Hezbollah delivers remains of two Israeli soldiers

By Ayat Basma and Avida Landau
51 minutes ago

LEBANON/ISRAEL BORDER (Reuters) - Hezbollah handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross on Wednesday to be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

The deal is viewed as a triumph by the Lebanese guerrilla group and as a painful necessity by many Israelis, two years after the soldiers' capture sparked a 34-day war with Hezbollah that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 Israelis.

Hezbollah's al-Manar TV showed two black coffins being taken from a vehicle at the Israel-Lebanon border after Hezbollah security official Wafik Safa disclosed for the first time that army reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) took the coffins and drove them into Israel. Safa later said DNA tests conducted by the ICRC had verified the identity of the soldiers. There was no immediate confirmation from the ICRC or Israel.

"We are now handing over the two imprisoned Israeli soldiers, who were captured by the Islamic resistance on July 12, 2006, to the ICRC," Safa said at the border. "The Israeli side will now hand over the great Arab mujahid (holy warrior) ... Samir Qantar and his companions to the ICRC."

In a deal mediated by a U.N.-appointed German intelligence officer, Israel was to free Qantar and four other prisoners.

Qantar had been serving a life prison term for the deaths of four Israelis, including a four-year-old girl and her father, in a 1979 Palestinian guerrilla attack on an Israeli town.

Neighbors outside the Regev home wept at the news the two soldiers were dead. Fighting back tears, Shlomo Laniado, who served in their reserve unit, said on Israel's Channel Two television: "It increases the motivation to protect this country and it shows us who we are dealing with."

An ICRC truck later drove into Lebanon with the bodies of eight Hezbollah fighters killed during the 2006 war.

Israel will also hand over the remains of nearly 200 Arabs killed trying to infiltrate northern Israel. Hezbollah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon.

The deal also calls for Israel to release scores of Palestinian prisoners at a later date as a gesture to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

HEZBOLLAH READY TO CELEBRATE

Hezbollah has dubbed the exchange "Operation Radwan," in honor of "Hajj Radwan," or Imad Moughniyah, the group's military commander who was assassinated in Syria in February.

Yellow Hezbollah flags and banners fluttered across south Lebanon and along the coastal highway from the border village of Naqoura to the capital, Beirut. "Liberation of the captives: a new dawn for Lebanon and Palestine," one banner read.

Israel denounced the planned festivities.

"Samir Qantar is a brutal murderer of children and anybody celebrating him as a hero is trampling on basic human decency," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said.

For some Lebanese, the exchange demonstrated the futility of the devastating conflict with Israel two summers ago.

"There shouldn't have been a war in 2006. A lot of lives were lost," said Rami Nasereddine, an 18-year-old student in downtown Beirut. "It's good that the prisoner exchange is taking place. Israel should have done that two years ago."

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said the prisoner swap would boost its position in demanding the release of hundreds of long-serving prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured two years ago near the Gaza Strip.

"This is a great victory to the resistance and to Hezbollah and it is a festival for the Lebanese prisoners and their families," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Israeli President Shimon Peres set the prisoner swap in motion on Tuesday by pardoning Qantar, reviled in Israel for his role in the 1979 attack. Qantar, aged 17 at the time, has said the father was shot by Israeli soldiers who also wounded him, and that he doesn't remember what happened to the girl.

Peres said he felt "bitter and unbearable pain" at the decision and that it "in no way constitutes forgiveness," but that Israel was obliged to get its soldiers back.

Olmert had described Qantar as the last bargaining chip for word on Israeli airman Ron Arad, missing since he bailed out over Lebanon in 1986. Israel said a report supplied by Hezbollah on Arad as part of the swap had failed to clarify his fate.

Hezbollah has made Qantar's freedom a central demand. Many in Lebanon believe Israel's refusal to free Qantar earlier prompted Hezbollah's cross-border raid that led to the 2006 war.

The other Lebanese prisoners being released were identified as Maher Qorani, Mohammad Srour, Hussein Suleiman and Khodr Zeidan. They were to receive a heroes' welcome of fireworks and rallies in Lebanon, which declared a public holiday.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Nadim Ladki in Beirut, Jeffrey Heller and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Military surge in Iraq ends; 150,000 troops remain

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 33 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The military surge into Iraq that began more than 18 months ago has ended. But 150,000 U.S. troops remain, as many as 15,000 more than before the buildup began.
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In recent days, the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, the last of the five additional combat brigades sent in by President Bush last year, left the country.
Its departure marks the end of what the Pentagon calls the "surge." And it starts the 45-day evaluation period that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress he would need to assess the security situation and determine how many more troops he could send home.

In the complex battlefield that is Iraq, it's not that easy.

While there now are technically 13 Army and two Marine combat brigades in Iraq — the same as before the buildup — the force is as much as 10 percent larger than it was in January 2007.

Military officials contend comparisons are not valid because a chunk of the remaining troop bulge is due to units that are overlapping, as two brigades begin moving out of Iraq, while their two replacements move in. The overlap could add up to 6,000 soldiers.

Also, one of the units moving out, the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, is much smaller than the one taking its place — the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.

So, the officials suggested, the military buildup may not really be over until the transitions are complete.

The key cause for the larger force is the change in mission in Iraq, as the U.S. military is using more trainers, security and support troops to back up the growing Iraqi force. Also, the U.S. units there now are bigger, and they are bolstered by more support forces.

When the military buildup began, there were between 132,000 and 135,000 troops in Iraq. Over time, however, the Pentagon poured troops into Baghdad and the belt of communities that surround it, including the volatile areas of Basra and Sadr City.

With more troops, the military needed more support, including military police to guard detainees and National Guard units to provide security for bases, convoys and other operations.

Earlier this year, military leaders acknowledged that the force in Iraq when the buildup ended would be larger than before it began. And they suggested that the post-buildup force would total about 142,000.

Commanders also have talked carefully, but somewhat optimistically, about the prospects for cutting troop levels more later this fall.

In recent months, they have pointed to two significant improvements: Violence is down, and the Iraqi forces are rapidly growing in size and ability.

Last week, Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, told Pentagon reporters that the security situation in his area south of Baghdad "is probably the best we've ever seen it."

Oates would not predict any troop cuts, and other military leaders have been reluctant to talk specifics.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has suggested that if security continues to improve in Iraq, the Pentagon may be able to send some units to Afghanistan instead of Baghdad as scheduled early next year. But he has also stressed that he will wait for Petraeus to make his assessment.

For his part, Petraeus remains mum. When questioned by lawmakers in May, he would say only that he is likely to recommend more troop cuts in the fall.

"I do believe there will be certain assets that, as we are already looking at the picture right now, we'll be able to recommend can be either redeployed or not deployed to the theater in the fall," he said.

Asked last week about future troop reductions, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that as the Iraqi security forces get stronger and better, "we will be able to continue drawing down our troops." He added that the transition of control to the Iraqis is well under way, and "based on everything that I'm hearing will be able to continue."

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