troung

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/...198268162.html

Hezbollah hits back as army holds its ground
Email Print Normal font Large font Beirut
August 4, 2006

HEZBOLLAH guerillas firing anti-tank rockets, mortars and assault rifles have attacked Israeli forces at their positions inside south Lebanon, according to security sources.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the clashes yesterday and other soldiers injured.

Israeli artillery and aircraft pounded a cluster of frontier villages, killing at least two people, while the guerillas launched salvos of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel killing five people, police said, and several were injured. Two died in Acre and three in Maalot.

About 80 Hezbollah guerillas have been killed in the group's 23-day-old war against Israel, a Lebanese security source said yesterday, though Israel estimates about 300 Hezbollah fighters have died. Hezbollah admits to about 45 deaths.

Hezbollah said it destroyed two tanks in attacks near the border village of Aita al-Shaab, inflicting casualties.

The Israeli army said 15 soldiers wounded in Lebanon in recent fighting were evacuated to Israel, and that Hezbollah fire had delayed the transfer.

Israeli forces are holding their positions at five places some two to four kilometres inside Lebanon. The forces were not trying to advance as of press time early this morning.

Israel has expanded the ground war in southern Lebanon, where seven brigades — up to 10,000 troops — are battling Hezbollah.

REUTERS

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

troung

Update on the raid...

CH-53s (Yasurs) were used to carry in the commandos.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus...0608021651.htm

Hezbollah says Baalbek Hospital was evacuated a few days before Israeli attack
Beirut, Aug. 2 (AP): A Baalbek hospital was evacuated a few days before Israeli commandos attacked it late Tuesday and was empty at the time of the raid, a Hezbollah spokesman said on Wednesday.

The spokesman said Israeli troops had attempted to land, by helicopter, in the area of the Dar Al-Hikma hospital a few days ago, but would not be more specific.

``So it was evacuated and emptied of all staff and patients because of worries about their security,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media.

``It was empty last night, there was no one there,'' he said.

The spokesman said Israeli troops captured ``four or five'' people from Baalbek, but not at the hospital. He said the prisoners were civilians rather than Hezbollah fighters. One was a 60-year-old grocery store owner, and two others, the grocer's relatives, work in construction, the spokesman said.

Israel has said it captured five guerrillas and killed at least 10.

Airstrikes on villages within a kilometer of the hospital killed at least 15 people.

Hezbollah confronted the Israeli troops when they landed, and fought them inside the hospital using automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, while Israeli jets attacked guerrillas outside the building with missiles, another Hezbollah spokesman, Hussein Rahal, said early Wednesday.

Witnesses said the hospital was left partially destroyed after the battle.

====
http://www.registerguard.com/news/20...n=nation_world

Raid strikes deep in Hezbollah territory
By Nasser Nasser
and Sam Ghattas
Published: Thursday, August 3, 2006

BAALBEK, Lebanon - Villagers outside this Hezbollah stronghold used the bucket of a front-end loader to carry away the dead Wednesday, after a night of Israeli airstrikes and a commando raid killed 16.

Israel's deepest thrust yet into Lebanon drew new attention to this city with a notorious past, where guerrillas held Western hostages such as former Beirut-based Associated Press Chief Middle East Correspondent Terry Anderson two decades ago.

Israel's commando raid on an Iranian-funded, Hezbollah-run hospital was not just a bold military strike. It was a blow at the symbol of guerrilla power in the heart of their Bekaa Valley bastion of eastern Lebanon.

Israel's military swooped in late Tuesday, dropping commandos from helicopters, wreaking havoc with airstrikes, taking hostages and then withdrawing. Israel said it captured five Hezbollah fighters and killed 10 guerrillas. It was Israel's deepest assault on the ground into Lebanon in 12 years.

Sixteen civilians, including a family of seven, died in the heavy clashes and air raids. A Hezbollah leader rumored to have been the target of the operation spoke by phone to the guerrilla organization's television station later to prove that he was not captured. Hezbollah did not report its casualties.

advertisement Though Israel has not yet released the names of those captured, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: ``They are tasty fishes.''

Bodies of the dead were hastily shrouded in white cloth and carried for burial to the al-Jamaliyeh village graveyard in the end-loader bucket. Both the village and the Dar al-Hikma Hospital were about half a mile from the center of Baalbek.

The village mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, lost his son, brother and five other relatives. He broke down, cried hysterically and pulled at a limb of his dead son hanging out of the giant shovel.

``This is the leg of my son. He was a sportsman, he did tae kwon do,'' Jamaleddin wailed.

By launching a commando raid so far from its borders, at least 55 miles from its nearest territory, Israel also showed that it could strike at will and anywhere inside Lebanon despite tough Hezbollah resistance along the border area with Israel.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards set up a base in the area in 1982 and helped create Hezbollah during an earlier Israeli invasion. Baalbek quickly became Hezbollah headquarters. It was believed to be the place where Western hostages, including Anderson, were held by pro-Iranian Shiite extremists during the 1980s.

Iranian funding for the Dar al-Hikma Hospital is the kind of evidence the United States and Israel cite to back assertions that Iran uses Hezbollah as its proxy against the Jewish state. Other evidence includes Hezbollah's Iranian weapons and money.

There were conflicting reports about the hospital attack - the death toll, the names of those taken by Israel and why Israel chose to attack that place when it did.

Journalists were not allowed inside the building Wednesday.

Witnesses had said overnight fighting left the hospital partially destroyed, but an AP photographer at the scene said the building appeared intact, with holes that looked as if they were created by rockets. The entrance was riddled with bullet holes and the door appeared to have been broken down.

Two gutted cars were parked outside the three-story building, and a minivan with shattered windows sat nearby, riddled with shrapnel and bullets.

The Israelis say the target was a Hezbollah base, not a hospital.

``It's called a hospital, but there is no hospital,'' Olmert said in Jerusalem. ``Israel does not raid hospitals. There are no patients there and there is no hospital, this is a base of the Hezbollah in disguise.''

At Wednesday's daily Israeli military press briefing in Jerusalem, senior officers showed video of assault rifles and machine guns they say were found in the building. But a Hezbollah official in Beirut said the hospital had been evacuated.

troung

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/doc...198272556.html

Doctor who treated captured soldiers eludes daring commando raid
Email Print Normal font Large font Adrian Blomfield in Beirut and Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem
August 4, 2006

ISRAEL'S most daring raid of the 23-day conflict, when 200 commandos struck deep into Lebanon and seized five men in the north-eastern town of Baalbek, aimed to capture the doctor who treated the two Israeli soldiers whose seizure by Hezbollah triggered the crisis, Israeli military sources said.

The soldiers were believed to have been wounded when they were kidnapped, and the raid on Wednesday was on a hospital in Baalbek.

Israeli media and Hezbollah spokesmen also claimed that Israel's principal target was Mohammed Yazbek, a member of the militia's Shura Council, its top decision-making authority. He escaped capture.

Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, when asked if any "big fish" had been caught, said: "They are tasty fishes."

Mr Yazbek, who is also a representative of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been a frequent Israeli target. His home was bombed in the first week of the campaign. Three of the captured men were identified in Lebanon as Hussein Nasrallah, Hussein al-Burji and Ahmed al-Ghotah and were described as low-ranking members of the group.

The first man shares his name with Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but is not known to be related to him in any way.

A Hezbollah MP, Hussein Haj Hassan, told Al-Arabiya television that four of those captured were over 50 years old. "I call on the Israeli Army to show the world pictures of those captured men," he said. But the Israeli Defence Force's chief-of-staff, General Dan Halutz, said the raid was not to abduct somebody specific or a high-ranking Hezbollah official, but rather to prove the Israeli military's ability to strike at will at Hezbollah. "We have carried out this operation to prove that we can hit everywhere in Lebanon," he said.

The commandos were dropped by helicopter into the Shiite stronghold, 95 kilometres beyond the Litani River, just after midnight on Wednesday, and stormed the Hezbollah-run Dar al-Hikma hospital, from which patients were evacuated last month.

troung

Nasrallah namesake lands in trouble
Web posted at: 8/4/2006 3:45:4
Source ::: AFP
beirut • Nasrallah is a bad surname to have in Lebanon, as Israel tries to break the militant group Hezbollah. Fourteen-year-old Mohammed Hassan Nasrallah found out the hard way when Israeli airborne commandos seized his father and four other men in eastern Lebanon, even though they are unrelated to Hassan Nasrallah, the firebrand head of the Shi’ite Muslim movement.

Mohammed was asleep, together with his father, mother, brothers and sisters, when Israeli elite troops broke into his home on August 2, breaking the doors and shattering the windows of their home in Hay al-Osseira near the eastern city of Baalbek.

“They started shouting, they took us out one after the other and tied our hands behind our backs,” he said correspondent in the Bekaa Valley.

Hay al-Osseira, located at the eastern entrance of Baalbek, a main Hezbollah stronghold, had been abandoned by its residents following Israeli bombardments. But Mohammed’s father, Hassan Diab Nasrallah, did not want to leave his grocery because he was afraid of thieves.

But Wednesday’s night visitors did not want to steal canned food.

“About a dozen soldiers broke into the house. They put the women and children on one side without tying them up. They placed the men on the other side. I was with the men,” Mohammed said. Israel said 200 elite commando troops carried out the operation, the deepest ground incursion into Lebanon since the Jewish state launched its offensive on its northern neighbour.

“They were shouting and mistreating us. My mother interfered and told them to have pity on the children and treat us nicely,” Mohammed said.

But one of the Israelis responded: “Shut up or I will kill you,” according to Mohammed, who said the serviceman also “fired shots over her head.”

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Dis...0608043454.xml

troung

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...eadlines-world

Bekaa Valley Raid Is Called a Boost for Israeli Forces
Goal of the operation is unclear, but it is the deepest penetration of Lebanon in the conflict.
By Rone Tempest and Laura King, Times Staff Writers
August 3, 2006


BEIRUT — Witnesses said the Dar al Hikma hospital in Baalbek was empty but for guards and Hezbollah fighters when the Israeli Apache helicopters struck at 10:15 p.m. Tuesday.

What followed was a withering, close-quarters fight between the guerrillas and Israeli commandos in the heart of the Bekaa Valley, 60 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. It marked the deepest penetration for Israeli forces into Lebanon in the 22-day conflict.

ADVERTISEMENT



The choreographed way the several dozen helicopters and fighters coursed up and down the Bekaa Valley suggested more than one agenda, witnesses said. Among them: a strike against a cache of more-lethal Hezbollah weapons, a mission to capture Hezbollah leaders, or simply a demonstration of Israel's ability to strike swiftly, decisively and at will.

The result — at least five captured Hezbollah guerrillas and no Israeli casualties — was hailed Wednesday in Israel as a clear boost for the country's forces after weeks of cloudier outcomes and outright setbacks.

But Hezbollah leader Mohammed Yazbek, rumored to be the target of the operation, spoke by telephone to the guerrilla organization's television station Wednesday to prove that he had not been captured, the Associated Press reported. Early in the attack, the group had said its fighters had trapped the elite Israeli soldiers in the hospital.

Approaching in darkness, commandos were dropped off by helicopters and covered by fire from the aircraft, according to the Israeli military.

The commandos split up, one group heading into the neighborhood near the hospital, the other entering the building and killing four armed guards at the entrance, Israeli Col. Nitzan Alon said.

"Our forces took control of the entrances of the hospital," said Alon, commander of the operation codenamed "Sharp and Smooth" in Hebrew.

In the hospital, which Israelis also believed housed Hezbollah offices, the commandos moved room to room, clearing the way with stun grenades.

"Then, while our forces were taking control of the building, [Hezbollah] reinforcements continued to arrive and were hit by ground and air forces," Alon said.

Inside the four-story building, troops fanned out from the basement to the top floors, he said during a Tel Aviv media briefing. Outside, they came under fire from nearby houses.

The Israeli military said the commandos came out six hours later without a single casualty.

Israel said it captured five fighters and killed 19 in the strike on the outskirts of the city famous for its Roman ruins. Lebanese authorities reported six captured, 11 killed.

Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general and security expert, said that in addition to the hunt for high-ranking Hezbollah leaders, Israel may also have been searching for larger, more lethal weapons held by the rear guard.

Israeli military analysts speculated that the raid also could have been an attempt to rescue Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who were captured in the July 12 Hezbollah raid that set off the current conflict.

Whatever the goal, Israeli military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai called the results a "tie-breaker."

"Even if the objectives weren't achieved in full, the raid in Baalbek undermines the myth of ground supremacy nurtured by Hezbollah," Ben-Yishai wrote on the newspaper Yediot Aharonot's YNET website. "It doesn't matter whether the units succeeded in reaching 100% of their goals — when the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] succeeds in penetrating the organization's most important military and civilian stronghold at a time it is on highest alert, this is a grave blow to morale."

In preparation for the landing by commando forces, helicopter-fired rockets and heavy machine-gun bursts raked the area near the hospital. Power cuts plunged Baalbek and surrounding villages into darkness. Flares lighted the night sky and smoke billowed from the hospital.

Residents said the swooping helicopters came in four waves.

Israeli officials said warplanes also made at least 10 bombing runs, striking the Baalbek neighborhoods thought to be home to Hezbollah figures.

troung

Update on admitted losses by the Lebanese forces.

Hizbollah admitted losing 49
Amal admitted losing 10
The Communist party admitted losing 5

Recieved from a member of ACIG from the region.

troung

Two soldiers killed in pre-dawn battle in Markabe

By YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST STAFF AND AP


Two IDF soldiers from the Golani brigade were killed before dawn Friday in heavy clashes with Hizbullah guerrillas in the village of Markabe in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon.

One of the fallen soldiers was identified as First Sgt. Daniel Shiran, 20, from Haifa. His funeral was set for 3 p.m. in the city's military cemetery.

The IDF said that the soldiers from battalion 13 suffered heavy losses after Hizbullah gunmen opened fire at troops operating in the village with a wave of anti-tank rockets and machine guns.

An officer was seriously wounded and taken the Rambam hospital in Haifa.

Heavy fighting was continuing on Friday between IDF ground troops and Hizbullah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

Two soldiers were wounded, one seriously, after an anti-tank rocket hit their D9 bulldozer in the village of Ataybeh, in the eastern sector of southern Lebanon. One of the wounded was part of an engineering force operating in the area.

The soldiers were taken to the hospital for medical treatment. IDF forces took several of the Hizbullah operatives captive.


The IDF also continued to call on residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes, with emphasis on the villages of Beit Lif and el-Haniyah, and to head north of the Litani river. The IDF said that whoever refused to obey the order would be risking their lives.

The army also said that Ataybeh was used as launching pad for Katyushas that were fired at Israel and caused casualties.

During the fighting in Ataybeh, the IDF killed at least seven Hizbullah terrorists, blew up several weapons warehouses, and neutralized a Katyusha launcher that was pointed at the Israeli border community of Misgav Am. IDF forces also found a large weapons cache in the area, and destroyed a car bringing reinforcements to the Hizbullah.


Since the IDF began operating in Ataybeh, troops have killed over 20 Hizbullah terrorists in the village. Over the past few days, troops have discovered anti-tank missiles, RPGs, explosives, and a Katyusha launcher ready to be fired at Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel's pounding of Hizbullah positions across Lebanon expanded Friday with missiles targeting bridges in the Christian heartland north of Beirut for the first time.

Four civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the airstrikes north of the capital, the Lebanese Red Cross said. A Lebanese soldier and four civilians were killed in air raids near Beirut's airport and southern suburbs, security officials and witnesses said.

The IDF destruction of four bridges on the main north-south coastal highway linking Beirut to Syria contributed to further seal Lebanon from the outside world Friday, as the Israeli naval blockade - along with earlier strikes against the road to the eastern boarder and the capital's international airport - have largely closed off other access points.

The Israeli military said the targets of the latest attacks in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh were Hizbullah facilities and a Hamas office. Beirut media said Israel launched 24 bombing runs in an hour.

The strikes early Friday hit the affluent Christian locality of Jounieh, north of the capital, for the first time.

In the hills of southern Lebanon, Israeli artillery intensified bombing overnight, sometimes sending as many as 15 shells per minute against suspected Hizbullah strongholds.

IDF forces killed four Hizbullah operatives in the village of Shama and launched a chase after the remaining fighters. Another Hizbullah guerrilla was killed in the town of Manhelle.

The IAF targeted the "Ibrahim Abed Al" power plant in the eastern sector. The strike caused power outages in the area.

The jets also fired missiles on a bridge in Jounieh, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli fire power also rendered impassable the Madfoun Bridge, about 40 kilometers north of Beirut, the officials said. The strikes on the bridges cut off the roads that link Beirut with the northern part of the country. Two other bridges were struck as well.

In pre-dawn raids, Israeli fighter jets made 24 over-flights in less than an hour over the southern suburb of Ouzai, local media reported. Lebanon's independent New TV aired footage of huge fires raging against the night sky in several locations.

The attacks on Ouzai, a predominantly Shi'ite Muslim area, were the first since fighting between Hizbullah and Israel began 24 days ago. At daybreak, New TV reported two additional strikes on the area, airing footage of smoke billowing from buildings.

The IAF dropped leaflets over Beirut earlier in the day, warning residents of five neighborhoods to leave the city.

Fighter jets launched three attacks near Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, Hezbollah's TV, Al-Manar, and witnesses reached by telephone said.

Another air strike was launched near the Lebanese-Syrian border crossing at Masnaa, east of Beirut, the Voice of Lebanon radio said.

Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel in a televised interview earlier in the day that if Beirut was struck, then he would launch rockets at Tel Aviv.

Since the beginning of operation Change of Direction, IDF forces have killed over 400 Hizbullah terrorists.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Bluesman

truong, can you quit spamming all of the threads, please? A little origianl commentary, a bit of thought, not so much cut and paste, OKAY?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Parihaka

It's because he's scared of you
There is no defensable argument against Troung being God's gift to mankind
There is no defensable argument against Troung being God's gift to mankind

__________________
In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

troung

Aug. 3, 2006 0:40 | Updated Aug. 3, 2006 14:16
Anti-tank missiles are Hizbullah's main tactic
By ANSHEL PFEFFER

Lt. Ohad Shamir was commanding a surveillance team hiding in Maroun a-Ras. Their mission was to locate Hizbullah fighters still operating near the village after it had been captured by Golani and Paratroopers units. Shamir's men felt pretty safe - during the 10 days they spent in the village, not a shot had been fired at their building. But then an antitank missile hit the structure and Shamir was lightly wounded.

On Wednesday, he was being treated at Safed's Ziv Hospital for fragments in his back.

"They are small teams, three of four people, hiding in the undergrowth, firing out of nowhere. They're the biggest danger," he said of the Hizbullah gunmen.

The same story repeats itself time and again in the hospital wards where wounded solders are recovering and comparing experiences. No one has yet begun analyzing the causes of casualties in this war, but the indisputable fact is that the great majority of wounds and deaths were a result of antitank missiles - more than from gunfire, grenades and other explosive devices together.

The term "antitank" is misleading; the missiles were originally designed to be used against tanks, but the IDF's Merkava tanks and upgraded armored fighting vehicles are capable of withstanding most missiles in Hizbullah's arsenal. But Hizbullah isn't using them only against tanks. The range of these missiles - up to three kilometers - and the force of their explosive charges make them ideal for attacking groups of soldiers and IDF positions from afar.

Hizbullah have been preparing for this war for six years, and the two main weapons they have been stockpiling have been the Katyushas and other rockets now being fired at Israeli towns and antitank missiles. The organization has thousands of Soviet-built Sagger, Cornet and Fagot antitank missiles, the French MILAN and the US-built TOW, all supplied by Iran and Syria. These missiles are usually fired by a two- or three-man team.

Over the last two weeks, the tactic used by many of the Hizbullah teams has been to avoid close-range combat, where IDF soldiers' high level of training gives them the upper hand. Instead, the Hizbullah men have been moving to positions high above villages and continuing to fire missiles at the IDF forces. Large stores of missiles were prepared in the hills in advance, for this eventuality.

IDF officers have voiced frustration at the fact that even in areas where the IDF has been operating for more than a week, the missile threat still exists. On Monday, tanks that had been fighting for two days in the villages opposite Metulla came under missile fire when they were returning through the border fence.

Col. Ofek Buchris, a former Golani battalion commander and the officer now in charge of offensive operations on the northern front, said this week, "Hizbullah aren't as good soldiers as people have been saying, they don't have good combat skills. In shooting battles, we beat them every time. What they do have is good antitank capabilities.

"They were trained for this especially by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. For intents and purposes, Hizbullah is Iran's advance division here."

One of the first results of the IDF's experiences facing Hizbullah antitank missiles has been the quick adaptation of new training for reserve units that have just been called up. In addition to weapons and first aid refresher lessons, the men mobilized this week have all received special training on detecting and avoiding the missiles.


====
People have seen them with M-47 Dragons, AT-3/Raads, AT-4s, TOWs, RPG-7s, M-72/RPG-18s, RRs, but AT-14s have not so far been seen. Might just be confusion over the TOW/Tophans. TOW/Tophans have been captured by the IDF over the last two weeks.

It reminds me of the 1990s when they were firing AT-10s at the IDF... I guess from their BMP-3s...

Back in the 1990s Hezbollah did use TOWs to engage bunkers.

Lahori paa jee

These articles quite interesting to read n to get the other side of picture. One should have the guts to handle the truth.

__________________
Nisaar main teri galiyon pe aaye watan, ke jahan
Chali hai rasm keh koi na sar utha keh chaley

Confed999

The only statistics I believe are the ones comming from Israel.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

smilingassassin

What other side of the picture?!!! All we here about is the poor Lebanese civilians who get maimed and killed, no mention of how many Hezbollah coachroachs get squashed, very little unbiased simpathy shown for Israeli deaths (they are evil after all)....the list goes on.

I agree with Blues on this, in addition to the endless stream of articles on the conflict troungs even smamming his own posts with additional cut and paste jobs with zero personal comentary. I get enough of this crap on the news, I want to hear a personal opinion.....and shoot it down in flames if I can......

Parihaka

Then stop crapping up troungs news thread and start your own. You will note of course that he has three threads going, all of which he started?

troung

The worst part is there are at least two discussion threads going... I don't know why news pisses off a hand full of people...