengthen as a bloc US allies, whom she called "the moderate forces" - Jordan, Egypt, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf - in common cause against the "extremist forces".

Syria, to get out of the red and be graced with a visit from Condi next time around, must fulfill a by now familiar laundry list of demands. In essence it must stop supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and give the US carte blanche in Lebanon and Iraq, all without the promise of talks with Israel on the return of Golan.

So rigid is the US position that it has consistently pressured Israel not to talk peace with Bashar al-Assad, as a recent article in Ha'aretz confirmed. "A few short weeks ago, [Israeli] Public Security Minister Avi Dichter told Army Radio, with regard to peace talks with Syria, that 'if it turned out that there was someone to talk to and something to talk about, the idea would be right'," recounted Shmuel Rosner. "On Tuesday, however, after his meeting with US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Dichter sounded somewhat different." Dichter then parroted verbatim Washington's conditions for engaging Syria and said that as long as the US opposed Israel engaging Syria, "Israel could not ignore it".

[Rasputin]

The extremist forces also include Hamas, a rare elected government in the Arab world despite the terrorist acts of its military wing. The US has tried to bring down Haniyah's government by decidedly anti-democratic means, such as support for Israel's blockade of Gaza, its bombing of government institutions, the arrest of Haniyah's cabinet, and the recent revelation that it will sponsor Hamas' bested opponents, Fatah, to the tune of US$42 million in future elections. All Hamas has to do to end its isolation is to change the entire platform on which it was elected.

In the end, the war on Hamas could backfire for the United States. For one, it could radicalize Islamist parties that conclude that winning at the ballot box will only bring about Washington' s wrath. And a Palestinian civil war, if it develops, might not cause Bush to cry in his beer, but would undoubtedly further destabilize the region.

Then there is Hezbollah. Despite having attempted to integrate into the Lebanese political process and moderate its ideology to forgo the goal of an Islamic state, the Shi'ite militia found out courtesy of one month of US-supported Israeli bombing that what is required of it is not participation but submission. In the end, not only has Hezbollah's victory severely dented US credibility, but the war capsized Bush's goal of creating a pro-US democracy in Lebanon, where the March 14 forces have been weakened vis-a-vis Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian factions.

But the greatest challenge facing the US administration undoubtedly comes from an ever more strident Iran. While Iran has long sought to open the kind of broad-based talks that might lead to the restoration of diplomatic ties, Washington has made it clear that there is no hope of this unless it attains satisfaction on the nuclear issue.

"We've said to the Iranians, there's a way for us to talk: suspend your enrichment and reprocessing capabilities so you don't have the technologies to have a nuclear weapon, and we will have negotiations," said Rice recently. "But so far, they've not taken up on that offer."

There is little possibility that the Iranian government will risk losing face by giving in to Washington's diktat in advance of negotiations - especially since Iran claims the right to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At the same time, Tehran has received no assurance that regime change is not Bush's ultimate goal, even if the nuclear issue is resolved.

Washington also demands that Iran adopt the quietist approach of its Arab allies toward Israel. But in the absence of even a semblance of an Arab-Israeli peace process, Iran's hardline President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has no incentive whatsoever to modify his uncompromising stance.

Of all the regional players, ignoring Iran holds the greatest possible peril for the US and the region. Iranian influence is undoubtedly being exaggerated to scare the Arab states into aligning more closely with the US, but the issue of Iran's nuclear program is vital to the regional balance of power. At the moment any hope of a resolution is being held hostage to the Bush administration's petulance.

Likewise, ever-worsening war in Iraq is unlikely to be settled without Iran's cooperation. While there are reports that Baker's group will recommend bringing Iran and Syria directly into attempts to stabilize Iraq, it is unlikely this level-headed suggestion will win the day. Even limited, low-level talks on Iraq between the US and Iran were scuttled in June, apparently because Iran objected to US attempts to use the talks to press its demands on the nuclear issue.

If Iraq is all but lost, Afghanistan is now teetering on the edge, even according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander. And yet official policy remains to try to kill off the Taliban, rather than to engage them. Bill Frist, the US Senate majority leader, recently recognized the futility of this strategy and suggested that the Taliban, since they represent the majority Pashtun in some regards, should be brought into government. Frist may have been talking sense, but it was bad politics in an election year, and he was pilloried by Democrats and Republicans alike. In any event, there is little danger that Bush will follow Frist's advice, since war, even if it means eternal war, is evidently always preferable to peace.

In search of 'moral clarity'
The Bush administration's determination to shun its enemies would be justifiable and perhaps even laudable, regardless of the costs, were it truly based on principle. The stated rationale is wrapped in the singularly Manichaean language of good versus evil that it uses to explain all US foreign-policy decisions. The United States must not talk to North Korea, for example, a recently leaked internal administration memo stated, to maintain "moral clarity".

It is demonstrably not based on principle, however, since those that do merit talking to, America's friends, include dictators and regimes decidedly nervous about elections (all of the Arab leaders Rice did meet on her trip), while its enemies include at least nominally elected leaders. A cursory look at the rogues' gallery of the shunned and ignored demonstrates rather decisively that the correct criterion for discerning good from evil is opposition to US foreign policy.

In the post-diplomacy era in US foreign policy, however, transparent hypocrisy is no inhibition to pigheadedness, and the Bush administration is unlikely to change course and begin, at long last, speaking to its enemies.

[Rasputin]

Ex-Iranian President Wanted for Argentina Bombing

An Argentinean prosecutor asked a judge yesterday for national and international arrest warrants for a former president of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and seven other Iranians for their roles in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires.

Judge Alberto Nisman said that although the bombing was carried out by the Iranian proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, the decision to bomb the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association "was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities of the then-government of Iran." Hezbollah would only act outside Lebanon "under orders directly emanating from the regime in Tehran," the prosecution team said.

The July 18, 1994, bombing destroyed the seven-story Jewish community building, killing 85 people and injuring 300. It was the worst terrorist attack in Argentina's history.

The cultural center had housed a collection of 80,000 books focusing on Jewish culture and the Holocaust. The center has since been rebuilt and is heavily guarded.

The other Iranians wanted for the bombing include two former commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a former intelligence chief, Ali Fallahijan, and a former foreign minister, Ali Ar Velayati.

In November 2005, Judge Nisman announced that the investigation team believed a 21-year-old Hezbollah terrorist was the suicide bomber. The Iranian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the bombing.

Argentina's Jewish community and the state of Israel, among others, have been critical of Argentinean authorities' handing of the attack. The investigation into the bombing has been widely faulted for incompetence and alleged corruption. The Argentinean authorities were criticized, for instance, for dumping the bombing debris instead of making it available to forensic experts.

In September 2004, after 10 years of investigation and a lengthy trial, the Argentineans accused of being the "local connection" and working with the Islamists thought to be behind the bombing were released because of prosecutorial irregularities and a lack of evidence.

After they were released, the judge in the trial, Juan Jose Galeano — who has since been stripped of his judgeship — was removed from the case, and the attorney general's office set up a special unit of prosecutors to investigate the bombing. Judge Nisman and a prosecutor, Marcelo Martinez Burgo, now head the unit, whose only task is to bring those behind the bombing to justice.

Mr. Rafsanjani was president of Iran between 1989 and 1997. He ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the last Iranian presidential election. During the election, he was portrayed as the "moderate" candidate.

Mr. Rafsanjani has publicly mused about bombing Israel with a nuclear weapon, and his tenure as president was marked by increased oppression at home and terrorist attacks abroad. He remains a powerful force in Iran, with strong support among the country's ruling theocrats.

The 1994 Jewish center attack followed the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people. No one has been convicted for that attack.

Argentina's 300,000-strong Jewish community is the largest in Latin America.

[Rasputin]

German Mediates Between Israel and Hezbollah

Under a veil of secrecy, an officer of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the bnd, is once again acting as a key negotiator between Israel and the Shiite terrorist group, Hezbollah.

The Trumpet has long warned its readers to watch for Europe, in particular Germany, to muscle its way into the peace process. Though at times appearing reticent in getting involved in the Middle East, Europe has sustained its efforts behind the scenes.

One influential role Germany has fulfilled is chief negotiator in prisoner swaps between Hezbollah and Israel. In January 2004, for example, it brokered the swap of more than 400 Arab prisoners for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers.

Now, once again, Germany’s secret service is mediating between Israel and Hezbollah in efforts to secure the release of the two Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hezbollah in July.

Regarding the chief negotiator, Spiegel Online reported October 23,


The German analyst is known as “Mr. Hezbollah.” He lives in Berlin and speaks fluent Arabic, English and French. He was educated as an Arabist, and he has qualifications which neither high-level diplomats nor seasoned statesmen can offer, in the eyes of the UN leadership. Since he’s taken part in previous German-negotiated prisoner exchanges, he knows the bizarre rules of hostage-trading as well as the main people involved. The German government has twice been a successful mediator between Hezbollah and Israel, and the work is as delicate and demanding as it is prestigious. …

Very few people have more experience than the German intelligence officer. “Mr. Hezbollah” has been present at almost every previous negotiation involving Hezbollah, and he’s met Hassan Nasrallah personally. He enjoys a good reputation in the Hezbollah’s Beirut headquarters as well as in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office. …

For weeks the German emissary has been shuttling between Jerusalem, Beirut and New York to probe the conditions for an exchange of prisoners.

Germany has clearly secured itself a slot in Middle East negotiations—those involving hostage taking—that the parties involved, as well as the United Nations, feel no other nation can adequately fill.

Whether these negotiations will be as “successful” as previous rounds remains to be seen. But even in the event they are not, they will still serve Germany’s purposes. The prospects for success being somewhat dim, given the hardened positions of both sides, Germany at first appeared hesitant to take up the challenge. The German government did not want to “tarnish Germany’s latter-day image as a peacemaker” (ibid.). It did, however, willingly come to the party when requested to do so personally by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. By working under the auspices of the UN, Germany can palm off any responsibility for failure, while its involvement still cements its position among key players in the Middle East. As Spiegel Online explained,


Even if the current negotiations fail … the mission will already count as a success for the German government. Any failure in talks will lie at the UN’s feet, but a success will bring at least some credit back to Germany.

Of note is the fact that, though the official invitation for German mediation came from the UN, the initial suggestion for Germany’s involvement came from Israel itself. When the two soldiers were first kidnapped back in July, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, openly asked for negotiating help. “Right now the same officials from Germany would be useful again,” he said.

That Israel is open to—and seeking—Germany’s help is a trend that is prophesied to have detrimental consequences for the Jewish nation in the future, when Germany betrays that trust.

[Rasputin]

Rice asks Hezbollah to disarm

The United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped up international pressure on Hezbollah to disarm, saying in a television interview that the guerrilla group must surrender its weapons if it wants to remain part of Lebanon's political process.

Rice urged Hezbollah to lay down its arms according to the ceasefire that ended its 34-day war with Israel last summer, and choose between being a militant group and a legitimate political organisation.

Hezbollah is under heavy international pressure to surrender its weapons, but the Iranian- and Syrian-backed group -- which holds 11 seats in the Lebanese parliament and two spots in the Cabinet -- has refused to disarm.

"If Hezbollah wants to be in politics Hezbollah should be disarmed. You cannot have one foot in terror and the use of violence and the other foot in politics. It just doesn't work that way," Rice said in an interview aired on Friday.

"Hezbollah has to decide whether it's going to maintain its terrorist wing and remain a terrorist organization or whether it's going to be part the political process," she said.

The interview was taped at Rice's office in Washington, and conducted by May Chidiac, a Lebanese journalist who lost an arm and a leg in car bombing in Lebanon in September 2005.

The US government has labelled Hezbollah a terrorist organization and blames it for the deaths of 241 US Marines in the bombing of their Beirut barracks in 1983, as well as for two attacks on the US embassy in Beirut and the 1985 TWA hijacking that killed an American serviceman on board.

[Rasputin]

America demands militants disarm

BEIRUT -- Condoleezza Rice stepped up international pressure on Hezbollah to disarm.

The U.S. Secretary of State says the guerrilla group must surrender its weapons if it wants to remain part of Lebanon's political process.

Rice, in an interview with the privately owned Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., urged Hezbollah to lay down its arms according to the Aug. 14 ceasefire that ended its 34-day war with Israel, and choose between being a militant group and a legitimate political organization.

Hezbollah has refused to disarm despite heavy international pressure to surrender its weapons.

"Hezbollah should be disarmed. You cannot have one foot in terror and the use of violence and the other foot in politics. It just doesn't work that way," Rice said.

"Hezbollah has to decide whether it's going to maintain its terrorist wing and remain a terrorist organization or whether it's going to ... be part the political process."

[Rasputin]

The American Jewish Committee called today's Argentine government report on the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA headquarters a chilling indictment of Iran's responsibility for the murder of 85 Argentineans and the destruction of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

"Finally, after 12 long years, we have confirmation from Argentine authorities of what the Jewish community long suspected, with sound reasons, that the bloodied hands of Tehran and its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, were imprinted all over the destruction of AMIA's main building," said Dina Siegel Vann, director of AJC's Latino and Latin American Institute.

"We hope that Prosecuting Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral will now move expeditiously to follow-up on the recommendations of the Nissman report which ask for the detention of seven key Iranian leaders and a Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist." said Siegel Vann. "At the same time, we are pleased that President ***chner remained true to his pledge, made before the 2004 AJC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., that he would invest important resources to help bring closure to the AMIA case."

Addressing AJC in May 2004, President ***chner said, "Our most firm commitment to historical truth will not give up until we achieve justice in the case of the embassy and in the case of AMIA." The bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 also remains officially unsolved.

The report of AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was appointed by ***chner to fully investigate the bombing, identifies seven Iranians, including former Iranian President Rafsanjani, who should be arrested for their involvement in the attack. The 800 page report also lays out in detail the decision-making process in planning the AMIA bombing.

Since 1994, AJC leaders have regularly visited Buenos Aires to meet with senior Argentine government officials to press for justice. AJC shares the unremitting frustrations of the families of the victims and the Argentine Jewish community who have endured the painful and prolonged process of identifying and convicting those responsible for this heinous attack. AMIA is an international partner of AJC.

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah Terrorists in America

The leader of Hezbollah has declared America the enemy. Many Arabs and Muslims in America openly support Hezbollah.

Is this a potential threat to our safety?

Several thousand people marched through the Detroit suburb of Dearborn this smmer, chanting "Hezbollah" and holding up photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Nasrallah and posters comparing President Bush to Hitler. Similar protests took place in San Francisco, New York, and other cities.

The U.S. government calls Hezbollah a terrorist organization, but don't tell that to these Americans.

Osama Siblani publishes the Arab-American News, the largest Arab-American newspaper in the United States. He said, "No, They are not terrorists. Absolutely not. No. They are freedom fighters."

He told the Chicago Tribune that if the FBI wants to go after Hezbollah supporters in Dearborn, "…they better bring a fleet of buses. I, for one, would be willing to go to jail."

Hezbollah is an Iranian creation, and although it has a measure of independence, it's considered Iran's proxy army in southern Lebanon. As many as 15,000 of Dearborn's Arabs come from the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon.

In fact, the current mayor in Bint Jbeil, Haj Ali Bazzi, is from Dearborn. He has an American passport and a Michigan driver's license.

The dominant Islamic leader in Dearborn is Mohammed Ali Elahi, an Iranian-American whose Web site displays photos of Elahi with Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Fadlallah and former Iranian President Rafsanjani, who once suggested nuking Israel.

Debbie Schlussel, a Detroit columnist and attorney, was the first to call attention to Elahi's Web site and to his ties to Iranian government officials.

"I went to his Web site, and I found even more outrageous pictures of him with Ayatollah Khomeini--who we know held many Americans hostage for 444 days," Schlussel said. "We have pictures of him delivering prayers to the Iranian parliament. We have pictures of him with the former President of Iran, Mr. Khatami." Yet Elahi is respected by many in the Detroit area, and even does a regular column for the Detroit News.

He spoke with CBN News terrorism expert Erick Stackelbeck.

"We need to have another interview," said Elahi, "of talking about Hezbollah - whether that is a terrorist organization or not. I know that, legally, in the U.S. now, Hezbollah is on that list. And whether we agree with the law or disagree, we have to follow the law of the land."

Before 9/11, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any other terrorist group: 300 murdered in six separate attacks, including 241 Marines in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. Now, with America's building confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, the New York Post reports that Hezbollah is prepared to activate terrorist sleeper cells in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit.

No less than nine Federal prosecutors are investigating Hezbollah ties in the Detroit area alone. And the FBI has issued a nationwide alert for local and state police to be vigilant in investigating Hezbollah sympathizers.

Barbara Newman, a former investigative producer for ABC news, is co-author of Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil.

Newman said, "Hezbollah makes al-Qaeda look like Sunday-schoolers. They're the best light infantry in the world, and they're dangerous, and they're all over America."

"It's an army that was started in 1982 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," Newman explained. "And they wanted to impose the same type of regime on Lebanon as they have in Iran. They're a mortal enemy of the West and of democracy."

Hezbollah fighters have also already fought the United States in Iraq, and Newman says it's building improvised explosive devices that kill GIs.

"The FBI just told me that Hezbollah is making the most advanced ones that are coming into play. Plus, they're training. They have offices there. It's not widely known," she said.

Arab and Muslim Americans who support Hezbollah have expressed anger that their patriotism is being questioned. But critics wonder how it's possible to support both Hezbollah and the United States.

[Rasputin]

At the height of the Israel-Lebanon war earlier this year, Hezbollah’s representative in Iran, Hossein Safiadeen warned that his Islamic militant group plans to widen the scope of its attacks on Israel. “We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis. There will be no place they are safe.” While Hezbollah did not feel it had to activate sleeper cells, it is important to take stock of where and how similar cells have been used in the past, as a guide to how they could be used in the future.

As Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said in December 2002, “Martyrdom operations – suicide bombings – should be exported outside Palestine… Don’t be shy about it.” Hezbollah has cells documented in almost 40 countries that report to Imad Mugniyah, who is both a member of Hezbollah’s Shura Council and the head of its Jihad - or military - council. These cells are responsible for collecting intelligence, fundraising, liaising with the local Shia communities, doing propaganda work, and procuring weapons; some have operational sleeper cells. As Hezbollah is only designated a terrorist organisation in five countries (United States, Canada, Australia, Holland and Israel), they are fairly free to operate around the world.

Hezbollah’s capabilities in Latin America are well known. On 17 March 1992, they bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killing 29 people; on 18 July 1994 they attacked a Jewish community centre in downtown Buenos Aires, killing 86 people; and on 19 July 1994 a suicide bomber downed an aircraft in Panama, killing 21. On 28 April 1996 a Hezbollah guerilla squad was arrested in the Tri-Border region.

What is less known is Hezbollah’s activities in South-East Asia. While predominantly Sunni, the region does have distinct Shia communities (roughly 1-2 percent of South-East Asia’s Muslims) that Hezbollah has penetrated and actively solicits for funds. In some cases, Hezbollah operatives have taken over legitimate charities. Since the 1990s, Hezbollah operatives have been arrested in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Hezbollah operatives have long used Thailand as a centre for arms procurement and document forging. Most importantly, and not coincidentally, Hezbollah’s activities in South-East Asia have been in three countries with diplomatic relations and close commercial and or security ties with Israel - Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

Thailand

On 17 March 1994, a joint Iranian-Hezbollah operation to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok went awry when the terrorists who were driving the truck bomb got into a traffic accident in Bangkok’s notoriously congested streets. The driver fled the scene and the truck was towed to a police station; the bomb was only discovered days later when the police inspected the car.

Other Hezbollah operations in Thailand include surveillance of the El Al office in Bangkok and counter at Don Muang airport, the only airport in South-East Asia into which the Israeli airline flies. It has also reconnoitered Khao San Road, popular with backpackers and young tourists from around the world, and also the home to one of Bangkok’s synagogues. Not surprisingly, in 2002-03, Jemaah Islamiah’s (JI) operations chief, Hambali ordered his operatives to conduct surveillance on almost exactly the same targets.

Hezbollah is thought to use an Islamic school in Bangkok run by an Iranian national for fund raising. It has other commercial ventures, and is suspected of having interests in the pirate DVD industry.

Singapore

In 1995, Hezbollah dispatched operatives to Singapore, to plan attacks against US and Israeli targets. The men ran a series of religious study sessions from which they recruited five men. Interestingly, the leader of the study sessions was not a Shiite, but an Indonesian Sunni with some connection to Jemaah Islamiah (JI). Ustaz Bandei was wanted at the time by Indonesian authorities for his role in the plot partly orchestrated by JI founder Abdullah Sungkar to blow up the Buddhist temple of Borobudur outside of Yogyakarta. The five men felt uncomfortable with their assignments to conduct surveillance and apparently withdrew from the plot, though Bandei and three operatives remained in Singapore.

In 1998, they were discovered making videos of Singapore’s coastline, and planning for a USS Cole-style attack on US and Israeli ships in the Singapore Strait. Operatives had also photographed the US and Israeli embassies and conducted reconnaissance of a synagogue. Singapore later arrested members of a Hezbollah cell in conjunction with this attack and for raising funds in the city-state. In June 2002, Singapore publicly accused Hezbollah of recruiting five Muslim Singaporean nationals in their failed 1995 plot. Singapore claims to have expelled all the Hezbollah cell members.

While Singapore’s security services are robust, Hezbollah’s leaders will continue to keep the city-state in their sights, as Singapore and Israel’s defence and intelligence ties remain very deep.

The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia

Ustaz Bandei was not the only South-East Asian Sunni that Hezbollah had recruited. Hezbollah has used South-East Asians to conduct surveillance for them on many other occasions. In one instance, they recruited a Malaysian national, Zinal bin-Talib, and dispatched him to Israel to collect intelligence. In 1999, Philippine officials arrested Pandu Yudhawinata, an Indonesian Hezbollah operative at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. He revealed that Hezbollah had recruited a small number of Malaysians and Indonesians and sent them to Lebanon for training in order to carry out terrorist attacks in Australia, South-East Asia and in Israel. An Iranian intelligence officer stationed in Malaysia in the early-1980s had originally recruited Pandu. Hezbollah also collected intelligence on a synagogue in Manila and the Israeli embassy in Makati. Like in Thailand, Hezbollah is active amongst the small Lebanese community, and has ties in hawala/gold shops and local enterprises, including criminal enterprises.

Malaysia in many ways is a very permissive environment. Members of the Algerian GIA sought refuge there, al-Qaeda has moved money through Malaysia since the mid-1990s, and there is growing popular support for Hezbollah. As the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad said in an August 2006 interview in the mass daily, Utusan Malaysia, “If Israel is receiving weapons aid from the US, the OIC should therefore give arms to Hezbollah.” That says something about the degree to which a state will crack down on the terrorist entity’s operations within its borders.

A Back Office

Despite near total state sponsorship from Iran and Syria, Hezbollah understands that such dependency makes it vulnerable to the changing interests of its patrons. As such, Hezbollah has availed itself of South-East Asia’s arms markets and cached some weapons in the region.

Thailand has long been a centre of document forging for both Hezbollah and al-Qaeda and in the summer of 2005, in two separate operations Thai authorities arrested two Algerians naturalised in the UK with some 638 European passports. With porous borders, fairly lax visa requirements, and endemic crime and corruption, parts of South-East Asia remain a permissive environment for terrorist organisations to operate.

Hezbollah also uses South-East Asia in its propaganda efforts. Gabriel Weimann, a specialist on the internet and terrorism at the University of Haifa, has written that during the 2006 war, Hezbollah ran a “rather sophisticated, all-purpose” website, www.ghaliboun.net, from a Malaysian server. “This website was used for almost all Hezbollah’s campaign purposes: news and updates, psychological warfare, propaganda and recruitment. It contained the speeches, statements and televised interviews with Nasrallah; news briefings and updates; cartons and pictures; stories (of victims or “freedom fighters”); links to webpages on Israeli atrocities or American aggression, and more.”

In sum, Hezbollah was actively trying to develop a presence in South-East Asia in the mid-1990s. Several counter-terror operations helped to dislodge some cells, but the organisation has maintained a residual presence in the region. Whether it still has the capabilities to hit Israeli, Jewish, American or Australian interests in the region is less clear, but the governments in the region should be aware of the threat.

To that end, regional governments must redouble their counter-intelligence operations against the Iranians. Most Hezbollah operations in the region were conducted with the active assistance of Iranian intelligence.

Hezbollah will follow through with its threats, and to that end, it will find the most vulnerable targets throughout the world. Should the US Government commence military operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran will strike back, most likely through their Lebanese proxies. As the Israeli analyst Eitan Azani recently testified before the US Congress, “Hezbollah maintains its readiness to perpetrate attacks in the international arena as soon as a decision is made. This operational capability gives the Iranian and Syrian regimes a potential weapon they can activate in the future.”

Combating Hezbollah and Iran is not without risks. As Nasrallah warned on al-Jazeera TV on 30 March 2006, “I say again in front of you, that no one, either in Lebanon or outside it, will be able to punish the Resistance for its accomplishments. Whoever wants to forcefully disarm the Resistance – and I have said this more than once – we will chop off his hand, behead him, and get rid of his soul. We are that determined.” While the primary threat will remain homegrown groups such as Jemaah Islamiah, the governments in South-East Asia must take the threat of Hezbollah seriously.

[Rasputin]

The Bush administration is accusing Syria, Iran and the Hezbollah militants they back of trying to overthrow the Lebanese government.

Officials acknowledged the United States could do little to prevent outside interference with Beirut's fragile democracy.

White House spokesman Tony Snow cited "mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government."

A strongly worded statement from the White House did not detail the evidence.

It singled out Syria for an alleged plan to derail possible prosecutions for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a Lebanese politician who had tried to draw his country away from Syrian domination.

Embargo violation

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, accused Syria and Iran on Monday of violating a UN embargo meant to keep Hezbollah from rearming after the 34-day war it waged with Israel last summer.

Bolton said late Wednesday he thinks the continued violations of U.N. resolution 1559, which demanded disarmament of all militias in Lebanon, and UN resolution 1701, which ended the summer war, are part of the "evidence base" the White House used for its statement.

"And it's one of the reasons why we want to accelerate our support for the democratic government of Lebanon," Bolton told reporters.

Syria denies it is violating the embargo. It and Iran provide weaponry, training and money to Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group that held de facto control in southern Lebanon before the cross-border war.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah gave the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora an ultimatum on Tuesday: establish a cabinet of "national unity" by Nov. 13 or face street protests. Such a cabinet would give the Islamic militants and their allies veto power over key decisions.

US officials said they consider Nasrallah's threat serious, especially if supporters of the embattled Saniora should take to the streets in protests that Saniora might be unable to control.

The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist group and refuses to deal directly with it.

US ally

Saniora is a lukewarm US ally who has maintained control in part by distributing favors and political power among Lebanon's competing political and religious factions and by appealing to some of the same nationalist sentiment that sustains Hezbollah.

The US initially resisted international pressure for a cease-fire when Hezbollah provoked the fighting with Israel but moved for a U.N.-mandated end to the war, partly out of fear that Saniora's government could fall.

Saniora emerged from the war with improved credentials as a statesman but without significantly greater political strength.

"Ultimately, what we can do is try to, as best we can, support Prime Minister Saniora politically, diplomatically, economically," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"This is the elected government of Lebanon. All that said, we're not going to interfere in Lebanon's domestic politics."

Since fighting ended August 14, tensions have increased between Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies, and the Lebanese government's anti-Syrian majority.

"What we don't want to see is others interfering in Lebanon's domestic politics," McCormack said. "And I'm afraid that that is our fear."

Key Lebanon player

Syria was the dominant political and military power in Lebanon for nearly three decades before it pulled its forces from the country last year. The United States has claimed that Syrian intelligence agents remain and hold considerable sway; Syria denies it.

France's U.N. Ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, asked whether his government had similar evidence, said: "There are here and there rumors that some people who are not maybe satisfied with having (resolutions) 1559 or 1701 well-implemented are trying to make difficulties."

"I hope it's not true, but what I can tell you is that the international community is supporting prime minister Siniora, and the international community will do its best to have Resol 1701 implemented," de La Sabliere said. (AP)

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah Is Talking on Hostage

UNITED NATIONS — Hezbollah will require compensation just for providing proof that the two Israeli soldiers it kidnapped are alive, the British ambassador to the United Nations, Emyr Jones Parry, said yesterday.

The information emerged shortly after the leader of the Shiite terrorist organization, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said "serious negotiations" were under way over the two Israelis, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

The soldiers' kidnapping in July sparked the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah. Since their disappearance, and the August ceasefire, Israeli officials and members of the soldiers' families have demanded that Messrs. Goldwasser and Regev be granted a Red Cross visit, or at least that Hezbollah show they are alive.

So far, however, Hezbollah has not produced any proof that the soldiers are still living.

"They are asking a price for a proof of life," Mr. Jones Parry told reporters yesterday. He declined to cite the source of his information or what kind of "price" Hezbollah requires.

Middle Eastern kidnappers have accepted cash payments as part of negotiations in the past. Hezbollah and Palestinian Arab terrorist groups also have demanded the release of Arab prisoners in Israeli custody.

Hezbollah has always aimed to exact a heavy price at every stage of the negotiating process in order to play on the emotions of the Israeli public, Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

Although in some cases Israel has been able to secure the release of soldiers and citizens kidnapped by terrorist groups, in others it has been forced to pay a heavy monetary or political price just for the return of bodies.

On Tuesday, Sheik Nasrallah appeared on the Hezbollah television station Al-Manar for the first time since his appearance at a Beirut "victory" rally shortly after the war. "I would like to assure all those interested in this file that there are serious negotiations that are continuing," he said. "We have reached the stage of exchanging ideas or, more accurately, exchanging terms."

Sheik Nasrallah acknowledged that the negotiations are being conducted through a U.N. representative. During his swing through the Middle East in August, Secretary-General Annan said he had chosen an unnamed "facilitator" to help negotiate the release of the kidnapped soldiers, as the U.N. Security Council resolution that stopped the fighting required.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported this week that Mr. Annan's facilitator is an analyst at BND, the German intelligence agency. A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, would not comment yesterday beyond saying the facilitator is continuing with his work.

In Lebanon yesterday, several pro-Syrian politicians denounced a Wednesday statement from the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, who said evidence was "mounting" that Hezbollah and Syria "are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government."

A pro-Syrian Maronite leader, Michel Aoun, and a host of Lebanese and Syrian officials also requested proof of statements by American and U.N. officials that Syria and Iran are arming Hezbollah in violation of a Security Council resolution. Syria is threatening the Lebanese sources of such statements, the American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said this week.

Hoping to secure veto power for pro-Syrian politicians in Lebanon, Hezbollah is demanding an increase in its government representation beyond the two seats it currently occupies in the 24-member Cabinet. In his Tuesday television appearance, Sheik Nasrallah set November 13 as his deadline, saying that after that date his followers would riot in the streets until his demands are met.

The Lebanese newspaper Daily Star reported yesterday that Saudi officials are trying to mediate a compromise solution that would entail enlarging the Cabinet.