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Bible Quotations For Today
The Miraculous Healing Of the Bleeding Women
I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.’
"Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/21-27: "Again he said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.’ Then the Jews said, ‘Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, "Where I am going, you cannot come"?’He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.’They said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.’ They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father."

Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress.
First Letter to Timothy 04/09-16: "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe. These are the things you must insist on and teach. Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 22/16
Saudi Arabia halts aid to Lebanon, Al-Hilal crowned champion/Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
Syria between two theaters/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
Has the world become numb to the utter brutality in Syria/Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
Syrians must surrender now to fight another day/Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
The dilemma surrounding oil production cuts/Sadek Al-Rikaby/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
The Eastern Desert of Syria: A New Anbar/Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16/
Washington’s Spin on the Munich Deal/Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16
Russia’s New Friends in the Afghan Taliban/Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16
GCC Conflict with Iran: Why/Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on February 22/16
March 14 Holds 'Hizbullah, Allies' Responsible for Row with Saudi, Urges 'Firm' Stance from Govt.
Rifi Resigns from Cabinet over Samaha File, 'Hizbullah's Hegemony over Govt.'
Asiri: Lebanon Must Work on Preventing its Slide to Where it Does Not Belong
Moqbel Knew of Saudi Decision on Lebanon since Monday
Geagea Warns of 'More Resignations' as Gemayel Says Lebanon is a 'Hostage State'
Hariri Vows to Act if Govt. Doesn't Take 'Clear' Stance in Monday Meeting
Qaouq: Saudi Can't Change Lebanese Army Identity or Buy Dignity of Lebanese
Al-Rahi: Lebanese Feel Unsafe as Criminals Enjoy Political Protection
Lebanese Cabinet Holds Extraordinary Session Monday as Mashnouq Hopes it Addresses Foreign Policy

March 14 Holds 'Hizbullah, Allies' Responsible for Row with Saudi, Urges 'Firm' Stance from Govt.
Naharnet/February 21/16/The March 14 forces on Sunday held Hizbullah and its allies responsible for what they described as the “dangerous row” with Saudi Arabia, urging the Lebanese government to “respect the Constitution” and “take a clear and firm stance confirming Lebanon's commitment to Arab solidarity.” “The Lebanese-Arab relations are in danger and the Lebanese are today suffering from anxiety and very dangerous circumstances,” said a March 14 statement issued after an extraordinary meeting at the Center House. The meeting was attended by al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel, Mustaqbal bloc chief MP Fouad Saniora, the members of March 14's general secretariat and other March 14 figures while Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea was represented by a delegation led by MP George Adwan. “If Hizbullah and its allies continue – through illegitimate arms -- to put Iran's interest before Lebanon's higher interest, that will harm Lebanon's role and Arab belonging and presence and will eventually affect the social and economic security of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese families -- from all sects -- who have jobs in the Gulf,” the statement warned. “These countries have opened their doors to us during all the difficult circumstances … and had contributed to ending the Lebanese war and helping Lebanon during the 1990s reconstruction period and once again after the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon,” March 14 added. Holding “Hizbullah and its allies” responsible for what it called “this dangerous row” with Saudi Arabia and other problems, the March 14 coalition called on Hizbullah to “withdraw from the ongoing fighting in Syria and the region and to abide by the dissociation policy.” Turning to the extraordinary meeting that the Lebanese government will hold on Monday morning, the March 14 forces called on the cabinet to “respect the Constitution and the resolutions of the international legitimacy,” urging it to “take a clear and firm stance confirming Lebanon's commitment to Arab solidarity and rejecting any insult or violation of the sovereignty of any Arab state.” “The March 14 forces reiterate their full support for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council in their rejection of breaches against the sovereignty or independence of any Arab country, and they reject turning Lebanon into a base for hostility against any Arab country,” the statement added. According to media reports, LF representatives rejected any mention of the Free Patriotic Movement or Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil in the statement, which prompted the conferees to use the phrase “Hizbullah and its allies.”The statement comes three days after Saudi Arabia decided to halt a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest at alleged Hizbullah policies and recent diplomatic stances by Lebanon's foreign ministry. In light of positions taken by Hizbullah, the kingdom proceeded to "a total evaluation of its relations with the Lebanese republic," an unnamed official told the Saudi Press Agency on Friday. Lebanon received the first tranche of weapons designed to bolster its army against jihadist threats, including anti-tank guided missiles, in April last year but the program then reportedly ran into obstacles. Hizbullah is supported by Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran, with whom relations have worsened this year. Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran last month after demonstrators stormed its embassy and a consulate following the Saudi execution of a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric and activist, Nimr al-Nimr. The official quoted by the Saudi Press Agency said the kingdom had noticed "hostile Lebanese positions resulting from the stranglehold of Hizbullah on the State." He also deplored the "political and media campaigns inspired by Hizbullah against Saudi Arabia," as well as what he called the group's "terrorist acts against Arab and Muslim nations."Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday accused Turkey and Saudi Arabia of dragging the entire region into war and said "victory" was imminent for his group and its Syrian regime allies.

Rifi Resigns from Cabinet over Samaha File, 'Hizbullah's Hegemony over Govt.'
Naharnet/February 21/16/Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi resigned from government on Sunday in wake of the release of former Minister Michel Samaha from jail and in light of “the national crisis caused by the de facto powers.”He said in a statement: “The actions of these forces are leading the state towards fragmentation and vacuum, including tarnishing the national identity and exposing Lebanon's sovereignty, economy, future, and international and Arab ties to grave dangers.” He listed the “obstruction imposed by Hizbullah and its allies on the government and outside of it,” the presidential vacuum, paralysis of state institutions, failure to refer Samaha's case to the Judicial Council, and “destruction of Lebanon's ties with Saudi Arabia and other Arab brothers for the first time in Lebanese history.”He also noted the ongoing “garbage disposal farce that is jeopardizing the lives of the Lebanese people.”“This crisis should have been tackled the minute it erupted out of mercy for this beautiful country, whose wrong policies and various conspiracies have tarnished its image before the Lebanese people and the world,” Rifi lamented. “From my position as minister in this cabinet, I witnessed what words cannot describe. Today, I am being frank with the Lebanese by saying that the practices of Hizbullah's statelet and its allies are no longer acceptable,” he added. “Remaining in this government will be a sign of acceptance of this perversion or the inability to confront it, both of which are options that I reject,” he stressed. “The developments in the Samaha case were a national crime that Hizbullah should be solely responsible for as it covered for the murderer and turned him into a new saint when it and its allies prevented the case from being referred to the Judicial Council,” Rifi remarked.
“Regardless of Hizbullah's culpability in this issue and the government's inability to confront the party, the result remains the same and that there exists an armed group that is dominating the cabinet's decisions and turning them, whenever its needs demand, into a corpse,” he noted. “I have taken it upon myself to refer Samaha's case to the International Criminal Court and I, along with the Lebanese people, will continue to follow up on this file until the end,” he stated. He then called on the Lebanese people to sign a national petition, demanding Samaha's referral to the ICC. “Samaha's case is only one example of the hegemony over the government's decisions that have been obstructed for months at the altar of familial and personal demands,” he continued.
“Hizbullah has used this cabinet to deepen its statelet project, whereby it sought to transform it into a tool to impose its control over the state and its decisions,” Rifi declared in his statement. “Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's actions at the Arab League summit are a blatant example of the practices of the Hizbullah statelet that disregards Lebanon and its interest,” he noted. “He dared, at Hizbullah's request, to insult Saudi Arabia, vote against Arab consensus, and refrain from condemning the attack against Riyadh's embassy in Tehran,” Rifi said. “It is unfortunate that no one condemned such a shameful stance that led to the deterioration of ties between Lebanon and its closest friend, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries,” he lamented. He announced his “complete rejection to the insult,” urging the cabinet “to at least make an apology to the kingdom, its leadership, and its people.” “In fact, I call on it to resign before it turns into a complete pawn in Hizbullah's hands,” Rifi added.
“I stress that we will remain Arab Lebanese and the kingdom will remain the same friend who stood by us in the worst times,” he added. Furthermore, Rifi stated: “My participation in this government was not a goal, but it was an expression of my will to serve my nation and people with all my determination and what God has bestowed me to meet the aspirations of the Lebanese people because this nation deserves so much from us.”“We wanted this cabinet to ease tensions to avoid slipping into complete vacuum, but they wanted to use it to further their destructive agenda,” he continued. “We wanted this government to avert economic collapse and save what is left, but they obstructed it and deprived the people of the most minimal hope of economic revival and instead we witnessed a decline in central services and in all vital sectors,” he added.
“We wanted this government to stand in the way of attempts to violate the state and its sovereignty, so they used it to destroy Lebanon's ties and they completely disregarded the state's sovereignty and dignity,” he remarked.
“I was never accustomed to shying away from my responsibilities and have shouldered them during the worst times,” he stressed.
“I will remain by your side and I will strive for the sake of Lebanon's unity, sovereignty, and dignity, but I refuse to be turned into a false witness and I will not provide cover to those trying to take over the state and its institutions,” vowed Rifi.
“I therefore submit my resignation to you and Prime Minister Tammam Salam.
“I will continue on the path paved by slain former Premier Raik Hariri and the martyrs of the Cedar Revolution. I will continue to confront the statelet and remain by you, the honorable Lebanese people, in the battle of saving Lebanon,” he pledged.“I have faith that Lebanon the state will be victorious with you and for you no matter the challenges,” he concluded. In January, the Military Tribunal released on bail former Minister Samaha, who was arrested in 2012 after being caught red-handed while smuggling explosives from Syria to Lebanon to carry out attacks in the country. He was sentenced in May 2015 to four-and-half years in prison, but in June, the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. His release in early 2016 sparked uproar in the country Rifi vowing to refer the case to the International Criminal Court after his demand to refer it to the Judicial Council was unheeded. Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it has halted a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest against Hizbullah's policies and recent diplomatic stances by the Lebanese foreign ministry. The move brought widespread condemnation from the March 14 alliance against Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader is Bassil.

Asiri: Lebanon Must Work on Preventing its Slide to Where it Does Not Belong
Naharnet/February 21/16/Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri stated that it is now up to the Lebanese to cooperate to return the country “to its brothers who have long stood by it,” reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in wake of the kingdom's decision to halt aid to the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces. He told the daily: “The Lebanese should work against their country's slide to where it does not belong.”“Lebanon's natural place is among its brothers” in the Arab world, he stressed. “The picture has become clear now in that some sides want to destroy Lebanon, while others are keen on preserving it,” remarked Asiri. “We have grown aware in the past two days of those who seek their country's interests and those who want to drag it back,” he said. Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it has halted a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest against Hizbullah's policies and recent diplomatic stances by the Lebanese foreign ministry. The move brought widespread condemnation from the March 14 alliance against Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader is Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil.

Moqbel Knew of Saudi Decision on Lebanon since Monday
Naharnet/February 21/16/Defense Minister Samir Moqbel was aware of Saudi Arabia's decision to halt aid to the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces since Monday, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday. He told the daily that, at the time, he had not received official confirmation of the decision, but French figures had relayed the news to him on Monday when he was visiting Cyprus.He was told that Saudi Arabia had requested that he stop working on the grant deal, but it seems that Prime Minister Tammam Salam was not aware of these developments, said the daily. Lebanon has not received official confirmation of Saudi Arabia's decision, but the premier's circles noted that he was “disappointed” with the current state of affairs in spite of the fact that Lebanon had repeatedly sought to clarify its stances.Salam's circles did not reveal whether he will call cabinet to convene next week in order to tackle Riyadh's stand. Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it has halted a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest against Hizbullah's policies and recent diplomatic stances by the Lebanese foreign ministry.

Geagea Warns of 'More Resignations' as Gemayel Says Lebanon is a 'Hostage State'
Naharnet/February 21/16/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday saluted Ashraf Rifi over his resignation from his justice minster post, noting that “someone had to take a stance” in light of the latest row with Saudi Arabia and the developments in Michel Samaha's case. “I salute justice minister Ashraf Rifi on his stance, seeing as without any political calculations, someone had to take a stance, especially after the deterioration in the relation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the issue of Michel Samaha's trial,” Geagea told MTV in a phone interview. “Some issues oblige the person to take a stance,” he added, calling on the government to “take this resignation into consideration” and stressing that “it is prohibited for anyone to undermine Lebanon's ties with the friendly countries.” In response to a question, Geagea noted that a resignation of the entire government “will not achieve anything.”“There is a large number of March 14 ministers in the cabinet and they must voice their viewpoints on Samaha's trial and the relation with Saudi Arabia,” he added. Asked why he has allegedly focused his criticism on Hizbullah without referring to Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil in the current row with Saudi Arabia, Geagea warned against getting entangled in “petty details.”“Supposing that Minister Jebran Bassil has committed a mistake, the government should have summoned him and asked for an explanation, but it didn't do so, and today it must shoulder its responsibilities,” the LF leader added. Asked about the presidential vote and his nomination of FPM founder MP Michel Aoun, Geagea reminded that “entire March 8 has nominated General Michel Aoun” and “now they have the voices of the LF bloc.” “So let the March 8 camp continue what it had started,” he added. He later warned in remarks to Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath television that “if the government doesn't make serious steps in the relation with Saudi Arabia, we will witness more resignations.”Meanwhile, Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel warned that “Lebanon has fallen a hostage in Hizbullah's hand” as a result of the party's controversial arsenal of weapons. “Lebanon must be dealt with as a hostage state,” Gemayel told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television. “The March 14 forces will make a warning step today and if the government does not respond, we will take other stances,” he added. He noted that “Hizbullah's remarks and insults against the kingdom can only lead to the reaction we have witnessed from Saudi Arabia.”“We have an influential presence in the government along with al-Mustaqbal movement, and we must shoulder our responsibilities,” Gemayel added. Rifi, a fierce opponent of Hizbullah, said earlier on Sunday he was resigning over the group's alleged "domination" of the government. The minister's decision came two days after Saudi Arabia announced it was suspending $3 billion in aid to Lebanon's army in protest over "hostile" diplomatic positions it said were inspired by Hizbullah. Rifi's resignation statement also cited alleged Hizbullah interference in the case of Lebanon's former information minister Michel Samaha, who is facing charges of having planned "terrorist" acts in collaboration with the Syrian regime. Rifi accused Hizbullah of blocking his efforts to transfer the case against Samaha, a former close confidante of Damascus, to Lebanon's highest court, the Judicial Council. Samaha is currently free on bail as he faces retrial on charges of plotting attacks with Syrian security services chief Ali Mamluk.

Hariri Vows to Act if Govt. Doesn't Take 'Clear' Stance in Monday Meeting
Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri on Sunday pledged to escalate his rhetoric if the government does not take a “clear stance” regarding the latest row with Saudi Arabia over Hizbullah's policies and Lebanon's diplomatic positions. Chatting with reporters after an extraordinary meeting for the March 14 forces at the Center House, Hariri lamented that the government's Ministerial Statement is not being “respected.”“We were clear on the dissociation issue, but today it is no longer permissible for Lebanon to be outside the existing Arab consensus,” he added. “The cabinet has to take a clear stance tomorrow, otherwise we will use a different language,” Hariri warned. Asked about Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil's latest decisions during Arab and Islamic meetings, Hariri pointed out that Bassil “did not coordinate it with Prime Minister Tamam Salam.”He said that “addressing issues in this manner is no longer useful, as Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei himself condemned the attack (against the Saudi embassy in Tehran) and so did Iraq.” Asked whether the Saudi grant has been halted for some time now and not on Friday as declared by an unnamed Saudi official, Hariri said this is not true “because some equipment was supposed to arrive in April and May, but due to the 'shrewdness' of some Lebanese politicians, we arrived to where we are today.”Asked if Lebanon’s formula allows sharp political stances during the current period, he said: “Of course, as long as there is a party fighting in Syria.”
Hariri added that there will be an activation of the meetings of the March 14 forces in a way that “serves Lebanon’s interest.”The remarks of Hariri, who is close to Riyadh, come three days after Saudi Arabia decided to halt a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest at alleged Hizbullah policies and recent diplomatic stances by Lebanon's foreign ministry. In light of positions taken by Hizbullah, the kingdom proceeded to "a total evaluation of its relations with the Lebanese republic," an unnamed official told the Saudi Press Agency on Friday. Lebanon received the first tranche of weapons designed to bolster its army against jihadist threats, including anti-tank guided missiles, in April last year but the program then reportedly ran into obstacles. Hizbullah is supported by Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran, with whom relations have worsened this year. Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran last month after demonstrators stormed its embassy and a consulate following the Saudi execution of a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric and activist, Nimr al-Nimr. The official quoted by the Saudi Press Agency said the kingdom had noticed "hostile Lebanese positions resulting from the stranglehold of Hizbullah on the State." He also deplored the "political and media campaigns inspired by Hizbullah against Saudi Arabia," as well as what he called the group's "terrorist acts against Arab and Muslim nations."Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday accused Turkey and Saudi Arabia of dragging the entire region into war and said "victory" was imminent for his group and its Syrian regime allies.

Qaouq: Saudi Can't Change Lebanese Army Identity or Buy Dignity of Lebanese
Naharnet/February 21/16/A top Hizbullah official stressed Sunday that Saudi Arabia cannot “change the identity of the Lebanese army” or “buy the will and dignity of the Lebanese,” three days after Riyadh said it was halting $3 billion in military aid to Lebanon over "hostile" diplomatic positions it said were inspired by Hizbullah. “Nowadays, Saudi Arabia's arms are in the hands of the takfiri gangs in Syria and these weapons have started to pose a real threat to Lebanon's stability,” said Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, the deputy head of Hizbullah's Executive Council. “How can the Saudi arms quickly find their way to the hands of the tafkiri gangs in Syria without finding their way to support the Lebanese army?” he asked.“Had the Lebanese army bowed to Saudi Arabia's will on fighting the resistance (Hizbullah), it would have received the Saudi weapons very quickly,” Qaouq charged. On Friday, an unnamed Saudi official told the Saudi Press Agency that in light of positions taken by Hizbullah, the kingdom proceeded to "a comprehensive review of its relations with the Lebanese republic." The Saudi official also said Lebanon had not joined condemnation of the attacks on its diplomatic missions in Iran, either at the Arab League or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He also deplored the "political and media campaigns inspired by Hizbullah against Saudi Arabia," as well as what he called the group's "terrorist acts against Arab and Muslim nations."Qaouq hit back on Sunday, underlining that “the Saudi regime can purchase the wills and decisions of major capitals in the world through its money and influence, but it cannot change the identity of the Lebanese army or the identity and role of Lebanon.”“It cannot buy the will or the dignity of the Lebanese,” he added.“They want to blackmail the Lebanese decision, seeing as the Saudi grant had died with the death of the king (Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz), and this has been officially documented,” Qaouq alleged. He claimed that the kingdom had “officially informed France” of the cancellation of the military grant to the Lebanese army in the wake of the monarch's death. “But today they are trying to use this card to blackmail the Lebanese and punish a Lebanese group. In response, we tell the Saudi regime and all its tools in Lebanon that we are not people who bargain over their dignity and that we cannot be bought or sold,” Qaouq added. “We do not kneel at the doors of kings, because our dignity is precious,” he went on to say.Saudi Arabia's decision has brought widespread condemnation from the March 14 alliance against Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader is Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. The Hizbullah official also noted that Lebanon does not need the Saudi weapons in order to protect itself from the “takfiri aggression.” “Through the cooperation of the army and the resistance, Lebanon today is firmly immunized in the face of any Israeli or takfiri aggression, and the battlefields and Arsal's outskirts prove that this equation has achieved what the U.S.-led international coalition has failed to do,” Qaouq added. “We will not give up our responsibilities towards our people and country, regardless of the political, media and economic pressures on Hizbullah by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states, which are trying to make us change our stance on Syria,” he said.

Al-Rahi: Lebanese Feel Unsafe as Criminals Enjoy Political Protection
Naharnet/February 21/16/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi criticized on Sunday the current state of affairs in Lebanon, noting that the people feel “unprotected” because criminals are allowed to roam free. He said during his Sunday sermon: “Criminals believes that the state is at their mercy because they enjoy political protection.” The state should protect the people against murderers and criminals, he demanded. He made his remarks in wake of Tuesday's stabbing of a civilian at the hands of two assailants in Beirut's Ashrafieh district after a verbal dispute when the victim was with his fiancee. The perpetrators were arrested that same day. In January, the Military Tribunal released on bail former Minister Michel Samaha, who was arrested in 2012 after being caught red-handed while smuggling explosives from Syria to Lebanon to carry out attacks in the country. He was sentenced in May 2015 to four-and-half years in prison, but in June, the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. His release in early 2016 sparked uproar in the country with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi vowing to refer the case to the International Criminal Court after his demand to refer it to the Judicial Council was unheeded.

Lebanese Cabinet Holds Extraordinary Session Monday as Mashnouq Hopes it Addresses Foreign Policy
Naharnet/February 21/16/The cabinet is scheduled to convene on Monday to address the repercussions of Saudi Arabia's decision to halt its aid grant to the Lebanese army. The government will hold its extraordinary meeting at 10:00 am on Monday. Earlier, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq wondered whether Riyadh's decision is part of a “confrontation with Lebanon or a withdrawal” from the Lebanese scene, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday. He hoped the cabinet would address its foreign policy. “I believe we will be able to reach the desired result with Prime Minister Tammam Salam,” he said without elaborating. The minister urged Riyadh to support “those who have backed it, who represent the majority of the Lebanese people and Saudi Arabia is aware of this, so does the whole world.”Lebanon's choice will “always be Arab”, declared Mashnouq, “no matter the cost.” “We have paid dearly in the past ten years for defending this stance and we are ready and persevering along this path,” he stressed. Saudi Arabia said on Friday that it has halted a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest against Hizbullah's policies and recent diplomatic stances by the Lebanese foreign ministry. The move brought widespread condemnation from the March 14 alliance against Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader is Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil.

At Least 68 Dead in Multiple Blasts near Damascus Shiite Shrine
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/At least 68 people were killed Sunday in a series of attacks, including a car bombing, near a Shiite shrine south of Syria's capital, state television and a monitor said. The Islamic State jihadist group said two of its suicide bombers carried out the attack. State television said a car bombing and two suicide attacks hit the area, killing 30 and wounding dozens in a preliminary toll, whereas the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a death toll of 68 in four attacks. An AFP reporter said the blasts struck about 400 meters from the shrine which contains the grave of a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and is revered by Shiites.At least 60 shops were damaged and cars reduced to mangled metal in the area. "The attacks came as pupils were leaving school, and several of them were killed," the state broadcaster reported.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "there was a car bomb and two suicide bombers who blew themselves up. We don't know the cause of the fourth explosion." At the end of January, the Islamic State group said it was behind bombings near the shrine that killed 71 people, among them five children.

Saudi Arabia accuses 32 people of spying for Iran
By Majed al-Hazaa Al Arabiya News/ Riyadh Sunday, 21 February 2016/The Specialized Criminal Court of Riyadh on Sunday presented a list of accusations prepared by the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution (BIP) against 32 people accused of spying for Iranian Intelligence.The accused were Saudis from al-Qatif Region in Eastern Saudi Arabia along with two others, an Iranian and an Afghan. The prosecution has already completed the list of charges against the accused.
The list includes the following:
1- Establishing a spying unit in collaboration with members of the Iranian intelligence and providing very important and dangerous information related to the military field.
2- Divulging secrets regarding defense strategies and seeking to commit sabotage acts against economic interests and vital, economic facilities in the country as well as disturbing the peace and public tranquility, dismantling the unity of the community, creating chaos and inciting for sectarian strife.
3- Meeting - some of them - with Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in collaboration with members of the Iranian Intelligence and supporting demonstrations and riots that took place in al-Qatif.
4- Working on the recruitment of people that work in State apparatus for the purpose of espionage and spying for the benefit of the Iranian intelligence, preparing them and sending them many encrypted reports using an encryption software to the Iranian Intelligence through emails.
5- Carrying out hostile acts against Saudi Arabia and committing high treason against their country and their King.
6- Owning banned books, publications and automated computer devices which might be prejudicial to public order and the security of Saudi Arabia.

Assad: Remember me as ‘man who saved Syria’
AFP, Madrid Sunday, 21 February 2016/President Bashar al-Assad says he wants to be remembered 10 years from now as the person who saved Syria, according to an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais published on Saturday. Assad, whose fate has been a key sticking point in efforts to end Syria’s bloody civil war as it enters its sixth year, left open the question of whether he would still be president by then. And he said he was ready to implement a long-sought ceasefire, but only if the rebels and their international backers such as Turkey did not use it as a chance to gain ground. “In 10 years, if I can save Syria as president -- but that doesn’t mean I’m still going to be president in 10 years, I’m just talking about my vision of the 10 years,” he said in an interview published on the newspaper’s website. “If Syria is safe and sound, and I’m the one who saved his country -- that’s my job now, that’s my duty. “If the Syrian people want me to be in power, I will be. If they don’t want me, I can do nothing, I mean, I cannot help my country, so I have to leave right away.” World powers have been pushing for a so-called cessation of hostilities in Syria to pave the way for renewed peace negotiations, but the truce has faltered as fighting on the ground has intensified. In an interview with AFP on February 12, before the deal was announced, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country. Speaking to El Pais, he said he was “ready” for a ceasefire, but warned that it should not be exploited by “the terrorists” to improve their positions, using the regime’s term for all rebel groups. “It’s about preventing other countries, especially Turkey, from sending more recruits, more terrorists, more armaments, or any kind of logistical support to those terrorists.” Syria’s regime has been pressing an offensive in the northern Aleppo region backed by Russian air strikes and troops from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has forced tens of thousands to flee. Assad said the support of his Russian and Iranian allies had been “essential” in the recent major advances made by regime forces. “We definitely need that help for a simple reason: because more than 80 countries supported those terrorists in different ways,” he told El Pais. Some backers helped “directly with money, with logistical support, with armaments, with recruitments. Some other countries supported them politically, in different international forums,” he told the daily.

Multiple explosions hit Damascus, Homs
Al Arabiya English with Agencies Sunday, 21 February 2016/At least 62 people were killed Sunday in a series of attacks, including a car bombing, near a Shiite shrine south of the Syrian capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. Earlier, state television said at least 30 people were killed when a car bombing and two suicide attacks ripped through the Sayyida Zeinab shrine area, while the Observatory said 31 died in at least three attacks. The blasts came hours after twin car bomb explosians killed at least 46 people in the Syrian city of Homs on Sunday, the Observatory said. At least 100 others were wounded by the explosions in the city center’s Zahra district, the Observatory added. A bomb attack claimed by ISIS last month in Homs in the west of the country killed at least 24 people, the city’s governor said at the time, as government forces took back some ISIS-held villages in Aleppo province in the north. Sunday’s attacks also came a day after government advances against ISIS. There was no immediate claim from the group, however. Another bomb attack in December which killed 32 people took place following a ceasefire deal that paved the way for the government to take over the last rebel-controlled area of the city, which was a center of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. (with Reuters and AFP)

Kerry tells Lavrov he seeks Syria truce as soon as possible
AFP, Washington Sunday, 21 February 2016/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Saturday that a ceasefire be agreed as soon as possible in Syria, during a phone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "The Secretary ‎expressed his hope that a full cessation of hostilities could be achieved in the shortest timeframe possible," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. Kerry, who arrived in the Jordanian capital Amman on Saturday night from London ahead of meeting King Abdullah II Sunday, again expressed his concern to Lavrov about Russian air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "Secretary Kerry also restated his deep concern over the indiscriminate nature of continued bombing by Russian military aircraft and the lives being lost as a result," Kirby said. "The United States continues to call for all sides to abide by international obligations to avoid civilian casualties, and that responsibility lies first and foremost with the Assad regime and its supporters," he added. The two ministers discussed progress made by two U.N. task forces meeting in Geneva this week, one on humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian towns and the other on a "cessation in hostilities" that had been set to come into force on Friday, Kirby said. On Saturday in London, Kerry said in a statement that a lot of work remained to be done before reaching a truce in Syria. Russia meanwhile promised to continue to help Damascus to fight "terrorist" groups in Syria, while a key Syrian opposition group said it would support a truce only if regime supporters halted their fire. Kerry and Lavrov are the main architects of the Munich agreement on February 11 and 12 according to which 17 countries and three organization agreed on a proposed ceasefire for Friday. The European Union, which is part of the Munich grouping, separately announced that Kerry and the bloc's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had spoken by phone Friday and Saturday about the crisis in Syria. "They discussed the ongoing diplomatic efforts to reach a cessation of the hostilities and the positive progress of the task force for the humanitarian assistance, in which the European Union plays a key role, that has already managed to deliver aid to the population in parts of Syria," it said in a statement. More than 260,000 people have been killed in the nearly five-year conflict, and half the country's population has been displaced.

50 ISIS fighters killed in regime Aleppo advance
AFP, Beirut Sunday, 21 February 2016/At least 50 ISIS group fighters have been killed in the last 24 hours in an advance by Syrian government forces east of Aleppo city, a monitor said Sunday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighters were killed in clashes as well as strikes by Russian forces that are waging an aerial campaign in support of government troops. Since Saturday morning, Syrian government forces have taken more than a dozen villages from ISIS jihadists around a stretch of highway that runs east from the northern city of Aleppo to the Kweyris military base. The advances have consolidated government control over the stretch of highway leading to Kweyris, which they seized in November. "The army has encircled ISIS in 16 villages south of the road. The regime wants to take these villages to consolidate its position in the east and southeast of the province," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman. The advances follow a major regime operation in northern Aleppo against rebel forces that has allowed them to virtually surround the opposition-held east of Aleppo city.

Bahrain adopts steps to counter Iran ‘interference’
AFP, Dubai Sunday, 21 February 2016/Bahrain said Sunday it has adopted measures including travel curbs and monitoring of money transfers to counter Iran's "interference" in the kingdom. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Al-Khalifa spoke of the "dangers of Iran's interference in the internal security" of Bahrain during a meeting with clerics, MPs and newspaper chiefs, said the official BNA news agency. "We have taken a series of measures to confront the dangers of terrorism," Sheikh Rashid said. These include forming a committee to monitor money transfers and donations to combat the "financing of terrorism" and imposing travel restrictions on citizens, especially aged between 14 and 18, to "unsafe countries", he said. Bahrain has previously announced the dismantling of "terror" cells whose members it said were trained by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon's Tehran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah. Sheikh Rashid said authorities will also take measures to "protect religious discourse against religious and political extremism as well as incitement". Authorities will confront any "attempts to politicize" Shiite religious rituals, the interior minister said. Manama accuses Iran of backing the Bahraini opposition. In November, Bahrain said it had uncovered a "terrorist organization" linked to Tehran and arrested its members, which Sheikh Rashid said numbered 76 suspects."We do not accuse anyone without substantial evidence," he said Sunday.

Clashes in ISIS-held Iraq’s Fallujah halt after residents seized
AFP, Baghdad Sunday, 21 February 2016/Clashes between Iraqi tribesmen and the ISIS group in Fallujah have halted after the militants detained dozens of residents of the city west of Baghdad, officials said Sunday. Tribesmen in three areas of the city "withdrew from the clashes (with ISIS), fearing for the fate of the detainees", an army lieutenant colonel told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The clashes stopped because of the imbalance of power and fear that the detainees would be executed," said Issa Sayir who was appointed by the Anbar governor to administer the Fallujah area. Raja Barakat, a member of the provincial council in Anbar, where Fallujah is located, said: "We now fear that the (ISIS) organization will carry out a massacre in the city." Sayir estimated the number of detainees at around 60, while the lieutenant colonel said the figure was over 110 and a tribal leader said more than 100.
Sheikh Majeed al-Juraisi, a leader in one of the tribes fighting the jihadists in Fallujah, said ISIS had seized the residents over the previous two days. "We hold the prime minister responsible for any massacre carried out against the people of Fallujah," Barakat said, calling for the launch of a military operation to retake the city. ISIS, which has a reputation for extreme violence against its opponents, has already executed a large number of tribesmen elsewhere in Anbar province. Officials said the clashes began Friday as a fight between tribesmen and Al-Hisba, ISIS members charged with enforcing religious strictures in the city. The fighting escalated into gunbattles involving members of several tribes. ISIS launched a sweeping offensive that overran swathes of Iraq in June 2014, but security forces and allied fighters have pushed the jihadists back with US-led air support. Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, is the only Iraqi city apart from ISIS's main hub, Mosul in the north, still under jihadist control. The militants also hold some large towns, such as Tal Afar and Hawijah. Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in early 2014 during unrest that broke out after security forces demolished a protest camp in western Iraq, and it later became an ISIS stronghold.

UAE soldier killed ahead of Yemen deployment
The Associated Press, Dubai Sunday, 21 February 2016/The United Arab Emirates says one of its soldiers has been killed in an accident as he was preparing to join Saudi-led military operations in Yemen. The federation's armed forces announced the death of Obaid Salem Saeed al-Badwawi on Sunday carried by state news agency WAM. It says he was killed in a military vehicle accident in Saudi Arabia, without elaborating. The Emirates is a major backer of the Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of Yemen's internationally recognized government against Houthi militias that control the capital Sanaa and other parts of the country.

Turkey urges US support against Kurdish YPG
Reuters, Ankara Sunday, 21 February 2016/Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday called on the United States to give unconditional support in the fight against Syrian Kurdish militants, illustrating growing tension between Ankara and Washington over policy in northern Syria. Davutoglu also said Turkey would tighten security across the country, especially the capital, after a car laden with explosives was detonated near military buses in Ankara on Wednesday, killing 28 people. Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish YPG, which the United States is backing in the fight against ISIS in Syria, was involved in the bombing, working with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Washington, which does not consider the YPG a terrorist organization, has said it is not in a position to confirm or deny Ankara’s charge the militia was behind the bombing. “The only thing we expect from our U.S. ally is to support Turkey with no ifs or buts,” Davutoglu told a news conference following a five-hour security meeting with members of his cabinet and other officials. “If 28 Turkish lives have been claimed through a terrorist attack we can only expect them to say any threat against Turkey is a threat against them.”The disagreement over the YPG risks driving a wedge between the NATO allies at a critical point in Syria’s civil war, as the United States pursues intensive talks with Syrian ally Russia to bring about a “cessation of hostilities”. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), a group that once had links to the PKK, on Friday claimed responsibility for the bombing. However, Davutoglu said that did not rule out the responsibility of the YPG, calling the TAK a “proxy” that claimed the bombing to shield the international reputation of the Syrian Kurdish fighters.
YPG denial
The YPG’s political arm has denied the group was behind the Ankara attack and said Turkey was using the bombing to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria. Turkey reserves the right to carry out operations at home and abroad against terror threats, President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Saturday, in comments that suggest Ankara could increase shelling of YPG positions.“Turkey will use its right to expand its rules of engagement beyond (responding to) actual attacks against it and to encompass all terror threats,” the pro-government Daily Sabah newspaper quoted him as saying at a speech in Istanbul. Washington has called on Turkey to stop its recent shelling of the YPG. Ankara says it is doing so within the rules of engagement and in response to cross-border fire from the insurgents. President Barack Obama on Friday spoke to Erdogan in an 80-minute telephone call, sharing his concerns over the Syrian conflict and promising his support. A State Department spokesman later told reporters Washington would continue to support organizations in Syria that it could count on in the fight against ISIS - an apparent reference to the YPG.

Turkey says strikes on Syrian Kurd fighters ‘legitimate defense’
AFP, Ankara Sunday, 21 February 2016/Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended his country's fight against Kurdish fighters in Syria as "legitimate defence", after international powers urged Ankara to rein in its cross-border bombardments. Turkey has been shelling targets in northern Syria for the past week in a bid to stem the advances of a Kurdish-led coalition that has seized territory in the area. Ankara blames Syrian Kurdish fighters for this week's suicide car bomb attack in the Turkish capital that killed 28 people and fears the creation of a Kurdish stronghold along its southern border. "The situation we are currently facing is one of legitimate defence. No-one can deny or limit Turkey's legitimate right to defence in the face of terrorist attacks," Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul late on Saturday, according to the Dogan news agency. Erdogan's remarks come after the United States, France and Russia all urged Turkey to scale back or halt its military action in Syria. US President Barack Obama, in a phone call with Erdogan on Friday, urged the Ankara government and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia to "show reciprocal restraint" in northern Syria. French President Francois Hollande warned that Ankara's escalating involvement in the conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia, which back different sides in Syria's increasingly complex civil war. Ankara says the YPG is a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is recognised as a terror group by the United States and EU. Earlier this week Erdogan vowed not to allow the creation oif a Kurdish stronghold in northern Syria, saying there was no question of stopping the artillery barrage. "To fight the threats which it faces, Turkey has the right to launch any kind of operation, in Syria and wherever else the terrorist organisations are located," Erdogan said. The Turkish leader also again criticised the United States, without mentioning it by name, for its "lack of sincerity" about Turkey's worries over Syrian Kurdish fighters. Washington supports the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG militia as the best fighting force on the ground against ISIS militants. Turkey considers both to be terror groups linked to the PKK. Some 21 suspects held over the Ankara attack were due to appear in court on Sunday, the pro-government Anatolia news agency reported.

Palestinian tries to stab Israeli soldier, shot dead
By AFP Nablus, Palestinian Territories Sunday, 21 February 2016/A Palestinian tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and was shot dead, Israel’s army said, the latest incident in a nearly five-month wave of violence. The attack occurred at the Bitot Junction south of Nablus in the northern West Bank. “A Palestinian attacker attempted to stab an (Israeli) soldier at the Bitot Junction,” the army said. “The force responded to the imminent danger, thwarting the attack and firing towards the assailant, resulting in his death.” Palestinian security sources spoke of gunfire targeting a Palestinian in the area. Since Oct. 1, Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks have killed 27 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. At the same time, 176 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Many of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, while others were shot dead during protests and clashes. Some analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest. Israel blames incitement by Palestinian leaders and media as a main cause of the violence.

Egyptian columnist delivers stinging attack against Sisi
The Associated Press, Cairo Sunday, 21 February 2016/A prominent columnist on Sunday delivered the harshest attack to date against Egypt's president in the local media, saying that, in terms of freedoms, Abdel-Fattah Sisi's rule is not different from the Islamist regime he removed in 2013. In a front-page column in the al-Maqal daily, Ibrahim Eissa expressed outrage over a two-year prison sentence passed Saturday against author Ahmed Naji for publishing a sexually explicit excerpt of his novel that prosecutors said violated "public modesty."The sentence against Naji, passed by a Cairo appeals court, can be appealed. "Say what you will, Mr. President and speak at your conferences ... as you wish, but the reality of your state is different," he wrote. "Your state violates the constitution, harasses thinkers and creators and jails writers and authors. "Your state is a theocracy, Mr. President, while you are talking all the time of a modern, civilian state," he wrote. "Your state and its agencies, just like those of your predecessor (Islamist Mohammed Mursi), hate intellectuals, thought and creativity and only like hypocrites, flatterers and composers of poems of support and flattery." Eissa, also a popular TV talk show host, strongly supported the July 3, 2013 ouster by the military of Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected president. His removal, led by then Defense Minister Sisi, followed days of massive street protests against the divisive one-year rule of Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group now labeled a terrorist organization. But Eissa, like many of the secular and leftist pro-democracy activists behind the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, has slowly moved away from Sisi's camp and is now openly critical of his policies. Sisi, elected to office a year after he ousted Mursi, has overseen the harshest crackdown witnessed in Egypt in decades, jailing thousands of Islamists and hundreds of secular activists. He has also tolerated what rights activists say is widespread abuses by police and introduced restrictions on freedoms and the erosion of public space. A newly elected parliament is packed by his supporters, rendering it as little more than a rubber stamp chamber. The crackdown is playing out against a backdrop of a new constitution adopted in January 2014 and labeled as the country's most liberal, a fight against an insurgency by Islamic militants and Sisi's own, one-man drive to revive the country's ailing economy. Naji's case follows a series of convictions against writers and reformist religious thinkers that have given rise to questions about Sisi's declared commitment to the reformation and moderation of Islam's discourse as a means of combating religious militancy. Sisi has tirelessly boasted since 2013 that his ouster of Mursi saved Egypt from the Brotherhood's tyrannical theocracy, but Eissa on Sunday wrote that Morsi's record on freedoms of expression was better than Sisi's. "Where is this civilian state? Where do you see it?" he wrote, addressing Sisi. "This is a state that witnesses more legal prosecution of writers than what we have seen during the Brotherhood's one-year rule."

Seven Killed in Michigan Shooting Rampage, Suspect Arrested
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 21/16/A man suspected of randomly opening fire in a Michigan town and shooting dead at least seven people, including a teenager, was arrested Sunday, U.S. police said. The suspect was apprehended at 12:40 am on Sunday (0540 GMT) after a shooting rampage Saturday in the town of Kalamazoo, police said. "We believe we have our suspect in custody," Lieutenant Dave Hines told a press conference. Hines said that there were three separate shootings - one outside an apartment complex, another outside a car dealership, and the third at a chain restaurant. Chief Jeff Hadley of the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety later described the man arrested as a "strong suspect," and told local media that the danger had passed. The gunman's motives were as yet unclear, police said.Several police agencies were involved in the case, and the death toll and profiles of those killed changed as details emerged. Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas told CNN that seven people had been killed in the random shooting, while another person was wounded. Earlier police reports had put the death toll at between five and six. All three shooting incidents appear to be related, Matyas said. "This is your worst nightmare, when you have somebody just driving around randomly killing people," Matyas told the local CNN affiliate 24 Hours News 8. One of the five people shot at the restaurant was a teenage girl -- not a child as initially reported -- while a father and son were among the dead at the car dealership.The suspect was armed when he was arrested at a traffic stop, but surrendered peacefully, Matyas said. The suspect was described as a white male in his late 50s, who drove a blue station wagon. Kalamazoo, in the northern state of Michigan, is located some 190 kilometers (160 miles) west of the industrial city of Detroit and has a population of 76,000, according to census figures.The Kalamazoo shootings follow a pattern of mass shootings in the United States that include the December 2 massacre in San Bernardino, California that left 14 people dead and 22 wounded, and the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in which 20 children and six adults were shot dead. Gun violence kills about 30,000 Americans every year and mass shootings -- rare in most countries -- have been on the rise in the United States. According to the tracking website gunviolencearchive.org, there were 330 mass shootings in the United States in 2015, up from 281 in 2014. They affected nearly every part of the country, reaching into both big cities and small towns.

Saudi Arabia halts aid to Lebanon, Al-Hilal crowned champion!
Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
The attractive headline was the answer a friend gave me days ago when I asked him about the day’s most important developments. He briefly answered, saying Saudi Arabia has halted its aid to Lebanon and Al-Hilal FC has won the Saudi Crown Prince Cup. Let’s move on though from Al-Hilal’s victory, which has become routine as this was the 11th time the club has won the cup. Let us talk about Lebanon which has always been a part of us and which we have always been a part of. The support which Lebanon receives from Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries is a lot more than mere ink on paper. Loyalists acknowledge this while prejudiced people deny it. Saudi Arabia has supported Lebanon through war and peace. Riyadh’s hand will always remain extended to the moderate and wise men in Lebanon in order to maintain whatever is left of state institutions and historical cultural values. Christian figures acknowledge that no Arab country helped as much as Saudi Arabia in protecting them against forced displacement. Riyadh did not bet on a certain sect in Lebanon but on the entire Lebanese people and supported the Lebanese state, which is the way to guarantee stability.
Political measure
The recent Saudi decision to halt a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon is not directed against the good people of Lebanon, or against the Lebanese civilization. It falls within the context of political measures against a flagrant aggression practiced by unruly parties which do not believe in civil and state values. Riyadh’s hand will always remain extended to the moderate and wise men in Lebanon in order to maintain whatever is left of state institutions and historical cultural values, which some intend to destroy through a revolutionary and militant culture. The Lebanese people know Saudi King Salman very well. They remember his visits and they know how concerned he is over them. However, decisiveness is a must to confront hostile practices. King Salman is the king and master of decisiveness.
Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty is a serious matter, which is never taken lightly even when it comes to best friends.

Syria between two theaters
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
“This is amazing. We now congratulate each other for being granted asylum status. We rejoice if one of us finds a shelter for himself and his family. We rejoice if a child is still alive after being found in the rubble. We sometimes just wish to find our children’s corpses so that we can bury them.” This is how Syrian actress Yara Sabri summed up the current life of the Syrian people in a monodrama. She was playing the role of a Syrian woman fighting entrenched behind sandbags in a one-woman play called Under the Sky performed in the Dubai Community Theater & Arts Centre. Contrary to my expectations, the hall was packed with audience. I thought few people would want to watch a political play considering we have been watching political developments in Syria for five years now.People of Syria are artistic and culturally inclined. Art remains part of their lives wherever they go and live. After the war, they took with them their society consisting of writers, actors, actresses, artists and painters wherever they went. Sabri’s play was very impressive. You can hear some of the audience interacting and even crying as the play reopened everyone’s wounds. The man who sat next to me has lost more than 16 members of his family in Syria. Most of those watching the play had lost near and dear ones. Tragedy has struck almost the entire Syrian population. In the play Under the Sky – written by Fadia Dalla and directed by Maher Salibi – we do not see anything about ISIS and about sectarian battles. A woman sitting next to me said this is how Syria used to be for all the Syrian people before the regime ripped it apart and decided to destroy it and displace its people.
No war on terror
The regime has tried and actually succeeded at picturing its confrontation with the majority of the Syrian people as war against terror and a struggle exported to Syria as a religious project. However, the story of the Syrian revolution is like the Libyan and the Yemeni revolutions. It’s the story of the people who could no longer tolerate a life under the rule of violent security and military regimes. The play reminds us how, before the Syrian revolution, people rejoiced if the bread they received was not rotten. It shows how the regime kept people preoccupied with earning a living, putting food on the table and how it afflicted them with torment. This is why the Syrian people revolted. They did not revolt out of religious or ideological grudges. We can see the difference between popular sympathy and international carelessness, which has allowed Syria to become the worst tragedy we’ve known since World War II. Do the people know the scale of the tragedy committed against millions of Syrian people? Dalla’s black comedy, with this funny yet painful script, gives us mixed emotions. In one of the scenes, Sabri grabs her phone and takes different pictures of herself while carrying a rifle. “Maybe someone will see this photo and like it (on Facebook),” she says. The scene is followed by moments of silence as she recalls others’ sufferings and says: “What about those drowning in the sea? How will they see how many likes they have on their photos?” People in Arab countries and the rest of the world certainly sympathize a lot with the Syrian people. However, this sympathy is not being reflected on the ground due to the official opportunist stances by governments. Therefore we can see the difference between popular sympathy and international carelessness, which has allowed Syria to become the worst tragedy we’ve known since World War II. As long as there is continuous rejection of the wrong status quo, the Syrian cause will not be buried despite the life of displacement and exile and the huge flow of refugees. This is why the war failed to impose what the regime wants.Whenever we ask ourselves whether the Syrian people can resist and remain steadfast, we realize that with this spirit and persistence, they’re actually capable of overcoming their ordeal and that no matter how successful Assad is at displacing whoever is left of the Syrian people, he will not succeed at planting despair.

Has the world become numb to the utter brutality in Syria?
Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
At least 50 people were mercilessly killed when Russia and the Assad regime bombarded several hospitals – including a Doctors Without Borders (MSF)-supported facility – in Syria this week. Schools being used as shelters were also targeted. MSF officials indicated the attack on their hospital in Maarat al-Numan, Idlib province, appeared deliberate, with four missiles hitting the site within just minutes of each other. Meanwhile, a women and children’s hospital in Azaz, was targeted in a brutal ballistic missile attack. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), a total of seven hospitals and two schools in Syria bore the brunt of the attack on 15 February alone. The Russian military and the Assad regime carried out these criminal attacks only days before a “cessation of hostilities” was slated to take place – a so far meaningless agreement brokered by Washington DC and Moscow officials. Five years since the beginning of the conflict, the horrors inflicted on the Syrian people are now intensifying, with Russia and Bashar al-Assad’s disgraced regime continuing to massacre with impunity. This week underscored Moscow’s latest strategy, which appears to be conning the U.S. and other involved actors into assessing it is interested in halting the bloodshed in Syria while it worsens its attack on Syrian civilians on the ground. The number of attacks that intentionally hit sites providing critical care this week is staggering. Five years on, it seems the world is at serious risk of becoming numb to the utter brutality in Syria.
Attack aftermath
Activists circulated one especially haunting photograph on twitter after an attack in Azaz: A colourful blanket wraps a badly mangled woman and her dead baby, which was still attached by the umbilical cord to her own corpse. Another photo shows two toddlers, one in a red and white striped onesie and another in a green sweater, laying lifeless and covered in dust. “Goodbye cruel world,” wrote @RevolutionSyria. The targeting of hospitals – an Assad regime strategy being upheld by Russia – serves a broader purpose than just obliterating health care temporarily. As attacks continue to target civilians and those attempting to provide life-saving care, it is worth asking how large scale of a massacre would have to be committed to trigger intervention on behalf of Syrian civilians. During an interview with PBS Newshour, New York Times Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard explained why so many medical facilities and schools are being intentionally targeted. “There may be a strategy of trying to depopulate areas...that are not likely to come back into the government fold,” she noted. Such deliberate planning for the future further highlight Assad’s commitment to maintaining his grip on power. Amid the horrific attacks in recent days, the United Nations was reportedly able to gain access to at least five besieged areas, delivering critical aid to approximately 82,000 people. Meanwhile, U.N. officials have indicated that plans for humanitarian aid drops appear to be progressing toward implementation. Such developments are indeed positive but unless the Assad regime has agreed to stop using siege and starvation as means of warfare – including in Aleppo – the suffering is likely to continue in the long-term. As attacks continue to target civilians and those attempting to provide life-saving care, it is worth asking how large scale of a massacre would have to be committed by the Assad regime, Russia or any other nefarious actor, to trigger intervention on behalf of Syrian civilians. The longer this bloody conflict continues, the more likely we are to have an answer.

Syrians must surrender now to fight another day
Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
All the indications from Syria are that the war is won by Assad and his allies. This is thanks to Russian fire power, Iranian foreign legion militias, and the regime’s deep state still alive and kicking in many opposition held Syrian towns. Unless a miracle happens – and in the Middle East rarely we see one – the next Geneva conference should be a face saving surrender signing ceremony. The opposition and its allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, have no other option but to surrender now and fight another day may be. Assad has won the bet, in five years he managed the crisis according to deja vu rule book of dictators. The Syrian people’s uprising against his rule was a source of hope to 25 million Syrians who wanted to breathe freedom after 40 years of Assad family brutal rule. Quickly Assad infiltrated the peaceful opposition loosely knit groupings. He released violent Islamist militants from prison and handed them weapons.
Then, the revolution metamorphosed into a so-called war on terror by Assad regime and his Iranian, Lebanese and Iraqi allies. However, this war remained a war for self-defense from the opposition point of view. The slaughter gradually began, and in five years 300,000 Syrians were killed, imprisoned and tortured. As many as 12 millions or more are displaced. The Assad regime, and his Iranian and Russian allies, could claim to have won the day. On the international scene, few elements have helped advance Assad’s travail. The Obama administration’s non-leadership and his bid to clear his predecessors’ mess by denying Washington new adventures in the Middle East and beyond, Obama left Iraq to the Iranians, Afghanistan to a resurgent Taliban, and Syria and Ukraine to an emboldened Vladimir Putin.
Obama left Iraq to the Iranians, Afghanistan to a resurgent Taliban, and Syria and Ukraine to an emboldened Vladimir Putin
Apart from France, the Europeans lacked resolve as usual. The EU saw the Syrian crisis only from the prism of refugees arriving in their thousands to their shores. Only France grasped that Assad came good on his promises that either his regime would survive or the region and beyond will inherit ISIS and its sister terror organizations. Oddly enough, France stood firm opposing Assad, until the terror attacks hit satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in early 2015, and later the Bataclan theatre. This was clearly a punishment for France who maintained all along that removing ISIS goes through removing Assad.
Israel also played its part lobbying from the onset of the revolution for Russia to block any U.N. resolution to speedily stop the onslaught or remove Assad. The Israeli mindset was not to mind trouble on its border that weaken its enemies and distracts the world’s attention from its continued occupation of Palestinian lives and territories. If the Syrian war results in a carved up Alawite, Kurdish or Islamist state in Syria, then this will definitely serve best the minority mini-religious and ethnic state Israel feels more secure to find as neighbors!
Iran’s league
Iran has been in a league of its own vis-à-vis the conflict in Syria. From the start Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that protecting Damascus is as important as defending Tehran. As the conflict unfolded, Tehran stayed the course sending advisors, arms and underwriting the regime financially to aid Assad’s embattled army. It ordered Lebanese militia Hezbollah forces into Syria and funded and trained Afghani and Iraqi Shiite and deployed them to fend off Syrian regime frontlines. Iran quickly turned the tide and gave Assad regime a lifeline to the point that Iranian leaders boasted that Tehran controls four Arab capitals namely Beirut, Baghdad Damascus and Sanaa. Among the Syrian people free of Assad camp, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their differences worked miracle for keeping Assad in power. The discord between a Saudi Arabia sensitive to see Syria’s fall to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Qatar and Turkey championing the Brotherhood to play a lead role in Syria’s future, further divided an already divisive opposition. The Turks also went along with eyes fixed on removing Assad and any future Syrian Kurdish enclave on its southern border controlled by PKK clients Kurdish forces. All the above conspired against the freedom of the Syrians and today with revived tsarist Russian dreams in the Middle East and beyond, two options remain on the agenda. One is for the Syrian opposition to surrender and apologize to Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad for pushing him to kill 300,000 misled Syrians turned violent terrorists and hope for history to allow them a better opportunity to remove him before his son Hafez is of age to inherit Syria from his embattled father Bashar. The second option would be for allies of the Syrian opposition to dispatch surface-to-air missiles to vetted opposition groups. Checking the Russian air supremacy over Syria, and denying Assad air force access to the skies will reduce the mercenary contingents’ land grab and might therefore push all parties back to Geneva, not to sign a surrender, but to implement U.N. resolution 2254 that could see a sharing of power in Syria hopefully without Assad.

The dilemma surrounding oil production cuts
Sadek Al-Rikaby/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
The decision made by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar to freeze production at January levels is an important step toward countering the oil glut in the market. These countries constitute 26 percent of the supply and can affect the price if other producers agreed with them. However, pushing oil prices to higher levels is not an easy process. There is an impression that oil glut will resist for a longer period and it is difficult to be absorbed by this agreement without a real cut. The dilemma of cutting production is not a matter of some players in the market. It is a deep problem which has to be solved on three levels. Producers within OPEC: The main headache inside OPEC is Iran, which is returning to the global oil market after the sanctions. After a meeting with his counterparts from Iraq, Qatar and Venezuela the Iranian oil minister, Bijan Zanganah, said that “Iran backs any measure which help stabilize the market and improve the price of crude oil”. However, Iran plans to raise its output to the level of 4.4 million bpd and is increasing its exports by 500,000 bpd, which means that the country is not part of the freezing agreement. Producers outside OPEC:Despite the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Russia cutting output is still elusive. Saudi Arabia refuses to repeat the 1980s scenario when it cut output to raise prices but lost part of its market share to other producers. Russia refuses to reduce oil production because it lowers the pressure in its cold fields and may lead to inaction. This raises costs and requires effort and time as the rehabilitation of these fields requires a long process. If OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed to cut production we may see a convergence of $55 bbl but in the long term the most important factor is going to be the real growth in world economy. Shale oil producers: Any future agreement on reducing output without including shale oil producers means that the oversupply in the global market will not decline. Current oil prices that are at $30 range have impacted heavily on shale oil production and the number of rigs has dropped by 66 percent. According to IEA, U.S. shale oil production will decline by 92,000 bpd to 4.9 million bpd in March 2016. But in case it was agreed to cut oil output, the rise in prices would be in the interest of shale oil companies and allow them to acquire larger shares in the market.
Russia’s impact
For Russia, freezing production may have a negative impact. This winter, the country has to carry a high cost for low oil prices. The cost of producing a barrel in Russia ($17.2 bbl) is almost twice the cost in Saudi Arabia ($9.9 bbl). That gives two choices to Russia; either to bear the high cost to maintain its market share or to reduce the output in its fields. The first option means a large economic burden on Russian budget while the second one leads to losing market share for the benefit of other producers. Today, Russia is aware that it will have to cut production if prices continued to fall. That is why it wants to ensure an agreement with other producers, especially with Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer. Transneft, the state-owned oil transportation monopoly, said that Russian oil companies have applied for 215 million tons of crude exports in 2016. This is 6.4 percent less than last year and indicates that Russia could cut oil exports this year by 700,000 bpd. This figure is equivalent to what Iran plans to increase this year and it means that oil prices would not benefit from it. According to IEA, oversupply in the first half of 2016 will increase by 250,000 bpd, but the global demand will rise to 1.3 million bpd only, which means that the average price for Brent would increase to $45 bbl. If OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed to cut production we may see a convergence of $55 bbl but in the long term the most important factor is going to be the real growth in world economy without which the oil market will remain at the risk of high volatility.

The Eastern Desert of Syria: A New Anbar?
Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16/It is amazing to see the focus of conflicts and potential conflicts in Syria jumping here and there like a drop of mercury on glass. At one point, it is Assad against his opponents, then it is the Arabs and the Iranians, then the Russians and the non-terrorist opposition, then it is Saudi Arabia and Russia, then the US and Russia, then Ankara and Moscow, then it is the Kurdish PYD and the Arabs, then it is Turkey and the Kurds, and it ain’t over yet.
In this bloody roller-coaster, and in order to detect “the meaning” and “the trends” of the breathtaking events, it may help to analyze the major elements of the picture in the form of questions and answers:
* The Syrian opposition is losing grounds under relentless attacks by the Assad forces, Iranian militias and Russian air raids. Where exactly are the major elements of risk in the current power play?
– President Putin and President Obama talked by phone last weekend. According to the White House, President Obama “emphasized the need to organize close working relations to combat ISIL”.
The emphasis on coordination between the US and Russia is obviously positive in order to avoid a much bigger war. But while the two sides try to frame their engagements in a coordinated way, the ball keeps rolling down to different spots restlessly. This may place any military coordination between Moscow and Washington under increasing pressures.
The fire ball now rolls almost in all directions in a dizzying scene. What if the Turks, members in NATO, shot another Russian plane that crossed their skies? What if Syria’s air defenses shot a Coalition plane that happened to belong to Saudi Arabia? What if the PYG continued their advance to connect their area in the North West to that in the North East, a move that will give them full control of the borders with Turkey which will pressure the Turkish military to act inside Syria?
The Turks already started shelling Kurdish positions there. Next escalation will be for the Turks to cross the borders. In fact, Damascus says they already did, though Ankara denies. Yet, the Turks allowed hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters to cross Turkey’s borders from Idlib then re-enters Syria to reinforce their besieged comrades in other areas. If the Turks enter Syria, they will be targeted by the Russians. That is to say that Moscow would be hitting the forces of a NATO member.
No bilateral coordination like the one between the US and Russia can insulate itself from the developments occurring all over the place around it. What we see before our eyes now is a situation where the one line of “coordination” between Washington and Moscow is constantly hit by the hammers of the avalanche that is going on around it.
Both NATO and the US told Erdogan in frenzy calls that NATO does not approve of any Turkish escalation in its conflict with Russia. Erdogan responded publicly. “But who is a NATO ally? Turkey or the PYD?” he said. The worrying factor here is that nobody can predict President Erdogan moves.
Another risk is coming from the nature of the evolvement of the conflict. This conflict is quickly enlarging itself and providing us with a multiple agenda war. In other words, the conflict in Syria is not Syrian anymore. It is metamorphosing into a quest to achieve Kurdish national rights (and a bit more), a drive to expand Russia’s influence in the Middle East, an attempt by the Arabs to prevent Iranian expansion in their region, a war against terrorism, a revolt against a dictator and a shot from a hesitant administration in Washington to preserve whatever it still enjoys of interests and influence in the strategically vital region.
This is a major risk. If the mono-focus conflict splits itself the way we see in Syria now, a solution becomes extremely difficult. Prospects of a larger war increases. And it is obvious that the focal point of the war in Syria is now widening even beyond Assad’s fate.
If Erdogan decided to go his way, as he sometimes did, the Arabs will back the Turks. The two sides are on the same page regarding the Syrian opposition. The YPG controlled an airbase close to the strategic jewel of North Aleppo: Azaz. They fought the Syrian opposition, not ISIL, to capture the base. Russia’s air force heavily bombed the area in preparation for the Kurds’ offensive. That was it for Erdogan. If Azaz itself falls, opposition forces in Aleppo will suffocate, and the threat to Turkey would be magnified.
An idea of sending ground forces was supported by the Arabs. But it was obvious to all concerned parties that the moment Turkish-Arab ground forces enter Syria is the moment when a much larger conflict would start. The US, faced with Putin’s determination to get the job done, placed some brakes on that idea, at least for the time being.
That was in response to Putin’s moves. He showed that he would bomb any joint forces which “dare” to enter Syria or try to block his project of tilting the balance of power. In response to Saudi Arabia moving some of its jets to Incirlik, he deployed some advanced sea to air weapon systems in the East Mediterranean.
It is worth a while to notice that while the aim of such Turkish-Arab forces was to prevent the balance of power in Syria from tilting decisively in favor of Assad, hence preserving the road to reaching a meaningful negotiations opened, the determination of Putin and the risk of triggering a wider conflict showed that this tactic to save the talks about peace will lead to a bigger war.
* Is there any way to calm the Turks?
– Turkey believes that the rise of the PKK in Syria represents a direct threat to its national security. One can only go so far in convincing a country to do nothing when it sees such a threat to its security rising on its own borders. Turkey and the PKK are engaged in a long and very bloody confrontation inside Turkey for decades now.
The engagement of the Kurds was clear from the outset. They have their long due national rights. That is their agenda. But the US wants them to fight ISIL. The non-terrorist opposition wants them to fight Assad. The Russians want them to fight the non-terrorist opposition. Assad wants them to fight the Arab backed groups. And the Turks do not want to see them fighting at all.
But they did precisely what anyone would expect: Fight. Yet, under pressure from here and there, they expanded their own fighting territories and went into areas that are not known historically to be Kurdish. Now, they want to connect Efren in the West to their areas east of the Euphrates. The Turks drew a red line at the river banks. The Kurds crossed this line anyway. Why? Because the Russians provided them with a lot of arms recently to be added to what others, including Washington, gave them. And because Assad wants them to fight the opposition. Controlling a strip along the Turkish borders will cut off opposition supply lines. The Russians want them to provoke Erdogan off balance. And the US wants them to carry on fighting ISIL and does not oppose creating a friendly Kurdish region extending from Efren in the West to Iran borders in the east through Iraq’s Kurdistan.
The main ground forces used in the North of Syria to fight the non-terrorist opposition is obviously the Kurds, either in the YPG or the so-called Syria Democratic Forces. It is easy to guess that the PKK got certain guarantees and promises related to the future. But it is also easy to see that what we see now is planting the seeds for a future chain of crisis. Turkey will never accept a PKK controlled borders with Syria. The Syrian Arabs feel betrayed by the Kurds. The main fight of the YPG now is against the Syrian opposition. This fights took the Kurds out of their historic areas, and away from their national aspirations. It is the Shia-Sunni story in Iraq replayed, this time along national identities, not sectarian affiliations.
Assad cannot advance Azaz. In order for him to do, he has to go through extremely hostile lands. So, he counts on the YPG and Russia’s air raids.
* What would be the consequences of an Assad victory?
– Syria’s non-terrorist opposition is losing grounds. Aleppo may fall in few months. There is a charge building in the related capitals in the region which will be difficult to contain at one point or another. Russia is determined. The US does not know what to do. Assad is winning.
Will that “improve” the situation? No. Instead of having a real political solution, the work on the ground now aims at achieving a military solution. But again, the US surge in Iraq “defeated” the terrorists and pacified Iraq. Or did it? Russia’s surge in Syria will not even reach the modest results of the Iraqi surge. The Russians are bombing everybody: civilians, non-terrorist, and even MSF hospitals. It is as if they did not learn the hard lessons of the Middle East.
Let us imagine that Assad, backed by the Russians and Iran, would be able to achieve victory in Aleppo and the South, what will that lead to? East Syria will turn into another Anbar. The difference in Syria is that the whole country is mostly Sunni. Assad is the reversed image of Saddam. Saddam, a Sunni, ruled over a Shia-majority country. Assad, an Alawi, rules over a Sunni-majority country. A kind of merger between the armed opposition groups in both Iraq and Syria would be probable. The only affiliation between these groups and the Syrian Sunni majority under Assad’s control is religion.
As Syria will certainly face enormous economic difficulties after all these years of destruction, popular unrest in the Assad controlled areas would be expected. The ideological base of such protests would come from the active opponents in the East of Syria. We would simply have triggered a process of perpetual radicalization of Syrians. Add to this that a more than willing Arabs and Turks would find it natural to assist the opposition in rebuilding their capacities in the East, and you would get a Syrian Anbar times ten.
* What should be done now?
Faced with the prospects of turning the eastern desert of Syria into another Anbar, one would imagine that the US would do a little better than this scandalous loss of directions in its policy in Syria. A stronghold for radicals in east Syria, coupled with profound anger and contempt towards America’s passivity when hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed by Assad, Iran and the Russians, will place targeting the US and the West in general on top of all minds there.
The current administration should announce that it cannot do anything because, and in total contrast to Putin, it simply does not know what to do. Waving before Putin’s eyes the possibility of “a quagmire” is futile. Pressuring others to get a safe route to humanitarian aid is meaningless if those human beings who would receive the aid are then killed by Russian air bombardment. Putin knows that the US President is a “do-nothing” guy. Yet, the consequences of Moscow’s crudeness in Syria would be felt first by the US.

Washington’s Spin on the Munich Deal
Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16
According to the Obama Administration, Secretary of State John Kerry wrangled a vital concession from Russia, leading to the last minute deal in Munich on Feb. 10 for a cease-fire and the opening of humanitarian corridors. Russia, in private talks with the US, had been demanding that any cease-fire start on March 1, at the earliest, and the US and allies insisted that the cease-fire start immediately, freezing all military operations other than direct attacks on the Islamic State and the Nusra Front. Russia was banking on completing the retaking of Aleppo by Syrian armed forces and allied militias, with heavy Russian air support, by March 1. While there was debate inside the Obama Administration over whether the Russians were seeking an absolute battle-field victory in the war, or were seeking to take Aleppo and greatly strengthen President Bashar Assad’s negotiating position in the Geneva talks, there was unanimous agreement that Russia was aiming to finish off the Aleppo campaign before agreeing to any cease-fire or humanitarian corridors.
The fact that Russia accepted the earlier date for the full cease-fire came as the result of Kerry making the point forcefully to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that a breakdown in the peace talks would ultimately lead to Western direct military intervention in Syria.
As Kerry was holding his closed-door negotiations with Lavrov, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was meeting in Brussels with top military officials from 26 nations involved in the anti-ISIL coalition, pressing them to commit to more active engagement in the war. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey announced that they would be beefing up their direct military engagement, with the Saudis immediately deploying a squadron of F-15 fighter jets and crew to the Turkish base at Incirlik. Saudi and Emirati Special Forces will also be joining US commandoes on the ground in Syria in the coming weeks, a commitment that was hailed by Carter. All of this is aimed at a near-term assault on Raqqa, to take back the ISIL capital. US intelligence has reported that some crucial command/control/communications hubs of ISIL have been relocated out of Raqqa in anticipation of the coming battle. Seasoned ISIL fighters are now in short supply, and increasingly, ISIL is resorting to conscripts, including child soldiers.
And Turkey’s Prime Minister Davutoglu announced that Turkey was prepared to launch ground operations inside Syria, to block Syrian Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Front from establishing an unbroken corridor along the Turkish borders with the Kurdish regions of both Syria and Iraq. As of Feb. 13, Turkish artillery was firing at a military base in northern Turkey recently taken over by Kurdish units.
The Turkish government is convinced that Russia has a deal with the Syrian Kurds, under which they will be given near-independence within Syria, parallel to the Kurdish Region in Iraq, which is a sovereign entity in all-but-name. Such a Kurdish enclave on the Turkish border would give Russia the ability to maintain a perpetual state of hostility to Turkey’s south, and would give any future Syrian government—with or without Assad—a strategic advantage. Ankara will never accept that, and the Turkish Army is threatening to invade, creating another major headache for Obama and Kerry.
There is agreement between US and Turkish military officials that Russia’s pattern of bombing sorties have facilitated advances by YPG Kurdish militias into areas well outside the Kurdish enclave. But there is a widening dispute between Turkish President Erdogan and US President Obama over the Kurdish issue, with Erdogan publicly denouncing the United States for backing the YPG. When a State Department statement was issued, making clear that the YPG is not considered a terrorist organization by Washington, the US-Turkey rift widened.
Kerry’s negotiations with Lavrov concerned more than the Syria peace effort. Kerry is also looking to salvage the Minsk II Accords on Ukraine, and this topic consumed a significant amount of the back and forth negotiations between the US and Russia. Reportedly, a deal is near completion on the status of the eastern provinces of Ukraine, the $3 billion Ukraine debt to Russia, which is now in formal default, and the future ruling coalition in Kiev, now that the Finance Minister has resigned and other factional differences have erupted.
Kerry and Obama’s quest for both a Syria and Ukraine deal with Putin may prove to be grasping at straws. The first test will be in the coming days: Will Russia actually halt the bombings of Syrian rebels who are not ISIL or Nusra? Will they stop short of a full takeover of Aleppo?

Russia’s New Friends in the Afghan Taliban
Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16
In response to growing concerns about the Islamic State’s growing strength throughout Afghanistan, Russia is now pursuing a military alliance with the Afghan Taliban, under the concept that “my enemy’s enemy is my potential ally.”
The Russian courtship of the Taliban began some time prior to Taliban’s dramatic 15-day takeover of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, which was reportedly facilitated by the delivery of Russian weapons to the group via Tajikistan. Among the Russian-supplied weapons were new AK-47s, PK machine guns and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades).
The US Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper so much as confirmed the Russian increased role in the Central Asia security situation in February 9, 2016 Congressional testimony, where he stated that “Central Asian states remain concerned about the rising threat of extremism to the stability of their countries, particularly in light of a reduced Coalition presence in Afghanistan. Russia shares these concerns and is likely to use the threat of instability in Afghanistan to increase its involvement in Central Asian security affairs.”
Following the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, the Islamic State sought to exploit factional splits in the group, and dispatched several hundred ISIL operatives to Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, ISIL now has a presence in 25 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, and has as many as 3,000 fighters in the country now, mostly recruited from the ranks of Taliban splinter factions and other militias.
The point man for the Russian outreach to Taliban is President Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov. Kabulov was in charge of KGB operations in Afghanistan during the period of Soviet Red Army occupation—including the period of the entire Afghan War. He later was Russia’s Ambassador to Pakistan. In 1995 he established personal contact with Mullah Omar, to negotiate the freeing of Russians whose plane flight had made an emergency landing in Kandahar. He retained those contacts, after he later became the Director of the Second Department for Asian Countries in the Russian Foreign Ministry and then in his second current post as Putin’s personal Afghan envoy.
The Uzbek-born Kabulov has handled his negotiations with the Taliban through Dushanbe, Tajikistan, working with a Taliban liaison, Dr. Tahir Shamlazi, the brother of a former Taliban commander. Shamlazi has also represented Taliban in talks with Chinese officials.
In a recent interview with Interfax, Kabulov gave a detailed assessment of ISIL’s planned expansion into Central Asia and Russia. He identified two “beachheads” facing Tajikistan and Turmenistan, where a large number of Central Asian recruits are being concentrated, after receiving training in three ISIL camps inside northern Afghanistan.
In that interview Kabulov said Russian officials were concerned that the routes through which Afghan heroin is smuggled across the Caspian Sea into Dagistan can be used to smuggle ISIL fighters back into the Caucasus region of Russia to launch what he called “a spring offensive” against Central Asia and Russia.
Speaking at a Moscow conference on Afghanistan in January 2016, Kabulov candidly acknowledged that “Taliban interests objectively coincide with ours. Both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban have said they don’t recognize ISIS… That is very important. We have communications channels with the Taliban to exchange information.”
Russia is not putting all of its Afghan-Central Asian eggs in the Taliban basket. Russia has recently expanded its arms sales to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, negotiating the sale of as many as 20 Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan, along with surface-to-air missiles. Afghanistan is also planning to purchase Russian Mi-35 helicopters. Russia has also announced first-ever joint maneuvers with Pakistan this year. That was announced on January 22, 2016 by Russian Army Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleg Salyukov.
Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah confirmed on February 3, 2016 that he is coordinating with Moscow on the peace talks with the Taliban. “We expect countries to set aside their grievances for the sake of dealing with the most important challenge that we are all facing. Russia has an interest because of the terror groups from Chechnya and the Central Asian republics.”
Iran is also warming up to the Taliban, as they escalate their surrogate war with Saudi Arabia, which Tehran believes is still backing ISIL. Iran has recently begun training Taliban fighters in camps in Tehran, Mashhad and Zahedan.
It remains to be seen whether these “strange bedfellow” dealings, such as Russia and Iran’s collusion with the Taliban, can be sustained. US intelligence has definitely taken notice of the emerging channels and is carefully assessing the implications, now that President Obama has agreed to retain a residual US training and counter-terrorism force of nearly 10,000 American and allied troops in Afghanistan through past the end of his presidency.
Russia and China have the opportunity to work through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which now includes all of the Central Asian republics, Pakistan and India. Russia and China have both announced their support for Iran to be the next full member of SCO. Iran already has observer status with the organization. And later this year, Russia is scheduled to begin construction on a 1,100 kilometer gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore that is scheduled to be completed by 2017, and will provide Pakistan with over 30 percent of its natural gas needs. Such projects can only succeed if there is a degree of stability in the area.
Special Envoy Kabulov, however, got to the heart of Russia’s concerns in his Interfax interview. He said: “Better to fight Islamists on Amu Daryan than on the Volga.”

GCC Conflict with Iran: Why?
Middle East Briefing/MEB/February 21/16
It is understandable that the Arab World is worried about how Iran will use its return to the global arena and the billions of dollars it will receive in return for ending its illegal nuclear activities. This worry is destined to surface in many spots where the Arabs fight Iranian intervention, mainly Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
According to Iranian officials, the money which they will get back after lifting the sanctions will create an economic boom in the country. According to Arab officials, Iran can use its money as it pleases so long as it will not use it against the Arabs or to intervene in their affairs.
But it will be clear from now on that any more aggressive actions from Tehran will be blamed squarely on the Obama administration which championed ending Tehran’s isolation. Furthermore, if Iran is to become a “normal” player in global theatre, it is natural to expect it to behave normally and it is natural to consider it accountable for its own behavior according to international laws and norms.
Being a “normal” member in the global community demands to stop interfering in neighbors affairs, refrain from supporting terrorism, respect diplomatic missions, engage in a constructive way with the international community and play a positive role in preserving regional and global stability and peace.
Normal international ties is new for the Islamic Republic since its foundation in 1979. Let us hope that its aggressive regional behavior in the past was only due to its global isolation. And let us hope that its behavior will now change. However, we see little signs of any change since signing the nuclear deal, but let us give the Iranians the benefit of the doubt and allow them some time to sort their new directions out. We will see now how the “normal” status of Iran and the windfall of money it will get from the US will impact its behavior.
By defending a policy that ends Iran’s isolation, President Obama took responsibility for the consequences. From what we saw recently in the Gulf, the President should be worried about what he has just done. But we have to wait and see. Ayatollah Khamenei believed always that the US was bluffing his regime into concessions. Now, he knows that it was not a bluff. The money is already there. Would that make him end his regional aggressive policies? No one can answer this question for the Ayatollah.
Yet, it is important to set some foundational marks in order to be able to judge Iran’s future behavior in the region. In that regard the Arabs seem to have certain perspectives in the following spots where Tehran is heavily involved:
* In Iraq, Sunni Iraqis have the right to be treated as equal citizens, free of discrimination or oppression by any force in Baghdad claiming to represent “all” Iraqis. Iraqi Sunnis have the obligation to fight terrorism, radicalism and political violence once they are guaranteed their rights as equal citizens. They have to choose their own local governance structures, enjoy a fair share in the budget of their country, be represented in an inclusive central government in Baghdad and police their own regions.
Both President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei should state clearly their positions on these principles and announce practical plans to implement them. If Iran agreed, and if it works to rein in the sectarian militias it sponsors, and helps in building a really inclusive government in Baghdad, the crisis there, including ISIL’s presence, will end in few months.
Does Ayatollah Khamenei accept that?
* In Syria, Syrians have the right to be free of dictatorship and fear. They should choose their own form of government. They should keep their own country free from all foreign armed presence and terrorist organizations. In return, they have to fight and kill all terrorists who raise flags of supranational ideologies or who legitimize political violence under any justification.
That will require going back to the initial demands of the Syrian people who demonstrated, and were killed by the sheer violence of their government, in 2011. It will also require a complete halt in all foreign intervention in Syria.
Could Assad remain in power? How can any person in his proper mind assume that a President who kills his own people in cold blood should be trusted to preside over his victims? There should be no place for war criminals, in all sides, in the future Syria.
Does Ayatollah Khamenei accept that?
* In Yemen, the legitimate government, toppled by the Houthi rebels, should be reinstated. Instead of fighting, the national dialogue should be resumed and a cessation of hostility and violence should start promptly with some help from the UN.
Does the Ayatollah agree with that?
Iran now will be held responsible as a normal member in the international community, a status it sought to obtain for 35 years. We will see if anything will change. Otherwise, President Obama has to explain to the people of the Middle East why exactly he gave Iran all this. Was it to for Tehran to continue harassing them?

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