As todays New York Times reports:

New York - Describing a brazen scheme to manipulate the granting of options, federal prosecutors have charged three former executives of Comverse Technology with mail fraud, securities fraud and wire fraud.

In charging the former executives on Tuesday, prosecutors said they had used fictitious employees to create a secret slush fund of options to be distributed to favored employees.

The former chief executive, Jacob Alexander, who had built Comverse into a $1 billion leader in the communications software market, did not appear in court and is believed to have fled to Germany or Israel, according to a person briefed on the investigation. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Alexander is highly regarded in Israel, where he once owned a stake in a Tel Aviv professional basketball team and where Comverse has extensive business operations.

In late July, he wired $57 million to an account in Israel, according to court filings from the Justice Department. Millions more are believed to remain in his accounts in the United States, which prosecutors have asked to be frozen.

Kobi Alexander should be arrested and interrogated about his knowledge of the events of 9/11. His company acquired the other Mossad firm, Odigo, shortly after it was revealed that Odigo employees had been forewarned of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

This is the tip of the Israeli criminal mafia who is behind the terror attacks on 9/11.

Here is a relevant section from one of my articles about Mossad's involvement in 9/11, which I posted on RMN on April 7, 2005:

At least two Israel-based employees of Odigo received warnings of an imminent attack in New York City more than two hours before the first plane hit the WTC. Odigo had its U.S. headquarters two blocks from the WTC. The Odigo employees, however, did not pass the warning on to the authorities in New York City, a move that could have saved thousands of lives.

Odigo has a feature called People Finder that allows users to seek out and contact others based on certain demographics, such as Israeli nationality.

Two weeks after 9/11, Alex Diamandis, Odigo's vice president, reportedly said, "It was possible that the attack warning was broadcast to other Odigo members, but the company has not received reports of other recipients of the message."

The Internet address of the sender was given to the FBI, and two months later it was reported that the FBI was still investigating the matter. There have been no media reports since.

Odigo, like many Israeli software companies, is based and has its Research and Development (R&D) center in Herzliya, Israel, the small town north of Tel Aviv, which happens to be where Mossad's headquarters are located.

Shortly after 9/11, Odigo was taken over by Comverse Technology, another Israeli company. Within a year, five executives from Comverse were reported to have profited by more than $267 million from "insider trading."

Alexander is highly regarded in Israel, where he once owned a stake in a Tel Aviv professional basketball team and where Comverse has extensive business operations.

In late July, he wired $57 million to an account in Israel, according to court filings from the Justice Department. Millions more are believed to remain in his accounts in the United States, which prosecutors have asked to be frozen.

The other two defendants, David Kreinberg, former chief financial officer, and William Sorin, former general counsel, were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where they were released on $1 million bail each, secured by their homes. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint against the three men.

Lawyers for Alexander and Kreinberg declined to comment on the charges. A call to a lawyer for Sorin was not returned.

The criminal case against the Comverse executives, who resigned in May, is the second involving the manipulation of stock options. Last month, federal prosecutors in San Francisco charged the former chief executive of Brocade Communications and its former head of human resources with securities fraud.

James Burrus Jr., acting assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said at a news conference in Washington that the FBI was investigating 45 cases involving the backdating of options. More than 80 companies nationwide are now under investigation over their options practices by the Securities and Exchange Commission or by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors contend the three men devised a complex scheme to backdate every company-wide grant of options from 1998 to 2001 to days when Comverse's stock was trading at lower prices.

Options give an employee the right to buy a stock at some point in the future at the price of the stock on the day it was granted, commonly referred to as the strike price. The lower the strike price, the more an option is worth to the recipient. By falsely dating the options at a time when the stock was trading at a lower price, the recipient receives even bigger profits.

From 1991 to 2005, Alexander made profits of $138 million on options he exercised and stock he sold, prosecutors said. About $6.4 million of that profit was a result of backdated options, prosecutors say.

Likewise, Kreinberg and Sorin exercised options and sold shares for profits of about $13 million and $14 million, respectively, according to court filings. Around $1 million of those profits for both of the men came from backdating, prosecutors said.

"Each of the former executives realized substantial personal gains from the exercise of the illegally backdated option grants and the subsequent sale of Comverse common stock," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Collectively, they realized millions."

Comverse has said it will have to restate financial results back to 2001 and possibly even further.

Alexander is credited with turning Comverse - once a penny stock on the verge of failure - into a market leader in the voice-messaging software arena with global operations. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master's degree in finance from New York University.

The ICRC said it had not been able to reach villages where it had hoped to take several hundred people, including wounded, to safety in the north. "Obviously we will continue to try to reach and supply these villages and evacuate the wounded and sick," said spokeswoman Antonella Notari.

The UNHCR refugee agency also condemned Israel's dropping of leaflets telling people in heavily populated areas in Beirut to flee on Thursday which prompted hundreds to evacuate.

"We once again strongly appeal to all parties in the conflict to protect civilians and infrastructure during this conflict in accordance with international law," it said.

Israel's month-old war with Hizbollah guerrillas has killed at least 1,023 people in Lebanon and destroyed an estimated $2.5 billion of infrastructure, while 123 Israelis have been killed.

Hizbollah has fired more than 3,400 rockets at Israel during the war. The rockets have paralyzed life across a region that is home to one million people, driving one third of them to flee while many others are holed up indoors or in bomb shelters.

AID INCHES SOUTH

The U.N. World Food Programme, overseeing logistics for U.N. agencies, said a 15-truck convoy proceeded to the eastern town of Baalbek after it halted due to shelling a day earlier.

It also received Israeli clearance for convoys to Sidon and Nabatiyeh, towns north of the Litani, but could not reach Tyre, the biggest city south of the river, or border villages.

"We have clearance for everything north of the Litani," said WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. "Below that it's still a no-go area."

The World Health Organization was receiving requests for fuel from at least 24 private hospitals and was looking into transporting a 10-day supply for those in most urgent need.

WFP emergency coordinator Zlatan Milisic said Lebanon's government had contracted a ship that could ferry fuel from two vessels docked in Cyprus which have refused to pass Israel's naval blockade for fear of attack.

"The earliest would be on (August) 13 for the ship to come and then go unload the fuel," he said.

The WFP said it had brought in 650 metric tonnes of aid, enough for 180,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, although that remained "far off the mark" from its goal of 300,000.

Four hospitals in the south of the country have already run out of fuel needed for generators that were crucial for surgery and stocking drugs, Egeland said.

But a broader problem was also developing after the owners of two oil tankers chartered by the UN stopped them docking in Beirut because conditions were regarded as too dangerous, he added.

"The national electricity grid will even halt if there is no fuel coming in soon, and the two UN-supported tankers will help in this," Egeland told a news conference.

Israeli forces have bombed major power stations, many of which are oil-fired.

The World Health Organisation said Thursday it had purchased enough fuel to keep hospitals in the south going for 10 days "and is ready to deliver it".

"However, the security situation continues to make delivery extremely difficult," it added in a statement.

The UN humanitarian coordinator slammed Israel and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah for their conduct in the conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel, condemning a "senseless cycle of violence".

"It's a disgrace really because the parties to the conflict, Israel and Hezbollah, could give access in a heart beat, and then we could help 120,000 people in southern Lebanon."

Ten requests for relief or reconnaissance convoys were made Thursday, and Israeli forces granted security clearance for eight of them, the humanitarian chief said.

But no requests were even attempted for the virtually isolated port of Tyre after days of refusals, Egeland said.

He also called into doubt the value of the notification system with Israeli forces following air strikes that came perilously close to relief convoys.

"This gives us the impression it is a very fragile system... It is a system which is not working," he said.

About one quarter to one third of Lebanon's population was fleeing, according to the UN.

Egeland cautioned that under any subsequent end to the fighting, the Lebanese must be able to return to their homes.

"The people have a right to return. If the right is not granted, they will be sources of perpetual bitterness, perpetual hatred, perpetual conflict," he added.

The bombing of a bridge near the border with Syria wounded 18 people in addition to the 12 dead, hospital staff said. Witnesses said a second strike hit the bridge 15 minutes after the first had brought rescuers rushing to the scene.

An Israeli soldier was killed and one was badly wounded in fighting with Hizbollah guerrillas, Al Arabiya television reported. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

An Israeli strike on a car near the eastern city of Baalbek killed one civilian and wounded two, medical sources said.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions. The rockets, while they would be very effective against hidden missile launchers, officials say, are fired by the dozen and could be expected to cause civilian casualties if used against targets in populated areas.

Israel is asking for the rockets now because it has been unable to suppress Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks in the month-old conflict by using bombs dropped from aircraft and other types of artillery, the officials said. The Katyusha rockets have killed dozens of civilians in Israel.

The United States had approved the sale of M-26's to Israel some time ago, but the weapons had not yet been delivered when the crisis in Lebanon erupted. If the shipment is approved, Israel may be told that it must be especially careful about firing the rockets into populated areas, the senior official said.

Israel has long told American officials that it wanted M-26 rockets for use against conventional armies in case Israel was invaded, one of the American officials said. But after being pressed in recent days on what they intended to use the weapons for, Israeli officials disclosed that they planned to use them against rocket sites in Lebanon. It was this prospect that raised the intense concerns over civilian casualties.

During much of the 1980's, the United States maintained a moratorium on selling cluster munitions to Israel, following disclosures that civilians in Lebanon had been killed with the weapons during the 1982 Israeli invasion. But the moratorium was lifted late in the Reagan administration, and since then, the United States has sold Israel some types of cluster munitions, the senior official said.

Officials would discuss the issue only on the condition of anonymity, as the debate over what to do is not resolved and is freighted with implications for the difficult diplomacy that is under way.

State Department officials "are discussing whether or not there needs to be a block on this sale because of the past history and because of the current circumstances," said the senior official, adding that it was likely that Israel will get the rockets, but will be told to be "be careful."

David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment on Israel's request. He said, though, that "as a rule, we obviously don't fire into populated areas, with the exception of the use of precision-guided munitions against terrorist targets." In such cases, Israel has dropped leaflets warning of impending attacks to avoid civilian casualties, he said.

In the case of cluster munitions, including the Multiple Launch Rocket System, which fires the M-26, the Israeli military only fires into open terrain where rocket launchers or other military targets are found, to avoid killing civilians, an Israeli official said.

The debate over whether to ship Israel the missiles, which include the cluster munitions and use launchers that Israel has already received, comes as the Bush administration has been trying to win support for a draft United Nations resolution that calls for immediate cessation of "all attacks" by Hezbollah and of "offensive military operations" by Israel.

Arab governments, under pressure to halt the rising number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, have criticized the measure for not calling for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

While Bush administration officials have criticized Israeli strikes that have caused civilian casualties, they have also backed the offensive against Hezbollah by rushing arms shipments to the region. Last month the administration approved a shipment of precision-guided munitions, which one senior official said this week included at least 25 of the 5,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs.

Israel has recently asked for another shipment of precision-guided munitions, which is likely to be approved, the senior official said.

Last month, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said its researchers had uncovered evidence that Israel had fired cluster munitions on July 19 at the Lebanese village of Bilda, which the group said had killed one civilian and wounded at least 12 others, including 7 children. The group said it had interviewed survivors of the attack, who described incoming artillery shells dispensing hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village.

Human Rights Watch also released photographs, taken recently by its researchers in northern Israel, of what it said were American-supplied artillery shells that had markings showing they carried cluster munitions.

Mr. Siegel, the Israeli Embassy spokesman, denied that cluster munitions had been used on the village.

The United States Army also employs the M-26 rocket and the Multiple Launch Rocket System in combat, and the Pentagon has sold the weapon to numerous other allies, in addition to Israel. The system is especially effective at attacking enemy artillery sites, military experts say, because the rockets can be quickly targeted against a defined geographic area. Each rocket contains 644 submunitions that kill enemy soldiers operating artillery in the area.

But Human Rights Watch and other groups have campaigned for the elimination of cluster munitions, noting that even if civilians are not present when the weapons is used, some submunitions that do not detonate on impact can later injure or kill civilians.

The M-26 "is a particularly deadly weapon," Bonnie Docherty, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, who helped write a study of the United States' use of the weapons in the 2003 Iraq invasion. "They were used widely by U.S. forces in Iraq and caused hundreds of civilian casualties."

After the Reagan administration determined in 1982 that the cluster munitions had been used by Israel against civilian areas, the delivery of the artillery shells containing the munitions to Israel was suspended.

Israel was found to have violated a 1976 agreement with the United States in which it had agreed only to use cluster munitions against Arab armies and against clearly defined military targets. The moratorium on selling Israel cluster weapons was later lifted by the Reagan administration.

This week, State Department officials were studying records of what happened in 1982 as part of their internal deliberations into whether to grant approval for the sale to go forward.

The White House, and in particular White House advisors who belong to the neoconservative movement, allegedly encouraged Israel to attack Syria as an expansion of its action against Hizbullah, in Lebanon. The progressive opinion and news site ConsortiumNews.com reported Monday that Israeli sources say Israel's "leadership balked at the scheme."

One Israeli source said [US President George] Bush's interest in spreading the war to Syria was considered "nuts" by some senior Israeli officials, although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has generally shared Bush's hard-line strategy against Islamic militants.

After rebuffing Bush's suggestion about attacking Syria, the Israeli government settled on a strategy of mounting a major assault in southern Lebanon aimed at rooting out Hizbullah guerrillas who have been firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.

In a July 30 story about Israel being prepared for a possible attack by Syria in response to its attacks in Lebanon, The Jerusalem Post noted the White House interest.

The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] was also concerned about a possible Syrian attack in response to the ongoing IDF operations in Lebanon. It was also known that Syria had increased its alert out of fear in Damascus that Israel might attack.

Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

Neoconservatives, or 'neocons,' believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled military power to promote its values around the world. Several prominent neocon columnists have recently written about the need for Israel to take the current conflict beyond Lebanon to include the countries they consider to be Hizbullah's main backers - Iran and Syria.

In his blog for National Review, columnist Michael Ledeen wrote last month that "we have to [go] after [Syrian President Bashir] Assad."

The hard work on the ground belongs to the Israelis, and you are right to say we have done well to support them rhetorically. But we have to [go] after Assad, and we have not done that. Perhaps this is due to my own ignorance; it may be going on behind the scenes (not movie scenes, the real ones). I hope so. But I don't see it. I don't see or hear our leaders condemning the Syrians and the Iranians, aside from the original White House statement (in direct conflict with the statement from the State Dept, let's not forget) holding Syria and Iran responsible. Okay, so they're responsible. And then?

There has to be a "then." And it has to be aimed at the total destruction of Hizbullah and the downfall of the regime in Damascus. Otherwise, it will all rewind. There will be no semblance of a strong, free, and independent Lebanon, and the next time around things will be much worse. You will see more and more Iranian missiles, in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in Israel. It's a war, not a debate.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, also believes the US needs to go after Syria and Iran.

For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

The right response is renewed strength - in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions - and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

But Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, argues the opposite side, that now is the time to engage, not attack Syria, and that the Bush administration "will forfeit another historic opportunity to bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, however remote that prospect may now seem."

The Syrian government knows only too well that the administration is fully committed to a regime change in Damascus. From the Syrian perspective, this, in itself, justifies any effort to thwart the American design. If the administration wishes to see a real change in Syria's behavior, it must first assure President Bashar al-Assad that the United States has no intention of undermining his government. It is absurd to think that any government will cooperate in its own downfall. That said, however justified American grievances against Syria may be, Damascus can also compile a long list of its own grievances. Neither side's complaints against the other can be adequately addressed by public pronouncements or recriminations. Only a direct dialogue provides the clarity to realistically assess each other's intentions.

In a recent piece entitled "Ending the neoconservative nightmare," Ha'aretz columnist Daniel Levy writes that the neoconservative agenda for Israel has actually hurt the country. Israel, he said, found "its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hizbullah's advantage..." Mr. Levy wonders if, after the Israel-Hizbullah crisis is over, Israelis will understand the "tectonic shift that has taken place in US-Middle East policy?"

The key neocon protagonists, their think tanks and publications may be unfamiliar to many Israelis, but they are redefining the region we live in. This tight-knit group of "defense intellectuals" - centered around Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, [Richard] Perle, [Douglas] Feith and others - were considered somewhat off-beat until they teamed up with hawkish well-connected Republicans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich, and with the emerging powerhouse of the Christian right. Their agenda was an aggressive unilateralist US global supremacy, a radical vision of transformative regime-change democratization, with a fixation on the Middle East, an obsession with Iraq and an affinity to "old Likud" politics in Israel. Their extended moment in the sun arrived after 9/11.

Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The US press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization."

Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem.

Finally, Spencer Ackerman writes in The New Republic Online that a growing split between traditional conservatives (champions of 'realistic' foreign policy) and neoconservatives (champions of 'moralistic' foreign policy) will only become more pronounced over the next few months, as traditional conservatives increasingly rethink the Bush administration's actions in Iraq.

Conservative recriminations over Iraq are igniting all across Washington, with opponents of the war loudly assaulting its leading champions (see Francis Fukuyama v. Charles Krauthammer and George Will v. William Kristol.) But what the Hulsman incident [the dismissal of senior foreign policy analyst, John Hulsman, from the neoconservative bastion the Heritage Foundation last month] reveals is that the war's supporters aren't about to passively absorb criticism and issue public apologies. They are going to fight back against their critics - and an ugly debate will become much uglier.

"The terrorists know where the weak spots are, and we are being badly hit," the newspaper quotes a senior official as saying.

The attacks are a blow to the pride of Israel's army. Merkava III and IV tanks are considered among the most powerful in the world and have a reputation for extremely resistant armour and protective systems.

Merkavas boast 1,200 horsepower and are equipped with state-of-the-art electronic systems that should make them some of the safest and most mobile tanks in the world.

But Israel's tanks, crucial for any ground operation in southern Lebanon, have proved vulnerable to the attacks of Hezbollah and ill-adapted to the hilly and heavily wooded terrain.

Israeli military officials have also admitted surprise at the level of resistance they are meeting from Hezbollah fighters, who are well-trained and have been firing at tanks from very close range.

The bulk of the Shiite militia's anti-weapons are Russian-made models, although some were manufactured in Iran, said expert Yiftah Shapir from the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

"The most efficient missiles are the Metis-M and the Kornet manufactured by Russia and delivered to Syria in the nineties," he told AFP.

"They are very lethal because they have been designed to penetrate active armour on modern tanks such as those the Israelis were the first to introduce in the early eighties," Shapir said.

Hezbollah also has the latest Sagger missile, a Russian weapon manufactured in Iran, as well as the Russian Spigot, the expert.

These missiles have the ability to pierce armour as thick as one metre (39 inches) and have a range of 1.5 to five kilometres (one to three miles).

"The Israeli army knew that Hezbollah had a large arsenal of missiles, but maybe they didn't know they had the Metis-M and the Kornet," Shapir added.

Yediot Aharonot quoted a senior military official as saying the army's lack of preparedness for the threat of anti-tank missiles "is a bigger failure than that which preceded the Yom Kippur War."

The Israeli army has dramatically underestimated Egypt's ground forces ahead of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The problem isn't technical," said Shapir. "They will always end up finding the answer to the new generation of missiles just like they did in the past."

"The most important thing is that the Israeli army finally understand that they are not up against a gang of terrorists but a real army."

Much bellowing and roaring comes from Israel about a mass military attack all the way to the Litani river. But today, much less bellowing and roaring about "rooting out" the "weed" of the Shia Muslim Hizbollah "terrorists" who are supposedly - in Israel's fantasies, at least - an ally of America's enemies in the War on Terror (a conflict which, of course, we all religiously support).

A column of Israeli armour, which crept into the Lebanese Christian town of Marjayoun - largely populated by the Lebanese collaborators of Israel's occupation from 1978 to 2000 - turned north yesterday towards Khiam, a village already largely depopulated, to find that the Hizbollah guerrillas there refused to surrender.

Israel's frustration - and its sense of loss since 15 of its soldiers were killed in just the fraction of the south Lebanese border area which it "controls" over the past 24 hours - was evident in a potentially criminal document which it dropped over Beirut yesterday. Signed "the State of Israel" - which at least makes its origins clear - the tracts announced that "the Israeli Defence Forces intend to expand their operations in Beirut".

Ouch, we all said when we read this, anticipating more civilian deaths. And we were not without proof. The Israeli decision, announced in this Israeli document - a square of paper that fluttered on to shoppers and office workers, and myself, in Riad Solh Square - had been taken because Hizbollah rockets had continued to fall on Israel and because of "their leader's statements" last night. On Tuesday evening, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, had boasted of the 350 missiles he claimed his members had fired on Israel over the previous 48 hours, and urged Israeli Arabs to leave Haifa.

And it should be said that the Israeli army are not winning their war in southern Lebanon. Within two kilometres of their own border, they lost their 15 soldiers on Wednesday. Many others were wounded. The furthest the Israelis could reach in an armoured column yesterday was the edge of Khiam, the site of their own notorious torture prison from 1978 to 2000. It is still only two miles from the border and they are fighting a far more determined and disciplined enemy than in 1982, when their "incursion" took them as far as Beirut.

The Israelis have crossed the same border to find that their enemies, Hizbollah, are prepared to die in battle - indeed, seek to die in battle - unlike the secular PLO over whom they proclaimed an easy victory in 1982. Hizbollah is a different enemy, one which turns the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's, claims that he is pursuing the same "war on terror" as George Bush into dust. The Hizbollah is officered by men who spent 18 years fighting Israeli occupiers, and who learned the hard way that improved weaponry and iron discipline are more important than nationalist rhetoric. Since the Israeli retreat in 2000, they have had six years to bury their arms caches underground amid extraordinary secrecy.

Amazingly, the Hizbollah television station, al-Manar, is still on air. Israel's anger at this amazing bit of technological initiative may have led to its preposterous attack on the old French mandate semaphore and radio station transmitter in west Beirut. The structure, built by the French in the 1930s, had been a repeater station for Radio France during and after the Vichy French regime but had lain derelict since 1946. Yet at 11.20am yesterday, the Israelis wasted two missiles on the tower, thus proving the "war on terror" - in which they insist they are "our" allies - goes back to an era before Israel existed.

Yesterday's air-dropped Israeli document ordered Shia MuslimsinBeirut's Hay al-Selloum, Bourj al-Barajneh and Shiyah districts to abandon their homes "immediately". In other words, the Israeli army wishes to "cleanse" every civilian out of the 12 square miles between Beirut airport and the old Christian civil war frontline at Galerie Semaan. This malicious document ends with a sinister threat - which breaks all the relevant rules of the Geneva Conventions - that "each expansion of Hizbollah terrorist operations will lead to a harsh and powerful response and its painful response will not be confined to Hassan's gang of criminals".

So what does "not be confined to" mean? That it is the civilians who will pay the price - this time in Beirut - as they have in the Israeli air force massacres of southern Lebanon over the past three weeks?

Well, stand by for more Hizbollah atrocities and more Israeli atrocities.