15August2006-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that

"God’s promises have come true," Ahmadinejad told a huge crowd in Arbadil in northwestern Iran. "On one side, it’s corrupt powers of the criminal U.S. and Britain and the Zionists … with modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God."

In Damascus, Syrian President Syrian President Bashar Assad said Washington’s plans for the Middle East were turned into "an illusion" by Hezbollah’s resistance to the Israeli military during the 34-day conflict.

Israel "was defeated" and Hezbollah "hoisted the banner of victory," Ahmadinejad told the crowd, including many people waving yellow Hezbollah banners and Iranian flags.

Ahmadinejad drew cheers when he said Hezbollah foiled what he called the plans of Washington and its allies "to create the so-called new Middle East."

"The people of the region are also after the new Middle East, but a Middle East that is free from U.S. and British domination," he said.

After the war broke out July 12, Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders repeatedly denounced the U.N. Security Council for moving slowly toward a cease-fire. They also sharply criticized other Muslim nations for what Iran considered a failure to rally around Hezbollah and Lebanese civilians.

Ahmadinejad said the United Nations should force war reparations from Israel and its allies, led by the United States.

"Those who were involved in inflicting damage to the Lebanese nation are responsible," he said.

Ahmadinejad has drawn worldwide condemnation for calling for Israel’s destruction and describing the Holocaust as a myth.

Earlier Tuesday, a hard-line Iranian cleric warned Israel that Iran’s new long-range missiles will land in Tel Aviv if the Jewish state should attack Iran, state-run television said.

Ahmad Khatami, a mid-ranking cleric, declared that Israel would face dire consequences if it "makes an iota of aggression against Iran."

"They must fear the day 2,000-kilometer (1,250-mile)range missiles land in the heart of Tel Aviv," he said.

Khatami is a Friday prayer leader in Tehran and a member of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical panel that has the power to choose or dismiss Iran’s top leader, but he is not considered a government official.

In his address, Ahmadinejad also said his government would stick by its plans to reply on Aug. 22 to a package of Western economic and technology incentives offered in exchange for a suspension of Iranian uranium enrichment.

The U.N. Security Council has told Iran it must halt enrichment by Aug. 31 or face possible sanctions.

Western nations, led by the United States, claim Iran is using its nuclear program as a cover for developing atomic weapons in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Iran denies the allegations, saying its program has the peaceful goal of generating electricity with nuclear reactors.

13August2006-Israeli troops battled Hizbollah guerrillas across southern

Lebanon on Sunday and air strikes battered Beirut’s suburbs as the Israeli army pressed on with its offensive in the hours until a U.N.-brokered truce begins.   ।    

Israel’s cabinet approved Friday’s U.N. Security Council

Hizbollah launched its heaviest one-day rocket barrage into Israel since the start of the war. Security officials said more than 250 rockets were fired, killing a 70-year-old man and wounding at least 91 people. Some hit the center of the port city of Haifa but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli army said five soldiers were killed and 25 wounded in fighting on Sunday. The previous day was the deadliest day of the month-old war for the army, with 19 soldiers killed and five missing and feared dead after their helicopter was shot down by Hizbollah.

Lebanese security sources said Israeli air raids killed at least 22 people.

Israeli officials said Israel believed it would be entitled to use force to prevent Hizbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon after the truce took effect. They said such "defensive" operations were permissible under the U.N. resolution to end the fighting.

Western diplomats and U.N. officials said they feared Israel’s broad definition of "defensive" actions could lead to a resurgence in large-scale fighting and prevent the swift deployment of international troops meant to monitor a ceasefire.

"It will be a fragile truce," said a Western diplomat involved in the deliberations.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni repeated Israel’s position that its troops would only pull out when a peacekeeping force arrived — which the U.N. says could take up to 10 days.

Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday his guerrillas would observe a truce once it began but reserved the right to fight Israeli soldiers still on Lebanese soil.

Lebanon’s cabinet approved the U.N. resolution on Saturday but a cabinet meeting scheduled for Sunday was postponed because of divisions over whether to discuss the disarmament of Hizbollah, a government source said.

AIR STRIKES

Israel, which has some 30,000 troops in Lebanon, widened its offensive on Friday despite the U.N. resolution.

Israeli aircraft attacked targets in more than 50 villages and towns, Lebanese security sources said, killing at least eight people in southern Lebanon and 12 in the Bekaa valley.

Several explosions shook Beirut and thick white smoke billowed over the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs. The attack destroyed 11 residential buildings. Witnesses and security sources said two children were killed.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said fighting should end immediately to spare civilians.

"The fighting should stop now to respect the spirit and intent of the Security Council decision, the object of which was to save civilian lives, to spare the pain and suffering that the civilians on both sides are living through," Annan said.

At least 1,087 people in Lebanon and 149 Israelis, including 109 soldiers, have been killed in the war.

Analysts said that a truce might not hold, particularly with Israeli troops still in Lebanon.

"I think this talk of a ceasefire going into effect tomorrow seems to be highly exaggerated and dubious," said Mouin Rabbani, senior Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group.

"It seems that Israel’s strategy has been to establish positions as far north as possible to implement a fighting withdrawal, meaning that they will try to take on as much of Hizbollah as they can as they work their way south."

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that the Israeli government was willing to discuss a possible release of Hizbollah prisoners in exchange for the freeing of two Israeli soldiers whose capture on July 12 sparked the war.

The Israeli military said it had launched more than 100 air strikes in Lebanon since Friday evening, attacking more than 50 Hizbollah command stations, two missile launchers, and two vehicles carrying weapons from Syria to the Bekaa valley.

Israel said it had killed 40 Hizbollah guerrillas in the past 24 hours. Hizbollah said one fighter died on Sunday.

Hizbollah reported fierce fighting in several parts of the border area and said its guerrillas destroyed at least three tanks and two bulldozers.