 NO final verdict has been reached for the three American hikers in Iranian custody, Iran's deputy Judiciary Chief is reported as saying. "The three American hikers have been charged and their case is being studied at the Tehran Prosecutor General's Office," Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi is quoted as saying by Iran's state-run Press TV. US citizens Shane Bauer, a freelance journalist, Sarah Shourd, a teacher and Josh Fattal, an environmentalist, were arrested July 31 this year while on a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan. The three were traveling on Syrian and Iraqi visas and, according to Iranian officials, crossed the border illegally. The Australian
 Egypt has installed surveillance cameras along its border with Gaza as part of efforts to curb arms smuggling into the Palestinian territory, an Egyptian security official said.
"Alarms and surveillance cameras were installed last week along the 14-kilometre border" to detect activity through smuggling tunnels, the official said, declining to be named.
He said it was the first phase of a high-tech security system being installed with US assistance, part of a bid to bolster the January 18 ceasefire in Israel's war against the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza.
The tunnels are also used to ferry food supplies and other necessities into the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since June 2007.
The United States has pledged $50 million in detection equipment to unearth smuggling tunnels and US army engineers have been providing technical assistance on the ground.
Meanwhile France has sent a frigate to patrol the waters off Gaza, where more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel's assault aimed at halting rocket attacks on its territory and arms smuggling.
Israel has reserved the right to resume attacking tunnels under the Gaza border, as it did during its 22-day offensive, after tunnel building resumed almost immediately after the ceasefire. Source: ABC Online
From correspondents in Kirat Shmona, Israel | January 12, 2009
ISRAELI soldiers and civilians working along the border fence with Syria have come under gunfire from inside Syrian territory.
No one was wounded in the rare incident that came amid heightened alert in Israel along its northern border as the military offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip entered its third week, a senior military official told AFP
A person opened fire at a group of soldiers and civilians repairing the fence along the border with Syria," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli military filed a complaint to the United Nations force monitoring the usually calm border between Israel and Syria, he said.
"UN forces are currently conducting searches along the Syrian side of the border," the official said.
Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse
 By MARK LAVIE
JERUSALEM — Israel moved closer to invading Gaza, saying Thursday it had wrapped up preparations for a broad offensive after Palestinian militants fired about 100 rockets and mortar shells across the border in two days.
Israel's foreign minister brushed off a call for restraint from Egypt's president, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a direct appeal to Gaza's people to pressure their leaders to stop the barrages. But the attacks showed no signs of ending. By nightfall, three rockets and 15 mortar shells had exploded in Israel.
Olmert issued his appeal in a rare interview with the Arabic language satellite channel al-Arabiya, saying Israel would not hesitate to respond with force if the attacks continued.
"I am telling them now, it may be the last minute, I'm telling them stop it. We are stronger," he said.
Thursday's rocket fire was far less than the barrage of 80 rockets the previous day, and there were no reports of injuries. But Israeli leaders said the continued fire — the most intense since Egypt brokered a cease-fire last June — was unacceptable.
One of the mortar shells landed at Israel's passenger crossing with Gaza just as a group of Palestinian Christians was going through on their way to the West Bank town of Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations, the military said. Another rocket exploded after nightfall in an industrial park south of the coastal city of Ashkelon, police said.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to Cairo to discuss the possibility of renewing the truce, which expired Friday. But by the time Livni arrived, she was in no mood to discuss a cease-fire, and she dismissed Mubarak's pleas for restraint.
"Enough is enough," she said afterward. "When there's shooting, there's a response. Any state would react that way."
In Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that "whoever harms the citizens and soldiers of Israel will pay a heavy price."
He did not elaborate. But defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said the Israeli operation would likely begin with surgical airstrikes against rocket launchers and continue with a land invasion. Harsh weather conditions are hampering visibility and complicating air force missions, so the operation won't be launched until the skies clear, they added.
Another complication is national elections set for Feb. 10. Both Barak and Livni are running for prime minister, and they are under heavy pressure from opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu to act. Netanyahu, who advocates tough action against Palestinian militants, is the front-runner in the election, according to opinion polls.
Despite the tough talk, Israel has been reluctant to embark on an offensive liable to exact heavy casualties on both sides. Gaza's militants operate in crowded civilian areas, and past invasions have not halted the barrages.
The barrages have caused no casualties over the past two days, but there has been property damage, and tens of thousands of Israelis near Gaza have been instructed to stay indoors. TV newscasts have been showing panic-stricken children.
Israel left Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but still controls its border crossings, blockaded for months in an effort to pressure militants to halt their fire. Islamic Hamas militants seized control of Gaza in June 2007, after routing security forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Despite the rocket fire, Israel's Defense Ministry said late Thursday that it would open two cargo crossings Friday to allow a limited amount of vital supplies to enter. Israel's policy is to avoid a humanitarian crisis there, while keeping up the pressure.
In the West Bank, Abbas visited Hebron, the area's largest city, for the first time since he took office in 2005. Israeli forces control a section in the middle of the city to protect about 500 Jewish settlers living in several enclaves. Hebron is home to about 170,000 Palestinians.
Abbas demanded that the settlers get out. "Hebron is ours, and they have to leave if they want peace," he said.
Also Thursday, an Israeli military court sentenced the leader of a Palestinian group to 30 years in prison for participating in anti-Israel attacks.
Ahmed Saadat is the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP took responsibility for killing Israeli Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi at a Jerusalem hotel in 2001. Saadat was acquitted of planning the assassination, but sentenced for other attacks, the military said.
In neighboring Lebanon, meanwhile, Lebanese army officers said troops discovered seven rockets set up with timers that were on the verge of firing near the border with Israel. They said troops were dismantling the Katyusha rockets.
They would not say if the rockets were directed toward Israel. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of military rules.
The militant group Hezbollah has a large rocket arsenal, but has rarely used them against Israel since their 2006 war. Last year, a previously unknown militant Islamic group fired two rockets into Israel. Source: Associated Press
 October 27, 2008
AMERICAN military helicopters attacked a farm in eastern Syria close to the border with Iraq yesterday, killing eight people, the Syrian Government said.
There was outrage in Damascus and the Foreign Ministry summoned the US and Iraqi envoys to protest about the operation.
Four American helicopters targeted a civilian building under construction, firing on the workers inside shortly before sunset, according to a government statement carried by the Syrian state news agency. The structure was at al-Sukkari farm, 8km inside the Syrian border.
They “opened fire on workers inside the building, including the wife of the building guard, leading to the (death) of eight civilians,” the statement said.
A resident of a nearby village reported that the aircraft flew along the Euphrates into the area of farms and several brick factories.
Some of the helicopters landed and troops got out of the aircraft and fired on a building, the resident told the Associated Press, adding that at least one of the dead was a construction worker. After the attack, the helicopters headed for Iraq, state media said.
While the Pentagon did not confirm the attack, a US military spokesman said that the raid targeted a network of foreign fighters based at the farm. “We are taking matters into our hands,” the unnamed US official said.
America accuses Syria of failing to do enough to stop militants, including al-Qaeda operatives, from infiltrating over the border. The Bou Kamal border area, close to the farm in eastern Syria, is the country’s main crossing point into Iraq.
Farhan al-Mahalawi, the mayor of the Iraqi border town of Qaim, said that US helicopters had struck a village on the Syrian side of the border. He said that the village had been surrounded by Syrian troops.
An Iraqi security source in Baghdad also confirmed that eight people had been killed. The Syrian Government claimed that four children were among the dead.
Suleiman Ghadban, head of the hospital in Bou Kamal, said: “The hospital received seven bodies aged between 16 and 50 and three wounded, including the mother of the (deceased) family.”
The Syrian government statement said: “Syria condemns this aggression and holds the American forces responsible for this aggression and all its repercussions.
“Syria also calls on the Iraqi Government to shoulder its responsibilities and launch an immediate investigation into this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria.”
Last week the commander of US forces in western Iraq said that US troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border.
Major-General John Kelly told reporters that Iraq’s western borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan were fairly tight thanks to good policing by security forces in those countries but that Syria was a “different story”.
“The Syrian side is, I guess, uncontrolled by their side,” Major-General Kelly said. “We still have a certain level of foreign fighter movement.”
The US military was helping to build a sand barrier and ditches along the border, he said, adding: “There hasn’t been much, in the way of a physical barrier along that border for years.”
Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister, accused the US this year of not giving his country the equipment that it needed to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq. He said that the US feared Syria could use such equipment against Israel.
The US has long viewed Syria as a destabilising country in the region but in recent months Damascus has been trying to change its image and end years of global seclusion.
President Assad has pursued indirect peace talks with Israel, mediated by Turkey, and says that he wants direct talks next year.
Syria has agreed to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon, a country that it used to dominate politically and militarily, and has worked harder at stemming the flow of militants into Iraq. European, US and Arab officials have increased their visits to the country.
The reported attack comes at a particularly sensitive time, however, as Baghdad and Washington struggle to sign an agreement to allow US troops to stay in Iraq beyond this year.
Neighbouring countries, including Syria and Iran, have voiced concern that such an accord would enable the US military to attack other countries from Iraqi territory, a charge that US officials deny. Source: The Australian
By Aaron Klein JAFFA, Israel – Israel and Egypt have embarked on serious discussions about the deployment of an Arab force in the Gaza Strip consisting largely of Egyptian and some Saudi troops, senior defense officials told WND. The officials said Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week discussed the Israeli proposal for Arab forces in Gaza during a meeting he held in Alexandria with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The officials said Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert eventually would like to expand the deployment of Arab and international forces to the West Bank as well, with those troops consisting largely of Jordanian forces, according to an Israeli plan. Ahmed Yousef, Hamas' top political adviser in the Gaza Strip, confirmed to WND he is aware of the recent talks of sending an Arab force into Gaza. He said his terrorist organization strongly opposes the plan. Read more ...Source: WND
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NO final verdict has been reached for the three American hikers in Iranian custody, Iran's deputy Judiciary Chief is reported as saying. 
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