Last update - 00:00 18/02/2008
Sources: Israel deploys Patriot missiles fearing Hezbollah strike
By News Agencies
Israel has deployed a battery of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles near the northern port city of Haifa as part of precautions against a possible attack by Hezbollah in response to the assassination last week of the group's top commander Imad Mughniyah, Israeli security officials said Monday.
The officials said the battery was put on standby Sunday for the first time since Israel's month-long war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, when the Lebanese guerrillas fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.
Patriot batteries were first deployed in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, but they failed to stop most of the 39 Scud missiles launched by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
They were originally designed to intercept aircraft, and Israeli media
reported their role in the current situation would be to shoot down bomb-laden pilotless planes as well as rockets.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was not its policy to comment on what a spokesman called operational readiness.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday he anticipated Hezbollah would try to retaliate for the assassination, possibly with help from Syria and Iran, and added that Israel was prepared on all fronts for an attack.
Hezbollah and its Iranian backers swiftly blamed Israel for last week's
assassination of Hezbollah second-in-command, Mughniyeh, in Damascus.
Israel has denied involvement, but is widely believed to have carried
out similarly daring, complex and deadly strikes against other terror
masterminds in the past.
Following the Mughniyeh assassination, Hezbollah vowed to hit Jewish targets outside Israel in retaliation.
Meanwhile, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Monday Israel would soon be destroyed by the "hands of Hezbollah", the Lebanese guerilla group backed by the Islamic Republic, Fars News Agency reported.
On Sunday, the Hezbollah head of the southern Lebanon region Sheikh Nabil Kauk said "It won't be long before the conceited Zionists realize that Imad Mughniyah's blood is extremely costly."
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