LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِNovember 13/2011

Bible Quotation for today/The Teaching of the Ancestors
Matthew 15/01-09: "Then some Pharisees and teachers of the Law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked him, Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don't wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!  Jesus answered, And why do you disobey God's command and follow your own teaching? For God said, Respect your father and your mother, and  If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death. But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, This belongs to God, they do not need to honor their father. In this way you disregard God's command, in order to follow your own teaching.7 You hypocrites! How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
 Hezbollah's secret war bunkers, constructed mere feet from the Israeli border/A Secure, Undisclosed Location/Nicholas Blanford/November 12/11
Walid Phares, A Hero to Muslim Liberals/By: Mustafa Mustafa Geha/November 12/11
Iran: Learning to whistle and walk away/By Amir Taheri/November 12/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 12/11
 Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi  Slams Ad-Diyar Report, Denies he Visited Anjar
 Saniora Meets Miqati, Snaps Back at Nasrallah for Linking UNESCO to STL Funding
Arab League Suspends Syria, Invites Opposition for Transition Talks
 Lebanon Votes against Arab League Decision on Syria, Mansour Says it Will Lead to a Crisis
 Syria should be suspended from Arab League: Human rights report
 Dispute over Hezbollah telecoms network is over: Tarshish mayor
 Lebanon's Arabic press digest - Nov. 12, 2011
 Russian Patriarch to Meet with Top Officials in Beirut, Damascus
 Jeita Grotto Fails to Become One of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World
 Aisamy daughter hits back at MP’s remarks
STL gets down to business
Defense Wants Arrest Warrants Lifted or Suspended: For Distinguishing between STL, Proceedings Legitimacy
 Nasrallah: Let March 14 Accept STL Funds Halt as It Accepted UNESCO's
 Mikati rejects allegations of online feud with Hariri
Abbasiyyeh Residents and Spanish Troops Clash
 March 14 Delegation Tours Wadi Khaled to Demand Security for Syrian Refugees
 Suleiman Addresses Lebanese on Eve of Independence from Rashaya
 Lebanese Cabinet approves draft law to prevent MPs serving as ministers
33 Killed as Syria Accused of 'Crimes against Humanity'
 Report: Niger offers asylum to Gadhafi son
U.N. Security Council fails to reach agreement on Palestinian bid


Yossi Melman / Should, and can, Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities?
 Turkey against Military Strike on Iran
 15 Dead in Iran Military Base Blast

Arab League Suspends Syria, Invites Opposition for Transition Talks
Naharnet The Arab League on Saturday suspended Syria until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end violence against protesters, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition. A statement, read by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani, said the League decided "to suspend Syrian delegations' activities in Arab League meetings" if it continued to stall the Arab plan and to implement "economic and political sanctions against the Syrian government."
It also called for the withdrawal of Arab ambassadors from Damascus, but left the decision to each Arab state.
Sheikh Hamad said at a press conference the decision would take effect on November 16.
The statement warned that Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi would contact international organizations concerned with human rights, "including the United Nations," if the bloodshed continued. It called for a meeting in Cairo with Syrian opposition groups in three days to "agree a unified vision for the coming transitional period in Syria."
A week of deadly violence in city of Homs had overshadowed the meeting, in which Arab ministers appeared divided on what measure to take but eventually voted by majority on the final statement. Assad's regime agreed on November 2 to an Arab roadmap which called for the release of detainees, the withdrawal of the army from urban areas and free movement for observers and the media, as well as negotiations with the opposition.
Instead, human rights groups say, the regime has intensified its crackdown on dissent, especially in flashpoint Homs, killing at least 125 people in the city since signing onto the League's deal.
"Homs is a microcosm of the Syrian government’s brutality," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of Human Rights Watch, which accused the regime of crimes against humanity based on its systematic abuses against civilians. Human Rights Watch, like protesters and Syrian opposition leaders, urged the Arab League to suspend Syria's membership of the pan-Arab bloc as punishment for its brutal eight-month crackdown on dissent. At least 23 people were killed in violence in Syria on Friday alone, most of them civilians in Homs, which an opposition group declared a "humanitarian disaster area" earlier this week.
Syrian security forces carried out new raids and arrests in the Homs neighborhoods of al-Sebaa, Bab al-Dareeb and Baba Amro on Saturday and gunfire was reported in the morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
With NATO ruling out operations and U.N. Security Council sanctions unlikely because veto-wielding permanent members Russia and China are allies of Assad's regime, regional actors have come to represent the best avenue to pressure Damascus. Damascus says it has moved forward on the deal by releasing 500 prisoners and its envoy to the Arab League expressed on Friday his government's willingness to receive a pan-Arab delegation. "This will help assess Damascus's commitment to the (Arab) plan and to unveil motives behind certain external and internal parties working for the failure of the Arab blueprint," the official SANA news agency quoted Ahmed as saying. Despite the Assad regime's prevarication, the United States insists its days are numbered and says that even Arab leaders are encouraging him to step down quickly.
"Some Arab leaders already have begun to offer Assad safe haven in an effort to encourage him to leave peaceably and quickly," said Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. "Almost all the Arab leaders say the same thing -- Assad's rule is coming to an end. Change in Syria is now inevitable," Feltman told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing.Source Agence France Presse

Lebanon Votes against Arab League Decision on Syria, Mansour Says it Will Lead to a Crisis
Naharnet/Lebanon voted on Saturday against a decision taken by the Arab foreign ministers to suspend Syria’s membership in the Arab League. 18 countries agreed to the decision, while Lebanon, Yemen and Syria voted against it and Iraq abstained. Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour told al-Manar television, hours after the decision was announced, that the “the resolution taken by the Arab League is dangerous, because it was taken against a member state.”“These decisions will not help solve the crisis in Syria but will push it towards a very critical stage,” he stressed. The foreign minister added that “security in Syria preserves the security of the region.”On October, Russia and China on a European-backed draft resolution that would have threatened possible action against President Bashar Assad. However, non-permanent members Lebanon, South Africa, Brazil, and India abstained. Arab League foreign ministers convened on Saturday for an emergency session to discuss Syria's failure to end a deadly crackdown on civilian protests. Ministers made their way into the 22-member body's headquarters in Cairo to debate their response to Syria's defiance of an earlier League initiative calling for a cease-fire. They walked past about 100 demonstrators, who echoed calls by Syria's opposition to suspend the country's membership in the 22-nation body -- a powerful symbolic blow to a nation that prides itself on being a powerhouse of Arab nationalism. Protesters carried placards reading "Freedom for the Syrian people" and "Arab leaders are garbage" as they chanted for the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They were joined by demonstrators from Yemen, protesting violent government crackdowns in their country.
Mansour told MTV station on Friday that “Syria’s major role in the Arab world, (political) positions and policies force us to disagree on suspending its membership.”
He wondered how Lebanon would want “to stand against a country that it has a security treaty with?” Syria agreed to a peace plan last week brokered by the Arab League, but the violence has continued unabated, with November shaping up to be the bloodiest month yet in Syria's 8-month-old uprising. More than 250 Syrian civilians have been killed in the past 11 days as the regime besieges the rebellious city of Homs. The U.N. estimates some 3,500 people have been killed in the Syrian crackdown since the uprising began eight months ago, inspired by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.Source Naharnet

U.S., Britain Hail Arab League Decision on Syria
Naharnet /U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday praised the "leadership" of the Arab League after the grouping suspended Syria in a move that deepened the Damascus government's isolation.The League said the suspension will remain in place until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end violence against protesters, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition. "I applaud the important decisions taken by the Arab League today, including the suspension of Syria's membership," Obama said in a written statement issued in Hawaii, where he is hosting an Asia-Pacific summit.
"After the Assad regime flagrantly failed to keep its commitments, the Arab League has demonstrated leadership in its effort to end the crisis and hold the Syrian government accountable.
"These significant steps expose the increasing diplomatic isolation of a regime that has systematically violated human rights and repressed peaceful protests," he added.
For his part, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Saturday's decision by the Arab League to suspend Syria showed the "frustration" of its members at Assad's stance.
Hague, who has previously called for Assad to step aside over his regime's failure to end a government crackdown on protesters, said Britain shared the Arab League's frustration at Assad's "intransigence". He said: "I welcome the strong stance taken by the Arab League today. "Its decision to suspend Syria from Arab League activity until the Syrian regime stops the repression of civilians and implements its commitments, demonstrates the frustration Arab League members feel at President Assad's continuing intransigence."
Hague added: "As Syrian security forces escalate the violence on the streets of Syria, we and others across the international community share this frustration.
"We support the Arab League in its efforts to bring about an end to the killing of Syrian people. The continuing violence is deplorable and must stop."
Obama's government ditched its earlier strategy of seeking engagement with the Assad regime after government forces unleashed a fierce crackdown on demonstrators, which the U.S. president deplored as "callous violence."Now, Washington says Assad has lost legitimacy and must step down, and wants to see Syria trace a similar political transition to other states caught up in the Arab Spring uprisings that are reshaping the Middle East.
In Cairo, the Arab League said Syria's suspension would last "until the total implementation of the Arab plan for resolving the crisis accepted by Damascus on November 2."
Under the deal, Assad's regime agreed to release detainees, withdraw the army from urban areas, allow free movement for observers and media and negotiate with the opposition.
Instead, human rights groups say, the regime has intensified its crackdown, especially in the city of Homs, an epicenter of protests.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in the Syrian crackdown, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Source Agence France Presse

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi Slams Ad-Diyar Report, Denies he Visited Anjar
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi slammed on Saturday a report published in ad-Diya newspaper, describing it as a “false” report aimed at misleading the public opinion.
Al-Rahi wondered during a meeting with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun how a newspaper would “publish such a false report?”
Ad-Diya newspaper published on Saturday a report about a French book entitled “The Arabian Tsunami, Le Tsunami Arabe” stating the reasons behind al-Rahi’s opposing position on the Arab spring in general and the Syrian revolution in particular. Author Antoine Basbous, who is from Lebanese origins, wrote in two pages about the relations that linked the patriarch with the late Syrian Interior Minister General Ghazi Kanaan, where Kanaan had planted espionage devices at the Archbishop of Jbeil.
Al-Rahi said that he held a meeting with Kanaan at the Archbishop of Jbeil, however “I informed Patriarch (Nasrallah)Sfeir, the bishops and then President, PM and Speaker about the nature of his visit.” The Author wrote that before the patriarch headed to Paris on an official visit, Syria summoned over a bishop close to the patriarch to Damascus, where the authorities allegedly asked him to warn al-Rahi against any negative statements in Paris. According to the book, the relations between al-Rahi and Kanaan go back to 1998 when then Patriarch Sfeir began his battle against the Syrian domination over Lebanon, where Kanaan tried to break into Bkirki by using three bishops: Emile Saade, Youssef Beshara and Beshara al-Rahi.
The author states that Patriarchs “ Emile Saade and Youssef Beshara revealed to Patriarch Sfeir the scheme of Kanaan, but al-Rahi didn’t stop meeting Kanaan.”
Al-Rahi denied that he had visited Anjar, noting that a “person is accused when he’s innocent. I’m not targeting the media, but the newspaper that published this false report.”
He added: “How can we read a newspaper like this after today.”

Saniora Meets Miqati, Snaps Back at Nasrallah for Linking UNESCO to STL Funding
Naharnet /Al-Mustaqbal bloc leader Fouad Saniora on Saturday snapped back at Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah over his accusations that the former PM guaranteed a way out for the U.S. after it rejected to fund the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO. Following closed-door talks with Premier Najib Miqati on the sidelines of the Dar al-Fatwa meeting, Saniora said: “Linking the funding of UNESCO and the international tribunal is inappropriate because the issue of the court has to do with Lebanon’s commitment and cooperation with it.”
Nasrallah said on Friday that he saw no reason why Lebanon should be expected to contribute its share of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's funding given Washington's decision to cut off funds to UNESCO after members voted to admit Palestine as a full member. "Isn't the funding of UNESCO an international obligation for the U.S.?" he said. "Why can it shirk its obligation and not Lebanon?" He also hinted that Saniora’s appeal for funding from friendly Arab and Islamic countries and the Arab League provided a safe exit for the U.S.
Saniora’s sources told An Nahar daily on Saturday that the Mustaqbal bloc leader’s initiative over the UNESCO funding was not aimed at covering up for the American decision to stop financing the agency. “It was an expression of condemnation of the American stance from the Palestinian cause,” they said. On the STL, Saniora’s sources told An Nahar that the issue is not only about funding the court but about “confirming the Lebanese state’s commitment to a national cause that is linked to national security and U.N. resolutions.”They also called for a united stance against crime, terrorism and the assassins of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri.

March 14 Delegation Tours Wadi Khaled, Warns against Harassing Residents for Sheltering Syrian Refugees
Naharnet /The March 14-led opposition general-secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid called on Saturday the cabinet to offer help to the Syrian refugees and warned the authorities against harassing residents of Wadi Khaled for offering them shelter. “We demand (the Lebanese authorities) to provide the Syrian refugees with a secure shelter and crucial human services,” Soaid said during a press conference. A March 14 delegation toured the area of Wadi Khaled in northern Lebanon in a show of support for Syrian refugees who have escaped President Bashar Assad regime’s brutal crackdown. “We are here to express our support… We back the Arab spring and the Syrian (people) revolution,” Soaid said. He added: “No one can prevent the residents of Wadi Khaled and the neighboring areas from welcoming the Syrian refugees.” The delegation first headed from Beirut to the coastal town of Batroun and then to the northern port city of Tripoli where it held closed-door talks with leaders of the Mustaqbal movement in the North. The delegation includes politicians, party officials and journalists. “The aim of our visit is to send a message of peace and announce our solidarity with the Arab revolutions and in particular the Syrian revolution,” Soaid said after the meeting held at the Mustaqbal offices in Tripoli before heading to Wadi Khaled. “We demand security for the refugees,” he said, adding that “the Lebanese government should assume its responsibility towards what’s going on the Lebanese-Syrian border.”Some 5,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon since the revolt in Syria erupted mid-March but many say they now live in fear of being hunted down by Assad's Lebanese allies.

Abbasiyyeh Residents and Spanish Troops Clash
Naharnet /Residents of the southern town of Abbasiyyeh clashed with UNIFIL’s Spanish contingent after it prevented them from reaching their fields for not carrying permits, the National News Agency reported Saturday. NNA said that the Spanish contingent prevented several residents from reaching their homes and olive groves in an area near a UNIFIL base, saying they did not have permits that would allow them to enter the territory abutting the border. The UNIFIL move led to a clash between the residents and the peacekeepers which was immediately solved after members of the Lebanese army interfered. Following the mediation of the military and contacts with UNIFIL, the peacekeepers allowed the residents to reach their homes and fields with their vehicles. The two sides also agreed to find a radical solution to the problem to avoid any future confrontation between the U.N. troops and the residents.

Lebanon’s Arabic press digest - Nov. 12, 2011
November 12, 2011 10:20 AM The Daily Star
Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Saturday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
As-Safir
STL calls for Mirsa to testify on Lebanon’s efforts to apprehend suspects
Nasrallah reassures Lebanese: War with Israel unlikely
While the Special Tribunal for Lebanon looked into the possibility of holding in absentia trials, both defense and prosecution arguing against and for such proceedings to go ahead, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah completely ignored what was taking place in The Hague, saying that his party was behaving as though the tribunal did not exist.
In his speech Friday marking the party’s “Martyrs Day,” Nasrallah touched on a variety of subjects at the local and regional levels, linking the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq with the situations in Syria and Iran, and offering the Lebanese his assurance that a war with Israel was unlikely, and if a war did occur, it would be Israel’s last adventure, adding that Lebanon was now strong and able to turn the tables and that the local, regional and international scenes were in the people of the region’s favor as well as the resistance .
Al-Liwaa
Aounist plan to weaken post of prime minister through separation of Parliament from Cabinet thwarted
Hariri court moves toward extending period of trial commencement; Defense calls for canceling arrest warrants
The Cabinet session was taken up by several matters at the tourism (the results of the vote for Jeita Grotto) law (the first open session by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon) and political levels (the issue of amending article 28 of the Constitution).
On the last topic, discussions were prolonged and tiring.
President Michel Sleiman put forward a draft proposal to amend Article 28 of the Constitution that stipulates that there is no incompatibility between the roles of deputies and ministers and that a deputy may also occupy a ministerial position. The proposed amendment would stipulate that the two are incompatible and that once a deputy takes a ministerial post, the Parliament should consider them as having resigned after the Cabinet gains the chamber’s confidence.
What is more important in the tale is that attempts by ministers loyal to Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun to target the post of prime minister in the amendment were thwarted.
An-Nahar
Tribunal might apprehend one of the accused, Nasrallah sees it as non-existent
Siniora to An-Nahar: The issue is not about funding but commitment
Mikati responds to Aoun’s ministers: post of prime minister is like that of president and speaker
While the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was looking into the case of the in absentia trials for the four suspects belonging to Hezbollah, the secretary-general of the party, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, said he was behaving as though the court “did not exist and we won’t waste their time.” However, he took the issue of funding for the court beyond the borders, making use of a proposal put forward by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on ways to cover for the U.S. decision to pull its funding from UNESCO. Sources close to Siniora informed An-Nahar that the “issue is not a financial one but about commitment against the crime and terrorism.”
And while the issue of the court appeared completely absent during Friday’s Cabinet session, the meeting almost broke down over the proposal to separate the Parliament from Cabinet.
When ministers loyal to the Free Patriotic Movement requested that the principle of separating the two chambers extend to the post of prime minister, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and with him President Michel Sleiman, Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi and ministers Wael Abou Faour, Allaeddine Terro and others objected.
According to sources, after almost five hours of discussions, and after FPM ministers made contacts from outside the chamber, they agreed to include an amendment that stipulated the following: “the provisions of Article 28 do not apply to the post of prime minister.” The sources said that it appeared the discussions by ministers belonging to MP Michel Aoun’s FPM had been aiming at Mikati who said that there “were attempts to target the post of prime minister, which does not vary from the posts of president and Parliament speaker.”
Ad-Diyar
Ghazi Kanaan threatens Maronite Bishop Rai [in book]: Is it a French campaign?
Tribunal requests the presence of Mirza and March 14 visiting Syrian refugees in north
Nasrallah: We do not recognize existence of court; any aggression on Iran, Syria would apply to region
A potentially damaging book about Patriach Beshara Rai has been published by naturalized French citizen of Lebanese origin, Antoine Basbous, a former member of the Lebanese Forces, who was with the delegation that accompanied the bishop on his official visit to France. It is unclear if whether Rai will file a suit or whether the book will be available in Lebanon but some believe that following his visit to France there was a campaign against the patriarch. The book questions Rai’s commitment to Lebanese independence.
PSP leader Walid Jumblatt and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel will discuss the elections draft laws Monday.
In Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on the anniversary of “Martyrs’ Day,” the Hezbollah chief praised Lebanon’s resistance against Israel, saying Lebanon was a strong country. He pointed out that Palestine’s entry into UNESCO was an important step that angered the United States. He reiterated that he did not recognize the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. He also said that any aggression on Iran and Syria would apply to the region.
In a first move toward officially recognizing the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, March 14 ministers have stated they will be visiting the Wadi Khaled border area.

Dispute over Hezbollah telecoms network is over: Tarshish mayor
November 11, 2011/
By Van Meguerditchian The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The state has won a victory against Hezbollah’s alleged private telecommunications project in Tarshish and security there has stabilized, Mayor Gaby Semaan said Thursday.
“I am glad to say that there is no longer a dispute in the town and the state has stopped the installment of a private telecommunications network in Tarshish,” Semaan told The Daily Star. “The state has finally triumphed over statelets,” Semaan added.
Semaan’s announcement came almost a month after residents in Tarshish stopped engineers who, according to local officials, were engaged in the construction of a telecommunications network for Hezbollah through the town.
Officials in the town and several MPs sounded the alarm last month after the government was unable to settle the dispute between the pro-March 14 residents of the town and Hezbollah.
There were no clear indications Thursday that members of Hezbollah would not continue to pursue the telecoms project and party spokesperson Ibrahim Musawi told The Daily Star that he was unaware of the dispute and that he could not comment on it.
In some areas of the country, Hezbollah’s telecoms network has not been met with opposition, but the alleged project in Tarshish, which the party has declined to comment on, raised the ire of local officials and March 14 politicians. For its part, the Telecommunications Ministry said that no party had the right to use state infrastructure for private use without receiving official authorization.
The issue has stirred reactions in Tarshish in recent weeks. Sources close to the municipality had told The Daily Star that the party’s plan was to connect its network to a telecom post located in Kfar Salwan, a hilltop area in Tarshish.
In a day-long visit to Beirut, Semaan met with Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel. While the ministers refrained from commenting on the telecoms dispute, Semaan praised the officials for their cooperation.
“I would like to thank all officials who stood by the town’s security and stability, and helped us avoid problems,” said Semaan.
The dispute flared up last month when a round of threats were made against the municipality’s guards, as some were advised not to stand in the way of Hezbollah’s telecoms network.
“If you … still remember that May 7 took place because of the telecoms network, why are you standing in our way?” a Hezbollah official was reported to have said during a meeting with the municipality of Tarshish last month.
Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government decided to dismantle the party’s network in 2008, sparking two weeks of civil strife in which dozens were killed. Siniora’s government then reversed the decision.
Semaan said the situation in Tarshish had returned to normal.
“We also thank the army and the Internal Security Forces for their efforts in solving this dispute, which had worried many in the town,” said Semaan.
“They have all shown that they support the logic of the state and not mini-states,” Semaan added.

Aisamy daughter hits back at MP’s remarks
November 12, 2011/By Rima S. Aboulmona /he Daily Star
BEIRUT: The daughter of Syrian dissident Shibli Aisamy, Rajaa Sharafeddine, hit back Friday at comments suggesting her father had been killed, saying the family had received confirmation that the 86-year-old is being held in Syria. “We have received confirmation from a number of sources that my father was kidnapped in Lebanon and taken to Syria where he is being held,” Sharafeddine told The Daily Star. She was responding to comments made by Baath Party official and Baalbek-Hermel MP Assem Qanso Thursday in which he said it “is not unlikely” that Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Aley MP Akram Shehayeb “oversaw the liquidation of Aisamy.”
“I don’t care what [Qanso] says. I care about what officials say concerning this case,” Sharafeddine said. She slammed Qanso and people of the like who “are not objective and issue remarks that are not based on facts. “We have not accused anybody of my father’s kidnapping. All we want is to have him back with us,” Sharafeddine said.
“His kidnapping is inhuman due to his old age,” she added. “Kidnapping of innocent and elderly people in general is ruthless.”Aisamy, who fled Syria in 1966 over political differences with then-President Hafez Assad, was abducted in May in Aley, minutes after leaving his daughter’s home for a walk. Sharafeddine said that she was confident of a September report by police chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi in which he said investigations into Aisamy’s abduction were not yet complete. Rifi said that the data collected so far indicated similarities between his kidnapping and those of the four brothers from the Jasem family, who Rifi said had been kidnapped by ISF personnel working at the Syrian Embassy in Beirut.

HRW finds 'crimes against humanity' in Syria
11/11/2011
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian forces have tortured and killed civilians in the rebellious province of Homs in an assault that indicates crimes against humanity, and the Arab League should suspend Syria's membership, an international human rights group said Friday.
The Arab League, which brokered a Syrian peace plan last week, scheduled an emergency meeting Saturday at its headquarters in Cairo to discuss the failure to stop the bloodshed.
The U.N. estimates 3,500 have been killed nationwide since mid-March. Homs, Syria's third-largest city in a province of the same name, has emerged as the epicenter of the uprising.
"Homs is a microcosm of the Syrian government's brutality," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The Arab League needs to tell President (Bashar) Assad that violating their agreement has consequences, and that it now supports Security Council action to end the carnage."
In a 63-page report released Friday, Human Rights Watch said security forces killed at least 587 civilians in Homs from mid-April to the end of August — the highest number for any single province.
In the report, which focuses on that period, the rights group said former detainees reported torture including security forces' use of heated metal rods, electric shocks and stress positions. Witnesses also reported large-scale military operations during which security forces used heavy machine guns, including anti-aircraft guns mounted on armored vehicles.
The group also acknowledged that some protesters and army defectors took up arms to protect themselves — a development that some fear plays directly into the regime's hands by giving it an excuse to use extreme violence against a mostly peaceful movement.
"Violence by protesters or defectors deserves further investigation," the report said. "However, these incidents by no means justify the disproportionate and systematic use of lethal force against demonstrators, which clearly exceeded any justifiable response to any threat presented by overwhelmingly unarmed crowds."
Although the crackdown has led to broad international isolation, Assad appears to have a firm grip on power. Sanctions are chipping away at the regime, but economy has not collapsed. There have been defections from the army, but most appear to be low-level conscripts.
The government has largely sealed off the country from foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making it difficult to confirm events on the ground. Part of the Arab League plan, accepted by Syria, was to allow reporters and observers into the country.
In the absence of first-hand reporting, key sources of information are amateur videos posted online and details gathered by witnesses and activist groups.

Suspending Syria from League unlikely: Ben Heli
November 12, 2011/By Daily Star Staff Agencies
BEIRUT/AMMAN: Arab League deputy chief Ahmad Ben Heli said Friday suspending Syria’s membership from the organization was unlikely, thus pouring cold water on Syrian opposition hopes that the league would take an escalated measure against Damascus when it meets in Cairo Saturday.
Meanwhile, Syria’s ambassador to the Arab League said Friday that his government welcomed a visit by an Arab fact-finding mission to ensure Syria has committed to a recent Arab League plan, aimed at ending the country’s eight-month crisis.
“The visit of the Arab League mission to Syria will contribute to showing the reality of its commitment to the plan and revealing the motives and agendas of some internal and external sides which are seeking to foil the Arab plan,” Youssef told Syria’s state news agency, SANA.
Ben Heli warned in an interview with Qatar’s Al-Jazeera Friday that closing the door in the face of the Arab League initiative will lead to “opening new doors, including the possibility of foreign intervention.”
Some opposition groups have been calling for such intervention, which they say would help protect civilians. In an apparent defense of President Bashar Assad, Moscow has expressed its concerns to the Arab League over the crisis in Syria, saying that the opposition is becoming more militant and sought to foil the Arab initiative. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a letter to Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby that the Syrian army was taking a defensive position and cited reports of aggression committed by “extremist gunmen.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the 22-member league to suspend Syria’s membership. “The Arab League needs to tell President Assad that violating their agreement has consequences, and that it now supports [U.N.] Security Council action to end the carnage,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
Meanwhile, Syrian security forces killed 20 people Friday and protesters repeated calls for the Arab League to suspend Damascus’s membership.
Activists in Homs, which has suffered the highest death toll of any Syrian province since an uprising against Assad broke out in March, said security forces killed nine civilians and one defecting soldier.
The other fatalities were in Hama, the old Roman city of Busra al-Sham in the southern Hauran Plain and in the northern province of Idlib, they said.
“The people want [Syria’s] membership to be suspended,” shouted a crowd at a rally in the Deir Baalba district of Homs, appealing to the 22-member Arab League to act against Damascus when it meets in Cairo Saturday, Internet footage of the rally showed. Under an Arab League plan agreed on Nov. 2, Syria pledged to pull the military out of restive cities, free political prisoners and start talks with the opposition.
Since then, security forces have killed more than 100 people in Homs, Human Rights Watch said in a report Friday. The official news agency said “armed terrorist groups” killed two security police and four civilians in the provinces of Homs, Hama and Idlib and explosive devices were dismantled in several areas across the country.
Syria blames armed groups for the violence and says 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed.
Syrian authorities have barred most foreign media from the country making it difficult to verify accounts of violence from activists and authorities.
In Homs Friday, protesters waved the green, white and black flag used by Syria before the Baath Party seized power 50 years go. “Proud Homs!” they shouted.
A YouTube video purportedly showed several teenagers in Busra al-Sham – some throwing stones, others chanting “Bashar you are betraying your people” – coming under automatic fire.
Another YouTube clip showed a boy lying on the asphalt with a blood-stained chest, murmuring as his friends urged him to say “There is no god but God,” as a last rite.
The violence has drawn condemnation from Western powers as well as neighboring Turkey and some Arab states. But the Syrian leader has allies in the region and supporters at home.
Wary of chaos and an Islamist takeover if Assad leaves, Syria’s Christian clerical establishment has also made public statements in support of Assad, although opposition to Assad family rule has historically included prominent Christians.
A Syrian archbishop told an Austrian newspaper in remarks published Friday that “everyone loves” Assad and that he was still the best man to enact reforms.
The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed in the crackdown on the protests, inspired by uprisings which have toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya

Iran: Learning to whistle and walk away
By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat
As expected, Iran is back in the headlines, once again, because of its nuclear program.
The latest report by Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano suggests that suspicions regarding Tehran’s intentions may not be totally groundless after all. Iran may well have a clandestine nuclear program paralleling its official one.
To be sure, suspicion alone cannot be the basis for policy. However, the trouble is that, in this instance, the Islamic Republic is a recidivist.
A decade ago, Tehran admitted having cheated for 18 years by secretly building facilities to enrich uranium in violation of guarantees to the IAEA.
At that time, IAEA Director Muhammad el-Badaradei was unwilling to demand sanctions under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Iran signed in 1970.
The message to Tehran was clear: you could ignore the NPT and the IAEA and do as you please!
This was precisely what Tehran did. According to Hassan Rouhani, a mullah who was Tehran’s point-man on the issue, the clandestine program was accelerated.
In 2003, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, for a brief moment the mullahs feared that they might be the next target for “Bush cowboys” in Washington.
To mollify the Americans, President Muhammad Khatami declared a moratorium on uranium enrichment plus cooperation with Washington in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Khatami ended the moratorium just before leaving office in 2005.)
Since they seized power in 1979, one aim of the mullahs’ diplomacy has been to buy time on all major issues.
Like other totalitarian ideologies, Khomeinism is incapable of compromise. It will not give even an inch unless it is forced to do so.
Even in its best years, the USSR behaved in the same way. Where it was impossible to avoid compromise, Moscow promised, but cheated on delivery. This is why, in dealing with the Soviet Union, US President Ronald Reagan coined the adage: Trust but verify!
The modern world finds it hard to imagine leaders of any normal country insisting on total victory on all issues.
In Western democracies, politics is all about compromise, give-and-take, deal-making and coalition building. Politicians are admired if they are “consensus builders.” In normal countries, a leader’s ability to deal with the outside world, avoid conflict, and ensure stability and peace are greatly valued.
In the Islamic Republic, the opposite is true.
For Khomeinists, the ideal leader is one who never compromises on any issue, recognizing no law except that fixed by “The Imam.”
In his usual colorful way, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put it well: Our train has no brakes and no back-gear!
To Khomeinists all governments in the world, including all but one of the governments of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) are illegitimate. (The exception is the Islamic Republic itself!)
As the world’s sole truly legitimate government, headed by a “Supreme Guide” who claims to be the sole leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, whether they like it or not, the Islamic Republic cannot be seen to compromise on any issue.
Its diplomatic relations could be handled only through diktats
Where Tehran cannot impose tis diktat there is stalemate.
This is the case in 20 years of negotiations between Iran and the four other littoral states of the Caspian Sea. All four have agreed on a legal system for the great inland sea. However, the Islamic Republic wants an entirely different system. Unable to impose its diktat, it creates a stalemate.
Earlier this month, Iran and Afghanistan were engaged in a border clash over two villages. Since the fall of the Taleban, Afghanistan has asked Tehran to redraw part of the border to take into account changes due to rivers altering their course. This is a minor technical issue which, before the mullahs seized power, would have been handled by border authorities.
Now, however, Tehran sees any settlement as a sign of “capitulation” to the American “Great Satan” which has a military presence in Afghanistan.
A similar stalemate continues over sharing the waters of border rivers, such as Parian, Harirud, Arghandab and Hirmand. Again, no compromise, even if that means wrecking the lives of farmers on both sides of the border.
Tehran has similar problems with Iraq.
The Shatt al-Arab, a border estuary, cannot be dredged and reopened because Tehran would accept a 50-50 deal with Baghdad.
Last month, Iraqi Kurdish farmers blocked border entry points with Iran to protest against Tehran’s decision to divert a river. Such was the mullahs’ contempt for Iraqis that they did not even bother to inform the Iraqis of what was afoot.
Tapping the immense oil reserves of the Majnun islands, astraddle the border, is also postponed for the same reason: no compromise!
Tehran’s negotiations with the World Trade Organization (WTO) are also frozen because the mullahs insist that the rules of the club they want to join do not apply to them.
Even on symbolic matters, the “no compromise” dogma applies. Twelve years of talks to restore diplomatic relations with Egypt have led nowhere because the mullahs insist that the Egyptian embassy be located in a street named after the terrorist who murdered Anwar Sadat.
The mullahs have imposed their no-compromise method on their satellites such as the Ba’athist regime in Damascus and the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah.
In 2009, Damascus was ordered to pull out of talks with Israel, brokered by Turkey, to avoid the prospect of any compromise. And Hassan Nasrallah has orders to ignore Lebanon’s interests even if that meant pushing the country to war.
To Khamenei and his faction the nuclear issue is a matter of the highest honor. Convinced that the “international community” will back down once again, they are unlikely to take much notice of what Amano says. The mullahs hope that, in time, Amano will learn from his predecessor, Muhammad El-Baradaei, when to whistle and walk away.

Walid Phares, A Hero to Muslim Liberals
By Mustafa Mustafa Geha
Friday, November 11, 2011
I am a Muslim liberal activist in Lebanon and the son of Mustafa Geha the author of several books on Islam, Shi’ism and reforms. My father’s legacy stretched two decades prior to, during, and following Lebanon’s conflict in the mid-1970s and 1980s. Among the many books he authored was a daring essay titled, Mihnat al Aql fil Islam (English: “The Crisis of Islamic Thinking”) which opened the way, not only for critical thinking in Shia and Islamic theology, but in Islamic history and politics. Although Mustafa Geha’s body of literature was perhaps too early for his time, most of his calls for action, including rational thinking, civil society and democracy were espoused many decades later in what is today known as “the Arab Spring,” or at least the authentically secular part of it.
But writing on challenging topics in the Middle East and particularly in Lebanon during the fifteen-year conflict was extremely dangerous. My father paid a heavy price for his attachment to intellectual freedom. Indeed he was cowardly assassinated in 1992 by pro-Syrian operatives while he was about to take a ride into his car. I didn’t enjoy having a father in my life because of the totalitarian views that dominated Lebanon in the 1990s.
My father wasn’t the only writer who was killed by Terrorists. Before him Yussef Kamal al Hage, a leading Lebanese thinker of the 1960s, was assassinated in the 1970s by radicals. Salim al Lawzi, editor of the weekly al Hawadeth, Riad Taha, the president of the Union of journalists, Gebran Tueni, editor of daily al Nahar, and many others who lived and fought with the pen, were executed, assassinated and, in some cases, tortured. During Lebanon’s bloody war, as in most of the region’s conflicts, there were men and women who pursued their vision of freedom and democracy through ideas, irrespective of affiliation or geographic location.
Among those Lebanese intellectuals persecuted for advocating freedom, is Dr Walid Phares, a man I respect and admire. Dr. Phares has cultivated a respected academic and publishing career in the United States for over two decades. As a Lebanese Muslim and an Arab liberal I have been following his work and statements in favor of democratization and liberalization in the Middle East and salute his relentless efforts in publishing books, articles, and lectures in English, French and Arabic. I am writing this article, in particular because of his achievements before he emigrated to the US, and after he became an American citizen. I am also dedicating this piece to express my frustration against the sinister attacks leveled against him in US media by pens serving the same goals as those behind the assassins of my father.
I have read recent disgusting pieces of propaganda against Phares, published in media promoting itself as progressive and friendly to Muslims, while in reality they are the farthest from true liberalism and side systematically with the ideological forces that are oppressing our Muslim civil societies in the region. The campaign against Walid Phares incited by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which has been accused by US Counter Terrorism experts as being a front for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, has been aptly named “The Jihad against Phares” (*) by an American expert. Other sources claim CAIR serves the interests of the Iranian regime via Hamas (*). This Islamist lobby asked a leading Presidential Republican to drop Professor Phares as an advisor on the Middle East. The hateful CAIR letter accused Phares of ignominious false allegations including being “Islamophobic” and somehow linked to militiamen who shot Palestinians in Beirut back in 1982 and being. Dr. Phares had no involvement with any military. I am all too familiar with these Mafioso intimidation tactics as we had experienced and continue to experience them in the Middle East and in Lebanon. My father, a peaceful writer and reformer was accused of worse matters by the propaganda machine of the Jihadists and the Syrian-Iranian regimes. Reformers and intellectuals during Soviet times were often demonized and muddied by the totalitarians. Walid Phares is not an exception.
But what surprised me was to read articles published at one day intervals in magazines and on sites claimed to be progressive and liberal, at least according to American norms. How can Salon.com, The New Republic, the Daily Beast, Mother Jones and others claim they are on the side of social justice and the weakest segments of society when they carry these kind of stories against a man who has spent the last three decades of his life standing for liberty around the world, and paid a dear price for it in his own community and mother country? I understand if Nihad Awad of lobby group CAIR or As’ad Abukhalil, known to be a Hezbollah propagandist, rage against Phares but why would so-called liberals like McKay and Serwer defame the author of The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East? Are they part of the same campaign as CAIR and the Hezbollah propagandists? Whatever are the answers to this imbroglio in US politics, one matter is clear to me from my end of the world: Professor Phares’ image is untarnished.
During the Lebanon conflict, Walid Phares was a young man who accomplished a difficult task to be a published intellectual, public speaker, active in democratic politics in the face of two heavy challenges. He, like most members of his community and many Lebanese, accepted the duty of defending Lebanon against Syrian occupation and terror domination. From the time he was a law student, Phares chose the path of writing, publishing and speaking in public. But his interests weren’t only his motherland. Since his first book and subsequent articles in the early 1980s, Phares raised the issues of multiethnic societies and spoke for the weakest: Kurds, South Sudan, Copts, Berbers, Assyrians, and other minorities. He was perhaps unlucky that he had to develop a regional and international scholarship in a country that has been at war since he was in high school. While other intellectuals chose to either flee Lebanon or submit to the narrative of the Arabists and Islamists in the Middle East, the young attorney turned publisher, stubbornly stayed his intellectual course and offered his thoughts wherever he could. This is why the supporters of Islamism and Pan Arabism never forgave him and never forgot about his long train of achievements. They have a score to settle with a thinking process that approximates Soviet dissidence and that courageously promoted the fall of totalitarian regimes and ideologies. Phares did it from his own habitat, the Maronite and Christian community, while my father Mustafa Geha did it from our habitat, the Shia Muslim community. Phares has been a target of character assassination by these forces of totalitarianism while my father was actually assassinated by them.
It is stunning to read in the so-called “progressive” US press today that Phares is blamed for having lectured in his own community in East Beirut during the early 1980s. Where should have he lectured? Under Hezbollah auspices or in collaboration with the Syrian occupation? It was natural that he would speak to audiences in his own environment. My father, a Shia thinker, spoke to the same Lebanese Christian audiences, Lebanese Forces included, and praised Walid Phares’ comments rigorously focused on pluralism and achieving democracy. And more puzzling is critics lashing out against Phares participation in a policy council along with all parties in the free areas of the country to oversee the defense forces and management of society. Bringing him and representatives to that council was a move to widen participation of society’s political forces after years of dominance by one political party in East Beirut. In the circumstances of the times, this was an important advance towards political pluralism, although it failed in the end.
But Phares’ other efforts, that is democratization inside East Beirut, were the most challenging, and unfortunately not acknowledged by his critics. The young attorney and writer aimed at pushing for higher levels of democracy and freedoms inside the so-called Christian areas, while the Syrians and Hezbollah dominated the Muslim areas. He was part of a Social Democratic group, launched a Labor Union, student committees and a coalition of Middle East minorities, and was a sharp critic of authoritarianism, even within wthe so-called free areas. His work was often suppressed and towards the end of the decade, Phares ability to promote democracy was lost. The challenge came from the Syrian-Hezbollah axis on the outside and from the dominant forces within the Christian community on the inside. Indeed it has been an almost impossible task for freedom advocates in the 1980s to promote their ideas of liberty in the midst of an ethnic conflict, sandwiched between the threat to the community and the little freedoms inside the community.
But we Muslim liberals understood Walid Phares’ message then, and even more decades later. My father visited his younger intellectual colleague at his home in East Beirut and they often appeared on radio or on panels. Mustafa Geha and Walid Phares coming from different communities had one thing in common, seeking freedom, each one in his own context. For Phares participation in the political council of parties in East Beirut (known as Lebanese Front or Lebanese Forces) was in fact a guarantee, not a challenge, to the rights of Muslims, because he spoke of pluralism and federation, the most advanced formulas for political participation. Islamists and Pan Arabists opposed him naturally, but those who among Muslims were struggling for liberal ideas, understood Phares and supported him, despite the sectarian barriers of the time.
My greatest admiration for this man was his longstanding publishing and push in the United States, after he emigrated, for the sake of freedom in the Arab world and the Middle East. Relentlessly he briefed and testified, authored and advised on the rise of Jihadi threat and on the region’s civil societies’ aspirations for freedom. To many among us, young liberal Muslims in the region, Phares was doing more for our cause than many organized self-declared Muslim groups in America. While the latter were siding with dictators, in some cased funded by them, and advocating for Islamists, Phares and his colleagues were presenting our case to the American and Western public. The case of seculars, moderates, liberals and conservatives but not Jihadist Muslims. In his three books published after 9/11, which were criticized by Islamist lobbies in the US, Professor Phares was strongly advocating US partnership with secular Muslims. Remarkably Phares published his last book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East, one year before the Arab Spring, predicting the uprisings. The Islamist lobbies fell silent about it, because in his book Phares talks about Muslim civil societies not the Islamists. He unveiled the existence of a large mass of youth who refuses the fundamentalist view of the world in the region, while Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeinists claim the region wants them to rule the peoples.
I am assuming this was the fundamental reason behind the dirty assault against Professor Walid Phares in the blogosphere by the Islamist militants online. It is not about Phares honorable achievements in Lebanon or his involvement in a Presidential campaign. It is about the scholar’s strategic ability to help his country, the United States, understand the challenges and partner with the peoples of this region. His enemies are the enemies of American values and of real freedom in the Middle East. He was accused of Islamophobia while those who accuse him are the ones blocking the minds of young Muslims and keeping them in a state of Islamophobic fears.
In a preface to Phares’ essay “Thirteen Centuries of Struggle” published in 1982, St. Joseph University Professor Jean Aucagne compared Walid Phares to Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik. “He is to the Muslim world what Amalrik was to the Soviet Union, seeking the rise of freedom.” Walid Phares continued what my father wanted to pursue, a gigantic work to reform the region to realize pluralist democracy. My father was killed in the line of intellectual duty. Professor Phares picked up the message and took it to the free world. We Muslim liberals are looking forward to see this message come back to free us from the prison of fundamentalism and totalitarian realities.
*Mustafa Mustafa Geha is a Muslim Lebanese Liberal activist based in Beirut.
 
A Secure, Undisclosed Location
In his latest book, "Warriors of God," Nicholas Blanford goes searching for one of Hezbollah's secret war bunkers, constructed mere feet from the Israeli border.
BY NICHOLAS BLANFORD/Foreign Policy
NOVEMBER 11, 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/11/a_secure_undisclosed_location
The latest bout of speculation over an Israeli or U.S.-led attack on Iran's nuclear facilities shows that the notion of another conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is never far away -- and both sides are aware that the next war promises to be of a magnitude that will dwarf the 2006 conflict. In the decade and a half that I have been following Hezbollah's military evolution, it was the secret underground bunkers built in southern Lebanon between 2000 and 2006 that underlined to me more than anything else the militant Lebanese Shiite group's single-minded dedication to pursuing its struggle against Israel.
These bunkers -- some of which I discovered and explored a few months after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel -- were far more sophisticated than I or anyone else had expected, and the skill and patience in constructing them deep inside the hills of south Lebanon without anyone noticing was remarkable.
More... The 2006 war ended inconclusively, and Hezbollah and Israel are preparing for another war that neither side seeks but both suspect is probably inevitable. Hezbollah military sources tell me that new underground facilities have been constructed in Lebanon's rugged mountains since 2006, larger than before and more elaborate. Recruitment and training continues in hidden camps in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and in Iran. New battle plans have been drawn up and new weapons systems delivered.
For now, the anticipated level of destruction in both Lebanon and Israel has acted as a form of deterrence -- but none of the drivers that led to war in 2006 have been resolved, and the "balance of terror" between Hezbollah and Israel remains inherently unstable.
As Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on Nov. 11, on the occasion of the party's Martyrs' Day: "Lebanon -- through its army, people and resistance -- has become strong, but that doesn't mean that we should not remain vigilant. This resistance has always been vigilant."
ALMA SHAAB, SOUTH LEBANON — The dirt track wound through blossom-scented orange orchards before entering a narrow valley flanked by an impenetrable-looking mantle of bushes and small trees. Lizards and snakes slithered from under our feet, but we kept a wary eye open for unexploded cluster bombs left over from repeated Israeli artillery strikes on the western end of the valley during the month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel seven months earlier.
Every few seconds I glanced at the electronic arrow on my handheld global positioning system that was directing us toward what I hoped would be the entrance to one of Hezbollah's secret wartime underground bunkers. Since the end of the war, finding and exploring a Hezbollah bunker had become a near obsession, ever since I had been given a tantalizing hint shortly after the August cease-fire at what Hezbollah had covertly and skillfully constructed between 2000 and 2006.
Before the war, no one had imagined that Hezbollah was installing such an extravagant military infrastructure in the border district. Their visible activities generally consisted of establishing a number of observation posts along the Blue Line that eventually reached between twenty-five and thirty, stretching from the chalk cliffs of Ras Naqoura on the coast in the west to the lofty limestone mountains of the Shebaa Farms in the east. Hezbollah also placed off- limits several stretches of rugged hills and valleys in the border district.
The entrances were guarded by armed and uniformed fighters. Local farmers and even UNIFIL peacekeepers [members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which is charged with keeping in the peace along the Israel-Lebanon border] were denied access to some of these "security pockets." One valley, a deep ravine of limestone cliffs and caves that slashed through the western sector like a giant ax stroke, was marked as a no-fly zone on the maps used by UNIFIL's Italian air wing.
In August 2002, Hezbollah took over a hillside overlooking the coast outside Naqoura, the location of UNIFIL's headquarters. A narrow lane wound up the hill, ending at a small UNIFIL observation post at the long-disappeared farmstead of Labboune. It was a popular spot for tourists, as the ridge granted a grandstand view of western Galilee down the coast to Haifa and Mount Carmel, twenty- five miles to the south.
After Hezbollah seized the Labboune hillside for its own purposes, only UNIFIL was allowed to use the lane to reach its observation post. Shortly after the hillside was sealed off, I drove up the lane to see what would happen. About halfway up I spotted several fighters in the dense brush crouched beside a large object smothered in camouflage netting, possibly an antiaircraft gun. They scowled at me as I passed by and evidently alerted some of their colleagues by radio, as there was a small reception committee waiting for me beside the road as I returned to Naqoura.
"This is a military zone. You can't come here anymore," one of them chided me.
Two months later, a convoy of American diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Beirut ran into a similar problem when they were intercepted by armed Hezbollah men while en route to the Labboune viewing point, unaware that the hillside was no longer accessible. With the Hezbollah men refusing to allow the diplomatic convoy to proceed, the embassy's security team called off the planned tour of the Blue Line and headed back to Beirut.
As the motorcade drove north out of Naqoura along the coastal road, they were joined by two carloads of armed Hezbollah men, who wove between the convoy vehicles. The U.S. embassy and the State Department lodged formal complaints with the Lebanese government, but it was the last time diplomats attempted to peer into Israel from Labboune.
It was unclear to us exactly what Hezbollah was up to inside these security pockets, although clues hinting at clandestine activity emerged from time to time. In early June 2002, residents of two small villages at the foot of the Shebaa Farms hills were kept awake at night by the sound of dynamite explosions emanating from a remote wadi near an abandoned farmstead. The peak of Hezbollah's construction activities appears to have been in 2003, when UNIFIL was recording "sustained explosions" numbering as many as twenty-five at a time, all in remote wadis and hillsides.
But it was only following the August 14 cease-fire ending the month-long war in 2006 that the astonishing scale of Hezbollah's underground network of bunkers and firing positions in the southern border district came to light.
For example, the Labboune hillside, which was covered in thick brush and small evergreen oaks, was the source of almost constant rocket fire by Hezbollah throughout the war, from the first day until shortly before the 8am cease-fire on August 14. The Israeli military attempted to stanch the flow of rockets with air strikes, cluster bombs, and artillery shells packed with phosphorus, but the Katyusha fire was relentless. After the cease-fire, Israeli soldiers deployed onto the hill and discovered an elaborate bunker and artillery firing system sunk into solid rock some 120 feet deep and spread over an area three-quarters of a square mile. The bunkers included firing positions, ammunition storage facilities, operations rooms, dormitories, medical facilities, lighting and ventilation, and kitchens and bathrooms with latrines and hot and cold running water- sufficient to allow dozens of fighters to live underground for weeks without need for resupply.
A day after the bunker was dynamited by the Israelis, I visited the site with Lorenzo Cremonesi, a correspondent for Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper. We gingerly followed a caterpillar track into the old minefield running on the Lebanese side of the border fence. All that remained of the bunker was a field of churned earth and slabs of yard- thick reinforced concrete poking out of the ground like broken teeth.
Yet the most extraordinary discovery was not that Hezbollah had built the bunker beneath a minefield, but that the bunker began just a hundred yards from, and within full view of, the UNIFIL observation post on the border. It was only fifty yards from the lane used by UNIFIL traffic each day. The bunker was also in full view of an Israeli border position some four hundred yards to the west on the other side of the fence. How was it possible for Hezbollah to construct such a large facility with neither UNIFIL nor the Israelis having any idea of its existence?
"We never saw them build anything," a UNIFIL officer told me. "They must have brought the cement in by the spoonful."
Spiders and Claustrophobia
The sight of the dynamited ruins at Labboune inspired me to find an intact bunker. Although the border district was littered with newly abandoned bunkers, finding them was difficult and hazardous given their remote locations, the presence of unexploded munitions, and the superbly camouflaged entrances, some of them covered by hollow fiberglass "rocks" similar to those used to hide IEDs.
After several false leads, I acquired a set of map coordinates marking the locations of Hezbollah bunkers and rocket firing posts near the village of Alma Shaab. Punching the coordinates into a handheld GPS device, I headed into a former Hezbollah security pocket accompanied by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an intrepid war correspondent for The Guardian and a photographer for the Getty agency.
We had walked along the track at the bottom of the valley for about ten minutes when the arrow on the GPS began to rotate to the right. We left the track and, once beneath the canopy of dense foliage, noticed numerous thin trails made by Hezbollah militants crisscrossing the hillside. Steps of rock-hard sandbags helped overcome the steeper sections. We scanned the footpath carefully, not only for cluster bombs but also for possible booby traps. Hezbollah had rigged some simple IEDs consisting of trip wires attached to blocks of TNT around some of their old positions to deter snoopers
After a five-minute climb, my GPS informed us that we had reached our destination. But there was no bunker entrance to be seen, just outcrops of rock, thickets of thorn bushes, scrub oak, and tree roots snaking across the bedrock beneath a carpet of dead leaves and dried twigs. Thinking the GPS must be off by a few feet, I moved away to examine the surrounding area for the entrance. But it was Ghaith who found it.
He was tapping the ground with a stick when he struck something metallic and hollow-sounding. Together we brushed away the leaves and twigs to reveal a square matte black metal lid with two handles. Dragging the heavy lid to one side exposed a narrow steel-lined shaft that dropped vertically about fifteen feet into the bedrock. Dank, musty air rose from the gloom. It had taken seven months to finally discover one of Hezbollah's war bunkers; but any exhilaration was dampened by the dread of claustrophobia.
"If we have to crawl when we're down there, I can't do it," Ghaith

Question: "What happens to those who have never heard about Jesus?"
Answer: All people are accountable to God whether or not they have “heard about Him.” The Bible tells us that God has clearly revealed Himself in nature (Romans 1:20) and in the hearts of people (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The problem is that the human race is sinful; we all reject this knowledge of God and rebel against Him (Romans 1:21-23). If it were not for God's grace, we would be given over to the sinful desires of our hearts, allowing us to discover how useless and miserable life is apart from Him. He does this for those who continually reject Him (Romans 1:24-32).
In reality, it is not that some people have not heard about God. Rather, the problem is that they have rejected what they have heard and what is readily seen in nature. Deuteronomy 4:29 proclaims, “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.” This verse teaches an important principle—everyone who truly seeks after God will find Him. If a person truly desires to know God, God will make Himself known.
The problem is “there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:11). People reject the knowledge of God that is present in nature and in their own hearts, and instead decide to worship a “god” of their own creation. It is foolish to debate the fairness of God sending someone to hell who never had the opportunity to hear the gospel of Christ. People are responsible to God for what God has already revealed to them. The Bible says that people reject this knowledge, and therefore God is just in condemning them to hell.
Instead of debating the fate of those who have never heard, we, as Christians, should be doing our best to make sure they do hear. We are called to spread the gospel throughout the nations (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). We know people reject the knowledge of God revealed in nature, and that must motivate us to proclaim the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Only by accepting God’s grace through the Lord Jesus Christ can people be saved from their sins and rescued from an eternity apart from God.
If we assume that those who never hear the gospel are granted mercy from God, we will run into a terrible problem. If people who never hear the gospel are saved, it is logical that we should make sure no one ever hears the gospel. The worst thing we could do would be to share the gospel with a person and have him or her reject it. If that were to happen, he or she would be condemned. People who do not hear the gospel must be condemned, or else there is no motivation for evangelism. Why run the risk of people possibly rejecting the gospel and condemning themselves when they were previously saved because they had never heard the gospel?