Obama told me so: 01/21/15

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Fire doused at Sidon’s industrial city

Firefighters doused a blaze that ripped through a paint store in the industrial city area of the southern city of Sidon.

Explosive belts found on detainees after Tripoli blast: report

Explosive belts have been found on 11 suspects detained after the Jan. 10 twin suicide bombing in Jabal Mohsen, in the...

Positive signs in Arsal hostage crisis: Ibrahim

BEIRUT: Positive signs on the Lebanese hostage crisis have emerged recently, General Security head Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim said in remarks published Thursday.

Ibrahim, however, said negotiations have been slow, owing to the split between the two groups holding 25 Lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage since early August.

“What concerns me is the competition between the kidnappers themselves,” Ibrahim told local daily Al-Akhbar.

Islamist jidahi groups ISIS and Nusra Front captured at least 30 servicemen during a five-day battle with the Lebanese Army in the northeastern border town of Arsal in August. Eight hostages have since been released and four killed.

Ibrahim said he was ready for a swap deal “but only under the roof of the law.”

Among the captors’ demands is the release of Islamist prisoners held at Lebanon’s notorious Roumieh prison.

“It seems that there are positive signs on the part of the kidnappers to end the crisis,” Ibrahim said. “We are working on conditions and counter-conditions and we hope we reach a happy ending.”

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GOP-Led House Drops 20-Week Abortion Limit, Will Advance Funding Ban

House lawmakers were set to vote Thursday on a bill that would ban almost all abortions at 20 weeks post-conception, but NPR's Juana Summers reports that they changed their plans late Wednesday as some lawmakers voiced concerns that the bills language went too far.

"Some Republican lawmakers — many of them women — raised objections that the bill's language was too restrictive. They took issue with a provision in the bill that would exempt rape victims from the abortion restrictions, but only if they report the attack to police.

"Democrats opposed the bill and the White House had threatened a veto."

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., told Juana that the 20-week limit wasn't dead, saying "The 'pain-capable' legislation is only delayed. ... It'll be up on the floor soon. We are working through a few bits of text."

The hold-up is particularly embarrassing for lawmakers as it comes on the eve of the annual March for Life, which the Associated Press reports will bring thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators to the capital Thursday.

The Washington Post describes the decision as another sign of rifts in the new, larger GOP majority in the House, which includes more center-right legislators from swing districts.

"Already this month, a large bloc of moderate Republicans voted against a spending bill that would repeal President Obama's changes to immigration policy enacted by executive action. More than two dozen Republicans from metropolitan areas with large immigrant populations also voted against an amendment to the bill that would end temporary legal protections to the children of illegal immigrants."

The Economic Message of Last Night's State of the Union, in Three Images:

Here's a piece of the State of the Union process you might not have known about:

A couple hours before the President heads to the Capitol, we print out a "pocket card" for Members of Congress so they can get all the facts in one easy-to-read place. Staffers print out a big stack of the cards in the basement of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and send them over to Congress in a van.

Staffers accompanied by a police escort head up to the main floor of the Capitol, where they stack the pocket cards in the cloakrooms adjacent to the chamber. Fun fact: That's also where Members' advance copies of the speech are printed, before they're passed out in the Chamber itself, about ten minutes before the speech.

Even-more-fun fact: This year, the American people got their own advance copy of the speech, too. We posted it on Medium, complete with helpful charts and graphics to help drill down on the President's points. Take a look -- and leave notes about your favorite parts.

You can take a look at the actual pocket card that Members received last night here -- but it's a little dense.

So here are the main points, broken down in three images from our enhanced speech last night. Consider it your digital pocket card:

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A demonstrator rallies outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against the Supreme Court's decision in favor of Citizens United five years ago. Eight protesters at the Supreme Court were arrested and charged. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Overturned chairs and shouts of protest briefly shattered the formality and calm of the U.S. Supreme Court this morning.

The session had just begun when protesters in the back of the chamber began yelling things like, "One person, one vote," "We are the 99 percent," "Money is not speech," and "Overturn Citizens United." This last was a reference to the Court's 2010 decision, issued on this day five years ago. That decision struck down limits on corporate and union campaign spending, uncorking a flood of campaign cash.

Today's spectacle soon became even more bizarre. It sounded like loud drums banging as galvanized guards overturned chairs in the rush to get to the protesters, tackle them and hustle them out.

When the commotion subsided, Chief Justice John Roberts looked out over the courtroom with a tiny smile and puckishly announced, "Our second order of business..."

But the protest was not over. More shouters stood, only to be hauled out, with the chief justice helpfully pointing out to the guards that "there are a couple more over there."

By then the chief justice was not amused, declaring, "We will now continue our tradition of having open court in the Supreme Court building."

In all, eight protesters were arrested and charged, and the court moved on to the business of the day — announcing opinions and hearing oral arguments.

Protests are extremely rare at the high court. The most famous was in 1983, when Hustler publisher Larry Flynt was hauled out as he shouted obscenities at the justices.

The White House released a statement from President Obama today, saying the Citizens United decision "has caused real harm to our democracy."

Precision Medicine: Improving Health and Treating Disease

Last night, at his 2015 State of the Union Address, President Obama announced that he is launching a new precision medicine initiative that will help deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.

Many of you may be wondering: What exactly is “precision medicine,” and how can it transform medicine as it is practiced today?

Today, most medical treatments have been designed for the “average patient.” In too many cases, this “one-size-fits-all” approach isn’t effective, as treatments can be very successful for some patients but not for others. Precision medicine is an emerging approach to promoting health and treating disease that takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles, making it possible to design highly effective, targeted treatments for cancer and other diseases. In short, precision medicine gives clinicians new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients.

The Enhanced 2015 State of the Union: By the Numbers

Every year, we do everything we can to step up our game around the State of the Union, using new approaches to engage the public online in different and compelling ways. We want to give people a better way to understand the President’s policies and why they’re important to them and their communities. This year, the goal was no different, but we rolled out an exciting new a range of improved platforms, coordinating with the White House policy and speechwriting offices to build digital content into the speech itself. Find out more here.

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President Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to implement a strict policy of net neutrality and to oppose content providers in restricting bandwidth to customers. Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images

President Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to implement a strict policy of net neutrality and to oppose content providers in restricting bandwidth to customers.

Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images

In Tuesday night's State of the Union address, President Obama offered a number of ideas for improving the economy. Among them was a nod to the role the Internet plays in economic development.

"I intend to protect a free and open Internet, extend its reach to every classroom, and every community, and help folks build the fastest networks," Obama said.

Those seem like goals everyone can support, but there is deep disagreement over how to achieve them. Those few words hint at several looming clashes between the White House and the big phone and cable companies that provide broadband to most Americans.

And Obama has picked a couple of fights with the powerful telecom industry lately. Last week, he traveled to Iowa to show his support for municipal broadband.

Provo, Utah, is one of three cities in which Google is rolling out its Google Fiber gigabit Internet and television service.

All Tech Considered

As Cities Push For Their Own Broadband, Cable Firms Say Not So Fast

President Obama speaks at Cedar Falls Utilities in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on Wednesday. He encouraged the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition for high-speed Internet service.

The Two-Way

Broadband A 'Necessity,' Obama Says, As He Pushes FCC To Expand Access

Google Fiber installers work in Kansas City, Kan., in March 2013. Cities that aren't being considered for Google's high-speed Internet, like Louisville, Ky., are trying to find ways to bring in a similar product.

All Tech Considered

Frustrated Cities Take High-Speed Internet Into Their Own Hands

Twenty years ago, Cedar Falls, Iowa, decided to build its own high-speed Internet network, which is now among the fastest in the country. There are other towns that would like to do the same because their other broadband options are too slow, or too expensive, or simply don't exist. But some cities find themselves blocked by state laws.

"In too many places across America, some big companies are doing everything they can to keep out competitors," Obama said last week. "Today in 19 states, we've got laws on the books that stamp out competition."

The president is urging the Federal Communications Commission to preempt state laws that restrict municipal broadband. But not everyone thinks the commission has the legal authority to do that.

"That's a complete legal fantasy," says Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a market-oriented think-tank in Washington.

He says Obama's speech in Iowa was a missed opportunity to encourage more private investment in broadband networks.

"And instead, not only did he call for government-run broadband as the first answer, he called for the FCC to do something that is unconstitutional, that is going to lose in court," Szoka says.

The president's supporters — and at least one federal judge — would dispute that. What the FCC can or cannot do is a hot topic these days. The fight over municipal broadband is just the beginning.

“ "The commission is preparing to invoke net neutrality's nuclear option."

- Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

The main event is the battle over open Internet rules. Obama is urging the commission to protect the principle of net neutrality — the idea that Internet service providers should treat all of the traffic on their pipes equally. And he's asking the FCC to do it in the strongest possible way.

"The commission is preparing to invoke net neutrality's nuclear option," says Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

Walden is also the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, which held a hearing Wednesday on its own plan to protect the open Internet. Walden and others say it would be a mistake for the FCC to reclassify broadband as a communications service, like the federally regulated telephone companies.

But Michael Powell, a lobbyist for the cable TV industry, says that kind of heavy-handed approach could lead to less investment.

"We want every American to have access to the Internet, and we're impatient about that," Powell says. "It's simply common sense to understand increasing regulatory cost, increasing uncertainty, certainly will slow the magnitude or the pace."

Powell says Congress, not the FCC, should write new rules of the road for the Internet. Republicans on the subcommittee offered some new guidelines. They say their proposal would, among other things, prevent broadband providers from charging Internet companies more for special fast lanes.

But Chad Dickerson, the CEO of the online marketplace Etsy, testified that the proposal is full of loopholes.

"Esty is a low-margin business," Dickerson said. "We couldn't afford to pay for priority access to consumers, yet we know that delays of even milliseconds have a direct and long-term impact on revenue."

Critics of the draft rules say the proposal's real intent is to strip the FCC of its power to regulate broadband providers.

"What is abundantly clear in the majority's proposal is to purposely tie the hands of the FCC by prohibiting them from reclassifying broadband," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. who is the subcommittee's ranking member.

Reclassifying broadband is what the president wants, and it's what the FCC is expected to vote on next month.

Meet The YouTube Stars Who Will Interview The President

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Bethany Mota and two other YouTube stars will interview President Obama on Thursday. YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption YouTube

Bethany Mota and two other YouTube stars will interview President Obama on Thursday.

YouTube

Two days after the State of the Union address, President Obama will sit down for a round of unusual interviews. There's a good chance he'll get a question that none of his predecessors have ever had to answer.

One distinct possibility: "Mr. President, is you OK? Is you good? 'Cuz I wanted to know."

That's the signature greeting of GloZell Green, the self-dubbed "Queen of YouTube." Green is one of three YouTube sensations — the others are Bethany Mota and Hank Green — who will interview the president at the White House about the policies outlined in his speech. Viewers can follow along on the White House YouTube account, and ask questions via social media using the hashtag #YouTubeAsksObama.

The practice of bypassing traditional media outlets in favor of more unconventional forums is a familiar one for the Obama White House. Obama famously appeared on actor and comedian Zach Galifianakis' web-based parody talk show "Between Two Ferns" last year to plug government health care, primarily to young Americans.

The webisode has logged about 28 million views since it first launched on humor site Funny Or Die on March 11, 2014. The next day, healthcare.gov experienced a 40 percent bump in traffic, according to a message from the verified Twitter account for the website.

Here's a look at the three YouTube personalities who will be interviewing the president live on Thursday:

GloZell Green

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Self-proclaimed "Queen of YouTube" GloZell Green. YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption YouTube

Self-proclaimed "Queen of YouTube" GloZell Green.

YouTube

Green is a California-based entertainer who shot to fame after posting comedy videos on YouTube, which soon went viral. A video of her coughing and sputtering after consuming a ladle full of cinnamon garnered more than 42 million views.

According to her online biography, GloZell has posted more than 2,000 videos online, has over 3 million subscribers to her YouTube channel and about 529 million total page views. She has leveraged her internet fame to appearances on television shows including the Dr. Oz Show and Showbiz Tonight, and secured a book deal.

Bethany Mota

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Bethany Mota's YouTube videos feature makeup tips, DIY projects and home decoration advice aimed at teen girls and young women. YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption YouTube

Bethany Mota's YouTube videos feature makeup tips, DIY projects and home decoration advice aimed at teen girls and young women.

YouTube

Nineteen-year-old Mota has more than 8 million subscribers to her YouTube account, which features makeup tips, DIY projects and home decoration advice aimed at teen girls and young women. In a video discussing her favorite October beauty products, Mota mentions immediately putting up Christmas decorations after Halloween because she "...just decided that my room looked really sad."

In a January 2014 article, Business Insider reports that the fashion maven earned about half a million dollars through her videos, and had more Instagram followers than Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazines combined.

Hank Green

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Hank Green has used his online stardom to promote and raise funds for charity. YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption YouTube

Hank Green has used his online stardom to promote and raise funds for charity.

YouTube

More than 2 million YouTubers subscribe to the vlogbrothers channel to watch Hank Green and his brother John Green, author of The Fault in our Stars, rant about Harry Potter, Hong Kong, net neutrality and farting. The project began when the brother realized they were only communicating through text messages and email, and decided to create video blogs for each other to stay in touch.

They have since used their online stardom to promote and raise funds for charity. Project for Awesome, which has taken place every December since 2007, challenges viewers to create innovative videos showcasing the work of their favorite charities. In 2014, the effort raised more than $1.2 million for several charitable organizations including Save the Children and Partners in Health.

Republican SOTU Responses: Immigration No, But Inmigración Sí

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Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo gave the Spanish-language response to President Obama's State of the Union address. He included his support for an immigration overhaul. The English response was silent on the issue. gop.gov/YouTube hide caption

itoggle caption gop.gov/YouTube

gop.gov/YouTube

What do you have when the State of the Union response is assigned to an English-only advocate — but then is reprised in Spanish by someone who supports a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here unlawfully?

You have some explaining to do, that's what.

Congressional Republicans found themselves in that awkward spot Wednesday, after reporters learned that newly elected Miami Rep. Carlos Curbelo's Spanish-language response to President Obama's address was not a strict translation of Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst's English response. That's how Curbelo's speech originally had been advertised last week: "Rep. Curbelo will be delivering the Spanish-language translated address of Sen. Joni Ernst response."

But by Tuesday afternoon, the House GOP' web site no longer had that sentence, and Curbelo's speech wound up diverging from Ernst's in a dozen areas, according to a Miami Herald review. Those differences included biographical details (Curbelo obviously did not grow up on an Iowa farm; nor was he ever a young girl) but also some policy issues. Chief among them: immigration.

Ernst, who reportedly supported English-only efforts as a county auditor and a state senator in Iowa, did not address the topic. Curbelo, who during his campaign supported the Senate-passed immigration overhaul, called for "permanent solutions" to our immigration system, according to the Herald translation.

"Let's also work through appropriate channels to create permanent solutions to our immigration system — to secure our borders, modernize legal immigration and strengthen our economy," Curbelo said.

Democrats made hay from the disparate messages, but Republicans said it was no big deal. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said both Ernst and Curbelo "spoke of the GOP vision of commonsense solutions and greater opportunity for everyone in this country – framed by their unique stories and experiences."

He added: "It's been done the same way since we started doing a Spanish-language response. No change."

The episode illustrates a core problem for the party. As its top leaders found in a 2013 report analyzing why Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election, the party must broaden its reach to Latinos and other minorities or face continuing problems in nationwide elections. Yet the party's base is now centered in the South and in rural districts in the rest of the country dominated by older, more conservative white voters. House members from those districts overwhelmingly oppose any citizenship opportunities for immigrants in this country illegally. Many minority voters, particularly Latinos, strongly support an immigration overhaul that includes such a pathway.

Kahwagi from Arsal: Army ready to thwart terror plots

BEIRUT: The military is fully prepared to confront imminent terror plots designed to destabilize the country, Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi said Wednesday, vowing to prevent jihadi groups from gaining a foothold in Lebanon.

“We’ve made several great achievements, but this does not mean that the threat of [security] incidents and crises are over. We are fully prepared to confront them and they will not be any more difficult than previous [threats],” Kahwagi said.

His remarks were addressed to soldiers and officers after touring Army posts in the volatile towns of Arsal and Labweh on the northeastern frontier with Syria.

“Lebanon cannot change and can never be part of the conflict in the region because of your steadfastness here and because of the strength and unity of the Army,” Kahwagi said.

“We’ve been in difficult circumstances, but we achieved one victory after another against terrorism, whether on the eastern border, in Arsal in particular, or in Tripoli, its environs and other areas over the past years,” Kahwagi said.

Kahwagi’s visit comes over five months after Arsal was briefly invaded by militants from ISIS and the Nusra Front, who captured over 30 soldiers and Internal Security Forces personnel during the battle.

Troops stationed in Arsal clash with militants intermittently, who are still holding 25 servicemen on Arsal’s far outskirts.

Kahwagi lauded soldiers for “ongoing efforts and sacrifices” they have made that have helped curb the infiltration of militant groups into Lebanon and isolate them to a specific geographic area.

Kahwagi highlighted the Army’s determination to prevent the expansion of terrorism into Lebanon regardless of the sacrifices required.

The Army commander said the military’s recent border measures and its crackdown on terror cells across the country would protect Lebanon from chaos and strife.

Kahwagi inspected Army posts in Dahr al-Jabal, Wadi Hmeid, Masyadeh and Qalaa.

In recent months the military closed off all but one crossing into Arsal’s outskirts in a bid to control border movements more effectively. Separately, the Army said it had arrested a man suspected of hosting the two suicide bombers behind the Tripoli cafe attack earlier this month.

The statement said that the suspect, identified as Qassem Youssef Taljeh, was spotted surveying the scene of the Jan. 10 attack in the neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen two hours before the bombings.

He was also seen with the two attackers just before they blew themselves up near the Omran cafe, killing at least nine people and wounding over 30. It did not specify when the suspect was arrested.

The twin suicide bombings were carried out by Taha Samir al-Khayal and Bilal Mohammad al-Mariyan who hailed from the Mankoubin neighborhood, adjacent to Jabal Mohsen.

The statement added that with Taljeh in custody, a report related to the terrorist cell behind the attack was nearly complete, since most of its members had been arrested.

But judicial sources Tuesday told The Daily Star Lebanon’s top military prosecutor charged 28 people over the blast of whom only four were in custody. It was unclear whether Taljeh was among the four already detained.

Later in the day, the Army also announced in a statement the arrest of Mohammad Walid Hujeiri in Arsal. He was wanted for assaulting an Army patrol that left one soldier dead and several others wounded.

The Army also arrested in Arsal Syrian national Nawaf Mohammad Ishaq, who is wanted for attempting to evade an Army checkpoint at the entrance to the town.

According to the statement, the aforementioned suspect possessed papers that indicated his allegiance to a “terrorist organization.”

Israeli towns in panic over Hezbollah reprisal

BEIRUT: A state of panic gripped Israeli northern towns Wednesday as the Jewish state braced itself for a possible Hezbollah reprisal over last week’s airstrike that killed six party fighters and a senior Iranian general in Syria’s Golan Heights.

Israeli forces were placed on high security alert following reports, which later proved to be false, about an infiltration attempt by gunmen from Lebanon into Israel’s border.

Rumors spread that gunmen were spotted sneaking into Israel from Lebanon, prompting Israeli authorities to ask residents in towns near the border to stay indoors.

TV footage showed Israeli police and security forces deployed heavily in towns near the border with Lebanon, manning checkpoints and trying to calm jittery citizens.

An Israeli citizen, interviewed by MTV, complained that most Jewish settlements near the border with Lebanon have been closed as Israel prepared the population for a retaliatory action by Hezbollah for the death of one its field commanders, the son of slain commander Imad Mughniyeh, and four other fighters in the Israeli raid that targeted a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra last Sunday. A top Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander was also killed in the raid.

Reflecting tension over a possible Hezbollah retaliation, Israeli tanks were witnessed taking up new positions along Lebanon’s southeastern border Wednesday, as U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese Army troops boosted their patrols in the area.

“Five Israeli tanks repositioned from the Riaq [military outpost] to the highlands southeast of the Metula settlement,” a security source told The Daily Star.

Helicopters belonging to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon were seen carrying out their routine reconnaissance flights over the Blue Line as a number of shepherds reported seeing Israeli military vehicles and flashing lights across the border.

Residents of the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila facing the Metula settlement also reported hearing rumbles of Israeli vehicles positioning in the valleys south of Metula.

“We have spotted the movements in addition to the high overflights of Israeli military aircraft in most of the Lebanese southern airspace,” a UNIFIL officer told The Daily Star.

Hezbollah’s silence on its possible response to the Qunaitra raid has kept Israel on edge. Israeli media have reported that the Jewish state is bolstering its forces along the border in anticipation of a retaliatory attack.

Israeli officials told the Associated Press that the country has boosted deployment of its “Iron Dome” aerial defense system along its northern frontier with Lebanon, and has increased surveillance in the area.

Meanwhile, Iran vowed to avenge the death of a Revolutionary Guard general who was killed in the Qunaitra raid.

Thousands gathered Wednesday in Tehran at a funeral procession for Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, a day after his commander warned the Jewish state it should await “ruinous thunderbolts.” Allahdadi’s coffin was draped in an Iranian flag as it was carried into a Guards base in southeast Tehran. He is to be buried Thursday in Pariz, a town in the southern province of Kerman.

“The path of martyr Allahdadi is unstoppable and will be continued until the liberation of the Holy Quds [Jerusalem] and obliteration of the Zionist regime,” Guard commander Major General Ali Jaafari said at a ceremony at the base, according to the official IRNA news agency.

“They have in the past seen our wrath,” Jaafari said, adding that the Guards “will continue its support for Muslim fighters and combatants in the region.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah buried the last two of its six slain fighters. The Hezbollah-draped coffins of Abbas Ibrahim Hijazi, 35, and his father, who had died hours after he was informed of his son’s killing, were carried by the party’s fighters clad in their military fatigues amid a crowd that flooded their hometown of Ghazieh, south of Sidon.

The elderly Hijazi, known as Abu Kamal, passed away due to an illness a few hours after the family was informed of the fighter’s death. He had been in a coma for a month, and served Hezbollah as a founding member and dedicated 30 years of his life to the resistance.

The crowd chanted anti-Israel slogans, as the funeral procession marched through the streets of Ghazieh, in an outburst of grief and anger. Black-clad women threw rice and rose petals from balconies on the two coffins.

The same scene of mourning and grief was replicated in the southern village of Ain Qana where Mohammad Ali Hasan Abu al-Hasan, 29, was laid to rest in a procession with Hezbollah flags and fighters which was also attended by senior party officials.

Former premier Fouad Siniora telephoned Hezbollah officials to offer condolences over the killing of the six party fighters.

Al-Jadeed TV said the call took place between Siniora and Hussein Khalil, a political aide to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. – With additional reporting by Mohammed Zaatari

Mystery motive for Qunaitra drone strike

BEIRUT: While Lebanon and Israel await Hezbollah’s response to Sunday’s deadly Israeli drone strike in the Golan Heights, the motive for the provocative attack, which could yet trigger further violence, remains shrouded in confusion.

The continued silence from the Israeli government and military over the airstrike combined with some ambiguous comments in the media from Israeli security sources have only added to the puzzlement and drawn criticism in Israel.

On Tuesday, Reuters carried quotes from a “senior security source” who claimed that Israel was unaware that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi was on board the two-vehicle convoy that was targeted by a pair of drones, reportedly killing at least nine people including the Iranian officer.

Mohammed Issa, a top Hezbollah commander, was also killed along with Jihad Mughniyeh, son of assassinated former Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh.

“We did not expect the outcome in terms of the stature of those killed – certainly not the Iranian general,” the source told Reuters. “We thought we were hitting an enemy field unit that was on its way to carry out an attack on us at the frontier fence. We got the alert, we spotted the vehicle, identified it was an enemy vehicle and took the shot. We saw this as a limited tactical operation.”

This statement raises several questions. The source could be lying about not knowing the identity of the passengers in the convoy in an attempt to dissuade Hezbollah from responding too heavily.

But if that is the case, why would the Israelis engage in such a high-risk operation in the first place, knowing it would place tremendous pressure on Hezbollah to retaliate?

If the source is telling the truth, it raises further questions. Israeli troops have in the past opened fire at suspected militants approaching on foot the United Nation’s Alfa Line which marks the western perimeter of the Area of Separation between Israeli and Syrian forces.

But the two vehicles were struck close to the Bravo Line on the eastern edge of the separation area, specifically near a former U.N. Disengagement Observer Force position between Jubata al-Khashab and Khan Arnabeh. That places the convoy at least 4 kilometers from the Israeli fence, therefore nowhere near Israeli troops and not a visibly imminent threat.

If the Israelis believed that the Hezbollah personnel were about to attack the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan, they must have received solid prior intelligence to the extent that they were able to identify and locate the actual vehicles that were to convey the militants and leave enough time to deploy a pair of drones to the target location.

If the intelligence was that good, surely the Israelis would have known of the identity of at least some if not all the high-profile passengers on board the convoy. Furthermore, the fact that these senior personnel were in the vehicles at all effectively rules out the notion that they were about to launch an attack, a task left to more junior militants.

Any intelligence gathered could have been gleaned perhaps by communications interception from the Israeli army’s electronic listening posts in the Golan and on Mount Hermon or from human sources.

According to sources close to Hezbollah, the latter possibility is causing some internal unease with questions being raised as to whether an Israeli agent within the party’s ranks leaked to the Israelis the identity of the passengers in the vehicles.

It is unclear how seriously Hezbollah is taking the possibility of an internal leak or whether it is more illustrative of paranoia about penetration by Israeli intelligence agencies given recent exposures of spies within its ranks.

Still, to underline the unusual nature of Sunday’s airstrike, the last time Israel employed aircraft to assassinate a senior Hezbollah commander (outside of the 2006 War) was as long ago as February 2000 when four Apache helicopters bungled an attempt to kill Ibrahim Aql, a top resistance commander at the time, as he drove through the village of Barish in the south.

That attempt came in the context of the latter stages of Israel’s occupation of the south when Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters were in daily combat.

Sunday’s deadly drone attack also is difficult to place within the “rules of the game” that have in the past defined the limits of mutual aggression and reprisal between Hezbollah and Israel.

Between 2000, following Israel’s troop withdrawal from the south, and the outbreak of war in July 2006, both sides engaged in a calibrated game of one-upmanship along the Blue Line, needling each other with violence while attempting to keep it within limits to avoid an escalation.

Since the 2006 War, however, Hezbollah and Israel generally have avoided clashing directly, wary of another miscalculation that could lead to a more destructive conflict.

While Hezbollah has shown some signs of assertiveness in the past year with a pair of bomb ambushes in the Shebaa Farms and isolated attacks in the Golan, they have all been relatively low key and retaliatory in nature.

Israel in the past two years has struck arms consignments in Syria that were thought to be destined for Hezbollah but has avoided directly attacking Hezbollah personnel or facilities in Lebanon (last February’s air raid against a Hezbollah building near Janta perhaps being the exception that proves the rule).

That forbearance from both sides for over seven years is what makes Sunday’s attack in the Golan so curious.

Questions are being raised also in Israel as to the reasons for staging the attack and the comments made by the security source to Reuters.

“This leak to Reuters broke all the records for ludicrousness,” wrote commentator Ben Caspit in the Maariv daily. “Israel basically admitted that it had not intended to kill the Israeli general in the strike that it did not carry out.”

Yedioth Ahronoth’s Alex Fishman wrote that the “embarrassment” over killing an Iranian general “has turned into panic.”

“One official apologizes anonymously, the other official refuses to apologize anonymously,” he wrote.

“We are talking about a potential war and the heads of state are playing hide and seek.”

STL hears how assassins acquired SIM cards

BEIRUT: Witness testimonies during a hearing for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Wednesday laid out in detail how the assassins of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri forged documents to obtain SIM cards they would later use to stage the attack. Prosecutors admitted the testimonies of three out of eight witnesses whose ID cards were used to fraudulently to buy eight SIM cards used by the assassination team responsible for Hariri’s killing on Feb. 14, 2005.

In their statements, all eight witnesses, formally registered as the owners of the SIM cards, testified that they were not the actual users.

They had submitted their ID cards to make purchases at mobile shops in Tripoli before the attack, and the IDs were in turn used later to buy SIM cards used by the suspected assassins.

Retired military officer Jawdat Imad recounted that in December 2004, he had purchased a cell phone from a shop in Tripoli’s Qibbeh neighborhood, where he was asked to submit a photocopied version of his ID. The officer, who wasn’t allowed to use his own military ID, submitted his wife’s papers instead. Her ID was attached to an application form for one of eight SIM cards used by Hariri’s killers.

In his testimony, Imad said that he had never purchased the number attached to that SIM card, adding that personal information on the application form, such as his address, was incorrect. He also denied that the handwriting on the application was his.

The prosecution noted that one mobile phone shop in Tripoli’s Qibbeh neighborhood had submitted all eight fraudulent application forms to the alfa telecommunications company on Jan. 10, 2005, just over a month before the date of the assassination.

The eight SIM cards were in operation beginning in January 2005, and each ceased working two minutes before the attack.

The SIM cards were part of the so-called “red network” of telephones allegedly used to coordinate the attack.

Only one of the users of the SIMcards has been identified – the alleged leader of the assassination squad Salim Jamil Ayyash.

In a previous hearing, the prosecution alleged that the red network SIM cards were purchased and topped up with credit in Tripoli for the purpose of laying a false trail of responsibility for the attack, by suggesting that the perpetrators were based in Tripoli.

In his fourth and final day of testimony, former MP Ghattas Khoury, who claimed that not a single Lebanese security agency was immune to Syria’s influence, said that Hariri’s assassination could not have happened without the “connivance” of Lebanese security agencies.

Khoury said that security forces had “everyone under surveillance,” at the time of Hariri’s assassination. For this reason, he believed that security agencies had knowledge of the attack and also “allowed” the assassination to happen.

Khoury’s testimony is part of the “political evidence” being presented before the U.N.-backed tribunal tasked with prosecuting those responsible for killing Hariri and 21 others in the massive bombing.