• Israel's sights set on Hezbollah – not Assad

    Israeli analysts expect more air strikes on Syria to stop what the country calls "game-changing" Iranian-supplied weapons from being transferred by Syria to Hezbollah. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports

     

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News Analysis

    TEL AVIV, Israel –  Syrian rebels have cheered Israel’s strikes against Syrian government facilities, while the Syrian government has said the attacks prove Israel is backing the rebels.

    Nothing could be farther from the truth. Israel is not engaging in the Syrian civil war. Instead, it is striking early blows in Israel’s possible next war: against Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

    “This attack had nothing to do with the Syrian civil war. The big story is Iran and Hezbollah, not Syria,” Professor Eyal Zisser, a Syrian expert at Tel Aviv University, told NBC News Monday.

    “Israel’s message is that we want to change the rules of the game. For the last 20 years Iran provided all kinds of weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. Now this is the end of the story. Israel will no longer accept the rearming of Hezbollah,” Zisser added.

    Analysts here say there are four weapons systems on Israel’s blacklist, whose transfer through Syria would trigger air attacks: guided ground to ground rockets like the Iranian Fateh 110’s reportedly destroyed in this weekend’s attack; chemical weapons; land to sea missiles like Russian Yakhont missiles that can hit a ship 200 miles at sea at speeds of up to Mach 2; and anti-aircraft rockets like the SAM 17s that would endanger Israel’s control of the skies.

    The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd talk about the possibility that the two year civil war between the two country may broaden into a wider regional conflict. NBC's Richard Engel joins the conversation.

    Israeli analysts have taken to calling these weapons “game-changers,” whose transfer must be stopped at any price. But others point out that fearsome as they are, Israel has answers to all of them and is in no real danger of losing its superiority against a relatively small outfit like Hezbollah.

    Where is Syria’s ‘red line’?
    So the public debate in Israel, which the military has kept out of, revolves around this question: Where is Syria’s so –called “red line”? At what point will Israel’s attacks against targets inside Syria provoke the Syrian leadership into retaliating against Israel? Is Israel walking a tightrope that will lead inevitably to a sudden clash with Syria?

    Israel takes comfort in its intelligence assessment that President Bashar al-Assad would rather absorb the blows and the humiliation than confront Israel. The assumption is that Assad knows any confrontation would lead to a brutal Israeli attack, probably against his air force and air fields, and that would lead to his defeat at the hands of the Syrian rebels.

    But Israel is also in a quandary about its best interests: What is better for Israel: Syria under the Iranian-backed leadership of Assad? Syria under a rebel-Sunni-Islamist coalition? Or, most likely, the breakup of Syria into ethnic and religious cantons?

    With no clear answer, Israel is electing to stay well out of it.

    Its actions against Hezbollah on Syrian soil could backfire if Syria chooses to retaliate. So far, there is no real sign of that – although reports from Syria this weekend suggest that Syrian missiles are now trained on Israel.

    But while maintaining a heightened state of alert, and positioning two Iron Dome anti-missile systems in the northern towns of Haifa and Safed, Israel is also downplaying any threat, its citizens are paying little attention, and an order to civilian aircraft to stay out of the northern skies is expected to be lifted today.

    Related links

    US official: Syrian rebels lack 'ability or intent' to use chemical weapons

    Israel to Syria's Assad: Airstrikes not aimed at helping rebels

    Analysis: Israel may be ready for more active military role in Syria

     

     

  • US official: Syrian rebels lack 'ability or intent' to use chemical weapons

    By Andrea Mitchell, Catherine Chomiak and Erin McClam, NBC News

    A senior State Department official said Monday there is no indication that rebels fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad have “the ability or the intent” to use chemical weapons.


    A member of the U.N. human rights commission, speaking to Swiss and Italian television a day earlier, had spoken of “concrete suspicions” that the rebels had used chemical weapons.

    But the commissioner, Carla del Ponte, said that there was “not yet incontrovertible proof.” And the commission itself released a statement Monday to say that it had not reached a conclusion about the use of chemical weapons by either side in the two-year conflict, which has left an estimated 70,000 people dead.

    Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said the United States believes “with some degree of varying confidence” that Syria has used chemical weapons against its people, but President Barack Obama has said it is not clear who used the weapons and how.

    An activist group opposed to the Syrian regime said Monday that an Israeli airstrike on Syrian military targets over the weekend killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers. The dead reportedly included elite troops stationed near the presidential palace.

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group based in Britain, said its figure was based on sources at Syrian hospitals, The Associated Press reported. The New York Times quoted a high-ranking Syrian military official as saying dozens of elite troops had been killed.

    Israeli jets bombed a military research facility north of Damascus, the capital, before dawn Sunday, a U.S. official told NBC News. Video shot by activists showed a fireball rising into the sky.

    It was the second apparent Israeli strike in Syria in recent days. The first came Friday, U.S. officials said, when Israeli warplanes targeted a shipment of weapons headed for Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that supports the Syrian government.

    On Monday, Israel sought to persuade Assad that the strikes were not meant to weaken him.

    “There are no winds of war,” said Yair Golan, the general commanding Israeli forces on the Syrian and Lebanese fronts, Reuters reported, quoting an Israeli news website. “Do you see tension? There is no tension. Do I look tense to you?”

    Syria has accused Israel of trying to support the anti-Assad rebels, but analysts have said Israel is more likely trying to keep the Syrian government from sending weapons to Hezbollah, an avowed enemy of Israel.

    Anti-regime activists also said Monday that Syrian rebels shot down a government helicopter in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, killing eight troops on board, the AP reported.

    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground for its reporting, posted a video showing several armed men standing in front of wreckage that one of the fighters says is a helicopter shot down late Sunday along Syria's border with Iraq.

    As the man speaks, the camera shifts to a pickup truck piled with bodies. The fighter is then heard saying that all of Assad's troops who were aboard the helicopter were killed in the downing. He says Islamic fighters of the Abu Bakr Saddiq brigade brought down the helicopter as it was taking off from a nearby air base.

     

    This story was originally published on Mon May 6, 2013 11:57 AM EDT

  • Analysis: Israel may be ready for more active military role in Syria

    Explosions shook Damascus just before 2 a.m. Sunday, and rebels in Syria said jets struck at least nine locations in close proximity, including a research center. Israel is now bracing for retaliation from the blasts. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    By Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News

    NEWS ANALYSIS

    ANTAKYA, Turkey -- War makes strange bedfellows. President Bashar Assad’s regime is in the unique position of being targeted both by Israel and supporters of al Qaeda.

    It is hard to imagine more a diverse couple: Sworn enemies fighting against the same government.

    Israel carried out a series of attacks on military targets in Damascus early Sunday, close to President Assad’s main compound, US officials told NBC News. A rebel spokesman said about 10 locations had been hit, adding: “They shook all of Damascus. There was still smoke in the air as the sun came up.”

    Witnesses said they heard low-flying jets in the air, but only after the explosions began.  Witnesses also claim to have heard jets in Lebanon shortly before the raid.  Israel has not confirmed it carried out any attack.

    Syrian state TV blamed Israel, and said it was helping the rebels it calls terrorists.

    An Israeli source said Sunday’s targets included Iranian-made missiles bound for Hezbollah.

    The rebel spokesman in Damascus said the rebels’ “spirits were lifted” by the pre-dawn raid, and that they resumed “intense attacks” on the regime in the capital on Sunday morning.

    While there is no evidence that Israel is coordinating with the Syrian opposition, both are worried about what could happen as the civil war spins further out of control.

    Israel specifically does not want Syria to hand over weapons, chemical or conventional, to Hezbollah.

    A group demonstrates outside of the White House gates Sunday, calling for action in Syria.

    Both Hezbollah – which is based in Lebanon, just north of Israel - and Iran are allies of Bashar Assad.

    Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody war in 2006.  But Israel doesn’t fully back the rebels either, especially not a powerful contingent of Islamic radicals. 

    Israel does not want the Nusra front, which has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, to obtain chemical weapons.  Neither does Washington.  Israel’s strategy thus far appears to be targeting threats as they come up and picking them off. 

    If Israel sees weapons moving toward its border, it acts.  But many across the region are now wondering if this raid, larger in scale, is the start of a more active Israeli military role.  Has Israel decided that the longer the conflict drags on, the more risks there are regional stability?  Was this another surgical strike or the start of a new policy?  The answer may become clear in the coming days.

    Related video: Syrian government used chemical weapons 4 times, rebels say

  • Iran-backed Hezbollah warns it may intervene in Syria war

    Bilal Hussein / AP

    Pro-Syrian-government fighters from Lebanon stand guard at the border of the two countries on April 12. The head of Lebanon-based Hezbollah has threatened that his heavily armed group, backed by Iran, may become further involved in the battle against forces trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

    By Zeina Karam, The Associated Press

    BEIRUT -- The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group said Tuesday that Syrian rebels will not be able to defeat President Bashar Assad's regime militarily, warning that Syria's "real friends," including his Iranian-backed militant group, were ready to intervene on the government's side.

    Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite Muslim group, is known to back Syrian regime fighters in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border against the mostly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad. The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah were the strongest indication yet that his group was ready to get far more involved to rescue Assad's embattled regime.

    "You will not be able to take Damascus by force and you will not be able to topple the regime militarily. This is a long battle," Nasrallah said, addressing the Syrian opposition.

    Slideshow: Syria uprising

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    A look back at the conflict that has overtaken the country.

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    "Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel."

    Hezbollah and Iran are close allies of Assad. Rebels have accused them of sending fighters to assist Syrian troops trying to crush the two-year-old anti-Assad uprising, which the U.N. says has killed more than 70,000 people.

    Deeper and more overt Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian conflict is almost certain to threaten stability in Lebanon, which is sharply split along sectarian lines, and between supporters and opponents of Assad. It also risks drawing in Israel and Iran into a wider Middle East war.

    Nasrallah said Tuesday there are no Iranian forces in Syria now, except for some experts who he said have been in Syria for decades. But he added: "What do you imagine would happen in the future if things deteriorate in a way that requires the intervention of the forces of resistance in this battle?"

    Hezbollah has an arsenal that makes the group the most powerful military force in Lebanon, stronger than the national army. Its growing involvement in the Syrian civil war is already raising tensions inside the divided country and has drawn threats from enraged Syrian rebels and militants.

    Nasrallah also said his fighters had a duty to protect the holy Shiite shrine of Sayida Zeinab, named for the granddaughter of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and located south of Damascus.

    He said rebels have captured several villages around the shrine and have threatened to destroy it.

    NBC's Chuck Todd examines the White House's response to allegations that Syria is using chemical weapons.

    "If the shrine is destroyed things will get out of control," Nasrallah said, citing the 2006 bombing of the Shiite al-Askari shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra. That attack was blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq and set off years of retaliatory bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite extremists that left thousands of Iraqis dead and pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

    In recent weeks, government troops have overrun two rebel-held Damascus suburbs and a town outside the capital. They also have captured several villages near the border with Lebanon as part of their efforts to secure the strategic corridor running from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, which is the heartland of the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Chopper carrying Israel's Netanyahu lands after drone spotted off coast

    By Paul Goldman and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC News

    TEL AVIV, Israel - A helicopter carrying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to land in the north of the country after an unmanned drone was spotted trying to infiltrate Israel's airspace.

    The prime minister's helicopter took off after the drone was shot down, according reports in Haaretz and Ynetnews. 

    "The (unmanned aerial vehicle) was tracked by IDF ground and aerial surveillance for the duration of its flight path as it attempted to approach Israel's coast," the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, said in a statement.  "Israel Air Force aircraft intercepted the UAV and successfully downed the target five nautical miles off the coast of the northern Israeli city of Haifa."

    The IDF declined to confirm Israeli media reports that Netanyahu's helicopter landed, but the prime minister did issue a statement shortly after news of the incident was released.

    "I view with utmost gravity this attempt to violate our border. We will continue to do everything necessary to safeguard the security of Israel's citizens," the prime minister said in a statement. 

    The incident was the second time in seven months that a drone had been intercepted in Israeli airspace, the IDF said. It did not say where the drone originated, but during the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon, Israeli jets intercepted two drones launched by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant organization. 

    "UAVs pose a serious threat to the State of Israel's security. The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to violate Israel's sovereignty or harm its security," the IDF statement added. 

    The IDF said it was searching the area over which the drone was shot down on Thursday evening.

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  • Analysis: Israel's airstrike likely to complicate Syria crisis

    By Ayman Mohyeldin, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    There may have been confusion about the target of the attack, but there is no doubt who was behind a deadly airstrike in Syria early on Wednesday.

    The Syrian government said Israeli fighter jets struck a research facility northwest of the capital Damascus, killing two people.

    The Pentagon said Israeli war planes struck a convoy that was transporting weapons to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

    Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border Wednesday. NBC's Richard Engel joins Brian Williams with his analysis.

    Either way, the action and its consequences could widen and complicate the ongoing Syrian conflict on multiple fronts.

    It also raises questions about Israel's vulnerabilities: What was so important of a target that compelled Israel to act? And what was Israel afraid would fall into the hands of Hezbollah?

    In recent days, Iran's ambassador to Syria and a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader both reiterated that an attack on Syria would constitute an attack on Iran. The comment was originally intended to dissuade western countries, specifically NATO, from taking any kind of action against Syria by force like they did in Libya.

    Officials in Tehran referred to Syria as part of the 'axis of resistance' to Israeli and Western aggression across the region. If Iran's words are to be taken seriously, the recent Israeli attack on Syria would be a triggering mechanism for an Iranian response.

    Both Iran and Syria, according to the Associated Press, have said they will respond. How, and when, is unclear.

    It is unlikely the embattled Syrian regime -- and by extension its beleaguered military -- could undertake a full-blown confrontation with Israel.

    Instead, Syria may rely on its allies across the region, including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Iran and Hamas in Gaza. However, those allies may calculate that there is not much to gain from acting on behalf of the Syrian regime.

    Hamas is an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, whose Syrian branch is engaged in the revolt against the Assad regime. It is unlikely Hamas will undertake any attack on Israel for the sake of a regime with which it is increasingly at ideological odds.

    Hamas has even closed its Damascus headquarters since the uprising there began, focusing instead on its own struggle with Israel. More importantly, any unilateral action by Hamas would anger Cairo's domestically embattled Islamist government which has worked to maintain a fragile calm between Israel and Hamas. 

    Hezbollah is much more willing to defend the Syrian regime. Hezbollah has come to the tactical and moral defense of the Assad regime in the past two years.

    Police detonate a rocket-propelled grenade that struck a house in Turkey believed to have come from across the border in Syria. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    However in the past, Hezbollah has also explicitly stated its weapons are for the defense of Lebanon only. It has repeatedly stated that Hezbollah does not fight for anything except the right to resist Israel's occupation of Arab lands. More importantly, there would be substantial backlash against Hezbollah within Lebanon if the entire state was dragged into a costly war with Israel.

    The third possible actor in this drama is Iran. With all of the pressure it faces over its nuclear program in the international arena, Iran is unlikely to take any overt action to retaliate for the Israeli airstrike on its ally, Syria. However, to complicate matters, Iran my ramp up its support for the Assad regime by providing financial and military assistance.

    Instead, Hezbollah and Iran may opt for covert operations across the globe. Recent attacks on Israeli interests in Bulgaria and India -- allegedly linked to Iran and its proxies -- have raised the stakes for direct action by Israel.

    Many players in the region are dismayed by Israel’s airstrike. Even Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which has previously supported the rebels, has condemned the airstrike.

    The Syria regime has begun to exploit this by painting Israel’s airstrike as evidence of an alliance between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar to protect Western hegemony across the region. The fact that those countries are providing money -- and, reportedly, weapons -- to rebels in Syria at the same time as Assad’s regime is being attacked by Israel is only reinforcing a perception there that Syria is the target of an international conspiracy.

    That may slow down the public appetite for Assad's overthrow. It may also prove to be costliest consequence of Israel's attack. 

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  • Israel hits weapons convoy on Syria-Lebanon border

    Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a convoy  the Syrian-Lebanese border Wednesday. NBC's Richard Engel joins Brian Williams with his analysis.

    By Ben Hubbard, The Associated Press

    BEIRUT — Israel's air force launched a rare airstrike on a military site inside Syria, the Syrian government and U.S. and regional security officials said Wednesday, adding a potentially flammable new element to regional tensions already heightened by Syria's civil war.

    Regional security officials said the jets targeted a site near the Lebanese border, and a Syrian army statement said it destroyed a military research center northwest of the capital Damascus. They appeared to be discussing the same incident.

    The strike, which occurred overnight Tuesday, appeared to be the latest salvo in Israel's long-running effort to disrupt the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah's quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel's air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state from just over its northern border.

    The regional security officials said Israel had been planning in recent days to hit a Syrian shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah, which is neighboring Lebanon's most powerful military force and committed to Israel's destruction. They said the shipment included sophisticated Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles whose acquisition by Hezbollah would be "game-changing" by allowing it to blunt Israel's air power.

    The strike may have halted that transfer.

    The Israeli military and a Hezbollah spokesman both declined to comment, and Syria denied the existence of any such shipment.

    U.S. officials confirmed the strike, saying it hit a convoy of trucks, but gave no further information.

    All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

    The strike follows decades of enmity between Israel and allies Syria and Hezbollah, which consider the Jewish state their mortal enemy. The situation has been further complicated by the civil war raging in Syria between the forces of President Bashar Assad and hundreds of rebel brigades seeking his ouster.

    The war has sapped Assad's power and threatens to deprive Hezbollah of a key supporter, in addition to its land corridor to Iran. The two countries provide Hezbollah with the bulk of its funding and arms.

    Many in Israel worry that has Assad's regime loses power, it could strike back by transferring chemical or advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

    Israel and Hezbollah fought an inconclusive 34-day war in 2006 that left 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.

    While the border has been largely quiet since, the struggle has taken other forms. Hezbollah has accused Israel of assassinating a top commander, and Israel has blamed Hezbollah for attacks on Jewish sites abroad. In October, Hezbollah launched an Iranian-made reconnaissance drone over Israel, using the incident to brag about its expanding capabilities.

    Israeli officials believe that despite their best efforts, Hezbollah's arsenal has markedly improved since 2006, now boasting tens of thousands of rockets and missiles and the ability to strike almost anywhere inside Israel.

    Israel suspects that Damascus obtained a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli airstrike in 2007 that destroyed an unfinished Syrian nuclear reactor.

    Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the dangers of Syria's "deadly weapons" and warned that the country is "increasingly coming apart."

    The same day, Israel moved a battery of its new "Iron Dome" rocket defense system to the northern city of Haifa, which was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in the 2006 war. The Israeli army called that move "routine."

    Syria, however, cast the strike in a different light, portraying as linked to the country's civil war, which  blames on terrorists carrying out an international conspiracy to destroy the country.

    A military statement read aloud on state TV Wednesday said low-flying Israeli jets crossed into Syria over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and bombed a military research center in the area of Jamraya, northwest of the capital, Damascus.

    The strike destroyed the center and damaged a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, it said.

    The military denied the existence of any convoy bound for Lebanon, saying the center was responsible for "raising the level of resistance and self-defense" of Syria's military.

    "This proves that Israel is the instigator, beneficiary and sometimes executor of the terrorist acts targeting Syria and its people," the statement said.

    Despite its icy relations with Assad, Israel has remained on the sidelines of efforts to topple him, while keeping up defenses against possible attacks from the regime.

    Israeli defense officials have carefully monitored Syria's chemical weapons, fearing Assad could deploy them or lose control of them to extremist fighters among the rebels.

    President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons a "red line" whose crossing could prompt direct U.S. intervention, though U.S. officials have said Syria's stockpiles still appear to be under government control.

    The strike was Israel's first inside Syria since September 2007, when its warplanes destroyed a site in Syria that the U.N. nuclear watchdog deemed likely to be a nuclear reactor. Syria denied the claim, saying the building was a non-nuclear military site.

    Syria allowed international inspectors to visit the bombed site in 2008 but it has refused to allow nuclear inspectors new access. This has heightened suspicions that Syria has something to hide, along with its decision to level the destroyed structure and build on its site.

    In 2006, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's palace in a show of force after Syrian-backed militants captured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.

    And in 2003, Israeli warplanes attacked a suspected militant training camp just north of the Syrian capital, in response to an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in the city of Haifa that killed 21 Israelis.

    Syria vowed to retaliate for both attacks, but never did.

    In May 2011, only two months after the uprising against Assad started, hundreds of Palestinians overran the tightly controlled Syria-Israeli frontier in a move widely thought to have been facilitated by the Assad regime to divert the world's gaze from his growing troubles at home.

    Related:

    Analysis: Israeli attack in Syria could trigger Iran reaction

     

  • Analysis: Israeli attack in Syria could trigger Iran reaction

    Israeli forces conducted an airstrike on a convoy  the Syrian-Lebanese border Wednesday. NBC's Richard Engel joins Brian Williams with his analysis.

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    Israelis understood something was up earlier this week when two of the country’s five Iron Dome anti-missile defense systems were moved north to protect Israel’s third largest town, Haifa. The government said the deployment was routine.

    This was followed by a flurry of press reports, all quoting anonymous official sources, warning that Israel would not allow Syria and Hezbollah to cross its so-called "red lines."


    That meant if Syria attempted to transfer any of its advanced rockets or non-conventional weaponry, such as chemical or biological agents, to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in southern Lebanon, Israel would halt the move by force.

    Ever since the start of the Arab Spring, Israel has had one overriding principle: Stay out. But when that principle came up against its "red lines," the military risk appears to have outweighed the political risk.

    Wednesday night a convoy of trucks was attacked by warplanes in Syria, near the border with Lebanon, according to U.S. and regional officials. From Israel – silence. It is believed the convoy was carrying advanced Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, which can hit multiple targets, including fighter jets, helicopters and drones, within 40 miles. They would remove Israel’s critical freedom of flight over Lebanon.

    The stakes were raised later by what Syrian state television said was an attack by Israeli warplanes against a military research center northwest of the country's capital, Damascus. There was no confirmation that the target was an advanced weapons collection depot.

    From Israel’s point of view, it would be better to stop these weapons from falling into the hands of what it calls terrorists, who could then intimidate all of northern Israel and much of the rest of the country, too, rather than wait for Hezbollah to get them and then have to respond. Prevention rather than reaction.

    But the attack implies that Israel feels compelled to join the battle -- not to protect either side in the Syrian conflict but rather to protect its own security. And this move would send a clear message to Israel’s ultimate enemy, the regional power that backs both the Syrian regime and Hezbollah: Iran.

    Iran has long threatened to destroy Israel, and Hezbollah is part of its arsenal. Israel choking off the supply of weapons to Hezbollah limits Iran’s future threat against Israel.

    Israel never confirms these kinds of attacks. But a comment Tuesday from the head of Israel’s air force didn’t mince words. Major-General Amir Eshel said at a conference that Israel is involved in a “war between wars” and that "this campaign is 24/7, 365 days a year. We are taking action to reduce the immediate threats, to create better conditions in which we will be able to win the wars, when they happen."

    Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List", "Breaking News" and "Walking Israel".

    Related:

    Israel hits weapons convoy on Syria-Lebanon border: Report

     

     

  • Why Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 rockets and missiles and sitting out the Gaza conflict

    A flurry of violence hit Gaza Tuesday as Israel bombed a Gaza bank and targeted the homes of militants. Hamas responded with more than 100 rockets. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    By Robert Windrem, NBC News senior investigative producer

    Mohammed Zaatari / AP file

    Hezbollah supporters fix the party's flag on top of their rockets near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, in this July 2007 photo.

    ANALYSIS

    For a week, Israel and Hamas have engaged in a war in and around Gaza, one in which thousands of rockets and bombs have been expended, scores have died, and tens of thousands have been forced to take cover. But to the north in Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Islamic militia that rained destruction on Israel in a 2006 war, held its fire. Why?


    The consensus among U.S. government analysts and academic experts is that Hezbollah, which has controlled the Lebanese government for more than four years, believes discretion is the better part of valor. As it has in the past, as in Israel's Cast Lead Operation against Hamas at the end of 2008, Hezbollah decided against creating a diversion that would have helped its like-minded but only sometime ally.

    Roger Cressey, NBC News analyst and former deputy counterterrorism director for the National Security Council, notes that Hezbollah is now essentially the government in Lebanon and has different responsibilities, different agendas. "There has never been a correlation between events in Gaza and Hezbollah's strategic decision-making," says Cressey.

    That doesn't mean Hezbollah wants to make peace with Israel, just that it's biding its time, and more importantly that, in the words of more than one analyst, "it has no dog in this fight."

    "Hezbollah is now the party in control of the Lebanese government," Dr. Robert Danin, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, told journalists in a conference call Tuesday. "That has a way of moderating one's behavior. If they attacked Israel, they know they would be taking the state of Lebanon to war."

    Danin said Israel has made the distinction known to Hezbollah.

    So Hezbollah is working off its own timetable, say analysts. The group has several equities it must be concerned about: Its political position in Lebanon, where as noted it is part of the governing party; the stability of one of its biggest protectors, the Assad regime in Damascus; and uncertainty over the political future in Iran, which has been its main protector and weapons supplier.

    US seeks ‘durable outcome’ in Gaza truce talks, Clinton says in Israel

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is attempting to bring about a ceasefire, or to prevent Israel from invading Gaza while convincing Egypt's president to pressure Hamas to stop firing rockets. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    "Hezbollah's focus is elsewhere," added Danin. "Its relationship with Iran, its relationship with the Assad regime ... Hezbollah is in a very vulnerable position. Without Syria, it would lose its lifeline to Iran."

    If a Sunni government emerges in Syria, it would make Hezbollah's control of Lebanon even more complicated, even tenuous.  "It is ironic that with instability in Jordan and trouble in Gaza, Israel's border with Lebanon is its most stable," Danin said.

    In short, say analysts, the bar is set high for Hezbollah to get directly involved in the Gazan conflict ... with one exception: Hezbollah might move if it felt its arsenal of more than 40,000 rockets and missiles was threatened.

    Both Israel and Hezbollah have to know that the success of the Iron Dome anti-rocket and missile system could, in the long term, dilute the value of that stockpile and could make Israel more confident in pursuing the Lebanese group.  

    Violence continues in Israel and Gaza amid hopes of cease-fire

    That is unlikely happen for a while. Danin explained that Iron Dome, which has been so successful in knocking down Hamas rockets, is not designed to take out the long-range rockets and missiles in the Hezbollah arsenal. However, Israel does have a follow-on system, known as Magic Wand, based on the same basic technology, which could be effective against Hezbollah's rockets and missiles. Problem is that it won't be ready until 2015.

    "Iron Dome would not have the same kind of effectiveness against Hezbollah's arsenal," added Danin. But that arsenal were used against Israel, "Hezbollah knows it would pay a high price."

    Americans tied to Israel caught in the chaos of Gaza conflict

    What about unleashing the Islamic Jihad Organization rather than rockets and missiles? "No reason to unleash the IJO in support of events in Gaza," said Cressey. It wouldn't be very effective and "they know they will pay a significant price."

    There are other reasons for Hezbollah not to take such risky action, say both Danin and Cressey. As Cressey points out, Hamas is Palestinian, while Hezbollah is Lebanese.  So their missions are different, even if their animosity toward Israel is the same. 

    Bottom line on Hezbollah for Cressey: “They will only take only action if it's in their organization's strategic interest, and events in Gaza do not apply."

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has undertaken the difficult task of helping to shepherd a possible ceasefire. Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, meanwhile, is playing a key role as an intermediary with Hamas, a group labeled by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

     

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  • US pledges to aid Beirut bomb probe amid Lebanon violence

    Hussam Shebaro / Reuters

    A Sunni Muslim gunman with a weapon rides a motorcycle through the streets of Kaskas in Beirut, Monday, after a night of tension.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to help Lebanon investigate Friday's deadly car bombing in Beirut, as parts of the city were engulfed in violence that some observers say heralds the spread of civil war from neighboring Syria. 

    She spoke with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Sunday to reiterate U.S. condemnation of the attack - which killed intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan - calling it "heinous", State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

    "The secretary emphasized the United States' firm commitment to Lebanon's stability, independence, sovereignty and security," Nuland said in a statement.

    PhotoBlog: Tension on Beirut streets as political crisis deepens

    "She noted the importance of political leaders working together at this sensitive time to ensure that calm prevails and that those responsible for the attack are brought to justice,” the statement said.

    Protesters rushed the prime minister's office Sunday in Lebanon, ripping up barbed wire and hurling rocks. The situation, which started as a peaceful protest, has become a standoff between protesters and the military. It has also triggered concern that Syria's civil war is spreading. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    Nuland said Clinton and Mikati agreed that the United States "would provide assistance in the investigation of the bombing."

    Syria blamed by Lebanese opposition
    Opposition leaders and their supporters accuse Syria of being behind Friday's attack, and say Mikati is too close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which is part of Mikati's government.

    Thousands turned out Sunday in downtown Beirut's Martyrs' Square for Hassan's funeral, which also served as a political rally. Violence erupted after an opposition leader demanded that Mikati step down to pave the way for talks on the crisis.

    "The Syrian regime started a war against us and we will fight this battle until the end," said Anthony Labaki, a 24-year-old physiotherapist.

    Slideshow: Bombing in Beirut

    Mahmoud Zayyat / AFP - Getty Images

    Huge blast explodes in a central Beirut street injures dozens, kills at least eight.

    Launch slideshow


    Sunday's clashes fed into a growing political crisis in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria. Israeli news site Haaretz reported that the clashes "raised the specter of the nation once again becoming torn apart by civil war."

    A group marched to the prime minister's office, then overturned barriers, pulled apart barbed wire coils and threw steel rods, stones and bottle at soldiers and police.

    Security forces responded by shooting into air and firing teargas, forcing the protesters to scatter.

    "Lebanon is in the eye of the storm," said Fawaz A. Gerges, head of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. "The fact that the protesters came close to storming the parliament shows how deep the crisis of the state is and how weak the leadership has become."

    Fire exchanged in southern Beirut
    On Sunday night, gunmen armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades exchanged fire in southern districts of Beirut, security sources told Reuters, and residents could hear the sound of ambulance sirens.

    There were no immediate reports of casualties from the clashes in the capital, but in the northern city of Tripoli a 9-year-old girl was killed by a sniper and several people were wounded in clashes.

    PhotoBlog: Violence erupts in Beirut after slain official's funeral

    Gunmen have been patrolling the streets in Tripoli, scene of previous clashes between Sunnis and Alawites sympathetic to different sides in the Syria war.

    Opposition leader Saad al-Hariri urged supporters to refrain from any more violence.

    "We want peace, the government should fall but we want that in a peaceful way. I call on all those who are in the streets to pull back," Hariri said on the Future Television channel.

    Sectarian tensions
    Sunday's events highlighted how the 19-month-old uprising against Assad has sharpened deep-seated sectarian tensions in Lebanon, which is still scarred from its 1975-90 civil war.

    Sunni-led rebels are fighting to overthrow Assad, who is from the Alawite minority, which has its roots in Shiite Islam. Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those that support Assad and those that back the rebels.

    Hassan, 47, was a senior intelligence official who had helped uncover a bomb plot that led to the arrest and indictment in August of a pro-Assad former Lebanese minister.

    A Sunni Muslim, he also led an investigation that implicated Syria and the Shiite Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon.

    Damascus and Hezbollah have condemned Hassan's killing.

    NBC's Paul Nassar describes the scene after a bomb killed 8 people in Lebanon Friday.

    But mourners at Martyrs' Square on Sunday accused Syria of involvement and called for Mikati to quit. One banner read "Go, go Najib" echoing the slogans of the Arab Spring.

    "We came for Lebanon's future," said mourner Rama Fakhouri, an interior designer. "And to show that we will not be scared."

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Hezbollah admits launching drone over Israel

    Reuters TV

    A still image taken from Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) video footage shows what they say is a small unidentified aircraft shot down in a mid-air interception after it crossed into southern Israel on Oct. 6, 2012.

    By NBC News wire services

    The leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group has claimed responsibility for launching the drone aircraft that entered Israeli airspace earlier this week.

    The rare admission Thursday by Hassan Nasrallah raises regional tensions at a sensitive time when the group's backers, Syria and Iran, are under pressure.

    Israel shoots down unidentified drone

    Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of launching the drone.

    The unmanned aircraft was shot down by Israel, but the infiltration marked a rare breach of Israel's airspace. Hezbollah had been the leading suspect because of its arsenal of sophisticated Iranian weapons and a history of trying to deploy similar aircraft.

    Freedom fighters to some, terrorists to others, NBC's Jim Maceda takes an inside look at Hezbollah: The Party of God.

    Nasrallah said in a televised speech that the drone was Iranian-made and went down near the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert, after flying some 25 miles into Israel.

    "The drone flew over sensitive installations inside southern Palestine," he said in a televised speech.

    Hezbollah does not recognize Israel.

    "Today we are uncovering a small part of our capabilities, and we shall keep many more hidden," Nasrallah added. "It is our natural right to send other reconnaissance flights inside occupied Palestine ... This is not the first time and will not be the last. We can reach any place we want" inside Israel, he said.

    With a formidable arsenal that rivals that of the Lebanese army, Hezbollah is already under pressure in Lebanon from rivals who accuse it of putting Lebanon at risk of getting sucked into regional turmoil. Confirmation that Hezbollah was behind the drone could produce further internal strain as it pursues its longstanding conflict with Israel.

    Israel routinely sends F-16s over Lebanon, breaking the sound barrier over Beirut and other places as a show of strength.

    Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite group committed to Israel's destruction, has long served as an Iranian proxy along Israel's northern border. The two sides fought a brutal monthlong war in mid-2006. Hundreds of people were killed, and Hezbollah fired several thousand rockets and missiles into Israel before the conflict ended in a stalemate.

    Hezbollah has attempted to send unmanned aircraft into Israel on several occasions, dating back to 2004. Nasrallah has claimed that the group's pilotless aircraft were capable of carrying explosives and striking deep into Israel.

    The last known attempt by Hezbollah to use a drone took place during the 2006 war, when Israel shot down an Iranian-made pilotless aircraft that entered its airspace.

    Since the fighting ended, the sides have been locked in a covert battle against one another.

    Touring southern Israel on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised efforts to prevent land infiltrations from Egypt. He mentioned that Israel has been equally successful "in the air, just like we thwarted the Hezbollah attempt last weekend," his first public statement blaming Hezbollah.

    Israel says the drone was not carrying explosives and appeared to be on a reconnaissance mission.

    During the televised speech, Nasrallah denied sending fighters into Syria to help Hezbollah's ally President Bashar Assad to quell the rebellion in Syria.

    "We did not fight alongside the regime until now. The regime did not ask us to do so and also who says that doing so is in Lebanon's interest?" Nasrallah said.

    Hezbollah's opponents have accused it of sending fighters into Syria. Last month, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Nasrallah for helping Assad crush anti-government protests, as well as two other members for the group's "terrorist activities" in general.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Israeli forces strike Gaza targets after rocket salvo

    By NBC News wire services

    Israel said it struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets at southern Israel in what they said was a response to an Israel airstrike that wounded two militants and eight bystanders.

    Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing The Associated Press, said the Israeli air force flew mock raids over southern Lebanon after a mysterious unmanned aircraft was shot down over Israel over the weekend.

    An Iranian military official was quoted as saying Monday that the drone's incursion exposed the weakness of Israeli air defenses, but did not confirm or deny Israeli charges that Tehran and southern Lebanon-based Shiite militia group Hezbollah were behind it.

    Jamaluddin Aberoumand, deputy coordinator for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the incident indicated that Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity," Fars news agency reported.

    Israeli officials says a drone missile they shot down may have been saying on crucial sites. NBC's Duncan Golestani reports.

    The Iron Dome system, jointly funded with the United States, is designed to shoot down short-range guerrilla rockets, not slow-flying aircraft. It intercepted more than 80 percent of the targets it engaged in March when nearly 300 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel, the Pentagon said at the time.


    The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean near the Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich. An Israeli warplane shot it down above a forest near the occupied West Bank.

    Israeli parliament member Miri Regev, a former chief spokesman of the military, wrote on Twitter it was an "Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah."

    Israeli defense officials have not confirmed the charge.

    On at least one occasion, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has sent a drone into Israeli airspace. Also, in 2010, an Israeli warplane shot down an apparently unmanned balloon in the Negev near the country's Dimona nuclear reactor.

    More Middle East & North African coverage on NBCNews.com

    Sunday's flyover by Israeli jets appeared intended to demonstrate to Hezbollah that Israel retained air superiority, according to the AP.

    On Monday, the Israeli army said it had targeted "Hamas terror activity sites and terrorist squads responsible for the rocket fire"in Gaza, but gave no details.

    Gaza hospital officials said one Islamic Jihad militant thought to have been involved in the rocket attack had been wounded by Israeli tank fire east of the town of Rafah.

    Residents of the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip said an Israeli tank fired at the suspected launch area, slightly wounding four children and damaging a mosque minaret and a water tower.

    The Israeli army says 470 rockets have been fired from Gaza this year, 10 in October alone.

    Full international news coverage on NBCNews.com

    The armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist faction that controls the Gaza Strip, said it had carried out the latest rocket attack with the militant Islamic Jihad group.

    It was the first time since June that Hamas had acknowledged launching rockets at Israel.

    An Israeli military spokeswoman said some rockets had landed harmlessly near the border with the Gaza Strip.

    An Israeli air strike on Sunday was aimed at two Palestinian militants, one of whom was critically wounded, as was one of the bystanders.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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