Free Republic

Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday, as tensions surge amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Gallant told troops near the border with the besieged Gaza Strip that others were being deployed to Israel’s north. ...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli troops punched into south Lebanon on Wednesday as warplanes flattened buildings including one thought to hold Hezbollah's top leaders, intensifying an offensive despite mounting international pressure and a Lebanese appeal to spare the country further death and devastation. Hezbollah denied that any of its "leaders or members" died in the strike in the Bourj al-Barajneh district of south Beirut. The explosives did not blast a leadership bunker, but a mosque under construction, the group said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press. The strike was the most dramatic action on a day that saw Israelis...

Plot for revenge attacks on WestIRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington. US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites. Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking...