YnetNews.com reports: “The Syrian Arab News Agency reported that the Syrian army has staged a live-fire drill in the eastern part of the country ‘under war-like circumstances with the aim of testing the missile weaponry in confronting any attack.’

According to the report, during the drill the army fired at least one Scud-B missile, which has a range of about 300 kilometers (roughly 190 miles), in the direction of the border with Iraq. It was further reported that 300 and 600-millimeter surface-to-surface missiles were also test fired. The missiles have a range of 150 (93 miles) and 200 kilometers (124 miles), respectively.

The government’s mouthpiece said forces conducted the drill ‘with accuracy and achieved distinctive results,’ adding ‘the performance of the missile forces showed high spirits which represented the ability of the Syrian missile forces to defend the homeland.’

The drill is apparently aimed at showing the region’s nations that Syria’s army is still functioning despite the civil uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime, which, according to the UN, has claimed some 4,000 lives so far.

The exercise also sends a message to the international community amid calls for NATO’s intervention in Syria…” (Assad knows because of the deaths of Gadhafi of Libya, and imprisonment of Egypt’s Mubarak, who if convicted, will be killed, this is a life or death matter for him. Thus he will stop at nothing. A bloodbath of gigantic proportion could ignite through Assad – Isaiah 17:1.)

Israel National News reports: “Judges overseeing the vote count in Egypt’s parliamentary elections say Islamist parties have won a majority of the contested seats in the first round. The judges spoke on condition of anonymity because official results are expected to be released later.

They say the Muslim Brotherhood could take 45 percent of the seats up for grabs. The liberal Egyptian bloc coalition and the ultra-fundamentalist Nour party are competing for second place.

Together, Islamist parties are expected to control a majority of parliamentary seats by March. This week’s vote was the first of six stages of parliamentary elections that will last until then.

Continued success by Islamists will allow them to give Cairo’s government and constitution a decidedly Islamist character. It could also lead Cairo to shift away from the West towards the Iranian axis.

It will also diminish the influence of Cairo’s caretaker junta, which has sought to maintain the Mubarak-era status quo and keep US foreign aid dollars – running into the billions per annum – flowing…” (The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic terrorist group as dangerous as al-Qaeda. Their goal is Jihad, a holy war. Their stated motto has been proclaimed for decades: “Allah is objective; the Prophet is our leader the Quran is our law…dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”. See the next report.)

Voice of America News reports: “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood says its political party has won almost two-thirds of the parliamentary seats reserved for individual candidates in the opening rounds of the country’s lower house elections.

In a statement the Islamist group’s Freedom and Justice party says it won 36 of the 56 individual seats that were contested in nine provinces, including the two largest cities of Cairo and Alexandria. It says Freedom and Justice candidates won 34 seats in runoff elections on Monday and Tuesday after winning outright victories in two other seats in the week’s first round of voting…”