LEBANON ARRESTS THIRD ‘TELECOM SPY’ ARRESTED IN WIDENING PROBE
“The arrest was made late last night and the suspect is a former employee of Lebanon’s telecommunications sector”, the source indicated to reporters.
He could not say whether the suspect was linked to two telecom employees arrested in the past month, whom he said were likely accomplices at the company Alfa, one of Lebanon’s two mobile service providers.
The high-profile arrest of Sharbel Azzi, a technician at Alfa, last month sparked government outrage over the security of Lebanon’s telecom sector.
Tarek al-Rabaa, also an employee at Alfa, was arrested last week and had probably been collaborating with Azzi, the source said on Thursday.
Reports have identified Rabaa as a transmission engineer for the company.
The Lebanese government has so far declined to give any details on the arrest.
Azzi is charged with “entering enemy territory, collaborating with Israel and providing it with information”. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Lebanon and Israel remain technically at a state of war, and convicted spies face life in prison with hard labor or the death penalty if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.
Lebanon has arrested more than 70 people on suspicion of spying for Israel, including security officials, since it launched a national crackdown on spy rings in April 2009.
Two Lebanese citizens have since been sentenced to death for “collaborating with Israel and providing information on targets”.
One of the two was found guilty of providing Israel with information on precise targets during the Jewish state’s deadly 2006 war with Hezballah.
Israel has not commented on the arrests.
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FOUR YEARS ON, ‘WAR WITH ISRAEL FAR FROM OVER’
“The July War is not over”, declared the front-page headline in the Arabic-language Al-Akhbar newspaper.
“Four years after the end of the war... both parties look ready to leap back into action and are prepared both in terms of capacities and incentives”, read the article in Al-Akhbar, which is close to the Hezballah.
The month-long war was triggered by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezballah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006.
The fighting that ensued destroyed much of Lebanon’s major infrastructure and killed about 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the conflict and reinforced the UNIFIL peacekeeping force deployed in South Lebanon since 1978.
But tensions between the two foes has risen again after Israeli accusations that Scud missiles were being smuggled into Lebanon for Hezballah.
Israel’s military says the militia has a stock of some 40,000 rockets and this month published aerial photographs showing what it says is evidence of Hezballah stockpiling weapons in towns and villages near the border.
“Israel... argues that Hezballah has taken the state hostage, revamped and reinforced its arsenal and now is attacking UN peacekeepers via the people of South Lebanon, who are at their beck and call”, read the editorial in the French-language daily L’Orient Le Jour.
After decades of smooth and even cordial ties with South Lebanese, UNIFIL this month became the target of villagers who took to the streets to protest at a maximum deployment exercise by the blue-helmeted troops.
In the most notable confrontation, residents of the southern town of Tulin disarmed a French patrol and attacked them with sticks, rocks and eggs before the Lebanese Army intervened.
One prominent daily on Monday tied the war anniversary to Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31, in which nine Turks were killed.
“It is July 12 yet again and here we are, entering the fifth year of Israel’s open war on Lebanon, but rather on all Arabs and on Muslims in Turkey”, read a column by Talal Salman, owner of the daily As-Safir which is also close to Hezballah.
“There is one lesson to be learned: steadfastness is the shortest route to victory, along with... unity and awareness of the nature of the enemy”, Salman wrote.
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ISRAEL PATROL ACCUSED OF CROSSING BORDER
“A patrol of eight enemy [Israeli] soldiers crossed the line of withdrawal at the town of Kfar Shouba in an attempt to abduct a shepherd,” an Army spokesman said.
He said the shepherd had managed to escape but the troops had crossed 20 meters past the UN-drawn Blue Line, an informal border established after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from South Lebanon in 2000, following a 22-year occupation.
But the UN Interim Force in Lebanon had “not observed any violation of the Blue Line”, spokesman Neeraj Singh said.
Israel, which fought a deadly 2006 war with Hezballah that destroyed much of South Lebanon, has detained Lebanese shepherds in the area in the past but has generally handed them swiftly back to UNIFIL after questioning them.
My notes:
When Israel first informed the US that Hizbollah
This build up of weapons caused Congress to hesitate in approving an ambassador from the US to Syria; and a month of back and forth communications, a visit from an Israeli leader to Washington (with proof that Hizbollah had a huge build up of weapons) finally got the US and Obama's administration to speak "sternly" to Lebanon.
Now, say whatever you want, why would Hizbollah care what the US thinks? They have the weapons - they have a build up of troops on the borders of Lebanon and Israel. How did this happen under the very noses of the UN peace keepers?
One article went so far as to blame Israel for this build up of weapons by the terrorist group, Hizbollah ... ! Imagine! The terrorists are thumping their chests like monkeys in a cage - supplied with over 40,000 scud missiles, for starters and threatening Israel... and much of the world in that area, including the West, dare to blame Israel for the actions of terrorists.
What is the bottom line to all this? Could it be that due to the poor relations between our present administration, when Obama first took office and bowed to the Saudi King, that the Arabs saw this as their open door to begin anew, threats towards the one little democracy in the Middle East that they ALL wished to see erased from the map? Did it give the cowards and Islamic terrorist a new sense of adventure in going after Israel; surrounding her on all sides; thinking in their black hearts that no one, not even the U.S. would prevent them from acting out their evil intentions towards Israel? This is similar to the year Israel first became a State, after WWII; or, the year 1967, and all the attempts since 1967 to destroy Israel, including the years of Arafat/PLO, and now the Palestinians, under Abbas and Hamas.
As a footnote, Abbas declared just one week ago that if the Arab countries would join together to fight Israel, he would be happy to join them also; as he claimed he could not do it by himself. Does this sound like one who will sit down and discuss peace with PM Netanyahu? In your dreams! Of course not!
Turkey jumped ship and joined Iran/Syria/Lebanon and Hamas ... let us not forget Hamas, who sends rockets into Israel and not a peep of dismay, comes from our administration! No, as a matter of fact, the White House just sent Hamas another $400 MILLION DOLLARS.
What is wrong with this picture? Hamas terrorist and Gaza are rewarded, while Hamas are still listed as a terrorist organization!
Many are observing that this world, indeed, has gone mad - I prefer to think that it is not the world, but leaders who lack experience and knowledge, along with the usual bunch of Islamic terrorist that are surely insane and they have been "mad" i.e. angry about the existence of the State of Israel ever since it first became a State.
Why do "real" Americans defend Israel? Because to defend Israel is to defend America - we are joined at the hip and with out-stretched arms towards each other, for we two countries, together fight one common enemy - and that enemy, right now, sees us as one who betrays friends and rewards the enemies of the United States.
So, in the end, Lebanon and its army of terrorists/Hizbollah, sitting at the border and armed to the teeth, while Iran is moving right along to get its first nuclear bomb.
And the one question Americans have is, do we stand with Israel? or are we standing with the ones who wish to destroy Israel and America?
Bee Sting
