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Bible Quotation For Today/Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.
Luke 12/01-05: "Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more.But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!"

Bible Quotation For Today/I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
Acts of the Apostles 21/40.22/01-10.: "When he had given him permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the people for silence; and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying: ‘Brothers and fathers, listen to the defence that I now make before you.’ When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then he said: ‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. From them I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. ‘While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" I answered, "Who are you, Lord?" Then he said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting." Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.
I asked, "What am I to do, Lord?" The Lord said to me, "Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do."

LCCC Latest analysis, editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 29-30/15
Waking Up the Neighbors: How Regional Intervention Is Transforming Hezbollah/Matthew Levitt/Washington Institute/July 29/15
How Turkey Fights the Islamic State/Burak Bekdil/The Gatestone Institute/July 29/15
Turkey Turns on Its Jihadists Next Door/Burak Bekdil/The Gatestone Institute/July 29/15
Zarif’s Charm Offensive/Ali Ibrahim/Asharq Al Awsat/ 28 Jul, 2015
UK: David Cameron Declares War on Islamic Extremism/Soeren Kern/The Gatestone Institute/July 29/15
Bibi's nuclear march of folly/Haim Ramon/Ynetnews/July 29/15
Iranian Nuclear Deal Response From Canada: Peter Kent MP, PC/July 29/15
Israel Confronts the Iran Nuclear Deal/Michael Herzog/Washington Institute/July 29/15

LCCC Bulletin titles for the Lebanese Related News published on July 29-30/15
Second reported IAF strike: Damascus says Israel strikes pro-Syrian Palestinian militia
Blast Rips through PFLP-GC Weapons Depot in Bekaa
PFLP-GC Member Killed, Six Wounded in Qosaya Blast
Reports: Israeli strike in Syria kills 3
'Inflexible Stances' Stop Salam from Finding Solution to Crisis as Diplomats Rush to his Support
Asiri Throws Support behind Salam amid Resignation Rumors
Lebanon's Garbage Threatens Flight Safety
Jumblat Says No Hand in Any Garbage-Linked Investment
Syrian Observatory: Israeli Strike on Golan Town Kills 2 Hizbullah Fighters
2 Dead, 2 Hurt as Jund al-Sham and Fatah Clash in Ain el-Hilweh
Mustaqbal Urges 'Partnership' in Resolving Waste Crisis, Voices 'Full Support' for Salam
Moqbel Meets Geagea, Gemayel, Says Army Chief Name to be Discussed in September

LCCC Bulletin Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 29-30/15
Top US general distances himself from choice of Iran deal or war
Saudi Policeman Killed, 2 Hurt in Attack
France Seeks to Warm up Iran Ties with Rouhani Invite
Saudi Arabia Beheadings for Murder, Drugs
Jordan Jails 8 for Plots against U.S. Troops, Israel
Israel PM Approves 300 Settler Homes in Occupied West Bank
Canada,'s FM, Nicholson Comments on UN Tribunal Vote on MH17
ISIS wipes out the Syrian army’s main strategic arsenal, flattens heart of Al Safira complex
Saudi Arabia says Turkey has right to self-defense
Saudi FM denounces Iran’s “aggressive” rhetoric following nuclear deal

Second reported IAF strike: Damascus says Israel strikes pro-Syrian Palestinian militia
JPOST.COM STAFF/REUTERS/07/29/2015 /BEIRUT - An Israeli plane attacked a military base along the Syrian-Lebanese border on Wednesday belonging to a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction, wounding six people, Syrian state television said. In a newsflash, state television quoted a military source as saying Israeli planes had at 3:15 p.m. (1215 GMT) struck a base belonging to the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a faction that backs President Bashar Assad. Asked about the reported strike, an Israeli military spokeswoman in Jerusalem declined comment. Earlier in the day, Arab media reported in a separate incident that the Israeli Air Force struck a target in Syria, killing at least two people. According to a report on the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen news portal, an Israeli air force jet struck a car in the countryside of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing three people. Al-Manar, another Hezbollah-linked news portal, reported that it was an Israeli drone that had struck the vehicle, killing two members of a pro-Assad militia. According to the Al-Manar report, the attack struck the car on the outskirts of the village of Hader, a Druse area at the frontier with the Israeli Golan Heights. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the first alleged Israeli attack struck a vehicle in the Syrian Golan Heights and targeted members of Hezbollah and the People's Committees, a pro-Assad militia led by Lebanese Druse terrorist Samir Kuntar. According to the Observatory report, five people were killed in the strike, two of whom were from Hezbollah and three of whom were from the People's Committees. The IDF neither confirmed nor denied that it carried out the strike, stating that it does not respond to foreign reports. Foreign media reports have attributed a number of air strikes in Syrian territory to Israel over the course of the four-year Syrian civil war. In January, an alleged Israeli drone strike in southern Syria left six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel dead — including an Iranian senior general and the son of the late external operations chief for Hezbollah. Remnants of the car from the alleged Israeli attack on Syrian side of the Golan HeightsRemnants of the car from the alleged Israeli attack on Syrian side of the Golan Heights

PFLP-GC Member Killed, Six Wounded in Qosaya Blast
Naharnet/29 July/15/A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command was killed in a blast in the central Bekaa region, reported the National News Agency on Wednesday.It said that six members of the PFLP-GC were wounded in the explosion, one critically. NNA did not explain the cause of the explosion, but a member of the group accused Israel of shelling its position in Qosaya. Earlier media reports said that the explosion took place at the group's weapons depot in the area. PFLP-GC official Anwar Raja told al-Mayadeen television: "Israeli airstrikes targeted our position in Qosaya, wounding six people."He explained that the post overlooks Syria's al-Zabadani area, which has been witnessing fighting between regime forces, backed by Hizbullah, and rebel groups. Two military vehicles belonging to the PFLP-GC were also destroyed in the blast, said NNA. LBCI television meanwhile said the explosion was caused by shells from Syria that landed on a weapons depot. The shelling was caused by tank fire used in the battle for al-Zabadani.
It clarified that the depot is located on the outskirts of Qosaya on the Syrian side of the border.

Blast Rips through PFLP-GC Weapons Depot in Bekaa
Naharnet/29 July/15/A blast was heard on Wednesday afternoon on the outskirts of the Bekaa town of Qosaya. Al-Jadeed television attributed the blast to an explosion in a weapons depot belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command in the central Bekaa region. LBCI television meanwhile said it was caused by shells from Syria that landed on the depot.The shelling was caused by tank fire used in the battle for Syria's al-Zabadani area. It clarified that the depot is located on the outskirts of Qosaya on the Syrian side of the border. The National News Agency had said that the explosion was caused by rockets fired from Syria during the Zabadani fightingThere have been no reports of injuries.

Reports: Israeli strike in Syria kills 3
Ynetnews/Roi Kais/Published: 07.29.15/Israel News /IDF refuses to comment on reported strike near Quneitra in the Golan Heights; Al Mayadeen claims three activists associated with Assad regime killed. Three militants associated with the regime of Bashar Assad were allegedly killed on Wednesday in an airstrike attributed to Israel in the suburbs of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights, according to a report on Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen TV. The IDF refused to comment on the reports, but earlier reports in Lebanon also mentioned IAF sorties in the Bekaa Valley. Several airstrikes have been attributed to Israel over the past few years, the last one in Syria in January killing Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Lebanese terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's commander in the Golan Heights until he was allegedly killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008. Reports last April suggested that the IAF had attacked targets in Syria, but it later emerged that Syrian rebels were responsible for the attacks.

'Inflexible Stances' Stop Salam from Finding Solution to Crisis as Diplomats Rush to his Support
Naharnet/29 July/15/Officials close to Prime Minister Tammam Salam were not optimistic on Wednesday on a possible solution to Lebanon's political crisis as top diplomats rushed to his support to stop a possible resignation decision. The officials, who were not identified, told al-Joumhouria daily that “all efforts, which had been exerted until Tuesday, hit a dead-end as a result of inflexible stances that caused a failure in coming up with solutions” to controversial issues. “Neither a solution has been found to the waste crisis nor to the government's working mechanism,” they said. The two issues have further complicated the work of the government, which has assumed the responsibilities of the president amid the vacuum at Baabda Palace. But top diplomats have rushed to Salam's support. Among them are the U.S. and Saudi Ambassadors, the head of the Arab League and the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, said al-Joumhouria. Government sources also told al-Mustaqbal newspaper that the Egyptian Ambassador has held contacts with several parties represented in the government to urge them to preserve the cabinet. A high-ranking Egyptian diplomat said that Cairo is in contact with all Lebanese sides because it is keen on Lebanon's stability. Al-Liwaa daily quoted a Western diplomatic source as saying that Paris considers Lebanon's political crisis an important item on the agenda of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius' talks with Iranian officials.
Fabius visited Tehran on Wednesday.
French President Francois Hollande might also visit Beirut in the coming months if the foreign minister's meetings in the Iranian capital led to positive results, an informed French source told al-Liwaa. Recently, there have been rumors that Salam would resign over the failure to bridge differences between the bickering parties and his inability to find a solution to the government's decision-making mechanism and the waste crisis. The Free Patriotic Movement has stressed that its ministers should have the right to coordinate with Salam on setting the cabinet's agenda because they consider themselves as representatives of the president in his absence. Their conditions have crippled the cabinet and intensified the tension between the different parties. The situation worsened when on July 17 the Naameh landfill was closed. Waste continued to pile up in dumpsters until a temporary solution was found for Sukleen to collect garbage in Beirut and Mount Lebanon earlier this week. But local officials and residents of several regions have blocked roads and held protests to stop the possible transfer of the waste to their areas.

Asiri Throws Support behind Salam amid Resignation Rumors
Naharnet/29 July/15/Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri has said he informed Prime Minister Tammam Salam that Riyadh is keen on Lebanon's constitutional institutions after reports that the PM was mulling to resign. In remarks to al-Joumhouria daily published Wednesday, Asiri said: “I stressed to him (Salam) that the Kingdom is keen on the continued functioning of state institutions, chiefly the premiership.”The diplomat visited Salam at the Grand Serail on Tuesday. He expressed hope that all political parties would cooperate to resolve issues wisely. Asiri said he wanted to “see positive results that serve Lebanon’s interest and its stability.”Lebanon’s political crisis, which erupted after the end of the term of President Michel Suleiman in May last year, worsened earlier this month after the Free Patriotic Movement called for changing the cabinet's decision-making mechanism. The mechanism was adopted after the government assumed the responsibilities of the head of state in his absence. The cabinet crisis was coupled with a waste management problem that erupted on July 17 following the closure of the landfill that lies in the town of Naameh south of Beirut. The deadlock caused Salam to mull a resignation. He postponed a cabinet session to Thursday to pave way for more consultations after coming under pressure by Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat.

Lebanon's Garbage Threatens Flight Safety
Naharnet/29 July/15/Public Works Minister Ghazi Zoaiter and the former head of Lebanon's Civil Aviation have warned against dumping waste near Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport. Zoaiter told An Nahar daily published on Wednesday that he has sent memos to the ministers of interior, defense and environment to inform them about the dangers of dumping waste in the airport's vicinity. Waste collector Sukleen and the municipalities of Beirut's southern suburbs and Shuwaifat have been dumping garbage near the airport's fence. Zoaiter has held the three ministries the responsibility in any dereliction that would put the safety of flights in danger. The former general manager of Civil Aviation, Hamdi Shawqi, also told An Nahar that the waste being dumped near the airport would reach levels higher than the elevation of the tarmac. The garbage also changes the temperatures near the runway. “Airplanes are directly influenced by the climate,” he warned. The dumping of the waste began when the landfill in the town of Naameh south of Beirut was closed on July 17.
Since then, mountains of garbage piled up in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The gridlocked government postponed further discussion of the crisis until Thursday. Although a temporary solution has been found to collect waste, controversy has erupted over the dumping sites of the garbage. Apart from the obvious danger to civil aviation, dumping the waste near the airport fence will attract birds and make it a habitat. Birds are

Jumblat Says No Hand in Any Garbage-Linked Investment
Naharnet/29 July/15/Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat has stressed that he had no ties to any investment linked to Lebanon's waste management crisis. Jumblat told As Safir daily published on Wednesday that there was potential for his sons Taymour and Aslan to enter in a partnership with Riad al-Asaad. “But three weeks ago I withdrew my hand totally from the case after I felt (it would have) political dangers,” the lawmaker said. “Consequently I have no ties to Asaad's company or any other private company and I am not a partner in any rumored deal,” stressed Jumblat. Asaad is the owner of South for Construction s.a.l., a Lebanese contracting company specialized in infrastructure, road works, marine works, buildings and maintenance of infrastructure network utilities. Asked about a protest carried out by the residents of Ain Dara, which lies in Aley district, on Tuesday, Jumblat said: “They don't have the right to object.”The residents blocked the vital Dahr al-Baydar road over reports that garbage from other areas will be transferred to their region. The highway links the Beirut, Mount Lebanon and Bekaa regions. The location to dump the waste there is “dead because of the stone crushing plants that had already exploited it,” said Jumblat. The garbage crisis erupted following the closure of the Naameh landfill that lies south of Beirut on July 17. Waste continued to pile up in Beirut and Mount Lebanon because the authorities failed to find an alternative. Although Sukleen resumed to collect waste, there has been controversy on where the trash is being dumped in addition to warnings from local officials and protests by residents to stop the transfer of garbage from Beirut and Mount Lebanon to their regions.

Syrian Observatory: Israeli Strike on Golan Town Kills 2 Hizbullah Fighters
Naharnet/29 July/15/An Israeli air strike on a government-held village on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights ceasefire line killed five pro-regime forces, including two Hizbullah members, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. "An Israeli plane hit a car inside the town of Hader, killing two men from Hizbullah, and three men from the pro-regime popular committees in the town," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Hader is a Druze village that lies along the ceasefire line, with the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights plateau to the west, and the border with Damascus province to the northeast. An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to comment on the incident. According to Hizbullah's al-Manar TV, "two members of Syria's National Defense Forces were killed when an Israeli drone targeted their car at the entrance of Hader, in Quneitra province." The National Defense Forces has fighters operating throughout Syria. Hizbullah is a close ally of the Syrian government and has dispatched fighters to bolster the army against the uprising that began in March 2011.Rebel fighters, including Islamists, surrounded the village of Hader on June 17 after fierce clashes with a loyalist militia in the area. Israel's own significant Druze minority has expressed concern that their brethren in Syria would be targeted by rebels there. In January, an Israeli raid in Quneitra killed a high-ranking Iranian military official, Jihad Mughniyeh, who was a prominent Hizbullah member, and five others. The young Mughniyeh is the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah operative who was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus in a bombing that the party blamed on Israel.

2 Dead, 2 Hurt as Jund al-Sham and Fatah Clash in Ain el-Hilweh
Naharnet/29 July/15/Two people were killed and two others were wounded Monday as clashes erupted between the Islamist Jund al-Sham group and the secular Fatah Movement in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp. The violence erupted after Jund al-Sham members Mohammed A. and Mahmoud A. were shot and wounded at the hands of unknown gunmen, state-run National News Agency reported. It identified the slain men as Palestinian national Diab M., a civilian, and Fatah member T. M. “Some residents have fled, fearing a bigger deterioration,” NNA said. Sidon MP Bahia Hariri of the al-Mustaqbal bloc meanwhile contacted senior Fatah official Sobhi Abou Arab and Islamist leader Abou Sharif Aql, urging them to seek a ceasefire and contain the tensions. She was told that efforts were being exerted to that end. The camp had witnessed several similar incidents in recent months. Ain el-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian camp in the country, is home to about 50,000 refugees who live in dire conditions and is known to harbor extremists and fugitives. By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the country's 12 refugee camps, leaving security inside to the Palestinians themselves.

Mustaqbal Urges 'Partnership' in Resolving Waste Crisis, Voices 'Full Support' for Salam
Naharnet/29 July/15/Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday called for “partnership and integration” to resolve the waste management crisis, as it threw its support behind Prime Minister Tammam Salam. “The growing garbage crisis is the problem of entire Lebanon and it is not limited to a certain region without the others, as the dire consequences are affecting all Lebanese regions, especially the capital Beirut, which lacks an appropriate location for setting up a landfill,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting.
It hoped the government's efforts will lead to finding a comprehensive solution” on the basis of “partnership and integration among all citizens and Lebanese regions.”Commenting on the agreement reached Monday in the waste management ministerial committee, Mustaqbal hoped the provisional plan will pave the ground for a solution based on “the resolutions that were issued by the government in 2010, which were endorsed by the current government in January.”In another stance related to the garbage crisis, the bloc accused members of the Hizbullah-affiliaed Resistance Brigades of throwing trash outside PM Salam's residence in Msaitbeh. It also condemned the interception of Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas' car by anti-trash civil society protesters, urging security forces to arrest them and refer them to the judiciary. Turning to the crisis over the cabinet's decision-making mechanism, Mustaqbal voiced its “full support” for Salam as he “shoulders his constitutional responsibilities in preserving the Constitution's stipulations and the premiership's jurisdiction.”“The real gateway to addressing all these complications is the speedy election of a president, … as the continued obstruction of the state's work and the insistence on paralyzing its institutions are the main and direct reasons behind all the circumstances that the Lebanese are facing,” the bloc added.

Moqbel Meets Geagea, Gemayel, Says Army Chief Name to be Discussed in September
Naharnet/29 July/15/Defense Minister Samir Moqbel announced Tuesday that the issue of appointing a new army chief will be discussed in September, the month during which the extended term of Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji will expire.
“The name of the army commander will remain pending until September and will be discussed only one week prior to the juncture,” said Moqbel after meeting Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab. “The defense minister will then take the necessary measures, in line with the laws,” he added. Moqbel noted that he would propose “three or four names” for the cabinet to choose from whenever there is a need to appoint a new military official. In the event of lack of consensus, “the defense minister's jurisdiction allows him to postpone the retirement of certain officers and he can also appoint reserve officers,” he added. Moqbel also noted that the political leaders he met in recent days did not suggest any candidates for the military posts. Earlier in the day, the defense minister held talks with Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel in Saifi. On Monday, he held talks with Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun in Rabieh. Aoun and Moqbel had been at loggerheads after the FPM chief accused the minister of extending the terms of several military officials in an "illegal" manner. The cabinet sessions were recently suspended for more than three weeks due to the dispute over the appointments. The bickering later escalated into a thorny debate over the cabinet's decision-making mechanism in the absence of a president, with the FPM accusing Prime Minister Tammam Salam of infringing on the powers of the Christian head of state. Aoun has been lobbying for political consensus on the appointment of Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz, his son-in-law, as army chief as part of a package for the appointment of other top security officers.

Top US general distances himself from choice of Iran deal or war
MICHAEL WILNER/J.Post/07/29/2015/WASHINGTON -- General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, distanced himself from an assertion frequently made by the Obama administration that war with Iran is the inevitable consequence of Congress rejecting the nuclear agreement reached this month. "At no time did that come up in our conversation or did I make that comment," Dempsey said on Wednesday at a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We have a range of options."Dempsey was answering a question from Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who asked if the political paradigm cast by US President Barack Obama and his administration had been derived from a military assessment by the joint chiefs. In his answer, Dempsey noted that a military strike would constitute an act of war and that the United States retained options between this deal and that point. He added that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the agreement, is the most "durable" option available to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Dempsey's opening statement was brief. US military options against Iran's nuclear program, he said, "have to be preserved into the future" as the agreement proceeds through implementation. "The president of the United States is not mandating war," US Secretary of State John Kerry said, also at the same briefing. But Kerry said that war would be the "inevitable consequence" of Iran expediting its nuclear program without the caps ensured by the JCPOA.

Saudi Policeman Killed, 2 Hurt in Attack
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/29 July/15/A Saudi lawman was killed and two others were wounded during an attack in a Shiite-dominated area of Eastern Province, the interior ministry said Wednesday. "One policeman was killed and two injured," an interior ministry spokesman said. In a statement, police said two suspects were arrested after the patrol came under fire in al-Jesh village of Qatif district late Tuesday. "The motive of the crime is not clear yet, and we are waiting for the investigation results," the spokesman said.
Two residents of the area told AFP that similar incidents have been linked to criminal activity including the drug trade. Eastern Province was also the scene of periodic clashes involving security forces after demonstrations broke out four years ago alongside a Shiite-led protest movement in neighboring Bahrain. Most of Saudi Arabia's Shiites live in the oil-rich east, where many say they face marginalization. Since late last year, the eastern region has been targeted by the Islamic State group, Sunni extremists who consider Shiites to be heretics. Authorities and analysts say the jihadists tried to ignite sectarian tensions in the Sunni-majority kingdom but failed. On successive Fridays in May suicide bombings at Shiite mosques in Eastern Province, one of them in Qatif, killed a total of 25 people.
An IS-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province -- which takes its name from the region around Riyadh -- claimed those attacks as well as another suicide bombing that killed 26 people at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait last month. Since the mosque bombings, local Shiite volunteers, backed up by police, have increased security in Saudi Arabia's east. Saudi security forces have themselves been targets of attacks linked to IS, which has committed atrocities in Iraq and Syria and inspired attacks elsewhere around the world. On July 18 the interior ministry announced it had disrupted a network linked to IS and made more than 430 arrests, foiling new attacks on Shiite mosques and a diplomatic mission. Two days earlier, a car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint near a prison in the Saudi capital Riyadh. It killed the 19-year-old driver and wounded two policemen, the interior ministry said. In the southwestern city of Taif on July 3, a policeman was gunned down during a raid in which three people were arrested and flags of the IS group found, police said earlier.
A Western diplomat said the kingdom's security forces have been "quite efficient" in their effort against extremists.

France Seeks to Warm up Iran Ties with Rouhani Invite
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/29 July/15/France sought to revive its relations with Iran on Wednesday, inviting President Hassan Rouhani to visit Paris in November, in a gesture that swiftly follows this month's historic nuclear deal. The offer came in a letter delivered by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, visiting Tehran on a short trip that has attracted a mixture of optimism and criticism in the capital. Fabius said the July 14 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers including France offered the chance for approchement after years of strain. But some Iranian media have since attacked the diplomat's hawkish stance in the nuclear talks. He has also been criticized over his role in a tainted blood scandal that killed hundreds of Iranians in the 1980s. Fabius, his country's first foreign minister to visit since 2001, told reporters at the French embassy that it was an important trip that could offer a new beginning. "We are two great, independent countries. It is true that in recent years, for reasons that everyone knows, the ties have cooled but now thanks to the nuclear deal, things will be able to change," he said. Around the time Fabius landed in Tehran a small but vehement group of protesters gathered at Mehrabad Airport to oppose the visit, citing the blood deaths that occurred when he was France's prime minister. "King of Aids, you are not welcomed," one billboard read, while another stated: "We will neither forgive nor forget."The slogans related to the French National Blood Transfusion Center, which decades ago exported products contaminated with the AIDS virus. Fabius was acquitted in 1999 by French courts over the affair, in which people in France also died. Iran's Tasnim news agency said some protesters who were asked to end their demonstration had been briefly detained. But Fabius held a short press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, where the invitation to Rouhani from French President Francois Hollande was announced. If taken up, the trip would be the first to France by an Iranian president since 1999. Rouhani was elected in 2013 after pledging to push for a diplomatic end to a then decade-long crisis over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear activities. "From now, we hope to deepen our relations in all areas," said Zarif, standing beside Fabius, with both noting that political dialogue had resumed at ministerial level. "We want to start a new chapter in a sense of common interest," Zarif added, mentioning "the fight against terrorism" in a nod to possibly greater cooperation in fighting Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria. A French economic and trade delegation accompanied by the agriculture minister and deputy foreign ministers are to visit Tehran in September, officials announced. "With the new deal -- the lifting of sanctions -- France intends, if Iran is willing, to be more present in several areas... political, economic, cultural," said Fabius before meeting Rouhani. The nuclear deal was struck by Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. -- plus Germany. Iran, which has always denied seeking an atomic bomb, agreed to curbs on some but not all elements of its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of U.N., U.S. and European economic sanctions. As France's representative in those negotiations, Fabius adopted an often stiff tone on what Iran must do under any such accord, earning the nickname "the obstacle" in the ultimately successful talks. He said France's approach had been "firm and constructive" to prevent nuclear proliferation, as an atomic energy program "was not a trinket to be played with". But he acknowledged the "respect we owe to each other and to the commitments made" in the deal, which though approved by the Security Council still faces a bruising review in the U.S. Congress. Despite the nuclear agreement, which Zarif has said he has "no concern or worry" about being implemented, Fabius did not dodge key disagreements in French-Iranian relations. "There are a number of points on which we have differences," he said, alluding to the conflict in Syria as well as Iran's refusal to recognize Israel.

Saudi Arabia Beheadings for Murder, Drugs
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/29 July/15/Saudi Arabia beheaded Wednesday two of its nationals for murder and a third for drug trafficking, bringing to 107 the total number of executions this year, according to the interior ministry. Turki al-Diaini, convicted of shooting dead another Saudi, was put to death in Riyadh, while Sharie al-Jineibi was executed in southwestern Asir region for a shooting death. The third man, Mansour al-Roali, was beheaded in the northwestern region of Jawf for trafficking in amphetamines.
Authorities resumed executions last week after a pause for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday that followed it from July 17. The number of locals and foreigners put to death this year is up 123 percent from 87 during the whole of 2014, according to AFP tallies. But this year's figure is below the record 192 that human rights group Amnesty International said took place in 1995. Human Rights Watch has accused Saudi authorities of waging a "campaign of death" by executing more people in the first six months of this year than in all of last year. Echoing the concerns of other activists, the New York-based group said it had documented "due process violations" in the legal system that make it difficult for defendants to get fair trials even in capital cases. Under the conservative kingdom's strict Islamic sharia legal code, drug trafficking, rape, murder, armed robbery and apostasy are all punishable by death. The interior ministry has cited deterrence as a reason for carrying out the punishment. It has also talked of "the physical and social harm" caused by drugs.

Jordan Jails 8 for Plots against U.S. Troops, Israel
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/29 July/15/Jordan handed down jail sentences Wednesday against seven of its citizens and a Syrian for planning attacks on U.S. soldiers in the country and on the Israeli embassy, a judicial source said. The plots in question would have involved "terrorist acts" against the U.S. service personnel at a Jordan military base in Al-Moaqar in 2006 and against the Israeli embassy in Amman in 2008, the source said without elaborating. The charges included "plotting to commit a terrorist act, and possession of weapons and explosives for use" in those acts.The Jordanians were all arrested in May 2014, but no details were provided on their identities or the surrounding circumstances. The leader of the group, a Jordanian, was given a 10-year term with hard labor, while his remaining compatriots were jailed for between two and three years under the same conditions. The Syrian, who was tried in absentia, was sentenced to 15 years. The defendants were also accused of collaborating with the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah in 2011 and 2012 in a bid to ship arms from Jordan to the Palestinian territories. Jordan amended its anti-terror law last year to make it an offense to "belong to or attempt to join any armed group or terrorist organization".

Israel PM Approves 300 Settler Homes in Occupied West Bank
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/29 July/15/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Wednesday the "immediate" construction of 300 settler homes in the occupied West Bank as his government came under pressure from right-wing Jewish groups.
A senior Palestine Liberation Organization official denounced the plans to build new homes as "war crimes" and accused Israel of sabotaging peace efforts.West Bank settlements are major impediments to peace negotiations with the Palestinians, who see the land as part of a future independent state, and Western nations have called on Israel to halt such projects. The decision comes amid already strained relations between Israel and the United States, particularly over the recent nuclear deal with Iran, but Netanyahu is also under pressure to hold on to his one-seat majority in parliament. "After consultations in the prime minister's office, the immediate construction of 300 homes in Beit El has been authorized," Netanyahu's office said, adding that planning for another 504 homes in annexed east Jerusalem had also been approved. According to the statement, the 300 units had been promised three years ago following the demolition of other homes in the Beit El settlement. The approval came after the Israeli High Court upheld earlier Wednesday a demolition order for two structures being built illegally in Beit El. The planned demolition had drawn protests from settler groups, who clashed with police at the site on Tuesday and Wednesday. Netanyahu had said he opposed the demolition, which began Wednesday. Right-wing members of his government also spoke out strongly against the demolition, and Education Minister Naftali Bennett addressed protesters at the site. On Wednesday, he immediately hailed the decision on new construction announced by Netanyahu's office. "This decision is a Zionist response," Bennett, of the right-wing Jewish Home party, said in a statement. "This is the way in which we will build our country."The prime minister holds only a one-seat majority in parliament following March elections and settler groups wield significant influence in his government. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law, though not by the Israeli government. They are seen as further complicating peace negotiations aimed at leading to an independent Palestinian state. Talks have been stalled since last year.
"These settlement measures and war crimes are part of a plan by Israeli leaders to impose a 'Greater Israel' on historic Palestine and destroy the two-state solution and the chance for peace," senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. The two buildings being demolished in Beit El were reportedly on private Palestinian land that was seized by the army in the 1970s. Several hundred protesters clashed with police Tuesday as authorities took control of the buildings, then again Wednesday as demolition started. Police used water cannon to push back protesters and detained a number of people, an AFP photographer reported. In a separate incident Tuesday, several hundred people illegally entered the former Sa-Nur settlement in the northern West Bank, which Israel had evacuated in 2005. Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War and nearly 400,000 Jewish settlers currently live there.

Canada,'s FM, Nicholson Comments on UN Tribunal Vote on MH17
July 29, 2015 - Ottawa, Ontario - Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement:
“Russia’s veto against justice for the victims of MH17 is unconscionable. Canada is profoundly disappointed by the outcome of today’s UN Security Council vote on the creation of an international criminal tribunal to prosecute those responsible for downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, over territory controlled by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
“Canada regrets that, because of the obstruction of Russia, the families and friends of the 283 passengers and 15 crew members who lost their lives will not see those responsible for this horrific event brought to justice by an international tribunal.
“Canada will continue to support the people of Ukraine and stand with our friends and allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression.”

ISIS wipes out the Syrian army’s main strategic arsenal, flattens heart of Al Safira complex
DEBKAfile Special Report July 29, 2015/As the US and Turkey got started on a new air campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, the jhadis pulled off their most devastating attack yet on the Syrian army’s biggest arsenal. They subjected the giant Al-Safira military complex north of Aleppo to a steady blitz of an estimated 50 Grad missiles from Monday night to Tuesday, July 28. debkafile’s military sources report that Facility No.790, a large depot of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons, including chemicals, was set on fire and flattened. Al Safira was important and big enough to be guarded by 1,800 members of the Syrian Air Force’s elite intelligence unit (not part of the air force) which comes under the direct command of President Bashar Assad. Wednesday morning, flames continued to burn over the facility and explosions still shook buildings far away. Some sources attributed the attack to Turkish Air Force bombers. In fact, it was the Islamic State which kept the complex under steady Grad missile fire, that was precise enough to raise suspicions of an inside leak betraying the exact locations of key targets, including subterranean structures, workshops for manufacture and repairs and large stockpiles of weapons. Our sources list the items and sections of the Al-Safira military complex which ISIS demolished:
The Syrian army’s strategic stock of Scud D surface missiles. Parts of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons production plant and stocks. The production line for “barrel bombs” newly set up by Iranian engineers, which had become the most frequently used Syrian air force’s weapon against rebel forces. A big helicopter pad where the Syrian choppers would load up on barrel bombs and distribute them among air bases across the country. The storage facilities in a part of the base known as the “Suleiman area” which housed chemical artillery shells. Many Iranian engineers and technicians were known to be present at Al Safira at the time of the attack. No information is available on casualties. Our military sources say that never in the course of the four years plus of the Syrian conflict has the Assad regime’s army suffered a loss on this scale of its essential stock of hardware. It will undoubtedly affect its combat effectiveness and especially its fire power.

Saudi Arabia says Turkey has right to self-defense
Emrah Gurel) Jeddah and Istanbul, Asharq Al-Awsat/Reuters—Saudi Arabia on Tuesday said it supports Turkey’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz said during a telephone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday that terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) “constitute a danger to the region and the world’s safety and security, and must be eliminated.”Saudi Arabia has like Turkey also recently been the victim of ISIS-linked terror attacks, and King Salman told President Erdoğan the Kingdom supported Ankara’s right to defend itself and its people against such groups. Erdoğan also briefed King Salman on the details of Turkey’s latest offensive against ISIS in Syria. The latest wave of airstrikes by Turkey against ISIS began last Friday and also coincide with strikes targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. Turkish jets launched their heaviest assault on the Kurdish militants overnight since airstrikes began last week, hours after Erdoğan said a peace process had become impossible.The strikes hit PKK targets including shelters, depots and caves in six areas, a statement from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s office said. A senior official told Reuters it was the biggest assault since the campaign started.Iraq condemned the airstrikes as a “dangerous escalation and an assault on Iraqi sovereignty,” saying it was committed to ensuring militant attacks on Turkey were not carried out from within its territory. Davutoğlu has called the near-simultaneous strikes against PKK camps in Iraq and ISIS fighters in Syria a “synchronized fight against terror.”NATO member Turkey has also opened up its airbases to the US-led coalition against ISIS, joining the frontline in the battle against the jihadists after years of reluctance. NATO gave Turkey its full political support on Tuesday. Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased militant violence in recent weeks, including a series of targeted killings of police officers and soldiers blamed on the Kurdish militant group. On Tuesday, fighter jets also bombed PKK targets in the southeastern Turkish province of Şırnak, bordering Iraq, after an attack on a group of gendarmes. The PKK has said the strikes are an attempt to “crush” the Kurdish political movement and create an “authoritarian, hegemonic system” in Turkey. It has stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process, although it said on July 11 that Turkey’s construction of military outposts, dams and roads for military use had violated a ceasefire and that it planned to resume attacks. Erdoğan initiated negotiations in 2012 to try to end the PKK insurgency, largely fought in the predominantly Kurdish southeast and which has killed 40,000 people since 1984. The ceasefire, though fragile, had been holding since March 2013. Western allies have said they recognize Turkey’s right to self-defense but have urged it not to allow years of peace efforts with the PKK to collapse. While deeming the group a terrorist organization, Washington also depends heavily on allied Syrian–Kurdish fighters battling ISIS. But on Tuesday, Erdoğan said the process had become impossible and urged parliament to strip politicians with links to the militants of immunity from prosecution.

Saudi FM denounces Iran’s “aggressive” rhetoric following nuclear deal
Nasser Al-Haqbani/Tuesday, 29 Jul, 2015
Riyadh and Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir on Monday criticized recent “aggressive statements” made by Iranian officials towards other countries in the region, following Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers on July 14. Jubeir, who was meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Riyadh, said, “we reject their comments and reject the hostility they show towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the countries of the region.” These statements are escalating and they are many,” he added. Several Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have made comments aimed at other regional countries since the nuclear deal, many of which have focused specifically on Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently said some “extreme” voices within the Saudi administration were “pushing the region towards conflict and shaking its security and stability.” He also criticized what he said was the Kingdom’s “negative” role in countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain. Jubeir said the comments did not “represent the desire of a state for good neighborly relations but that of a state which has aspirations in the region and which carried out hostile acts like this”—referring to a suspected plot by Iran to smuggle arms and explosives into Bahrain. Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had arrested two men in relation to the plot and recovered several weapons, ammunition, and explosives. It said both men had admitted to receiving the shipment from Iranian handlers and at least one of them had been trained at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps camp in Iran. During an official visit to Kuwait on Sunday, Zarif said the allegations that Iran was involved in the plot were “baseless” and, in apparent reference to Saudi Arabia, said “some countries . . . want conflict and war in this region,” according to AFP. Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Bin Khalid Al Khalifa responded on Twitter by saying: “Iran’s foreign minister says allegations of smuggling arms into Bahrain are false. I advise him to come [to Bahrain] so we can show him what the Revolutionary Guard has been hiding from him.”Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region fear the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers will embolden Tehran to continue supporting regional proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran has also been involved in Iraq as part of the country’s fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), supporting volunteer Shi’ite militias accused by Human Rights Watch and other international groups of carrying out human rights abuses against Sunni civilians. The Quds Force, an elite paramilitary unit of the Revolutionary Guard, has also been involved in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.
In addition to praising Saudi Arabia’s role in the region, Mogherini said on Monday that with respect to Iran the “trust is not there yet” and that EU leaders would be watching Tehran’s behavior closely in the coming period in order to ensure it was not reneging on the terms of the nuclear agreement. “We [the EU] understand the concerns very well,” she said in reference to some of the regional reservations regarding the deal. Jubeir also criticized comments by Iraq’s former prime minister and current Vice President Nuri Al-Maliki, who recently said that Saudi Arabia was a “sponsor and supporter of terrorism” and called for the Kingdom to be placed under the “trusteeship” of the international community. Jubeir said Maliki’s tenure as prime minister between 2006–2014 and his sectarian policies marginalizing Sunnis in the country had helped pave the way for the rise of ISIS in Iraq. Meanwhile, on Monday Zarif visited the Iraqi capital Baghdad as part of a tour of regional countries which also includes Kuwait and Qatar. During a press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, Zarif said: “Iran is sending a message of peace to all the countries of the region after its recent nuclear deal with the West,” and added that those countries “should not be afraid of the deal.”
He said he was in Iraq to “reiterate that Iran stands by the Iraqi government and people in their fight against terrorism.”Jaafari said Iraq welcomed the nuclear deal and added that Iran “has proven through the wisdom of its leaders that it is capable of overcoming a crisis that perhaps was difficult but clearly not impossible to surpass.”Zarif arrived in Iraq on Sunday and visited the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf where he met with Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. Following the meeting, Zarif held a press conference and said Iran supported Sistani’s role in Iraq and that the Ayatollah had stressed during their meeting the “importance of working together [with Tehran] to ensure the peace and stability of the region and the world.”Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday, Salah Al-Arabawi, a senior member of the Shi’ite-dominated Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) party, said: “Zarif’s visit to Iraq at this particular time, and particularly after the signing of the nuclear deal, is extremely important, especially given the good relations which Iraq has with Iran,” adding that Iraq’s government and politicians had “strongly supported the nuclear deal with Western powers.” “There is much that unites us with Iran, most importantly on the political, cultural, and economic fronts. This calls for a continuation in dialogue between the two countries, given also that we see the relationship has more positives [than negatives], in addition to the fact that the relationship will reflect positively on the region and the fight against ISIS’s gangs,” he said.Hamza Mustafa contributed additional reporting from Baghdad.

Waking Up the Neighbors: How Regional Intervention Is Transforming Hezbollah
Matthew Levitt/Washington Institute/July 29, 2015
Given the depth of its involvement in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, Hezbollah will likely continue to head an emerging Shiite foreign legion bent on expanding Iranian influence across the region. The war in Syria has dramatically changed Hezbollah. Once limited to jockeying for political power in Lebanon and fighting Israel, the group is now a regional player engaged in conflicts far beyond its historical area of operations, often in cooperation with Iran. Underscoring this strategic shift, Hezbollah has transferred key personnel previously stationed near the Israel-Lebanon border to a newly established Syrian command and to outposts even further abroad, in Iraq and Yemen.
Initially, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah resisted dispatching his fighters to Syria to back President Bashar al-Assad, despite repeated requests from Iranian leaders, in particular Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. Like some other Hezbollah leaders, Nasrallah feared that engaging in Syria would undermine the group’s position in Lebanon by associating Hezbollah — Lebanon’s primary Shiite party — with a repressive Iranian-allied government butchering a Sunni-majority population. But Nasrallah reportedly acquiesced after receiving an appeal from the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran, Khamenei made clear, expected Hezbollah to support Assad’s grip on power. As a result, Hezbollah’s operational shift to Syria and beyond has transformed the group from a Lebanese party focused on domestic politics into a regional sectarian force acting at Iran’s behest across the Middle East.
AN ORGANIZATIONAL SHIFT
The strongest indicators of Hezbollah’s transformation are structural. Since 2013, the group has added two new commands — the first on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the second within Syria itself — to its existing bases in southern and eastern Lebanon. This startling reorganization points to a serious commitment to civil conflicts well beyond Lebanon’s borders.
In establishing its new presence in Syria, Hezbollah has transferred key personnel from its traditionally paramount Southern Command, along Lebanon’s border with Israel. Mustafa Badreddine, the head of Hezbollah’s foreign terrorist operations, began coordinating Hezbollah military activities in Syria in 2012 and now heads the group’s Syrian command. Badreddine is a Hezbollah veteran implicated in the 1983 bombing of U.S. barracks in Beirut, the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and terrorist bombings in Kuwait, among other attacks. His appointment is the strongest sign Hezbollah can give of its commitment to Syria’s civil war. Other personnel assignments include Abu Ali Tabtabai, a longtime Hezbollah commander. He was transferred from a position in southern Lebanon to Hezbollah’s Syria command, where he served as one of Badreddine’s senior officers, overseeing many of the highly trained troops formerly under his control in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s focus on the Syrian conflict extends to the top of the organization as well: Nasrallah has directed the group’s activities in Syria since at least September 2011, when he reportedly began meeting Assad in Damascus to coordinate Hezbollah’s contributions to the country’s civil war. Indeed, the organization’s intense focus on the Syrian conflict was the main reason for its blacklisting by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2012. Today, there are between some 6,000 and 8,000 Hezbollah operatives in Syria.
But joining the fight in Syria did not come without risks: Hezbollah has suffered some serious personnel losses as a result, both in Lebanon and in Syria. Hassan al-Laqis, Hezbollah’s chief military procurement officer, was assassinated in Beirut in December 2013. Although the prime suspects were Israeli agents, Sunni extremists retaliating against Hezbollah’s support for the Assad government have not been ruled out. And numerous high-ranking officers, including Fawzi Ayub, a longtime member of Hezbollah’s foreign terrorist wing, have reportedly been killed in Syria in clashes with anti-Assad rebels. By the first half of 2015, Hezbollah was suffering between 60 and 80 weekly casualties in Syria’s Qalamoun region alone. The deaths of Hezbollah members of Ayub’s stature in Syria — and the sheer number of militants killed and wounded there — demonstrate the group’s seriousness in defending the Assad regime. Its tolerance for such losses, on the other hand, reveals that Hezbollah increasingly considers the Syrian conflict an existential fight — for its domestic standing in Lebanon, on the one hand, and for the position of Shiite forces in Syria’s bitter sectarian conflict, on the other.
Even as it deepens its activities in Syria, Hezbollah continues to aid Shiite militias in Iraq, sending small numbers of skilled trainers to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and defend Shiite shrines there. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Hezbollah has also invested in commercial front organizations to support its operations in Iraq. Hezbollah member Adham Tabaja, the majority owner of the Lebanon-based real estate and construction firm Al-Inmaa Group for Tourism Works, has exploited the firm’s Iraqi subsidiaries to fund Hezbollah, with the assistance of Kassem Hejeij, a Lebanese businessman tied to Hezbollah, and Husayn Ali Faour, a member of Hezbollah’s overseas terrorism unit.
As in Iraq, Hezbollah has dispatched only a small number of highly skilled trainers and fighters to Yemen. But as in Syria, the prominence of the operatives that Hezbollah has sent there demonstrates the importance the group attributes to the country’s ongoing civil conflict. Khalil Harb, a former special operations commander and a close adviser to Nasrallah, oversees Hezbollah’s activities in Yemen — managing the transfer of funds to the organization within the country — and travels frequently to Tehran to coordinate Hezbollah activities with Iranian officials. Given his experience working with other terrorist organizations, his close relations with Iranian and Hezbollah leaders, and his expertise in special operations and training, appointing Harb to work in Yemen no doubt made a great deal of sense to Hezbollah.
Harb, however, is not the most senior operative dispatched to Yemen by Hezbollah. In the spring of 2015, Hezbollah sent Abu Ali Tabtabai, the senior commander formerly stationed in Syria, to upgrade the group’s training program for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which reportedly involves schooling them in guerilla tactics. “Sending in Tabtabai [to Yemen] is a sign of a major Hezbollah investment and commitment,” an Israeli official told me. “The key question is how long someone of Tabtabai’s stature will stay.”
A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT
In Syria and elsewhere, deadly proxy conflicts — between Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states, on the one hand, and Iran on the other — have been complicated by the dangerous overlay of sectarianism. Sunni and Shiite states and their clients seem to view the region’s wars as part of a long-term, existential struggle between their sects. Indeed, the war in Syria is now being fought on two parallel fronts: one between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition, and the other between Sunni and Shiite communities over the threat each perceives from the other. Similar dynamics define the wars in Iraq and Yemen. Factional conflict might be negotiable, but sectarian war is almost certainly not.
Hezbollah’s involvement in the war in Syria may have originally focused on supporting the Assad regime, but it now considers that war an existential battle for the future of the region, and for Hezbollah’s place in it. As a result, the group’s regional focus will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Together with other Iranian-backed militias, Hezbollah will continue to head an emerging Shiite foreign legion working both to defend Shiite communities and to expand Iranian influence across the region.
Even as it juggles its involvement in the conflicts of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, Hezbollah must also balance its occasionally clashing ideological and political goals elsewhere. Hezbollah’s adherence to the Iranian doctrine of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist), which holds that a Shiite cleric should serve as the supreme head of government, binds the group to the decrees of Iranian clerics. But this complicates Hezbollah’s other commitments to the Lebanese state, Lebanon’s Shiite community, and Shiites abroad, because the interests of Iran and Lebanon do not always converge. Hezbollah has long navigated these conflicting obligations with skill, but it will become increasingly difficult to do so as the group’s priorities take it further afield from Beirut. Indeed, Lebanon is deeply divided along confessional and sectarian lines, so when Hezbollah fights against Sunnis abroad, it undermines its own ability to navigate domestic Lebanese politics.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s intimate cooperation with Iran’s Quds Force in Syria is drawing it still closer into Tehran’s orbit, and thus deeper into the region’s ongoing conflicts. “We shouldn’t be called Party of God,” one Hezbollah commander told the Financial Times in May. “We’re not a party now, we’re international. We’re in Syria, we’re in Palestine, we’re in Iraq, and we’re in Yemen. We are wherever the oppressed need us…Hezbollah is the school where every freedom-seeking man wants to learn.”
**Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute, and author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God. This article originally appeared on the Foreign Affairs website.

How Turkey Fights the Islamic State
Burak Bekdil/The Gatestone Institute/July 29, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5401/turkey-islamic-state
Until very recently, Turkey was content to let Islamic State run wild in Syria. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (the Islamic State, or IS) has been the number one target for the world's democratic nations since it captured large swaths of land in Syria and Iraq last summer and declared caliphate under sharia law in the lands it controls. The United States and its allies have been waging a war against IS at a distance. So is NATO ally Turkey, at least theoretically, and not at a distance.In reality, things are a bit different. Especially since the beginning of this year, several press reports in local and international media outlets told chilling stories about how jihadists move freely and recruit fighters in some of Turkey's biggest cities. "It is no secret that Turkey has become a fertile ground for jihadist activity. Turkey says it fights IS. Maybe it does. But just randomly and reluctantly," said one EU ambassador in Ankara. Last month a news report detailed stunning revelations of Huseyin Mustafa Peri, a Turkish citizen who joined IS in September but, after being shot and wounded, was captured in early June by Syrian Kurds. He explained the recruiting process with chilling clarity in a video. As if to confirm Peri's revelations, the chronology of how a youth in southeastern Turkey was recruited by IS to detonate a bomb at a pro-Kurdish rally in Diyarbakir in early June either exposes a huge security vulnerability within Turkish law enforcement, or malice. (The twin blasts killed four people and injured over 100, two days before Turkey's June 7 parliamentary elections.)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has effusively praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's contributions to the fight against IS. The father of the suspect said he had contacted the police when his son disappeared in October 2014. He said that he suspected that his son, who expressed strong jihadist opinions, could have gone to join IS. The family even pleaded with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for help. Later, officials told him the young man had joined IS. Strangely, shortly before he detonated the bombs, the young man -- known only by his initials, O.G. -- was briefly detained at the rally due to some conscription irregularity. The police released him, even though their records should have listed his name as a "lost person in connection with terrorism." Officials later explained that there was some procedural error that caused the bomber to be released. Not many people were convinced. Turkey's fiercely pro-government media went a bit too far in revealing where Ankara stands in Syria's civil war. "Turkish Pravdas" ran the stories and headlines praising IS and condemning pro-Kurdish fighters in northern Syria who fought the Islamic State with the help of US-led air strikes. One daily, Sabah, which openly supports President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ran the headline, "YPG (a Kurdish militia) is more dangerous than ISIS." Other notoriously pro-government newspapers such as Star, Yeni Akit and Aksam ran similar stories. That is no doubt "good journalism" for Turkish officials. But not every Turkish journalist is necessarily a good political scientist.
Last month, three journalists at the border with Syria were briefly detained for angering the local governor by asking questions about possible infiltrators from IS. The three journalists, from the Turkish dailies Cumhuriyet and Evrensel and Germany's Die Welt, were taken to a police station for interrogation on orders from the governor. The Turkish state helps IS. Not just with its police force and local governors and other officials in Ankara. Recently, two Chechens, who were accused of beheading three priests in Syria two years ago, avoided sentencing on murder charges, although an Istanbul court sentenced them to 7.5 years in prison for being members of a terrorist group. The jihadist Chechens, Magomet Abdurakmanov and Ahmad Ramzanov, were captured in Istanbul in early July. The court refused to hand down a murder sentence on the ground that "the crime was not committed against Turkey and the lack of an agreement on extraditions." Now the Chechens will serve only two years in prison, due to the Turkish penal code, which automatically lowers prison sentences. A police report said Abdurakmanov might be one of the militants seen in a video that was uploaded on YouTube, which allegedly shows the beheading of the priests.
Revealingly, Abdurakmanov told the court that he had received support from Turkish intelligence when he was in Syria. "Turkish intelligence would not help me if I were a member of al-Qaeda," he said. "We were in contact with Turkish intelligence all the time. Turkey sent us arms, cars and money when we were fighting in Syria. Turkey was helping us because we were fighting against [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad." More recently, an interview with a discontented nurse was published. The nurse, an Alawite (an offshoot of Shiite Islam), claims to work clandestinely for a covert medical corps in Sanliurfa, a southeastern Turkish city bordering Syria. The nurse divulged information about the alleged role that Sumeyye Erdogan, President Erdogan's daughter, played in providing extended medical care for IS's wounded militants who were brought to Turkish hospitals. "No sooner did they become cognizant of my faith," she said, "then the wave of intimidation began. I knew many things... who was running the corps. I saw Sumeyye Erdogan frequently at our headquarters in Sanliurfa ... I am indeed terrified." Meanwhile, Turkey keeps on telling the world how it fights the IS terrorists in Syria. Even more ridiculous than this claim is that some people apparently buy the Turkish fairy tales. In April, US Secretary of State John Kerry underlined that Turkey was an essential partner of the US in the fight against IS and praised Turkey's contributions. "I want to emphasize this afternoon the importance of the ties between the United States and Turkey, particularly the security relationship at this particular moment," Kerry said after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart. So it is natural that the Turks think they can always fool their allies: they help jihadist terrorists and in return get pats on the shoulder.
**Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Turkey Turns on Its Jihadists Next Door
Burak Bekdil/The Gatestone Institute/July 29, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5406/turkey-vs-jihadists
When the Islamist radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS, or Islamic State) decided to send a suicide bomber across the border into a small Turkish town, they probably did not think the bomb attack would poison their relations with Turkey. After all, the bomber's target was a pro-Kurdish group, also viewed with hostility by Turkey. The attack killed 32 people and injured over 100. The attack also prompted tighter border controls in an area patrolled by the Turkish security forces. In an exchange of fire over the Turkey-Syria border, one Turkish non-commissioned officer was killed (the first Turkish casualty by IS fire), along with one IS fighter. That was the end of Turkey's silent, peaceful cohabitation with the jihadists next door. The Turkish military said it sent fighter jets to bomb IS positions in northern Syria. Turkey also, for the first time, joined the allied forces fighting IS by agreeing to allow, after several months of negotiations, the US military to use the critical Incirlik air base in southern Turkey for air strikes against IS targets.
The crackdown on IS targets in Turkey reveals how jihadists have been enjoying official protection. Then came police raids against IS targets inside Turkey. Suddenly Turkey, a NATO member, was in an all-out war against IS, inside and outside Turkey. But in an embarrassing reality, the crackdown on IS targets in Turkey revealed how jihadists have enjoyed official protection over the past several years.
In one raid, for instance, the Turkish police targeted an Istanbul apartment where it (unsurprisingly) found 30 foreign fighters waiting to be dispatched into Syria to fight their jihad alongside their IS comrades. The police also detained hundreds of "IS members or sympathizers" in raids across Turkey. The IS men must have been shocked at the unexpected hostility they faced from Turkish security forces, something they probably had not seen before. But of all the detainees, two names were more revealing than the other, less-known ones. One was Abdullah Abdullaev, an Azeri jihadist believed to be one of the IS leaders in Turkey. Abdullaev is the man who ran a network that received, provided safe houses for, and dispatched a large number of jihadists into Syria to augment the jihad there. Ironically, Abdullaev had successfully avoided coming onto the Turkish security's radar — a real miracle — until one IS cell with no real vision decided to bomb a pro-Kurdish meeting in a small Turkish town. Then it attacked Turkish troops. Then Turkey attacked both IS in Syria and pro-independence Kurds in Iraq.
Similarly, three pro-IS websites operating in Turkey were abruptly blocked, on court orders. Just like the detained IS operatives, the websites had been free to operate inside Turkey until the first direct combat between Turkey and IS. Well-known Turkish Islamist Ebu Hanzala was arrested in 2008 for plotting an attack on a synagogue, but was quickly released after appealing to a higher power. And then there is the curious case of "Ebu Hanzala." Ebu Hanzala is in fact the nom de guerre of Turkish national Halis Bayancuk.[1] In 2008, Hanzala was caught by the police as he was sketching plans to bomb a synagogue in Turkey. Mysteriously, he was released one year later. In 2014, he was briefly arrested again at a pro-Al-Qaeda meeting in Van, an eastern Turkish province bordering Iran. Also in 2014, he publicly declared that he wanted Islamic law (shariah) in Turkey. Bayancuk also declared his commitment to IS in a series of videotapes he released. He even had a Twitter account under the name "Ebu Hanzala."
Without the bomb attack against the pro-Kurdish party, Bayancuk would most probably still be a free man, fighting for jihad and organizing some of the traffic on Turkey's jihadist highway, under the discreet surveillance of the same police officers who detained him when they wanted to. It is good news that Turkey is cracking down on jihadists across the country. But questions remain: How, so spontaneously, were the Turkish police able to find the safe house where jihadists were waiting to be shipped to Syria? How did they immediately find and detain Messrs Abdullaev and Hanzala? Why did they let them go free before? It is nice of Turkey to ban the three pro-jihad and pro-IS websites, but why did the Turkish court not shut them down before? Why, specifically, did the Turks let Hanzala go free, despite his proven links with terrorism and specifically with organizations such as al-Qaeda and IS? Why was he released shortly after he was detained in each case? Finally, Turkey is fighting what the entire civilized world views as a brutal jihadist organization. But the way Turkey fights the Islamic State reveals how friendly it may have viewed the group until now.
**Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
[1] "Ebu Hanzala" is the Turkish version of the Arabic name "Hazrat Hanzala," the son of Abu Aamir Rahib, who was a non-believer during the birth of Islam. Hanzala fought for the Muslims while his father fought for the non-believers. During the Battle of Uhud, Hanzala is believed to have fought with such spirit that he was able to pass through the barrage of soldiers and ultimately reach the non-believers' leader, Abu Sufyaan who later accepted Islam.

Zarif’s Charm Offensive
Ali Ibrahim/Asharq Al Awsat/Tuesday, 28 Jul, 2015
The officially announced aims behind Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s latest tour of the Gulf include improving relations with some of Iran’s neighbors, explaining the ramifications of Tehran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1, and assuaging any concerns those countries may have regarding the agreement. There is, essentially, nothing wrong with that at all. Iran is in the end a major regional power, and any efforts by the region’s countries to promote stability in the Middle East must surely require its participation in order to be successful. Much has already been said regarding the deal, which still requires the US Congress’s blessing in order to become active. Many have commented on the Western companies that await the opening of the lucrative Iranian market; likewise there has been much talk of the concerns the Gulf states have toward the deal and their disagreements with Washington regarding it. The truth is, however, that the recent deterioration in Iranian–Gulf relations has nothing to do with the nuclear agreement. After all, it is certain is that the P5+1 will be very careful to obtain strict guarantees to ensure Iran does not break the terms of the agreement and thereby upset the current global equilibrium regarding the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
No, the problems the Gulf states have with Iran are related to the many crises currently troubling the region, where both parties stand against each other politically, and sometimes even through indirect, though nonetheless heated, military conflict. All of these issues urgently require solutions, and if the Iranian regime is indeed serious about offering them, the Gulf states will be the first to welcome these changes in Iranian policies.
While in Kuwait, during the first phase of his current tour, Zarif spoke of the importance of regional cooperation in the fight against terrorist groups, and of course he is right with respect to his estimation of the danger such groups pose to everyone in the region. We know that the Gulf states, and in particular Saudi Arabia, are doing their duty here, waging an unrelenting battle against the cancer that has emerged as a result of sectarian strife in Iraq and the conflict in Syria—otherwise known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
But a serious question now poses itself: What is to be done about the other extremist organizations and groups in the region which are, in one way or another, linked to Iran, whether militarily or ideologically? Here I am talking about groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is effectively holding an entire nation hostage; the extremist, sectarian groups in Iraq; and the Houthis in Yemen, who have succeeded in turning the entire country into a conflict zone and have threatened neighboring countries, especially Saudi Arabia. At this juncture we can pose another question: Does Iran actually have the ability to rein in these groups—should it want to—or has it effectively now lost control over them? Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, for example, recently said he still considers the United States, with whom Iran signed the nuclear deal, as the “Great Satan.” It is quite clear that in these comments Nasrallah sought to dissociate himself and his group from Tehran’s latest drive to pursue the negotiations and seal the agreement with the world powers.
In the end there is not much the Gulf states can do with respect to the deal; this really falls within the purview of the P5+1 and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whom we hope have reached in the deal what will be enough to ensure international peace and security. Regionally, on the other hand, we can say that in order to make this latest attempt at rapprochement by Tehran genuine, Iran must put an end to the various proxy wars it is currently waging across the region—in places like Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Iran is also responsible for one of the most dangerous developments in the region in recent years: the prominent role of militias and their superseding the state. This has created a deadly, toxic mix, one that leads only to destruction. It began in Lebanon, and now we have seen it spread to other countries such as Iraq. If Iran is truly to win over its neighbors, it will need to undertake monumental efforts both on its own and with others in the region, in order to put out the flames it has started all over the Middle East—most recently in Yemen.
Is all of this truly possible after all these years of mistrust and tension? I believe the nuclear deal may well have opened the door for this to become a reality. Iran now has the opportunity to conduct its policies in the full light of day, without lurking in the shadows and trafficking with organizations and groups that, in the end, do not possess any kind of legitimacy.

UK: David Cameron Declares War on Islamic Extremism
Soeren Kern/The Gatestone Institute/July 29, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6227/david-cameron-islamic-extremism
"But you don't have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation...." – UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron, however, has not offered a precise definition of "extremism," and it remains unclear how his government will balance efforts to silence Islamic extremists with the right to free speech. The government would "actively encourage" moderate Muslims, especially those who are working toward a "reformation" of Islam, one that would be "free from the poison of Islamist extremism." "What I call the grievance justification, must be challenged.... When they say that these are wronged Muslims getting revenge on their Western wrongdoers, let's remind them: from Kosovo to Somalia, countries like Britain have stepped in to save Muslim people from massacres -- it's groups like ISIL, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram that are the ones murdering Muslims." -- UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Douglas Murray also pointed out the glaring contradiction between Cameron's words and deeds: while pledging to confront Islamic extremism, he is also seeking to lift sanctions on Iran, the "most extreme, anti-Western nation-destroyer of them all." "There is also a contradiction between Mr Cameron extolling British values such as free speech and then suggesting that Muslims who object to gay equality are somehow extremist and their views should not be tolerated. Everyone in this country, Muslims included, must have a right to express their views, no matter how intolerant they are." -- Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation.
Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined a new five-year plan to fight Islamic extremism in Britain. The strategy — the specifics of which will be unveiled in the coming months — rests on four pillars: challenging the ideology of Islamism; confronting those who promote Islamic extremism; encouraging moderate Muslims to speak up and be heard; and improving Muslim integration. Cameron, however, has not offered a precise definition of "extremism," and it remains unclear how his government will balance efforts to silence Islamic extremists with the right to free speech. Muslim reaction to the plan has been mixed: some have hailed it as "brave," "bold," "overdue," and "an important first step," while others have criticized it as "confusing," "contradictory," "over-simplified," and "Islamophobic." In a landmark speech in Birmingham on July 20, Cameron called the fight against Islamic extremism the "struggle of our generation." Following is an abridged version of Cameron's comments (his speech extended to more than 5,500 words):
"What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim — mostly violence against fellow Muslims — who don't subscribe to its sick worldview. "But you don't have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation....
"And ideas also based on conspiracy: that Jews exercise malevolent power; or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam. In this warped worldview, such conclusions are reached — that 9/11 was actually inspired by Mossad to provoke the invasion of Afghanistan; that British security services knew about 7/7, but didn't do anything about it because they wanted to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash. Cameron said the government had to do a much better job of challenging false narratives about why so many young people are attracted to Islamic extremism. "Some argue it's because of historic injustices and recent wars, or because of poverty and hardship. This argument, what I call the grievance justification, must be challenged.
"So when people say 'it's because of the involvement in the Iraq War that people are attacking the West,' we should remind them: 9/11 — the biggest loss of life of British citizens in a terrorist attack — happened before the Iraq War. "What I call the grievance justification, must be challenged.... When they say that these are wronged Muslims getting revenge on their Western wrongdoers, let's remind them: from Kosovo to Somalia, countries like Britain have stepped in to save Muslim people from massacres — it's groups like ISIL, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram that are the ones murdering Muslims. "Now others might say: it's because terrorists are driven to their actions by poverty. But that ignores the fact that many of these terrorists have had the full advantages of prosperous families or a Western university education. "Now let me be clear, I am not saying these issues aren't important. But let's not delude ourselves. We could deal with all these issues — and some people in our country and elsewhere would still be drawn to Islamist extremism. "No — we must be clear. The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself. Cameron said young Muslims are drawn to Islamic extremism for four main reasons:
"One — like any extreme doctrine, it can seem energizing, especially to young people. They are watching videos that eulogize ISIL as a pioneering state taking on the world, that makes celebrities of violent murderers. So people today don't just have a cause in Islamist extremism; in ISIL, they now have its living and breathing expression. "Two — you don't have to believe in barbaric violence to be drawn to the ideology. No-one becomes a terrorist from a standing start. It starts with a process of radicalization. When you look in detail at the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offenses, it is clear that many of them were first influenced by what some would call non-violent extremists. It may begin with hearing about the so-called Jewish conspiracy and then develop into hostility to the West and fundamental liberal values, before finally becoming a cultish attachment to death. Put another way, the extremist world view is the gateway, and violence is the ultimate destination. "Three — the adherents of this ideology are overpowering other voices within Muslim debate, especially those trying to challenge it. There are so many strong, positive Muslim voices that are being drowned out.... When we allow the extremists to set the terms of the debate in this way, is it any wonder that people are attracted to this ideology?
"Four — there is also the question of identity. For all our successes as multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don't really identify with Britain — and who feel little or no attachment to other people here. Indeed, there is a danger in some of our communities that you can go your whole life and have little to do with people from other faiths and backgrounds. Cameron then outlined a four-pronged strategy to address each of the four points just mentioned:
First, the government would aggressively confront "the cultish worldview" of radical Islam with "our strongest weapon — our own liberal values." Cameron said:
"We should expose their extremism for what it is — a belief system that glorifies violence and subjugates its people — not least Muslim people. We should contrast their bigotry, aggression and theocracy with our values. We have, in our country, a very clear creed and we need to promote it much more confidently. Wherever we are from, whatever our background, whatever our religion, there are things we share together."Second, Cameron said the government would work harder to halt the process of radicalization, which has "often sucked people in from non-violence to violence," by confronting anyone who promotes any part of the "extremist narrative," even non-violent extremists. "We've got to show that if you say 'yes I condemn terror — but the Kuffar [unbelievers] are inferior,' or 'violence in London isn't justified, but suicide bombs in Israel are a different matter' — then you too are part of the problem. Unwittingly or not, and in a lot of cases it's not unwittingly, you are providing succor to those who want to commit, or get others to commit to, violence. Third, the government would "actively encourage" moderate Muslims, especially those who are working toward a "reformation" of Islam, one that would be "free from the poison of Islamist extremism." Cameron said: "These reforming voices, they have a tough enough time as it is: the extremists are the ones who have the money, the leaders, the iconography and the propaganda machines. We need to turn the tables. We can't stand neutral in this battle of ideas. We have to back those who share our values. So here's my offer. "If you're interested in reform; if you want to challenge the extremists in our midst; if you want to build an alternative narrative or if you just want to help protect your kids — we are with you and we will back you — with practical help, with funding, with campaigns, with protection and with political representation."
Fourth, Cameron said more needed to be done to improve integration, including the desegregation of schools and communities. He said: "Now let me be clear. I'm not talking about uprooting people from their homes or schools and forcing integration. But I am talking about taking a fresh look at the sort of shared future we want for our young people. In terms of housing, for example, there are parts of our country where segregation has actually increased or stayed deeply entrenched for decades. "So the government needs to start asking searching questions about social housing, to promote integration, to avoid segregated social housing estates where people living there are from the same single minority ethnic background." Cameron announced several concrete measures aimed at stopping the spread of Islamic extremism in Britain. He said that parents who are worried that their children may be about to travel to Syria or Iraq to join the Islamic State would be able to apply for their child's passport to be cancelled. In an effort to increase reporting of forced marriage, Cameron pledged to draft a new law that would provide lifetime anonymity for victims of such crimes, and he promised new "measures to guard against the radicalization of children in so-called supplementary schools or tuition centers."
Cameron also said that Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, should be given new powers to close down access to the UK for foreign television channels that broadcast "hate preachers" and extremist content. He also urged broadcasters and Internet companies to stop giving platforms to Islamic extremists. The Cameron government intends to publish its official Counter-Extremism Strategy this fall. Reaction to Cameron's speech has been varied. In an essay for the Gatestone Institute, British commentator Douglas Murray wrote that Cameron had outlined the problem of Islamic extremism "better than perhaps any other Western leader to date." But Murray also pointed out the glaring contradiction between Cameron's words and deeds: while pledging to confront Islamic extremism, he is also seeking to lift sanctions on Iran, the "most extreme, anti-Western nation-destroyer of them all."In an editorial, the Guardian wrote about the free speech aspects of Cameron's plan: "You cannot convincingly claim, as Mr. Cameron did, that free speech is a core British value, if you then go on to explain that you are going to 'put out of action the key extremist influencers who are careful to operate inside the law but who clearly detest British society and everything we stand for ... and stop them peddling their hatred.' Again, it might be a defensible policy, assuming it were technically feasible, to strengthen the powers of Ofcom to censor foreign channels that 'broadcast hate preachers and extremist content,' but it can't be sold as a defense of free speech....
"With all that said, the speech gets the central point entirely right. We are engaged here in a great ideological and even spiritual struggle with violent jihadism: a battle of ideas and values, which will be fought in the imagination as much as by police work or military force."According to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Cameron isn't infallible when it comes to speaking about Islamism. He recently called on the BBC to stop using the term 'Islamic State' to refer to the group violently constructing a new caliphate across the Middle East, on the theory that using the group's own name for itself creates the impression it's a legitimate Islamic entity. But playing these name games evades the very problem Mr. Cameron is trying to address."Middle East scholar Ranj Alaaldin wrote: "The government's dedication to fighting radical Islam through its words and its deeds must be welcomed. For much too long, groups like ISIS have been exploiting an ideological vacuum that has resulted from the absence of conviction and narrative from the government, one that should be defining the country's values and principles and challenging ISIS's brand of radical Islam."
Hazel Blears, the Labour Party's former Secretary of State for Communities, praised Cameron's proposals as "welcome and necessary wake-up call for all of us." But she warned that the road ahead will not be easy: "There will of course be voices who will denounce his proposals as an attack on Islam." The Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, Mohammed Shafiq, said: "I am concerned that yet again Cameron is conflating the issue of extremism and terrorism with those of cohesion and integration. He says that Muslims are not doing enough to integrate and that risks fostering extremism — but just what is enough and how do you measure it?
"There is also a contradiction between Mr Cameron extolling British values such as free speech and then suggesting that Muslims who object to gay equality are somehow extremist and their views should not be tolerated. Everyone in this country, Muslims included, must have a right to express their views, no matter how intolerant they are."The assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Miqdaad Versi, said: "The worry is that the focus is on ideology as the primary cause of terrorism and radicalization and that does not seem to tie very well with the academic research that seems to suggest that, in actual fact, the causes of terrorism are multifaceted. There is a risk of over-simplifying the issue. "I think it's very important to ensure there is a clear and unambiguous understanding of what is meant by extremism: what forms of free speech are going to be tailored and stopped." Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Thanks dear. I am very sad and so scared from what has happened with Ira.
Yes, the USA Obama administration is so stupid to think that the Iranians respect any agreement. This funny interview personifies the sad reality. Iran is a nuclear power and God only know what they will do next.

Bibi's nuclear march of folly
Haim Ramon/Ynetnews/Published: 07.29.15/Israel Opinion
Op-ed: Netanyahu's policy against the Iranian nuclear program led to a strategic, military, economic, diplomatic and social disaster, and his conduct after the Vienna agreement only adds insult to injury.
In 2007, during the Olmert government's term, I participated in a ministerial committee meeting about the Iranian nuclear threat. At the end of the meeting I told a senior defense establishment official: "Look at the map of Iran. Can we guarantee that this spacious country, which is 80 times the size of Israel, won't succeed in hiding at least a significant part of its nuclear armament effort and scatter it in different places?"
I reminded him that Israel had no idea about the details of Muammar Gaddafi's nuclear program until the revelation of an agreement with the United States in which Libya gave up the program. I further reminded him that according to foreign sources, not a single Arab country knew about the establishment of the Syrian reactor, until Israel exposed its existence at around the time it became operational.
Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert were aware of this reality and its lessons. They realized there were things which would be "too much for Israel," and that we could not act, neither alone nor openly, as they would cost us a heavy, unreasonable, bloody price and end in disappointment. Therefore, they determined that the Iranian nuclear program was a global problem, which the world powers – led by the US – should handle. Israel would contribute its share too, of course.
And indeed, at the time, foreign sources spoke about operational and technological cooperation which had disrupted the Iranian systems and delayed the development of the nuclear ability by several years. In addition, discussions were held between Israel and the US about strategic, military and diplomatic compensation if Iran were to become a nuclear threshold state.
In 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came along and changed his predecessors' smart policy. Bibi launched his nuclear march of folly, which is coming to its end these days in a colossal failure. Immediately after his election, he put himself at the lead of the global battle against Iran and announced that Israel could thwart the Iranian nuclear program on its own. That was baseless and unfounded arrogance. His intention to bomb the nuclear facilities in Iran was met with opposition from nearly all leaders of the defense establishment.
It was clear that bombing facilities in Iran would not terminate the nuclear program, just like what happened in Iraq and Syria (again, according to foreign sources). On the contrary: Even if the operation would succeed militarily, it would delay the Iranian program by a year or an year and a half, but then Iran would feel free to declare to the world that it is developing a nuclear bomb in order to defend itself against the Israeli threat. But Bibi kept going. He invested about NIS 11 billion (roughly $2.8 billion) in the preparations for a strike in Iran, which was never executed of course, and most of this huge sum went down the drain.
Netanyahu brags to this very day that his actions led to sanctions against Iran. It's true that the sanctions hurt the Iranian economy, but not only did they fail to slow down the Iranian race – they made it even more determined. In 2009, Iran was not a clear nuclear threshold state; in 2015, it is only two or three months away from a first nuclear bomb. Bibi's nuclear policy led to a strategic, military, economic, diplomatic and social disaster. Unfortunately, his conduct after the "Vienna agreement" adds insult to injury. The agreement is an established fact, and even if Bibi "succeeds" and the US Congress doesn’t ratify it, Iran will have the best of both worlds, as the entire world – from China and Russia to the European countries – will comply with the decisions of the Security Council and the Council of the European Union and lift the sanctions.
The restrictions on Iran, according to the Vienna agreement, will not be implemented – and Israel will not be able to enjoy a full "compensation package" from the American administration. In addition, the illusion that Bibi and his people are trying to sell, that Israel will received a significant compensation package even if the battle against US President Barack Obama fails and the agreement is approved by the Congress, will be shattered. I would like to also dedicate a few words to Opposition Chairman Isaac Herzog, whose conduct on the Iranian issue is puzzling. First of all, he must firmly and decisively slam the foolish attempt to gain the Congress' support against the agreement and against the ongoing conflict with the American administration.
Secondly, he must try to convince Obama and his administration to give Israel a strategic and security-related compensation package, mainly concerning the war on terror, including Iranian terror. Buji must stop Bibi's disastrous march of folly rather than become part of it.
After the failure of the Yom Kippur War, then-Opposition Chairman Menachem Begin launched a focused, scathing attack on the Golda Meir government. That's the way an opposition leader should act. Herzog must wage only one campaign, consistently, seriously and clearly: Bibi, resign!
**Haim Ramon served as a member of the Knesset and a minister between 1983 and 2009 on behalf of the Labor Party and Kadima.

Iranian Nuclear Deal Response From Canada: Peter Kent MP, PC
Face Book/29.07.15
Recently I received a letter with regards to the Iranian Nuclear Deal from a concerned constituent. I know this is an issue which resonates with all Canadians, See my response:
Dear Mr.
I very firmly share your concerns on the Iranian Nuclear deal. As you know, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a statement that "We (Canadian Government), continue to judge Iran by its actions not its words. To this end, Canada will continue to support the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Iran’s compliance with its commitments.”
“Iran continues to be a significant threat to international peace and security owing to the regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
I have endorsed this position a number of times since, including an interview with the Voice of Israel Radio in Jerusalem this past week. I assured listeners that Canada will hold firm in our belief that sanctions remain in place.
I believe that President Obama in his desperation to get a deal has effectively punted the crisis of Iran's continuing nuclear adventurism to his successors.
I am disappointed as well in the rush by some European nations to rush to take advantage of trade opportunities that the lifting of sanctions would allow.
The fact is, Iran continues to be a significant threat to international peace and security owing to the regime’s nuclear ambitions, its continuing support for terrorism, its repeated calls for the destruction of Israel and its disregard for basic human rights. Canada will examine this deal further before taking any specific Canadian action.
And we are concerned by Iran's hardline leaders renew their commitment to support terrorist proxies in the Levant.
In short, we believe there was another choice that might have - and should have - been made‎.
Thank you for taking the time to write me and express your legitimate concerns.
Regards,
Peter Kent MP, PC

Israel Confronts the Iran Nuclear Deal
Michael Herzog/Washington Institute
July 29, 2015
Israelis fear that the deal will legitimize Iran as a nuclear threshold state, embolden its highly destabilizing role in a volatile Middle East, and trigger nuclear proliferation and a conventional arms race in the region.
The Iran nuclear deal was met in Israel by an atmosphere of gloom, in stark contrast to the widespread celebration in the West and Iran. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu characterized it as "a bad mistake of historic proportions," the cabinet unanimously rejected it, and leading opposition figures joined in slamming it. Ensuing opinion polls indicated that more than 70 percent of Israelis believe the deal is dangerous and will not block Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Such reactions are not surprising, since Israelis believe the stakes are higher for them than for anyone else. Unlike the United States, Israel regards Iran and its radical axis as the most serious threat to its national security -- an assessment based squarely on Tehran's extreme ideology, its calls for eliminating Israel, its nuclear and regional ambitions, and its heavily armed proxies on Israel's borders (including Hezbollah and its estimated 100,000 rockets). Israelis do not believe the nuclear deal signifies a fundamental shift in Iran's strategic orientation, and they question the U.S. administration's resolve to block the regime's ambitions.
WHY ISRAELIS ARE CRITICIZING THE DEAL
The agreement distances Iran from the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon for the next ten to fifteen years, rolling back its capabilities and instituting measures to curb and monitor the nuclear program in a comprehensive and intrusive manner. Tehran may be discouraged from brazenly breaking out to nuclear military capabilities in the next few years, since doing so would explicitly defy major international stakeholders in a high-profile, formally enshrined agreement.
Yet buying this time and political space has come at a heavy price. The deal allows Tehran to maintain its nuclear infrastructure and advance its nuclear technical capabilities with international help. At the same time, Iran will be invited back into the community of nations, empowered politically and financially, and ultimately legitimized as a nuclear threshold state, with license to reduce breakout time to near zero fifteen years from now amid relaxed inspections.
Furthermore, certain deficiencies in the agreement may give Iran room to push the envelope as it has done for years, encroaching on the established breakout time before the deal's expiration. Prior to year ten, Iran will be allowed to research and produce advanced centrifuges, acquire nuclear-related commodities and services, and develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the monitoring and verification regime will exclude short-notice inspections of undeclared sites. Iran is to be given at least twenty-four days' notice, and the International Atomic Energy Agency must inform it in advance about the purpose of requested inspections at such sites -- giving Tehran an excuse to stall and time to potentially cover up most nuclear activities, especially those that do not involve fissile material or are conducted in small facilities. Moreover, the heavier sanctions are to be lifted in a matter of months, removing significant leverage before Iran is sufficiently tested. And it is not clear that this lifting is conditioned on Tehran satisfactorily addressing all concerns regarding the "possible military dimensions" of its program, which is essential for a credible inspections baseline.
For Iran, the price seems worth paying. The regime -- which has thus far been careful not to risk the consequences of breaking out -- can see the value of putting its nuclear ambitions on hold while gaining international recognition of its program and enjoying the power-projection benefits of a nuclear threshold state, all while boosting its regional standing and normalizing its international status. In addition to extending the regime's longevity, these gains could put it in a significantly better position -- politically, financially, militarily, and technologically -- to cross the critical threshold down the line, with no guarantee that it will be stopped. In Israel's eyes, this is a highly risky gamble.
Israel also takes seriously the potential unintended consequence of cascading nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Any of the regional actors who feel threatened by Iran and do not sufficiently trust American assurances -- such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt -- may seek the same status granted to Tehran.
There is no less concern about the deal's regional implications. In a Middle East characterized by general meltdown, crumbling states, and violent sectarian strife, empowering Iran through a nuclear deal is akin to pouring fuel on the fire. The agreement represents legitimization, improved political standing, and access to considerable financial resources -- along with the $100-150 billion to be unfrozen by international banks, Israeli intelligence estimates that Iran stands to gain several hundred billion more from sanctions relief. These gains will likely embolden the regime's destabilizing activities in the region, which are not controlled by the Iranian officials who signed the deal. Such activities include arming Shiite proxies, playing the Shiite sectarian card, supporting designated terrorist groups, fueling subversion, and launching cyberattacks. Enabling Iran to expand its support for Hezbollah or its role as a spoiler in Israel's shaky relations with the Palestinians could prove particularly challenging.
Therefore, while the deal focuses on the nuclear dimension, Israel and many of its Arab neighbors cannot ignore its prospective impact on Iran's nonnuclear policies. The agreement itself blurs some of these lines, for example by committing to lift sanctions on Iranian entities that are highly active in the realms of terrorism (e.g., the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and numerous banks) or conventional weapons. Iran will have more funds and motivation to arm itself (along with its proxies, as described above), and lifting the UN arms embargo in the next five years will only exacerbate the situation. Even apart from the potential for nuclear proliferation, major regional actors who feel threatened by Iran will seek conventional deterrent tools to counter it, creating an accelerated arms race into which Israel will inevitably be dragged. Russia will likely fuel this race on the Iranian side, and the United States on the other side by "compensating" its traditional allies.
Going forward, regional actors expect Washington to broaden the narrow focus it assumed throughout the negotiations and adopt a comprehensive, assertive strategy to stem Iran's hegemonic ambitions. Yet Israelis question whether things will change once the agreement is implemented, since the United States will be heavily invested in the deal's success and may seek to expand cooperation with Iran beyond fighting the so-called "Islamic State"/ISIS -- possibly shifting away from its traditional allies in the process.
Perhaps the biggest concern is the belief that Washington's enforcement tools against Iran have significantly eroded. There is a broad consensus in Israel that the U.S. administration could have secured a better agreement by projecting enhanced deterrence and showing less evident eagerness for a deal. Instead, however, it consistently devalued American and Israeli military options, then presented a false binary choice between a deal and war. Leverage on Iran will now be considerably weakened, since the agreement promises to bring early sanctions relief, boost the nuclear program's cyberdefense capabilities, and complicate any future reimposition of sanctions. Indeed, the mechanism for "snapback" sanctions is cumbersome, applies to only exceptional cases of flagrant violations (i.e., undefined cases of "significant non-performance"), includes a grandfather clause that is open to interpretation, and implicitly expires after a decade. Moreover, as with any enforcement tool, applying this mechanism will require political will -- a commodity that Israelis fear may be in short supply once trade restrictions are lifted and Western officials weigh the agreement's explicit threat of Iranian noncompliance if sanctions are reimposed.
No one knows whether the deal will have a positive transformative effect on Iran over the long run. That is a hopeful bet. Whatever the case, Israelis do not believe that sufficient safeguards are in place if things go wrong.
IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S.-ISRAELI RELATIONS
The new reality forced on Israel will limit its immediate options to highlighting the deal's dangers and deficiencies -- in diplomatic circles, the court of public opinion, and Congress -- and reinforcing mutual interests with other regional actors who dislike the deal. Plans for actively thwarting Iran's nuclear program, though still in place, will presumably have to wait so long as Tehran does not dangerously advance its capabilities.
While most Israelis agree on the deal's risks, there is a policy debate on how best to address them, especially in the American theater. Some believe that the deal is a fait accompli and fighting it head-on would exact a political price on crucial U.S.-Israel relations. In their view, Israel should instead embark on a quiet dialogue with the Obama administration to secure assurances and understandings. Conversely, the decisionmakers strongly believe that Israeli concerns are not taken seriously enough -- given the high stakes, they believe it is imperative to sound an unequivocal critical voice in the current public debate, which may ultimately lead to serious discussion of the risks.
If the nuclear deal is implemented, it will be tested over the years, but so will U.S.-Israeli relations. For now, the relationship is characterized by a clash of worldviews, but the two allies will have to seriously discuss Israel's strategic concerns once the dust settles. In particular, they should seek common ground in addressing the deal's weak links, revamping deterrence against Iran's destabilizing regional policies, providing assurances about what will happen once the deal expires, and enhancing Israel's margins of security.
**Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, IDF (Ret.), is The Washington Institute's Milton Fine International Fellow and former head of the IDF's Strategic Planning Division. He recently authored the Institute report "Contextualizing Israeli Concerns about the Iran Nuclear Deal."

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