"I do not think it means what you think it means."
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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Hezbollah declares 'open war ' |
| 2006-07-14 |
| HEZBOLLAH chief Hassan Nasrallah declared "open war" against the Jewish state overnight after emerging unscathed from an Israeli air strike on his home and office in the Lebanese capital. "You wanted an open war, you will get an open war," the Shiite militant leader said in a defiant audio message after the evening raid, the latest salvo in an escalating Israeli air campaign against Lebanon over Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on Wednesday. "It will be war at all levels... to Haifa, and beyond Haifa," Nasrallah said, referring to Israel's third largest city which commanders there said came under unprecedented rocket fire from Lebanon overnight. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to describe the evening air strike as an assassination attempt against the 45-year-old Hezbollah chief. She would confirm only that a "Hezbollah terror organisation headquarters was targeted". But Israeli television said that it was a calculated attempt against Nasrallah's life carried out in response to specific intelligence on his whereabouts. Hezbollah television said the strikes "destroyed the building that hosts Hezbollah's secretariat general" and that Nasrallah's house was hit. It was not immediately clear whether he had been in the targeted area. Israeli government ministers had made no bones about their desire to see the Hezbollah leader eliminated. "Nasrallah decided his own fate," Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told public radio ahead of the strikes. "We will settle our accounts with him when the time comes." The Hezbollah leader's predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was killed in a 1992 Israeli air strike along with his wife and three-year-old daughter. But Nasrallah refused to be fazed by the raid on his home, promising Israeli commanders "surprises" in the movement's resistance to its three-day-old onslaught. The Hezbollah chief hailed a rocket attack launched from the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut against an Israeli naval vessel patrolling offshore Friday evening as a first example. "Now, off the coast of the sea, the warship which attacked... the southern suburbs... watch it burning and drowning," Nasrallah said. An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed only that "there was a navy ship that was lightly hit along the Lebanese shore," and declined to talk about casualties. The attack on Nasrallah's home and office, which Hezbollah television said his family and bodyguards also survived, was the latest barrage in an escalating Israeli campaign against the movement's political and military infrastructure. The group's command headquarters in the southern suburbs had already come under repeated Israeli air attack, as had the transmitters of its radio and television channels. Hezbollah is widely credited in Lebanon with having been instrumental in Israel's 2000 pullout from the south after a 22-year occupation. By the same token, it has long been one of Israel's foremost foes. "The Target: Nasrallah," the morning's edition of Israel's top-selling newspaper Yediot Aharonot had screamed in a front-page headline. Another newspaper, Maariv, charged that Nasrallah, along with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Damascus-based Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal were "perhaps even more dangerous" than Hitler, responsible for exterminating six million Jews. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insisted overnight that the offensive in Lebanon would go on until Hezbollah released the two captured soldiers, halted rocket attacks against northern Israel and disarmed. Hezbollah insists there can be no question of releasing the two Israelis unless Palestinian and Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails are freed in return. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #13 Re: #11.....turning Palestine into glass would be/could be a desireable thing; however, that might bring into play the Iranians, Syrians, Egyptians, et al, and that could be costly to Israel as well as others who would support and defend Israel. I much prefer #12's solution.....turn them, their culture and country into rubble. Carpet bomb them back to the stone age. |
| Posted by: WolfDog 2006-07-14 19:56 |
| #12 No glass,, Rubble. |
| Posted by: J. D. Lux 2006-07-14 19:03 |
| #11 So then it's OK to turn southern Lebanon into glass? |
| Posted by: DMFD 2006-07-14 18:41 |
| #10 Spoutin' into a tape recorder from some place. Show yur face, dude! You are a lion of allah! |
| Posted by: Brett 2006-07-14 17:08 |
| #9 Open war? That is good. Israel declared 'Open Season' on your ass. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2006-07-14 16:00 |
| #8 "My way? What's my way?" "You wait until he comes around the corner, then smash his head with a rock." "Oh. My way's not very sporting, is it?" |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-07-14 15:59 |
| #7 U.S. and Israel have tested a laser based missle defense system that is capable of taking down multiple targets, including katyushas - however I don't think it's close to deployment. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2006-07-14 15:54 |
| #6 A waste of Patriots. They are firing quite small unguided rockets, whatever their range. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2006-07-14 15:44 |
| #5 Any news on if Patriots work against the kind of rockets Hezbollah is firing? Or if Israel is even using Patriots there (might save them up to defend against any Iranian missiles). |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-07-14 15:38 |
| #4 "You wanted an open war, you will get an open war ..." "I do not think it means what you think it means." |
| Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2006-07-14 15:25 |
| #3 To infinity and beyond! |
| Posted by: Buzz Lightyear 2006-07-14 15:06 |
| #2 You wanted an open war, you will get an open war," the Shiite militant leader said in a defiant audio message after the evening raid, Several news outlets have reported that this message was pre-recorded. Yahoo News for one. Preplanned indeed. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-07-14 15:04 |
| #1 "We will settle our accounts with him when the time comes." When they start talking about leaders as if they owe money you know Israel is going for blood. Git-R-Dun! |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-07-14 15:03 |