Islam

What do Muslims believe about Allah?
He is the one God, Who has no partner.
Nothing is like Him. He is the Creator, no one created Him.
He is All-Powerful, He has absolute Justice.
There is no other entity in the entire universe worthy of worship besides Him.
He is First, Last, and Everlasting; He was when nothing was, and will be when nothing else remains.
He is the All-Knowing, and All-Merciful,the Supreme, the Sovereign.
It is only He Who is capable of granting life to anything.
He sent His Messengers (peace be upon them) to guide all of mankind.
He sent Muhammad (pbuh) as the last Prophet and Messenger for all mankind.
His book is the Holy Qur'an, the only authentic revealed book in the world that has been kept without change.
Allah knows what is in our hearts.


Islam honors all the prophets who were sent to mankind. Muslims respect all prophets in general, but Jesus in particular, because he was one of the prophets who told about the coming of Muhammad before it happened. Muslims, too, are waiting for the second coming of Jesus. They consider him one of the greatest of Allah's prophets to humans. A Muslim does not refer to him simply as "Jesus," but normally adds the phrase "peace be upon him" as a sign of respect.

The Qur'an confirms the virgin birth (a chapter of the Qur'an is entitled "Mary") of Jesus, and Mary is considered to have been one of the purest women in all creation. The Qur'an describes Jesus' birth as follows:

"Behold!' the Angel said, God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name shall be the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and in the Hereafter, and one of those brought near to God. He shall speak to the people from his cradle and in maturity, and he shall be of the righteous. She said: "My Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?' He said: "Even so; God creates what He will. When He decrees a thing, He says to it, 'Be!' and it is." [3:42-47] Main Pillars

Five Pillars of Islam

Shahadah

The first pillar of Islam is that a Muslim believe and declare his faith by saying the Shahadah (this means 'witness'), also known as the Kalimah:

La ilaha ila Allah; Muhammadur-rasul Allah. 'There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.'

This declaration contains two parts. The first part refers to God Almighty, the Creator of everything, the Lord of the Worlds; the second part refers to the Messenger, Muhammad (pbuh) a prophet and a human being, who received the revelation through the Archangel Gabriel, and taught it to mankind.

Salah

Prayer (Salah), in the sense of worship, is the second pillar of Islam. Prayer is required and must be performed five times a day. These five times are dawn (Fajr), immediately after noon (Dhuhr), mid-afternoon ('Asr), sunset (Maghrib), and early night (Isha'). Ritual cleanliness and ablution are required before prayer, as are clean clothes and location, and the removal of shoes. One may pray individually or in a group, at home, outside, virtually any clean place, as well as in a mosque, though the mosque is better. The Friday noon prayer is special, and it is called Jum'ah. It is also required, but only for men, and is to be done in a mosque, in congregation or group. It is accompanied by a sermon (Khutbah), and it takes the place of the normal Dhuhr prayer.

There is no powerful religious figure in Islam, no priests or ministers. Prayers are led by any educated person who knows the Qur'an and is chosen by the congregation or group. He (or she, if the group is all women) is called the imam. There is also no minimum number of congregants required to hold communal prayers. Prayer consists of verses from the Qur'an and other prayers, accompanied by various movements of the body - standing, bowing, prostrating and sitting. They are said in Arabic, the language of the revelation, but personal prayers and requests (Du'ah) can be offered in any language. Worshippers face the Qiblah, the direction of the Ka'bah in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

The important part of prayer is that a person keeps up a continuous link to God five times a day, which helps the worshipper avoid doing bad and sinful things if he/she performs the prayers sincerely and honestly. Also, it promotes discipline, God-consciousness and placing one's trust in Allah alone, and the importance of striving for the Hereafter. When performed in congregation it also provides a strong sense of community, equality and brotherhood/sisterhood.

Sawm

The fourth pillar of Islam is fasting (not eating or drinking). Allah prescribes daily fasting for all able, adult Muslims during the whole of the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the lunar calendar, beginning with the sighting of the new moon. Very old people and the insane do not have to fast. On the physical side, fasting is from first light of dawn until sundown, and the person does not have food, drink, and does not have sexual relations. On the moral, behavioral side, one must abstain from lying, cruel gossip, arguing and trivial nonsense.

Those who are sick, elderly, or on a journey, and women who are menstruating, pregnant, or nursing are permitted to break the fast, but must make up an equal number of days later in the year. If physically unable to do so, they must feed a needy person for each day missed. Children begin to fast (and to observe the prayers) from puberty, although many start earlier.

Although fasting is beneficial to the health, it is regarded principally as a method of self-purification. By cutting oneself off from worldly pleasures and comforts, even for a short time, the fasting person gains true sympathy for those who go hungry regularly, and achieves growth in his spiritual life, learning discipline, self-restraint, patience and flexibility.

Zakah

The third pillar of Islam is the alms-tax (Zakah). It is a tax on wealth, payable on various categories of property, notably savings and investments, produce, inventory of goods, salable crops and cattle, and precious metals, and is to be used for the various categories of distribution specified by Islamic law. It is also an act of purification through sharing what one has with others.

The rationale behind this is that Muslims believe that everything belongs to God, and wealth is held by man as a trust. This trust must be discharged, moreover, as instructed by God, as that portion of our wealth legally belongs to other people and must be given to them. If we refuse and hoard this wealth, it is considered impure and unclean. If, for example one were to use that wealth for charity or to finance one's pilgrimage to Makkah, those acts would also be impure, invalid, and of course unrewarded. Allah says:

"Of their wealth, take alms so you may purify and sanctify them." [9:103]

Hajj

The fifth pillar of Islam is to make a pilgrimage (Hajj) to Makkah, in Saudi Arabia, at least once in one's lifetime. This pillar is obligatory for every Muslim, male or female, provided that he/she is physically and financially able to do so. Prerequisites for performing the Hajj are to be a Muslim, to be free, to be an adult or mature enough, to be of sound mind, and to have the ability to afford the journey and maintain one's dependents back home for the duration. The reward for the Hajj is nothing less than Paradise.

The Hajj is the ultimate form of worship, as it involves the spirit of all the other rituals and demands of the believer great sacrifice. On this unique occasion, nearly two million Muslims from all over the globe meet one another in a given year. Regardless of the season, pilgrims wear special clothes (Ihram) - two, very simple, unsewn white garments - which strips away all distinctions of wealth, status, class and culture; all stand together and equal before Allah (God).

The rites of Hajj, which go back to the time of Prophet Abraham who built the Ka'bah, are observed over five or six days, beginning on the eighth day of the last month of the year, named Dhul-Hijjah (pilgrimage). These rites include circumambulating the Ka'bah (Tawwaf), and going between the mountains of Safa and Marwah, as Hajjar (Abraham's wife) did during her search for water for her son Isma'il. Then the pilgrims stand together on the wide plain of Arafah and join in prayers for God's forgiveness, in what is often thought of as a preview of the Last Judgment. The pilgrims also cast stones at a stone pillar which represents Satan. The pilgrimage ends with a festival, called 'Id al-Adha, which is celebrated with prayers, the sacrifice of an animal, and the exchange of greetings and gifts in Muslim communities everywhere.

Muhammad

Muhammad was an illiterate but (according to some people) wise and well-respected man who was born in Makkah in the year 570 CE, at a time when Christianity was not yet fully established in Europe. His first years were marked by the deaths of his parents. Since his father died before his birth, his uncle, Abu Talib, from the respected tribe of Quraysh, raised him. As Muhammad grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. His reputation and personal qualities also led to his marriage, at the age of twenty-five, to Khadijah, a widow whom he had assisted in business. Thenceforth, he became an important and trusted citizen of Makkah. Historians describe him as calm and meditative.

Muhammad never felt fully content to be part of a society whose values he considered to be devoid of true religious significance. It became his habit to retreat from time to time to the cave of Hira', to meditate near the summit of Jabal al-Nur, the "Mountain of Light", near Makkah.

At the age of 40, while engaged in one such meditative retreat, Muslims beleive Muhammad received his first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel. This revelation, which continued for twenty-three years, is known as the Qur'an, which Muslims believe to be the faithful recording of the entire revelation of God. The first revelation read:

"Recite: In the name of your Lord Who created man from a clot (of blood). Recite: Your Lord is Most Noble, Who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know." [96:1-5]

It was this reality that he gradually and steadily came to learn and believe, until he fully realized that it is the truth.

Islam is the religion of all prophets. Muslims believe that all the prophets were sent to their respective peoples from God (Allah). According to Islam, they all had the same mission and message - guiding people to the right path.

The three "revealed", monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, go back to Abraham. According to Muslims, the prophets of these religions were directly descended from him - Moses, Jesus and others from Isaac, but Muhammad from IsmaŒil. It was Prophet Abraham who had established the settlement which today is the city of Makkah, and with his son IsmaŒil built the KaŒbah, which Muslims all over the world face when they pray.

Christians and Jews hold a special place in Islam. They are called the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab), since the original Torah and Gospel were also divinely revealed (in Islamic tradition and in the tradition of these religions) and they shared in the prophetic tradition. The stance of the Qur'an on Christians and Jews is sometimes contradictary. God (according to the Qur'an) says:

"...[T]hose who believe (in the message of Islam), and the Jews, the Sabaeans, and the Christians - all those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and act righteously - no fear shall come upon them..." [5:69] Sometimes, however, the view of Christians and Jews in the Qur an is less favourable. For example, in the Qur'an God alledgedly says; "Lo! Allah forgiveth not that a partner should be ascribed unto Him. He forgiveth (all) save that to whom He will. Whoso ascribeth partners to Allah, he hath indeed invented a tremendous sin.(4:48)" Since Christians ascribe partners to God (namely, Jesus and the Holy Spirit), according to the Qur'an, have committed a grave sin, and so would either have to alter their basic beliefs (Christianity is based upon the idea of Jesus as God) or remain sinners against God.

Peace

"Peace" is the most common word on a Muslim's tongue. Whenever two people meet, they exchange greetings, wishing each other peace: "Peace be upon you." But peace cannot prevail except through justice. Since the concept of justice may differ from one man to another, or from one society to another, Muslims believe that real justice is that which is specified by Allah (God).

Islam permits fighting in self-defense, in defense of the religion, or by those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. At the same time, Islam requires one to treat one's enemy mercifully. It lays down strict rules of combat which include prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees, and livestock. Islam also requires that if an enemy declares his desire to end hostilities and seek peace, the Muslims must do the same.

The concept of Jihad (struggling in the cause of Allah) is stated in the Qur'an. Allah said: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors." [2:19] Jihad is never to be waged to force anybody to choose a particular religion. On the contrary, it is to waged to protect his right to choose freely. Therefore, if there is a force in the world that tries to prevent a person from practicing this right, Jihad may lead to fighting the force that is trying to prevent him from exercising free will.

Relevance

Since Islam is the last religion revealed by Allah, it possesses some elements that make it unique. One of these is its relevance for human beings regardless of place and time.

This means that Islam - submission to God - is a comprehensive institution which includes all the guidelines necessary for all aspects of life. Therefore, the best way to understand Islam is to look at it as more than a religion - as a complete way of life. In other words, it is a system which regulates every aspect of life, dealing with all issues - social, economic, educational, judicial, health, and even military. Thus, it is suitable for all human beings and for all times, since it is the final religion. Islamic law aims to achieve five goals for human beings in life: protecting the religion, protecting one's self, protecting one's possessions, protecting one's mind, and protecting one's offspring.

Therefore, God (Allah) decided on two main domains of law: 1. If the domain always requires change and progress, Allah legislated comprehensive yet flexible rules and gave people the chance to create and develop the necessary laws to satisfy the specific needs of a certain period of time. For example, in the rule of consultation (Shura), Allah decided that it should be the general rule for any government; however, its form and style are left open for people to choose and decide according to their needs.

2. If the domain does not require or lend itself to change or progress, Allah legislated fixed and detailed laws that govern all issues related to a specific area. Thus, there is no way for man to change or develop those laws, which were made for the welfare of all mankind. For example, the area of worshipping God contains fixed details which cannot be changed at all. These regard prayer, fasting, making pilgrimage, etc. Another example is in family matters, such as the laws of marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

To show how Islam cares for the environment, one can cite the many laws that protect the environment. About fourteen hundred years ago. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said:

"The world is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you as His stewards over it. He sees how you acquit yourselves."

Muhammad showed how important plants and trees are by saying: "Whoever plants a tree and looks after it with care until it matures and becomes productive will be rewarded in the Hereafter." Even in the territory of an enemy, Islam's care for plants, animals, and trees is profound. Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, or successor, to Muhammad (pbuh), instructed his troops that he was sending into battle not to cut down any trees or kill any animals except for food.

These are but a few examples of how Islam remains relevant in the modern world.

Universality

In the Qur'an, Allah says:

"We have sent you (Muhammad) as a mercy for all nations." [21:107]

Thus Islam is not restricted to any particular race or nation, as many other religions are, but is universal, meaning that its message applies to all humanity, at all times, in all places.

Since Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was the last prophet and messenger, his message applies to all future generations. All previous prophets, from Adam, Noah and Abraham to Moses and Jesus, were also Muslims:

"Not a single messenger did We send before you without this inspiration sent by Us to him - that there is no god but I, therefore worship and serve Me." [21:25]

Since the Qur'an is the final testament, with every word and every letter unadulterated and unchanged, and protected by Allah from any change or tampering, it is the final revelation, and no other law will ever supersede it.

It applies, moreover, to every aspect of one's daily life, including personal, social, legal, economic, political, even military. Furthermore, Islam affects every part of the individual - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Women

Again, the Qur'an is sometimes contradictary on the subject of women. "And among His signs is this: that He created mates for you form yourselves that you may find rest, peace of mind in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy. Lo, herein indeed are signs for people who reflect." [30:21]

vs. "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge(beat) them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.(4:34)"


"And among His signs is this: that He created mates for you form yourselves that you may find rest, peace of mind in them, and He ordained between you love and mercy. Lo, herein indeed are signs for people who reflect." [30:21]

Prophet Muhammad said:

"The most perfect in faith amongst believers is he who is best in manners and kindest to his wife." [Abu Dawud]

Muslims believe that Adam and Eve were created from the same soul. Both were equally guilty of their sin and fall from grace, and both were forgiven by Allah. Many women in Islam have had high status; consider the fact that the first person to convert to Islam was Khadijah,the wife of Muhammad, whom he both loved and respected. His favorite wife after Khadijah's death, AŒisha, became renowned as a scholar and one of the greatest sources of Hadith literature. Many of the female Companions accomplished great deeds and achieved fame, and throughout Islamic history there have been famous and influential scholars, jurists and mystics.

With regard to education, both women and men have the same rights and obligations. This is clear in Prophet Muhammad's saying:

"Seeking knowledge is mandatory for every believer." [Ibn Majah]

This implies men and women.

A woman is to be treated as God has endowed her, with rights, such as to be treated as an individual, with the right to own and dispose of her own property and earnings, enter into contracts, even after marriage. She has the right to be educated and to work outside the home if she so chooses. She has the right to inherit from her father, mother, and husband. A very interesting point to note is that in Islam, unlike any other religion, a woman can be an imam, a leader of communal prayer, for a group of women.

A Muslim woman also has obligations. All the laws and regulations pertaining to prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage, doing good deeds, etc., apply to women, albeit with minor differences having mainly to do with female physiology.

Before marriage, a woman has the right to choose her husband. Islamic law is very strict regarding the necessity of having the woman's consent for marriage. A marriage dowry is given by the groom to the bride for her own personal use. She keeps her own family name, rather than taking her husband's. As a wife, a woman has the right to be supported by her husband even if she is already rich. She also has the right to seek divorce and custody of young children. She does not return the dowry, except in a few unusual situations.

Despite the fact that in many places and times Muslim communities have not always adhered to all or even many of the foregoing in practice, the ideal has been there for 1,400 years, while virtually all other major civilizations did not begin to address these issues or change their negative attitudes until the 19th and 20th centuries, and there are still many contemporary civilizations which have yet to do so.

Source: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam

Empire has no heart

The Israeli army, with the financial and military support of the United States of America, has deliberately bombed civilians in Lebanon and almost all of its attacks constitute war crimes, U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated recently.

In the wake of current developments and hard times facing the Middle East region, with Israel engaged in two brutal offensives in the Palestinian and Lebanese territories, an editorial on Jordan's Arabic-language Ad Dustour, describes how downtrodden and abused the Muslim Ummah or nation feels, as a result of the barbaric policies of both, Israel and its God father the United States.

In Ad Dustour editorial, the author refers to the U.S. as an empire that has no heart, an empire that instead of spreading democracy, created chaos across the world in general and the Middle East and the Arab world in particular.

He described the U.S. as a country of iron and fire that has no heart, while referring to the Jewish State as a monstrous country, and also "a country that has no heart".

Like he called the U.S. and Israel countries with no hearts, the author also described the destruction inflicted upon the ruined Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jubayl and Ayta al-Sha'b as a result of the brutal Israeli strikes and indiscriminate bombings, as “with no heart”.
“Cockroaches moving around our streets and destroyed roadways, and the embers of fire raining down on the buildings have no hearts,” he said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among Lebanese civilians did not justify its "systematic failure" to distinguish between civilians and fighters.
Some news reports say that over 600 Lebanese have died since Israel started bombing Lebanon, but some officials say that over 900, mostly civilians, were killed.

The mounting civilian death toll has fuelled the Arabs and some Western States' outcry against Israel's tactics in the four-week-old war.

"In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians," HRW said in a statement issued Thursday.

"The failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes."

“Bush has no heart; Ehud Olmert has no heart; Condoleezza Rice has no heart. The United Nations has no heart; the Security Council has no heart; the European Union has no heart; The countries of the first, second and third worlds: have no hearts,” the author further stated.
The condemnation of some Arab leaders and humanitarian organisations didn’t strop the mad Israeli war machine from destroying beautiful Lebanon, killing innocent children and crushing the bones of women.

The Qana massacres in 1996 and 2006 are only examples of Israel’s history of heinous crimes: Dair Yassin, Tantura, al-Duwaima, Qibya, Nahalin, Kafr Qasim.

A swift action is needed now before the crisis spreads to swallow the entire Middle East region. The arrogance of the U.S., which continues to oppose calls for an immediate ceasefire at the UN, and Israel's crimes must come to an end, a global condemnation over the Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and Palestine is needed now and a “clear” UN resolution needs to be submitted to prevent future scenarios.

Source: www.aljazeera.com

What is a Blog?

So what is a Blog anyway? This is a question I am asked every week via emails, conversation and Instant Messaging chats. If you’re reading this you may well be asking the same question.
There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.

Here are a few definitions from other much wiser people to get us started:

‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’

‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’

‘From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”‘

‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’

‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’

So What is a Blog???

Confused yet? Don’t be - its really quite simple. To put it as simply as possible - a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

Ok - now you are a seasoned blog reader - you’ve seen two already at least.
Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic - there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies - blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.

Source: www.problogger.net

America supplies Israel with NSA signals intelligence

Israel, currently engaged in bloody, unjustified onslaught on the Lebanese and the Palestinian territories, is receiving intelligence from the US's National Security Agency, a report by columnist Sidney Blumenthal on Salon revealed.

Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior adviser to President Clinton, asserted that he’s in touch with "a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation" to provide the Israelis with signals intelligence from American assets to help them monitor what he described as transfer of weapons from Syria and Iran to the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.

Providing Israel with intelligence to stop weapons from reaching Hezbollah is said to be approved by the American President George W. Bush.

The Bush administration is under the direct control of and influenced by Vice President Dick Cheney's staff and Elliot Abrams, senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council, which according to Blumenthal, author of The Clinton Wars (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), and The Permanent Campaign and The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, and columnist for the Guardian, Salon.com, and OpenDemocracy.net , and a former staff writer for the Washington Post, the New Yorker and the New Republic, further stated that President Bush, seeks initiating 'four front war' by giving Israel the pretext to attack Iran and Syria.

The restricted-access article stated that” The National Security Agency is providing signal intelligence to Israel to monitor whether Syria and Iran are supplying new armaments to Hezbollah as it fires hundreds of missiles into northern Israel, according to a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation. President Bush has approved the secret program,” according to Raw Story.

“Inside the administration, neoconservatives on Vice President Dick Cheney's national security staff and Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative senior director for the Near East on the National Security Council, are prime movers behind sharing NSA intelligence with Israel, and they have discussed Syrian and Iranian supply activities as a potential pretext for Israeli bombing of both countries, the source privy to conversations about the program says. (Intelligence, including that gathered by the NSA, has been provided to Israel in the past for various purposes.) The neoconservatives are described as enthusiastic about the possibility of using NSA intelligence as a lever to widen the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Hamas into a four-front war.”


“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is said to have been "briefed" and to be "on board," but she is not a central actor in pushing the covert neoconservative scenario. Her "briefing" appears to be an aspect of an internal struggle to intimidate and marginalize her.

Recently she has come under fire from prominent neoconservatives who oppose her support for diplomatic negotiations with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weaponry.”

Quoting informed sources in both the U.S. and Israel, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported earlier that Washington was planning to deliver 100 "bunker buster" bombs to Israel to kill Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, and destroy the group trenches.

A New York Times report, citing U.S. officials, further stated that the bombs were part of a sales deal approved by the Pentagon last year.

Source: www.aljazeera.com