LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

August 16/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For Today

I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 15/08-10/:"‘What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’".

‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen
First Letter of John 04/07-21/:"Let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also".

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 15-16/16

Analysis: The truth about Hezbollah/Yossi Melman/Jerusalem Post/August 14/16
Hezbollah seems to be the main party behind obstruction of Aoun’s presidential bid/yalibnan/August 15/16/
Iran Factsheet: Three years since Rouhani took office/Monday, 15 August 2016
Can Quranism Save Islam/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/August 15/16
Former DIA Chief Michael Flynn Says Rise of Islamic State was “a willful decision” and Defends Accuracy of 2012 Memo/Brad Hoff /Levant Report/August 15/16
Egypt's Crucial Role in the Middle East/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 15/16
Have Xenophobia and Racism Become Mainstream in Turkey/Robert Jones/Gatestone Institute/August 15/16
A triple win for Putin in Turkey/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
All carrots, no sticks in Russia’s game with Turkey/Maria Dubovikova/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
Religious abuse or excuse to intervene/Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
Turkey-Russia: The Sultan and the Tsar need each other/Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
On the departure of a calm historian/Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/August 15/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on on August 15-16/16

Hariri proposal to adopt Aoun for presidency important: LF official
Egyptian Foreign Minister begins an official visit to Lebanon
Berri Says Situation Requires Hariri as Prime Minister
Berri in 'Secret Talks' with Mustaqbal over Hybrid Electoral Law
Nasrallah's Offer Reportedly Fails to Impress al-Mustaqbal
Raad Says Situations 'Ripe' for Election of President
Matar presides over Mass for France: We believe it is capable of playing a crucial role in restoring peace in the region
Rahi prays for God to inspire officials with way out of crises
Army: Bomb explosion near military vehicle in Arsal, five injured
Bomb tied to electric wires found at entrance to Akroum, Army units encircle the scene
Israeli army suspends works on military road north of Shebaa Farms
Army arrests 50 suspects in Ras Serj in Arsal
Analysis: The truth about Hezbollah
Hezbollah seems to be the main party behind obstruction of Aoun’s presidential bid

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on August 15-16/16

Even after Defeat, IS Sows Fear in Syria's Manbij
IS Claims Border Bomb Attack that Killed Over 30 Syrian Rebels
Injuries as 'Firecrackers' Spark Panic at French Riviera Resort
Turkey Hopes U.S. 'Keeps Promise' about Syrian Kurds
Jordan Rejects Calls to Restore Access to Stranded Syrians
Israel Destroys Home of Palestinian who Stabbed Girl in W. Bank Settlement
Iraq MPs Approve Five New Ministers after Long Delay
Iraq Kurds gain new ground in pre-Mosul op
ISIS targets fleeing Iraqi families with explosives: report
Iranians in Holland to hold major rally to remember 1988 massacre
Iranian-Americans urge White House to act on human rights abuses in Iran
Mohammad Mohaddessin: Iranian regime’s officials must be tried in International courts
App maker: Trump will win election

Links From Jihad Watch Site for on August 15-16/16
Soros gave $500,000 to group doing “opposition research” on foes of jihad terror
Study claims those anxious about terrorism favor Hillary over Trump
Jordanian cartoonist jailed for “offensive” anti-Islamic State cartoon
Over 1000 known child marriages in Germany
Muslims claim killing of NY imam was “Christian terror,” blame Trump for “Islamophobia”
Anni Cyrus Video: Top 10 Discriminating Rules Against Women in Iran
USDA ignores AFDI petition to require halal meat be labeled as such
Hugh Fitzgerald: Howard “Dizzy” Dean and “The Farthest Thing From an Islamic Republic”
Corsica: Muslims riot, burn cars, attack non-Muslims with harpoons over tourist photo
Algeria: Christian gets 5 years for “blasphemy” for saying Jesus will outshine Islam

Latest Lebanese Related News published on on August 15-16/16

Hariri proposal to adopt Aoun for presidency important: LF official
The Daily Star/August 14/16/BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces media officer Melhem Riachi Sunday applauded Future Movement leader Saad Hariri’s potential endorsement of Michel Aoun for the presidency, which he said could spell an end of the presidential vacuum. “What Hariri is putting forward by adopting the nomination of (Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel) Aoun is very important," Raichi said. "If he is convinced of [supporting] Aoun for the presidency, he will have solved the presidency case,” Riachi said. While the Lebanese Forces backs Aoun for the country’s top post, Hariri officially endorsed his long-time rival Marada Movement chief Sleiman Frangieh for the presidency in February. Hariri’s endorsement shook his alliance with LF head Samir Geagea, who was supposedly the Future Movement’s original candidate.The endorsement also destabilized Frangieh’s relationship with Aoun, who are both affiliated to the March 8 camp. “We respect what Frangieh represents, but Aoun better represents the Christian community,” Riachi said, adding that no agreement has yet been reached with the Kataeb Party over the presidency. Kataeb head Sami Gemayel earlier this year had said he would not vote for a March 8 candidate. Lebanon has been without a head of state since May 2014, when Michel Sleiman’s tenure ended.The post is reserved for a Maronite Christian under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system.

Egyptian Foreign Minister begins an official visit to Lebanon
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri arrived in Beirut on Monday evening, coming from Cairo, on an official visit expected to last for three days, during which he will meet a number of Lebanese officials. The Egyptian Minister was greeted at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport by Egypt's Ambassador Mohammad Badreddine Zayed and senior Embassy Staff, as well as Ambassador Donna Turk representing the Lebanese Foreign and Expatriates Ministry. However, reporters were not allowed into the VIP lounge to cover Shukri's arrival, at the request of the Egyptian Embassy, NNA correspondent at the Airport indicated.

Berri Says Situation Requires Hariri as Prime Minister
Naharnet/August 15/16/Speaker Nabih Berri has voiced support for the re-designation of al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri as prime minister, following remarks by Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that his party is “open to discussing” the issue of the premiership should an agreement be reached over the presidency. “Sayyed Nasrallah's speech was positive from all aspects,” several newspapers quoted Berri as telling his visitors in remarks published Monday. “Ever since ex-PM Hariri nominated MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency, I have supported him (Hariri) unconditionally, and the situation and the national interest require the designation of Hariri as premier, seeing as he would achieve stability and fend off the elements of discord,” the speaker added. Nasrallah had hinted in his speech on Saturday that Hizbullah does not mind the appointment of Hariri as premier in return for the election of Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun as president and the re-election of Berri as parliament speaker. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Berri in 'Secret Talks' with Mustaqbal over Hybrid Electoral Law
Naharnet/August 15/16/Speaker Nabih Berri has revealed that he has been secretly communicating with al-Mustaqbal Movement for around a month now over a hybrid electoral law under which 64 MPs would be elected under the winner-takes-all system and the other 64 under the proportional representation system, a media report said on Monday. In remarks published by An Nahar newspaper, Berri said he has been informed by Mustaqbal that an internal debate is taking place among the movement's members and that there is an inclination to endorse the hybrid law that has been proposed by the speaker. “I have told Mustaqbal that I'm willing to be utterly responsive, if necessary, to any suggestion on any article in the draft law that might be perceived as vague or unfair, especially that the main goal behind this suggestion is balance and consistency,” Berri added. The speaker also disclosed that he has discussed the issue with the Free Patriotic Movement, noting that “contacts are positive with both parties and will be completed on September 5” during the scheduled national dialogue session. “Should we finalize the electoral law, we would be completing 90% of the package deal,” Berri pointed out. But sources informed on the drafting of the new electoral law told An Nahar that “there are indications suggesting that it is not possible to reach a consensual format before the beginning of the parliament's regular session in mid-October, despite the efforts that are being currently exerted by the FPM and the Lebanese Forces.”

Nasrallah's Offer Reportedly Fails to Impress al-Mustaqbal
Naharnet/August 15/16/Al-Mustaqbal Movement has not expressed positive feedback regarding the proposal that was offered by Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in his speech on Saturday, a media report said on Monday. Nasrallah had hinted in his speech that Hizbullah does not mind the appointment of al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri as premier in return for the election of Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun as president and the re-election of Speaker Nabih Berri as head of parliament. But in remarks to An Nahar newspaper, senior Mustaqbal sources said “the problem is in Aoun, not in Hariri.”“Nasrallah's remarks do not pave the way for anyone, seeing as the issue is tied to a constitutional process that requires (binding parliamentary) consultations” for the designation of a new PM, the sources said. “Therefore such openness does not pave the way for resolving the presidential crisis, because the problem in the first place is with General Aoun and not with ex-PM Hariri,” the sources added. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Raad Says Situations 'Ripe' for Election of President
Naharnet/August 15/16/Hizbullah's top lawmaker MP Mohammed Raad announced Monday that the situations in Lebanon have become “ripe” for the election of a new president and ending the presidential void that has been running since May 2014. “I believe that the situations have become ripe and we hope to see a solution in the near future,” said Raad in the southern town of Arabsalim during a ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the 2006 war. He also noted that Speaker Nabih Berri has recently said that “he is optimistic that a president can be elected before the end of the year.”“Ending the presidential vacuum and electing a new president would revitalize state institutions and contribute to building the state and its agencies,” Raad added. “This crisis would be quickly resolved when all Lebanese feel that partnership between them is inevitable,” the head of the Loyalty to Resistance bloc went on to say. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has hinted in a speech on Saturday that his party does not mind the appointment of al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri as premier in return for the election of Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun as president and the re-election of Speaker Nabih Berri as head of parliament. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Matar presides over Mass for France: We believe it is capable of playing a crucial role in restoring peace in the region
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - Beirut Maronite Archbishop Boulos Matar said, on Monday, that "France is capable of playing a crucial role in restoring peace in the region."Presiding over Assumption Mass held at the Archdiocese Seat in Ain Saadeh marking Saint Mary's Day and dedicated to France, Bishop Matar praised the Lebanese-French deeply-rooted historical and friendly relations. He also paid tribute to the innocent victims who fell during the recent wave of terrorist attacks that hit France, praising its ability to overcome these painful incidents. "We pay respect to France's clear vision and foresight in its ability to refrain from mixing between violence and peace, and in dealing with these sad incidents in a civilized and wise manner," Matar added."France has responded to the culture of death by clinging to the civilization of life, especially the life of coexistence without discrimination," said Matar, adding that "this is what we in Lebanon have done for the last 40 years, namely by refusing to consider what we have been through as a religious war, since Christianity and Islam are two religions open to one other."

Rahi prays for God to inspire officials with way out of crises
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - Maronite Patriarch, Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, on Monday prayed for God the almighty to inspire local and international officials with the much-needed solutions to help people out of the existing crises that have been recently shaking different parts of the world.
Rahi prayed for swift presidential elections in Lebanon, deeming this an essential step to reorganize all constitutional and public institutions, especially in their capacity as essential tools to resolve all the economic, livelihood, moral, and security crises nationwide. Rahi's words came in an address he gave earlier today while chairing a mass ceremony marking the Assumption of Mary at the Patriarchal seat of the Maronite Church in Diman. "We pray for God to help officials renounce their petty personal interests for peace to prevail in the region... this region which introduced peace to the world from the holy lands of Palestine, Syria and Iraq," the Maronite Patriarch added.

Army: Bomb explosion near military vehicle in Arsal, five injured
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - A communique by the Lebanese Army Command said that around 11:20 a.m on Monday, a military vehicle was targeted by a bomb placed on a road in the vicinity of the town of Arsal. The communique added that the weight of the remote-controlled bomb was approximately 3kg, noting that five soldiers were wounded in the blast. "The army units have taken the necessary measures on the ground. An investigation has been launched into the incident," the communique concluded.

Bomb tied to electric wires found at entrance to Akroum, Army units encircle the scene
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - A grenade wired to electric cables was found nearby a water well at the entrance to the town of Akroum in Akkar on Monday evening, NNA correspondent reported. An army patrol unit arrived immediately at the scene, hitting a security cordon around the area while awaiting the military expert to inspect the bomb.

Israeli army suspends works on military road north of Shebaa Farms
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - Israeli occupation forces stopped around 7:00 p.m. on Monday all works underway along the military road situated within the northern outskirts of Shebaa Farms, whereby bulldozers and excavators were pulled back while retaining a number of armored vehicles, stationed off the liberated areas in the center of al-Naqqar Pond, NNA correspondent in Hasbaya reported.

Army arrests 50 suspects in Ras Serj in Arsal
Mon 15 Aug 2016/NNA - In a raid campaign conducted by the Lebanese Army in the locality of Ras Serj in Arsal on Sunday, 50 suspects were arrested for having connections with terrorists, NNA correspondent in Baalbek reported.

Analysis: The truth about Hezbollah/اسرائيل لنصرالله بعد خطابه الدونكيشوتي: روح اتضبضب
Yossi Melman/Jerusalem Post/August 14/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/08/15/yossi-melmanjerusalem-postthe-truth-about-hezbollah%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%87/
The good news is that the Israeli public is gradually maturing and is less and less holding its breath when Hezbollah’s secretary-general delivers his inflammatory speeches. In the past the Israeli media were preoccupied with Nasrallah’s speaking engagements.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered another speech and it got very little attention in Israel. In other words, Hezbollah and Nasrallah are no longer frontpage news. This is also because slowly but surely, Israeli media and the public at large have changed their perception of the Second Lebanese War, the 10th anniversary of which both sides are commemorating.
Unlike the first years after the war, when it was promoted by the media as a colossal failure, there is a growing recognition that despite the tactical failures, it brought Israel important strategic achievements. Above all there is peace and tranquility at the Lebanese border. For the last 10 years not a single Israeli citizen was scratched and only four Israeli soldiers were killed.
Since that war several top Hezbollah commanders were assassinated, including ”defense minister” Imad Mughniyeh and his successor and brother-in-law Mustafa Badreddine, in operations attributed to the Mossad. This shows how Israeli intelligence managed to deeply penetrated the Lebanese Shi’ite group.
Hezbollah is a much weaker organization while Israel is much stronger. This is also due to the bloody civil war in Syria in which at least 1,600 Hezbollah fighters were killed and another 6,000 wounded. Not a small matter for an army – conscripts and reservists combined – of 45,000.
On top of all this, Hezbollah has financial problems to the point that it delays payments to its members and the bereaved families and certainly to its suppliers. No wonder that Hezbollah is deterred and all its representatives, Nasrallah included, say that they don’t wish to be dragged into a new round of war with Israel.
True, Hezbollah has accumulated more than 100,000 missiles and rockets, at least a thousand of which are longrange and accurate enough to hit almost any strategic and military site in Israel. Hezbollah is also better equipped and trained than it was 10 years ago. It has better intelligence and it has drones.
In his speech, Nasrallah once again boasted about the strength of his organization and its determination to go on with its struggle to “resist” Israel. He also bragged that Israel is a weak country torn insideout by its social and economic divisions, kind of a repetition of his address after the 2006 war in which he compared Israel to a spiderweb. He knows better. The Hezbollah leader knows the true power balance between the two sides. In case another war breaks out, the Israeli military machine will crush Hezbollah, kill as many of its troops as possible and destroy its arsenals and bases. Hezbollah is no match for the IDF. The Israeli public knows it and so does Nasrallah.

Hezbollah seems to be the main party behind obstruction of Aoun’s presidential bid
yalibnan/August 15/16/Despite Hezbollah’s repeated claims that it’s only candidate is the founder of Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun, the party has been holding back on endorsing him during the 43 parliament sessions that took place so far for election of a Lebanese president . Strangely enough the only party that seems to be pushing hardest for Aoun’s election, is the Lebanese Forces which is headed by Aoun’s former rival Samir Geagea. There is “real progress” in the ongoing efforts to end the presidential vacuum and talks are “serious” with Future Movement and the Phalange Party in this regard, Melhem Riachi , a top Lebanese Forces official announced on Sunday. “Hezbollah is required to seriously support General Michel Aoun’s presidential nomination through convincing the March 8 camp to secure quorum” at the parliament, Riachi said in an interview on MTV. “We have communicated with Saudi Arabia regarding Aoun’s nomination and we were informed that it does not have a veto on any presidential candidate,” Riachi added. Commenting on the so-called “package deal” that has been proposed by Speaker Nabih Berri, Riachi stressed that “for the LF, there is no package deal, but rather the priority of electing a president and committing to the democratic process.” Riachi noted, however, that the Future Movement “has the right to reject Aoun’s presidential nomination” while pointing out that “Aoun has a larger popular base than (Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman) Franjieh in the Christian arena.”
“LF leader Samir Geagea contacted former president Amin Gemayel two weeks ago and I met with Phalange Party chief Sami Gemayel after the phone call,” Riachi revealed, stressing that “there is continuous communication with Phalange Party” and that LF deputy chief MP George Adwan is discussing the issue of the electoral law with Phalange Party’s leader.

The Lebanese parliament failed again earlier this month and for the 43rd time in a row to elect a president to replace Michel Suleiman whose term ended on May 25 , 2014. As in the past sessions the parliament was unable to reach a quorum because the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and its ally MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc MPs boycotted the session, because they could not reportedly guarantee Aoun’s election as a president. Amal Movement leader, Speaker Nabih Berri a key ally of Hezbollah postponed the election to September 7, 2016.
Geagea who was the first to announce his presidential bid and who later decided to back Aoun in order to end the impasse , said after the failed election. ” Neither Hezbollah nor Iran want a president , not even Aoun despite the fact that the FPM founder has the votes to guarantee his election.”
Lies through his teeth
Hezbollah chief Hassan Narallah reiterated Saturday that his party is still committed to Aoun’s presidential nomination while stressing that Berri is Hezbollah’s only candidate for the parliament speaker post. “We have been committed to General Aoun’s presidential nomination since the period that preceded the July war, and should an agreement be reached over the president, we are open to discussing the premiership,” said Nasrallah in a televised speech marking 10 years since the end of the July 2006 war with Israel. “It is clear that everyone has entered a waiting phase although the issues are still in the hands of the Lebanese, and everyone agrees that the solution begins by the election of a president,” Nasrallah said. One observer decried Nasrallah’s remarks on Aoun and the presidency:
“Nasrallah lies through his teeth . I stopped believing anything he says on TV . Everyone knows the decision is up to Iran and not him and Iran is using the Lebanese presidential vacuum as a leverage in the Syrian war. Despite Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war that war is Iran’s war and Iran is going to fight there for the last Hezbollah man .”

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on August 15-16/16

Even after Defeat, IS Sows Fear in Syria's Manbij
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/When Fatima and Mohammad pushed open their front door -- elated to return to Syria's Manbij after it was retaken from jihadists -- their weeks-long dream of coming home turned into a nightmare. The blast could be heard across the ruined town in northern Syria, where U.S.-backed Arab and Kurdish fighters chased out the last remaining Islamic State group fighters at the weekend. IS militants withdrew after making a last stand in the center of Manbij against the Syrian Democratic Forces, leaving behind them a booby-trapped town. AFP journalists arrived in Manbij on Sunday to the sound of a massive blast, the first of several they heard throughout their tour of the town. Moments after the explosion at her front door, 40-year-old Fatima burst back into the street, her contorted face covered in tears. She begged someone to drive her to the hospital behind the ambulance carrying her husband Mohammad, who was wounded to the face and leg in the blast. He was taken to the Kurdish-majority border town of Kobane further northeast for treatment, as all of the clinics in Manbij are out of service. "Everyone was begging Mohammad to be patient and not open the door, but he insisted that he wanted to check if our home had been looted," Fatima told AFP, her voice shaking as she wiped tears from her tired face. Like Fatima and Mohammad, thousands of others are eager to return to their homes in Manbij, which IS seized in 2014 and used as a key transit town along the jihadists' supply route from Turkey. On Sunday, pick-up trucks lined up at a checkpoint on the edge of the town, transporting home hundreds of civilians -- including children, who were beaming from ear to ear and holding up their fingers in a v-shape for victory.
'They burned everything'
But they are returning to a nearly unrecognizable town, ravaged by nearly two months of fighting and still undergoing demining operations by the SDF. "Manbij is liberated" is scrawled on low concrete walls across the town -- but so are warnings to "Watch out for mines". Roofs and walls of homes have crumbled into small mountains of rubble. On the edges of roads and on balconies, men and young children gingerly sweep away dust and debris. "The mines are exploding everywhere. When we open a door, when we step into the street," said Hassan al-Hussein, one of Fatima's neighbors.
"My cousin was killed yesterday when a mine exploded," he said, staring blankly from behind his eye glasses. "Once we demine the whole town, we can live. On top of that, there's no water, no flour, and none of the clinics are functioning," he said. Nearby Najwa, 41, kept her seven-year-old daughter Amani close by her side as she carefully entered her home for the first time since IS was pushed out. The pair tiptoed through a blanket of concrete debris, staring at walls blackened by a fire. "They burned everything. This was my bedroom as a child -- it breaks my heart to see it like this," Najwa said. "The jihadists entered our towns three years ago -- but it feels like 30 years have passed."
No school, no TV
IS' brutal reign over Manbij left even its youngest residents with traumatizing memories. "They hit anyone who tried to walk to school and said we were infidels," Amani chimed in. "Even television was banned," she recalls, her voice breaking before taking refuge behind her mother's dress. The jihadist group has implemented its ultra-conservative Islamist ideology across swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria where it declared a self-styled "caliphate" in 2014. As IS fighters withdrew from the town on Friday, some women burned the black robes that the jihadists imposed on them, while men who had lived under a shaving ban cut their beards. But some legacies of IS rule remain. An illustration on the wall of one Manbij school depicts a woman fully covered in black and wearing a face veil beside an explanation of the importance of modesty. "They only taught children Koranic verses, how to carry arms and how to kill," said Mohammad al-Abdallah, a 53-year-old retired teacher. IS fighters left his house in ruins. "Even little girls were forced to cover up completely," said 11-year-old Aya.
"Now that I can wear whatever I want, I'm happy."

IS Claims Border Bomb Attack that Killed Over 30 Syrian Rebels
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/The Islamic State jihadist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed more than 30 Syrian rebel fighters in a blast near the Turkish border. IS, in a statement published on Twitter and the messaging service Telegram, said a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt among rebels "getting ready to fight the Islamic State." The blast on Sunday night struck the Atme border crossing between Turkey and the northern Syrian province of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.The monitoring group said the anti-regime fighters were traveling by bus to Turkey then back into Syria towards the rebel bastion of Azaz, in Aleppo province. The attack killed 32 rebels as they were entering Turkey, the Britain-based Observatory said, updating an earlier toll on Sunday evening of 15. Its head Rami Abdel Rahman said the toll could rise further as other fighters remained critically wounded. IS' statement said the attack left "nearly 50" rebels dead, charging they took orders from the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria. IS has tried to advance on rebel territory in Aleppo province -- particularly the towns of Azaz and nearby Marea -- for several months. A major jihadist offensive in May saw IS encircle Marea, but rebels pushed back the assault the following month after receiving ammunition from the coalition. More than 290,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011.

Injuries as 'Firecrackers' Spark Panic at French Riviera Resort
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/A noise that sounded like gunfire sparked panic at a French Riviera resort as people rushed to flee what they believed was a terror attack, causing a number injuries, the fire service said. The noise was caused by firecrackers thrown from a car, local radio France Azur reported, adding that around 40 people were injured in the incident late Sunday in Juan-les-Pins. Video footage showed tables and chairs overturned on the terraces of cafes and restaurants near the beach and people screaming in the stampede. The incident came amid heightened tension in France after a string of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group, including the July 14 massacre in the Mediterranean city of Nice when a Tunisian plowed a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day, killing 85 people. A state of emergency was declared in France after November's IS attacks in Paris which left 130 people dead. The fire service in Juan-les-Pins, known for its vibrant nightlife and annual jazz festival, said a number of people were lightly injured but did not say how many. Police were examining CCTV footage to determine the exact cause of the incident. The Nice Matin newspaper quoted witnesses as saying beachgoers rushed into the streets of the busy nightlife area on hearing what they feared was gunfire. One witness told AFP he saw "a lot of people running" in a "stampede caused by the panic" that "left dozens of people slightly injured".The injured were treated at the scene, some in the restaurants, and "police cordoned off the town center," he said. In New York on Sunday, unfounded reports of shots fired at the city's main John F. Kennedy airport triggered scenes of panic, evacuations and huge flight delays.

Turkey Hopes U.S. 'Keeps Promise' about Syrian Kurds
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/Turkey expects the United States to keep a promise that Syrian Kurdish militia will return east of the Euphrates River after their advance in northern Syria to push out Islamic State jihadists, the foreign minister said on Monday. Arab and Kurdish fighters, backed by the United States, on Friday took control of the strategic town of Manbij along the Turkish border after IS jihadists retreated. The Syrian Democratic Forces, an Arab-Kurdish militia, is dominated by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) seen by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged a bloody campaign against the Turkish state since 1984. "The United States and even (President Barack) Obama himself has promised us that those from the PYD within the (Syrian) Democratic Forces will cross back to the east of the Euphrates after the Manbij operation is over," Mevlut Cavusoglu said. "The United States needs to keep its promise. This is what we expect," he added. Washington has not confirmed it ever made such a pledge. Manbij was a key point on the jihadists' supply line from Turkey when it was under IS control before the offensive. Turkey is frustrated with Washington's support of Kurdish fighters in Syria as key partners in the fight against IS jihadists and accuses its U.S. allies of turning a blind eye to the alleged links between the PKK and PYD. In May, AFP pictures revealed US commandos sporting patches of the PYD's militia the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), prompting a furious reaction by Ankara.

Jordan Rejects Calls to Restore Access to Stranded Syrians
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/Jordan's King Abdullah II has rejected calls to restore access to a border area where tens of thousands of Syrians are stranded, local media reported on Monday. Jordan declared the area around the Rukban border crossing a "closed military zone" in June, after a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed seven soldiers near a makeshift desert camp where more than 100,000 Syrians are stuck. This cut off aid access to the Syrians, who have been gathering at the border for months attempting to flee their country's five-year civil war into Jordan. In comments published by the semi-governmental Addustour newspaper on Monday, the king cited fears of "extremist elements" among those stranded, many of whom come from areas controlled by IS. "Despite all difficulties, Jordan is doing its utmost to help refugees," he said, "but that will under no circumstances be at the expense of the livelihood of Jordanians and their security."Aid agencies have pleaded with the government to restore access to the camp and earlier this month Jordan allowed a delivery of desperately needed food and hygiene supplies after an appeal by the United Nations. But Abdullah said national security was Jordan's top priority. "We will not allow anyone to put pressure on us," he said. Abdullah said Jordan was willing to help transfer the Syrians to "any country willing to host them." Jordan says it is already hosting nearly 1.4 million refugees, of whom 630,000 are registered with the United Nations. Abdullah said donations from the international community only covered 35 percent of the cost of hosting the refugees, leaving Jordan to make up the shortfall. That took up more than a quarter of Jordan's budget, he said. "Jordan is doing its utmost to help refugees," he said. "However, we have reached our limits... This is an international crisis and an international responsibility and the world has to do its part."

Israel Destroys Home of Palestinian who Stabbed Girl in W. Bank Settlement
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/The Israeli army on Monday destroyed the home of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, after he killed a 13-year-old girl as she slept in her bed, a military spokeswoman said. Mohammed Nasser Tarayra, 19, broke into a house in the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron in the southern West Bank on June 30. He stabbed American-Israeli Hallel Yaffa Ariel dozens of times while she slept, before being shot dead by settlement guards. A video posted by the army online Monday showed dozens of troops laying charges in the building in the dead of night before carrying out a controlled explosion. Israel frequently destroys the homes of Palestinians who have carried out attacks. Critics of the policy denounce it as a collective punishment, which leaves the families of attackers homeless, but the Israeli government says it discourages others who might be thinking about carrying out similar acts. Since October, 219 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have died in violence in Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jerusalem, according to an AFP tally. Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, Israeli authorities say.

Iraq MPs Approve Five New Ministers after Long Delay
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 15/16/Iraq's parliament on Monday approved five new ministers after months of delay and repeated setbacks to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's efforts to replace the cabinet, the speaker's office said. Lawmakers signed off on Abadi's nominees to head the ministries of oil, transport, higher education, housing and construction, and water resources, but rejected the nominee for trade minister. Four of the five ministers were the same as had been approved by lawmakers earlier in the year at a session that was later scrapped by a court ruling that dealt a blow to Abadi. The premier announced his intention to introduce technocratic ministers into the cabinet in February, but faced significant opposition from powerful parties that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds. Sessions on the cabinet issue were repeatedly overshadowed by antics in parliament, including a sit-in by MPs, verbal and physical altercations, and a vote to sack the speaker that resulted in two rival claimants to the post. Lawmakers eventually approved several of Abadi's nominees but disruptive members were barred from attending the session, leading it to be invalidated by a court along with the one in which MPs voted to remove the speaker. Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also took up the call for government of technocratic, independent ministers, organizing repeated protests calling for that change and other reforms. His supporters, angered by parliamentary inaction, broke into Baghdad's Green Zone during several protests, storming parliament and temporarily occupying the building on one occasion, and breaking into the premier's office on another.

Iraq Kurds gain new ground in pre-Mosul op
Erbil, Iraq Monday, 15 August 2016/Iraqi Kurdish forces on Monday wrapped up a two-day offensive during which they took several positions from the ISIS group near its Mosul bastion, officials said.The peshmerga forces had launched the assault on Sunday to retake villages in the Nineveh plain between Mosul, the militants' last major Iraqi stronghold, and Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region. The Kurdish military command issued a statement naming 10 villages it said its forces retook, and said the reconquered area covered 150 square kilometers. The head of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, Masrour Barzani, said on social media that the advance would "tighten the grip around ISIL's (ISIS) stronghold Mosul". The recently retaken areas are 30 to 40 kilometers southeast of Mosul, Iraq's second city and the only major urban center in the country that ISIS still controls. The peshmerga command said 130 ISIS members were killed in the operation, but did not provide casualty figures for its own ranks. A senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, had told AFP that at least seven members of the Kurdish forces were killed on Sunday. A journalist working for local satellite channel Kurdistan TV was also killed when a mortar round struck the peshmerga convoy he was travelling in on Sunday. Iraqi forces retook the militants bastion of Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, in June, and Mosul is the next major target for the myriad forces battling ISIS in Iraq. The latest Kurdish advance east of Mosul is part of shaping operations that have been taking place on several fronts for weeks. Federal forces have also been working their way northwards up the Tigris river valley in a bid to set up bases around Mosul and start tightening the noose around ISIS's last major bastion. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to retake Mosul and rid the country of ISIS by the end of 2016.

ISIS targets fleeing Iraqi families with explosives: report
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 15 August 2016/Reports by local Iraqi media on Monday said deadly ISIS explosives have targeted civilians in two separate incidents in two areas held by the militant group. Two civilians were killed and 25 others were wounded after ISIS targeted families with a blast as they attempted to flee the northwest Al-Huwaijeh district in the northern province of Kirkuk, sources told Al-Sumaria News, the Arabic language website for an independent Iraqi TV network. There are no further details about this deadly incident. Al-Huwaijeh, Al-Rashad, Al-Zab, Al-Riyadh and Al-Abbasi districts in Kirkuk are all under ISIS control since June 2014. In another incident, a leader from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), an Iraqi government-sponsored umbrella of mainly Shiite militias, said a “whole family with children” was killed in a blast at a home in Al-Shurkat, a northern district in Salah Al-Din province. Jabar Al-Ma’mouri said the family was trying to flee Al-Shurkat and hid in a home laden with explosives.  Al-Shurkat is also under ISIS control since June 2014. He said ISIS have made deserted homes dangerous by planting explosives and by ambushing and targeting fleeing civilians. This is not the first time that ISIS has targeted civilians. When the Iraqi government forces waged its operation to liberate the western city of Fallujah in June, ISIS reportedly shot and killed civilians who were trying to flee.

Iranians in Holland to hold major rally to remember 1988 massacre
Monday, 15 August 2016/NCRI - Iranians residing in Holland plan to hold a large rally and march on Saturday to draw international attention to the ongoing appalling abuses of human rights by the mullahs' regime and remember the victims of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran.
The Iranian community in Holland plan to march from the municipality building in The Hague all the way to the Dutch Parliament on Saturday, August 20. The rally and march will take place from 16.30 to 18.30 local time. The supporters of the Iranian Resistance plan to urge the government of the Netherlands to support the prosecution of the Iranian regime's officials at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “crimes against humanity” over their role in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988. The vast majority of the victims of the #1988Massacre were affiliated to the main Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). A number of Iranians residing in Holland held a three-day hunger strike outside the Dutch Parliament last week to highlight plight of Iran’s political prisoners and condemn the recent spate of mass executions in Iran. The United Nations and Amnesty International have reported on the rise in executions under the regime’s President, Hassan Rouhani. More than 2600 people have been executed on his watch, with dozens hanged in the past two weeks, the protesters pointed out in The Hague last week. The Dutch-Iranian community has urged the Netherlands government to categorically condemn the executions in Iran and to act with allies to call for an immediate halt to executions and torture in Iran.

Iranian-Americans urge White House to act on human rights abuses in Iran
Monday, 15 August 2016/NCRI - Iranian-Americans held a rally outside the White House in Washington DC on Saturday to draw attention to the mass execution of political prisoners by the mullahs' regime in Iran. The Iranian-American supporters of the main Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), called on the Obama administration to impose sanctions on the regime over its appalling human rights abuses. Chanting slogans that called for an end to executions in Iran, the protesters remembered the 30,000 victims of the ‪#‎1988Massacre. In the summer of 1988, more than 30,000 political prisoners, primarily affiliated to the PMOI, or MEK, were mass executed in prisons across Iran. ‬Not one regime official has been to justice for this crime against humanity to date. The protesters called on the international community to prosecute officials of the mullahs' regime for their role in the massacre.

Mohammad Mohaddessin: Iranian regime’s officials must be tried in International courts
Monday, 15 August 2016/NCRI - A top official of the Iranian Resistance has spoken up about the importance of bringing the mullahs’ regime to account regarding their 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran.
In an interview with Al-Arabiya.net, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), stressed the importance of bringing the perpetrators of these horrific crimes to justice. This interview was held in reaction to leaked audio footage from Khomeini’s former heir, Hossein-Ali Montazeri, which provides evidence that leading figures of the Iranian regime planned and carried out the executions of 30,000 of their opponents, primarily members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Mohaddessin called for the Iranian regime to be brought before the International Criminal Court for the “biggest massacre of political prisoners since WWII.”He said: "The publication of shocking remarks of Montazeri, Khomeini's then heir, in a meeting with members of the ‘Death Committee’ [in 1988] reveals another dimension of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 and shows the clerical regime’s leaders from the beginning to present must be brought to justice for the worst crimes against humanity."Many of those involved in the massacre are still high-ranking figures in the regime, Mr. Mohaddessin noted. Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, who was a member of the Death Committee, is currently Hassan Rouhani’s Minister of Justice. Hossein Ali Nayyeri is the head of the Disciplinary Court of Judges. Another Death Committee member Ebrahim Reissi was the regime’s solicitor general until recently, when he was appointed by the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the head of Astan Qods Razavi, one of the most important centres of political and economic power in the theocratic regime, Mohaddessin added. The conglomerate plunders Iran’s treasury to fund suppression and terrorism throughout the Middle East.
 

App maker: Trump will win election
Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY August 13, 2016/LOS ANGELES — Despite a majority of opinion polls showing the 2016 presidential election going to Democrat Hillary Clinton, a smartphone app developer says his data suggests challenger Donald Trump will be the victor. “Based on the stats we see, he looks strong,” says Ric Militi, co-founder of San Diego-based Crazy Raccoons, maker of the Zip question and answer app. His app poses questions and polls responses based on an average of 100,000 daily users. “I go with Trump, based on what we see.”According to the RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls, which are performed by calling people on landlines and cell phones, and answering questions on websites, Clinton leads with 47.8%, to Trump’s 41.0%.“We’re not a poll. We’re a conversation, and 100% anonymous,” Militi says. “People feel comfortable answering questions without fear of being bullied or being called a racist. People can express themselves safely, and you get a pure answer.”
 

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on on August 15-16/16

Iran Factsheet: Three years since Rouhani took office/سجل روحاني خلال 3 سنوات لتوليه رئاسة إيران
Monday, 15 August 2016
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/08/15/iran-factsheet-three-years-since-rouhani-took-office/
NCRI – This week marks the start of Hassan Rouhani’s 4th year in office as President of the mullahs’ regime. In a speech in Yasuj, central Iran, on Sunday, Rouhani claimed that his government had been serving and “assisting” the Iranian nation for exactly three years.
Despite Rouhani’s claim of moderation, life in Iran is next to intolerable. Here’s a brief overview of Rouhani’s record in the past three years:
Human rights
• Over 2,600 executions have been carried out in three years, more than in any similar period in the past 25 years. Victims include political dissidents like Gholamreza Khosravi, an activist of Iran’s principal opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), who was hanged solely for providing financial assistance to a satellite television station supporting the opposition.
• On April 20, 2014 Rouhani described executions as the enforcement of “God’s commandments” and “laws of the parliament that belongs to the people.”
• In March of 2015, Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, stated that despite the claims of Rouhani being a moderate “the overall situation has worsened” with regard to human rights in Iran.
• On March 10, 2016, Shaheed said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council that executions in Iran surged to nearly 1,000 in 2015, the highest level in more than a quarter-century. The number of executions in 2015 was roughly double the number in 2010 and 10 times as many as in 2005.
•Amnesty International underscored in its annual report that Iran has the highest number of executions per capita, the world over.
• Iran remains one of the only countries that continue to execute minors. On October 14, 2015, Amnesty International announced: “Execution of two juvenile offenders in just a few days makes a mockery of Iran’s juvenile justice system.” On October 19, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the execution of the two minors and voiced his concern about the rise in executions in Iran.
• The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on May 31 condemned the "outrageous" flogging of 35 young men and women in Iran a week earlier after they were caught holding a graduation party together in Qazvin, north-west of Tehran. According to official state media, the students were arrested on May 26, interrogated and sentenced to 99 lashes each. In its statement, the UN human rights body said for Iranian authorities "to have meted out this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment -- which could amount to torture -- is completely disproportionate and abhorrent." It further noted 17 mine workers were reportedly flogged in Western Azerbaijan Province in Iran in May for protesting the dismissal of 350 workers at a gold mine.
• On August 2, 2016, at least 25 Sunni political prisoners were mass executed in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. On August 9, Kurdish political prisoner Mohammad Abdollahi was hanged in Orumiyeh Central Prison.
• In May of 2016 Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe a British-Iranian mother and charity worker was detained by the Iranian regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), separated from her one-year-old baby daughter and held without charge in solitary confinement.
• Ethnic and religious minorities continue to be denied due process and are executed at a higher rate than other Iranians. According to an Amnesty International report dated August 26, 2015, Behrouz Alkhani, a 30-year-old man from Iran’s Kurdish minority, was executed despite the fact that he was awaiting the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.
• Rouhani has continued the crackdown against Iranian Christians, arresting many for simply gathering to pray. The Iranian regime arrested a group of practicing Iranian Christians on Christmas Day at an in-house church in the city of Shiraz, southern Iran. The group had gathered together on December 25 to celebrate the religious holiday when plain-clothes agents of the regime's notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) raided the building.
• Iran is one of the largest customers of Internet censoring and filtering equipment. It also blocks around five million websites dedicated to arts, social issues and news, and works hard to filter the content of blogs and social media.
• Misogyny is at the heart of Iranian regime’s theocratic rule. In October 2014, organized gangs affiliated with the regime committed acid attacks on Iranian women and girls with total impunity. Criminal gangs affiliated with the Iranian regime subjected at least 25 women to acid attacks in cities of Isfahan, Kermanshah and Tehran.
• In October 2014, In defiance of international appeals, the Iranian regime executed Rayhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old woman whose crime was defending herself against an intelligence agent who had attempted to rape her. Amnesty International called the execution “another bloody stain on Iran’s human rights record.”
• In December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly slammed the flagrant violations of human rights by the Iranian regime. The resolution criticized the Iranian regime's use of inhuman punishments, including flogging and amputations. The UN’s 61st resolution on human rights abuses in Iran also censured the mullahs’ dictatorship for the rise in executions, public hangings and executions of juveniles.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
• The Iranian Armed Forced Deputy Chief of Staff claimed in May that Tehran had test-fired a "high precision ballistic missile with a range of 2000 kilometers" - a violation of United Nations resolution 2231 that prohibits Iran's regime from firing any missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
• Iran’s regime tested a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon on October 12, 2015. The UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on Iran said in a confidential report in December that the launch showed the rocket met the criteria for being capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. "On the basis of its analysis and findings the Panel concludes that Emad launch is a violation by Iran of paragraph 9 of Security Council resolution 1929," the panel said.
• Iran’s regime made another ballistic missile test on November 21. The liquid-fueled missile had a 1,900 km (1,180 mile) range and was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
• Tehran conducted missile tests for two consecutive days in early March 2016, firing two rockets that it said hit targets over 850 miles away and were capable of reaching Israel.
• In a letter to the defense minister on December 31, 2015, Rouhani ordered an expansion of the Iranian regime’s missile program. "... The armed forces need to quickly and significantly increase their missile capability," Rouhani wrote in a letter to Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, published by the state news agency IRNA.
Continued support for terrorism and export of Islamic extremism
• The Iranian regime is the main culprit in the continuation of the carnage in Syria. Day by day, Iran is expanding its involvement in the conflict raging onward in Syria. It is now evident that the Iranian regime is the invading force in Syria and if it were not for the Iranian regime’s all-out support for the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, he would have been overthrown a long time ago and the situation in that country would have been totally different. The Revolutionary Guards have now dispatched a conglomerate of more than 70,000 troops on the ground, consisting of 10,000 notorious Quds Force members, plus tens of thousands of foot-soldiers and mercenaries from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan. Tehran is now so utterly embroiled in shoring up the ruthless Assad regime that an Iranian army brigade consisting of the mullahs’ ‘Green Berets’ has been dispatched to Syria as well.
• On January 2, 2016, agents of the regime ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Arabia Embassy in Tehran. They also attacked the Saudi consulate in Mashhad, northeast Iran.
• On May 14, 2016, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif heaped praise on Hezbollah top military commander in Syria who died in a Damascus explosion. “I express my condolences on the martyrdom of the great holy fighter Mustafa Badreddine who was full of spirit and heroism in defending the righteous values of Islam and the combatant people of Lebanon,” Zarif said in a message to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. His remarks were carried by the Iranian regime’s state media, including by the official news agency IRNA.
• On September 28, 2015, Rouhani said in an interview with CNN: In Syria “we have no solution but to strengthen the central authority, the central government of that country as the central seat of power.”
• Following Rouhani’s press conference in New York on September 25, 2015, the Associated Press reported, “Rouhani defended the government of President Bashar Assad from charges of brutality in dealing with his opponents. He denied any knowledge of the use of ‘barrel bombs’ against civilians in Syria’s civil war.”
Stagnant economy, rampant corruption, growing protest and dissent
• Despite the nuclear deal, the Iranian economy is in total stagnation. Speaking to the state-run ISNA news agency on April 12, Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Mir-Bagheri acknowledged that the rate of unemployment has reached 70 percent in 1200 towns and is between 40 and 60 percent in 420 entire counties across Iran.
• On May 17, 2016, Mohammad Soleimani, a member of the regime’s Parliament, said: “During Rouhani’s term in office more than 15 thousand industrial and manufacturing units have been completely shut down and the remaining units are active with less than 50 percent of their capacity.” He added: "Three years into Rouhani's presidency, the number of unemployed people has climbed by about one million. The employment condition in the country is currently critical and as the Minister of Labor lately said, every five minutes one person becomes unemployed."
• Public restiveness has become more evident. There have been growing numbers of protests, strikes in various sectors, and scores of political prisoners have gone on hunger strike.
• Acknowledging the serious "threat" posed by recent demonstrations and mass protests involving teachers, truck drivers, street vendors and trade unionists, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told a recent meeting of senior security officials on May 17 that further repressive measures throughout the country were now a "high priority."
No change in key power players
• On May 24, Ahmad Jannati, a notorious cleric who is among the closest confidants of Supreme Leader Khamenei, was chosen as the head of the new Assembly of Experts. Jannati, 90, is also the chairman of the Guardian Council, a vetting body that must approve all laws adopted by the Parliament according to the regime's fundamentalist constitution.

Can Quranism Save Islam?
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/August 15/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/08/15/raymond-ibrahimpj-media-can-quranism-save-islam/
Huffington Post recently published an article titled “The Source of Muslim Extremism” authored by Mike Ghouse (described as “a speaker, thinker, and a writer” who “offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day”). He argues that all violence and intolerance committed “in the name of Islam is coming from a single source; the secondary books. The Quran is the only authentic book and we cannot go wrong with it. Until we reject those other books, we don’t have a prayer.”Among these “secondary books” Ghouse identifies the Hadith, which contains the words and deeds of Islam’s prophet Muhammad: “As a first step towards fixing our problems, we need to rehabilitate the Hadith.” By this he means that any hadith not “compatible with the statements that God is just and the Prophet is a mercy to the mankind” are to be expunged.
“Let’s stick to the Quran, we simply cannot go wrong,” concludes Ghouse.
What to make of this argument?
First, it should be noted that it is not original to Ghouse; this position belongs to a small sect of reformist/heretical (depending on who you ask) Muslims known as “Quranists.” Their movement, Quranism, goes back decades with echoes even earlier. It holds “the Qur’an to be the only authentic source of Islamic faith. Quranists generally reject, therefore, the religious authority and authenticity of hadith, Sunnah, and reject traditional Sharia Law, with the assertion that they are false attributes to the Islamic Prophet Muhammed. This is in contrast to the Sunni, Shia and Ibadi doctrines, which consider hadith necessary for Islamic faith.”
The benefits of rejecting all textual sources but the Quran should be obvious. The corpus of Hadith literature is immense and seems to have something to say about every conceivable topic. Sahih Bukhari—the most authoritative collection which Muslims hold second to the Quran in legislative importance—is nine volumes of Muhammad’s words and deeds on countless topics of minutia. (Thus, “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘When you drink (water), do not breath in the vessel; and when you urinate, do not touch your penis with your right hand. And when you cleanse yourself after defecation, do not use your right hand.’”)
Many forms of appalling behavior—from drinking camel urine to “adult breastfeeding”—are justified by finding some reference in the Hadith. Although the Quran suggests that only Allah may torture with fire, a Sahih Bukhari hadith documents Muhammad using fire as a form of torture. Accordingly, the Islamic State referenced this hadith in their fatwa to justify burning a Jordanian pilot alive.
While Quranism resonates with the Western mentality—it’s simply the Islamic version of Protestantism’s sola scriptura—it is heresy in the Muslim world. Mainstream Muslim scholars, including so-called “moderates,” regularly and often denounce Quranists as apostates from Islam. They point out that Quran 33:2 commands Muslims to follow Muhammad’s example; and his example—his sunna, which 90 percent of the world’s Muslims, the Sunnis, are named after—is derived from the Hadith.
Of course, this is precisely why many lackadaisical Muslims (quietly) favor the elimination of the Hadith. As one more fervent cleric complained, based on the Quran alone, “much of Islam will remain mere abstract concepts without Hadith. We would never know how to pray, fast, pay zakah, or make pilgrimage without the illustration found in Hadith…”
Surely that is welcome news to lukewarm Muslims?
Unsurprisingly, then, Quranists are regularly persecuted and sometimes killed for their position: Rashad Khalifa, an eccentric Quranist, was found stabbed to death in Tucson in 1990; India’s Chekannur Maulavi disappeared in 1993 under “mysterious circumstances” and is believed to be dead; Egypt’s Ahmed Subhy Mansour was denounced by and fired from Al Azhar University, imprisoned, and finally exiled.
Still, of all strategies dedicated to creating a “moderate Islam”—most of which have no theological basis and are simply built on Western projections of itself onto Islam—Quranism is commendable in that it is at least methodologically viable.
Unfortunately, its thesis is built on a faulty premise: Even if every single Muslim was to reject the Hadith and other “secondary books,” that wouldn’t change the fact that the Quran is saturated with violent and intolerant teachings that need little supplementation from secondary literature.
Well over a hundred verses call for nonstop war, or jihad, on non-Muslims. If the “infidels” are beaten and refuse to convert to Islam, they must live as third class subjects and pay tribute “while feelingly humbled” (e.g., 9:29). The Quran also prescribes draconian measures—crucifixions, whippings, amputations, stonings, and beheadings—as punishments; and it requires the absolute subjugation of women (e.g., 4:34), with particularly devastating results for non-Muslim women.
In short, the first premise of Quranism—that “The Quran is the only authentic book and we cannot go wrong with it,” to quote Ghouse—may ease the daily life of the Muslim, but it brings no solace to the “infidel.”

Former DIA Chief Michael Flynn Says Rise of Islamic State was “a willful decision” and Defends Accuracy of 2012 Memo
Brad Hoff /Levant Report/August 15/16 (published on August 06/16

https://levantreport.com/2015/08/06/former-dia-chief-michael-flynn-says-rise-of-islamic-state-was-a-willful-decision-and-defends-accuracy-of-2012-memo/
In Al Jazeera’s latest Head to Head episode, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn confirms to Mehdi Hasan that not only had he studied the DIA memo predicting the West’s backing of an Islamic State in Syria when it came across his desk in 2012, but even asserts that the White House’s sponsoring of radical jihadists (that would emerge as ISIL and Nusra) against the Syrian regime was “a willful decision.”
Amazingly, Flynn actually took issue with the way interviewer Mehdi Hasan posed the question—Flynn seemed to want to make it clear that the policies that led to the rise of ISIL were not merely the result of ignorance or looking the other way, but the result of conscious decision making:
Hasan: You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?
Flynn: I think the administration.
Hasan: So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?
Flynn: I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.
Hasan: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.
Hasan himself expresses surprise at Flynn’s frankness during this portion of the interview. While holding up a paper copy of the 2012 DIA report declassified through FOIA, Hasan reads aloud key passages such as, “there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”
Rather than downplay the importance of the document and these startling passages, as did the State Department soon after its release, Flynn does the opposite: he confirms that while acting DIA chief he “paid very close attention” to this report in particular and later adds that “the intelligence was very clear.”
Lt. Gen. Flynn, speaking safely from retirement, is the highest ranking intelligence official to go on record saying the United States and other state sponsors of rebels in Syria knowingly gave political backing and shipped weapons to Al-Qaeda in order to put pressure on the Syrian regime:
Hasan: In 2012 the U.S. was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups [Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda in Iraq], why did you not stop that if you’re worried about the rise of quote-unquote Islamic extremists?
Flynn: I hate to say it’s not my job…but that…my job was to…was to to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be.
The early reporting that treated the DIA memo as newsworthy and hugely revelatory was criticized and even mocked by some experts, as well as outlets like The Daily Beast. Yet the very DIA director at the time the memo was drafted and circulated widely now unambiguously confirms the document to be of high value, and indicates that it served as source material in his own discussions over Syria policy with the White House.
As Michael Flynn also previously served as director of intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during a time when its prime global mission was dismantling Al-Qaeda, his honest admission that the White House was in fact arming and bolstering Al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria is especially shocking given his stature.
Consider further the dissonance that comes with viewing the Pentagon’s former highest ranking intelligence officer in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden now calmly and coolly confessing that the United States directly aided the foot soldiers of Ayman al-Zawahiri beginning in at least 2012 in Syria.
This confirmation is significant to my own coverage of the DIA report, as I was contacted by a number of individuals who attempted to assure me that the true experts and “insiders” knew the document was unimportant and therefore irrelevant within the intelligence community and broader Syria policy.
This began after a Daily Beast article entitled The ISIS Conspiracy That Ate the Web cited former NSA officer John Schindler as an expert source. Schindler concluded of the DIA document: “it’s difficult to say much meaningful about it… Nothing special here, not one bit.”
To my surprise, only hours after I published a rebuttal of Schindler and the Daily Beast article, I was contacted by a current high level CIA official who is also a personal friend from my time living in the D.C. area.
This official, who spent most of his career with CIA Public Affairs, made a personal appeal urging me to drop my comments attacking John Schindler’s credibility, as I had noted that Schindler is a highly ideological and scandal-laden commentator who consistently claims special insider knowledge in support of his arguments. This CIA official further attempted to convince me of Schindler’s credibility as an insider and expert, assuring me that “he has written insightfully.”
Mehdi Hasan’s historic interview with General Flynn should put the issue to rest—the declassified DIA report is now confirmed to be a central and vital source that sheds light on the origins of ISIS, and must inform a candid national debate on American policy in Syria and Iraq.
As it is now already becoming part of the official record on conflict in Syria among respected international historians, knowledge of the declassified document must make it into every American household.
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Egypt's Crucial Role in the Middle East
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 15/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8596/egyptian-israel-relations
At the level of regional strategy, Egypt has a central role in the anti-Iran coalition of Sunni Arab states, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. The violence of the Arab Spring brought to the fore the inevitable confrontation between a revisionist, aggressive Shi'ite Iran and the Arab countries deploying to defend themselves against Iranian aggression, mainly in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Africa.
There might, however, be a confrontation -- unfortunately with the United States. Even as the Iranians proceed with developing nuclear weapons and using proxies to destabilize the Arab and Muslim states, the American shoulder grows colder towards both Israel and the el-Sisi government in Egypt. The current U.S. administration is known throughout the Middle East for empowering its enemies and being treacherous to its friends.
The traditional Arab stance, used by autocratic leaders to bamboozle their dissatisfied populace by pointing them at an external villain instead of at our own leaders, has clearly begun to change. Israel as the greatest enemy, is, correctly, being replaced by Iran.
The presence of the Egyptian foreign minister in Israel last month came as a surprise to many. Critical Egyptian public opinion and the Egyptian media indicate that, in the years since the Israeli-Egyptian peace was signed, the formal agreement has yet to trickle into public consciousness and that there is still considerable suspicion on both sides of the border. The same is true of the peace between Israel and Jordan.
Under the reign of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi, relations had reached a new low, with Egypt covertly aiding Iran's proxy, Hamas, against Israel.
The visit of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to Israel in early July 2016 could be an indication that the frozen peace between Israel and Egyptians, signed by Begin and Sadat in 1979, might be thawing.[1]
At the level of regional strategy, Egypt has a central role in the anti-Iran coalition of Sunni Arab states, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. The violence of the Arab Spring brought to the fore the inevitable confrontation between a revisionist, aggressive Shi'ite Iran and the Arab countries deploying to defend themselves against Iranian aggression, mainly in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Africa.
Under such circumstances, even publicizing any kind of cooperation between Egypt and Israel indicates a thaw and could, for the benefit of the Arab and Muslim world, be the beginning of legitimizing bilateral relations. Shoukry's visit to Israel might even have been intended to pave the way for a broadening of relations with Israel and an avowal of the hitherto covert cooperation between many Arab and Muslim states and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Jerusalem, on July 10, 2016. (Image source: Israel Government Press Office)
However, given the current situation of Egypt's rapprochement with Israel and Russia, there might be a confrontation -- unfortunately with the United States. Even as the Iranians proceed with developing nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to carry them, and as they use incitement, weapons, money, and proxies to destabilize the Arab and Muslim states, the American shoulder grows colder towards both Israel and the el-Sisi government in Egypt.
The current administration is known throughout the Middle East for empowering its enemies and being treacherous to its friends. We joke that is far better for a country to be America's enemy than its ally: it will then spend unlimited amounts of wealth and effort and wealth to woo you. It seems never to have met an enemy it did not like.
Both Israel and Egypt regard Hamas as a terrorist organization because it collaborates with ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula and because it is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose sole avowed purpose is globally to spread Islam.
According to sources in Egypt, Israel deliberately leaked information about firepower and intelligence aid from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to the Egyptian forces operating in the Sinai Peninsula to use this "collaboration with the 'enemy'" to strengthen relations between the two countries.
It is, however, in the interest of Arab and Muslim states to find a solution as soon as possible to get the Palestinian problem off the agenda, to be able to form a united front against Iran. It might even help to win if such a "strong horse" were included.
The visit of Egypt's foreign minister to Jerusalem seemed a signal to the Palestinian Authority to lower its expectations. The traditional Arab stance, used by autocratic leaders to bamboozle their dissatisfied populace by pointing them at an external villain instead of at our own leaders, has clearly begun to change. Israel as the greatest enemy, is, intelligently for most of us in the Arab and Muslim world, being replaced by Iran.
The visit to Israel also indicates that Hamas has weakened the Palestinian Authority's legitimacy and ability to maneuver, as it continues to present itself as an obstacle to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and keeps Western countries busy with its marginal problems, preventing them from dealing with the genuinely critical regional issues.
Like it or not -- and they could do worse -- at some point the Sunni Arab states would be wise to allow Israel into their trenches as they fight to the death against Iran.
**Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
 

Have Xenophobia and Racism Become Mainstream in Turkey?
Robert Jones/Gatestone Institute/August 15/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8664/turkey-xenophobia-racism
Every historical act carried out by Turks is praised and idealized. History textbooks ‎do not utter a single word about the crimes committed by Turkey against the country's minorities.
Turkey-centric theories were taught in Turkish schools and universities in the 1930s under the rule of Ataturk. Through these myths, racism and irrational views were instilled in the Turkish public.
Apparently, anti-Americanism is reaching new heights in Turkey, and many Turks do not need facts and evidence to determine who was behind the coup.
Meanwhile, Ankara recently declared that it has "concerns about the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe." This condemnation came from the government of a country that has slaughtered millions of its own citizens -- for being non-Turkish or non-Muslim -- and that has never once apologized for its crimes.
Xenophobia in Turkey is well-documented. The 2007 Pew Global Attitudes surveys, for example, showed that negative views of the United States were "widespread and growing" in Turkey, a NATO member and European Union applicant. According to the Pew Research Center:
"Of the 10 Muslim publics surveyed in the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes poll, the Turkish public showed the most negative views, on average, toward Westerners.
"On this scale, the average for Turkey is 5.2, which is a higher level of negativity than is found in the other four Muslim-majority countries surveyed (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Pakistan) as well as among the Muslim populations in Nigeria, Britain, Germany, France and Spain.
"Large and increasing majorities of Turks also hold unfavorable views of Christians and Jews."
The 2014 Pew survey of Turkish public opinion also found a major rise in xenophobia, revealing that Turks expressed a strong dislike for just about everyone.
"Such anti-Americanism inherent in the population of an American ally is noteworthy," wrote Professor Doug Woodwell. "Turkish public opinion as a whole is perhaps the most xenophobic on earth... Whatever the future, at least Americans can rest assured; while Turks may have a lower opinion of the US than any other country, they are equal opportunity haters."
"Turkey Alone Against the World"
Turkey's hostility toward outsiders has a long history. Ever since the Turkish republic was founded in 1923, Turkish schoolchildren have been taught myths that propagate "Turkey alone against the world."
The narrative taught in Turkish schools goes like this: World powers -- including the Western and Arab nations -- brought on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and all non-Turkish peoples in Anatolia betrayed the Turks and revolted. Then, in the 1920s, the Western powers attacked the Turks, the rightful owners of Anatolia, who had been abandoned by everyone. But the Turks heroically fought back, miraculously defeated the enemies and traitors, and re-established their country, which is still surrounded by enemies busy plotting schemes to destroy Turks and Turkey.
This narrative does not contain a single critical view of Turkish history. Every historical act carried out by Turks is praised and idealized. History textbooks ‎do not utter a single word about the crimes committed by Turkey against the country's minorities. Moreover, several Turkish government and military officials have used insulting expressions targeting minorities countless times -- proudly and recklessly -- making racism and the suspicion or hatred of non-Turks mainstream realities in Turkish politics.
There is even an official "Turkish Theory of History," created by the new Turkish Republic in 1930s with the encouragement of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic's founder. Through the "Turkish Theory of History," the Turkish people were fed with supremacist, racist myths in which Western civilization was belittled and the so-called Turkish civilization was extolled.
A propaganda poster from the time of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's rule shows Ataturk slaying opponents of his reform. (The sword features the word "reform")
According to this theory, it was the Turks, the first residents of the Central Asia, who established the first civilization of the world. Later, due to the rising levels of drought in the Central Asia, Turks spread to several parts of the world and brought civilization to the rest of the world. Turks had the main role in establishing and advancing the Islamic civilization, as well.
Moreover, the theory states that the oldest history of Turks can be traced back not only to the Central Asia, but also to Anatolia, which started to Turkify in the late Paleolithic era. Greeks were actually Turkish. And great developments in Europe and Asia always took place not from the West to the East, but always from the East to the West.
Many Turks also believe in the "Sun Language Theory" or the Turkish language theory, according to which all modern-day languages were derived from Turkish, the first language ever spoken by what was once the greatest civilization on earth. All other languages could be traced back to a Turkic root, and the Turks were the first people ever to have used the script.
These Turkey-centric theories were taught in Turkish schools and universities in the 1930s under the rule of Ataturk. Through these myths, racism and irrational views were instilled in the Turkish public.
Ever since, many Turkish governments have used similar untruthful, irrational propaganda to their advantage and further helped create a nation that has very little to do with the real world and history.
Even decades later, for example, after Turkey became a member of NATO, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have made it clear that they are not friends of the West.
In 2014, Erdogan accused the international media of waging a "psychological war" against Turkey, slamming local media outlets for collaborating in this campaign:
"There is a psychological war against Turkey in the western media, based on complete lies. Each day, some international newspapers come up and conduct a perception operation. Turkey is not a country that will bow either to domestic treason networks or to perception operations abroad."
The Turkish president also accused the Western world of hating Muslims but loving their money, and of wanting to see people of the Muslim faith dead. "They look like friends, but they want us dead; they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?" he asked.
Apparently, all of this anti-Western, Islamic-Turkish supremacist propaganda have deeply shaped the way many Turks think. According to a report based on the results of a survey entitled, "Nationalism in Turkey and ‎in the world," conducted by Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu of Sabanci University and Professor Ali ‎Carkoglu of Koc University in 2014, a large majority of Turkish people think there is nothing in ‎their history that they should be ashamed of.‎
"People don't feel close to Europe or to the Middle East," said Carkoglu.
"They basically feel close only to themselves. This global identity is something strange to Turkish mind. Turks are Turks and one striking fact is that we [asked] if everybody would be a Turk, would the world be a better place, and Turks gave a very high rating. No self-criticism whatsoever... One issue that differentiates Turkey from the rest of the world is that our national identity is primarily shaped by religious identity. What makes a Turk a Turk is not so much due to ethnicity, or the language people speak, but is primarily about being Muslim."
The Turkish supremacist narrative invented by Turkey's rulers and ideologues since the founding of the country has obviously created in Turkey millions of xenophobes and paranoids, who hold negative views of all non-Turkish peoples. And this has paved the way for countless atrocities against the indigenous minorities of Anatolia.
Never once in their history have Turkish people taken to the streets en masse in protest as the Greek, Armenian, Assyrian, Kurdish, Alevi, or Jewish citizens of the country were (and still are) exposed to unspeakable injustices -- including mass slaughters, pogroms, forced expulsions, forced displacements, harassment or social pressures. The Turkish state has implemented its discriminatory and even genocidal policies either with the active participation or the silent approval of the vast majority of the public.
But there is something that many Turks have recently taken to the streets to discuss and protest. As the New York Times reported on August 2:
"Turks can agree on one thing: the U.S. was behind the failed coup. ... Turkey may be a deeply polarized country, but one thing Turks across all segments of society — Islamists, secular people, liberals, nationalists — seem to have come together on is that the United States was somehow wrapped up in the failed coup."
Apparently, anti-Americanism is reaching new heights in Turkey, and many Turks do not need solid facts and evidence to determine who is behind the coup. What their government or head of their state says is enough for them.
Meanwhile, Ankara recently declared that it has "concerns about the rise of xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe," according to a written statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported the pro-government newspaper Sabah:
"Once again, we would like to emphasize the concerns we have about the racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia that have seriously increased in Europe in the recent period."
The statement was released to commemorate five Turkish citizens living in Germany, who were slaughtered in a 1993 arson attack in Solingen. "We wish that such deplorable incidents do not take place again."
This condemnation came from the government of a country that has slaughtered millions of its own citizens -- for being non-Turkish or non-Muslim -- and that has never once apologized for its crimes.
Would the Turkish government still make the same announcement if they knew about the political inclinations or ethnic backgrounds of the victims? What if, for example, the victims had been anti-government activists? Or if those anti-government Turks had been slaughtered not in Germany, but in Turkey? What if the victims had been Kurds who requested national rights from Turkey? Or Armenians whom Turkish President Erdogan called "ugly" on national TV in 2014? Given how unspeakably the Turkish government has been treating its dissident citizens and minorities, we all know the answer.
Apparently, to the Turkish government, only Turkish lives matter, and even then only the lives of "good" Turks are valued -- those who never ever raise an objection even when people are persecuted or slaughtered.
**Robert Jones, an expert on Turkey, is currently based in the UK.
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A triple win for Putin in Turkey
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
Putin is winning again. In the aftermath of the ill-fated coup in Turkey, he has managed to ensnare Turkish President Erdogan in his sphere of influence. For all the talk that Erdogan orchestrated or at least egged on the coup so that he can make a power grab on those segments of the Turkish state that he did not yet control, it does nevertheless seem that the coup attempt has hit the President hard. Or at least he seems to be deeply offended by the sympathetic response that the coup received in the West. And he has been moving swiftly and in radical directions since. But the move to détente with Russia must be one of the least-expected developments. The two strong-man leaders have been at loggerheads ever since Turkey downed a Russian fighter plane it claims violated its airspace last autumn. And that crisis escalated into a full-blown economic war in the intervening months. But following the coup, and the lukewarm response from his NATO ‘allies’, Erdogan decided that he might need new friends. So, in a surprising move, he has backed down, apologised to Putin, and flew to Moscow to “repair relations”. Europe’s unity and its sense of identity have already been frayed by the initial influx of refugees, but another one can only make things worse
This new development does not bode well for Syria, the refugee crisis, or indeed Europe. Erdogan has historically been one of the strongest opponents of President Assad in Damascus, and has been a key player in the Syrian Civil War for allowing forces opposing Assad to move across its border, and to trade in oil and armaments – including, in the early days, ISIS. But Erdogan may now be persuaded to see Putin’s point of view in the conflict, not least because Turkey might care more about suppressing the emboldened Kurds within Turkey, but also northern Syria and Iraq, than about removing Assad.
Leveraging friendship
Meanwhile, the EU-Turkey refugee deal is on the ropes. Already hugely controversial in Europe, Erdogan might hope to leverage his new friendship with Putin to extract even better terms out of EU leaders. But any such attempts might backfire, as European progressives are increasingly appalled by the authoritarian turn that Turkey has taken, to say nothing of the questionable legality and morality of the refugee deal, while European conservatives are already up in arms about the notion that Turks would have free travel rights in the Schengen area. All this, at a time when a new wave of refugees out of Syria is imminent, as the civil war is turning firmly in Assad’s favor, and rebel areas can look forward to brutal reprisals – not least in an attempt to change the demographics of these areas to be more pro-Assad. Europe’s unity and its sense of identity have already been frayed by the initial influx of refugees, but another one can only make things worse. This, of course, is a triple win for Putin. He is dislodging Turkey from the tight-knit NATO fold, and driving a wedge between it and the EU. He is securing Syria for his client, Assad. And he is making further progress in his grand plan to dismantle European unity. Napoleon is known to have said that he did not want good generals. Instead, he wanted lucky ones. And there is no doubt that Putin has had a fair amount of luck in how things turned out with Turkey. But he also contributed significantly to making his own luck with his staggeringly fruitful intervention in Syria. Yet our leaders in the West must also take a lot of credit for making Putin’s luck for their equally staggering failure to successfully engage with the Syrian crisis. And in the end, European unity may well be the price we pay for that failure.

All carrots, no sticks in Russia’s game with Turkey
Maria Dubovikova/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
Thawing ties between Russia and Turkey have puzzled the international community. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Russia’s Vladimir Putin his “dear friend” while Putin welcomed Erdogan to Konstantinovsky Palace in Russia’s cultural capital Saint-Petersburg, which is also Putin’s native city. The leaders held talks for more than two hours while the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey in November 2015 did not seem to hinder the discussion. Putin did make a hasty remark about the incident, but just once and it was vague at best. It seems to me that both sides are publically declaring support for the allegation that the downing of the Russian Su-24 was committed by supporters of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish US-based Islamic scholar who is opposed to Erdogan. It seems as though both sides are blaming Gülen’s supporters in order to maintain Russia-Turkey relations. Seven months of cold relations and traded accusations have culminated in a fishy scenario of welcoming smiles and diplomatic olive branches. Russia needs Turkey to be reliable and flexible, hence the increased cooperation and promises. Ankara highly appreciates Russia’s position on the failed coup in Turkey as well as its position on the widespread purges that followed the failed attempt. Russia’s position of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries makes it a very reliable ally for many states which are not seen as paragons of Western-style, clichéd, democracy. According to reported rumors, the Russian intelligence service notified Erdogan about the coup shortly before the dramatic events that plunged the country into turbulence, the consequences of which are still unclear. Additionally, Putin was among the first of the world’s leaders to call Erdogan and express support.
Concerning issues
However, Turks should not be so enthusiastic about the apparent amelioration of ties as they still face a plethora of issues. The drastic decline in Turkey’s tourism revenue has already contributed to a significant deficit in the balance of payments, damaging the already weakened economy. Tourism plays a significant role in the economy of the country and the number of foreigners visiting Turkey dropped by over 40 percent in June. A substantial hit seems to be coming from Russian tourists who are visiting the country less and less, which is detrimental considering Russia is Turkey's second largest tourism market. By some estimates, Russian tourism in Turkey collapsed by more than 90 percent in the first half of 2016 due to a Russian-issued travel ban following the downing of the jet. However, even when the ban was lifted and tour operators received the all clear to book package deals to Turkey, it seems Russians are still not enthusiastic about returning to their once beloved Turkish beaches. Thus it seems a Turkey that has been weakened by the coup, purges and dramatic changes in its system needs Russia more than ever.
The view from Russia
The view from Russia, however, is different. The Russian position in Syria has weakened and it is not as confident as it previously was. It seems that Russia has started to lose control over the situation and made some miscalculations. Why else would Putin ask Russia’s parliament to grant him permission to return a significant military contingent back to the Hmeymim base. Russia needs Turkey as an ally in Syria. The countries have established a joint committee to coordinate their activities in Syria. This committee consists of intelligence, military and diplomatic representatives from Russia and Turkey. Furthermore, both sides have agreed to set up a direct military line to hedge against any future incidents between their aircrafts in Syrian airspace. Russia needs Turkey to be reliable and flexible, hence the increased cooperation and promises. However, I do not believe all the promises will be fulfilled at once but, rather, over time. Russia will use its promises as carrots to force Turkey to comply, giving the Turks a taste every once in a while, but always holding the carrot just out of Turkey’s grasp.

Religious abuse or excuse to intervene?
Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
The US State Department’s report on international religious freedom focuses on prosecutions based on blasphemy and apostasy laws. I support religious freedom, not as a distinct category but as a subset of many other freedoms humans are entitled to. I am against blasphemy and apostasy laws.
However, this report does not serve freedom or relief from prosecution; rather, it appears to give the US government tools to impose sanctions against adversarial states.
US foreign policy
The report is submitted to Congress in compliance with the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The IRFA was initially drafted to protect churches in Sudan from persecution, and was identified with the Christian right. This places the law squarely within American interests or those of religious groups in the United States that have political agendas, not within human rights interests. An example is the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Burma. They have been persecuted for decades, some even saying their persecution amounts to genocide. However, that did not incentivize the United States to consider a law protecting Rohingya Muslims, who are almost absent in reports on US-Burma relations. One such report to Congress had just one sentence on their plight. From drone attacks to supporting oppressive regimes and sustaining violence in various countries worldwide, the United States has lost its moral ground to speak about human rights . The persecution of Sudanese Christians led to the IRFA because it was not envisaged to protect people, but to create new legal grounds for US action against certain countries. Furthermore, since the law is meant to serve US interests, the sanctions it stipulates against violators of religious freedom are discretionary, not mandatory. According to the IRFA, the president has the right to waive sanctions against abusive countries when “the important national interest of the United States requires the exercise of such waiver authority.” The law has only been used against countries that the United States already had issues with. From drone attacks to supporting oppressive regimes and sustaining violence in various countries worldwide, the United States has lost its moral ground to speak about human rights. The report should be seen not as a record of abuses of religious freedoms, but as a US foreign policy tool.
Lack of specificity
According to the IRFA, the report is supposed to track abuses of rights related to assembling for peaceful religious activities, speaking freely about one’s religious beliefs, and possession and distribution of religious literature. However, the reported abuses only qualified for inclusion due to religious identification. Muslim violence against Christians or vice versa is mostly due to ethnic divisions and conflicts that happen to identify with religion. Conflating religious freedom and ethnic conflict distorts one’s understanding rather than reduces abuse. For example, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict about religion, or about an unjust and illegal occupation? In its page on Israel, the report says: “Because religion and ethnicity were often closely linked, it was difficult to categorize much of this violence as being solely based on religious identity.” This sentence is repeated with other countries, pointing to a crucial definitional problem throughout report: confusion between religious identity, religious freedom and ethnicity. Another example of this lack of specificity is the way the report cites anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim violence. On Hungary it says: “There were reports of anti-Muslim sentiment as the migrant crisis in Europe intensified. The Muslim community reported physical and verbal attacks and threats, including 10 to 15 physical assaults against Muslim women wearing headscarves. Manifestation of anti-Semitism included assaults and verbal attacks, Holocaust denial and revisionism, and cemetery desecration and other vandalism.”Does anti-Semitism infringe on the religious freedom of Jews? Is anti-Muslim violence motivated by hate of practicing Islam, or are Muslims categorized as an ethnicity? There is a clear imbalance throughout the report regarding anti-Muslim violence and anti-Semitism, even though more of the former was physical abuse and more of the latter involved matters of opinion. Perhaps the worst example of lack of specificity is with regard to victims of Burma’s government, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Boko Haram. The murderous crimes committed against Rohingyas in Burma, Yezidis in Iraq and Christians in Nigeria cannot and should not be categorized within religious freedoms or liberties of any form. They are a category on their own. The report seems to be more of an aggregation of abuses against any party that has a religious identity. This gives the US government more cases of so-called religious abuses to leverage against other countries. It does not shed light on the real situation of religious freedoms.

Turkey-Russia: The Sultan and the Tsar need each other
Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
The battle of Aleppo has changed the parameters of bargaining between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, forcing the tsar and the sultan into a position where they need each other equally. Erdogan’s about-face took a different turn in the wake of the military developments in Aleppo, which explains why Putin appeared more cautious when receiving Erdogan in St. Petersburg compared to his guest. But the elephant in the room is the United States: Neither is Putin prepared to sacrifice his coordination with Washington on Syria and the implicit accords on several issues; nor is Erdogan prepared to cast aside his important position vis-à-vis the United States, despite his apparent escalation meant for internal consumption in the aftermath of the failed coup in Turkey. Both men need the special relations they have with the United States, but both need each other to save themselves from their predicaments in Syria and Turkey respectively. Erdogan can play a large role in rescuing Putin from a potential quagmire in Aleppo, amid voices in Russia demanding an end to Russia’s bloody involvement in Syria through accords with Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia towards a political settlement that ends the military attrition.
Likewise, Putin can rescue Erdogan from the global media onslaught and growing international isolation, as he moves to consolidate power and concentrate it in his hands in Turkey. However, the Syrian issue that is crucial for both leaders is not decided only by them both. Rather, they are both constrained and bound by others. Indeed, it was not Erdogan alone who altered the parameters in the battle of Aleppo. Rather, it was an effort with the US-led international coalition along with Gulf countries.
To be sure, the weapons that arrived in the hands of the Syrian rebels during the battle was a result of a coordinated effort between US, the Gulf and Turkey allowing the tide to turn during the battle. For his part, Putin’s calculations in Aleppo were never identical to those of Iran there, and Russia is not part of Iran’s regional-sectarian ambitions. When victory was within reach, Moscow turned a blind eye and focused on trying to win the battle. But now that military supplies to the rebels have become a clear reality as clear as the new shift in US policy, it is a whole new discussion imposed by the battlefield. But negotiating cards are part of the discussion, in which the regional and international players and axes overlap.
Let’s start with the optimistic reading of recent developments, from Aleppo to the newfound Russian-Turkish relations. The advocates of this reading say the coming days and weeks will reveal a deal on Syria, between Russia, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey with the consent of Iran, keen to avoid a quagmire and a “Vietnam” of its own in Aleppo. If Tehran decides the deal is unsuitable, Moscow would still not stop at the wishes of Iran, but would consider first and foremost its own interests, led by the need to avoid a military quagmire in Aleppo especially in light of the Western-Arab determination to overturn the military balance of power or prolong the war of attrition there. If Erdogan becomes intransigent and decides he can blackmail the United States using the supply lines to the rebels and Europe using the refugee card, then he would be shooting himself in the foot
Context of Syria
What Erdogan gave Putin in the context of Syria is declaring that Russia is key to a political solution in Syria. By doing so, the Turkish president gave Russia they key to a solution in Syria. This is an important development once we compare it to previous stances, based on excluding others from political solutions because of disparate visions and aims. In other words, Erdogan may have implicitly told Putin that the decision is now his: Either lead the political solution or continue his military involvement and bear the consequences. The details of the deal are almost self-evident, based on resuming negotiations with Assad remaining in power for a provisional period, without powers.
Putin and Erdogan shrouded their negotiations on Syria with a lot of secrecy, but conducted them in the presence of senior intelligence, defense, and foreign ministry officials from both sides. Both sides seem to be in agreement over Syria’s unity: Turkey fears partition because it is concerned this would lead to Kurdish statehood; and Russia wants to preserve Syria’s state and army as a reliable strategic ally. Both sides are also in agreement over the need to fight ISIS, but they differ over the definitions of rebels who must be part of negotiated settlement and terrorists.
Both countries also agree Iran must have a role in any future accords in Syria, and both have reservations on Iran’s projects for Syria in the context of its regional expansion from Iraq to Lebanon via Syria. Both Russia and Turkey want good relations with Israel, and are keen for Tel Aviv to consent to their actions in Syria and the region in general. Some are even speaking of a tripartite coordination axis between the three countries, which does not conflict with another tripartite axis of accords that might emerge in Syria, comprising Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Syria is thus an arena for contradictions and deals. The Gulf element is not absent from the Syrian arena, both politically, militarily, and diplomatically. Currently, there is an American-Gulf-European convergence when it comes to supporting Syrian rebels such as the Syrian Democratic Forces and other factions, to fight ISIS and stop the regime’s advances in Aleppo and other cities now crucial to all sides. Russia is keen, at least nominally, to maintain good relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states through the Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum which could convene in the UAE next year. However, informed sources in Russia say there is no coordination whatsoever between Moscow and Gulf capitals, and that the Russians are unhappy with the American, Gulf, and European positions and military/political escalation and obstruction of the political process, as Moscow sees it. Gulf sources say Erdogan has continued to coordinate with Saudi Arabia, including shortly before meeting with Putin, and that he took to Moscow a Gulf determination and American shift with regard to Aleppo. Erdogan understands that the battle in Aleppo has weakened Putin and denied him some bargaining chips. He addressed his friend-foe from a position of strength, on the basis that Aleppo is a major Sunni city that could not be abandoned. Vladimir Putin understand pragmatism. He understood that the fighting in Aleppo has weakened him, and that many around him do not want to be implicated in a war with Sunnis in their stronghold, and invite broad revenge. Putin reads well the importance of the relationship he has forged with the United States and the partnership in Syria.
Playing cards cautiously
Perhaps Putin and Erdogan could find in Aleppo a way to make a breakthrough in Syria through regional and international accords favorable for them, and rescue Putin from his Syria predicament and Erdogan from his internal problems. Perhaps they will play their cards cautiously and benefit from the prospects of making deals without the temptation for revenge and blackmail. But if Putin becomes intransigent and decides to stake his bets on a full victory in Aleppo in partnership with Iran to consolidate the regime’s hold over its ruins without making concessions, the price will be high because that path will bury the political solution and render the military solution the equivalent of quick sand for the Russians and their allies. If Erdogan becomes intransigent and decides he can blackmail the United States using the supply lines to the rebels and Europe using the refugee card, then he would be shooting himself in the foot. To be sure, the Turkish president remains in a precarious position, no matter how much the battle in Aleppo has given him a boost and allowed him to appear like a wounded peacock in St. Petersburg. All equations in Syria are temporary, all bargains fleeting, and all deals are being cooked with the limbs of innocent Syrians. Some Russians have come to believe that Erdogan is forced to retreat regionally to shore up his internal position, and thus believe he is more willing to make concessions on issues like Syria. But the surprise came during the battle of Aleppo, after which Erdogan arrived to meet Putin without retreating regionally and while being less willing to agree to the Russian terms. Yet this does not invalidate the fact that Erdogan needs Putin, and the need to forge a new kind of relationship between the two countries for which the Turkish leader is willing to go farther than apologize. Erdogan needs to collect the cards he needs to finish his realignment and revenge on his previous Western friends that he now accuses of conspiring against him, and Russia remains his main outlet of necessity.
**This article was first published in Al-Hayat on August 12, 2016 and translated by Karim Traboulsi.

On the departure of a calm historian
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/August 15/16
The voices of enthusiasts about books, documentation and research on history are not heard much. Saudi historian and translator Abdullah al-Askar has silently passed away. He was a bright man who was patient while researching and writing. Perhaps one of our cultural problems is that we do not remember someone’s creativity until after their death. When the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish saw a cultural piece about him in a daily, he satirically said: “I thought I died!” The calm ones among us pass away like strangers – like they have not walked on this earth – due to their silence and nobility. This is the lamentation of a historian who wanted his country’s history to be objectively documented - this is what he did. He studied at prestigious universities, and was a student of significant lecturers such as Jack Burke.
Importance of books
He wrote important books such as “The Economic Situation of South Arabians in Old Times”, “Dividing Islamic History into Periods”, “Al-Yamama in the Early Islamic Era,” and “The Cultural Dimension in the Life of King Salman bin Abdulaziz.” Perhaps one of our cultural problems is that we do not remember someone’s creativity until after their death. The books he translated include “Oral History: Talking about the Past” by Robert Perks, and “The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia” by David Commins. He was a member of the Shura Council, and was concerned about his country and the major issues concerning his community. May God’s mercy be upon him.
**This article was first published in Okaz on Aug. 15, 2016.