Katyusha Missile Launch
Katyusha Missile LaunchIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Lebanon said Monday it knows who is behind rocket attacks on Israel but won’t say. Later, it revealed the secret: Israel – of course.

Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn Monday reasoned that Israel is behind missile attacks on its own citizens because it is trying “to undermine security and stability in south Lebanon,” The Beirut Daily Star reported.

“The party that has launched mysterious rockets from the south is known,” Ghosn told the newspaper. “Lebanon’s enemies, namely Israel, have no interest in the continuation of calm and stability in the south.”

His logic is very similar to that of Syria, which dominates Lebanon through the country’s pro-Syrian parties and the political arm of Hizbullah, which dominate the Beirut government. Syrian President Bashar Assad insists that the Arab Spring uprising against his regime actually is being carried out by terrorists and ”foreign agents,” meaning Israel.

The Lebanese army on Monday discovered four Katyusha missiles that were initially reported to be on a launching pad. Ghosn later said they were not ready for launching and were covered with sand.

A missile firing on Israel two weeks ago missed its target and landed inside southern Lebanon, injuring one Lebanese woman. Two weeks before, four Katyusha exploded in northern Israel, inuring two people and narrowly missing a kindergarten.

Hizbullah has denied any connection with the attacks, and the missile launches were attributed by most observers to Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells – until the allegation that Israel is to blame.

In a separate incident, terrorists recently set off a roadside bomb against a United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol, wounding Italians and French soldiers, but Ghosn did not indicate that Israel was to blame for that, also.

Tension in Lebanon has heightened on fears that the near-civil war in Syria will spill across the border. Thousands of Syrian civilians and soldiers have fled to Lebanon, which could be drawn into the battle if Hizbullah decides to join any attack on Israel that Assad may want to stage to divert attention away the threat to his regime.