War Preparations (II)

Almost everything we are seeing now, in the Middle East, seems to be various forms of war preparations. And every day we seem that much closer to full scale war in the region. Today is no different:

Lebanon Claims Israel Conducting More Mock Sorties

Israeli jets carried out a series of mock raids over Lebanon Thursday night and Friday morning, according to a Lebanon army statement issued Friday.

The report said Israeli fighter planes, accompanied by a reconnaissance drone, flew over Lebanese airspace for three hours and conducted mock sorties.

Similar incidents of IAF “violation of Lebanese sovereignty and resolution 1701″ were reported on Wednesday, when the fighter planes reportedly flew over the Litani River, a natural barrier that marked the northern lines of the IDF presence in Lebanon before Israel’s 2000 withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines.

Since Israel’s reported attack on a weapons convoy carrying advanced weapons from Syria to Lebanon last week, reports of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon have become increasingly common.

In response to the reported Israeli flyovers, the Lebanese Army and the terrorist group Hezbollah are said to be upping their military preparedness in the southern part of the country.

The pan-Arab London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi reported Friday that Lebanese officials fear that an Israeli strike, similar to Israel’s alleged strike on Syrian targets last month, is imminent.

12 IAF Planes Fly Over Lebanon, Army Claims

Twelve Israel Air Force planes flew over Lebanon between Thursday and Friday, the Lebanese Army claimed, shortly after the country appealed to the United Nations over airspace violations.

According to a statement, the Israeli planes entered Lebanese airspace at 10:30 p.m. and roamed over various parts of the country, finally leaving at 1:15 a.m.

The army also said that the Israeli reconnaissance plane flew over the southern area of Naqoura for several hours.

Syrian Rebels Close In On Capital, Block Key Highway

Rebels pushed forward in their battle with the Syrian army in Damascus on Friday, clashing with regime soldiers in contested neighborhoods in the northeast and shutting down a key highway out of the capital with a row of burning tires, activist said.

A number of rebel brigades launched a series of attacks beginning Wednesday against regime checkpoints along the main road to from Damascus to northern Syria and have been clashing in the area since. The government has responded by shelling a number of rebel-held districts nearby.

Both the rebels and the regime of President Bashar Assad consider the fight for Damascus the most likely endgame in a civil war that has already killed more than 60,000. The government controls movement in and out of the heavily defended city with a network of checkpoints, and rebels have failed so far to make significant inroads.

As the situation in Syria has worsened, foreign jihadists have flocked to Syria to join what they consider a holy war to replace Assad’s regime with an Islamic state in Syria. Most of the foreign fighters are Arabs from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries.

Updated: Now we see Israel's use of reconnaissance flights. More war preparations:



Lebanese Army Accuses Israel Of 17-Hour Overflights

Israeli “spy” drones conducted overflights in southern Lebanon twice and returned to Israel, violating Lebanese airspace for over 17 hours, a Lebanese Army Guidance Department spokesman said Saturday in comments quoted by the Lebanese government’s news agency.

The spokesman, who was not named, said the lengthy overflights were not the same as those reported on Friday morning, which were said to have been carried out by Israeli jets.

The report said Israeli fighter planes, accompanied by a reconnaissance drone, flew over Lebanese airspace for three hours overnight Thursday and conducted mock sorties.

Similar incidents of IAF “violation of Lebanese sovereignty and resolution 1701″ were reported on Wednesday, when the fighter planes reportedly flew over the Litani River, a natural barrier that marked the northern lines of the IDF presence in Lebanon before Israel’s 2000 withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines.

Since Israel’s reported attack on a weapons convoy carrying advanced weapons from Syria to Lebanon last week, reports of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon have become increasingly common.

Israel has not responded to the reports.

Also of interest:

'Earth Will Have 15 Minutes To Protect Electronics'

Scientists around the globe are joining those in the United States in becoming alarmed at the possibility of a plasma cloud from a solar superstorm that could wipe out vast electronics networks, because they say Earth would have only a notice of about 15 minutes.

U.S. space scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator and the National Aeronautic Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center have been expressing concern over what is fast becoming a “solar storm maximum.”

Given the intensity of the increasing flare spewing from the sun’s surface, experts agree that scientists would have only 15 minutes of warning of an intense solar flare – a huge plasma cloud of charged particles that can become a nightmare to unguarded electronics on earth.

Read the documentation that’s sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in “A Nation Forsaken”.

Right now, scientists are relying on an ageing satellite called ACE – Advanced Composition Explorer which provides the 15 minutes heads-up.

The concern has been rising as the sun continues spewing out new, massive flares even as Earth moves closer into alignment with the gigantic sun spots producing those flares.