Iran-backed Hizballah offensive closes in on Israeli border

[VandeWiel]

Debka reports die aangeven dat het nog heter wordt in het midden oosten met enkele zeer strategische zetten. Als je het mij vraagt komt een totale oorlog in de regio steeds dichter bij. :*-(

Iran-backed Hizballah offensive closes in on Israeli border

DEBKAfile's military sources report: Hizballah's advance on two key Lebanese locations Saturday, May 10 had immediate effect on the strategic balance between the Iran-backed Shiite group and Israel. Sidon in the south, Lebanon's second largest city, which provides Hizballah with control of a continuous coastal strip from its southern Beirut district all the way to Tyre.
The second point is on the northern slopes of the Hermon range. After Hizballah seizes control of this enclave and the Syrian 10th and 14th armored divisions step over the border into Lebanon, the two forces can join to form a strong military line opposite Israel near the Litani River.
Our military sources report that the vanguard of the 10th Division has already moved across to the Lebanese side of the border.
Hizballah's victory in taking over western and central Beirut therefore has had the effect of adding another link to the pro-Iranian chain encircling Israel. In many ways it is a more damaging setback for Israel's national security than the Palestinian Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip
Yet Israel's prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister are all too busy with the political fallout of the bribery case against Ehud Olmert to lift a finger to arrest Lebanon's decline to a Tehran satellite before it is too late - any more than Hamas was stopped from developing into a major military menace.
Equally inert are the two presidents who are pledged to support the Siniora regime, George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy. The United Nations, which maintains 15,000 armed peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, backed by marine forces off the shores of Beirut, has no thought of stopping the Iranian-Syrian-backed terrorist militia from capturing the country.



bron:  http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5256



Shiite Hizballah advances on Sunni strongholds across Lebanon


DEBKAfile's military sources: After seizing control of Sunni West Beirut and besieging the seat of the pro-Western government, Hizballah fighters Saturday, April 10, turned their guns on Sunni Muslim centers in the rest of Lebanon. Some 20 fatalities are reported in three days of combat.
Heavy battles are reported in the northern town of Tripoli, in Alei and the western Beqaa Valley east of Beirut, around Tyre and Sidon in the south, the Chouf mountains in the center and the northern slopes of Mt Hermon close to Lebanon's borders with Israel and Syria.
Our sources report Iran's proxy Shiite terrorists, commanding a 45,000-strong army, are bent on breaking up and disarming Lebanon's Sunni militias, especially that of the majority leader of the Future Movement, the anti Syrian Saad Hariri.
After their victory, they aim to establish a united Muslim bloc dominated by Tehran and Damascus for confronting and then routing the pro-Western, pro-Israeli Christian camp, the traditional key to power in Lebanon.
On the fourth day of the Hizballah offensive, the pro-Western prime minister Fouad Siniora is trapped by a Hizballah-Amal siege force in his Beirut office, taking supportive calls from Western leaders who denounce Hizballah's Iranian and Syrian backers. None have offered tangible assistance for holding out against the Hizballah onslaught.
The majority leader, the anti-Syrian Saad Hariri, and his ally Druze leader Walid Jumblat were rescued Friday from their Beirut mansions by the army. Hariri's Future TV station was taken off the air and razed, and Hizballah forces are now threatening his southern Sunni stronghold in Sidon. The UN peacekeeper force is deployed in this same region.

bron: http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5255