Report: U.N. tribunal to link Iran’s Supreme Leader with Hariri assassination
Newsmax report quotes sources blaming Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah for Hariri hit … Lebanese labor minister says UN tribunal will submit a draft indictment on Monday

A United Nations tribunal is to indict Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with ordering the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.S. news website Newsmax reported on Saturday, adding that the hit itself was planned [and] executed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in collaboration with Hezbollah. The report comes just days into Lebanon’s latest political crisis, as [ministers] affiliated with Hezbollah and its allies withdrew from the unity cabinet led by Saad Hariri earlier this week, citing Hariri’s cooperation with the UN-led probe of his father’s killing. Saturday’s Newsmax report, also cited by Lebanese news website Naharnet, quotes [a] source close to the UN investigation of the Hariri killing who claimed that the order to assassinate the former Lebanon premier was given by Khamenei. The order was then reportedly passed on to Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh by the head of the IRG’s Quds force, Qassem Suleymani. Upon receiving the order, Mughniyeh and brother in law Mustapha Badr al-Dine allegedly put together an assassination squad …

Nasrallah on course for anti-West government backed by Assad

In his first speech on the Lebanese crisis, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday night, January 16: “The opposition will exercise its own national convictions and will not be intimidated by the world’s reaction.” He added: “The opposition” had decided unanimously not to name Saad Hariri, the pro-Western prime minister they toppled last week, as next head of government, meaning that the Hizballah-led camp will build its own regime shunning Hariri. Nasrallah and Hariri will certainly go head to head to decide which rules the country. DEBKAfile‘s sources note that Hizballah has the advantage of being the most powerful armed force in Lebanon. Added to Hariri’s disadvantages is the refusal of his potential outside supporters, whether the US, France, Israel or Saudi Arabia, to intervene on his behalf. The Hizballah-led government’s first step will be to declare illegal the Special Lebanese Tribunal whose prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is due to submit his report to pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen within 48 hours. Nasrallah’s pretext will be that his findings and the indictments of his henchmen were composed in Tel Aviv – not at the STL’s seat in The Hague …

[Editor's Note: Because Lebanon is a surrogate of Syria, which is, in turn, an Iranian satellite, for some months now, we've been able to see that Lebanon is almost certainly the third of the three nations (joining Syria and Iran), which are scheduled to be "plucked up" by the Little Horn state of Israel.

The Old Testament prophet Daniel predicted it:

"Behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things." (Daniel 7:8)

While most believers reject this identification because the little horn image is classically associated with the Antichrist of the Bible, the fact is, these statements are true. The dramatic announcement of the Lebanese political crisis is a powerful indicator that the military explosion which we've long predicted is just around the corner, and it behooves all concerned to study and seek to understand just what is occurring all around them.

For more on the role of Israel as the little horn, see the DVD The Little Horn at ChristianMediaNetwork.com in the online catalog.]

[These stories, and much more, are part of today's news at ChristianMediaDaily.com]

Israel targets new Iran-built Hamas command centers in Gaza

The Israeli air strikes in Gaza early Monday, January 10, described officially as aimed at “terrorist targets” and “smuggling tunnels” were in fact systematic missions to start destroying the new Hamas underground command centers which Iranian Revolutionary Guards engineers are building across the enclave. This is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile‘s military sources. The enhancement of Hamas’ military capabilities against Israel is seen as Iran’s punishment for the attacks on its nuclear scientists and installations, while serving its broader effort to control the Gaza Strip as its Mediterranean outpost. Sunday, January 9, the heads of Hamas’ military wing Ezz e-Din al-Qassam tried to persuade Iran’s Palestinian proxy, Jihad Islami leader Amin al Hindi, to rein in his group’s missile and mortar attacks on Israeli towns and villages and its rocket strikes against Israeli border patrols. They argued that these attacks caused no real harm, depleted the resources needed for a major showdown with Israel and provoked the IDF into prematurely launching another round of the Cast Lead campaign of 2008-2009. This campaign had already begun, they said, with the Israel Air Force’s precision bombing of the new Hamas facilities going up for the next Palestinian war on Israel; Israel should not be driven to devastating attacks before the facilities were in place …

U.S., Palestinians slam Israeli east Jerusalem move

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — The United States and the Palestinians have slammed Israel’s bulldozing of an east Jerusalem hotel to make way for settler homes, saying it undermines Middle East peace efforts. “We are very concerned about the initiation of demolition of the Shepherd’s Hotel in east Jerusalem,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after arriving in Abu Dhabi for talks on the stalled peace process. “This disturbing development undermines peace efforts to achieve the two state-solution,” she said in a statement. Earlier, furious Palestinian officials accused Israel of destroying any chance of peace by demolishing part of the building, which sits on a plot of land in occupied east Jerusalem where developers plan to build a complex of 20 luxury apartments for Jewish settlers. “By doing this, Israel has destroyed all the US efforts and ended any possibility of a return to negotiations,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, said in a statement. “Israel has no right to build in any part of east Jerusalem, or any part of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967,” Abu Rudeina said, calling on the United States to “stop Israeli tampering.” …

[Editor's Note: The recent news that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now abandoning the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and turning to another track to try to generate a deal over Jerusalem indicates the intensity with which the Obama administration is pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Further, it's likely Obama sees a final Jerusalem settlement as his ticket to the key post in a forthcoming world government. It's unlikely he will ever be re-elected to the White House without an open rebellion, to say nothing of the fact the world landscape will be remarkably different after World War III - a military conflict he himself is culpable in producing. It's far more likely Obama is willing to sacrifice America for his globalist political aspirations in a post-American led world. For more on Obama's role in the end times, See Barack Obama In Bible Prophecy LINK]

[These stories, and much more, are part of today's news at ChristianMediaDaily.com]