Friday, August 23, 2013

Israel bombs pro-Assad Lebanon militants after rocket attack

Americans Stand with Israel
by Bee Sting
Friday, August 23, 2013

Meanwhile, news reached us yesterday that missiles/rockets (four) had landed in Israel from Lebanon.  Last night, in response to those rocket attacks, Israel's IAF responded "in kind", by bombing a militant base located in Lebanon:  The photos and report by Reuters, below:

A view shows the site hit by an Israeli rocket near Na'ameh, south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, near a network of tunnels used by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in hills overlooking the Mediterranean coast August 23, 2013. REUTERS-Mohamed Azakir

A Palestinian militant of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) stands near a site which PFLP said was hit by an Israeli rocket near Na'ameh, south of Beirut, near a network of tunnels used by the PFLP in hills overlooking the Mediterranean coast, August 23, 2013. REUTERS-Mohamed Azakir

A view shows a crater which Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said was caused by an Israeli rocket that hit the site near Na'ameh, south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, near a network of tunnels used by the PFLP in hills overlooking the Mediterranean coast, August 23, 2013. REUTERS-Mohamed Azakir

JERUSALEM | Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:41am EDT
(Reuters) - Israel's air force on Friday bombed a militant base in Lebanon used by allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and radical Islamists in retaliation for a rare cross-border rocket salvo a day earlier, Israeli and Lebanese officials said.
There were no reported casualties in the Israeli raid near the Rashidiyi Palestinian refugee camp between Sidon and Beirut, or the rocket strike on Thursday in Israel's northern Galilee region.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon called the air strike a "response" to the rocket fire and said he "holds the Lebanese government responsible for what happens in its midst and won't accept any shooting or provocations".
An al Qaeda-associated Sunni Muslim group calling itself the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack on Israel.
However, the Lebanese army said in a statement that Israel had stuck a network of tunnels used by the pro-Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in Naameh, an area between Sidon and Beirut, leaving a five-meter-wide (16-foot) crater in the ground.
A Lebanese security source said the camp was home as well to Islamist militants.
Israel routinely retaliates for cross-border shootings, although such altercations have been rare since an inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas in Lebanon.
Israel has also been reluctant to open a Lebanese front due to spiraling instability in the region, but fears al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria may turn their sights on the Jewish state and the occupied Golan Heights or that Hezbollah may do so to deflect criticism from the Sunni Arab world for backing Assad.
While Hezbollah has lined up behind Assad, al Qaeda affiliates are fighting with Syrian rebels against the government in Damascus.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Khaled Oweis in Amman; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Dan Williams, Editing by Mark Heinrich)

and, from the JERUSALEM POST:

IAF carries out airstrike on target near Beirut in response to rockets fired at western Galilee

Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine claim to be target.

Israeli police survey damage to a village near Nahariya following Thursday's rocket attack.
Israeli police survey damage to a village near Nahariya following Thursday's rocket attack. Photo: REUTERS
The Israeli Air Force struck a "terrorist" target 7 kilometers south of Beirut early on Friday morning, the IDF said in a statement.
The airstrike was carried out in response to four rockets being fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday.