By Stan Goodenough
Dec 08, 2005
IDF gunners on high alert in the north of the country fired at shadowy objects across the border in southern Lebanon Thursday morning.
The incident took place amid reports that the Iranian-backed and Syrian-supplied Hizb?allah terrorist organization is in a position today to open a military front against Israel in any Arab or Iranian war against the Jewish state.
It also comes a few days after Israeli Military Intelligence told the Israeli Cabinet that the Hizb?allah, acting on instructions from Tehran, had planned to carry out a deep and strategic missile strike on northern Israeli targets on November 21, but decided against doing so.
Middle East Newsline reports that about a month before that date, a leading US analyst had concluded that Hizb?allah ?has become a significant military threat to Israel.?
Ilan Berman had told the House Middle East and Central Asia subcommittee in Washington DC that the Hizb?allah is ?even more powerful than Al-Qaeda.?
?Over the past two years, large-scale missile deliveries from Iran ? in collusion with Syria ? have substantially expanded the threat posed by Hizb?allah to northern Israel, and created the possibility for Tehran to open a northern front against the Israeli government in the event of a diplomatic or military crisis,? Berman reportedly told the subcommittee on October 18.
The Hizb?allah is thought to have about 15,000 rockets deployed in southern Lebanon for use against Israel.
Analysts have suggested that the terror group is just waiting for the right confluence of events that will send it the green light to unleash those missiles.
The Hizb?allah sees itself as positioned to help bring about the destruction of Israel in line with mainstream Islamic teaching.
According to the Koran, judgment day will not come until the Muslim world has vanquished and destroyed the Jewish people.
Over 1.5 billion of the world?s people subscribe to one or other version of this belief.