Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Hezbollah Ties to British Plot
NewsMax.com senior correspondent and Middle East expert Kenneth R. Timmerman said Hezbollah might be to blame for the terror plot thwarted by British security agencies Thursday.
Timmerman, appearing as a guest on MSNBC’s "Tucker with Tucker Carlson,” said the plot was reminiscent of one in 1986 that was foiled by French authorities.
"Hezbollah operatives had tried to bring in liquid explosives to launch terrorist attacks,” Timmerman said. "The French caught them and the explosives, which were brought in inside little liquor bottles. This is the kind of thing that has Hezbollah’s fingerprints all over it.”
Timmerman - who for the past several weeks has filed daily reports for NewsMax.com from Israel on the Middle East conflict – said he also suspects Iran has strong ties to al-Qaida that makes the prospect of nuclear proliferation in that region all the more troubling for the United States and Israel.
"The Bush administration is concerned that Iran has a clandestine nuclear program and we just don’t know when they will have nuclear weapons capability,” Timmerman said. While other nations, such as France, do possess nuclear capability, Iran is an obvious threat because of the theocracy that governs the nation, as reflected in the statements of its hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"The problem with Iran is not nuclear weapons per se,” he told Carlson. "Iran is a theocracy and its leaders believe that they take their cue from God. Ahmadinejad said his goal is the destruction of Israel and to destroy America. He believes that by setting off a worldwide jihad and a worldwide nuclear cataclysm, that he can bring about the end of the world and that Muslims will be free and be safe. This is an ideology we need to take very seriously.”
Timmerman’s book, "Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran," deals with this serious threat, and links the Iranian regime to al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations now actively battling the United States and Israel in the war on terrorism.
"As of 1993, the Iranian regime had started its liaison with al-Qaida,” he said. "They sent their top terrorist – who the Israelis now believe is in south Lebanon coordinating attacks against Israel – and they sent him to Sudan to meet with Osama bin Laden . . . We know this because the bodyguard of Osama bin Laden has become state’s evidence in the U.S. in several court cases . . . ”
Timmerman continues, laying the foundation for a possible conflict between Iran and what it considers the "Great Satan and Little Satan” – the United States and Israel.
"We have evidence of Iran helping al-Qaida all through the 1990s, training al-Qaida terrorists in Lebanon and taking them into Iran,” Timmerman said. "Experts of Islam that the CIA listens to said this could never happen because the Iranians are Shia and the al-Qaida people are Wahhabi Sunnis. But when it gets down to killing Jews and killing Americans, guess what, they get along very well.”
NewsMax.com senior correspondent and Middle East expert Kenneth R. Timmerman said Hezbollah might be to blame for the terror plot thwarted by British security agencies Thursday.
Timmerman, appearing as a guest on MSNBC’s "Tucker with Tucker Carlson,” said the plot was reminiscent of one in 1986 that was foiled by French authorities.
"Hezbollah operatives had tried to bring in liquid explosives to launch terrorist attacks,” Timmerman said. "The French caught them and the explosives, which were brought in inside little liquor bottles. This is the kind of thing that has Hezbollah’s fingerprints all over it.”
Timmerman - who for the past several weeks has filed daily reports for NewsMax.com from Israel on the Middle East conflict – said he also suspects Iran has strong ties to al-Qaida that makes the prospect of nuclear proliferation in that region all the more troubling for the United States and Israel.
"The Bush administration is concerned that Iran has a clandestine nuclear program and we just don’t know when they will have nuclear weapons capability,” Timmerman said. While other nations, such as France, do possess nuclear capability, Iran is an obvious threat because of the theocracy that governs the nation, as reflected in the statements of its hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"The problem with Iran is not nuclear weapons per se,” he told Carlson. "Iran is a theocracy and its leaders believe that they take their cue from God. Ahmadinejad said his goal is the destruction of Israel and to destroy America. He believes that by setting off a worldwide jihad and a worldwide nuclear cataclysm, that he can bring about the end of the world and that Muslims will be free and be safe. This is an ideology we need to take very seriously.”
Timmerman’s book, "Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran," deals with this serious threat, and links the Iranian regime to al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations now actively battling the United States and Israel in the war on terrorism.
"As of 1993, the Iranian regime had started its liaison with al-Qaida,” he said. "They sent their top terrorist – who the Israelis now believe is in south Lebanon coordinating attacks against Israel – and they sent him to Sudan to meet with Osama bin Laden . . . We know this because the bodyguard of Osama bin Laden has become state’s evidence in the U.S. in several court cases . . . ”
Timmerman continues, laying the foundation for a possible conflict between Iran and what it considers the "Great Satan and Little Satan” – the United States and Israel.
"We have evidence of Iran helping al-Qaida all through the 1990s, training al-Qaida terrorists in Lebanon and taking them into Iran,” Timmerman said. "Experts of Islam that the CIA listens to said this could never happen because the Iranians are Shia and the al-Qaida people are Wahhabi Sunnis. But when it gets down to killing Jews and killing Americans, guess what, they get along very well.”
