LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJuly 22/2011

Bible Quotation for today
Isaiah 5/21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Isaiah 3:4 I will give boys to be their princes, and children shall rule over them. 3:5 The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the base against the honorable.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Lebanese Opposition: Lassa Attacks Sign of Hizbullah’s Dominance over Other Majority Factions/Naharnet
The Syrian-Israeli courtship/By Tariq Alhomayed/July 21/11
Indictments II, a disappointing sequel/By Michael Young/July 21/11
Casual Hate: The Subtle Side of Christian Persecution/By: Raymond Ibrahim/July 21/11
Hope in change/By: Tony Badran/July 21/11
We are witnessing the downfall of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad/By: By: Michael Weiss/July 21/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 21/11
Report: U.S. Warns of Terror Attack on Utility Plants/Naharnet
France freezes missile deal with Lebanon: report/The Daily Star
Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran's nuclear systems/DEBKAfile
Egypt's New Cabinet Sworn In/Naharnet
Hezbollah commander could be transferred in days/AP
Former CIA Man: Don't Bet on Israel Bombing Iran on My Speculation!/TIME
Al-Rahi: We Oppose Politicians’ Exploitation of Disputes at Lebanon’s Expense/Naharnet
Hezbollah: Israel attacks Lebanon, Eilat wouldn't be safe/J.Post
In Syria-Qatar rift, a 'shrewdly calculated divorce'/France 24
Israel urged to stop faking foreign passports/Ynetnews
Lebanese Cabinet Approves MOU on Lebanon-Iran Energy Cooperation/Naharnet
Muallem Warns French, U.S. Envoys Not to Visit Provinces/Naharnet
March 14 Says Dialogue ‘Useless’, Appointments Consolidate Hizbullah Control on Security Agencies/Naharnet
In Syria's Homs, another day of mourning/CNN
House panel weighs bill restricting foreign aid/AP
Syria army sweeps Homs, Western envoys warned/AFP
Rights Group Fears Syrians Tortured After Mass Arrests/VOA
Syrian opposition says Assad fomenting sectarian strife/J.Post
Brotherhood seeks new lease on life in Syria/FT
NETANYAHU TELLS AL ARABIYA 'EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE'/Al Arabia
Jumblatt: Hezbollah's position on STL should be considered/The Daily Star
Lebanon Said to Hire Blom Bank, Citigroup to Refinance $950 Million Debt/Bloomberg
Christian to head Lebanon airport security: source/The Daily Star
Teen brothers kidnapped in east Lebanon released//The Daily Star
Lebanon's Arabic press digest - July 21, 2011/The Daily Star
Lebanese Belly-Dancer Johanna Fakhri  Raises Eyebrows after Performing with Israeli Heavy Metal Band/Naharnet (Video)
Charbel Refuses to Give Up on Rifi: Security Situation under Control/Naharnet
Lebanese Cabinet Administrative Appointments Pending, Opposition Slams Adopted Mechanism/Naharnet
Saniora Responds to Berri: Hizbullah’s Arms Only Issue Left at Dialogue Table/Naharnet

Report: U.S. Warns of Terror Attack on Utility Plants
Naharnet /The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned thousands of U.S. utility plants that they could be the targets of "violent extremists," according to a report Wednesday from ABC News. On Tuesday the Department of Homeland Security sent out a terror alert titled "Insider Threat to Utilities" that said "violent extremists have, in fact, obtained insider positions" and might use those positions to wage physical and cyber attacks on behalf of al-Qaida, according to the news report. The report warns that an insider at a major utility facility, such as a chemical or oil refinery, could help al-Qaida wage a major attack near the anniversary date of the September 11 attacks.
Officials found evidence among materials recovered during the May U.S. military operation in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, which lead officials to believe that the extremist leader sought to repeat the carnage of the September 11 attacks on or around its ten year anniversary. "The only way you can actually kill the large scale number of Americans that [bin Laden] literally was calculating was through the use of this critical infrastructure," former DHS chief of staff Chad Sweet told ABC News. "Based on the reliable reporting of previous incidents, we have high confidence in our judgment that insiders and their actions pose a significant threat to the infrastructure and information systems of U.S. facilities," the bulletin said. Last year U.S. officials arrested an alleged al-Qaida recruit, and the American man had worked at five U.S. nuclear power plants in the Pennsylvania area after passing federal background checks. According to ABC News, Homeland Security officials were not aware of a specific threat to any particular utility. Source Agence France Presse

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi: We Oppose Politicians’ Exploitation of Disputes at Lebanon’s Expense
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi criticized on Thursday political disputes in Lebanon, hoping that they won’t obstruct the functioning of state institutions. He said after meeting with a Phalange Party delegation: “We oppose political quarrels taking place at Lebanon’s expense because the country belongs to all Lebanese.” “It doesn’t belong to one side more than the other,” he stressed. “We have all presented sacrifices throughout history, so we should assume our responsibilities and support the institutions,” the Patriarch stated. “Lebanon should remain above all over factional and foreign interests,” al-Rahi continued. “We oppose the obstruction of parliament, the failure to elect a president, and the formation of a government all because of political differences,” he said. The Patriarch also warned against dragging Lebanon into regional and international axes. He therefore called on all sides to “unite in building the state and set people’s interests as a priority above all else.” “It’s time that we devise a new national contract that can develop the national charter … because we have reached a point where no one trusts the other,” al-Rahi concluded.

Lebanese Belly-Dancer Raises Eyebrows after Performing with Israeli Heavy Metal Band
Naharnet/Israeli heavy metal band Orphaned Land performed alongside Lebanese belly dancer Johanna Fakhri at the Hellfest music festival in the western French town of Clisson on Sunday, according to France24.  “Cooperating with belly dancers has become a trademark for the band, which makes a point of using its music to bring Israelis and Arabs closer together,” France24 reported. But this was the first time the group shared a stage with a Lebanese artist, it added. “The gesture is far from inconsequential. Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war. The Jewish state is considered an enemy and any dealing with Israelis is considered criminal under Lebanese law” the news agency commented.
Orphaned Land lead singer Kobi Fahri told Israeli website Ynetnews that it was Fakhri who had insisted on bringing the flags onstage, despite his concerns that she would be criticized in her homeland. Online videos of the performance have sparked a wave of comments, ranging from admiration to shock and anger, notedFrance24.

Opposition: Lassa Attacks Sign of Hizbullah’s Dominance over Other Majority Factions
Naharnet /Opposition sources have interpreted the recent attacks against a Maronite League delegation and MTV film crew at the town of Lassa as the early signs of Hizbullah’s dominance over the new majority, reported the daily An Nahar Thursday. “This gives the opposition complete credibility in waging its long battle with the government over Hizbullah’s possession of arms and its call that this issue be the only article on the national dialogue’s agenda,” they added. A follow-up committee was formed after a recent broad Maronite meeting in Bkirki on Wednesday. The daily said that the talks focused on the disputed lands at Lassa, with an agreement being reached that a survey would be conducted over land that is not a subject of a dispute. Another survey would be held over disputed territory and then a final survey over land that has been subject to construction violations, it revealed.
The gatherers also agreed to confront any violation on disputed land or property owned by the church.
Construction in the area can only take place through an official license, they stressed. The meeting, which was chaired by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, was attended by “Hizbullah officials Ghaleb Abu Zainab and Hassan al-Moqdad,” MTV said. The conferees reached an agreement under which the committee tasked with surveying lands would resume its work in two months and the two sides would halt provocative media statements, the TV network added. The survey of lands in the Jbeil District town of Lassa will also resume in two months, according to MTV. The Bkirki meeting comes after Hizbullah members last week prevented a Maronite League team from surveying land owned by the Maronite Patriarchate in the predominantly Shiite town of Lassa in the Jbeil District. It also comes after members of the same party prevented an MTV crew from filming a report on the issue in the town.
Meanwhile, Change and Reform bloc MP Simon Abi Ramia, who is a member of the follow-up committee, told Al-Jadeed television after the Bkirki meeting that “the issue of Lassa was blown out of proportion by the media.” “The dispute erupted in the 1940s and the property is neither Maronite nor Shiite and there is a committee that will follow up on the issue transparently and clearly and we have set a timeframe for finalizing the issue of the land survey,” Abi Ramia added, stressing that “things are back to normal.”
The follow-up committee consists of representatives from all Maronite movements and parties. It comprises MPs Elie Kairouz, Simon Abi Ramia, Fouad al-Saad, Hadi Hbeish, Elie Aoun, Elie Marouni and Emile Rahme. The committee is tasked with coordinating and preparing for upcoming Maronite meetings in Bkirki. The committee formed subcommittees tasked with tackling the issues of lands owned by Christians, administrative appointments and other topics.

Charbel Refuses to Give Up on Rifi: Security Situation under Control
Naharnet /Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said on Thursday that he will not give up on Internal Security Chief Maj.-Gen. Ashraf Rifi, al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported.
“Rifi is one of the best officers committed to implementing the law,” he told the daily. Charbel also stressed the importance of “placing all weapons under the state’s authority.”
He praised the role of the ISF Intelligence Bureau that “succeeded in carrying out its tasks, although it had experienced failure at some points,” therefore refusing to “cancel its role.”
In addition, he rejected statements saying that he had interfered in the issue of appointing Intelligence Bureau chief colonel Wissam al-Hassan as an ambassador.
Regarding the appointment of the head of airport security, Charbel told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published on Thursday that this issue doesn’t undergo any sectarian principles, stressing that this post was never exclusive to a certain sect. Meanwhile, he told An Nahar daily that the security situation in Lebanon is “under control.” However, the minister urged officials to return to the national dialogue table that President Michel Suleiman had called for. “Calm will be reflected positively in Lebanon, while quarrels will develop into disputes,” he the Interior Minister remarked. Concerning the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, Charbel noted: “It’s in no one’s best interest to destabilize the situation… Everyone will lose during any security tension.” An Nahar quoted him as saying: “A certain protocol has been set regarding the arrest warrants against the four members of Hizbullah… the general prosecution is handling the issue, it tasks the specialized security department to carry out the investigation.” The STL released arrest warrants against four Hizbullah members suspected of being involved in Hariri’s murder. Asked about the release of the seven Estonians, the interior minister denied statements saying that the Lebanese state had nothing to do with the issue. Charbel emphasized that it followed up on the case from the very beginning, revealing that he had met with U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams a day before the release of the Estonians, reassuring him that the issue will be resolved. Regarding the issue of the Lassa village and the attack against a Maronite League delegation and the MTV film crew, he stressed: “The situation has become unbearable, and the ministry refuses to leave the situation as it is.” The minister said that the electoral law is being discussed and will be ready in “three months at most.” “I am doing my duties and the decision is in the hands of the parliament,” Charbel stated.

Saniora Responds to Berri: Hizbullah’s Arms Only Issue Left at Dialogue Table
Naharnet /Prime Minister Fouad Saniora stated on Wednesday that the Mustaqbal bloc’s call that Hizbullah’s arms be the only issue at the national dialogue table cannot be considered as a precondition seeing as this is the only issue left to be discussed at the table. Saniora said in a statement: “We are all aspiring for the rise of the fair and capable state, which controls the arms and is able of confronting Israel.” Furthermore, he defended the bloc’s call for the Arab League’s participation at the dialogue, saying that this was agreed upon by all the concerned sides prior to holding the talks. The former premier asked: “Why haven’t the decisions of the dialogue been implemented, especially those on demarcating the Lebanese-Syrian border and tackling the possession of arms inside and outside Palestinian refugee camps?” “Hizbullah’s arms is the only pending issue out of a number of matters proposed by Berri during his press conference on March 3, 2006, so why is he questioning our demand to return to his suggestions?” wondered Saniora’s statement. “The Mustaqbal bloc believes that failure to resolve the case of Hizbullah’s weapons will hinder progress in any other matter,” it concluded. On Tuesday, the bloc demanded that the party’s arms be the only article at the national dialogue’s agenda, adding that the Arab League should be present at the talks. Speaker Nabih Berri criticized the Mustaqbal bloc’s call, noting: “The bloc had long considered dialogue to be the best way to solve disputes.” The national dialogue was launched in spring 2006. It was aimed at resolving disputes between the various political sides and devising a defense strategy for Lebanon, but the talks were interrupted by the eruption of the July 2006 war.

Teen brothers kidnapped in east Lebanon released
July 21, 2011/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Two teenage brothers kidnapped near Baalbek, east Lebanon, over the weekend have been released, a security source told The Daily Star Thursday.The source said that Ali Mehdi, 15, and his brother Hussein, 17, were handed over to their parents by the Lebanese Army. The brothers, who hail from the border town of Hamm, near the Hezbollah stronghold of Brital, just south of Baalbek, were snatched by a number of unidentified men early Sunday morning. A security source at the time said the boys’ mother, Zainab, told police that her children had been kidnapped at dawn Sunday and that the captors then demanded a $100,000 ransom for their release.It was not clear whether a ransom had been paid. Police are continuing their investigation into the incident.

Ramadan starts Aug.1: Fadlallah
July 21, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah’s institute said Thursday the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will begin Aug.1.
A statement issued by the institute Thursday said Ramadan will begin Aug. 1 based on “accurate astronomical calculations.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s highest Sunni authority, Dar al-Fatwa, anticipates that Ramadan will begin July 31.
An official statement, however, will be announced toward the end of July.
The beginning of Ramadan is traditionally based on the sighting of the new moon so most Muslims don’t know exactly when the month begins until a day or two before.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 to 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating and drinking and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, humility, and spirituality.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest - July 21, 2011 The Daily Star
Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Thursday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
An-Nahar: 65 vacant top [public] posts to be filled in batches
Bkirki meeting sets out gradual solution to Lassa
Cabinet on vacation till Aug. 2, Legislative session Aug. 3,4
Cabinet preparations are under way for the next phase of public appointments that will be broader and would include various administrative, security and diplomatic sectors. However, these appointments will be discussed during a Cabinet meeting on Aug. 2 as government goes on vacation. Prime Minister Najib Mikati will reportedly go on family leave as well as a number of ministers.
The appointments will be based on a mechanism that had been adopted by the previous government.
In light of this, there were no “rich” issues on Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting at Baabda Palace, where ministers discussed an ordinary 35-item agenda.
An-Nahar has learned that the attack on a Lebanese University official as well as the assault on the MTV crew in the Jbeil town of Lassa were discussed in Cabinet. President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati stressed the need to arrest the perpetrators and protect the victims.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel briefed Cabinet on the efforts undertaken to deal with the Lassa issue, saying a solution for Lassa was being mulled at a Wednesday night meeting in Bkirki [seat of the Maronite church].
An-Nahar has also learned that a broad, discreet meeting was held in Bkirki Wednesday evening to discuss the events in Lassa.
Cabinet will convene again on August 2, a day after Army Day and on the eve of legislative sessions scheduled for Aug. 3 and 4.
An-Nahar has learned that Mikati will hold a meeting Thursday morning with State Minister for Administration Reform Mohammad Fneish to lay out the groundwork that will be adopted in the next batch of public appointments.
Mikati and Fneish were set to discuss a mechanism for top public posts to fill 65 vacant jobs – 27 positions for Christians, 28 for Muslims, one for minorities and five governors’ posts as well as newly established positions.
An-Nahar has learned that discussions focused on the historical claims over territory and agreed to examine the situation and complete the land survey in the territories with no suits filed against them, and then move to territories with suits filed against them and finally the issue of land-abuse. The atmosphere was reportedly good and a committee formed to deal with the Lassa dispute ascertained it would follow up on the land survey under the supervision of the Lebanese Army and security forces.
It was also decided to curb abuse of private land belonging to the Maronite Church.
As-Safir: Jumblat from Moscow: Syria is witnessing a revolution and Assad has to fulfill his promise
Government achieved Wednesday a "breakthrough" in life by approving a Memorandum of Understanding between the Energy and Water Ministry and Iran's Petroleum Ministry, which gives Lebanon an opportunity to take advantage of Iran’s skills.
The session witnessed discussions – on some occasions debate was heated – on how to approve spending in the absence of a state budget.
As Cabinet holds its next meeting at Baabda Palace on Aug.2 after Mikati’s return from a private trip to south France, Berri called for general legislative sessions for Aug. 3 and 4.
Meanwhile, MP Walid Jumblatt made significant comments from Moscow, particularly on Syria, describing the uprising there as a “revolution.”
Jumblatt said after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Lebanon was committed to decisions made by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon “but that does not allow any external interference in internal affairs.”
“There are forces in Lebanon that believe STL decisions are a conspiracy directed against them. Among them is Hezbollah which has representatives in both Parliament and government,” Jumblatt said, stressing the need to take these factors into account.
On Syria and the possibility of foreign intervention, Jumblatt said Syrian President Bashar Assad “should resort to reforms as soon as possible and release prisoners.”
Jumblatt rejected any foreign meddling in the Syrian uprising and stressed the need to “understand that what is happening in Syria is a revolution, and accept the idea that the Arab people want freedom.”
As Jumblatt also met with Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bgdanov, a source close to the head of the Progressive Socialist Party said the STL was no longer in the hands of the Lebanese state. Yet, the source added, justice must not overshadow stability.
He noted that it would be very difficult for Lebanon to hand over any “Lebanese” [suspect in the Hariri murder case] no matter what the results were.
Al-Mustaqbal: Charbel: Rifi one of the best officers … [police] intelligence a safety valve in security forest
March 14: No point in dialogue after wasting three years
The March 14 coalition said there was no point in national dialogue after wasting three years and emphasized that "a return to dialogue is conditional to putting Hezbollah weapons under state control within a specified time and the party’s approval of this measure in advance."Meanwhile, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel stressed in an interview with Al-Mustaqbal newspaper the need to "put all the weapons under the authority of the state."
Charbel praised police chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, saying he is "one of the best law-abiding officers."
Charbel also hailed the role of the Lebanese police intelligence [locally known as Internal Security Force’s Information Branch] “which has succeeded in its tasks despite a few drawbacks,” describing it as a “safety valve in a jungle-like environment of security.”
Al-Joumhouria: Mikati considers readdressing false witnesses issue and Hezbollah to deal with STL step-by-step
Information made available to Al-Joumhouria indicates that Mikati plans to refer the issue of "false witnesses" issue to the Judicial Council in accordance with a plan prepared by Justice Minister Shakik Qortbawi in the first practical step contrary to Lebanon's commitment to Resolution 1557 and the Protocol of Cooperation with the STL.
Pending the new positions to be announced by Hezbollah's secretary general on July 26 to mark “the victory" over Israel in the July 2006 war, Al-Joumhouria has learned that Hezbollah, which has repeatedly said that the party is not concerned with the STL, awaits the tribunal’s next move to make the appropriate step based on a step-by-step approach.

NETANYAHU TELLS AL ARABIYA ‘EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE’
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would not intervene in the Syrian revolution. (Photo grabbed from Al Arabiya TV)
inShare.4By MUNA KHAN AND NADIA IDRISS MAYEN
Al Arabiya
In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya TV, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of his readiness to talk to the Palestinians anywhere – in Ramallah or occupied Jerusalem.
Mr. Netanyahu sat down to talk to Hasan Muawad on a host of issues including the on-going crisis in Syria and the challenges it posed to its borders as well as the situation in Gaza.
“Everything is on the table. But we need to get to the table,” he said in reference to negotiating with the Palestinian leadership.
Peace talks between the two nations have been on hold since September last year when Israel began construction on settlements that were earlier partially frozen as part of a deal. Palestine refused to negotiate until Israel ceased construction on land they claim as theirs.
The opportunity for negotiations appear slim due to a deal between Hamas and Fatah as Israel refuses to engage with what it believes is a terrorist organization.
The following are excerpts from the interview, which will be aired on July 21:
ON PEACE WITH PALESTINE:
We will always look for people who want peace. We don’t nullify people on their beliefs but we do expect them to recognize and have a place for the State of Israel. If people like Iran or Hezbollah say “the State of Israel shouldn’t exist [or should be] wiped off the face of the earth” then there is not much of a place to go from there.
We have to listen to people with different points of view but from two points: One from the internal Arab point of view: if people say we want democracy then we ask they respect democracy. You can’t expect people to open a democratic door to those who want to destroy it. Two, see it from my point of view: I’m willing to negotiate peace with anyone that’s willing to accept the right of my people and my country.
ON A PALESTINIAN STATE:
Six Israeli Prime Ministers, myself included, have all agreed to a Palestinian state. So why have we not had peace yet? Two former prime ministers made very generous concessions and we all recognize that we have to make difficult compromises for peace. I recognize that.
ON JERUSALEM AND PALESTINIAN REFUGEES:
We couldn’t [reach] peace because the Palestinian leadership did not want to conclude negotiations. My frustration over the past two years has been that we can’t restart the negotiations. And I repeat what I said to you a minute ago that this is the most important thing. I’m prepared to negotiate with President Abbas for peace between our two people right now. We can do it here in my home in Jerusalem, we can do it in Ramallah, and we can do it anywhere.
ON THE SITUATION IN GAZA AND THE IMPENDING FLOTILLA:
We are not preventing the import of goods, food, and medicine to Gaza. Anything can go through. The Gaza economy has grown by 25 percent in the last three months. It’s almost a world record. We are, however, concerned about a naval approach to Gaza because on a ship you can bring in entire rockets [which can be] fired into Israel. We don’t want those sea lines open until there is a regime in Gaza and one that makes peace with Israel and doesn’t fire rockets into it.
If people want to free Gaza, then they should free it from the Hamas regime that doesn’t give the real freedom to the people of Gaza. We have no argument or battle with the people of Gaza. We are concerned with Hamas, a terrorist organization that fires rockets into Israel. That is the only reason behind naval actions.
ON PROTESTORS DEMANDING CHANGE IN SYRIA:
You know anything that I say will be used -- not against me – but against the process of genuine reform that Syrian people would like to see. We don’t intervene in Syria but it does not mean we are not concerned.
A) We would like to maintain peace and quiet on the Israeli/Syrian border. B) I’d like to have that ultimately turned into a formal peace [accord] between the two countries and C) I think the people; the young people of Syria deserve a better future.
ON BASHAR AL ASSAD’S REGIME BEING INDISPENSIBLE TO ISRAEL:
That’s not right. We are not there to choose the next government of Syria. I think it’s for the people of Syria to choose. We’ve not had peace, we’ve had a state of peace, no peace no war.
Several people, including myself, tried using secret negotiations to move toward a formal peace…
What has disturbed us is that Syria supports and has supported Hezbollah and Iran and Lebanon. Less than five years ago, the people of Lebanon wanted to have their Cedar Revolution. Iran took it away from them with Hezbollah and Syrian support.
[Today the borders] remain quiet after the second Lebanon war and I hope they remain quiet in the future.
ON FEARS THAT IRAN AND HEZBOLLAH MAY CREATE DISTRACTIONS FROM SYRIA:
I hope that no one in Syria thinks of [creating a] distraction by stoking the heat at the border with Israel. And I hope Iran or Hezbollah are not tempted to do this in a bid to shift attention from events in Syria. I think that would be bad for the people of Lebanon, bad for the people of Syria and bad for peace. I hope it doesn’t happen.
NETANYAHU TELLS AL ARABIYA ‘EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE’
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
 

In Syria's Homs, another day of mourningBy the CNN Wire Staff
July 20, 2011 )
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- The restive Syrian city of Homs was in a state of mourning on Wednesday, as citizens flocked to funerals for people slain in the streets the day before, an activist told CNN.
But security forces didn't assault mourners as they had on Tuesday, the activist said.
Tension and violence between security forces and demonstrators have plagued the western Syrian city for days.
Activists told CNN that a Tuesday funeral procession for slain protesters had been attacked by security. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria said at least 16 people were killed and 33 were injured on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the activist said, security forces made arrests and raids after the funeral processions ended. Videos surfacing on the Internet showed mourners marching in the streets.
CNN could not independently verify the information.
This unrest in Syria began in mid-March after teens were arrested for writing anti-government graffiti in the southern city of Daraa, according to Amnesty International.
As the clashes intensified, demonstrators changed their demands, from calls for freedom and an end to abuses by the security forces to calls for the regime's overthrow.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called for "Syrian authorities to stop repression immediately" and said "all sides should refrain from using violence." He said mass arrests should be halted and President Bashar al-Assad should respond to citizens' grievances.
He repeated the need "for a credible and inclusive dialogue, which should be carried out without delay and be part of a broad and genuine reform effort."

Hezbollah commander could be transferred in days
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES Associated Press
July 20, 2011,
WASHINGTON — A Hezbollah commander held in Baghdad by the U.S. military and considered a threat to American troops could be transferred soon to Iraqi authorities, and U.S. security officials worry he could escape or even be freed.
li Mussa Daqduq worked with Iranian agents to train Shiite militias who targeted American soldiers in Iraq, according to the U.S. military. He was captured in 2007 and U.S. officials have linked him to a brazen 2007 raid in which four American soldiers were abducted and killed in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala.
For years, the U.S. planned to try Daqduq in an American court, but that has stalled as the White House and Congress clashed over how to prosecute suspected terrorists.
Daqduq is one of about 10 remaining U.S. prisoners who, under a 2008 agreement between Washington and Baghdad, must be transferred to Iraqi custody by the end of 2011. Iraqi Justice Ministry spokesman Haidar al-Saadi said Wednesday that the transfer would happen by the end of the week. U.S. officials, however, said it probably won't be that soon.
Iraq's shoddy record on detainee security and its recent efforts to improve diplomatic ties with Iran have made U.S. authorities skittish about turning over Daqduq.
"He's the worst of the worst," said Bob Baer, a former CIA officer who has spent years tracking Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group linked to numerous terrorist attacks. "He has American blood on his hands. If released, he'll go back to shedding more of it."
In July 2010, just a week after the U.S. turned more than 1,000 detainees at its Camp Cropper prison over to Iraqi control, four al-Qaida-linked detainees escaped. An investigation showed that the detainees had inside help.
The same was true again in May in an aborted escape from one of Baghdad's most heavily fortified prisons that left 17 inmates and guards dead, including a counterterrorism general.
Al-Saadi scoffed the notion that Daqduq would escape.
"Iraqi authorities are fully prepared to prevent any escape attempt, and Iraqi security forces are able to keep all detainees under control," he said.
It's possible, however, that Daqduq might simply walk free. The U.S. captured tens of thousands of terror suspects during the war and most were ultimately released by Iraqi authorities because of little evidence tying them to crimes.
Abdul-Rahman Najim al-Mashhadani, director of the Hammurabi legal rights watchdog group in Baghdad, said it's likely Daqduq will never be convicted in an Iraqi court.
"It will be difficult to provide evidence incriminating him for killing Iraqis because he was arrested by U.S. forces acting against U.S. forces only," al-Mashhadani said Wednesday.
Under President George W. Bush, U.S. officials envisioned the day when they could no longer detain Daqduq in Iraq. So they developed a plan in which military and intelligence officials questioned Daqduq, then let an FBI team start the questioning over from scratch. That way, he could someday be brought to a U.S. court and his statements could be used against him.
That plan has been scuttled, however, by Bush's own Republican allies in Congress. They objected to Daqduq and other terrorist suspects being brought to the United States for trial.
Republicans want Daqduq and other suspected terrorists to be prosecuted at the Guantanamo Bay military base, which the Obama administration has tried to close. In a letter in May, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Attorney General Eric Holder that they were "deeply concerned" that Daqduq might be prosecuted in the United States.
Lawyers who have reviewed the case concluded that while prosecuting him at Guantanamo Bay is possible, incarcerating him there is not. That's because Congress authorized military action against al-Qaida and those who carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Supreme Court has relied on that authorization to allow the military to hold al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Hezbollah, considered by the U.S. to be a terrorist organization, is a Shiite Muslim group. Al-Qaida is a Sunni organization. The two have had a relationship of convenience at times but the 9/11 Commission found no evidence that Hezbollah was aware of or involved in the planning for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
A spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, Army Col. Barry Johnson, said the U.S. was "not under pressure to resolve this this week" and referred questions to the Justice Department. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd had no comment. The White House also had no comment.
The Justice Department has successfully prosecuted terrorists in criminal courts for years and has won life sentences for those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa. Even after 9/11, the Bush administration made criminal trials a key part of its strategy for fighting terrorists in Colombia.
But it became a political issue when Obama tried to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for trial. Congressional opposition torpedoed that plan and lawmakers responded by prohibiting the administration from prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees inside the United States.
In this politically charged environment, prosecuting Daqduq in a criminal court carries unusual risk. Evidence gathered in a war zone is almost always imperfect and U.S. counterterrorism officials worried that if they brought the case and lost, Congress would respond with even more restrictions on the Justice Department.
**Jakes reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
 

Casual Hate: The Subtle Side of Christian Persecution
By: Raymond Ibrahim Bio/Jul 20th, 2011
FrontPage/Earlier this month I participated in Coptic Solidarity’s Second Annual Conference in Washington D.C., titled: “Will Religious and Ethnic Minorities Pay the Price of the ‘Arab Spring’?” Panelists included Middle East specialists, prominent members of the Coptic community, and other minority leaders from the Muslim world, including Kurds, Berbers, and Sudanese animists.
Held at the U.S. Capitol, nine members of Congress made statements and showed their support, including Sue Myrick, Chris Smith, and Frank Wolf. Walid Phares, a Congressional advisor who also participated, asserted that their appearance is encouraging and indicates that at least some members of Congress “are aware about the plight of minorities in general and of Christian communities in the Arab and Muslim world, and are particularly concerned about the Islamist and jihadi threat to these communities.”

Because the conference spanned two days, I spent lots of time surrounded by Christian minorities. The casual anecdotes I heard, spoken not with outrage—the province of the privileged—but simply as backdrops to more mundane stories, revealed how endemic anti-Christian sentiment is to the Muslim world, so much so that Christians themselves have almost become immune to it, expecting it, reserving their actual complaints for times of physical persecution (including but not limited to Islamist-inspired theft, kidnapping, rape, church attacks, etc.).
In other words, if the formal speeches held at the Capitol documented the hostility and discrimination Christians face under Islam, the informal conversations, held over food and drink, drove the point home.
Thus one Coptic businessman complaining about how he lost a legal case in Egypt, though he was clearly in the right, was quickly interrupted by the grinning fellow across him, who asked whether his opponent was Muslim or Christian; when the businessman, rather coyly, said Muslim, everyone laughed knowingly, some even suggesting he was a fool for even going to court.
A women discussing her baby’s erratic sleeping habits revealed why: the mosque next door, which always blasts Koranic verses on the megaphone around 4 a.m., constantly wakes him up in terror and tears; and though the baby does not understand the words, the mother does, pointing out that most of the verses being blared are especially hostile to Christians, like 5: 17, 5:51, and 9:29.
Any number of Copts looked at me incredulously when I inquired why a well qualified Copt did not bother applying to an important post in Egypt that seemed almost tailor-made for him: I was duly informed—that is, reminded—that best jobs are reserved for Muslims.
One refined-looking woman expressed her resignation: though a Christian, she sometimes wears the burqa in Egypt, simply so she can go about her daily business without being sexually-harassed, molested, called derogatory names, or spat upon (this recent story certainly validates her reasoning).
Some anecdotes were spoken in jest: one rather colorful Copt I bumped into in the restroom told me—between fits of laughter—how he once tried to use a mosque bathroom in Egypt; when the Muslims discovered he was a Christian, they chased him out, throwing shoes at him and calling him a “son of a bitch.”
Indeed, a resigned sense of humor seemed to pervade many of these stories—as if to say, “Since there’s nothing we can do about it, let’s make light of it.”
Other stories were spoken with stoic reserve. I have in mind the cigarette-puffing Assyrian couple from Iraq, who had lost everything to the unloosed forces of jihad—their home, their relatives, their business, their savings—and are trying to begin anew in America. Interesting was the man’s lament, that gone are the “good old days”—under Saddam—when Christians were afforded some protection.
As I listened to all these stories, I thought to myself, here is the great and unfathomable gap between the few formal reports on Christian persecution reaching a few American politicians, and the daily reality experienced by millions of Christians under Islam.
About Raymond Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the DHFC, is a widely published author on Islam, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Join him as he explores the "Intersection"—the pivotal but ignored point where Islam and Christianity meet—including by examining the latest on Christian persecution, translating important Arabic news that never reaches the West, and much more.

Christian to head Lebanon airport security: source
July 21, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A Greek Orthodox will head security at Rafik Hariri International Airport, regaining a key security post for Lebanon’s Christians, a ministerial source told The Daily Star Thursday.
Brig. Gen. Ghassan Salem, a Greek Orthodox, was nominated to head security at Beirut’s international airport to replace Brig. Gen. Mahmoud, the source said.
In 2010, Mahmoud, a Druze, was appointed acting airport security chief following the resignation of Brig. Gen Wafik Shokeir, a Shiite, who had headed the post from 1998.
Christians had occupied the post prior to Shokeir’s appointment by former President Emile Lahoud term in office.
Shokeir was one of the main causes of a dispute in 2008 between the government, headed by then Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, and the then Hezbollah-led opposition, which spiraled into brief clashes between Hezbollah and supporters of the Future Movement, a key player in the country’s March 14 alliance.
The armed clashes erupted when the Saniora’s Cabinet decided to remove Shokeir from his post over his alleged links to Hezbollah, and after the discovery of a private telecoms network set up by Hezbollah on Lebanese territory.
Hezbollah rejected the Cabinet decision and accused the government of launching a war against it.
The source said the deal over Salem had been sealed in order to appease Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah, who failed to secure a Christian candidate for the post of head of General Security, which had traditionally been among the sect’s share of security posts prior to 1998.
But Lebanon’s Shiites retained that post when Cabinet Monday appointed Brig. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim as head of Lebanon’s General Security.
The decision came after consensus had been reached on Ibrahim, who was deputy Lebanese Army intelligence chief before he took on his new post.

Indictments II, a disappointing sequel?
July 21, 2011/By Michael Young/ The Daily Star
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is lucky to have Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as a foe. On Tuesday, he again described the institution’s accusations as part of a conspiracy against Hezbollah. Were it not for the secretary-general, whose anxiety tends to confirm the tribunal’s seriousness, observers might have examined more critically the shortcomings in the United Nations investigation of Rafik Hariri’s assassination and those of many others between 2005 and 2008.
There are reports, which may well be true, that further indictments are forthcoming. Last year officials from the tribunal’s prosecution office were privately declaring the indictments would be issued in stages. Any final verdict on the success or failure of the legal process is premature. However, from what we know, there is reason to doubt that the outcome of the trial will be the identification and conviction of all, or even a large number, of those behind the Lebanese killings.
The principal reason for this is that the U.N. investigation altered its strategy in mid-stream between 2005 and 2006. This left the third investigator, and current special tribunal prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, with little that was tangible when he began his mission.
Under Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission, investigators directed their suspicions at the upper echelons of the Syrian and Lebanese political and security leadership. As Mehlis explained to me in an interview in 2008, “The Hariri case is an unusual one. Usually in investigations you start at the bottom and work your way up. In the Hariri case we started pretty much at the top and worked down. We had an accurate view of how the assassination took place from above, but less clear a view of what happened on the ground.”
Mehlis based his strategy on a number of factors. First, on the deductions of Peter Fitzgerald, an Irish policeman who had prepared a preliminary U.N. report shortly after Hariri’s death. He concluded that the former prime minister had been the victim of a conspiracy involving “considerable finance, military precision in its execution, [and] substantial logistical support.” While he did not name culprits, he described a situation that made it virtually impossible for the Syrian and Lebanese security services not to have known of the crime. He also cast doubt on their intentions by revealing that Hariri’s state-provided security detail had been cut back, and accused the Lebanese security services of contaminating the crime scene.
Mehlis also had his personal experiences to go on in devising his approach to the investigation. He was familiar with the conduct of the Syrian intelligence services from the time he had investigated a bomb attack against the French cultural center in West Berlin. A Syrian diplomat who turned evidence carried the bomb used in that attack from East Berlin, under the orders of Syrian intelligence operatives.
And finally, once his investigation took off, the testimony Mehlis collected further justified a top-down approach. This included the statements of Syrian intelligence chiefs, as well as that of the former Syrian vice president, Abdel Halim Khaddam. All could attest to the centralized, hierarchical nature of decision-making in Damascus.
Under Serge Brammertz, the strategy was reversed. Mehlis’ successor adopted a bottom-up approach, reduced the pace of the police investigation, brought in more analysts, and generally slowed the investigative machinery down. Shortly before his term ended two years later, the commissioner was telling his Lebanese counterparts that he had not substantially advanced in his inquiry; and proof of this was that he had made no new arrests.
If we are to believe a much-discussed documentary produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation last summer, Brammertz was also lax in pursuing the analyses of telephone communications. Reportedly, he waited until late 2007 to bring in a British firm to look more closely at the evidence, after significant progress had been made in evaluating the telecommunications data by Wissam Eid, a Lebanese police officer who was assassinated in January 2008.
While this issue continues to provoke considerable disagreement, two things are undeniable: It made no sense whatsoever for Eid and the Lebanese to be handed the lead in probing by far the most sensitive facet of the U.N. investigation, namely telecoms. The Lebanese did not have the technical expertise to conduct such an exercise, and Brammertz had, earlier, ordered his team to minimize communication with the Lebanese security forces, fearing that they had been infiltrated.
Something else is undeniable: Eid was killed, and he had long anticipated his violent ending. This suggested that the officer had made some sort of breakthrough on telecoms, a view shared by Lebanese judicial figures dealing with the Hariri investigation.
Given these circumstances, when Bellemare came in he most probably found himself lost in an investigative no-man’s land. On the one side he had the testimony garnered by Mehlis pointing in the direction of senior Lebanese and Syrian political and security figures. On the other, he had the fruits of Brammertz’s limited endeavors focusing on the minutiae of the case, an approach that, effectively, undermined Mehlis’ hypothesis by failing to build on it. And yet Brammertz had repeatedly reconfirmed the detention of the four Lebanese generals, implying that he presumed that they were culpable. This mess, many maintain, obliged Bellemare to begin from scratch.
By most accounts the telecoms information was instrumental in preparing the first indictment. But future indictments, if there are any, may be more problematical precisely because they may be damaged by the disconnect between the way Mehlis investigated the Hariri killing and the very different way Brammertz did. So, for example, if Syrians are accused – and Bellemare may have to accuse Syrians because he desperately needs a motive for the crime – he would have to rely on material gathered under Mehlis that was never sufficiently supplemented by Brammertz. That means Bellemare may have to put together a case dependent to a great extent on circumstantial evidence, which is tougher to prove in court.
Much of this is speculation. However, there is nothing reassuring in recognizing that Bellemare, in all likelihood, was obliged to extensively rebuild the Hariri investigation as of 2008, a full three years after the former prime minister was murdered. We may see new indictments, but will these will be solid? Don’t bet too heavily on it.
*Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal.

Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran's nuclear systems
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 20, 2011,
debkafile's intelligence sources report that the Stuxnet malworm which played havoc with Iran's nuclear program for eleven months was not purged after all. Tehran never did overcome the disruptions caused by Stuxnet or restore its centrifuges to smooth and normal operation as was claimed. Indeed, Iran finally resorted to the only sure-fire cure, scrapping all the tainted machines and replacing them with new ones.
Iran provided confirmation of this Tuesday, July 19 in an announcement that improved and faster centrifuge models were being installed.
Iran would clearly not have undertaken the major and costly project of replacing all its 5,000-6,000 centrifuges with new ones if they were indeed functioning smoothly. The announcement was made by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman at a press briefing although no one present had raised the nuclear issue. He said: "The installation of new centrifuges with better quality and speed is ongoing… this is another confirmation of the Islamic republic's successful strides in its nuclear activities."
Britain and France immediately condemned the announcement. It proved, official spokesmen commented, that Iran plans to triple the amount of uranium it enriches in contravention of six UN Security Council Resolutions and defiance of ten International Atomic Energy Agency decisions in Vienna. The announcement also "confirmed suspicions that the Iranian nuclear program had no credible civilian application."
In recent months, Iran has taken advantage of the West's preoccupation with the Arab revolt to quietly forge ahead unnoticed with its weapons program. So if everything was moving smoothly forward why did Tehran suddenly decide to raise the touchy subject again?
Indeed, by doing so, the official spokesman placed in doubt the three major strides Iran was generally presumed to have made while the West was otherwise engaged:
1. The dramatic speeding-up of uranium enrichment and expansion of the quantities produced.
The West has no credible information, whether from intelligence, research, or nuclear watchdog inspections, as to how much enriched uranium Iran has produced and how much it has in stock.
As debkafile reported previously, for the past six months, Iran managed to keep the full scope of its enrichment activities hidden from IAEA inspections. Although inspectors were allowed to visit Iran's acknowledged enrichment facility at Natanz, they were unable to gauge how many active centrifuges were present and how many removed to unknown site or sites. The sophisticated cameras supposed to monitor the Natanz facility were unable to record all of Iran's enrichment activities because key production sites were moved out of range.
2. The glitches bedeviling their centrifuge machines were overcome and all 5,000 were spinning away without interruption. After expunging the Stuxnet virus which first struck in June 2010, all their nuclear program's control systems and installations, including Natanz and the Russian-built Bushehr reactor, were functioning perfectly. It took Iranian and Russian computer and cyber-terrorism experts a year to cleanse the system. This gave security agencies their first indicator of the time it takes to overcome a large-scale, sophisticated cyber attack.
On July 5, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, head of Israeli military intelligence, said that Iran is currently running 5,000 active centrifuges and aiming for 8,000. He made no reference to their replacement with newer and faster machines - which the Iranian spokesman disclosed suddenly last Tuesday.
3. The Iranians are engaged in the relocation of the centrifuges spinning 20-percent grade enriched uranium to a new underground facility at Fordo, 100 kilometers away near Qom. Tehran has rejected every European and IAEA demand to install monitoring and inspection equipment at the new facility which is therefore functioning without international oversight.
Those presumptions are now largely suspect.
Western intelligence sources tell debkafile that until recently, the Iranians believed they had a clear road for enriching large quantities of high-grade uranium after solving technical obstructions and beating back the cyber attack. But then, they were stunned to discover that the Stuxnet virus, far from being eradicated, was back with a vengeance and on the offensive against their centrifuges. Iran was forced to adopt a course it had avoided last year, namely to destroy the entire plant of approximately 5,000 working centrifuges and replace them all with new machines.
This decision led to the foreign ministry spokesman's one-sentence announcement. He delivered it to pre-empt Iran's enemies from picking up on the installation of the new centrifuges and making it public with the real reason for dumping the "smoothly" operating ones.

Israel urged to stop faking foreign passports
Ynetnews/Various countries send strong message to Israel saying they are aware their passports are being used by Mossad agents
Various countries have sent secret messages to Israel informing Jerusalem that they are aware that Mossad agents are using their passports in overseas operations, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.  The countries, all friends of Israel, demanded to halt all use of such passports in messages to Israeli embassies and as part of the consular discourse.
The protest had caused considerable embarrassment to Israel in several cases. In other cases, Israel could not respond to the claims as they did not include names and details of the alleged Mossad agents.  The protest grew following the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in February 2010. Dubai's police distributed photos and names of 33 individuals suspected of entering the country using European passports. A diplomatic crisis between Israel and the UK ensued and culminated with the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from London. Australia and Ireland followed suit, while France and Germany demanded clarifications from Jerusalem.
However, recent demands regarding the use of foreign passports came from countries which were not involved in the Mabhouh affair, including Asian, African and East European nations. It is unclear whether the messages are based on solid information or suspicions alone. One of the foreign diplomats who conveyed one such message said: "You have a bad reputation when it comes to other countries' passports." On Wednesday, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key denied reports suggesting that three Israelis killed in the Christchurch earthquake were Mossad agents. "There was no link between those individuals and the Israeli intelligence agencies," he said.
He stressed that none of the passports found in the name of Ofer Mizrahi, the Israeli who was killed during the devastating quake, were New Zealand passports.

Security appointments, barring Information Branch, within 10 days: Charbel
July 21, 2011/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Thursday security-level appointments would be announced within the next 10 days. “The security appointments will be [due] shortly and will be within 10 days,” Charbel told a local radio station. Charbel said the appointments would not include those of the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces.
Quoting sources, Al-Liwaa newspaper reported Monday that the head of the Information Branch of the ISF, Col. Wissam al-Hasan, would likely be reassigned and take the post of Lebanon ambassador to Saudi Arabia. In an interview with the newspaper Thursday, Charbel said the issue of Hasan’ post had never been brought up and that the matter would be left for the ISF’s command council.

France freezes missile deal with Lebanon: report
 July 21, 2011/The Daily Star
A French official said the 100 HOT missiles will be provided to the Lebanese Army to be used by the military's Gazelle helicopters.
BEIRUT: France has frozen an agreement to supply the Lebanese Army with missiles and is re-assessing its role as part of U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, Al-Hayat newspaper reported Thursday.
Quoting French sources, the pan-Arab daily said the agreement to send missiles to the army, hammered out under the government of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, had been put on ice while Paris monitors the work of the new Hezbollah-dominated Cabinet of Prime Miniser Najib Mikati.
In late 2010, France said it would supply the Lebanese military with 100 anti-tank missiles, despite concerns raised by both Israel and the United States.
A French official said the 100 HOT missiles, to be used by the Lebanese military's Gazelle helicopters, would be delivered in early 2011 "with no conditions attached."
Al-Hayat sources said France believed Mikati’s appointment had come about as a result of a decision by Syria and Hezbollah, but said that Paris would not turn down a visit by the Lebanese prime minister if he happens to be in Paris.
The United States and European Union have piled pressure on Mikati’s government, stressing that the new Cabinet needs to abide by international resolutions, particularly ones related to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon – the U.N.-backed court probing the assassination of Saad’s father, Rafik Hariri.
On June 30, the STL handed Lebanon indictments and arrest warrants against four members of Hezbollah. The Lebanese resistance group denies involvement in the assassination and has vowed not to cooperate with the international court which it describes as a “U.S.-Israeli project.” Lebanon has 30-days to serve the arrest warrants.
The Al-Hayat report comes amid heightened demands in the U.S. congress that Washington curb support to Lebanon over concerns of Hezbollah’s reach in the Lebanese government and worries that military aid destined for the Lebanese Army might end up in the hands of the group and used against Israel, its key ally in the region.
Israel fought a devastating 34-day war against Hezbollah in 2006, which claimed the lives of some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and destroyed much of southern Lebanon.
A House panel Wednesday pushed ahead on a bill to block U.S. assistance to Lebanon and other countries unless the White House reassures Congress that they are cooperating in "the war on terrorism."
The sources told Al-Hayat that France was also reconsidering its role as part of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon, but stressed that a withdrawal of troops from Lebanon was not under discussion.
The United States regards Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and Intelligence officials estimate Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of more than 40,000 short and medium-range rockets, which it claims can reach deep into Israel. They are also believed to have other sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft guns.
France’s Defense Ministry and top military officials, the sources said, believe the size of France’s contingent in Lebanon, which stands at 1,500, is too high and cannot be justified without a re-assessment of its mandate and whether there is a need for it to remain in the south.
France, the sources added, has been mulling over the issue of its troop presence in Lebanon since at least May of this year when an Italian contingent of UNIFIL was struck by a roadside bomb, wounding six of its members who were on their way to the southern coastal city of Sidon.

Hope in change
Tony Badran, July 21, 2011
Now Lebanon/On Tuesday, the White House reasserted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had “lost legitimacy.” The spokesman also told reporters that the Obama administration would continue to pressure the Syrian regime to “meet the aspirations of the Syrian people.” However, by continuing to place hope in a regime-led transition, assiduously avoiding calling on Assad to step down, the Obama administration is out of touch with the aspirations and demands of the Syrian protest movement. In fact, the administration is failing to recognize that the Assad regime is headed for inevitable collapse.
The rapid sequence of developments over the last two weeks led to speculation that the US may have reached its end with Bashar al-Assad, edging one step closer to advocating regime change in Syria. This was most noticeable in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remark last week that “from [the US] perspective, [Assad] has lost legitimacy.”
However, despite this escalation in Washington’s rhetoric, there were several question marks about whether this actually constituted a concerted shift in policy. It turned out, as the Washington Post reported on Saturday, this was far from being the case.
The Secretary’s tough remarks, the Post reported, were “unscripted,” surprising even her aides. But more importantly, Clinton was almost immediately undercut by President Obama, who introduced telling qualifiers to her statement in a CBS News interview the following day.
Rather than declare that Assad had totally lost legitimacy, Obama said that he was “increasingly” losing it. In other words, there was still hope, as far as the president was concerned, for a change of course. Moreover, Obama qualified his remarks by adding that Assad was losing his legitimacy “in the eyes of his people,” taking the US perspective that Clinton had injected out of the equation.
The uncertainty about US objectives was reflected in Ambassador Robert Ford’s interview with ForeignPolicy.com last Thursday. Ford vacillated between expressing his assessment that the Assad regime “is not even close to meeting [the people’s] demands,” and repeating the official policy of calling on Assad to begin “meaningful reforms.” In other words, the policy remained one of hope in “behavior change.”
But Ford doesn’t set the policy. He merely relays it. The problem, therefore, emanates from the top. According to officials who spoke to the Post, there were serious divisions in the higher echelons. Those uneasy with a more assertive approach, who clearly have the backing of the president, continue to have the upper hand.
And so, during a press conference in Istanbul on Saturday, Secretary Clinton was forced to walk back her earlier comments, offering an unrealistic picture of “a pathway,” to be carved by the Syrian opposition (which was holding a meeting in Istanbul), “hopefully in peaceful cooperation with the government, to a better future.”
In other words, after giving up on the Syrian dictator, Clinton fell back on the notion of a possible path forward with Assad. Ensuing statements by anonymous officials quickly rehashed the initial line calling on Assad to reform or step aside.
What explains this strange hesitancy to definitely break with Assad? Administration officials resort to realism, pointing to the Libyan precedent to rationalize the policy. Alternately, those averse to a more assertive US posture justify their preference in terms of reluctance to get out ahead of the Syrian people. But this argument is unconvincing, as the Syrian people have been well ahead of Washington for a while now.
In addition, although US officials are expressing weariness at the perception of Washington “imposing” its narrative on the Syrian uprising, the fact of the matter is that, by continuously espousing options already thoroughly rejected by the protest movement, the administration is, effectively, taking a stand entirely out of touch with the pulse of the Syrian uprising.
The constantly fluctuating American position must be confusing to the protesters—not to mention regional actors looking to Washington for clarity and leadership— but it also risks backfiring, even at the tactical level. The Syrians, for instance, have already warned Ford not to repeat his Hama trip elsewhere in Syria. And so, now that it came out that that trip was also “unscripted,” should the administration back off at this moment, it would appear as though it was retreating before Assad.
Advocates of circumspection argue that calling on Assad to step down would make the US look weak should he manage to survive. But it is US dithering that creates that perception.
In the end, the issue is not whether Assad will hang on for a while before his regime’s inevitable collapse. Nor is it whether he has lost legitimacy in the eyes of his people—he clearly has. What matters is for the super power to signal unequivocally its break with Assad. What the administration misses with its declaratory policy is that when it calls for Assad to “lead the transition,” or for a pathway “in cooperation with the government,” the only words the regime and the protesters hear are “Assad” and “lead,” as well as a US call for the protesters to join hands with their tormenters.
What the US says matters. Assad derives a reflected legitimacy from US engagement and continued recognition of his leadership. Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem, in his warning to the US ambassador, thus made a point of saying that the regime did not expel Ford “because we had hoped to maintain better relations in future.” This is precisely why the Obama administration’s public position should be that the US does not see a future for this regime.
President Obama’s continued reluctance to break with Assad is often attributed to his “realist” tendencies. What the US president needs to understand, however, is that charting a realist Syria policy requires recognizing that the Assad regime is finished. In other words, it means catching up with what the Syrian protesters already know.
*Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.

We are witnessing the downfall of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
By: Michael Weiss
The Telegraph/July 21/11
It’s times like these when I wish Nabokov were still alive. What would the author of Bend Sinister and Invitation to a Beheading have had done with a man like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Here is a peasant reactionary clad in Members Only jackets who finds himself the nominal head of a totalitarian state. Through the force of his personality, and because of a brutally suppressed revolution over his sham “re-election”, Ahmadinejad has become the symbol of everything sclerotic or wicked or silly about the Islamic Republic. Now drunk on his own international media profile as a Holocaust-denying atom bomb junkie, he’s convinced himself that he’s the one running the country. But a series of public confrontations with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have got Iran watchers speculating about a power struggle within the regime, which could have repercussions for both the West and the latent but undaunted Green Revolution.
The disappearing act
In mid April, Ahmadinejad went into hiding for 11 days following his unauthorised sacking of the Iranian intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, who was then re-instated by an unamused Khamenei. Ahmadinejad’s own “spiritual mentor”, Ayatollah Mohammed Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, turned on his protégé, saying: “A human being who would behave in a way that angers his closest friends and allies and turns them into opponents is not logical for any politician.” Made pouty and insecure over this dressing down, Ahmadinejad boycotted cabinet meetings that Moslehi attended and scuppered a long-planned trip to the holy city of Qom. “The president is sulking” was a rumour among Iran’s hardline conservatives, in no mood to see the noisemaker of the United Nations appear petulant or weak.
Others began speculating that the Moslehi embarrassment was Khamenei’s belated realisation that he’d backed the wrong candidate for the presidency in 2009. Ahmadinejad hadn’t done his patron any favours by appointing his own son-in-law, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Iran’s first vice-president. When Khamenei balked at that appointment, Ahmadinejad made Mashaei his chief-of-staff instead.
All the president’s witches
By May 5, members of Ahmadinejad’s inner circle found themselves imprisoned on charges of “sorcery”. Abbas Ghaffari was described by a state news outlet as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”, as the mere muggle president faced a chorus of 12 MPs demanding his impeachment for temporal offences. Others arrested included the head of the cultural council and journalists working for Mashaei’s new newspaper.
The last president who crossed the Supreme Leader so brazenly was stripped of office and exiled. Indeed, one ayatollah warned that undermining Khamenei was tantamount to “apostasy” – no rhetorical flourish since the latter is supposed to be “God’s representative on earth”.
By May 6, Ahmadinejad’s own “moral adviser” confirmed that Khamenei had given the president an ultimatum: accept the cabinet of Khamenei’s choosing or resign. Now the MPs miffed at Ahmadinejad numbered 90 (85 more are needed for impeachment). Supporters of Khamenei, meanwhile, rebranded Mashaei the Warlock and the rest of Ahmadinejad’s cabal as “deviants”.
Censorship and broken loyalties
The president next suffered the further shame of being censored by the Iranian state broadcaster. His tub-thumping response to was to offer every Iranian family of free plots of land, a real estate gambit that Khamenei easily put an end to.
Even Ahmadinejad’s most influential fan base – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – have cooled on him in recent months. Former IRGC commander Mohammed Qalibaf, now the mayor of Tehran, notably backed Khamenei throughout the whole cabinet affair.
The hijab row
The Washington Post today reports that the latest manifestation of the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei rift is over women’s garb:
While Ahmadinejad favors what he calls a “cultural” approach to the issue of Islamic dress codes, in which the government tries to teach that proper veiling “prevents vice and propagates the good,” influential clerics argue that veiling isn’t just about belief. They say that how women wear the veil is a “security issue,” and argue that women who cover themselves improperly are inviting men to abuse them and causing “corruption” in families.
One of Ahmadinejad’s critics, Ayatollah Nasser Marakem-Shirazi, insists that the veil prevents divorce, crime and rape, all of which are said to be on the rise since the president’s lax enforcement policy. (Rape victims in recent days have themselves been described as “impure”.)
Ahmadinejad thus finds himself in the impossible position of trying to cash in on populism by posing as the liberal counterpart to orthodox ideology. But he still does not have the backing of the Iranian people who took to the streets two years ago to denounce his fraudulent second term. Green Revolutionaries such as Mir-Hossein Mousavi can only look on in wonder. The monster who allowed young girls to be shot and young men sodomised in prison cells for defying reign is now being destroyed by the very mullahs who created him.
**Michael Weiss is the Communications Director of The Henry Jackson Society. A native New Yorker, he's written widely on English and Russian literature, Soviet history and the Middle East. We are witnessing the downfall of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Ontario extortion racket has ties to Hezbollah
Stewart Bell Jul 21, 2011/National Post
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/21/ontario-extortion-racket-has-ties-to-hezbollah/
في اعلى تقرير نشرته اليوم صحيفة ناشيونال بوست في كندا/اونتاريو يتحدث عن عمليات تزوير وابتزاز وسرقات منظمة يقوم بها افراد قد تكون لهم صلة بحزب الله الإرهابي من ضمنها تزوير بطاقات إئتمان وشراء سيارات بواسطتها ومن ثم شحنها إلى لبنان
TORONTO — Aline Ajami’s nightmare began when a stranger appeared at the Toronto apartment where she lived with her parents. He said his name was Kamal Ghandour and that he was connected to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
There was a problem, he said.
Ms. Ajami’s uncle owed him money. As a result, the uncle was being held hostage by Mr. Ghandour’s associates in south Lebanon. He would be killed, Mr. Ghandour warned, unless Ms. Ajami did exactly what she was told.
That encounter in February 2008 was the start of what an Ontario judge, in language more reminiscent of a book jacket than a legal ruling, would call a “strange and harrowing tale of international intrigue” involving “gangsters with known ties to terrorists.”
The remarkable case has so far gone unreported, but the National Post has pieced the story together for the first time from documents and interviews. It suggests that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah is linked to a fraud and extortion racket in southern Ontario.
Ms. Ajami was 24 and employed by a Toronto marketing firm when Mr. Ghandour came to see her. Aside from threatening her uncle, Mr. Ghandour had also said he would kill Ms. Ajami’s sister, who lived in Lebanon.
After he left her apartment, Ms. Ajami did not tell police — not at first.
Mr. Ghandour had shown her the business cards of several RCMP officers. He had friends in law enforcement, he told her. If she reported him to the authorities, he would find out.
His stated ties to Hezbollah caused Ms. Ajami to take his threats seriously. She was born in Lebanon and knew the Shia Muslim militants controlled the country’s south. They had killed the prime minister, Rafik Hariri. They could kill her uncle and sister, too.
So she did what she was told.
For the next two months, Mr. Ghandour and his son Karim appeared almost daily at the Ajamis’ apartment not far from York University.
They would take Ms. Ajami and her father Elia out to open credit and chequing accounts, she said. The Ajamis immediately handed the credit cards and cheques to the Ghandours, who maxed them out — even using one to pay for a wedding in Lebanon.
Then the Ghandours wanted luxury cars. On April 19, 2008, Ms. Ajami’s father went to the Mercedes dealership on Mavis Road in Mississauga and, using bogus credit information, left with a 2007 VS class Mercedes Benz for $93,000. Four days later, it was Ms. Ajami’s turn. Accompanied by Karim Ghandour, she bought a 2006 Lexus from the same dealership for $45,000.
When Ms. Ajami’s $5,500 deposit cheque bounced and her credit history proved fake, the dealership activated a tracking device in one of the cars. Both were found in a shipping container at the Port of Montreal, awaiting delivery to Lebanon. Ms. Ajami had been caught in a fraud, but by then, she had left the country. The Ghandours had forced her to go back to Lebanon, she said.
She spent a month in Beirut before deciding to do something. She called Crime Stoppers in Ontario and reported what the Ghandours had done to her.
The police were very interested in what she had to say.
Originally from Sidon, an ancient port south of Beirut, Kamal Ghandour was a 44-year-old chef who owned the Castle Restaurant in Windsor. He was also, according to Ontario Provincial Police, known to commit serious frauds in Windsor and the Toronto area.
In 2007, the Superior Court of Justice ordered Mr. Ghandour to pay $50,000 to a Mississauga man named Ghassan El Gharib. Mr. El Gharib had helped finance Mr. Ghandour’s restaurant, L’Ostario’s, near the Toronto airport.
The following year, Mr. Ghandour was ordered to pay another $25,000 to the same man. A few months later the courts told him to pay $11,000 to Nella Cutlery and Food Equipment Inc., a Mississauga company that supplies restaurants. Mr. El Gharib, who said he has still not been repaid, did not have kind words to say about Mr. Ghandour but said he was unaware of any links to Hezbollah.
On July 23, 2008, Mr. Ghandour and six others, including his son Karim, were arrested near Windsor on seven counts, including fraud, conspiracy, cocaine and marijuana possession, money laundering and possession of forgery equipment.
Police claimed to have broken up a credit and debit card skimming operation. The charges were withdrawn that September due to insufficient evidence. Still, police — notably counter-terrorism police — maintained an active interest in the Ghandours.
When Ms. Ajami returned to Canada in November, she was met at the Toronto airport by Detective Kelly Labonte, a member of the OPP Provincial Anti-Terrorism Section, or PATS. Described by a judge as a “very experienced and shrewd police officer,” Det. Labonte worked in the PATS Intelligence Unit in Windsor.
Asked why her unit was interested in Ms. Ajami’s fraud case, the detective responded, “I can say in a general sense that fraud is but one of the offence types that PATS may be interested in, and is often a source of funding for terrorist activities.”
But was the case really linked to Hezbollah?
Mr. Ghandour did not respond to interview requests sent to his Facebook account. Police and community members said he had left Windsor, possibly for Alberta or Toronto. Those who knew him in Windsor doubted he was part of Hezbollah. “That’s a fantasy,” said a member of the city’s Lebanese community, “complete, pure fantasy.”
In its 2009-2010 annual report, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said terrorist financing is “often closely associated with other criminal activity.” It specifically cited extortion and kidnapping as examples.
Luxury auto theft is another crime that has long been associated with Hezbollah. Rick Dubin, vice-president of investigative service at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said the type of scam Ms. Ajami was involved in was familiar. Fraudsters will use fake credit information to lease and finance vehicles, he said. Once they take possession, the cars are quickly exported. “It’s easier than going and actually stealing the car,” Mr. Dubin said.
About 20,000 to 30,000 stolen cars are exported from Canada every year, according to the IBC. Most go to West Africa, where they are resold for up to double their value. But some also go to Lebanon. A police investigation called Project Globe identified hundreds of stolen Canadian vehicles that turned up in Lebanon, Mr. Dubin said.
The investigation never found a Hezbollah connection “but there certainly is a concern when you see a large volume of those vehicles going to the Middle East, and especially to Lebanon,” he said. “I can’t say what the link was and where the vehicles ended up, in whose hands, but it certainly raises a concern, that’s for sure.”
A Hezbollah link to auto theft surfaced again in February when the U.S. Treasury blacklisted the Lebanese Canadian Bank. The Treasury said a criminal organization, from which Hezbollah profited, was using cocaine money to buy cars in the U.S. The vehicles were exported, with the proceeds going back to Lebanon, it said.
Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute and a former U.S. Treasury counter-terrorism official, said Hezbollah receives significant financial backing from supporters living abroad. He said a wide spectrum of people are involved.
“From the far end, where you’ll have actual trained Hezbollahi guys who are the equivalent of people who carry membership cards … all the way to the other extreme where you have people who have no interest and are being extorted. And in the very very fat broad middle, you have people in different places, some people who support Hezbollah and its terrorism and militia activity because they stick it to Israel and the United States.”
On Nov. 22, 2008, Ms. Ajami told her story in a videotaped statement to Peel Regional Police. Regardless, she was charged with fraud over $5,000. She faced up to 14 years in prison because of her role in the luxury car scam.
Meanwhile, Det. Labonte was trying to develop her as an informant. The two spoke over a period of months, but the officer eventually put an end to it. Ms. Ajami’s contact with the Ghandours was clearly over, and there was no sign it would be re-established.
The fraud trial began in December 2009. Ms. Ajami admitted what she did but said she had no choice. She said she had to do it to save her uncle and sister. The Crown wasn’t convinced. The prosecutor argued that Ms. Ajami was a willing participant in the scheme. The car dealer, Vinesh Sethi, felt the same. He said Ms. Ajami looked happy as she drove away in her Lexus. Ms. Ajami countered that she was putting up a front so she wouldn’t raise suspicions.
Det. Labonte testified that what happened to the Ajamis was “the cookie cutter, textbook Ghandour way of doing business.” With one exception. To her knowledge, everyone else who had committed similar frauds with the Ghandours had done so willingly. They got half the proceeds, then declared bankruptcy or moved to Lebanon. Ms. Ajami would be the first to have been coerced.
Justice Richard Schwarzl of the Ontario Court of Justice handed down his verdict on May 19, 2010. He said that just because the Ghandours had not extorted before did not mean they had not done so in Ms. Ajami’s case.
“They were serious felons with connections to a well-known and powerful terrorist organization,” he wrote. “If anything, I suspect that Ms. Ajami may have been the first to be brave enough to admit to the authorities that she had been the Ghandours’ victim.”
The judge found Ms. Ajami not guilty. He said she had committed the crime under duress. “Ms. Ajami gave a compelling and chilling narrative of how Kamal Ghandour came unexpectedly and terrifyingly into her life in February 2008,” he wrote.
“His stated connections to Hezbollah, which were verified by Det. Labonte, gave even more reason for Ms. Ajami to feel both frightened and helpless about the fate of her family if she did not cooperate with the Ghandours.”
A similar case against her father was subsequently stayed. Ms. Ajami declined to be interviewed. But the judge’s ruling implied the ordeal had left her deeply indebted to creditors.
The judge said he hoped Ms. Ajami could repair the damage done to her financial reputation, and suggested she send a copy of his ruling to the financial institutions that were after her “for debts she was forced to accrue due to the malevolence of Kamal and Karim Ghandour.”
National Post
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