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THE head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards called on his troops today to "prepare themselves to get even" with Israel and the US, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. "Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards and Basij should prepare themselves to get even with Zionists and Americans," General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted as saying. "The supreme leader will announce the time for this," he said, referring to Iran's top cleric and commander-in-chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was not clear if the comments represented the latest shot in what Iranian officials describe as an ongoing "psychological war" with Israel and the United States,...

KEY UN Security Council members agreed informally today on a resolution demanding Iran suspend nuclear enrichment and reprocessing work and threatening to consider sanctions if it refuses. The draft text must first be approved by governments of the five Security Council members with veto power - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - as well as Germany, a European negotiator on the Iran controversy. Western countries, which have been haggling with Russia and China on a text over the past two weeks, were optimistic of a deal a week ago only to see the talks drag on. But...

ISRAEL'S Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu today compared the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon to the Hollywood movie Alien. The 1979 science-fiction thriller starring Sigourney Weaver depicted "alien ferocious bodies that plant themselves in a host and lurch out, burst through the chest, and attack the person next to the host and in doing so, kills the host", Mr Netanyahu told Canadian broadcaster CTV from Tel Aviv. "Hezbollah is the alien body and Lebanon is the host," he said. "And the mother alien, if you will, producing these poisoned eggs, is Iran, with its way station to Syria." Israel would be the...

July 26, 2006 -- JERUSALEM - Israel claimed victory in Hezbollah's southern "capital" yesterday after a battle in Lebanon that uncovered Iranian-made weapons and electronic equipment and left 150 guerrillas dead. Israeli forces found "war rooms" equipped with Iranian surveillance and eavesdropping gear in Bint Jbail, the main Hezbollah stronghold just inside the border. "The town is completely controlled by us," an Israeli colonel said. Caches of weapons were also found in Bint Jbail, Israeli officials said. Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, refused to acknowledge the group was firing Iranian-made missiles into Israel. "We don't deny nor...

ISRAELI warplanes blasted Beirut and troops battled Hezbollah guerrillas on the border two weeks into the Lebanon conflict, as Israel effectively ruled out any chance of a rapid ceasefire. The bombing on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital ended a 24-hour lull that coincided with a lightning visit to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. With no end in sight to a conflict that has already claimed at least 390 lives on the Lebanese side alone, Defence Minister Amir Peretz warned Israel could establish its own security zone in southern Lebanon if multinational troops were not...

ISRAELI troops entered the border town of Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah military stronghold, for the first time late today as they pushed deeper into Lebanese territory, a UN spokesman said. The Israeli army, which has been encountering fierce resistance in its war on Hezbollah despite its clear military superiority, entered the border town following a day of fierce fighting with the Lebanese Shiite guerrillas. "The Israeli army is in Bint Jbeil. Some sporadic fighting is ongoing inside and around the town," Milos Strugar, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), said. Asked whether the Israeli troops had...

LEBANESE parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri today rejected a ceasefire proposal by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at ending Israel's war on Hizbollah. A meeting between Dr Rice and Mr Berri, who is acting as an intermediary for the Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah group, was marked by "differences," a source close to Mr Berri said after the surprise visit to Beirut by the top US diplomat. "There was no agreement because Dr Rice insisted on a mechanism on a global settlement before a ceasefire," the source said on condition of anonymity. "Rice set, as conditions for a ceasefire, the withdrawal...

A committal hearing in Melbourne has heard 13 men charged with terrorist offences were committed to violent jihad. The men, who were arrested in late 2005 and early 2006, are facing charges of intentionally being a member of a terrorist organisation. The prosecutor, Mark Dean FC, has told the court in his opening statement the men believed the world was under attack from non-Islamic forces. Mr Dean said one of the defendants, 46-year-old Abdul Benbrika, was their spiritual leader. He said Benbrika had told other members of the group if they wanted to die for jihad they had to do...

THE nation's new anti-terror laws should be torn up and 13 men facing terrorism related charges in a Melbourne court should be dealt with under previous laws, civil rights protesters said today. About 30 members of protest group Civil Rights Defence today gathered at Melbourne's court precinct, where the 13 men accused of being part of a terrorist group will return to a specially convened magistrates court pre-trial hearing. The prosecution case against them was expected to be outlined at their committal hearing this morning. The men, including alleged spiritual leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika, are each charged with being members...

NOBEL Peace Laureate, muslim and human rights activist Dr Shirin Ebadi has spoken out against undemocratic Islamic countries justifying "oppressive acts" in the name of Islam. Dr Ebadi said some Islamic countries were turning their backs on modernisation and the need for democracy and as a result were creating tensions internally. Speaking today at the Earth Dialogues 2006 conference in Brisbane, Dr Ebadi said her native Iran as well as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen "among others" were guilty of human rights violations. "In these countries, Islamic rulers want to solve 21st century issues with laws belonging to 14 centuries...

World War III has begun, and the nation’s leadership is failing to deal with this reality, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich concludes. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert Sunday, Gingrich explained that "today is not the fifth day of the war, it’s the 58th year of the effort by those who want to destroy Israel. As Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, says, he wants to defeat the Americans and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. So we should not see this event in isolation. There is an ... Iran/Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas alliance...

THE nation's Islamic leader, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, has dismissed the Holocaust as a "Zionist lie" in a series of fiery sermons in which he also lashed out at the West and the US-led occupation of Iraq. And Sheik Hilali -- the Mufti of Australia and a member of John Howard's Muslim Community Reference Group -- also accuses the Government of being dishonest for claiming the anti-terrorism laws were not designed specifically for Muslims. "These laws are tailored to target us precisely," he said in a sermon recorded at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque in November - one of a number of...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will not abandon its right to nuclear technology. His country's nuclear dispute with the West has been referred back to the United Nations Security Council. The five permanent Security Council members - the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China - plus Germany had backed a nuclear package aimed at ending the stand-off. But they have asked the Security Council to intervene after Iran failed to reply by their deadline. "Our answer to the P5+1 package is clear," state television quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying. "The Iranian nation abides by international laws and regulations...

AN Israeli helicopter fired a missile at an Islamic Jihad militant group weapons depot in Gaza City today, mostly destroying the site but causing no casualties, the Israeli army and Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the aircraft had targeted a weapons production facility in a pre dawn airstrike. Palestinian witnesses said the site was used for storage. The attack came hours after five Palestinians were wounded in an airstrike yesterday in the same area on a van transporting weapons for Hamas militants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed yesterday to continue an offensive in Gaza without any...

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday questioned the effectiveness of official public diplomacy in battling Islamic extremism, saying the government alone cannot heal the rifts with Britain's Muslim community. Mr. Blair was responding to criticism in Parliament that he had not done enough to engage the country's 1.6 million Muslims a year after the July 7 terrorist attacks in London. A new poll showed that 13 percent of British Muslims regard the four suicide bombers who killed 52 persons that day as martyrs. "Government itself cannot go and root out the extremism in these communities," the prime minister told...

Americans and others in the West cannot comprehend why anyone would blow themselves up to kill, as often as not, other Muslims. Even if you were convinced that 72 virgins awaited you in paradise, committing suicide for the purpose of murder is so foreign to the Western mind that it remains, for most, outside the realm of any discussion. Clearly, though, the West has witnessed and been victimized by a religion and culture for which this is a perfectly acceptable way to wage war and Islam is all about war, the conquering and reduction of an enemy to submission. The...

JERUSALEM – As the Jewish state considers a major ground operation in the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping yesterday of an Israeli soldier, Palestinian terror leaders tell WorldNetDaily they kidnapped a second Israeli citizen. Mahmoud Abed El, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization, said the Israeli was kidnapped in northern Samaria. Abed El said his group will release more information about the abduction later tonight. He threatened his group and other Palestinian terror organizations would continue kidnapping Israelis to deter Israeli operations in Gaza. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces told WND the army is receiving...

SOMALIA'S newly powerful Islamists say they will stone to death five rapists, in what some fear is the latest sign of a plan to install a hardline Islamic authority like Afghanistan's Taliban. The punishments, like others carried out by the Islamists in their sharia courts in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere, follow the naming of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys - on a U.N. list of al Qaeda associates - to a top post over the weekend. Mr Aweys, a former army colonel who in the 1990s led militant Islamists in failed campaigns in Somalia but has denied any al Qaeda...

POPE Benedict XVI today said violence was forcing Christians to flee the Holy Land and other countries of the Middle East and called for respect between cultures and religions. "The serious difficulties encountered by the Christian community" in the Holy Land of Israel and the Palestinian territories "because of lack of security, work, restrictions on movements and poverty are a source of anxiety for us", he said. The Pope was talking to participants at a meeting for assistance to the churches based mainly in the Middle East. "This situation makes the educational, professional and family future uncertain for the young...

Discussing the "war on terror" has been endlessly awkward. Terror -- like a blitzkrieg, sneak-attack or disinformation -- is a tactic, not an enemy. But in our politically-correct era, we dwell on the tactic, never defining the enemy. Drop 500-pound bombs on his head if we must -- and we must -- but don't describe him as an Islamic jihadist in the age-old tradition of Islamic jihadis going back to Muhammad. Such historical precision might be hurtful and insensitive, and we wouldn't want that. Indeed, as a matter of American foreign policy, we don't want that. Better to keep things...