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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

IDF drone strike Wednesday on Syria-Lebanon border kills senior Islamic Jihad member, 3 others

2024-08-31

More details about this story from yesterday.

[IsraelTimes] Army takes responsibility for attack on Beirut-Damascus highway, says it killed Fares Qasem, a prominent member of PIJ operations; Hezbollah operative also among the dead

In a rare admission, the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday said it carried out a dronezap in Syria, killing a senior Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
operative.

According to the IDF, the ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
on the Syrian side of the Beirut-Damascus highway, near the border between Leb
Leb

...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
and Syria, killed Firas Qasem.

The military said Qasem was a prominent member of Islamic Jihad’s operations unit.

"Qasem was tasked with building operational plans for the PIJ terror organization in Syria and Lebanon, and played a central role in recruiting Paleostinian turbans into the Hezbollah terror organization, for the purpose of carrying out terror operations from Lebanon against the State of Israel," the IDF said.

The IDF said that in recent years, Hezbollah, with Iranian funding, has been recruiting Paleostinians into its ranks to attack Israel.

Two more PIJ operatives were killed in the strike, along with a Hezbollah operative, two security sources told Rooters.

Hezbollah later announced that its member Muhammad Taha, from Baalbek, had been killed "on the road to Jerusalem," its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.

PIJ also announced the deaths of Qasem and two other members, named as Osama Areesha and Hussam Areesha.

The IDF said the four were driving from Syria to Lebanon to carry out operations on behalf of Hezbollah.

The IDF rarely takes responsibility for strikes in Syria.

The Damascus-based Islamic Jihad has sent a stream of fighters from Syria to join Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon. Both groups are supported by Iran. Israel also frequently targets Iran-backed fighters in Syria, although it rarely acknowledges the strikes.

Later on Wednesday, Lebanese media reported a series of Israeli airstrikes near the town of Ain al-Tineh, in the Western Beqaa District, around 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Israeli border.

Footage posted to social media showed several plumes of smoke rising from a mountain near the town.

Another alleged Israeli strike late Tuesday night hit a pickup truck loaded with Hezbollah missiles that was traveling in northeast Lebanon, some six miles from the city of Baalbek, according to AFP. One person was maimed in the strike, the health ministry in Lebanon said. A source close to Hezbollah confirmed the hit Tuesday night, saying: "The munitions that were inside the truck caught fire."

The IDF said it also carried out an airstrike against a building in southern Lebanon’s Odaisseh on Tuesday, after spotting a cell of Hezbollah operatives there.

So far, the skirmishes with Hezbollah have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 20 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 430 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 76 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.

Posted by:trailing wife

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