Hezbollah militants accuses Israel of Hariri assassination

BEIRUT The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants presented aerial reconnaissance footage Monday that he said implicates Israel in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.But Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since his Shiite Muslim group battled Israel in a monthlong 2006 war, acknowledged the material was not absolute proof.

“This is evidence, indications … that open new horizons for the investigations,” Nasrallah said at a lengthy press conference in which he spoke to reporters via satellite link.The speech comes as pressure is mounting on Hezbollah over a Netherlands-based tribunal investigating Hariri’s assassination, which is set to issue indictments this year. If Hezbollah is indicted, there are fears it could spark riots between the Sunni supporters of Hariri and Shiite followers of Hezbollah.The two sides have clashed before following political power struggles. In May 2008, Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunni pro-government neighborhoods of Beirut, raising the threat of a new civil war.

Israel immediately dismissed Hezbollah’s accusations.

“The international community, the Arab world, and most importantly, the people of Lebanon all know that these accusations are simply ridiculous,” a senior Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no government statement was made.Hariri was killed in a massive Valentine’s Day truck bombing in 2005 that many in Lebanon blamed on Syria, which backs Hezbollah. Syria denies any involvement in the assassination.

Hariri, a billionaire businessman credited with rebuilding Lebanon after its 15-year civil war, had been trying to limit Syria’s domination of Lebanon in the months before his assassination.

The killing sparked massive anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon, dubbed the “Cedar Revolution,” which led to Syria’s withdrawal.Nasrallah said the tapes shown Monday were intercepted by Hezbollah between the 1990s and 2005, and showed Israeli reconnaissance footage of areas frequented by Hariri, including where he died. He said this proved Israel was tracking his movements for purposes of assassination.

Asked why he was presenting the material at a press conference as opposed to the tribunal, Nasrallah said: “I do not cooperate with parties that I do not trust.”

The tribunal has not said who will be charged, but Nasrallah said last month he already knows that Hezbollah members will be among them. His July 22 announcement appeared to be an attempt to soften the impact of any charges.He has said the tribunal has no credibility and is simply an “Israeli project,” and that his group will not turn over any of its members for trial.

In response to questions about why Nasrallah chose to offer the material five years after Hariri’s assassination, he said the recent arrests of scores of Lebanese agents who were spying for Israel since last year has yielded information proving Israel’s deep involvement in a number of assassinations in the country.Nasrallah said his group also has just learned of an Israeli spy who had been scouting the area of the assassination just a day before the truck bomb that killed Hariri exploded. The spy, however, fled before authorities could arrest him. (AP)

discovery of large natural gas could lead to new Lebanon-Israel war

BEIRUT The discovery of large natural gas reserves under the waters of the eastern Mediterranean could potentially mean a huge economic windfall for Israel and Lebanon, both resource-poor nations – if it doesn’t spark new war between them.The Hezbollah militant group has blared warnings that Israel plans to steal natural gas from Lebanese territory and vows to defend the resources with its arsenal of rockets. Israel says the fields it is developing do not extend into Lebanese waters, a claim experts say appears to be correct, but the maritime boundary between the two countries – still officially at war – has never been precisely set.

“Lebanon’s need for the resistance has doubled today in light of Israeli threats to steal Lebanon’s oil wealth,” Hezbollah’s Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine said last month. The need to protect the offshore wealth “pushes us in the future to strengthen the resistance’s capabilities.”The threats cast a shadow over what could be a financial boon for both nations, with energy companies finding what appear to be substantial natural gas deposits in their waters.

Israel is far ahead in the race to develop the resources. Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel’s energy needs for the next two decades.In June, the U.S. energy company Noble Energy, part of a consortium developing the fields, predicted that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field – Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.

Israel relies entirely on imports to meet its energy needs, spending billions to bring natural gas from Egypt and coal from a variety of countries. So just freeing the country from that reliance would have a major impact.When Tamar begins producing it could lower Israel’s energy costs by a $1 billion a year and bring $400 million a year in royalties into government coffers. That suggests a total of about $40 billion in savings and $16 billion in government revenues over the total yield of the field. Those numbers would only rise as Leviathan comes on line.

“Israel’s always looked for oil,” said Paul Rivlin, a senior research fellow with Tel Aviv University’s Dayan center. “But I don’t think it ever thought of itself as becoming a producer. And now that you’ve got a high-tech economy that’s doing quite well, this comes as an added bonus.”

Hezbollah’s warnings, however, quickly followed the announcement by Houston, Texas-based Noble Energy.Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, warned that Israel is “turning into an oil emirate while ignoring the fact that the field extends, according to the maps, into Lebanon’s territorial waters.”

Israel’s Petroleum and Mining commissioner at the National Infrastructure Ministry Yaakov Mimran, called those claims “nonsense,” saying Leviathan and the other two fields are all within Israel’s economic zone.”Those noises occur when they smell gas. Until then, they sit quietly and let the other side spend the money,” Mimran told the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Maps from Noble Energy show Leviathan within Israel’s waters. An official with Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services, which is surveying gas fields in Lebanese waters, told The Associated Press that from Noble’s reports there is no reason to think Leviathan extends into Lebanon. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his company to speak on the subject.

The rumblings are worrisome because Israel and Hezbollah each accuse the other of intending to spark a new conflict following their devastating 2006 war. That fighting, in which Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid sparked a massive Israeli bombardment, killed about 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.

Since then, there has been a rare interval of peace. Hezbollah, a close ally of Syria and Iran, has not fired a rocket into Israel since. Israeli officials, however, say they believe Hezbollah has managed to triple its prewar arms stockpile to more than 40,000 rockets.The warnings from Hezbollah and Berri could be as much for domestic consumption as directed as Israel, aiming to press for the passage of a long-delayed draft oil law, needed before any Lebanese fields can be developed.

Oil and gas exploration has been a source of disagreement between Lebanese politicians over the past decade. The change of several governments and disputes over what company should do the surveying have caused delays.In October, Petroleum Geo-Services said fields in Cypriot and Lebanese waters “may prove to be an exciting new province for oil and gas in the next few years,” noting signs of deposits in Lebanon, though their size is still not known. “It is very encouraging for Lebanon,” the PGS official told AP.

Any finds could help Lebanon’s government pay off what is one of the highest debt rates in the world, at about $52 billion, or 147 percent of the gross domestic product.Israel and Lebanon are among the few countries in the Middle East without substantial, lucrative natural resources. Israel has built a place for itself with a powerful high-tech sector, while Lebanon has boomed in recent years with tourism and real estate investment. While the gas may not transform them into Gulf-style spigots of petro-cash, it would be a major boost.

Rivlin doubts Israel could become a significant exporter, saying nearby countries don’t need or aren’t willing to buy from it, and the costs of liquifying gas for transport to further markets like Europe may be prohibitive. But Eytan Gilboa, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, said that with the world “so hungry for energy,” Israel won’t have a problem finding buyers.But the development raises security worries, as the offshore gas infrastructure could become a target. During the 2006 fighting, Hezbollah succeeded in hitting Israeli warships off Lebanon with its rockets.”Once those rigs start producing gas, it’s going to be difficult to secure them,” Gilboa said. “So on the one hand, you reduce dependency on imports in times of crisis, but at the same time, you make yourself vulnerable because those sites are exposed.” (AP)

Three bombs planted under a car exploded south of Beirut

Three bombs

BEIRUT Three bombs planted under a car exploded south of Beirut on Saturday, killing one person and wounding several others in an attack that apparently targeted an official from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the state-run news agency said.The official National News Agency said the explosion was caused by “three bombs tied to each other” that were placed under the car of an official believed to be from Hamas.It did not identify the targeted official or the victims. One of the wounded was in serious condition, the report said.Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press they could not independently confirm what caused the blasts or who the explosions targeted. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which controls the area, sealed off the streets in the southern suburb of Haret Hreik and prevented journalists from getting close to the scene.One senior police official said the blast occurred in a neighborhood that houses an office belonging to Hamas.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV only briefly mentioned the blast Saturday, quoting Lebanese security officials as saying “an explosion in Haret Hreik targeted an office belonging to Hamas, causing a number of casualties.” The broadcast offered did not elaborate, and a Hezbollah official contacted by The Associated Press said he had no information.

Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, was not available for comment Saturday and had no information, according to a person who answered his mobile phone. Other Hamas officials in Beirut and neighboring Syria, which shelters the exiled leadership of Hamas, did not answer repeated calls.The explosion comes on the even of Ashoura, Shiite Islam’s most important religious holiday.Explosions in the area, which is almost completely controlled by the Shiite Hezbollah, are rare. Hezbollah has its own arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, which it says it needs to fight off any threat from Israel.

The area was bombed out by Israel during the monthlong 2006 war with Hezbollah.Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is expected to address tens of thousands of supporters commemorating the Ashoura holiday by video link on Sunday.The explosion Saturday night occurred about 700 meters (2,300 feet) from a complex where hundreds of Shiite Hezbollah supporters were holding a ceremony commemorating Ashoura and listening to a live televised speech by Nasrallah.Ashoura marks the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, who died in a battle in 680 against the leader of what became the Sunni branch of Islam. The battle took place in the Iraqi city of Karbala.

Osama Bin Laden daughter hide in Saudi embassy in Iran

Osama bin Laden

CAIRO A daughter of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has taken refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after eluding guards who have held her, her sister and four brothers under house arrest for eight years, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported Wednesday.
It has long been believed that Iran has held in custody a number of bin Laden’s children since they fled Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2001 – most notably Saad and Hamza bin Laden, who are thought to have held positions in al-Qaida.This year, U.S. officials said Saad bin Laden may have been killed by a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan, where they said he may have fled after being freed from Iran, but they could not confirm the information.

But Omar bin Laden, another son who lives abroad, told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Eman told relatives in a call from the embassy that 29-year-old Saad and four other brothers were still being held in Iran.Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Omar were not immediately returned, and there was no comment from Iranian or Saudi officials.

Asharq Al-Awsat said the 17-year-old daughter, Eman, slipped away from guards and fled to the Saudi Embassy nearly a month ago. The embassy’s charge d’affaires, Fouad al-Qassas, confirmed to the paper that she has been at the mission for 25 days and that there were diplomatic efforts with the Iranians to get her out of the country.Another bin Laden son, Abdullah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, told the Arab TV news network Al-Jazeera in an interview aired this week that Eman telephoned him after she eluded guards who were taking her on a shopping trip in Tehran.

Osama bin Laden reportedly has 19 children by several wives. He took at least one of his wives and their children with him to Afghanistan in the late 1990s after he was thrown out of his previous refuge, Sudan. They fled when the U.S-led war erupted, including the group that tried to escape through Iran.

His son Omar told Asharq Al-Awsat that the family had not known for certain the fate of the siblings that fled through Iran until Eman’s escape. “Until four weeks ago, we did not know where they were,” said the 28-year-old Omar, who is married to a British woman and has lived in Egypt and the Gulf. He said eight other bin Laden children live in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Most of the al-Qaida leader’s children, like Omar, live as legitimate businessmen. The extended bin Laden family, one of the wealthiest in Saudi Arabia, disowned Osama in 1994 when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship because of his militant activities. Osama bin Laden’s billionaire father Mohammed, who died in 1967, had more than 50 children and founded the Binladen Group, a construction conglomerate that gets many major building contracts in the kingdom.

Omar bin Laden said he spoke by telephone in recent weeks with his 25-year-old brother Othman, who is among the six siblings being held in Iran. Othman told them that Iranian authorities detained the group after they crossed the border from Afghanistan in 2001, and since have been holding them under guard in a housing complex in Tehran, Omar told Asharq Al-Awsat.Omar said the bin Laden children in Iran were sons Saad, Hamza, Othman and Bakr and daughters Eman and Fatima.

In January, the Treasury slapped financial sanctions on Saad bin Laden and three other al-Qaida figures for suspected terror activities. At the time, Michael McConnell, then-director of national intelligence, said it was believed Saad had left Iran and was likely in Pakistan.In July, U.S. counterterror officials said Saad may have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan, but there has been no confirmation since.

35 tons of war weaponry from North Korea and the arrest of five foreigners

35 tons of war weaponry

BANGKOK The seizure in Thailand of some 35 tons of war weaponry from North Korea and the arrest of five foreigners charged with illegal possession of arms may prove a blow to efforts by the United States to negotiate a halt to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, observers said Sunday.Thai authorities, reportedly acting on a tip from their American counterparts, impounded an Ilyushin 76 transport plane, carrying explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles, during a refueling stop at Bangkok’s Don Muang airport Saturday. Four men from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus were detained.Thai authorities took the action because of a United Nations resolution banning the transport of certain weapons from or to North Korea, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said.

The latest sanctions were imposed in June after the reclusive communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles. The sanctions were aimed at derailing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but also banned the North’s sale of any conventional arms.

The seizure came just days after President Barack Obama’s special envoy made a rare three-day trip to North Korea on a mission to persuade Pyongyang to rejoin six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. Envoy Stephen Bosworth said the two sides had reached common understandings on the need to restart the talks.

“There is a possibility that the incident could have a negative effect on moves to get the North to rejoin the six-party talks and a U.S.-North Korea dialogue mood,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.Thai Air Force spokesman Capt. Montol Suchookorn said the chartered cargo plane originated in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, and requested to land at Don Muang airport to refuel.

There were differing local media reports about the plane’s destination, with some saying it was headed to Sri Lanka and others saying Pakistan.”I cannot disclose the destination of their plane because this involves national security. The government will provide more details on this,” Supisarn said.

North Korea has been widely accused of violating United Nations sanctions by selling weapons to nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said Thailand made the seizure because of the U.N. sanctions.

“Once further details have been finalized, and all the proper checks have been made we will report all details to the United Nations sanctions committee,” he said.Police Col. Supisarn Pakdinarunart said the five men detained denied the arms possession charges and were refused bail. They will appear in court Monday.

Local press reports said Thai authorities were tipped off by their American counterparts about the cargo aboard the aircraft. U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael Turner said the embassy would not comment on the incident.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said it would take several days to obtain details on the incident, which would be reported to the United Nations, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

“People should not be alarmed because the government will ensure that the investigation will be carried out transparently. The government will be able to explain the situation to foreign countries,” Suthep said.

Thai authorities said the weapons were moved by trucks amid high security Saturday night from the airport to a military base in the nearby province of Nakhon Sawan.

Baek Seung-joo of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses said the seizure demonstrated a U.S. intention to continue to enforce sanctions on the North while also engaging in dialogue.

Arms sales are a key source of hard currency for the impoverished North. Baek said the North is believed to have earned hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries like Iran, Syria and Myanmar.

In August, the United Arab Emirates seized a Bahamas-flagged cargo ship bound for Iran with a cache of banned rocket-propelled grenades and other arms from North Korea, the first seizure since sanctions against North Korea were ramped up.

Jewish settlers planned a mass protest in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night

downtown Jerusalem

JERUSALEM  Jewish settlers planned a mass protest in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night in what they said would be the largest show of resistance to the government’s new slowdown on new housing construction in the West Bank.

Police expected thousands of people to attend the demonstration, to take place outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The size of the turnout could reflect how widespread support is for increasingly fierce settler resistance to the government building ban.

Separately, Israel’s parliament on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a piece of legislation that would require a national referendum on any peace deal that gives up control of east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu announced the 10-month halt in most West Bank construction late last month in an attempt to restart peace talks, which broke down a year ago. The new restrictions have infuriated Jewish settlers and their backers in Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition, and government inspectors have been harassed while trying to enforce the ban.

The settlers have been struggling to regain their strength since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, uprooting all 8,000 settlers who were living there.

At the Wednesday protest, lawmakers and settler leaders planned to speak out against Netanyahu, whom they accuse of caving to American pressure.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, himself a settler, said the protest was legitimate.

“If someone came to you and froze construction on your house while you were building it, you would also object,” he told Israel Radio. “I just hope the struggle and the resistance remain within the framework of a legitimate political protest that is acceptable in a democratic state.”

While Netanyahu has painted his order as an unprecedented concession, the Palestinians have dismissed it as insincere and insufficient, since it does not include east Jerusalem or 3,000 homes already under construction in the West Bank. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as parts of a future independent state. They say they will not resume talks until all settlement construction ceases.

Speaking after a meeting of top ministers and security chiefs on Wednesday, Netanyahu said the Palestinians seem to have adopted a strategy of “rejecting negotiations with Israel.”

“This is a mistake. There can be no genuine solution without direct negotiations with Israel, in the framework of which we will reach agreements and arrangements between the sides,” he said.

The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now also cast new doubts on the building freeze, saying that building in the West Bank continues to take place at a greater pace than elsewhere in Israel.

“Beyond the political dispute going on around the settlements, the argument of the settlers that they are discriminated against is simply not true,” said Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer.

Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Jewish Israelis living in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed soon after. Netanyahu opposes any withdrawal from east Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its eternal undivided capital.

If approved, the measure passed by parliament Wednesday could constrain the ability of any future Israeli government to turn over captured land as part of a peace deal.

While the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, Syria demands the return of the Golan Heights. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed them.

The measure was approved by parliament 68 to 22, but it needs to pass two more parliamentary votes to become law.

A blast at a gas station in a Damascus,Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria – A blast at a gas station in a Damascus suburb killed three people Thursday, gutting the back of an empty bus and blowing out nearby windows, officials said.

Syria’s interior minister, Said Mohammad Sammour, ruled out a terrorist attack.

Sammour said on state-run Syrian TV that the Iranian bus driver and two Syrian gas station workers were killed when a tire they were pumping air into exploded.

Witnesses reported seeing flames, but it was not immediately clear how the fire started.

The back of the bus, where the engine is located, was gutted and charred along with the rear seats. The worst damage appeared to be to the outside of the bus. The explosion also blew out the windows of a gas station office.

The blast happened in Sayyida Zainab, a Damascus suburb popular with Iranian and other Shiite pilgrims. It is the site of a shrine dedicated to the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.

Syrian TV quoted Sammour as saying “there were no explosives involved” in the accident and that there were no pilgrims nearby.