llLCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 26/16
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.may26.16.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
I do not call
you servants any longer, but friends, because I have made known to you
everything that I have heard from my Father
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15/15-17:"I do not call you
servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing;
but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that
I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I
appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father
will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so
that you may love one another.
Lord, look at their threats,
and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness
Acts of the Apostles 04/23-31:"After they were released, they went to their
friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
When they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said,
‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in
them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your
servant: "Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The
kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered
togetheragainst the Lord and against his Messiah." For in this city, in fact,
both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do
whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord,
look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all
boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are
performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’When they had prayed, the
place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness."
Pope Francis's Tweet For
Today
With the weapons of love, God has defeated selfishness and death.
His son Jesus is the door of mercy wide open to all
Avec les armes de l’amour, Dieu a vaincu l’égoïsme et la mort ; son Fils Jésus est la porte de la miséricorde grande ouverte à tous
لقد انتصر الله، بواسطة سلاح المحبة، على الأنانية والموت؛ ابنه يسوع هو باب الرحمة المشرَّع للجميع.
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 25- 26/16
Hezbollah
doesn’t want a President – Because it doesn’t want a Lebanese Republic/David
DaoudNow Lebanon/May 25/16/
Lebanon – Electoral Escapism From Politics/Eyad Abu Shakra/ASharq Al Awsat/May
25/16
Lebanese 'Al-Safir' Daily Marks 16th Anniversary Of Israel's Withdrawal From
South Lebanon: Hizbullah Is Digging Tunnels On Israel Border/MEMRI/May 25/16
"Radical" vs. "Moderate" Islam: A
Muslim View/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/May 25/16
Palestinians and Jordan: Will a Confederation Work/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone
Institute/May 25/16
The Islamic State Is Targeting Syria's Alawite Heartland -- and Russia/Fabrice
Balanche/The Washington Institute./May 25/16
Iran's New Assembly Chair Shows Who Really Won the Elections/Mehdi Khalaji/The
Washington Institute/May 25/16
President Obama, the apologist/Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
Netanyahu swerves Right out of control/Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
When the plumber is a reader/Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
Why Pakistan is key to Afghan peace/Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
Titles Latest Lebanese Related News published on May 25- 26/16
Lebanese-Canadian Suspect in 1980
Paris Synagogue Attack Ordered back to Jail
Lebanese Army Seeking Arrest of Maarouf Hamieh for Mohammed Hujeiri's Murder
Political Leaders Weigh in on Presidency after Two Full Years of Vacuum
Nasrallah Insists on 'Army-People-Resistance Equation', Urges Proportional
Representation in Parliament
Hezbollah’s Iraq branch fighting Fallujah battle
Narallah warns of regional tumult prior to US election
Lebanese man among Jableh suicide bombers
Salam, Khalil and Salameh discuss US financial transaction measures
Mogherini on Presidential vacuum: Lebanon cannot afford to wait for the region
to solve its problems before it addresses this issue
Fadi Karam: holding parliamentary elections before presidential one a
constitutional snag
Hezbollah doesn’t want a President – Because it doesn’t want a Lebanese Republic
Lebanon – Electoral Escapism From Politics
Lebanese 'Al-Safir' Daily Marks 16th Anniversary Of Israel's Withdrawal From
South Lebanon: Hizbullah Is Digging Tunnels On Israel Border
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
May 25- 26/16
Israel PM Reaches Deal for
Ultra-Nationalist Party to Join Govt.
Iran regime mass executes 11 prisoners, including juvenile offender
Iranian Resistance’s call to save political prisoners on hunger strike
Blair: Normalization steps, plus Arab initiative could bring peace
US pro-gun lobby to 'Ayatollahs of Iran': You haven't met alligator wrestlers,
cowboys of America
Jews celebrate Tunisia's Lag BaOmer festival
Yemen talks ‘closer’ to agreement- Envoy
Has ISIS damaged a Russian base in Syria?
Israeli rights group gives up on army complaints system
Russia holding off air strikes on Nusra Front in Syria
Egyptian court cancels five-year jail terms for 47 over island protests
Crime rates ‘are in decline’ in Saudi Arabia
Egypt hires two firms in search for black boxes
Netanyahu’s travel expenses under scrutiny
Final ISIS ‘Beatles’ gang member identified
Calm near Syrian capital as fighting freezes
Kurdish-Arab alliance starts Raqqa operation
New Iranian delegation to Saudi for hajj talks
Links From Jihad Watch Site for
May 25- 26/16
Minnesota Muslim wanted to join ISIS to “fight jihad and attain
martyrdom”
Obama admin set to transfer up to 24 more jihadis from Gitmo
Islamic State: “Those who say Islam is a religion of peace are cowards”
Hugh Fitzgerald: CAIR: “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me”
Ghana: Muslim cleric says gays cause earthquakes, says severely punishing them
is “holy endeavor”
Vox laments that Muslim selfie girl’s love of Hitler became basis for
“Islamophobic hatred”
Iran to renew financial support for Islamic Jihad: “The defense of Palestine
amounts to a defense of Islam”
State Department sets new single-day record for Muslim migrant approvals
At 11th hour, NY Senator Schumer upends bill making it easier for 9/11 families
to sue Saudi Arabia
Michael Cutler Moment: Memorial Day and Celebrating the First Amendment
UK: Muslim chef with bottle covered in fecal matter in kitchen “didn’t use
toilet paper for cultural reasons”
UK: Muslim NHS doctor leaves family to join the Islamic State
Leftist “philosopher”: “There are among refugees also terrorists,
rapists, criminals…but so what?”
Latest Lebanese Related News published on May 25- 26/16
Lebanese-Canadian Suspect in 1980
Paris Synagogue Attack Ordered back to Jail
Naharnet/May 25/16/A French
court on Tuesday ordered the chief suspect in a deadly attack on a Paris
synagogue in 1980 to be sent back to jail, ten days after he was released on
bail. Hassan Diab, a Lebanese-Canadian sociology professor who had been detained
for 18 months, is accused of being part of the Special Operations branch of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP was blamed for
the bombing on October 3, 1980 that left four dead and around 40 injured.
Targeting the synagogue in rue Copernic, western Paris, it was the first major
attack on a Jewish site in France since World War II. Diab, 62, was extradited
from Canada in November 2014 and charged with the attack. He maintains his
innocence and denies he was a member of the PFLP. On May 12, a judge authorized
his release on bail after ruling there was doubt over the "fundamental question"
of whether he was in France on the day of the attack. His ex-wife had told
investigators that he was in Beirut on September 28, 1980, despite stamps in his
passport indicating that he was already in Europe. Federal prosecutors appealed
the May 12 decision, leading an appeals court Tuesday to order him sent back to
jail. "It's a very unfair decision," Diab's lawyer William Bourdon said. Bernard
Cahen, lawyer for one of the civil parties to the case, said that "on the merits
of the case, we are absolutely convinced of his guilt". "The defense will
struggle to destroy this case," he added. Diab has been charged with murder,
attempted murder and destruction of property as part of a terrorist enterprise.
Lebanese Army Seeking Arrest of Maarouf Hamieh for Mohammed Hujeiri's Murder
Naharnet/May 25/16/The army
kicked off a security campaign to arrest Maarouf Hamieh, who confessed on
Tuesday to the murder of Mohammed al-Hujeiri to avenge his son's death, reported
As Safir newspaper on Wednesday. An informed security source told the daily that
the army considers Hujeiri's murder to be a violation of the law, regardless of
the motivation behind it and that the father had avenged a slain soldier.
Mohammed Hamieh was among three servicemen who were executed by the
al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front and Islamic State groups after they were
kidnapped from the northeastern border town of Arsal in August 2014 in wake of
clashes in the area. “The search for Maarouf Hamieh is taking place away from
the motives of the crime,” said the source. “The judiciary alone is qualified to
look into the case,” it stressed. Maarouf Hamieh confessed to killing Mohammed
al-Hujeiri on Tuesday.
Hujeiri is the nephew of Mustapha al-Hujeiri, also known as “Abou Taqiyeh”, whom
the Hamieh family accuses of having links to the al-Nusra Front and of being
involved in the soldier's killing. Tuesday's murder sparked tensions in Arsal,
amid heavy security measures taken by the army in the town to avert any
retaliatory actions.
Political Leaders Weigh in on
Presidency after Two Full Years of Vacuum
Naharnet/May 25/16/Lebanon
has officially completed two years of vacuum in the presidency with no end in
sight to the dispute that has crippled the country's top post since May 2104.An
Nahar daily on Wednesday marked the occasion by surveying the opinion of major
Lebanese political leaders, with Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel
Aoun, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, and head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to the
Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad abstaining from the interview. Speaker Nabih
Berri lamented the ongoing vacuum, saying that the “sooner we elect a president,
the sooner we escape the threat of division or federalism that is lurking around
us.” Former president and former head of the Kataeb Party Amin Gemayel described
the situation as a “moment of abandonment by some Lebanese leaders, who have not
yet grasped the severity of the vacuum.” “Neighboring countries are passing
through a severe situation, which is being dragged to Lebanon through our own
free will,” he remarked. He hailed foreign efforts to resolve the deadlock, but
noted that “ultimately this is a Lebanese issue that should be resolved through
128 lawmakers electing a president.”“We cannot rely on foreign efforts as long
as the Lebanese people have not yet realized the danger of what is happening in
our country,” warned Gemayel. Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri told
An Nahar that the “prolongation of the vacuum will be a black mark against all
who are not attempting to end the presidential vacuum and the current farce of
waiting and obstructing the role of parliament.”“It is unfortunate that Lebanon
is a victim of idiotic policies that disregard the constitution and national
interest,” he lamented. Those obstructing the elections “are embroiling Lebanon
in regional conflicts and using the vacuum as a means to continue on pursuing
foreign agendas.”“Two years without a president is not something to be proud
about.”Hariri stressed: “We have been fulfilling our duties and it is up to the
others to head to parliament and elect a president that Lebanon deserves.
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat told An Nahar that Aoun and
Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh are two presidential candidates with
similar agendas, “which asserts Russia's stance.” “We must ask why Russia and
the Syrian-Iranian alliance do not want a president,” he continued. “Russia and
Iran can simply reach a settlement that favors Aoun against Franjieh or vice
verse,” he added. Jumblat called on the two candidates to “carry out a revision”
that would lead one of them to withdraw from the presidential race or the
election of a third candidate. MP Henri Helou is a candidate fielded by
Jumblat's Democratic Gathering. For his part, Franjieh noted that the most
important development at the moment is “everyone's belief of the need to elect a
strong president, who truly represents Christians and the nation.”He underlined
the need to end the two-year vacuum, demanding that political pressure “based on
objective foundations” should be adopted to elect a president. Once successful,
a new constitutional formula should be devised to prevent future obstructions of
the election of a president, revealed Franjieh. Lebanon has been without a
president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the
election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps
have thwarted the polls. Numerous electoral sessions have been staged, but all
but one failed due to a lack of quorum at parliament in wake of a boycott by
Aoun's political bloc and that of Hizbullah. Hizbullah declared earlier this
year that it would boycott the polls unless it receives guarantees that its
candidate, Aoun, is elected head of state. This stance has drawn criticism from
the March 14 camp and Jumblat, who accused Hizbullah's main ally, Iran, of
obstructing the elections.
Nasrallah Insists on
'Army-People-Resistance Equation', Urges Proportional Representation in
Parliament
Naharnet/May 25/16/Hizbullah
chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed Wednesday that the famous
“army-people-resistance equation” will remain “a source of strength for the
country,” as he criticized rival political parties who are not in favor of an
electoral law based on the proportional representation system.
“The army-people-resistance equation will remain a source of strength for the
country in this era of Arab inaction and global support for Israel,” Nasrallah
underlined in a televised speech marking Liberation and Resistance Day.
“Some want the Lebanese to forget Israel's barbarity and terrorism and on the
Liberation and Resistance Day we must remind of that. We must remind that Israel
is the main and real enemy that is seeking to usurp our resources and that it is
the biggest threat for our country and the region, although some parties are
seeking to turn it into a friend and ally,” he said.“Our strength in Lebanon is
being targeted and the entire axis of resistance in this nation is being
targeted. Some do not want the army to get stronger and they are even taking
advantage of individual incidents to practice sectarian incitement in order to
tear our people apart,” Nasrallah warned, noting that “everyone must be
concerned with preserving the elements of strength.”Speaking of parties that are
allegedly “conspiring” against Hizbullah in Lebanon, Nasrallah added: “Let some
in Lebanon stop conspiring over and under the table against the resistance, the
army and the people, but especially against the resistance.”He also reminded
that “we have land that is still under occupation – the Shebaa Farms, the
Kfarshouba Hills and the Ghajar village – and we have captives and missing
people whose families are still waiting for them to return.”Addressing the
Palestinian people, Hizbullah's chief added: “Beware of those who are trying to
take advantage of the current ambiguities in the region in order to turn Israel
into a friend and ally. Beware and do not count on those who have let you down
for 70 years.”
“You won't receive any support or good things from them and your only salvation
lies in your unity and perseverance,” he said, referring to Arab Gulf countries.
“The axis of resistance will not be defeated in the ongoing battle in the
region. It will emerge victorious and the banner of Palestine will be raised
again. The only conflict in the region will be over the Palestinian cause,”
Nasrallah vowed. Turning to Lebanon's domestic affairs, Hizbullah's chief
emphasized that his party does not support the 1960 electoral law under which
the country's last parliamentary elections were held in 2009. “We want to
replace it with a modern and correct electoral law,” he said. Citing the results
of the municipal polls, Nasrallah added: “We and the AMAL Movement will lose
parliamentary seats under a law based on proportional representation and yet we
are demanding such a law.”“What is better? The Shiite duo or unilateralism?
Under a law based on proportional representation, a third bloc might emerge from
the Shiite regions, while you are rejecting proportional representation because
you are insisting on monopolization and unilateralism in your sects and
regions,” Nasrallah added, mainly addressing al-Mustaqbal Movement and the
Progressive Socialist Party.“Proportional representation does not eliminate
anyone. We are calling for proportional representation but if the term of the
current parliament expires, we're with holding the elections under any law,” he
announced. As for the country's presidential crisis, Nasrallah called on rival
parties to “engage in dialogue and negotiate” with Free Patriotic Movement
founder MP Michel Aoun. “You must not turn your back to others and accuse them
of obstructing the presidential vote,” he added.
Hezbollah’s Iraq branch fighting
Fallujah battle
Al Arabiya English News/Wednesday, 25 May 2016/An Iraqi military spokesman said
troops were trying to tighten the encirclement of Falluja by advancing on the
western front, near the village of Khalidiya. Meanwhile, Iraqi Defense Ministry
published an official report which includes statements confirming that the Iraqi
Hezbollah Brigades are involved in the battle of Fallujah. Days ago, a YouTube
account linked to Kata’ib Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization and
Iranian proxy, has uploaded a video showing a large convoy of its rocket
launcher systems being sent to the front lines near Iraqi city of Fallujah. From
its part, days ago, Harakat al Nujaba, or Movement of the Noble, an Iranian-
supported Shiite militia which operates in both Iraq and Syria, has said it is
clearing a road in eastern Anbar province in preparation for an upcoming
offensive to retake Fallujah from the ISIS. Also, Qassem Soleimani, the head of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force – the external operations wing
of the Revolutionary Guards – was spotted in a picture said to be taken near
Fallujah. A picture of Soleimani in the “Fallujah operations room” was posted to
the Facebook account of Harakat al Nujaba.
Fear civilian casualties will worsen sectarian strife
On Wednesday morning Iraqi troops concentrated artillery fire on Falluja’s
northern and northeastern neighborhoods, according to a resident contacted via
the Internet. A Falluja hospital source said that six civilians were killed and
11 wounded on Wednesday morning, raising the overall death toll since Monday’s
launch of the government offensive to 35 – 21 civilians and 14 militants.
“Fierce fighting is now raging around the city,” Save the Children said in a
statement on Wednesday, calling for safe civilian exit routes to be established
as quickly as possible. Falluja’s population is around 100,000, according to
U.S. and Iraqi government estimates. The offensive is part of a government
campaign to roll back Islamic State’s seizure of wide tracts of northern and
western Iraq. Baghdad’s forces retook Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital near
Falluja, in December but have not yet tackled a bigger challenge – IS-held
Mosul, Iraq’s largest northern city.The Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq,
a hardline political organization formed after Saddam’s ouster to represent
Sunnis, has condemned the assault on Falluja as “an unjust aggression, a
reflection of the vengeful spirit that the forces of evil harbor against this
city”. Meanwhile, Iraq’s top Shi’ite Muslim cleric urged government forces
battling to retake Falluja. Sistani wields enormous influence over Iraq’s
Shi’ites. It was at his call that Shi’ite militias regrouped in 2014 in a
coalition known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization), to stem Islamic State’s
stunning advance through the north and west. Hashid Shaabi will take part in
encircling Falluja but will not enter the city unless the Iraqi army fails in
doing so, said Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organisation, the largest
component of the Shi’ite coalition. “Our decision is to encircle the city from
the outside and let the security forces operate; if the security forces are
unable to cleanse the city, we will then go in,” he said, according to video
recording on the state-run TV channel. Battle to retake Fallujah from ISIS rages
on.
Narallah warns of regional
tumult prior to US election
Now Lebanon/May 25/16/BEIRUT – The leader of Hezbollah warned that the Middle
East would “heat up” in the lead up to the US presidential election in November.
“It appears the region will heat up from now until the election of a new
American president,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday in a speech
delivered on the occasion of the anniversary of Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from
southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah chief further claimed that the Barack Obama
administration would seek to capitalize on foreign developments in order to
bolster the Democratic Party’s chances to retain the White House. “ISIS is
nearing its end, and we must deal with the next phase with caution, and not
retreat,” he declared in a speech in which he repeatedly reiterated his view on
the importance of Hezbollah and its regional allies. Nasrallah also touched on
Lebanese domestic politics, claiming his party and its main political ally the
Amal Movement notched major successes in the municipal elections held so far in
Shiite-populated towns across Lebanon. He also called for holding a
parliamentary election under the auspices of a new electoral law, and not the
1960 one that governed the 2009 parliamentary vote.
Lebanon’s bickering political parties have failed since 2014 to agree on a new
electoral law, twice postponing the elections under the pretext of a poor
security situation. Nasrallah in his speech objected to keeping the 1960 law,
which is based on majoritarian voting, and instead reiterated his support for a
new law based on proportional voting. He said that even though Hezbollah and
Amal stand to lose seats in the parliamentary elections to independent Shiite
candidates, he still supports a “modern” law based on proportionality.
Lebanese man among Jableh suicide bombers
Now Lebanon/May 25/16/BEIRUT – ISIS has claimed that a Lebanese national was
among the jihadist group’s suicide bombers that targeted the coastal cities of
Jableh and Tartous on Monday, leaving over 150 dead in the first such attack to
hit the normally-secure areas since the start of the Syrian war.
An article published Tuesday in ISIS’s weekly Al-Nabaa newspaper said that the
Lebanese man—identified by his nom de-guerre Saraqah al-Lubnani—was part of a
group of five suicide bombers who “attacked the apostate Nusayri (a derogative
term for Alawites) gatherings in Jableh.”The report claimed that ISIS set off
two car bombs in the city, after which three of its members wearing suicide
vests detonated themselves. However, only four explosions rocked the Latakia
town on Monday. Pro-regime media outlets claimed Monday that one would-be
suicide bomber was captured in Jableh, although Syrian state media has made no
statements on the matter. The Al-Nabaa report also said that five suicide
bombers targeted Tartous, even though only three explosions hit the town in and
around a bus terminal, killing dozens of civilians.A number of Lebanese
nationals fighting for ISIS in Syria have reportedly conducted suicide bombings
on behalf of the terrorist group, while ISIS claimed responsibility for a deadly
blast in the southern Beirut suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh on November 12 that
killed 43 people. **NOW's English news desk editor Albin Szakola (@AlbinSzakola)
wrote this report. Amin Nasr translated the Arabic-language source material.
Salam, Khalil and Salameh discuss US
financial transaction measures
Wed 25 May 2016/NNA - Prime
Minister, Tammam Salam, held a meeting with Finance minister, Ali Hassan Khalil
and Lebanese Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh over US special financial
transaction measures issued lately by the US congress.
Mogherini on Presidential
vacuum: Lebanon cannot afford to wait for the region to solve its problems
before it addresses this issue
Wed 25 May 2016/NNA - In an issued declaration, Wednesday, on behalf of the
European Union on Lebanon, EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, said: On
25 May 2016 Lebanon enters its third year without a President. The sovereignty,
stability, territorial integrity and independence of Lebanon are important for
the European Union. Lebanon remains an example of freedom, diversity and
tolerance for the region, but the prolonged political crisis can only further
weaken the country and its institutions in facing its many challenges. Lebanon
cannot afford to wait for the region to solve its problems before it addresses
this issue. The EU again urges Lebanese political forces and all stakeholders to
put partisan and individual interests aside and find a viable compromise to
elect a President swiftly. The EU supports the efforts deployed by the Lebanese
government under difficult circumstances to ensure that issues of dissent do not
hinder completely the functioning of Lebanese Institutions, and do not
compromise the delivery of international assistance. In this context the EU
commends the Lebanese Armed Forces' work for the safety and security of the
country. The National Dialogue and other mediation efforts are laudable
initiatives to ensure communication between political forces and prevent a
deterioration of the political climate. The EU welcomes the holding of the
Municipal elections and the Parliamentary by-elections for a vacant
Parliamentary seat, and calls on all parties to create the conditions for the
holding of Parliamentary elections. The EU is fully aware of the additional
challenges that the refugee crisis poses for the stability of Lebanon. The EU
commends the Lebanese people for their efforts to host refugees fleeing the
conflict in Syria, and stresses the importance of respect by all parties of the
right to safe and voluntary return of refugees displaced from Syria. As
demonstrated by the EU's pledge at the London Conference and its initial
implementation, the EU and its Member States are committed to supporting
Lebanon, its host institutions and public services in addressing the growing
needs of all vulnerable host communities and refugees. The EU welcomes Lebanon's
Statement of Intent presented at the London Conference, and fully supports its
implementation. The EU reiterates its commitment to the partnership with
Lebanon, and reaffirms the need to work together to respond to common challenges
on the basis of our common values, including human rights, democracy, and
respect for diversity.
Fadi Karam: holding
parliamentary elections before presidential one a constitutional snag
Wed 25 May 2016/NNA - Holding parliamentary elections before a presidential one
is a constitutional snag, Lebanese Forces member, MP Fadi Karam, stressed during
an interview on "Free Lebanon" radio station. MP Karam added that the mixed law
is contended by all political counterparts while he stressed on the necessity to
hold parliamentary elections based on a new electoral law. Karam said that many
of Christian and Muslim sides have tried to put down the LF-FPM agreement
because they have the power to impose their veto. Commenting on the death of
Mohamad Hujairy at the hand of Maarouf Hamiyeh, father of army martyr Mohammad
Hamiyeh, he said that such approach was unacceptable despite the fact that he
understood Hamiyeh's family conditions and ruled out a Sunni-Shiite strife
regarding this matter. He concluded that the security situation in general was
stable, especially that there was a political decision for keeping things under
control in addition to the ability of the security forces to control this
matter.
Hezbollah doesn’t want a President – Because it doesn’t want a Lebanese
Republic
David DaoudNow Lebanon/May 25/16/
Hezbollah appears to have switched loyalties in Lebanon’s never-ending
presidential race. Despite maintaining long-standing support for the candidacy
of the pro-Syrian former general Michel Aoun, the Shiite movement is reportedly
now backing his rival for the post, Sleiman Frangieh. If true, the move is
further proof that the group does not seek to fill Lebanon’s long-vacant
presidency – not even with a sympathetic candidate – but rather to ensure a
presidential vacuum to further delegitimize the Lebanese Republic.
Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014. Earlier this month, its
parliament failed for the 39th time to elect a candidate, postponing elections
again until June 2. As before, Hezbollah and its political allies caused the
failure by boycotting the session. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had
previously pledged to back Aoun as long as he was a candidate, and the party had
vowed to boycott elections unless Aoun ran unopposed, and was guaranteed
victory.
Yet according to reports in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah, Hezbollah is using
stall tactics to prevent the election of any candidate at all. Days after it
reportedly told both contenders not to expect an election until the Syrian Civil
War was resolved in the regime’s favor, Hezbollah asked that Frangieh not only
maintain his candidacy, but also convinced Aoun to drop out of the race.
Both candidates are staunch allies of the Shiite party. Both have consistently
opposed its disarmament, are aligned with its foreign policy, share its enmity
towards Israel and support its intervention in Syria. Either candidate will
likely end Lebanon’s official policy of neutrality on the Syrian Civil War and
provide a governmental stamp of approval to Hezbollah’s fight on the Syrian
regime’s behalf. Victory for either would ostensibly benefit Hezbollah.
However, the reality is that Hezbollah’s power is such that it doesn’t need that
stamp of approval. More important, by allowing the state to continue functioning
the election of any president – even an ally – would set back Hezbollah’s
central ideological goal, articulated by Nasrallah in the late 1980s. The
group’s ultimate goal, then as now, is transforming Lebanon into “part of the
large Islamic Republic ruled by … the Wali al-Faqih,” or the GuardianJurist –
the Islamic cleric charged with governing worldly affairs until the return of
the so-called “Hidden Imam.”
Hezbollah first stated that goal in its foundational document, the 1985 Open
Letter. In it, the party rejected “operat[ing] within the constraints of the
current Lebanese constitution,” or even supporting any internal reform, unless
to implant “fundamental changes in the system’s roots.”
In his 2005 book on the organization’s history and ideology – now in its eighth
reprint – Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem calls the objective of an Islamic
state the “natural expression” of the party’s Shiite beliefs, and “the supreme
representation of human happiness” for not just Muslims but also Christians and
Jews. Qassem says an Islamic state remains the party’s goal today, reemphasizing
that point as recently as a January 2016 interview.
In recent years, some analysts have suggested that Hezbollah has abandoned these
goals, becoming more “moderate” and Lebanese, noting that the party’s 2009
manifesto omitted references to many of the Open Letter’s goals. However,
Hezbollah’s own leadership has put the lie to such a view. According to
Nasrallah, the new manifesto was only a “political document,” one that did not
affect matters of “creed, ideology, or thought” – particularly Wilayat al-Faqih,
which is “not a political stand that can be subjected to revision.” Likewise,
Qassem has insisted that the Open Letter is a “permanent and continuous
document,” and the 2009 manifesto merely provided “minor” or “trivial
adjustments,” meant to update the Letter to present-day facts, but not abrogate
it in any way.
There is one important caveat to the implementation of Hezbollah’s Islamist
model: it insists the Islamic system must be freely adopted by the “overwhelming
majority” of Lebanese, who are called upon to “completely uproot” the secular
Lebanese Republic. According to the Open Letter, and as repeated by Qassem, this
is because the Quran says, “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” Hezbollah
does “not wish to impose Islam on anybody,” reads the Letter, calling instead
for an Islamic order to be installed by “direct and free choice exercised by the
populace.”
But the group never really intended to leave the choice up to the Lebanese.
Hezbollah has long realized that the Lebanese system’s routine dysfunction will
not suffice to convince its citizens to willingly exchange it for another,
particularly not a model that would impose an austere Islamic code on their
multi-sectarian, relatively secular society. To convince them to implement that
system, Hezbollah needs to show that the country’s current system is inherently
broken and “unjust,” as the Letter says. Hezbollah does so by seizing any
opportunity to cripple the government.
The office of the president is the keystone of the Lebanese political system and
the state’s titular authority. In the absence of a president, the government is
now at a virtual standstill, as the president, per the Constitution, is needed
to sign bills into law, negotiate and ratify treaties, confirm ambassadors, and
appoint the prime minister, cabinet ministers and civil servants. Hezbollah and
its allies similarly precipitated the 2006-2008 political crisis, staging
sit-ins and violent protests by hundreds of thousands of supporters to force
then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to form a national unity government and to
grant it the requisite number of cabinet positions to veto decisions and
collapse the government, despite holding only 45 percent of parliamentary seats.
When it can’t disable the government, the Party of God harps on the government’s
failures. Hezbollah exploited the country’s eight-month trash-collection crisis
to emphasize that a state too weak to pick up garbage could not be trusted with
decisions of war and peace. And despite feigning respect for the Lebanese Army,
Hezbollah downplays the military’s successes, presenting it as too weak to
defend the country. This rhetoric has influenced Aoun, who has said Hezbollah
should assume the task of national defense instead.
By preventing the state from carrying out even these most basic functions and
pointing out its deficiencies, Hezbollah hopes to demonstrate that the Lebanese
Constitution will inevitably result in a failed state. By contrast, the
organization presents its theocratic system as an ideal alternative. In a recent
speech, Nasrallah brazenly touted the superiority of that system, praising “the
Islamic Republic,” as “the preeminent, grand and great regional power,” whose
“friendship” the world was rushing to gain.
By contrast, Nasrallah implied that Lebanon was inferior – not because of
differences in size or resources, but its system of government. He argued that
while Lebanese elections barely functioned, even in peacetime, Iran’s elections
had never been suspended, “even under rockets and artillery bombardment” during
the Iran-Iraq War. Unlike in Lebanon, Tehran’s Expediency Council acted as a
“constitutional failsafe” to prevent disagreements from disabling the system.
“We are going to criticize the Expediency Council when we can’t even solve the
garbage problem?” he asked. For almost two decades, Hezbollah has realized that
its project to replace the Lebanese Republic would be long and incremental. It
therefore adopted pragmatism over confrontation, working from within the system
to dismantle and discredit it one step at a time. Hezbollah holds the key to
solving the presidential crisis, and by effectively rejecting two allies to fill
the presidency, Hezbollah is crippling the system to show Lebanese that the only
path to effective and just governance is its own. Even if the presidential
crisis is soon resolved, by ensuring a two-year vacancy in the post, Hezbollah
will have already reached that goal.
***David Daoud is an Arabic-language research analyst at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies
Lebanon – Electoral Escapism From
Politics
Eyad Abu Shakra/ASharq Al Awsat/May 25/16
The Lebanese are surely entitled to celebrate exercising one form of “democracy”
provided to them by the municipal and mayoral elections. Of course they are,
given that foreign dictates have for almost two years prevented the election of
a new president; and that they have almost forgotten that their parliament was
elected in 2009 for a four-year term, but unilaterally renewed its term in 2013
citing “exceptional security concerns”.
The common denominator between blocking both presidential and parliamentary
elections – as the Lebanese are quite aware – is the existence of a
foreign-aligned and armed ‘mini-state’ which is stronger than the Lebanese
state. Although this ‘mini-state’ is functioning within Lebanese state
institutions and benefits from their services, it keeps to itself what it
refuses to share with the country’s constituents within those state institutions
which are supposed to represent, govern and defend the sovereignty of the whole
country.
Hence, in the light of absent sovereignty, prohibited democracy, collapsing
services, deteriorating media and the terrorised judiciary, the municipal and
mayoral elections came as a breather, whereby frustrated and disenfranchised
citizens are reminded, at least, of their ability to protest and vent their
anger.
The Lebanese, indeed, flocked to the polls in cities, towns and villages, first
in Beirut and the provinces of Beqaa’ and Baalbeck – Hermel (both in eastern
Lebanon), followed by Mount Lebanon. Today it is the turn of South Lebanon and
Nabatiyeh (both in southern Lebanon), and the whole exercise should be completed
with the provinces of North Lebanon and Akkar (both in northern Lebanon).
As usual, there has been a strong inclination on behalf of ordinary voters,
political parties and the media, to deduce some political trends reflected by
this electoral landmark; and sure enough any kind of elections – even at the
level of university student councils and trade unions – gives an idea about the
general ‘mood’ of the people.
However, this is never a clear and comprehensive picture like that usually
provided by parliamentary elections, the reason being the context of transient
‘coalitions’ and personal preferences. In Lebanon’s municipal and mayoral
elections, it would have been wrong to read too much into the voting pattern,
especially in villages and small towns where clan and tribal affinities play the
major part in voters’ preferences. Then, there is the size of a clan or a tribe
that might have outweighed party loyalties, which has limited the political
dimension to the situations below.
Firstly, the elections may have carried some test for ‘political sizes’ of
various parties but only in the Christian areas; and here the results were
really interesting.
Secondly, they may have given an idea about how significant the Shi’ite protest
movement is against the hegemony of the Hezbollah-Amal in the Shi’i heartlands,
particularly in the aftermath of Hezbollah’s military involvement in the Syrian
War and its consequences.
Thirdly, they may have provided an opportunity to monitor the Sunni pulse
following the return of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Lebanon, as well as
the growth of ‘Islamist’ groups mainly in the Sunni countryside.
Fourthly, they assessed the vitality of Lebanon’s civil society, which may or
may not reflect its disappointment with the country’s political elite, and its
ability of pushing forward secular issues and demand across sectarian and party
barriers.
In the Christian camp the ‘test’ deserved its name after the Aounist ‘Free
Patriotic Movement’ and its former bitter foe ‘The Lebanese Forces’ entered an
‘alliance’ that encouraged its partisans and supporters to claim it commands the
support of more than 85% of Christians.
What happened, however, was that the ‘alliance’ stood firm in some areas and
disappeared in others because clan and local loyalties proved stronger than
political ‘deals’ cut over the local village and town fabrics. Furthermore, even
when this Christian ‘grand alliance’ materialised – as was the case in the city
of Zahle (eastern Lebanon) and some towns in Mount Lebanon like Deir Al-Qamar –
the difference in votes cast was either quite small or allowed opposing
candidates to manage to break through the ‘alliance’ list and win seats.
Moreover, the Lebanese Kataeb Party (i.e. the Phalanges), which the Aounist –
Lebanese Forces ‘alliance’ had thought to be all but moribund, scored a few
impressive results and reclaimed its stature in several areas, and many local
‘traditional leaderships’ managed to maintain solid influence in its
strongholds. Thus, the elections proved beyond doubt that there was no Christian
political ‘monopoly’, a fact that undermines any attempt to treat such a test as
if it was a ‘referendum’ on national political programmes or personal hallows.
As for the Shi’i scene, at least in northeast Lebanon, the protest movement
proved strong in the city of Baalbeck, the largest Shi’ite city, which gave the
list of independents and clan representatives running against the Hezbollah-Amal
coalition list more than 40% of the votes despite the coalition’s monopoly of
arms in defence of its ‘patriotism’, ‘resistance’ and ‘development’!
On the other hand, while some may say that the Shi’ite ‘social’ realities in
‘tribal’ northeast Lebanon differ from those of ‘rural-urban’ south Lebanon –
implying that the coalitions’ sway would be stronger – neither Hezbollah nor
Amal would benefit from interfering in village rivalries, which may antagonize
their influence in their home ground.
Meanwhile, in the Sunni ‘test’, the Future Movement has thus far emerged
victorious in populous mixed battlegrounds led by the capital Beirut, despite
relatively good showing for ‘Islamist’ and party groups; however, a more
important test would come in the southern city of Sidon, in Tripoli, Lebanon’s
second city, and the neighbouring rural ‘Sunni reservoir’ of northern Lebanon.
Last but not least, as the Druze leaderships left these elections in their
proper local and clan-based context far from high-level – noting that Druze
population density is in the rural districts –, it was obvious that these
elections opened the door wide for the protest votes of Lebanon’s civil society,
which although was loud and clear, proved unable to make the breakthrough.
To conclude, I believe this electoral experiment has to be seen as a dynamic and
healthy phenomenon, it was analysed properly. Lebanon’s status quo is far from
normal; with its political decision hijacked, and its sovereignty diminished –
if not made absent – by the power of sectarian arms controlled and directed from
abroad, and almost half of its elites and enlightened intelligentsia are either
emigrant or in self-exile, and whereby political parties may master sectarian
and popular agitation and mobilisation nationally but have proven unable still
to turn the Lebanese voter into a Lebanese citizen.
**Eyad Abu Shakra is the managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. He has been with
the newspaper since 1978.
Lebanese 'Al-Safir' Daily Marks 16th Anniversary Of Israel's Withdrawal From
South Lebanon: Hizbullah Is Digging Tunnels On Israel Border
MEMRI/May 25/16/Special Dispatch No.6447
On May 25, 2016, the Lebanese daily Al-Safir, which is known for its support for
Hizbullah, published a front- page article celebrating "Liberation Day," i.e.
the 16th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon. The article,
which appears without a byline, analyzes the current situation of Hizbullah
(which it calls "the resistance") as well as its combative actions on the Syrian
and Israeli fronts. It claims that this year's Liberation Day celebrations are
mixed with heartbreak for Hizbullah supporters, due to the large number of
Hizbullah casualties in the Syria war. It adds that in its fight in Syria,
Hizbullah currently faces the toughest challenge since its establishment,
greater even than its conflict against Israel, because the price thus far paid
by Hizbullah in this war – both in capabilities and casualties – is
unprecedented, and no solution in Syria is on the horizon.
The article assesses that Hizbullah may expand its theater of operations even
further in the future, in response to new challenges, and that this will turn it
into a "regional power" that "formulates new equations in the region."
Adding that alongside its fighting in Syria, Hizbullah is continuing its
activity against Israel, the article also reports that resistance fighters work
day and night along the Israeli border, "conducting observations, preparing, and
digging tunnels that cause the settlers and enemy soldiers to lose sleep." It
also states that in fighting "tafkiri organizations," Hizbullah has encountered
an enemy that excavates tunnels, after becoming accustomed to being the only one
digging them; in fact, it was Hizbullah that taught other resistance fighters,
particularly Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the tunnel doctrine.[1]
The following are excerpts from the article:[2]
"[Since its founding], the resistance [i.e. Hizbullah] never found itself
deployed on several fronts and facing more than one challenge and more than one
danger at once [as is happening today]. These four years since it became
involved in the war in Syria represent the greatest trial it has [ever] faced...
The movement has never paid in flesh, blood and abilities as it has paid [during
the Syria war] and as it may continue to pay in the future, in the open
confrontation with the takfiri [groups, i.e. the groups fighting against the
Assad regime in Syria].[3] [So far] over 1,000 [fighters] have died and
thousands have been wounded and disabled, and many others may meet [the same
fate] in the ever-expanding confrontation that is becoming more difficult and
more aggressive every day. This, especially since the horizon of a political
solution seems to have been eliminated for the foreseeable future.
"Amid all this comes the 16th [anniversary] of the liberation [of South
Lebanon], which underscores an element that Israel cannot ignore, namely the
strengthening of the security and stability equation on both sides of the
Palestine-Lebanon border. [This is] thanks to the deterrence system, or more
accurately the balance of terror, which is an equation that has turned South
Lebanon into the most secure region in the entire Middle East. Though we must
not ignore other factors, no less important, [that contribute to this security],
including [UN] Resolution 1701, UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.
"The celebrations of liberty are held amid heartbreak mixed with joy. Heartbreak
[at the sight of] the processions of martyrs crossing the boundary south of the
Litani every day [i.e. bodies of Hizbullah fighters killed in Syria being
returned to Lebanon for burial], and joy [at the sight of] the processions [of
people] rejoicing over [Hizbullah's victory in some of] the local elections
[that have been held in Lebanon in recent weeks]...
"The heartbreak over the martyrs is a necessary tax [that must be paid] in the
struggle, [a struggle] which the Lebanese, of all sectors, regard as
existential, even though they are divided on whether the preemptive war against
the terrorists outside the borders of the homeland is justified. This heartbreak
is present in every home in South [Lebanon]... When Hizbullah secretary-general
Hassan Nasrallah speaks at Liberation Day ceremonies [today] in the town of Al-Nabi
Shayth in the Bekaa [Valley], he will be speaking to a public that has
contributed to the resistance [by supporting Hizbullah's activity in Syria] just
as residents of the South have contributed [in fighting against Israel], and
perhaps even more, since [Bekaa Valley residents] face a danger today on their
eastern border that is just as bad as the Israeli danger.
"It is right to say that the men of resistance on the eastern border complement
the mission of the first men of resistance [who operate against Israel], who
work day and night [along the border, from] the last border point in Al-Naquora
to [the one in] Kfar Shouba, conducting observations, preparing, and digging
tunnels that cause the settlers and enemy soldiers to lose sleep. [All this they
do] without abandoning the [other] tasks of the resistance, which stands ready,
openly and secretly, throughout Lebanon, and especially in the Southern Dahiya,
in order to prevent any terrorist attack by the takfiris, in full coordination
with the Lebanese army and Lebanon's other security apparatuses. There might be
further expansion of Hizbullah's battle front, in accordance with future
challenges, and this expansion turns this Lebanese group [Hizbullah], which was
established 34 years ago in Sheikh 'Abdallah's base in Baalbek, into a regional
force that formulates new equations in the region...
"In all of its rounds of fighting with the Israeli enemy, the resistance never
faced what it has been facing for years in confronting the dark [elements] armed
with the Prophet Muhammad's Koran and Sunnah, who receive funding from
tyrannical regimes and innumerable intelligence apparatuses, and are armed with
military [equipment] that only armies possess."
"The resistance also never experienced a four-year war in an area several times
larger than Lebanon [itself]. It never experienced [war] against groups that
imitate its methods and ways of warfare, but [who] instead of blowing themselves
up against an Israeli convoy terrorize innocent people in the cities and
villages, without batting an eyelash, as happened in the southern Dahiya or
yesterday in Tartus and Jableh.
"The resistance never experienced war against groups fighting in caves and in
the hills, mountains, wadis and even deserts, as happened at Tadmor and in the
rural areas of Homs and Aleppo... Before [the war with Syria], the resistance
did not storm cities and did not fight armies deep in the mountains. Before
this, no one lay in wait for it in tunnels like the ones that only it used to
excavate, and [the doctrine of which] it spread to the rest of the men of the
resistance, particularly to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"All these have been the unique characteristics of the resistance throughout the
16 years since May 25, 2000. All these [characteristics] and others will cause
Hassan Nasrallah to declare that defending the achievement of liberation will
end only with the defeat of the terrorists..."
Endnotes:
[1] Regarding the issue of the tunnels, it should be noted that Ibrahim Al-Amin,
chairman of the board of the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, wrote in a January 13,
2014 article that Hamas members fighting in Syria, in the Al-Quseir area and
other regions, had dug tunnels there, similar to the ones excavated by Hamas in
Gaza. He explained that Hizbullah had taught Hamas to dig these tunnels in the
days when the two organizations were cooperating in smuggling arms into Gaza and
preparing military plans against Israel.
[2] Al-Safir (Lebanon), May 25, 2016.
[3] Hizbullah, like the Syrian regime, does not draw a distinction between the
rebels and the Salafi-jihadi groups.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on
May 25- 26/16
Israel PM Reaches Deal for
Ultra-Nationalist Party to Join Govt.
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 25/16/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu joined forces on Wednesday with a hardline nationalist party to expand
his coalition, forming what is being called the most right-wing government in
the nation's history. Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party will add
five lawmakers to Netanyahu's previously wafer-thin majority if the deal is
given parliamentary approval as expected. Lieberman, who has spoken of harsh
measures against Palestinian "terrorists", will take over the key role of
defense minister after being sworn in.The two men, who have in the past been
bitter rivals, announced the deal at a ceremony at parliament, with Lieberman
pledging to be "balanced" and saying he was committed to "responsible,
reasonable policy."Netanyahu said that "we are joining hands now to march Israel
forward."The move to hand the defense ministry to the 57-year-old hardliner has
sparked deep concern among Israeli centrist and left-wing politicians, as well
as among some of Netanyahu's Likud party colleagues. Religious nationalists from
the Jewish Home party already hold key cabinet positions in Netanyahu's
government. Moshe Yaalon, a Likud member who resigned as defense minister on
Friday and who has also served as armed forces chief, warned of a rising tide of
extremism in the party and the country as a whole. Former Labor prime minister
and defense minister Ehud Barak went further, saying Israel's government "has
been infected by the shoots of fascism."But others say that Lieberman is above
all a pragmatic politician who aspires to be prime minister one day, noting also
that he will face opposition from the security establishment if he seeks to
carry out some of his most controversial ideas. An example of his provocative
style was recently on display in comments directed at Ismail Haniya, Islamist
movement Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip. Lieberman said he would give Haniya
48 hours to hand over two detained Israeli civilians and the bodies of soldiers
killed in a 2014 war "or you're dead". In 2001, the former nightclub bouncer
advocated bombing the Aswan Dam in Egypt, accusing Israel's Arab neighbor of
supporting a Palestinian uprising.
Death penalty, pensions -
The deal brings to a stunning conclusion weeks of speculation over Netanyahu's
efforts to expand his government, which has held only 61 of the 120 seats in
parliament since elections in March 2015. Netanyahu had earlier engaged in
negotiations with Labor party leader Isaac Herzog to join the government before
turning to Lieberman instead. Besides Lieberman becoming defense minister and
another member of his party becoming immigrant absorption minister, the
government agreed to allocate approximately 1.4 billion shekels ($363 million,
325 million euros) to pensions of elderly Israelis. Lieberman, born in the
ex-Soviet republic of Moldova, sought the arrangement to benefit immigrants from
the former Soviet Union, his main electoral support base. "These are the two
major issues that are important to our constituency, and significant
achievements," Lieberman's spokesman told AFP. He had also pushed for the
government to institute the death penalty for Palestinian "terrorists," but
Lieberman backed away from the demand in the talks. A watered-down version is
thought to have been agreed upon that analysts say is unlikely to significantly
change current policy. There have been no executions in Israel since 1962.
Netanyahu has sought to ease fears over Lieberman's expected appointment, saying
he will continue to seek peace with the Palestinians and oversee the defense
ministry's policies, which include control over most of the occupied West Bank.
Negotiations with the Palestinians have been at a complete standstill since a
U.S.-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Iran regime
mass executes 11 prisoners, including juvenile offender
Wednesday, 25 May 2016/
National Council of Resistance of Iran/NCRI – Iran’s fundamentalist regime mass
executed on Wednesday 11 prisoners in their twenties, including at least one who
is believed to have been a minor at the time of his alleged offence. Another
three prisoners were executed on Tuesday.
The 11 victims, all aged between 22 and 25, were hanged en masse at dawn on May
25 in the notorious Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in Karaj, north-west of
Tehran.Among them was Mehdi Rajai who is believed to have been 16 years old at the time
of his alleged crime.
The names of eight of the other prisoners are believed to be Mohsen
Agha-Mohammadi, Asghar Azizi, Farhad Bakhshayesh, Iman Fatemi-Pour, Javad
Khorsandi, Hossein Mohammadi, Masoud Raghadi, and Khosrow Robat-Dasti.
On Tuesday, May 24, three other prisoners in Karaj’s Qezelhesar Prison were
hanged. One of them was identified as Ruhollah Roshangar, a married father of
two. All three had been behind bars for the past four years.
Also on Wednesday, the mullahs’ regime informed seven Sunni prisoners in
Gohardasht that their execution sentences have been handed down by Branch 28 of
the regime’s ‘Revolutionary Court.’The seven prisoners were identified as Davoud Abdollahi, Qasem Abesteh, Khosrow
Besharat, Ayoub Karimi, Anvar Khezri, Farhad Salimi, and Kamran Shikheh. All
seven have been behind bars since December 7, 2009.
Iran’s fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions,
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period last week.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
and a human rights activist, on Wednesday called for an urgent response by the
United Nations and foreign governments to the appalling state of human rights in
Iran.
“The rising number of mass executions in Iran in recent weeks clearly shows that
the regime has in no way decided to change its disgraceful human rights record.
Any claim of moderation under Hassan Rouhani is simply a myth. It is high time
for the United Nations and human rights organizations to speak out against the
brutal executions by the mullahs’ regime and send Iran’s human rights dossier
before the UN Security Council,” she said.
The latest hangings bring to at least 112 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. Three of those executed were women and two are believed to have
been juvenile offenders.
Iran's fundamentalist regime earlier this month amputated the fingers of a man
in his thirties in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments handed
down and carried out in recent weeks.
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.”
Iranian Resistance’s call to
save political prisoners on hunger strike
Tuesday, 24 May 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/The Iranian Resistance calls on all
defenders of human rights, particularly the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel and inhumane punishments, the
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, the Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in Iran, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,
to take urgent and effective action to secure the release of the political
prisoners on hunger strike.
Mr. Jafar Azimzadeh, after 25 days of hunger strike, is in dire condition. He
has gone on hunger strike to protest the “violation of fundamental rights of
teachers and workers”, “their imprisonment and trial on bogus charges”, and to
revoke the charge of “acting against security” against labor and teacher
activists. On May 21, he was transferred to a hospital outside the prison due to
severe feebleness and drop in blood pressure, as well as mal-functioning of the
kidney. The Iranian regime’s intelligence agents pressured him in the hospital
to end his hunger strike, but he stressed that he would not end his hunger
strike until his demands are met. Similarly, on May 23, he was again transferred
to the hospital because of the deterioration of his condition, but around
midnight they pulled him off his hospital bed and returned him from the hospital
to prison.
Mr. Mohammad Sediq Kaboudvand, a Kurdish journalist and a political prisoner in
Ward 350 of Evin Prison, has gone on hunger strike in protest to fabrication of
charges, ramping up of pressure and harassment in the prison. He has been on
hunger strike for 17 days. Despite his dire condition, the regime has increased
pressure on him and has summoned him to be tried on fresh charges. Mr.
Kaboudvand has been in detention since July 1, 2007 and was condemned by a bogus
court to 10 years in prison for “acting against security”. He suffers of several
ailments, including cardiac and renal diseases, and the persistence of the
present conditions is very dangerous for him.
Political prisoner Mr. Abbas Lessani is exiled in Adelabad Prison of Shiraz and
has staged a hunger strike in protest to his continued detention despite the end
of his prison term. The mullahs’ judiciary is planning to raise fresh charges
against him to prolong his imprisonment.
Political prisoner Mr. Sohail Babadi in Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison has been
on a hunger strike since May 16. Despite suffering from renal infection and
stone, he is deprived of the necessary medical treatment. He was arrested in
June 2012 for posting sarcastic pieces on his Facebook page and was condemned to
five years in prison for insulting ‘sanctities.’ Regime’s judiciary henchmen
then added another seven years to his prison term on charges of assembling and
colluding against the national security and insulting the supreme leader.
Mr. Shir-Mohammad Shirani, a Baluchi political prisoner who has been exiled to a
prison in Ardabil, went on hunger strike on May 2 to protest being deprived of
medical care. After he announced his hunger strike, the torturers badly beat him
up and transferred him to solitary confinement with a broken head and while
bleeding. He was arrested in 2008 and underwent torture in solitary confinement
for two years. He was then condemned to 22 years in prison and transferred from
a prison in Zahedan to Ardabil. He suffers of renal and other diseases, but
intelligence ministry agents prevent him from receiving medical treatment.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran/May 24, 2016
Blair: Normalization steps, plus Arab initiative could bring peace
Jerusalem Post/May 25/16/Regional normalization steps alongside a regional peace
process based on the Saudi Initiative could bring about the resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said
in London on Tuesday. “This gives us a better opportunity to resolve this issue
than anything else since the creation of the State of Israel,” said Blair as he
spoke at an event hosted by Prospect Magazine. He promoted the idea of the 2002
Arab Peace Initiative, which offered Israel normalized relations with the Arab
world in exchange for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and a just resolution
to the issue of Palestinian refugees. Earlier this month, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted in Arabic that an updated initiative which “addresses
our concerns merits further discussion. Israel will always seek peace.”The tweet
is just one of many comments that Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have
made about the importance of a regional process and the role that Arab neighbors
can play in any initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this month pledged to help Israelis and
Palestinians to take historic steps for peace. “The Arab Peace Initiative
assumed that you would have a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians
and then there would be a process of normalization,” Blair said. “Provided that
Israel and the Israeli government were prepared to commit to a discussion around
the Arab Peace Initiative, as the context in which this negotiation took place,
then it would be possible, I think, to have some steps of normalization along
the way to give confidence,” he said. “With the new leadership in the region
today, I think that is possible to do,” Blair said.
But he warned it would depend first on how Israel responded to Sisi’s offer and
to the Arab Peace Initiative. Blair said he is working with Israel and other
regional governments to promote a peace process. An Arab, Israeli and
Palestinian peace process “is the single best opportunity for peace,” he said.
Internal Israeli and Palestinian politics make it difficult for either
government to conduct a peace process, he said. “People always think with the
Israeli-Palestinian issue [that] we should just lock them in a room together.
And if you lock them in a room long enough they will come out with a peace
agreement,” said Blair. “You have a gulf of trust and credibility on both sides,
and the only way you can bridge that, is to build from the bottom up as well as
from the top down,” Blair said. Although he has learned that their is a limit to
the importance of easing conditions on the ground and economic prosperity to the
peace process, he said. “If the politics are not right, the economics won’t
work,” he said. The political support base for a peace process must also be
broadened, said Blair, who added that this is where the region has a role to
play. “There are common strategic interests between the Israelis and the
Palestinian leadership and the Arab countries,” he said. While the US
involvement is critical, regional support is also necessary, Blair said. The
bond created by the common threats in the Middle East presents an opportunity
for this to occur, he said. These two main threats are Iran and Sunni extremism,
from the Muslim Brotherhood to ISIS, he said. “In a situation of chaos and
turmoil can come opportunity,” he said. A peace process can be built on the idea
of common strategic interests, he said. Israelis believe they can have a
relationship with their Arab neighbors based on common strategic interests,
while leaving the Palestinian issue to the side, Blair said. This will never
work, Blair added. “The Palestinian issues remain of fundamental importance
despite all the other things happening in the region,” he said.
US pro-gun lobby to 'Ayatollahs of Iran': You haven't met alligator wrestlers,
cowboys of America
J.Post/May 25/16/ As part of a recent video campaign series by the US National
Rifle Association, one clip featuring a gravel-voiced American Country singer
was making rounds on the Internet Wednesday for it's address directed at Iran
rather than who they deem as anti-gun liberals. In the video interspersed with
iconic black-and-white images of the United States, Country Music legend Charlie
Daniels dons a cowboy hat depicting the stereotypical image of the 'Wild West'
while threatening the "Ayatollahs of Iran" to " listen up."“You might have met
our fresh-faced flower child president and his weak-kneed, Ivy League friends,
but you haven’t met America,” he begins his oration. "You haven't met the
heartland, or the people who will defend this nation with their bloody,
calloused, bare hands, if that's what it takes," his narration continues. "You
haven't met the steelworkers and the hard-rock miners, or the swamp folks in
Cajun country who can wrestle a full-grown gator out of the water.""You haven’t
met the farmers, the cowboys, the loggers and the truck drivers," he adds. "You
don’t know the mountain men who live off the land, or the brave cops who fight
the good fight in the urban war zones""No, you’ve never met America. And you
oughta pray you never do," he warns. The ad promoting the contested pro-gun
lobby was originally uploaded to the NRA's YouTube on March 22. While the
current US administration's foreign policy on Iran has garnered a mixed response
among the pubic, the country also faces a fierce debate on gun control.
Jews celebrate Tunisia's Lag BaOmer
festival
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English news Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Jews worldwide
travel to the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia’s Djerba Island to celebrate the
annual Lag BaOmer Jewish festival, that began on Wednesday.Perez Trabelsi,
chairman of the Ghriba synagogue board told Al Arabiya English News
that authorities are expecting up to 2,000 people to take part in this ‘unique’
event. The pilgrimage lasts for six days and features rituals such as writing
wishes on hard- boiled eggs, which are then placed near a stone brought from
Jerusalem 2,600 years ago, according to Trabelsi. During the annual Lag BaOmer
festival, the streets throng with Jewish pilgrims who ‘venerate’ Rabbi Shimon
bar Yochai, a second-century mystic, Trabelsi said. Djerba is home to roughly
1,700 Jews. The Jewish community in the resort island, trace their roots all the
way back to Babylonian exile of 586 B.C. According to Talmudic culture, Ghriba
synagogue is the oldest Jewish temple in Africa. It is located in the village of
Hara Sghira in Djerba, an island off the coast of southern Tunisia. The
synagogue's name means "strange" or "miraculous” in the Tunisian language.
Tunisia's Jewish population has dwindled from 100,000 in 1956, when the country
won independence from France, to less than 1,500, mainly as a result of
emigration to France and Israel. Unlike the rest of the Arab world, Tunisian
Jews have seen little persecution and have rarely been targeted by extremists.
In 2000, the number of pilgrims reached 10,000, but a deadly al-Qaeda attack
outside the synagogue in 2002 caused numbers to drop. Since then, the
neighborhood and the synagogue are heavily guarded by police. In 2010, 4,000
visitors attended, however the 2011 revolution, caused the number to decrease
substantially due to worries about the country’s security situation.
In 2014, Tunisian government decided to allow Israeli citizens to enter the
country despite lack of formal diplomatic ties with Israel.
Yemen talks ‘closer’ to
agreement- Envoy
AFP, Kuwait City Wednesday, 25 May 2016/The UN envoy said on Wednesday that
Yemen’s warring parties were closer to an agreement at peace talks in Kuwait as
he headed to New York to brief the Security Council.“We are moving towards a
general understanding that encompasses the expectations and visions of the
parties,” Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad said in a statement. “The discussions have
become more sensitive and delicate bringing us closer to a comprehensive
agreement,” he said. Ould Shaikh Ahmad is to brief the UN Security Council in a
closed session later on Wednesday on the progress made in the peace talks which
began on April 21 but have been clouded by repeated walkouts by the government
delegation. Face-to-face meetings resumed on Monday for the first time in nearly
a week after the latest government boycott. Ould Shaikh Ahmad said discussions
on Tuesday centred on “various military and security issues including
withdrawals and troop movements”. “We are now working on overcoming various
obstacles and addressing specific details of an implementation mechanism,”
he said. The apparent progress comes after Foreign Minister Abdul Malek Al
Mikhlafi said on Monday that the government stood ready to make concessions for
the sake of peace. A Western diplomat familiar with the talks said they had made
important progress. “We are in a stage where the parties have to make hard
choices and compromises,” the diplomat said, adding that he was “very
optimistic” that a deal could be reached. “We have not seen this momentum
towards peace in the past one-and-a-half years ... a road map plan has been laid
down ... and it has to work,” he said. The main sticking point in the talks has
been the form of government to oversee a transition. The government delegation
insists that the legitimacy of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi must be
respected. The government has also demanded that rebels implement an April 2015
Security Council resolution demanding their withdrawal from the capital and
other territories they have seized since 2014. To overcome this problem, the UN
envoy has proposed a “National Salvation Government,” the Western diplomat said.
The proposed government “would be formed on a consensual and inclusive basis and
in accordance with the legal references, and would only replace the current
government once Sana’a and key government institutions are not under the control
of non-state actors,” he said. Analysis: Why have Yemen talks stalled so many
times?
Has ISIS damaged a Russian
base in Syria?
By Staff writer Al Arabiya English News Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Russia denied a
report that ISIS partly destroyed one of its important military bases in
Syria.The US global intelligence company Stratfor released a series of images
that purport to show damaged aircraft and supply depots at the base. It added
that the “attack, and the considerable losses on the Russian side, stress the
continued threat to supply lines for Russia and regime forces.”"A range of
separate locations within the airfield were targeted very accurately, with no
sign of damage in the areas separating them," it said. "A single accidental
explosion would not have been able to have this result."Four Russian combat
helicopters and around 20 supply trucks were destroyed at the base which is
strategically located in central Syria between war-ravaged Palmyra and Homs.
Stratfor says the images show the damage incurred was likely not accidental.
And, according to agencies, a website affiliated with ISIS said on May 15 that
terror group hit the strategic T4 base in central Syria. But U.S. officials said
they believe that it was likely the result of an accidental fuel tank
Israeli rights group gives up
on army complaints system
AFP, Jerusalem Wednesday, 25 May 2016/A leading Israeli rights group announced
Wednesday it was giving up taking complaints over soldier conduct to the
military, after years of going through official channels brought few
prosecutions. B’Tselem, which campaigns against Israel’s occupation of the West
Bank, said it had been providing information to the Military Advocate General
Corps about alleged abuses for 25 years, but had concluded it was increasingly a
“whitewash mechanism.”As such, “continuing to file complaints to the military
law enforcement system does more harm than good,” it said in a new report
entitled “The Occupation’s Fig Leaf.”The army had no immediate comment. The
Military Advocate General supervises the rule of law in the army, including
internal disciplinary procedures. The army defines MAG’s role as to “instill the
general principles of law and the values of justice in the Israel Defence
Forces.”But B’Tselem said army investigations were slow, inefficient and rarely
led to convictions. Its 80-page report cited eight recent cases, including four
in which Palestinians were killed, that it said showed sub-standard military
investigations. In the past five years, just three percent of criminal
investigations launched by the military police into alleged offences by Israeli
soldiers against Palestinians led to indictments, according to another
anti-occupation NGO Yesh Din. “The way in which the military law enforcement
system functions precludes it from the very outset from achieving justice for
the victims,” B’Tselem said. “There is no longer any point in pursuing justice
and defending human rights by working with a system whose real function is
measured by its ability to continue to successfully cover up unlawful acts and
protect perpetrators.”
Russia holding off air
strikes on Nusra Front in Syria
By Reuters, Moscow Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Russia's defense ministry said on
Wednesday it was holding off from striking rebels with the al-Qaeda-affiliated
Nusra Front to give other armed groups time to move away from Nusra positions.
The ministry said in a statement it had received requests from multiple armed
groups, mainly in Damascus and Aleppo, asking for a pause in air strikes. The
ministry said taking those requests into account, it had decided to allow more
time before it starts air strikes on the Nusra positions.
Egyptian court cancels five-year jail terms for 47 over island protests
Reuters, Cairo Wednesday, 25 May 2016/An Egyptian appeals court on Tuesday
cancelled five-year prison terms handed to 47 people earlier this month for
protesting a government decision to transfer two Red Sea islands to Saudi
Arabia, judicial sources said. A lower misdemeanours court had sentenced them to
five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($11,261.39) each on
May 14 for demonstrating against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's decision to
hand over Tiran and Sanafir islands. The appeals court voided the jail sentences
but kept the fines. Defence lawyer Nour Fahmy told Reuters the accused would
appeal for a second and final time in an effort to get the fines cancelled as
well. The court gave no immediate reasons for its ruling. More than 200 people
were tried in connection with the protests and hundreds of policemen were
deployed in central Cairo on April 25 to quell them. In similar protests on
April 15, thousands of people called for "the fall of the regime", a slogan from
the 2011 uprisings which ended autocrat Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. More than
100 people were detained at those protests, security officials said at the time.
Most were later freed without charge, judicial sources said. Saudi and Egyptian
officials say the islands belong to the kingdom and were only under Egyptian
control because Riyadh had asked Cairo in 1950 to protect them.
Crime rates ‘are in decline’
in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Gazette, Riyadh Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Crime rate in Saudi Arabia declined
in 2015, according to Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, security spokesman of the
Ministry of Interior. Addressing a press conference at the Officers’ Club in
Riyadh on Tuesday, he said that the crimes related with attack on persons
decreased by 0.6 percent compared to the previous year. The crimes of this sort
reached 150 per every 100,000 people in 2015. Threats for attempted murder were
9.8 percent, gunfire 6.8 percent, stabbing 2.9 percent, suicide and attempt to
commit suicide 2.6 percent, premeditated murder 0.7 percent and kidnapping 0.6
percent. Al-Turki said expatriates and students represent the highest
percentages of people who committed these crimes, with 28 percent and 18.8
percent respectively while drivers, domestic workers and unemployed people come
next to them. Makkah province tops in the rate of this sort of crimes with 35.82
percent and Riyadh comes next to it with 19.75 percent. The rates of property
crimes also fell by five percent in 2015 compared to the previous year. and
shops comes next to it. Riyadh and Makkah recorded the highest number of such
crimes during the year. Al-Turki said that the Saudi security agencies have
received information from Interpol against those people involved in abusing
obscene pictures of children through electronic sites. Some of those involved in
such cybercrimes have been arrested and they are now
under investigation.
Egypt hires two firms in
search for black boxes
Reuters and the Associated Press Wednesday, 25 May 2016/The chief of EgyptAir
says Egypt has contracted two foreign companies to help locate the flight data
recorders of the carrier's plane that crashed last week in the Mediterranean,
killing all 66 passengers and crew on board. Safwat Masalam said on Wednesday
that a French and an Italian company will be working with Egyptian search teams
to try and find the black boxes, which could give clues as to what happened in
the final minutes of the flight. He didn't identify the companies. Earlier,
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi said a submarine would join the search. Ships and
planes from Britain, Cyprus, France, Greece and the US are also participating in
the search for the debris from the aircraft, including the black boxes. Some
wreckage, including human remains, has already been recovered. Egyptian
state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram said late on Tuesday the crashed EgyptAir jet
showed no technical issues before taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in
Paris according to an Aircraft Technical Log signed by its pilot before takeoff.
Al-Ahram published a scan of the log on its website. Egypt's largest state
newspaper also reported that EgyptAir flight 804 transmitted 11 "electronic
messages" starting at 2109 GMT on May 18. The first two indicated that the
engines were functional. The flight path of EgyptAir flight MS804 from Paris to
Cairo. The third message came at 0026 GMT on May 19 and showed a rise in the
temperature of the co-pilot's window. The plane kept transmitting messages for
the next three minutes before vanishing off radar screens, the Al-Ahram report
said. EgyptAir flight 804 vanished from radar screens last Thursday, with 66
passengers and crew on board. An image grab from Egypt's military on May
21, 2016 shows some debris that the Egypt's head of forensics denied reports
that an initial examination of human remains belonging to victims aboard the
EgyptAir jet pointed towards an explosion, state news agency MENA said on
Tuesday. "Everything published about this matter is completely false, and mere
assumptions that did not come from the Forensics Authority," MENA quoted Hesham
Abdelhamid as saying in a statement. Relatives and friends of the cabin crew and
passengers, who were on board the Hours earlier, the Associated Press quoted a
senior Egyptian forensics official who claimed that human remains retrieved from
the crash site suggest there was an explosion on board that may have brought
down the aircraft. AP said the official is part of the Egyptian investigative
team and has personally examined the remains at a Cairo morgue. He spoke on
condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to release the information.
He said all 80 pieces brought to Cairo so far are small and that “there isn’t
even a whole body part, like an arm or a head.” The official adds that “the
logical explanation is that it was an explosion.”All 66 people on board were
killed when the Airbus 320 crashed in the Mediterranean early Thursday while en
route from Paris to Cairo. Investigators are still searching for Airbus A320's
two black boxes on the seabed as they seek answers as to why the aircraft came
down early on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s travel expenses
under scrutiny
AFP, Jerusalem Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s travel expenses came under fresh scrutiny on Tuesday with the
release of an official report into alleged overcharging and conflict of
interest. The state comptroller’s report covers 2003-05, when Netanyahu was
finance minister, and concerns five foreign trips, some with his wife and
children, Israeli media reported. “The comptroller found that most of
Netanyahu’s trips were funded by external bodies, including private persons,
without examining the possibility that the funding could place Netanyahu in a
conflict of interest or where it constitutes a prohibited gift,” Israeli public
radio reported. “At the same time, the comptroller noted that during that period
other ministers behaved in the same way,” the radio wrote on its website.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, tasked with overseeing the use of public funds,
investigated allegations of double billing of flights, initially reported by the
Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot daily newspapers -- both hostile to Netanyahu. The
radio said that due to an ongoing inquiry by the attorney general’s office, the
report could not refer to an allegation that bonus points from Israeli carrier
El Al earned through official travel were allegedly used by Netanyahu’s
relatives for private trips. The reports also alleged Shapira is concerned
former attorney general Yehuda Weinstein stalled on investigating, before the
case was eventually closed. Privately owned Channel 2 television reported the
police have renewed an inquiry into the allegations to determine whether to open
a formal investigation. Netanyahu’s lawyer dismissed the allegations, saying
they had previously been looked into and nothing improper had been found. “There
is nothing in the report of the state comptroller,” Yossi Cohen, the lawyer for
the Netanyahu family, told public radio.
Final ISIS ‘Beatles’ gang member identified
AFP, Washington Wednesday, 25 May 2016/The fourth member of a group of ISIS
jailors who murdered hostages and were dubbed the "Beatles" by former captives
has been identified by The Washington Post and BuzzFeed News. According to
stories in the two outlets on Monday, British and US intelligence officials have
identified El Shafee Elsheikh, 27, as the final member of the group of jail
guards. British and US intelligence officials have identified El Shafee Elsheikh,
27, as the final member of the group of jail guards. (Facebook/ El Shafee
Elsheikh) The men gained notoriety when one member, Mohammed Emwazi, nicknamed "Jihadi
John," used a knife to kill hostages in a string of videotaped beheadings,
including of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. He was killed in a
drone strike in Syria last year. BuzzFeed said Elsheikh grew up in White City in
west London, having moved to Britain at age 5 after fleeing the Sudanese civil
war with his parents. He later studied mechanical engineering, became a
fairground mechanic and supported local soccer team Queen's Park Rangers. The
news site interviewed his mother, Maha Elgizouli, who said her once "perfect"
son went to Syria in 2012 when he was radicalized after hearing hardline
sermons at west London mosques. The other two "Beatles" members are Alexanda
Kotey, whose whereabouts are unknown, and Aine Davis, who is being held in
Turkey. Elsheikh's mother told BuzzFeed and the Post that her son is living in
Syria and stays in contact with some friends and family, but not her.
"That boy now is not my son. That is not the son I raised," she said. According
to BuzzFeed, the four ISIS jailers beheaded seven American, British and Japanese
hostages, as well as 18 members of the Syrian army.
Calm near Syrian capital as fighting freezes
AFP, Beirut Wednesday, 25 May 2016/Two key opposition-controlled areas near
Syria’s capital were relatively calm on Tuesday after appeals by Russia for a
temporary freeze in fighting there, a monitor and an activist told AFP. Fierce
fighting had been rocking the besieged opposition-held town of Daraya, southwest
of Damascus, and in Eastern Ghouta, a large rebel bastion east of the capital.
But clashes subsided in both by Tuesday morning, according to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. “It has been quiet in both areas
since dawn,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. Daraya-based activist
Shadi Matar confirmed that the shelling and clashes that had shaken his hometown
over the past two weeks had stopped. “There was fighting around midnight but it
stopped around 1:00 am on Tuesday and it’s been calm since then,” he told
AFP. But he said fellow residents were skeptical that the quiet would hold.
“People don’t believe (in these truces) like they did before. Their morale is
low and they don’t trust anyone,” he told AFP. Late Monday, Russia called for a
72-hour freeze on fighting – or “regime of silence” – in Eastern Ghouta and
Daraya starting on Tuesday. Both areas are supposed to be included in a broader
ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia that came into place on February 27 but
has since faltered. Daraya was one of the first towns to erupt in anti-regime
protests in 2011, and was one of the first areas to be placed under crippling
government siege in late 2012.
The US and Russia have both pushed for local truces as a way to bolster the
collapsing three-month ceasefire. More than 270,000 people have been killed
since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Kurdish-Arab alliance starts Raqqa operation
AFP, Washington Tuesday, 24 May 2016/A US-backed alliance of Kurdish-Arab
fighters has started to clear ISIS fighters from the area north of Raqqa, the
jihadists' de facto capital, a US official confirmed Tuesday. "The SDF (Syrian
Democratic Forces) have begun operations to clear the northern countryside, so
this is putting pressure on Raqqa," Baghdad-based US military spokesman Colonel
Steve Warren said. The US military will conduct air strikes in support of the
"several thousand" SDF forces, some of whom have been trained and equipped by
the United States. Warren said the operation began earlier on Tuesday, and SDF
forces had met little ISIS resistance across the sparsely populated area.
Approximately 3,000 to 5,000 IS fighters are in Raqqa, Warren said, noting it
was not clear when an assault on the key city itself might eventually come. A
separate US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said SDF troops were
taking territory on their way to Raqqa, but "they are not attacking Raqa"
itself. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group,
coalition warplanes on Tuesday carried out dozens of strikes north of Raqqa
city. If Raqqa falls, "it's the beginning of the end of their caliphate," Warren
predicted. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday said Moscow was
ready to coordinate with both the United States and the SDF in the offensive for
Raqqa. The SDF has a total of about 25,000 Kurdish fighters and about 5,000 Arab
fighters.
ISIS USING RAQQA CIVILIANS AS HUMAN SHIELDS: ACTIVIST
ISIS fighters are using civilians as human shields in the group's de facto Syria
capital Raqqa, a Syrian activist said Tuesday, complicating things for a
Kurdish-Arab alliance which has launched an offensive in the area. "They are
using the civilians as a cover. So you'll find them in the same building. In a
civilian building, you'll find two or three apartments for ISIS fighters," said
Abdel Aziz al-Hamza, a co-founder of the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently
group. "They also talk of some schools as places to stay because these schools
have basements, something underground, so they are protected from the air
strikes. And they are surrounded by civilian buildings."There have been mounting
concerns that the estimated 50,000 civilians believed to still be inside had
nowhere to go. "The civilians are besieged, they can't leave their city," said
Hamza, who fled Raqqa in January 2014 and has been living in Germany. "ISIS
doesn't let anyone leave the city. At the same time, life has become at least
ten times more expensive in the city," he said, using another acronym for ISIS.
From our archive: Is it the first step towards defeating ISIS?
New Iranian delegation to
Saudi for hajj talks
By Staff writer Al Arabiya English News Tuesday, 24 May 2016/An Iranian
delegation was travelling to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks on the annual
hajj pilgrimage despite a diplomatic crisis between the Gulf rivals, the
official IRNA news agency reported.Speaking in an exclusive interview with IRNA,
Ohadi said that the visit to Saudi Arabia by the Iranian delegation is taking
place upon an official invitation by the new Saudi Minister of Hajj. He added
that “the talks will be held on Wednesday in Jeddah.”Iranian pilgrims should be
able to receive consular services, the official said. Ohadi also insisted on
issuing visas for Iranian pilgrims in Iran which he said has to be included in a
possible agreement between the Iranian and Saudi officials. On May 12, Culture
Minister Ali Jannati, who oversees the Hajj Organization, said “arrangements
have not been put together” for Iranians to make this year’s pilgrimage to Mecca
at the end of the summer. The two countries held an unsuccessful first round of
talks last month in Saudi Arabia on organizing this year’s pilgrimage for
Iranians. The Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has denied then, claims that it
will bar Iranian citizens from the annual Hajj pilgrimage this year. The
ministry accused Iran of blocking its own citizens from attending Hajj as “one
of many means to pressure” the Saudi government. According to a statement, Saudi
ministry officials met with an Iranian delegation in April to decide on Hajj
arrangements, but the Iranians left without signing the agreement, saying they
will seek the advice of Iran’s religious authority. . It was the first dialogue
between the region’s foremost powers since diplomatic relations were severed in
January. Riyadh cut ties with Tehran after demonstrators burned its embassy and
a consulate there following the Riyadh execution of a Saudi scholar. Iran and
Saudi Arabia are at odds over a raft of regional issues, notably the conflicts
in Syria and Yemen in which they support opposing sides. On Friday, a senior
Saudi religious leader warned against those who would “wreak havoc” under the
guise of pilgrimage, an apparent swipe at the Islamic republic.
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on
May 25- 26/16
"Radical" vs. "Moderate" Islam: A
Muslim View
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/May 25/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8101/radical-moderate-islam
According to Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam
while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of their religion, is to the
state. Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah's true
religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
Radicals, Khadr charges, also marvel that the moderate "finds hatred for
non-Muslims unacceptable."
If true -- and disturbing polls certainly indicate that Khadr's findings are
prevalent -- the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering
radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.
After his recent electoral victory, it emerged that Sadiq Khan, London's first
Muslim mayor, had described moderate Muslim groups as "Uncle Toms" -- a racial
slur used against blacks perceived to be subservient to whites, or, in this
context, Muslims who embrace "moderate Islam" as, in his view, a way of being
subservient to the West.
One of Iran's highest clerics apparently shares the same convictions. After
asserting that "revolutionary Islam is the same as pure Muhammadan Islam,"
Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad recently said:
"Some say our Islam is not revolutionary Islam, but we must say to them that
non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be
firm against the enemies and be kind and compassionate toward each other and not
be afraid of anything..."
According to the AB News Agency,
"Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad stated that revolutionary Islam is this same Islam.
It is the Islam that is within us that can create changes. The warriors realized
that Islam is not just prayers and fasting, but rather they stood against the
enemies in support of Islam."
How many Muslims share these convictions, one from a Sunni living (and now
governing) in London, the other from a Shia living and governing in the Middle
East?
According to an Arabic language article, (in translation) "The Truth about the
Moderate Muslim as Seen by the West and its Muslim Followers," by Dr. Ahmed
Ibrahim Khadr in 2011:
"Islamic researchers are agreed that what the West and its followers call
'moderate Islam' and 'moderate Muslims' is simply a slur against Islam and
Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war
among them. They also see that the division of Islam into 'moderate Islam' and
'radical Islam' has no basis in Islam -- neither in its doctrines and rulings,
nor in its understandings or reality.
Khadr goes on to note the many ways that moderates and radicals differ. For
instance, radicals ("true Muslims") aid and support fellow Muslims, especially
those committed to jihad, whereas moderates ("false Muslims") ally with and help
Western nations.
This sounds similar to Ayatollah Tabatabaeinejad's assertion that
"non-revolutionary Islam is the same as American Islam. Islam commands us to be
firm against the enemies ["infidels"] and be kind and compassionate toward each
other."
Among the major distinctions (translated verbatim) made in Khadr's article are:
Radicals want the caliphate to return; moderates reject the caliphate.
Radicals want to apply Sharia (Islamic law); moderates reject the application of
Sharia.
Radicals reject the idea of renewal and reform, seeing it as a way to conform
Islam to Western culture; moderates accept it.
Radicals accept the duty of waging jihad in the path of Allah; moderates reject
it.
Radicals reject any criticism whatsoever of Islam; moderates welcome it on the
basis of freedom of speech.
Radicals accept those laws that punish whoever insults or leaves the religion
[apostates]; moderates recoil from these laws.
Radicals respond to any insult against Islam or the prophet Muhammad -- peace
and blessing upon him -- with great violence and anger; moderates respond calmly
and peacefully on the basis of freedom of expression.
Radicals respect and revere every deed and every word of the prophet -- peace be
upon him -- in the hadith; moderates do not.
Radicals oppose democracy; moderates accept it.
Radicals see the people of the book [Jews and Christians] as dhimmis [barely
tolerated subjects]; moderates oppose this [view].
Radicals reject the idea that non-Muslim minorities should have equality or
authority over Muslims; moderates accept it.
Radicals reject the idea that men and women are equal; moderates accept it,
according to Western views.
Radicals oppose the idea of religious freedom and apostasy from Islam; moderates
agree to it.
Radicals desire to see Islam reign supreme; moderates oppose this.
Radicals place the Koran over the constitution; moderates reject this
[assumption].
Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah's true religion is
Islam; moderates accept it.
Radicals embrace the wearing of hijabs and niqabs; moderates reject it.
Radicals accept killing young girls who commit adultery or otherwise besmirch
their family's honor; moderates reject this [response].
Radicals reject the status of women today and think that the status of women
today should be like the status of women in the time of the prophet; moderates
oppose that women should be as in the time of the prophet.
Radicals vehemently reject that women should have the freedom to choose
partners; moderates accept that she can choose a boyfriend without marriage.
Radicals agree to clitorectomies; moderates reject them.
Radicals reject the so-called war on terror and see it as a war on Islam;
moderates accept it.
Radicals support jihadi groups; moderates reject them.
Radicals reject the terms "Islamic terrorism" or "Islamic fascism"; moderates
accept them.
Radicals reject universal human rights, including the right to be homosexual;
moderates accept them.
Radicals reject the idea of allying with the West; moderates support it.
Radicals oppose secularism; moderates support it.
According to Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam
while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of their religion, is to the
state. Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah's true
religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
Khadr makes other charges outside his chart, including that radicals want
religion to govern society, while moderates believe religion has no role in
public life, that it must be practiced in private; that radicals take the text
of the Koran and hadith literally, while moderates rely on rationalism, and that
the first loyalty of radicals is to Islam -- a reference to the Islamic doctrine
of "Loyalty and Enmity" -- while the first loyalty for moderates, regardless of
their religion, is to the state. Radicals, he charges, also marvel that the
moderate "finds hatred for non-Muslims unacceptable."
Khadr's conclusion is that, to most Muslims, "moderate Muslims" are those
Muslims who do not oppose -- and who actually aid -- the West and its way of
life, whereas everything "radicals" accept is based on traditional Islamic
views.
If true -- and disturbing polls certainly indicate that Khadr's findings are
prevalent -- the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering
radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.
Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on
Christians (published by Regnery with the Gatestone Institute, April 2013).
Related Video: M. Zuhdi Jasser on "Countering Radical Islam – A Reformist Muslim
Speaks Out"
Follow Raymond Ibrahim 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.
Palestinians and Jordan: Will
a Confederation Work?
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/May 25/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8112/palestinians-jordan-confederation
In a rare moment of truth, former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali
admitted that the Palestinians were not "fully qualified to assume their
responsibilities, especially in the financial field..."
According to the study, the Jordanian public is totally opposed to the idea of
confederation, even after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
They fear the confederation would lead to the "dilution" of the Jordanian
identity, create instability and undermine security.
The reality is that the two-state solution has already been fulfilled: the
Palestinians got two mini-states of their own -- one governed by the Palestinian
Authority and the second by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Today, there is only one solution: maintain the status quo until Palestinian
leaders wake up and start working to improve the living conditions of their
people and prepare them for peace with Israel.
Talk about a confederation between the Palestinians and Jordan has once again
resurfaced, this time after a series of unofficial meetings in Amman and the
West Bank in the past few weeks. Jordan, fearing that such confederation would
end up with the Hashemite kingdom transformed into a Palestinian state, is not
currently keen on the idea.
Many Palestinians have also expressed reservations about the idea. They argue
that a confederation could harm their effort to establish an independent
Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
The confederation talk returned during a recent high-profile visit to the West
Bank by former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali. During a meeting
with representatives of large Palestinian clans in Nablus, Majali voiced his
support for the confederation idea, saying it was the "best solution for both
Palestinians and Jordanians."
The former Jordanian prime minister told some 100 Palestinians who gathered to
greet him in Nablus, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank: "Jordan
cannot live without Palestine and Palestine cannot live without Jordan."
Stressing that such a confederation should be created after the establishment of
an independent Palestinian state, Majali said that the confederation would mean
that Palestinians and Jordanians would have a joint government and parliament.
In a rare moment of truth, Majali admitted that the Palestinians were not "fully
qualified to assume their responsibilities, especially in the financial field,
in wake of the failure of the Arab countries to support them." So Majali is
basically telling the Palestinians: "You can't rely on your Arab brothers to
help you build a state. Jordan is the only Arab country that cares about you."
Some Jordanians said this week that Majali was speaking only on his behalf and
that his views did not represent those of Jordan's King Abdullah or the
government. They pointed out that the last time Majali met with the monarch was
four months ago, when King Abdullah visited him in the hospital where Majali was
being treated.
Still, it is hard to believe that such a senior figure as Majali would have
advocated the confederation plan without having first received some kind of
green light from the royal palace in Amman.
Let us remember that Jordan has a history on this issue. In 1989, the late King
Hussein "divorced" the West Bank, announcing that the kingdom was cutting its
administrative and legal ties to the territory that had been under its control
until 1967. Of course, the king had good reason to renounce any claim to the
West Bank: the First Intifada had just begun and the Palestinians in the West
Bank were considered "troublemakers" that he did not need in his
Palestinian-majority kingdom.
Thus we see why many Jordanians remain opposed to the confederation idea. A
study published in 2014 shows that the Jordanian public was against the idea.
According to the study, the Jordanian public is totally opposed to the idea,
even after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Jordanians fear, among other things,
that the confederation would lead to the "dilution" of the Jordanian identity,
create instability and undermine security in the kingdom.
Jordanian columnist and political analyst Fahd Khitan echoed this fear by
declaring that the confederation idea "means suicide for the Hashemite kingdom."
Noting that many Palestinians were also opposed to the idea, even after the
establishment of an independent Palestinian state, Khitan said that mutual
confidence between the Palestinians and Jordanians has deteriorated,
particularly in wake of the recent controversy over the installment of security
cameras at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Under a U.S.-brokered plan, the Jordanian government was supposed to install the
cameras at the holy site as a way of easing tensions between Palestinians and
Israel. The controversy had erupted over Jewish visits to the Temple Mount.
However, the Jordanians were forced a few weeks ago to abandon the plan after
Palestinian opposition and threats. The Palestinians claimed that Israel would
use the cameras to arrest Palestinians who are stationed at the Temple Mount
with the mission of harassing Jewish visitors.
"The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not just residents who can
be incorporated into this or that country," Khitan explained in his rejection of
the confederation idea. "The Palestinians are a people who have their own land
and Jordan is a country that is now celebrating its 70th anniversary." So this
Jordanian analyst is telling the Palestinians: "We love you and you are
wonderful people, but we prefer that you stay away from us."
While most Jordanians seem to be strongly opposed to the idea of adding another
three or four million Palestinians to the kingdom's population, Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip appear to be divided over the idea.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, which by all accounts has failed to
lead its people towards statehood because of its incompetence and corruption,
has yet to spell out its position regarding the proposed confederation with
Jordan.
There are, however, signs that a growing number of Palestinians are beginning to
entertain the idea of being part of Jordan. A recent public opinion poll
published by An-Najah University in Nablus found that 42% of Palestinians favor
the confederation idea. The poll also found that 59% of Palestinians do not
believe that a Palestinian state would be established within the pre-1967 lines.
This means that a majority of Palestinians have lost confidence in their
leaders' ability to achieve an independent Palestinian state. One of the main
reasons is the ongoing power struggle between the PA and Hamas. It is a conflict
that has divided the Palestinians into two separate cultural as well as
geographic entities, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The reality on the ground
is that the two-state solution has already been fulfilled: in the end, the
Palestinians got two mini-states of their own -- one governed by the Palestinian
Authority and the second by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Another sign of growing Palestinian support for the idea can be found in the
Hebron area, where leaders of large clans have also begun campaigning for the
implementation of a confederation with Jordan. It is estimated that nearly one
million Hebronites live in Jordan, and this statistic is also driving support
for the idea.
In recent weeks, several Hebron clan leaders visited Jordan as part of an effort
to muster popular support for the confederation idea. A prominent member of the
Jordanian parliament, Dr. Mohammed al-Dawaymeh, lately visited Hebron, where he
met with the heads of the city's large clans to promote the idea. Again, it is
unlikely that the member of parliament was acting without the backing of King
Abdullah or the Jordanian government. But his visit to the West Bank, like that
of Majali before him, has sparked a new wave of speculation among Palestinians
that something is being "cooked up" to enable the confederation plan to take
place.
What is notable is that the confederation idea seems to be gaining support among
Palestinian clans in a society that is largely a tribal one. Both Hebron and
Nablus consist of large clans, and it makes sense that the two senior Jordanian
figures chose to concentrate their efforts there. If you manage to convince the
clans to support the idea, that approval, they believe, would create pressure on
the Palestinian leaders to follow suit.
Also intriguing is that some prominent Palestinians seem to have endorsed the
confederation idea -- again due to their having lost confidence in their
leaders' ability to move forward and bring them a better life.
It is unlikely that prominent Jordanian politicians, who have recently talked
about a confederation between the Palestinians and Jordan, are acting without
the backing of King Abdullah (left). Meanwhile, a majority of Palestinians have
seemingly lost confidence in the ability of their leaders, such as PA President
Mahmoud Abbas (right), to achieve an independent Palestinian state. (Image
source: Abdullah: World Bank / Abbas: US State Dept.)
Two of these Palestinians are Ghassan Shaka'ah, a former mayor of Nablus and a
prominent PLO leader in the West Bank, and Professor Sari Nusseibeh, a respected
pragmatic academic and former president of Al-Quds University.
The renewed talk about a confederation between the Palestinians and Jordan
underscores the Palestinian leadership's failure to convince many Palestinians
of its ability to lead them towards statehood. It is also a sign of the revival
of the role of Palestinians clans in the Palestinian political arena. For the
past two decades, the power of the clans has been undermined, thanks to the
presence of central governments -- the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank
and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the weakness of these two governments has
prompted clan leaders to take matters into their hands and renew talk about a
confederation with Jordan.
A confederation between the Palestinians and Jordan may seem to be a good idea
in the long term. But for now, it is hard to see how Jordanian leader would
agree to turn millions of Palestinians into citizens of the kingdom. It is also
hard to see Jordanians agreeing to absorb either Hamas or the Palestinian
Authority and share power with them. Still, the talk about a confederation
between the Palestinians and Jordan shows that under the current circumstances,
the two-state solution (a Palestinian state alongside Israel) is no longer being
viewed by Palestinians as a realistic solution that will bring their people a
better life.
Jordan is not the only Arab country that does not consider the Palestinians
trustworthy partners. The Jordanians still have painful memories from the early
1970s, when the PLO and other Palestinian groups tried to establish a state
within a state inside the kingdom, and thus threatened Jordan's security and
stability. Today, there is only one solution: maintain the status quo until
Palestinian leaders wake up and start working to improve the living conditions
of their people and prepare them for peace with Israel.
**Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist is based in Jerusalem.
© 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.
The Islamic
State Is Targeting Syria's Alawite Heartland -- and Russia
Fabrice Balanche/The Washington Institute./May 25/16
The group's choice of targets is a clear sign of its intention to inflame Sunni/Alawite
tensions, raise the price of Moscow's intervention, and assert its symbolic
leadership over the rebellion.
On May 23, the Islamic State (IS) perpetrated suicide bombings in Tartus and
Jableh, killing 154 people and wounding more than 300. This was the first time
either coastal city had been targeted by such attacks since the beginning of the
war. Tartus in particular had seemed like a haven up until Monday. It was still
an attractive tourist destination because of its wide beaches, and it was in the
middle of a construction boom given the arrival of internally displaced people (IDPs)
from other parts of Syria -- not just the Assad regime's fellow Alawites from
Damascus, but also members of the Sunni majority from all across the country.
Many Syrian refugees had even returned from Lebanon to Tartus because they
considered life to be cheaper and safer there.
IS operatives can conduct simultaneous attacks of this nature rather easily
given the corruption and nonchalance at coastal security checkpoints. I saw this
problem firsthand when I visited Tartus and Latakia last month. After I crossed
the border from Beirut via taxi, nobody asked me for my passport or searched my
suitcase. The driver was known at each checkpoint, and by giving 100-200 Syrian
pounds (10-20 cents) to those who stopped us, he was able to quietly proceed
without hassle. Thanks to rampant corruption, he had also obtained a special
permit to use military roads, further enabling him to avoid stringent controls.
So it would be quite simple for terrorists to regularly infiltrate the Alawite
heartland, which is also home to Russia's main bases in Syria. Moreover, IS
could readily establish sleeper cell among its fellow Sunnis in these areas, who
number in the hundreds of thousands (both locals and IDPs).
Through the latest attacks, the Islamic State is attempting to send different
messages. The first is for the Alawites -- IS wants to show them that the Assad
regime cannot protect them. After all, the group has not attacked the nearby
coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, which have larger Sunni populations. In
Latakia's case, IDP flows have made Sunnis the majority, and IS likely prefers
to avoid the risk of heavy Sunni casualties there. Regime security efforts are
also more serious in Banias and Latakia, where Sunni neighborhoods erupted into
armed rebellion in 2011-2012, which was not the case in Jableh and Tartus.
Sending such violent signals to the Alawites could have multiple ripple effects.
IS leaders likely hope that Alawite soldiers serving in hotspots on the eastern
front (e.g., Deir al-Zour, Palmyra) will refuse to fight if their families back
in Tartus and other cities are not given better protection; the regime might
even decide to redeploy eastern troops to the coast. The group also aims to
spark discontent against the regime and Alawite reprisals against Sunnis. On
February 21, IS attacks in Homs affected Alawite neighborhoods and provoked
strong discontent against local authorities and the security apparatus, with
people denouncing the corruption and inefficiency of officers. For now, such
antipathy does not extend to Bashar al-Assad himself, but that could change if
attacks continue. Meanwhile, Alawite reprisals against Sunnis could undermine
the regime and its army, since many Sunnis are still fighting on Assad's side.
On Monday, Alawites attacked al-Karnak camp in Tartus, home to 400 Sunni
families from Aleppo and Idlib; according to unofficial sources, seven Sunnis
were killed.
Yet the Islamic State's most important message is presumably to Moscow. Russia's
only naval base in Syria is located in Tartus, while Jableh is close to Hmeimim,
Russia's main air base. Moscow is also attempting to rehabilitate the old Soviet
submarine base in Jableh. IS has already shown a pattern of targeting Russian
infrastructure, most recently Tiyas airfield between Homs and Palmyra, according
to the BBC. IS leaders are well aware that Moscow's assistance enabled the
Syrian army to retake Palmyra and set its sights on Deir al-Zour, so they aim to
increase the price of the Russian intervention and force a withdrawal from the
Syrian theater, or at least from the eastern fronts.
Finally, Monday's bombings send a message to other rebel groups. Although the
Islamic State's goals and methods often differ from those of Syria's various
anti-Assad factions, it still wants to be regarded as the leader of the fight
against the regime, Russia, and the Alawite community. It will therefore
continue trying to show that it is more effective and more ruthless than
al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, currently its main rival for that title.
Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University
of Lyon 2, is a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute.
Iran's New Assembly Chair Shows Who Really Won the Elections
Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/May 25/16
Despite weeks of reformist spin about the spring election results, the decision
to name a notorious hardliner as head of the Experts Assembly shows that
Khamenei is intent on making life even more difficult for President Rouhani's
camp.
When members of Iran's fifth Assembly of Experts gathered on May 24 to choose a
new chairman, they confirmed what many already knew: that the recent election
did not change the body's hardline fabric or the Supreme Leader's ability to
exert his will over supposedly democratic processes. Since February, reformists
and other supporters of President Hassan Rouhani have been claiming victory in
both the assembly and parliamentary elections. The regime had taken pains to
disqualify their favorite candidates before the race, so they produced an
unorthodox list of "reformist" contenders that included many hardliners and
conservatives. Yet today's inaugural assembly meeting indicates that this
strategy will fail to influence decisionmaking in a body that could eventually
be tasked with naming the next Supreme Leader.
Veteran hardliner Ahmad Jannati won fifty-one of eighty-six votes at the meeting
to become chair for the next two years. Rouhani's camp had hoped that former
president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of their most popular allies, would
compete for the position, but he declared a few days ago that he would not be
running. Some analysts believe he withdrew because of a political scandal caused
by his daughter Faezeh, an activist who recently challenged religious and
political taboos by visiting with imprisoned Bahai leader Fariba Kamalabadi. The
Islamic Republic treats those who practice the Bahai faith not as members of a
minority religious community, but rather as a dangerous pro-Israel "espionage
network" fabricated by anti-Islamic colonialist powers, so any contact with them
has become a potentially punishable offense. After photos of Faezeh's visit went
public, numerous religious leaders and government officials attacked her, then
blamed her father for not reacting in a satisfying manner.
Yet other political factors may have played a greater role in keeping Rafsanjani
out of the running. He is well aware that the elections did not change the
assembly's predominantly radical-conservative makeup, and he remains bitter
about his loss to hardliner Mohammad Yazdi in the previous chair vote.
Among the three candidates who did run -- Hashemi Shahroudi, Ebrahim Amini, and
Jannati -- the most hardline figure gained the overwhelming majority of votes.
Amini, a respected and generally soft-spoken conservative, received twenty-one
votes, while former judiciary chief Shahroudi, who typically disassociates
himself from any specific faction, won thirteen. Amini represents Tehran
province in the assembly and ran on the "Hope List" initiated by pro-Rouhani
groups. Shahroudi represents Razavi Khorasan, the most important province after
Tehran.
For his part, Jannati has served as secretary of the powerful Guardian Council
since 1992, holding a seat on that body since its inception in 1980.
Accordingly, he played an essential role in consolidating Khamenei's authority
from the start, controlling all of the country's elections, containing or
blocking any parliamentary decisions that could undermine the authoritarian
apparatus, and generally implementing Khamenei's goal of insulating the system
from democratic reform as much as possible -- all while shifting responsibility
for these policies away from the Supreme Leader.
The selection of such a notorious hardliner to head the new assembly does not
bode well for Rouhani. First, Khamenei almost certainly played a role in
Jannati's victory, in part by having his associates communicate his preferences
and concerns to the new assembly members in advance of the vote. The outcome
highlights the false hopes generated by Rouhani's post-election narrative -- far
from meeting the reformists halfway, the Supreme Leader seems to be emphasizing
that there will be no trace of compromise going forward. To be sure, the Experts
Assembly is a largely passive and ceremonial institution, but the latest
developments show how well the hardliners can coordinate within and outside that
body to maintain their supremacy -- a discouraging revelation given that the
current assembly will probably have the opportunity to appoint Khamenei's
successor in light of his advanced age (76) and possible health conditions.
Whether the Supreme Leader passes away suddenly or decides to manage the
transition while he is still alive, it is the Experts Assembly that will
officially name his replacement and legitimize the heir apparent's authority --
guided of course by outside power circles. Given the new assembly's makeup and
today's election of such an anti-democratic figure, the hardliners will no doubt
be confident about pushing for an uncompromising candidate to become Supreme
Leader if the succession question does in fact arise. In the meantime, they will
use the assembly and every other institution under their control to make more
problems for Rouhani and weaken any newly elected members of parliament who
assist him.
In addition to electing a chair, assembly members voted on two other positions
today: Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani was chosen as Jannati's first deputy and
Shahroudi as his second. Movahedi Kermani is Khamenei's former representative in
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and shares Jannati's politico-religious
mindset. Shahroudi served as first deputy in the previous assembly and acting
head after the death of Muhammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, playing a substantial role
in the institution's management. Given the advanced age of Jannati (89) and
Movahedi Kermani (85), the younger Shahroudi (67) could play an even more
pivotal role going forward. He has often been mentioned as one of the most
probable candidates to succeed Khamenei, and his chances will only be bolstered
by his influence in the assembly, which is much greater than his title may
suggest. His efforts to cast himself as a meta-factional political figure and a
Shiite religious authority will help his prospects as well.
Finally, as the May 28 inauguration of the new parliament approaches, pro-Rouhani
circles are struggling to find enough support to elect their favored candidate,
Mohammad Reza Aref, as speaker of the Majlis. Incumbent speaker Ali Larijani
enjoys the support of most conservative and hardliner factions, including the
Paydari Front, so defeating him will be difficult. Depending on the results, the
next speaker election will either stop the bleeding in Rouhani's camp or deepen
today's wound.
**Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.
President
Obama, the apologist?
Mohamed Chebarro/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
President Barack Obama must be applauded for becoming the first sitting American
president to visit Hiroshima, the site of the US nuclear attack that brought the
Second World War to a close. He also visited Vietnam, the third by a sitting
president in the quagmire that killed 50,000 US soldiers in a pointless cold war
confrontation with Russia and China. I am sure a lot will be written about his
presidency, but one description that stays in my mind is President Obama, the
apologist? After eight years in office as the first president of
African-American origin, Obama has collected many titles and honors. He won
Noble Prize for peace in the early days of his presidency. He was the first US
president to visit Cuba, a longtime enemy of Washington. Obama used all the
tools at his command to sign, in his own words, a historic deal halting what is
said to be a phantom Iranian nuclear weapons program. He chose to do so even
though Tehran continues with slogans such as death to America, death to Israel
and recently death to Saudi Arabia, the oldest US ally in the Arab Middle East.
Against the list of honors, a list of failures will stick to his name years
after his departure. He failed the Palestinians and the Israelis as he failed to
keep in motion the search for peace in one of the oldest conflicts that plagued
the region and in time spilled over to the world in many forms and shapes of
violence. He withdrew troops prematurely from Afghanistan and Iraq, and left
both arenas open for Iranian sectarian intervention.
I wonder if President Obama will, 10 or 20 years from now, return to Syria to
apologize for leaving alone Syrians who rebelled against Assad’s family rule and
dictatorship
Putin for Europe
Obama stood by and let the Europeans try to contain a more belligerent Putin in
Russia. After taking a slice from Georgia, Putin’s Russia reclaimed Crimea and
carved a Russian autonomous region from eastern Ukraine. The list is long, but
in the case of Syria, Obama’s doctrine and view of the world was most damaging.
He chose to lead from behind, preferred multilateralism and UN-brokered
political processes to end violence. Five years on, and following the death of
more than 300,000, 1.5 million injured and 12 million displaced, cities turned
to rubble across Syria, President Obama continues to remain idle, fueling doubt
over American military and moral authority. Obama, the apologist, has fared the
worst by pushing the US, under his leadership, to abandon the moral high ground
that the US has long held especially in the post-WW2 world.
Failing Syrians
While Obama embarked on another tour that could only be labelled as apologetic
in nature, he may have indirectly apologized for American nuclear bomb hitting
Hiroshima and the Napalm that killed and maimed Vietnamese in a war of will
between democratic and communist forces in Vietnam then. I wonder if President
Obama will, in 10 or 20 years from now, return to Syria to apologize for leaving
alone Syrians who rebelled against Assad’s family rule and dictatorship. These
Syrians yearned for freedom and democracy that the West and the US has been
promoting and trying to export to the four corners of the earth. We were told it
is the best tenet for our globalized, interconnected and capitalist world. In
the case of us mortals, yes, the first to apologize is the bravest – maybe the
first to forgive is the strongest - possibly the first to forget is the
happiest. But for a commander-in-chief of the strongest nation in the world to
do that remains questionable. In a utopian world I would applaud what President
Obama is trying to achieve. But going back to planet earth, I am not sure this
is the best course a president should pursue and make it his legacy.
Netanyahu swerves Right out
of control
Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
When you think you have seen everything in Israeli politics and nothing could
surprise you, think again – or better yet, think Netanyahu. If you thought no
one could drag Israeli politics any lower, think again or better yet, think
Netanyahu. Being speechless is not a quality usually associated with one who
writes opinion commentary, but the unscrupulous political twists and turns of
the Israeli prime minister last week were breath-taking for all the wrong
reasons. An extraordinary week that started with negotiations to bring the more
centre-left Zionist Union party into the coalition, seems most likely to end
with an even more extreme clerical-nationalist government to lead Israel over
the next few years. Instead of the Zionist Union, Netanyahu opted to lure the
ultra-right Israel our Home, led by the ever bellicose Avigdor Lieberman, into
his already very uncompromising religious-nationalist government. Most
astonishing, was the way Netanyahu discarded the services of his Defense
Minister Moshe Ya’alon, offering what is probably the most important and
sensitive post, to the controversial and deeply divisive Lieberman. Joining
forces with the Zionist Union, which consists mainly of the Labor party, had its
own merit. It is the second largest party in the Israeli Knesset with 24 MKs,
and holds, ostensibly, a more moderate stand on the peace process. Consequently,
it might have projected a more dovish image of Israel to the international
community and an apparent readiness to resume peace negotiations with the
Palestinians.
A more cynical view is that they would have served as no more than a fig leaf
for a prime minister, who has no interest in making any of the required
concessions to advance peace. It would have been no more than a ploy to ease
some of the pressure to participate in the international peace conference, which
the French are offering, diverting attention away from the expansion of the
Jewish settlements in the West Bank, or from the Palestinian’s request for
recognition in the UN Security Council. A mere exercise in biding time, which is
the essence of Netanyahu’s politics in his never ceasing attempt to stay in
power. Netanyahu is on a hell-bent mission to become the longest serving prime
minister in the country’s history. David Ben Gurion, the only prime minister to
have served longer than him, founded and built a country. Netanyahu is
destroying the soul of this very country. Netanyahu might find that this was one
act of opportunism too far, ending in presiding over a government which swerves
out of control to the right and is ravaged by personal discord
Cynicism and opportunism
It is this very cynicism and opportunism that led him to shift attention and
flirt with Lieberman, with whom he has a long history of mutual despise and
distrust. Joining forces with the Zionist Union could have resulted in a
mini-rebellion within his own Likud party and other members of the coalition.
Netanyahu has long planned to expand his coalition, fearing that relying on the
narrowest of majorities possible, of 61 MKs, will not be enough to survive a
full term until the next scheduled elections. A recent disagreement with his
Defense Minister regarding the right of senior officers to express their opinion
on the morality of military actions, gave him the pretext he was looking for to
remove Ya’alon from his post. Ya’alon, a former general himself, jumped before
he was pushed and resigned last Friday, but did not do so without an alarming
parting shot. In his statement following his resignation, he asserted that:
“extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement
and are destabilizing our home and threatening to harm its inhabitants.”
Absurdly Ya’alon and the generals, who pro-actively lamented the decline of
moral standards in the Israeli society and in its military, were “accused” of
going soft, turning into lefty-liberals – an unforgivable sin – in the eyes of
the current Israeli government. The outgoing minister has never been any of the
above. He is a hardliner hawk, with little empathy for the suffering of the
Palestinians. But what separates him from the Netanyahus, Liebermans and Bennets
of this world, is that he is a man of personal integrity and honesty. His
calculations are not of a narrow political nature, focused on personal gains. In
the bigger picture his actions, throughout his military and political life,
contributed to perpetuation of the occupation and oppression of the
Palestinians, probably more than many other members of the current Israeli
government. Nevertheless, as a professional soldier he could not turn a blind
eye to instances such as the emptying a full magazine of bullets into a young
Palestinian girl, or the cold blooded killing of a Palestinian assailant, while
he was laying injured and defenselessly on the ground. Actions that could only
be regarded as war crimes and are rightly condemned by the military commanders.
Netanyahu’s show of sympathy for those who commit these crimes, reveals that he
is neither a statesman, nor a military leader with any moral backbone.
Appointing to the position of Minister of Defense, one of the most contentious
politicians of Israeli politics in recent history, with a cloud of impropriety
constantly hanging above his head, can only be regarded as irresponsible. A
defense minister who calls for the re-occupying of Gaza, transferring of Israeli
Arabs, and advocates the death penalty for terrorists, will only lead the
country to more conflict and bloodshed. Netanyahu might find that this was one
act of opportunism too far, ending in presiding over a government which swerves
out of control to the right and is ravaged by personal discord.
Time will tell whether was this week’s act of political trickery will lead to
the beginning of Netanyahu’s political demise. Or, if it was a further
affirmation that the state of Israel and the Zionist dream of being liberal,
democratic and living in peace with its neighbors, have further parted ways and
in the process alienated its international allies. I will not be surprised that
it might be a case of both.
When the plumber is a reader
Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
Years ago, I went with my family on a vacation to London and rented a small
apartment there. A water pipe broke, so the landlord said he would send a
plumber to fix it. It turned out that the repair would require a few days’ work.
The plumber was a young British man who wore dirty clothes. Every day he would
take a half-hour lunchbreak, but he never had lunch alone - his companion was a
book. Argentine author Jorge Borges (Aug. 24, 1899 - June 14, 1986) was
passionate about reading. He missed the voice of his mother, who became his
personal secretary and read to him as his eyesight deteriorated. If you want to
love reading and strengthen your relation with books, read the works of Borges,
who said: “I’ve always imagined that paradise will be a kind of
library.”Borges’s relation with reading was documented by famous Argentine
historian Alberto Manguel in a book entitled With Borges. Manguel met Borges,
who had become his mentor, when he was 16 years old near a bookstore. Borges was
happy with Manguel’s visits as he read him books. By that point he had become
completely blind, so he listened to Manguel as he read to him. His imagination
took him to different worlds. He was chaotic in choosing the topics he wanted to
learn about. They varied between religion, critiques and myths. He was fond of
One Thousand and One Nights. The influence of Arabic myths was strongly present
in his book The Aleph and Other Stories. Borges’s lack of methodology in reading
was not a flaw. What matters is the connection to the book and learning from it,
and from encyclopaedias, references, stories, novels and poems. What matters is
to gain information. Methodology develops with time, and the appropriate
approach is eventually established. It is impossible to imagine a successful
society without having reading as part of its daily activity
Society
Some books are to be read while on the plane or during picnics, while others
require a clear mind and concentration. When reading is important, and when
everyone reads regardless of their job, the result will be improving society’s
level of education and intellect. This will affect its development and economy.
It is impossible to imagine a successful society without having reading as part
of its daily activity. Reading is a hobby that is not difficult. Reading around
30 pages a day will be of value with time. Then one can read more pages every
month. The incident I mentioned at the start of my article shows how reading can
become a daily habit to which a person can dedicate time. Reading helps one
relax, and provides pleasure when one discovers a new idea or reads about a
historical event or a wonderful poem. Reading allows one to be in a constant
state of discovery. When you dedicate time to reading, away from your smart
phone, you introduce balance to your life. If you spend half an hour a day
reading a book, you will realize years later that you gave your mind the
appropriate nutrition. The minds of those who do not read will rust. *This
article was first published in Al Bayan on May 25, 2016.
Why Pakistan is key to Afghan
peace
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/May 25/16
On May 21, the United Sates struck a vehicle in Pakistan, killing its passenger
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, an extremely dangerous man who nine months ago
became leader of the Taliban. After the killing of his predecessor Mullah
Mohammad Omar was revealed, Mansour withdrew from peace talks with the Afghan
government and swore to increase attacks. Efforts to resume the talks failed.
With US presidential elections in November, it seems leaving Afghanistan in this
state for the next administration is unacceptable to President Barack Obama and
his Democratic party. The drone that targeted Mansour also carried a message to
the Taliban that it is no longer safe in Pakistan. The man considered the main
reason for the failure of peace talks has been killed, and a new page opened.
There are divisions within the Taliban over Mansour’s successor, and suspicion
that Pakistan betrayed it by collaborating with Washington. Despite Islamabad’s
denial of knowledge about the attack, it is hard to believe that a Taliban
leader could be found in a remote area without Pakistani intelligence.
Islamabad’s claim that Mansour had traveled to Iran and returned to Pakistan the
day he was killed is meant to assuage Taliban suspicions about Islamabad’s
involvement. The drone that targeted Mansour also carried a message to the
Taliban that it is no longer safe in Pakistan
Message
Washington is sending a message to all militants in Pakistan that if they shun
negotiations, they could share Mansour’s fate. In particular, Gulbadeen
Hekmatyar – a major insurgent leader and head of the Hezb-e Islami political
party – should take the warning seriously. It is almost a week since the first
draft of an agreement over an Afghan unity government was presented to Hekmatyar.
His party has been negotiating with the current government for the past couple
of years, and his endorsement of an agreement could influence other fighters to
do so. There is speculation on social media that Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of
the Haqqani network – a subset of the Taliban – is a contender to succeed
Mansour. However, this is very unlikely because the US government’s Rewards for
Justice Program is offering up to $10 million for information leading to
Haqqani’s capture. Afghan politicians believe peace can be achieved when
Afghanistan and Pakistan resolve their border issues. Controlling terrorists
such as the Taliban should not be difficult if that is what Islamabad wants.
Peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan is more necessarily than peace with the
Taliban, Islamabad’s puppets.