Posted by editor on 17 June 2008 at 4:49 pm UTC
Hezbollah and Amal gunmen attacked Lebanese Army positions and two-to-four residential areas in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, last night. At least three people have reportedly been killed and several others wounded as of this writing.
All three victims were civilians – including a female school-teacher – killed by Hezbollah’s attack on Bekaa villages “in an attempt to cover up their fight with the army,” according to Lebanon’s Future News.
According to our sources, the gunmen attacked with automatic rifles, machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars; and the attacks began several hours after Hezbollah purportedly shot-to-death a member of the pro-democracy Cedars Revolution in the western Bekaa.
Details are still sketchy as to the individual shooting (details will be forthcoming), but it is believed – according to our sources – that he was the bodyguard of a top Lebanese official, and some say his death is being misreported in some Arab media as an accident (not surprising considering Hezbollah’s incredibly deceptive media influence in what would otherwise be considered objective media).
We are also learning that since last month’s fighting which was begun by Hezbollah against the Lebanese people in west Beirut, the north near Tripoli, the Bekaa Valley, and the Chouf mountains; Hezbollah has launched several probing operations – and conducted at least one military show-of-force demonstration – against Druze villages in the Chouf-mountain region.
During the demonstration a few days ago, armed Druze confronted Hezbollah, and the latter simply withdrew.
Ya Libnan even reports today: “Hezbollah gunmen have not given up and continue to launch attacks in Toumat Niha area of the Chouf mountains.”
Of course, the Chouf operations are receiving very little attention in the Lebanese media and zero coverage in the Western press.
Which brings to mind my own reports of a Hezbollah testing-probe (since determined to have been one of a series of probes) and a “show of force” that took place on a date in September that was never reported either by myself or any media (except for a blogger or two who literally created a date to deny any show of force ever took place).
Responding to that – and a piece of analysis published by Stratfor – international terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares wrote: “Isn’t interesting to see how back in the fall of 2007 Western-based media, friendly to Hezbollah, attacked an American journalist reporting from Beirut, [yours truly], for daring to mention that Hezbollah has ever deployed forces in Beirut, while according to this report, the organization is sending in -not only regular militiamen, but special forces.”
Fact is, what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon and throughout the world, today, is every bit what Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said today (after meeting with Pres. Michel Sleiman): “full-fledged acts of terror.”
And so far they are getting away with it.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s staunch ally, Gen. Michel Aoun, reportedly bristled over a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and leaders of the pro-democracy March 14 movement, whom Aoun referred to as “students gathered in a class room.”
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
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