Hezbollah supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah for the first time has accused Saudi Arabia of hunting down his terrorist organization. He blamed the kingdom for an attack two weeks ago on the Iranian embassy in Beirut, where 23 people were killed. An Al Qaeda-linked group previously has taken responsibility for the suicide bombings.

Nasrallah also blamed Saudi Arabia for similar attacks on Iraq.

His accusations on Tuesday were followed on Wednesday with his blaming Israel for the assassination of one of Hezbollah’s most senior terrorists, who was gunned down in Beirut, as reported here.

An Israeli lawyer who has won billions of dollars for relatives of terror victims has asked Obama administration officials why they are discussing letting Iran off the hook on sanctions while it owes American relatives colossal sums of money.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who heads the Israel Law Center, has won billions of dollars for relatives of terror victims in lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organization as well as banks and other agencies that aid terrorists or act as a pipeline for funds for them.

She wrote Under Secretary Wendy Sherman last month, “Iran must not be allowed under any circumstances to avoid making payment of reparations and due compensations to the families of those whose lives they have destroyed through terrorism…and through the terror organizations it supports: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.”

In a blog posted this past week on The Hill website based in Washington, Darshan-Leitner noted that Sherman did not respond, and she added, “As a result of lawsuits taken by American victims of terror in U.S. courts, the Iranian regime currently owes billions of dollars from decades of terrorist activity resulting in dozens of victims and severed families. This debt has yet to be recognized or paid by the Iranian government with no sign of an intention to do so.”

She called on Congress to ensure that the U.S. government is working to keep the interests of the terror victims’ families on the table.

Darshan-Leitner pointed out that when George W. Bush was President, he conditioned repealing of any sanctions against Libya on payment of reparations to the victims of Libyan terror. “This move resulted in the payment of $1.5 billion dollars to the victims’ families,” she wrote.

On the other hand, Bush also removed North Korea from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 2008, without compensation being paid to American families, she added.

“We fear this lack of response not only portends a potential Iranian exemption from paying reparations and giving due compensation to families affected by terror in return for normalization of relations, but that it also signals a softening of Sherman’s position on the proliferation of terrorist activity and most significantly, creates difficult implications for the United States’ reputation as a pillar of justice in the war on terror,” according to Darshan-Leitner.

Her blog continued, “As lawyers for American, Canadian and Israeli victims of Iranian terror, we call on Congress to take action and place a check on Under Secretary Sherman in this current round of negotiations… We call on all members of Congress to ensure that victims of terror are not forgotten and to help make the Iranian regime provide the proper reparations and due compensation for the innocent lives taken at the hands of terrorist activities and not to gain a free pass in the name of diplomatic maneuverings.”

Al Qaeda took responsibility for the double bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut Tuesday morning, minutes after Iran accused Israel of begin behind the explosions that killed an Iranian diplomat and at least 22 others.

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Ghadanfar Roknabadi, said it was an “Israeli scheme” and that the attacks served  the “Zionist entity.”

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, linked with Al Qaeda, said it was behind the bombings, one set off by a motorcyclist and the second detonated by a suicide car bomber whose vehicle carried 200 pounds of TNT. At least 146 people were wounded. Among the fatalities was Ebrahim al-Ansari, the cultural attaché of the embassy.

Regardless of who was behind the attack, it  was a serious breach of security in the heavily guarded and Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut where the embassy is located.

The car bomb exploded only 30 feet from the building.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told supporters in Beirut’s suburbs Thursday, “We won’t bargain our presence in Lebanon, Syria and the axis of resistance for some ministerial portfolios” to form a new Lebanese government.

He said he is defending Syrian President Bassar al-Assad because he backs the “resistance” against Israel.

Nasrallah appeared in public, a rare occurrence, instead of beaming his message through video links. He spoke in a Beirut suburb as hundreds of thousands of people were celebrating a Shi’ite Muslim festival.

Hezbollah has helped Assad push back the opposition in the civil war but has paid a price, with hundreds of casualties and unprecedented criticism for dragging Lebanon, already dominated by pro-Syrian elements, deeper into the conflict.

The Lebanese government was dissolved seven months ago, and the civil war already has spilled over into the country, raising fears of a repeat of the former 15-year-old civil war in Lebanon.

Originally published at Gatestone Institute.

In the chaotic Middle East, every day brings new strategic changes and brutal instances of violence, the one thing that has remained constant is Iran’s continuing construction of a military-terrorist missile base in Lebanon.

Through its Shi’ite Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, Iran today has formed a terrorist entity that is unprecedented in scope and firepower, whose rockets and missiles can strike any point in Israel.

During a recent security conference held at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, senior Israeli officials divulged some staggering figures that give a sense of the significant capabilities Hezbollah has built-up.

To be sure, Israel has been preparing for the day it will need to tackle Hezbollah, and the Israel Defense Force apparently feels ready to deal with the threat if and when it is required to do so.

The threat, however, remains potent; and Hezbollah’s cynical use of Lebanese civilians as a cover from which to attack Israeli civilians remains a serious challenge facing Israeli defense planners.

During the conference, IDF Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, pointed out that, “in Lebanon today, there are homes in which there are guestrooms alongside missile storage rooms. This is a clear intelligence reality.”

The situation was also addressed by Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan, who unveiled a government plan to find solutions quickly for the 30% of Israeli civilians who do not have rocket-proof rooms in their apartments, or access to bomb shelters in their buildings or the immediate vicinity.

In any full-scale war, Erdan warned, the Israeli home front will be pounded by thousands of rockets for up to three weeks, and every point in the country could be hit by Hezbollah.

One out of every 10 homes in Lebanon now has a rocket launcher or Hezbollah weapons stored in it, Erdan said. Civilian homes, he said, are constructed in southern Lebanon in a way that allows the roof to open up for the firing of a rocket at Israel.

An increasing number of Hezbollah’s projectiles, Erdan cautioned, are guided, accurate weapons, with which the terror organization will seek to strike Israeli national infrastructure sites, such as electricity production centers.

If the number of rockets and missiles possessed by Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are added up, he added, the number reached is 200,000.

“Our enemies,” he said, “want to break the spirit of Israelis, and get them to stop believing that we can have a normal life here.”

The IDF has very effective offensive plans for these threats, but the government also had to come up with new ways of keeping civilian life going during a future war, he continued.

“We need to create a mechanism to allow the continuous functionality of the home front, and not to return to scenes of the Second Lebanon War of 2006,” he said. “No other country is facing the threat we are today.”

Hezbollah is heavily armed, more so than most Western countries, but it is also deterred by Israel’s firepower. Additionally, its main focus today is on fulfilling the orders of its masters in Tehran and fighting in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime, a move that has provoked the wrath of Sunni jihadis. This change was noted in recent days by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who stated: “To those who are not yet aware, there is already a civil war in Lebanon. [The Sunni] Global Jihad, which has infiltrated Lebanon and is attacking Hezbollah, is blowing car bombs in [the south Beirut Hezbollah stronghold of] Dahia, and is firing rockets at Dahia and the Beka’a Valley [in northern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is also based].”

During the conference, new ideas were put forward by top security figures on how Israel might enhance its deterrence even further.

Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council (which advises the prime minister), said Israel should reject the idea that it must fight against terrorist guerrilla organizations embedded in civilian areas, and return to the idea that it is fighting enemy states.

It is impossible to defeat guerrilla forces, Eiland argued; but if the enemy and its territory are defined as a hostile state, victory becomes possible once again. “In 2006,” he said, “we tried to do something impossible by hitting rocket launchers. If tomorrow there is a third Lebanon war and if we try to do the same thing, the result will be worse. We and Hezbollah have improved tactically.”

“If war does break out,” he added, “treating Lebanon as an enemy would end the conflict in three days, not three weeks,” Eiland predicted. “This entails bombing bridges and other state-affiliated targets, though staying clear of civilian sites like schools and hospitals,” he stressed. “It is not right for us to accept the idea of fighting low-intensity counter-terrorism conflicts. We should move to an interstate conflict system.”

One out of every ten homes in Lebanon now has a rocket launcher or Hezbollah weapons stored in it, according to Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Home Front Defense Minister.

Syrian opposition media have posted a video that shows a direct rebel strike on a Hezbollah building near Damascus, killing a large but unknown number of the terrorist organization’s fighters.

Hezbollah has been losing popularity in Lebanon following reports of hundreds of casualties since the terrorist group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah sent them to fight along soldiers loyal to Syrian President Bassar al-Assad.

Hezbollah initially claimed its fighters were in Syria to protect Shi’ite religious sites against attacks by Sunni Muslims.

In what appears to have been a separate clash in Damascus on Saturday, at least 15 Hezbollah fighters were killed, and a separate video showed dead soldiers with Hezbollah label patches on their uniforms.

Media  coverage of the destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons has neglected the ongoing civil war that could tear Syria into several warring regions.

Al Qaeda, which has become a major force in the war against the Assad regime, lost control of a major border crossing with Iraq on Saturday when Syrian Kurds captured it after a three-day battle.

In the south, rebels took over the town of Tafas after weeks of heavy  fighting that killed dozens of people, according to, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A Jerusalem court Monday sentenced a Jerusalem Arab bus driver to 3½ years in jail for handing over to Hezbollah information about potential targets in the capital for terrorists.

The sentence was handed down three months after the conviction of Issam Hashem Mashahara, who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy in return for the prosecution’s dropping spy charges, for which he had been indicted.

Mashahara had traveled to Lebanon via Jordan and contacted Hezbollah agents, who later took him to an office of the terrorist organization for an interview.

He informed Hezbollah agents of the address of the official residence of the Prime Minister and of other possible places where terrorists could attack. Mashahara returned to Israel with software camouflaged as a children’s DVD in order to stay in touch with his contacts, who also paid him $1.500.

Headlines of fowl accused of spying for Israel are making the rounds again in Middle Eastern media, with the most recent bird of espionage being an eagle  “arrested” by Hezbollah  in Lebanon.

Local hunters caught the bird in the town of Achkout, who alerted authorities after discovering that the bird had an ID ring attached to its leg with the words “Israel” and “Tel Aviv University” printed on it, according to one Lebanese news site.

The Hezbollah- affiliated Al-Manar TV, whose news site’s Israel section is called “Enemy Entity,” claimed that the eagle was one of many birds sent by Israel to spy and gather information via GPS transmitters across the Middle East. The report pointed to the “arrest of birds carrying similar devices” in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and most recently in Egypt.

Tel Aviv University responded, “This morning, the media reported on an Israeli ‘spy” that was caught by Hezbollah. The ‘spy’ is a predatory fowl that was part of the one the research projects conducted by Tel Aviv University on raptors.”

Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority stated that the eagle was born in a breeding center in southern Israel and had been released a couple of years ago.

Ohad Hatzofeh, one of the Tel Aviv University bird researchers who identified the eagle told Tazpit News Agency that he was “fed up” with the eagle ‘spy’ accusations.

If all of the Arab countries that have “caught” previous spies, such as a stork, a vulture and  pigeon, it only shows how paranoid they really are.

In July, Turkish authorities detained a bird on the suspicion that it was spying for Israel. The kestrel, referred to as the “Israeli agent” by Turkish press because it had metal ring with “Tel Avivunia Israel” on it, was placed in an X-ray machine at a university hospital and underwent a scan for bugging devices. After passing the surveillance, the Zionist spy was freed.

Egypt arrested a stork in late August for spying for Israel because of authorities were suspicious of the tracking device placed by scientists to record its migration. Eventually, the stork, called Menes, was freed but local villagers later ate the spy.

Saudi Arabia apprehended a vulture in 2011, accusing the raptor of being an Israeli spy because of a GPS device with the suspicious “Tel Aviv University” label on its leg. The vulture was eventually freed.

Sudan captured an Israeli hawk last year because tags reading “Israel Nature Authority” and Hebrew University Jerusalem, obvious stooges of the Mossad, were found on its legs.

In May 2012, Turkish authorities were sure they had foiled a Mossad ploy when they caught a European bee-eater.