After killing off its entire leadership, Israel seems determined to destroy what’s left of Hezbollah, launching a ground offensive into southern Lebanon.
The IDF has initiated a “limited” incursion into southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah assets, according to the Israeli military.
“The IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement.
“These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”
According to the statement, this latest action is part of the northern offensive codenamed Operation Northern Arrows. Israel hopes to secure the return of approximately 60,000 internally displaced citizens forced to flee their homes in the north because of artillery exchanges over the past year.
The IDF claims to be carrying out “a methodical plan set out by the General Staff and the Northern Command, which soldiers have trained and prepared for in recent months.”
The Lebanese Army — separate from Hezbollah — pulled back from certain checkpoints near the border amid intense shelling, seemingly clearing a path for Israeli ground forces to enter.
Israel has spent the past week degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities and inflicting heavy damage on the terror group’s infrastructure, leadership, and communications network. This culminated in the assassination on Friday of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who commanded Iran’s fiercest regional proxy force.
I speculated that the rest of Lebanon may finally be tired of Hezbollah’s shit, and the Lebanese army pulling back to let Israel roll over whatever Hezbollah units are left is a pretty big sign that they are.
Video from the ground offensive seems limited, probably because IDF has much better InfoSec discipline than Hezbollah. But here’s a video of some action, with an IDF spokesman calling the ground campaign (again) “limited, targeted raids.” Also said that Hezbollah was preparing an “October 7 style” attack on Israel.
How has Iran acting to the continued gutting of its catspaw? They launched a bunch of missiles at Israel.
Fire could be seen over the night skies of Israel as missiles exploded overhead. The Israel Defense Forces said the explosions were either successful interceptions or missiles that evaded Israel’s air-defense system and hit open land. Israel, Iraq, and Jordan shut down their respective airspaces as a result; Israel’s airspace reopened a short while later.
Two U.S. Navy destroyers fired about a dozen interceptor missiles to help defend Israel, Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder told reporters. He noted those details may change as the situation develops.
Israel vowed to respond to the attack, which came less than 24 hours after the IDF initiated a limited incursion into southern Lebanon to target Iranian-backed Hezbollah assets.
“We are on heightened alert on defense and offensive, we will protect the citizens of Israel. This [missile] fire will have consequences,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said after the initial wave of ballistic missiles. “We have plans, and we will act in the time and place that we choose.”
Iran’s entire attack evidently resulted in no casualties so far, and no reports of military infrastructure damage, but one did managed to land on Amman, Jordan, and Jordan also managed to intercept some of the missiles.
Way to get the Arab world on your side, Iran.
On top of all this, word has leaked out that the head of the Iranian unit charged with countering Mossad was actually an Israeli agent.
The head of an Iranian secret service unit set up to target Mossad agents working in the Islamic Republic turned out to be an Israeli agent himself, according to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Speaking to CNN Turk, Ahmadinejad claimed Monday that a further 20 agents in the Iranian intelligence team tasked with monitoring Israeli spying activities also turned against Tehran.
The alleged double agents provided Israel with sensitive information on the Iranian nuclear program, according to his comments in the interview, which were widely picked up by international media.
Ahmadinejad said the agents were behind some key Mossad successes in Iran, including the 2018 theft of nuclear program documents that were taken from Tehran to Israel and revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The trove is thought to have been a factor in convincing then-US president Donald Trump to pull out of the nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran.
I doubt that. Just about everyone outside of Obama foreign policy wonks and social justice warriors though the Iran deal was idiocy.
The head of the counterintelligence unit was revealed as a double agent in 2021 but he and all of the other alleged Mossad moles were able to flee the country and are now living in Israel, claimed Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist known for his hardline anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and for the violent crackdown that followed his disputed 2009 reelection. He was prevented from running again for president earlier this year.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh…
Tags: Amman, Foreign Policy, Hezbollah, IDF, Iran, Israel, Israel-Hamas War, Jihad, Jordan, Lebanon, Military, missile strike, Mossad, Operation Northern Arrows, video
Iran’s missiles were a face-saving move. Tactically pointless, but politically about messaging.
Recent video, Peter Zeihan said gave monumental observations:
“When Hezbollah fires 100s of rockets and Israel does 100s of fighter-jet sorties, this is called negotiation.” (replace Hez with Iran and rockets with missiles, and hey, the shoe fits)
“Everybody involved always wants to get the G—damn last word.”
Negotiating. Cue the line from The 5th Element. “Where do you think he learned to negotiate like that?” LOL
Here’s what bugs me. Watching dozens of videos of Iranian missiles impacting Israel. Why are so many missiles impacting?
Watching dozens of videos, I could see interceptors maybe a handful of times. That’s not normal.
I don’t know the travel time, but I have to assume missiles from Iran take far longer to arrive than rockets from Lebanon / Gaza. Plenty of time to get Iron Dome and David’s Sling fully operational.
Did Israel know these missiles were almost all un-targeted, and simply let them rain down willy-nilly? Seems unlikely.
Weird.
I think the David Sling’s system calculates where a missile is going to land. If it is going to hit, say ocean, it lets it through. If it is going to hit a high-value target, it is intercepted. The idea is you don’t waste defensive missiles on incoming that is going to do no damage.
Something a lot of people don’t realize is that Iranians aren’t considered Arabs, they’re Persians. Historically Arabs and Persians have been enemies. They’ve only been allied over the past few decades by their mutual hatred of Israel. It could be that the Lebanese have decided to “alter the deal” with Iran and Hezbollah, so to speak. Lebanon hasn’t had a truly functional government for most of my adult life largely to Syrian and Iranian meddling.
Indeed, Persians, Turks, Kurds and Egyptians are all distinctly different ethnic groups than Arabs.
I suspect that the real issue isn’t that the Israelis have so thoroughly penetrated the Iranians, but that the Iranians are really That Dumb(TM).
Mostly, due to Islam and Islamism. The faith is not exactly conducive to solid reasoning skills, being based on “received wisdom” and the practitioners being mostly scam artists who’ve gotten powerful from being able to make “interpretations” for the masses.
Witness the work-around for prostitution in Iran: Yo had a lot of men wanting sex, a lot of women with no prospects (due to the Iran-Iraq War and its sundry idiocies killing off several generations of young men…) and a bunch of horny older men… Cue the mullah’s “discovery” of a means to connect the two and enable easy access to sex: The “temporary marriage”. So, you basically have your whore, but you’re only “marrying” her for the night…
Islam is a recipe for civilizational self-destruction. Everywhere it has become prevalent, eventually dies on a pyre of self-indulgent perversion. Once upon a time, Persia was a land of poets and noble warriors; today? After Islam? LOL… Sheep-shagging degenerates, all. No poetry or wine, either… Much the same, everywhere Islam has sway. Cousin-marrying morons prone to fantasy… Note the explanations offered for Hezbollah’s defeat: The Israelis hired genies.
How did Moshe Dyan put it? “It’s easy to look good, fighting Arabs…” Apparently, also now true of fighting Persians.
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