Submitted by: M Mulukin
Hizballah stronghold in South Lebanon rocked by powerful blast
September 23, 2020
Hizballah members have cordoned off the southern Lebanese village of Ain Qana overlooking the port city of Sidon, after a strong explosion on Tuesday afternoon, September 22, damaged buildings and caused panic among its residents.
Footage broadcast by the local Al Jadeed station showed debris scattered across a large area. The shaky footage also showed what appeared to be a minibus on fire. Other footage showed a wrecked SUV parked outside a damaged house. The cause of the blast is not known. There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese government.
Hizballah spokesman are claiming that the blast at Ain Qana, 50km south of Beirut, coincided with “intense Israeli over-flights over the area” from Tuesday morning. The Israeli military had no comment.
The Hizballah media office told Al Jazeera the explosion was caused by a “technical error” at their arms depot, which sent a huge column of black smoke into the sky. This explosion at a house that stored weapons was caused by a technical error, it was claimed. No one was killed or injured. “The building belonged to a Hizballah affiliated de-mining association.”
Hizballah is known to have distributed its arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles in different parts of Shiite-dominated southern Lebanon.
It is again accused of caching them in residential areas in disregard of the jeopardy to civilians.
The same charge was levelled against the Shiite terrorist group after a huge explosion and fire a caused by the detonation of nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate at Beirut port seven weeks ago killed nearly 200 people and flattened tens of thousands of city buildings.
Developing...........
Tougher Covid19 restrictions stalled by tussle over protest demonstrations
September 23, 2020
The coronavirus cabinet ministers’ discussion of tougher lockdown measures boiled down on Tuesday, September 22, to a debate over a demand to ban the mass anti-government demonstrations taking place weekly outside the prime minister’s Jerusalem residence.
They all acknowledged that there is no option but to impose tougher sanctions since the current lockdown imposed last Friday is inadequate and far from comprehensively upheld by the public. The hospitals are warning that if the number of seriously ill patients tops 900-1000 by next week, as predicted by health experts, medical staff will be unable to maintain their current excellence of treatment in any of the hospital departments.
However, the plan for the next stage of the lockdown presented to the ministers by the Coronavirus Director Ronni Gamzu stands or falls over a major debate. His recommendations to close the synagogues or hold Yom Kippur prayers outdoors drew an angry ultimatum from the religious ministers and the rabbis: So long as thousands of protesters are allowed to rally at close quarters without masks week after week in Jerusalem, no limits on religious ritual will be accepted, they insisted.
It was also argued that the demonstrations make a mockery of the health restrictions and are the root of widespread public disobedience. The Kahol Lavon ministers, backed by the attorney general, were equally adamant about keeping the demonstrations going at all costs in accordance with democratic principles.
After long hours of debate, the ministers decided to reconvene on Wednesday to seek a format for demonstrations that meet health standards.
PM Binyamin Netanyahu, who stayed out of the argument until now, stepped in with these remarks: “We all understand, including the left, that we are in a state of emergency. After hearing the experts expand on the immense danger presented by crowded gatherings, I must point out that the entire nation is being forced to accept hard restraints, excepting only a group of protesters who demand special privileges.”
He went on to say: “We are obliged to stay a kilometre from the Western Wall, but people from all over the country may gather close to the Balfour residence.” Netanyahu stressed: “There must be one law for all – prayers and protests alike, otherwise the public will pay no heed to health directives and we’ll see coronavirus infection spreading on a horrible scale.”
Ministry of Health figures for Tuesday night: a total of 193,374 infections including 3,858 new cases; 51,338 active cases, of which a rising 668 are active. Altogether 1,285 victims have lost their lives since the outbreak in March.
Reliable no more? The current state of the Syrian armed forces
Syrian President Bashar al Assad visits Syrian
army troops in war-torn north-western Idlib
province, Syria
22 September 2020
Throughout the past nine years of conflict, the Syrian military has been instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Bashar al-Assad regime—not because of its performance on the battlefield, but rather due to its consistent loyalty.
Unlike other state militaries that faced regime challenges by the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, the Syrian armed forces maintained institutional loyalty. Since the Assad family took power in the 1970’s, the military underwent a structural transformation that, through control mechanisms and the Alawite minority’s hegemonic position, ensured force loyalty and upheld the military’s central role in the durability of Syria’s authoritarian regime.
However, the current conflict has truly impacted the configuration of the Assad regime as well as the structure and orientation of its military institution, putting the latter’s loyalty in question.
Today’s Syrian armed forces are fragmented, decision-making is contested and increasingly decentralized, and the circle of loyalty has widened in an unprecedented manner. Furthermore, a multiplication of security actors and entrenched foreign involvement have only complicated the Syrian security and defence sector’s precarious condition, rendering civil-military relations less predictable and more vulnerable to regime challenges.
Russia and Iran have invested high stakes in the Syrian army and the wider security sector and currently exercise considerable influence over the military. While Moscow and Tehran improved the Syrian army’s battlefield effectiveness and reversed its territorial losses, such victory came at a high price as the Assad regime’s sole monopoly over the military decreased.
Both foreign powers are increasingly involved in even the appointment of senior officers, unit commanders, and the leadership of intelligence commands.
They also worked—sometimes competitively—towards institutionalizing and integrating the many militias into the Syrian army’s command structure. Decision-making with regards to operational strategies is almost completely controlled by Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran.
Syrian army units associated with either foreign power increasingly take part in battles planned and conducted by their foreign ally’s troops or advisors. As a result, it can be assumed that Moscow also has influence over the allocation of resources within the military and can award loyal units and officers.
While the Syrian military played a key role in securing the Assad regime’s survival, the structures that were once designed to keep its forces loyal have gradually shattered in the past nine years.
Although the forced de-centralization, multiplication of security actors, and foreign involvement saved the Syrian regime from military defeat, Assad measures the quality of his forces by their consistent loyalty and willingness to use force for his regime’s defence, not by their performance on the battlefield.
While a coup against Bashar al-Assad or a collapse of his rule are unlikely, he no longer has the reliability that existed in the past fifty years.
It is so fascinating to see key elements in the biblical end-time prophecies falling into place each and every day now. Just a few short years ago the thought that former rivals Russia, Turkey and Iran would be allied in the region and begin manoeuvring on soil so close to the Israeli border – just as Ezekiel claimed they would in the ‘latter’ days, is nothing short of amazing!
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