Apple TV Is Running Late

So, Apple‘s big plan to talk cable companies into making the iPod of the television industry thus far involves getting Time Warner to let it put HBO Go on its box (if you buy a cable subscription!), something other similar boxes already do. How very unexciting. It’s surprising that Apple TV doesn’t already offer HBO Go, since its biggest competitors Roku and Xbox 360 have had it for over a year. And it’s not like Apple has spent that time coming up with some innovative arrangement that would that would excite the cord-cutter (and cord-never) set. No, per Bloomberg’s   Edmund Lee and Adam Satariano, by mid-2013, Apple TV owners who also subscribe to cable or satellite TV can watch the premium channel through their TVs via Apple’s box. Yes, if you have an Apple TV, you can watch HBO either on it or through your cable box. The choice is yours!

RELATED: Apple Won’t Be Revolutionizing TV Anytime Soon if Cable Has Their Say

HBO Go is a modest improvement over the HBO On Demand offerings because it offers HBO’s entire library of shows, not just a select few. HBO also puts brand new episodes up right after they air, which is nice for people who forget to set or have a too-full DVR. But, cable subscribers already have access to HBO Go—on their computers. The improvement here is that existing subscribers now have another way to get those shows onto their TV screens.

RELATED: HBO Is Finally OK with Cord Cutting (In Scandinavia)

This too-late move to get Time Warner on its box surfaces a larger problem: Apple TV has very few apps so far, as AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka points out. HBO Go will bring its total outside app count up to 10, a ton fewer than Xbox and Roku. And yet, many have talked about Apple TV as the gadget that will change everything. Perhaps techies overlooked the deficit because the company has been in secret talks with cable companies to supposedly revolutionize TV for years. It’s coming, the Apple rumors promised, fending off any doubts that Apple would deliver something great. But, nothing exceptional has arrived yet, certainly nothing that sounds like the Apple TV code Steve Jobs claimed to have cracked shortly before his death. Rather, this sounds like something Apple should have done years ago. Apple, if anything, is playing catch-up. 

RELATED: Apple Might Be Making Apple TV Content Deals

But maybe Apple isn’t the place to look for the future of television. Elsewhere in TV land, something new, different, and possibly revolutionary is happening. Netflix, an entity that does not require a cable subscription, will release its first big-budget TV drama today. Unlike Apple, Netflix is trying to operate outside of the traditional cable-bundle structure in order to create an alternative for people who don’t want to pay into the old system. Instead of playing by HBO’s rules and selling its shows on its strict terms, Netflix wants to be the HBO of streaming TV, by creating premium shows that will draw people to Netflix for a premium price. Also in an attempt to do things differently, Netflix has released all the episodes at once, to appeal to our binge watching sensibilities. The experiment might not work. But at least, unlike Apple, Netflix is trying. 

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Lena Dunham: I'm Not Done Getting Naked on Girls

TV Watch

By Rennie Dyball

02/01/2013 at 02:00 PM EST

It's no secret that Lena Dunham isn't afraid to take off her clothes.

As writer, director and star of HBO's breakout series Girls, she appears topless – and sometimes bottomless – in quite a few episodes, including last Sunday's extended braless romp in a mesh top.

But Dunham, 26, whose series won two Golden Globes last month, says she has an important reason to go bare on her show.

"My point with getting naked is never proven," says the actress in the new Entertainment Weekly cover story, on newsstands Friday. "It's not like, 'Oh, I did it first season and now you guys get that there's women of a certain size on TV, so I'm done!' "

Earlier in January, Dunham (who recently landed a $3.5 million book deal) went to bat with Howard Stern over her average (if not typical Hollywood-sized) figure.

After the shock jock referred to the Girls star as a "little fat chick" on air, the actress called into his show, New York's Daily News reported.

"I'm not that fat, Howard," she said. "I'm not super-thin, but I'm thin for, like, Detroit."

Bottom line? Like it or not, Dunham isn't going to stop putting her body out there, even if it doesn't fit the standard starlet mold.

Last fall, when she drew attention for a leg-baring outfit, the actress said, "I don’t think a girl with tiny thighs would have received such no-pants attention," according to the New York Post.

"I think what it really was ... 'Why did you all make us look at your thighs?' My response is, get used to it because I am going to live to be 100, and I am going to show my thighs every day till I die."

Tell us in comments: Do you agree with Dunham that it's important to represent different (read: real world) body types on TV?

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Wall Street surges to five-year highs on data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed to five-year highs on Friday in the wake of jobs and manufacturing data that showed the economy's sluggish recovery is still on track.

The Dow industrials rose to 14,000 for the first time since mid-October 2007 and the S&P hit its highest since December that year. The S&P advanced 5 percent in January, its best start to a year since 1997.

Analysts attributed the market's robust showing so far this year partly to a deluge of cash flowing into equities.

Data on Thursday showed investors poured $12.7 billion into U.S.-based stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the latest week, concluding the strongest four-week flows into stock funds since 1996.

"There's a lot of money looking for a home and people are finally deciding the bond market is done and moving money into equities," said Edward Simmons, managing director and partner at HighTower in Portland, Maine.

"I see the rotation (of assets) pushing the market up in the face of not-massive amounts of good news," he said. "People are overlooking the higher risk in equities."

Employment grew modestly in January, with 157,000 jobs added in the month, slightly below expectations for 160,000. Still, figures for both November and December were revised upwards.

Other reports released Friday showed the pace of growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector picked up in January to its highest level in nine months, U.S. consumer sentiment rose more than expected last month, while December construction spending also beat forecasts.

"All the data seems to keep pointing to a slowly, steadily improving economy," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 137.21 points or 0.99 percent, to 13,997.79, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 14.81 points or 0.99 percent, to 1,512.92 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 34.76 points, or 1.11 percent, to 3,176.89.

With the day's gains, major equity indexes were on track for a fifth straight week of gains. The S&P 500 is also coming off its best monthly performance since October 2011.

Investors were also attuned to corporate earnings, with a trio of Dow components reporting profits that beat expectations.

Exxon Mobil was little changed at $89.95 after its results while Chevron added 0.8 percent to $116.10.

Drugmaker Merck & Co fell 2.9 percent to $42 after a cautious 2013 outlook.

Generic drugmaker Perrigo reported a better-than-expected second-quarter profit and its shares jumped 6.3 percent to $106.92, the largest advancer on the S&P 500.

Of the 252 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 69 percent have exceeded expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data. That is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above average since 1994.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are estimated to have grown 4.4 percent, according to the data, up from a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season but well below a 9.9 percent profit growth forecast on October 1.

Dell Inc gained 4.2 percent to $13.80 after sources said the company was nearing an agreement to sell itself to a buyout consortium led by its founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners.

Shares of General Motors and Ford Motor rose after the two largest American automakers posted better-than-expected U.S. auto sales for January.

GM gained 1.2 percent to $28.42 and Ford added 0.9 percent to $13.07.

Shares of Zoetis surged on its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange after its shares were priced at $26, above the expected range. Zoetis was trading at $30.67 at midday, after earlier climbing as high as $31.74.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) - A far-leftist suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, officials said, blowing open an entrance and sending debris flying through the air.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. The blast could be heard a mile away. A lower leg and other human remains lay on the street.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the bomber was a member of an illegal far-left group. The White House said the suicide attack was an "act of terror", but the motivation was unclear.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who was attending a ceremony in Istanbul when the blast happened.

"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.

Turkish media reports identified the bomber as Ecevit Sanli, a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) leftist group, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.

The DHKP-C opposes what it sees as U.S. influence over Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

"HUGE EXPLOSION"

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy, which is surrounded by high walls, shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We're very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a "hero" and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

A U.S. national security source said U.S. officials believed the incident was a suicide bombing but said security measures had worked properly, in that the attacker was not able to get past the outer perimeter of the compound and neither the embassy buildings were damaged, nor were U.S. personnel injured.

It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furore in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.

A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.

"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

OPPOSED TO U.S. INFLUENCE

The DHKP-C, deemed a terrorist organization by both the United States and Turkey, has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

Guler said the bomber could have been from the DHKP-C which has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months, or a similar group.

The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".

In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.

The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Google moves closer to resolving EU investigation

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google has offered to take specific steps to allay competition regulators’ concerns about its business practices, in a major move towards ending a two-year investigation and avoiding billions of dollars in fines.

The European Commission said on Friday it had received detailed proposals from the world’s most popular search engine, which has been under investigation following complaints from more than a dozen companies, including Microsoft, that Google has used its market power to block rivals.

If the commission accepts the proposals under its settlement procedure, it would mean no fine and no finding of wrongdoing against Google.

Companies found to be in breach of EU rules can be fined as much as 10 percent of global turnover, which could mean up to $ 4 billion if there is no satisfactory resolution in Google’s case.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told Reuters he had received Google’s submission, but declined to give details of the proposal.

“We are analyzing it,” he said.

Google spokesman Al Verney said the group continues to work cooperatively with the commission.

The company ranks first in Internet searching in Europe, with an 82 percent market share, versus 67 percent in the United States, according to research firm comScore.

Lobbying group ICOMP, whose members include complainants Microsoft, Foundem, Hot-map, Streetmap and Nextag, said any solution should include measures ensuring that rivals could compete on a level playing field with Google.

The FairSearch coalition, whose members include online travel agencies and complainants Expedia and TripAdvisor, said a third-party monitor should be appointed to ensure that Google lives up to any promises.

The commission, which acts as competition regulator in the 27-member European Union, is now expected to seek feedback from Google’s rivals and other interested parties, before launching an official market test.

Last month, Google won a major victory when U.S. antitrust regulators ended their investigation, saying the company had not manipulated its web search results to block rivals.

The commission has said Google may have favored its own search services over those of rivals, and copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without permission.

The EU executive is also concerned the company may have put restrictions on advertisers and advertising to prevent them from moving their online campaigns to competing search engines.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Rex Merrifield and Hans-Juergen Peters)

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Tim McGraw: How He Got That Body

By Alicia Dennis

01/31/2013 at 01:35 PM EST

Tim McGraw, before and after

Ramey; Nino Muñ oz

The good news: Tim McGraw is shirtless in the new issue of PEOPLE, showing off an impressive set of abs. The bad news: It takes (a lot!) of hard work to get the country star's rock-hard eight-pack. And when the 6-foot star, 45, gets ready to go out on the road, he turns up the workout to a whole new level.

"No one wants to grow up to be a rock star to sing the same song over and over again in a studio," says McGraw, who has maintained a 40-lb. weight loss in recent years. "The reason you want to do this is to be in front of thousands of people, playing that guitar and doing what you love. And when I'm on stage, I want to feel good."

McGraw will hit the work-out sessions hard in the upcoming months to prepare for his Two Lanes of Freedom tour in May; the new album hits stores next week. To make sure he has all the right moves, he trains with martial arts expert and stunt man Roger Yuan, 52, three times a day five weeks prior to hitting the road.

"We work with pulleys, bars and do core training, strength and balanced movements to build up the muscles between the ribs and connective tissues," says Yuan, who also got Daniel Craig in shape to play James Bond. "I have trained a lot of people and many are hard workers. But Tim is another animal. I have to reign him in and have to tell him, 'You can't do that much.' There is no quitting in him."

Though McGraw says he still indulges occasionally, he trains and diets before tours because "it's part of my job," he says.

"I'll eat a cheeseburger now and then, and I love sweet tea," says McGraw, who works out around four hours a day when he's not performing. "I like to eat. I like food. That is one of the reasons that I throw that extra hour of working out in."

Tim's Typical Routine

7 a.m. Wake up
8 oz. Hot water, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, manuka honey UMF10+

Breakfast
Fresh berries (blue, black, straw), muesli, natural yogurt, mixed in a regular cereal bowl
OR
Organic oats/bran porridge with raisins, sliced banana, maple syrup

8-9 a.m. Morning training session

10 a.m. Protein break
Fresh made Spelt flour pancakes made with soy milk, egg whites, powdered linseed/goji berries/flax seed
Optional toppings: fresh fruit compote or almond butter, or natural yogurt, and maple syrup

12-1 p.m. Midday training session

1:15 p.m. Lunch
Tuna mixed with chopped onions, celery, lemon juice and zest, Bragg's Aminos (soy sauce), chopped pickled sushi ginger, natural yogurt, and 1 teaspoon maple syrup
Served on halved avocado with side of alfalfa sprout/beetroot/spinach and rocket salad seasoned with rock salt, ground pepper, balsamic and olive oil

3 p.m. Snack
Handful of nuts almonds, pecans, or walnuts with a fruit smoothie

4:15-5:30 p.m. Afternoon training session
Specificity training, including stretch, warm down and 10-minute physio-massage
After training snack: apple or handful of grapes

7:30 p.m. Dinner
Grilled salmon marinated with lime juice, ginger, Vietnamese fish sauce, paprika, brown sugar and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds, chopped coriander and basil mix
Serve with blanched or stir fry green beans, or asparagus (olive oil and balsamic dressing) and sliced lightly fried polenta slices

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died. Investigators say the illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs. Also, clean pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

____

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Market treads water before Friday's employment data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as investors were cautious after a mixed bag of economic data, while stellar earnings from chipmaker Qualcomm helped the Nasdaq index to edge higher.

The S&P 500 is on track to post its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997.

Investors expect a pullback in equities after the recent gains, though they have bought on dips over the past four weeks. The largest daily decline on the S&P 500 so far in 2013 was Thursday's 0.39 percent drop after data showed the economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

"This is a highly rotational market," said Janelle Nelson, portfolio analyst at RBC Wealth Management in Minneapolis, noting how investors dive into beaten-down sectors on the smallest encouraging news.

Data on Thursday that showed a slight rise in weekly jobless claims while incomes grew at the best pace since 2004 underscored how fragile the economic recovery still was.

On Friday the government is due to release figures on January's non-farm payrolls, which are expected to show employers added 160,000 jobs in January after a rise of 155,000 in December. Friday will also bring reports on consumer confidence, U.S. manufacturing, construction spending and car sales.

"The market's lack of movement is due in part to the large number of economic releases coming out tomorrow," said Nelson.

Qualcomm gained 4.7 percent to $66.53 as the top boost to the Nasdaq Composite after the world's leading supplier of chips for cellphones beat analysts' expectations for quarterly profit and revenue and raised its targets for the year.

Facebook was trading mostly flat at $31.21 after falling as low as $28.74 a day after the social network company said it doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter. However, growth trailed some of Wall Street's most aggressive estimates.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 19.72 points or 0.14 percent, to 13,890.7, the S&P 500 <.spx> lost 1.68 points or 0.11 percent, to 1,500.28 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 3.04 points or 0.1 percent, to 3,145.35.

The S&P 500 has advanced more than 5 percent in January after legislators in Washington temporarily sidestepped a "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that could have derailed the recovery. Better-than-expected corporate earnings have added to the gains.

It would be the benchmark's largest monthly advance since a more than 6 percent gain in October 2011 and the best January advance since a 6.1 percent jump in 1997.

UPS shares lost 2.1 percent to $79.49 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that were below analysts' estimates on Thursday and forecasting weaker-than-expected profit for 2013.

Constellation Brands shares tumbled 18 percent to $32.10 after the U.S. Justice Department moved to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev from buying the half of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo that it does not already own. Constellation would have distributed Corona beer in the United States if the transaction had been approved.

Tank barge operator Kirby Corp added 6.3 percent to $70.67 and transportation company Ryder Systems climbed 3.2 percent to $56.01 after posting quarterly results.

Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning shows that of the 231 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 69.3 percent have exceeded expectations, a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are forecast to have risen 3.7 percent. That's above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season but well below a 9.9 percent profit growth forecast on October 1, the data showed.

WMS Industries surged 51.6 percent to $24.81 after the company agreed to be acquired by Scientific Games for $26 per share in cash. Scientific Games jumped 8.5 percent to $9.68.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; editing by Bernadette Baum and Kenneth Barry)

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Syria warns of "surprise" response to Israel attack

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria warned on Thursday of a possible "surprise" response to Israel's attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.

Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes", Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria.

"Syria is engaged in defending its sovereignty and its land," Ali told a website of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria and Israel have fought several wars and in 2007 Israeli jets bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site, without a military response from Damascus.

Diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target had been a military research center northwest of Damascus.

Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.

"Hezbollah expresses its full solidarity with Syria's leadership, army and people," said the group which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Israel has remained silent on the attack and there has been little reaction from its Western backers, but Syria's allies in Moscow and Tehran were quick to denounce the strike.

Russia, which has blocked Western efforts to put pressure on Syria at the United Nations, said that any Israeli air strike would amount to unacceptable military interference.

"If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the U.N. Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian said the attack "demonstrates the shared goals of terrorists and the Zionist regime", Fars news agency reported. Assad portrays the rebels fighting him as foreign-backed, Islamist terrorists, with the same agenda as Israel.

"It is necessary for the sides which take tough stances on Syria to now take serious steps and decisive stances against this aggression by Tel Aviv and uphold criteria for security in the region," Abdullahian said.

An aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Iran would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself, but Abdullahian made no mention of retaliation.

Hezbollah said the attack showed that the conflict in Syria was part of a scheme "to destroy Syria and its army and foil its pivotal role in the resistance front (against Israel)".

BLASTS SHOOK DISTRICT

Details of Wednesday's strike remain sketchy and, in parts, contradictory. Syria said Israeli warplanes, flying low to avoid detection by radar, crossed into its airspace from Lebanon and struck the Jamraya military research centre.

But the diplomats and rebels said the jets hit a weapons convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon, apparently destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, and the rebels said they - not Israel - hit Jamraya with mortars.

The force of the dawn attack shook the ground, waking nearby residents from their slumber with up to a dozen blasts, two sources in the area said.

"We were sleeping. Then we started hearing rockets hitting the complex and the ground started shaking and we ran into the basement," said a woman who lives adjacent to the Jamraya site.

The resident, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity over Israel's reported strike on Wednesday morning, said she could not tell whether the explosions which woke her were the result of an aerial strike.

Another source who has a relative working inside Jamraya reported that a building inside the complex had been cordoned off after the attack and that flames were seen rising from the area after the attack.

"It appears that there were about a dozen rockets that appeared to hit one building in the complex," the source, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "The facility is closed today."

Israeli newspapers quoted foreign media on Thursday for reports on the attack. Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles on security and military issues to the censor, which has the power to block any publication of material it deems could compromise state security.

Syrian state television said two people were killed in the raid on Jamraya, which lies in the 25-km (15-mile) strip between Damascus and the Lebanese border. It described it as a scientific research centre "aimed at raising the level of resistance and self-defense".

Diplomatic sources from three countries told Reuters that chemical weapons were believed to be stored at Jamraya, and that it was possible that the convoy was near the large site when it came under attack. However, there was no suggestion that the vehicles themselves had been carrying chemical weapons.

"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, echoing others who said the convoy's load may have included anti-aircraft missiles or long-range rockets.

The raid followed warnings from Israel that it was ready to act to prevent the revolt against Assad leading to Syria's chemical weapons and modern rockets reaching either his Hezbollah allies or his Islamist enemies.

A regional security source said Israel's target was weaponry given by Assad's military to fellow Iranian ally Hezbollah.

"This episode boils down to a warning by Israel to Syria and Hezbollah not to engage in the transfer of sensitive weapons," the source said. "Assad knows his survival depends on his military capabilities and he would not want those capabilities neutralized by Israel - so the message is this kind of transfer is simply not worth it, neither for him nor Hezbollah."

Such a strike or strikes would fit Israel's policy of pre-emptive covert and overt action to curb Hezbollah and does not necessarily indicate a major escalation of the war in Syria. It does, however, indicate how the erosion of the Assad family's rule after 42 years is seen by Israel as posing a threat.

Israel this week echoed concerns in the United States about Syrian chemical weapons, but its officials say a more immediate worry is that the civil war could see weapons that are capable of denting its massive superiority in airpower and tanks reaching Hezbollah; the group fought Israel in 2006 and remains a more pressing threat than its Syrian and Iranian sponsors.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Marcus George in Dubai; editing by David Stamp)

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