Middle East Miscellany

Israel - Iran - Syria - Hezbollah - Saudi Cleric - Russia

Israeli surgeons are trying to save a 12-year-old Iranian boy’s life after failed brain surgery in Tehran, and a referral from a Turkish hospital.. "When a child's life is at stake, religion and origin play no part," said Israel Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit. "If we can help, we are more than willing to do so." (Ynet News)

Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan, a Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia, has called on women to wear a full veil that reveals only one eye. He told the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd that showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

A series of private-sector strikes has forced the Iranian government to suspend the implementation of a new sales tax, marking a setback for President Ahmadinejad. Angry shopkeepers in the central bazaar in the city of Esfahan refused Wednesday for the second straight day to open stores, and the strike spread to Tehran, Mashad and Tabriz. Inflation rose in September to 29.4%, according to Iran's Central Bank. (Washington Post)

Hezbollah’s arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was blown to smithereens in a car bombing in Damascus 8-months ago, has been succeeded by a senior Iranian intelligence official, an Italian newspaper reported Thursday, indicating an Iranian determination to consolidate its control over the Lebanese group. A report in Italy’s Corriere della Sera, Hezoullah's new chief military commander is Muhammad Riza Zahdi, aka Hassan Mahdawi, who in the late 1980s served in the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.

Zahdi will be in charge of coordinating weapons smuggling to Hizbullah from Syria as well as the construction of military positions in southern Lebanon, and will likely have a lot of trouble getting life insurance.

The 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut were the first time Islamic suicide bombers had attacked significant American targets. 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers were killed when 12,000 pounds of explosives were packed into a Mercedes Benz trusk and detonated. Sixty more Americans were injured.

Our timid response created an aura of impunity that the Islamic extremists sensed and pursued all the way to the 9/11 attacks, which finally awakened America.

The U.S. intelligence community compiled an all-sources damage assessment after the Marine barracks bombing. They studied signals, overhead, and human intelligence and concluded the evidence was overpowering that Iran had been behind it. In August 2005, Mustafa Mohammad-Najjar was named the new defense minister of Iran. Najjar's previous assignment as senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earned him a reputation of ruthlessness and ideological loyalty. In 1983, he commanded the 1,500-man expeditionary force sent to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. This Iranian unit provided security, planning, training, and operational support for the truck bombings on 23 October 1983.

Asked if Russia had promised Israel prime minister Ehud Olmert not to deliver S-300 systems to Iran, the foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said Thursday, Oct. 9: "We have already repeatedly stated at the very highest political levels that we do not intend to deliver those types of arms to countries which are located in troubled regions." He carefully avoided mentioning Iran or Syria.

There is increasing speculation that delivery of the S-300 anti-aircraft, anti-cruise missile radar system could provoke an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities before Russia’s system becomes fully effective.

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