Israeli Commandos Snatch ‘Hezbollah Naval Official’ In Daring Beach Raid

Regional media reports and government statements have confirmed that Israeli naval forces have captured an alleged senior Hezbollah official in a daring raid launched from the Mediterranean sea on Friday.

The man described as a high-ranking Hezbollah operative has been identified as Imad Amhaz. Commandos on speed boats reportedly landed on a Lebanese beach and snatched him from a cabin in the early morning hours. 

“A sizable force, suspected to be Israeli, stealthily touched down on the shores of Batroun in northern Lebanon, roughly 87 miles from the Israeli border, with the intent of snatching a high-ranking terrorist operative from his hideaway in a cabin,” Israel’s YNet news details, adding that the raid involved 25 Israeli elite troops.

Imad Amhaz, an alleged Hezbollah naval official, via social media

Lebanese national broadcaster National News agency separately described that an “unidentified military force” carried out a “sea landing” at a beach at Batroun, south of Tripoli.

The commando group “went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, kidnapping a Lebanese man… and sailing away into the open sea on a speedboat,” NNA added.

Lebanese media is only saying that the man that was nabbed was a “student” of a maritime institute in Lebanon. According to more from eyewitnesses of the strange episode:

He was taken from student housing near the Batroun institute, but was a resident of the Shia-majority town of Qmatiyeh further south, said the acquaintance who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security concerns.

He was completing courses to become a sea captain, the source told AFP, adding that the man was in his thirties and was well known by the teaching staff at the center.

But the IDF has called the man a “significant source of knowledge” for Hezbollah’s naval force. It’s expected that Amhaz will be detained and interrogated in a military prison.

He was taken to Israel to be questioned by the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 — which specializes in HUMINT, or human intelligence — on Hezbollah’s naval operations,” Times of Israel subsequently reported.

UN peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon have entered the controversy, amid conflicting reports they may have prevented the Lebanese armed forces from responding to the raid (which UNIFIL firmly denies) on Lebanon’s sovereign territory and its citizens:

Lebanese journalist Hasan Illaik, who first reported on the raid, cited anonymous Lebanese military officials as saying the operation was apparently carried out in coordination with the German Navy operating within UNIFIL forces, to prevent the Lebanese Navy from interfering.

Meanwhile, some Lebanese sources say that the kidnapped man is innocent, and not affiliated with Hezbollah, and that the IDF kidnapped a regular Lebanese citizen. Video also captured the raid:

Israel’s military has further said that “The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated.”

The Associated Press has acknowledged that the occupation of the kidnapped man is murky and uncertain, amid continuing speculation: “Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the incident occurred at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah.” The report added: “The officials said an investigation is looking into the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him.”

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Originally Posted at; https://www.zerohedge.com//


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With Or Without Tariffs, The US Dollar Is A Ponzi

With Or Without Tariffs, The US Dollar Is A Ponzi

Via SchiffGold.com,

With soaring deficits, soaring debt, and interest payments that can only be made by issuing a debt-based currency on which even more interest will be due, the USD can only possibly be described as an elaborate nation-state level bankster Ponzi scheme. 

Dollars are backed by debt, which requires infinite economic growth to service. 

Without constant inflation to erode the debt’s value, transferring wealth from savers to the government and bankers, it all falls apart. 

Without new borrowers to sustain current spending, it all falls apart.

Without a petrodollar system where the USD is no longer the world reserve currency, and other countries no longer are forced at gunpoint to use dollars, it all falls apart.

Just as a Ponzi scheme collapses when enough investors lose confidence in it, because there’s no underlying value and not enough new suckers to pay back previous waves of investors, the USD collapses under the same scenario.

And while I see the surface-level, superficial appeal of president-elect Donald Trump’s plan to replace the income tax with tariffs, there’s (at least) one very big problem. We’re in a country that, for decades, hasn’t had a manufacturing base, making the economic viability of the plan incredibly questionable. Even if it somehow worked, it wouldn’t solve the problem of the world’s largest economies being based on glorified, state-sanctioned Ponzi schemes.

Until we revert back to dollars that are pegged to something of real value, like gold, the scam will continue. And it’s gone on for so long that tremendous economic pain is now a prerequisite for weaning ourselves off of it. Just as a Ponzi scheme collapsing harms everyone unlucky enough to be involved, the unwinding of the petrodollar USD Ponzi will hurt every American and, indeed, people all around the world as it reels under the chaos of the realization that the dollar was hollow all along, and the line of new suckers to buy US debt has officially dried up.

Total Public Debt, U.S.

With 10-year Treasury yields rising and major pressure on interest rates to go higher, the Fed and Trump are desperate to keep them low. But at $35 trillion, our debt bomb isn’t going away, and the deficit isn’t going anywhere. A heavier interest payment burden and QE are going to blow the USD Ponzi balloon bigger and bigger, so the only question will be when it pops.

Painful as the explosion will be, it’s unavoidable and necessary, and will only be more severe the longer the Ponzi goes on. Just as more investors get hurt, and more spectacularly so, when a Ponzi is able to grow larger, the US dollar collapse will be more painful the longer the can is kicked down the road. This reset will be an opportunity to go back to sound money, but as in the 2008 crisis, the same elites that caused it will try to exploit it as an opportunity to implement an increasingly centralized system that gives them even more control.

Unfortunately, we’re past the event horizon for the Ponzi. Past the point of no return. No amount of economic tinkering, even of the right sort and on a big-enough scale, from Trump or anyone else, can reverse or solve the problem without a major implosion causing terrible pain across the economy. Gold is one way to protect yourself from the fallout, but when it comes crashing down, no one will be immune to the effects of such a spectacular burst.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/23/2024 – 17:30

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