LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 28/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 5,17-19. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
For all its complexity, Lebanon's crisis offers some very simple choices.The Daily Star. 27/02/08
Trust and not math is needed to end Lebanon crises. By: Ali Hussein.Ya Libnan. 27/02/08
'Independent' Kosovo: A threat, not a country by James George Jatras, WorldNetDay. 27/02/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for February 27/08
Report on 1701 to be Issued Friday as Ban Dispatches Roed-Larsen to Region-Naharnet
Syria: 'Important results' in Mugniyah murder probe-Ynetnews
Lebanon crisis getting more complex - mediator-Reuters
Report: Franjieh's Campaign Against Sfeir Linked to Hariri Tribunal-Naharnet
Moussa to visit Damascus Soon, Says Solution is External-Naharnet
Wife of Fugitive Lebanese Restaurateur Jailed in U.S.-Naharnet
Witness: Lebanese Suspect in German Bomb Plot Wanted to Wage Jihad-Naharnet
Israel: Hizbullah to Launch Retaliatory Attack 40 Days after Mughniyeh's Killing-Naharnet
Jumblat Sees No End in Sight to Political Conflict-Naharnet
Lebanon Wants Arab States to Shore Up Finances, Salameh Says-Bloomberg
Geagea Sets Christian Priorities-Naharnet
Moawad: Syria Wants Lebanon an Arena Run by Damascus, Tehran-Naharnet
Lebanon Wants to Question Libya's Qaddafi About Missing Cleric-Bloomberg
Mughniyeh Was Key Hezbollah Commander, Insider Says-New York Sun
Sahili Urges March 14 to Soften Stance-Naharnet
Saudi Moves its Ambassador in Damascus to Doha-Naharnet
Beirut bottleneck needs regional fix - Moussa-Daily Star
Analysts: Arab summit won't affect Lebanon-Daily Star
Families, feuds, and Lebanon's fair-weather foreign friends-Daily Star
Syrian official says Hizbullah can stay active in country-Daily Star
Slain Militant Was Organizer in 2006 War-The Associated Press
UN to spend $100,000 on 'green' plan to rebuild Nahr al-Bared-Daily Star
Germany replaces Lebanon's coastal radar system destroyed in 2006 war-Daily Star
Poetry reading raises money for the blind-Daily Star
Conference tackles issue of citizenship in Lebanon-Daily Star
US report sees investment opportunities in Lebanon despite stalled economy-Daily Star
Hamadeh returns to post at Labor Ministry, sort of -Daily Star
Aoun Tells His Bloc Members the Majority rejected 'All Settlements'-Naharnet
Qaouq: U.S.-Israel decided to Launch War on Hizbullah-Naharnet
Libyan Leader Summoned To Beirut Court-Naharnet
Lebanon: Storm Warning-Naharnet
Syria, Lebanon and the Damascus Summit-Naharnet
Egypt's Mubarak says Syria part of Lebanon crisis-Reuters

Syria, Lebanon and the Damascus Summit
Naharnet/Syrian President Bashar Assad's top priority is Lebanon and not the forthcoming Arab Summit scheduled for March 29 in Damascus, an-Nahar's Ali Hamade wrote Tuesday. Bashar Assad's stand, according to Hamade, is "Lebanon first then the summit."He wrote that the priority structure reflects Assad's thinking that goes along the line "what would Syria benefit from winning the Arabs and losing Lebanon?""The Syrian regime fully realizes that the Summit, the first ever by the Arabs in Syria, would be marginal if it was not called off," Hamade noted. The Assad Regime, he added, would "rid itself of any safeguards that prevents major attempts to destabilize Lebanon."He concluded by noting: "We should proceed strongly with our independence march to confront the tans-border assault on Lebanon."
Beirut, 26 Feb 08, 15:07

Aoun Tells His Bloc Members the Majority rejected 'All Settlements'
Naharnet/Opposition representative Michel Aoun told members of his Change and reform parliamentary bloc that the March 14 majority has foiled attempts to reach a compromise to the ongoing political crisis. A statement said Aoun briefed bloc members in their weekly meeting at his residence in suburban Rabiyeh on "details of the discussions" carried out with majority representatives in two separate meetings on Monday and Sunday. Ex-President Amin Gemayel and Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri, representing the majority during the talks held with Arab league Secretary General Amr Moussa "insisted on rejecting all proposals for solutions and settlements," Aoun was quoted as saying.The majority, according to the statement, wanted to maintain its "monopoly" of powers.It added that "flexibility" practiced by Aoun during the talks, was rejected because the majority does not want a settlement to the crisis."The bloc also criticized threats targeting foreign embassies, the statement added without elaboration. Beirut, 26 Feb 08, 18:04

Libyan Leader Summoned To Beirut Court
Naharnet/Examining Magistrate Samih al-Hajj on Tuesday decided to summon Libyan leader Moammar Ghaddafy to a court hearing in Beirut scheduled for April, It was officially reported. The state-Run National News Agency, in a terse report, said al-Hajj also decided to notify Ghaddafy of the subpoena by posting it at the main entrance to the justice ministry compound in Beirut, better known as the Justice Palace. The Libyan leader is required to report to the Lebanese court in connection with his alleged role in the 1978 mysterious disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadre, chairman of Lebanon's higher Shiite Islamic Council, while on a visit to Libya.
In case Ghaddafy failed to report on schedule, an arrest warrant would be issued in absentia in line with Lebanon's criminal law, the report added without further elaboration. Beirut, 26 Feb 08, 18:39

Qaouq: U.S.-Israel decided to Launch War on Hizbullah
Naharnet/Hizbullah chief in south Lebanon Sheikh Nabil Qaouq charged on Tuesday that the United States and Israel have decided to "launch a new aggression on the resistance and its accomplishments in Lebanon."The beginning of such a scheme, according to Qaouq, was the assassination of Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus on Feb. 12. He said Mughniyeh's assassination, however, backfired on the Israelis and the Americans because "the resistance enjoyed wider backing in Lebanon, the Arab and Islamic nations.""The resistance lacks no strength to protect its leaders and strip the enemy of the chance to score gains," Qaouq said. Beirut, 26 Feb 08, 18:59

Israel: Hizbullah to Launch Retaliatory Attack 40 Days after Mughniyeh's Killing
Naharnet/Head of Israel's Intelligence branch Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin has warned of an imminent retaliatory attack against Israel by Hizbullah to avenge the killing of the Shiite group's top commander Imad Mughniyeh. "From past experience we know that many retaliatory terror attacks often come on the fortieth day following such an assassination," Yadlin said Tuesday. He told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that recent violations at the Egyptian border with Gaza "has enabled Hamas to bring back to Gaza activists who were sent to undergo training in Syria and Iran, including snipers, explosives experts and engineers."According to Yadlin, al-Qaida operatives have also managed to infiltrate Gaza before Egypt closed the border. Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 09:11

Geagea Sets Christian Priorities
Naharnet/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday said the Christians' main priority is the election of a president, and underlined that interest of the Christians lies in a new general election law based on the county-constituency. "The only, basic and useful issue for the Christians at present is the election of a new president," Geagea told partisans at his residence in Meerab. Geagea attacked the Hizbullah-led opposition for demanding a new law for general elections similar to the law adopted in 1960 and applied until 1972. He explained that it is in the interest of the Christians to adopt a law for general elections based on the county-constituency principle, stressing "the smaller the constituency is, the better it would for Christian representation." Free Patriotic Movement leader Gen. Michel Aoun, who represents the opposition, called Monday for applying the 1960 law on general elections, scheduled for 2009. "Times have changed," Geagea said. "The 1960 law merged counties, which is not in the interest of Christians.""We want the smallest possible constituency," he concluded. Beirut, 26 Feb 08, 20:20

Jumblat Sees No End in Sight to Political Conflict
Naharnet/Druze leader Walid Jumblat sees no end in sight to the 15-month-old political crisis between the pro-government ruling majority and the Hizbullah-led opposition which is backed by Syria and Iran. Jumblat accused Hizbullah of providing military training to its Lebanese allies. However, he stressed that the dispute would not turn into armed conflict. "I don't think there is going to be an armed conflict," Jumblat said in remarks published in several Beirut newspapers on Wednesday. "It will really be to the disadvantage of everybody." Describing recent street violence as "skirmishes," Jumblat said: "I don't see it, for the time being, as dangerous." "We started peacefully, we'll continue peacefully," he stressed. His softer stance is a contradiction to remarks made earlier this month when he warned that the March 14 coalition is ready for war if Hizbullah wanted war. Jumblat accused Hizbullah of providing training for allied factions inside their camps. "What can we do?"On the presidential crisis, Jumblat said March 14 would not give in to the opposition's demand for effective veto power in a new national unity government.
He accused Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah of trying to intimidate March 14 leaders. "He's just fixing the trigger on your head and telling you: I'm making you an offer you cannot refuse," Jumblat said. "Well, up to now I have refused," he said, adding that the ruling majority would not succumb.
"We are going through endless disputes," Jumblat explained, adding that the situation could last for a "very long" time. He said that as long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Damascus regime are "secure," and as long as "we are faced by the Iranian imperialism or expansionism in the Middle East, Lebanon will be in trouble."Jumblat believed that "nothing" will come out of an Arab summit to be held in Damascus next month "because the Arab world is divided."
Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 10:20

Report on 1701 to be Issued Friday as Ban Dispatches Roed-Larsen to Region
Naharnet/U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon will issue on Friday his report on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 which brought an end to the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hizbullah. A report on progress in the establishment of the international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is also expected to be issued within the coming two weeks and prior to a visit by Canadian prosecutor general Daniel Bellemare to the U.N. Security Council where he will submit his report on Hariri's killing. The United Nations plans to move forward in the Hariri case as soon as Bellemare is ready and after establishment of the court. Ban has also dispatched U.N. Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen to the region to convey a letter from the U.N. Secretary General to Arab leaders. Roed-Larsen's visit to the Middle East has so far covered Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Hizbullah should be disarmed in line with Resolution 1701 that brought an end on August 14, 2006 to the 34-day war with Israel. Hizbullah has agreed to abide by the ceasefire stipulated by the resolution, but has resolutely refused to lay down its arms until it is satisfied Israel has ended its occupation of Lebanese territory. Resolution 1701 calls for establishing "an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL" between the Israeli border and the Litani River, a strategic waterway that runs between five and 30 kilometers north of the border. It stipulates UNIFIL should "assist the Lebanese armed forces" in achieving that. Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 08:45

Syria: 'Important results' in Mugniyah murder probe
Damascus plans to wait with publication of findings of investigation into Hizbullah commander's assassination until after Arab League meeting next week. Sources say probe points to involvement of Arab country in killing  Roee Nahmias Published: 02.27.08, 09:27 / Israel News  Syria has reached "important results" in its investigation of the assassination of Hizbullah commander Imad Mugniyah earlier this month, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported Wednesday, quoting Syrian sources. According to the report, the Syrian regime has decided to wait with the publication of the investigation results until after the Arab League meets in Damascus next week. According to the sources, these results prove that an intelligence organization of an Arab country helped Israel assassinate Mugniyah and that Lebanese and Palestinian elements had also assisted in the killing. Arab sources interpreted the remarks as a Syrian signaling to Arab states with which it has bad relations on the campaign it plans to launch against them. Saudi King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who met Monday, believe that Syrian President Bashar Assad is the one preventing the election of a new Lebanese president. Mubarak even claimed that "Assad is part of the problem." For the time being, the Syrians are planning not to make any statements, at least until after the Arab summit next week. They are attempting not to deepen the intra-Arab crisis and wait for the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to attend the meeting, in which Damascus has invested large sums of money.
If these leaders fail to show up, it is assumable that Damascus will openly accuse at least one of them of cooperating with Israel in the Mugniyah assassination.

Lebanon crisis getting more complex - mediator
Wed 27 Feb 2008,
BEIRUT, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Lebanon's political crisis is becoming more complicated and foreign influence over the struggle between the Beirut governing coalition and Hezbollah-led opposition is unprecedented, a mediator has said. In comments published on Wednesday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called for renewed Arab and regional efforts to end the stand off between the rival sides, whose power struggle is Lebanon's worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.
Lebanon has been without a president for three months and the two sides are at odds over how to share seats in a new cabinet.
Moussa brokered two days of talks this week but failed to make progress towards resolving a conflict that continues to poison Arab ties ahead of an Arab summit in Syria next month. The governing coalition is backed by foreign powers including the United States and its Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The opposition is supported by Syria and Iran. As-Safir quoted Moussa as describing the size of the problems as "very formidable". He said problems were becoming more complicated and creating additional problems. "Foreign influence has become a source of pressure in the Lebanese issue to an unprecedented extent," he said. He did not say which states he was talking about. "The Arab League has accomplished what could be accomplished," he said. "The rest requires new Arab and regional efforts," As-Safir quoted the former Egyptian foreign minister as saying.
The standoff is at the heart of a diplomatic rift between Syria and Saudi Arabia, whose King Abdullah is unlikely to attend the Arab summit unless the conflict is resolved. The crisis has led to the worst street violence since Lebanon's civil war, aggravating old communal tensions between followers of rival sectarian leaders.
It has also created new animosities between Sunni Muslim followers of governing coalition leader Saad al-Hariri and Shi'ite Muslim supporters of Hezbollah.
Moussa described Lebanon as a microcosm of the Middle East. "Any splits, if they happen, can spread and threaten the rest of the countries. Therefore it is up to everyone who has a link to the Lebanese situation to sense the danger and bear their responsibilities," he said. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

Moussa to visit Damascus Soon, Says Solution is External
Naharnet/Arab League chief Amr Moussa said Wednesday he will visit Damascus soon to discuss with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other high-ranking officials efforts to help Lebanon get out of its prolonged presidential crisis. Moussa stressed that the Arab League "was able to accomplish what it could on the Lebanese level." "What is left necessitates serious Arab and regional efforts," Moussa told the daily As Safir. Moussa acknowledged that the problems in Lebanon were "huge.""Not only that, the problems are getting more complicated and are generating additional problems," he said. In response to a question, Moussa said the Egyptian leadership "is playing both a good and an impartial role."Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 13:36

Wife of Fugitive Lebanese Restaurateur Jailed in U.S.
Naharnet/The wife of fugitive Lebanese restaurateur Talal Chahine has been sentenced to 90 days in prison and stripped of her citizenship after pleading guilty to citizenship fraud. Elfat Al Aouar is serving an 18-month sentence for tax evasion. The 41-year-old participated in Tuesday's sentencing in U.S. District Court in Detroit by phone from a prison in the U.S. state of Connecticut. She is to serve the 90-day sentence simultaneously with the 18-month term she received last May. The Lebanon native and former executive of Chahine's Middle Eastern restaurants is accused of faking a marriage to another man to gain U.S. citizenship. Chahine is charged with tax evasion and is believed to be in Lebanon.(AP) Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 10:13

Report: Franjieh's Campaign Against Sfeir Linked to Hariri Tribunal
Naharnet/A campaign by Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh against Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir had to do with the international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes, the Lebanese daily al-Liwa said Wednesday. Citing sources close to the Maronite Church, al-Liwa said Franjieh's vehement attacks on Sfeir came after the prelate's refusal to cover up for the former cabinet minister in the event he was summoned to appear before the international court. The sources said Franjieh had asked Bkirki for "political protection" after he became convinced that he would be summoned to give testimony as a witness in the Hariri murder. They said Sfeir told Franjieh that he had experienced a similar situation during the trial of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, adding that the patriarch is strongly committed not to interfere in any judicial matter. The international investigation commission registered hearing sessions by Franjieh that lasted more than 80 hours. Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 11:02

Witness: Lebanese Suspect in German Bomb Plot Wanted to Wage Jihad
Naharnet/One of the main suspects in a plot to bomb a pair of German commuter trains in 2006 talked of waging jihad, or holy war, and thought of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as a role model, a witness testified Tuesday.  Youssef Mohammed el-Hajdib looked up to bin Laden and applauded the Sept. 11 attacks, while bemoaning al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death in a U.S. airstrike in 2006, witness Ahmed el-Hasnoui told a Düsseldorf state court.
El-Hajdib, a 22-year-old Lebanese citizen, and alleged accomplice Jihad Hamad are accused of planting bombs on two regional trains at the main train station in Cologne in July 2006. The bombs failed to detonate. El-Hasnoui told the court he lived with el-Hajdib in student housing in the German city of Kiel and often prayed and ate with him. But, he said, El-Hajdib was a more conservative Muslim, taking exception when women wore no head scarves, for example.
El-Hajdib also spoke repeatedly of going to Iraq to wage jihad, el-Hasnoui testified. "His body was in Germany, but his spirit lived in jihad and in Lebanon," the 23-year-old Moroccan testified. El-Hajdib took exception to the testimony, saying that his former friend had misunderstood him.
"He's no psychoanalyst and can therefore not say what was going on inside me," el-Hajdib told the court. Evidence in the case includes videotaped surveillance footage allegedly showing the two suspects wheeling suitcases containing the devices into the train station.
The bombs' triggers went off, but the explosives did not detonate and no one was harmed. El-Hajdib was arrested the next month in Kiel; Hamad fled to his native Lebanon and was arrested. Earlier this month, el-Hajdib admitted to taking part in the attempted bombing but said Hamad -- sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Lebanese court in December -- oversaw the failed plot. El-Hajdib testified at the time that Hamad planned the attacks as revenge after some German newspapers reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed first published in a Danish newspaper in 2005. Hamad, meanwhile, testified in Lebanon that el-Hajdib was the initiator of the failed plot. German prosecutors charged el-Hajdib in June with an unspecified number of counts of attempted murder and with attempting to set off an explosion. The trial is expected to last through April.(AP) Beirut, 27 Feb 08, 10:19

Resolve and the War of Ideas
We are losing the greater War of Ideas. It’s not because we have no ideas or ideals. Nor is it because we do not know how to convey them in a compelling manner. (Are you watching the crush for the latest Air Jordan sneakers from Nike? It’s not because there is gold bullion in every 100th pair.)
We’ve plenty of ideas as important today as nearly 250 years ago, and we’ve mastered the art of communication. No, the problem is greater than either of those potential obstacles.
To begin to demonstrate, consider some important paragraphs below from a Jerusalem Post analysis titled Nasrallah’s existential dilemmas. The context of the first paragraph cited is a speech from Hizballah’s political leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered at a Beirut mosque last week and broadcast by Hizballah’s Al-Manar TV. The excerpt is relatively lengthy, but read through it. You will see that it applies here.
The Hizbullah leader [Nasrallah] railed from his unknown hiding place against the ‘robbing and murdering Zionists’, whom he accused of killing prominent Hizbullah official Imad Mughniyeh. Behind the Hizbullah leader’s customary defiant rhetoric, however, his movement currently faces a series of dilemmas.
Firstly, the movement’s attempt to bring down the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, launched in late 2006, has gone nowhere. A few Hizbullah supporters (and a lot of tents) remain at the movement’s ‘permanent demonstration’ in downtown Beirut. But the Saniora government has stood firm.
The constitutional crisis over the presidency is dragging on. There is a growing sense that Hizbullah’s only non-Shi’a ally, the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun (Christian Maronite), is becoming an irrelevancy, because of the failure of Aoun to emerge as a realistic presidential candidate.
The result of this is to make Hizbullah’s camp look more and more like a narrow, sectarian Shi’a force. The movement has spent the last decade and a half cultivating an image of itself as a ‘patriotic’ Lebanese and pan-Arab movement, rather than a sectarian, Iran-sponsored militia. This image is now looking increasingly frayed.
Perhaps it is looking frayed with Aoun, seen by some Lebanese Christians as a leader and by other Christians as a traitor, failing to live up to Hizballah’s expectations - or his own.
But to whatever degree Hizballah’s image as a nationalist movement is seen (or not) as frayed, it is most certainly not for lack of marketing effort. Pay close attention to the astute and skilled usage of imagery, compelling music and language in this recent Hizballah video effort.
Matt Armstrong took note and asked, “Terrorist or Nationalist?” And, in my view, that’s precisely the question such groups would love the West to be asking themselves. For my money, it’s important in this context to acknowledge that Hizballah was birthed by Iran and Syria more for the cause of fighting and killing the invading Israeli Jews and American and French forces than to win a civil war based on any indigenous love of Lebanon.
For Iran, it was a matter of exporting its revolution, only four years young at the time of the bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut. For Syria, it was about the maintenance of a base through which it could later exert control of Lebanon from within, eventually fully realized in the 1989 Taif Accord.
In Hizballah’s own language still today, the above video propaganda notwithstanding, its own aims are less about a love of Lebanon than hatred for “Zionists” in Israel and the certainty of its “disappearance.” This, Nasrallah reminds us, is an “established fact.”
This is not beside the point. Rather, it is demonstrating it. Because Hizballah is thus required to effectively sell their hatred for the Jews of Israel as love of Lebanon in order to broaden their base. They must effectively market and sell an idea.
The video propaganda above, well produced and effective, is far more compelling than any message directly or indirectly employed (or not) to counter it among the target Lebanese audience. As Matt says, “you need to know to counter the message effectively.” Note that he did not say you need to know how to. Because it’s less a matter of knowing how if you don’t know to.
There is a raging War of Ideas shaping this century. And the nation that turned certain stripes on rubber soled leather shoes into objects of desire that people have fought and killed over, and that promoted the shape of a soda bottle into a cultural icon, the country that invented “Guerrilla Marketing,” is simply not engaged.
This. Must. Change. We clearly know how. We must resolve to. The latter is significantly more important and fundamental an obstacle than the former.

Mughniyeh Was Key Hezbollah Commander, Insider Says
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press-February 27, 2008
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The last time the world heard from Imad Mughniyeh, he was masterminding terror spectaculars in the 1980s and 1990s — bomb attacks on American and Israeli targets, kidnappings, and hijackings.
But for nearly 15 years, no one has known exactly what the Hezbollah commander was doing. The only confirmation of his whereabouts came when he was killed February 12 in a car bombing in Syria.
Now Hezbollah officials and associates are describing a previously unknown role for Mughniyeh: Far from being too busy fleeing enemies, he was a key commander for Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel.
He was among the leading military and security strategists — if not the very top himself — of the group and a member of its decision-making committee, according to those who had knowledge of Mughniyeh before he was killed February 12 in Damascus.
"Hezbollah's top architect of that war was Imad Mughniyeh," Anis Naccache, a 57-year-old longtime associate, told the Associated Press. "You can say he was like a staff general [chief of staff]."
In a speech Friday, Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, credited Mughniyeh with leading the group to two victories — the 2006 war and a Hezbollah guerrilla war in 2000 that led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from its last positions in southern Lebanon.
In the 1980s, Mughniyeh was notorious in the West. He was accused of plotting suicide bombings of the American embassy and bases of American and French troops that killed hundreds, as well as the kidnappings of dozens of Westerners in Beirut.
The last attacks he is believed to have directed were suicide bombings in the 1990s against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina that killed more than 100 people and a bombing in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 Americans.
For years, Hezbollah said almost nothing about him. But after his death, the group has embraced him as a hero — to a degree that surprised some Lebanese who believed Hezbollah would not want to revive memories of its past association with terrorism.
The 2006 war came after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel retaliated with a massive bombardment, then ground incursions, in a 34-day war that devastated south Lebanon.
More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed, along with 119 Israeli soldiers and 43 Israeli civilians who died from Hezbollah rocket attacks across the border.
The war ended without Israel winning any of its main objectives — regaining the two soldiers and crushing Hezbollah — and its army chief and other top commanders were forced to resign.
The fighting also held numerous surprises for the Israeli military — particularly the guerrillas' sophisticated rockets and anti-tank weapons and their extensive preparations for battle.
Command and weapons-arsenal bunkers were dug deep into rocky hills around south Lebanon with a network of tunnels linking large storage rooms. Some exits were equipped with cameras and linked to a monitor below to help fighters ambush enemy soldiers.
Mughniyeh was apparently behind those tactics.
Mr. Naccache said the general strategy of fighting "a war of shadows" was Mughniyeh's decision. "We were fighting Israel but Israel cannot see any fighter," he said, speaking in English.
A Hezbollah guerrilla who was on the front lines in southern Lebanon during the 2006 fighting told AP that Mughniyeh was his commander. The guerrilla, who would identify himself only by his first name, Hassan, for fear of reprisals, would not elaborate.
Mr. Naccache, a Lebanese who once was a fighter for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and has known Mughniyeh since Mughniyeh was 13, said the two met dozens of times over recent years.
The last time was in Lebanon two months before the 2006 war. During that meeting, Mr. Naccache said, Mughniyeh showed him photographs of anti-tank rockets that Hezbollah had recently obtained, the Russian-made Kornet and the RPG-29.
He said Mughniyeh explained to him how the rockets could be used against Merkavas, the massively armored tanks that are vaunted as symbols of Israeli military might. Mr. Naccache said Mughniyeh "had studied the exact millimeters of the thickness of a Merkava and what was the best point from which to hit the Merkava."
"I understood how serious he was in his preparation for the war," Mr. Naccache said. Mughniyeh did not tell him where Hezbollah obtained the weapons, he said. Iran is believed to be Hezbollah's main arms supplier, with some coming from Syria.
Mr. Naccache, as a Sunni Muslim, is not a member of the Shiite group Hezbollah but is a close supporter of the organization and a longtime associate of Mughniyeh. He taught Mughniyeh when he showed up at age 13 at a Fatah camp south of Beirut and asked to be given guerrilla training.
Naccache served 10 years in prison after trying assassinate Iran's last prime minister under the monarchy, Shapour Bakhtiar, on Iran's behalf in Paris in 1980. A policeman and bystander were killed.
Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said Mughniyeh was in charge of Hezbollah's overall military effort, serving as something like a defense minister, and influenced war strategy.
Officially, Israel has denied involvement in Mughniyeh's killing. Privately, Israeli defense officials will neither confirm nor deny foreign reports attributing the assassination to Israel.
Israeli officials have made little secret of their satisfaction he is dead. Israeli officials also said Mughniyeh had long been wanted and denied reports that there was ever any tacit agreement with Hezbollah not to go after him.
But the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, acknowledged Mughniyeh's profile was raised by the 2006 war. Israel also believed Mughniyeh was planning a large attack to avenge Israel's airstrike in Syria in September. Israel has said little about that airstrike, which foreign reports have said might have targeted a nuclear installation in Syria. Hezbollah and Iran have accused Israel in the car-bomb death, and Mr. Nasrallah has vowed retaliation.
The question now is how seriously Mughniyeh's loss will affect Hezbollah. The organization is known for absorbing blows such as the loss of major figures.
Mr. Naccache said Hezbollah is "very structured and [has] many people with experience. They have the same experience as Hajj Imad not less."

Trust and not math is needed to end Lebanon crises
Tuesday, 26 February, 2008
BY: Ali Hussein, - Ya Libnan Volunteer
Beirut - Arab League Chief Amr Moussa failed in his mission not for lack of effort but primarily for lack of trust amongst the
Lebanese rivals as they worked out various mathematical formulas to resolve the impasse.
Moussa revealed at the airport as he was leaving to Cairo that the math formula he suggested for forming the government is :
10 - 7 -13
10 ministers for the Hezbollah-led opposition
7 for the president
13 for the ruling majority
According to reports that leaked out from the quartet meeting General Michel Aoun who represented the Hezbollah -led opposition during the meeting said he would accept the formula but on one condition. The condition was : One of the 7 ministers allocated for the president should be chosen by the opposition . The opposition will give the president a list of 3 names and he will chose one .
In other words one of the ministers allocated for the president will be a member of the Hezbollah -led opposition . This will give the opposition 11 out of 30 ministers . In other words the opposition will be able to veto any decision of the government. So it is not really about math , it is mostly about trust.
Aoun also suggested another proposal
10 10 10
10 ministers for each , the Hezbollah-led opposition, the president and the ruling majority on condition the president guarantees consensus on major decisions
Aoun also suggested 11- 6- 13
11 for the opposition , 6 for the president and 13 for the majority
The majority , represented by former President Amin Gemayel and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri rejected Aoun's proposals on the basis that all amount to a veto power for the opposition. In the case of 10 each formula they rejected the preconditions for the president as unconstitutional.
The three point Arab league plan is very clear . It does not want the opposition to have the power of veto . After all the opposition has been fighting for the veto power since November 2006 and the Arab league knows that the majority does not trust the opposition to have the power of veto because many of the government decisions such as the decision on International Tribunal could be voided . The other reason also is that the government could be overthrown if Hezbollah-led opposition exercises the right of veto .
At the same time the three point Arab league plan is very clear in not wanting to give the majority absolute power of two third . This is why they inserted the president there to ensure consensus.
Moussa said before leaving Beirut that all factions agreed to the first clause of the Arab initiative that calls for the election of Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as president. Suleiman was appointed to current position by the Syrians during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon , but the majority has nominated him on the bases that he will be a compromise candidate. Suleiman was not the first choice for the majority... they would have preferred either Boutros Harb or Nassib Lahoud , but Suleiman is well respected by all the Lebanese and this is why he was nominated.
In nominating Suleiman the majority anticipated that he will be immediately accept by the opposition without any reservations or conditions, since he is after all Syria's man . But this is not what actually happened. The opposition wanted more than Suleiman. They also wanted to control the new government, in addition to controlling the parliament through its speaker. Not only that , but the opposition also wants to pick the successor of Suleiman in the army and all the key appointments that the president should make as soon as he is elected . The majority rejected the demands of the opposition on the bases that all these demands will bring to the presidential palace a president that is completely handcuffed , since all decisions will be made for him by others and this will completely undermine his role
What is the solution
There are three solutions to the Lebanese problem
First: Trust
Second :Trust
Third: Trust
Just like in business we say location, location, location, in Lebanon we say trust, trust , trust. The Lebanese are not fools . they understand math formulas well...but they get suspicious when there is an agenda behind the math formula
How to overcome the issue of trust
Confidence building
The rival leaders need to sit down and talk to build confidence amongst themselves without Moussa or anybody else . Talk as Lebanese leaders that are concerned about Lebanon , its future, its citizens, its economy, its survival, its independence, its sovereignty and freedom . This is all what this is about . They are going to find a lot in common, if they all think Lebanon first , and they all should.
The Lebanese should be smart enough to know that no one cares about Lebanon more than they do . Once they start talking about the issues that concern all the Lebanese they will be able to realize that the Lebanese problems concern them all equally and the solution to Lebanon 's problems are within their reach...
The Lebanese everywhere in the world are known to be leaders in solving problems . Time to solve our own problems. Time to talk to one another , before its is too late ..before we lose Lebanon

'Independent' Kosovo: A threat, not a country
Posted: February 20, 2008
© 2008
By James George Jatras
Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking the rhetorical question: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg."That pretty much sums up the recent unilateral declaration of independence by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Several countries, disgracefully led by the United States, have recognized Kosovo. Major media have hailed creation of the "world's newest country." But calling Kosovo a country doesn't make it one.
Serbia has denounced the move as the illegal creation of a "separatist entity" on its sovereign territory and has handed down criminal indictments against several of the top Albanian Muslim leaders. Now under way is a sharp global competition to see which governments will recognize Kosovo and which will not. Under heavy pressure from the U.S. State Department, most European countries will meekly comply. Some, like Cyprus with its Turkish-occupied north and Spain with its Basque separatist movement, will not.
In short, an action State Department bureaucrats touted as "settling Kosovo's status" has resulted in anything but. Outside of Europe, the picture is even fuzzier. Russia will reject Kosovo's independence, and expected to take the same line are China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil and many others. Russia will veto any effort to extend Kosovo membership in the United Nations.
Any sovereign state with restive ethnic or religious minorities would recognize Kosovo at its own peril. What Washington seeks to inflict on Serbia today could be the fate of the American southwest tomorrow. Israel, in particular, is closely pondering its next move. While loath to anger Washington, Jerusalem must consider that a Kosovo precedent could, absent any negotiated agreement, prompt proclamation of a Palestinian state, to be recognized by Arab and Muslim regimes. The same precedent could apply to heavily Muslim areas such as Galilee and the Negev within Israel's formal borders.
At a special press briefing, outgoing Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns – who is often mentioned as a possible secretary of state under a Democratic administration – hailed support for Kosovo from the Organization of the Islamic Conference and Muslim governments. Happily claiming that a "vastly majority Muslim state" has been carved out of Serbia, a European Christian country, Burns said: "We think it is a very positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been created today."
Burns' remarks reflect a desperate hope by the Bush administration that displays of American pro-Islamic favoritism in the Balkans and support for a Palestinian state (its domination by Hamas notwithstanding) will buy the good will of hostile devotees of the "religion of peace and tolerance." Their gratitude is manifest in the jihad terror plot to attack Fort Dix, N.J., where four of the six defendants are Albanian Muslims from the Kosovo region. The offenders' presence in the United States – three of them illegal aliens and one brought to the U.S. by the Clinton administration as a refugee, another example of "gratitude" – stems from the fact that a broadly based support network for the terrorist "Kosovo Liberation Army," KLA, has been allowed to operate with impunity in the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania area, raising funds and collecting weapons, not to mention peddling influence with American politicians.
Meanwhile, Christian Serbs in Kosovo are bracing for the worst. "We are all expecting something difficult and horrible," said Bishop Artemije, pastor of Kosovo's Orthodox Christians. "Our message to you, all Serbs in Kosovo, is to remain in your homes and around your monasteries, regardless of what God allows or our enemies do."
The bishop's flock has good reason to fear. Far from the usual claims that NATO stopped a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in 1999, the past nine years have seen a slow-motion genocide in progress against the province's Christian Serbian population under the nose of the U.N. and NATO, and at times with their facilitation. Two-thirds of the Serbian population already has been expelled and have not been able to return safely to their homes, along with similar proportions of other groups (Roma, Gorani, Croats and all the Jews). Over 150 churches and monasteries have been destroyed, with crosses and icons of Christ attracting particular vandalistic rage, a testament to Kosovo Albanians' supposed secularism and pro-Western orientation.
Hundreds of new Saudi-funded mosques fomenting the extreme Wahhabi doctrine have sprung up. Kosovo is visibly morphing from part of Europe into part of the Middle East. In contrast to Under Secretary Burns' cheerleading, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton has warned: "Kosovo will be a weak state susceptible to radical Islamist influence from outside the region, with the support from some Albanians, in other words, a potential gate for radicalism to enter Europe." If allowed to consolidate, an independent Kosovo would become a way station toward an anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Christian "Eurabia."
Around the world, jihad terror usually goes hand-in-hand with organized crime. Kosovo is the perfect case in point. The supposed authorities of the would-be state are themselves kingpins in the Albanians Mafia, whose network extends throughout Europe and has a significant presence in New York City. Besides all the international aid dumped down the Kosovo rat hole, or carted off by corrupt officials, the only real "industry" is crime: drugs (heroin from Afghan opium), slaves (kidnapped women and children from Moldova, Ukraine and other countries brought in for local "service" – there are lot of lonely international bureaucrats in Kosovo – or shipped off into Europe), and weapons (the missile that hit the U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2006 and the explosives used in the London and Madrid train bombings came through Kosovo).
What will happen now in Kosovo? It would be up to the KLA and their supporters to decide whether to kick off a new cycle of violence by attacking Serbs who refuse to submit to their "authority." Serbia in fact has been beefing up its legitimate state institutions in areas where Serbs are concentrated, which the Albanians have threatened to shut down as – believe it or not – illegal separatist structures. We will see if the political violence unleashed by the act of recognition will be matched by physical violence on the ground. Meanwhile, Serbia will undertake undisclosed countermeasures to undermine the illegally declared KLA- and Mafia-ruled entity and force resumption of negotiations to achieve a valid settlement. Let us hope they succeed.
With a stoke of his pen, President Bush, by heeding the State Department's bad advice to recognize a supposedly independent Kosovo, has triggered the perfect international storm: shattering the principle of the territorial integrity of sovereign nations, encouraging violent separatists worldwide, provoking a needless confrontation with Russia and other countries, boosting the jihad terrorist and organized crime threat to Europe and America, and creating conditions for a human rights and religious freedom nightmare. In terms of far-reaching consequences, it may the worst blunder of his presidency. Which is saying a lot.