Posted on 07/18/2006 4:02:18 PM PDT by freedom44
NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - The FBI is trying to ferret out possible Hizbollah agents in the United States amid concerns that rising U.S.-Iranian tensions could trigger attacks on American soil, FBI officials said.
Relations between Washington and Tehran, which soured after the 1979 Islamic revolution, have deteriorated further recently over Iran's nuclear program and its support for Hizbollah, the militant Islamic group whose capture of two Israeli soldiers last week prompted Israel to launch retaliatory strikes in Lebanon.
American law enforcement officials are concerned the Lebanon-based Hizbollah, which has so far focused on fund-raising and other support activities inside the United States, could turn to violence in solidarity with Iran.
"If the situation escalates, will Hizbollah take the gloves off, so to speak, and attack here in the United States, which they've been reluctant to do until now?" said William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Detroit.
Detroit is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States.
"Because of the heightened difficulties surrounding U.S.-Iranian relations, the FBI has increased its focus on Hizbollah," said FBI spokesman Paul Bresson in Washington.
"Those investigations relate particularly to the potential presence of Hizbollah members on U.S. soil."
There is no specific or credible intelligence pointing to an imminent U.S. attack by Hizbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group, Bresson added.
But Iran's Hizbollah -- which claims links to the Lebanese group -- said on Tuesday it stood ready to attack U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters in Toronto that agents were keeping a close eye on Hizbollah, especially "when the international situation heats up."
AMERICAN MUSLIMS WORRY
Muslim American groups worry that fear of Hizbollah violence in the United States could again cast an unwelcome spotlight on their community, which has often felt a target of surveillance or discrimination since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, said his advocacy group fielded almost daily complaints from Muslims who felt singled out or intimidated by government officials.
Muslim American groups say that while they support fighting against terrorism, they are concerned the focus is unfairly on them.
"There are individual concerns that the government does interviews with individuals, with kind of subtle threats that they could be arrested or deported if they don't cooperate. That is really the concern for a lot of these groups right now," said Salam al-Marayati, head of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council.
"That fact in itself will alienate, frustrate and perhaps even push these young people further to the margins, which creates a very problematic situation for all of us," he said. "In a way, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Marayati, who consults regularly with government officials, said they were listening to his concerns, but should do more to show Americans that their Muslim compatriots are just as determined as they are to fight terrorism.
"Since the relationship is not publicized, people think we're not contributing and Muslims continue to be seen as a problem in our society as opposed to part of the solution," he said. (Additional reporting by Lynne Olver in Toronto)
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=107746
Ma'an: Nasrallah Will Give Tel Aviv Residents One Hour to Flee
01:00 Jul 19, '06 / 23 Tammuz 5766
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Arab press sources close to the Hizbullah say that residents of Tel Aviv will be given one hour to flee before the terrorist group launches a barrage of missiles at the city.
The unnamed sources are quoted by the Palestinian Authority-based news agency Ma'an as saying:
"The Lebanese resistance is preparing a retaliation parallel to Israel's military actions. Hassan Nasrallah will address the people of Tel Aviv and warn them to evacuate the city within one hour. As soon as the delay ends, hundreds of heavy missiles will start landing in the city, which has been divided into squares in order to let damage reach every inch of the city. An estimated 500 missiles are expected to land in Tel Aviv in a short period of time."
The Arab sources further said that the Hizbullah has been very careful in cultivating its public image, in order to increase the surprise effect of the planned barrage on Tel Aviv.
The war, from the perspective of Nasrallah, has not yet begun, the sources said, adding that other "surprises" planned by the Hizbullah include more kidnappings of Israeli soldiers from along the Lebanese border.
Also claiming to have "surprises" in store for Israel is the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad. On Tuesday night, the terrorist organization claimed to have fired a Katyusha rocket at Sderot. The Katyusha is a more deadly rocket than the Kassam, and is being deployed against Israel in the north of the country by the Hizbullah.
Iranian Daily Says US To Be 'Kicked Out of Iraq,' Israel To Be 'Erased' From Map
Keyhan International
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
As the savagery of the illegal Zionist entity against the Lebanese people enters the second week, Israel's American supporters triggered yet another terrorist bomb blast in the Iraqi city of Kufa by allowing unchecked passage to an explosive-laden vehicle past the tight security cordon of the Iraqis, a day after a frustrated George W. Bush at the G8 luncheon in the Russian city of St. Petersburg used unprintable expletives against the famed freedom-fighting movement, the Hizballah of Lebanon.
The Hizballah, which literally means Party of God (a term used by the Holy Koran to promise eventual victory for the faithful), is an organization with a humanitarian cause and is too noble to reply in like manner to the filthy foul-mouthed US president, who sooner or later is expected to meet a fate worse than his Zionist pal, Ariel Sharon languishing in limbo for the past several months.
Unlike the cowardly Zionists who target women and children, and their equally dastardly Godfather, the Great Satan, which shamelessly commits every imaginable crime from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the occupied lands of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in other countries, Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah is a man of words.
As the US, trapped in the quagmire in Mesopotamia is putting its weight behind unmanly terrorism to try to destabilize that country and the region through sectarian strife, and as the Zionists have had a rude awakening with Hizballah missiles exploding in the heart of the usurper state an honour that has eluded the well-equipped and state funded armies of Arab countries, whose only role has been as tools of internal repression for safeguarding Uncle Sam's interests, Seyyed Nasrallah has sent a most clear-worded message of solidarity to Arab states, that if wisely responded, is sure to see the dawning of real, not illusive, peace in the region.
His message reads: The peoples of the Arab-Islamic World have a historic opportunity to inflict a defeat on the Zionist enemy.
The charismatic Hizballah Secretary General did not say whether this defeat will end once and for all the 58-year illegal existence of Israel on Palestinian soil, but he has definitely presented a golden chance to regional Arab states who seem to be more fearful of the Zionists and their overlords in the West and the US rather than of Wrath of the All-Merciful God, to join ranks for the struggle to eventually root out the Zionists from the region.
For long the Arab states have voiced support for the Palestinian cause but have practically done nothing, not even for the imposed notion of a mini Palestinian state let alone the cherished goal of the liberation of Islam's former Qibla Bayt al-Maqadis and Palestine in its entirety.
But amid the confusion in the minds of the pro-Western rulers of the Arab states concerning the fast paced developments as a result of the dedication of Hamas and Hizballah, the masses in Arab countries have been quick to respond to Seyyed Nasrallah unifying message, thus exposing their kings, Sheikhs, presidents and prime ministers, as accomplices to the crimes, of not just the Zionists in Palestine, but also of the Americans in Iraq.
The reality is that certain sick minds in the region who after decades of aiding and abetting Saddam's reign of terror had conspired with the enemies of Islam to worsen the plight of the Iraqis, have found themselves hopelessly trapped between the devil and the deep blue because of the sudden turn of events in relation to the chronic question of the World of Islam Palestine and the fate of the non entity Israel.
Seyyed Nasrallah message offers the rulers of Arab states a safe passage from the horns of dilemma and out of the web they have unwittingly woven around themselves on the false assumption that the Zionists and the Americans are here to stay forever.
No, the Americans will be kicked out of Iraq in a most humiliating manner, and so will Israel be erased from the map of Middle East. Thus the Arab rulers have to do some fast thinking. They should seize the opportunity of Islamic solidarity instead of plotting sectarian terrorism in Iraq or hurling expletives against the Hizballah in their private meetings, like the badly frustrated Bush.
Time does not wait for anyone, especially in view of the fact that the Muslim masses in Arab states are all firmly behind Hizballah and Hamas in the historical, though unequal struggle, under way in Lebanon and Palestine to inflict a shattering defeat on nuclear armed Israel.
(Description of Source: Tehran Keyhan International in English )
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