The war on Israel's north by Hezbollah continues...and Iran is already coordinating it onsite

City center in Nahariya, Israel






In northern Israel, over 90 civilians have been injured, and two people have been killed to date by Hezbollah's rocket assault against towns and communities in Northern Israel. Israel is on a war footing.

Israelis as far south as Carmel, Safed, Rosh Pinah and Hatzor have been ordered to stay in bombs shelters for the second consecutive day. A volley of 7 rockets injured 19 civilians in Safed, three seriously, landing on a shopping center, outside City Hall and on a school and causing extensive damage to the ancient Galilee city.

The main highways from Acre, Safed and Rosh Pinah heading north are closed to civilian traffic.

The IDF has leafletted the southern Beirut Shiite suburbs, telling civilians to evacuate. These areas are a Hezbollah stronghold. Hezbollah, in turn, has threatened missile attacks on Haifa.
*************************************************************
UPDATE: Two Hezbollah rockets hit the Israeli port city of Haifa this afternoon. No casualties were reported, but this is another red line as Israel's most populated areas are now being targeted.
****************************************************************

Underlining Iran's involvement, Iran’s national security adviser Ali Larijani flew to Damascus, Syria aboard a special military plane last night, fresh from the nuclear talks fiasco with the EU's Javier Solana and he's expected to hang out there for the duration of the fighting.

This underlines Iran's committment to the recent Iranian-Syrian mutual defense pact, showing that an assault by Israel will be considered an attack on Iran. It also allows Iran to directly coordinate the deployment of its forces into Syria, and plan startegy on the ground with Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal, who's located in Damascus.

Another side benefit to Iran is that Larijani is also Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, and placing him in Damascus `delays' any resumption of talks with the West over Iran's nuclear weapons program and buys more time to expand and complete it. In reality, of course, taking Larijani out of the picture pretty much ends the discussion.

We can also expect increased action in Iraq, particularly in the South, against American and British forces by Iran's Shia militia proxies like al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

I also don't think that the fact that this occurred right before the G-8 summit in St. Petersberg, Russia is a coincidence. This all takes the Iran nuclear arms program out of the spotlight and forces the G-8 leaders to deal with the Middle East conflict instead....

Sacrificing a pawn to gain leverage and position to set up an attack by a power piece is an old chess strategy..and we're dealing with the people who invented the game.