In the news...

It seems like a relatively slow weekend but there are a few news stories worth posting:

"IAF strikes Hamas Gaza training facility in wake of Qassam, mortar attacks"

A Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in the western Negev region on Friday morning, causing no injuries or damage. Late Thursday, Israeli aircraft struck two sites in Gaza in retaliation for rocket and mortar fire from the territory on southern Israel during the preceding 48 hours, the Israeli military said.

Security officials with the ruling militant Hamas movement and Palestinian residents reported that four sites were hit. There was no way to immediately reconcile the conflicting reports.

The Israel Defense Forces said aircraft also struck southern Gaza, where Palestinians operate underground tunnels to smuggle weapons and other contraband from Egypt.

In the two days before the IAF air strikes, three rockets and mortars fired from Gaza landed in Israel, the military said. No injuries were reported in those attacks.

Then we see Iran's Ahmadinejad weighing in on the burning of the Koran issue:

"Ahmadinejad: Koran burning will bring about Israel's annihilation"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday condemned plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran, saying that it was a Zionist plot that would bring about Israel's annihilation, Iran's Press TV reported.

I have to hand it to Ahmadinejad - he is definitely focused. His obsession with Israel can extend into actually finding a way to turn a U.S. incident in Gainesville, Florida into a cause for Israel's destruction.

Speaking at a meeting between Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said that "the Zionists and their supporters are on the path to collapse and decline and such desperate actions will not save them, but will accelerate their fall and annihilation."

The Jerusalem Post is also carrying the story:

"Koran burning will accelerate Israel's fall, annihilation"

"The Zionists and their supporters are on the path to collapse and decline and such desperate actions will not save them, but will accelerate their fall and annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at a Teheran meeting with Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and other leading Iranian officials.

On Thursday Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Israel is behind the planned Koran burning, according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA.

According to the report, the foreign minister also blamed former US President George W. Bush and said Bush's rhetoric after the September 11 terrorist attacks led to the increase of Islamophobia in the country.

“The current US administration should fulfill its duties in guaranteeing the basic rights of American Muslims for avoiding the spread of such inappropriate and devilish moves,” added Mottaki.

Senior Iranian clergyman Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani also commented on the planned event, according to the DPA news agency.

"On behalf of a half billion Muslims, I condemn this savage plan and warn of its consequences," Golpaygani said in a statement on Iran's state television website, IRIB. "This pastor should be immediately arrested and his church closed down."

The ayatollah said US President Barak Obama would be held responsible if the "gruesome and inhuman act" takes place.

As mentioned before, as bizarre as this is, we shouldn't be too surprised - after all, we are at the end of the age, and to put it simply - this is exactly the kind of thing we should expect.