LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
September 23/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.september23.15.htm

Bible Quotation For Today/Whoever is not against us is for us.
Mark 09/38-50: "John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.+t,+u And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. ‘For everyone will be salted with fire."Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’"

Bible Quotation For Today/ I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary
Book of Revelation 02/01-07: "‘To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 22-23/15
Why Israel prefers a hot line to a military coordination center with Russia/DEBKAfile/September 22/15
Is the Pope's Dream Our Totalitarian Nightmare/Susan Warner/Gatestone Institute/September 22/15
Pakistan: ISIS Plans Terrorist Campaign against Christians/Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/September 22/15
Syrian Military And Political Opposition: Russian Forces In Syria Are Occupation Forces, We Will Expel Them From Our Country/MEMRI//September 22/15
Still hope for regime change in Iran/BENJAMIN WEINTHAL/J.Post/September 22/15
Phyllis Chesler/When Women Commit Honor Killings/Phyllis Chesler/Middle East Quarterly/September 22/15
Yigal Carmon/Iran Openly Declares That It Intends To Violate UNSCR 2231 That Endorses The JCPOA/Distinguishable English Reports//September 22/15
Bahah and Bakri: The promising future of Yemen/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
‘Mama Merkel’ helps heal wounds of Germany’s past/Diana Moukalled/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
Chechens face an epic battle in Syria/Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
Rowhani in New York: Another baby step towards reconciliation/Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/September 22/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on September 22-23/15
Lebanon leaders meet again amid impromptu protest
Dialogue Parties Tackle Electoral Law, Appointments as Activists Throw Balls across Barrier
Pro-Hezbollah daily says party in Syria pact with Russia
Hezbollah Strategy: Paralyze Politics In Lebanon
Shehayyeb Says Waste Plan Closer to Implementation as Naameh Activists Reiterate Rejection of Landfill Reopening
Mustaqbal Says Presidential Vote is 'Obligatory Gateway' to Resolve Political Crisis
Officials: Progress in Talks on Army Promotions
General Security Arrests Syrian Terrorist
Aoun Suggests Proportional Representation Law Based on 15 Districts, Says Most Parties Back It

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 22-23/15
Pope Leaves Cuba for First-Ever Trip to U.S.
Syria Kurds earning millions from oil sales
A journalist’s life in Aleppo: “A race with death”
U.N. Syria Envoy Seeks to Restart Peace Talks
Moscow Delivers Warplanes to Syria in Latest Boost to Regime
Tsipras to Form Cabinet, Push EU on Migration after Election Win
Israel to Compensate Church Torched by Extremists
Yemen President Returns to Aden after Six-Month Exile
Ex-CIA Chief Petraeus Calls for More U.S. Action in Syria
German Vice Chancellor Urges More Help on Jordan Visit to Refugees
Abbas Warns of Risk of New Intifada
Rouhani: Iran Best Defense against Mideast 'Terror'
Netanyahu, Putin Agree Plan to Avoid Syria Clashes
Why Israel prefers a hot line to a military coordination center with Russia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 22, 2015

Links From Jihad Watch Web site For Today
German police raids target Islamic State recruiters, suspected of recruiting among refugees
Philippines: Islamic State jihadists abduct four people from holiday resort
Washington Post quotes Islamic apologists’ taqiyya to “prove” Ben Carson wrong about taqiyya
Carson won’t back down: “I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country”
Robert Spencer in PJ Media: The Islamophobes who agree with Ben Carson
Hamas-linked CAIR announces Qur’an giveaway in response to Ben Carson’s remarks
Hamas-linked CAIR ejects Breitbart reporter from anti-Carson press conference
Nigeria: Islamic State murder 85 in series of jihad bombings
New Glazov Gang: ISIS’s Hijrah Advice

Lebanon leaders meet again amid impromptu protest
Now Lebanon/September 22/15/BEIRUT – Lebanon’s feuding leaders have met once again in the Parliament as civil society activists held an impromptu protest nearby amid intense security measures. Although the #YouStink movement announced that it was not going to protest the third round of the national dialogue session, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside a security barrier to kick balls into Downtown Beirut bearing letters with their demands. Security forces in the morning erected a portable concrete wall at the entrance of the street leading into Downtown from the An-Nahar building, where protesters last week clashed with riot police during the previous national dialogue session. Just as they did with the concrete wall briefly set up outside the Grand Serail, activists spray painted the concrete barrier with protest slogans and artwork, while the leaders of the country’s parliamentary blocs—except the Lebanese Forces—gathered in a bid to resolve the country’s political paralysis. The national dialogue session ended inconclusively in the early afternoon, with reports saying the politicians had, again, discussed the election of a new president. Reports emerged that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun dropped his demand for the election of a president by popular vote, a proposal rejected by other parties, but called for a new parliament to be elected via a proportional vote. The next dialogue sessions are scheduled to be held on three consecutive days starting October 6, raising the specter of further protests, while Aoun's FPM is set to hold its own protest outside the Baabda Presidential Palace on October 11. As the political leaders met, a seperate rally was also held outside the Justice Palace in Beirut's Adlieh by a newly formed civil activist group called the "Cry of the Nation," which called for the country's judiciary to tackle corruption. Tuesday’s Downtown Beirut protest remained peaceful and festive, as was the mass march on Sunday, in a far cry from the chaos that engulfed the demonstration outside the previous national dialogue session. Activists were enraged by their treatment at the hands of the security forces in last Wednesday’s protest, with a number of videos as well as television feeds showing clear-cut cases of police brutality. At least 40 protesters were arrested, sparking a larger demonstration that evening until all the detainees were released. Afterward, Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk raised eyebrows with his controversial remark that demonstrators were “looking for someone to beat them so they can bleed on the street.”

Dialogue Parties Tackle Electoral Law, Appointments as Activists Throw Balls across Barrier
Naharnet/September 22/15/ Lebanon's rival leaders met on Tuesday for the third round of national dialogue amid heavy reinforcements made by security forces to stop protesters from reaching the parliament building in downtown Beirut's Nejmeh Square. A terse statement said the conferees focused on the issue of the presidential vacuum and that the next rounds of national dialogue will be held on October 6, 7 and 8. Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh told reporters that the meeting was “more than positive.”For his part, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said “the debate is continuous and serious,” declining to reveal more details. He however said that the dialogue parties will not agree on a new president “unless they take us to the Seychelles islands.” Meanwhile, Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun “gave up his demand on electing a president by a popular vote and spoke of a proportional representation (electoral) law based on 15 electorates,” LBCI television said. After the dialogue session ended, a two-hour, closed-door meeting was held at Speaker Nabih Berri's office in the presence of Premier Tammam Salam, al-Mustaqbal bloc chief ex-PM Fouad Saniora, Jumblat, Aoun and Hizbullah MP Mohammed Raad. Media reports said the meeting tackled the controversial issue of the promotion of army officers. “A settlement over military appointments failed after Saniora rejected it,” MTV said. Police had put concrete blocks as part of exceptional security measures they took near the square and the roads leading to it, a security official said. The official told al-Joumhouria newspaper that police would confront any attempt to breach the erected barrier. Despite the police measures, activists gathered in the area wearing sportswear with printed slogans demanding to topple the regime. They began throwing footballs from across the barrier after writing slogans on them. “We are playing here the same way they (the officials) are playing,” said one of them. On Sunday, hundreds of protesters pushed through a security cordon as they marched toward parliament. It was the latest in a series of demonstrations that began with a trash crisis following the closure of the Naameh landfill but has since expanded to target the country's political class. After more than an hour of standoff and some scuffles, protesters broke through the cordon. Police let them into the street leading to the square and the parliament, but set up a new cordon closer to the parliament building. The official also told al-Joumhouria that security forces took extra measures near the Justice Palace in Beirut after a previously unknown group naming itself the “Nation's Cry” held a sit-in in the area to call for distancing the judiciary from corruption. The all-party talks chaired by Berri began last month after the eruption of the anti-government protests. The movement is growing to include different groups with varied grievances about government dysfunction. There has been recurrent friction between police and protesters. Last week, MP Michel Aoun did not attend the talks. He delegated his son-in-law Free Patriotic Movement chief Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil instead. Bassil told An Nahar that the FPM's "stance is clear." "The people are the source of all powers,” said Bassil, who recently took over the FPM leadership from Aoun.The movement has been calling for direct presidential elections to resolve Lebanon's political crisis which erupted when Michel Suleiman's six-year term ended in May last year. Baabda Palace has been vacant since then.The presidential deadlock tops the agenda of the all-party talks, which are expected to tackle the resumption of the work of parliament and the cabinet, a new electoral draft-law, legislation allowing Lebanese expats to obtain the nationality, administrative decentralization and ways to support the army and the Internal Security Forces.

Pro-Hezbollah daily says party in Syria pact with Russia
Now Lebanon/September 22/15/Al-Akhbar claimed that Russian troops will fight alongside Hezbollah in Syria
BEIRUT – A leading pro-Hezbollah daily claimed on Tuesday that the party has joined a new counter-terror alliance with Moscow and that Russia will take part in military operations alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah. Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin wrote that secret talks between Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq had resulted in the birth of the new alliance, which he described as “the most important in the region and the world for many years.”“The agreement to form the alliance includes administrative mechanisms for cooperation on [the issues of] politics and intelligence and [for] military [cooperation] on the battlefield in several parts of the Middle East, primarily in Syria and Iraq,” the commentator said, citing well-informed sources. “The parties to the alliance are the states of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah as the fifth party,” he also said, adding that the joint-force would be called the “4+1 alliance” – a play on words referring to the P5+1 world powers that negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran. The Al-Akhbar article came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow over the latter country’s major military build-up in Syria. Following their meeting, Netanyahu announced that Russia and Israel had agreed to “a joint mechanism for preventing misunderstandings between our forces,” and reiterated that Tel Aviv’s commitment to preventing weapon transfers from Syria to Hezbollah.
Putin, in turn, told Netanyahu that the Syrian regime was in “no position” to open a new front against Israel, which has conducted regular airstrikes in Syria targeting weapon transfers as well as in retaliation to cross-border rocket fire. Al-Akhbar says Russia coordinating with Hezbollah, Kurdish forces
Despite the reported agreement between Tel Aviv and Moscow, Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief said that Russian forces were coordinating with Hezbollah in Syria. [Several] days ago, Russian officers accompanied by specialists… from the Russian forces arriving in Syria toured a number of positions in Hama’s Al-Ghab Plain area and carried out a field survey accompanied by Syrian Army and Hezbollah officers,” Amin claimed. “Similar tours took place in the [areas] around Idlib and in the mountain range overlooking Latakia.”“It has become clear that the Russian force is made up of various specializations, from air force [units] to units specialized in sniper operations and artillery officers, as well as survey and observation teams.” He also made the startling claim that Russia will “play a prominent role on the ground and will participate in combat on the battlefield with their advanced weaponry by leading operations and taking part in artillery shelling, air [raids] and otherwise, alongside the Syrian army and Hezbollah.”“The Russians have also set up a coordination process with Kurdish forces and parties,” the article said. “A Russian military delegate paid a secret visit to a number of Kurdish military commanders in Hasakeh and inspected areas of confrontation between the YPG and the armed groups.”

Hezbollah Strategy: Paralyze Politics In Lebanon
By: JNi.Media/The Jewish Press/Published: September 21st, 2015
(JNi.media) A Hezbollah official said on Sunday that his party is willing to wait a thousand years for the election of a strong president—this while efforts to resolve the country’s 4-month Cabinet crisis finally looked like they were bearing fruit, YA Libnan reported. “Whoever wants to buy time to bring us a president who is not strong is wasting the country’s time. We will wait for a thousand years in order to get a president of this type,” said the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammad Raad at a ceremony in south Lebanon. “We want a president who is nationally chosen, we don’t want names that are circulated in the corridors of the embassies of foreign countries. Simply and honestly, we want a president who enjoys the support of his community and has a sovereign mind and a patriotic spirit,” Raad demanded. According to YA Libnan, Hezbollah officially backs the candidacy of General Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the largest party in the Christian half of parliament. But Aoun is far from appealing to Hezbollah. As Prime Minister, Aoun declared “The Liberation War” against the Syrian Occupation in March 1989. In October 1990, the Syrian Army invaded Beirut killing hundreds of unarmed soldiers and civilians. General Aoun fled to France. He returned to Lebanon in 2005, eleven days after the withdrawal of Syrian troops. In 2006, as head of the FPM, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah. Article 24 of the Constitution of Lebanon, in an attempt to maintain equality between Christians and Muslims, mandates that half the seats shall be given to Christians and half to Muslims. Aoun wants his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, head of the Army’s Commando Unit, to become Army commander. But Defense Minister Samir Moqbel extended the term of the current Army chief, Gen. Jean Kahwagi. FPM now conditions its own joining the political process on securing the job for Roukoz. Prime Minister Tammam Salam said on Saturday that “the Cabinet is not paralyzed,” it’s only on a hiatus until Salam returns from his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 26. He plans to remain in New York until Sept. 30. Hezbollah and Amal are the two major Shiite political parties in Lebanon. Hezbollah It holds 14 of the 128 seats in Parliament and is a member of the Resistance and Development Bloc. According to Daniel L. Byman, it’s “the most powerful single political movement in Lebanon.”http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/hezbollah-strategy-paralyze-politics-in-lebanon/2015/09/21/

Shehayyeb Says Waste Plan Closer to Implementation as Naameh Activists Reiterate Rejection of Landfill Reopening
Naharnet/September 22/15/ Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb said Wednesday that his waste management plan is on the right track of implementation to resolve the country’s two-month garbage crisis. “Preparations for the implementation of the plan are ongoing and the work is serious,” Shehayyeb told al-Joumhouria newspaper. “It has become closer to reality.”“We found a landfill on the eastern mountain range and we are working with the army and officials in the area” to strike a deal on its functioning, he said. Preparations have also been made for the operation of the Srar landfill in the northern district of Akkar, he added. Later on Tuesday, Shehayyeb announced that "there is no alternative to resolve the garbage crisis other than the participatory solution that we have reached." "We're seeking to overcome all obstacles," he said, following a meeting with Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq. He noted that the attempt to reopen the controversial Naameh landfill is aimed at dumping "around 50,000 tons of waste of which 10,000 are burnt." He was referring to trash that has been accumulating on the sides of the streets and in random sites in Beirut and Mount Lebanon since the July 17 closure of the landfill. "We know that there are voices that have objected against the reopening of the Naameh landfill for 7 days but the municipalities' stance was clear," he added, in response to a reporter's question. "The waste management plan is a victory for the popular protest movement and had it not been for them, the file would not have reached any solutions," he noted. Meanwhile, the Campaign for the Closure of the Naameh Landfill held a new sit-in outside the site and reiterated its rejection of any reopening of the landfill, citing health and environmental risks. The waste crisis erupted in July when Lebanon's largest landfill in Naameh was closed. Trash began piling up on the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, forcing the dumping of waste in makeshift sites and along the banks of rivers. After the pressure exerted by civil society activists through a series of anti-government protests, Shehayyeb came up with a plan last month to dump the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon in several landfills across Lebanon. He has since been holding consultations with activists and locals to approve the plan.

Mustaqbal Says Presidential Vote is 'Obligatory Gateway' to Resolve Political Crisis
Naharnet/September 22/15/ Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc reiterated Tuesday that the country's political deadlock can only be resolved through holding the long-stalled presidential election, hours after MP Michel Aoun called for staging parliamentary polls under a proportional representation law. “The continued presidential vacuum that is being imposed on the Lebanese by Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement is an incomplete coup against the Constitution,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting. It called on lawmakers “to reach an agreement on electing a new president in order to pull Lebanon out of the major quandary that is going through.”The bloc noted that the election of a president would reactivate the work of the paralyzed cabinet and parliament. “Some are making a lot of suggestions, but what we need remains unchanged: the election of a president as an obligatory gateway to reach a solution,” Mustaqbal underlined. It also criticized the civil society protest movement for demanding parliamentary elections that would precede the presidential vote, saying such a suggestion reflects “bias in favor of a certain political camp.” “The election of a president is the key to rebuilding the constitutional institutions,” the bloc insisted. Earlier on Tuesday, Aoun suggested devising a law for parliamentary elections that would be based on proportional representation and 15 electoral districts, noting that most parties who took part in Tuesday's dialogue session supported his proposal. He also emphasized that “there is no law that stipulates electing a president before electing a parliament.” The last legislative elections were held in 2009, and parliament has twice extended its own mandate, citing internal political divisions and regional instability as justification. The country has been without a president for more than a year, as a divided parliament has been unable to fill the post despite meeting more than 20 times. The parliamentary blocs of Aoun and Hizbullah have been boycotting the electoral sessions and stripping them of the needed quorum.

Officials: Progress in Talks on Army Promotions
Naharnet/September 22/15/Change and Reform bloc officials revealed Tuesday that consultations among top politicians aimed at ending the deadlock on the promotion of army officers have made progress. The officials, who were not identified, told al-Mustaqbal newspaper that the talks are tackling the promotions and the activation of the work of parliament and the government. Ministers representing Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun have been boycotting cabinet sessions over their insistence to agree on a working mechanism for the government in the absence of a president and the promotion of army officers. Their boycott has paralyzed the cabinet, adding to the country's woes, which started with the vacuum at Baabda Palace following the end of President Michel Suleiman's six-year tenure in May 2014. Parliament has also been paralyzed. The last time it met was when MPs extended their own term in November. Change and Reform totally rejects the extension of the terms of top military and security officials, calling for the appointment of new figures instead. It is also backing the promotion of army officers to keep Commando Regiment chief Chamel Roukoz in the military and make him eligible to become army commander because differences among rival parties are hindering new appointments in the absence of a president. Roukoz is the son-in-law of Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun. Sources said that Aoun's attendance of the national dialogue chaired by Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday will be a sign that a deal on the promotions is in the making.If the lawmaker continues to boycott the all-party talks and delegates his other son-in-law Free Patriotic Movement chief Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil instead, then it would be clear that his objectives have not yet been met.

General Security Arrests Syrian Terrorist
Naharnet/September 22/15/General Security announced on Tuesday that it has arrested a Syrian man suspected of heading a terrorist group and booby-trapping vehicles. “Syrian A.Aa. was apprehended for heading an armed terrorist cell, preparing explosives, manufacturing rockets and booby-trapping cars carrying Lebanese license plants at a factory he owns in the Syrian area of Yabroud,” said General Security in a communique. It said the man has collaborated with other suspects through the coordination of Syrian F.Q. who has claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing of the Iranian cultural center in Beirut last year. General Security said A.Aa. was referred to the judiciary after the agency questioned him. Efforts are underway to arrest the rest of the suspects, it added.

Aoun Suggests Proportional Representation Law Based on 15 Districts, Says Most Parties Back It
Naharnet/September 22/15/Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday suggested devising a law for parliamentary elections that would be based on proportional representation and 15 electoral districts, noting that most parties who took part in Tuesday's dialogue session supported his proposal. "During today's dialogue session, all parties spoke of the next president's characteristics and some talked in general about the people's problems,” said Aoun after the bloc's weekly meeting in Rabieh. “I said that there is an accumulation of crises, especially in the country's political life. It resulted from the extension of the parliament's term due to the absence of an electoral law, the thing that aggravated the problems,” he added. Aoun stressed that “there is no law that stipulates electing a president before electing a parliament.”“Who said that the president must be elected before the parliament? Let us return to the people, the source of authorities, and devise an electoral law based on proportional representation and 15 electoral districts,” he added. Noting that the 15-district proposal had been endorsed by Maronite political leaders during a summit in Bkirki, Aoun pointed out that the “vast majority” of dialogue parties described it as the “only solution” -- except for al-Mustaqbal bloc chief MP Fouad Saniora. The last legislative elections were held in 2009, and parliament has twice extended its own mandate, citing internal political divisions and regional instability as justification. The country has been without a president for more than a year, as a divided parliament has been unable to fill the post despite meeting more than 20 times. Aoun, one of the main presidential candidates, had suggested electing a president by a popular vote. His statements on Tuesday, however, indicate that he has backpedaled on the controversial proposal.

Pope Leaves Cuba for First-Ever Trip to U.S.
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Pope Francis left Cuba Tuesday for his first-ever visit to the United States, where he may get a slightly chillier reception in some quarters than on the Caribbean island. The pope, who played a key role in brokering the recent rapprochement between the Cold War foes, flew out of Cuba's second city Santiago on the same Alitalia plane that brought him from Rome. Cuban President Raul Castro saw him off at the airport after a four-day visit that featured three cities, three masses, countless handshakes with adoring crowds, and meetings with both Castro and his big brother Fidel, the men who have ruled the communist island since its 1959 revolution. Francis, 78, will be met at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington by U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, who will also welcome him at the White House Wednesday. His itinerary also includes landmark speeches to Congress and the U.N. General Assembly. Before flying out of Cuba, Francis said mass in Santiago, cradle of the Castros' uprising against dictator Fulgencio Batista, calling for a new kind of "revolution." Speaking at a basilica to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Cuba's patron saint -- a mixed-race Mary that symbolizes the island's intertwined Spanish and African roots -- he praised her as the embodiment of a "revolution of tenderness."He urged Cubans to follow her example "to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation," in comments that appeared to allude to the nascent reconciliation across the Florida Straits. Francis then addressed an audience of families, asking for their prayers as he prepares for a synod on the family next month that has unleashed internal conflicts among the Roman Catholic clergy over sensitive issues such as divorce, homosexuality and unmarried couples.
An anti-American pope?
Francis has received a warm welcome in Cuba, where he is immensely popular for his role in fostering the thaw that saw Washington and Havana restore diplomatic ties in July after more than half a century. He has had a packed schedule since arriving Saturday afternoon, and at times looked tired in the tropical heat. But that has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of the fans and faithful who have flocked to see the first Latin American pontiff. The Argentine pope is broadly popular in the United States, as well -- 70 percent of Americans approve of him, according to one recent poll, compared to 80 percent of Cubans, in a separate poll. But for some critics, the dominant themes of his papacy -- his critique of consumerism, calls to embrace poverty and condemnation of a "throwaway culture" -- sound suspiciously like an indictment of the American way of life. That was underlined ahead of his trip when Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who is Catholic, declared he would boycott the pontiff's historic address to Congress to protest his "leftist" views. The pope will not have won over such hardline conservatives with his Cuba visit, during which he has discreetly refrained from chastising the communist regime for its crackdowns on dissidents and curbs on civil liberties.
Tight security
Francis is expected to be more provocative in the United States when he addresses Congress on Thursday and the United Nations on Friday. The Jesuit pope carefully prepared his speeches for Washington and New York all summer long. His topics will include critiques of the dominance of finance and technology; a condemnation of world powers over the conflicts gripping the planet; appeals to protect and welcome immigrants; and climate change, including a bold appeal for a radical revolution of the energy industry and a slowdown in growth.His visit will take place under tight security, with U.S. authorities nervous over the complexities of protecting a pope who insists on traveling in an open vehicle to be close to the masses. The visit poses a particular security headache in New York, where Francis plans to criss-cross Manhattan at a time when 170 world leaders will be in town for the U.N. General Assembly. He will preside over an inter-faith ceremony at Ground Zero in the south, visit a Harlem Catholic school in the north and greet the crowds on a procession through Central Park. He will wrap up his trip Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia at an international festival of Catholic families.

Syria Kurds earning millions from oil sales
Now Lebanon/September 22/15/
The PYD has been exporting oil through Kurdish territory in northern
BEIRUT – The de-facto autonomous Kurdish Rojava region of Syria has been earning tens of millions of dollars in revenues from its recent oil exports shipped through Iraqi Kurdistan. “Syrian Kurdistan has been exporting its oil from the Rmeilan refinery using a pipeline built by the Baath party government,” Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw news reported Monday. “[The oil is then] transferred to the Alyuka refinery in the [Iraqi Kurdish] Zumar area, from there to Fishkhabour, and then on to Turkey’s Ceyhan port.” A “well informed source” told the agency that “the revenue from importing this oil exceeds $10 million” a month, a massive boon for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) that has overseen a dramatic expansion of territory as Kurdish troops have rolled back ISIS in recent months.The PYD’s booming oil business is being operated in co-operation with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has been at odds with the Syrian Kurds politically. Interestingly, the oil exports have also come as Ankara wages its military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey, which is affiliated with the PYD.
The beginning of the deal
Rudaw said that the Iraqi Peshmerga campaign to retake the Zumar and Rabia areas near the border with Syria had allowed the “PYD… to export the oil under its control to the outside world.” The Peshmerga routed ISIS from Zumar in late October 2014 following weeks of battles outside the town that saw international coalition jets provide aerial cover for the advancing Kurdish forces. An official in the area with knowledge of how oil is transferred from Syria explained how the deal between the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds had come about. “Several oil experts met with PYD leaders in western Kurdistan - [Syria] - [to discuss] how oil from the Rmeilan field could be sold via the Alyuka refineries near the Rabia district village of Mahmoudiyya,” the official, who preferred not to reveal his name told Rudaw. “Oil from those areas… was being sold using tankers, and some of it was going to waste because of smuggling.”
“So the PYD was forced to look for another method and reach an agreement with this part of Kurdistan,” the official said in reference to northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region. “There are over 500 oil wells [near] that refinery and they [occupy an] area of approximately 10 square kilometers.”Transport
According to Rudaw, the oil is being transferred via a “pipeline that is 10 inches in diameter and 9 kilometers long, stretching from the Rmeilan refinery in western Kurdistan to the Soufia refinery (Alyuka).” A source in the Kurdistan Regional government’s Ministry of Natural Resources told the agency that “until 2003, the Iraqi government exported 17 thousand barrels of oil per day via that pipeline from the Soufia and Ayn Zala refineries to Syria.”
The source explained that this had been done so that the Syrian government could “provide electricity to those border areas.”
“However, the export operation stopped after 2003.”
Parties to the deal
The official from the area said that the agreement had been signed by “oil investors” and not PYD officials in person.However, he added, the PYD “were informed and they are supervising everything.” “With regard to southern Kurdistan, it was a company and not the KRG that signed the deal, and it is [the company] that directly hands over the sums in cash every month.”“Around 20,000 barrels of oil are exported monthly to the Soufia field, and from there they are transported by tanker to the Kurdistan region’s refineries.”
“A moral duty”
“We do not have the details on the sale of western Kurdistan’s oil,” Kurdistan Parliament MP Ali Halo from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee told Rudaw.“However we support helping western Kurdistan both economically and in terms of morale.” With regard to the effect the sale of PYD controlled oil via the Kurdistan region could have on KRG-Turkish relations, Halo said that helping Syrian Kurds was mandatory. “We are mindful of those states in every way, but helping Kurds in western Kurdistan is a moral, national and humanitarian duty.” Turkey in late July launched a wide scale military campaign against the PYD-affiliated PKK, conducting airstrikes against the Turkish-based insurgent group in Iraq with the acquiescence of the KRG. Moreover, Ankara has raised fears over the PYD's expansion in northern Syria along Turkey's border, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing he would not accept a Kurdish state in the area.
Revenues
An oil expert told the agency that the PYD is making $10 million every month from the exports.
“The PYD is getting $10 million a month out of the revenues from selling that oil through the Kurdistan Democratic Party and oil companies close to it,” Dr. Bewar Khansi said. “This is a great financial boon for the PYD and western [Syrian] Kurdistan.” With regard to the quality of the oil, Khansi said that “the Soufia oil’s ATI is made up of 24 units, which means that it is neither good nor bad. It can be considered medium quality.” “For oil to be good its ATI has to be made up of over 30 units. This is what is known as light oil.” “Western Kurdistan’s oil is shared with southern [Iraqi] Kurdistan’s oil: 30% of it is in the south and 70% of it is in the west.”
Erbil and Damascus have been informed
A source told Rudaw that the operation could not have gone ahead without the consent of “the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the PYD authority also informs the Syrian government.”The source added that Syrian Kurdistan does not export all of its oil to Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
“It uses some of it in small refineries in western Kurdistan [to make] Kerosene and Benzene, [and to generate] electricity.”“It also gives some of it to the Syrian government, and it is not unlikely that it also gives some of the [revenues] to Syrian government.”

A journalist’s life in Aleppo: “A race with death”
Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/September 22/15
NOW interviews Zaina Erhaim, an award-winning journalist and activist living full-time under daily bombardment in rebel-held Aleppo
Erhaim and other activists demonstrate in Aleppo on the first anniversary of the August 2013 chemical weapons attacks in Damascus.
With the world’s attention captivated by the tragic deaths of thousands of Syrian refugees trying to make their way into Europe, it may seem incredible that a Syrian living in London would opt to make the reverse journey; swapping the safety of Britain for the barrel bomb-raining skies of opposition-held Aleppo.
Yet that is precisely what 30-year-old journalist and activist Zaina Erhaim, originally from Idlib, chose to do in 2013, leaving a job at BBC Arabic to train Syrian citizen journalists and, in her spare time, report from the devastated, bloody frontlines herself. For her efforts, in August 2015 she received the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism, administered by Reporters Without Borders and Agence France-Presse. She is also Syria project coordinator for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). NOW spoke to Erhaim by email on Monday to learn more about her extraordinary story.
NOW: How would you summarize the situation in Aleppo today?
Zaina Erhaim: It's chaos, living by chance, expecting to be the target in any attack. When [Der Spiegel journalist] Christoph [Reuter] visited me in Aleppo he told me we all look like zombies to him, the only difference is we are living with death, not already dead.
Some superpower keeps civilians going on. They manage to survive the lack of water, the blackout of electricity (it comes two hours a day at best), even when ISIS stopped allowing fuel from coming and it became very expensive, we started seeing bicycles in the streets. It's amazing how humans can adapt with such unbearable circumstances.
Some cars just put an A4 paper on their sides, writing "Taxi," so it turns into one. Another one cut a 7up bottle and put an LED light in it, then made a hole at the back of the roof, so from a distance and in the night you see that a taxi is in the street.
There are minibuses full with passengers, although they are not only party damaged, but have no windows at all, even the driver’s one is broken. In general, most glass is broken and people replace it with plastic. I had some glass windows in my house, but now even the plastic is broken because of the latest bombing.
People go on in ‘their life’ [quotation marks in original – Ed.] until the helicopter/jet comes. Then everything stops, it's like a hysteria where everyone is looking up, drivers, walkers, shoppers. My friend says when a jet is in the sky you can pee in the middle of the street and no one would notice! As if knowing where it's bombing is going to make any difference! It won't. It's more horrifying to listen to the ‘watchers’’ channel on the walkie-talkie, hearing where it's going and whether it’s finished its bombing or still has some barrels to drop. It's too stressful, especially as the bomb that hits your building doesn't make any sound. So as long as you’re hearing sounds that means your chance of staying alive is higher.
NOW: How do you stay sane in such an environment?
Erhaim: I don't think any of us is sane, we are all insane and each is expressing this in a different way. Some do it positively, like working hard to accomplish their goals before being killed. It's like being in a race with death. This is the good side of the story, you always feel like you are in rush to finish what you’re doing because the next hour, you or the ones you’re working with could vanish.
For activists, friends are the main support. I have lived great, warm minutes in the last year [such as] I didn't feel in my entire life. I had my first surprise birthday party in a basement with about fifteen close friends attending. They did everything as if it were in a fancy restaurant, even buying decorations for the basement from Turkey. I hosted a friend's wedding in my house and we were dancing while mortars are falling, so we raised the volume of the music to forget about it.
When you are so close to death, you learn to enjoy life to its maximum. The luxury of postposing a minute of joy is not available.
NOW: In practical terms, how do you work? How can you travel, hold meetings, and publish work, etc., when there are bombs falling and almost no electricity or Internet connections?
Erhaim: I am lucky to work for a good international organization and get my salary in US dollars, not Syrian pounds, so I can have my own satellite Internet and can buy a generator, and extra batteries to stay connected most of the time.
I always travel with my husband or a trusted friend who knows the roads very well. Yes, we are always being shot at or the road is being bombed, but it's still safer than the city (there are fewer things to kill you with their shrapnel). We usually do meetings in houses or one of the few public spaces that we can use, which is the theatre, built in the basement of a school. [The puppet theatre group] Bread Way did a play in it last year and they are working on their second play now.
NOW: You have trained about 100 people in citizen journalism over the past two years. What sort of people are the trainees? Are they able to find work as citizen journalists?
Erhaim: For the male trainees, most of them are already citizen journalists by practice, and they want to get professional skills. For women, I just call all whom are interested in learning, so mostly housewives, teachers and those who work for local NGOs and I start with them from the very zero point. Some of them didn't even make it to their 12th grade, but they want to learn and they end up writing amazing features.
Some of those trained work for AFP, Al Jazeera, Al-Aan TV, Al-Arabiya, Alkul radio, Fresh radio. But those whom I am most proud of are the women who didn't know how to write a diary, and now they are publishing not only in our website Damascus Bureau but also in Soar magazine, Dawdaa magazine, Al-Aan website and Rozana. Some of those who I trained (three specifically) asked for my presentation and supporting materials and gave the same training to fifteen other people, and those trained by them are also working now. Nothing is more joyful than reading their beautifully written stories!
NOW: Is this the same as your work for IWPR?
Erhaim: With IWPR I am the Syria project coordinator and trainer, so this is all part of my work with IWPR, but I also have different tasks. Three months ago I also established My Space center, which is a women-only Internet cafe.
[Ordinarily] they can't get into Internet cafes because they’re men-dominated, and the subscription is expensive, and even when they have access, they don't have anyone to guide them how to use it.
This mirrors the need to open the door of the Internet to local women, and for free. Getting Internet access wouldn't just widen the women's vision, but also help them get jobs by reaching the vacancies posted online, and empower them by having the tool of surfing out of their closed world.
NOW: The Turkish government is pushing the international community to establish a safe zone in northern Syria. Is this a popular idea in Aleppo and/or other areas you’ve visited in Syria recently?
Erhaim: The area suggested covers neither Aleppo city nor Idlib Province, so it won't affect the two most-inhabited areas. A family who are refugees in Turkey, for example, wouldn't go to Marea if it's applied because their house is in Idlib.
It's a safe space with no air strikes, so surely no one opposes it, especially those living in the camps inside Syria, but it only solve a small portion of the greater problem.
NOW: What has been people’s reaction on the ground to the recent activity in Europe regarding Syrian refugees (e.g. Germany taking in new refugees, other countries such as Hungary preventing them)?
Turkey has been closing its border completely with Syria for the last six month. Many were killed while trying to smuggle into it, so the refuge journey for those coming from Syria starts from their struggle to cross to Turkey before riding the sea. I know many families (lots of relatives of mine) made it to Europe illegally.
75% of them were already living securely in Turkey, but they want their kids to be registered (most of them are stateless) or their passports are expiring. They want stability and Turkey is a temporary refuge for us. And as they are not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel they decided to seek a final destination.
Compared to what's going on inside Syria, everything the refugees are going through is light and easy, so in general there is little sympathy for them from those living inside Syria. At least those are seeking a better life and dying for it.
NOW: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday that, although Assad should leave office eventually, he doesn’t need to leave “on day one, or month one, or whatever.” Kerry also seemed hopeful that Russia would do more in future to pressure Assad to step down. What kind of reaction do comments like that get in Aleppo?
Erhaim: Russia has been a clear enemy for us for four years now. We even call [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov the Syrian foreign minister. I personally feel stressed when I hear the Russian language while in London.
Giving them the lead of Syria means keeping the tyrant in power, maintaining the cleansing of Syria which will result in saving ISIS and what it is built on.
‘The whole world is against Sunnis considering them terrorists who deserve to be killed, while supporting the Shiite jihadi foreign militias such as the Iraqis and Hezbollah’ [quotation marks in original – Ed.], and ISIS is the main powerful monster claiming to be fighting that. Most of my friends and I believe that leaving Assad and the Shiite militias fighting on his side alone, while fighting ISIS and some other Islamist groups is only fueling terrorism and turning every Sunni Syrian into a potential extremist.
NOW: Finally, you’ve said before it annoys you when Western journalists ask you about fears of Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist factions, when by far the biggest cause of death is Assad’s regime. But you’ve also said you fear one day you could be kidnapped like your colleague Razan Zaitouneh. So even if Islamists are not your number one concern, do you not also worry about them, and the impact they could have on Syria’s future?
Erhaim: I am so much into details, I can't see the bigger picture, nor see Syria in general not to mention its future. What I know now is that the sky is the main threat to me and to millions of civilians still living in the rebel-held areas. I might be killed in a hell of a lot of ways, like crossfire between two angry relatives, or by mistake when an armed man cleans his rifle, not to mention the shrapnel, bombing, assassination by those who don't like me, or a heart attack from fear.
When the sky is neutral and stops being the source of death, and the source of war (Assad and his clan) is gone, then many activists and civilians will be able to go back, and the civil workers’ educated opinion leaders won't be as few as they are now. Then they can apply pressure on the extremists. People are tired of war, they will stand with those demanding disarming and trying to apply peace.
Before that, I don't see any hope.
This interview has been edited and condensed for space reasons.
Alex Rowell tweets @disgraceofgod

U.N. Syria Envoy Seeks to Restart Peace Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/ The U.N.'s envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, held meetings this week aimed at reviving peace talks, a statement said Tuesday, amid mounting pressure to end the four-year war. After several attempts to find a political solution, De Mistura in July proposed a fresh approach whereby Syrians would take part in "thematic" working groups. The envoy met with the heads of these groups over the last two days, seeking to "set the stage for a Syrian agreement to end the conflict," De Mistura's office said in a statement. The group heads include Jan Egeland, a former top U.N. official and current chair of the Norwegian Refugee Council who will lead the safety and protection group, as well as Nicolas Michel, a Swiss national and former U.N. legal counsel, in charge of the group on political and legal affairs. Also named was Volker Perthes, a German academic and Syria specialist who will focus on the military and counter-terrorism, with the fourth group headed by Sweden's Birgitta Holst Alani, who will lead the group on reconstructing the country. De Mistura said he hopes these groups can lay the groundwork before representatives of the various factions in Syria join the talks. But Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has reportedly warned him the outcomes of the working groups cannot be binding. The conflict among Assad's forces and various rebel groups including Islamist extremists has killed nearly a quarter of a million people since 2011 and forced more than four million to flee the country. Millions more have been displaced within Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have reached Greece this year, fueling Europe's migrant crisis and leading to growing calls for a political solution to end the fighting. "This is the defining humanitarian challenge of our times," De Mistura said. "The Syrians deserve that we move faster towards a political solution."

Moscow Delivers Warplanes to Syria in Latest Boost to Regime
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Russia has delivered new arms including warplanes to Syria as the regime increases attacks on jihadists, officials said Tuesday, in a sign that Moscow's growing support for its ally is having an effect. A senior Syrian military official told AFP Damascus had received a fresh batch of arms, including at least five fighter planes, while a monitoring group said there had been a marked increase in regime attacks on the Islamic State group. The deliveries came amid a rapid Russian military build-up in Syria, with US officials saying Moscow had deployed 28 new combat planes and begun drone flights in the country. Syria's devastating four-year conflict has taken on a new dimension in recent days as Moscow has moved to boost its military presence in the country, raising deep concerns in Washington. The Syrian military official told AFP the new fighter planes had arrived on Friday along with reconnaissance aircraft at a military base in Latakia province, the traditional heartland of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. The regime had also received "sophisticated military equipment to fight IS" including targeting equipment and precision-guided missiles, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The new weapons had already been deployed against IS in the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqa, the jihadist group's de facto capital in Syria.
"Russian weapons are starting to have an effect in Syria," the official said.
'Not going to sit around'
Another military source in Latakia confirmed to AFP that the army had received spy planes and other equipment "that will allow Syrian ground and air forces to accurately identify targets."The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said new Russian equipment was being put into action effectively, with at least 38 IS fighters killed in air strikes in jihadist-held towns in central Syria on Monday. "The number of raids is growing and the strikes are more precise after the Syrian air force received arms and more efficient planes from Moscow," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Monday's strikes hit jihadists in the town of Palmyra -- where IS has destroyed a series of ancient ruins -- and two other towns in Homs province, he said. Moscow has been an unwavering supporter of Assad during a conflict that has seen more than 240,000 killed since March 2011, insisting it would continue arms deliveries to his regime.
But Russia's intentions have been unclear in recent days as it deployed a range of new weaponry and troops to its airbase near Latakia.
On Monday, US officials said Moscow had deployed 28 fighter and bomber aircraft at the airfield, including 12 SU-24 attack aircraft, 12 SU-25 ground attack aircraft and four Flanker fighter jets. The officials said there were also about 20 Russian combat and transport helicopters at the base and that Moscow was operating drone flights, but did not give additional details. Experts said it was unlikely the aircraft were only for defensive purposes. "They are not going to sit around and defend the airfield or maybe even the province of Latakia," said Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Military to military talks
"This kind of aircraft suggests that the Russians intend to exert their combat power outside of Latakia in an offensive role."The deployments have raised fears of an inadvertent confrontation between Russian forces and the US-led coalition that has been carrying out almost daily air strikes against IS in Syria for more than a year. After an 18-month freeze in military relations triggered by NATO anger over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis, US and Russian military officials held talks on Friday aimed at avoiding unintended incidents in Syria. In another potential sign of an increasing Russian role, President Vladimir Putin agreed a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday aimed at avoiding incidents in Syria. After talks in Russia, "a joint mechanism for preventing misunderstandings between our forces" was agreed to, Netanyahu's office said. Israeli forces have reportedly carried out several strikes in Syria on Iranian arms transfers to Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. The deployments come as Russia pushes for the coalition of Western and regional powers fighting IS in Syria to join forces with Assad against the jihadists. Western and Gulf powers have long resisted any role for Assad in the fight against IS, insisting he must go for Syria to have any hope of peace. Western diplomats suggest Putin -- who has been isolated by the West over the crisis in Ukraine -- is trying to switch the focus to Syria, ahead of a key address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 28.

Tsipras to Form Cabinet, Push EU on Migration after Election Win
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will prepare Tuesday to unveil a new coalition cabinet to enact economic reforms after he called on Europe to help address the nation's unfolding migration challenge. Fresh from returning to office after Sunday's election win, the 41-year-old on Monday said he wanted more solidarity in handling the flow of migrants and refugees through struggling Greece. "Europe...must share out responsibility among all member states," Tsipras said after his taking his oath of office. "Otherwise there is no point in talking about a united Europe... if everyone looks to one's own yard when we have a common home, things will be ominous," he said. As a torrential downpour swept Athens, Tsipras took his second oath of office in eight months and said a coalition government with the nationalist Independent Greeks party -- his allies in the last cabinet -- would be sworn in by Wednesday morning. Later the same day he will travel to Brussels for a summit on the refugee crisis, where he will also represent Cyprus. Some 310,000 migrants and refugees have landed on Greek shores from Turkey this year, most of them Syrians fleeing their country's civil war. Greece itself has been criticized for making little preparation to deal with the human wave during the summer, leaving entire families sleeping in the open with little access to medical care and sanitation. But Tsipras said Monday that "Europe until now had not taken care to protect countries of first arrival from a wave that is taking unchecked proportions."France, Germany, Spain and European Council president Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday pledged to help crisis-hit Greece, both on the economic front and in dealing with the worsening migrant crisis. But EU partners too wasted no time in reminding Athens to get down to work on enforcing reforms set out in a rescue package worth up to 86 billion euros ($97 billion).
'A lot of work ahead'
"There's a lot of work ahead and no time to lose," said Juncker. "As you know well, you can count on the European Commission and on me personally to stand by Greece and support the new government in its efforts."From buying a loaf of bread to a visit to the doctor, pain lies in store as the new government readies to raise taxes and rewrite the economic rule-book in line with tough reforms demanded by the country's lenders in return for Greece's third international rescue in five years. The economic to-do list was signed in July by Tsipras in a controversial deal that alienated anti-euro hardliners who then quit his Syriza party, stripping the premier of his majority and triggering Sunday's general election. Despite this setback, Syriza secured 35.46 percent of the vote on Sunday, close to an absolute majority of 145 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament. Coalition partner ANEL can provide another 10 lawmakers. "Syriza proved too tough to die," Tsipras, the country's youngest premier in 150 years and the EU's first radical left leader in office, told a victory rally in Athens on Sunday evening.
Gamble paid off
Syriza's main rivals, the conservative New Democracy Party, came second on 28.10 percent, while the Syriza defectors who had formed a rival anti-austerity party failed to pick up the required three percent of the vote to enter parliament. In an indication of Greece's weariness with five years of economic crisis and political tumult, nearly 44 percent of voters sat out the election -- the third vote for Greeks this year including a referendum on austerity. The abstention rate during the January election stood at 36 percent. Post-victory celebrations also indicated crisis fatigue, with only around 500 jubilant Syriza supporters turning out to congratulate Tsipras on a hot Athens night against 8,000 in January. "We know people are tired, that tomorrow's measures will be tough, that people have had enough of elections, that this isn't really a night for celebration," a Syriza voter told AFP.
'Open issues'
By now a familiar face in the corridors of power in Brussels and other European capitals, Tsipras has pledged to soften the edges of the bailout to help his country's poorest citizens weather the austerity storm. "I could say the deal we brought is a living organism," Tsipras said ahead of the election, listing a number of "open issues" including debt reduction, privatizations, labor relations and how to deal with non-performing bank loans. But the clock is ticking, with a review due in October by the lenders on whether Athens is abiding by the cash-for-reforms program. At stake for the new government will be the release of a new three-billion-euro tranche of aid. Greece's new parliament, expected to convene on October 1, will have to revise the 2015 budget, taking into account pension and income tax reforms, including taxes on farmers' income that are set to double by 2017. The government must also finalize a procedure to recapitalize Greek banks by December, before new EU-wide bank rescue regulations that could affect depositors come into play in 2016. Tsipras must also move quickly to remove capital controls that his previous administration imposed in June to avert a deposit run. A total of eight parties booked seats in the next parliament, with neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn in third place, followed by the Pasok socialists.

Israel to Compensate Church Torched by Extremists
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Israel will pay damages to the church where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of loaves and fishes, after an arson attack by suspected Jewish extremists, the justice ministry said. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha "should be compensated for the damages caused to it by the arson, in accordance with property tax regulations," a statement said Monday. Two suspected Jewish extremists have been charged with the torching of the church on June 18. Tax authorities had initially refused the church's request for compensation, saying it was not clear that the attack was on "nationalistic" grounds. The justice ministry however determined that, based on the charges against the suspects, the attack was related to the "Israeli-Arab conflict" and instructed the church be compensated, Weinstein's office said. Church officials told AFP the sum requested was approximately seven million shekels ($1.7 million, 1.6 million euros). The arson attack, at the site where many Christians believe Jesus fed the 5,000 in the miracle of the five loaves and two fish, completely destroyed one of the buildings in the compound. The church itself was not damaged. Hebrew graffiti was found on another building within the complex, reading: "Idols will be cast out" or destroyed. Two Jewish extremists, Yinon Reuveni and Yehuda Asraf, were charged in connection with the arson and graffiti. A third, Moshe Orbach, was charged with writing and distributing a document detailing the "necessity" of attacking non-Jewish property and people as well as laying out practical advice to do so. The attack on the church, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, sparked widespread condemnation and concern from Christians globally, with the site visited by some 5,000 people daily, while also drawing renewed attention to religiously linked hate crimes in Israel.

Yemen President Returns to Aden after Six-Month Exile
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi returned to war-torn Yemen Tuesday after six months in exile in Saudi Arabia, joining government ministers in the southern city of Aden, an airport official said. Hadi, who is recognized by the international community, arrived on board a Saudi military aircraft that landed at an airbase adjoining Aden's civilian airport, the security official told AFP. Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and several government ministers returned last week to the port city, which was retaken from Shiite Huthi rebels in mid-July. Hadi's arrival comes a day after thousands of rebel sympathizers thronged the capital Sanaa to celebrate a year since its seizure. The rebels have seized much of Yemen with the help of renegade troops loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh. A Saudi-led coalition launched a bombing campaign against the Iran-backed rebels on March 26. The coalition expanded its military campaign into a ground operation in July, but the rebels still control much of north and central Yemen. Since then, the Huthis have lost five southern provinces to Hadi loyalists, and are waging an offensive in Marib province east of the capital. The United Nations says nearly 4,900 people have been killed since late March in Yemen. The U.N. aid chief has called the scale of human suffering "almost incomprehensible."

Ex-CIA Chief Petraeus Calls for More U.S. Action in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/ Former CIA chief and retired general David Petraeus on Tuesday said America should take a more active role in the Syrian crisis, including implementing no-fly zones to prevent regime planes dropping barrel bombs. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Petraeus said the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group had made "inadequate" progress in Iraq and Syria and said the Syrian civil was a "geopolitical Chernobyl." "The fallout from the meltdown of Syria threatens to be with us for decades," he said. "The longer it is permitted to continue, the more severe the damage will be."Central to Petraeus's testimony on Syria was the dilemma Western politicians face with regard to President Bashar Assad. The United States does not want him in power in the long run, but neither does it want his ouster without knowing who or what would replace his regime. "The problems in Syria cannot be quickly resolved. But there are actions the U.S. and only the U.S. can take that would make a difference. We could, for example, tell Assad that the use of barrel bombs must end. And that if they continue, we will stop the Syrian air force from flying. We have that capability," Petraeus said. "This would not end the humanitarian crisis in Syria ... it would remove a particularly vicious weapon from Assad's arsenal."He also said he would support the creation of secure enclaves in Syria to protect the battered civilian population. Petraeus began his testimony with an emotional apology over his spectacular fall from grace, after he pleaded guilty this year to providing classified secrets to his mistress. "Four years ago, I made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me and pain to those closest to me," he said. "There's nothing I can do to undo what I did. I can only say, again, how sorry I am."He was given two years' probation and a $100,000 fine. Petraeus became a household name in the United States when he oversaw the troop "surge" in Iraq in 2007, and U.S. leaders credited him for salvaging the troubled war effort.
He resigned from the CIA in 2012.

German Vice Chancellor Urges More Help on Jordan Visit to Refugees
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel visited a U.N.-run camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan on Tuesday, saying more must be done to save people from needing to flee their homes. Gabriel arrived at the 80,000-resident Zaatari camp, near the Syrian border, as EU interior ministers were to hold talks aimed at bridging deep divisions over Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II. Gabriel, who is also economy minister, and the state secretary for migration and refugees Aydan Ozoguz visited a refugee family, a medical center and a clinic for treating handicapped children, as well as meeting young students.On Saturday, Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann called for U.N. member states to contribute an extra five billion euros ($5.6 billion) in aid for refugees living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon. "In Jordan and Lebanon, most people (living in the camps) still hope to return (home)," Germany's NTV television quoted Gabriel as saying Tuesday. "If they lose that (hope), if they live here in the deepest poverty and their children are unable to go to school, they are also going to want to move, so it is in our interest to help them." The International Organization for Migration said last week that nearly 474,000 people braved perilous trips across the Mediterranean to reach Europe in 2015. Germany has said it is prepared to accommodate between 800,000 and one million asylum seekers this year. The United Nations estimates that Jordan is hosting 600,000 Syrian refugees, but the government puts the figure at up to 1.4 million. Lebanon, which has a population of only four million, is currently hosting more than 1.1 million Syrians forced from their homes by their country's civil war.

Abbas Warns of Risk of New Intifada
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/ Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned Tuesday of the "risk of an intifada" if clashes over the Al-Aqsa mosque compound continue, after a meeting with French leader Francois Hollande in Paris. "What is happening is very dangerous," Abbas said, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "stop" the chaos at the flashpoint holy site. Abbas warned against "an intifada (uprising) which we don't want".Tensions are high after days of clashes at the Al-Aqsa mosque site during the Jewish new year last week. The mosque, located at the site of what Jews venerate as the sacred Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, is in east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Al-Aqsa is also the third holiest site in Islam and is believed to be where the Prophet Mohammed made his night journey to heaven. Muslims have been alarmed by an increase in visits by Jews to the site and fear rules governing the compound will be changed. Jews are allowed to visit but not to pray, to avoid provoking tensions. Netanyahu has said repeatedly he is committed to the status quo at the site. 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. Hollande called for "peace, calm and the respect of principles." "I expressed our attachment to the status quo over the mosque compound," he said after the talks with Abbas. Abbas' visit to France comes shortly before the United Nations General Assembly in New York where he will oversee the raising of the Palestinian flag at the U.N. On the same day as the flag-raising, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host a meeting of the Middle East Quartet seeking a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The peace process slipped into a deep coma after a failed U.S. diplomatic effort in April last year. The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, along with the secretary general of the Arab League, will attend in a bid to broaden the search for a way back to the negotiating table.

Rouhani: Iran Best Defense against Mideast 'Terror'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Iran's armed forces are the best defense against "terror" in the Middle East, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday, urging regional countries not to rely on world powers. "Today, the largest power against intimidation and terror is our armed forces," Rouhani said at a massive military parade in Tehran. Iran has played a major role in the fight against the Islamic State group in neighboring Iraq independently of the U.S.-led coalition. It has provided military advisers, weapons and trainers to both the Iraqi army and Shiite militias. But Rouhani's allusion was not only to the jihadists of IS. In the conflict in Syria, Tehran has been a staunch ally of the regime of President Bashar Assad against Western-backed rebels as well as IS and Al-Qaeda. "We helped the armies and governments of Iraq and Syria, at their request," Rouhani said. "If terrorists start showing up in other regional countries, their only hope is Iran's army, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Basij (militia). "They shouldn't think that Western or world powers would defend them." The parade marked the 35th anniversary of the start of Iran's devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Rouhani's speech was screened live on state television. Iran has been deeply critical of the US-led campaign against IS, charging that it was the support of the West and its allies for the rebellion in Syria that paved the way for the rise of the jihadists.

Netanyahu, Putin Agree Plan to Avoid Syria Clashes
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 22/15/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed on a plan to avoid "misunderstandings" in Syria amid an apparent military build-up by Moscow to support President Bashar Assad. The two leaders reached an agreement on Monday during talks in Russia, with Israeli media reporting that the discussions involved avoiding clashes between the two militaries' jets over Syria. "The conversation revolved, first of all, on the issue that I raised regarding Syria, which is very important to the security of Israel," Netanyahu said after the meeting, according to a statement from his office. "The conversation was substantive. A joint mechanism for preventing misunderstandings between our forces was also agreed to." Israeli military officials reportedly fear that any Russian air presence could cut their room for maneuver after several purported strikes on Iranian arms transfers to Hizbullah through Syria in recent months that were not officially acknowledged by Israeli authorities. Israel opposes Assad's regime but has sought to avoid being dragged into the conflict in neighboring Syria. It also fears that Iran could increase its support for Hizbullah and other militant groups as international sanctions are gradually lifted under a July nuclear deal that Moscow helped negotiate between Tehran and world powers. Before his talks with Putin, Netanyahu said he was determined to stop arms deliveries to Hizbullah and accused Syria's army and Iran of trying to create a "second front" against Israel. Putin said Russia's actions in the Middle East "always were and will be very responsible" and downplayed the threat by Syrian forces to Israel. The United States says Russia -- one of the few remaining allies of Assad -- is deploying personnel and military hardware to Syria, sparking fears Moscow is preparing to fight alongside government forces. Russia contends any such support falls in line with existing defense contracts.

Why Israel prefers a hot line to a military coordination center with Russia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 22, 2015
There is a big difference between the latest headlines saying that the IDF and the Russian military will coordinate their operations, and the statement by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Monday, Sept. 21, to establish a mechanism to prevent misunderstandings and clashes between the two militaries. Neither the Russian military force in Syria, which is growing every day, nor the IDF have any plans for a body that will allow each side to inform the other of ground, air or naval operations about to be carried out in the Syrian theater.
Russia does not want the IDF to find out anything about its military moves or intentions, and the IDF does not want the Russians to have advance notice of any operations it is about to conduct in Syria, or of Israeli Air Force surveillance missions overhead. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that this is the reason why Putin and Netanyahu, and afterwards the Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkot, and his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, agreed on the establishment of a hotline between the Russian and Israeli general staffs.
This communications channel will connect the offices of Gerasimov’s deputy, Gen. Nikolay Bogdanovsky, in Moscow and of Eisenkot’s deputy, Gen. Yair Golan, in Tel Aviv.
The hotline will enable the two sides to ask to clarify events, without offering their reasons for doing so. In other words, the hotline will be used at a time when Russian or Israeli military operations in Syria are underway, and senior officers are acting to avert a probable clash between the two military forces - or after the event.In the first instance, it will be important to cut the clashes short without delay to avert an escalation of hostilities.Besides the technical arrangements for operating the hotline, the two deputy chiefs of staff will need to meet, get to know each other, and agree on a framework of military topics for discussion. This process could take several weeks. In other words, the issue at hand is not coordination of military operations, but rather a mechanism that goes into action fast to assess collisions after the event and determine how to prevent them in the future.
In any case, Israel is constrained from full military coordination with the Russian military, especially in the Syrian theater, by the IDF’s commitment to joint operations with the US and Jordanian army via US Central Command Forward-Jordan. The IDF moreover maintains mechanisms for coordinating its air, naval and missile operations with the US military. Russia, for its part, coordinates its military operations in Syria with its close ally, Iran, which is also Israel’s sworn enemy. DEBKAfile's military sources note that the Russian chief of staff was not in uniform when he received Gen. Eisenkot. This was a demonstration of the Russian intention to downgrade the military aspect of the Israeli-Russian talks. Before flying out of Moscow, Netanyahu announced that he had briefed Washington fully on its talks with Putin, thus ascertaining that those talks in no way impaired any aspect of Israeli-US military cooperation.

Is the Pope's Dream Our Totalitarian Nightmare?
Susan Warner/Gatestone Institute/September 22, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6549/pope-dream-totalitarian
Some high-profile commentators think they smell a Marxist clothed in white papal robes, who dreams of redistributing the world's wealth. Pope Francis insists that he has little interest in Marxism and that his political advocacy against materialism, capitalism, greed and idolatry are largely religious in nature. However, the flavor of some of his statements might suggest otherwise.
The Pope also knows that the UN is poised to strong-arm member nations to sign on to an impossible globalist agenda that will require a total shift of the world's wealth, and a restructuring of international politics and economics with a one-world government and a universal religion at the steering wheel.
Even to the Pope's admirers, that sounds a less like peace and love and more like a utopian totalitarian nightmare.
The world press is in high gear for Pope Francis's visit to Cuba and the United States this week. Recently, the Pope has stirred up a stew mixing world poverty, the evils of capitalism and global warming into an elaborate narrative that is likely to keep journalists awake for weeks to come.
Pope Francis visits former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro at Castro's home in Havana, Cuba, on September 20, 2015. (Image source: BBC video screenshot)
As the first ever Pope to address a joint session of Congress, he is expected to take some shots at the structural evils of free market capitalism and the unequal distribution of wealth. As early as 2013, when he penned his Apostolic Exhortation, in which he laid out his broad vision for the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has been clarifying his positions on these topics.
With the subsequent release of his controversial encyclical on global warming in June, he established two pressing themes that will likely monopolize his coming visit.
Climate change is expected to be the focus of his address to the UN General Assembly on September 25, as he kicks off the 2015 UN Summit on Sustainable Development and its seventeen-point utopian agenda for the entire planet, packaged in a thinly disguised reboot of Agenda 21. According to IPS news:
"Judging by his recent public pronouncements – including on reproductive health, biodiversity, the creation of a Palestinian state, the political legitimacy of Cuba and now climate change – Pope Francis may upstage more than 150 world leaders when he addresses the United Nations, come September... The Pope will most likely be the headline-grabber, particularly if he continues to be as outspoken as he has been so far."
Along the way, he has managed to stun even many Catholics with pronouncements about issues that they think should be none of his business.
When the Pope's recent encyclical on global warming was first leaked to the press in June, it stirred protests that the Pope should confine his expertise to religious matters:
"Former US senator and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, for instance, is a devout Catholic who has said he loves the pope, but has also called global warming a "hoax" and the research underlying findings of climate change 'junk science'.
"In a recent interview, Santorum advised Francis to 'leave science to the scientists' and focus instead on theology and morality. The suggestion was that the pontiff, who studied chemistry as a student, has no business pronouncing on something that exceeds his competence."
As the Pope declared war on global warming, he emphasized his continuing opposition to capitalism, materialism, selfishness and other "human factors," which he asserts are the foundational causes of the imminent destruction of the planet's ecosystem.
Writing in the Apostolic Exhortation and the Encyclical on Global Warming, the Pope justified his view that the temperature of the planet is economic and political, and it also undergirds religious concerns -- especially since the results of global warming are likely to affect the poor disproportionately.
His public denunciations of free market capitalism started in earnest with the recent papal visit to South America, where, to cheering crowds, he made some passionate statements about poverty and economics.
Speaking to grassroots organizers, Pope Francis declared his own personal war on capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, greed and materialism. According to CNN:
Pope Francis delivered a fiery denunciation of modern capitalism on Thursday night, calling the "unfettered pursuit of money" the "dung of the devil" and accusing world leaders of "cowardice" for refusing to defend the earth from exploitation.
Speaking to grassroots organizers in Bolivia, the Pope urged the poor and disenfranchised to rise up against "new colonialism," including corporations, loan agencies, free trade treaties, austerity measures, and "the monopolizing of the communications media.
Fox News reported that in one of his South American speeches, the Pope admonished business, government and trade union leaders, charging them with "idolatrous" and materialistic ways. CNN quotes him at one gathering saying to a group of business leaders, politicians, labor union leaders and other civil society groups on a Saturday evening: "I ask them not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit."
Some high-profile commentators such as Rush Limbaugh think they smell a Marxist clothed in white papal robes, who dreams of redistributing the world's wealth.
Pope Francis insists that he has little interest in Marxism and that his political advocacy against materialism, capitalism, greed and idolatry are largely religious in nature. However, the flavor of some of his statements might suggest otherwise. To understand how the Pope thinks, it is helpful to glimpse at some of his closest counselors on these topics. One advisor on his August global warming encyclical is the controversial professed atheist, Professor John Schnellnhuber, who was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Science, and has been accused of advocating population control. In an interview in June with Breitbart, Lord Christopher Monckton, chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute, and a leader in the fight against the science of climate change, questioned Schnellnhuber's role in the encyclical: Monckton further explained that Francis is influenced by extremist Professor John Schnellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who said in 2009 at a climate conference in Copenhagen that if we let global warming continue, six billion of the seven billion people on earth will be killed by it. Monckton said that Schnellnhuber will be standing by the side of Pope Francis when they announce the encyclical next week. "The fact that Schnellnhuber is going to be there is an extremely bad sign," he declared. The fact that he will be there next to the pope suggests to Monckton that Francis is thanking him for having written the climate portion of the encyclical.
Another of the Pope's closest advisors is Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, sometimes considered "the Vice Pope" because of his charisma and influence. On April 13, 2013, Pope Francis appointed Maradiaga as a coordinator of the group of cardinals established to advise him in the governance of the universal church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia. Maradiaga is apparently also considered a leading progressive voice in Catholicism.
According to a NewsMax report from last year:
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, a close advisor to Pope Francis, criticized the free market as "a new idol" that increases inequality and excludes the poor in a keynote speech in Washington on Tuesday. ... This economy kills," he told the gathered crowd. "The hungry or sick child of the poor cannot wait."
The "elimination of the structural causes of poverty" is another concept taken from the "Apostolic Exhortation" handbook; some suggest it sounds like a call for a revolution. Pope Francis undoubtedly knows that some of these ideas are not likely to go over as well in the United States as they did in Latin America. According to the New York Times, "As his papal jetliner was returning to Rome (from his recent visit to South America), Francis signaled that he knew his economic message was already facing criticism in the United States and pledged to study it. Some critics blame him for rebuking capitalism with an unduly broad brush. Others say he ignores that globalization has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty."The Pope also knows, however, that the UN is poised to strong-arm member nations to sign on to an impossible globalist agenda that will require a total shift of the world's wealth, and a restructuring of international politics and economics with a one-world government and a universal religion at the steering wheel. Even to the Pope's admirers, that sounds a less like peace and love and more like a utopian totalitarian nightmare. Susan Warner is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute and co-founder of a Christian group, Olive Tree Ministries in Wilmington, DE, USA. She has been writing and teaching about Israel and the Middle East for over 15 years. Contact her at israelolivetree@yahoo.com.
© 2015 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Pakistan: ISIS Plans Terrorist Campaign against Christians
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/September 22, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6551/pakistan-isis-christians
The wave of anti-Christian attacks will allegedly include Pakistan's Christian churches, schools, and hospitals. Few Pakistanis will shed a tear for people who do not, in their eyes, represent Pakistan's Islamic values. The Pakistani government and military have warned the nation's tiny Christian minority that Islamic terrorist groups plan to target Christian religious institutions in the near future. The wave of anti-Christian attacks will allegedly include Pakistan's Christian churches, schools, and hospitals. The warning issued by Pakistan's leading generals represents an extraordinary, positive development in the military's relationship with minorities in general and with Christians in particular. Their warming relationship appears to be a calculated political move to complement the military leadership's ongoing offensive against the terrorist havens in the northwestern corner of the country. Emissaries of the most powerful Pakistani generals and the Ministry of Interior have apparently personally warned Christian clerics that the assault will first be launched in the country's northwest region of Khyber Paktunkhwa.[1] This region abuts the Pushtun-dominated provinces of Afghanistan where Pakistan's Tehrik-e-Taliban is a potent force.
According to the warnings, the planned attacks against Christian communities in Pakistan will be carried out by some splinter groups that formerly belonged to the Pakistani Taliban. According to sources in the area, these splinter groups have already forged an alliance with the more extremist and brutal Islamic State (ISIS) cells that have already entered Pakistan.
The former Pakistani Taliban Commander, Hafiz Saeed Khan, is said to have pledged an oath of allegiance in January to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[2] Several other Pakistani Taliban groups have reportedly also agreed to join up. In addition, Ahmed Marwat, a.k.a. Farhad Marwat, commander of Pakistan's Jundallah terrorist organization, specifically threatened in June that "the Jundallah will attack kafir Shi'ites, Ismailis and Christians."[3] Marwat met with Islamic State representatives in November 2014. Later the same month, he took responsibility for attacking aid workers in Quetta, Pakistan, and labeled the volunteers "Yahood o Nasara": "Jews and Christians." The Jundallah group, reputedly the Islamic State's most potent ally in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the twin-suicide bombings against All Saints Church in Peshawar on September 22, 2014.[4] It also probably intends to initiate more anti-Christian atrocities.
One Christian cleric explained that the anti-Christian strategy by Islamic terrorists might be a bitter response to the effectiveness of the Pakistani Army's ongoing offensive -- a campaign that targeted Islamist jihadists in their hideouts in the northwest. Another Christian cleric complimented Pakistan's military leaders for the ongoing drive to subdue the Pakistani Taliban and several smaller jihadi groups in the far northwest, especially in North Waziristan. The Pakistani generals most responsible for the planning and execution of this anti-terrorist offensive include Army Chief of Staff General Raheel Sharif; Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief General Rizwan Akhtar, and the commander of Pakistan's Army Rangers, General Bilal Akbar. Sources claim that these three generals have forged an aggressive battle plan with which to roll back extremist Muslim jihadists threatening Islamabad's sovereign control over the country.
This triad has apparently also purged the Pakistani Army officer corps of anyone suspected of sympathizing with Islamic terrorist factions.
Shortly after assuming command of the Pakistani Army, General Sharif vowed that "eradicate the last sanctuary of Islamic militants in the tribal regions" of Pakistan's northwest.[5] These tribal regions include the Federal Administered Tribal Areas, as well as North and South Waziristan. The campaign against terrorist havens in Pakistan's northwest, launched on June 14, 2014, has already killed more than 3000 militants, according to Army headquarters.[6] In August 2014, Pakistani Air Force planes bombed what was said to be the last sanctuary of terrorists in North Waziristan, the thickly forested Shawal.
Some observers speculate that it was the success of this offensive that elicited the attack by terrorists on the Public School Compound in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, which killed 132 boys and 9 members of the staff. Lending credence to this revenge-attack theory was a phone call from Taliban spokesman Mohammad Umar Khorasani to the local media in Peshawar. "We wanted them to feel our pain," he said.[7]
Some of the Pakistani Army soldiers who participated in the bombing offensive in the northwest apparently had children enrolled in the school.An office at the Public School Compound in Peshawar, Pakistan, after the December 16, 2014 terrorist attack that killed 132 boys and 9 members of the staff. (Image source: BBC video screenshot)
The methodical nature of the terrorist operation at the school, and the heartless nature of that mass killing of children, may foreshadow future attacks on similar easy targets such as defenseless Christian neighborhoods. Members of Pakistan's military who asked to remain anonymous said they expected the terrorist factions in Peshawar to stage mass atrocity spectaculars like the school massacre in the near future. Christian clerics have been warned not to venture far from their churches. One minister was told no longer to take his morning or evening walks. Other Christians have been warned not to agree to any outside meetings unless they know the party well. General Sharif and his allies in the military's high command have been in large part responsible for shifting the nation's security concerns away from India and to groups such as the Pakistani Taliban. As police guards have proven inadequate and unreliable, Christian groups are hoping that the military will protect them.There is, as well, another incentive for Islamic terrorists to attack Christians: Few Pakistanis will shed a tear for people who do not, in their eyes, represent Pakistan's Islamic values.
**Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, where he was a Military Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Israel.
[1] Khyber Paktunkhwa was formerly called the Northwest Territory. The new name reflects nationalist sentiment to "cleanse" Pakistani institutions reminiscent of colonial occupation by the United Kingdom.
[2] Militant Leadership Monitor, July 2015, Special Issue; Animesh Roul, Executive Director of Research at the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict, New Delhi.
[3] Pakistan's Express Tribune, 28 November 2014.
[4] Dawn, 23 September 2015, Karachi, Pakistan.
[5] General Sharif Raheel's vow reported on 17 December 2014, BBC.
[6] "For Pakistan" website, 21 August 2015.
[7] The school is a short walk to a Peshawar military installation where some of the soldiers involved in the ongoing offensive against the militants are stationed. Yahoo News India, 16 December 2015.
© 2015 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Syrian Military And Political Opposition: Russian Forces In Syria Are Occupation Forces, We Will Expel Them From Our Country
MEMRI/September 22, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6163
Following media reports of an intensification of the Russian military presence in Syria, some elements from both the political and military wings of the Syrian opposition clarified that they would consider Russian forces in Syria as “occupation forces” and threatened that they would fight them and strike at them until they expelled from Syrian soil. They said that they will transform Syria into “a graveyard for the Russian forces” and stressed that Russian forces in Syria would have no sense of and that Russia would sustain a severe defeat.
In the field, the Islamist rebel group Jaysh Al-Islam announced, on September 18, 2015, that its forces had fired a Grad missile at a Russian plane near Latakia, damaging it. A few days later, on September 21, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that shells had been fired at the Russian Embassy in Damascus, but that no damage was caused. The ministry claimed that the firing had come from Damascus’ Jobar neighborhood “where there are armed [elements] who oppose the regime” who have “external sponsors” that are responsible for their activity.[1] So far, no opposition group has taken responsibility for the shelling. It should be noted that this is not the first time that shells have been fired at the embassy; there were similar incidents in April and May 2015.
It is noteworthy that these elements in the Syrian military and political opposition began to address and respond to the intensification of the Russian military involvement in Syria some three weeks after reports of it began coming in. Apparently, the initial reports greatly embarrassed the opposition, which until then had tended to view Russia as a key element in a resolution of the Syria crisis – despite its political, economic and military support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad – and also as capable of persuading the regime to make concessions. Another possible reason for the embarrassment was the opposition’s sense that it did not have international backing. While Russia has recently led diplomatic initiatives, including the January and April 2015 rounds of Moscow meetings between opposition elements and the Syrian regime (Moscow 1 and 2), as well as a plan for establishing a regional alliance to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) that will include the Syrian regime alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan, the U.S. administration has been hesitant and seems to have given Russia a free hand in dealing with the Syrian crisis.
It should be emphasized that these reactions to the growing Russian military presence come from elements in the Syrian military and political opposition whose preconditions for a solution to the Syria crisis include Assad’s removal and the establishment of a transitional governing body with full prerogatives on the basis of the 2012 Geneva I communiqué. This is in contrast to the political opposition within Syria that is represented most prominently by the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which is headed by Hassan ‘Abd Al-’Azim, and which does not set Assad’s removal as a precondition for solving the crisis. The committee is considered close to Russia and views it as a legitimate mediating factor; it also recently welcomed the intensification of the Russian military involvement in Syria and argued that it would help the fight against terrorism and also the search for a political solution.[2]
This report will review reactions to and threats against the Russian military presence in Syria:
Armed Syrian Opposition: We Will Target Russian Forces
FSA Spokesman: We Will Turn Syria Into A Graveyard For Russian Forces And A Second Afghanistan
First to respond to reports that Russia had increased its military presence in Syria was the armed opposition in Syria. The spokesman for the general command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Colonel Mustafa Farhat, called this a dangerous development, and warned: “We will see any Russia soldier setting foot on Syrian soil as [an act of] occupation and aggression by Russia. We will fight them with all our might to our last breath… The FSA and the rebels will turn Syria into a graveyard for the Russians and a second Afghanistan, ending their fairy tales, their arrogance, and their cockiness that have in recent years inflicted disasters on the Syrian people because of their support for Assad.” Farhat also called on Turkey, the Gulf countries, and the international community to prevent Russia from becoming further involved in Syria.[3]
Jaysh Al-Islam: We Struck Russian Plane Near Latakia; Russian Forces Will Not Feel Secure
The Islamist rebel group Jaysh Al-Islam reported on September 18, 2015 that it had fired a Grad rocket that struck and badly damaged a Russian transport plane carrying state-of-the-art tanks at the Humaymim Naval Airbase. It also claimed to have targeted the military seaport in Latakia. A statement by the group read: “We announce today that we have hit the Al-Bassel [Humaymim] Airbase, which has become a Russian military base, and we promise that our enemies will not feel secure as long as our people do not feel secure.” According to the group, it fired the rocket after receiving reports of unusual activity by the pro-regime Shabiha militias and Russian officers in those areas.[4]
Political Syrian Opposition: We Will Oppose Russian Occupation
National Coalition Of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces: Syrians Will Not Remain Silent Over The Occupation Of Their Land
The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces condemned Russia’s military intervention in Syria and clarified that the Russians have become an occupation force that will be opposed by the Syrians. In a September 12, 2015 statement, the National Coalition wrote: “With this aggressive move, Russia has moved from a stage of supporting a criminal regime that carries out genocide in our country to a stage of direct military intervention alongside a crumbling illegitimate regime. The direct Russian military intervention places the Russian leadership in a position of hostility towards the Syrian people, and makes its forces on Syrian soil occupation forces… We present these facts to the international community, to the UN, to the Arab League, and especially to the Russian people – we do not wish upon them in Syria a repeat of their experience in Afghanistan – because Syrians will not remain silent over the occupation of their land and the spilling of their sons’ blood.”[5]
Prominent Syrian Oppositionist: The Russians Have Come To Fight The FSA; We Will Oppose The Russian Invader And Expel Him From Our Land
National Coalition official Michel Kilo likewise wrote, in an op-ed titled “Dangerous Escalation” in the London-based Qatari daily Al-Arabi Al-Jadid: “For years, [Russia] claimed that it would absolutely not interfere in Syria, and that no other element should either. But here it is today announcing its decision to expand its military presence there and to wage a war there to subdue the ‘Islamic State’ [ISIS] and to keep the damage that it does away from Russia.
“We all knew that Russian intervention would complicate our problems. [and would] create a political and possibly strategic environment, having international consequences that would likely extend our conflict and nourish it on content that contradicts our focus and national interests – and that it could bring about the deaths of more of our citizens…
“Because of Russia’s commitment to the [Assad] regime, it is unlikely that it will refrain from fighting the FSA and the factions hostile to ISIS. This is because it is the FSA, and those factions, that have achieved the greatest victories over [the regime], that removed it from its strategic positions in our country, and that threaten its existence. Furthermore, strengthening Russia’s status vis-à-vis Iran and empowering the regime against the revolution mean that the FSA factions must be fought and conquered.
“Statements by [Syrian Foreign Minister] Walid Al-Mu’allem regarding ties between the Russians and Assad’s army confirm that the Russians invaded Syria for the sole purpose of beginning to fight the FSA factions, and that they will refrain from fighting ISIS until the balance of power between the regime and [the FSA factions] shifts. This option is likely, considering that ISIS is weak in areas controlled by the regime and strong in areas controlled by the FSA, [while the FSA] is strong in areas controlled by Assad, which also have the strongest presence of Russian invaders.
“Before Putin invaded our country, it seemed as though there was a search [by the international community] for elements that preferred a political solution to a military one. But after the invasion, the picture changed, and we Syrians are left with no option but to oppose the invaders and expel them from our homeland.”[6]
Michel Kilo (Source: Alarabiya.net July 3, 2015)
Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Russia Will Become A Direct Target; Its Forces Face A Worse Fate Than Afghanistan And Chechnya
In a harsh communique, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) stated that Russia had become an occupier and a partner in war crimes, and that it would be directly targeted by Syrians defending their country: “Russian military activity has recently begun in the heart of Syrian soil, making makes this permanent member of the Security Council an occupier and direct partner to war crimes and crimes against humanity…
“We in the Syrian MB stress that this blatant aggression towards our country and our people places Russia alongside Iran as the criminal regime’s direct partner in the killing of our people and the destruction of our country… We warn that this aggression will make Russia the direct target of those throughout Syria who are defending themselves and their country’s honor, [and that Syria] will become… a graveyard for tyrants and invaders… The continuation of this direct [Russian] occupation and this direct partnership in war crimes and crimes against humanity that is today being perpetrated by the criminal regime in Syria will eliminate any hope for the political solution that has been approved by the Security Council…”[7]
Omar Mushaweh, director of the Syrian MB’s information office, said: “The Syrian people see the Russian forces as occupation forces involved in [spilling] Syrian blood. It is our right as an occupied people to resist the occupier and expel him from our land.” He added: “It is the right of occupied peoples to use all legitimate means to liberate their land and expel the occupiers… If Russia does not end its blatant interference in Syria and its killing of its people, it will face a worse end than [it did] in Afghanistan and Chechnya.”[8]
Endnotes:
[1] Champress.net, September 21, 2015.
[2] Orient-news.net, September 20, 2015.
[3] Alkhaleejonline.net, September 9, 2015.
[4] Jaishalislam.com, September 18, 2015.
[5] Etilaf.org, September 12, 2015.
[6] Al-Arabi Al-Jadid (London), September 19, 2015.
[7] Ikhwansyria.com, September 13, 2015.
[8] Elaph.com, September 13, 2015.

Still hope for regime change in Iran
BENJAMIN WEINTHAL/J.Post/ 09/21/2015
To better understand the Islamic Republic of Iran, don’t turn straight away to the front page of the newspaper. Rather flip to the labor union and business sections and press. Growing worker unrest, particularly among trade unions, suggests that regime change in Iran cannot be summarily dismissed.
The September 13 death of Shahrokh Zamani, a labor union activist in Iran’s Rajaee Shahr Prison, is another sign that Iran’s regime is filled with anxiety about worker unrest. Zamani’s purported death from a stroke was more likely an execution by the regime. A Revolutionary Court in Tabriz sentenced Zamani to 11 years in prison for “acting against national security by attempting to form [a] house painters’ union” and “propaganda against the state.”According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “Labor unions are prevented from operating independently in Iran and labor leaders are systematically arrested, prosecuted under national security charges and sentenced to long prison terms.”Iran’s regime has cracked down on teachers protesting inadequate salaries, including the arrests of Alireza Hashemi, the secretary-general of the Iranian Teachers’ Association, and Esmail Abdi, the head of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association. In early 2015, 6,000 teachers sent a letter to Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s parliament, stating: “The majority of Iran’s teachers are not able to take care of their basic needs and live under the poverty line. Their status in society has been damaged and they have lost their motivation to work.”The key sectors to watch are oil workers and the Tehran Bazaar. It is worth recalling that clashes took place between the regime’s security forces and protesters at the bazaar, with the market temporarily going on strike, after Iran’s currency went into a meltdown in 2012.
The friction in Iran’s industrial relations system might portend the kind of upheaval that unfolded in the Arab world starting in 2011. Prior to the Arab revolts, Tunisia and Egypt experienced years of labor strikes and employee dissatisfaction with economies that stifled upward mobility and devalued its workers.
There are competing schools of thought on regime change in a post-nuclear deal Iran. Writing last week for Reuters, Joost Hiltermann argued: “Decades after the 1979 uprising that ousted Washington’s ally, Shah Reza Pahlavi, and led to the 444-day captivity of American hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran, the United States is no longer intent on effecting regime change and settling scores. The nuclear accord signifies a belated acceptance of, and accommodation with, the Islamic Revolution and the clerical order it spawned.”If one takes a snapshot of US-Iran relations in 2015, Hiltermann is correct. Yet a new US administration in 2016 could replicate a version of former president Ronald Reagan’s regime-change posture for the now-defunct Soviet Union and impose it on Iran. There are other schools of thought that argue change in Iran is just a matter of time. Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote on the web site Commentary that, “The Islamic Republic is not popular in Iran. There have been nationwide protests against it in 1999, 2001 and 2009. That does not mean the Iranian population is revolutionary; they are not. At best, they are apathetic. “Ultimately, the Iranian people will shed the Islamist dictatorship which has murdered so many, tortured thousands more, deprived others of their dreams, and transformed the image of Iran across the globe not as the repository of an ancient civilization, but rather into the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”Michael Ledeen, the Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where this writer is a fellow, noted in The Weekly Standard earlier this year: “If you made a list of social, economic and political conditions that undermine the legitimacy of a regime, you’d likely conclude that Iran is in what we used to call a ‘prerevolutionary situation.’” He wrote, “Remember that Reagan was told that [former president Mikhail] Gorbachev was firmly in control on the eve of the Soviet Union’s implosion, and the CIA scoffed at the very idea of an organized uprising in Iran before the massive demonstrations of 2009... Western support for regime change – which has long been the most sensible and honorable Iran policy – once again beckons to anyone who wants to take a giant step toward a rational policy.”While the Iran nuclear deal will provide Iran with a massive economic windfall in the realm of over $100 billion in sanctions relief, the notoriously corrupt regime has never prioritized the needs of ordinary Iranians.

Phyllis Chesler/When Women Commit Honor Killings
Distinguishable English Reports
Phyllis Chesler/Middle East Quarterly/Sep 22, 2015
When Women Commit Honor Killings
Fall 2015 (view PDF)
Female perpetrators and accomplices in honor killings, like their male counterparts, can be calculating, brutal, and without remorse. Tooba Yahya Shafia (center) of Canada was directly involved with her husband and son in the murder of three of her daughters and her husband’s first wife.
Female-on-female violence has been minimized because male-on-female violence is far more visible, dramatic, and epidemic. However, women sometimes kill infants, spouses, and adult strangers, including other women. Indeed, as this study shows, women play a very active role in honor-based femicide, both by spreading the gossip underlying such murders and by acting as conspirator-accomplices and/or hands-on-killers in the honor killing of female relatives.
A Deeper Look
In order to explore this phenomenon, this author conducted an original, non-random, qualitative study of 31 honor killings (26 cases) in North America, Europe, India, and Muslim-majority countries, where women were named as hands-on killers and/or conspirator-accomplices in the media.
All of these honor killings took place between 1989 and 2013. Eighty-seven per-cent were Muslim-on-Muslim crimes; the remaining 13 percent were committed by Hindus, Sikhs, and Yazidis. Women were hands-on killers in 39 percent of these cases and served as conspirator-accomplices 61 percent of the time. In India, women were hands-on killers 100 percent of the time.[1] (See Chart 1, below.)
Hands-on killers and conspirator- accomplices saw their victims as “too Western” or as “sexually inappropriate.”
The average age of all victims was twenty years old. When women were the hands-on killers, the average age of their victims was 18.3; although conspirator-accomplices killed victims whose average age was 21, this age difference was of no statistical significance.[2] (See Chart 2, below.)
Forty-two percent of the honor killings in which women participated were torture-murders. Torture-murders are those in which victims are at-tacked in multiple ways—drugged/poisoned, beaten, tied up, suffocated, wrists or throats slashed, stabbed many times, hacked to death, or burned with acid—in short, victims are subjected to a slow and painful death. However, in the case of female hands-on killers, the victims were torture-murdered 92 percent of the time as compared to women who served as conspirator-accomplices with a male hands-on killer; in that case the torture-murder rate was 11 percent.[3] Torture-murders were most frequent in India[4] (83 percent) and in Europe (57 percent). The rate of torture-murder in Muslim-majority countries was 43 percent while in North America it was 9 percent.
The legal outcomes of 25 of these cases are known: 92 percent led to arrests, trials, and/or convictions. This is not surprising as an arrest is probably what triggered the media coverage that brought these cases to light. However, as with incest and other “hidden” family crimes, only a minority of such cases may attract media or legal attention. One hundred percent (100%) of the female and 90 percent of the male hands-on killers were arrested, tried, and/or convicted. Only 53 percent of the female conspirator-accomplices were arrested, tried and/or convicted. The differential arrest rate for (male and female) hands-on killers vs. (female) conspirator-accomplices was statistically significant (p=0.010).
Hands-on killers and conspirator-accomplices killed for the same reasons: They saw their victims as “too Western” or as “sexually inappropriate.” Motive varied as a function of region. Both hands-on killers and conspirator-accomplices viewed their victims as “too Western” 77 percent of the time. Sixty-seven percent of female hands-on killers and 84 percent of conspirator-accomplices perceived their victims this way. (See Charts 2 and 3, below.) In Muslim-majority countries, only 43 percent of victims were killed for this reason. However, in the West, the mainly Muslim victims in North America were viewed as “too Western” 91 percent of the time and 100 percent of the time in Europe. (See Chart 1 for definitions of “too Western.”)
Twenty-three percent of victims were killed for committing an act of “sexual impropriety.” However, in Muslim-majority countries, 57 percent of victims, and, in predominantly Muslim areas of India, 33 percent of victims, were killed for this reason as compared to only 9 percent in North America; there were no honor killings for this reason in Europe.[5]
The Narratives behind the Facts
The above statistics tell only part of the story. What emerges from the narratives of these cases is that the majority of both hands-on killers and conspirator-accomplices blamed their victims for their gruesome fate and are calculating, cold, and self-righteous women. Both female hands-on killers and conspirator-accomplices physically and verbally abused, monitored, and stalked their victims, warning them of dire consequences if they failed to obey the rules. Some issued clear death threats. A few examples:
Shafilea Ahmed (left) of the United Kingdom was murdered by her Pakistani father Iftikhar (top right) and mother Farzana (bottom right). They suffocated Shafilea in front of their four other children after she refused a forced marriage in Pakistan. They were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
On the day Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old Pakistani-Muslim-Canadian girl, was killed, her mother said in a police interview that she “thought her husband was only going to ‘break legs and arms,’ but instead [he] ‘killed her straight away.’” Distraught, she said, “Oh God, Oh God…Oh my Aqsa, you should have listened. Everyone tried to make you understand. Everyone begged you, but you did not listen.”[6] Although seemingly in anguish, the mother appears to have had no problem with having her daughter’s bones broken. Aqsa’s father and brother received life sentences with eligibility for parole after 18 years. The mother was not tried.
Shafilea Ahmed was a 17-year-old Pakistani-Muslim-British girl. Her parents carried out her slow suffocation murder in front of their other young children, warning them that they “would be killed if they ever revealed the truth.”[7] Almost a decade later, perhaps fearing for her own life, Shafilea’s sister Alesha approached the police. She said their mother “began the attack with the words ‘Just finish it here.’”[8] During the murder, the mother said to one of her younger daughters, “You will be next” and “Shut up, or you are dead.”[9]
A 19-year-old Indian-Muslim girl, Zahida, was strangled to death by her mother who said, “This should be the treatment meted out to young people from our religion who marry into families of other faiths.”[10] The mother also said that she “killed her because [she] brought shame to our community. How could [she] elope with [a] Hindu? She deserved to die. I have no remorse.”[11]
Noor Almaleki was a 20-year-old Iraqi-Muslim-American living in Arizona. Her father ran her over with a two-ton Jeep Cherokee. When her mother was informed that her daughter was dying, she said, “Thank you, thank you … That’s what she needs.”[12]
Sixteen-year-old Indian-Muslim Rekha Yadav was hacked to death by her mother who claimed she did so “in a bid to save her family’s prestige.”[13] The mother confessed to the murder and expressed no remorse.
Married at sixteen, 27-year-old Surjit Athwal was treated like a despised servant by her mother-in-law Bachan Kaur, a domineering but respected matriarch within the Sikh community in London. Kaur called Surjit a “murderer” when she had a miscarriage. According to Surjit’s sister-in-law, Bachan intimated publicly that she was going to have the offending daughter-in-law—who wanted to divorce Kaur’s son—eliminated: “I’ve spoken to someone in India … It’s her own fault. She is out of control …We’re the laughing-stock of the community … It’s decided. I won’t have her shaming our family.”[14]
Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud murdered her daughter Rofayda Qaoud after the young woman was raped and impregnated in her West Bank home by her two brothers. The mother wrapped a plastic bag around her daughter’s head and sliced the girl’s wrists. The 43-year-old mother of nine said, “This is the only way I could protect my family’s honor.”
Seventeen-year-old Rofayda Qaoud was raped and impregnated in her West Bank home by her two brothers. According to news reports, “Relatives and friends refused to speak to her family. Her elder daughters’ husbands wouldn’t allow them to visit [the family] because [Rofayda] had returned home.”[15] Finally, her mother Amira perpetrated a torture-murder and then “purged her home of all pictures of her older children.”[16]
But perpetrators of these crimes were not only unschooled women brought up in tribal settings. In the case of Samia Sarwar Imran, an educated 28-year-old Pakistani-Muslim woman, Imran’s wealthy physician-mother hired a hit man, accompanied him to her daughter’s divorce lawyer’s office, and made sure he shot her daughter dead: “The paralegal said that Mrs. Sarwar was ‘cool and collected during the getaway, walking away from the murder of her daughter as though the woman slumped in her own blood was a stranger.’”[17]
Strikingly, from among these 26 cases, only two women came forward—many years later—to testify against their families. Both lived in Britain. One was a sister, Alesha Ahmed, who may have feared for her own life, and the second, Hatim Goren, a mother, had a guilty conscience and, after testifying, was shunned by her family and placed into witness protection.[18]
Gossip and Honor Killing
Honor killings are not merely individual family matters; extended family and community-cultural pressures often demand that dishonorable female behavior be dealt with in this way. Female gossip plays a critical role in these murders.[19]
Roland Barthes once described gossip as “murder by language.”[20] Anthropologist Joseph Ginat theorized that
Anthropological literature claims that offenses against ‘ird’ are only punished when they become public knowledge. However… not all instances of illicit sexual relations that become the subject of rumor and gossip result in a killing. Murder occurs only when there is not only gossip or rumor, but [also] accusation by an injured party.[21]
Anthropologists Ilsa Glazer and Wahiba Abu Ras tested Ginat’s hypothesis by conducting a careful analysis of the “honor killing” of a young Arab-Muslim Israeli woman named Jamila and by tracking the gossip that led to her honor killing.[22]
Female gossip plays a critical role in honor killings.
The 2,200 inhabitants of Jamila’s village were related to each other in multiple ways both by marriage and blood. When the men were away at work during the day, the women of the village would monitor each other’s behavior. Jamila was a young, secluded, uneducated, unemployed, and unmarried girl who lived with her impoverished, widowed mother. As a result, she was at risk of being approached by higher-status boys in the village. One sent her a love letter, which she could not read, and trinkets that she had someone else return; another boy, Younis, drugged and raped her.
At least six women, including her friends, relatives, and the village herbalist, gossiped about Jamila’s plight, and her shame became public. Younis was forced by the village elders to marry the lower-status Jamila. Not long thereafter, he locked up his bride, starved, and anally raped her, and then had her killed by her brothers, telling them that he “had not married a virgin.” Indeed, he had not, since he himself had drugged and raped her prior to their marriage.
Social workers, physicians, teachers, and others need to understand that when girls from shame-and-honor cultures show evidence of being beaten, far more serious consequences may follow. Legislators also should recognize that those who flee “honor” killings or who agree to testify against their families usually require lifelong security and/or new lives under false names.
Upon learning of her death, Jamila’s mother reportedly wept, saying, “Why did [my] daughter behave in a manner which made her death necessary?” The authors concluded that “women’s gossip creates the climate in which the [honor killing] of a young woman is inevitable.”[23]
Similar hostile gossip was probably involved in the twenty-six cases studied here, but the media rarely mentions this phenomenon. However, a full-length book about one of the cases did so.[24] This honor killing took place in 1989 in St. Louis, Missouri. Palestina (Tina) Isa, a Palestinian-Muslim-American, was an academically promising and vivacious 16-year-old girl who was routinely beaten, cursed, and overworked by her parents who viewed her as too “Americanized.” Three of Tina’s envious and unhappily married sisters kept nagging their father to do something. One said: “Tie her down in the basement of the store. Tape her mouth all day; go buy her passport; send her to the homeland, and over there it is neither forbidden nor against the law.” Another sister said: “A person should shoot her and throw her into the sea.”[25] Tina had been encircled and rendered vulnerable by such chilling hatred. While her mother held her down, Tina’s father planted his foot on Tina’s mouth and stabbed her multiple times. Her mother told the judge that it was all Tina’s fault: “My daughter was very rebellious, disobedient …We shouldn’t have to pay for it with our lives for what she did.”[26] The murder was recorded by a hidden FBI wire-tap in the Isas’ home as the father was under surveillance as a terrorism suspect.[27]
Trends and Implications
The author’s review of fifty studies, reports, and books about honor killing (1968-2013), found that a surprising 54 percent of this literature reported no female participation in this gruesome practice while the other 46 percent reported such participation, focusing primarily on conspirator-accomplices and more rarely on hands-on killers. (See “Source Material” below.) One previous review of the literature examined 161 cases of honor killing in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as among Israeli Arabs (1973-2000) and charted the percentage of female involvement at an estimated 8-17 percent.[28]
Compared to these previous findings, this study found a higher percentage of female participation in honor killings than has ever been documented. This is hardly surprising since this study considered only those cases in which women played a role. Thus, it cannot claim to have documented a real increase in female participation.
Some of the male-perpetrated “overkill” styles of torture murders documented in the author’s previous studies involve a perverted sexual dimension similar to what Western serial killers do to prostituted stranger-women.[29] An element of male sexual ownership coupled with rage for having been shamed by a mere woman may combine to explain this.
What can explain a torture rate among female hands-on killers? This study found a 39 percent rate of female hands-on killers and a high rate of torture-murder among them. Female hands-on killers torture-murdered 92 percent of the time, compared to an 11 percent rate among female conspirator-accomplices. (See Chart 4.) Although this difference is statistically significant, it is important to remember that this is a small population of victims (N=12 vs. N=19).
One possible explanation for this difference is that female conspirator-accomplices may exert a restraining impact on their male counterparts leading to less tortuous and more “merciful” killings. In comparison, a female torture-killer may be enraged with her intimate female relative who, she believes, has forced her into so extreme a response. These women know that the “dishonoring” relatives, daughters in particular, have potentially brought social and economic death upon the family. A mother might be furious that her own daughter has driven her to such an ugly act and thus may behave even more brutally.
On the other hand, women have been routinely beaten and bullied by men (and by other, older women) and have not been permitted to express any anger toward them. In such situations, they may be projecting all their anger and aggression against younger women whom they are allowed to persecute and even kill especially if they are family intimates.
Female chastity and fertility is considered a family-owned asset that no individual woman dares to claim as her own.
In general, motive varies as a function of region but not as a function of gender.[30] Both men and women honor kill for the same reasons.
Female chastity and fertility is considered a family-owned asset and one that no individual woman dares to claim as her own. Thus, any girl or woman who refuses or wants to leave an arranged marriage or who chooses her own spouse or the father of her child has, by definition, dishonored her family and is seen as “too Western” for having put her “self” first. There is no concept of “self” in these societies as it has evolved in Western terms.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Female-on-female aggression is wrongfully viewed as a minor problem. However, such aggression can have serious, even lethal consequences. People may recoil from the knowledge that, like men, women have also internalized sexist and tribal codes of behavior; that a mother, grandmother, or mother-in-law can instigate, serve as a conspirator-accomplice in, or perpetrate the hands-on killing of her daughter, granddaughter, or daughter-in-law; and that female hands-on killers and conspirator-accomplices are, like their male counterparts, often calculating, brutal, and without remorse.
The entire community upholds and enforces tribal-religious-ethnic concepts of shame and honor. No family can risk “dishonor” without incurring economic and social disaster. The respective society dictates that if an allegedly deviant daughter is not eliminated, then the family will be shamed and shunned; no one will marry its daughters or sons; it will be condemned to poverty and ostracism.
Society must punish all culpable parties in honor killings including conspirator-accomplices.
For example, Thamar Zeidan, a 33-year-old Muslim woman from the West Bank divorced her abusive husband and lost custody of her children. In response, fifty relatives signed a petition to punish Thamar for disgracing the family by divorcing. According to one news account, “For some of the relatives, [her killing] was a cause for celebration. Zeidan’s aunt held a feast celebrating that the family’s honor had been restored.”[31]
Can one change traditional, tribal thinking? Certainly not easily. One might conduct a pilot project to reach out to families whose children are eligible to marry each other. If reframing the honor codes is presented as being in the best interests of the family and the community, such an approach might work. It may be argued that female literacy and education contributes to a family’s economic survival and that “choices” about veiling have an honorable place in Muslim history. Choosing one’s own spouse (as opposed to arranged or first-cousin marriage) may enlarge an inbred gene pool and contribute to family and communal connectedness in new ways. Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere of multicultural relativism in which tolerance of “diversity” has become sacred, it is unlikely that such an initiative could gain much ground in the West without being pilloried as racist, “colonialist,” and chauvinist.
It is important to hold accomplices liable for their criminal acts. Too often, they have escaped the consequences of their actions. In this study, conspirator-accomplices were arrested significantly less often than hands-on killers of both genders. If Western society is serious about ending honor killings, it must punish all culpable parties including conspirator-accomplices—without whom many honor killings could not take place.
Social workers, physicians, teachers, lawyers, and judges in the West should also be made aware that when girls who come from shame-and-honor cultures are being monitored or beaten, far more serious consequences may follow. Legislators must be educated to understand that those who flee being killed for honor or who agree to testify against their families may require lifelong security and possibly new lives under false names. This is a huge and difficult undertaking, and ideally, it is necessary to find alternative, extended families for them since these potential victims are often individuals whose identities are moored in collectivity, not individualism.
Those in the West who want to help girls and women in flight from being killed for honor must understand that psychologically such girls are used to living with the knowledge that, while outsiders cannot be trusted, their own parents or siblings may one day kill them. This terrible duality means that tribal girls in flight may choose to return home, may not be able to accept outside help, and may ultimately spurn the kindness of strangers. A number of girls do escape, do testify, and do seek asylum. They should be the subject of a future study and offered compassionate assistance in escaping this scourge of femicide.
Phyllis Chesler is emerita professor of psychology and women’s studies at the Richmond College of the City University of New York and co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women’s Health Network. She is the author of sixteen books including An American Bride in Kabul (Palgrave Macmillan Trade, 2014). She wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Jennifer C. Werner and Dr. Sheryl Haut.
Source Material
Gideon M. Kressel, et al., “Sororicide/Filiacide: Homicide for Family Honour,” Current Anthropology, no. 2, 1981, p. 141; Joseph Ginat, Women in Muslim Rural Society (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, reprint ed., 2013); Ilsa M. Glazer and Wahiba Abu Ras, “On Aggression, Human Rights, and Hegemonic Discourse: The Case of a Murder for Family Honor in Israel,” Sex Roles, no. 3-4, 1994, p. 269; Kathryn Christine Arnold, “Are the Perpetrators of Honor Killings Getting away with Murder? Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code Analyzed under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” American University International Law Review, no. 5, 2001, p. 1343; Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Femicide and the Palestinian Criminal Justice System: Seeds of Change in the Context of State Building?” Law & Society Review, no. 3, 2002, p. 577; Niaz A. Shah Kakakhel, “Honour Killings: Islamic and Human Rights Perspectives,” Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, no. 1, 2004, p. 78; Aida Touma-Sliman, “Culture, National Minority and the State: Working against the ‘Crime of Family Honour’ within the Palestinian Community in Israel,” in Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain, Honour (London: Zed Books, 2005), p. 181; Danielle Hoyek, Rafif Rida Sidawi, and Amira Abou Mrad, “Murders of Women in Lebanon: ‘Crimes of Honour’ between Reality and the Law.” in Welchman and Hossain, Honour, p. 111; Abdessamad Dialmy, “Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Society,” Social Analysis, no. 2, 2005, p. 16; Purna Sen, “‘Crimes of Honour,’ Value and Meaning,” in Welchman and Hossain, Honour, p. 42; Nazand Begikhani, “Honour-Based Violence among the Kurds: The Case of Iraqi Kurdistan,” in Welchman and Hossain, Honour, p. 209; Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, “‘Crimes of Honour’ as Violence against Women in Egypt,” in Welchman and Hossain, Honour, p. 137; Valerie Plant, “Honor Killings and the Asylum Gender Gap,” Journal of Transnational Law & Policy, no. 1, 2006, pp. 109-29; “Bibliography on ‘Crimes of Honour’ – Case Summaries,” Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law and International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, Sept. 2006; Veena Meeto and Heidi Safia Mirza, “There Is Nothing ‘Honourable’ about Honour Killings: Gender, Violence and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” Women’s Studies International Forum, no. 3, 2007, pp. 187-200; David Rosen, “Honour Killings: An Expression of Immigrant Alienation,” Eureka Street, no. 6; James Brandon and Salam Hafez, “Crimes of the Community: Honor-based Violence in the UK,” Centre for Social Cohesion; Aisha Gill, “Honor Killings and the Quest for Justice in Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in the United Kingdom,” Criminal Justice Policy Review, no. 4, 2009, pp. 475-94; Kenneth Lasson, “Bloodstains on a ‘Code of Honor’: The Murderous Marginalization of Women in the Islamic World,” Women’s Rights Law Reporter, no. 3-4, 2009, p. 407; Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2010), pp. 147-61, 167-9.; Brooklynn A. Welden, “Restoring Lost ‘Honor’: Retrieving Face and Identity, Removing Shame, and Controlling the Familial Cultural Environment through ‘Honor’ Murder,” Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, no. 1, 2010, pp. 380-98; John Alan Cohan, “Honor Killings and the Cultural Defense,” California Western International Law Journal, no. 2, 2010, pp. 178-249; Andrzej Kulczycki and Sarah Windle, “Honor Killings in the Middle East and North Africa: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Violence against Women, no. 11, 2011, pp. 1442-64.
[1] There were five Muslim and one Hindu hands-on killers in India.
[2] The mean age difference between the groups was 3 years, SD +/2.888.
[3] According to Fisher’s exact test, this was a statistically significant difference, p<0.0001.
[4] There were four Muslim victims and one Hindu victim.
[5] Included in this study are three rape victims since being raped is often viewed as “sexual impropriety” within the Muslim world. See, for example, Phyllis Chesler, “Punished for Being Raped and for Accusing Rapists: Women’s Burden under Sharia,” Breitbart, Oct. 28, 2014; idem, “The Price of Justice for a Raped Pakistani Girl,” The Huffington Post (New York), May 30, 2014.
[6] The Toronto Star, June 26, 2010.
[7] The Telegraph (London), Aug. 3, 2012.
[8] The Daily Mail (London), Aug. 12, 2012.
[9] Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, personal communication, July 15, 2013.
[10] India Today (New Delhi), May 15, 2011.
[11] The New York Daily News, May 15, 2011.
[12] Abigail Pesta, “An American Honor Killing,” Marie Claire, July 8, 2010.
[13] Indian Express (New Delhi), June 30, 2010.
[14] Sarbjit Athwal, Shamed (London: Virgin, 2013), pp. 148-9.
[15] Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, “Culture of Death? Palestinian Girl’s Murder Highlights Growing Number of ‘Honor Killings,’” Jewish World Review, Nov. 18, 2003.
[16] The Guardian (London), June 22, 2005.
[17] Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Honor Code (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2010), pp. 148-9.
[18] Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, personal communication, July 15, 2013.
[19] Max Gluckman, “Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits: Gossip and Scandal,” Current Anthropology, no. 3, 1962, pp. 307-16; Alexander Rysman, “How the ‘Gossip’ Became a Woman,” Journal of Communication, no. 1, 1977, pp. 176-80.
[20] Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 169.
[21] Joseph Ginat, Women in Muslim Rural Society (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1982), p. 184.
[22] Ilsa M. Glazer and Wahiba Abu Ras, “On Aggression, Human Rights, and Hegemonic Discourse: The Case of a Murder for Family Honor in Israel,” Sex Roles, no. 3-4, 1994, p. 269.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ellen Harris, Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father’s Murder of His Too-American Daughter (New York: Scribner, 1995).
[25] Ibid., pp. 129, 212.
[26] Ibid., p. 255.
[27] The New York Times, Oct. 27, 1991.
[28] This total sample size is derived from four studies, which took place in Arab Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Andrzej Kulczycki and Sarah Windle, “Honor Killings in the Middle East and North Africa: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Violence against Women, no. 11, 2011, Table 2.
[29] Phyllis Chesler, “Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings,” Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2010, pp. 3-11; Phyllis Chesler and Nathan Bloom, “Hindu vs. Muslim Honor Killings,” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2012, pp. 43-52.
[30] Chesler, “Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings,” pp. 3-11.
[31] The National Post (Toronto), Dec. 19, 2013.
Related Topics: Criminality, Sex and gender relations | Phyllis Chesler | Fall 2015 MEQ receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free mef mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

Yigal Carmon/Iran Openly Declares That It Intends To Violate UNSCR 2231 That Endorses The JCPOA
Distinguishable English Reports/Sep 22, 2015
Iran Openly Declares That It Intends To Violate UNSCR 2231 That Endorses The JCPOA
By: Yigal Carmon/September 22, 2015 MEMRI Daily Brief No.58
In statements, three Iranian leaders – President Hassan Rohani, Foreign Minister Zarif, and Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator Abbas Araghchi – emphasized that Iran has no intention of abiding by UNSRC 2231, which includes the JCPOA and another element; rather, that they will abide only by the original JCPOA.
The Iran nuclear deal consists of the following:
A. A set of understandings between Iran and the P5+1 powers (as well as the remaining disagreements) all in a single package called the JCPOA. It is not a contract between Iran and the P5+1 countries as a group or any single one of them, and hence no document was signed.
B. This set of mutual understandings (as well as disagreements) packaged in the JCPOA was transferred, following the conclusion of negotiations in Vienna on July 14, 2015, to the UN Security Council, for endorsement as a UN Security Council resolution. The resolution, UNSCR 2231, was passed on July 25, 2015 and it includes, in addition to the JCPOA, another element (Annex B) with further stipulations regarding Iran. For example, it addresses the sanctions on Iran’s missile development project.
To understand why UNSCR 2231 is structured in this way, we can look at statements by top Iranian negotiators about the process that led up to it:
In a July 20, 2015 interview on Iranian Channel 2, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator Abbas Araghchi said that there had been tough bargaining between the Iranian and American delegations over the issue of the arms embargo on Iran and the sanctions related to Iran’s missile development project. “The Americans sought their inclusion in the JCPOA, claiming that otherwise they could not face criticism from Arab countries in the region. When they said that they could not lift the sanctions altogether, we told them explicitly that in that case there is no agreement. We told them that the national security issues are non-negotiable and that we will not accept an agreement which continues the embargo on weapons and the sanctions on missile development. In the end, the Americans said, We will put the issue of the embargo and the missiles in the UN Security Council Resolution separate from the agreement.”
In the same interview, Araghchi was asked whether Iran could refrain from carrying out UNSCR 2231; he replied: “Yes we can; just as we refrained from complying with UN Security Council resolutions, we can do so with regards to 2231.”
Araghchi also referred to the Iranian Foreign Ministry statement issued following the passage of UNSCR 2231: “The Iranian Foreign Ministry statement explicitly noted that Iran does not attach legitimacy to any restriction and any threat. If UNSCR 2231 will be violated by Iran, it will be a violation of the Security Council resolution and not of the JCPOA, similar to what happened 10 years ago when we violated Security Council resolutions and nothing happened. The text of the JCPOA notes the fact that the content of the JCPOA and of the UN Security Council resolution are two separate things.”[1]
Foreign Minister Zarif, in an August 9, 2015 media interview, reiterated the Iranian position regarding the difference between the JCPOA and UNSCR 2231, with a focus on the consequences of possible violation of the two by Iran. He said: “There is a difference between the JCPOA and UNSCR 2231. Violating the JCPOA has consequences, while violating UNSCR 2231 has no consequences.”[2]
Indeed, the restrictions regarding missiles are mentioned only in UNSCR 2231, and not in the JCPOA.
On August 29, 2015, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said: “There is nothing about the topic of missiles, defense, and weapons in the JCPOA. Whatever we have about it is in Resolution [UNSCR] 2231… Moreover, we have formally announced that we are not committed to all the sections that appear in the resolution [2231], and we specified in the JCPOA that violation of the resolution [2231] does not mean violation of the JCPOA…[3]
The meaning of all this is that in everything related to the issue of missile development, Iran will disregard UNSCR 2231. Already during the negotiations, it insisted on no imposition of sanctions on Iran regarding its missile development (and no sanctions at all). When the Americans moved the sanctions on the missile program to UNSCR 2231, Iran did not object, as, according to their statements above, they can violate Security Council resolutions, as they have done in the past, and this will not be regarded as a violation of the JCPOA.
Endnotes:
[1] ISNA.ir/fa/news/94042915462/%D9%85%D9%85%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B9%DB%8C%D8%AA-%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%AA%D8%B3%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA%DB%8C-%D9%88-%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B4%DA%A9%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%87- .
[2] Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said this at an August 9, 2015 conference sponsored by the Iranian daily Ittil’at with other senior negotiators in attendance. See text in Farsi here.
[3] President.ir/fa/89047, August 30, 2015.
© 1998-2015, The Middle East Media Research Institute All Rights Rese

Bahah and Bakri: The promising future of Yemen
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
Last May, a number of Saudi academics and I met in an old hotel in Berlin with a group of Western researchers on Middle Eastern issues. We were joined by Iranian researchers and we all participated in a ‘policy game’, or ‘political expectations game’ in Arabic. It was originally known as a ‘war game’ – but when Europeans became peace-loving people, they changed its name!
We split into different groups of Saudis, Iranians, Europeans, Americans, and Russians, as these are the main powers that have a strong influence today in the Middle East. A German researcher was among us. He was described as an expert in the region’s affairs, since he served as a diplomat and a member of the intelligence service there. He kept his identity a secret, despite participating with us in the ‘game’! He wrote his predictions as to what will happen in the region in both August and November. We had to discuss his expectations during two long meetings, and predict our own country’s political reaction to them, without changing anything in his scenario of what was supposed to be taking place.
Now, after seeing the Yemeni Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah jumping enthusiastically out of the plane that carried him back, once and for all, to the liberated Aden, I just wish I could meet that German expert again to tell him: “all your expectations regarding Yemen were wrong, and you have to reconsider your confidence in the Saudi military and political capacity”. He had predicted the fall of Aden in early June, as well as Taiz in mid-November, to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Houthi forces.
No solution on the horizon
In the real world, Taiz is currently on the verge of being liberated, while Aden is fully liberated and the Bahah government has permanently returned there. However, the German’s only expectation that turned out to be true was that “no solution to the Yemeni political crisis is looming in the horizon”.
This is what I found to be the main concern of Vice President Bahah when I met him in Riyadh, two days before his trip to Aden. I wished then that I had accepted his invitation and accompanied him there. He was busy asking: Where is Yemen heading to, after the war? It is the right question to ask, and the influencing forces there have to develop a plan for the coming days, after the fall of the Houthis and Saleh.
A country like Yemen is tired of politicians and power-sharing between ruling families. It is time for Yemen to be managed with a mentality of development and productivity.
Yemen is a complex block that got more complicated after the 2011 revolution and the current war. The old rules are no longer valid, but their negative impact is still effective today – as seen in the assassinations carried out as a way to resolve disputes and political rivalry. We should not accuse the Houthis or Saleh’s governance of all the assassinations that have happened, or will happen, in Aden. Yes, they are the two main suspects but there are others also who may be responsible.
Changing forces
What is new in Yemen is the growing power of the youth aspiring to a better life, as well as the forces of the 2011 revolution that blamed the GCC for marginalizing their role in its famous initiative to end Saleh’s era, and keep him at the same time.
However, the GCC and more specifically the “Decisive Storm” operation led by Saudi Arabia, re-energized the Yemeni revolution forces when they emerged as leaders of the resistance. This was a necessary step to confirm the popular rejection of the Houthis and Saleh, and proved that the legitimate Yemeni government, represented by President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, was real.
On the other hand, the power of the tribes and their elders shrank, in a process that lasted for decades and began before the revolution in 2011. The influence of the tribes and elders has been replaced by political parties and ideology, which is bound to prosper if Yemen chooses the way of pluralist politics. The last tribal Sheikh in Yemen, the late Abdullah bin Husayn bin Nasser al-Ahmar, discovered this at an early stage when he famously stated: “My tribe is the Brotherhood”, referring of course to the Muslim Brotherhood. He established with them the al-Islah party – or the Yemeni Congregation for Reform – which celebrated its 25th anniversary last week.
Bahah and Bakri
The image of Bahah arriving in Aden, accompanied by Nayef al-Bakri – the controversial, yet popular former governor of Aden – reflects this change. It is a message to the Yemenis that it is time for youth and change. Bakri represents the resistance, as he was one of its leaders in Aden. He withdrew from the Yemeni Congregation for Reform to confirm that the national cause is prevailing now. Nevertheless, he kept up the spirit of the 2011 revolution when he collided with the mentality of power-sharing, which is trying to be restored even though the war has not yet ended.
When I met Bahah at the Conference Palace in Riyadh, from where he was running the battle to save Yemen, he was preoccupied with the dismissal of al-Bakri. He described it to me as “an issue that we do not need”, since it almost became a crisis in Aden after some tried to extend it to the regional level by getting neighboring countries involved. It also almost became an internal crisis since Bakri was able to get the youth support, and it would have reached the partisan level through Bakri’s affiliation to the Yemeni Congregation for Reform party.
I think that the forced crisis of Bakri’s dismissal is just a clash between two generations and two cultures: one led Yemen to its current status and the other wants to get Yemen out of it. This is why Bahah interrupted my questions about Bakri by saying: “I will not give up on this young man. If he doesn’t become the governor of Aden, he will be with me in the Ministry to serve Yemen as a whole”.
Bahah believes in a theory that is worth being taken into consideration by Yemen’s neighbors: “development in time of war”. He does not want to disrupt the development just because there is a war in Yemen. He explained his theory by saying: “the development and provision of services to citizens are what will prevent Yemen and its liberated territories from collapsing. If citizens see that the state is not working properly, they will lose confidence and hope, and will then resort to alternatives that will gradually turn them into local leaders and militias outside the framework of the state. Yemen will then become like Libya; the situation will get more complicated and consequently we will discover that, after the liberation of Sanaa or after the peace with the Houthis, regions that we left behind us have already collapsed”. A country like Yemen is tired of politicians and power-sharing between ruling families. It is time for Yemen to be managed with a mentality of development and productivity.This is why I found Bahah keen to be close to all influential Gulf countries, while wanting to act independently, something Saudi Arabia will probably be supporting. So if I were to return to Berlin, I would suggest that a productive economy, as well as politics, will be key in answering Bahah’s question “where is Yemen going?” It is, however, best to have this question discussed first between Sanaa and Riyadh.

‘Mama Merkel’ helps heal wounds of Germany’s past
Diana Moukalled/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
We have become used to seeing photos of German Chancellor Angela Merkel on social media networks, particularly on pages pertaining to the Syrian diaspora, accompanied by slogans voicing gratitude and appreciation. For Syrians escaping death, Merkel has managed to offer shelter, with her country setting the bar high for its European neighbors, in the welcome it is giving the refugees. Syrians responded to the German leader by voicing their affection any way they could, with many using social media as it is the easiest means to voice gratitude. They are circulating selfies snapped by Merkel with Syrian refugees during her visit to one of the camps in Germany. And the media is full of comments commending Merkel, and condemning other leaders.The photo of Aylan and of Syrian refugees on trains struck a particular chord among Germans. Even some negative articles that claimed those escaping war are not supposed to be carrying smartphones did not detract from the positive image of the Chancellor – whom some have dubbed ‘Mama Merkel’.German nationals are pleased at this positive image of Merkel – something that is being linked, by association, to the country itself.
‘Unmerciful tyrant’
During the past few years when the economic crisis was at its worst in Greece, Merkel was often pictured as an unmerciful tyrant by European media. Many photos and comments drew similarities between her and Hitler. But Merkel chose a moral stance over how to deal with the refugees. It’s true that Merkel’s courage is being challenged by racist groups in Germany and Europe – groups that base their argument on fear of Islam, and claims that these refugees cannot integrate in society. However, broader German public opinion seems to be more in favor of Merkel’s choices. Yes, the photo of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while fleeing to Europe with his parents, has been especially powerful, especially in a country where the collective memory is haunted by photos of Jews on trains as they were taken to extermination camps. That massacre still impacts on the Germans’ public image today. And so the photo of Aylan and of Syrian refugees on trains and crossing borders in Europe struck a particular chord among Germans – influencing their stance on the refugee crisis.
‘Tired of being the bad guys’This emotional response in commending Merkel has comforted many Germans, with some thinking that this marks a new positive image for their country and people. The culture of welcoming refugees has been strengthened, thanks to both laws and Germans' acts of kindness in receiving refugees with flowers. Photos of such gestures have positively affected public opinion of Germany, which is still influenced by history and the Nazi era.
More than one German commentator has said “we are tired of being the bad guys.” And a new image is developing, as Germany wants the world to love it more. So perhaps the Syrian tragedy will help heal the wounds of Germany’s past. But as for Syria’s recovery, it seems now is not the time.

Chechens face an epic battle in Syria
Dr. Theodore Karasik/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
Now that the Kremlin is proactively involved in Syria’s Latakia region – given Russia’s expansion of both the port facility at Tartus and an airfield, along with its dispersal of assets and humanitarian aid – the issue of where Chechens sit in the current milieu is of major strategic interest. Of primary concern are those Chechens who are key leaders and tacticians in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). These militants are particularly influential and cunning – and have long-term plans that include a violent return to the Russian Federation to spread the caliphate. Chechens, by design or by fate of history, are again at the center of a battle that plays into their unique warrior lore.To be sure, Chechen fighters and field commanders have featured prominently in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. While a number of them may have departed directly from the Russian Federation, others are likely veterans or relatives of exiles in Europe, Turkey or the Levant from the two separatist Chechen Wars that took place in the 1990s. For those who are anti-Russian and anti-Grozny – the capital of Chechnya – the draw of ISIS’ so-called caliphate is strong. Chechen fighters are involved in the senior ISIS leadership and in many of its attacks. One notable is Musa Abu Yusuf al-Shishani (aka Abu Omar al-Shishani), whose original name is Tarkhan Batirashvili. He is an ethnic Chechen from Georgia’s Pankisi valley and a senior military commander in ISIS. Al-Shishani is featured prominently in many ISIS videos. It will be interesting to see how Al-Shishani conducts his operations against the Russian “infidels” now that the Kremlin is backing Assad’s forces on Syrian ground.
Russia a target
To be sure, Islamic State has designs on the Russian Federation, which helps explain why the Kremlin is acting the way it is now in Syria. Chechens who are enemies of Moscow are key to penetrating Russia’s soft underbelly. Maps issued recently by the Islamic State identified several caliphates it intends to establish within the next five years. One of these, the Qoqaz, imagines a unified Northern and Southern Caucasus caliphate. Unmistakably, the Russian Federation is now highly concerned – as demonstrated by recent pronouncements by the Russian Security Service (FSB) – as ISIS not only has significant influence on regional geopolitics, but serves as inspiration for extremist sympathizers around Russia’s borders and in allied countries in Central Asia, notably Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Aside from ISIS-affiliated Chechens, other Northern Caucasus ethnic groups including Circassians play a role in the Levantine war environment. Circassians are present in the Syrian military, as are others from the Northern Caucasus who immigrated to Damascus over the past century. There are families in Syria that have ancestral ties with Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, and Dagestan. How these ethnicities see Russia’s presence in Syria now will be part of “squaring the circle” between the Levant and the Northern Caucasus.
Anti-Russian hatred
Syrian counter-intelligence always considered these ethnic groups “non-Arab”. We need to recall anti-Russian hatred that manifested itself early in the Syrian revolt, which featured the burning of Russian flags and other violent acts. In addition, when speaking of Chechens in Syria, there needs to be an important distinction of who is actually a Chechen or is instead related to another ethnic group from the Russian Federation. Clearly, the festering ethnic issue of minorities in the Levant may rise up; Moscow and Damascus should take note. Nevertheless, there are, of course, Chechens aligned with the Kremlin on the Syria issue. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov already called ISIS the “Iblis State” – State of Satan – which demonstrates his absolute contempt for the Caliphate. More importantly, Kadyrov is playing a key role in acting as an intelligence arm in cooperation with Moscow, Damascus and, significantly, Amman. In June 2014, King Abdullah of Jordan visited Chechnya to meet with Kadyrov. From there on out, Amman and Grozny, along with Moscow, in a significant triangulation, have been sharing intelligence information on Chechens and other Russian citizens in ISIS. Moreover, Chechnya’s counterterrorism forces are prominently displayed in Chechnya to the point of setting up an international training center in Gudermes earlier this year modeled on the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC).
Hunter-killer teams
The Kremlin’s plan appears to be for Russian forces to be augmented with Kadyrov’s hunter-killer teams in Syria. This move, supported by Jordan and other Arab countries, has been in the works for over a year. As a force multiplier, Kadyrov’s forces actually know how their Islamic State opponents think and act on the battlefield. That’s an important requirement – boots on the ground – and an irony that Kadyrov’s Chechen counterterrorism fighters are going to “save the day” in Syria. This plan is what one reaps from relying on air power alone by the U.S.-led Operation Inherent Resolve. To be determined is how the pro-Moscow Chechens will cooperate and interoperate with other players in the Syrian battle-space. Unmistakably, Chechens, by design or by fate of history, are again at the center of a battle that plays into their unique warrior lore. But this Levantine battle is different because this fight will be outside their home territory and ultimately, against each other. In other words, the spread of Chechen politics and violence, sharply divided since Moscow imposed its will in Grozny through the Kadyrov clan, is now being transported into the heart of the Levant. It will be an epic battle – and all sides know it.

Rowhani in New York: Another baby step towards reconciliation
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/September 22/15
Like rock stars, Iranian presidents are used to stealing the limelight from other heads of state when they travel to New York to address the United Nations. This year is a little different because Pope Francis will be in town on an official visit to attend the 70th General Assembly. Despite the spotlight currently being on the pontiff, it is expected to shift to Iranian President Hassan Rowhani if a possible meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, goes ahead. There is a long way to go in fully restoring diplomatic ties – but a potential face-to-face encounter could be a baby step in that direction.A key question will be over what approach Rowhani will take in New York following the recent nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers.
Historic meeting
In 2013, the freshly elected Rowhani attended the United Nations General Assembly and had a historic phone conversation with Obama, after 35 years of animosity between the two nations. Rowhani later secured the nuclear agreement; he now needs to reduce the tension over Iran’s foreign policy. Rowhani’s mission in New York is partly to melt the ice of mistrust and coldness between Iran and the United States. But he must do this slowly, so as it wouldn’t be too visible to the hardliners in Tehran that oppose the improved relations with Washington. If he succeeds in this delicate balancing act, Rowhani’s star will rise in both the U.S. and Iran.
Of course, the nuclear deal is just one of Iran’s interests, with the crises in the Middle East and the future of Syria and its President Bashar al-Assad also on the agenda. The New York visit is a key opportunity for Iranian officials, given that next year President Obama will be preparing to hand over power to his successor.And if Rowhani does meet Obama, the trip to New York could be seen as another success in his presidential record. A brief meeting and attending the summit will not mean fully normalized relations – but would indicate a further thaw in relations between the countries.
There is a long way to go in fully restoring diplomatic ties – but a potential face-to-face encounter could be a baby step in that direction. If Iran is ready to take that step, this could be its only chance.