Middle East Quick Hits

Israel announces that it will release 100 prisoners in honor of Ramadan.

How come no one is calling on Hamas or Hizbullah to release Shalit, Goldwasser or Regev in honor of Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur?

Double Standard much?

Then again, Israel is arresting more Palestinians these days in sweeps of Gaza looking for terrorists responsible for firing rockets into Israel.

Syria says that Israel didn't bomb nuclear facilities or any other facilities for that matter in a curious incident last week. There are reports that Israel did strike at nuclear facilities linked to North Korea located in Syria or at the missile defense systems set up nearby. Syria is up to no good, and North Korea may be providing assistance in setting up Syria with nukes.

Al Qaeda continues threatening tribal leaders in Iraq who are working with the US. That's going to be counterproductive for al Qaeda as killing tribal leaders is only going to further separate al Qaeda from those it seeks to lure over to its Islamist ideals. Al Qaeda's heavy handed Islamist views actually turned those tribes off to al Qaeda and into the arms of the American forces, who can and do go after al Qaeda. With the tribes providing intel and openly assisting in the security efforts, al Qaeda is on the run. Al Qaeda hopes to cow those tribes into submission by killing tribal leaders, but I think that the terrorist group has seriously miscalculated.

Iran's puppet Sadr has resigned from the Shi'ite coalition. He's being marginalized inside Iraq, and his forces have been marginalized by US and Iraqi forces.

Ahmadinejad is on his way to the UN once again, and he's going to go on a world tour with [T]hugo Chavez. No surprises there. They're two peas in a pod - which should be launched into space without oxygen. Ahmadinejad continues to threaten Israel and issues statements calling for its destruction.