Christmas Strike Against Syria: Israel Hides Behind Civilian Airliners, Preventing Use of S-300

Rossiya 24 Report, December 26, 2018.

Source : https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3099794&cid=4441

Video: unz.com/sayedhasan

Transcript:

Journalist: "Prolonging the conflict and supporting the terrorists". This is a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry regarding the probable, as the local diplomats and politicians see it, goals of the Israeli missile attack against Syria. Last night, for 1.5 hours, the outskirts of Damascus were under fire from the direction of Lebanese airspace. The air defense system shot most of the targets down but there are still some victims; an ammunition depot was damaged.

"Basically, this is a rude violation of Syrian sovereignty and the terms of a UN Security Council Resolution". This is the reaction by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Duma members from the Committee on Friendship with the Syrian Parliament agree with that, saying that this is an obvious attempt to destabilize the situation and that this is obviously helpful to the militants whom Israel claims to be fighting.

Another important detail from the Russian Defense Ministry: As it turned out, the Israeli strikes took place just when civilian planes were landing in the Beirut and Damascus airports.

We'll ask Vadim Zavodchenkov: What's the point of such tactics? Vadim, greetings. 

Vadim Zavodchenkov: Good evening.

Journalist: Were they using the civilian planes as cover? 

Vadim Zavodchenkov: Well, Alexey, the initiators of the attack surely knew that their actions posed a danger to civilian planes and passengers.

Here's data from FlightRadar24.com about the traffic in the sky above Syria just before the attack on Damascus. One can see that there are both transit airplanes and the planes that took off from the capital in the south of the country.

Of course, the Damascus airport traffic can't be compared to the traffic of Israeli airports or other Middle Eastern countries. Nevertheless, 15 planes in total were to depart and arrive this day, heading to Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. The Syrian flight operators had to urgently reroute a civilian plane to the alternate airfield of Khmeimim because of the American-made aerial bombs which Israel had used before.

GBU-39 is equipped with folding wings and is capable of gliding, which dramatically increases its combat range. Despite the fact that it's considered to be a small diameter precision bomb, the results of its use may turn out to be rather big.

Victor Zabolotsky, honored test pilot: "If air traffic control doesn't warn the pilot that there's something odd in the area near you, for example, a missile attack or something else, then the only thing that's left is to leave the area because no one knows where they will strike, whether it's the airport, a hangar, or some warehouses. Even if they blow up a depot, the fragments may disperse as far as 15 kilometers and so on".

The latest version of the American bomb is capable of eliminating even moving targets. Such a capability is granted by the joint use of GPS, infrared and radar homing. However, even such advanced munitions can't stay undetected by Syrian air defenses.

According to some data, the Syrian government forces could have used the Pantsir S-1 air defense complex. It was used many times earlier, for example, to fight terrorist drones. The Pantsir S-1, operating on the move, is capable of eliminating a target flying at a speed of 1,000 meters per second. It's almost impossible to evade it. The Pantsir is capable of detecting a target up to 80 kilometers away, it can acquire up to 10 targets per minute, and track up to 4 targets at the same time.

However, they had to limit the deployment of air defense systems and electronic countermeasures systems due to the threat to civilian planes. The goal of electronic countermeasures is to interrupt the satellite signal, thus leaving the missiles or aerial bombs without any way to home in on their targets. However, due to radar jamming, civilian planes can also go blind because their course is corrected with the help of GPS.

Alexey Leonkov, military expert of Arsenal Otechestva magazine: "The means of electronic countermeasures work on certain frequencies and can affect civilian planes. They started the attack right when the planes started to land. Those were the civilian planes near Damascus, they attacked the Damascus airport. Officially, there is no war there anymore, so there were no restrictions for landing".

Thanks to the precise, selective implementation of the Syrian air defense systems, 14 out of 16 guided aerial bombs were destroyed. Alexey.

Journalist: Thank you. Vadim Zavodchenkov about the goals and means.

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Vladimir Putin about Trump's declaration: We see no sign of the US leaving Syria

Vladimir Putin's annual press conference, December 20, 2018.

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/59455

Video: unz.com/sayedhasan

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Transcript:

[...] Rachel Marsden: President Putin, Rachel Marsden with the Tribune Publishing out of Chicago, United States.

Yesterday, President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria. He also announced that, in his opinion, the United States defeated ISIS in Syria, he made that very clear.

What is your position with respect to his statements, both on the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria and also with his statement regarding the defeat of ISIS by the United States?

And, secondly, do you have concern that the American troops will remain in some form? There has been much discussion, for example, around the presence, potentially, of contractors in other jurisdictions where the United States is either out of militarily or might want to be out of militarily but in a more discreet way.

Thank you very much.

Vladimir Putin: As concerns the defeat of ISIS, overall I agree with the President of the United States. I already said that we achieved significant progress in the fight against terrorism in that territory and delivered major strikes on ISIS in Syria.

There is a risk of these and similar groups migrating to neighbouring regions and Afghanistan, to other countries, to their home countries, and they are partly returning.

It is a great danger for all of us, including Russia, the United States, Europe, Asian countries, including Central Asia. We know that, we understand the risk fully. Donald is right about that, and I agree with him.

As concerns the withdrawal of American troops, I do not know what that is. The United States have been present in, say, Afghanistan, for how long? Seventeen years, and every year they talk about withdrawing the troops. But they are still there. This is my second point.

Third. So far, we have not seen any evidence of their withdrawal but I suppose it is possible, the more so because we are progressing towards a political settlement. The current issue on the agenda is building a constitutional committee.

By the way, when we met in Istanbul – I mean Russia, Turkey, France and Germany – we agreed to make every possible effort to create this constitutional committee and Russia, for its part, has done everything in its power for this to happen.

As strange as it may seem, we fully agreed on the list of members with President al-Assad, who designated 50 people and was involved in selecting 50 more from civil society. Despite the fact that he is not happy with everything, he agreed with this.

Turkey, which represents the interests of the opposition, also agreed. Iran agreed. We submitted the list to the UN and, as Minister Lavrov reported to me just yesterday, unexpectedly, prompted by our partners – Germany, France and the United States – UN representatives (Mr de Mistura) decided to wait and see.

I do not understand what is going on there but at any rate, I want to believe that this work is in its final stage. Maybe not by the end of this year but in the beginning of the next the list will be agreed and this will open the next stage of the settlement, which will be political settlement.

Is the presence of American troops required there? I do not think it is. However, let us not forget that their presence, the presence of your troops, is illegitimate as it was not approved by a UN Security Council resolution. The military contingent can only be there under a resolution of the UN Security Council or at the invitation of the legitimate Syrian Government. Russian troops were invited by the Syrian Government. The United States did not get either of these so if they decide to withdraw their troops, it is the right decision.

There is another very important component in this process. Despite all the disagreements, our specialists, our military personnel, security services and foreign ministries have established a rather constructive dialogue to address acute issues in combating terrorism in Syria. Overall, we are satisfied with our cooperation. [...]

Operation "Northern Shield" at the Israeli-Lebanese Border: Why Nasrallah Remains Silent

The operation "Northern Shield" was launched with great fanfare by the Israeli occupier on December 4, allegedly aimed at "exposing and neutralizing the cross-border attack tunnels that Hezbollah dug from Lebanon to Israel". Indeed, the Lebanese Resistance has repeatedly promised to no longer be on a defensive position in case of aggression or war, and carry the fighting inside occupied Palestine, or even to liberate Galilee. Spokesmen of the Israeli government ostensibly congratulated themselves on what they presented as thwarting the plans of the dreaded Hassan Nasrallah.

Israeli propaganda and its docile Western media relays presented the operation as a large-scale military offensive that would strike a huge blow to the Party of God, as if the Zionist entity had entered Lebanese territory (or was about to do so), whether on land or underground. A speech by the Hezbollah Secretary General was announced for the same day by the Israeli and Western media, which would have seemed to confirm the importance of the Israeli operation. And given Hezbollah's silence, it was ultimately said that this silence was due to the shock in which the Lebanese Resistance found itself after this surprise operation that would have ruined its most secret plans.

But what is it all really about? First and foremost, it is ridiculous to equate drilling and excavation work taking place inside occupied Palestine, and not encroaching in any way on Lebanese territory, with some kind of offensive, or even a military operation. Heavy construction, earthworks and fortification work on the northern border of Israel have been conducted by the IDF since 2015, with the aim of creating a Maginot-kind line of defense against Hezbollah (to emphasize its anachronistic character, Al-Manar nicknamed it The Wall of Illusion).

If the Israeli and Western media refrained from any mediatization on this subject, it is because these works of engineering did not serve the propaganda of Israel, underlining on the contrary its weakness: the Zionist entity is indeed cornered to a defensive position for the first time in its existence. But Hezbollah itself has clearly boasted about this upheaval, notably by organizing a media tour in April 2017 to expose the Israeli measures to the world. The promise of February 16, 2011, in which Hassan Nasrallah announced to his fighters that they must be ready to receive, one day, the order to liberate Galilee, has indeed been taken very seriously by Israel. Even more so after the war in Syria, where Hezbollah has acquired and demonstrated its offensive capabilities by liberating vast areas of territory from the presence of ISIS, leading battles that, by their nature, extent and deployed personnel and weapons, are no longer guerrilla warfare. Hezbollah's offensive capabilities have never been based on the existence of tunnels, as evidenced already by the cross-border capture of Israeli soldiers in July 2006, and are now more similar to operations launched by conventional armies, as Hassan Nasrallah pointed out in an interview on August 19, 2016:

When Hezbollah intervenes in the war in Syria, and fights as a very large formation, and with very different armaments, or as part of a very large formation with various armaments, and participates in major and very extensive offensive operations, when he manages to repel armed men (ISIS terrorists), who are not normal combatants, especially foreigners, fighters of such a level (of commitment, ready to die), when Hezbollah expels them from very large geographical areas, it means that Hezbollah gains an offensive experience, a vast experience of liberation of territory through continuous and direct military operations, and not through guerrilla warfare. And Hezbollah did not have such experience before the war in Syria.

This is where Israel is frightened and terrified. Because what Hezbollah does in Syria, if a war is launched against it, it will do it in Galilee. [...] If Hezbollah emerged from the (2006) July war as a regional power, it will emerge from this war (in Syria) as a true military power representing a force capable to liberate (huge) territories not only through guerrilla warfare, but even in a war that looks much more like the classic wars (between national armies).

Hezbollah is not Hamas, and believing that their strategies and tactics are the same while their abilities and experiences are immeasurable is both an illusion and a hoax to which, of course, Hassan Nasrallah did not deign reply.

Why was this show-operation launched now? Netanyahu, who is altogether Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Health, is more discredited than ever in Israel, because of the recent military failure against Gaza –after which his Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman resigned, almost taking down his government–, and of his innumerable legal probes, which led the Israeli police to ask, at the beginning of December, his indictment as well as that of his wife in an umpteenth corruption case. The Israeli opposition, from the first days, openly expressed doubts as to the true goals of the Operation "Northern Shield", as did Tzipi Livni, who denounced the overdramatization of this operation:

We are not now in a situation where our soldiers are behind enemy lines. We are talking about engineering activity within the sovereign territory of the state of Israel. Netanyahu is blowing the incident out of proportion. He made a defensive engineering event into a dramatic military operation. This was done for one of two reasons -- either the Prime Minister is himself panicking, or he wants to sow panic to justify his actions both in delaying elections and abandoning the residents of southern Israel [against the rockets of Gaza].

But we must not rely on the Western media to bring to our knowledge this easily accessible data. For them, only the official Israeli propaganda is worthy of credit.

More weak than ever, Netanyahu wants to present himself as a strong man against Hezbollah, but the operation launched against alleged tunnels, a preposterous maneuver to divert the attention of the Israeli press and public opinion, reveals only the powerlessness of Israel against the Party of God. Hezbollah is well aware that Netanyahu will not dare to launch a war of aggression against Lebanon, and that against Hezbollah, Israel has no other recourse than Washington's sanctions and its own appeals to international institutions –these same institutions and laws trampled on by Tel Aviv for decades– to condemn the alleged violations of Israeli sovereignty by Hezbollah –while Israel continues to violate Lebanese airspace daily– and take action against him.

In the face of such childishness –the Israeli army is more likely to find Digletts and other underground Pokemon than operational tunnels of Hezbollah–, Hassan Nasrallah was wary not to provide any fuel to Netanyahu's show: any speech on his part would have added credibility to this hyped pseudo-operation. Hezbollah media and Lebanese civilians took care of responding, widely ridiculing the operation, mocking Israel on social media, and picnicking with family on the border to taunt Israeli soldiers on the war footing.

A clip called "We'll meet up in Haifa", subtitled in Hebrew, was directed by a Lebanese artist, parody of a famous Israeli song celebrating the Balfour Declaration. Hezbollah fighters can be seen reaching Haifa by tunnel, and spying on Netanyahu in his own home.

For its part, Hezbollah's war media published a picture of Israeli troops taken from behind, inside Israeli territory, while they were facing the Lebanese border, thus proving that even when the enemy is on high alert, its territory remains easily accessible.

Moreover, Hezbollah fighters have stolen two FN MAG machine guns under the noses of Israeli soldiers (the Israeli media have widely reported this theft), weapons that will certainly reappear in their hands at the most opportune moment to humiliate the Israeli army and its government.

 

And on December 12, Hezbollah released this video subtitled in Hebrew and recalling the reality of the situation: it is Israel that fears Hezbollah and takes all measures to guard against it, not the other way around.

It is unlikely that the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah will turn into war in the near future. But psychological warfare continues to rage, and the electronic battalions of Hassan Nasrallah demonstrate day after day their superiority.

Sayed Hasan

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Hezbollah Warns Israel: 'If You Dare Attack, You Will Regret it' (VIDEO)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwqjQdeIrj8

Translation: unz.com/sayedhasan

On the evening of Friday, November 30, Hezbollah's war media broadcasted this video addressed to Israel and subtitled in Hebrew, in response to recent Israeli military exercises simulating an aggression against southern Lebanon, an escalation of violations of Lebanese airspace –from which aggressions against Syria are usually carried out– by Israeli drones, and new threats to assassinate Hezbollah Secretary General. The statement in the video is excerpted from the latest speech by Hassan Nasrallah on November 10, 2018, and the footage shows in particular the precise coordinates of Israeli military bases that would be targeted in case of aggression. Let us remind that Hezbollah's policy is to target exclusively the military, and to hit the colonies and cities of the enemy only in response to the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanese civilians. The civilian/military ratio of the victims of the 2006 war was 1/10 on the Israeli side, and 10/1 on the Lebanese side, a striking proof of the fact that Israel strikes civilians above all, and that Hezbollah favors military targets.

Despite the August 2006 ceasefire, Lebanon and Israel remain in a state of war, and if direct clashes have ceased, information & psychological warfare continue to rage, as are indirect clashes in Syria or even Yemen, where Israeli planes are directly involved in the conflict. At a time when the Gulf countries are openly engaging in the normalization policy of relations with Israel, when yet another futile attempt to strangle Iran economically is at work, and where MBS is touring North Africa to promote Israel's peace agreement with Israel, Hezbollah recalls that its hostility to Israel remains irreducible, demonstrating its solidarity with the Resistance in Gaza that has recently scored a new victory, which foreshadows a real disaster in the event of a confrontation with such a powerful actor as Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah has several times announced as imminent the Great War to Liberate Palestine, in which the extended Resistance Axis (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Iraq and Yemen) would participate.

This video made headlines in Israel Friday night and throughout the weekend, and senior military officials of the Zionist entity reacted to it. In accordance with its policy of anti-Nasrallah censorship, Youtube immediately deleted this video broadcast, among others, by Al-Manar (French) and Sputnik (English) for alledgedly “violating Youtube's Terms of Service”, but Israeli media like Ynet were able to broadcast it on the platform without fear of censorship –proof that the content itself has no valid reason to be censored according to the Youtube's Terms of Service. Only sources that are a priori favorable to Hezbollah are tirelessly hunted down by IDF cyber-soldiers and deleted.

Sayed Hasan

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Hamas Unveils Thwarted Israeli Operation in Gaza that Sparked Recent Escalation

Report of the Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen, November 12, 2018.

Translation: unz.com/sayedhasan

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Starving Yemenis Reduced to Eat Tree Leaves

Report of the Lebanese channel Al-Manar, November 13, 2018.

Translation: unz.com/sayedhasan

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See also: From Palestine to Yemen: honour and shame of the Arab world

Hassan Nasrallah: In Yemen's Quagmire, West Only Cares About Rescuing Saudi Arabia

Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on November 10, 2018, on the occasion of Martyr's day, commemorating the November 11th, 1982 attack on Israeli Barracks in Tyre (South Lebanon), killing 76 officers.

Source: Middle East Observer

Revision & subtitles: unz.com/sayedhasan

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Transcript:

[...] Thirdly, I will speak about an important development in the region, before talking about the internal situation (in Lebanon). From about one month and a half ago, the world became preoccupied with the heinous crime which was perpetrated against the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The whole world was also astonished by the details of the crime: the kidnapping, killing, dismemberment with a saw, and the melting (of the corpse) with acid, and the throwing out of what was melted in the sewerage. The world is right to be astonished, amazed, and to condemn (this crime).