'Hezbollah's Long-Range Missiles Can Carry Chemical Weapons'

This story has significant ramifications for the coming battles which we will see take place in the Middle East:

Hezbollah's Long-Range Missiles Can Carry Chemical Weapons'

Hezbollah is in possession of long-range missiles capable of carrying a chemical warhead, a Lebanese parliamentarian said according to a report Sunday.

Khaled Zaher, from the anti-Hezbollah al-Mustaqbal party, told the Saudi al-Watan newspaper that Syrian President Bashar Assad had transferred significant amounts of weaponry to Hezbollah, including the missiles. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps supervised the transfer of the weapons and helped build and design the launching pads in Lebanon, he said.

Zaher alleged that the missiles were deployed in bases in northern Lebanon — near the border with Syria — and in the central Lebanon city of Baalbek, some of them underground. He interpreted recent statements by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who said “Israel will face what it hasn’t faced in the past,” as an assertion that the missiles can reach Tel Aviv.

“We consider these bases a threat to regional security and a service to the Iranian agenda,” he said. “This has led us more than once to request that the international community put these military sites under its supervision.”

He said that the missiles were deployed in “areas that no one can approach or come close to. This indicates the danger of what these sites possess. We are certain they are long-range missile bases placed exclusively under Hezbollah’s command.”

Last week, a defected Syrian general told CNN’s Christiane Amanpourthat Assad had been sending his chemical weapons to Hezbollah and Iraq in order to avoid giving them up for destruction as he agreed to do according to the terms of a Russian-brokered agreement.

Last month, the general, Zaher al-Sakat – who commanded a chemical weapons unit attached to the Syrian army’s Fifth Division — made a similar claim in an interview with the Washington Post. In mid-September Al-Watan reported that Assad was smuggling chemical weapons out of Syria via tunnels connecting Syrian and Lebanese villages, while the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal reported that 20 trucks laden with equipment used in the manufacture of chemical weapons were driven across the border from Syria into Iraq.

Israel has said in the past it would take action to stop Syrian chemical or advanced, “game-changing” weapons from reaching Hezbollah. A series of airstrikes in early 2013 — widely attributed to Israel — that reportedly destroyed missile convoys heading from Syria into Lebanon as well as damaging a chemical weapons production site, apparently put those words into action.

Rouhani On Iranian TV In May Detailed How He Broke Nuclear Pledge

In a video clip now gaining fresh attention as the international community seeks to assess his credibility, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani bragged on Iranian state television just four months ago that he and the regime utterly flouted a 2003 agreement with the IAEA in which it promised to suspend all uranium enrichment and certain other nuclear activities.

Rouhani, who was being interviewed by Iran’s state IRIB TV (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) on May 27, less than three weeks before he won the June 14 presidential elections, was provoked by the interviewer’s assertion that, as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in 2003-5, “everything was suspended” on the nuclear program under his watch

Smiling but evidently highly irritated by the suggestion, Rouhani called it “a lie” that only “the illiterate” would believe, and said that “whoever is talking to you in your earpiece” was feeding false information. He proceeded to detail how Iran, in fact, had flagrantly breached the October 2003 “Tehran Declaration,” which he said “was supposed to outline how everything should be suspended.”

Although Iran issued a joint statement with visiting EU ministers in October 2003 setting out its pledged obligations under the Tehran Declaration, in practice, Rouhani said in the interview, “We did not let that happen!”

Far from honoring the commitment, in which Iran said “it has decided voluntarily to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities,” Rouhani told the interviewer that all Iran did was merely suspend “ten centrifuges” in the Natanz enrichment facility. “And not a total suspension. Just reduced the yield.”

Unimpressed, interviewer Abedini asserted that work had been suspended at the UCF — the Uranium Enrichment Facility at Isfahan. Quite the contrary, Rouhani countered, detailing the completion of various phases of work at Isfahan under his watch in 2004 and 2005. He went on to state proudly that the Iranian heavy water reactor at Arak was also developed under his watch, in 2004.

“Do you know when we developed yellowcake? Winter 2004,” Rouhani went on. “Do you know when the number of centrifuges reached 3,000? Winter 2004.”

Incredulous at the notion that Iran had bowed to international pressure and halted nuclear activities in that period, Rouhani asked the interviewer, “We halted the nuclear program? We were the ones to complete it! We completed the technology.”

Iran had taken “the correct stance [in the nuclear talks], without submission and coercion,” he said.

Rouhani then again attacked the interviewer, and “the guy who talks into your earpiece” for allegedly misleading viewers, to which Abedini replied: “I have read your book from cover to cover, twice.”

“Good job,” retorted Rouhani. “Then read it for a third time, Mr. Abedini. This is how we completed the nuclear enrichment program.”

In his speech to the UN General Assembly last week, and in a succession of other statements and inteviews, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has alleged that Rouhani, in his current outreach to the West, is misleading it by professing a willingness to negotiate over the nuclear program. Netanyahu warned the international community not to be “fooled” by Rouhani as it enters new diplomatic negotiations set to start next week.

As Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator between 2003 and 2005, Netanyahu said at the UN, Rouhani “masterminded the strategy which enabled Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program behind a smokescreen of diplomatic engagement and very soothing rhetoric.” 

Netanyahu then quoted from Rouhani’s 2011 book, in which he wrote, “‘While we were talking to the Europeans in Tehran, we were installing equipment in Isfahan.’ Now, for those of you who don’t know,” Netanyahu explained, “the Isfahan facility is an indispensable part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That’s where uranium ore called yellowcake is converted into an enrichable form. Rouhani boasted, and I quote, ‘By creating a calm environment — a calm environment — we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.’ He fooled the world once. Now he thinks he can fool it again.”

Israel Today: 'Are CNN's Iran Reports Biased, Inept, Or Corrupt?'

Al-Jazeera bought access to US public opinion when it purchased Current TV from Al Gore, but it faces stiff competition from CNN when it comes to misleading viewers about the Middle East. Over the last week, CNN has promoted a biased, re-branded image of the Iranian regime on at least three major programs.

CNN’s positive spin on Iran is collectively staggering. Did the Iranian regime secure such favorable coverage with payments? Or was CNN just so inept and/or biased that it inadvertently promoted the Iranian regime at every opportunity? Consider each program.

Shutdown Delaying Aid To Israel, Sinai Peacekeeper Funding

The ongoing shutdown of the US government could negatively impact Israel’s security, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

Speaking to reporters, Kerry said the shutdown, which is nearly a week old, would delay payments for Israel’s security and for peacekeepers in the Sinai Peninsula.

“Our security assistance for Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, is being delayed,” Kerry said. “The new fiscal year started this last week, but because of the shutdown, some entities don’t have the funding that they need, including supporting the peacekeeping mission in the Sinai, at a time of growing unrest in a critical area.”

Kerry also said that the Treasury Department’s ability to monitor sanctions on Iran was hampered by the furloughs and lack of funding wrought by the shutdown, noting that a recent diplomatic push with Tehran was contingent on tough sanctions remaining in place.

“The opportunity to engage diplomatically with Iran is critical to all of us in the world, and we wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for the pressure that has been brought to bear by the sanctions,” he said. “But right now, as a direct result of the shutdown, our Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control has been forced to furlough nearly all of its staff.”

His statement echoed comments by senior State Department official Wendy Sherman on Thursday, who said that the ability to monitor sanctions had been “devastated” by the shutdown.

The politics of the shutdown have merged with partisan wrangling over the graver issue of raising the federal debt limit by October 17. If that doesn’t happen, the White House says, the government will be unable to pay all its bills, including interest on debt. Economists say a US default would stun world markets and likely send this nation, and possibly others, into recession.

Boehner, R-Ohio, and US President Barack Obama say they abhor the idea of a default. But they and their respective parties have not budged from positions that bar a solution.

Obama says he will not negotiate tax and spending issues if they are linked to a debt-ceiling hike. Boehner and his GOP allies say they will not raise the ceiling unless Democrats agree to deep spending cuts.

Many House Republicans also demand curbs to Obama’s signature health care law as a condition of reopening the government. The president and his allies call the demand absurd.

Also see:

Palestinian Gunman Shoots Israeli Child

At least one Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the Jewish community Psagot north of Jerusalem on Saturday evening and shot a nine-year-old Israeli girl at close range.

The victim, Noam Glick (pictured left), was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital and treated for what were miraculously only light injuries after being shot in the upper body.

Her father, Israel Glick, later recounted the terrifying incident in an interview with Army Radio:

“We went outside and found Noam standing and she told me, ‘Father there’s an Arab here.’ …This is the scariest thing that could happen to a family, that a terrorist enters our home… The terrorist was startled by Noam and, instead of entering the house, shot her… Her screams saved us from catastrophe.”

Israeli security forces later found a hole in the security fence surrounding Psagot and believe it to be the escape route used by the terrorist, who they agreed had likely had planned a more severe massacre of Israelis before being scared off by commotion caused by little Noam’s screams.

Israeli soldiers entered the neighboring Palestinian village of el-Birah in some force to find the shooter, but by midday Sunday had been unsuccessful.

At the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Noam’s shooting “a heinous attack,” and blamed the whole thing on Israel’s “peace partners” in the Palestinian Authority.

“I must say that the Palestinian Authority cannot shirk its responsibility for these kinds of incidents as long as incitement there continues,” said Netanyahu.

A number of government ministers and members of Knesset urged Netanyahu to go beyond issuing condemnations and suspend the current US-driven peace negotiations until the Palestinian Authority takes responsibility for and puts and end to such attacks.

“When Palestinian leaders say that talks are at a dead end because Palestinians will never recognize a Jewish state in any borders, it’s no surprise that somebody takes from that a practical conclusion and arranges attacks,” MK Ze’ev Elkin told Israel National News. “We need to look at reality with clear eyes and not forget what the real goal is of those who sit opposite us in the negotiating room.”

Meanwhile, Israeli army commander fear the recent rise in serious terror attacks heralds a new Palestinian terrorist uprising, orintifada.

Former IDF Central Command chief Gadi Shamni fears that in light of the past month’s attacks in the West Bank, a new intifada could be in the works.

“The events of the past month may lead to an escalation in the West Bank [sic],” former IDF Central Command chief Shamni told Army Radio.

“It’s very difficult to determine if this is the start of an intifada,” he added. “However…I have no doubt that once events such as these occur, this can encourage all sorts of people who might not have acted, to act.”

Netanyahu: Palestinian Incitement Responsible For Psagot Incident