llLCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 16/16
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.may16.16.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006
Bible Quotations For Today
On that day you
will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 14/15-20:"‘If you love me,
you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him,
because he abides with you, and he will be in you. ‘I will not leave you
orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me,
but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will
know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you."
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And
suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it
filled the entire house where they were sitting
Acts of the Apostles 02/01-21:"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all
together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush
of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of
them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from
every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.And at this sound the crowd
gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native
language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are
speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native
language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya
belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans
and Arabs in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of
power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this
mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’ But Peter,
standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and
all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.
Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the
morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: "In the last days
it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see
visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.Even upon my slaves, both men and
women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit;and they shall prophesy. And I
will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below,blood, and
fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to
blood,before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Pope Francis's Tweet For Today
Come, Holy Spirit! Free us from
being closed in on ourselves and instill in us the joy of proclaiming the
Gospel.
Viens Esprit Saint ! Libère-nous de tout égoïsme et infuse en nous la joie
d'annoncer l'Évangile.
تعال أيها الروح القدس! حرّرنا من كل انغلاق وأخلق فينا فرح إعلان الإنجيل
Hezbollah's Biggest Loss to Date in
Syria/Nadav Pollak and Matthew Levitt/Washington Institute/May 15/16
Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Israel settling scores in Syria/Mohamed Chebarro/Al
Arabiya/May 15/16
In blow to Hezbollah, senior commander killed in Syria/By Hugh Naylor/The
Washington Post/ May 14/16
Germany: Christian Refugees Persecuted by Muslims/"Incidents are deliberately
downplayed and even covered up."/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/May 15/16
Wanted: New Grand Vizier for Turkey's Sultan/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone
Institute/May 15/16
Could Different Borders Have Saved the Middle East/Nick Danforth/The New York
Times/ May 14, 2016
The industry of frustration and discontent/Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/May 15/16
Vision 2030: The statesmen or the businessmen/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/May
15/16
Do we have the right to be proud of the London mayor/Hassan Al Mustafa/Al
Arabiya/May 15/16
Murr, Kataeb Win in Sin el-Fil, FPM
in Hadath amid Close Results in Heated Jounieh Municipal Polls
Zarif praising a criminal leader of Hezbollah and laying flowers on his grave on
behalf of Rouhani
Syrian Observatory Refutes Hizbullah Claims on Badreddine's Death
Family Clash Erupts between Rival Candidates in Afqa
Arida Residents Briefly Block Road in Protest against Arrest of Two Locals
Hand Grenade Found near Chehime Polling Station
Report: Failure of Alliances in Municipal Polls Sign of Lack of Political Agenda
Vote Buying Claims in Jounieh, Keserouan and Minor Security Incidents as
Municipal Polls Get Underway in Mt. Lebanon
Geagea Says LF, FPM Not Trying to 'Eliminate Everyone' in Municipal Polls
Sami Gemayel: Kataeb Chose to Avoid Political Alignments in Municipal Polls
Report: Nasrallah Meets Iran Deputy FM in Wake of Badreddine Killing
Lebanon voters return to the polls
LGBT Activists Stage Rare Lebanon Sit-
Hezbollah's Biggest Loss to Date in Syria
Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Israel settling scores in Syria?
In blow to Hezbollah, senior commander killed in Syria
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 16/16
French FM: New peace initiative
necessary to stop deterioration of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Kerry Holds Saudi Talks ahead of Syria, Libya Meetings
Rebel Infighting near Syria Capital Kills Hundreds
Netanyahu Questions French Impartiality after UNESCO Vote
Netanyahu Says Iran 'Preparing another Holocaust'
Suicide Raid on Iraq Gas Plant Kills Seven
Maduro in Crackdown under Venezuela Emergency Decree
Egypt Jails 152 over Anti-Government Protests
Bombs Kill 37 Yemen Police in Former Qaida Bastion
Iran regime willfully defying terms of nuclear deal
Iran regime willfully defying terms of nuclear deal
Javad Zarif heaps praise on Hezbollah’s top terror chief in Syria
HSBC has no intention of doing new business involving Iran
IRAN: Maryam Rajavi meets with George Sabra of the Syrian opposition
Four more prisoners hanged in Iran
Shutdown of 4 ceramic tile factories in Iran has led to 1000 job losses
5 million Iranians on verge of malnutrition, minister admits
Links From
Jihad Watch Site for
May 16/16
Australia: Muslim avoids jail for sex
assault: he has PTSD
Robert Spencer responds to denunciation by Leftist Rabbi Shaul Osadchey
“Expert”: Muslims “radicalize” because they find it hard to criticize government
Democrats introduce bill to oppose Trump’s proposed Muslim immigration ban
BBC is “too Christian” and “could broadcast Muslim prayers” to reflect growing
Islamic presence in Britain
Yemen: Islamic State murders 37 policemen in former al-Qaeda bastion
Danish professor: Wrong to see Muslims as victims, they act according to the
Qur’an
Hugh Fitzgerald: The Education of Donald Trump
From Proposal to Policy: Fine-Tuning Trump’s Muslim Immigration Ban
Petraeus calls for self-censorship to avoid offending Muslims
Islamic State slaughters 14 Real Madrid fans: soccer is “anti-Muslim”
U.S. stopped blacklisting domestic terror charities under Obama
Worker at LA’s King Fahad Mosque may have been involved in 9/11 jihad attacks
Bangladesh: Muslims hack Buddhist monk to death inside temple
And now, a word from deep inside the Department of Justice
Video: Muslim speaker in Canada calls for “full implementation of Islam,” says
migrant influx helps build caliphate
UK Muslim accused of beheading plot had photos of police officers on his phone
White House on damage control after top aide admits manipulating media and lying
to public on Iran nuke deal
“Assumption that there is a sharp divide between Good Islam and
Bad Islam is a comforting but dangerous illusion”
Latest Lebanese Related News published on May 16/16
Murr, Kataeb Win in Sin el-Fil, FPM
in Hadath amid Close Results in Heated Jounieh Municipal Polls
Naharnet/May 15/16/The second round of the municipal elections was held Sunday
in the Mount Lebanon district, amid claims of vote buying in the Keserouan
region and security incidents in several areas. The elections covered 325
municipalities amid heavy security measures that were taken by the security
forces and the army. The polls were held in the main electoral districts of
Baabda, Jbeil, Keserouan, Aley, Chouf, and Metn. The Interior Ministry said that
45 municipalities had won uncontested. Major battles took place in several towns
in light of the failure of the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement to
strike an alliance in all regions. At 6:00 pm, one hour prior to the closure of
polls, voter turnout was 56.5% in Jbeil, 47.2% in Metn, 49.5% in Chouf, 58% in
Keserouan, 50% in Aley and 42% in Baabda, according to the Interior Ministry.
According to Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, voter turnout stood at 56
percent in the entire governorate. "Six people were arrested – five over
electoral bribery and the head of a polling station," Mashnouq announced at a
press conference after the polls. The first results emerged from the Baabda
district town of Hadath, where the Free Patriotic Movement boasted that it won
70% of the vote. In the city of Jbeil, incumbent municipal chief Ziad Hawat said
his list won "more than 90% of the vote" in the face of a candidate who ran
alone in the electoral battle. The candidate, Claude Marjeh, was nominated by
the Citizen in a State secular campaign that is led by ex-minister Charbel Nahas.
Meanwhile, MP Michel Murr, who is influential in the Northern Metn region, said
the lists that he backed along with the Kataeb Party had won the municipal polls
in Sin el-Fil, Brummana, Beit Mery and Baabdat.
State-run National News Agency also confirmed that, according to early results,
the list backed by Murr, Kataeb and some families had won in the face of a list
fielded by the FPM and the Lebanese Forces.
And according to al-Jadeed television, a list backed by Hizbullah and AMAl
Movement was leading by a landslide against a list formed by families and civil
society activists in the Beirut southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh.
The most heated battle occurred in the coastal city of Jounieh. Around 11:00 pm,
conflicting reports were emerging about who was leading in the vote count.
FPM founder MP Michel Aoun had paid a visit to Jounieh on Saturday night in an
attempt to motivate people to head to the polls and vote in favor of the list
headed by Juan Hbeish, which is backed by the FPM, Kataeb Party, al-Waad Party,
and National Liberal Party.
Around 11:00 pm, Hbeish and Kataeb official Patrick Risha were optimistic that
their alliance's list was leading in the vote count, amid media reports alleging
that the rival list was in the lead.
This list competed for municipal seats against another headed by Fouad al-Bouwari,
who is backed by the LF, Maronite Foundation in the World, and former MPs Farid
Haykal al-Khazen and Mansour Ghanem al-Bon.
Change and Reform bloc MP Alain Aoun commented: “It is unfortunate that the LF
decided to wage the electoral battle against us.”
During a visit to Jounieh's serail, Minister al-Mashnouq said he ordered the
ejection of Juan Hbeish from a security meeting there "seeing as he is a
candidate and should not be present in the meeting."
Mashnouq also revealed that four people have been arrested in the Keserouan
towns of Yahshoush and Raashin on charges of paying electoral bribes.
Meanwhile, al-Jadeed television aired a video showing an apparent supporter of
the list backed by the FPM and Kataeb paying $600 to one of its undercover
correspondents after she convinced him that she could provide three votes for
the list.
In the Beirut southern suburbs of Ghobeiri, Bourj al-Barajneh and Haret Hreik
--- Baabda district strongholds of Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement -- the lists
backed by the two parties and the FPM confronted lists backed by families and
the civil society.
And in the coastal town of Choueifat in Aley district a heated battle occurred
between rival lists backed by the Progressive Socialist Party of MP Walid
Jumblat and the Lebanese Democratic Party of MP Talal Arslan.
MTV also spoke of a heated battle in al-Damour region south of Beirut, saying
some 10,000 voters were registered in the area and that the turnout could reach
40 or 50 percent.
As for security, the Internal Security Forces said fifteen incidents had been
recorded until the afternoon, resulting in the injury of at least five people.
Electoral brawls outside polling stations forced a temporary suspension of the
electoral process in Naameh, Haret al-Naameh, Afqa, al-Laqlouq, Shbaniyeh and
Tartej.
According to the interior minister, the ministry's Central Operations Center
“replaced the head of the polling station in Jbeil's Tartej after three ballots
were found in his pocket.”
Later in the day, Mashnouq inspected polling stations in the Beirut southern
suburb of Ghobeiri, which is part of the Baabda district.
“The municipal polls are excellent in all regions and there are no significant
security problems but rather democratic and normal competition,” Mashnouq said.
“Lebanon currently needs a president, not parliamentary elections,” he added, in
response to a question. Fistfights also erupted outside polling stations in
Jbeil and Dahieh as a verbal dispute was recorded outside a Jbeil polling
station between supporters of ex-minister Charbel Nahas and others who back the
list headed by Ziad Hawat. Later in the day, a woman from the Shamas family was
injured in an armed clash in the Jbeil town of Mishan and the electoral process
was suspended, which prompted the intervention of the army's Airborne Regiment.
Inside polling stations, two disputes were recorded in Jbeil, one in Metn, one
in Chouf and two in Keserouan. The Interior Ministry announced that citizens can
contact the 1766 hotline to file any complaint linked to the polls.
The first round of the municipal polls were held in Beirut and the Bekaa region
on May 8, while the third round, set for next Sunday, will be held in the South
and Nabatiyeh, and the fourth and final round will be held in the North and
Akkar on May 29.
Zarif praising a
criminal leader of Hezbollah and laying flowers on his grave on behalf of
Rouhani
National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI/Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign
Affairs of the clerical regime, whom some western circles present as moderate,
in a letter to Hassan Nasrallah in memory of Mustafa Badreddin, a criminal
leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,
called him "a great and a tireless man" and "full of passion and epic in defense
of righteous ideals of Islam". Zarif’s deputy, Abdollahian, on the order of
Rouhani took part in his funeral as the head of a political and security
delegation.
Mostafa Badreddin, who has countless terrorist acts in his record over the past
35 years, is one of the people responsible for massacre of half a million
defenseless Syrian people notably women and children and rendering another
12million of them homeless on the order of the clerical regime’s leader, Ali
Khamenei. He was being tried for participating in the assassination of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri by the the International Criminal Court.
Four days earlier, Rouhani, President of the religious fascism ruling Iran,
described the Iranian Revolutionary Guards atrocities "everywhere in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine" as "courage and heroism of
commander Soleimani".
In July 2015, in meetings with Syrian dictator in Damascus and Hassan Nasrallah
in Beirut, Zarif praised them for “fighting terrorism” and coordinating for
suppressing and killing Syrian people. In January 2014, he paid tribute to Imad
Mughniyeh, Mustafa Badreddin’s predecessor, and laid a wreath on his grave.
These events leave no doubt that portraying a diplomat-terrorist like Zarif as a
moderate by any government or party has no other reason than justifying deals
with the mullahs’ fascism and giving concessions to this regime at the expense
of Iranian people and resistance whose result is complicity with the regime in
suppressing the Iranian people and paving the way for its unbridled terrorism
and warmongering in the region. This policy of course cannot save the regime
from its inevitable overthrow by the Iranian people and resistance.
National Council of Resistance of Iran, Foreign Affairs Committee/May 14, 2016
Syrian Observatory Refutes Hizbullah
Claims on Badreddine's Death
Naharnet/May 15/16/The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights rejected Hizbullah's
statement on the assassination of its prominent commander Mustapha Badreddine,
refuting its accusation that “takfiri” groups had killed him in the Syrian
capital Damascus. It quoted reliable Islamic sources and others from the Syrian
regime as saying that no rocket was fired at Damascus international airport or
its vicinity in the past few days. The Observatory also did not record the
firing of any shell in the area. “All that Hizbullah claimed over the death of
its military commander by a shell fired by local factions near the airport area
is baseless,” it added. “Hizbullah has to reveal the real story of the death of
its military commander in Syria.”The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday
said that the rebels factions are some 12 kilometers away from Damascus airport
and they therefore did not have the capabilities to kill Badreddine. Several
Syrian opposition members speculated that his death was an “inside job that
reflects the conflict between the Iranian and Russian forces in Damascus.”
Hizbullah announced Badreddine's death in Damascus on Friday, blaming “takfiri”
groups for the murder. Badreddine, who was in his mid-50s, was a key player in
Hizbullah's military wing. He was on a U.S. terror sanctions blacklist and a key
suspect in the 2005 assassination in Beirut of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri in
addition to being one of Israel's most wanted men. Hizbullah has deployed
thousands of fighters in Syria where Badreddine led its intervention in support
of President Bashar Assad.
Family Clash Erupts between
Rival Candidates in Afqa
Naharnet/May 15/16/A dispute erupted on Sunday between supporters of rival
candidates in the Keserouan town of Afqa during the municipal polls, reported
the National News Agency. The dispute spiraled into a scuffle between Hizbullah
and AMAL supporters. Voice of Lebanon (93.3) said that the dispute centers on
cousins running in rival electoral lists. The army intervened to contain the
unrest, opening fire in the air. AMAL later denied having connections to the
dispute, reported al-Jadeed television. Municipal elections are being held in
the Mount Lebanon region. The first round of the municipal polls were held on
May 8 in Beirut and the Bekaa region, while the third round, set for next
Sunday, will be held in the South and Nabatiyeh, and the fourth and final round
will be held in the North and Akkar on May 29.
Arida Residents Briefly Block
Road in Protest against Arrest of Two Locals
Naharnet/May 15/16/The residents of the southern border region of al-Arida
staged a protest on Sunday against the army's arrest of two locals, reported the
National News Agency. The demonstrators briefly blocked the international
highway in the area as part of their protest. The army also confiscated a boat
belonging to the detainees. The reason for their arrest was not disclosed.
Hand Grenade Found near
Chehime Polling Station
Naharnet/May 15/16/A hand grenade was discovered on Sunday morning at a polling
station in the city of Chehime in the Chouf district. The grenade, which was not
set to take off, was discovered at the entrance of a school in Chehime. Security
forces and forensic investigators arrived at the scene and removed the
explosive. The polling station has since opened without incident. The second
round of the municipal elections kicked off in the Mount Lebanon region on
Sunday. The first round were held on May 8 in Beirut and the Bekaa region. The
third round is set for May 22 in the South and Nabatiyeh and the final round is
scheduled for the North and Akkar on May 29.
Report: Failure of Alliances
in Municipal Polls Sign of Lack of Political Agenda
Naharnet/May 15/16/The failure of the main Christian parties of the Lebanese
Forces and Free Patriotic Movement to reach an alliance in the Mount Lebanon
elections is indicative of the tensions in the country, reported al-Joumhouria
newspaper on Sunday. Political sources noted that the lack of coherent alliance
among the parties is a sign that “none of them have a political or municipal
agenda given the sectarian tensions in the country.” Concerned sources told the
daily: “Those speaking of returning Christians to the state and achieving
effective partnership have forgotten the main reason for the weakening of this
partnership, which is the absence of a president at the head of the executive
authority and the state.”“Those waging electoral battles in the Metn region,
most notably the Free Patriotic Movement, have been boycotting presidential
elections session, so how are the rights of Christians being preserved through
their actions?”They voiced their alarm at the “weak” alliances that were based
on interests and mutual gain as opposed to principles. “We have not seen any
party agenda aimed at municipal development, but we have seen the manipulation
of sectarian sentiments being used as an only weapon,” lamented the sources.
“The electoral alliances have reached such a point that the FPM and Lebanese
Forces have reached an agreement to eliminate the National Liberal Party.”The
Mount Lebanon municipal elections kicked off on Sunday. They are the second
round of the four-stage municipal polls that started on May 8 in Beirut and the
Bekaa region. The next round is set for the South and Nabtiyeh on May 22 and the
final round is set for May 29 in the North and Akkar.
Vote Buying Claims in Jounieh,
Keserouan and Minor Security Incidents as Municipal Polls Get Underway in Mt.
Lebanon
Naharnet/May 15/16/The second round of the municipal elections got underway in
the Mount Lebanon district on Sunday.The elections will cover 325 municipalities
amid heavy security measures taken by the security forces and the army. The
polls will cover the main regions of Baabda, Jbeil, Keserouan, Aley, al-Chouf,
and Metn. The Interior Ministry said that so far, 45 municipalities have won
uncontested. Major battles are set to be witnessed however given the failure of
the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement to strike an alliance in the
elections, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Sunday. Until 3:00 pm, voter
turnout was 43% in Jbeil, 35.2% in Metn, 37% in Chouf, 46% in Keserouan, 38% in
Aley and 33% in Baabda, according to the Interior Ministry. The most heated
battle is anticipated in the coastal city of Jounieh. FPM founder MP Michel Aoun
had paid a visit to Jounieh on Saturday night in an attempt to motivate people
to head to the polls and vote in favor of the list headed by Juan Hbeish, which
is backed by the FPM, Kataeb Party, al-Waad Party, and National Liberal Party.
This list will compete for municipal seats against another headed by Fouad al-Bouwari,
who is backed by the LF, Maronite Foundation in the World, and former MPs Farid
Haykal al-Khazen and Mansour Ghanem al-Bon. Change and Reform bloc MP Alain Aoun
commented: “It is unfortunate that the LF decided to wage the electoral battle
against us.”During a visit to Jounieh's serail, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq
said he ordered the ejection of Juan Hbeish from a security meeting there
"seeing as he is a candidate and should not be present in the meeting."Mashnouq
also revealed that four people have been arrested in the Keserouan towns of
Yahshoush and Raashin on charges of paying electoral bribes. Meanwhile, al-Jadeed
television aired a video showing an apparent supporter of the list backed by the
FPM and Kataeb paying $600 to one of its undercover correspondents after she
convinced him that she could provide three votes for the list. In the Beirut
southern suburbs of Ghobeiri, Bourj al-Barajneh and Haret Hreik --- Baabda
district strongholds of Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement -- the lists backed by
the two parties and the FPM were confronting lists backed by families and the
civil society. And in the coastal town of Choueifat in Aley district a heated
battle was underway between rival lists backed by the Progressive Socialist
Party of MP Walid Jumblat and the Lebanese Democratic Party of MP Talal Arslan.
MTV also spoke of a heated battle in al-Damour region south of Beirut, saying
some 10,000 voters are registered in the area and that the turnout could reach
40 or 50 percent.
The National News Agency spoke of a high voter count in the northern Metn
region, noting a 19 percent turnout in Sin al-Fil, 17 percent in Beit Miri, 17
percent in Roumieh, 21 percent in Baabdat, and 21 percent in Zikrit. As for
security, the Internal Security Forces said fifteen incidents had been recorded
until the afternoon, resulting in the injury of four people. Electoral brawls
outside polling stations forced a temporary suspension of the electoral process
in Naameh, Haret al-Naameh, Afqa, al-Laqlouq, Shbaniyeh and Tartej. According to
Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, the ministry's Central Operations Center
“replaced the head of the polling station in Jbeil's Tartej after three ballots
were found in his pocket.” Fistfights also erupted outside polling stations in
Jbeil and Dahieh as a verbal dispute was recorded outside a Jbeil polling
station between supporters of ex-minister Charbel Nahas and others who back the
list headed by Ziad Hawat. Inside polling stations, two disputes were recorded
in Jbeil, one in Metn, one in Chouf and two in Keserouan. The Interior Ministry
announced that citizens can contact the 1766 hotline to file any complaint
linked to the polls. The first round of the municipal polls were held in Beirut
and the Bekaa region on May 8, while the third round, set for next Sunday, will
be held in the South and Nabatiyeh, and the fourth and final round will be held
in the North and Akkar on May 29.
Geagea Says LF, FPM Not Trying to
'Eliminate Everyone' in Municipal Polls
Naharnet/May 15/16/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed Sunday that the
newly-forged alliance between the LF and the Free Patriotic Movement is not
trying to “eliminate everyone” as some parties and media reports have claimed.
“It is not true that political parties, especially the LF and the FPM, are
trying to eliminate families in the elections,” said Geagea at a press
conference he held shortly after polls closed in Mount Lebanon's municipal
elections. “We are allied with local forces in the municipal polls, not only
with parties, and this is what was reflected in Zahle through our support for
Asaad Zoghaib, in Shiyyah with Edmond Gharios, in Jdeideh, and in Sin el-Fil
with Joseph Chaoul,” he said. “Claims that the parties are trying to eliminate
the local forces are baseless. Claims that the LF-FPM alliance is trying to
eliminate everyone are baseless and there are several examples,” the LF leader
added.
He underlined that the LF and the FPM “have never claimed” that they “represent
86% of Christians.” “After we allied with the FPM, surveys showed that 86% of
Christians supported the rapprochement,” he explained. Turning to the elections
in the Chouf town of Deir al-Qamar, where the two parties allied against a list
backed by National Liberal Party chief MP Dory Chamoun, Geagea denied that the
the LF and the FPM were trying to eliminate the entrenched influence of the
Chamoun family in the town. “We share 99% of the political vision with Dory
Chamoun and he did not agree with (LF deputy chief MP) George Adwan over Deir
al-Qamar's polls due to local circumstances. If the list backed by Dory Chamoun
wins, I will be the first one to congratulate him... No one can eliminate Dory
Chamoun or the Chamoun family,” Geagea emphasized. As for the heated Jounieh
electoral battle, the LF leader asserted that it was “not a battle between the
LF and the FPM at all.” “In Jounieh, the electoral battle is between local
forces and some of them are close to the FPM while others are close to the LF,
so we agreed to let the local conflict take its course. Some tried to invoke the
presidential issue and (FPM founder) General (Michel) Aoun's name, but the issue
of Aoun's (presidential) nomination cannot be affected by Jounieh's municipality
or any other thing,” Geagea said. The FPM had backed a list headed by Juan
Hbeish and comprising candidates from the Kataeb Party, al-Waad Party and the
National Liberal Party in Jounieh's elections while the LF backed a list headed
by Fouad al-Bouwari and including candidates supported by Maronite Foundation in
the World and former MPs Farid Haykal al-Khazen and Mansour Ghanem al-Bon.“The
municipal vote has proved that there is a State in Lebanon. What is absent is
the political will, which is being paralyzed by some parties due to personal
interests,” Geagea said in his press conference.“Politics and development cannot
be separated in the elections. Real development take place at the level of the
government,” he noted. The first round of the municipal polls were held in
Beirut and the Bekaa region on May 8, while the third round, set for next
Sunday, will be held in the South and Nabatiyeh, and the fourth and final round
will be held in the North and Akkar on May 29.
Sami Gemayel: Kataeb Chose to
Avoid Political Alignments in Municipal Polls
Naharnet/May 15/16/Head of the Kataeb Party MP Sami Gemayel emphasized on Sunday
the importance of the municipal elections in catering to the needs of the
people, saying that his party chose not join political alliances.
He remarked after casting his vote: “We do not have any political alignments in
the polls.”“The number of villages that are witnessed alliances is less than
those that witnessed none as demonstrated in the lack of alliances in Jounieh
and the Metn regions.”“There is no room in the municipalities for political
interests. If others want to politicize these polls, then they will be
exploiting the people,” he said. “We should allow the municipalities to cater to
the people and we should leave politics out of it. “We want to prove that the
elections can be held in a peaceful manner. “These polls are for the people,”
Gemayel stressed. “I call on all Lebanese to head to the elections to send a
message that they yearn for democracy.”Municipal elections are being held in the
Mount Lebanon region. The first round of the municipal polls were held on May 8
in Beirut and the Bekaa region, while the third round, set for next Sunday, will
be held in the South and Nabatiyeh, and the fourth and final round will be held
in the North and Akkar on May 29.
Report: Nasrallah Meets Iran Deputy
FM in Wake of Badreddine Killing
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has met with Iranian Deputy Foreign
Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, a pro-Hizbullah TV network reported on
Sunday, three days after the reported death in Syria of the party's top military
chief Mustafa Badreddine. “Nasrallah told Abdollahian that the takfiris' (Sunni
extremists) attempts to spread chaos in Iraq and Syria are linked to Israel,”
al-Mayadeen TV said. On Saturday, Hizbullah blamed “takfiri groups” for
Badreddine's death and vowed to keep fighting to defend President Bashar Assad's
regime. Hizbullah has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Badreddine
had led its intervention in support of Assad's forces, which are also backed by
Russia and Iran.Badreddine, who was on a U.S. terror sanctions blacklist and
wanted by Israel, was killed in an explosion on Thursday night near Damascus
international airport. Hizbullah announced his death on Friday but without
immediately apportioning blame, breaking with its usual pattern of accusing
arch-foe Israel of responsibility. On Saturday, it said a probe had concluded
that Sunni Islamist radicals known as "takfiris", who consider Shiites to be
heretics, had killed Badreddine. "An investigation has shown that the blast that
targeted one of our positions near the Damascus international airport that led
to the martyrdom of the brother commander Mustafa Badreddine was caused by
artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups present in that region," a
Hizbullah statement said. It did not name any specific group, and there has been
no claim of responsibility. A Syrian security source has told AFP that
Badreddine was in a warehouse near the airport when it was rocked by a blast on
Thursday night. No aircraft was heard before the explosion, the source said. The
head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman,
said no artillery fire had been heard in the area either in the past three days.
Lebanon voters return to the
polls
Now Lebanon/May 15/16/BEIRUT - Lebanese are heading to the polls for the second
week running to vote for local municipal councils and mayors, this time in the
Mount Lebanon governorate that stretches from Beirut’s southern suburbs, a
Hezbollah-bastion, northward toward the tranquil seaside town of Byblos.
Although dozens of the races in the nearly 400 municipalities up for vote on
Sunday have already been decided by acclamation, a number of the local
elections--which in Lebanon often come down to family rivalries--have witnessed
spirited competitions. Security forces deployed in heavy numbers again to
protect the voting process, which as of the afternoon was marred only by a clash
in the Shiite-populated town of Afqa, which lies outside Byblos. Partisans of
rival electoral lists aligned with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, close
political allies, brawled in the small town, forcing the Lebanese army to
intervene to put an end to the violence. The vote in Afqa was suspended amid the
fisticuffs, that reportedly left a number of residents injured. Elsewhere the
voting process ran more peacefully, as voter turnout varied greatly according to
how competitive the local election was. In Dahiyeh, residents flocked to the
polls for two local elections making headlines. Independent candidates have
formed electoral slates in the sprawling Shiite-populated suburbs outside
Beirut, including in Ghobeiry, the richest part of the sprawling Dahiyeh area
south of the capital, as well as in the densely-populated Bourj al-Barajneh
quarter, a lower-income quarter that includes a Palestinian refugee camp. These
two campaigns, the “Ghobeiry for Everybody” and “Our Heart for Bourj al-Barajneh,”
are facing off against a unified electoral lists formed by Hezbollah, its Shiite
ally the Amal Movement, and its main Christian ally the Free Patriotic Movement.
Although, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday insisted that his
party's rivals were considered “our beloved and friends," reports have emerged
that behind-the-scenes pressure was being exerted on the independent lists.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s two largest Christian parties--who recently allied over the
nomination of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun as president--are
butting heads via local proxies in Jounieh, just north of the capital. Aoun
decried the course of the campaign in the Christian town, saying Sunday that
“unfortunately, the elections have turned into a battle of money… the dignity of
Jounieh is not for sale.” In Byblos, the activist Citizens Within a State group,
which is backed by former Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, for its part is backing
the list of FPM partisan, Claude Marjeh, against that of the incumbent
municipality chief Ziad Hawat. Heated battles are also expected to develop in
Baabda as well as other smaller towns.
LGBT Activists Stage Rare Lebanon
Sit-in
Some 50 activists backing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
community staged a rare sit-in Sunday in Lebanon to demand the abolition of a
law criminalizing relations "against nature."In the first such protest in four
years, they also demanded the release of four transsexual women as they gathered
outside the Hbeish police station in Beirut, where activists say morality police
often hold such suspects. "Homosexuality is not a disease," and "Sex is not
illegal -- your law is archaic," read a placard at the event organized by the
Lebanon-based Helem association, considered to be the most important Arab group
defending LGBT rights. "Repeal 534" could also be read, a reference to the
article in the Lebanese penal code under which sexual relations "against nature"
are outlawed and punishable by up to one year in prison. Helem chief Genwa
Samhat told AFP the sit-in, two days before the International Day against
Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, "calls for the abolition of this section
of law dating from the (1920-1943) French mandate in Lebanon.""Most people
arrested under this law aren't detained in the act but in the street because of
their appearance," she said. While Lebanon is considered more tolerant of LGBT
issues than other Arab states, police still stage regular raids on nightclubs
and other venues frequented by homosexuals. Homosexuality is also often
ridiculed on television shows. The last such protest in Beirut was in 2012, when
dozens demonstrated outside a court to protest against the use of an anal "test"
for suspected gay men. "These tests continue, despite the justice ministry
asking police to stop the practice," Samhat said. "This is
humiliating.""Arrested people are still screened for AIDS, while this should be
voluntary. There is a preconceived idea that all homosexuals have AIDS," she
added.
"People also continue to be sacked if their boss finds out they're gay. They're
made to say they quit voluntarily for fear of being denounced."An event on
Sunday organized by the pro-LGBT Proud Lebanon group was canceled under pressure
from Christian religious authorities, organizers told AFP.
Hezbollah's Biggest Loss to Date in
Syria
Nadav Pollak and Matthew Levitt/Washington Institute/May 15/16
Mustafa Badreddine's death will hurt the group's operational efforts and morale
in Syria, but it remains to be seen who it will blame for the attack and whether
it will retaliate.
On May 13, Hezbollah confirmed the death of its most prominent military figure,
Mustafa Badreddine, reportedly killed in an explosion in Damascus on Tuesday
night. Given Badreddine's role as head of the group's External Security
Organization and its forces in Syria, his death represents Hezbollah's biggest
loss since the 2008 assassination of former "chief of staff" Imad Mughniyah. The
two men knew each other very well -- they were cousins and brothers-in-law, and
they led Hezbollah's military activities for years.
Badreddine (aka "Zulfiqar") had a long history in the organization's ranks
dating back to the early 1980s, when he took part in a series of terrorist
attacks in Lebanon and Kuwait targeting U.S. embassies, Marine barracks, and
other sites. After his escape from Kuwaiti prison during the Iraqi occupation in
the early 1990s, he returned to Lebanon and quickly climbed up Hezbollah's
ranks, helping the group establish some of its most notorious units. One fellow
operative even described Badreddine as "more dangerous" than Mughniyah, his
longtime "teacher in terrorism" (see PolicyWatch 1833, "Senior Hizballah
Official Wanted for Murder").
In 2008, after Mughniyah was killed in an explosion in Damascus, Badreddine was
promoted to head of Hezbollah's operations, including its operations abroad. Yet
he remained a shadowy figure in Lebanon until 2011, when a long-delayed special
tribunal named him as a culprit behind the assassination of former prime
minister Rafiq Hariri. That same year, Badreddine's status as one of the group's
military pillars was further solidified when he received the Syria portfolio.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, which imposed sanctions on him for
various activities, his new post included attending meetings between Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, coordinating the
deployment of fighters next door, and planning some of their operations in the
war.
Such a background earned Badreddine many enemies, raising the question of who
killed him. Every time a senior Hezbollah operative dies in a mysterious way,
the usual suspect is Israel, and this time is no exception -- some reports are
already indicating that it might be behind the incident. True, many Israeli
decisionmakers will be happy to see Badreddine out of the picture. Yet given his
prominence, it is also true that they would think long and hard before deciding
to take him out, since the risk of escalation grows after such a high-profile
assassination, even when conducted covertly. Israeli officials do not want an
escalation on the northern front at the moment. Another possibility is that
Israel was targeting an arms transfer and killed Badreddine by mistake, or that
it was trying to prevent an imminent attack by Hezbollah, but this is
speculation for now.
Rebel groups in Syria are potential suspects as well. Badreddine's role in that
country made him a high-value target for them, since Hezbollah is responsible
for killing thousands of Syrians. While it is unlikely that he was killed on the
front lines, rebel units may have shelled his location behind the lines.
Less likely suspects are the Gulf governments supporting the rebellion, who will
be happy about Badreddine's death but have limited capability to actually
execute such an operation in Damascus. Even Hezbollah itself is a potential
suspect given rumors about Badreddine's poor performance, sloppiness,
instability, and impetuousness in recent years. If the group's leadership did in
fact want him gone and believed he would not go quietly, they may have decided
that taking him out was necessary.
Regardless of who is behind the killing, the bottom line is that Badreddine's
death is a significant blow to Hezbollah, operationally and mentally. The group
will now need to send another high-level official to oversee operations in Syria
-- someone with vast military experience and deep knowledge of the Syrian
theatre. Two possible replacements are Ibrahim Aqil and Fuad Shukr, both of whom
serve on Hezbollah's highest military body (the Jihadi Council) and are already
involved in the Syrian theatre. The incident is also a big blow to the group's
image as undefeatable and untouchable. If Badreddine can be killed in Syria, no
Hezbollah commander is safe there.
Going forward, the crucial thing to look out for is who Hezbollah blames for the
killing, since publicly ascribing blame would force it to retaliate. For now,
the group has apparently ordered its cadres to stop speculating about the
culprit, but it is no doubt investigating what happened, and Nasrallah will
eventually need to blame someone, in part to show supporters in Lebanon that the
group does not back down. If Hezbollah blames Israel in the end, it is safe to
assume that it will retaliate, meaning that Israelis will be heading into a long
period of high alert on their northern border and abroad.
** Pollak is the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Fellow at The Washington
Institute. Matthew Levitt is the Institute's Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director
of its Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Israel settling scores in Syria?
Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/May
15/16
Few will mourn the killing of Hezbollah military wing head in Syria. Many are
breathing easy after his assassination through either a planted bomb or a
missile fired on land by Syrian opposition forces. It could even have been
carried out by an unknown drone or an Israeli jet fighter close to Damascus
airport.
Whatever the circumstances that led to the targeted killing of Mustafa
Badreddine, the military leader of Hezbollah Lebanese militia, and the author of
many a domestic and foreign terrorist plots across the region and the world,
point to a collision of Russian-Israeli interests in Syria that have neutralized
leaders from Hezbollah over the past few months.
Whether the Assad regime condoned the operation or element of its military top
brass looked away goes on to show an interlaced military and intelligence
imbroglio that could damage the already fragile and operationally fractured
alliance between Russian, Iranian, Syrian regime, and Hezbollah’s interests in
the internecine Syrian battlefield.
The Hezbollah communiqué issued after Badreddine funeral blamed extremist groups
in Syria for his death. His “martyrdom”, the communiqué said, “will make” the
so-called “resistance movement stronger in its fight against the American
imperialists and their allies the Jihadis and Takfiris who are spearheading the
US fight in the region”.
The fact remains that Hezbollah is bleeding his finest soldiers in Syria and
this will leave more bad taste in the mouth of its leader Hassan Nasrallah. He
will find it more difficult to justify his onslaught of Syrians to an ever more
doubtful Lebanese Shiite community that elevated Hezbollah militia to holy ranks
and gave all for its fight against Israel.
The militia has lost in excess of 1,200 of its men in the three years of
involvement in propping up the Assad regime. This is a heavy price to pay and
indicates that many Lebanese Shiites villages across the country have either
suffered human losses or are tending to the thousands wounded while defending
the Assad regime.
In the constantly transforming theater of conflict in Syria, priorities of
allies and foes evolve all the time
The killing of Badreddine also shows that the security breach in Hezbollah has
been huge. It is no secret that lapses and infiltrations abound in the regime
heartland for the once unvanquished party. Israel’s denial of involvement in the
killing is a classic position Tel Aviv generally takes after such operations.
Sources close to the Israeli establishment are trying to point fingers at an
inside job i.e. Syrian regime versus Hezbollah. The suggestion is that the
regime is tying lose ends and closing files for elements like Badreddine who
have played critical covert roles for decades.
Under Syrian and Iranian patronage he and his predecessor, Imad Moghniah, the
former chief of Hezbollah military wing were accused of bombing embassies,
kidnapping and killing foreigners in Lebanon and hijacking aircraft. As per the
Special Tribunal on Lebanon indictment in The Hague, listed in early 2013, he
was also behind killing of ex prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri.
Covert operations
The scale of the security breach indicates that Russian-Iranian covert
operations in Syria are also underway. As they are allied against ISIS and
Syrian opposition forces fighting to remove Assad, the killing of Badreddine
also points to potential Russian-Israeli high level cooperation that both
countries have never tried to hide.
In an unconvincing communiqué Hezbollah explained the circumstances of his
death. There have been reports also, that the notorious head of Quds Brigade in
the Iranian revolutionary guard, Qassem Sulaimani, was at the Damascus airport
site half an hour before the bombing of the building where Badreddine was
killed.
Clearly whosoever pulled the trigger waited for Sulaimani to exit prior to
launching the attack. In doing so whoever pulled the trigger wanted to avoid
potential retribution from the Iranians.
Nailing a fish as big as Moghniah – also in Syria’s heavily protected Damascus
district of Kfar Souse in 2008, in what was said to be a joint CIA and Mossad
operation – led many to also claim that elements within Assad regime might have
encouraged the assassination and turned a blind eye in a bid to remove someone
who worked for three decades for the benefit of Damascus and Tehran.
But terror commanders such as Moghniah, and now his brother-in-law Badreddine,
are key figures and are very well protected by top Iranian and Syrian mandate. A
weakened Assad regime might have exposed Badreddine further though. He was for
decades known as the “ghost” but it seems the increased and wide reaching
Hezbollah operation in Syria exposed gaps in his movements. Moreover, the
protracted nature of the conflict in Syria has exposed many leaders before him
and is likely to expose those who will replace him.
In the constantly changing theatres of conflict in Syria, allies and foes’
priorities could evolve all the time. All indications so far point to a
correlation of interests at work between the so-called friends of the Assad
front, made not exclusively of Russia, Iran and Israel. This front aims to keep
Assad in power for a variety of reasons that intersect or diverge in details and
perception of what future Syria should have.
Therefore, mercenary forces such as Hezbollah from Lebanon, or Iraqi, Afghani
and Pakistani Shiite militia, are expendable and so is their leadership.
In the case of Badreddine, the “sword” or the “ghost” as his alias and nom de
guerre, direct deployment and involvement of the Russians in Syria since
September 2015 meant that the lid is further removed and secretive operatives
like top Hezbollah leaders are exposed. Such open spaces, and the high level
Israel-Russian cooperation, mean that agents from all sides and not exclusively
from Israel are operating more freely in Syria for the first time in decades.
The killing of Badreddine after the less significant killing of Samir Kuntar,
and Jihad Moghniah Junior – both field officers in Hezbollah – goes to show that
Israel with comrade Vladimir of Russia’s help is gaining more visibility and
access to Hezbollah leadership’s whereabouts and could deploy its asset to take
them out as it pleases.
In blow to Hezbollah, senior
commander killed in Syria
By Hugh Naylor/The Washington Post/ May 14/16
BEIRUT — A Hezbollah commander described as the leader of its militia forces in
Syria was killed in a mysterious blast in Damascus, the group said Friday. The
explosion targeted a figure known for both a playboy lifestyle and links to
major terror attacks dating back to the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in
Beirut in 1983. The death of Mustafa Badreddine represents a significant blow to
the Iran-backed group as it reaches beyond its strongholds in Lebanon to aid
President Bashar al-Assad against rebel factions, including some groups backed
by the United States and its allies.
It also highlighted the depth of Hezbollah involvement in Syria, with some of
its most senior leaders apparently working closely with Assad and his generals.
And it is unlikely that the loss of Badreddine will cause Hezbollah to alter its
commitment to Assad, whose country provides critical support and supply routes.
There were no clear clues on the cause of the explosion, but a television
station allied with Hezbollah pointed the finger at the group’s longtime foe,
Israel.
Badreddine, 55, is the highest-ranking Hezbollah official killed in the Syria
campaign, and the most senior since the 2008 killing in Damascus of his mentor,
Imad Mughniyah. That attack was believed to have been carried out by U.S. and
Israeli agents, but neither side has publicly acknowledged any role.
Hezbollah supporters carry the coffin of slain commander Mustafa Badreddine in
Beirut on May 13. (Hassan Ammar/Associated Press)
[Arab states opposing Assad also denounce Hezbollah]
Over more than three decades, Badreddine’s movements and activities were
shrouded in secrecy and speculation. But what leaked out helped build a
reputation for both bon vivant-like excess and headline-grabbing bloodshed.
He was linked to deadly attacks in 1983 on U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait
and was suspected of playing a role in the Beirut barracks bombings that killed
241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French ones.
He also was among four people indicted by a U.N. tribunal for the 2005
assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
In U.N. transcripts, the prosecution described Badreddine as using at least two
aliases and cover stories, including as a Beirut jeweler named Sammi Issa. At
points in his life, according to the transcripts, he owned an apartment in an
upscale area near the Lebanese capital and had several “concurrent” girlfriends,
as well as a boat and an “expensive Mercedes” registered in other names.
A Hezbollah statement said a “huge explosion” killed Badreddine but did not say
where it happened or speculate on responsibility. It promised to release details
of an internal investigation later.
But Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to Hezbollah, blamed the killing
on Israel, which has carried out a number of air raids against the group in
Syria in recent years. In 2006, Israel fought a brief war with Hezbollah but
failed to dislodge the group from strongholds in southern Lebanon.
In Hezbollah-dominated south Beirut, thousands of mourners turned out for
Badreddine’s funeral late Friday, waving the group’s yellow flags and chanting
slogans.Apparent Israeli attacks in Syria have killed top Hezbollah militants
and destroyed what analysts say were high-powered weapons — including missiles
provided by Iran — that the group could have used against Israel.
Israel generally neither confirms nor denies involvement in such attacks.
According to the U.S. government, Badreddine commanded Hezbollah’s substantial
military operations in Syria — an intervention involving thousands of the Shiite
group’s militants who have been waging intense ground battles against the
Sunni-led rebellion.
The group’s well-trained fighters have played a crucial role in defending the
Syrian government, whose forces are also aided by thousands of Shiite fighters
from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the fighting has taken a heavy toll on Hezbollah, resulting in well over
1,000 of its militants being killed.
Relatively little is known, however, about Badreddine, a Shiite Muslim born in
1961. For decades, analysts say, he operated under a cloud of extreme secrecy as
he plotted attacks against Israeli, U.S. and Lebanese targets.
The clandestine fog is rooted in general in fear of Israel, which runs spies and
moles to foil Hezbollah operations and assassinate its leaders.
In 1992, Israeli helicopters killed Hezbollah’s leader, Abbas Musawi, his wife
and young son. Late last year, an Israeli airstrike in Damascus killed Samir
Kuntar, a prominent Hezbollah militant who had spent three decades in an Israeli
prison.
“They are secretive and shady because if they aren’t, they get killed more
quickly,” said Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based journalist and author of
“Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel.”
According to some accounts, Badreddine also had a reputation for extravagance
with his assumed identities.
“He had several concurrent girlfriends and was seen regularly in restaurants and
cafes socializing with his friends,” the U.N. prosecution wrote in the documents
from January 2014. “He was also accompanied by armed body-guards.”
The prosecution accuses Badreddine of playing a key role in Hariri’s
assassination, an event that has continued to be a major source of instability
in Lebanon.
Matthew Levitt, a Hezbollah expert at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, described Badreddine as having the ear of Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan
Nasrallah, and joining him in meetings in Damascus with Assad on a regular basis
to discuss the Syrian conflict.
Levitt partly attributed Badreddine’s influence in the group to his relationship
with Mughniyah, who headed Hezbollah’s militant operations.
The two were cousins and brothers-in-law, and they were suspected of helping
plot the barracks bombings after U.S. forces aiding a peacekeeping mission
during Lebanon’s civil war.
“They planned the bombing of the Marine barracks and reportedly sat on top of a
building together with binoculars to watch the attacks,” Levitt said.
Important stories from around the world.
One of the last public appearances that Badreddine made was in Beirut for the
funeral of Mughniyah’s son, Jihad, who was killed by a suspected Israeli drone
strike in southern Syria last year.
After the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait, authorities
there arrested him and sentenced him to death. He managed to escape imprisonment
when Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.
**Suzan Haidamous in Beirut, Brian Murphy in Washington and Ruth Eglash in
Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 15/16
French FM: New peace initiative
necessary to stop deterioration of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Tovah Lazaroff/Jerusalem
Post/May 15/16
An international peace process is necessary to stop the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict from deteriorating, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told
reporters on Sunday after separately briefing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on his country’s new
initiative to jump start direct talks. “The process is frozen so there is a need
for international intervention, because the situation is getting worse day by
day,” he told reporters at a press conference he held in Jerusalem on Sunday
afternoon before boarding a plane for China. He spoke to them in French, with
the help of a Hebrew translator as he described a two-step process, that
includes a May 30 ministerial meeting with some countries to be followed by a
larger international peace conference in the fall. Israeli and Palestinian
leaders are not invited to the May ministerial meeting, but will be asked to
attend the fall parley. Ayrault said he hoped that Netanyahu would get on board
with the process by the time the fall peace conference is held.
Netanyahu told Ayrault that he opposed the idea of a French led
internationalized peace process, given that the only thing standing in the way
of renewed negotiations was Abbas’s refusal to hold direct talks. “Our
experience with history shows that only this way did we achieve peace with Egypt
and Jordan and that any other attempt only makes peace more remote and gives the
Palestinians an escape hatch to avoid confronting the root of the conflict which
is non-recognition of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet
after the meeting.
“They simply avoid negotiating with us as part of their desire to avoid
resolving the root of the conflict, which is recognizing the national state of
the Jewish People, i.e. the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said. Ayrault told
reporters he was not surprised by Netanyahu’s words, because his opinion had
already been well publicized in the media in advance of his arrival. His
description is correct, Ayrault said, Netanyahu is waiting for Abbas to respond
to his invitation for talks, but this is not a new situation. The status quo
cannot continue, so something else must happen, such as an internalized process
that would include confidence building measures to bring both sides to the
table.
“I know that Netanyahu does not agree. What I explained to him, is that things
will happen in two stages, first the ministerial meeting and then a peace
conference with the Israelis and the Palestinians to find a way out of this
frozen situation,” Aryault said. During their conversation he stressed to
Netanyahu the importance of French-Israeli ties. “I came with a clear message,
one that has always been true for me in my heart, of close friendship toward
Israel. I told this to Netanyahu immediately,” Aryault said. He added that he
stressed that France believed that Israel had a right to live in peace and
security alongside a sovereign Palestinian state with permanent borders. Aryault
said he reminded Netanyahu that France had looked out for Israel’s security
concerns during the Iran talks last year. It is out of concern for Israel’s
security that France wants to push forward a new initiative, he said. The
threats that could prevent a two-state solution from occurring have grown, he
said. The absence of direct talks, continued settlement building and violence
against both Israelis and Palestinians have imperiled such a solution, Aryault
said. The lack of progress has fueled frustrations, which in turn has fed a
growing anger and is slowly killing any sense of hope, he said. The peace
process must be renewed before it is to late, he said. On May 25th, five days
prior to the ministerial meeting, the Quartet is expected to issue a report on
the situation that will be the basis for some of the work that will be done
during the Paris talks on the 30th, Aryault said.
Among the items on the agenda is the creation of working groups to diagnose the
problem, he said. The list of attendees from different countries has yet to be
finalized, he said. The United States, which has brokered all past peace
processes, including the last one that fell apart in April 2014, has yet to
confirm its participation or even to state its support for the process. US
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with both Abbas and Netanyahu by telephone
prior to Aryault’s arrival in Israel on Saturday night. The French foreign
minister told reporters on Sunday that the US's participation was important and
that it would be willing to rearrange the date of its ministerial meeting to
accommodate the schedule of US attendees. “The issue here won’t be a technical
one,” he said.
Kerry Holds Saudi Talks ahead of
Syria, Libya Meetings
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held
talks in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to secure its support ahead of a potential
showdown with Russia at talks on the Syrian conflict. After his Saudi meetings,
Kerry was due to fly to Vienna which this week will host the international
contact groups engaged in efforts to halt fighting in Syria and Libya. Riyadh is
the key backer of rebels fighting to overthrow Syria's President Bashar Assad,
and Kerry is keen to keep the opposition on board with a shaky ceasefire in
force since February. Saudi allies Egypt and the UAE are also major supporters
of the administration in eastern Libya which is withholding its support from a
U.N.-backed unity government in Tripoli. Kerry met Saudi Arabia's King Salman
and Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef at the royal court in a palace in Jeddah.
"I want to thank you for the many things that Saudi Arabia is working on with us
to great effect," he told King Salman as the pair sat down, before reporters
were ushered out. "On Syria, the secretary provided an update of the situation
on the ground following last week's reaffirmation of the cessation of
hostilities," a U.S. spokesman said. "The secretary also gave an update on
Libya," he said. In talks with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, Kerry
discussed "regional issues... mainly developments in Syria," the official Saudi
Press Agency reported. The monarch discussed "aspects of cooperation between the
two countries and developments in the region and efforts in that regards," SPA
reported. Kerry also discussed cooperation in "fighting terrorism" with the
Crown Prince, who is also interior minister. Bin Nayef had orchestrated the
kingdom's crackdown on Al-Qaida, which launched a wave of attacks on foreigners
and government targets between 2003 and 2006. After his talks in Vienna, Kerry
will fly on to Brussels on Wednesday for a NATO foreign ministers' meeting and
talks on the full range of challenges facing the Western allies. State
Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo
Gentiloni will jointly host the Libya conflict meeting on Monday. Participants
will "discuss international support for the new Government of National Accord,
with a focus on security," according to US officials. The unity government was
formed after months of negotiation by U.N. mediators in a bid to end the chaos
of rival administrations in the east and west of Libya that has undermined the
fight against the Islamic State group. It has slowly asserted its authority in
Tripoli since late March taking over key institutions like the central bank and
the National Oil Corporation but it still faces a rival administration in the
east. Officials say the fledgling regime is drawing up a list of requests for
Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.
After the Libya meeting, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will
lead a meeting of the 17-nation International Syria Support Group. State
Department spokesman John Kirby said last week the goal is to "ensure
humanitarian access throughout the country, and to expedite a negotiated
political transition."The ISSG, chaired by Kerry and Lavrov, is pushing Syrian
Assad's regime and a coalition of opposition groups to respect the fragile
three-month-old ceasefire. Officials hope next week's meeting will inject new
life into the peace process and -- if the ceasefire holds -- secure talks on
forming a unity government. Syrian pro-government newspaper Al-Watan reported on
Sunday that peace talks might resume on May 23, citing sources it did not
identify.
Rebel Infighting near Syria Capital
Kills Hundreds
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Fighting raging between rival Islamist
rebel factions to control a key opposition stronghold near Damascus since late
last month has killed more than 300 fighters, a monitor said on Sunday. The
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes in Eastern Ghouta pitted
the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam faction, which has been taking part in peace
talks in Geneva, against the Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Fustat groups, both
led by Al-Nusra Front, Syria's Al-Qaida affiliate. "More than 300 fighters have
been killed as Islamist rebel factions battle for influence in the Eastern
Ghouta," since April 28, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. He said most
of the rebels killed belonged to Jaish al-Islam or Al-Nusra. Abdel Rahman said
the clashes broke out after several attacks launched by Faylaq al-Rahman on
positions held by Jaish al-Islam in Eastern Ghouta, a belt of countryside and
small towns east of the capital that seen heavy fighting throughout Syria's
five-year-old civil war. Ten civilians have also been killed, he added,
including a doctor and a child. The doctor, identified as Nabil al-Daas, was the
only specialist gynecologist still practicing in Eastern Ghouta. His death was
also reported by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Residents and local officials
have tried to mediate an end to the clashes and have staged protests urging the
rival forces to stop the bloodletting to no avail, according to the Observatory.
Fighting has continued intermittently with both sides setting up roadblocks and
building defenses across Eastern Ghouta, said the Britain-based monitoring group
which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its reports. Jaish
al-Islam is the dominant rebel group in Eastern Ghouta. One of its leaders --
Mohammed Alloush -- was named as the opposition's chief negotiator at peace
talks in Geneva. Syria's fractured armed opposition movement has been ravaged by
infighting, particularly between jihadist groups and their rivals.
More than 270,000 people have been killed and millions more been driven from
their homes since the conflict began with protests against President Bashar
Assad in 2011.
Netanyahu Questions French
Impartiality after UNESCO Vote
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said Sunday he told the French foreign minister that Paris's support
of a UNESCO resolution on Jerusalem cast doubt on the impartiality of a peace
initiative it is promoting. "I told him that the scandalous resolution accepted
at UNESCO with France's support, that does not recognize the bond of thousands
of years between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, casts a shadow over the
impartiality of the entire forum France is trying to convene," Netanyahu told
the weekly cabinet meeting after his talks with Jean-Marc Ayrault.
Netanyahu was referring to a resolution adopted last month by the Paris-based
U.N. cultural body on the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, which
made no reference to the fact it is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and
is the most sacred site in Judaism. Netanyahu said Ayrault told him the
"decision stemmed from a misunderstanding and that he would personally see to it
that it does not recur." Sources close to Ayrault said on Sunday that France
"regretted" the resolution, echoing remarks by French Prime Minister Manuel
Valls who on Wednesday called it "clumsy" and "unfortunate" and said it should
have been avoided. Ayrault, who also had talks Sunday in Ramallah with
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas later in the day, was on a visit to prepare
for a May 30 international ministerial meeting to try to revive peace talks that
have been frozen since a US-brokered initiative collapsed in April 2014. Israeli
and Palestinian representatives were not invited to the French peace meeting,
and on Sunday Netanyahu reiterated his opposition to indirect peace attempts,
blaming the Palestinians for refusing direct talks. "I told him that the only
way to advance true peace between us and the Palestinians is through direct
talks, without preconditions," he said of his meeting with Ayrault. "Any other
attempt just distances peace and gives Palestinians a means of evading dealing
with the root of the conflict, which is not recognizing the State of Israel," he
said. "They're simply avoiding negotiating with us," Netanyahu said of the
Palestinians. Sources in Ayrault's entourage said Sunday the French peace
initiative was not aimed at "preventing or bypassing" direct talks between the
parties, which Paris believes is the only way to resolve the conflict. "The
problem is there are currently no negotiations," the sources said. Palestinian
foreign minister Riad al-Malki told reporters after Ayrault's meeting with Abbas
that unlike the Israelis, they welcomed the French initiative. "We wish France
and its efforts success because the French efforts are the only ones on the
ground now, and could eventually result in giving the political process a good
push forward at this stage," he said.
Netanyahu Says Iran 'Preparing
another Holocaust'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu denounced Sunday a Tehran anti-Israel cartoon contest themed around
the Holocaust, accusing Iran of denying and belittling it as well as "preparing
another Holocaust."The exhibition, totaling 150 entries from 50 countries, with
many entries deriding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government's
Middle East policies, opened Saturday in Tehran. "Over the weekend Iran convened
a special Holocaust-denial cartoon contest," Netanyahu said at the beginning of
his weekly cabinet meeting. "We raise this here because it must be understood
what our problem with Iran is," he said. "It is not just its policy of
subversion and aggression in the region; it is the values on which it is based.
It denies and belittles the Holocaust and it is also preparing another
Holocaust."Several cartoons on display poke fun at Netanyahu, with one depicting
the Israeli prime minister as a member of the Islamic State jihadist group and
holding a saber in his hand. Another shows a map of the Middle East with a
coffin bearing the word "Holocaust" flattening Palestinians in place of what
should be the country of Israel. The Iranian government has distanced itself
from the contest, which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said was organized
by a non-governmental organization without any support from the authorities.
Netanyahu had fiercely opposed last year's nuclear deal between Iran and six
world powers, which saw the lifting of international sanctions in return for
Tehran ensuring that its nuclear program remains purely for civilian use.
Suicide Raid on Iraq Gas Plant Kills
Seven
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Suicide attackers broke into a gas plant
north of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least seven people and setting fire to
gas tanks, officials said. The attack on the Taji plant, about 20 kilometers (12
miles) north of the capital, took place at around 6 am (0300 GMT). Eight suicide
bombers broke into the gas plant and blew up a car bomb at one of its entrances,
interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan said in a statement. Some of the attackers
detonated suicide belts while others were killed by bullets, according to Maan,
who said explosions set fire to three gas tanks. Footage showed huge plumes of
black smoke billowing into the sky but the Joint Operations Command said the
fire had been brought under control. The attack killed at least seven people and
wounded at least 22, according to security and medical officials. There was no
immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of an
operation by the Islamic State group. The jihadist organization has been
steadily losing ground to the Iraqi security forces in recent months. According
to the government, IS controls only 14 percent of Iraqi territory, down from the
40 percent it held in 2014. But the group has intensified its attacks behind the
front lines, detonating car bombs in civilian areas and infiltrating sensitive
sites with suicide commandos. "Daesh (IS) is turning to targeting civilian
facilities in cities after losing the battle on the front," said Colonel Mohamed
al-Bidhani, of the government's "war media cell". On Saturday, a group of IS
fighters snuck into Amriyat al-Fallujah, a government-held town west of Baghdad,
in a similar suicide raid that killed five people. The group also claimed
responsibility for a spate of bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday that killed close
to 100 people, the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital this year.
Maduro in Crackdown under
Venezuela Emergency Decree
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
announced a sweeping crackdown Saturday under a new emergency decree, ordering
the seizure of paralyzed factories, the arrest of their owners and military
exercises to counter alleged foreign threats. The embattled leftist is
struggling to contain a raging economic crisis that has led to food shortages,
soaring prices, riots, looting and vigilante justice, pushing Venezuela to the
brink of collapse. He accused the United States on Friday of destabilizing the
country at the behest of the "fascist Venezuelan right," prompting him to
declare a state of emergency. Addressing his supporters at a rally in central
Caracas on Saturday, Maduro announced some of the actions to be taken under the
decree, which has not yet been published. "We must take all measures to recover
productive capacity, which is being paralyzed by the bourgeoisie," he told the
cheering, red-clad crowd. "Anyone who wants to halt (production) to sabotage the
country should get out, and those who do must be handcuffed and sent to the PGV
(Venezuelan General Penitentiary)." The move comes after the largest food and
beverage company in Venezuela, the Polar Group, halted production of beer on
April 30, saying government mismanagement meant it was no longer able to import
barley. The company's owner, billionaire businessman Lorenzo Mendoza, is a vocal
opponent of Maduro, and the president has accused him of conspiring against his
government. Maduro also ordered military exercises next Saturday "to prepare
ourselves for any scenario," denouncing alleged plans for an "armed
intervention."
Ticking bomb
Opposition leaders accused Maduro of using the emergency decree to destabilize
the country and block them from organizing a referendum on removing him from
office. The opposition has launched the process by collecting 1.8 million
signatures in favor of a recall vote, but say authorities are now stalling.
At a rival rally on the east side of the capital, opposition leader Henrique
Capriles warned Maduro was pursuing a dangerous strategy. "Venezuela is a bomb
that could explode any minute," he told some 1,000 protesters decked out in the
red, yellow and blue of the Venezuelan flag. "If you block the democratic path,
we don't know what could happen."Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves,
but is mired in a crippling recession exacerbated by an electricity crisis that
has forced the government to decree daily power cuts across most of the country,
close schools on Fridays and reduce the workweek to two days for government
employees. Maduro's decree expanded an "economic emergency" declared in January
to a full-blown state of emergency. The extent of the decree was unclear, but
political analysts said it could be used to limit the right to protest,
authorize preventive arrests and allow police raids without a warrant.
Maduro said the measures, which initially apply for three months, will likely be
extended through 2017.
Blame Washington
Maduro regularly blames US and local business interests for what his
administration calls an "economic war" on oil-dependent Venezuela, whose economy
has sunk in tandem with global crude prices. Venezuela's economy contracted 5.7
percent last year and its official inflation rate topped 180 percent.
Washington has had a rocky relationship with Caracas since Maduro's late
predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999. Senior U.S.
intelligence officials believe Maduro's government could be overthrown in a
popular uprising this year, The Washington Post reported Saturday. "You can hear
the ice cracking," an intelligence official said. "You know there's a crisis
coming." Maduro said Friday that a plot against his government was being
"activated in Washington, requested and pushed by elements of the fascist
Venezuelan right, emboldened by the coup d'etat in Brazil" -- a reference to the
impeachment trial opened Thursday in Brasilia against suspended leftist
president Dilma Rousseff.
Fears of new violence
The opposition is racing to hold a recall referendum before the end of the year,
when a successful recall vote would trigger new elections. Under the
constitution, after January 10 -- four years into Maduro's six-year term -- the
socialist president would simply be replaced by his vice president. Riot police
this week fired tear gas to stop protesters from marching to the headquarters of
the National Electoral Board (CNE). The opposition says Maduro controls the CNE
and the Supreme Court, which has issued a series of rulings hamstringing the
power of the Venezuelan National Assembly since the opposition won control of it
in legislative elections in December. The spiraling tension has raised fears of
a return to the protest violence that killed 43 people in Venezuela in 2014.
Egypt Jails 152 over Anti-Government
Protests
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/Egyptian courts have handed out jail
sentences on the weekend to 152 people for taking part in unlicensed
anti-government protests, judicial officials and lawyers said on Sunday. The
rulings were issued on Saturday by separate courts, with a first group of 51
people sentenced to two years in jail and later in the evening 151 others given
five-year sentences for the same reasons. International and domestic rights
groups accuse President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi of running an ultra-authoritarian
and repressive regime with zero tolerance for dissent in a crackdown that has
been escalating since he deposed in 2013 his democratically elected Islamist
predecessor Mohamed Morsi. The defendants were among scores who were detained on
April 25 during or on the sidelines of anti-government protests, including
against Egypt's decision to handover to Saudi Arabia two Red Sea islands. "We
are in a state of shock since yesterday," defence lawyer Mohamed Abdelaziz,
director of Al-Haqanya foundation of rights and freedoms, said on Sunday. Their
verdicts can be appealed. "The whole case is built on random arrests," said
rights lawyer Mokhtar Mounir from the Association for Freedom of Thought and
Expression. He said most of the defendants were aged between 20 and 25 and that
many had been arrested arbitrarily by the police as they were out on the streets
or in cafes but not taking part in any demonstration. Police had quickly
dispersed protests against the islands deal on April 25 and arrested dozens of
people. Prosecutors charged them with participation in illegal rallies. The deal
to hand over the islands in the Straits of Tiran had galvanized dissidents who
oppose Sisi. In the leadup to the protests, police already made dozens of
arrests to discourage a repeat of a large rally on April 15 at which
demonstrators chanted for the "fall of the regime". The government says the
islands had always belonged to Saudi Arabia and that Egypt had merely
administered them while on lease since the 1950s. Critics accuse Sisi of
"selling" the islands in return for Saudi investments. Since Morsi's ouster
authorities have banned all but police-approved rallies in line with a
presidential decree and overseen a crackdown that has killed hundreds of
Islamist protesters and thousands imprisoned. Several secular and leftist
activists who spearheaded the 2011 uprising against longtime strongman Hosni
Mubarak have also been jailed
Bombs Kill 37 Yemen Police in Former
Qaida Bastion
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 15/16/A suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic
State group and a second attack killed 37 police on Sunday in the Yemeni port of
Mukalla where a year of Al-Qaida rule was ended just last month, medics said. It
was the second attack in days claimed by IS in the city of 200,000 people which
was recaptured by government forces from the rival jihadists of Al-Qaida with
U.S. backing. The suicide bomber killed at least 31 police recruits on the
southwestern outskirts of the city, which is the capital of Hadramawt province,
medics said. The bomber detonated an explosives belt as he joined a line of men
at a police recruitment center, a provincial official said.
More than sixty people were also wounded in the attack in Fuwah district, a
medical source said. Hadramawt's security chief, General Mubarak al-Oubthani,
who was at the recruitment center at the time of the attack but was not hurt,
was the target of a second bombing when he headed to the center of Mukalla
afterwards, a security official said. The bomb went off as Oubthani walked out
of his office killing six of his guards but leaving him with only minor
injuries, the official said. An IS statement posted online claimed the suicide
attack, the second but rare intervention by the jihadist group in an area known
as a stronghold of rival Al-Qaida. "Brother Abu al-Bara al-Ansari... detonated
his explosives belt at a gathering of the apostates of the security forces," it
said. On Thursday, 15 Yemeni troops were killed in jihadist attacks on army
positions outside Mukalla. IS said one of its militants blew up a vehicle packed
with explosives in an army base in Khalf district on the city's eastern
outskirts. The attacks included a suicide bombing that targeted the residence of
the commander of Hadramawt's second military region, General Faraj Salmeen, but
he escaped unharmed, officials said. The general boasted on Friday that his
forces had captured some 250 Al-Qaida members since they retook Mukalla and
nearby coastal towns, including its commander for the city of Shihr, some 60
kilometers (35 miles) to the east. Al-Qaida was driven out of the area last
month with the backing of Emirati and Saudi special forces. The Pentagon
revealed last week that a "very small number" of U.S. military personnel had
also been deployed around Mukalla in support of the operation. The U.S. Navy has
several ships nearby, including an amphibious assault vessel, USS Boxer, and two
destroyers.
The offensive against Al-Qaida comes amid a truce and peace talks between the
government and Iran-backed rebels it has been fighting with support from a
Saudi-led coalition since March last year. Jihadists of both Al-Qaida and IS
took advantage of that conflict to expand their presence in Hadramawt and other
areas of the south, including second city Aden where the government has its
base. IS has claimed several attacks on government and coalition targets in Aden
in recent months. Washington regards Al-Qaida's Yemen-based branch as its most
dangerous and has stepped up a longstanding drone war against it in recent
weeks. But the jihadists retain a strong presence and still control several
towns in the interior valley of Wadi Hadramawt.
Iran regime willfully
defying terms of nuclear deal
Saturday, 14 May 2016/There has been a "historic rise" in the number of
executions in Iran since Hassan Rouhani took office as the Iranian regime's
President, the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC) said on
Saturday.Tehran has also ignored a United Nations Security Council resolution
demanding that it avoid all new work on ballistic missiles capable of carrying
nuclear weapons, Majid Sadeghpour, political director of the OIAC wrote on
Saturday in Townhall. Objectively assessed, the article said, the Iranian
regime’s actions since last year's nuclear deal, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), particularly when viewed in light of its behavior in the past
37 years must be regarded as a "willful and defiant decision by the regime & its
President Hassan Rouhani’s to step-up work on these weapons."It added: "A
historic rise in notwithstanding, nearly two years’ worth of sample size belie
Rouhani’s moderate claims. There apparently is more at play here. As it turns
out, the latest ballistic missile test in Iran occurred at a fortuitous time.
Recent Iranian mischief occurred just as a New York Times revelation linked
President Obama and White House foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes to a willful
effort to promote a narrative of Iranian moderation to justify the nuclear
negotiating process, including while Rouhani stood for Iran’s presidential
selection.""The New York Times’ exposé and the April missile launch speak
volumes about recent US Iran policy missteps. The Iranian test launch reiterates
that its foreign policy posture has not changed. Now that Rouhani’s supposedly
moderate disposition is seen as an invention of the Obama administration (and
likely that of Ayatollah Khamenei), seriously expecting a change in Iranian
regime behavior is at best naive. Even before Rouhani’s rise to presidency,
staunch critics of Iran’s theocratic regime, including the National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi had warned of the latter. Today,
we can only hope that their message (one that will again be articulated by
participants in an international gathering in Paris on July 9th) will have more
resonance."
"For its part, Congress is moving to hold Iran accountable," the article pointed
out. U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member,
Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY) recently noted that, “Iran’s recent ballistic-missile
tests directly contravened the expressed purpose of the UN Security Council and
were meant to test our resolve.” The Iranian regime’s leaders, he added,
“Insisted that their ballistic-missile program and support for terrorism be off
the table during the nuclear negotiations. Now they have to face the music as we
act to target this behavior and those who support it.”
The Committee’s Chairman, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), meanwhile called on the Obama
administration to stop, "tripping over technicalities" to “explain how they
don’t violate the president’s deeply flawed nuclear deal.”The article in
Townhall added: "Let’s hope that the next administration, whomever runs it, will
recognize the expertise of the individuals and credible Iranian dissident groups
as it sets future U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic. By and large, the
Iranian opposition has recommended ramping up pressure on the theocratic regime
and U.S. outreach towards the people of Iran.""There is good reason to believe
that if the United States had followed this course of action (or if it adopts it
soon), it will be able to elicit greater concessions and force Iran’s
fundamentalist zealots into choices which yield either large-scale reform within
Iran or an internal regime collapse. Given the organized nature of Iran’s main
opposition movement, both would be positive developments as either would help
improve prospects of regional peace as well democracy for the Iranian people."
Javad Zarif heaps praise on Hezbollah’s top terror chief in Syria
Saturday, 14 May 2016/NCRI - The Iranian regime’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
has heaped praise on Hezbollah top military commander in Syria who died in a
Damascus explosion this week. “I express my
condolences on the martyrdom of the great holy fighter Mustafa Badreddine who
was full of spirit and heroism in defending the righteous values of Islam and
the combatant people of Lebanon,” Zarif said in a message on Friday to Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah. His remarks were carried in the Iranian regime’s state
media including by the official news agency IRNA.
Hezbollah reported on Friday that Mustafa Badreddine, 55, who oversaw the
Lebanese terrorist group’s military operations in Syria, was killed this week in
a “huge explosion” near the Syrian capital. Commenting
on Zarif’s praises for the Hezbollah terror chief, Firouz Mahvi of the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on
Saturday said: “Heaping such praise on a notorious
international terrorist clearly shows the true nature of the mullahs’ foreign
minister Javad Zarif so far as it pertains to his belief in terrorism as a state
tool. This is in tandem with Zarif’s previous acts such as laying a wreath at
the grave of Imad Mughniyah, the former military commander and head of the
terror apparatus of Hezbollah, in 2014. This once again manifests a simple
reality that the so-called ‘moderate’ official of the clerical regime is simply
a smiling terror master.”
Badreddine’s death is the biggest blow to Hezbollah since the death in 2008 of
his brother-in-law Imad Mugniyah, who was behind the 1983 bombing of the
American Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 people, and other acts of
violence.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in his book "Islamic Fundamentalism: The
New Global Threat" (published in 1993) included a clipping from the Iranian
state-run newspaper Ressalat which on July 20, 1987 carried a quote from Mohsen
Rafiqdoost, Minister of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) at the time, who said:
"Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers,
NCOs, and soldiers at the Marine Headquarters have been provided by Iran."
Badreddine and Mugniyah were among the early recruits for Hezbollah which was
fostered by the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon.
Badreddine was indicted by the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for
Lebanon in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
HSBC has no intention of doing new business involving Iran
Saturday, 14 May 2016/The international bank HSBC has criticized United States
Secretary of State John Kerry for asking European banks to do more business with
Iran's regime while Washington continues to restrict American financial firms
from doing the same. The bank’s chief legal officer, Stuart Levey, said HSBC had
no intention of doing any new business with the Iranian regime after a meeting
in London on Thursday in which Kerry urged a gathering of European bankers to
make a push into the country, Britain's Guardian reported.The U.S. and European
Union lifted sanctions against the Iranian regime in January as part of a
nuclear deal which included Tehran dismantling 14,000 centrifuges – two-thirds
of its total nuclear capacity. Despite this, the banking industry remains
fearful of large financial fines and the threat of losing crucial licenses to
operate in the U.S., for falling foul of regulations, The Guardian wrote.
HSBC was fined $1.9 billion by the U.S. in 2012 for money laundering offences in
relation to Mexico while Standard Chartered was fined $670 million for breaching
sanctions with Iran. In 2014, French bank BNP Paribas was fined more than $8.8bn
for breaching U.S. sanctions. At Thursday’s meeting, Kerry had told
representatives from all the major European banks that he wanted to “clarify and
put to rest misinterpretations or mere rumors about how [the deal] is
applied.”But writing in The Wall Street Journal, Levey said the U.S. government
was taking a “very odd position.” “On the one hand, Washington is continuing to
prohibit American banks and companies from doing Iran-related business … On the
other hand, Mr. Kerry wants non-U.S. banks to do business with Iran without a
U.S. repudiation of its prior statements about the associated financial-crime
risks,” said Levey, who was the Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department between 2004 and 2011.While a ban
on the use of dollars in the U.S. banking system to finance Iranian trade is
still in place, individual U.S. states are adapting to the changes in different
ways. Levey, who was not at the meeting with Kerry, said: "There are no
assurances as to how such activity would subsequently be viewed by U.S.
regulatory and law-enforcement authorities, which might seek to take enforcement
action against banks that enter the Iranian market and run afoul of complicated
U.S. restrictions. The State Department neither controls nor plays any
meaningful role in the enforcement decisions of these authorities.""Washington
has warned repeatedly that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls broad
swaths of the Iranian economy. The IRGC remains sanctioned by both the U.S. and
the EU because of the central role it plays in Iran’s illicit conduct. When the
U.S., EU, and U.N. removed sanctions from several hundred Iranian banks and
companies, there were no assurances that the conduct of those banks and
companies had changed.""This will present a challenge for European banks. HSBC
is endeavoring to implement consistent and high standards across its global
operations, designed to combat financial crime and prevent abuse by illicit
actors. We have more work to do, but achieving that objective is one of our
highest priorities. This approach is rightly expected by our regulators,
including in the U.K. and the U.S."
"Our decisions will be driven by the financial-crime risks and the underlying
conduct. For these reasons, HSBC has no intention of doing any new business
involving Iran."
IRAN: Maryam Rajavi meets with George Sabra of the Syrian opposition
Saturday, 14 May 2016/Maryam Rajavi meets with George Sabra, deputy chair of the
negotiating team of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and
Opposition Forcesز NCRI - George Sabra, member of the
National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and a leader
of the Democratic People's Party of Syria, met with the Iranian Resistance's
President-elect Maryam Rajavi at the office of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in Auvers-sur-Oise, suburb of Paris, on May 12, 2016.
Maryam Rajavi and Mr. Sabra initially laid flowers and paid tribute at a
memorial to the martyrs of the Syrian Revolution and the heroic resistance of
the people of Aleppo. Mr. Sabra said the peoples of
Syria and Iran are fighting a common battle to topple two terrorist and
murderous regimes in Damascus and Tehran. He reiterated: The goals of the
Iranian Resistance and the Syrian Revolution are common, our enemy is common and
the battle for freedom and dignity is also a common battle.
Mr. Sabra added: Fifty years of struggle by the People's Mojahedin
Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) and the Iranian Resistance against the
mullahs' regime bears numerous lessons and useful experiences for confronting
and removing two tyrannical regimes and merits great respect and admiration.
It has been five years that Bashar Assad and the Iranian regime have not
hesitated from committing any crime against the people of Syria, Mr. Sabra said.
They have tortured prisoners to death, massacred innocent people by chemical
weapons and barrel bombs, starved people and kept them in the cold, but the
people of Syria have never surrendered and they will never do so. They are going
to continue their struggle until Bashar Assad is toppled. The Syrian Revolution
looks forward to the future and to victory, and it never looks back.
Mr. Sabra added: The Assad regime, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)
and Iranian backed militias have encircled and bombed Darayya, near Damascus,
for four years. The population of this city has dropped from 400,000 to 8,000
people but they have not let their city fall to the enemy. When there was a
brief ceasefire, the people of this city (like other cities under the control of
Revolution forces) came out to the streets and chanted, "The people want the
overthrow of the (Assad) regime." I contacted Darayya's City Council just
yesterday and they emphasized that we should not show any weakness in the
negotiations. They told us: "Don't think of us or the blockade. Think of the
Revolution and our people's destiny."Maryam Rajavi lauded Mr. Sabra's firm
positions against Bashar Assad's dictatorship. She said: The Iranian Resistance
feels the pain and suffering of the people of Syria and is always by your side.
We see your victory as the victory of our own people and Resistance. We deeply
understand the meaning of steadfastness, endurance and resistance of the Syrian
people and Revolution. The steadfastness of Aleppo has been heroic and a cause
of pride for humanity. It is an eternal and unforgettable example of resistance,
endurance and steadfastness of a nation in achieving freedom.Maryam Rajavi
added: The solidarity between the Syrian people and Revolution and the Iranian
people and Resistance facilitates and expedites the overthrow of the two
dictatorships in Damascus and Tehran and saves numerous lives.
Noting the heavy setbacks recently suffered by the IRGC and Iranian backed
militia in Aleppo, Maryam Rajavi reiterated: The Iranian regime is going through
one of the most perilous periods of its existence and is doomed to suffer a
wretched defeat at the hands of the Syrian people and Revolution.
**Dr. Saleh Rajavi, the NCRI representative in France, was also present in this
meeting.
Four more prisoners hanged in
Iran
Saturday, 14 May 2016/NCRI - Iran's fundamentalist regime is continuing its
heightening execution spree, hanging at least four more prisoners in the past
three days. Earlier on Saturday three prisoners were hanged in the Central
Prison of Rasht, northern Iran, according to the regime's judiciary in Gilan
Province. The victims were identified only by their initials and ages: A. A.,
22; E. Sh., 26; and H. P., 31. On Thursday, Behnam Mohammadi, 35, was hanged in
Maragheh Prison, north-west Iran, after serving five years behind bars. He was
accused of a drugs-related charge.
The latest hangings bring to at least 76 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. Three of those executed were women and one is believed to have
been a juvenile offender. Iran's fundamentalist regime on Monday amputated the
fingers of a man in his thirties in the city of Mashhad, north-east Iran, the
latest in a line of draconian punishments handed down and carried out in recent
weeks.The state-run Khorasan newspaper identified the victim by his initials M.
T., adding that he was 39 years old. The prisoner was accused of theft and is
also serving a 3-year jail sentence.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions “aimed at intensifying the climate of
terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime.”Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report
covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015,
compared to at least 743 the year before.""Iran alone accounted for 82% of all
executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group
said. There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure
as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights
situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in
2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly
endorsed the executions as examples of “God’s commandments” and “laws of the
parliament that belong to the people.”
Shutdown of 4 ceramic tile
factories in Iran has led to 1000 job losses
Saturday, 14 May 2016/NCRI - The head of the tile producers union in Iran has
warned of a recession in various labor sectors, including the ceramic tile
industry. "From the second half of the last [Iranian
calendar] year until now, three or four factories have been shut down and around
1000 workers have become unemployed," Mostafa Goudarzi said on Thursday.
"The recession led to the equivalent of one and a half years' production
of tiles and ceramic being stockpiled in the distribution warehouses of the
ceramic tile producing factories," he added. His remarks were carried by the
state-run ILNA news agency on Thursday. Last month, the Iranian regime's Deputy
Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade acknowledged that some 7000 of Iran’s
industrial units are currently inoperative nationwide.Ali Yazdani, who is also
managing director of the state body Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks
Organization (ISIPO), said on April 30 that out of 37,120 industrial units
situated in industrial townships and areas in Iran, 7,000 have been completely
closed down. The Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, speaking in
Mashhad on March 20, said: “There are reports indicating that 60 percent of
domestic production resources have either ceased to operate or are functioning
below capacity.”Tasnim reported that on April 9, Arman Khaleqi, a member of the
board of directors of the regime’s House of Industry and Mines, said: “Today, in
the most optimistic assessment, around 10,000 production units are not working.
If we consider that we have 67,000 production units in the country, then we are
currently facing 30 percent stagnation.”Pointing to the fact that 50 percent of
the units situated in the industrial townships are working at 25 percent
capacity, Khaleqi said: “This shows a severe stagnation in the production
units.”The Iranian regime’s former Minister of Education announced on April 21
that the country’s economy is on the verge of collapse and that not all problems
related to the dire economic situation were the byproduct of international
sanctions. Hamidreza Haji-Babai, who in addition to being a minister was a
legislator of the regime for 20 years, made the following assessment of the
regime’s economy: “We should note that not all the problems are related to the
sanctions. Just 30 percent of our problems are due to sanctions and the
remaining 70 percent have to do with [mis]management.”The regime’s First Vice
President said in January that the regime is faced with a variety of economic
crises which could lead to “threats” against the regime by Iran’s young restive
population. “The country is entangled in a special
economic and political situation that demands serious action,” said Eshaq
Jahangiri, who is top deputy to the regime’s President Hassan Rouhani. “We are
facing three important challenges with unemployment being prominent among them.”
Jahangiri expressed concern about the situation and said, “Iran has a
large young population. If we are unable to solve their problems, this
opportunity will morph into a threat.”
5 million Iranians on verge of malnutrition, minister admits
Saturday, 14 May 2016/NCRI
- Some five million people in Iran are on the verge of malnutrition, according
to Ali Rabiee, the Iranian regime’s Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social
Welfare."According to the charts showing the distribution of wealth in the
country, a percentage of the population are very poor, and some four to five
million people are on the verge of malnutrition," Rabiee told an annual meeting
of General-Practitioners on Wednesday, May 11.His remarks were carried by the
state-run Mehr news agency. Rabiee’s admission comes a month after the regime’s
parliament eliminated cash subsidies for 24 million people on April 12, thereby
increasing pressure on a population the majority of which is living below the
poverty line. On Tuesday, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said
in a statement that Iranian youths are falling victim to the astronomical
plundering and tyranny of the mullahs’ regime. “The majority of the Iranian
people are living under the poverty line, and the hungry masses are even unable
to provide for their most basic needs and that of their families. According to
the regime’s officials, 70% of the people in the cities and villages of Iran
live under the poverty line, and the minimum wage of laborers is several fold
under the poverty line that has been announced by the regime itself,” the NCRI
said.The speaker of the regime’s parliament Ali Larijani has stipulated:
“Currently, around $20 billion smuggled goods enter the country and no factory
is able to compete with that. Smuggling is hurting production and standards.”At
the helm of such smuggling are none other than the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei and the corrupt and criminal institutions associated with him, the
Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and other officials of the regime, the NCRI
statement added.
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 15/16
Germany: Christian Refugees
Persecuted by Muslims/"Incidents are deliberately downplayed and even covered
up."
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/May 15/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8043/germany-christians-persecuted
Thousands of
Christians in German refugee shelters are being persecuted by Muslims, sometimes
even by their security guards, according to a new report by the NGO Open Doors.
"A major obstacle to the survey was that many victims were afraid to
participate. ... Their concern was not only on the possible consequences for
them personally and for their families in Germany, but also for their relatives
who continue to live in the countries of origin." — Open Doors report.
"I came to Germany after fleeing my own country in the hope my life would be
safer in the face of growing dangers. But in Germany I've been threatened more."
— Christian refugee in Germany.
"Despite increased reports about this problem by the media, charities, human
rights organizations, church leaders and Christian organizations, German
authorities and politicians have hardly ever launched an investigation. Instead,
we believe that incidents are deliberately downplayed and even covered up. ...
Even in police stations, religiously motivated attacks on Christian refugees are
not documented as such." — Open Doors report.
Thousands of Christians in German refugee shelters are being persecuted by
Muslims, sometimes even by their security guards, according to a new report,
which asserts that in most cases German authorities have done nothing to protect
the victims.
The study alleges that German authorities and police have deliberately
downplayed and even covered up the "taboo issue" of Muslim attacks on Christian
refugees, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.
The report, "Religiously Motivated Attacks on Christian Refugees in Germany" (Religiös
motivierte Übergriffe gegen christliche Flüchtlinge in Deutschland), was
produced by the German branch of Open Doors, a non-governmental organization
supporting persecuted Christians, worldwide.
The study — which confirms a Gatestone Institute analysis about Muslim-Christian
violence in German refugee shelters — documents more than 300 incidents in which
Christian refugees in Germany have been physically and sexually assaulted, and
even threatened with death, because of their faith.
The report is based on the interviews of 231 Christian refugees conducted
between February and April 2016. More than 80% of those interviewed were male
and more than half were younger than 30. Most of those questioned came from
Iran, Afghanistan and Syria. Nine out of ten of those participating in the
survey were Christians with a Muslim background. Of these, the majority had
already converted to Christianity in their home countries.
Of those interviewed, 86 said they had been physically assaulted at the hands of
Muslim refugees and shelter security staff, many of whom are also Muslim. More
than 70 said they had received death threats, 92 had been insulted for their
Christian faith and 62 had been subjected to "very loud religious music or
prayer," presumably of the Islamic variety. Others said they had been subjected
to physical attacks in the form of punches, spitting, pushing and sexual abuse.
Around 75% of those interviewed said that harassment from Muslims is a
"frequent" problem.
Representatives of the NGO Open Doors, along with other NGOs, hold a press
conference to present the Open Doors report "Religiously Motivated Attacks on
Christian Refugees in Germany," in May 2016.
According to Open Doors, the report "only shows the tip of the iceberg" because
"many Christian refugees are frightened of facing more difficulties if they
report incidents." Others fear that "the information could get into the wrong
hands and cause danger for relatives still living in their home countries." The
report states:
"A major obstacle to the survey was that many victims were afraid to
participate. They feared negative consequences in the event that their personal
information were to fall into the wrong hands. Their concern was not only on the
possible consequences for them personally and for their families in Germany, but
also for their relatives who continue to live in the countries of origin.
"Another major obstacle was that many women are reluctant to report sexual
assaults because of feelings of shame which are often more pronounced among
Middle Eastern women than those in the West.
"To make matters worse, many refugees have had negative experiences with the
authorities and police in their countries of origin because of their Christian
faith. They are used to being treated as second-class citizens. Now they see
that things are no different in many refugee shelters in Germany — a country
with freedom of religion — and they not even once received help.
The report includes testimonies from Christian refugees who describe a "constant
climate of fear and panic" in German shelters:
"I came to Germany after fleeing my own country in the hope my life would be
safer in the face of growing dangers. But in Germany I've been threatened more."
"At this point I must say that I really did not know that by coming Germany, and
only because of my faith, that I would be harassed here as much as in Iran."
"The Muslims paint crosses and underline them with an X to insult us. They throw
their garbage in front of our door. They listen to the adhan (Muslim call to
prayer) and the reading of the Koran at high volume. We had to abandon our last
refugee shelter because of death threats."
"In our refugee shelter, the security guards do not enforce the rules. Every
morning at 5AM we are woken up to the sound of the adhan. The situation is
getting worse. When you complain, they say this is the Muslims' right. Also,
they insult us with impunity. In our shelter, two of my friends have received
death threats. Muslims tore a cross chain from his neck. None of us dares to
wear a cross anymore."
"When we collect our welfare stipend, we are pushed to the end of the line. Also
in the kitchen, we are the last to eat. After midnight, when we are asleep, they
knock on the window and we can no longer go back to sleep because of fear. And
the next day during language classes we cannot learn well. Muslims call us
mortad (apostates) and steal from the kitchen. They have stolen so much of our
food that every room now has a refrigerator."
"I was insulted and physically assaulted by Muslims in our shelter several
times. Every time the police had to intervene. The memory of these incidents
still weighs on me and I have serious psychological problems, I even attempted
to commit suicide. Security guards have insulted our religion and attacked us. I
testified as a witness to police. After receiving death threats, we went to
police with our pastor and filed a complaint."
The report includes an account from Gottfried Martens, a pastor in Berlin, who
describes incidents of Muslim harassment that occurred in early May — incidents
which the police have still not bothered to investigate:
"A Christian couple from Iran was increasingly being bullied by the Afghan
leader of an asylum shelter in Berlin. As 'infidels' they were not given a bed
and were forced to sleep on the floor for months. It finally got to the point
that the Afghan devastated their sleeping area and personally destroyed their
Christian objects (Easter candle, Bible, parish newsletter).
"Another Christian was harassed by Muslim refugees who chanted the Koran around
the clock because of his conversion. Yesterday evening, he tried to kill himself
with a razor blade. Fortunately, he was rescued in time.
"Two weeks ago we had to accommodate eight refugees from another shelter. They
were threatened with death because they refused to participate in the Muslim
ritual prayer in the gymnasium. When the security guards were called for help,
they joined together in prayer with those who had threatened the Christians.
When the Christians fled the hall as the Muslims were shouting 'Allahu Akbar'
[Allah is Greatest], the Muslim security guards banned them from the shelter on
the grounds that the Christians had attacked the Muslims."
According to Open Doors:
"It is alarming that Christian refugees and other religious minorities
increasingly are facing the same persecution and discrimination as in their
Muslim countries of origin, and not even in Germany can they get the expected
protection.
"Despite increased reports about this problem by the media, charities, human
rights organizations, church leaders and Christian organizations, German
authorities and politicians have hardly ever launched an investigation. Instead,
we believe that incidents are deliberately downplayed and even covered up.
During confidential discussions with researchers from Open Doors, it has become
known that even in police stations, religiously motivated attacks on Christian
refugees are not documented as such."
"As a result, many cases of sectarian violence are not statistically recognized
and are not classified correctly in terms of their severity and frequency. This
means that a large number of religious-related human rights violations against
Christians and other religious minorities are treated as irrelevant.
The report concludes with a number of recommendations for the German government
to help ease the burden on Christian refugees:
The religious affiliation all migrants should be recorded at the very beginning
of the process of registering refugees and that data should be forwarded
throughout the process of assigning refugees to accommodations.
Religious minorities should be pooled so that the percentage of Christians and
other religious minorities in relation to Muslims in refugee shelters is
approximately equal.
Christians and other religious minorities who are victims of persecution and
discrimination should be separately accommodated.
The non-Muslim component within the ranks of the security personnel should be
increased.
Employees and the security staff in refugee shelters should receive regular
sensitivity training regarding the causes of religious conflict and the
protection of religious minorities.
Persecuted Christians should be provided with a list of the names of other
Christians to whom they can call upon for help.
Some institutions close to the German government openly dispute Open Doors's
assertions and have provided political cover for the authorities to do nothing
to help persecuted Christians.
In March 2016, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a center-right think tank
that is independent of, but closely tied to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats,
published an analysis entitled, "Christians under Pressure?" (Christen unter
Druck?). The report argues that Muslim persecution of Christians in Germany and
elsewhere in the world is being exaggerated and in any case cannot be proven:
"In the world context, as in Germany, reliable information on attacks against
Christians is difficult to obtain. Reports are mostly subjective and empirically
not seriously provable...
"There are probably a number of different reasons for the violence in the
refugee shelters: A large number of people are living together for a long time
in a confined space without privacy and in stressed conditions. Psychology may
also be a contributing factor: worries about the future, language and cultural
barriers and the processing of recent memories of flight from their home
country. As if this were not already stressful enough, there are situations in
which persecutors and persecuted in their countries of origin meet up again at
refugee shelters in Germany.
"In addition to sectarian clashes, ethnically motivated conflict situations, for
example, repeated clashes between Afghans and Iraqis. Striking is also the large
numbers of conflicts involving converted Christian refugees. Only very little is
known about hostility against Arab Christians who were already Christians in
their country of origin."
The KAS report advises against separating refugees according to their religious
affiliation because it would "send the wrong signal" to newcomers regarding
Germany's commitment to religious liberty: "In Germany there are no cultural or
religious exceptions to our understanding of civil liberties... Germany
guarantees the freedom of religion... In Germany there is no reason for a person
to feel they need to conceal their religious affiliation or that they are not
able to convert to another religion."
The KAS report does not offer any recommendations for eradicating the sectarian
violence in German refugee shelters.
At a press conference marking the release of the Open Doors report, Volker
Baumann, director of a group called Action for Persecuted Christians and the
Needy (AVC), said that up 40,000 refugees in German shelters are being
persecuted due to their religious beliefs.
According to Gottfried Martens, the pastor from Berlin, the German government
has lost control over the situation. In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, he said that most Christians who are being persecuted in German
shelters dare not file a formal complaint due to fears for their own safety. In
those cases where complaints are filed, Muslims file counter-complaints.
Moreover, it is hardly ever possible irrefutably to prove incidents of
harassment. Thus the vast majority of refugees decide not to complain in order
not to aggravate their situation.
Thomas Müller, an analyst with Open Doors Deutschland, concluded:
"Christian refugees from many different countries are trying and failing to find
safety in Europe and it is likely that the report only shows the tip of the
iceberg. It is clear that many Christian refugees — especially those who are
converts to the Christian faith — live in fear of persecution from Muslim
refugees who make up the majority of residents in the refugee hostels set up
throughout Europe. It is sobering to hear persecuted Christians telling a
Western country that they recognize the very same persecution patterns in
operation as in their home countries."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is
also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios
Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.
Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone
website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without
the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Wanted: New Grand Vizier for
Turkey's Sultan
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/May 15/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8031/turkey-prime-minister
Erdogan could just
well choose a computer or an advanced office machine to appoint as the new prime
minister.
What many critics call a "Palace coup" illustrates that the Turkish constitution
is, effectively, null and void.
Why would a prime minister, who only a few months ago won a general election
with 49.5% of the vote, step down? Corruption allegations? A soaring opposition?
Plummeting public approval for this or that reason? A scandalous affair that
fell into the public domain? None of those applies to Turkey's prime minister,
Ahmet Davutoglu, who on May 5 announced that he would take the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) to an extraordinary general convention, where he
would not run for chairman or prime minister. After barely 20 months in office,
Davutoglu was abruptly quitting.
At the press conference where he announced his decision to stand down, Davutoglu
said this was "not my choice but a necessity." He then blamed the AKP's central
executive committee for not having exhibited the "comradeship" he would expect
of them.
Turkey's prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, publicly announced on May 5 that he
would step down. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)
But why were the committee's 50 members so mean to a super-popular (and
successful, in his account) leader? Simply because he was not a leader, but just
a Grand Vizier appointed 20 months ago by the Sultan who goes by the title
President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Indeed, Davutoglu's resignation was a "necessity," not his choice. It was a
necessity because the Sultan wanted a lower-profile, more obedient Grand Vizier,
who would work in line with the Sultan's priorities, and not his own. No doubt,
Davutoglu has been loyal to Erdogan. Even as he announced his resignation he
pledged full fidelity to the president and the party. And he meant it.
So, what was the problem? Simple: Erdogan wanted a Sultan-Grand Vizier
partnership, whereas Davutoglu mistakenly thought that the two Islamist comrades
were the President and Prime Minister.
Davutoglu, who became prime minister in August 2014 after Erdogan was elected
president and had handpicked him to take the job under his dark shadow, thought
that he really was the prime minister. Bidding farewell, he lamented that: "We
agreed [with Erdogan in 2014] that the country needed a prime minister, not a
caretaker prime minister." Twenty months later, the Turkish Putin-Medvedev
system collapsed, primarily because the Turkish Medvedev mistakenly thought that
he was free to run the executive as the Turkish constitution dictates but was in
fact expected to be a pawn -- fully, not partly, controlled by the Turkish
Putin.
At an extraordinary party congress on May 22, the AKP will elect its new
"leader" who will automatically become the new Turkish prime minister. There
will not be a race among several contenders. Instead, there will only be one
nominee, the Sultan's new choice for the Grand Vizier. There are a number of
hopefuls, including Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, Justice Minister
Bekir Bozdag, Transport, Maritime and Communications Minister Binali Yildirim
and Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogan's son-in-law.
Naturally, everyone is curious about the new head of the Turkish executive. In
reality, it matters little which of the hopefuls will take up the job. Erdogan
could just well choose a computer, or an advanced office machine to appoint as
the new prime minister, instead of a person, had technology allowed him to do
so. Whoever takes the job he will be a rubber-stamp prime minister working as
the Sultan's appointed party commissar. As one senior AKP official said: "The
new prime minister should be a low-profile figure."
Can anyone instantly tell the name of the Chinese prime minister? Well, his
Turkish counterpart may be a bit more well known to the rest of the world but
much more than a ruling party secretary general controlled by the president who,
according to the constitution, does not have authority over the executive,
legislative and judicial branches of the state.
Davutoglu's departure seals two more facts about Turkey:
What many critics call a "Palace coup" illustrates that the Turkish constitution
is, effectively, null and void and,
The office of the prime minister, from now on, will be a secretariat of the
president's palace, whoever gets the job.
As Dexter Filkins reminded us in the New Yorker: "It's an old story: the loyal
satrap, who makes a career for himself by faithfully snarling at his master's
critics, finally gets thrown overboard himself."
When Erdogan came to power in 2002, his most trusted political allies were
Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric running a (now ailing) global
network of schools, enterprises, NGOs and charities; Abdullah Gul, Erdogan's
predecessor as president; and Bulent Arinc, former parliamentary speaker and
deputy prime minister. In 2009, Davutoglu joined the court of the Sultan's most
favored men. Today, Erdogan is fighting to jail Gulen, with an extradition
warrant on his head; Gul and Arinc have already been sent into the political
wasteland; and Davutoglu has been the last victim of "comradeship."
The next Sultan's favorite will surely try to behave better. But he may not
survive too long -- only until the Sultan decides to choose another.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and
a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone
website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without
the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Could Different Borders Have Saved
the Middle East?
Nick Danforth/The New York Times/ May 14, 2016
THERE probably aren’t many things that the Islamic State, Jon Stewart and the
president of Iraqi Kurdistan agree on, but there is one: the pernicious
influence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret plan for dividing up the Middle
East signed by France and Britain, 100 years ago this week. It has become
conventional wisdom to argue, as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently
did, that the Middle East’s problems stem from “artificial lines, creating
artificial states made up of totally distinct ethnic, religious, cultural
groups.”
That Western imperialism had a malignant influence on the course of Middle
Eastern history is without a doubt.But is Sykes-Picot the right target for this
ire?
The borders that exist today — the ones the Islamic State claims to be erasing —
actually emerged in 1920 and were modified over the following decades. They
reflect not any oneplan but a series of opportunistic proposals by competing
strategists in Paris and London as well as local leaders in the Middle East. For
whatever problems those schemes have caused, the alternative ideas for dividing
up the region probably weren’t much better. Creating countries out of diverse
territories is a violent, imperfect process.
Sykes and Picot Hatch Their Plan
In May 1916, Mark Sykes, a British diplomat, and François Georges-Picot, his
French counterpart, drew up an agreement to ensure that once the Ottoman Empire
was defeated in World War I, their countries would get a fair share of the
spoils.
Both countries awarded themselves direct control over areas in which they had
particular strategic and economic interests. France had commercial ties to the
Levant, and had long cultivated the region’s Christians. Britain intended to
secure trade and communication routes to India through the Suez Canal and the
Persian Gulf.
To the extent the Sykes-Picot plan made an attempt to account for the local
ethnic, religious or culutural groups, or their ideas about the future, it
offered a vague promise to create one or several Arab states — under French and
British influence, of course.
Faisal Dreams of a United Arab Kingdom
In March 1920, Faisal bin Hussein, who led the Arab armies in their
British-supported revolt against the Ottomans during World War I, became the
leader of the independent Arab Kingdom of Syria, based in Damascus. His
ambitious borders stretched across modern-day Syria, Jordan, Israel and parts of
Turkey. (But not Iraq.)
Would Faisal’s map have been an authentic alternative to the externally imposed
borders that came in the end? We’ll never know. The French, who opposed his
plan, defeated his army in July.
But even if they hadn’t, Faisal’s territorial claims would have put him in
direct conflict with Maronite Christians pushing for independence in what is
today Lebanon, with Jewish settlers who had begun their Zionist project in
Palestine, and with Turkish nationalists who sought to unite Anatolia.
France Divides ‘Syria.’
When France took control of what is now Syria, the plan in Paris was to split up
the region into smaller statelets under French control.These would have been
divided roughly along ethnic, regional and sectarian lines: The French
envisioned a state for Alawites, another for Druse, another for Turks and two
more centered around Syria’s biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. This cynical
divide-and-conquer strategy was intended to pre-empt Arab nationalists’ calls
for a “greater Syria.” Today, five years into Syria’s civil war, a similar
division of the country has been suggested as a more authentic alternative to
the supposedly artificial Syrian state. But when the French tried to divide
Syria almost a century ago, the region’s residents, inspired by ideas of Syrian
or Arab unity, pushed by new nationalist leaders, resisted so strongly that
France abandoned the plan.
Americans to the Rescue?
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson sent a delegation to devise a better way to
divide the region. Henry King, a theologian, and Charles Crane, an
industrialist, conducted hundreds of interviews in order to prepare a map in
accordance with the ideal of national self-determination. Was this a missed
opportunity to draw the region’s “real” borders? Doubtful. After careful study,
King and Crane realized how difficult the task was: They split the difference
between making Lebanon independent or making it part of Syria with a proposal
for “limited autonomy.” They thought the Kurds might be best off incorporated
into Iraq or even Turkey. And they were certain that Sunnis and Shiites belonged
together in a unified Iraq. In the end, the French and British ignored the
recommendations. If only they had listened, things might have turned out more or
less the same.
Nick Danforth, a senior analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, blogs at
midafternoonmap.com.
The industry of frustration and
discontent
Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/May 15/16
After the Saudi authorities busted a terror cell near Makkah recently, spokesman
of the interior minister, Major General Mansur al-Turki, highlighted the
“industry of frustration” among the youth and said it was the instigators’ most
successful means to recruit them. Sayyid Qutb, who has been one of the major
instigators, lectured about one of his ideology’s major themes – the industry of
discontent. In an article – Schools for Discontent – published on September 30,
1946 in al-Risalah magazine, he said: “I will remain indignant. If it were up to
me, I’d establish double the schools which the government has built in order to
teach people one thing: discontent. If it were up to me, I’d establish a school
to teach discontent over this generation of politicians and over those writers
and journalists whom are said to be opinion leaders in the country ... I’d
establish a school to teach discontent over those ministers.”
Let’s keep in mind that some of the terrorists who carried out operations, or
who were arrested or killed, had the “human rights’ activity” tag attached to
them, as was the case with the “Aid the Sufferer” campaign. This latter campaign
turned out to be a gathering for al-Qaeda and ISIS. The alleged human rights’
campaign led to some the most violent acts in the history of Saudi Arabia.
Abdulrahman Al-Tuwaijri, the al-Ahsa suicide bomber, Fahad al-Gabbaa, the bomber
of the Shiite mosque in Kuwait, Saleh al-Qashami, the suicide bomber of al-Qudaih
mosque, Youssef al-Suleiman, the bomber of Abha, Rima al-Jreish, Hisham al-Khodeir,
Hadi al-Shibani, who prepared suicide bombers to carry out their attacks, and
Adel al-Mejmaj were all part of “aid the sufferer” campaign.
So can this be a coincidence?
Vision 2030: The statesmen or
the businessmen?
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/May 15/16
Let us imagine the Saudi Arabian authorities are caught between two options
while implementing Vision 2030 and giving final touches to its objectives.
Suppose they have to choose between the statesman and the businessman. Should
they help underprivileged citizens or the country’s big businesses who want to
make large profits or should they pursue the policies framed during the oil era?
Since the choices might be difficult to understand, let me simplify by building
two scenarios – one of the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, the
second at Dulles Airport in Washington DC. In the first scenario you see Saudi
Arabian customs and immigration officers surrounded by dozens of laborers,
performing menial tasks that don’t require experience. So, in this scenario,
Indians in uniform with their company logo on their back, help travellers with
their baggage. At the Dulles Airport, all officers are Americans, including
those who perform these tasks. These include young and elderly, women and men,
working for hourly wages to earn a living. The issue is not the GDP, or export
or manufacturing data but the stability of the nation and its citizens and a
healthy work culture
Returning to Jeddah, we see businessmen keen to save money and increasing profit
margins by signing deals with subcontracting maintenance companies. The company
owner who gets the tender secures more worker visas. He then hires low-cost
laborers to make bigger profits and hires those with no training or work
experience. He may be the only Saudi Arabian citizen in this company and may be
keeping few other citizens on the register in order to meet the Ministry of
Labor requirements. There is no creativity involved, no experience needed. It is
pure quick profit motive that lasts several years until he loses this tender to
another Saudi citizen.Everyone is satisfied with this arrangement. The security
officer is assisted by obedient workers, the traveller is happy and so is the
civil aviation administration. Unfortunately the country’s economy suffers and a
healthy labor culture isn’t developed.
Taxpayer vs unemployed
In Washington, and most of the airports around the world, the country provides
the largest number of jobs to its citizens. These countries prefer to turn them
into taxpayers instead of leaving them unemployed and dependent on donations or
social security. Citizens also help maintain work culture in the community and
there is no need to hire unskilled people for unnecessary jobs. These employees
are not geniuses whose inventions add billions to the US gross national income.
These are instead students working to save money to complete their education.
They might be regular men looking for regular jobs or women contributing to the
household expenses. What is important here is that a healthy work culture is
alive in the community and tens of millions of Americans are contributing to the
country’s economy, even though they continue to demand higher wages.
I would certainly hope that Saudi Arabia prefers to help its poor and not the
businessman whose manipulate figures. I am sure that the Deputy Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, leader of the Vision 2030, will make the right decision.
This already became clear when he said that there are 10 million jobs occupied
by foreigners but we do not want to put pressure on the private sector, unless
this is our last alternative. This also became evident with the creation of
Labor and Social Development ministry by merging the Ministry of Labor with the
Ministry of Social Affairs and appointing the Minister as the Chairman of the
Independent Commission of Religious Endowments. It was important because the
latter controls billions worth of assets that could be utilized to employ those
in need of jobs.
Earlier, the king would give orders to the Minister of Finance to allocate
additional billions and put it at the disposal of the Minister of Social Affairs
whenever needed. But experience has shown that this is a vicious circle and will
not prove adequate in the future. The solution is to employ the beneficiaries of
Social Security (estimated to be around 20 percent of the population) into the
labor market. However, this will be difficult since there is a wide network of
operation and maintenance companies who dominate the market due to cheap labor.
This is the mission of a state, not a businessman. The issue is not the GDP, or
export or manufacturing data but the stability of the nation and its citizens
and a healthy work culture. The role of businessman and entrepreneur in engaging
and strengthening the culture by creating opportunities for unemployed young
citizens trained abroad is also critical. They must help the young men and women
who have studied at the best universities around the world and utilize their
skills in industries and services within Saudi Arabia. A healthy society does
not leave the weak behind. It empowers them “as the advocate of free markets” as
the Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman said. Everyone wins through this process
of empowerment.
Do we have the right to be proud of the London mayor?
Hassan Al Mustafa/Al Arabiya/May 15/16
In his book Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche advises us that there’s
nothing we must be aware of more than feeling of pride because it destroys
everything. Dozens of articles and hundreds of posts on twitter expressed pride
over Sadiq Khan’s victory as the mayor for British capital, London. Writers of
these articles and posts actually live in Muslim communities and some of them
were British of Pakistani origin. Khan comes from a humble background, which
represents the majority in these communities. This feeling of pride gives
strength and happiness to Muslims as through this victory they have the chance
to prove themselves. They can claim that someone from the community is part of
the political and social elite who exerts great influence. However, after the
joy of victory fades away, a painful truth can surface, which could be very
harmful for those who show off excess pride. The reason, as Nietzsche pointed
out, is that they want for themselves an exaggerated attention that others do
not really recognize and turns out to be mistaken. The only community that has
the right to be proud of Khan’s victory is the one that demonstrates values of
tolerance and pluralism and allows the freedom to believe. I do not want to ruin
your happiness over Khan’s achievement. After all, he deserved it because he is
a British citizen, a candidate of the Labor Party and has wide experience as a
former member of the Britain General Council, former minister of social affairs
and later the minister of transportation. This shows that Khan did not win
because he is a Muslim, originally Pakistani, or because his father was a bus
driver. The social conditions in which Khan grew up might have helped him
achieved victory and might have encouraged a large number of British people to
elect him. But, what mainly brought him to the position is his competency.
Therefore, I keep asking myself: What Khan’s victory has to do with us? Do we,
Muslims in Islamic countries, have the right to be proud of his achievement?
What connects us to the mayor?I don’t believe we have any stake in Khan’s
victory over his rival Zac Goldsmith. In fact, the victory was achieved in a
liberal and a secular framework in a country that has historic constitutional
institutions and a democracy that gives equal opportunities without
discrimination on the basis of race, religion or gender.
Similarities and differences
We and Sadiq Khan are very different from each other. In fact, sectarianism and
tribal affiliations continues to define Arab societies. Therefore, instead we
should ask ourselves this question: can a non-Muslim win the post of a mayor of
a leading Islamic capital? Can we believe in someone who has no affiliation to
any religion or tribe and not take into account his background and identity? We
were mainly proud of two things with regards Sadiq Khan’s victory – the triumph
of a Muslim politician, who originally comes from the East, and has defeated
Goldsmith, the white aristocrat and Jewish man. It also shows that sometimes we
demonstrate fake pride. The argument on Twitter regarding Khan’s faith, whether
he was Sunni or Shiite, all laid bare the ideology we follow. The only community
that has the right to be proud of Khan’s victory is the one that demonstrates
values of tolerance and pluralism and allows the freedom to believe. Communities
that still fight and shed blood because of hatred and sectarianism should steer
clear of the entire issue.