Hezbollah commander Hassan Lakkis killed in Beirut

A senior commander of the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah has been killed near Beirut, the group says.

Hassan Lakkis was "assassinated" near his home in Hadath - 7km (4.3 miles) south-east of the Lebanese capital, Hezbollah TV channel Al-Manar said.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for his death but Israel denies the accusation.
Little is known publicly about Lakkis, but he was reputedly close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and an expert in weapons manufacturing.
The news comes a day after Hassan Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was behind last month's bombings outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

Who was Hezbollah's Hassan Lakkis?

• A commander in the militant group, said to have been close to leader Hassan Nasrallah
• Reported to have trained in Iran in warfare and the manufacture of weapons, explosives and booby traps
• Possibly a member of a unit within Hezbollah which coordinates with Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza
• Thought to be in his mid-40s
• One of his sons was killed fighting Israel in 2006 conflict

"These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. "They don't need evidence, they don't need facts. They just blame anything on Israel."

Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon made up mainly of Shia Muslims.
It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.
Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war with Israel in 2006. The group said that one of Lakkis's sons had been killed in that conflict.
Dr Ronen Bergman, a writer on military intelligence affairs for Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot , said Lakkis "became known in Hezbollah as the guy in charge of manufacturing sophisticated weaponry, explosives, booby traps, he was a technical guy".
He added: "... Hassan was the leading figure who received Iranian guidance, he studied in Iran the issues of microwarfare, terrorism, counterterrorism, and he brought this knowledge with him to Hezbollah, so he was one of these channels through which the Iranians gave Hezbollah their assistance..."

Lakkis was attacked in the car park of the building where he lived

Some sources say Lakkis was shot with a silenced gun

Hostility to Israel has been Hezbollah's defining platform for many years

 

 

 

source:bbcnews 

Lebanon blasts hit Iran's embassy in Beirut

The Syrian conflict has increased sectarian tensions in Lebanon. South Beirut, including the area around the Iranian embassy, is considered a Hezbollah stronghold. It has been hit by several attacks in recent months. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called the attack "a cowardly terrorist act", Lebanese state news agency NNA reported. "The aim of the blast is to stir up the situation in Lebanon and use the Lebanese arena to convey messages," he said. The main gate to the embassy was blown out and there was damage to the three-storey building, the Associated Press reported. AP and the Hezbollah TV channel al-Manar quoted sources saying that the first blast was caused by a suicide bomber, while the second was a car bomb, which did much more damage. However, this has not been officially confirmed. On 15 August, 27 people were killed in a car bomb in south Beirut believed to have been targeting a Sunni Muslim cleric opposed to Hezbollah. The cleric was unhurt. Hezbollah fighters were instrumental in a strategic victory by Syrian government forces in Qusair, close to the border with Lebanon, in early June. source:BBCNEWS

US Closer To 'Zero Option' In Afghanistan As Troops Deal Hits Impasse

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has rejected a provision of a U.S.-Afghan security pact, putting the entire deal in jeopardy just days before the country's elite gather to debate it, a senior Afghan official and a Western diplomat said. The question of whether foreign troops will be able to search Afghan homes after NATO's combat mission ends next year has long been a sticking point of an agreement setting out the terms under which remaining U.S. forces will operate there. But in a series of meetings over the weekend the enter-and-search issue emerged as the biggest roadblock facing the security pact as Karzai dug his heels in, the Afghan official, who has been close to the talks, told Reuters. Without an accord on the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), Washington says it could pull out all of its troops at the end of 2014, leaving Afghanistan's fledgling security forces on their own to fight the Taliban-led insurgency. Two years ago, the United States ended its military mission in Iraq with a similar "zero option" outcome after the failure of talks with Baghdad, which refused to guarantee immunity to U.S. personnel serving there. The United States is concerned that as campaigning intensifies for Afghanistan's presidential election next April, it will be increasingly difficult to broker a security pact. "They want a window left open to go into Afghan homes, but the president does not accept that - not unilaterally and not joint," the Afghan official said, referring to house raids by U.S. troops either on their own or with Afghan forces. The U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul declined to comment, but a Western diplomat in Kabul with knowledge of the talks confirmed the two sides had reached an impasse. "It's a very tense time," the diplomat said. The New York Times also reported that the talks were at an impasse. "NO FLEXIBILITY" On Thursday, a five-day national gathering of the country's political, tribal and other elites, called a loya jirga, will begin to debate the BSA in Kabul. If an agreement on the pact is not reached by then, Karzai may tell the meeting in his opening address that he does not agree with the article about house searches, the official said. "If the jirga becomes about that one article then it risks seeing the entire document rejected," the Afghan official said. Talks stalled over the house-search issue during two meetings Karzai held at his palace with U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham and NATO's commander, General Joseph Dunford. "From our side there is no flexibility on this issue of allowing Americans to search Afghan homes, because this is more important than jurisdiction," the Afghan official said. Jurisdiction refers to giving all American service members in Afghanistan immunity from Afghan law, another U.S. demand that has been resisted by Karzai. The issues of jurisdiction and unilateral military operations by U.S. forces have been the main bones of contention in the months-long negotiations over the security agreement. The question of house searches, which have sometimes led to civilian deaths, is a highly charged one that has contributed to the rifts between Karzai and foreign forces in an increasingly fractious relationship. The United States wants to be able to conduct such searches to continue targeting al Qaeda and other militants in Afghanistan. Karzai is concerned that the hated searches could sap support for the government and foreign troops who stay on. Another meeting between Karzai, the U.S. envoy and the NATO commander was expected on Monday, though the official said there was little hope of a breakthrough. SOURCE: BI