Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for December 06/12
Woman tells NOW her husband Talal Mohammad Khalil is held by Hezbollah in Beirut
Hezbollah: Tel Aviv will be Hit with Thousands of Rockets
Hezbollah International Relations officer Ammar al-Moussawi sits down with UN official
Lebanon seen as one of most corrupt countries
Lebanese judge completes probe into Samaha case
North Lebanon clashes intensify as death toll rises to 8  
Sleiman travels to Greece on official visit
Syria to prepare legal file against Saqr via Lebanon judiciary
Mikati hails Italy's economic ties with Lebanon
Saqr: Calls taken out of context
One wounded in fight over anti-Assad poster in south Lebanon
Bomb found in Beirut neighborhood
Berri, March 14 look to unravel vote jam
Investigation into Samaha case complete, awaits indictment
Italian FM Urges to Miqati Need to Keep Lebanon Away from Regional Crises
US: Sarin bombs ready for Assad’s “go” order. Israel's odd silence
Here in Istanbul
Clinton, U.N. envoy to meet over Syria
No free pass Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Chemical scare is a cloak for intervention: Syria
Syria’s war, documented in detail
Russia, U.S. to seek "creative" Syria solution: envoy
Egypt’s round two
Egypt president calls for national dialogue meeting
Military halts clashes as political crisis grips Egypt
Russia, U.S. to seek "creative" Syria solution: envoy
N.Korea launch to show missile tech: US
Iran tells U.S. to recount drone fleet

Hezbollah: Tel Aviv will be Hit with Thousands of Rockets
Wednesday, 05 December 2012 15:01 By JV Staff .inShare.0SocButtons v1.4Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to rain thousands of rockets down on Israeli cities.
Days after Israel accepted the ceasefire deal with Hamas that ended their latest conflict, Egypt and the United States initiated an effort to end the Gaza offensive and the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel.
Hezbollah military chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech in Beirut on Sunday, that Israel will face “thousands of rockets that will fall on Tel Aviv and other areas if it launches an aggression against Lebanon.”
While Israel successfully destroyed half of the 10,000 short range rockets Hamas and other Gaza militant factions maintained, and destroyed, on the first day of Operation ‘Pillar of Defense,’ most of Hamas’ Fajr-5 long range missiles, Hezbollah is believed to have restocked their rocket arsenal which they won’t hesitate to use in any event of escalation of serious tensions.
According to secret documents obtained by Wikileaks, and published in the New York Times in 2010, Hezbollah’s arsenal now includes up to 50,000 rockets and missiles, including 40 to 50 Fateh-110 missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and most of Israel and 10 Scud-D missiles.
Hezbollah fired at least one long-range rocket ineffectually in the 2006 Lebanon war, but Israeli intelligence now believes the militant group has the capability to strike anywhere in the country, raising fears of a conflict which could turn into a full-scale regional war. While Israeli aircraft launched around 1,500 strikes on targets, facilities and government symbols linked to Hamas, the use of the long-range Iranian-made missile, the Fajr-5, fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time, did indicate the threat over Israel’s heartland is imminent.
“The Fajr-5 attacks shook Israel,” Nasrallah said in his speech. “How is it (Israel) going to stand thousands of rockets that will fall on Tel Aviv and other areas if it launches an aggression against Lebanon?” he asked.
He spoke via a video link from a secret location to tens of thousands of supporters in Beirut who gathered to mark Ashoura, the annual Shia commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. “The battle with us is going to be all over occupied Palestine,” Nasrallah said, “From the border with Lebanon to the frontier with Jordan to the Red Sea.”
The Hezbollah chief stated that Israel failed to achieve any of its goals, saying, “ Prime Minister Netanyahu did not set high goals for this war; he set low goals so that he would achieve them and announce his victory, but even these he failed to achieve.”Nasrallah pointed out that “the first goal was to destroy the Palestinian resistance’s leadership. He failed in this respect. The second goal was to destroy the resistance’s missile system. He also failed (to achieve this goal). The third goal was to reinforce Israel’s deterrence power. The (Gaza) war rather weakened this power.”
He went on to say that the assassination of Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari is a big loss, but the resistance movements no longer depend on individuals.
Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency last week charged a Palestinian man with relaying information to Hezbollah in Lebanon about sensitive government sites, including the parliament, the AP reported. It identified the suspect as Azzam Mashahara, a resident of east Jerusalem. The agency said the indictment was handed down on Sunday, a day after Mashahara was arrested.
All of the sites identified in the Shin Bet agency statement appear on Google Earth. Mashahara was charged with maintaining contacts with a foreign agent and relaying information to the enemy.

Hezbollah International Relations officer Ammar al-Moussawi sits down with UN official
December 5, 2012 /UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly met with Hezbollah International Relations officer Ammar al-Moussawi on Wednesday to discuss the latest Lebanese developments.
“There were discussions about the tensions in the northern [Lebanese region] following the killing of a group of Lebanese men in the [Syrian border town of] Tal Kalakh,” said a statement released by Hezbollah’s press office.
It added that the two men also discussed the issue of national dialogue “in light of some [politicians’] decision to boycott” the roundtable.
Twenty-two young men, including a Palestinian, from the Lebanese city of Tripoli were killed last week in Tal Kalakh.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s opposition, March 14, has announced that it would cut all ties with the current government.
The announcement came on the heels of the October 19 assassination of Internal Security Forces Information Branch chief Wissam al-Hassan, which March 14 blamed on the Syrian regime – a close ally of Hezbollah which spearheads the majority March 8 alliance. -NOW Lebanon

Clinton, U.N. envoy to meet over Syri
Hillary Clinton to meet with Russia's Sergey Lavrov in Dublin
U.S. and Russia have been at odds over how to handle Syria
1:22PM EST December 6. 2012 and Russian diplomats will hold a surprise meeting Thursday with the United Nations' peace envoy for Syria, signaling fresh hopes of an international breakthrough to end the Arab country's 21-month civil war.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and mediator Lakhdar Brahimi are to gather in Dublin on the sidelines of a human rights conference, a senior U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The former Cold War foes have fought bitterly over how to address Syria's conflict, with Washington harshly criticizing Moscow of shielding its Arab ally. The Russians respond by accusing the U.S. of meddling by demanding the downfall of President Bashar Assad's regime and ultimately seeking an armed intervention such as the one last year against the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS FEARS: Reports: Syria has put nerve gas in bombs
The gathering of the three key international figures suggests possible compromise in the offing. At the least, it confirms what officials describe as an easing of some of the acrimony that has raged between Moscow and Washington over the future of an ethnically diverse nation whose stability is seen as critical given its geographic position in between powder kegs Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.
The threat of Syria's government using some of its vast stockpiles of chemical weapons is also adding urgency to diplomatic efforts. Western governments have cited the rising danger of such a scenario this week, and officials say Russia, too, shares great concern on this point.
Thursday, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused the United States and Europe of using the issue of chemical weapons to justify a future military intervention against Syria. He warned that any such intervention would be "catastrophic." In an interview with Lebanon's pro-Assad Manar TV, Mekdad denied the administration had chemical weapons. "Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," he told Manar.
In Ireland's capital, one idea that Brahimi could seek to resuscitate with U.S. and Russian support would be the political agreement strategy both countries agreed on in Geneva in June.
That plan demanded several steps by the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It would then have required Syria's opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.
If employed, the strategy would surely mean the end of more than four decades of an Assad family member at Syria's helm. The opposition has demanded Assad's departure and has rejected any talk of him staying in power. Yet it also would grant regime representatives the opportunity to block Sunni extremists and others in the opposition that they reject.
The transition plan never got off the ground this summer, partly because no pressure was applied to see it succeed by a deeply divided international community. Brahimi's predecessor, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who drafted the plan, then resigned his post in frustration.
The United States blamed the collapse on Russia for vetoing a third resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would have applied world sanctions against Assad's government for failing to live by the deal's provisions.
Russia insisted that the Americans unfairly sought Assad's departure as a precondition and worried about opening the door to military action, even as Washington offered to include language in any U.N. resolution that would have expressly forbade outside armed intervention.
Should a plan similar to that one be proposed, the Obama administration is likely to insist anew that it be internationally enforceable — a step Moscow may still be reluctant to commit to.
In any case, the U.S. insists the tide of the war is turning definitively against Assad.
Wednesday, the administration said several countries in the Middle East and elsewhere have informally offered to grant asylum to Assad and his family if they leave Syria.
The comments came a day after the United States and its 27 NATO allies agreed to send Patriot missiles to Turkey's southern border with Syria. The deployment, expected within weeks, is meant solely as a defensive measure against the cross-border mortar rounds from Syria that have killed five Turks, but still bring the alliance to the brink of involvement in the civil war.
Syria was sharply critical of the move, calling it "provocrative."
The United States is also preparing to designate Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group with alleged ties to al-Qaida, as a foreign terrorist organization in a step aimed at blunting the influence of extremists within the Syrian opposition, officials said Wednesday.
Word of the move came as the State Department announced Clinton will travel to the Mideast and North Africa next week for high-level meetings on the situation in Syria and broader counter-terrorism issues. She is likely then to recognize Syria's newly formed opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, according to officials.
The political endorsement is designed to help unite the country against Assad and spur greater nonlethal and humanitarian assistance from the United States to the rebels.
Contributing: Associated Press, Gary Strauss

US: Sarin bombs ready for Assad’s “go” order. Israel's odd silence

DEBKAfile Special Report December 6, 2012

American officials said Wednesday, Dec. 4, that they believed bombs had been made ready with sarin gas, but not yet loaded onto fighter planes and Assad had not issued the “go” order. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned President Assad once again that he would be crossing “a red line” if he used nerve gas against the country’s rebels. But “there’s little the outside world can do to stop it.”

In answer to US allegations, Syrian spokesmen reiterated that their government would not use chemical weapons against its own people.

This statement leaves wide open the possible use of lethal gas against the countries supporting the Syrian rebels, such as Turkey and Jordan. And indeed, the Assad regime has in the past referred to “external enemies” as possible targets of chemical warfare.

This locution undoubtedly covers Israel. Yet against the flood of information and warnings coming from the United States, Israel is strangely silent and its media are officially discouraged from tracking the Syrian chemical weapons menace.

Surprise was voiced in some Israeli defense and military quarters, when the prime minister, the defense minister and other key ministers traveled to Europe Wednesday for visits to Prague and Berlin, at a time when Israel’s northern border with Syria might be targeted for a chemical attack.

Although it was only a 48-hour absence - they return Friday - Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are holding to an outward attitude of coolly controling the situation, in contrast to the Turkish government which has prepared itself for possible attack - and not only with defensive measures. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu remarked Wednesday that the Syrian regime has 700 missiles whose location, storage method and holders are no secret to Ankara. This was a veiled threat to destroy them.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said nothing more than the routine: “We are watching the Syrian chemical weapons with concern.”

debkafile reported Wednesday:

The USS Eisenhower Strike Group transited the Suez Canal from the Persian Gulf Saturday, Dec. 1, sailing up to the Syrian coast Tuesday in a heavy storm, with 8 fighter bomber squadrons of Air Wing Seven on its decks and 8,000 sailors, airmen and Marines.

The USS Eisenhower group joins the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group which carries 2,500 Marines. 

Facing Syria now are 10,000 US fighting men, 70 fighter-bombers and at least 17 warships, including the three Iwo Jima amphibious craft, a guided missile cruiser and 10 destroyers and frigates.

Four of these vessels are armed with Aegis missile interceptors. This mighty US armada brings immense pressure to bear on the beleaguered Assad regime after it survied an almost two-year buffeting by an armed uprising. Its presence indicates that the United States now stands ready for direct military intervention in the Syrian conflict when the weather permits.

Left behind in the Persian Gulf is just one US aircraft carrier, the USS Stennis and its strike group.

Welcoming NATO’s decision Tuesday, Dec. 4, to deploy Patriot missile batteries in Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday: “The protection from NATO will be three dimensional; one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-range Terminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last is the AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outside the atmosphere.”

debkafile’s military sources: While the Patriot is land-based and will be deployed on the Turkish-Syrian border, the THAD and the Aegis have just reached the Syrian coast aboard the USS Eisenhower strike group.

 “With this integrated system,” said Davutoglu, Turkey will have maximum protection.”

He added: “The Syrian regime has 700 missiles,” and their location, storage method and holders are no secret to Ankara. This was the first time Ankara had made threats to destroy Syrian missiles, including any carrying chemical warheads. 

Lebanon seen as one of most corrupt countries

December 06, 2012/The Daily Star     

BEIRUT: Lebanon ranks as one of the 50 most corrupt nations worldwide, coming 128th out of 174 countries surveyed for perceptions of transparency, a report released Wednesday by an international watchdog showed. Falling behind a global average of 43 points, Lebanon performed poorly with a score of 30 points, according to the 2012 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International.

CPI ranks countries based on how corrupt its public sector is perceived to be by experts and businesses. The index uses the data to award scores ranging from 0, perceived to be highly corrupt, to 100, perceived to be very transparent. It is one of the most globally cited ways of measuring corruption.

TI updated the methodology it uses for the index scores in 2012, making comparisons with previous findings unworkable. In 2011 and 2010, Lebanon occupied 134th and 127th ranks respectively.

Nada Abdul Sater, head of the Lebanese Transparency Association – the local chapter of Transparency International – said Lebanon has fallen behind other countries in the region.

“Our ambitions are now merely to catch up with some of the worst regimes, instead of competing with developed countries,” Abdul Sater told a news conference at UNESCO Palace.

She added that an array of corruption scandals in medicine and food safety, as well as the government’s failure to prosecute those involved, have played a role in worsening the public’s view of corruption.

Widespread allegations of public sector squandering and corruption scandals – including allegations of mass customs-evasion at Beirut’s port – have also played a role in widening Lebanese perception of corruption, she added.

“Silence and lack of accountability reinforce corruption. We call for [improving] the independence of the judiciary and empowering it to be able to face corruption,” she said.

Lebanon rated 14th out of 21 Arab countries measured, only ahead of Comoros, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia.

“Following the Arab Spring, many Arab countries became free of regimes built on corruption and the plundering of public funds ... Today we started hearing about ministers resigning for merely being suspected of being involved in corruption,” Abdul Sater said. Internationally, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand tied in the first position with a score of 90, “helped by strong access to information systems and rules governing the behavior of those in public positions,” a statement by the organization said. Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia came at the bottom of the index due to the lack of political leadership accountability and ineffective public institutions.

“Governments need to integrate anti-corruption actions into all public decision-making. Priorities include better rules on lobbying and political financing, making public spending and contracting more transparent and making public bodies more accountable,” said Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International.

Saqr: Calls taken out of context

 December 06/By Dana Khraiche /The Daily Star     

 BEIRUT: Future Movement MP Oqab Saqr said Thursday recent recordings implicating him in arms transfers to Syrian rebels were taken out of context and that he had been negotiating the release of Lebanese kidnapped in Syria. "They thought to cut the recordings and that I didn't have the full audio tape, but their hatred and intention to politically assassinate me made them think that I do not have any of the tapes," Saqr told reporters in a news conference in Turkey.  He added that the tapes belonged to him and were stolen.

Saqr played what he said was the full audio tape between himself and Abu Nooman, the man responsible for kidnapping Lebanese in the town of Azaz earlier this year, as the latter asks him for arms in exchange for the release of the men.

“We are not asking for much but some metal [in reference to arms] ... we don’t ask for money just some arms so we can get rid of Assad,” Abu Nooman said.

Saqr responds: “I don’t have arms or metal or anything ... I can speak to members of the Free Syrian Army to transfer some arms.”

Eleven Shiite pilgrims were abducted near Aleppo’s northern Syrian border town of Azaz on May 22 while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran. Two of them have been released so far.

Saqr also said negotiation with regards to the remaining Lebanese in Syria was on hold for the moment.

Days after the media began circulating the sound bites, Saqr verified the authenticity of the tapes and said: “That is my voice and these are my words.”

Speaking to pan-Arab Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, the MP said: “Yes. This is my voice and those are my words. I am not in the habit of denying my words or voice and I am not ashamed of what I have done and am doing.”

He added that he was ready to face any legal measures against him.

During the conference, he described “those who cut the tapes,” as naïve for only broadcasting the sections where the MP speaks about weapons.

He said that he would provide the media with all the tapes, which were recorded seven months ago and are part of some 500 minutes of conversation.

Lebanon-based OTV and Al-Akhbar newspaper broadcast and printed last week what it said were tapes provided by Saqr’s assistant, implicating the MP in arms transfer to the opposition.

The MP played another taped conversation that OTV had broadcast sections of, in which Saqr can be heard negotiating the transfer of milk and blankets for children. In the clip broadcast by OTV it is not apparent what Saqr is transferring.

“Yes, I fed the children of Syria milk while the axis of deceit feeds the children of Syria blood,” Saqr said.

“I sent blankets and tents and participated in constructing buildings in Homs with the instigation and funding of Saad Hariri; that criminal who wanted to shelter Syria’s women,” he added.

Later Thursday, Hariri contacted Saqr and congratulated him on the press conference and the statements he made, according to the former prime minister’s press office.

“Hariri stressed that the support to the Syrian people will continue until the victory of this revolution, and that this support is an ethical, national and Arab responsibility, which will not be given up by any honest Lebanese,” the office said.

The clips played by Lebanese media outlets drew heavy backlash from the Future Movement’s rivals in the March 8 coalition, who asked that Saqr be prosecuted based on the “evidence.”

Saqr said he will provide Lebanon’s Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi with his own version of the tapes and will file lawsuit against “anyone who is involved with this forgery.”

Madi has tasked the Central Criminal Investigations Bureau with examining the media’s audio recordings. Saqr also slammed his rivals in the majority, dubbing them as “the axis of fraud.” “All of the Syrian regime and their puppets and some March 8 groups will be called the groups of fraud and the axis of deceit,” the MP, who has been out of the country for over a year, said.

Saqr also claimed that Hezbollah’s security official Wafiq Safa had informed security agencies in Lebanon of the tapes and intended to send a warning to the lawmaker.

He claimed that three groups had come to Turkey to assassinate him but failed.“Hariri and I cannot be killed by some fabricated audiotapes. You need something bigger like the bomb that killed [Brig. Gen. Wissam] al-Hasan,” he said.Hasan was assassinated on Oct. 19 by a car bomb that ripped through the Beirut district of Ashrafieh and prompted the opposition to demand the resignation of the government.

March 14 has also accused Assad of being behind the killing. Saqr added that his ties with the “Syrian revolution are something to be proud of.”

Bomb found in Beirut neighborhood updated

December 06, 2012/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Security forces are inspecting the site where an explosive device was found Thursday in the Beirut neighborhood of Tariq al-Jadideh. Meanwhile, Future Movement MP Ammar Houri voiced concern that he could have been the possible target of the bomb.  "I was on my way to pay my respects in a mosque in Tariq al-Jadideh 100 meters from where the mortar shell was found,” Houri told a local radio station. "It is possible that the aim of the incident was to assassinate me,” the MP, who has said he received death threats, added. Police cordoned off the area around a police station and a street in the area after a woman brought in a bag suspected of containing a bomb. Security sources told The Daily Star that the bag contained a mortar shell, some wires and a watch. A woman in her 60s brought police the bag for inspection, saying she found the suspicious object on the side of the road. After suspecting the bag could contain explosives, police immediately blocked the road leading to the station. They also headed to location where the woman claimed she found the bag, near a dumpster, and blocked the road as they began investigating the incident.

Investigation into Samaha case complete, awaits indictment
December 6, 2012 /First Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghaida on Thursday completed the investigation into the case of former minister Michel Samaha, accused of plotting terrorist attacks in Lebanon, the National News Agency reported.Abu Ghaida also referred the case to Government Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr to review it and issue an indictment, the report added. In August, Lebanese security forces arrested Samaha, who has close ties with Syria's embattled regime, in a case linked to a seizure of explosive materials. Judge Sami Sader charged Samaha and two Syrian army officers with setting up an armed group to incite sectarian strife through “terror attacks.”-NOW Lebanon

Woman tells NOW her husband Talal Mohammad Khalil is held by Hezbollah in Beirut
December 6, 2012 /A Lebanese man living in Bulgaria was taken by members of the Shiite group Hezbollah while on a visit to his home country, according to his wife. Talal Mohammad Khalil arrived in Beirut on November 15, 2012 and has not been in touch with his family for the past 10 days, according to his wife, Katy, who contacted NOW in a plea for help on Thursday.
“I haven’t heard anything from my husband in 10 days,” she said, adding: “[One of his relatives] in Beirut told me that Hezbollah took him.” “What kind of security is this? Where is my husband? Why would Hezbollah take him? He did not do anything.”NOW contacted one of Talal’s relatives, with whom he was in contact with when he first arrived in Beirut. The source said that a man, allegedly a member of Hezbollah, was looking for Talal and requesting to speak with him.According to the source – who spoke on condition of anonymity – Talal contacted the unidentified man and agreed to meet him at a restaurant in Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik – a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. “I spoke to [Talal] one more time following the meeting, and he said that he was with Hezbollah and not to worry,” said the source, adding: “He said he was simply answering a few questions and also requested that he get his luggage.”The source said that an unidentified man picked up the bags from the place in which Talal was staying.
He also told NOW that Talal had visited the Iranian embassy in Beirut to request Iran’s support in building mosques in Bulgaria, where Talal works in a company in charge of registering Arab and Turkish students in Bulgarian universities.Talal showed images of himself in pro-Syrian regime demonstrations as part of his request for support, the source added. Katy confirmed that her husband was carrying pictures of himself at pro-Assad rallies and that he went to the Iranian embassy, which, she said, denied it had any knowledge of Talal’s whereabouts. NOW tried to contact Hezbollah, but they were not available for comment. NOW also spoke to the Bulgarian foreign ministry, which said that they have no knowledge of the incident. -NOW Lebanon

Making the Special Tribunal work

December 06, 2012 /By Michael Young

The Daily Star  /Last week, Sir David Baragwanath, the president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, visited Beirut, perhaps to remind the Lebanese that the institution he leads means business. I spoke to Baragwanath, who well understands the stakes in a tribunal that has progressed very slowly in recent years. Its credibility has suffered from a perception, on the critics’ side, that its work is politicized; and on the supporters’ side, that the United Nations investigation didn’t go far enough, accumulating woefully few facts for a broad indictment.

Baragwanath is a fine front man for the tribunal. A New Zealander with impeccable legal credentials, he succeeded the Italian Antonio Cassese in October 2011. Where Cassese was seen as a man who sometimes was willing to say too much, Baragwanath is careful not to fall into that habit, for fear of discrediting the tribunal’s work. He is blunt, however, even if that bluntness is often off the record.

As Baragwanath sees it, he has three jobs: He’s a member of the Appeals Chamber, which must deal with the sensitive matter of an unfamiliar legal jurisdiction while maintaining the integrity of the tribunal. This he must do by balancing dual requirements: to be fair and expeditious. “Every day that passes,” remarks Baragwanath, “is one in which the victims do not have their concerns addressed.”

The president must also wear a diplomatic hat, and is responsible for dealing with foreign countries, including Lebanon, to support the tribunal’s work. And third, Baragwanath has a general duty to ensure that the tribunal’s many branches function properly.

One thing that Baragwanath appears to have understood better than most is that the tribunal was established to serve a purpose beyond uncovering who killed Rafik Hariri and other victims of assassination. This makes for openness that is in refreshing contrast to the first years of the tribunal, when the prosecution seemed utterly unprepared for a public role that it had no choice but to play. Baragwanath will not allow everything he says to be published, but he will speak his mind enough for a listener to understand that he or she is not in the presence of a taciturn judge, indifferent to how the assassinations in Lebanon affected the society as a whole.

When the U.N. investigation was set up in 2005, the implicit assumption was that the Lebanese legal system did not have the means and autonomy to uncover the truth about the crime. Beyond that, the investigation was seen as a means of bolstering the Lebanese judiciary, to make it much more difficult in the future for such crimes to be repeated. The first commissioner of the U.N.’s independent investigative commission, Detlev Mehlis, was conscious of the need to be as transparent as possible with the Lebanese public, which contributed to his work as potential witnesses and therefore needed to feel secure in the effectiveness of the process.

When Mehlis left, the Lebanese were left with Serge Brammertz, who from a public-relations perspective was a disaster. It would be nice to say that Brammertz saw his public role as secondary to that as an investigator, yet he advanced very little in his investigation, even as he largely ignored the Lebanese. Not once did he address them directly. Brammertz seemed isolated, a careerist apparently uninterested in the implications of the crimes he was examining for Lebanese society.

Baragwanath is different and his visits to Lebanon are, partly, efforts to show that he cares. “The Lebanese people have unfinished business [with the legacy of assassinations],” he says, and the tribunal has embarked upon a number of initiatives in order to make itself known to the public and to the legal profession. Baragwanath has lectured to Lebanese lawyers’ associations and regularly meets senior judicial figures. As divisive as it may be politically, the tribunal is recognized as a legitimate body by the judiciary, as well as by the government, when that was not the case in 2009.

But one thing the tribunal will have to confront, and that Baragwanath will not discuss this on the record, is that there is a deep disconnect between the assassination of Hariri, which was always seen as a vast conspiracy, and the fact that only four individuals, most acting at the operational level, have been accused by the prosecution. What is needed for an accusation, of course, is evidence, and if the prosecutor cannot cast his net widely enough, then the inevitable conclusion is that the evidence is lacking. This tells us more about the quality of the investigation than about the tribunal or its president.

This disconnect cannot be the least of Baragwanath’s preoccupations, however, for it will influence the court’s reputation. During the proceedings, implicit questions will arise without answers. While the president’s responsibility is not to answer the questions, he cannot be eager to preside over an institution seen as wanting by the victims.

In that light, Baragwanath speaks highly of the prosecutor Norman Farrell, as he does of the head of the defense team, Francois Roux. Overall, he seems happy with his court. But again, for many Lebanese much will depend on the strength of the prosecution. For while those participating in the tribunal, Baragwanath among them, believe that the measure of success will be, in large part, whether “the verdict is impeccable,” based on the available evidence, as he puts it, what will interest the Lebanese is whether an indictment is persuasive and can stand.

For them that will be the true benchmark of success, not whether the tribunal functions in an efficient way. Sir David Baragwanath, to his credit, would seem to have that angle covered.

*Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

Syria to prepare legal file against Saqr via Lebanon judiciary

December 06, 2012/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Syria’s Parliament said it will prepare a legal case against Lebanese MP Oqab Saqr and others who are involved in arming and funding armed groups via Lebanon’s judiciary.

“The assembly in collaboration with the [Syrian] judiciary will prepare a case to prosecute Saqr and whoever participated with him and provided him with the political cover via the Lebanese judiciary on terrorism charges,” Speaker Mohammad Lahham said as he read the statement from the Syrian Parliament Thursday. Saqr, a Future Movement lawmaker, verified earlier this week recent audio recordings implicating him in arms transfers to Syrian rebels. Orange Television and Al-Akhbar newspaper collaborated in broadcasting and printing a three-part series of recordings in which Saqr discusses arrangements to ship arms supply to the opposition.

In one recording, Saqr addresses Louay Meqdad, the spokesman for the Free Syrian Army’s Higher Military Council, and says: “Hariri is losing [patience]! He wants to settle [the battle].”

Saqr, however, has denied Hariri’s role in the matter. In the statement issued Thursday, Syria’s Parliament described Saqr’s action as a violation of national and international laws as well as the bilateral agreements between the two countries. It also said that arming rebels fighting against President Bashar Assad “contradicts the policy of disassociation that the Lebanese government adopted with regards to the situation in Syria.”

“The audio recordings that were broadcast revealing the involvement of Lebanese MP Oqab Saqr and whoever is behind him, his leader Saad Hariri, in supporting armed terrorist groups in Syria obliges judicial authorities in Lebanon to take action and legal measures against them,” the statement said. It added: “What Oqab Saqr did, authorized by Saad Hariri, should not be overlooked nor [should we] be permissive and the Syrian judiciary will not stand still with regards to those who shed Syrian blood.” Earlier this year, Syria’s U.N. Envoy Bashar Jaafari sent a letter to the Security Council listing a dozen incidents of arms smuggling from Lebanon to Syria. The letter accused the Future Movement, Al-Qaeda and Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood of involvement. Future Movement has repeatedly denied military involvement in Syria and said its support was mainly of humanitarian and moral nature.

In a bid to control the poorly demarcated border with Syria, Lebanon has beefed up the presence of its army in border areas and arrested several people on charges of arms smuggling.

Syrian rebels gain, but for how long?

Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/December 06/12,

German soldiers walk past two Patriot missile launchers. On Tuesday, NATO approved a Turkish request to deploy these surface-to-air missiles along the Turkish-Syrian border (AFP photo)

The resignation of Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi on Monday is just one of a series of recent setbacks for the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The news follows a week of unprecedented military victories for rebel forces, including the shooting down of two regime aircraft in as many days, a pledge by NATO to deploy Patriot surface-to-air missiles along the Turkish-Syrian border, and a diplomatic breakthrough that could see European nations arming the opposition by March 2013.

At the same time, the regime has been bombarding  the Damascus province in a thus-far successful effort to repel an opposition advance into the capital, while also gaining on rebel positions in the Aleppo region. Perhaps most significantly, US officials claimed  Wednesday that the regime had loaded aerial bombs with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, following a second warning from Washington that the use of chemical weapons would prompt military intervention.

On balance, several analysts argue the momentum has shifted in the rebels’ favor, particularly in light of their newly acquired surface-to-air weaponry. “Assad has been relying on air power to keep rebels pinned in their positions. Their ability to challenge this state of affairs has given them more confidence and enabled them to carry out bolder operations, as we are currently seeing in Damascus, Aleppo, Deir az-Zour and Daraa,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, an exiled Syrian activist and fellow at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “The rebels are gradually breaking the stalemate and gaining the upper-hand […] A de facto no-fly zone is being created,” he told NOW.

Yezid Sayigh, senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, agrees that “the rebels have been regularly and steadily improving their tactical performance since the end of May.” He cautions, however, that the regime “is still very capable of” using its air force and remains “very much in command of what forces it has left—and these are not insignificant forces.” Accordingly, he argues that “what looks like quite dramatic and swift rebel advances and regime losses” may instead be a move “toward a new stabilized stalemate around a line running broadly from the Turkish border through Aleppo to Deir az-Zour, versus the regime holding onto Damascus and the Lebanese border to Homs, Hama and then around to Latakia.”

Moreover, it is unclear how long the rebels’ surface-to-air missile (SAM) stocks can last. “Rebel operations and fighting capabilities have always been undermined by an unsteady flow of arms,” said Abdulhamid. “That a portion of the surface-to-air missiles in rebel possession seems to have been gained from looting the military bases that rebels conquered and not from external suppliers” means that “depletion is a serious concern.” 

 Opposition activist Maher al-Esber, however, believes the rebels have already seized sufficient quantities. “They took missiles from more than one place,” he told NOW. “Practically if, [for example], you have 50 missiles and [the regime] has 100 planes, you achieve complete deterrence.” Current estimates put the rebels’ SAM stockpile at around 40, against more than 300 attack aircraft.

Elsewhere, rebel gains in the north and northeast have sparked concerns about the prominence of Jabhat al-Nusra, a secretive brigade of both Syrian and foreign jihadists that has carried out dozens of suicide attacks in the last year—sometimes killing civilians—and reportedly played a decisive role in recent battles. In a rare interview this week with the Telegraph, a member of the group admitted that some of his comrades “hate the West and all non-Muslims” and “want to attack churches.” According to Abdulhamid, while “the growing size and involvement of Jabhat al-Nusra is pretty worrying,” it remains heavily outnumbered by non-jihadist rebels. “Jabhat has its allies among rebels who share its vision for an Islamic state, but it has more enemies, as most rebel groups refuse to endorse [this] option.” Moreover, Abdulhamid foresees “clashes between Jabhat members and other rebel groups” taking place “after or even during the liberation of Damascus, [which] will ripple elsewhere in the country.”

As for the fears of chemical weapons use by the regime, Sayigh believes it is essentially a regime bluff. “[Assad] has been using the chemical weapons issue to sort of play a little game, to say ‘Look, we can make trouble, and equally we can prevent that trouble. If you want these to be secure, you need us, so they don’t fall into bad hands, i.e., Islamists.’”

 Abdulhamid, however, argues the threat is credible. “The psychopathic tendencies of Assad and his inner circle have been amply documented by now. We cannot put anything beyond them. For all their manifest corruption, we are dealing here with people who seem to believe their own lies […] Assad might decide that he is a dead man no matter what happens, so he might as well die as a ‘hero’ of the resistance to imperialism and Zionism.”

*Amani Hamad contributed reporting.

No free pass Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

December 6, 2012 /Now Lebanon/ Protestors step on a photo of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is reportedly seeking an asylum deal. He must receive punishment for his crimes, not amnesty. (AFP photo)

As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seems to be taking steps toward using chemical weapons against his own people, the international community must begin working to ensure he is not offered asylum. He must answer for his crimes. Earlier this week, rumors began to circulate suggesting Assad was seeking a deal to spend the rest of his days in Latin America. Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Maqdad, recently paid visits to Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba. The Israeli daily Haaretz—citing local press reports and an unnamed source in Venezuela—said Maqdad was on a mission to save his boss’s hide. Maqdad denied the claims, but on Wednesday, US State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said Washington was aware of “informal” asylum offers extended to Assad by countries in the region and further afield. Given that the offers were not formal, Toner said the US has not yet contacted foreign governments to warn them against such offers. However, it should. The US and other world powers allied against Assad should do everything they can to ensure the Syrian dictator is not let off the hook. Toner offered an encouraging signal by saying, “no one’s getting a free pass here,” and this is one promise that must not be broken. For nearly 21 months now, Assad has been slaughtering his people. And it’s extremely important to remember how this all started. In March 2011, Assad’s thugs arrested and tortured kids who’d spray painted the phrase that was inspiring oppressed hearts and minds across the Arab world: “The people want the fall of the regime.” Torturing these young people proved too much for the people of Daraa and, soon, others across the country. In March 2011, the people began to protest. Instead of serious efforts aimed at dialogue and reform, Assad chose murder. Today the situation is dire. What began as peaceful protest morphed into a violent and bloody armed conflict because some elements of the opposition moved to defend the unarmed protesters demanding their dignity who were being ruthlessly gunned down—or, like 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib, arrested, tortured and brutally, brutally murdered. As this conflict drags on, we must never forget how it began. The people did not choose this war. It was forced on them. And to their credit, it took months of murderous brutality before the opposition definitively turned to weapons.The innocent people whose blood drips from Assad’s hands cannot be forsaken. Justice must be done, and there would be absolutely no justice in allowing Assad to live out the rest of his life in the comfort asylum would offer him. Ideally, he should be put on trial in his own country. The victims of his wanton cruelty should be given a chance to have their day in court. Assad’s crimes are so heinous that if he escapes this situation unpunished, we should all be ashamed. The international community has arguably done too little thus far to protect and stand with the brave Syrian people. It simply cannot allow a man responsible for butchering so many of them to go unpunished.

Here in Istanbul

Hazem al-Amin, December 6,/Now Lebanon

Seen from here in Istanbul, Syria is not the same as the Syria we see from Beirut. Syria’s tragedy seems heavier from here. This feeling is probably due to the cold in the city.

Bitter cold can gain access to stories. A Syrian man tells stories about his hometown or city while in a café, his breath frosts as he speaks, and his hands shivers while holding a cigarette in the outer part of the café. The cold seeps into the story then. The Syrian refugee camps in the Turkish province of Hatay are witnessing phenomena such as girls reaching puberty at an early age, violence by refugee children, bitter cold, domestic violence and family disturbances resulting from overcrowding. There is a difference between hearing stories about these phenomena in Istanbul and hearing them in Beirut. Stories here serve another function, which is merely for you to listen rather than take any initiative. The camps are about two hours away from the city by plane and you are part of this big city, and nothing more than that. You will not feel this helpless in Beirut where helplessness can be defeated by some failed initiative. You can call friends to collect items for the refugees, convince a doctor friend of yours to visit refugees in Tripoli or decide to head to Aarsal to write about the refugees there, etc. You cannot do that here in Istanbul. Here, you are alone in confronting the tragedy and all you care about is the illusion of listening. The feeling of helplessness is further exacerbated by the tobacco roll in the shaking hands of the man from Edleb.

Refugees in this vast state are numbers and calculations, and have not been categorized according to their respective stories. As far as the ruling Justice and Development, which sided with the Syrian revolution, is concerned, the case started 1,400 years ago rather than when children were killed in Maarat al-Naaman last year. This is the story of one child in Maarat al-Naaman, 200 children in Houla and 40,000 Syrians killed by the regime. Still, right does not lie in these limited numbers, but rather in the fact that the Baath regime has taken over the Umayyad state. Aid – here – is but a small portion of this major equation whereas siding with the victim is just one aspect of siding with a greater cause. In Istanbul, you get a feeling that the importance of the current victim is overshadowed by that of a victim, the value of whom is not measured in terms of flesh and blood. Limited aid is sent to blocs and groups with senders saying that they are doing this because they fear God rather than fear for the children. The stories told by Syrians of their towns and cities are being bagged and redistributed to statistics specialists. A young British academic arrived in Istanbul in order to research the manifestations and models of mourning among the Syrians, and she noted that a certain power is banning them from mourning. This same power wants tragedy to be one and united under the banner of a religious value; it is a pagan god that mangles the bodies of those killed into its own idol.

This same power believes that the children caught in the biting cold at the Hatay Syrian refugee camp are not just anybody. They amount to a hundred and have to be rescued because they are the grandchildren of the Umayyads, rather than because they are cold. How cold are Istanbul, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Justice and Development Party!

*This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on December 6, 2012