U.S. President George Bush on Thursday condemned the killing of Brig. Gen. Francois el-Hajj, called for supporting Lebanon's presidential election and urged Syria and its allies to end their interference in Lebanon.
Bush, in a statement released by the White House, said: "I strongly condemn yesterday's assassination of Lebanese Brigadier General Francois el-Hajj..."
That'll teach 'em!
At least one official in the U.S. has some common sense...
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday said Iran, not Israel, is the force that is destabilizing Lebanon.
Gates also rejected suggestions that a nuclear-armed Israel would be a threat to Gulf countries and dismissed suggestions that Washington employed dual standards over the Jewish state and Iran.
Asked whether he thought Israeli nuclear weapons would be a threat in the same way as Iran having such an arsenal, he told delegates at a regional security conference in Bahrain: "No, I do not."
Israel has never officially confirmed that it has a nuclear arsenal but is widely believed to be the only state in the Middle East with such weapons, estimated to number 200.
Accused of applying double standards towards Iran and Israel -- Washington's main ally in the region -- Gates responded:
"Israel is not training terrorists to subvert its neighbors, it has not shipped weapons to a place like Iraq to kill thousands of civilians, it has not threatened to destroy any of its neighbors, it is not trying to destabilize the government of Lebanon, so I think there are significant differences in terms of both the history and the behavior of the Israeli and Iranian governments."
The leader of Israel's arch-foe, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for it to be "wiped off the map."
Western Resistance blog is reporting on this horrific story:
A 19 year old woman managed Sunday evening to escape from her torturer, a Danish citizen of Lebanese background.
She had been held captive for 9 days in a shed in the Sydhavnen district of Copenhagen where she had been beaten with an electric cable and subjected to other acts of violence by her boyfriend, a 19 year old Danish citizen from Lebanon. Sunday afternoon she managed to break out of her prison, climbed a fence and broke into a store, where she found a telephone and called her family.
Read more (discretion advised)
Translated from Jyllands-Posten
Hizbullah Threatens U.S. Troops On Lebanese Soil
Hizbullah threatened Monday that U.S. troops would be treated as "occupation forces" on Lebanese soil.
Hizbullah official Nawaf Mussawi made the threat in a statement to Agence France Presse.
He was commenting on alleged plans by the United States to set up a military base in Lebanon, a charge that has been made by as-Safir newspaper and denied both by the government and Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman.
"It is impossible to accept such a project. American soldiers on Lebanese soil will be considered an occupation force and will be treated as such," Mussawi told AFP.
"Let the Americans take (interpret) this message as they wish."
On Thursday, the pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper As Safir reported that Washington had presented an official request to the Beirut government for the creation of U.S. army bases in Lebanon.
Despite the official denials, Hizbullah continued to warn against any such alleged plans.
On Sunday, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said the creation of U.S. military bases in Lebanon would be considered a "hostile act."(AFP-Naharnet)
This is the "religion of peace" for you. Compassion? Mercy? Not if you're a Jew. These men died while imprisoned, no doubt bound when executed by their savage captors. Muslims specialize in slaughtering the defenseless.
A French official said Israel is convinced its two soldiers who were kidnapped by Hizbullah last year are dead, London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported on Thursday.
The report did not reveal any information on the official or his involvement in efforts to have the captives, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, released.
"Israel is convinced that its two soldiers who were kidnapped by Hizbullah were killed and that the organization is manipulating the situation by saying it is preventing any visits," the official said.
The report gave no further details on the matter.
Since the kidnapping, which set off the Second Lebanon War, there have been many reports in foreign press about the soldiers' conditions.
In July the Lebanese newspaper a-Nahar quoted high-ranking German officials in Berlin as saying they believed one of the soldiers was dead.
The report said the German government had begun to get seriously involved in negotiations for the soldiers' release and was in direct contact with the Christian general, Michel Aoun, who is currently in the midst of a presidential campaign in Lebanon.
The diplomats were trying to get information regarding the fate of the two soldiers, but Aoun, who is cooperating with Hizbullah against the Siniora government, refused to comment on the issue.
