Video - Hezbollah Leader’s Broadcast address unwittingly Revealed Important Intell About His Security Detail.

Algemeiner reports that the video was significant, according to Israeli intelligence analyst and Intelli Times blogger Ronen Solomon. Solomon, who has been observing Nasrallah’s security detail for years, said the video exposed elements of three circles of protection around the Hezbollah leader.

The first is Nasrallah’s personal protection unit, made up of many bodyguards, selected from Nasrallah’s family members and trained in Iran — and possibly also in North Korea.

The second is comprised of snipers, spotters and undercover bodyguards. It provides the first circle with logistical support.

The third consists of an elite Hezbollah guerrilla unit, which clears and secures areas in which Nasrallah moves, with roadblocks, checkpoints and other strategic measures.

Keeping abreast of Nasrallah’s methods of protection is key to Israel, which has targeted the Hezbollah leader for years, according to PZM. Read the full story here.

Video - Hizbullah Sec.-Gen. Nasrallah: The U.S. Supports ISIS, Runs the Entire War in Our Region

Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah Says Easier to Fight IS than Israel.

Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah Says Easier to Fight IS than Israel.(RN).

Fighting the Islamic State militants, also known as ISIL or ISIS, is an easier and more realistic task than fighting Israel, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement said.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), renamed Islamic State (IS), and those behind it can be easily defeated, it is not an unrealistic task, while the battle with Israel would be a harder one, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a television address Friday, on the anniversary of the victory over Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War.

The Lebanon War, called the July War in the Arab world, an armed conflict between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah movement controlling most of the southern regions of Lebanon, lasted 34 days between July 12 and August 14, 2006 and left more than 800 people killed. The Israeli Army managed to advance 15-20 kilometers inside the Lebanese territory, but was forced to retreat under the pressure of Lebanese partisans.

The Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah is one of the most powerful opponents of the Jewish state, but since the end of the war, a ceasefire has been maintained.

Nasrallah said that IS had no future in the Middle East, but to defeat the Sunni militants, Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese people had to unite and fight extremists in their countries.

Hezbollah militants have been taking part in the Syrian government's operations against the armed opposition and the IS militants in the conflict that has claimed more than 130,000 lives since March 2011.

The Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), has been fighting in Syria and launched an offensive in Iraq in June. The group has taken over large parts of the country, with a goal of seizing Baghdad. The group has also announced the establishment of a caliphate on the Iraq-Syria border.

Hezbollah is a paramilitary and political organization originating in Lebanon’s Shiite population, fighting for an Islamic state in Lebanon. The group is considered a terrorist state by many Western governments including Israel, the US, UK and many European states, but not by Russia.

Israel may act to stop Syrian chemical weapons arms from reaching Hezbollah

Israel may act to stop Syrian chemical weapons arms from reaching Hezbollah.(AA).Israel said on Friday it would consider military action if needed to ensure Syrian missiles or chemical weapons did not reach President Bashar al-Assad’s allies in Lebanon, the Shi’ite Islamist movement Hezbollah. “I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that ... (if necessary) ... we will be able to consider carrying out an operation,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview on Channel 10 television.
“We are following ... the possible transfer of advanced munitions systems, mainly anti-aircraft missiles or heavy ground-to-ground missiles, but there could also be a possibility of the transfer of chemical means (weapons) from Syria to Lebanon,” said Barak. “The moment (Assad) starts to fall we will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies.” Hezbollah, which in the past has received military and financial support from Syria and Iran, launched thousands of mainly short-range rockets into Israel during the Jewish state’s 2006 offensive in southern Lebanon. Some longer-range rockets reached central Israel. The Israel-Lebanon border has been largely quiet since then. Israel has accused Hezbollah and Iran of carrying out a suicide bombing in Bulgaria on Wednesday that killed five Israeli tourists at Burgas airport, a popular gateway to the Black Sea coast. Iran has denied any involvement. On Thursday, Barak toured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the Middle East war in 1967 and from where it can monitor movements inside its northern foe. Syrian rebels assassinated four of Assad’s closest aides in Damascus and seized three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey this week, putting the Syrian leader under greater pressure than at any time in the 16-month uprising against his rule.Read the full story here.

Top Israeli General Says Iran 'May Order Hizbullah Hit on Israel'.

Top Israeli General Says Iran 'May Order Hizbullah Hit on Israel'.(NHN).Hizbullah may not want a new war with Israel but an order to attack would come from Tehran in the event of a strike on Iran, a senior military official in Israel's northern command told Agence France Presse. And should another conflict break out between Israel and the Lebanese group, it would be "much faster" than the 34-day war of 2006, said the official, who asked not to be identified. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday that his group’s missiles could strike anywhere inside Israel. "The biggest spending of Iran in 30 years has been on the nuclear and Hizbullah is the second," the Israeli official told AFP, adding that Tehran's aim was to create "Iranian footprints near the border with Israel." "If something would happen in Iran, it's a tool that they can use in all kinds of scenarios," he said. "They (Iran) have so many high-ranking officials in Lebanon. I don't think this is a decision of Nasrallah -- he will get orders. That's why he was created," said the official. "If you ask Nasrallah today, he would say 'no' (to a new war with Israel) but I don't think that's his call," he said. "Nasrallah understood the power of Israel and he is still licking his wounds." He said other scenarios which could spark a new conflict between Israel and Hizbullah include an attack on Israelis abroad or the transfer to Hizbullah of chemical weapons from Syria, in the midst of its deadly crackdown on protests. Any new confrontation would likely be over much faster than the 34-day conflict which erupted in July 2006, said the military official for the northern region which borders Israel. "This will be much shorter, much faster than the month" it took last time, he said. "The most important mission today is to win decisively in any kind of war in Lebanon. If you win, you win -- everybody sees it."He said Israel's biggest challenge in any new conflict would be Hizbullah's positioning of weapons in the heart of civilian areas in around 100 Lebanese towns and villages along the border. "In the villages there are three-story houses: on one floor there are rockets, then there is a family on the next floor, then a (military) headquarters then another family. The people that live there are human shields," he said. "Every Shiite village has become such a compound. The great challenge will be to deal with all these compounds."Read the full story here.

Iran promotes a conservative cleric close to its supreme leader to replace aging spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites.

        Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi


Iran promotes a conservative cleric close to its supreme leader to replace aging spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites.(AlArabiya).Iran is promoting a conservative cleric close to its supreme leader as a possible successor for the aging spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites, a move that would give Tehran a powerful platform to influence its neighbor, according to figures close to Iraq’s religious leadership. The 81-year-old spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is one of the most influential figures in Iraq, revered by its Shiite majority as well as by Shiites around the world. In the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein, he was strong enough to shape the new Iraq, forcing American leaders and Iraqi politicians to revise parts of their transition plans he objected to. The man Iran is maneuvering in hopes of eventually replacing him is Grand Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a prominent insider in the clerical hierarchy that rules Iran. He was the head of Iran’s judiciary for 10 years until 2009, playing a major role in suppressing the country’s reform movement, and sits on one of Iran’s main ruling councils. Shahroudi has started to build a presence in Najaf, the Iraqi holy city of dozens of seminaries that is the center of Shiism’s religious leadership, to which many of the world’s 200 million Shiites turn for spiritual and political guidance. Posters bearing his portrait have sprung up in the Baghdad district of Sadr City, a bastion of Shiite activism and home to some 2.5 million Shiites. Iran’s growing influence in Iraq - through the economy and ties with Shiite politicians in Baghdad - is already a source of alarm to the United States and its Gulf Arab allies who see Shiite-majority Iran as a rival. It would boost Tehran’s voice in Iraq even more if Shahroudi ever succeeds al-Sistani as “al-marjaa al-akbar,” or “the greatest object of emulation.” The 63-year-old Shahroudi would likely take an even more assertive political role than al-Sistani has. Al-Sistani adheres to a “quietist” school of Shiism that rejects formal rule by clerics, in contrast to Iran’s school in which clerics hold ultimate power. Also, al-Sistani has lived in seclusion for years - he is thought not to have left his Najaf house since 2004 - and some feel he has grown out of sync with Iraq’s new generation of young and empowered Shiites. Disillusioned over unemployment and erratic services, many young Shiites are looking for a more dynamic religious leadership to counter what they see as the rising power of Sunni fundamentalists in the Arab world. “Iraq’s Shiites are deeply politicized and they have had enough of traditional marjaiyah (religious authorities) like al-Sistani’s,” said one insider in Najaf, who is in daily contact with the city’s top clerics. “Iran is taking advantage of this by working energetically to replace him with one of its own.” The insider is one of six who are well connected to the Shiites’ secretive religious establishment in Najaf and in Baghdad. They said Shahroudi appears to be angling for the post. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Al-Sistani, who was treated in London for heart problems in 2004, remains healthy and alert, according to visitors who saw him recently. But his advanced age has fueled speculation about his succession in Najaf. But the succession does not necessarily have to wait until al-Sistani’s death. It could effectively take place if al-Sistani is deemed too old to guide his followers. The position of al-marjaa al-akbar is considered the highest in Shia Islam’s spiritual hierarchy, more elevated than the several dozen clerics with “marjaa” - or “object of emulation” - status in the Shiite world. Pious Shiites generally choose a marjaa to follow. Al-Sistani has been al-marjaa al-akbar since the 1990s. Filling the post is done by an informal process of consensus among senior and middle-ranking clerics, aimed at choosing the learned and respected figure. “Campaigning” for it means showing religious clout among Shiites in general and in Najaf specifically. Ibrahim al-Baghdadi, Shahroudi’s top aide in Najaf, would not say if Shahroudi has ambitions for the position. Morteza Monajjem, a spokesman for Shahroudi’s office in the holy city of Qom, Iran’s religious capital, said the cleric “has no plan to stand next to other marjaas” and “has not officially defined himself as a marjaa.” Still, Shahroudi is laying the necessary groundwork. 
He opened a representative office in Najaf in October and plans to visit the city soon, according to al-Baghdadi. He has begun paying monthly stipends to poor seminary students, organizing “study circles” and collecting the “khoms” from followers - a tithe of a fifth of one’s income. He has sent cleric-deputies to Shiite provinces in Iraq, al-Baghdadi said. He has also increased his issuing of fatwas, or religious edicts, in response to questions sent to his website. Any ayatollah with aspirations of becoming a marjaa must write a religious textbook known as a “Tawdih al-Masail,” or “Clarification of Issues,” laying out rules for daily religious practice. Shahroudi published his just over a year ago. 
Shahroudi is already known to be the spiritual leader of powerful Iraqi factions, including followers of the Badr Organization as well as most members of the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah Brigades militia active in southern Iraq, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a hardline faction. Among his students in Qom were Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and Humam Hamoudi, a prominent Iraqi politician. 
Shahroudi is also believed to have replaced a grand ayatollah who died in 2010 as the spiritual mentor of the Dawa Party, Iraq’s oldest and most powerful Shiite political group. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Dawa leader, visited Shahroudi during a recent visit to Iran. Shahroudi also rose in Iran’s clerical leadership. He is so close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he has been cited by many observers as his possible successor. Still, the Najaf insiders caution there are challenges in his path to succeed al-Sistani. Muqtada al-Sadr, the young anti-American cleric whose followers have 40 of parliament’s 325 seats, has been in Iran studying to become a marjaa. But he is believed to need several more years before he can reach the rank of ayatollah, a status below marjaa, according to one of his aides in Iraq. 
One of Shahroudi’s former students in Qom - now an Iraqi politician - said Shahroudi is strongly positioned. “He is relatively young, he is familiar with modern day issues and has impeccable family pedigree,” he said. “The Shiite street wants a dynamic marjaa who can compensate it for the failure of the government.”Hmmmmm............Obama: If We Work Hard, Afghanistan Could Be a Success...Like Iraq!"Success"...indeed.Read the full story here.