Article

2006-07-21 Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Sherry 2006-07-21 12:55|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The number of rockets being launched at Israel has started to fall. Read this analysis from Strategy Page:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20060721.aspx

Posted by Apostate 2006-07-21 13:25|| 2006-07-21 13:25|| Front Page Top

#2 What an approprate pic. Notice how the 'brave lion of islam' is hiding behind the skirt of the mother and child while the other has shielding the woman and child.

As for the ballbearing pic. I'm sure we'll see it on the NYT's front page any ~~day~~ ~~week~~ ~~month~~ year now....

Posted by CrazyFool 2006-07-21 13:29|| 2006-07-21 13:29|| Front Page Top

#3 this is quite funny and since I do not know how to post I hope somebody does it:

Now this is a classic. Hardline cleric Omar Bakri who is barred from Britain for inciting terrorism tried to get onboard of a British warship to flee Beirut but was turned back. Bakri who preached terror in Londistan London for so many years decided to let go of jihad against the "Israeli infidels" and flee the battlefield to return to his previous safe haven.

Bakri, who had lived in Britain for 20 years, said he had shown his British driving licence and his cancelled British passport.

"I know myself I am not welcome in the UK but I have the right like everyone else to safety," he said. "It is better to try and fail."

Britain barred him from returning to the country as part of a government crackdown on Islamic preachers who it says inspires suicide bombers like those who attacked London's transport system last year, killing 52 people.

See, we only preach jihad and encourage others to carry it out, we never actually do it ourselves!!

The funny thing, Bakri stated before that he doesn't want to return to the UK

In an interview with Reuters in Beirut last August, the bearded cleric said he had no intention of returning to Britain because of the way Muslims there were being treated.

Ahh, when things gets tough we cry mama.

Update:

This is how the British tabloid The Sun reported the story:

Posted by Omomoque Jomoter1383 2006-07-21 14:17|| 2006-07-21 14:17|| Front Page Top

#4 That's not true Anti-personnel and anti-material bombs, rockets grenades are always with ball beraings or and such. It's not the rockets that make it abominable but to where Hizballah points them.

Posted by Clerert Uneamp2772 2006-07-21 14:29|| 2006-07-21 14:29|| Front Page Top

#5 Israel wants the Lebanese army on the border. The Lebanese army has refused to move into the area but have said they would respond to an Israeli incursion. This might just be a way to get the Lebanese army into the region in a way that is politically acceptable within the Lebanese domestic climate. And the threat is too credible to ignore. Not to move the Lebanese army into the area might actually precipitate an Israeli invasion to move Hezbollah back. Pass the popcorn please.

Posted by crosspatch">crosspatch 2006-07-21 15:13|| http://crufty.blogspot.com]">[http://crufty.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 15:13|| Front Page Top

#6 Excellent analysis Patch. I can certainly see that happ'n.

Posted by Besoeker 2006-07-21 15:15|| 2006-07-21 15:15|| Front Page Top

#7 We should refer to them not as Hezbollah (or Hizb'Allah) but as Hizb'Hirabah or Party of Terrorism.

Posted by crosspatch">crosspatch 2006-07-21 15:15|| http://crufty.blogspot.com]">[http://crufty.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 15:15|| Front Page Top

#8 Nice pic... and my new desktop background.

Posted by Evil Elvis 2006-07-21 15:47|| 2006-07-21 15:47|| Front Page Top

#9 Crosspatch, we must refer to them as Hizb'Allah and put the emphasis on Allah. It is their religion (if you can call it that) that motivates them.

Allah is no God and Islam is no religion.

Posted by PartJew 2006-07-21 16:03|| 2006-07-21 16:03|| Front Page Top

#10 Yeah, well, my idea was to paint the group what it is, I was purposely not going to the judgement of their religion area, that is where you risk making even more enemies. The point being that if we portray what they do as hirabah and not jihad, we provide an opportunity for other Muslims to hate them too and in terms they themselves understand.

Oh, and I just noted an interesting comment from a Fox presenter in Israel musing aloud about why Israel would be so blatently telegraphing their intentions rather than keeping the callups and buildup quiet.

Posted by crosspatch">crosspatch 2006-07-21 16:12|| http://crufty.blogspot.com]">[http://crufty.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 16:12|| Front Page Top

#11 That's not true Anti-personnel and anti-material bombs, rockets grenades are always with ball beraings or and such.

I smell BS here. Ball bearings have no use at all against buildings or armor. I even doubt they are so useful even agsibnt soft skinned vahicles.

Could anyone in teh military give more informed opinion.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-07-21 17:09|| 2006-07-21 17:09|| Front Page Top

#12 While the damage agsint vehicles lolo impressive the second vehicle is not touched at all and I observe no vehicle has been set afire as a HE payload would have done. So it confirms my opinion ball bearins is mainly for personel. When you are after vehicls you use HE.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-07-21 17:16|| 2006-07-21 17:16|| Front Page Top

#13 Ball bearings razor, sharp shrapnel, not much to choose from. Like the man sez, it's the targeting.

Posted by 6 2006-07-21 17:28|| 2006-07-21 17:28|| Front Page Top

#14 Ball bearings are too expensive to use in most antipersonnel weapons. More often, prenotched large gauge wire or preformed shrapnel sintered together is used. When the device explodes, each notched or sintered piece separates and becomes shrapnel. It sounds like the Syrians don't have the machinery to do this and are using ball bearings because they have to.

Posted by ed 2006-07-21 17:31|| 2006-07-21 17:31|| Front Page Top

#15 I just noted an interesting comment from a Fox presenter in Israel musing aloud about why Israel would be so blatently telegraphing their intentions rather than keeping the callups and buildup quiet

They can't call up their reserves and keep it quiet. No country that size (either physically or in terms of population) could.

Posted by Mike 2006-07-21 17:56|| 2006-07-21 17:56|| Front Page Top

#16 Israeli National News:

Hezbollah: Dirty Bomb Rockets Ready

Posted by 3dc 2006-07-21 18:02|| 2006-07-21 18:02|| Front Page Top

#17 ed's got it right, except its not so much lethality as efficiency of production. You just have to ask yourself where are these made!

Posted by pihkalbadger 2006-07-21 20:10|| 2006-07-21 20:10|| Front Page Top

#18 Mike: They can't call up their reserves and keep it quiet. No country that size (either physically or in terms of population) could.

I'll say. My understanding is that reserve callups are typically via blanketing the media with notices so that no one can say he missed the callup notice and sit the campaign out. Note that everyone of combat age in Israel is a reservist, which is to say that they are all draftees. Draftees don't always want to be dragged away from their daily lives. I don't know the Israeli practice, but I suspect the only people who don't know of the call-up don't listen to the radio, watch TV, read newspapers or even have telephones.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-07-21 20:23|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 20:23|| Front Page Top

#19 I wasn't talking about announcing reserve callups. I was talking about the reporting on troop formations South of the Lebanese border to include video. They could very easily censor that information.

Posted by crosspatch">crosspatch 2006-07-21 20:59|| http://crufty.blogspot.com]">[http://crufty.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 20:59|| Front Page Top

#20 Don't think of them as "ball bearings" because yes, bearings are made of expensive steel to exacting tolerances for mechanical operations. Think of it as "steel shot" which is basically nothing more than round drops of cheap steel of various sizes and not of uniform size and shape.

The purpose of missiles with those warheads is to take out formations of troops in the open such as dismounted mechanized infantry or paratroopers. In the traditional use, these are "barrage" rockets. They are designed to be sent via multiple launchers in waves of dozens at a time to saturate an area with dozens of small explosions. Think of these rockets as the orinal cluster bomb in how they were initially designed to be used.

The Russians developed them during World War II. We often called them such names as Stalin's organ because some of the launchers looked like a pipe organ.

Posted by crosspatch">crosspatch 2006-07-21 21:06|| http://crufty.blogspot.com]">[http://crufty.blogspot.com] 2006-07-21 21:06|| Front Page Top

#21 JFM -

They're not ball bearings per se in US ammo, but just metal balls the same as overshized buckshot. A 40MM AP grenade can do horriffic damage even when body armor is worn.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2006-07-21 21:17|| 2006-07-21 21:17|| Front Page Top

#22 On the issue of destruction, it appears that IAF targeting in Beirut is taking out Shiite support areas, accurately. Check this out:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/15085582.htm

So much for the "they are destroying Lebanon" rhetoric.

Posted by Anginens Threreng8133 2006-07-21 21:37|| 2006-07-21 21:37|| Front Page Top

23:53 tu3031
23:50 Secret Master
23:46 3dc
23:44 trailing wife
23:41 Barbara Skolaut
23:32 DMFD
23:28 Glenmore
23:27 Sherry
23:19 Shinegum Thraiger5571
23:15 Iblis
23:12 Slavising Sholuting4450
23:07 Sock Puppet of Doom
23:07 Slavising Sholuting4450
23:04 wxjames
23:04 Slavising Sholuting4450
22:59 Slavising Sholuting4450
22:57 Slavising Sholuting4450
22:55 wxjames
22:45 JosephMendiola
22:43 tu3031
22:42 Shinegum Thraiger5571
22:36 JosephMendiola
22:36 Aztaroth
22:31 JosephMendiola