http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061031/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_lebanon_mock_raids
Israeli fighter jets stage mock raids over Lebanon
By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 31, 4:54 PM ET
Israel's fighter jets roared over Hezbollah strongholds Tuesday,
staging mock raids in its strongest show of force since its war with
the guerrilla group ended more than two months ago.
The flyovers, which startled many Lebanese with fresh memories of the
war, highlight the unsettled tensions between Israel and its northern
neighbor, whose political situation has grown increasingly more
uncertain.
The Israeli fighter jets swooped low over south Beirut at least six
times in the morning before soaring back into the sky, Lebanese
security officials said. The jets could be heard throughout the city,
and residents climbed on roofs and balconies to watch.
One woman on her way to work at a clothing store said her hands were
shaking after she heard the warplanes because they brought flashbacks
of the Israeli airstrikes that pounded her south Beirut neighborhood
during the war.
In south Lebanon, officials and witnesses reported Israeli planes
staging mock raids over the towns of Nabatiyeh and Tyre. Eight Israeli
jets crossed the border and dispersed over southern and central
Lebanon, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to give press statements.
The Lebanese army issued a statement saying its gunners fired
anti-aircraft artillery at the planes in south Lebanon to try to drive
them away.
An Israeli military official said the flights were part of routine
reconnaissance activity.
"It was not to send any message. We do this on a regular basis," the
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of military
regulations.
The mock raids came only hours after U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told
the Security Council that the Lebanese government had reported that
arms were being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria since the end of the
34-day Israel-Hezbollah war.
The 34-day fighting left more than 1,000 people dead on both sides,
according to the U.N. and Israeli and Lebanese officials. Lebanon's
Higher Relief Council, a government group, says the vast majority of
those were Lebanese civilians. UNICEF also says most of those killed
were civilians, and about a third of them were children.
Of the total deaths, 159 were in Israel, including 39 soldiers.
Israel claimed 800 Hezbollah fighters were killed but that figure was
not substantiated, with the group only acknowledging 70 of its fighters
were killed.
Lebanon and the U.N. have called on Israel to halt military flights
over Lebanese territory, calling them a clear violation of the
cease-fire.
Geir Pederson, personal representative in Lebanon of U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, expressed concern about the overflights
that "constitute a breach of Lebanese sovereignty" and of the U.N.
resolution that ended the war.
But Israel contends the flights must continue because arms are still
smuggled to Hezbollah, the group has armed personnel in south Lebanon,
and the two soldiers whose capture by guerrillas sparked the Israeli
offensive have not been released, said Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mark Regev.
"In the absence of the implementation of these obligations, Israel is
forced to continue intelligence flights over Lebanon to monitor these
infringements. If there's not a mechanism to prevent illicit arms
transfers, we have to monitor arms transfers. If the Hezbollah presence
is not removed, there is a need to observe that presence," he said.
American and European officials have stepped up their demands for
Hezbollah to disarm in accordance to the U.N.-brokered cease-fire, but
the militant group has repeatedly refused to lay down its arms. The
refusal has caused internal struggles as the Lebanese army tries to
take control of the south, which has been under Hezbollah's control for
decades.
Neither an increased U.N. peacekeeping mission, which currently numbers
about 7,300, nor some 15,000 Lebanese troops patrolling a buffer zone
in south Lebanon have the mandate or the political will to take
Hezbollah's weapons by force.
Tuesday's overflights also came hours before Hezbollah's leader Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah made a rare televised appearance on the guerrilla
group's TV channel Al-Manar in which he said the United States has
failed in Iraq and that animosity in the Arab world against Washington
should not be blamed on Islamic extremism.
Nasrallah, in his first appearance since speaking at a Sept. 22
"victory" rally in south Beirut, accused the United States of being
responsible for continued violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration
and a state of collapse," and predicted the U.S. would be forced to
leave the region "within years, not months."
The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said in a taped
interview on Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar. "They will leave
the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I
advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusion from the
Vietnam experience."
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