Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for February 18/13
Lebanon: Parliament Joint committees approve Orthodox law
Hariri Lashes Out at Approval of Orthodox Law, Says Hizbullah Suffers 'Illegitimate Arms Epidemic'
Assad’s troops retreat from Golan, leaving Islamist rebels to confront Israel
Bulgarian FM urges EU to stop Hezbollah
Hezbollah Under Nasrallah’s Rule: 21 Years of Terror
FSA: We will Treat Hizbullah Fighters as 'Mercenaries'
Report: GCC Countries to Ban Lebanese from Entering Territories
Syrian Coalition Says Hizbullah's Involvement in Syria Violation of International Accords
Report: British FM to Meet Senior Officials in Brief Visit to Beirut
Posters Mocking Saudi King in Response to al-Rahi's Caricature
Mansour to Discuss Syria Crisis on Sidelines of Arab-Russian Forum
Judicial Sources: Samaha Indictment on Terrorism Charges this Week
Bulgaria presses EU to take stand on Hezbollah February
Hezbollah should keep out of Syria: Jumblatt
March 14, PSP slam Hezbollah activities in Syria
Iran says nuclear talks an 'opportunity' for West
FSA Vows to Retaliate to Hizbullah within 48 Hours if Alleged Intervention Not Halted
Beirut Airport Police Thwart Drug Smuggling to Saudi Arabia
'Iran can ease nuke fears if rights are recognized'
Argentina: Jewish FM defends 'truth c'tee' with Iran
Report: Egyptian delegation to visit Israel
Syrian Islamists meet Hizballah head-on – take in arms from Bosnia, Kosovo
Pope, near abdication, says pray "for me and next pope"
PM thanks pope for bolstering Christian-Jewish ties
Iran dismisses West offer to ease sanctions
Syrian minister says ready to talk with opposition
U.N. says has list of Syrian war crimes suspects
Syrian opposition won't talk to officials linked to crackdown
Syria children among 23 killed in Aleppo missile strike: activists
Strike, protests hit Egypt's Port Said for third day

Assad’s troops retreat from Golan, leaving Islamist rebels to confront Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 19, 2013/
President Bashar Assad has evacuated most of the troops of his 5th Army Division from their permanent bases on the Golan opposite Israeli forces and transferred the unit along with its artillery to Damascus, debkafile’s military sources report.
The Syrian ruler’s step had three purposes:
1. To reinforce his Damascus defenses;
2. To carve out a buffer zone along the Israeli border and leave it under rebel control.
3. To provide the jihadists fighting in rebel ranks with access to the Israeli border fence. Senior officers in the IDF’s northern command believe it is just a matter of time before these al Qaeda-associated fighters hurl themselves at the border fence to break through, or target Israeli military targets from across the Syrian border.
Assad first practiced this stratagem on Syria’s northern frontier with Turkey.
Six months ago, he opened the door of his border region to let armed bands of the separatist PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) through from Iraq and set up new strike bases opposite Turkey’s back door, to which they could flee after attacks.
The PKK took full advantage of this opportunity. Indeed, to curb the Kurdish offensive, Ankara was forced to enter into negotiations with PKK leaders for a settlement of their claims, although they are still poised in Syria to resume their attacks.
Israel does not have that option because most of the Islamists fighting with the Syrian rebels are associated with al Qaeda and committed to jihad against the Jewish state.
debkafile reports that Saturday, Feb. 16, Israeli government and military leaders were at odds over whether to extend medical treatment to seven Syrians injured in battle on the Golan. In the event, they were allowed to cross the border and transferred to hospital in Safed.
But because of the argument, the official communiqué said only that the decision was taken on humanitarian grounds but omitted to specify whether the injured Syrians were soldiers or rebels.
However, there was never any doubt that they were in fact Syrian conscripts wounded in the course of their unit’s withdrawal from the Golan. The argument against giving the soldiers medical treatment was that they were Bashar Assad’s troops and looking after them was tantamount to endorsing Assad’s hostile schemes and therefore unacceptable. It was settled by avoiding identifying the wounded men.

Drug lord in Paraguay linked to Hezbollah
By: Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon
February 19, 2013
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/drug-lord-in-paraguay-linked-to-hezbollah
It was mid-December last year when Interpol caught, in the transit area of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, a 21-year-old Paraguayan woman who had swallowed over a kilogram of cocaine. Nelida Cardozo Taboada had disappeared from her hometown months before. She confessed to French police that she had been recruited as a “mule” by a network of drug smugglers. Her employer, a Paraguayan woman married to a Lebanese man, had convinced her to swallow the cocaine by promising her a job as a maid in Warsaw, Poland.
It took the police in Paraguay only a few days to reach the head of a Lebanese-led drug cartel in Ciudad del Este, a town located in the infamous tri-border area where the frontiers of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet. Wassim Abdel Fadel was arrested on December 21 together with his Paraguayan wife. But what police uncovered during the investigation led them further than they had expected.
According to information disclosed by Interpol and the Paraguayan police, Fadel, 30, was part of an international drug trafficking network controlled from Isla Margarita, Venezuela, a Caribbean holiday destination that is also an infamous hub for South American drug cartels. The leader of the cartel is Ghazi Atef Nassredine, also known as Abu Ali, a declared Hezbollah supporter who became a Venezuelan citizen 10 years ago and immediately thereafter became Venezuela’s diplomat to Beirut and Damascus. By arresting Fadel, Interpol and the Paraguayan police uncovered an international money-laundering and drug-smuggling network responsible for sending cocaine from South America to the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
Fadel was the leader of a network that would send laundered money, from drugs made in the tri-border area, to bank accounts in Istanbul and Damascus. According to a Paraguay Police Department press release sent to NOW, Fadel’s network regularly sent sums between $50,000 and $200,000 to these accounts. After investigating the owners, Paraguayan police came up with a list of Lebanese nationals known to be high-ranking Hezbollah members. Though the list was not disclosed to the media, the police said that the people on it were involved with Hezbollah’s financial operations. The same bank accounts also allegedly received money from different continents.
Although young, Fadel had gained control of an entire Hezbollah-backed real estate and drug market in Ciudad del Este after the network’s leaders – Lebanese-Americans Nemr Ali Zoayter, Amr Zoher, and Moussa Ali Hamdan – were arrested in Paraguay and extradited to the US. Zoayter and Zoher were caught in Ciudad del Este in 2008, while Hamdan was arrested in June 2010 in the same town.
According to statements released by the Paraguayan police, Fadel had been on the run for over three years. He was not only part of the drug cartel, but also the owner of a car-parts company, Fadel Automotores, located in Ciudad del Este. In 2008, several of his customers reported him to the police because he had defrauded them.
Fadel was born in Toulin, a village in the Lebanese district of Marjayoun. It was obvious to the villagers that he had made a fortune in Paraguay, as he had built a huge mansion in his hometown. However, he is not the only local who made his fortune in South America or West Africa; indeed, villages in the South and Beqaa Valley are studded with villas built by expatriates. But how the emigrants made their millions is often a mystery.
According to Lebanese analyst Kassem Kassir, a large part of the population in South Lebanon migrated to different parts of the world during the Lebanese civil war. South America became popular as a destination around two decades ago because the process of emigration to Australia or the United States became very difficult, added Kassir, who is a regular commentator for the NOW Arabic site. Lebanese often preferred Paraguay because “commerce was booming in this spot of the world.”
“You know, in villages, whenever someone goes to a place, settles, and starts making good money, he calls for relatives to join, and this is why the wave of emigration toward Paraguay increased,” he noted.
Hezbollah does not hide its presence in Paraguay or any other country in South America. Supporters of the party also don’t hide their political views. But to what extent they are involved in organized crime, with or without the knowledge of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, is unknown.
“Many people related to Hezbollah are present in Paraguay, but in a political sense,” he said. “We need to dig more to see if there are cultural spaces or offices for Hezbollah, but of course, many people who originally supported and are still supporting Hezbollah are there.”
Yara Chehayeb contributed translating to this article.
Ana Maria Luca tweets at @aml1609.


March 14, PSP slam Hezbollah activities in Syria
February 19, 2013/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: March 14 officials and the Progressive Socialist Party leader denounced Hezbollah’s involvement in clashes in Syria Monday, while the resistance movement said its members had died defending villages inhabited by Lebanese Shiites. Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel slammed Hezbollah’s involvement in the clashes in Qusayr, warning that interfering in Syrian affairs would endanger political stability in Lebanon.
Gemayel said Hezbollah’s practices in other countries were also harming Lebanese interests.
“Especially the meddling in Bahrain, Syria and Bulgaria’s affairs is harming Lebanon’s interests and stability,” Gemayel said after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai in Bkirki.
He added that such meddling would have negative consequences for the country. “We are all in the same boat after all,” he said. Bahrain has also accused Hezbollah, which backs the protesters calling for reforms there, of interfering in its local affairs. Bulgaria, for its part, recently implicated two men with links to Hezbollah in the July 2012 bombing of a tourist bus in Burgas that claimed the lives of five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian, and left many others wounded. Gemayel’s former ally, PSP leader Walid Jumblatt said Hezbollah should cease military activities in Syria in order to preserve its good record of resistance against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon.
“[Hezbollah’s] weapons need to be redirected so that they do not get lost in Qusayr or places other than Qusayr in order to ensure that the honorable sacrifices and struggles of the resistance in south Lebanon are not forgotten,” said Jumblatt, a staunch supporter of the Syrian uprising.
But Hezbollah’s Baalbek-Hermel MP Nawar Sahli said Lebanese citizens were simply defending themselves against rebels who were attacking their homes in the Syrian region of Qusayr.
“These are Lebanese defending their villages that fall inside Syrian territory,” Sahli told The Daily Star. “They are being attacked. Do you stand by and watch if someone wants to slaughter you?”
He said villages attacked in Syria housed Lebanese families including the Hamadeh and Zuaiter families. “I am speaking to you as one who hails from Hermel. ... People there might have relatives in Hezbollah,” he said.
The reports of three dead Hezbollah fighters and another 14 wounded during the clashes came months after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said that around 23 villages in Qusayr were fighting to defend themselves against attacks by the Free Syrian Army. The residents of these villages are predominantly Shiite and support Hezbollah.
The Syrian opposition and March 14 officials have repeatedly accused Hezbollah of sending fighters to Syria to support forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
“What Hezbollah is doing is implicating Lebanon in the Syrian crisis and its repercussions won’t be only on this party but would involve the whole country in this war between the Syrian people and the Syrian regime,” said Akkar MP Moeen Merhebi Merhebi.
But Syrian Ambassador Ali AbdelKarim Ali denied that Hezbollah was involved in the crisis taking place in his country and said that some Lebanese living there are in fact threatened by rebel groups.
“Attempts to spread the claim that the Lebanese resistance [Hezbollah] is aiding [the regime] are refutable,” Ali told reporters after meeting Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour.
The Qusayr region, located just across Lebanon’s northeast border with Syria, witnessed similar fighting last year that led to the killing of a Hezbollah commander.
“Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has spoken about this on previous occasions to people with dual Syrian-Lebanese nationality and so Lebanese on Syrian soil are concerned about facing the militants who are attacking them,” Ali said. While commenting on clashes, Prime Minister Najib Mikati voiced hope that Lebanon would distance itself politically from the conflict in Syria.
“Every day there are fights; I wish everyone had remained committed to the policy of disassociation.”

Lebano: Joint Parliament committees approve Orthodox law
February 19, 2013/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lawmakers in the joint parliamentary committees discussing electoral drafts approved Tuesday the controversial Orthodox Gathering proposal following a walk-out by MPs from the Future Movement and Progressive Socialist Party. “Democracy has triumphed over intimidation and we have adopted the Orthodox Gathering law,” Free Patriotic Movement MP Alain Aoun said following the vote on the controversial voting system.
While supported by March 8 and March 14 Christian political parties, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, the Orthodox proposal is opposed by the Future Movement, Progressive Socialist Party, the country’s prime minister and president, and a number of Christian lawmakers. Prior to Aoun’s announcement, Future Movement and PSP MPs withdrew from the session, the former over the turning down of a request to delay the vote, and the latter out of principle against the controversial draft."We withdrew from the session after our request to defer the vote on the Orthodox proposal for 48 hours was turned down,” MP Ahmad Fatfat, flanked by his Future Movement colleagues, told reporters after leaving the session. Future Movement leader Saad Hariri, responding to the developments in Parliament, slammed the decision by the committees, describing it at a “black day” for Parliament.
“The approval of the Orthodox Gathering proposal in the joint committees is a black day in the history of legislative work,” he said in a Twitter post.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament, PSP MP Akram Shehayeb said he pulled out of the session due his party’s “clear stance on the Orthodox law” and warned that it would only lead to “political violence.”
The Orthodox Gathering draft, which projects Lebanon as a single district wherein each sect elects its own representatives under a proportional representation system, requires a vote in Parliament’s General Assembly before it can be adopted as a voting system for the upcoming elections.
“We finished the first stage in adopting our [Orthodox] proposal for the upcoming elections, but we still have the second stage, which will be during a parliamentary session,” Aoun said.
President Michel Sleiman has warned that he will challenge the draft should it be passed by Parliament.
The approval of the divisive law at the level of the joint committees comes days after the interior minister warned the elections risk being delayed if a voting system is not endorsed in the coming days.
Several of the March 14 members of the joint committees signaled that the approval of the Orthodox law was not the end of the road for reaching a consensus on an alternative voting system.
Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan and Kataeb MP Sami Gemayel said separately following the vote Tuesday that the approval of the Orthodox law did not necessarily mean it would be used in the upcoming polls.
“The doors of communication to reach a new electoral law have not closed and will not close,” said Adwan.
“We are definitely in front of a new stage but we interpret it as a natural stage in the search for a better electoral law,” he said, adding: “The opportunity to reach a new electoral law remains there.”
Gemayel, for his part, said that his party would maintain contacts to discuss the possibility of reaching a consensus-based law.
“We will keep the channels of communications open with all parties on condition that one standard, that of fair representation [for Christians], is respected,” he said.
Shehayeb said that “even if the Orthodox proposal is approved by the joint committees, this doesn’t have to be the case in the General Assembly.”
Fatfat said that his party had made several attempts to find an exit to what it sees as an electoral crisis. However, he added, none of the initiatives put forward were met with a positive response.
Despite this, the MP said the possibility existed for reaching a consensus over another electoral law.
“We will keep communications with all sides in a bid to reach a deal on an electoral law,” said Fatfat.
Ahead of the session, Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad blasted the Future Movement for threatening to pull out of the session and said their behavior undermined the “positive” atmosphere that dominated during Monday’s session.
On Monday, the joint committees, which included participation by the Future Movement, voted for an article in the Orthodox proposal calling for the number of MPs to be increased from 128 to 134.
The meetings of the joint committees came after a parliamentary subcommittee failed in several rounds of marathon talks in the past few weeks to reach a consensus on any hybrid vote law to end the months-long deadlock over a new electoral law. Change and Reform bloc MP Neamatallah Abi Nasr said that an article that grants expats the right to vote in the upcoming elections was added to the Orthodox law, a move that he described as unprecedented. “We added an article to the proposal that will allow Lebanese expats to vote in the elections,” said Abi Nasr.
“This is the first time this happens for that to happen ever since Lebanon gained independence [in 1946],” said Abi Nasr. Meanwhile, a group of activists called for a sit-in at 6 p.m. to protest over the approval of the draft.

Hezbollah should keep out of Syria: Jumblatt
February 18, 2013/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Hezbollah needs to cease its activities in Syria in order to preserve its record as a resistance movement in Lebanon, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said in his weekly statement to Al-Anbaa newspaper Monday. “[Hezbollah’s] weapons need to be redirected so that they do not get lost in Qusayr or places other than Qusayr in order to ensure that the honorable sacrifices and struggles of the resistance in south Lebanon are not forgotten,” said Jumblatt, a staunch supporter of the Syrian uprising. Security sources told The Daily Star Sunday that three Hezbollah fighters and 12 Syrian rebels were killed in the Syrian region of Qusayr across the border with Lebanon. The fighting, the worst near the border with Lebanon since the uprising erupted in Syria nearly two years ago, raised further questions on whether Hezbollah, an ally of President Bashar Assad, is participating in the fighting there. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the crisis in Lebanon’s neighbor.
Turning to the longstanding dispute in Lebanon over Hezbollah’s arsenal, Jumblatt said bickering over the contentious subject would not resolve the dispute.
“The constant debate over arms will not solve the problem,” said Jumblatt. The March 14 coalition has repeatedly called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, arguing that the state alone should have a monopoly on the use of force, while the resistance group says its weapons are a must in order to defend the country against Israeli aggression.
Jumblatt said clear guidelines needed to be set over the use of Hezbollah’s arms, which, he added, required rival political parties to return to the National Dialogue table and reach a consensus on a national defense strategy.
“The sooner Lebanese rivals reach an agreement over a national defense strategy, which allows the state alone to be tasked with defending the country, the sooner Lebanon will be protected,” he added.
In September, President Michel Sleiman put forward a defense strategy for political parties to discuss. However, the all-parties came to a halt following the Oct. 19 assassination of a top security official. The opposition blamed Syria for the killing and also held the Lebanese government responsible.Jumblatt, who returned Sunday from Saudi Arabia, also said officials in Riyadh had expressed their keenness on preserving Lebanon’s stability.
“I sensed during my trip to the kingdom and my meetings with Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan their keenness on Lebanon's stability,” he said.
The PSP chief also said that Saudi Arabia “firmly” supports the Syrian people in their uprising against Assad and their "rightful struggle for freedom and independence.”

Bulgaria presses EU to take stand on Hezbollah
February 19, 2013/By Justyna Pawlak The Daily Star /BRUSSELS: Bulgaria urged European governments Monday to take a harder stance toward Hezbollah after blaming the resistance movement for a bus bombing that killed five Israelis at a Bulgarian Black Sea resort last year. But the country’s Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov cautioned European states not to be in a rush to brand the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization, saying careful consideration was needed of potential consequences in Beirut. Bulgaria’s implication of Hezbollah in the attack in the city of Burgas has reignited a debate over Europe’s approach to the Lebanese group.
The European Union has resisted pressure from the United States and Israel to blacklist Hezbollah, arguing this could destabilize a fragile government in Lebanon and contribute to instability in the Middle East.
“It is very important for us in Europe to understand that when faced with the threat of terrorism, we need to stand up to it firmly ... and collectively,” Mladenov told Reuters in Brussels, where he presented findings of an investigation into the July 2012 Burgas attack to EU foreign ministers.
Asked whether that meant the EU should blacklist the movement, he replied: “Given the fact that we’ve already made quite firm statements about where we believe the responsibility for that attack lies, I think the answer is quite obvious.”But he said it could take weeks or months before Bulgaria completes its investigation of the attack and shares all necessary information with other EU capitals to build the case for any moves against Hezbollah.
Other European officials have said there are steps that could be taken short of blacklisting Hezbollah. These could include asking the EU policing agency Europol to coordinate investigations into the group’s presence in Europe. Mladenov said some governments wanted sanctions, such as travel bans and asset freezes, imposed on individual members of Hezbollah implicated in the Burgas attack.
“We should look at the whole spectrum [of options],” he said. Much will depend on evidence provided by Bulgaria linking Hezbollah to the attack, EU diplomats say.
Officials have said, for example, that France appears to have softened its traditionally staunch opposition to blacklisting the group, saying “all options” were on the table, provided the evidence is sufficiently strong.
The U.S. government said this month that Hezbollah must be held to account for the Bulgaria attack, and urged Europe and others to pursue an investigation into the incident.
But many European diplomats are wary that punishing Hezbollah would further radicalize the group and foment tensions.

Hariri Lashes Out at Approval of Orthodox Law, Says Hizbullah Suffers 'Illegitimate Arms Epidemic'
Naharnet /Al-Mustaqbal movement leader former PM Saad Hariri condemned on Tuesday the approval of the Orthodox Gathering electoral draft-law, describing the step as a “black day in the history of the parliament.”
“Approving the Orthodox electoral draft-law in the joint parliamentary committees is a black day in the history of legislative work,” Hariri said on his twitter account.
The joint committees approved on Tuesday the controversial draft-law despite the withdrawal of the National Struggle Front bloc, the al-Mustaqbal bloc and independent March 14 opposition Christian MPs.
Moreover, Hariri replied to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's comments last week, saying “Hizbullah is hit with an epidemic called the illegitimate arms.”Hariri denounced in a speech last week marking the 8th anniversary of ex-PM Rafik Hariri the presence of all illegitimate arms in the country, mainly Hizbullah’s arsenal, and said such paramilitary weapons constitute the biggest threat to the country.
In return, Nasrallah lashed out at Hariri, accusing him of trying to strike a settlement to back him for the premiership. “You proposed to neutralize the arms of the resistance if we agreed to support you as a premier,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.He pointed out that Hizbullah rejected the deal over “national interests.”Hariri said that he will return to Lebanon to take part in the parliamentary elections.

Hezbollah Under Nasrallah’s Rule: 21 Years of Terror
Published on: February 18, 2013
http://www.idfblog.com/2013/02/18/hezbollah-under-nasrallahs-rule-21-years-of-terror/
21 years ago, Hassan Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah. Under his leadership, Hezbollah has committed a stream of terror attacks on both Israeli and international soil and has killed numerous innocent civilians.
Here is our roundup of 21 years of Hezbollah activity under Nasrallah:
Hezbollah (“Party of God” in Arabic) is a terror organization founded in 1982 and based in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran, and is designated as a terror organization by the US and the UK, among others.
Since rising to power in 1992, Hassan Nasrallah has used most of Hezbollah’s resources in order to terrorize Israeli citizens. A mere three weeks after he became the organization’s leader, Nasrallah had already orchestrated a major terror attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 civilians.
Two years later, Nasrallah ordered another terror attack in the Argentinian capital – this time against the Jewish Center of Buenos Aires. His operatives killed 85 men and women, and injured more than 300 others. During this period, Hezbollah terrorists, under Nasrallah’s command, fired hundreds of rockets at towns in northern Israel.
In the year 2000, Israel completely withdrew from southern Lebanon. The U.N. Security Council certified that Israel withdrew to the international border, known as the Blue Line. That did not stop Hezbollah from continuing to perpetrate terror attacks against Israel.
But Nasrallah’s true time to shine came only in 2006, when Hezbollah initiated the Second Lebanon War.
On the morning of July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fired multiple barrages of rockets into northern Israel. At the same time, Hezbollah fighters crossed Israel’s northern border and attacked two IDF vehicles on a routine patrol. They killed three IDF soldiers in the initial attack. Two others — Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — were wounded, captured and taken into Lebanon.
By the end of the fighting, Hezbollah had fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel. A total of 119 IDF soldiers and 43 Israeli civilians were killed during the war.
The war ended with UN resolution 1701, calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution required Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw all of its operatives from Israel’s northern border. In reality, none of this happened.
What have Nasrallah and Hezbollah been DOING since the 2006 war?
Nasrallah’s central mission since 2006 has been to rebuild Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal. Today, Hezbollah has 60,000 rockets, all aimed at Israel’s major cities. This is the largest weapons arsenal of any terror organization in the world today.
In July 2012, a Hezbollah suicide bomber boarded a tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria. He killed five Israelis who were in Bulgaria on vacation, as well as their Bulgarian bus driver. 32 other civilians were injured in the attack.
During his 21 years in power, Nasrallah has focused most of his energy on harming Israeli civilians in the name of “the resistance”.
Today, even after Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon, Nasrallah and his Hezbollah terror organization are an immediate threat to Israeli civilians both in Israel and around the globe.
The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel.
 

Bulgarian FM urges EU to stop Hezbollah
By TOVAH LAZAROFF 02/18/2013/Sofia urges European Union to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist group and make effort to stop further attacks
The European Union must take collective action against Hezbollah, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov said on Monday morning.
Mladenov attended a meeting in Brussels to brief his counterparts on an initial investigative Bulgarian report which blamed Hezbollah for the bombing outside the Burgas airport that killed five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver last July.
“We believe the attack that happened in Burgas last year was organized by people connected to the military wing of Hezbollah,” Mladenov said.
“We in Europe need to take collective measures to make sure that such attacks will never happen again on EU soil, that we are protected as the EU,” he said.
“We must send a strong message to the rest of the world that activities like this are unacceptable, no matter where they are planned or executed,” he added.
When a reporter asked if Israel or the United States had pressured the Bulgarian government to target Hezbollah, he seemed puzzled.
“No body has an interest in putting pressure on us,” he said. “We came to these conclusions because of our own investigation, and we stand firmly behind them,” Mladenov said.
Israel and the US have asked Europe to take a stronger stand against Hezbollah, including putting it on a blacklist of terrorist organizations.
But to date, the EU has made only lukewarm statements about the organization and its link to the terrorist attack in Bulgaria, which is one of the 27 EU nations.
In the wake of the report, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief said only that the matter should be studied further.
As she walked into the council meeting Monday morning, the bulk of which was scheduled to deal with Syria, she said that she would listen carefully to what Bulgaria had to say on the matter of the Burgas bombing.
In the United States on Monday, 100 members of US Congress led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) sent a signed letter to Ashton, urging the EU designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
“Hezbollah's actions in Europe must be met with a response to prevent further attacks in Europe and around the world,” the letter said.
Such a move, it said, would make it difficult for Hezbollah to finance, plan and execute terrorist attacks.
“Furthermore, if Hezbollah's ability to maintain fundraising networks in Europe remains intact, this threatens to undermine the European Union's significant efforts towards Middle East peace,” it said.

Syrian Islamists meet Hizballah head-on – take in arms from Bosnia, Kosovo
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 18, 2013/Reports Monday, Feb. 18, that Hizballah has transferred 1,000 fighters to the Syrian district of Homs are a red herring to distract attention from six new major developments in the Syrian civil conflict - revealed here by debkafile’s military and intelligence sources:
1. Contrary to reports of Hizballah attacks on villages in the Homs region, the thousand Hizballah militiamen have moved in to defend the predominantly Shiite villages of the area whose population is loyal to Bashar Assad. They are there to relieve the Syrian army of the burden of defending these Shiites against rebel attack.
Hizballah has also undertaken to guard Shiite holy shrines in Syria.
2. The Muslim factions of the Syrian revolt have received their first heavy weapons consignments, mostly Kornet and Fagot anti-tank missiles. Their improved armaments account for the new edge they display in battles with Bashar Assad’s army, although reports of their conquests are much exaggerated.
3. These arms are coming from two sources: radical Islamist organizations in Bosnia and Kosovo, some of them associated with al Qaeda – at least ideologically. It is hard to say who is organizing and bankrolling the new weapons sea route to Syria. According to one theory, it is the Albanian mafia.
4. For the first time, Syrian rebels are taking in arms unsupervised by any of the Western or Arab agencies involved in the Syrian revolt.
5. Most of the incoming weapons are destined for the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra, the rebel faction identified with al Qaeda.
6. The Jabhat al-Nusra, newly armed with hardware from Bosnia and Kosovo, have pushed across the border into Lebanon, our sources reveal, and are harassing Hizballah in its home bases in the Beqaa Valley. Night after night in the last ten days, small bands of Islamist fighters, weighed down by heavy loads of rockets, are attacking Hizballah strongholds and isolated guard and watch posts and ambushing military vehicles.
Both are designated terrorist groups by the United States government.
The Syrian conflict has indeed spilled over the border into Lebanon. It is also turning more and more into a sectarian confrontation between extremist Sunnis and radical Shiites.

Pope, near abdication, says pray "for me and next pope"
By Philip Pullella | Reuters –..VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, in his penultimate Sunday address to a crowded St. Peter's Square before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.
The crowd chanted "Long live the pope!," waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window. The 85-year-old Benedict, who will abdicate on February 28, thanked them in several languages.
Speaking in Spanish, he told the crowd which the Vatican said numbered more than 50,000: "I beg you to continue praying for me and for the next pope".
It was not clear why the pope chose Spanish to make the only specific reference to his upcoming resignation in his Sunday address.
A number of cardinals have said they would be open to the possibility of a pope from the developing world, be it Latin America, Africa or Asia, as opposed to another from Europe, where the Church is crisis and polarized.
"I can imagine taking a step towards a black pope, an African pope or a Latin American pope," Cardinal Kurt Koch, a Swiss Vatican official who will enter the conclave to choose the next pope, told Reuters in an interview.
After his address, the pope retired into the Vatican's Apostolic Palace for a scheduled, week-long spiritual retreat and will not make any more public appearances until next Sunday.
Speaking in Italian in part of his address about Lent, the period when Christians reflect on their failings and seek guidance in prayer, the pope spoke of the difficulty of making important decisions.
"In decisive moments of life, or, on closer inspection, at every moment in life, we are at a crossroads: do we want to follow the ‘I', or God? The individual interest, or the real good, that which is really good?" he said.
FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHURCH
The pope has said his physical and spiritual forces are no longer strong enough to sustain him in the job of leading the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics at a time of crisis for the Church in a fast-changing world.
Benedict's papacy was rocked by crises over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.
His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.
Since his shock announcement last Monday, the pope has said several times that he made the difficult decision to become the first pope in more than six centuries to resign for the good of the Church. Aides said he was at peace with himself.
"In a funny way he is even more peaceful now with this decision, unlike the rest of us, he is not somebody who gets choked up really easily," said Greg Burke, a senior media advisor to the Vatican.
"I think that has a lot to do with his spiritual life and who he is and the fact he is such a prayerful man," Burke told Reuters Television.
People in the crowd said the pope was a shadow of the man he was when elected on April 19, 2005.
"Like always, recently, he seemed tired, moved, perplexed, uncertain and insecure," said Stefan Malabar, an Italian in St. Peter's Square.
"It's something that really has an effect on you because the pope should be a strong and authoritative figure but instead he seems very weak, and that really struck me," he said.
The Vatican has said the conclave to choose his successor could start earlier than originally expected, giving the Roman Catholic Church a new leader by mid-March.Some 117 cardinals under the age of 80 will be eligible to enter the secretive conclave which, according to Church rules, has to start between 15 and 20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, which it will on February 28.
But since the Church is now dealing with an announced resignation and not a sudden death, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Vatican would be "interpreting" the law to see if it could start earlier.
CONSULTATIONS BEGUN
Cardinals around the world have already begun informal consultations by phone and email to construct a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church in a period of continuing crisis.
The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.
New details emerged at the weekend about Benedict's health.
Peter Seewald, a German journalist who wrote a book with the pope in 2010 in which Benedict first floated the possibility of resigning, visited him again about 10 weeks ago. "His hearing had deteriorated. He couldn't see with his left eye. His body had become so thin that the tailors had difficulty in keeping up with newly fitted clothes ... I'd never seen him so exhausted-looking, so worn down," Seewald said.
The pope will say one more Sunday noon prayer on February 24 and hold a final general audience on February 27.
The next day he will take a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where he will stay for around two months before moving to a convent inside the Vatican where he will live out his remaining years.
(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

U.N. says has list of Syrian war crimes suspects
By Stephanie Nebehay | Reuters /..GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrians in "leadership positions" who may be responsible for war crimes have been identified, along with units accused of perpetrating them, United Nations investigators said on Monday. Both government forces and armed rebels are committing war crimes, including killings and torture, spreading terror among civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict, they said.
The investigators' latest report, covering the six months to mid-January, was based on 445 interviews conducted abroad with victims and witnesses, as they have not been allowed into Syria.
The independent team, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, called on the U.N. Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for grave violations, possibly by referring the violators to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.
"The ICC is the appropriate institution for the fight against impunity in Syria. As an established, broadly supported structure, it could immediately initiate investigations against authors of serious crimes in Syria," the 131-page report said. It added: "Individuals may also bear criminal responsibility for perpetuating the crimes identified in the present report. Where possible, individuals in leadership positions who may be responsible were identified alongside those who physically carried out the acts."
Karen Konig AbuZayd, one of the four commissioners on the team of some two dozen experts, told Reuters: "We have information suggesting people who have given instructions and are responsible for government policy. People who are in the leadership of the military, for example."
"It is the first time we have mentioned the ICC directly. The Security Council needs to come together and decide whether or not to refer the case to the ICC. I am not optimistic."
But its third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its current mandate at the end of March, the report said.
Pillay, a former judge at the ICC, said on Saturday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be probed for war crimes and called for immediate action by the international community, including possible military intervention.
"The evidence collected sits in the safe in the office of the High Commissioner against the day it might be referred to a court and evidence would be examined by a prosecutor," said a European diplomat.
The death toll in Syria is likely approaching 70,000 people, Pillay told the Security Council last week in a fresh appeal for it to refer Syria to the ICC, the Hague-based war crimes court.
Government forces have carried out shelling and aerial bombardment across Syria including Aleppo, Damascus, Deraa, Homs and Idlib, the independent U.N. investigators said, citing corroborating evidence gathered from satellite images.
"In some incidents, such as in the assault on Harak, indiscriminate shelling was followed by ground operations during which government forces perpetrated mass killing," it said, referring to a town in the southern province of Deraa where residents told them that 500 civilians were killed in August.
"SPREADING TERROR"
"Government forces and affiliated militias have committed extra-judicial executions, breaching international human rights law. This conduct also constitutes the war crime of murder. Where murder was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack, it is a crime against humanity," the U.N. report said.
They have targeted queues at bakeries and funeral processions, in violence aimed at "spreading terror among the civilian population", it said.
"Syrian armed forces have implemented a strategy that uses shelling and sniper fire to kill, maim, wound and terrorize the civilian inhabitants of areas that have fallen under anti-government armed group control," the report said. Government forces had used cluster bombs, it said, but it found no credible evidence of either side using chemical arms. Rebel forces fighting to topple Assad in the protracted and increasingly sectarian conflict have committed war crimes include murder, torture, hostage-taking and using children under age 15 in hostilities, the U.N. report said.
"They continue to endanger the civilian population by positioning military objectives inside civilian areas," it said. Rebel snipers had caused "considerable civilian casualties". "The violations and abuses committed by anti-government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia." Foreign fighters, many of them from Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, have radicalized the rebels and helped detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, it said.
The two other commissioners are former chief ICC prosecutor Carla del Ponte and Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand.
"It is an investigative mechanism and its evidence can be given to relevant judicial authorities when the time comes. In the interim, it is the one piece of U.N.-approved machinery shining a light on abuses," the European diplomat said.
Referring to del Ponte, who joined in September, the diplomat said: "She brings a harder-edged prosecutorial lens so when they are looking at the evidence she is very well placed to know what sort of evidence would assist a later judicial process."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

...