LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May 31/12
Exclusive: Obama weighs action to prevent Al Qaeda grabbing Syrian WMD
Clinton rejects military option in Syria, following Houla massacre
U.S. says Russia, other Syria backers on 'wrong side of history'
Israeli official: Iran wants to control Mideast while supporting Syria massacre
Images show structures in Iran site 'razed,' says U.S. think-tank
Iran official: Fallout from western military action in Syria will bury Israel
Report: Iran unveils self-made satellite navigation system
Another massacre could plunge Syria into civil war, says UN chief
Top IDF officer: Terrorist threat in Syria could be directed at Israel
U.S. says Russia, other Syria backers on 'wrong side of history'
Western countries expel Syrian diplomats following Houla massacre
11-year-old played dead to survive Syria massacre
More killings and ultimatum deepen Syria conflict
Mikati seeks answers in Turkey on hostages
Salameh: Banks to meet Basel III terms
Connelly, Geagea discuss recent developments
Disassociation and dialogue difficulties
Bkirki committee studies, debates two electoral law proposals
Two rockets hit Tripoli neighborhood
Tohme: Syrian envoy should be expelled
Jumblatt addresses abduction incidents between Syria’s Daraa, Soueida
Merhebi calls for UN troop deployment along Syrian border
Mikati holds talks with Ban, Davutoglu in Turkey
Third Lebanese kidnapped on Syrian border
Abboudiyeh residents protest, block main road leading to Syria
Annan meets with Sleiman, Berri in Beirut
France says backs options “within framework” of UN for Syria
NATO action in Syria not on the table, US envoy says
Clinton warns Russia its Syria policy risks civil war
UN chief Ban warns of "catastrophic civil war" in Syria

We have sold our soul
May 31, 2012 /Now Lebanon
In the wake of the massacre of innocent civilians, including women and children, in Houla over the weekend, Syrian envoys across the globe are packing their bags and preparing to head home as the international community finally wakes up to the brutality meted out by the Assad regime.
One man, however, is staying put. Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary Ali Abdel Karim Ali, head of the Syrian mission to Lebanon, is not calling in the moving men just yet. Lebanon, it appears, doesn’t have the stomach to give his Excellency his marching orders, despite his country’s gross violations of Lebanese sovereignty and its citizens’ rights, let alone its crimes against humanity.
The question is: Has Lebanon become so inured to the notion of mass killings to the extent that it can still deal with a country that, on a daily basis, puts its citizens to the sword simply because they want change? It would appear so.
Have we lost sight of our territorial integrity to the point where we just stand by and do nothing when, as has happened in the last month, Lebanese citizens have been both murdered, kidnapped and detained by Syrian soldiers on Lebanese soil? It would also appear so.
Because those Lebanese who are not drinking the Baathist Kool-Aid, those who have a mind of their own and who can separate the factual wheat from the propaganda chaff, know that their government is a partner in Syria’s bid to crush opposition to its 40-year rule and emerge from a 15-months crisis that has claimed over 13,000 lives on both sides. And it makes them sick and ashamed.
Our government—a motley crew if ever there was, that came to power using the veiled threat of violence to do Damascus’s bidding—has stood by when its citizens, peacefully demonstrating their support for the Syrian opposition (a right guaranteed under the law) are attacked by pro-Assad thugs on the streets of Beirut.
It does nothing when Syrian exiles are harassed and abducted, even as they believed they enjoyed the protection of the Lebanese state. It does nothing when Lebanese are gunned down from across the border. It does nothing when Syrian soldiers enter Lebanese territory and detain Lebanese citizens. It does nothing as ordinary Lebanese are vulnerable to the whims of a Syrian regime that cares not one jot for its neighbor’s territorial integrity. But then again, why break the habit of a lifetime? The government has done nothing—politically, socially or economically—for the past year.
Last week, as tensions from Syria spread into Lebanon, first into Tripoli and then the streets of Beirut, the government once more did nothing. In particular, Marwan Charbel, a man whose appointment as interior minister must surely rank as a low-water mark in Lebanon’s already dubious culture of awarding government portfolios, has hardly convinced us that he has a firm grip on the security situation.
But why stop there? In a country where political excellence and the notion of grooming our best and brightest for public service is non-existent, and where mediocrity is a level to which most governments can only aspire, when it comes to being useless, this current administration takes some beating.
We cannot even do the basics. We cannot complain when someone insults our national integrity, and we don’t have the courage of our convictions to speak out against brutality unless it is perpetrated by that tired old bogeyman Israel.
Where is our sense of tolerance? Where is our rule of law? In fact, where is our national soul? The harsh truth is we sold that and everything else with it.

"Exclusive: Obama weighs action to prevent Al Qaeda grabbing Syrian WMD
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 31, 2012/US President Barack Obama, though widely expected to pursue direct action against Syrian ruler Bashar following the Houla atrocity, is preoccupied with what he regards as a greater threat to the world: a potential grab for the huge Syrian stock of chemical and biological weapons by Al Qaeda’s or other terrorist organizations. This is reported exclusively by debkafile’s Washington and intelligence sources. The US president is trying to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept his new plan for the immediate assignment by the UN Security Council of 3,000 armed monitors to Syria to take charge of the six chemical and biological stores. Another 2,000 will join the team later.
To allay Putin’s suspicions of a trick to insert Western armed forces into Syria against Moscow’s will, Obama suggested that most of the monitors would be Russian or nationals of governments lining up with its support of the Assad regime. Our sources learn that, in one of the conversations between the two presidents, Obama commented: “If only one barrel of anthrax reaches the hands of a Caucasian terrorist group, Russian will face its greatest terrorist threat in its history. Millions of Russians may perish.”
It was clear from this comment that Assad’s WMD are not stored as warheads, bombs or shells but kept in large barrels or kegs in six underground bunkers, holding Sarin (GB), Tabun (GA) and VX nerve gases, some four kinds of mustard gas and anthrax. The storage silos are spread out among Al Safir, the main Syrian missile base in the north; Cerin, a biological research center on the Mediterranean shore; military facilities at Hama and Homs; the Syrian naval base leased to the Russians at Latakia; and Palmyra, on the highway between Homs and Aleppo.
According to the information reaching US intelligence, three of these locations are situated in heavily embattled areas between the Syrian army and rebels, in addition to which, in the last two weeks, al Qaeda elements have penetrated the war-torn districts with a view to seizing some of the WMD stores.
Obama warned Putin that the jihadists have never been so close to getting hold of large quantities of such deadly unconventional weapons, especially now that the Syrian army’s 4th Division, commanded by Assad’s brother Maher, which guards those stores, is additionally assigned with suppressing the revolt and therefore inadequately manned for securing them.
If the Russian President buys his plan for 5,000 international monitors to take over the security assignment, Obama hopes he will also persuade Assad and even Tehran to accept it.
Early Thursday, May 31, the US president held a video-conference call on the subject with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, to brief them on his initiative and his talks with Putin.
debkafile’s sources in Washington and Jerusalem add that Obama also sent personal messages to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak warning them that if al Qaeda or any other terrorist groups get hold of these weapons of death, they could be smuggled into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Israel would be their number one target,” he said.
These messages were relayed to Israeli leaders this week through visiting senior US intelligence and government figures, with the president’s assessment that the danger of Syrian WMD falling into terrorist hands was now more acute than a nuclear Iran.
It provided the context for the IDF’s OC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Yair Golan’s remark Wednesday: “Within weeks or months we may face al Qaeda attacks from Syria.”
The Russian president has not yet given Obama his answer, still suspecting an American ruse for placing Western troops inside Syria. Hence his spokesman’s statement Wednesday: “Russia is not considering changing its stance on Syria and any attempts to apply pressure on Moscow are hardly appropriate.”
Tehran, taking this to mean that Putin has not rejected Obama’s proposal, was put out enough for a forceful threat: “Western intervention in Syria would result in a regional upheaval that would undoubtedly engulf Israel," said Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani. “It would spread to Palestine and ash rising from the flames would definitely engulf the Zionist regime…US military officials should be aware of their dangerous game.”This was taken by sources in Washington as an Iranian threat to burn Israel if Obama’s plan to post 5,000 armed monitors in Syria goes through. Iranian sources told debkafile that the threat was aimed equally at deterring Putin from cooperating with it.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, capped these veiled messages by warning the UN Security Council Wednesday night: “This becomes a proxy conflict with arms flowing in from all sides. And members of this Council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider whether they are prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this Council.”By these words, the White House informed the Kremlin that if President Putin rejects Obama’s plan for posting 5,000 monitors in Syria, Washington will feel free to bypass the UN and the Russian veto and launch US-Western armed action in Syria in defiance of Moscow.

Clinton rejects military option in Syria, following Houla massacre
By Reuters | May.31, 2012/U.S. Secretary of State says that unlike Libya, Syrian air defense is stronger, society is more diverse and opposition is not unified. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday laid out arguments against armed intervention in Syria, despite last week's massacre in the town of Houla. Speaking to Danish students, Clinton got tough questions on what might motivate the United States and other nations to take military action in Syria, where President Bashar Assad is battling a 14-month-old anti-government uprising.
Friday's massacre of more than 100 civilians in Houla, many of them children, has triggered calls for the West to take more robust action in Syria, despite Russian and Chinese opposition.
However, Clinton rehearsed U.S. arguments against armed intervention for now in contrast with Libya, where Western-led air strikes last year helped bring an end to Muammar Gaddafi's rule.
Clinton said Syria had a more diverse society with greater ethnic divisions, no unified opposition, stronger air defenses and a much more capable military than Libya's.
Above all, she stressed there was no international support because of Russian and Chinese opposition at the U.N. Security Council, where they have twice vetoed resolutions on Syria.
"A lot of people are trying to figure out what could be an effective intervention that wouldn't cause more death and suffering," she said, arguing Syria's population density increased the odds of civilian casualties in any armed action. "We are thinking about all of this. There are all kinds of both civilian and humanitarian and military planning going on but the factors are just not there," she said.
Clinton said she had not given up on the possibility of persuading Russia to support stronger action against the Assad government, saying she had made the case that the chances of a full-blown civil war were higher if the world failed to act. "The dangers we face are terrible," she said, saying the violence between government forces and pro-Assad militias against the opposition forces would turn into something much worse. "(That) could morph into a civil war in a country that would be driven by sectarian divides, which could then morph into a proxy war in the region because remember you have Iran deeply embedded in Syria," she said. "We know it could actually get much worse than it is. The Russians ... keep telling me they don't want to see a civil war and I have been telling them their policy is going to help contribute to a civil war," she said. Clinton did not describe any alternatives to United Nations-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's efforts to try to stop the violence.
"We are trying to keep pushing all the pieces to support Kofi Annan as an independent voice because the Syrians are not going to listen to us," she said. "They may listen, maybe, to the Russians, so we have been pushing them."

U.S. says Russia, other Syria backers on 'wrong side of history'
By Natasha Mozgovaya | May.31, 2012/ |
'Assad will be remembered forever for what he did this past weekend,' White House spokesman says. The White House expressed its dismay with Russia and China's veto of the Security Council resolution regarding Syria on Wednesday, saying that they were placing themselves on the wrong side of history. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the United States was working with other nations to apply more pressure on the Bashar Assad's regime, stressing its "appalling, depraved behavior." "Assad will be remembered forever for what he did this past weekend and what he has done for the past 15 months." Carney said on Wednesday. "He squandered an opportunity to preside over a political transition that would improve the position of Syria in the international community and, most importantly, improve the lives of his citizens. And that will not change." "We are in regular consultations with the Russians and others about what we are seeing happening in Syria and the need to put further pressure on the Assad regime, the need to isolate the Assad regime further and to bring about the political transition that Syrians so desperately deserve and desire", Carney said. "It's a belief that we express in these conversations, that supporting the Assad regime is placing oneself or one's nation on the wrong side of history." Carney rejected Governor Mitt Romney's criticism of Obama's policy on Syria, saying "the president and the United Sates have led on Syria, as he and we have led throughout the upheaval known as the Arab Spring." The State Department's deputy spokesman Mark Toner said that the 90-day window for the Annan plan "is still ongoing," adding, however, that "given the events of last Friday, we're going to continue to consult on possible next steps. Thus far we've seen very little progress by the Assad regime to comply with any of the six points of the program. There are elements of the Annan plan that are positive. The actual, you know, presence of monitors in Syria has had somewhat of a positive effect. It wasn't enough, clearly, to stop the massacre in Houla." Toner continued saying that while the plan did "provide a glide path…to a political transition," it failed to bring the cessation of violence "because of Assad's unwillingness to stop his assault on the Syrian people... So to say we're skeptical is probably an understatement."

Iran official: Fallout from western military action in Syria will bury Israel
By Avi Issacharoff | May.30, 2012/Iranian Parliamentary Speaker and top aide to Supreme Leader Khamenei says Syrian crisis is not similar to situation in Libya, warning West of their 'dangerous game.' A western military intervention in war-torn Syria will result in a regional upheaval that would undoubtedly engulf Israel, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday, following a massacre in the Syrian city of Houla, which garnered severe criticism in the West. Russia said on Wednesday that the UN Security Council should not consider new measures to resolve the crisis in Syria at this point and signaled it would block any effort to authorize military intervention, the Interfax news agency reported.
The warnings came after the French President Francois Hollande said military intervention was not ruled out provided it was backed by the Security Council, and Germany said it would push for "new engagement" by the council on Syria. Referring to the possibility of military action being taken in order to depose the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani warned of the consequences of such a move. "Possibly, U.S. military officials are misunderstanding regional issues because Syria's specifications are no way similar to those of Libya," Larijani, an aide of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said. In what seemed to be an explicit threat against the consequences military action could have on Israel, Larijani said that violence form a Syrian version of Benghazi "will spread into Palestine and the ashes of such flame will definitely bury the Zionist regime." “It seems that the United States and the West are seeking to pave the way for a new crisis,” he added, saying that “U.S. officials should be aware of their dangerous game. Isn’t it necessary that they take measures in response to the military occupation of Bahrain? The question is why they are preventing the reform plan in Syria from moving forward.” Larijani's comments came after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned civilian deaths in the Syrian crisis, adding, however that the West and certain Arab countries were interfering in Syria and sending weapons to help bring down the government. "We cannot trust these people because their objective is to bring down Assad," he said.