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LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 14/15

http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.june14.15.htm

Bible Quotation For Today/For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ
First Letter to the Corinthians 02/11-16: For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are discerned spiritually. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ."

Bible Quotation For Today/For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.
Luke 10/21-24: "At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’ Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’"

Latest analysis, editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 13-14/15
Amal and Mona Chamas: On how their family has been hounded by Hezbollah for over a decade/Myra Abdallah/Now Lebanon/June 13/15
The Druz Idlib Massecre: Harmful alarmism/The Daily Star/June 13, 2015
Iran is a paper tiger to be confronted/Shoula Romano Horing /Ynetnews/June 13/15
Anjar Mayor Garo Pamboukian recalls Syrian operations in his Town/Elise Knutsen/The Daily Star/June 13, 2015
The time of the Plague/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/June 13/15
Saudi air chief killed in Yemeni rebel Scud attack on Khamis Mushayt air base/DEBKAfile/June 13/15
Defending Assad for $37/Tariq Alhomayed/ASharq Al Awsat/June 13/15

Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 13-14/15
Iran won't allow nuclear inspections to jeopardize state secrets'
Nuclear talks face 'many differences': Iran's Rouhani
Reports: Iran nuclear talks 'virtually stalled'
Iran asks Austria to secure nuclear talks against spying
10 years later, Gaza is familiar yet different
A Year later, U.S. Struggles to Stop IS Onslaught
Syrian Kurds advance towards ISIS-held town
Turkish forces push massing Syrians from border
Erdogan loses his chance to become Turkey’s Vladimir Putin
Likud ministers face backlash for taking part in Gay Pride Parade
Ex-generals, diplomats absolve Israel of Gaza war crimes
Egypt opens Rafah crossing into Gaza in sign of easing tensions
US-Israel ties are so bad, it's no wonder they don't listen to us on Iran'
Bosnian fans stepped on Israeli flag, hurled anti-Jewish chants'
Putin meets Erdogan for closed-door talks
Pro-Kurdish party warns of ISIS sabotage in Turkey
Fourth victim dies from attack on Turkey party rally
Saudi-led Air Strikes Hit Yemen Rebels
Militants attack Iraq govt forces near Baiji refinery
9 dead in air raid on area inhabited by Yemeni ex-leader's relatives
Egypt Court Orders Retrial of 16 Accused of Killing Police
Turkish mother, 36, 'shoots dead pregnant daughter'
Shots fired at Dallas police headquarters, explosive device found
Prince Charles hails head of Egypt’s al-Azhar over religious moderation
From Hassan al-Banna to ISIS, not ‘from Calvin to Caliphate’

Jehad Watch Latest Reports And News
Mosul Archbishop calls for military action to free city, or asylum for Christians in West
Rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey closing Christian schools because of their “missionary work”
Robert Spencer, FrontPage: Hamas-linked CAIR Rep. Arrested for Pedophilia
Brad Thor’s message for Pamela Geller’s critics: You are pansies
Jihadi who wanted to kill Pamela Geller said he’d kill his family if they refused to live by Sharia
6 Yemeni jihadis at Guantanamo Bay sent to Oman
Max Blumenthal warmly endorses pro-jihad, pro-stoning UK Muslim leader
Australia: Islamic State collecting radioactive material to make ‘dirty bomb’
Do the Muslims Love Their Children Too?': Reapplying Sting’s Cold War anthem to a new war
Noura Erakat Wages Lawfare on Israel
Islamic State jihadis using Libya as new route to the West

Report: New Options May Be Sought if Govt. Deadlock Persists for another Week
Naharnet13.06.15/Next week may act as a final deadline for political powers to resolve the deadlock over the government, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday. Informed ministerial sources told the daily: “New options could be sought if the impasse is not resolved next week.”They did not give further details. All contacts that have been held have forced Prime Minister Tammam Salam to wait ahead of taking any new measures before his return from his trip to Egypt, explained the sources. The premier is scheduled to travel to Egypt on a one-day visit where he is expected to meet with President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and other high-ranking officials. The cabinet is facing a deadlock following the Free Patriotic Movement's insistence to tackle the contentious security appointments file ahead of any other issue, which is threatening to paralyze its work. Last week, the government failed to agree on the appointments controversy. FPM chief MP Michel Aoun has bluntly rejected any attempt to extend the terms of the officials. He 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. Roukoz's tenure ends in October while the term of army commander Gen. Jean Qahwaji expires at the end of September.

Asiri: We are Relying on Lebanese Officials' Wisdom to End Govt. Impasse
Naharnet13.06.15/Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri voiced his country's support for Lebanon's stability, hoping that officials would succeed in ending the deadlock over the government, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday. He told the daily: “We are relying on the wisdom of national political figures to end the impasse.”He made his remarks after holding talks on Friday with Speaker Nabih Berri. “We are relying on their diligence given the challenges we are facing in the region,” continued Asiri. “This is an internal Lebanese affair and we hope the deadlock would be short-lived,” he added. The ambassador also hailed Prime Minister Tammam Salam for his strenuous efforts to preserve stability and unity in Lebanon. The cabinet is facing a deadlock following the Free Patriotic Movement's insistence to tackle the contentious security appointments file ahead of any other issue, which is threatening to paralyze its work. Last week, the government failed to agree on the appointments controversy. FPM chief MP Michel Aoun has bluntly rejected any attempt to extend the terms of the officials. He 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. Roukoz's tenure ends in October while the term of army commander Gen. Jean Qahwaji expires at the end of September.

Jumblat Calls for Confronting Plots after Deadly Syria Raid on Druze
Naharnet13.06.15/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Saturday that the Druze sect would confront “plots,” urging his community to overcome the current “ordeal.” “We will confront the ordeal for the sake of national unity,” Jumblat said following talks with al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora and an accompanying delegation.“We will confront plots that are shredding the Arab and Islamic world,” he said at his residence in Beirut's Clemenceau area. On Friday, Jumblat tried to calm members of Syria's minority sect after a deadly raid there killed as many as 20 Druze villagers. He said the attack earlier this week on Qalb al-Lawzah village in Syria's northwestern Idlib province was an "individual" incident. Syria's al-Qaida branch, al-Nusra Front, killed at least 20 Druze members there on Wednesday. The Idlib killings were the deadliest since Syria's civil war started in March 2011 against the minority Druze sect, which has been split between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad — but has largely stayed out of the fighting. Saniora, who visited Jumblat on Saturday to extend his condolences to the PSP chief on behalf of al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri said: “We should stand side by side.”He called for an end to “behaviors that expand the fires of strife.”
“We are seeking to avoid them,” the MP stressed. On Thursday, Wiam Wahab, a former minister and Druze politician close to Assad, called on all the Druze in the southern Syrian province of Sweida to carry arms and defend their villages, as opposition fighters reached the region that has been spared Syria's four-year civil war. Wahab urged Assad's government to supply the residents with weapons. He also warned of retaliatory attacks against al-Nusra Front members in Lebanon in retaliation for the killings in Qalb al-Lawzah.

Aoun Says Will not Sit Idly by as Dispute over Army Chief Grows
Naharnet13.06.15/Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun issued on Saturday another warning against the extension of the term of the army chief, accusing some parties of practicing dictatorship. “We will not sit idly by to the manipulation of the law with regards to the military,” Aoun told a delegation that visited him at his residence in Rabieh. “Such a move would have severe repercussions,” he warned. “The extension of terms of the army chief, military intelligence and the Internal Security Forces leader are illegitimate. This harms the morale of the officers,” he said. 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. His efforts have put the cabinet in paralysis. FPM officials have warned that Change and Reform bloc ministers would block any cabinet decision before security appointments are made. But rival parties are prone to extend the term of Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji, whose term expires in September. “The disgraceful decisions should be abolished,” Aoun said in reference to the ongoing efforts to extend Qahwaji's tenure. “We will remain righteous even if they were not abolished,” he warned. “Some sides backed by certain parliamentary blocs are practicing a dictatorship and not taking into consideration the posts that belong to Christians,” the MP said. “They are incapable of taking any decision to preserve the country,” he added. Aoun's remarks and doubts about the army leadership have drawn criticism from several March 14 alliance officials. During his speech Saturday, the FPM chief, who is a member of the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance, accused his rivals of allowing jihadists to enter the country from Syria. “When the war in Syria started, we advised them to preserve Lebanon ... but they gave up Lebanon's sovereignty in favor of the gunmen,” he said. “Today the resistance is clearing the border area. We hope it would be done with this issue to devote itself to other issues,” he said in reference to Hizbullah. Hizbullah has intervened militarily in Syria on behalf of President Bashar Assad, saying it is protecting Lebanon from the threat of jihadists. A joint Hizbullah-Syrian army offensive to clear the border area of rebels began about a month ago.

Report: New Options May Be Sought if Govt. Deadlock Persists for another Week
Naharnet13.06.15/Next week may act as a final deadline for political powers to resolve the deadlock over the government, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday. Informed ministerial sources told the daily: “New options could be sought if the impasse is not resolved next week.”They did not give further details. All contacts that have been held have forced Prime Minister Tammam Salam to wait ahead of taking any new measures before his return from his trip to Egypt, explained the sources. The premier is scheduled to travel to Egypt on a one-day visit where he is expected to meet with President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and other high-ranking officials. The cabinet is facing a deadlock following the Free Patriotic Movement's insistence to tackle the contentious security appointments file ahead of any other issue, which is threatening to paralyze its work. Last week, the government failed to agree on the appointments controversy. FPM chief MP Michel Aoun has bluntly rejected any attempt to extend the terms of the officials. He 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. Roukoz's tenure ends in October while the term of army commander Gen. Jean Qahwaji expires at the end of September.

Al-Rahi: How Can a State Survive if Its Head is 'Severed'?
Naharnet13.06.15/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed Friday that the election of a new president is the solution to the country's crises, wondering if a country could survive without a head of state. “The gateway to finding a solution to these crises and rifts is the election of a president for the republic. How can a state survive if its head is severed?” said al-Rahi in a sermon in Bkirki. He warned that the protracting presidential vacuum is “paralyzing the work of parliament and obstructing the work of government, which is facing the possibility of a similar paralysis.” “It is also preventing appointments in state institutions and violating the Constitution, the National Pact and the laws,” al-Rahi added. The patriarch also warned that the presidential void is causing “chaos, economic decline and security deterioration.”The presidential seat, the country's top Christian post, has been vacant since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Political disputes and electoral rivalry have prevented MPs from electing a successor. The presidential vacuum is having a tough impact on the work of state institutions. The crisis has led to a suspension of parliamentary and governmental sessions and controversy over the appointment of top security and military officials.

Suleiman Demands Altering Quorum for Presidential Elections after Failure of Majority Vote
Naharnet13.06.15/Former President Michel Suleiman condemned on Saturday the ongoing failure to elect a new president more than a year after his term ended. He told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3): “We demand the elimination of the two-thirds quorum at parliament to elect a president after we reached a dead end in this matter and none of the candidates garnered a majority of votes.”In addition, he warned against “describing a strong president as one who only defends his sect.”“A head of state should represent the whole of Lebanon, Muslims and Christians alike,” Suleiman stressed. Furthermore, he criticized the proposal made by the Change and Reform bloc over electing a president through a popular vote. “Such a suggestion cannot be applied now and it manipulates the Taef Accord,” he noted. The former president then remarked that a new head of state cannot be elected in Lebanon “as long as Hizbullah is involving itself in the war in Syria.” Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when Suleiman's term ended without the election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a rival candidate have thwarted the elections. Head of the Change and Reform bloc MP Michel Aoun had proposed that a new president be elected directly by the people in two phases, first by the Christians, who would eliminate candidates and on a second phase by the Lebanese people. According to the MP, another solution would be to hold a popular referendum. The candidate who garners most votes would be elected by the parliament as a new president. The initiative also includes the possibility of electing the Maronite candidate who has the majority of representation at the parliament, while the fourth is staging the parliamentary elections ahead of the presidential polls based on a new electoral law that provides equality between Christians and Muslims.

Justice minister vows to prevent Aoun presidency over 'Iran ties'
The Daily Star/June 13, 2015/BEIRUT: Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi vowed Saturday to prevent Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun from reaching the presidency, accusing the Christian leader of being committed to the "Iranian project." “Gen. Aoun will no way become Lebanon’s president, and we will prevent anyone [serving] the Iranian project from reaching the presidency,” Rifi told Voice of Lebanon 100.3-100.5 radio station. “Aoun is part of this project and I am against his election as president, period.”Rifi, who belongs to the Saudi-backed Future Movement, accused his political rivals of committing a “national crime” by boycotting presidential elections in Parliament. Lebanon has been without president since May 25, 2014. Aoun and his allies have been boycotting the election for more than a year. Aoun, an 80-year-old former Army general, is the Hezbollah-led March 8 presidential candidate. The March 14 coalition backs Samir Geagea, a former Christian militia leader who fought Aoun's army during the civil war, and now heads the Lebanese Forces party. Rifi also dismissed the pledge by FPM ministers two weeks ago to prevent the Cabinet from issuing any decision before it discussed the appointments of new security chiefs. “What is on the table is only disrupting, and not [paralyzing], the Cabinet,” Rifi said. “Even if Aoun’s ministers boycott the Cabinet, it will still be legitimate and survive.” The FPM fears that the government will extend Army Commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi term, which is set to expire in September, if no successor is chosen. Kahwagi’s term was already renewed in 2013. Aoun wants his son-in-law, the commander of the Army’s elite force Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, to succeed Kahwagi. Roukoz, a widely acclaimed military figure, was credited with the Army’s victory over jihadis in the deadly battle in Arsal last year. “Roukoz knows that he has all our respect and we have no [criticisms] of his performance,” Rifi said. “But we should understand the sensitivity of this phase...”

Lebanese ammonium nitrate seizure suspect to stay in custody in Cyprus
Associated Press/ June 13, 2015 /NICOSIA: Cyprus police say a Lebanese-Canadian man who was arrested after the seizure of five tons of a chemical compound that can be turned into an explosive will remain in custody for another six days. Police spokeswoman Nicoletta Tyrimou said a court approved the extension Saturday. The 26-year-old suspect, whose name has not been disclosed, was arrested last month after police confiscated the ammonium nitrate at a Larnaca house where he was staying. He faces charges of conspiracy to commit a criminal offense and possession and transportation of explosives. Authorities are also probing whether he's linked to Lebanon's Hezbollah. The suspect's lawyer, Andreas Mathikolonis, said police are seeking two others in connection with the case. He said his client denies any wrongdoing.

Qalamoun militants killed in Hezbollah, Syrian army advance
The Daily Star/ June 13, 2015|/BEIRUT: The Syrian army and Hezbollah launched fresh attacks on jihadi positions in the Qalamoun border mountains early Saturday, Al-Manar reported, destroying two vehicles and killing a number of militants. The Hezbollah-run channel said the allied forces destroyed a bulldozer and a military vehicle on the outskirts of Syria's Jarajeer, situated about 20 kilometers east of Lebanon's Arsal, killing all the jihadis inside. The state-run National News Agency also reported Saturday that the Lebanese Army targeted militant gatherings on the outskirts of Arsal. The Syrian army and Hezbollah began advancing toward the outskirts of Jarajeer in north Qalamoun earlier this week after ousting jihadis from areas surrounding Flita, about 7 kilometers southwest of Jarajeer.
Al-Manar later aired footage from the front line showing heavy clashes between Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters on one side, and jihadis on the other. The forces took over a hilltop in an area it identified as the Shmeis al-Hsan Heights on Jarajeer’s outskirts, the station said. The footage showed Hezbollah taking over the hilltop and confiscating weapons and military equipment left behind by fleeing militants. The channel for days said it was fighting Nusra Front militants in the region. But Saturday's report said the jihadis belonged to ISIS, and showed items with the group's logo printed on them. At least 39 Hezbollah fighters and 244 militants have been killed since Hezbollah and the Syrian army launched the Qalamoun offensive on May 4, according to a source close to Hezbollah. Nusra Front militants, which according to Al-Manar TV have lost more than 90 percent of the land they previously controlled in the region, have now become surrounded from all sides on Arsal’s outskirts.Hezbollah controls areas to the south and east of Arsal's outskirts, while the Lebanese Army is present inside the town, and Nusra's rival jihadis from ISIS are present in the north.

The Druze Idlib Massacre: Harmful alarmism
The Daily Star/June 13, 2015/The killing of more than 20 Syrian Druze by Nusra Front militants in Idlib province has earned widespread condemnation in Lebanon. In Syria meanwhile, figures from the Druze community in Swaida and their neighbors in Deraa have urged calm and played down any notion that a wide-scale, violent reaction is likely to result. The first casualty in such unfortunate incidents is the truth, however, as a wave of inaccurate information first surfaced about what happened. Most accounts then settled on the fact that the problem stemmed from the presence of a notorious, non-Syrian Nusra Front commander who shouldn’t have been given authority over such an area. On the fringes of the wave of condemnation in Lebanon, a few figures have gone out of their way to exploit the incident for their own ends. There have been wild accusations about the role of foreign countries in carrying out the killings in order to provoke sectarian tension. There have been calls to arm the Druze of Syria and form a huge army of Lebanese to intervene. The only thing missing from such hysterical appeals is a bit of logic, and answers to questions such as why so many thousands of Druze have avoided their mandatory army service. A meeting of Druze leaders was held Friday in Beirut, after which Walid Jumblatt set the proper tone. For now, there is no indication that a deliberate, methodological policy of targeting Druze exists, as Jumblatt described the Idlib killings as an isolated incident. For now cooler heads are prevailing and anyone following the issue should remember that several sides stand to benefit from alarmist rhetoric and the incident itself: Israel, takfiris such as ISIS and the Nusra Front, and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

East Lebanon man who kidnapped girl for marriage shoots teen's father
The Daily Star/Jun. 13, 2015/BAALBEK, Lebanon: A man who made headlines last year after kidnapping a girl half his age from her east Lebanon schoolyard because he wanted to marry her shot the teen's father early Saturday during a fresh abduction attempt.
A security source told The Daily Star that Lilian al-Houri's father, Khaled, was shot along with another man after dropping his 17-year-old daughter off at a center to take her official exam in the northeastern town of Labweh. Mahdi Nazha, in his thirties, and several armed friends followed the girl on the way to the testing center in two SUVs. After arriving to the center, the gunmen fired in the air to disperse students who had gathered to take the exams. Nazha then jumped out of his vehicle and ran toward the girl to try to abduct her again, but was thwarted by her father. Another man intervened to help Houri prevent the kidnapping, which prompted Nazha and his gunmen to shoot them. The gunmen fled, leaving the girl behind. The source said Houri and the other man are in stable condition at a Baalbek hospital.Police launched an investigation into the incident, but locals said Nazha would likely not be arrested because he had political cover. Nazha last kidnapped the girl in December and held her for about two weeks before releasing her under pressure from security officials.

Amin Gemayel slams FPM for doubting Army’s leadership
The Daily Star/ June. 13, 2015/BEIRUT: Kataeb Party chief Amine Gemayel Friday implicitly criticized the Free Patriotic Movement for questioning the Army’s leadership while claiming to support it. “We pretend to support the Army, and then we steal its right to defend Lebanon and question its leadership,” Gemayel said in a speech he made at the start of his party’s 30th general conference. “It is a chaotic process that is exhausting Lebanon and undermining its sovereignty.”FPM chief Michel Aoun has been campaigning for the appointment of a his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, as new Army commander to succeed Gen. Jean Kahwagi. Although Kahwagi’s term expires in September, Aoun wants the government to appoint a new commander from now, lashing out at Kahwagi’s performance during last year’s battle with jihadis on the northeastern border. “We stand in the shadow of the Constitution and its articles during the day, and then we turn against it in the evening,” he said, in another indirect message to Aoun, who suggested amending the Constitution to allow the direct election of a president from people. Gemayel also highlighted the necessity that Lebanon’s fate not be dependent on the fate of regional “interests, strategies or axes.”“This is suicide, not victory, no matter who wins or loses,” he said. “Lebanon can only win through internal unity and closing the ranks to confront any foreign [threat],” Gemayel said. Gemayel also criticized Hezbollah, accusing the party of claiming responsibilities that were supposed to be carried by Lebanon’s official armed forces.
“Confiscating the war and peace decision and stealing the Lebanese Army and security forces’ roles is a matter of exiting the whole concept of state,” he said. The Maronite leader and former president also called for the election of a president as soon as possible and the reactivation of the country’s political institutions. Lebanon has been without a president since May 25 of last year, when former President Michel Sleiman left office at the end of his term.

Anjar Mayor Garo Pamboukian recalls Syrian operations in his Town
Elise Knutsen/The Daily Star/June 13, 2015
ANJAR, Lebanon: It’s quiet in the bucolic Bekaa Valley village of Anjar. With tidy houses and handsome young palm trees growing in the median strip of the main street, there is little to suggest that until just 10 years ago this small town housed the operational headquarters of Syria’s military intelligence operations in Lebanon. In recent months, the town’s dark history has been discussed by lawyers and witnesses at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the U.N.-backed court investigating the Feb. 14, 2005, murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Although Anjar, an exclusively Armenian town of 3,000, sees little bustle today, convoys with tinted windows used to pass through regularly. For years, Lebanese politicians traveled to Anjar to woo Syrian intelligence officials stationed there, witnesses have told the court.
“All the politicians, they know Anjar better than me,” Mayor Garo Pamboukian agreed. “All the politicians, they were obliged to come here. All the important decisions that were made in Lebanon were made from Anjar,” he added, not without pride.
From the mid-1980s until 2002, Ghazi Kanaan was the chief Syrian intelligence officer in Lebanon and was based in Anjar. Kanaan and his successor, Rustom Ghazaleh, oversaw all Lebanese political and security affairs, effectively running the country as a governorate of Syria for decades.
“When they [the Syrians] came in 1976, the first step was in Anjar and when they left [in 2005], the last step was in Anjar,” Pamboukian said.
The Syrian army entered Lebanon a year after the outbreak of the 1975 Civil War. Syria maintained total control over the country from 1990 until April 2005, when the last Syrian soldier withdrew from Lebanon.
Pamboukian, a jeweler by trade, recalled appraising extravagant jewelry Kanaan had been gifted, likely by those courting favors and goodwill. “Diamonds, emeralds, everything [worth] ... $10,000, $50,000, sometimes $100,000,” he recalled.
Townspeople and the Lebanese political establishment at large enjoyed a generally affable relationship with Kanaan. “He was a civil man,” Pamboukian said of Kanaan. “He was my neighbor, I used to play football with him,” recalled Marc, a shop owner in Anjar. Still, under Kanaan’s rule, the Syrian intelligence ran a brutal detention center in the town. “It was the last stop in Lebanon [before the prisoners] were sent to Syrian jails” recalled Nadim, a Syrian refugee living in Anjar who once served with the Syrian army in Lebanon.
The jail was an old horse stable, recalled Kamil Boutros Rami, a Lebanese man who was held in the Anjar jail for three months in 1987 before being transferred to a Syrian jail. During his detention in Anjar, he was housed in a 25-square-meter room with more than 40 other men.
Among the macabre cast of characters who manned the detention center was a man known as Prophet Youssef. “He decided if you lived or if you died,” Pamboukian said. “He could give you heaven or hell.” “After Nabi [Prophet] Youssef did his morning sports, he would line all the prisoners up and beat us,” Rami recalled. Rami was subjected to torture in the Anjar prison, including electric shocks. Sometimes, the Syrian guards would tell Rami they had kidnapped his wife while an unknown woman screamed in an adjoining room.
Today, the detention center is abandoned, sitting behind a decrepit factory in an onion field guarded by the Lebanese Army. “There is no one there now, only the ghosts,” Pamboukian shrugged. After the Syrians withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, a mass grave was found near the prison. Remains of at least 30 bodies were discovered. Ghazaleh replaced Kanaan in 2002 and employed harsher, more brutal tactics than his predecessor. Marc, the shop owner, spat on the ground when asked about Ghazaleh. “He was hard. He had no pity,” Marc said.
“He had a very bad temper. Not a temper, a very bad temper,” said Hajj Hasan Hammoud, the deputy mayor of neighboring Majdal Anjar.
Unlike Anjar, Majdal Anjar is predominantly Sunni and when the townspeople heard that Ghazaleh, also a Sunni, would be stationed at the nearby base a rumor spread that he would “protect the Sunnis of the Bekaa,” Hammoud recalled. Upon hearing the rumor, the newly instated Ghazaleh summoned a delegation from Majdal Anjar to his house at midnight. “He threatened to pull out the beard [of the man accused of spreading the rumor] hair by hair,” Hammoud said. Soon after the incident, a mosque situated between Anjar and Majdal Anjar was destroyed. Ghazaleh and the intelligence operations he oversaw from Anjar, have come under intense scrutiny at the STL. While never charged in relation to Hariri’s assassination, Ghazaleh has emerged as a central figure in the prosecution’s case, and his dealings in Anjar have been mentioned by multiple witnesses. Abu Tareq, Hariri’s trusted body-guard, delivered Ghazaleh a cash payment in Anjar the day before he died in the massive explosion alongside Hariri.
According to documents released by WikiLeaks, United Nations investigators probing the truck bomb which killed Hariri and 21 others asked the United States to provide them with surveillance footage of Anjar. The investigators were “interested in signs of “vehicles stored for operations,” according to one leaked document.
Despite the debauched corruption, torture and conspiracy that took place in Anjar during the Syrian presence, many residents of the village describe the epoch as “normal.”Left with little choice but to submit to the Syrian presence, residents say they carried on with their daily routines. “We did what we had to so that our mothers wouldn’t have to wear black” and mourn us, Marc said. Asked whether he thought Lebanese had been killed by the Syrians in Anjar, Marc shrugged. “I didn’t see it,” he said circumspectly. “It’s really none of my business.”Kanaan died in 2005 under suspicious circumstances, with the Syrians claiming he committed suicide. Ghazaleh’s death was announced in April after he was reportedly beaten for insubordination. While the architects of Syria’s policy in Lebanon have been buried, it seems that Anjar is still haunted by their presence. – Additional reporting by Philip Issa and Jude Massaad

Druze help repel rebel attack in Swaida
The Daily Star/Jun. 13, 2015 /BEIRUT: Members of Syria’s Druze minority have helped repel a rebel attack on an army base in the south, mobilizing to confront insurgents who are trying to build on gains against President Bashar Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that tracks the war, said Friday rebels had been driven from the base, which they had partly captured Thursday, by airstrikes and Druze fighters from nearby Swaida. A Druze leader from Swaida said young men from the city had helped recapture the Thaaleh air base, which is used to shell areas of rebel-held Deraa province but is out of action as an airport. A rebel leader confirmed that the government side had sent reinforcements to the base. The Druze have moved into the spotlight of the Syrian war this week, with advances by insurgents triggering statements of concern about their fate from both Israel’s president and the sect’s figures in Lebanon. Some Druze leaders have warned of an existential threat facing their kin after Nusra Front fighters shot dead 20 people in a Druze village in northwestern Syria Wednesday – an incident ignited by Nusra’s attempt to confiscate a house. The Ahrar al-Sham militia and four other factions Friday issued a statement denouncing the killing and pledging to prevent such incidents from happening again. They urged that the guilty parties be turned over to a neutral court for trial. “Our weapons will only be used against those who commit crimes against our people, from among the regime and ISIS and those allied with them,” the statement said.Groups fighting to topple Assad say he is trying to exploit sectarian fear to shore up his support base. Bashar Zoubi, the head of a rebel group involved in the battle for the army base in Swaida, said those attempts would fail, adding that the Druze know the “regime is collapsing and cannot protect them.”
Insurgents battling Assad in southern Syria include the Nusra Front but also groups that do not share its jihadi ideology and are trying to calm Druze fears. Insurgent groups have been advancing toward Swaida from the west and the east, where ISIS has been mounting sporadic attacks on army positions. The Druze role was key in repelling the attack on the base, said Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the Observatory.
“If they hadn’t mobilized, [the insurgents] wouldn’t have been repelled,” he said. “There is a rebel retreat.”The Druze leader, Sheikh Abu Khaled Shaaban, said young men from Swaida had deployed in several areas including the airport under the umbrella of the National Defense Force and “popular committees” that are battling alongside the Syrian army. State TV said dozens of Swaida residents had joined the army and NDF. “Matters are heading toward calm and complete control of the situation,” Shaaban told Reuters by telephone from Syria. Zoubi, the rebel leader, said the base remained in government hands Friday. But he added that there was “coordination between us and the sheikhs of Swaida” – a reference to community elders whom he did not identify. Echoing comments from other, secular-leaning opposition groups in recent days, he said the Druze would be treated as Syrians with the same rights as other citizens. The southern rebels, operating in a region just 100 kilometers from Damascus, seized a major army base Tuesday in Deraa province, building on victories including the capture of the Nasib border crossing with Jordan. Druze in Israel have been lobbying for arms to be sent to Syria, a U.S. official has said. Lebanese Druze politicians aligned with the Syrian government have also called for the arming of their kin in Syria.

Amal and Mona Chamas: On how their family has been hounded by Hezbollah for over a decade.
The Chamas sisters
Myra Abdallah/Now Lebanon
Published: 11/06/2015
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/06/13/amal-and-mona-chamas-on-how-their-family-has-been-hounded-by-hezbollah-for-over-a-decade/
Below the link to AmaL's interview with the Future TV
https://youtu.be/_7Vyr9MC8w0
Amal and Mona on how their family has been hounded by the Party of God for over a decade.
Eleven years ago, Hassan Chamas was killed in an accident. His family does not know the details. All they know is that he was run over by a Civil Defense car and left to bleed for over three hours before they were notified.
Being one of the biggest Shiite clans of the Bekaa, the Chamas family took an unusual step: instead of following tribal law, they took the case to court. Hassan’s sisters, Amal and Mona, then learned that their brother’s killer, who had been driving a Civil Defense vehicle illegally, was not prosecuted due to intuitional corruption. They founded an organization called “Hakkuna” (our right) aimed at fighting corruption in public institutions.
In pursuit of Hakkuna’s objectives, as well as pressing the judiciary for a decision on their dead brother’s case, the Chamas sisters have awoken the Shiite monster in Beirut’s southern suburb—Hezbollah—that has reportedly sought to protect their brother’s killer.
In the intervening years, the Chamas family has clashed with Hezbollah several times. On 7 June, Hezbollah attacked detained Amal and Mona, who were reporting on how firefighters were handling a fire that broke out in a Dahieh warehouse.
NOW sat down with the sisters earlier this week to follow up with them after Amal's Future TV interview.
NOW: What happened, exactly?
Amal: We went to check out the fire and see what mistakes the Civil Defense was making in order to raise awareness as part of our work at Hakkuna. The fire was still not totally extinguished, and it still isn’t, five days later.
Firefighters were wearing short sleeves and they are too young to know that they should wear special clothing. This was not the first time that we’ve reported on similar issues—the Civil Defense previously filed a lawsuit against us in 2005 in order to silence us. A few days ago, we went to report on the fire that broke out in the warehouse like we do all the time. There were a lot of people there. Some children were riding their bikes under the fire. Everybody was filming and taking pictures of the incident.
We started taking pictures from the street before we asked for permission from one of Hezbollah officers to enter a building and go up to the 9th floor to get a better shot. They allowed us—one of them even accompanied me upstairs. When we came back down, Hezbollah security officers attacked us and tried to forbid us from taking any pictures or video. We walked away towards the ISF checkpoint to seek their protection.
A few minutes later, Hezbollah security officers followed us to the checkpoint and started hitting us and screaming at us in a very savage way. Then they took us and put us in one of their cars. Four men stayed with us in the car, one of them pointing a gun at us. Afterwards, they drove away towards a building with many rooms. We assumed that this building served as a jail for them—there were Hezbollah flags over the building.
Bruises covered Amal and Mona’s bodies when NOW went to speak to them. It was obvious that they had been violently attacked. Some bruises on their hands were the size of espresso saucers. Amal told NOW there were nearly 50 men in the group that attacked her and her sister. She says the men were furious and that they completely disregarded social norms in the community that would show deference to women, especially in that they are both veiled. The sisters noted that the behavior of these supporters of the Party of God was totally out of step with Islam.
NOW: How and why did they release you?
Mona: They didn’t. We ran away. When we reached the building, they headed to one of the cells to put us there. Luckily, they did not notice I still had my phone with me. They didn’t care about the pictures we took in the first place. Once they put us in the car, they didn’t even try to take our purses away. My phone on a vibrate mode. I had it with me and was waiting for someone—anyone—to call.
While one the armed men was opening our cell, my phone rang. I answered immediately, putting the phone under my veil without even looking at who was calling and told the caller that Hezbollah had kidnapped us. I tried to give them our approximate location, and when the guards realized I was talking on the phone they went crazy. One of them started screaming and slamming me against the wall; my veil was half removed, but they didn’t care about that. He later went to a different room. We heard him speaking on the phone and telling someone that my phone was on and I was able to speak.
Afterwards, he came back and told us we could leave—as simple as that. They even denied everything that had happened. They denied that we were brought there in a car. They said that they did not see any car coming near the building, even though only their cars are allowed to pass the checkpoint that leads to the building.
NOW: What was your reaction then?
Amal: We were very shocked. These armed men dragged us through the street, hit us, humiliated us, and then decided to let us go. One of the men who was with us in the car even asked us if we were ok and whether we needed any help or not. They gave us water to drink. My sister had a bottle of water with her. She hit him with it telling him, “wake up!” I understand that the security situation in the area is dangerous, but we are not ISIS; we cannot be treated this way. We stayed there. We were scared that the second we went out, another group would kidnap us again.
Mona called the ISF, but before they arrived, the armed men started getting ready and preparing their guns because there have been so many armed clashes between the Chamas family and Hezbollah. The ISF didn’t cooperate directly, but they called us later to ask for our location. They sent us a car to get us out of there. When they arrived, they refused to check the cells. They even cooperated with Hezbollah officers—to see if they could come and take us or not.
Amal said she was suspicious that there might have been people detained in other cells, but she couldn’t be certain. She told NOW that after the incident, a few social media campaigns were launched against them, calling for a boycott—to stop selling them food. Amal also says some have called for the sisters to be publicly humiliated—that if their neighbors see them in the street, they should spit on them.
NOW: The Chamas family issued a statement refuting the fact that you addressed Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah in an interview, holding him accountable for the incident.
Amal: My family did not issue this statement. The older people in our family are not related to this. They are very wise and they know how to make the right decision. In the first place, they decided to go to court because they wanted to change the reputation our family has, being a clan that follows only tribal law. They wanted to make sure to tell people that we believe in the official Lebanese institutions. After the incident, the family had a meeting and decided to wait for the official authorities to take action. We want the government to give us back our rights.
Mona: The fact that two Chamas women being physically attacked could have created a very big problem [sic]. We were able to calm down the tension because we were demanding our rights in the media, and Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk promised us he would follow up on this case.
NOW: What are your demands?
Amal: In my opinion, this is not a political issue. Ever since the incident happened, we are trying to choose our words carefully because all the media outlets want to get a scoop out of what happened to us. We do not have the support or the protection of any institution or any political party. We are afraid they might also attack my brothers, especially that one of them—Hussein—is a freelance journalist. All we want is forthe official Lebanese authorities to give us our rights. We want the judiciary to be fair and make a decision on my brother’s case in order to prevent other people from being harmed or killed. Even after this incident, we filed a lawsuit against Hezbollah security officers for physically attacking us.
Mona: My brother died in an accident. Since then, the whole family has been attacked several times. I think these attacks were purposeful. They want to silence us. All we want is for the Lebanese government to give us our rights back with a fair judgment. We want justice!
Myra Abdallah tweets @myraabdallah

The time of the Plague
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya
‘What’s true of all the evils of the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves…’
-Albert Camus
A year ago the hordes of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) invaded large swaths of Iraq, and occupied Mosul, the country’s second largest city. Few weeks ago they drove the hapless and hopeless Iraqi army out of the city of Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar province. What occurred between these two occupations was a year of nihilistic, but systematic horrors visited upon any Iraqi opposed to ISIS’ interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and polity, but particularly against Shiites and Kurdish opponents, and the various Christian communities in the country. There were death marches of mostly women and children, mass killings and mass graves, women and girls were bought and sold as slaves, thousands of civilians were killed, many literally by the sword or ritually beheaded and crucified, including Western journalists. The enterprising killing cult, while rampaging in large areas of Syria and Iraq attracted thousands of would-be ‘Jihadist’ many of whom were driven by the thrill to kill, and their horrific deeds inspired other ruthless and fanatical Islamists to engage in wanton acts of terror against mostly soft, civilian targets. Today, Iraq and Syria are teetering under repeated poundings, and the very existence of these brittle states within which borders lay in ruins some of the oldest, and once most sophisticated and vibrant cities in the world: Damascus, Aleppo and Mosul, is threatened.
What was the reaction of the White House to the fall of Ramadi? A stunning admission from the President of the United States, that he still lacks ‘a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of Iraqis as well’. After spending billions of dollars over many years on training, and advising the Iraqi army, the President added without any hint of irony that ‘details are not worked out’ yet. After this public display of presidential ennui, it was decided to deploy 450 trainers/advisors in addition to the 3100 advisors/trainers already deployed in four bases in Iraq. How would 450 additional trainers address what seems to be the serious structural problems in the Iraqi army was left unsaid.
The ambivalent president
The challenge of ISIS following the fall of Mosul, and after the barbarians appeared to be heading towards the gates of Baghdad to breach them, President Obama, the most ambivalent of all American Presidents in modern times was forced to organize a coalition to launch a limited air campaign to deter and stop ISIS’ territorial expansion. And although the President claimed that his new policy against ISIS was designed to first ‘degrade’ then later on ‘destroy’ ISIS, it is clear nonetheless that President Obama does not intend to do anything serious beyond containing ISIS’ advance, and leaving to his/her successor the task of eliminating this threat.
The fall of Ramadi, exposed the pathetic state of the Iraqi army, just as it exposed the utter failure of an ineffective air campaign against ISIS despite 3800 airstrikes against it. It has been reported that almost 75 percent of U.S. air sorties return to base with their missiles and bombs because of lack of targets. And this is due in part to the President’s opposition to the deployment of American troops in forward positions as spotters for airstrikes. The ‘Islamic State’ keeps metastasizing, and spreading like a pestilence that does not have an antidote. There is an air of unreality among American officials – civilian and military- involved in prosecuting a war their commander-in-chief does not want to fight decisively. The President is still wedded to his initial policy of extricating the United States out of Iraq (and Afghanistan) and he still resists the pressure to go back into a failed state, few years after announcing triumphantly that he ended the second longest war in America’s history.
What makes this moment in the history of the Middle East so unique and yet fraught with dangers is that while some important countries are literally in flames there sits in the White House an ambivalent President whose actions betray his growing detachment from the Middle East, and his diminishing intellectual and emotional interests in the region. There is a growing sense in the region, mostly but not exclusively among Arab officials and commentators that the U.S. under President Obama, as someone puts it ‘is leaving the Middle East at best, and at worst giving the region to Iran’. This is an exaggerated summation of Obama’s approach to the Middle East, but it does contain some truth.
To lead or not to lead…
Obama’s decision to deploy 450 trainers was seen as a ‘tactical tweak’ at best, a half measure designed to show the Iraqis and his domestic critics that he is doing something and investing in the training of the Iraqi army, oblivious to the fact that there is no longer such a thing as a national ‘Iraqi’ army, and that this force has serious structural problems, that its sectarian nature reflects the deep fissures in Iraqi society, that its ineffective and corrupt leadership is immune to reform, and that finally it suffers from low discipline and diminished morale, because fundamentally it lacks ‘the will to fight’ as Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said publicly. That is why, for all the talk in Washington about waiting for Iraqi commitments to lead the fight against ISIS, the decision makers at the Pentagon and the White House know or should know that the conventional Iraqi armed forces the way they are constituted today are incapable of fighting as a cohesive force.
There is a growing sense in the region, mostly but not exclusively among Arab officials and commentators that the U.S. under President Obama, as someone puts it ‘is leaving the Middle East at best, and at worst giving the region to Iran’.
According to informed sources, General Lloyd Austin, commander of United States Central Command who is in charge of the air campaign has been calling for deploying American spotters, and the deployment of attack helicopters against the ISIS columns, but that the White House, specifically President Obama, with the support of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey have resisted these calls. U.S. officials always claim that the President is constantly reviewing military options, although the President has been remarkably consistent in resisting decisive military options. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said recently that President Obama will definitely look at a range of different options when he was asked about deploying spotters; but then he reiterated that the administration is most eager to build Iraqi capacity to take on ISIS. “The U.S. military cannot and should not do this simply for Iraqis, and, frankly, Iraqis want to be in the lead themselves”. It seems Ben Rhodes cannot resist revisiting the phrase that shall live in infamy; that the U.S. will be ‘Leading from behind’ and following a failing state in this case.
President Obama and his White House aides see the problem of ISIS mostly as a military challenge that the Iraqi state, in its brittle conditions and with help from the U.S. should respond to. The conflagration in Syria and Iraq (as well as in Libya and Yemen) is the result of decades of authoritarian rule, economic and social dislocation, sectarianism and radical Islamism, and such conflicts do not lend themselves to solely military solutions. When one looks at the deployment of 450 additional trainers into the heart of such a complex historical conflict one sees the absurdity of such actions.
It is true, that the Syrians and the Iraqis are in the main responsible for the restoration and rebuilding of their shattered societies and polities, but given their current divisions, and the fact that the outside world, including the United States did contribute to their unraveling, and most importantly since ISIS does represent a threat to Europe and the U.S. it is imperative that Washington plays a leading role in defeating ISIS and in helping the peoples of the region in building representative and legitimate and hopefully in the future democratic governance. The Threat of ISIS will not remain within the borders of Syria and Iraq, and the fires in those states will eventually engulf other states, including America’s allies.
In search of a strategy
Theoretically, President Obama can choose to sit on the fence and watch epic ugly civil and sectarian wars, in which the barbarians of ISIS will continue their beheading sprees, and slave-holding and women-raping orgies, and the brutal ‘secular’ regime of Assad continues its use of barrel bombs, field artillery and primitive chemical weapons (much more efficient killing machines than what ISIS has) to force Syrians into submission. But, aside from the moral failure of such an approach, when these wars are over, and someday they will be, the region will have paid a horrific price and will be a desolate world inhabited by bitter peoples with unforgiving memories. Or the United States can choose to lead a serious regional and international coalition with a clear strategy that would tackle the threat of ISIS and other fanatical Islamists, as well as confronting the magnets that attracted them for instance to Syria, that is the Assad regime and its depredations.
It is remarkable that President Obama, four years after the upheavals that have swept the Middle East is still looking for a strategy. Certainly, sending trainers to Iraq is not a strategy. What Obama needs is a comprehensive strategy that address the wars in both Syria and Iraq simultaneously. It was lawless Syria that allowed ISIS to grow and invade Iraq. Both Syria and Iraq are unwinding. Both Syria and Iraq are being manipulated by an assertive Iran seeking to establish itself as the region’s hegemon. The United States is still capable of leading a rescue effort to save the region from its own daemons, and it could do so without committing large troops and certainly without invading another country.
The Plague
In Albert Camus’ novel The Plague, we encounter a world isolated and left alone to fend for itself against the pestilence. Oran, the Algerian city is the metaphor Camus uses in the novel he has written in 1947 in the immediate aftermath of the defeat of Nazism. The plague overwhelms Oran, just as ISIS overwhelmed Mosul and isolated the city from the rest of Iraq. The concept of the ‘absurd’ was central in Camus’ writings; the absurdity that comes from our mortality, our disconnectedness from the universe, and from divinity. But in the face of an absurd universe, Camus posits human agency and responsibility. Even if you know that you will lose, you should struggle as if you might win. Camus chooses the plague as a metaphor for the frailty of the human condition. This awful disease brings to the fore in a painful and merciless way one’s awareness of one’s mortality which should compels us to show solidarity with each other and to exercise our freedom of choice as social beings responsible for our own actions.
The central character in The Plague is Dr. Bernard Rieux, the healer who dedicates himself, at a considerable price to his work as a doctor saving as many lives as possible. As the plague spreads, we see the most noble and the most base of emotions and behavior. For Dr. Rieux, the Plague was a test of one’s humanity and sense of decency.
Looking at the plague devastating the Middle East today, one asks where are the healers in the mode of Dr. Rieux and his colleagues? Just as those courageous characters in Camus’ Oran, one would hope that in each city suffering from the plague there is a healer named Dr. Rieux working with real actors to destroy the plague. President Obama, has it in his power, to play the role of Dr. Rieux, the American healer, but he seems to have made his free choice not to engage, lead, or heal.

Saudi air chief killed in Yemeni rebel Scud attack on Khamis Mushayt air base
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 12, 2015
The Saudi Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Shaalan was killed in a Scud missile cross-border attack by Yemeni Houthi rebels on the big King Khalid Air Base at Khamis Mushayt in the southwestern Asir region of Saudi Arabia, debkafile reports. The attack took place on June 6, but his death was concealed under a blanket of secrecy until Wednesday, June 10. The largest Saudi air base, it is from there that the kingdom has for last two and a half months waged its air campaign to end the Yemeni insurgency. Saudi and coalition air strikes, directed against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, their allies from the Yemeni army and from local tribes, have killed an estimated 2,000 people, some of them civilians, including women and children.
debkafile’s military sources in the Gulf remarked that even the tardy official disclosure of Gen. Al-Shaalan’s death Wednesday left more questions than answers. The terse three-line announcement said: “The Commander of Saudi Royal Air Forces Lieutenant General Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Shaalan died Wednesday during a working trip outside the kingdom from a heart attack.”No information was provided about the nature of his putative “working trip,” its destination and purpose - or even the date of his funeral.
Our military sources report that the Houthis’ Scud attack caught the Saudis unawares. The only reaction from the air base came from the American teams operating Patriot counter-missile batteries. They tried to shoot down the incoming missiles and managed to intercept only two or three out of a barrage of 15. The US has deployed Patriots at Khamis Mushayt to shield the special operations units and drones fighting Al Qaeda in Arabia (AQIP). But since the start of the Yemen civil war, American drones have been feeding the Saudi Air Force with intelligence about Houthi targets and movements. The Yemen assault on the Saudi air base represented a major escalation in the Yemeni war, with effect on the complex US relationship with Iran in the context of the Yemen conflict. debkafile’s military sources assert that the Houthi Scud crews undoubtedly received precise data from Iranian intelligence about the whereabouts of Gen. Al-Shalaan and his top staff on the day of their attack. With this information, they were able to time their attack for 3 am before dawn and target the base’s living quarters and aircraft hangars. Tehran most likely put the Houthis up to the Scud attack, both to damage the base from which air strikes are launched against them and as payback for the intelligence US drones are providing for those strikes.
Riyadh concealed the circumstances of the air chief’s death to avoid affecting the morale of Saudi combatants taking part in the Yemen war. The Obama administration also had in interest in drawing a discreet veil over the incident so as not to jeopardize the nuclear negotiations with Iran as they enter the final lap before the June 30 deadline.

Defending Assad for $37
Tariq Alhomayed/ASharq Al Awsat
Saturday, 13 Jun, 2015
Following setbacks for the Criminal of Damascus Bashar Al-Assad, most recently Syrian rebels taking control of a strategic military base close to Dera’a, the Syrian government has announced a monthly bonus of 37 US dollars (10,000 Syrian Pounds) and one hot meal a day for soldiers fighting on the front lines.
This is something that is taking place at a time when Assad’s forces have been driven back and have lost important territory over the past two months in a number of locations across the country; while Syria’s armed opposition on the ground has also begun to increase the pace of its operations against Assad forces in other areas. Despite a desperate Assad increasingly relying on Iraqi, Afghani and Iranian mercenary forces in the fight and the official statements from Iran backing Assad’s rule, his forces are continuing to lose ground. At the same time, we have heard Western officials, and particularly following the latest G7 summit in Germany, expressing optimism regarding the prospects of a political deal. One Reuters report even quoted some officials as saying that there is now a “window of opportunity” for a political deal that would see Assad step down to give way to a new coalition government in the country. The Reuters report quoted an unnamed official as saying that Assad appears to be “increasingly on the defense after setbacks for his army.” While another G7 source, in the same report, said: “This could be the opportunity to get a political deal,” adding that “we need Russia for this.”
That is all well and good, but is Russia willing to make concessions and accept Assad stepping down? What about Iran? The reality of the situation today is that anything could happen, but what is happening on the ground, and the victories of Syria’s armed opposition, will make up the difference in the end, particularly if the price of defending Assad is thirty seven dollars a month.
So, the situation on the ground, and successive victories by Syria’s armed opposition against Assad forces, will be the deciding factor and push the West to take action and prepare for the post-Assad period. We must not forget that the international community is keeping a very close eye on what is happening in Syria via the US-led international coalition which, just days ago, carried out airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets in Aleppo. This is the first time that US-led airstrikes have directly aided rival rebel groups in Syria, including the Al-Qaeda loyalist Al-Nusra Front, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
So it is the advances of Syria’s armed opposition, along with Assad’s successive losses and retreat, that could lead to real change, rather than the political deals and negotiations that have been talked about and backed by the West over the past four years and which only served to exacerbate and complicate the Syrian crisis. Everybody now is racing to keep pace with the developments on the ground and prepare for the post-Assad period after a long period of neglect and disregard. So, we see some people increasing their attacks on Assad, while others are remaining silent, or issuing meaningless statements. Everybody now is in a race against time, and particularly Assad.

إيران الملالي نمر من ورق
مقالة ممتازة تحكي حقيقة الأوهام الإيرانية العسكرية وتشير إلى أن رهانات اوباما على إيران خاطئة وتؤكد أن انها رهانات غبية على الحصان الخطأ. المقالة نشرتها اليوم جريدة يدعوت احرنوت الإسرائيلية باللغة الإنكليزية. المقالة في أسفل

Iran is a paper tiger to be confronted
Shoula Romano Horing /Ynetnews
Published: 06.13.15/ Israel Opinion http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/06/13/shoula-romano-horing-ynetnewsiran-is-a-paper-tiger-to-be-confronted/
Op-ed: Victories by Sunni rebels and ISIS in Iraq and Syria against Shia-led governments and militias, supported and led by Iran, have exposed the Islamic Republic as a country with questionable military prowess, which should not be feared but pressured.
It seems that US President Barack Obama has once again strategically bet on the wrong horse in the Middle East.
His grand strategy of trying to extricate America from military involvement in the Middle East, by recognizing Iran's supposed regional hegemony and attempting to develop a friendly, working relationship with them, has been completely discredited by recent events.
Many of the supporters of the nuclear deal in the Obama administrations have been suggesting the idea of military cooperation between Unites States and Iran to defeat the Islamic State, where Iran and its proxies will be the ones on the ground with American air cover, as an example of the bonus resulting from such strategy.
Reality shows that Obama and his supporters have overestimated Iran and its proxies’ power and have underestimated the power and determination of ISIS and the moderate Sunni nations to defeat Iran. The victories by Sunni rebels and ISIS in Iraq and Syria since March against the Shia-led governments and militias, supported and led by Iran, have exposed Iran as a paper tiger with questionable military prowess, which should not be feared but pressured.
Obama’s claim that the alternative to a deal with Iran is a war completely ignores the reality that Iran and its proxies cannot afford another war. Their forces are fighting in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria and must defend their long border with Iraq, as well as being needed back home to protect the totalitarian regime from its own population.
It should also be a wakeup call to the Americans not to be in a rush to sign the final nuclear deal by end of June. Signing a deal at this time will give billions in economic relief from sanctions to the regime which is in trouble and make them a nuclear threshold state. It will give the Iranians a major strategic advantage and make them the regional power, that they are presently not.
Such a deal will put the US squarely on the side of its Shiite enemies in the war against its Sunni friends and the US will be blamed for generations for saving Iran and it proxies when they were against the ropes. It seems that Obama and the West are once again the last to figure out the shifting power in the Middle East.
The Russians, who will deal with the "devil" for a buck, seem to realize the military weakening of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his main supporter Iran. The Russians are beginning to consider a future without Assad in Syria. Sources in the Syrian opposition say that Russian planes have not delivered military supplies to Syria for the last three months and have recently transferred around 100 senior diplomatic and technical officials who had been providing support to Syrian security and military officials in Syria back to Russia.
Moreover, on May 26 the Russians stated that it will not deliver S-300 air defense missiles to Iran in the near future, despite lifting an embargo last month on the delivery of such weapons, saying "it not just premature but wrong."The bad news for Assad and Iran is reinforced by the tone of alarm and panic last week of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah’s speeches. He termed the Islamic State, as "a danger second to none in history" and said that Hezbollah was fighting an "existential threat to Lebanon" and the entire Arab world, warning that if Syria’s Sunni rebels succeed in toppling the Assad regime, they would perpetrate slaughter, rape and slavery in Lebanon.
He also called for a general Lebanese mobilization against Islamic State, attesting to the difficulties Hezbollah and the Assad regime are having in finding enough people to fight on all the fronts where they are engaged, and where 1,000 Hezbollah fighters have died.
It seems that Iran and its proxies cannot defeat the Sunni rebels who use anti- tank weapons used by Israel in 1973 and the ISIS forces who use captured American military armored vehicles, explosives, and suicide bombings. Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been once again been exposed as militarily incompetent as they were during their war against Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq for eight years.
As Baghdad was menaced by ISIS last July after their win in Mosul in 2014, Iran acted faster than any other country by sending advisers and fighters to shore up Iraqi defenses. Iranian generals had been doing precisely the same thing in Syria for at least three years since 2012 with their proxy Hezbollah.
In Iraq, Iran has been using the elite Quds Force, the external operation wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp and Basij Forces to fight against ISIS, as well as Iranian backed Shiite militias and the Hezbollah Brigades. The Basij forces are a voluntary paramilitary force within Iran that is directly under the command of the IRGC and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Many of the Iranian military commanders in Iraq and Syria are veterans of the Iraq-Iran war and have been spotted in the front lines of key Iraqi battles including Qassem Suleiman, the head of the Quds Force. Now all these Iranian forces are fighting to retake Anbar and Ramadi from ISIS.
On the other side of the struggle, Sunni governments, led by Saudi Arabia have decided to take the fight to Iran and its proxies themselves.
The Guardian reported recently that in early March, Sunni countries including Turkey, Qatar and Gulf States, led by newly crowned King Salman of Saudi Arabia, secured an agreement to unite all opposition groups including moderate Sunni rebels and al- Qaida’s Jihadists to end the Assad led Syrian regime and to quash the ambitions of Assad ‘s main backer, Iran.
Since then, in northwest Syria, the Sunni rebels are defeating Assad loyalists. They have captured the regional capital of Idlib and the nearby town of Jisr al-Shughur, and Aleppo, to the east, now looks much more likely to fall to the rebels or ISIS.
Moreover, rebels have been shelling Assad's palace from their stronghold in the eastern neighborhood of Damascus, and are advancing toward the Alawite enclave in northwest Syria and the strategic Qalamoun mountains on the border between Syria and Lebanon.
Furthermore, the rebels from the north and the Islamic State fighters from the east are threatening Syria’s third and fourth cities of Homs and Hama. The Islamic State has captured the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and apparently massacred Syrian soldiers there and is now
Across the border, the Iraqi army and Iranian backed Shiite militias, trained and armed by Iran, capitulated to ISIS in Ramadi in about 72 hours and are now 70 miles away from Bagdad. Two weeks ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Isis was now in control of all six border crossings between Iraq and Syria. Even with the constant presence of US Air Force jets. ISIS controls territory roughly the size of Jordan.
The Congress must stop Obama from making this ultimate strategic mistake of signing an imminent deal with Iran. If many Democrats are reluctant to challenge their own president, they should at least delay the signing of a deal with Iran for a few months until the strategic picture in the Middle East becomes clearer.
**Shoula Romano Horing is an attorney. Her blog can be found here: www.shoularomanohoring.com .