The Pentagon has just confirmed deployment of US Special Forces in Lebanon to support the Lebanese Army in an upcoming coordinated military campaign aimed to clean out an ISIS border pocket in the country’s northwest, like reported by zerohedge.com. Regional media outlets are describing the coming major new offensive as “imminent”. But awkwardly for the US, the fight will necessitate some level of coordination with Hezbollah, which the US considers a terrorist organization.

On July 21st the Lebanese Army in cooperation with Hezbollah intensified operations to root out ISIS from the environs of the Sunni border town of Arsal, while at the same time the Syrian Army attacked from the Syrian side in the western Qalaman mountains. The region’s mountainous terrain and dozen or more refugee camps has made it an ideal place for ISIS and other jihadists to embed themselves throughout much of the Syrian war.

The first major ISIS assault on Arsal came in 2014, which resulted in significant Lebanese troop casualties and kidnappings. Since then the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah have effectively contained ISIS and allied jihadist groups to a barren border zone which includes refugee camps. Syrian refugee presence in and around Arsal numbers in the tens of thousands – many of which have scrambled to flee the area over the past weeks.

The Pentagon announcement came as the US-backed Lebanese Army ramps up efforts to permanently dislodge ISIS presence along its border. “I can confirm the presence of US Special Forces in Lebanon,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told the US-funded Arabic channel Al-Hurra TV last Thursday.

But Hezbollah has also been an integral part of the Lebanese Army’s Arsal campaign. The two have worked in close coordination with one another as Hezbollah has sealed and contained ISIS expansion on the southern side and the most northerly corner of the border area. On Friday night, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech acknowledging the army’s capability but noting that, “we are at the service of the Lebanese army and under its command… if they ask for any help we will help.” Hezbollah is the only militia regularly coordinating with both the Syrian and Lebanese armies and is expected to join the new assault against ISIS mostly from the Syrian side of the border.

Meanwhile, in border campaigns along the Qalaman region the Lebanese Army has often taken a back seat to the more effective Hezbollah fighters. The US has given the Lebanese military more than $1 billion in security assistance over the past decade. The Pentagon spokesman would not comment on the size of US special operations forces in Lebanon and attempted to distance the US mission from Hezbollah activities along the border. He said that assisting the army “advances a wide range of US interests in the region”.

In spite of what the Pentagon might claim about “countering Hezbollah” the mission will inevitably put US Special Forces advisers in close proximity with the group loyal to Hassan Nasrallah, and which over the past years has been the most effective irregular force defending the Assad government.

But it is yet a further sign that White House priorities have shifted drastically in the Levant. As we reported last week, President Trump was increasingly disgusted with the CIA program to support anti-Assad jihadists, especially after seeing the gruesome video of a CIA vetted group beheading a child. It’s further been widely reported that the United States now sees ISIS as the exclusive target in Syria, and no longer the Syrian Army and its allies. As ISIS front lines now primarily lie with the Syrian Army, the Kurds, and Hezbollah, future American military action against the group will likely involve some level of de facto coordination with pro-Assad factions. Going back to the Bush and Obama administrations, the break up of the so-called “Shia crescent” of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah had always been the stated long term strategic priority. US Special Forces coordination with Hezbollah, even if through intermediaries, would certainly signify a monumental shift.

While it’s increasingly looking like Trump has no problem working with anti-ISIS Hezbollah, US ally Israel is sure to balk. Israel has unleashed over a dozen missile attacks on Syrian targets since 2013 frequently claiming to strike Hezbollah weapons arsenals and positions in Syria. It rallied hard for the Obama administration to initiate regime change in Syria, and current and former Israeli officials have long been on record saying they would favor ISIS to Hezbollah.

It is unclear to what extent American forces will participate in the upcoming major offensive. But no matter how the Pentagon tries to spin it, US soldiers will be advising fighters who themselves will work shoulder to shoulder alongside Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army captured a number of strategic hilltops bordering Syria from Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists, The Associated Press reported, citing the army and state media.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the army captured several hills between the frontier towns of Ras Baalbek and Arsal, and the army said in a statement it destroyed ISIS fortifications and killed several of its members.

The civil war in neighboring Syria has spilled into Lebanon since it began in 2011, with ISIS group and the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front carrying suicide bomb attacks in Lebanon.

Al-Nusra also joined an incursion into the Lebanese border town of Arsal in 2013 and its fighters captured several Lebanese soldiers when they pulled out.

The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Lebanon mainly due to Hezbollah’s involvement in the fighting. Hezbollah’s strongholds have come under repeated bomb attacks over its involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Sunday’s reports came two days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced the Lebanese army would lead the fight to drive out ISIS from the border region once and for all.

Fateh al-Sham Front, the current name of Al-Nusra, agreed to vacate the frontier region in July, following a two-weeks-long military operation spearheaded by Hezbollah on the Lebanese side and the Syrian army on the other, according to AP.

More than 1,000 militants were given safe passage to Fateh al-Sham’s stronghold in northwest Syria’s Idlib province. Some 6,000 Syrian refugees accompanied them, preferring not to stay in Lebanon.

Israel was reportedly considering building an underground barrier along its Egyptian border to prevent the Islamic State terror group in Sinai from digging cross-border attack tunnels into Israel, like reported by toi.com.

The army was weighing up whether to extend the barrier currently being constructed around the Gaza Strip southward to protect the Israeli towns in the Eshkol region, the Ynet news website reported on Friday.

Despite having focused the vast majority of its efforts on waging a bloody insurgency against the Egyptian army in recent years, IS in Sinai has long used saber-rattling and small scale attacks against Israel to boost its credentials. Jihadists have fired rockets at Israel, and in February the Egyptian army destroyed six tunnels which ran between Gaza and Sinai.

“We constantly warn of our concern from the growing threat on the Egyptian border at every opportunity,” said Eshkol Regional Council head Gadi Yarkoni. “Therefore this process is essential and necessary to guarantee maximum security for the exposed residents affected by the war going on in Egypt. The threat of tunnels is a strategic threat to the area and therefore to the entire State of Israel.”

The cost of the barrier currently being constructed around the Gaza Strip is NIS 3.4 billion ($940 million) and was expected to be completed within a year and a half.

Under the new plan, the subterranean barrier would initially be extended one kilometer to the south of the Gaza Strip, with the possibility of ultimately building a three-kilometer underground wall along the border, the report said.

The total length of the border between Israel and Sinai is 245 kilometers (152 miles) and is protected by a fence which was completed in 2013.

In February, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman brushed off the threat from Sinai following rocket attacks from the peninsula. He said that while IS in Sinai is “annoying” and “hindering,” it does not possess the means to pose a serious threat to Israel’s security.

“If you are talking about Hamas and Hezbollah then [IS’s Sinai force] is not even a terror group,” he told Army Radio, describing the group’s capabilities as “random [amateurs] who decide to build themselves an army.”

The Sinai-based group was formerly known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis — meaning “Supporters of Jerusalem” — before switching its allegiance from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State in 2014 and changing its name to Sinai Province, highlighting the importance the terror group places on railing against Israel as part of its propaganda efforts.

Last September, a senior Israeli Southern Command official said that the structure around the Strip is to include a wall deep below the ground as well as a fence above ground. Some parts of the roughly 60-kilometer (40-mile) border will also be flooded.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing regulations, said the goal is to turn the underground network into a “death trap” for Hamas.

During the 2014 war in the Strip, Hamas terrorists managed on several occasions to make their way into Israel through a tunnel network.

Israel destroyed some 32 tunnels during that conflict. The official said the military is investing great efforts to stop the threat.

In 2016, the IDF uncovered two tunnels that crossed into Israeli territory from Gaza, the first such discoveries since the end of the 2014 conflict.

A policeman and a civilian were killed and three people wounded in an attack late on Thursday on a patrol in Esna, south of Luxor, the Interior Ministry said, Reuters reported.

The police patrol had stopped a vehicle and when stopped, two gunmen fired on the patrol, the ministry said in a statement.

One of the perpetrators were arrested while the other fled, the ministry said, adding that the wounded have been transferred to hospital.

Attacks on security forces have been common in Egypt since the army, led by general-turned-President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

In recent months, attacks have expanded to target Egypt’s Coptic Christians, the country’s largest minority.

Trapani prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio said in a press conference that personnel working aboard the NGO vessel Iuventa twice brought migrants aboard the ship who were escorted by Libyan traffickers and not in dangerous situations, like reported by ansamed.it.

Cartosio requested and received permission to seize the vessel, which has been blocked in Lampedusa since Monday evening.

“The preventative seizure was arranged in order to stop the crime from reoccurring,” Cartosio said.

Cartosio said the fact that the NGO operating the Iuventa didn’t sign the Italian government’s proposed code “has nothing to do with today’s operation”, and said that is no relationship between the NGO and the traffickers.

“We’ve documented meetings at sea, but we’ve concluded there were no connections between the NGO and Libyans,” he said, adding that this also means categorically excluding that anyone “took action for profit”.

The Iuventa is regularly used to rescue migrants off the Libyan coasts and to bring migrants to other vessels in international waters, and it regularly sails in the Libyan Sea near the country’s territorial waters, the Trapani police said.

The Trapani police’s investigation into NGOs that rescue migrants off the Libyan coasts was announced last April.

On May 11, Cartosio spoke of the Trapani investigation in a hearing before the Italian Senate Defence Committee.

“The Trapani prosecutor’s office is conducting investigations into the possible aiding and abetting of illegal immigration involving NGOs not as organizations but the physical persons belonging to the NGOs,” Cartosio told the committee.

Hamas money laundering ring transferring money from officials in Gaza, via Turkey,  to the West Bank city of Hebron has been exposed by the Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police, the internal security agency cleared for publication like reported by jpost.com.

According to a statement by the Shin Bet internal security agency the money laundering ring was run by senior Hamas activist Muhammed Mahed Bader from Hebron. Bader, a member of the group’s legislative council recruited two other Hamas activists from Hebron, Mus’ab al-Haslom and Taha Othman, who were sent to Turkey under the guise of business trips.

While in Turkey the two met with Hamas activist Haroun Nasser al-Din, another Hebron resident who was released from Israeli prison as part of the prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Al-Haslom and two others, his brother Yusri Hashalom and Omer Kimari are said to have been in contact with Majed Jaba, a Hamas activist originally from Hebron but exiled to the Gaza Strip after having been released as part of the Shalit prisoner deal. Jaba is suspected of helping to transfer funds.

Al-Haslom was asked to transfer terror funds from Turkey to Hebron in order to finance the activities of Hamas members in the group’s headquarters in Hebron, in particular members of the Hamas Legislative Council. In addition, al-Haslom was asked to transfer funds for Hamas activists who had been released from prison.

According to the Shin Bet, Haroun gave Haslom and Othman tens of thousands of dollars. The two purchased merchandise in Turkey and imported the goods via international shipping companies in Hebron and gave the money from the sales to Hamas operatives in Hebron, minus a commission.

Haroun is suspected of instructing Hashlom and Othman of appealing to Hamas activists in Hebron and offering them money from headquarters, the statement continued, adding that the investigation revealed that $200,000 had been laundered in that manner. In addition, the construction of a multi-million dollar concrete plant financed by Hamas was planned, with the aim of laundering more money.

“The exposure of the infrastructure indicates the constant motivation of Hamas activists in Turkey and the Gaza Strip to increase terror from Hamas in the West Bank. Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip and abroad recruit emissaries from Judea and Samaria who travel abroad to transfer terrorist funds and messages to operatives in the field,” read the Shin Bet statement. “Hamas frequently mobilizes relatives of the organization’s operatives in the field, or is assisted by merchants and businessmen who pay a significant personal and business price for this activity,” it continued.

“The Shin Bet together with the IDF and the Israel Police will continue to act to expose and thwart terrorist activity directed by Hamas elements abroad and in the Gaza Strip,” the statement continued.

An indictment against the suspects is expected to be filed by the military prosecution in the coming days.

The continuing chaos in Libya is enabling Islamic State (ISIL) to “regroup” and renew its recruiting efforts in the Maghreb, analysts say according to worldtribune.com.

Reports have said the terror organization recently moved its Libyan base to the town of Sabratha, 60 miles from the Tunisian border.

“The majority of their fighting force comes from Tunisia, so Sabratha is also a growing center,” terrorism analyst Robert Young Pelton told Fox News.

“ISIS in Libya can regenerate quickly.”

After losing its Libyan stronghold of Sirte late last year, the number of ISIS jihadists in the country was said to have fallen below 200, according to the Pentagon.

A spokesman for U.S. Africa Command told Fox News that number currently is around 500.

Col. Ahmed Almesmari, spokesperson for the Libyan National Army (LNA), however, said ISIS’s numbers are far larger – around “five to seven thousand people of different nationalities.”

“ISIS is a transnational franchise that comes with funding, trainers and PR packages,” Pelton noted. “They seek out groups who will re-brand themselves and project the image of an international organization by standardizing logos, messaging and even design criteria for tweets and videos.”

Mohamed Ghasri, spokesperson and senior commander of the Mistrata-based al-Bunyam al-Marsous militia, said last week that the militia has observed ISIS movements south of Sirte, where they are “trying to regroup and break through our forces’ lines in the south.”

Even as it continues to lose ground in Iraq and Syria, ISIS “could prove resurgent in the Maghreb if past lessons and lingering threats remain unheeded,” International Crisis Group said in a July 24 report. “Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia should go beyond security and military measures to address persistent local grievances and tensions that ISIS has proven adept in exploiting.”

In Libya, “the struggle among powerful militias and competing interference by various regional actors produced an enabling context not only for recruitment, but even more so for ISIS’s territorial expansion,” the report said.

“Libya illustrated what Iraq and Syria proved: that jihadists’ influence is more a product of instability than its primary driver. The fact that, with Western assistance, Libyan forces were able to oust ISIS from Sirte shows that superior military force can vanquish the organization, a reality that has also been made evident in Mosul, Iraq, and will be soon in Raqqa, Syria. But that this was achieved without curing the problems that originally led to ISIS’ emergence is reason to worry.”

In a play, children pretend to shoot dead ‘Zionist pigs’ for their ‘defilement’ of the holy compound in Jerusalem, like reported by toi.com

Children at a Hamas summer camp staged a reenactment of the recent tensions at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, with kids dressed up as Hamas fighters pretending to storm the compound and “liberate” the holy site.

Footage of last month’s graduation ceremony, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, shows a group of children dressed up as Muslim worshipers confronting kids in Israeli Border Police costumes guarding metal detectors at the Mount, yelling, “We want to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

When the “worshipers” refuse an order to leave the Mount by the kids playing border guards, the “officers” aim their guns at the group and drive them away from the metal detectors, forcing them to hold prayers outside the site.

At the conclusion of the prayers, several of the children stand up and declare, “We want to liberate Al-Aqsa,” and one of them pretends to stab one of the kinds playing Border Police officers.

The rest of the group proceeds to pelt the border policemen with rocks to chants of “Allahu Akbar,” and the officers open fire. The play’s narrator announces that “one martyr has fallen while carrying out a stabbing operation” after “killing one of the Zionist pigs.”

With the riot escalating, the “officers” attack the crowd, and sounds sounds of gunfire can be heard alongside flurries of smoke meant to invoke tear gas, and the announcer declares that “another martyr has fallen” in the melee.

As the riot ends, a group of kids dressed up as members of Hamas’s military wing arrive to “liberate the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” while the rioters chant, “With our souls and our blood we will redeem you, O Al-Aqsa,” a line often said by protesters during the actual standoff over the security measures at the site.

After blowing up the metal detectors, the terrorists proceed to knock down the rest of the gates and storm the Temple Mount in a hail of gunfire, as the narrator says “the mujahideen [holy warriors] are confronting the Zionist pigs and wiping them out.”

Following their violent takeover the Temple Mount, one of the terrorists addresses the crowd, saying that the terror group will stand with them in “the battle for the liberation of Jerusalem and of Palestine in its entirety,” and explaining that “this is a battle to break the chains, to shatter the shackles and to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the defilement of the occupation.”

Israel installed metal detectors at the Temple Mount after a July 14 terror attack at the site, in which three Arab Israelis shot dead two police officers using weapons an accomplice smuggled into the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Last week, Israel removed the metal detectors and other new security measures after nearly two weeks of widespread unrest and accusations that it was seeking to change the longstanding arrangements in place at the site.

As part of its boycott against praying at the site, Muslim worshipers held daily prayers outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, which often devolved into violent clashes.

The security measures were also cited in a pair of terror attacks, including one in the West Bank settlement of Halamish, where a Palestinian man broke into a home and stabbed to death three members of a family as they celebrated Shabbat.

Although no terror group took responsibility for the attack, a Hamas spokesperson praised the shooting as a “natural response to Israeli terrorism and the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” and insisted that it proves “that the intifada continues and our people are united behind the resistance.”

A warplane belonging to the Lebanese Air Force, type Cessna, on Monday targeted Daesh posts in the outskirts of Ras Baalbek and Qaa with 5 air-to-ground missiles, NNA field reporter said.