LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
September 19/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.september19.15.htm

Bible Quotation For Today/My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jew
John 18/33-38: "Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’ After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him."

Bible Quotation For Today/For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord,
Letter of Jude 01/01-07: "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, who are beloved in God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance. Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgement of the great day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 18-19/15
Al-Qaeda vs. ISIS: Will the West be the punching bag/Baker Atyani/Al Arabiya/September 18/15/
What if the Arab Spring had never happened/Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/September 18/15
How Erdogan exploits Syrian refugees/Arad Nir /Al-Monitor/September 18/15
America enters the “Old Middle East”/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/September 18/15
Russian troops already engaged in battle against ISIS around Homs/DEBKAfile/September 18/15
Germany: Migrants' Rape Epidemic/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 18, 2015
Hezbollah's desperate recruiting in the Bekaa/Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/September 18/15
Opposites protract/Michael Young/Now Lebanon/September 18/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on September 18-19/15
Hezbollah member attacks party official’s home: report
Hezbollah's desperate recruiting in the Bekaa
Lebanese journalist, Karma Khayat convicted of defying Hague court order
STL: Khayat Guilty, Al-Jadeed not Guilty in Contempt Case
Jadeed, Khayat Contempt Case not Unprecedented
Berri Seeking Settlement on Presidency, Elections Law
Interior Minister Shrugs off Resignation Call over Alleged Police Violence
Protesters Urge Sacking of Interior, Environment Ministers, Call Sunday Demo
Environment Ministry Protesters Suspend Hunger Strike
Arrest Warrants for Two who Tried to Assault Airport Customs Chief
Danish Anti-Refugee Adverts in Lebanon Papers to be Probed
Protests against Naameh, Srar Landfills as Shehayyeb, Mashnouq Meet Akkar Figures
Lebanese Army Arrests 4 in Raid on Refugee Encampments

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 18-19/15
Former Nobel official: Obama prize failed to achieve goals
U.S. and Russian Militaries Launch Talks on Syria
Report: Another Drowned Toddler Washes Up on Turkish Beach
U.N. Security Council Urges Calm, Restraint at Al-Aqsa
Militants Attack Air Force Base in Pakistan, Kill 17
Kremlin Says Open to Any Syrian Request to Send Troops
Israel Police Deploy as Hamas Calls 'Day of Rage'
Experts urge release of IAEA inspections details of Iran site
U.S. starts implementing Iran nuclear deal
Mexico demands Egypt compensate attack victims
Croatia closes border with Serbia over migrants
Trump says he would turn down U.S. presidential salary if elected

Links From Jihad Watch Web site For Today
For $42 million, “4 or 5” US-trained Syrian “moderates” fighting Islamic State
Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison carries clock in solidarity with Ahmed Mohamed
Robert Spencer in FrontPage: The Clock is Ticking on “Islamophobia”
Texas Muslim clockmaker’s father says son was “tortured” by school officials
Video: Robert Spencer debates clockmaker Ahmed Mohamed’s father
New Glazov Gang: America’s Border Security Nightmare
New York Muslim: “I’m ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing”
Berlin: Islamic jihadist brutally injures policewoman in knife attack

Hezbollah member attacks party official’s home: report
Now Lebanon/September 18/15
Janoubia said a member of the Shiite party previously detained in Syria for arms smuggling opened fire on Sheikh Mohammad Yazbeck's home. BEIRUT – A disaffected Hezbollah member detained in Syria over an ISIS arms sale has attacked the home of a top party leader, according to a Lebanese online news outlet. Janoubia reported Thursday that that resident of the Bekaa village of Bouday were “surprised a week ago by the sound of bursts of gunfire coming from the Hezbollah Sharia Council chief Mohammed Yazbeck.” “It later transpired that an armed group had opened fire on the house and quickly ran away to an unknown location.” The online outlet—which has an editorial line opposing Hezbollah—said it had received trustworthy information revealing the identity of the leader of the gunmen. “The leader of the group responsible for the ‘cautionary’ gunfire… is none other than Hezbollah member Ammar Y. Sh.,” in reference to a Hezbollah member allegedly detained by Syrian authorities for his role in smuggling weapons. Janoubia reported on September 1 that Ammar Y. Sh.—the eldest son of a high ranking Hezbollah military official in the Bekaa—had been involved in a smuggling ring that sold weapons to ISIS, which has a presence along certain Qalamoun fronts bordering Hezbollah controlled areas, as well as in the mountains around Lebanon’s Ras Baalbek.
The outlet added that the detained Hezbollah member—who had been sentenced to death—was released by Syria “after a direct request” from the Shiite party. “As soon as he was released… he attacked the house of Sheikh Yazbeck… and the reasons [remain] unknown.”
Yazbeck is one of the top leaders in Hezbollah, which he helped form in the early 1980s. The Sheikh is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s representative in the Bekaa Valley and also belongs to Hezbollah’s Shura Council, the supreme body of the party.

Lebanese journalist, Karma Khayat convicted of defying Hague court order
By Reuters/The Hague/Friday, 18 September 2015/An international court in The Hague on Friday found that a Lebanese journalist had revealed the identity of witnesses in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and defied a court order to remove the material from a website.The Special Tribunal for Lebanon acquitted her of interfering with the course of justice by exposing witnesses. Al-Jadeed, her TV station, was found not liable on both counts.Karma Khayat, who accuses the tribunal of attempting to gag the free press, will be sentenced on Sept. 28. She could face a fine of up to 100,000 euros and seven years in prison for contempt of court - though this would be an unusually lengthy term for an international court. Judge Nicola Lettieri said that there was no evidence to show that exposing the witnesses had undermined public confidence in the tribunal, but said Khayat should nonetheless have taken the material down when ordered to do so.“The individuals who testified stated that they had been afraid ... after the airing of the episodes,” he said. “However ... their fears or concerns were not based on ... facts that could be objectively linked with the disclosure.”Prosecutors said the reports were part of a “campaign to undermine” the court by making witnesses clearly identifiable, exposing them to the risk of reprisals and making them more reluctant to come forward with their evidence. Lettieri said that, though the witnesses’ faces were blurred and their voices disguised in the 2012 broadcasts, they could still be identified from contextual evidence. Hariri and 21 others were killed in a waterfront bomb blast in 2005 that upset a fragile peace in Lebanon, dragging the country back to the brink of civil war. Five suspects, all linked to the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim militant movement Hezbollah, which is part of the current Beirut government, have since been indicted for the killing. They remain at large and are being tried in absentia.Supporters of Hezbollah accuse the tribunal of serving U.S. and Israeli interests. In April, Khayat told a court hearing that her reports had aimed to expose alleged leaks coming from the tribunal and investigate its use of public money. The court was set up with United Nations support after Lebanese politicians said their judicial system could not cope with the investigation. Its annual funding comes jointly from Lebanon and Western and Gulf Arab countries.

STL: Khayat Guilty, Al-Jadeed not Guilty in Contempt Case
Naharnet/September 18/15/The Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Friday found Karma Khayat guilty for the obstruction of justice by not abiding by calls to stop the publication of names of so-called witnesses in the trial of former Premier Rafik Hariri. Contempt Judge Nicola Lettieri found both Khayat and Al-Jadeed S.A.L. “not guilty with respect to the charges under count 1 of the order in lieu of indictment,” said the court. The first count includes diffusing information that undermines public confidence in the court's ability to protect the confidentiality of information about, or provided by, witnesses or potential witnesses. But Lettieri found Khayat guilty and Al Jadeed S.A.L. not guilty with respect to the charges under count 2, meaning for failing to remove the information on the alleged witnesses from Al Jadeed TV’s website and YouTube channel despite an order by the STL Pre-Trial Judge to do so.
Around 40 diplomats, journalists and others attended the public judgment hearing at the STL headquarters in The Hague. Lebanon's Charge d'Affaires and diplomats from the Tunisian, Egyptian and South Korean missions in the Netherlands were among them. The defense will have 15 days to appeal the verdict after the pronouncement of the sentence. If it doesn't make an appeal, then the STL will impose financial penalties on Khayat or issue a jail sentence. The judge set the date for the sentence on September 28. In case of an appeal, the court will re-convene to study the case. Khayat and Al-Jadeed were charged with two counts of contempt and obstruction of justice under rule 60 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Twelve witnesses have made testimonies during the trial that spanned from April till June. In April 2013, a list of 167 names of so-called witnesses for the trial of Hariri was published by a previously unknown group identified as "Journalists for the Truth."The group said it wanted to "unveil the corruption" of the STL. Both al-Akhbar newspaper and Al-Jadeed published the list. Set up in 2007, the STL is the only international ad hoc tribunal with the jurisdiction to try an act of terror, specifically dealing with Hariri's death. Hariri and 22 others, including a suspected suicide bomber, died in a massive car bomb blast on the Beirut waterfront on February 14, 2005.

Jadeed, Khayat Contempt Case not Unprecedented
Naharnet/September 18/15/The contempt case of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon against Al-Jadeed S.A.L. and Karma Khayat is not unprecedented because international criminal courts and tribunals have rules under which persons can be held responsible for contempt.At the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, for example, there have been 25 such cases involving different kinds of prohibited behavior. Several individuals –including journalists - were convicted of knowingly and wilfully interfering with the administration of justice by disclosing confidential information about protected witnesses.
Some individuals were also found guilty for refusing to appear as witnesses, for refusing to answer a question as a witness before a Chamber or for providing false statements. Two Defense counsel were convicted of procuring false witness statements and for bribing witnesses by encouraging false statements in exchange for payment. (See http://www.icty.org/action/con temptcases/27#casetabs for an overview of the contempt cases at the ICTY) The Special Court for Sierra Leone issued judgments in seven contempt cases. Individuals were charged with threatening and intimidating a protected witness and/ or tampering with witnesses who had given evidence in prior proceedings by offering a bribe to him/her. (See http://www.rscsl.org/contempt2005-01.html) In 2013, six individuals – including members of a Defense team - were charged before the International Criminal Court for corruptly influencing witnesses, attempting subordination of witnesses and witness tampering. (See http://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/ situations%20and%20cases/situations/situation%20 icc%200105/related%20cases/ICC-0105-0113/Pages/ default.aspx) On Friday, STL Judge Nicola Lettieri found both Khayat and Al-Jadeed S.A.L. “not guilty with respect to the charges under count 1 of the order in lieu of indictment,” said the court. But Lettieri found Khayat guilty and Al Jadeed S.A.L. not guilty with respect to the charges under count 2.The charges of contempt include having allegedly broadcast information relating to purported confidential witnesses in a series of programs. In addition, they are charged with having allegedly violated a court order by failing to remove that information from Al Jadeed TV’s website and YouTube channel despite an order by the STL PreTrial Judge to do so.
Lebanon

Berri Seeking Settlement on Presidency, Elections Law
Naharnet/September 18/15/Speaker Nabih Berri is reportedly seeking to reach a settlement on the presidential crisis and an electoral draft-law as he stressed that the national dialogue would be under threat if officials boycott it. Informed sources told As Safir newspaper that Berri is exerting efforts to strike a deal among the dialogue's participants to agree on a presidential candidate and approve the elections law in a bid to resolve the country's political crisis. The sources did not give further details. But Berri told his visitors in remarks published in several dailies on Friday that the second round of all-party talks earlier in the week was better than the first. He said his objective lies in “reaching a comprehensive solution that starts with the presidency and leads to all other issues.”“I have asked the conferees to bring answers to the next session on the proposals I have made,” Berri told the visitors.
Asked about Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun's non-participation in the dialogue, the speaker said: “Aoun called me and informed me that he would not attend and that Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil will represent him.”But “he is supposed to participate in the next session because his continued absence would pave way for possible similar stances by other” conferees, he said.More boycotts would “make the dialogue, which is for everybody's sake, pointless,” the speaker warned. Berri was asked about the assault by his supporters on hunger strikers in downtown Beirut during the national dialogue session that he chaired on Wednesday. He said he did not know about the attack until he returned to Ain el-Tineh. “I asked Amal Movement officials to interfere to calm things down and prevent a deterioration,” Berri told his visitors. Amal members on motorcycles attacked on Wednesday the gathering of protesters who had been staging a sit-in and a hunger strike outside the Environment Ministry for two weeks, uprooting their tents and throwing large stones at them. The men accused the protesters of cursing Berri. The speaker said the demonstrators have the right to criticize officials but it is wrong to use “immoral” words against them.

Interior Minister Shrugs off Resignation Call over Alleged Police Violence
Naharnet/September 18/15/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq reiterated that his resignation is pointless, pledging to protect “peaceful” demonstrators during an anti-government march planned for Sunday. Al-Mashnouq expressed willingness to resign in “defense of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, or if his resignation would guarantee in solving the country's problem.”“But I don't think that there is a need to do so,” al-Mashnouq told As Safir daily on Friday, a day after the so-called follow-up committee of the popular protest movement called for the resignation of the interior and environment ministers over alleged police violence and the failure to resolve the country's trash crisis. The committee also said that it will organize a march on Sunday from Bourj Hammoud to central Beirut's al-Nejmeh Square. It called for the release of all those arrested in connection with the August 22, 23 and 29 demonstrations held against the political class that has dominated the country and undermined its growth since the civil war ended in 1990. Al-Mashnouq said that it is the responsibility of the security forces to protect the demonstrators who are peacefully expressing their viewpoints.“It is their legal duty to do. But it is illegal to damage state and private property,” the minister told As Safir. Al-Mashnouq slammed the demonstrators for asking the police to protect them and at the same time resorting to their assault and cursing them. “Some of the things being said to the security forces are shameful,” he said. On Wednesday, police beat back protesters with clubs and sticks after they were instigated by remarks made by them, and arrested dozens of people in downtown Beirut. The small group of activists had gathered near the parliament building, where a national dialogue meeting was taking place.

Protesters Urge Sacking of Interior, Environment Ministers, Call Sunday Demo
Naharnet/September 18/15/The so-called follow-up committee of the popular protest movement called Thursday for the resignation of the interior and environment ministers over perceived violations and announced that it will organize a march Sunday from Bourj Hammoud to central Beirut's al-Nejmeh Square. “We demand the release of all detainees held in connection with the August 22, 23 and 29 demos and an end to any legal measures against them,” the committee said in a statement, a day after dozens of protesters were arrested during a downtown Beirut sit-in. “Authorities' behavior yesterday was premeditated,” the committee noted. It pointed out that “there is a clear decision to crush the protest movement, and as they were meeting around the dialogue table, they sent their thugs to beat us up.” The activists organized a sit-in to coincide with Wednesday's national dialogue session in parliament. TV footage showed police dragging at least two protesters on the ground while violently beating them both. Protesters accused the Internal Security Forces of using excessive force against them as the ISF stressed that it respects “the people's freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration rights.”Later on Wednesday, young men claiming to be supporters of Speaker Nabih Berri attacked protesters at a hunger strike camp and destroyed their tents over alleged insults against the parliament speaker.The committee urged Thursday an end to “arbitrary arrests,” adding that Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq “must be held accountable and sacked” and that “an independent, transparent probe must be launched to hold accountable anyone who gave orders and covered up for the abuses that were committed against protesters.”The activists also reiterated their call for the resignation of Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq over “his negligence in shouldering his responsibilities regarding the garbage disaster as well as his covering up for corruption that spanned 20 years.”Accordingly, the committee called for devising “an immediate emergency plan to tackle the environmental disaster that would involve declaring a state of alert in line with the Civil Defense Law.”It also reiterated the call for “speeding up the release of funds to municipalities to enable them to perform their waste management role” and organizing “early parliamentary polls that would secure the representation of all social categories without discrimination and away from sectarian polarization.”The activists concluded their statement by calling for a massive march on Sunday at 5:00 pm from Bourj Hammoud to al-Nejmeh Square, stressing that “the popular protests will continue against the corrupt ruling class.”The trash crisis has ignited the largest Lebanese protests in years and has emerged as a festering symbol of the government's paralysis and failure to provide basic services. It was sparked by popular anger over the heaps of trash accumulating in the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon after authorities closed Lebanon's largest landfill in Naameh on July 17 and failed to provide an alternative.
Campaigns like "You Stink" have managed to bring tens of thousands of people into the streets in unprecedented non-partisan and non-sectarian demonstrations against the ruling political class.

Environment Ministry Protesters Suspend Hunger Strike
Naharnet/September 18/15/Protesters holding a sit-in near the Environment Ministry in downtown Beirut announced on Thursday an end to their hunger strike but said their tents will remain in the area. “We achieved our objective. We held him (Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq) accountable through street protests,” said hunger striker Waref Suleiman at a press conference. Only one young man will continue in his hunger strike while the rest will join other activists holding street protests, he said. “The tents will remain here as a symbol” of our protest, Suleiman added. The young men erected tents and went on hunger strike after protesters from “You Stink” movement stormed the environment ministry earlier this month, demanding al-Mashnouq's resignation over his failure to resolve the waste crisis. Angry protests that suddenly erupted over the government's failure to deal with the garbage crisis have evolved into the most serious anti-government demonstrations in Lebanon in years. The protesters seek to challenge a political class that has dominated Lebanon and undermined its growth since its civil war ended in 1990.

Arrest Warrants for Two who Tried to Assault Airport Customs Chief
Naharnet/September 18/15/First Military Examining Magistrate Judge Riad Abou Ghida issued Friday arrest warrants for Mohammed and Tarek al-Sabeaa on charges of “assaulting and insulting Customs agents at the Rafik Hariri International Airport,” state-run National News Agency reported.
It said Abou Ghida made his decision after interrogating the two men. On Saturday, NNA said the army arrested the two men after an attempt to assault the customs chief at the airport. Several individuals including Tarek Hisham al-Sabeaa and another man from the same family stormed into the office of the customs chief at the airport Samer Diaa and tried to assault him, NNA said. It added that the police airport had seized smuggled merchandise that the assailants were trying to exchange for shoe insoles.

Danish Anti-Refugee Adverts in Lebanon Papers to be Probed
Naharnet/September 18/15/A Danish supervisory body said Friday it had launched an inquiry into whether controversial advertisements published by the Danish government in Lebanese newspapers to warn off migrants were misleading.The country's parliamentary ombudsman Jorgen Steen Sorensen, who ensures that public authorities comply with the laws and other statutes governing their actions, said he was investigating the matter."It has been stated that the ministry's adverts seen in isolation were factually correct, but that they leave, especially Syrian refugees, with the wrong picture," he said. "If that is the case, refugees could on false premises have been influenced to not seek asylum in Denmark." The probe would determine whether the Ministry of Immigration, Integration and Housing had "complied with applicable legal principles on public information," he said. Denmark's right-wing government, which relies on parliamentary support from an anti-immigrant party, placed the adverts in three Arabic-language newspapers and one English-language daily in Lebanon on September 7. The adverts highlighted that social benefits for newly-arrived refugees had been slashed by half and that family reunification is not allowed for the first year after they arrive. They also advised would-be migrants and refugees that they will be required to speak and understand Danish to obtain a permanent residency. The hardline refugee policy of Integration Minister Inger Stojberg has been criticized by the opposition as well as by some members of her own party. The head of a Danish group called "Refugees Welcome" on Tuesday urged more asylum-seekers to come to the country, in an opinion piece published in Lebanon's English-language Daily Star. "The case-processing time is among the fastest in Europe ... and the waiting time for family reunification is between four and seven months," Michala Bendixen wrote, adding that the adverts "give a completely distorted picture of the situation."Denmark also has one of Europe's highest refugee recognition rates, with nine out of 10 Syrians having had their applications granted, she noted. Danish police estimate that at least 8,900 migrants have entered the country between September 6 and 17, but the vast majority have been headed for Sweden and other Nordic countries. EU member Denmark has an opt-out from Europe's immigration policy but said on Thursday it would voluntarily take an extra 1,000 refugees.

Protests against Naameh, Srar Landfills as Shehayyeb, Mashnouq Meet Akkar Figures
Naharnet/September 18/15/Protesters staged a new rally on Friday in the northern Akkar district to reject government plans to set up a “sanitary landfill” in the town of Srar, as the ministers of agriculture and interior held a meeting with the region's MPs and municipal chiefs to explain the project to them.
The sit-in that was held in the square of Halba was organized by the Akkar is Not a Dumpster campaign, civil society groups, and a number of cultural, educational and social figures. Protesters slammed the decision to dump garbage in Srar and carried banners criticizing the ruling class and the region's current and former MPs. They threatened to dump garbage outside the homes of officials if authorities send waste trucks to their region. The demonstrators also warned to take other “escalatory measures” to “prevent this environmental disaster that the political class is plotting against the region,” noting that Akkar “has offered and sacrificed a lot for the sake of Lebanon.” Meanwhile a meeting was held in Beirut between Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq and a number of Akkar MPs, municipal chiefs, dignitaries, civil society representatives and environmentalists. During the meeting, Shehayyeb, Mashnouq and a number of experts explained and clarified the government's plan to set up a so-called sanitary landfill in Srar. "We stressed the importance of partnership between civil society and the state and this plan might be the last chance to resolve the garbage crisis," said Shehayyeb after the meeting. Meanwhile, the municipal union of towns in the vicinity of the controversial Naameh landfill announced its approval of Shehayyeb's proposal to reopen the facility for seven days to dump the trash that has been accumulating in Beirut and Mount Lebanon since the dumpsite's July 17 closure. The union, however, insisted that other landfills cited in the minister's plan must be also activated at the same time. Later in the day, the so-called Campaign for the Closure of the Naameh Landfill, which comprises activists and residents, reiterated its rejection of any temporary reopening of the site. "We reject the entry of 150,000 tons of rotten garbage into the landfill under the excuse that there is no alternative solution," it said in a statement recited at a sit-in outside the facility's entrance. "This same excuse was the reason behind 17 years of extension," the campaign noted. It also condemned Shehayyeb's committee for "failing to discuss the alternative solution that was proposed by the Lebanon Eco Movement, which is based on distributing the waste to the districts' sorting centers, a solution that is less costly than that envisioned by the plan." Shehayyeb has stressed that only partnership between authorities and the civil society would guarantee the success of the committee tasked with resolving the country's two-month long waste crisis. A plan devised by Shehayyeb and a team of experts calls for reopening the Naameh landfill, which was closed in mid-July, for seven days to dump the garbage that accumulated in random sites in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. It also envisions converting two existing dumps, in the northern Akkar area of Srar and the eastern border area of al-Masnaa, into sanitary landfills capable of receiving trash for more than a year. However, Shehayyeb announced Thursday that the ministerial waste committee has dismissed the possibility of opening a landfill in the al-Masaa area in the eastern Bekaa valley because geological reports have shown that it will affect the ground water. After he announced his plan last week, the civil society and local residents of Akkar, Naameh, Majdal Anjar, and Burj Hammoud protested against the step. Environmentalists fear the crisis could degenerate to the point where garbage as well as sewage will simply overflow into the sea from riverbeds as winter rains return.
The health ministry has warned that garbage scattered by seasonal winds could also block Lebanon's drainage system.

Lebanese Army Arrests 4 in Raid on Refugee Encampments
Naharnet/September 18/15/The Lebanese army arrested 4 Syrian suspects in a raid on the encampments of refugees in the northeastern town of Arsal, the army said. The army raided encampments of Syrian refugees in Arsal in search for suspects where an exchange of fire erupted and led to the injury of Syrian Shadi Moussa Moussa, the Army Orientation Directorate said in a statement. None of the troops was harmed. Moussa, confessed that he belongs to one of the terrorist groups and that he had prepared a belt of explosives that he planned to detonate in one of the army positions.The army arrested three other Syrians for suspicions of taking part in the exchange of fire.

Former Nobel official: Obama prize failed to achieve goals
Ynetnews/September 18/15/Breaking with official tradition, the former secretary of the Nobel Peace Prize says Obama failed to live up to the panel's expectations. In a break with Nobel tradition, the former secretary of the Nobel Peace Prize committee says the 2009 award to President Barack Obama failed to live up to the panel's expectations. Geir Lundestad writes in a book released on Thursday that the committee had expected the prize to deliver a boost to Obama. Instead the award was met with fierce criticism in the US, where many argued Obama had not been president long enough to have an impact worthy of the Nobel. "Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake," Lundestad wrote in excerpts of the book read by The Associated Press. "In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for." Lundestad, who stepped down last year after 25 years as the non-voting secretary of the secretive committee, noted that Obama was startled by the award and that his staff even investigated whether other winners had skipped the prize ceremony in Oslo. That has happened only on rare occasions, such as when dissidents were held back by their governments. "In the White House they quickly realized that they needed to travel to Oslo," Lundestad wrote. Speaking to AP on Wednesday, Lundestad said he didn't disagree with the decision to award the president but the committee "thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn't have this effect." It is rare for Nobel officials to discuss the proceedings of the secretive committee or publicly criticize each other. But in the book Lundestad also fired a parting shot at Thorbjorn Jagland who was the committee chairman for six years and is now a regular member. Lundestad said that as a former Norwegian prime minister and sitting head of the Council of Europe human rights organization, Jagland should never have been appointed to the committee, which frequently emphasizes its independence. Jagland declined to comment, said Daniel Holtgen, his spokesman at the Council of Europe.

 U.S. and Russian Militaries Launch Talks on Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/
The United States and Russia renewed high-level contacts between their militaries on Friday to discuss how to deal with the war in Syria. U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke by telephone, spokesmen from their ministries said. Washington and its NATO allies broke off ties with the Russian military in April last year in protest at Moscow's intervention in Ukraine. But now the rivals find themselves enmeshed in Syria, where they face an opportunity to work together but also the danger of an accidental clash. For a year, the United States and a coalition of Western and Arab allies have been carrying out air strikes against Islamic State jihadists. The United States has also, with limited success, been training Syrians who are fighting the extremist IS group but who are also in revolt against the Damascus regime. Russia, meanwhile, is providing support to Bashar Assad's government and building up its own military presence at an airbase and a naval depot in western Syria. "The secretary and the minister talked about areas where the United States and Russia's perspectives overlap and areas of divergence," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told Russian agencies that the call had lasted an hour and that contacts would continue."The necessity to coordinate bilateral and multilateral efforts to combat international terrorism was at the center of attention," he said. "The conversation showed that the two points of view are similar or the same on most of the issues discussed."In Washington, Cook said: "They agreed to further discuss mechanisms for deconfliction in Syria and the counter-ISIL campaign." In military terms, "deconfliction" means rival armies will talk to one another to avoid accidental encounters between their forces.  "The secretary emphasized the importance of pursuing such consultations in parallel with diplomatic talks that would ensure a political transition in Syria," Cook said, in a statement. "He noted that defeating ISIL and ensuring a political transition are objectives that need to be pursued at the same time. Both the secretary and the minister agreed to continue their dialogue." Tactical discussions The White House said Thursday it was open to limited talks with Moscow following what Washington believes is the deployment of Russian troops and heavy weapons to war-torn Syria.White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama's administration was willing to hold "tactical, practical discussions" on operations in Syria and the fight against the Islamic State group.The decision signals a newfound willingness to engage with Russia, after months of giving President Vladimir Putin the cold shoulder over his actions in Ukraine. Putin has provided vital support to Assad throughout a popular uprising against his regime and as the conflict has metastasized into a brutal civil war that has killed 240,000 people and displaced four million. But Moscow has also sought to portray Assad's army as a bulwark against Islamist rebels, including IS, which has seized a vast swathe of eastern Syria and northern Iraq and declared a so-called "caliphate."Washington and its European, Turkish and Arab allies view Assad as a pariah who they blame for plunging Syria into chaos and allowing the Islamic State group to thrive. But, with Western efforts to tackle the Islamic State group floundering, and the moderate Syrian opposition losing ground to radicals, the U.S. officials have suggested Russia may have a role to play in the fight.

Report: Another Drowned Toddler Washes Up on Turkish Beach
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/A four-year-old Syrian girl's body washed up on a beach in western Turkey on Friday, state media said, just weeks after images of drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi shook the world. The yet-to-be identified girl was found lifeless on a beach in the Aegean town of Cesme in Izmir province after a boat carrying 15 Syrians to the Greek island of Chios sank, the official Anatolia news agency said. It said the Turkish coast guard rescued the remaining 14 Syrians, including eight children, from the inflatable boat. The girl appeared to be the only casualty. Harrowing pictures of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi, whose body was found washed up on a Turkish beach after the boat carrying his family to the Greek island of Kos sank, caused an outpouring of emotion around the world, pressuring European leaders to step up their response to the refugee crisis.But two weeks later EU members are still at odds over how to accommodate the tens of thousands of new arrivals.Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Friday that the Turkish coast guard had rescued over 53,000 migrants from stricken boats since the beginning of the year. He said around 274 migrants have lost their lives in Turkish waters this year seeking to leave the country by sea for Greece.In the latest tragedy, 22 people who had left Turkey drowned on Tuesday when their wooden boat sank off Kos. Migrants have in recent days turned to Turkey's land borders with Greece and Bulgaria to avoid the sea voyage that has cost over 2,600 people their lives in the Mediterranean this year. Several hundred refugees spent a third day camped in and around the Turkish border city of Edirne, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Greek border and is being promoted on social media as a safer route out of Turkey than sea journey in overcrowded dinghies.Under an "open-door" policy championed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has taken in 2.2 million Syrian refugees since the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011.Kurtulmus said Turkey has so far spent almost $7 billion (6 billion euros) to provide for Syrian refugees.

U.N. Security Council Urges Calm, Restraint at Al-Aqsa
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/The U.N. Security Council appealed for calm and restraint Thursday after three days of clashes this week at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound between Israeli police and Muslim protesters. In a unanimous declaration, the 15-member panel also expressed its "grave concern" and called for maintaining the rules governing the sensitive site seen as holy by both Muslims and Jews. "The members of the Security Council called for the exercise of restraint, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric, and upholding unchanged the historic status quo" at the compound "in word and in practice," a statement said. The third-holiest site in Islam, the compound is also the holiest site in Judaism, which venerates it as the Temple Mount. It is located in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967 and at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both sides see the site as a symbol of religion and nationalism.Under longstanding regulations, Jews are allowed to visit but cannot pray there to avoid provoking tensions. Palestinians are deeply suspicious that Israel will seek to change rules governing the site, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said he has no intention of doing so.
Netanyahu assured U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon late Thursday that his country was determined to strictly apply the status quo. The council said both worshipers and visitors should be without fear of violence or intimidation while at the compound. Council members called for an end to the clashes, so that "the situation returns to normality in a way which promotes the prospects for Middle East peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians."

Militants Attack Air Force Base in Pakistan, Kill 17
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/Pakistani Taliban militants attacked an air force base in the country's restive northwest Friday, killing at least 17 people in their deadliest high-profile assault in months following a major military offensive against them. The army said that the group of insurgents launched the assault at dawn at the residential compound near Peshawar, the gateway to tribal regions on the Afghan border that have long been a haven for militants. Soldiers quickly surrounded the attackers, confining them to a small area and killing at least 13 of them, according to the military's main spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa. But he said in a tweet that a group of militants attacked a mosque within the camp compound and killed 16 people offering dawn prayers. Separately an army captain was killed in fighting with the insurgents, he said. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group claimed responsibility in an e-mail sent to journalists, saying their "suicide unit" carried out the attack.The attack on the Badaber base, 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Peshawar, triggered fierce gunbattles between insurgents and the military in which at least 10 soldiers were wounded. Bajwa said operations were continuing to flush out any remaining gunmen and hailed the defenders' reaction to the attack.He said Peshawar's Brigade Commander led the operation along with specialist "quick response" forces, army commandos and air force personnel. Photos tweeted by Bajwa showed what appeared to be seven heavily armed militants lying dead, several of them in pools of blood. Sabitullah Khan, a labourer who lives nearby, said a wall of his house collapsed under the force of grenade blasts during the attack. "It was horrifying to hear the blasts and intense firing," he said. Kifayatullah, who runs a grocery store near the camp, told AFP he was praying at a mosque outside the compound when the began with "a grenade explosion and intense gunfire"."It was next to impossible to come out of the mosque. We jumped from the window of the mosque and escaped," he said.A senior PAF official told AFP the facility attacked on Friday was a residential camp for air force personnel."There are no air assets including combat aircraft deployed at the base," he said, requesting anonymity.
Taliban still determined
The tribal badlands that lie just a short drive from Peshawar have been the scene of a major military offensive against Taliban and other militants over the past year. The army launched the "Zarb-e-Azb" operation in June 2014 in a bid to wipe out militant bases in North Waziristan tribal area and so bring an end to the bloody decade-long Islamist insurgency that has cost Pakistan thousands of lives. Peshawar suffered the worst terror attack in Pakistani history in December when Taliban gunmen stormed an army-run school and massacred more than 150 people, most of them children. The army intensified its offensive after the school attack and since then there has been something of a lull in violence. The last major attack in the city came in February when three heavily armed Taliban militants stormed a Shiite mosque, killing 21 people. While the military offensive appears to have disrupted the TTP's network, Friday's attack shows they are still determined to carry on their fight against the state with audacious attacks on high-profile targets. A TTP faction last month claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing that killed the home minister of Punjab province along with 15 other people.

Kremlin Says Open to Any Syrian Request to Send Troops
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/Moscow said Friday it would consider any request from Syrian President Bashar Assad to send troops, as Washington frets over an alleged Russian military buildup in the war-torn country. "If there is any request then it would naturally be discussed and evaluated through bilateral contacts and dialogue," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency RIA Novosti. "But it is difficult to talk about this hypothetically."The United States says that Russia -- one of Assad's last remaining allies -- has covertly deployed troops, artillery units and tanks to Syria.Moscow says it is sending arms to Syria under existing contracts but denies bolstering its forces in the country. Putin has provided vital support to Assad throughout a popular uprising against his regime and as the conflict has metastasised into a brutal civil war that has killed 240,000 people and displaced four million.U.S. officials have expressed fears Russia may strike Western-backed rebel groups battling Assad and ultimately risk a confrontation with forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) group.Moscow has been pushing for a broader coalition of forces to take on IS, but key Western and regional players have ruled out fighting alongside Assad. Russian news website Gazeta.ru reported on Friday that some Russian soldiers were disputing possible orders to be sent to Syria. The outlet quoted a soldier named Alexei as saying that troops had been deployed to a southern Russian port city without being told where they would be shipped to and were expecting to be deployed to Syria on only a verbal order.Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin has no knowledge of complaints by soldiers to its human rights council.

Israel Police Deploy as Hamas Calls 'Day of Rage'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/15/Israeli police beefed up their numbers in Jerusalem Friday, barring young men from prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque site ahead of what Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas dubbed a "day of rage."They set up heavily-manned checkpoints on streets leading up to the site in Jerusalem's walled Old City, turning back youngsters, while a police surveillance blimp flew overhead. "It's a frontline," Mazen Shawish, 52, told Agence France Presse. "You have to go though 20 military checkpoints to get to the mosque." Palestinian protesters have clashed with police at the sacred site for three days over this week's Jewish new year despite international calls for calm."In light of intelligence received indicating the intention of Arab youths to disturb the peace at Friday prayers on Temple Mount it was decided to limit the age of Muslim worshipers," said a police statement, using the Hebrew term for the hilltop sacred to both Jews and Muslims. "Men aged 40 and above and women of all ages will be permitted to enter for prayers," it said. The measure is meant to deter Palestinian youths -- who are generally at the forefront of violent protests -- after Hamas called for a "day of rage" to coincide with weekly Friday prayers.Israeli authorities fear further trouble ahead when the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha coincides on Wednesday with the solemn Jewish fast of Yom Kippur. And Jews begin their seven-day Sukkot festival the following week, one of the holidays when more Israelis than usual are likely to visit the compound. It is the most sacred site in Judaism, with tradition identifying it as the site of the first and second temples, destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans. Known to Muslims as Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), the compound houses the famous golden Dome of the Rock shrine and Al-Aqsa mosque. Believed to be where the Prophet Mohammed made his night journey to heaven, it is the third-holiest site in Islam after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, both in Saudi Arabia.
Jews are allowed to visit but cannot pray there to avoid further raising tensions.A small but vocal Israeli minority, among them cabinet ministers, are demanding that Jewish prayer be allowed.
Israel 'maintaining status quo'
Israel seized east Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised internationally. It claims sovereignty over the entire city, including holy sites. To the Palestinians, who want the mainly-Arab eastern side as their capital, the compound with its landmarks is a potent symbol of so-far unrealised statehood. They fear Israel will seek to change rules governing the site, with far-right Jewish groups pushing for more access and even efforts by fringe organisations to erect a new Jewish temple there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin spoke by phone to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday night seeking to calm such concerns and pledging that the Jewish state "is strictly maintaining the status quo," Netanyahu's office said. Israeli officials accuse the Palestinian leadership of fanning unrest with incendiary remarks against Israelis. "Al-Aqsa is ours, the Holy Sepulchre is ours," said Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas this week. "They do not have the right to pollute them with their dirty feet, we do not allow them and we will do everything possible to protect Jerusalem."
Rule changes considered
Netanyahu has publicly "declared war" on those who throw rocks and petrol bombs, and became even more adamant after an Israeli motorist died at the wheel on Sunday night, apparently as a consequence of Palestinian stone-throwing, police said. One proposal is to let snipers with relatively low-velocity 0.22 calibre rifles operate against stone-throwers in Jerusalem, as they already do in the occupied West Bank.Justice ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said that was one of a raft of suggestions currently under scrutiny by legal experts ahead of a government decision. "The steps include changes to the rules of engagement and use of weapons which are not normally used within Israel," he told AFP. "All those things are on the table." In the West Bank overnight, Israeli troops shot and seriously wounded Ahmed Khatatbeh, 26, near the northern city of Nablus, Palestinian medical sources said. The Israeli army said he was spotted by soldiers when he threw a petrol bomb at a vehicle heading for a nearby Israeli settlement. Israeli-driven vehicles are frequently pelted with stones where Jewish and Arab neighborhoods rub up against each other. An Israeli bus was stoned and torched Thursday night in east Jerusalem, its Arab driver escaping uninjured, police said. Netanyahu is proposing measures including changing the circumstances under which police may use live fire, minimum sentences for stone-throwers and penalties against the parents of young suspects.

Experts urge release of IAEA inspections details of Iran site
By Reuters | United Nations/Paris/Friday, 18 September 2015/Several nuclear security experts are urging the United Nations nuclear watchdog and world powers to release details of how a sensitive Iranian military site will be inspected as part of a landmark nuclear deal reached in July.The experts, with long experience in international weapons inspections, said the failure to disclose the details was damaging the credibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a view that is rejected by the agency itself, the United States government and another prominent non-proliferation expert. The confidential plan for the Parchin site has led to differing reports on how it will be carried out, with some critics of the U.S. administration saying Iran had been given too much leeway to conduct its own inspections, including taking samples. The inspections are needed to resolve questions about whether Iran did research in the past at Parchin related to building a nuclear weapon.David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, expressed unease about the lack of public details on the arrangement. “(Details) should be released because it’s undermining the IAEA’s credibility,” Albright said. “Whatever the outcome of the sampling, the secrecy makes it harder to determine whether it’s a credible sampling approach.”The IAEA has said it has a legal obligation to keep details of the arrangement confidential, but insists it is technically sound and will ensure the samples are not compromised. Iranian officials have also said that international experts would not be allowed in.Four diplomats familiar with the deal told Reuters that U.N. inspectors would be present at Parchin to oversee the inspections. In the unusual arrangement struck in July, the samples would be taken by Iranian technicians while IAEA experts present at Parchin observe and oversee the process, Western diplomats told Reuters. The diplomats, who have knowledge of the deal, said that while the IAEA inspectors will not be next to the Iranian technicians when they take samples, they will be at Parchin overseeing the process. Cameras will record the process.
Iran cannot receive sanctions relief promised under the nuclear deal until the IAEA is satisfied it has answered outstanding questions about the so-called “possible military dimensions” of past Iranian nuclear research. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and that it did not conduct atomic weapons research.

U.S. starts implementing Iran nuclear deal
The Associated Press | Washington/Friday, 18 September 2015/The Obama administration began carrying out the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday as time expired on Republican efforts to derail it, appointing a senior diplomat to ensure that Tehran moves further away from bomb-making capability and outlining a months-long process before Western nations will start easing economic sanctions. Senators failed to reach the threshold for a measure to keep all sanctions in place on Iran until it recognizes Israel and releases all imprisoned Americans, and then on a resolution expressing disapproval of the nuclear agreement. Two previous votes in recent days against the Iran deal also failed, and a 60-day window in the Republican-controlled Congress to prevent President Barack Obama from implementing the seven-nation pact was set to close Thursday night. Shortly after the votes, the State Department named Stephen Mull as “lead coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation.” Mull, who has served as ambassador to Poland and in other top diplomatic posts, takes on the “crucial” responsibility of shepherding an agreement “which will make the United States, our friends and allies in the Middle East, and the entire world safer,” Secretary of State John Kerry said.The accord clinched by the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran on July 14 will provide Iran hundreds of billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions in exchange for a decade of constraints on the country’s nuclear program. While the Republican-led Congress’ objections posed the last serious threat to the package, the sides will need months to put the deal into place. Washington expects Tehran to begin on Oct. 18 making major changes to its main site for enriching uranium at Nantanz, its underground nuclear facility at Fordo and its heavy water reactor at Arak. Uranium can be enriched as part of fuel production or for nuclear weapons development. At Nantanz, Iran will have to uninstall thousands of centrifuges and place them in storage controlled by the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency. It must also remove electrical infrastructure and pipework. The entire process could take months, senior U.S. officials said. They weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the process and demanded anonymity. No sanctions relief will occur until all the steps are completed, they insisted, but they said Obama would start issuing waivers on Oct. 18 so that the U.S. can fulfill its end of the bargain once the IAEA verifies Iran’s full compliance. The European Union will undertake a similar process for actions it plans to take, such as ending a ban on imports of Iranian oil. Obama also will instruct U.S. agencies such as the State Department and Treasury Department to lay the groundwork for relieving sanctions on Iran. Iranian compliance also will end U.N. penalties, though some will remain. These include an arms embargo that lasts up to 5 years, a ballistic missile technology ban for up to 8 years, and a ban on transferring any unauthorized nuclear goods, which stays in place for a decade.

Mexico demands Egypt compensate attack victims
By AFP | Mexico City/Friday, 18 September 2015/Mexico’s government demanded on Thursday that Egypt compensate tourists mistakenly attacked by Egyptian security forces at the weekend in a deadly incident that outraged the Latin American nation. The demand was made in a diplomatic note delivered by deputy foreign minister Carlos de Icaza to Egypt’s ambassador to Mexico, as survivors and families of victims were flying home with Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu.“The Mexican government demands the necessary guarantees so that the victims of the tragic and regrettable attack perpetrated on September 13, all of them innocent civilians and their families, receive full reparations for the damage, including compensation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, without providing a figure. Eight Mexican tourists and four Egyptians were killed in Sunday’s attack in the Western Desert. Ten people were wounded, including six Mexicans. Survivors have told Mexican diplomats that they came under fire from a plane and helicopters. Egypt said the tourists had entered a restricted area and were “mistakenly” killed as security forces chased jihadists who had abducted and beheaded an Egyptian. But the head of Egypt’s tour guides union said the group had received all the required permits and were accompanied by police escort.President Enrique Pena Nieto dispatched Ruiz Massieu to Cairo this week to press for a full investigation.The minister and survivors are due home Friday.

Croatia closes border with Serbia over migrants
By AFP | Zagreb/Friday, 18 September 2015/Croatia closed seven of the country’s eight border crossings with Serbia “until further notice” following a massive arrival of migrants and refugees, the interior ministry said. “Traffic is banned on the border crossings of Tovarnik, Ilok, Ilok 2, Principovac, Principovac 2, Batina and Erdut,” the ministry said on Thursday in a statement. More than 11,000 migrants have entered Croatia from Serbia since early Wednesday, the ministry added. The migrants began heading for Croatia after Hungary sealed its border with Serbia earlier this week, cutting off a key route into the EU used this year by more than 200,000 migrants, many of them fleeing violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Croatia had said it would let people pass through freely on their way to other European Union countries -- but Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic warned his country’s resources for dealing with the influx were “limited”. Piling on the pressure, Slovenia announced late Thursday that it had stopped a train from Croatia carrying migrants, saying some 150 passengers would be returned to Zagreb because they did not have the necessary documents for onward travel. Slovenia later suspended all train traffic between Slovenia and Croatia until Friday morning, Slovenian news agency STA reported.

Trump says he would turn down U.S. presidential salary if elected
By Reuters | Washinton/Friday, 18 September 2015/Billionaire U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday he does not want the $400,000 annual salary that comes with the White House job and would turn it down if elected. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2016 race despite having no political experience, was asked at a town hall-style meeting in Rochester, New Hampshire, if, as president, he would roll back generous pension and healthcare benefits given to members of Congress. “The first thing I’m going to do is tell you that if I’m elected president, I’m accepting no salary, OK?” Trump said. “That’s no big deal for me.”Trump, who built his fortune as a developer, real estate mogul and reality television personality, was listed on Thursday at No. 405 on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s billionaires, with a fortune of $4.1 billion. Shortly after announcing his candidacy in June, Trump said his net worth was more than $10 billion. Herbert Hoover, who made millions of dollars in mining before becoming president in 1921, and John F. Kennedy, who came from a wealthy family, both donated their presidential salaries to charity.

Al-Qaeda vs. ISIS: Will the West be the punching bag?
Baker Atyani/Al Arabiya/September 18/15/
The latest audio message by Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, which appeared on 10 September, can be best described as raising the battle flag against ISIS.Zawahiri's exasperation over the so-called Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was quite evident in his audio message.
“We do not see Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi worthy of the Caliphate,” he said in the 45-minute audio message. Baghdadi came “by force and with explosions and car bombs,” rather than “the choice of the people,” Zawahiri added.This message was Zawahiri’s first episode in what he called “The Islamic Spring” series, which the As-Sahab Foundation – Al-Qaeda’s media wing – has started broadcasting. The message was probably recorded before June 2015, after Baghdadi refused to heed the advice of the chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – Nasir Abdel Karim al-Wuhayshi, alias Abu Basir, who was killed on June 16 – who was also Zawahiri’s deputy. For Al-Qaeda to come back as the world’s leading ‘militant group’, the easiest way is to target its traditional enemies: the U.S. and the West.Abu Basir had urged Baghdadi and Syrian militant factions – in a public letter published on 27 Feb., 2015 – to stop fighting and unite against the Assad regime.
9/11 is missing!
Zawahiri’s audio message, which came a day before the 14th anniversary of the deadly New York and Washington attacks, did not address 9/11. The Al-Qaeda chief’s prime concerns expressed in his audio message were very clear: ISIS and Baghdadi.Zawahiri tried to reach out to global Al-Qaeda branches. He paid greeting to them all by name, and summarized what happened in the first half of 2015. He wanted to appear as a leader who exercised complete control over all the branches of Al-Qaeda, despite the fact that even when Osama Bin Laden was alive, it was difficult to control Al-Qaeda franchise branches as they expanded over the world. This was abundantly clear in the Abbottabad letters.
AQIS was the first move
Before Zawahiri’s public declaration of war against ISIS, he took a counter-step in South Asia by establishing Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS).AQIS was a natural consequence of the death and outflow of senior Arab members of the organization. The vacuum was filled by South Asians. Al-Qaeda was trying to close the door on ISIS, and recruit from South Asia. AQIS claimed responsibility for attacking a Pakistan Navy dockyard in Karachi in September 2014, and the killing of several Bangladeshi bloggers. Bringing in Bin Laden’s son to speak to Al-Qaeda branches is a clear indication of the internal and external crisis faced by Al-Qaeda.
The Bin Laden legacy
In another Zawahiri audio message dated August 14, he introduced Bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Osama Bin Laden, who must be in his mid-twenties now. In his first ever audio message – ‘Greetings of Peace to the People of Islam’ – Hamza sent his greetings and praises to Al-Qaeda branches across the world. The undated message was recorded before the death of AQAP’s Abu Basir. Bringing in Bin Laden’s son to speak to Al-Qaeda branches is a clear indication of the internal and external crisis faced by Al-Qaeda. The Bin Laden legacy was used to give legitimacy to Zawahiri among both his own ranks and with ISIS. “I greet with reverence the friend of my father, may Allah have mercy on him, and his companion on the path, the honorable … the Sheikh Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Hamza Bin Laden was heard saying.“On this occasion, following my father... I want to renew my [loyalty] to Emir al-Mumineen (leader of the Muslims) Mullah Mohammad Omar,” he continued, in reference to the late Taliban leader. The message was recorded before the news of Mullah Omar’s death was announced in July 2015 (although he died earlier, in 2013). This signifies that the “Emir al-Mumineen” – which is equal to the Caliph – is not ISIS’ Baghdadi in the eyes of the younger Bin Laden, and suggests he does not recognize Baghdadi or his ‘state’.Later on, after the news of Mullah Omar’s death was announced, Zawahiri swore allegiance to the new leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, describing him as “Emir al-Mumineen”.
Not good news!
Al-Qaeda confronting ISIS is seen as good news by those who think the groups will weaken each other, such as former CIA Director General David Petraeus. He has urged U.S. officials to use members of Al-Qaeda in Syria to combat ISIS.But this declaration of war between Al-Qaeda and ISIS will work contrary to this popular presumption. For Al-Qaeda to come back as the world’s leading ‘militant group’, the easiest way is to target its traditional enemies: the U.S. and the West.It is clear that Al-Qaeda is desperately trying to win in this competition with ISIS. And despite its current weakness, it will keep trying.
MCF and the Al Arabiya News Channel “Exceptional Courage in Journalism” awards.

What if the Arab Spring had never happened?
Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/September 18/15
What if the Arab Spring had never happened? This is a recurring question asked by many people in Arab countries affected by the revolutions or observing them. As hopelessness mounts and suffering worsens, people wonder if it was worth it. There were those who believed freedom and liberty should be sought at any cost, but even they could not imagine the human cost that would be paid. As reality hits harder against their revolutionary fervor, they too are now in doubt. Three years ago, every Syrian I met supported the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Today, I hear more and more Syrians whispering things such as “at least we were safe,” and “unless you were in politics your livelihood was protected.” Some even say: “Change would have come had we waited.” ‘What if’ questions are not easy to answer - history is neat but reality is complex and unpredictable - but it is important to ask such questions, especially about the Arab Spring. The purpose is not to imagine an alternative history, but to discuss other means of bringing change and reform. They thought the social and institutional structures of Arab communities could absorb the shockwaves and continue to function. They are realizing they were wrong.
When the Arab Spring started, those of us who supported it did so from a moral perspective. We believed people should resist oppression, and in the process tolerate the human cost. However, there was another underlying belief that led many of us to encourage change by whatever means. Many assumed it was enough for people to want change and to topple opposing regimes. They thought the social and institutional structures of Arab communities could absorb the shockwaves and continue to function. They are realizing they were wrong. More and more are waking up to the fact that the human cost has gone beyond what is justifiable, and that Arab social and institutional structures are more likely to accommodate religious fundamentalists than civil and democratic activists.
‘The people’
Many thought it was all about the people. Very few thought of the fragile social and institutional structures that would fall apart amid chaos and unpredictability. Had the Arab Spring not happened, we would still have had disruptions here and there as the situation was reaching boiling point. However, those disruptions would have most likely led to gradual reform rather than revolutions that wreaked havoc.Had the Arab Spring not happened, Syria would not have been decimated. All Arab Spring countries were hit badly, but none more so than Syria and Libya. Before the uprising, Assad was already making steady reforms - not enough, but there was some progress. Had there been no revolution, Syria would have gradually improved, and in 10 or 15 years things would have been much better. In the process of that gradual reform, there would have been oppression, disappearances and torture. However, there would not have been some 300,000 deaths, millions injured and half the population displaced. Had the Arab Spring not happened, Syria would not have been decimated. I am not telling people to lie down and die while dictators do as they please, but to consider whether there is any chance of reasoning with the dictator in question.Arabs wanted hasty change, and were overconfident with the power of the people, paying no attention to the power of structures. We realized that ‘the people’ was an empty phrase, that it is social and economic structures that matter. It should not be what the people want, but what the structure allows.
I am all for reform, but I am also for appreciating what we have, and for softly pushing for more. I am also for a deeper understanding of the structures within which we live, and for appreciating their value even if they are not perfect. Without them, we are left with chaos and misery.

How Erdogan exploits Syrian refugees
Arad Nir /Al-Monitor/September 18/15
So far, Israel has not made any public comments about what lies behind the wave of Middle Eastern refugees now sweeping across Europe. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proud that no illegal immigrants have gained access to Israel via Egypt since his erection of a fence along the southern border. At a ceremony on Sept. 6 to mark the start of a new fence along Israel’s eastern border with Jordan, Netanyahu said, “This is a success that almost no Western country — and very few countries at all — has been able to achieve, but Israel has achieved it, and I am determined to continue this on Israel's other borders.” At the same event, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon added, “We can see the stream of refugees washing over Europe. What is happening in Europe could have happened to us, had we not behaved in an intelligent manner.”Senior Israeli political sources consider the current wave of refugees additional proof of what they call “President Barack Obama’s failed Middle East policy.” “If Obama had bombed [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad, all of this would have been avoided,” said a senior source who requested anonymity. He was referring to two years ago, when Assad crossed the US president’s “red line” by using chemical weapons, but instead of attacking, Obama decided on disarmament. In response to a question about what would stop the flood of refugees now, the source said, “There is no way of avoiding boots on the ground in a simultaneous attack against Assad and the Islamic State [IS].”
Israel is not only pleased that it is not along the refugees’ route, it is also experiencing a sense of schadenfreude. Europe has not held back in its criticism of how Israel is treating the Palestinians, even while it avoids responding to the collapse of Syria and Iraq. Now, however, Europe is being forced to directly contend with these nations’ collapse with the consequences having reached its own territory. The one person deemed responsible for transferring the problem from the Middle East to the heart of Europe is Turkey's former prime minister and current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Israel doesn't hold this against him. Turkey was the first country to receive and embrace the refugees when Syria’s civil war broke out four years ago. Erdogan had turned Assad from a strategic ally into his No. 1 enemy, and by receiving the refugees he believed that he could convince NATO to act more decisively against the Syrian central government. When he realized that the United States and other Western leaders were not acting with what he considered to be sufficient determination against the Syrian president, Erdogan pinned his hopes on what became IS. Every so often, the Turkish media divulged information about how Turkish intelligence supported IS, and a senior Israeli official confirmed the allegations to Al-Monitor. “He funded them,” he said, referring to the relationship between Erdogan and IS.
What the Turkish president was effectively doing was funding IS with one hand while absorbing and supporting the refugees fleeing from it with the other. Erdogan believed that the larger the number of displaced Syrians, the better his chances of convincing the international community of the need to enforce a no-fly zone across northern Syria, where the refugees could ostensibly be settled. To ensure that this would become the preferred solution, the Turkish authorities made it difficult for refugees, now numbering close to 2 million, to leave for third countries. As their numbers in Turkey reached a critical mass, NATO member states would be more likely to act, Erdogan had hoped. The body of 3-year-old Aylan al-Kurdi washed up on the shore of Bodrum, Turkey, in early September after the boat he was in with his parents capsized en route to Europe. His aunt has said that the family took the deadly journey because the United Nations had refused to grant them refugee status, and Turkish authorities had refused to grant them exit visas.
Flights from Istanbul to Munich cost much less than the exorbitant sums that the refugees are paying human traffickers. In addition, air travel is safe. The problem is that the refugees do not have visas, and it is virtually impossible for them to obtain one. At first, Turkey did everything it could to block the sea routes being used for illegal immigration to Europe. Later, however, with NATO refusing to take action to overthrow Assad, and with IS failing to fulfill Erdogan's hope that it decisively defeat the Alawite leader, Turkey decided to make things difficult for Europe by shifting some of the pressure there. Over the past few months, Turkey stopped blocking the refugees' movement westward. The Israeli source said that it is quite possible that the same Turkish security forces that had helped IS are enabling the human smugglers. On Sept. 11, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suspended his country’s honorary consul in Bodrum after learning that she had been helping refugees leave for Europe illegally. In a conversation filmed by hidden camera for France’s Channel 2, the consul, who sells refugees rubber dinghies intended for use in a pool, not the open seas by which they hope to reach the Greek island of Kos, said, “The municipality is helping with the traffic [of refugees by sea]. The harbormaster is helping with their trafficking. The governor of the district is helping with their trafficking.” Fabius’ response was a symbolic but appropriate act against the owner of the boating store, where refugees can purchase the equipment they need to leave Turkey on a hazardous, life-threatening voyage to enter Europe illegally. The problem is that he had the wrong address.Diplomatic sources in Israel say that none of this could have happened without Erdogan’s government allowing it. For four years, Erdogan has been taking in refugees in the hope that he could use them to overthrow Assad. Since everything he had tried had failed, and Assad remains in power (if only in control of a small part of his once-large country), Erdogan is now trying to create intolerable human pressure in the heart of Europe. The assessment in Israel is that the Turks believe that by doing this, they can force its NATO allies to deal with the root of the problem by making a concerted effort to remove Assad from the equation.

America enters the “Old Middle East”
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/September 1/15
What does Russia want from what remains of Syria? Well, one thing is for sure: any bet that Moscow may be willing to implement the Geneva Documents—even according to the interpretation of Vladimir Putin and his diplomatic “commissar” Sergey Lavrov—is naïve to say the least. The current political climate in the Middle East is not only suitable, but encouraging for Moscow to flex its muscles.It is not every day that a president like Barack Obama occupies the White House; and, as long as Obama continues to make the alliance with Iran the focus of his “political legacy,” while his Republican opponents fail to come up with an alternative and meaningful Middle East policy, Washington’s room for maneuver in the region will be limited, and belatedly reactive. Some claim that behind Obama’s insistence on securing the nuclear deal with Iran is a “carrot and stick” strategy. This means he is betting on improving the chances of a pragmatist “reformists” victory against the “conservative” Mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership, and bartering Iran’s nuclear weapons with regional influence granted to it at the expense of its neighbors. Such a scenario is of course possible given the relatively large number of pro-Israel senators whom the White House managed to “convince” and win over, and the “satisfied” silence of Israel’s military and security establishment which—as reported recently—rejected more than once Benjamin Netanyahu’s prodding to attack Iran. If the reformist camp does manage to win—as Obama seems to believe it will—I reckon Moscow would have some sort of “arrangement” that would guarantee it enough influence near Russia’s southern borders and in the eastern Mediterranean.
Putin is a politician and former intelligence officer whose political identity matured in the thick of the Cold War and the East–West confrontation. He later witnessed the humiliation suffered by the defeated, and consequently fragmented, USSR at the hands of a jubilant and disrespectful West. Thus, as the slogans of “Socialism,” “Humanity,” and the “Right of self-determination” lectured to us by the old Pravda are today only entertained by imbeciles of the childish Left and traded by “intelligence service Arabists,” one must realize that we are dealing with a “neo-Tsarist” Russia.America’s inaction towards the Syrian uprising has been the green light that reassured Putin that he could do what he pleased, whether in Crimea or eastern Ukraine. Today, we are back at full circle; and, again, Washington is reiterating that it is only interested in reassuring Iran and Israel, even if the price is alienating Turkey and the Arabs.
Neo-Tsarist Russia will never forget the Middle East, where old Tsarist Russia had prominent consuls, monasteries, “seminars,” and “Muscovite” schools. And while France thought of itself as the guardian of Catholics and Maronites in the region, and Britain and later America became active in spreading Protestant institutions, Russia became the protector and guide of the Orthodox community in the Middle East. So, Putin’s Russia, now that Socialism is a profitable commodity no more, is reverting to its Tsarist past, and why not? It is powerful enough not to seek approval, or permission, from anyone to fight the “political Islam” it has fought against for centuries throughout its vast lands and along its long borders extending from the Balkans, through the Caucasus, to central Asia. There is also another side to the story, this time linked to Russia’s erstwhile tactical alliance with Iran. A few months ago a rumor began to spread that senior Iranian leaders informed a high-ranking Syrian regime official visiting the country that Iran “has paid and continues to pay a lot” in defending Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. They added that Iran needs as collateral lands they have already chosen inside Syria, valued close to their estimate of what Tehran has already spent on the conflict—26 billion US dollars. Upon his return, the Syrian official reported to Assad what he had heard in Tehran. Assad reacted to the Iranian message—so the rumor goes—by contacting a number of Syrian Christian notables and informing them bluntly that the Iranians “want to take over the country,” and that he was in no position to protect them; thus he may need to rely on Russia!
This rumor was published in the Middle East, but like most rumors no one is willing to own up or give credence to, it soon faded and disappeared. Still, the way Iran is managing the war in Syria through its Revolutionary Guards—including its sectarian Lebanese, Iraqi, and other Shi’ite militias—in Zabadani, the Qalamoun Mountains, Hauran, and northern Syria, and its central role in negotiations concerned with population exchange, confirms that it is fully in charge. Yes, Iran is now actually and effectively running the “useful Syria,” leaving Assad as a mere figurehead. This means that the pre-March 2011 Syria is finished and gone regardless of what happens to Assad and the skeleton of his moribund regime. It also means that if Turkey finds itself forced to pre-empt the establishment of an independent Kurdish entity along its southern border with Syria, extending from northern Iraq to Turkey’s Hatay Province, Russia may decide it wouldn’t be a good idea after all to relinquish its influence in Syria to Iran; more so if victorious Iran’s “reformists” become Washington’s allies. In the meantime, Washington has just “discovered” that after being quite busy envisaging a “New Middle East” it seems to be looking the “Old Middle East” in the face!
In an assessment that is at odds with official Obama administration policy, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said recently at an industry conference that Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder by war and sectarian tensions, adding that “I’m having a tough time seeing it [Iraq and Syria] come back together.” On Iraq, Stewart said he was “wrestling with the idea that the Kurds will come back to a central government of Iraq,” suggesting he believed it was unlikely. On Syria, he said: “I can see a time in the future where Syria is fractured into two or three parts.” That is not the US goal, he said, but it’s looking increasingly likely. CIA Director John Brennan, speaking on the same panel, meanwhile said: “Iraqis and Syrians now more often identify themselves by tribe or religious sect, rather than by their nationality . . . I think the Middle East is going to be seeing change over the coming decade or two that is going to make it look unlike it did.”Brilliant “discoveries” indeed. Pity they do not surprise monitors of Washington’s policies anymore!

Russian troops already engaged in battle against ISIS around Homs
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 17, 2015
Contrary to the impression conveyed by Moscow that Russian troops in Syria are not engaged in combat and that none of the sophisticated arms deliveries were destined to the Syrian army, new developments belie both these claims.
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report that on Wednesday, September 16, Russian R-166-0.5 (ultra) high-frequency signals (HF/VHF) vehicles were spotted on Highway 4, which links Homs and Aleppo. These vehicles, called “mobile war rooms” by the IDF and Western armies, were accompanied by BTR-82 troop carriers transporting Russian marines. The R-166-0.5 enables communication with forces located on battlefields as far as 1,000 kilometers away using high frequency and ultra-high frequency signals.
The communication systems are resistant to electromagnetic jamming so Russian forces operating deep inside Syria can report to their commanders at the main Russian base in Latakia or receive orders, intelligence data and even video from drones or planes.
Another feature is a cylinder on the side of the vehicle containing a folded antenna that can be raised to a height of 15 meters.
The R-166-0.5 is an integral part of Russia’s battlefield operations, so it would not be deployed unless long-distance troop movements were underway. The appearance of those vehicles in the Syrian theater provides a clear signal of Moscow’s intentions.
Our sources point out that during the past few days, fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) succeeded in cutting off part of the highway between Homs and Aleppo for several hours. It marked a very dangerous development for the Syrian army and regime, because a permanent cutoff of Highway 4 would tighten the siege on Aleppo and possibly pave the way for the conquest of the second-largest city in Syria.
The movements by the armored vehicles show that the Russian troops are preparing to head into battle in order to prevent such a scenario. Moscow has denied supplying new, sophisticated weapons to the Syrian army. However, a Syrian military source revealed Thursday, Sept. 17, that the Syrian military has recently started using new types of air and ground weapons supplied by Russia, underlining growing Russian support to Damascus that is alarming the United States and Israel. "New weapons – and new types of weapons - are being delivered,” said the source which described them as “highly accurate and effective.” The army had started using them in recent weeks having been trained in their use in Syria in recent months. "We can say they are all types of weapons - be it air or ground," he said. debkafile’s military sources reveal that the Russian shipments for the Syrian army include MI-28 MIL assault helicopters (NATO-coded Havoc), an all-weather aircraft, which can also serve as an anti-tank weapon against the mostly US-made tanks fielded by ISIS and Al Qaeda's Nusra Front Syrian arm. Our military and intelligence sources point out that Moscow has given itself room to maneuver in terms of its declared goals, telling Washington and Jerusalem during the past few days that its troops will defend their own interests if there is a need to do so. Thus, Russia aims to use its forces in any way that it deems fit.debkafile’s sources in Washington report an ongoing debate within the Obama administration regarding whether to accept the proposal that was raised during the telephone conversations this week between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry.Moscow proposed military-to-military talks on ways to prevent a confrontation between its troops in Syria and those of the US-led coalition, saying that the talks would provide a complete and clear understanding of Moscow’s intentions. Unlike Kerry, who is in favor of taking the Russians up on their proposal, some circles in the administration feel that such talks would ultimately give Russia the green light for its military involvement and that Moscow is in the process of grabbing control of running all military operations in Syria, including those by other countries and groups. Last week, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s al-Quds brigades, visited Moscow for the second time since April. debkafile’s sources in Moscow point out that this time, unlike his previous visit, Soleimani met with Russia’s National Security Adviser Nikolai Patrushev and a number of generals directly connected to the buildup in Syria, but not with President Vladimir Putin.
The developments in Syria will also take center stage when Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu meets with Putin in Moscow on September 21.

Germany: Migrants' Rape Epidemic
"We Are the Biggest Brothel in Munich"
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 18, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6527/migrants-rape-germany
Although the rape took place in June, police kept silent about it for nearly three months, until local media published a story about the crime. According to an editorial comment in the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, police are refusing to go public about crimes involving refugees and migrants because they do not want to give legitimacy to critics of mass migration.
A 13-year-old Muslim girl was raped by another asylum seeker at a refugee facility in Detmold, a city in west-central Germany. The girl and her mother reportedly fled their homeland to escape a culture of sexual violence.
Approximately 80% of the refugees/migrants at the shelter in Munich are male... the price for sex with female asylum seekers is ten euros. — Bavarian Broadcasting (Bayerischer Rundfunk).
Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughter's wear revealing clothing in order to avoid "misunderstandings."
"When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear." — Bavarian politician, quoted in Die Welt.
A police raid on the Munich refugee facility found that guards hired to provide security at the site were trafficking drugs and weapons and were turning a blind eye to the prostitution.
Meanwhile, the raping of German women by asylum seekers is becoming commonplace.
A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers, according to German social work organizations with first-hand knowledge of the situation.
Many of the rapes are occurring in mixed-gender shelters, where, due to a lack of space, German authorities are forcing thousands of male and female migrants to share the same sleeping areas and restroom facilities.
Conditions for women and girls at some shelters are so perilous that females are being described as "wild game" fighting off Muslim male predators. But many victims, fearing reprisals, are keeping silent, social workers say.
At the same time, growing numbers of German women in towns and cities across the country are being raped by asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the crimes are being downplayed by German authorities and the national media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.
On August 18, a coalition of four social work organizations and women's rights groups sent a two-page letter to the leaders of the political parties in the regional parliament in Hesse, a state in west-central Germany, warning them of the worsening situation for women and children in the refugee shelters. The letter said:
"The ever-increasing influx of refugees has complicated the situation for women and girls at the receiving center in Giessen (HEAE) and its subsidiaries.
"The practice of providing accommodations in large tents, the lack of gender-separate sanitary facilities, premises that cannot be locked, the lack of safe havens for women and girls — to name just a few spatial factors — increases the vulnerability of women and children within the HEAE. This situation plays into the hands of those men who assign women a subordinate role and treat women traveling alone as 'wild game'.
"The consequences are numerous rapes and sexual assaults. We are also receiving an increasing number of reports of forced prostitution. It must be stressed: these are not isolated cases.
"Women report that they, as well as children, have been raped or subjected to sexual assault. As a result, many women sleep in their street clothes. Women regularly report that they do not use the toilet at night because of the danger of rape and robbery on the way to the sanitary facilities. Even during daylight, passing through the camp is a frightful situation for many women.
"Many women — in addition to fleeing wars or civil wars — are also on the run for gender-related reasons, including the threat of forced marriage or genital mutilation. These women who face special risks, especially when they are on the run alone or with their children. Even if they are accompanied by male relatives or acquaintances, this does not always ensure protection against violence because it can also lead to specific dependencies and sexual exploitation.
"Most female refugees have experienced a variety of traumatizing experiences in their country of origin and while on the run. They are victims of violence, kidnappings, torture, rape and extortion — sometimes over periods of several years.
"The feeling to have arrived here — in safety — and to be able to move without fear, is a gift for many women.... We therefore ask you...to join our call for the immediate establishment of protected premises (locked apartments or houses) for women and children who are travelling alone....
"These facilities must be equipped so that men do not have access to the premises of the women, with the exception of emergency workers and security personnel. In addition bedrooms, lounges, kitchens and sanitary facilities must be interconnected so that they form a self-contained unit — and thus can only be reached via lockable and monitored access to the house or the apartment."
After several blogs (here, here and here) drew attention to the letter, the LandesFrauenRat (LFR) Hessen, a women's lobbying group that originally uploaded the politically incorrect document to its website, abruptly removed it on September 14, without explanation.
The problem of rapes and sexual assaults in German refugee shelters is a nationwide problem.
In Bavaria, women and girls housed at a refugee shelter in Bayernkaserne, a former military base in Munich, are subject to rape and forced prostitution on a daily basis, according to women's rights groups. Although the facility has separate dorm rooms for women, the doors cannot be locked and men control access to the sanitary facilities.
Approximately 80% of the refugees/migrants at the shelter are male, according to Bavarian Broadcasting (Bayerischer Rundfunk), which reports that the price for sex with female asylum seekers is ten euros. A social worker described the facility this way: "We are the biggest brothel in Munich."
Police insist they have no proof that the rapes are taking place, although a police raid on the facility found that guards hired to provide security at the site were trafficking drugs and weapons and were turning a blind eye to the prostitution.
On August 28, a 22-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison for attempting to rape a 30-year-old Iraqi-Kurdish woman at a refugee shelter in the Bavarian town of Höchstädt. The reduced sentence was thanks to the efforts of the defense attorney, who persuaded the judge that the defendant's situation at the shelter was hopeless: "For a year now he sits around and thinks about — about nothingness."
On August 26, a 34-year-old asylum seeker attempted to rape a 34-year-old woman in the laundry room of a refugee facility in Stralsund, a city near the Baltic Sea.
On August 6, police revealed that a 13-year-old Muslim girl was raped by another asylum seeker at a refugee facility in Detmold, a city in west-central Germany. The girl and her mother reportedly fled their homeland to escape a culture of sexual violence; as it turns out, the man who raped the girl is from their country.
Although the rape took place in June, police kept silent about it for nearly three months, until local media published a story about the crime. According to an editorial comment in the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, police are refusing to go public about crimes involving refugees and migrants because they do not want to give legitimacy to critics of mass migration.
Police chief Bernd Flake countered that the silence was aimed at protecting the victim. "We will continue with this policy [of not informing the public] whenever crimes are committed in refugee facilities," he said.
Over the weekend of June 12-14, a 15-year-old girl housed at a refugee shelter in Habenhausen, a district in the northern city of Bremen, was repeatedly raped by two other asylum seekers. The facility has been has been described as a "house of horrors" due to the spiraling violence perpetrated by rival gangs of youth from Africa and Kosovo. A total of 247 asylum seekers are staying at the shelter, which has a capacity for 180 and a cafeteria with seating for 53.
Meanwhile, the raping of German women by asylum seekers is becoming commonplace. Following are a few select cases just from 2015:
On September 11, a 16-year-old girl was raped by an unidentified "dark-skinned man speaking broken German" close to a refugee shelter in the Bavarian town of Mering. The attack occurred while the girl was walking home from the train station.
On August 13, police arrested two Iraqi asylum seekers, aged 23 and 19, for raping an 18-year-old German woman behind a schoolyard in Hamm, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia.
On July 26, a 14-year-old boy was sexually assaulted inside the bathroom of a regional train in Heilbronn, a city in southwestern Germany. Police are looking for a "dark skinned" man between the ages of 30 and 40 who has an "Arab appearance." Also on July 26, a 21-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker raped a 20-year-old woman in the Dornwaldsiedlung district of Karlsruhe. Police kept the crime secret until August 14, when a local paper went public with the story.
On June 9, two Somali asylum seekers, aged 20 and 18, were sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for raping a 21-year-old German woman in Bad Kreuznach, a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, on December 13, 2014.
On June 5, a 30-year-old Somali asylum seeker called "Ali S" was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for attempting to rape a 20-year-old woman in Munich. Ali had previously served a seven-year sentence for rape, and had been out of prison for only five months before he attacked again. In an effort to protect the identity of Ali S, a Munich newspaper referred to him by the more politically correct "Joseph T."
On May 22, a 30-year-old Moroccan man was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for attempting to rape a 55-year-old woman in Dresden. On May 20, a 25-year-old Senegalese asylum seeker was arrested after he attempted to rape a 21-year-old German woman at the Stachus, a large square in central Munich.
On April 16, a 21-year-old asylum seeker from Iraq was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison for raping a 17-year-old girl at festival in the Bavarian town of Straubing in August 2014. On April 7, a 29-year-old asylum seeker was arrested for the attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl in the town of Alzenau.
On March 17, two Afghan asylum seekers aged 19 and 20 were sentenced to five years in prison for the "particularly abhorrent" rape of a 21-year-old German woman in Kirchheim, a town near Stuttgart, on August 17, 2014.
On February 11, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea was sentenced to four years in prison for raping a 25-year-old German woman in Stralsund, along the Baltic Sea, in October 2014.
On February 1, a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Somalia was arrested after attempting to rape women in the Bavarian town of Reisbach.
On January 16, a 24-year-old Moroccan immigrant raped a 29-year-old woman in Dresden.
Dozens of other cases of rape and attempted rape — cases in which police are specifically looking for foreign perpetrators (German police often refer to them as Südländer, or "southerners") — remain unresolved. Following is a partial list just for August 2015:
On August 23, a "dark skinned" man attempted to rape a 35-year-old woman in Dortmund. On August 17, three male "southerners" attempted to rape a 42-year-old woman in Ansbach. On August 16, a male "southerner" raped a woman in Hanau.
On August 12, a male "southerner" attempted to rape a 17-year-old woman in Hannover. Also on August 12, a male "southerner" exposed himself to a 31-year-old woman in Kassel. Police say a similar incident occurred in the same area on August 11.
On August 10, five men of "Turkish origin" attempted to rape a girl in Mönchengladbach. Also on August 10, a male "southerner" raped a 15-year-old girl in Rinteln. On August 8, a male "southerner" attempted to rape a 20-year-old woman in Siegen.
On August 3, a "North African" raped a seven-year-old girl in broad daylight in a park in Chemnitz, a city in eastern Germany. On August 1, a male "southerner" attempted to rape a 27-year-old woman in downtown Stuttgart.
Meanwhile, parents are being warned to look after their daughters. Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. They have also advised women not to walk to or from the train station alone because of its proximity to a refugee shelter.
In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing in order to avoid "misunderstandings" with the 200 Muslim refugees housed in emergency accommodations in a building next to the school. The letter said:
"The Syrian citizens are mainly Muslim and speak Arabic. The refugees have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be worn in order to avoid disagreements. Revealing tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings."
A local politician quoted by Die Welt newspaper said:
"When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear."
The increase in sex crimes in Germany is being fueled by the preponderance of Muslim males among the mix of refugees/migrants entering the country.
Where are the women?
Of the 411,567 refugees/migrants who have entered the EU by sea so far this year, 72% have been male. Above, some of the hundreds of migrants who arrived in Munich on September 12, 2015.
A record 104,460 asylum seekers arrived in Germany in August, bringing the cumulative total for the first eight months of 2015 to 413,535. Germany expects to receive a total of 800,000 refugees and migrants this year, a four-fold increase over 2014.
At least 80% of the incoming refugees/migrants are Muslim, according to a recent estimate by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland, ZMD), a Muslim umbrella group based in Cologne.
The asylum seekers are also overwhelmingly male. Of the 411,567 refugees/migrants who have entered the European Union by sea so far this year, 72% have been male, 13% women and 15% children, according to calculations by the United Nations Refugee Agency. Information about the gender of those arriving by land remains unavailable.
Of the asylum seekers arriving in Germany in 2014, 71.5% of those between ages 16 and 18 were male; 77.5% in the 18-25 age group were male; as were 73.5% of those between 25 and 30, according to German migration statistics. Data for 2015 is not yet available.
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.

Hezbollah's desperate recruiting in the Bekaa
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/September 18/15
Saadnayel residents clashed with members of the Resistance Brigades at the Ali Ibn Abi Taleb Mosque over the imam’s involvement in recruiting Sunni youth for Hezbollah. (National News Agency)
Ayoub did not need his legs to stand up for his family. When he found out that his brother was missing, he did not think twice. He went to the mosque and waited for the sheikh to arrive for evening prayer. From the height of his wheelchair Ayoub gave the cleric a piece of his mind. “I told him: ‘You shall not preach here as long as I live! Where is my brother?! Tell me where they took my brother!’”
Sheikh Bilal Shahimi, the imam of Ali Ibn Abi Talib Mosque in Saadnayel, is close to Hezbollah — the villagers know it. Together with several family members, he has been recruiting young men from the Sunni town for the party’s Saraya Mouqawama [Resistance Brigades], where Hezbollah assigns supporters who do not meet the religious and ideological conditions to join the party.
Ayoub’s brother had joined the Saraya and there were rumors in town that he had been sent to Syria together with other young men from Saadnayel. Ayoub posted a Facebook status: “I will not let the sheikh enter the mosque if he doesn’t tell me where my brother is. Whoever is man enough should come to stand with me.” Then he went to the mosque. Many people from the town — parents and relatives of the recruited youths — indeed stood with him.
Young men from the village say that they now look up to Ayoub for his courage. “He was the one who started all of this and the people followed and stopped the sheikh from going to the mosque that night. [Sheikh Shahimi] came back with 10 armed men — Palestinians from the village — and they shot at us with a machinegun,” a young resident of Saadnayel says while showing NOW the way to Ayoub’s house. “[Ayoub] is in a wheelchair,” he says, “but he has guts.”
Ayoub adjusts the remote-controlled bed. He says he’s still angry. “[Sheikh Shahimi] has been preaching here for 20 years already. I have no idea if he was Hezbollah’s man before, but he started recruiting young men from the town three years ago.”
It was precisely three years ago, during an incident involving the Resistance Brigades, when Ayoub was put into a wheelchair. Sheikh Shahimi was also involved. “Three years ago many people from the village wanted him to leave the mosque because of his Hezbollah affiliation. I did not interfere at first. I wanted to stay out of trouble,” he said. But a friend’s family went against the sheikh after he recruited one of their sons, and Ayoub backed them up. That is when the boys from the Brigades shot at him. A bullet hit Ayoub’s spine and left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Saraya Mouqawama
The Resistance Brigadeswere set up in 1997 as a separate body of Hezbollah’s military to accommodate non-Shiites within the Islamic resistance against the Israeli occupation. It incorporated Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze who wanted to join the fight and participate in attacks against the Israeli army. The occupation ended in 2000, but the Brigades still exist. Their presence in the Bekaa Valley and South Lebanon has been heavily criticized within the Sunni community over the years, especially since the Future Movement made Hezbollah’s weapons one of its main grievances in 2005. Some Future Movement politicians even tried to put the dismantling of the Resistance Brigades on the agenda of the ongoing dialogue with Hezbollah, but in vain.
“What is, in fact, the Resistance Brigades? It’s a kind of tool to create divisions among families and communities,” Future Bloc Bekaa coordinator Ayoub Kazoun told NOW. “They see the weakness in people — they search for people who need financial help, who have financial problems; they approach them and use the excuse of fighting terrorism and fighting Israel.” Kazoun says the recruiting in Sunni communities across the Bekaa Valley has become more aggressive and overt in the past two years, and he believes it’s a political strategy to keep the Sunni community from threatening Hezbollah’s domestic political plans while the party is busy fighting in Syria.
Dividing the Sunnis
“Hezbollah is well-connected everywhere in the region and even some clerics are in its pocket,” said Ali Majzoub, secretary of Majdal Anjar municipality. “They’re using the unemployed, the poor. Every young man has the ambition to own a car, a mobile phone etc. That’s how these groups can use these young men. It was more discreet before 2013, but now it has become very clear.” But Majzoub says the Resistance Brigades are not kept active for the sake of recruiting new soldiers for the Syrian fronts. According to Kazoun, even when Lebanese Sunnis support the Hezbollah-led March 8 movement politically, they don’t sign up to fight in Syria.
“Hezbollah had a clear strategy after it got involved in Syria: to let the Lebanese Army fight in Arsal and protect its back in Lebanon, because it wanted to concentrate only on fighting in Syria,” he said. “But that did not work, so it focused on recruiting for Saraya Mouqawamaand had a view [of the situation inside the Sunni community] that turned out to be wrong.”
Kazoun says the Sunni community was disappointed with the Future Movement’s weakness after Saad Hariri’s government fell in 2011 and the Syrian uprising started, and that this paved the way for Hezbollah to interfere. “But their calculations turned out to be wrong: Future Movement supporters did not engage in domestic fights against other Sunni members of the Resistance Brigades. There are people who come and tell us that they are working with the Saraya Mouqawama and they tell us why. We know exactly what the situation is. And we know they will not be sent to the front.”
The perks
In the region around Majdal Anjar, a town situated just a mile away from the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, the Resistance Brigades openly recruits members and makes its presence very visible. “I think it is recruitment strategy,” says Majzoub. “The more they show off; the more they show they are powerful, the more members join. They are very smart, these people in Hezbollah — they know how to deal with every community. Here, they take people who have problems with the authorities or who have arrest warrants issued in their names. They solve their problems and then they ask them to cooperate.”
Mazjoub says that no recruits from the Majdal Anjar area fight in Syria and he doesn’t believe any Sunni member of the Resistance Brigades has sent to the front. “But they are sent to trainings, just in case they might be needed. What the Sunnis are used for, however, are reconnaissance missions in Syria, as they have access to rebel areas and make good informants.
“They offer some money; around $400 per month. But more than that, they offer weapons, and, most of all, protection and the illusion that they are powerful. They can do whatever they want; they’re protected, they don’t get arrested. Nobody even questions them,” Ayoub says. “My brother was recruited and taken to a training camp in Baalbek. When he came back, I tried to convince him to quit. He didn’t, and he left again recently.”
When his brother did not come back and rumors began to circulate that the young men from the town might have died in Syria, Ayoub wanted answers. He got one answer, but no explanations: his brother was in Baalbek for training. Ayoub shrugs. He says as long as his brother is alive, he’s at peace.
Stirring the spirits of war
Sheikh Shahimi hasn’t stepped foot in the Ali Ibn Abi Talib Mosque since the protest against him last week. The sermons and prayers are now held by Sheikh Issa Kheireddine, who is also being tasked with deescalating the conflict. “There is no real solution to these problems,” he told NOW. “This is happening in Saadnayel, Majdel Anjar, Bar Elias and other towns in the Bekaa Valley. We are trying to spread awareness among the youth to limit the recruitments.”
For Sheikh Kheireddine the situation is dangerously close to a civil war. “If the plan was to resist Israel, the Sunni communities do not have a problem joining the Resistance. But if the plan was to find the weakness of the Sunni community and take advantage of its fears, this is not the way things work. The Sunni people, who see Saraya al-Mouqawama members holding weapons, shooting people, driving cars with tinted windows and acting like thugs, will not accept this. This will create more tension and more division,” he warned. “This is not the Lebanon we want. I do not want to live in an extremist country. I want to live with the Christians and the Shiites and the Druze.”
Ana Maria Luca tweets @aml1609
Myra Abdallah contributed reporting and translating.

Opposites protract
Michael Young/Now Lebanon/September 18/15
Alas, Russia has a plan in Syria, but America doesn’t
One day someone will write a book on how the United States and Russia behaved in Syria. They will argue that whereas the Russians had a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve, the Americans had none whatsoever, and spent years backtracking or adjusting to a reality that surpassed them.
This was made evident again this week when General Lloyd Austin, the commander of US Central Command, admitted to Congress that only “four or five” Syrians who had been trainees under a $500 million program to arm and train “moderate” rebels were fighting in Syria. This was a shock, despite Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s disclosure in July that the United States had trained only 60 rebels to combat ISIS in Syria.
The Obama administration now accepts that its program has failed and is looking to change direction. The Americans aim to bring in up to 500 Syrians as “enablers and liaisons” to coordinate between US forces stationed outside Syria and groups inside that have been deemed effective against ISIS.
In other words, the administration is still avoiding what is at the heart of the Syrian conflict: Bashar Assad. Even as they tell the Russians that Assad’s presence is fueling the war, the Americans refuse to take action that might force him out. Washington has refused to arm and train rebels to fight the Assad regime, fearing that its sudden collapse might benefit ISIS.
US officials told media outlets last July that an agreement had been reached with Turkey over the creation of an ISIS-free zone in northern Syria, which could double as a safe zone for displaced Syrians. Yet Austin contradicted this when he told Senator John McCain that he did not recommend such a zone “at this time.”The Americans have warned the Russians against a military build-up in Syria, arguing it would only prolong the war. The Russians are keeping a mass murderer in place, but for Washington to tell the Russians this when American inaction for nearly five years has allowed the conflict to drag on and become a humanitarian nightmare shows remarkable nerve. Russia is morally condemnable in Syria, yet President Vladimir Putin quickly grasped one thing in 2011: It’s better to know what one wants and pursue it with conviction than to try to be morally upright and allow one’s indecision to make a situation worse. Neither Syria’s opposition nor their Arab backers has made Russia pay for its pro-Assad line, while the Obama administration is viewed by both with ill-concealed contempt.
What is the Russian plan in Syria? There is more to it than merely arming and bolstering Assad. The Russians tend to think in strategic terms, and see that keeping Assad in power must be fortified with a political arrangement. Apparently Putin believes the time is ripe for such an arrangement, with Europe facing a major refugee crisis, the United States still having no Syria policy, and the Syrians exhausted by years of war.
If one had to guess, the Russians see an opening to use terrorism fears in the West as an opportunity to push through a political plan that keeps Assad in power and that would isolate his foes, above all Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The plan in question is likely to be a modified version of the one proposed by the United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura.
De Mistura has proposed that four working groups be set up, including representatives of the regime and the opposition, to discuss safety and protection, political and constitutional issues, military and security issues, including fighting terrorism, and public institutions and development.
Revealingly, De Mistura has said that his plan is based on two pillars: combating terrorism and protecting Syrian state institutions. This must be music to Russian ears. The plan would outline a transitional phase, during which a temporary government would be formed with executive powers. The proposal has been adopted by the UN and welcomed by Egypt, but is rejected by the Syrian opposition.
Indeed, much of the plan is vague and there is no mechanism for Assad to step down. However, whereas De Mistura may favor turning Assad into a figurehead to attract opposition approval, the Russians have excluded this. Moscow feels it can impose Assad as a leader, and a recent British proposal that he remain in power for a limited transitional phase, like signs of a Spanish shift on Assad, shows they may be justified.
At the same time the Russians are said to be deploying forces to the city of Hama. If confirmed, this would put them on the front line in fighting Jabhat al-Nusra and to a lesser extent ISIS in Aleppo Governorate. Having proven their bona fides in combating terrorism, and having secured Assad in Latakia Governorate, the Russians would be in a better position to push everyone toward a solution in Syria that ultimately keeps Assad in place.
That is easier said than done, but the Europeans are so overwhelmed by Syrian refugees that they may be willing to consider it. The Americans have criticized the Russians, but are focused on improving ties with Iran and have no enthusiasm for seriously opposing Russian actions. And the Arab states and Turkey offer nothing but more war and radicalization, so that their position may be eroded internationally, forcing them to reconsider their actions in Syria if a consensus emerges.
The Russians’ intentions are cynical, but their single-mindedness may pay off. What they really see is that on the other side of the aisle they have an Obama administration that has proven utterly incompetent in Syria. The highway is open and the Russians will ride it until they get what they want.
***Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star newspaper. He tweets @BeirutCalling