Some Light On The Matter:Truckloads of Arms and Missiles from Syria to the "Lebanese Resistance"?

February 17, 2006
Truckloads of Arms and Missiles from Syria to the "Lebanese Resistance"?
From Reuters:

The United Nations on Tuesday asked Lebanon to explain reports of arms shipments crossing the Syrian border destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a foe of Syria, said over the weekend that truckloads of arms and missiles had crossed the border intended for "armed groups" inside Lebanon. He alleged that the Lebanese army intercepted the shipment but allowed delivery to Hizbollah and possibly Palestinian groups.

The army said on Monday Jumblatt was incorrect and the weapons had been stocked inside Lebanon and shipped south to the "Lebanese resistance."

"We have followed the statements about the recent armed shipments including the statements of the Lebanese army," said a spokesman for U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen.

"If this information were to be confirmed it would be an alarming development in clear violation of resolution 1559," the spokesman said.

Security Council resolution 1559, adopted in September 2004, called for Syria to withdraw troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon and for the disarmament of militias. This would include Palestinian groups and the Hizbollah guerrillas, who dominate southern Lebanon.

Roed-Larsen, who reports on compliance with resolution 1559, asked the Lebanese government for an explanation on Tuesday, U.N. officials told Reuters.

On October 26, Roed-Larsen issued a report that cited "an increasing influx of weaponry and personnel from Syria to some of these groups." It said Syria acknowledged arms and people were being smuggled "albeit in both directions."

Asked about the reports, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters: "I think it is clear that any assistance that Syria is giving, which it is, to the continued supply of weapons to armed groups inside Lebanon, is a violation of 1559."

Jumblatt also said the main reason for Hizbollah to have arms was to attack Israel's occupation of the Shebaa Farms in the false belief they were Lebanese territory.

This, he said, contradicted legitimate maps from 1962, which, as the United Nations has said, puts the Shebaa Farms inside Syria.

Other maps produced since then, he said, were forgeries. "Lebanon should not remain an open battlefield against Israel and this state-within-state status should end," Jumblatt said.

Also there is this article:

Last update - 16:48 16/02/2006
Lebanese prime minister condemns flow of arms from Syria
By Reuters

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Thursday that arms had been shipped into his country from Syria, and denounced the traffic as "unacceptable".

The United Nations on Tuesday asked Lebanon to explain reports that truckloads of arms and missiles, destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah, had been brought over the Syrian border.

The Lebanese army had denied the reports, but Siniora said some arms had indeed been carried illegally into his country.

"Yes, there has been some infiltration of arms and personnel into Lebanon. This is something that is unacceptable," Siniora told reporters during an official visit to Italy.

However, he did not implicate Hezbollah in the trade.

"As far as Hizbollah is concerned ... (it) is a Lebanese party which has a representation in parliament and a representation in government. We believe this party has to be looked at as very representative of a good portion of the Lebanese," he said.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who is a foe of Syria, said over the weekend that the Lebanese army had intercepted the arms shipment from Syria but allowed delivery to Hezbollah and possibly Palestinian groups.

The Lebanese army said on Monday that Jumblatt was wrong and that the weapons had been stocked inside Lebanon and shipped south to the "Lebanese resistance."

A UN Security Council resolution has called for Syria to withdraw troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon and for militias to be disarmed. This would include Palestinian groups and the Hizbollah guerrillas, who dominate southern Lebanon.

1404 160206 GMT

And this article from the same day:

UN Asks Lebanon About Reports of Arms to Guerillas

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) - The United Nations on Tuesday asked Lebanon to explain reports of arms shipments crossing the Syrian border destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a foe of Syria, said over the weekend that truckloads of arms and missiles had crossed the border intended for "armed groups" inside Lebanon.

He alleged that the Lebanese army intercepted the shipment but allowed delivery to Hezbollah and possibly Palestinian groups.

The army said on Monday Jumblatt was incorrect and the weapons had been stocked inside Lebanon and shipped south to the "Lebanese resistance."

"We have followed the statements about the recent armed shipments including the statements of the Lebanese army," said a spokesman for U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen.

"If this information were to be confirmed it would be an alarming development in clear violation of resolution 1559," the spokesman said.

Security Council resolution 1559, adopted in September 2004, called for Syria to withdraw troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon and for the disarmament of militias. This would include Palestinian groups and the Hezbollah guerrillas, who dominate southern Lebanon.

Roed-Larsen, who reports on compliance with resolution 1559, asked the Lebanese government for an explanation on Tuesday, U.N. officials told Reuters.

On Oct. 26, Roed-Larsen issued a report that cited "an increasing influx of weaponry and personnel from Syria to some of these groups." It said Syria acknowledged arms and people were being smuggled "albeit in both directions."

Asked about the reports, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters: "I think it is clear that any assistance that Syria is giving, which it is, to the continued supply of weapons to armed groups inside Lebanon, is a violation of 1559."

Jumblatt also said the main reason for Hezbollah to have arms was to attack Israel's occupation of the Shebaa Farms in the false belief they were Lebanese territory.

This, he said, contradicted legitimate maps from 1962, which, as the United Nations has said, puts the Shebaa Farms inside Syria.

Other maps produced since then, he said, were forgeries. "Lebanon should not remain an open battlefield against Israel and this state-within-state status should end," Jumblatt said.

Where Saddam's WMD are buried in Syria

"Article published February 4, 2006, Toledo Blade

Saddam's WMD

LAST week a man who had been deputy chief of Saddam Hussein's air force claimed Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war began.

Special Republican Guard brigades loaded yellow barrels with the skull and crossbones sign on each barrel onto two airliners from which the seats had been removed, Georges Sada said. There were 56 flights in all.

"Saddam realized this time the Americans are coming," Mr. Sada told the New York Sun, one of a handful of news organizations that took note of what he had to say.

There are grounds for skepticism. Mr. Sada was deputy chief of the Iraqi air force during the first Gulf War, not the more recent one, and his account of the movement of WMD to Syria is secondhand. Mr. Sada said he was told of the WMD transfer by the pilots of the two airliners, who approached him after Saddam was captured.

But Mr. Sada's is only the most recent of a series of accounts by people in a position to speak with authority who say (some of) Saddam's chemical and biological weapons wound up in Syria.

●Last month Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel's top general at the time, said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

●Last March, John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took, and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.

●Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September, 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon, and Iran."

●In January, 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group, which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.

"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.

●Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD were being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria, the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.

●In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.

"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.

●In a briefing for reporters in October, 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.

"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," General Clapper said.

You haven't heard much about these reports, because they contradict the theory that Saddam either had no WMD, or destroyed them well before the Iraq war began. The captured files of the Iraqi intelligence service, still mostly untranslated, could shed light on what did happen to Saddam's WMD.

John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, said a civilian contractor who has been among those examining the Mukhabarat files has found audiotapes of meetings in Saddam's office where WMD were discussed. The contractor, a former military intelligence analyst, will make the tapes public Feb. 17 at a conference sponsored by Intelligence Summit, a private group that Mr. Loftus heads.

Mr. Loftus wouldn't disclose the identity of the contractor in advance of the conference, but said his tapes have been verified by the National Security Agency. "This isn't a smoking gun. It's a smoking cannon," he said.

Those who have bet their political futures that Saddam had no WMD may be starting to sweat." Toledo Blade

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20060204&Category=COLUMNIST14&ArtNo=602040352&SectionCat=COLUMNIST&Template=printart

Guess this information "is" filtering down and sinking into the Americans intelligence.

A Lebanese Shia explains how Hezbollah uses Human Shields

A Lebanese Shia explains how Hezbollah uses Human Shields
Der Tagesspiegel ^ | 7/30/06 | Dr. Mounir Herzallah


In a letter to the editor of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel a Lebanese Shia explains how after Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, Hezbollah stored rockets in bunkers in his town and built a school and residence over it.

""I lived until 2002 in a small southern village near Mardshajun that is inhabited by a majority of Shias like me. After Israel left Lebanon, it did not take long for Hezbollah to have the say in our town and all other towns. Received as successful resistance fighters, they appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers!

A local sheikh explained to me Laughing that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population, they use them as shields, and, once dead, as propaganda. As long as they continue existing there, there will be no tranquility and peace.""

Dr. Mounir Herzallah Berlin-Wedding

(translated from the German by David Ouellette)