A Ghastly Middle East Halloween!
Halloween T or T (Terror or Terror) for Lebanon
and Israel
Armies of Hizbullah Terror N, Syrian Terror NE, and Hamas Terror SW for Israel and Assassination Terror from Syria for Lebanon!
October 31, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com
I am afraid the “trick or treaters” in Gaza are not after Israeli “treats,” but Jewish blood, as were the Philistines when they defeated the Israeli IDF lead by Saul, who sought to kill David, the figure of Messiah.
Hamas in Gaza now occupies the ancient stronghold of the Philistines, who caused the Israelite Saul to be in a precarious situation, not too long before the Philistines beheaded him. Because he had turned from the spiritual promises of God, Saul was out of communication with God, so he turned to the Witch of En-dor to raise the Prophet Samuel from the dead to seek information of how he could be delivered from them. The nation of Israel has been out of communication with the same God for some 2000 Years, and now finds itself facing the descendants of all its ancient enemies. They will lose their battle with them initially, but the Son of David, their Messiah, Jesus Christ, will return to lead them to victory some three and one-half years
after they are initially defeated.
I Samuel 28:3-8 – Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land. [4] And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem: and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa. [5] And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled.
[6] And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets. [7] Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. [8] And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee.
Ezekiel 37:24-28 – And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe
my statutes, and do them.
[25] And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. [26] Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. [27] My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [28] And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
The latest three articles from the Jerusalem Post, which follow, paint a grim Halloween picture for this year’s frightening possibilities of future repeat major Middle East acts of terror and murderous assassinations.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
‘Hamas establishing bunker system along Gaza fence’
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
October 29, 2007
Hamas is trying to establish a bunker system as well as fortified rocket-launching and surveillance positions along the security fence with the Gaza Strip, Brig.-Gen. Moshe (Chico) Tamir, head of the Gaza Division, said Monday.
Tamir said that Hamas was “building an army” in the Gaza Strip and had obtained unprecedented capabilities through smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. On Monday, head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Yuval Diskin said that since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians have smuggled over 112 tons of explosives into the Strip.
“They are trying to dig tunnels, build surveillance positions and mortar-fire stations along the fence,” Tamir told reporters during a briefing concerning the death of IDF reservist Ehud Efrati during clashes with Hamas gunmen early Monday morning. “They are trying to build this up and we are trying to stop them.”
Tamir said that Hamas was studying Israeli tactics during the IDF’s daily operations along the fence and was trying to use this knowledge in its fighting methods.
“This is ongoing warfare and as such there is also a simultaneous brain war taking place,” he said. “We are always studying what we do and modifying our tactics. They are trying to study us and to be wise with that knowledge.”
Tamir said that for the IDF’s current purposes there was no point in expanding the operations deeper into Gaza. He also said that while the IDF was working to reduce the Kassam fire from Gaza there was no perfect solution.
“They can fire Kassams from one edge of Gaza all the way to the other and farther,” he explained. “We are operating close to the fence since that is where they fire mortar shells, anti-tank missiles and dig tunnels.”
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 2
Mining for trouble in Lebanon
LENNY BEN-DAVID, THE JERUSALEM POST
October 29, 2007
Last summer Yitzhak Goren went out to his orchards to check the damage after a barrage of more than 100 Hizbullah Katyusha rockets slammed across Israel’s Galilee. No one was working the orchards those days. The plums rotting under the trees gave off a sweet fermented smell. Branches were strewn everywhere. Yitzhak noted the craters left by the rockets, but one seemed different. He didn’t see the bottom of the crater and or the shrapnel left by the rocket. In fact,
he couldn’t see the bottom of the crater at all. Just darkness.
Goren had stumbled on one of the surprises promised by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It was the exit of a mile-long tunnel dug from Lebanon. The tunnel’s mouth was in a stone quarry purchased by Hizbullah five years ago. The dust and trucks around the quarry raised no suspicion. Nor did the North Korean advisors and equipment brought in by the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (a.k.a. Changgwang Sinyong Corporation) to assist the Iranians and Lebanese Shi’ites digging the 100-foot deep tunnel shaft.
The North Korean-Iranian cooperation in Lebanon is an extension of North Korea and Iran’s conflict with the United States and its allies, a cooperation that also includes the provision of long-range missiles and nuclear research to Syria.
Indeed, despite its “mining” appellation, Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation was sanctioned by the United States for missile development and proliferation activities.
As for the tunnels, North Korea had 50 years of experience digging tunnels under the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, some 500 feet deep and two miles long. Equipped with electric lines and ventilation, some of the DMZ tunnels were large enough for the passage of a thousand soldiers an hour. Hizbullah’s plans were more modest: to send 200 guerrillas behind Israel’s lines to shoot up civilian targets and military vehicles waiting to move into Lebanon. Hundreds of advanced shoulder-fired RPG-29s and laser-guided Kornet-E anti-tank missiles were already in place in their subterranean storerooms 100 yards from the end of the tunnel when the errant Katyusha punched a hole in the tunnel exit.
The above description of Yitzhak Goren’s tunnel is fiction. The description of North Korean tunnels and cooperation with Iran are based on fact.
Hamas, Hizbullah’s Sunni allies in Gaza, had already perfected the tunnel tactic in a small scale attack on an IDF tank and its crew in Israel when it abducted Gilad Schalit, on June 25, 2006. Tunnels dug to Egypt’s Sinai desert represent Hamas’ materiel and financial lifelines.
Earlier this summer, Hizbullah’s Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned of a “big surprise” if there’s another round of fighting with Israel. Some analysts believe he was hinting at the acquisition of new missiles, possibly even anti-aircraft missiles. But tunnels from Lebanon may just be the “surprise” Nasrallah keeps promising.
SINCE ISRAEL’S withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Iranian money, troops and experts have been assisting Hizbullah to build their bunkers and underground bases throughout the country, including a warren of offices and headquarters deep beneath Hizbullah’s autonomous Al Dahiyeh quarter in southern Beirut. “Hizbullah is rebuilding underground positions from which they can store weapons and defend and attack whomever they choose,” said Toni Nissi, head of the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, The Washington Times’ W. Thomas Smith, Jr., recently reported.
Just in the first half of 2006, 60,888 Iranian “tourists” visited Lebanon, according to published reports.
Hizbullah’s military bases, armories, bunkers and communications networks were much more extensive than Israel’s intelligence services estimated on the eve of the 2006 war. Israeli news reports have subsequently confirmed the existence of deep and well-fortified bunkers in Hizbullah’s “nature reserves” all along Israel’s northern borders.
Missing from the accounts, however, is the obvious question: If Hizbullah was building bunkers along Israel’s (east-west) border, what is to stop them from building (north-south) tunnels – with Iranian and North Korean assistance – under Israel’s border? Indeed, during the war one of Israel’s TV news crews picked up on their microph
one a conversation between a senior IDF officer and a wounded soldier. The officer revealed that such a tunnel was discovered from one position north of the border to an IDF position south of the border. But no further mention was ever made of the revelation.
AT THE END of the 2006 war Israel Defense Forces did discover the entrance to a very elaborate subterranean mini-city several dozen yards from a UNIFIL position, some 350 yards inside Lebanon. The fortification contained dozens of rooms connected by phones and equipped with showers, toilets, air conditioning and escape hatches.
Last year, a garrulous officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard revealed to the Arabic publication Sharq al Awsat that Iranian diplomats smuggled North Korean experts into Lebanon under the guise of “domestic workers.” They joined “hundreds of Iranian engineers and technicians… to build a 25 kilometer (!) tunnel.” The officer did not reveal the location but bragged “each opening in this [tunnel] measures 12 to 18 square meters, and has a mobile floor and a semi-mobile ceiling. Each four openings are connected by a passage that allows fighters to pass easily [from one opening] to the other.”
THE IRANIAN supply of funds, weapons, and training is seemingly unlimited. The Iranian-sponsored civilian infrastructure, schools and welfare systems have transformed parts of Lebanon to nothing short of a full-fledged, Shi’ite, jihadist colony on the eastern Mediterranean. Even while Iran is facing its own financial turmoil (unemployment, inflation and gasoline shortages), hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in Hizbullah institutions in Lebanon. Visitors to Hizbullah areas under construction report seeing many “Thank you Iran” signs.
Iranian influence and Islamist fundamentalism may have already undermined the foundations of Lebanon’s fledgling democracy beyond repair.
And what Iran hasn’t corrupted, Syria has.
After being run out of Lebanon almost two years ago, neighboring Syria is determined to return and reassert its kleptocratic rule in Lebanon, as well.
After all, President Bashar Assad and his thugs seem to have literally gotten away with the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. Earlier this month, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora provided the UN Secretary General with details on the Syrian links to the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group that held off Lebanese forces in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon for three months. Many of the jihadists had crossed into Lebanon from Syria, and many were trained by the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
The bottom line: There is no way that Iran, Syria and Hizbullah will honor UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the Lebanese army to deploy to the border with Israel and for the disarming of the militias (ie. the Shi’ite Hizbullah or the Sunni Fatah al-Islam). These axis-of-evil regimes and terrorist groups will do all they can to endanger the stability of the precarious Lebanese government and to disrupt Lebanese elections. Assassinations of anti-Syrian parliamentarians are shaving down the anti-Syrian majority’s numbers. And it is questionable if they will permit the establishment of the special international tribunal to try the suspects in the Hariri murder.
President George W. Bush’s support for Lebanon’s democracy in early October was an important message to Syria, Iran and Hizbullah. “I am deeply concerned about foreign interference in your elections,” Bush told Lebanese parliament member,Saad Hariri, the son of the murdered Rafik Hariri.
“The message has been sent to nations such as Syria that they should not interfere in the election of the president. We expect Syria to honor that demand.”
Bush went on to assure Hariri that “the United States is more than just an admirer; we want to help as best as we possibly can.”
The best way to help is to press back against Hizbullah, Syria, Iran, and that new Middle East player, North Korea. Last month Israel took out a purported North Korean nuclear facility in Syria. New aggressive measures by the United States, France, and other Western countries, starting with stronger economic sanctions, must be the next step. Beyond that, as administration officials insist, all options must remain on the table.
The writer served as Israel’s number two diplomat in Washington. Today he heads an international consulting comp
any.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 3
Lebanon’s parliament majority leader: Syria wants me dead
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST
October 30, 2007
The leader of Lebanon’s parliamentary majority Saad Hariri claimed Tuesday there is a plot to assassinate him and the country’s US-backed prime minister ahead of crucial presidential elections next month, and alleged that Syria was behind it.
Hariri made the remarks to reporters after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a one-day visit to Egypt.
“The assassination is not only of me but of (Lebanese) Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also,” said Hariri, whose father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in a massive Beirut 2005 truck bombing that was widely blamed on Syria.
Hariri did not elaborate on the plot but when asked about reports that Syrian officials were behind it, he said, “We have information about this (assassination plans) and it is correct.”
Syrian officials in Damascus could not be immediately reached for comment.
Lebanon’s anti-Syrian groups that dominate the government claim Damascus is behind a two-year killing spree that has claimed the lives of several anti-Syrian politicians and public figures.
The latest was the Sept. 19 slaying of lawmaker Antoine Ghanem in a Beirut car bombing, a week before Parliament was to meet to start electing a new president.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has rejected accusations that Syria orchestrated any of the killings.
Hariri on Tuesday also accused Syria of trying to stall the election of a new Lebanese president by “influencing recent developments in Lebanon which have negatively affected reconciliation” between the country’s rival factions.
Hariri is in Cairo for talks with Mubarak and other officials amid Egyptian efforts to help resolve the Lebanese political deadlock over choosing a new president. Media here say Cairo is trying to convince rival Lebanese factions to accept Lebanese army commander Michael Suleiman as a compromise presidential candidate. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit visited Beirut last Thursday to offer his country’s mediation.
Last week, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri postponed the parliamentary session to elect a new president until Nov. 12, to give rival factions more time
to find a compromise. The 128-member parliament, dominated by anti-Syrian legislators, failed to meet two times to choose a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who steps down Nov. 24.
There had been hopes that the presidential vote could break a 10-month political deadlock between Lebanon’s US-backed government and pro-Syrian opposition factions led by the militant Hezbollah.
Under Lebanon’s complex sectarian-based political system in place since independence won in 1943, the president traditionally hails from the Maronite community which makes up the largest sect among minority Christians.
The election of a consensus president is certain to ease the political power struggle taking place since last year. The parliament majority is hoping to put one of its own in the post, but the opposition has rejected a president they don’t endorse. Over 15 declared or undeclared candidates are vying for the post.
Many Lebanese fear divisions over the presidency could lead to the creation of two rival governments _ a grim prospect for Lebanon, which suffered through a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.
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