Please take a stop by Counter Terrorism Blog first on this round, CT blog has a series of interesting factts regarding the lead up to the current conflict, interesting facts about Hizbullah and their backers, Iran and Syria.

Please also hit the “next post” link while there, they point out the Hezbollah ties to Bosnian Islamists, and that Iran could open another front there.  A snippet below:

1- Over two weeks ago, Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah told opposition leader Walid Jumblatt: “The stability of Lebanon is vital for us. We have to preserve the touristic season and continue with a dialogue between the different political parties.”

2- After the Syrian Army left last year, not only did Syrians still place officials in the Lebanese Army, Secret Service, and high in the administration (for more on that, please read my piece in the “Daily Standard” here), but also Hezbollah did the same.

3- Nasrallah admitted that it took five months of preparation to plan this operation.

Israeli troops pushed into south Lebanon again today, one patrol met with an ambush and suffered some casualties. The troops were either trying to hunt down positions, or perhaps laser light some Hezbollah targets. The IAF also dropped 23 tons of ordinance, probably including bunker busters, on an underground bunker that might have contained Nasrullah.

 From My Way:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – Israeli troops punched into south Lebanon on Wednesday as warplanes flattened buildings including one thought to hold Hezbollah’s top leaders, intensifying an offensive despite mounting international pressure and a Lebanese appeal to spare the country further death and devastation.

The strike was the most dramatic action on a day that saw Israelis clash with the guerrillas and launch strikes that killed an estimated 40 people. Israel broadcast warnings into south Lebanon telling civilians to leave the region, a possible prelude to a larger Israeli ground operation.

In Mogadishu, Somalia the “Islamic Courts” warlords who know control the country are arresting people for watching movies. 60 people were arrested overnight in a sure sign that these fundamentalists are full of perverse notions of Sharia, and are Taliban redux or worse. From the ABC news/ AP story:

The roundup was the latest move by the militiamen to forcefully apply their strict interpretation of Islamic law, a practice that has stoked concerns that they want to remake Somalia after Afghanistan under the Taliban including offering a haven to terrorists.

Those arrested “will be rehabilitated and then we will release them after they are told the disadvantages of watching such films and what Islam says about watching such films,” said Moalin Shire, an official of the Islamic court whose jurisdiction includes one video hall that was raided.

Since it wrested Mogadishu from a secular alliance of warlords last month, the Islamic militia has cracked down on purportedly non-Islamic activities, such as a World Cup screening and a wedding with live music. It also replaced its moderate main leader with Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, whom the U.S. has linked to al-Qaida. Aweys denies the allegations.

You have to wonder what the “rehabilitation” will be like, and if human rights watch, The EU, the UN,  and amnesty international will take time out from condemning Israel to speak out against this repression.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia is planning an invasion of Somalia, I think we need to look the other way since we are busy. From Les Neuhaus, AP writer:

NAIROBI, Kenya – Ethiopia is prepared to invade neighboring Somalia to defend its U.N.-backed government against what appeared to be an imminent attack by Islamic militiamen, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

“We have the responsibility to defend the border and the Somali government. We will crush them,” Ethiopia’s Minister of Information, Berhan Hailu, told The Associated Press.

Somali transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is allied with Ethiopia, and has asked for its support. Ethiopia has intervened militarily in Somalia in the past, and hundreds of Ethiopian troops have been spotted along the countries’ border in recent weeks.

In Connecticut we have an arrest of a “British Man” Syed Talha Ahsan, (of the Devonshire Ahsans I guess….) for running a terrorist funding and recruiting website:

HAVEN, Connecticut – A British man was indicted Wednesday on charges he helped run terrorism fundraising Web sites, set up terrorists with temporary housing in England and possessed a classified U.S. Navy document revealing troop movements. Syed Talha Ahsan, 26, was arrested at his home in London on a federal indictment in Connecticut charging him with conspiracy to support terrorists and conspiracy to kill or injure people abroad.

The curent media story line is running “Israel is just creating more terrorists with the bombing, it’s a never-ending Cycle of Violence” ™ – this is the same notion expressed by the socialists, as evidenced by the interview of the fellow from “The Nation” on O’Reilly earlier this evening. Expect more of this fatalistic retreat, journalists would have us curl up in a ball while thugs take over the world, just as their tack was last century before communist aggression and repression. 

In Atlanta, two men were arraigned for training for Jihad war against an airbase in Georgia: Story at CNN.COM 

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — Two young men from the Atlanta area were accused in a federal indictment Wednesday of undergoing paramilitary training in northwest Georgia and plotting violent holy war.

Their civilian and government targets included an air base in suburban Atlanta, the indictment says.

Named in the grand jury’s indictment were Syed Ahmed, a 21-year-old Georgia Tech student who was arrested in March, and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, another U.S. citizen who grew up in Atlanta area.

In Pakistan arrests of suspected Taliban are up, the pressure is on as the Taliban gets squeezed from both sides, as the Scotsman reports:

The Baluch government, a coalition that includes pro-Taliban Islamist parties, ordered the crackdown at the weekend, and the issue is one of great sensitivity in Pakistan.

An Islamist lawmaker, Maulvi Noor Mohammad, threatened protests unless people held were freed by the end of the month.

“Because they were studying in madrasas, that’s why they were arrested,” said Mohammad, an aide to a pro-Taliban politician Maulana Fazalur Rehman.

Close to 700,000 Afghans live in Baluchistan. Most of them flooded into the region to escape fighting in their homeland during the past quarter-century.

One of the men caught was identified as Mullah Hamdullah Achakzai, who had been a low-ranking commander of Taliban forces in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand when the Islamists ruled the country. He was caught with five comrades.

In Chechnya, the Islamofascist terrorists have rejected an amnesty offer and in response tendered more threats:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The leader of the Chechen rebels dismissed a Russian amnesty offer on Wednesday, saying attacks outside his home region would be his rebels’ answer to Moscow.

Last week, following the death of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, Russia offered Chechens still resisting its rule a fair trial if they surrendered by the end of the month.

Basayev, who masterminded the 2004 Beslan school siege in which 186 children perished, died last week in what the rebels say was a fatal accident but Russia said was a targeted raid.

But the response from Doku Umarov, head of a rebel movement which has united with Islamist rebels to stage attacks all across the North Caucasus, was swift and contemptuous.

“All Moscow’s announcements about the ‘end of the war’ or this so-called ‘amnesty’ … are yet more attempts by the Kremlin regime to hide the real situation behind lies,” said a statement on a rebel Web site.

As I type, US Marines are landing in Beirut for the first time in 23 years. CNN is with them, broadcasting live.

In Iraq, forces have killed two terrorists and captured 19, from Defense Link:

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2006 – In several incidents July 16 and 17 and yesterday, Iraqi soldiers, police, and coalition forces killed two terrorists and detained 19, military officials reported.

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, captured and detained a suspected terrorist at a checkpoint northwest of Baghdad at about 3 p.m. yesterday.

The suspect was traveling with a woman and with four children under the age of 2 in a vehicle carrying multiple mortar systems, three 130 mm rounds and two directional charges. The Iraqi army detained the suspected terrorist.

In a separate event, soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad’s 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, were attacked by small-arms fire while conducting area reconnaissance at about 3 p.m. in an outlying area of southwestern Baghdad. The soldiers returned fire on their attackers; after searching the area, they found the bodies of two dead terrorists and detained seven others.