Hezbollah

Lebanon Election: And The Winner is....Saad Hariri

June 8, 2009 - The anti-Syrian (and pro-Western) coalition led by Saad Hariri (son of assassinated Prime Minister) won the parliamentary elections on Sunday. According to last estimation, the coalition would obtain 68 seats in the next parliament, on a total of 128. The Hezbollah and its allies only obtain 57 seats.

It is a setback for the Hezbollah, especially since that victory, wider than expected, is supported by a participation rate of almost 55%, 10 points better than in previous elections.

Short '06 Lebanon War Stokes Pentagon Debate

This article published on April 6 in the Washington Post goes back to the debate that divides the Pentagon in Washington: what the outcome of the Lebanon war in 2006?

Since the end of the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, the Department of Defense has sent a dozen delegations to the Israeli army to draw all the lessons.

Does the U.S. Army need to prepare itself to conventional fighting or, conversely, to focus more on counter-insurgency?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, with the support of President Obama, seems to be in favour of the second.

This is confirmed by an other article by Greg Jaffe and Shailagh Murray, the next day: Gates Seeks Sharp Turn in spending.

Freedom Of Speech At Stake In New York

Satellite TV Peddler to be Sentenced in New York for Letting Customers Get Station Run by Hezbollah.

Javed Iqbal was born in Pakistan and moved to the United States when he was a teenager three decades ago.

He earned his living running satellite TV companies, including the HDTV Corporation, which he started in 2000. Through this company, he allowed some of his customers to get Al-Manar, a station run by Hezbollah.

On August 23, 2006, agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force came to his home on Staten Island before 6:00 a.m. and knocked on his door, and he let them in. His wife was home, and their three young kids were asleep. Some of the agents kept Mrs. Iqbal in a room away from her children for four hours.

The others started to interrogate Mr. Iqbal. He had been in the hospital just two days before for a panic attack, but they initially wouldn’t give him his medication.