Bible Quotation for today/"Warning to the Rich
James 05/01-06: "And now, you rich people, listen to me! Weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you!  Your riches have rotted away, and your clothes have been eaten by moths.  Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days.  You have not paid any wages to those who work in your fields. Listen to their complaints! The cries of those who gather in your crops have reached the ears of God, the Lord Almighty.  Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you".
 

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for April 17/13

Israel Army Chief Praises Deterrence against Hizbullah Action
Naharnet /Israeli army chief Benny Gantz said Tuesday that Israel's military capabilities were deterring Hizbullah from carrying out attacks against the Jewish state. “Hizbullah knows very well what would happen to it if war breaks out. Lebanon knows what will happen if war breaks out. Therefore, I believe they are deterred,” Gantz said in an interview with Israel Radio. He called Israel’s deterrent capability “significant.”Gantz also made a veiled threat to Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. He said the quiet on the frontier with Gaza was the result of Israel's offensive on the Strip in November, but if it did not continue, Gaza “would get hurt” and Israel would not hesitate to repeat its actions or expand its operations to achieve that quiet. “If there are rockets, it’s because Hamas either enabled it or didn’t exercise its control of the area. It’s Hamas’ responsibility and we will hold it responsible,” he warned. Turning to Iran, Gantz said Israel can strike any Iranian nuclear installation on its own and is holding intense discussions between military and political leaders to prepare for the eventuality. “The Iranian challenge is very significant and we must approach it with a responsible long-term strategy,” he said. His interview was aired on the occasion of Israel's Independence Day, marking 65 years since the declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948, which is celebrated according to the Jewish calendar and this year falls on April 16. Gantz warned at a Memorial Day ceremony on Sunday that Israel's “sword is sharper than ever. Its lethal blade reaches every range.”There is no place or target that the Israeli army's long arm can't reach, he said.
 

Saudi hurt in Boston was wife of student, FM says
AFP/A Saudi national who was injured in the Boston bombings is a woman married to a student in the northeastern US city, the kingdom's foreign minister said Tuesday as he condemned the attack.  "One of the injured is a Saudi citizen, the wife of a student there. We hope she is well and we hope well to all those who have been injured," Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said after talks with Secretary of State John Kerry. Police earlier said that a 20-year-old Saudi, who was identified as a man, was under armed guard at a Boston hospital but not under detention. It was unclear if Prince Saud was discussing the same individual. US authorities said they have not yet ascertained whether foreign or domestic assailants were responsible for Monday's bloody attack at the Boston marathon, which killed three people and wounded more than 170. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers behind the September 11, 2001, attacks came from Saudi Arabia, a longtime political ally of the United States. Prince Saud offered "our solidarity with the great people of Boston in this tragedy" and said Saudi Arabia condemned every "terrorist act.""We have felt the evil of the act of terror. We support the families and we give our condolences to the families of Boston," he said in English.

Saudi terror cell, possibly al Qaeda, behind Boston Marathon bombings. Manhunt for escaped suspect
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis April 16, 2013,
http://www.debka.com/article/22901/Saudi-terror-cell-possibly-al-Qaeda-behind-Boston-Marathon-bombings-Manhunt-for-escaped-suspect
FBI Special Agent Richard Deslauriers told reporters Tuesday, April 16, that the probe had no leads 18 hours after two explosions blew up at the annual Boston Marathon’s finishing line, killing three people and injuring 176 – 17 critically. DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources can disclose however that the investigation has in fact homed in on a suspected terror cell of three Saudi nationals, very possibly tied to Al Qaeda.
The flat they share in the Revere, Massachusetts, near Boston, was searched after the questioning of one of the suspects, a Saudi student, who was hospitalized with badly burned hands. One of his flatmates was taken into custody over “visa problems.” A third is on the run. All three hail from a prominent Saudi family belonging to a tribe from the Asir province bordering on Yemen.
The search for the wanted man led to the grounding of a plane at Logan International Airport Tuesday. The investigation has meanwhile broadened out to places in and outside Boston in a search for the cell’s accomplices.
The origins of the Saudi cell, if confirmed, strongly suggest that Al Qaeda of Arabia – AQAP –succeeded in planting a cell in the United States for the bombing attack in Boston – and possibly more than one in other parts of the US. Asir Province is known as a hotbed of resistance to the Saudi throne in Riyadh.
US law enforcement authorities in charge of the probe are refusing to confirm any suspects are in custody, or even leads to whoever carried out the bombings. President Barack Obama said in his second statement in 24 hours: “…we don’t know if who was behind the bombings were foreign, domestic or individual.” The President was forced to admit for the first time that the FBI was investigating “an act of terror.”
DEBKAfile earlier Tuesday was alone in reporting that the FBI Boston Marathon probe pointed to Mid-East terrorists with domestic support.
Read on:
The lack of adequate security jumps to the eye after twin bombings struck the high-prestige Boston Marathon Monday, April 15, killing three people, including an 8-year old boy and injuring 140 – seventeen critically.
This was the world's oldest annual marathon, with 28,000 runners representing athletes from every US state and more than 90 nations. Yet there was no sign of dogs along the route trained to sniff out explosives or a police helicopter overhead with sensors for detecting explosives or traces thereof on the person of anyone present around the finishing line after the blasts.
Tuesday morning, while interviewing witnesses and collecting photos taken by spectators, the Boston police and security officers announced they were seeking two wanted men: One was described as swarthy, speaking with a foreign accent, his face partially hidden by a hood, who was carrying a large backpack and kept on trying to enter a closed section near the finishing line. This was the first time an area was disclosed as having been closed to the public.
The second man was photographed by a spectator walking on a rooftop overlooking the finishing line after the second bomb exploded.
After the event, police searches turned up and defused another three explosive devices. Had that search taken place before the event, at least one of the lethal devices might have been discovered and the race aborted.
Tuesday, the FBI admitted “a potential terrorist inquiry” was underway, although President Barack Obama, when he pledged justice for “the perpetrators,” carefully skirted the term “terror.” This recalls his administration’s refusal to brand as an act of terror the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, and the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens, although it was clearly the work of an al Qaeda element.
Counterterrorism experts are equally certain of the Middle East terrorist hallmarks on the Boston Marathon bombings, although it is too soon to say whether it was the work of Al Qaeda or an allied radical jihadi group such as the Ansar al-Shariah, which was responsible for the Benghazi consulate in conjunction with a clandestine al Qaeda command center in Cairo.
Here, too, initial investigation discloses the hand of al Qaeda or an affiliate.
Ahead of the London marathon scheduled for next week and the state funeral of the late UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Wednesday, April 17, a determined official effort is being made in Washington and London to present the Boston bombings as the work of a lone wolf.
However, experts experienced in these matters maintain that an attack on this scale and of this type would have required four or five bombers on the ground and a support team of about 10 spotters and accomplices familiar with the terrain, further back. They would have needed more than one vehicle and communications gear, in addition to mobile phones which are easily tracked.
The two explosions, 400 meters apart, were obviously coordinated and designed to cause maximum casualties. The ball-bearings scattered across the crime scene and found in the pockets of some of the casualties were familiar to Israelis and others and telling evidence of Middle East terrorist authorship.
The explosive device which caused such havoc and agony was small yet deadly – another pointer to the “professionalism” of the attackers. A similar device was discovered in time three years ago in a bomb-rigged car parked in Times Square New York and left there by the Pakistani student Faisal Shahzad.
Unlike the president, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had no compunctions about putting into words the general suspicion. Straight after the event, she said, “My understanding is that it’s a terrorist incident” - although it is too soon to say whether it was carried out by a foreign or domestic element.
Suspicion of a foreign hand was strengthened when the US media reported that a Saudi national suffering from severe burns was being questioned in hospital. The Boston Police Department denied the report and the FBI, now in charge of the case, said that no one has so far been taken into custody. They did not deny questioning “persons of interest.”
The first response to the explosions in Boston from Middle East itself came from Mohammad al-Chalabi the head of an extremist Jordanian Muslim Salafi group, who said he's "happy to see the horror in America…American blood isn't more precious than Muslim blood," he said. "Let the Americans feel the pain we endured by their armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and killing our people there."
A Mideast counterterrorism official based in Jordan said the blasts "carry the hallmark of an organized terrorist group, like al-Qaeda."
National Guard forces were streaming Tuesday into Boston in long convoys of armored Humvees.
Boston residents are in for upsets from the massive security measures that will continue throughout the week, as the area of the bombings is declared a crime scene and kept under lockdown; law enforcement officials patrol the streets and carry out random bag checks; and transport services are delayed.

Saudi, Gulf states, OIC condemn Boston bombings
AFP/Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation all condemned on Tuesday the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon, calling them an act of terrorism. Three people were killed and more than 170 wounded in the bombings in the worst attack in the United States since the September 11, 2001 atrocities.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sent a message of condolences to the American people, saying he was "saddened by the news of the two explosions in Boston," state news agency SPA reported.
"We condemn these acts of terrorism targeting innocent people and committed by criminals who represent only themselves and have neither religion nor faith."
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation of 57 Muslim states, said in a statement that "such actions targeting an event are cowardly and reprehensible."
And Abdelatif Zayani, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, condemned "cowardly terrorist acts that go against all values and principles."
The GCC groups Saudi Arabia, as well as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.


Canada Offers Condolences to People of Iran and Pakistan Following Powerful Earthquake
April 16, 2013 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“On behalf of all Canadians, including Canada’s large Iranian and Pakistani communities, I offer our deepest condolences to the people of Iran and Pakistan following the severe earthquake in southeastern Iran.
“The people of Iran and Pakistan are resilient when faced with adversity, and it is our hope they recover quickly from this devastating event.”
Canadian citizens requiring emergency consular assistance abroad should call Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada’s Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa at 613-996-8885. They can also send an email to sos@international.gc.ca.
Friends and relatives in Canada concerned for Canadian citizens whom they believe to be in the affected area should contact Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada’s Emergency Watch and Response Centre by calling 1-800-387-3124. They can also send an email to sos@international.gc.ca.

Israel capable of attacking Iran on own: army chief
April 16, 2013 /JERUSALEM: Israel's army is capable of attacking Iran on its own without foreign support, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz told public radio on the 65th anniversary of the Jewish state's foundation.
Asked in an interview if Israel's military could wage attacks "alone" -- without the support of countries such as the United States -- against the Islamic republic, Gantz replied, "Yes, absolutely."
"We have our plans and forecasts... if the time comes we'll decide" on whether to take military action against Tehran, he said.
Gantz's comments echoed statements earlier this month by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel would "at no stage... abandon our fate into the hands of other countries, even our best friends."
Israel believes the Islamic republic, which has issued numerous bellicose statements against the Jewish state, is working to achieve military nuclear capabilities. It has not ruled out a military strike to prevent this happening.
Last month Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country would "annihilate" the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if it comes under attack by the Jewish state.
Iran denies it is developing an atomic bomb and says it needs its nuclear programme for peaceful medical and energy purposes.
Israel is widely believed to be the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed state, albeit undeclared.
In a separate interview on Tuesday, Gantz said the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran was not imminent, and that sanctions imposed by the international community should be given priority to stop Tehran's nuclear drive.
"Iran has the means to obtain nuclear capability before the end of the year, but this does not mean it'll get there," he told news website YNet, adding that "sanctions, isolation and continued pressure" on Tehran must intensify.
Iran is estimated to have lost billions of dollars in oil sales and the value of its currency has plummeted. An independent February report said a fall in pharmaceutical exports to Iran was also causing harm and was undeniably triggered by international sanctions. US President Barack Obama said in March that Iran was still more than a year away from developing a nuclear weapon. In a third interview, with Israeli military radio, Gantz also warned of the security threat posed by neighbouring Syria's civil war. "The rebels are for now engaged in combat against the army of President Bashar al-Assad," he said. "But it's clear there will be a second war, possibly between (current opponents of Assad), or possibly directed at us. I think it'll be both at the same time," he said. Mortar rounds and small-arms fire from inside Syria landed in Israeli-controlled territory in the Golan Heights earlier this month, with the Israeli army responding with tank fire.

Syrian Opposition: Lebanon must stop Hezbollah attacks in Syria
April 16, 2013 /Daily Star
BEIRUT: Syria's main opposition National Coalition called on Lebanon to control its frontiers, after rebels said they fired across the border in retaliation against the powerful Hezbollah movement. "The Syrian Coalition calls on the Lebanese government to exert control over its borders and put an immediate stop to Hezbollah's military operations on Syrian territory," the group said late Monday. "We call upon the Lebanese government to take action against Hezbollah's aggressions and do everything within their means to ensure the safety of the innocent civilians on the Syrian-Lebanese border," it said in a statement. "For weeks now, forces belonging to Hezbollah have targeted villages inside Syria, located on the border of Syria and Lebanon. Hezbollah deployed forces into some border villages and took control of those areas. "The (rebel) Free Syrian Army was forced to respond to these repeated aggressions," it said. The statement comes after Lebanon said it would submit to the Arab League a letter of protest condemning the spillover of fire from Syria onto its territory. The Coalition is recognised by dozens of states and organisations -- among them the Arab League -- as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. Beirut has adopted a policy of "disassociation" in the conflict in neighbouring Syria, and has been reluctant to publicly blame either rebel or regime forces. The rebels claimed to have fired shells on Lebanon at the weekend, blaming Hezbollah for firing from Lebanon and positions inside Syria on rebel-held areas in the strife-torn Qusayr area, near the border. A rebel commander told AFP on Monday they were "giving the Lebanese authorities an opportunity to respond, to take practical steps to put a stop to (Hezbollah's) shelling", while threatening to launch new attacks should the group continue to target rebels in Syria. Though 30 years of political and military domination by Damascus over Lebanon ended in 2005, Syria's regime has continued through its Hezbollah-led allies to exert significant influence over its smaller neighbour. Lebanon is sharply divided over Syria's two-year conflict, with Hezbollah and its allies supporting President Bashar al-Assad, and the Sunni-led March 14 movement backing the rebels. Cross-border shellfire from the Syrian war has regularly hit Lebanon, on occasion killing Lebanese. On Sunday, however, two people died for the first time in Hezbollah strongholds of the border region.

It’s war by proxy on Lebanon’s northern border
April 17, 2013/By Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Fighting between rebels and Lebanese Shiites living in a cluster of Syrian villages near the border points to a deepening Hezbollah involvement in the neighboring conflict, with all the risks this entails to the country’s security and stability, political analysts say. “What is happening in the Hermel region is a war by proxy between Hezbollah and the [rebel] Free Syrian Army,” Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese Army general, told The Daily Star.
“The situation is headed for an escalation and an open confrontation between Hezbollah-backed fighters and Syrian rebels,” said Jaber, director of the Middle East Center for Political Studies and Research, a Beirut-based think tank. His remarks came two days after two Lebanese citizens were killed and several others were wounded by rockets fired by Syrian rebels that hit border villages in the Hermel region. Artillery shells have regularly strayed into Lebanon from Syria, on occasion killing Lebanese citizens, but Sunday’s incident resulted in the first deaths in Hezbollah-strongholds in the border region.
Reacting to the killing of the two, Hermel residents, mostly belonging to local tribes known for their tendency to take revenge against their enemies, threatened Monday to take matters into their own hands should the state fail to protect them against Syrian rebel attacks. Jaber and other analysts said the Lebanese Army, which has deployed along the border in an attempt to prevent the flow of arms and gunmen from Lebanon into Syria, is unable to enter Syrian territory to stop rebel attacks on Lebanese citizens. “Therefore, no one can defend Lebanese citizens [living in Syrian territory] except Hezbollah,” Jaber said. He added that Hezbollah has sent about 1,000 of its fighters to defend between 20,000 to 30,000 Lebanese Shiites living in Syrian villages near the border with Lebanon.
“If Syrian rebels capture Al-Qusair, the Lebanese government cannot tell Hezbollah not to defend Shiite residents in Syrian villages near the border with Lebanon,” Jaber said, referring to the Syrian region of Al-Qusair, located just across the northeastern border with Lebanon. Jaber voiced fears that the situation in Hermel might spiral out of control following repeated accusations by Syrian opposition groups that Hezbollah was fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces. “The Lebanese Army is unable to protect the people. Therefore, the border clashes will continue,” Jaber said. “Lebanon is more increasingly getting drawn into the conflict in Syria. Similarly, Hezbollah is getting more involved in the Syrian crisis.” A similar view was echoed by Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanon’s former ambassador to the U.S.
“Hezbollah is increasingly getting involved in the Syrian crisis. It is a war by proxy,” Bou Habib told The Daily Star, referring to the rocket attacks that killed two Lebanese in the Hermel region. “Lebanon has failed to distance itself from the Syrian conflict as it had promised itself.” Bou Habib said he was worried about an escalation of the situation on the tense border “unless the Lebanese state moved to stop “intervention by supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime in the conflict in Syria.”
A senior Hezbollah official indicated that his party would help Hermel residents defend themselves if the state failed to protect them. “The state ... is responsible for defending its people. When this state does not do so, we will defend ourselves by ourselves,” Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek said.
Shafik Masri, a professor of international law, said the sharp divisions among the rival Lebanese factions over the conflict in Syria had pushed Lebanon to the edge of civil strife.
Hezbollah and its March 8 allies strongly support the Syrian regime, while the opposition March 14 parties back the popular uprising against Assad.
“Lebanon stands on the brink of civil strife, mainly as a result of the conflict in Syria and also because of internal factors,” Masri told The Daily Star. “But local players are always keen to prevent any spark of strife.”
Masri said Hezbollah’s involvement in the conflict was at the root of tension between Lebanese residents in Syrian villages and rebels. “It is not in Hezbollah’s interest to open a Lebanese front now before the final picture of the situation in Syria has been determined,” he said.
“Also, it is not in Hezbollah’s interest to take the conflict in Syria to Lebanese territories.”
Masri said the Lebanese Army had reinforced its presence on the border with Syria in order “to prevent the infiltration of gunmen and arms from Lebanese territory into Syria.”
Syrian rebels told Al-Arabiya TV Sunday that they targeted what they claimed to be Hezbollah sites. Al-Qasr and Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali are Shiite villages in the Hermel region that neighbor Syrian villages across the border, also inhabited by Lebanese Shiites.
Hezbollah says it is helping to defend the Lebanese who reside in the Syrian villages against attacks perpetrated by rebels. But the Syrian opposition accuses Hezbollah of fighting alongside Assad’s troops and attacking from inside Lebanese territory. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, a staunch ally of Assad, has said his group is supporting fighters who call themselves Popular Committees in Syrian villages near the border with Lebanon. The opposition Syrian National Coalition called Monday on Lebanon to control its frontiers, after rebels said they fired across the border in retaliation against Hezbollah: “The Syrian Coalition calls on the Lebanese government to exert control over its borders and put an immediate stop to Hezbollah’s military operations on Syrian territory.”
Hezbollah has held in the past few weeks several funerals in Lebanon for fighters who it said were killed while “performing their jihadi duties.” It did not say where or how they were killed, but it is widely believed they died fighting in Syria. Sunday’s incident prompted Lebanon to lodge a complaint with the Arab League to protest the Syrian border violations.

Lebanon: Hermel attacks raise specter of sectarian strife
April 17, 2013 /By Meris Lutz/The Daily Star
HERMEL, Lebanon: A narrow brook is all that separates the village of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali from the Syrian village of Safsafeh on the other side. The makeshift bridge of logs and scrap metal remains, but the small concrete kiosk that once served as a Syrian border guard outpost has been abandoned, its doorway bricked over. Both villages are lush and green along the water, giving way to grassy plains where shepherds tend to their flocks. Both villages are eerily still. The only signs of life emanate from two funeral tents erected on the Lebanese side of the stream. Most people avoid lingering along the main road here, where 13-year-old Abbas Hussein Kheireddine was killed by a rocket launched from Syria Sunday. A few kilometers away in the Lebanese town of Al-Qasr, Ali Hasan Qataya, reportedly in his 30s, was also killed as a result of cross-border rocket-fire that wounded several others. Kheireddine’s father is accepting condolences at one of the tents. He looks tired and bereaved, describing his son as a studious boy who loved school.
“We believe the [Lebanese] government is responsible for responding to these terrorists and armed gangs,” the elder Kheireddine says, his eyes dry and red. “If the state does not respond, we will protect ourselves.”
Kheireddine’s sentiment was echoed by nearly every resident who spoke to The Daily Star. Sporadic rocket fire has become a part of life in this part of the northern Bekaa Valley since Syria’s armed opposition gained control of its side of the border area. The fragmented opposition claims it is targeting Hezbollah sites inside Lebanon, accusing the group of fighting alongside Syrian government troops. Hezbollah has admitted its fighters are active in Syria, but maintains they are only there to protect Lebanese Shiite villages. The villages along both sides of the frontier are inhabited by Lebanese Shiites, descendants of a handful of families whose names have been associated with the region since long before the border was drawn on a colonial administrator’s map.
Just beyond this string of border villages sits the Syrian town of Al-Qusair, where Syrian rebels, including Islamist cadres such as the Nusra Front, have established a strong base from which they lob rockets into Lebanon.
The customs and traditions that have traditionally bound the important families of the area – both Sunni and Shiite – have little currency with these armed groups, as the war that destabilized Syria continues to exacerbate the sectarian dimension of existing political divides. Many residents of Al-Qasr and surrounding areas went to great lengths to emphasize their traditionally good relations with their Sunni neighbors. Nevertheless, rumors of religiously motivated killings and the threat of retaliation have raised concerns that the region will be dragged into sectarian violence unless the state steps in. “We have been targeted by a number of operations over the past year and a half by takfiri armed gangs,” Hasan Zeaiter, a practicing dentist and the mayor of Al-Qasr, told The Daily Star in his Hermel office.
“Our reality is one of clans and families,” he explained. “I’ll give you an example. The people of Arsal kidnapped someone from the Jaafar family, and the Jaafars, as a clan, not as a group of clans, kidnapped 10 or 15. We don’t want things to devolve in this way. ... If blood is spilled tomorrow, what will happen?”The largely Sunni town of Arsal, led by the Hujeiri family, has denied any role in the kidnapping of Hussein Jaafar, a member of one of Lebanon’s most powerful Shiite clans. The prolonged negotiations for his return were carried out mostly by elders from both sides who insisted on affirming their mutual respect even as they carried out tit-for-tat kidnappings against the other. The leaders of Arsal were able to eventually help negotiate Jaafar’s release and reportedly paid the $140,000 in ransom. But upon his release, Hussein Jaafar announced that Arsal residents helped the Sunni Islamist fighters who held him captive and beat him throughout his detention.Stories like Jaafar’s have sown fear among the people of Hermel. Rumors abound, including accusations that Islamist rebels are decapitating Shiite hostages and grilling their heads. Hezbollah flags adorn the archway welcoming visitors to Al-Qasr, and pictures of Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah can be seen in homes and shops throughout the area. Residents deny the group has any military presence, however, and accuse the Syrian opposition of targeting because they are Shiite.
Mohammad Jaafar, a prominent local figure in Al-Qasr, said Syrian rebels started harassing Shiites in Syria soon after the uprising began, first stealing cars and holding them ransom before moving on to kidnapping people.
“They have kidnapped some people; we still don’t know what happened to them,” Jaafar said, adding that at least seven Shiites had been abducted, tortured and killed by Syrian opposition forces.
“When the pressure was mounting on our people and our brothers, we organized a meeting between them and their neighbors,” he said. “We said the people of this region had lived together for decades, there were customs and traditions in this area, and we hoped to preserve these to keep things from getting out of control.”Jaafar, however, admitted that perhaps Hezbollah was providing “support” to the Lebanese Shiite villages in Syria.
Zeaiter, the mayor, said the conflict transcended political party lines, because “the Shiite element is being targeted.”“The media says everything is Hezbollah,” he complained. “We do not leave our land; we defend it. This is how we were raised.”Zeaiter expressed disappointment with the government’s reaction so far. He said the decision to submit a complaint to the Arab League was laughable, considering the fact that league heavyweights, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are the primary backers of the armed opposition in Syria.

Political-technocrat Cabinet on the table In Lebanon
April 17, 2013/By Wassim Mroueh, Nafez Kawas/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam said Tuesday that he was against rushing the process to form a Cabinet, as political sources predicted the government would take shape in early May. “Yes, I am against rushing [the formation of the Cabinet] but I also do not support a delay because the country is in need of a government and we should preserve the current positive atmosphere,” Salam told reporters after talks with President Michel Sleiman at Baabda Palace. Sources close to Salam described his meeting with Sleiman as “positive and satisfactory.”
“They discussed contacts underway to form the government. But the prime minister-designate did not present Sleiman with names of new Cabinet ministers nor did they discuss the makeup of the Cabinet,” one source said.
A political source told The Daily Star that one of the ideas discussed during the consultations between parties was the formation of a mainly technocratic Cabinet with politicians leading key ministries.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, expected that the government would be formed in the first half of May. The March 8 coalition and their rivals in the March 14 camp are at odds over the shape of the Cabinet. March 8 parties want an all-embracing government in which the main political parties are represented, while the March 14 camp and Salam have reiterated that the new Cabinet should be composed of nonpolitical members because their objective would be to supervise elections. Speaker Nabih Berri is still consulting with Salam and is against rushing the formation of the government, according to sources who visited him. The visitors added that Berri believes that Salam still has time to put a government together. They added that Berri said he would support any electoral law that was a product of consensus, and would hold a very important Parliament session on May 15 to help relevant parties reach an agreement. The speaker is relying on the results of a parliamentary subcommittee tasked with studying various electoral laws.
The subcommittee held a meeting Tuesday, the first in months. Speaking to reporters after chairing the session, MP Robert Ghanem said discussions were positive, adding that the subcommittee would meet again Thursday.
Earlier Tuesday, Salam denied that disagreements over Cabinet had strained his relationship with Berri, and stressed that women would be represented in the new government. He made his remarks to a visiting delegation from the Journalists Union. Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi and caretaker Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi also visited Salam. Meanwhile, caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, from Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, met Ali Awad Assiri, the Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon. “Discussions tackled developments in Lebanon and the region,” Assiri told reporters after the meeting. “Gen. Aoun is a major pillar in the Lebanese political arena. Saudi Arabia welcomes communication with all Lebanese, as this serves Saudi-Lebanese interests,” he added.Ties between FPM and Saudi Arabia, a backer of the Future Movement, have been tense over the past few years. For his part, Bassil said he conveyed to Assiri Aoun’s greetings to the Saudi people and leadership. Bassil added that his visit with Assiri reflected their mutual will to communicate in order to preserve Lebanon’s stability.
Former premier Fouad Siniora voiced trust in Salam, saying all political groups should support his efforts to form a nonpolitical government. “Forming this type of government ... makes it possible to hold elections and it will contribute to defusing tensions in the country,” Siniora said during a visit to Sidon, his hometown. The Future bloc of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri criticized “pressure, red lines and conditions” utilized by some political parties to deter Salam in forming a Cabinet, referring to the March 8 coalition. In a statement after its weekly meeting, the bloc said such conditions could obstruct the prime minister-designate’s mission of forming a government that serves national interests. Aoun said that neither the president nor the prime minister had the right to decide which ministers in the new Cabinet should be running for elections.
“Neither the president nor the prime minister can determine who should be a candidate [for elections] and who should not. Let them respect the Constitution please,” Aoun said after chairing the weekly meeting of his parliamentary bloc. Asked about media reports that the Future Movement opposed the FPM’s participation in the Cabinet, Aoun said: “For sure a light Cabinet like the one they are thinking of cannot endure the heavy weight of Gen. Aoun.”Aoun said there was no need to hurry the Cabinet formation, since no agreement has been reached on an electoral law and Salam says his Cabinet’s main mission is to supervise elections.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam voices refusal to rush into forming govt
Now Lebanon/Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam said that he refuses to rush the formation of a new government. “I refuse to rush the formation of the new government; however, I am not with delaying it because the country needs a government,” Salam said in a statement following his Tuesday meeting with President Michel Suleiman. The PM-designate stressed that discussions are ongoing regarding the distribution of portfolios, adding: “We are bound to reach results on government formation.”“We want to enhance harmony within the country,” he continued. Last week, Lebanon’s parliamentarians held talks with Salam ahead of the formation of the new government after which he said that “the central task of the government is to prepare for the parliamentary elections and it cannot be a national unity government or a political one.

Jobran Bassil, Aoun's son-in-law meets with Saudi envoy
Now Lebanon/Caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil held a meeting with Saudi envoy Ali Awad Assiri in a bid to portray a peaceful relationship between the two parties. “Saudi Arabia is [unbiased] towards all the Lebanese,” Assiri said on Tuesday following the meeting. The Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon added that he will “communicate with all the [political] parties in order to serve Lebanon’s [interests].” Meanwhile, March 8’s Free Patriotic Movement official Ziad Aswad noted that his party – with which Bassil is affiliated – “is not in feud with anyone.”“Bassil’s visit to the Saudi embassy [underlined that],” the National News Agency quoted Aswad as saying on Tuesday. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has held good relations with the mostly Sunni Future Movement over the course of the past years, which is one of the biggest political foes of the FPM and its ally the Shiite party Hezbollah.

Lebanese ministers’ disagreement overshadows anti-Syrian violations measures
Now Lebanon/Two Lebanese ministers locked horns over the measures to be adopted to quell the Syrian violations of the country’s border. According to a report by Beirut daily An-Nahar on Tuesday, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour and Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour engaged in a war of words during a meeting held at the Baabda Presidential Palace to address the violations. Mansour objected to sending a memorandum to the Arab League to complain against the latest Syrian shelling to hit Lebanese border towns, the report says.It added that the Lebanese FM called for complaining against the Arab League itself for agreeing to arm the Syrian rebel in their quest to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.In turn, Abu Faour questioned Mansour’s complacency in forwarding a complaint to the Syrian regime despite President Michel Suleiman and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s insistence. Two people were killed and at least four others injured in northeastern Lebanon on Sunday in rocket attacks purportedly perpetrated by Syrian rebels.
On Monday, Lebanon’s top political and security officials held an emergency meeting at the Baabda Presidential Palace to discuss measures to be taken following the fatal Syrian border shelling and asked the Foreign Ministry to send a memorandum to the Arab League regarding the incident.Hezbollah has been reportedly fighting on the side of the Syrian regime against rebels in the Homs province and outside Damascus, with news outlets in the past week reporting that a number of party members had been killed in fighting in Syria.

Chamoun calls on Salam to form “neutral” government
Now Lebanon/Lebanon’s National Liberal Party leader MP Dori Chamoun has called on Premier-designate Tammam Salam to form a “neutral” government. “[Salam should form] a neutral and sovereign government that runs [Lebanon] until the parliamentary elections are held,” Chamoun said in an interview with Akhbar al-Yawm news agency on Tuesday.  Chamoun also said that “this government should not last for more than three or four months since its main mission is holding and managing the upcoming parliamentary elections.” “Given the current situation [in Lebanon] and the regional developments, especially in Syria, everyone must stop setting conditions and let the PM-designate form a government as soon as possible,” he stated. Lebanon’s political parties are jockeying over the composition of the country’s new government as Salam has set to work to create a government.
Some March 14 figures have called for the new government to not include ministers who are running for election as parliamentarians in the upcoming vote, while others have called for a “rotation” of portfolios. March 8’s Free Patriotic Movement has interpreted both suggestions as attempts to unseat from them the Energy and Telecommunications ministries. The NLP leader added that the elections should be held based on the 1960 law with some amendments. Lebanon is set to elect new parliamentary representatives in June 2013, but the country's political circles are divided over the electoral law issue despite the cabinet’s approval in September 2012 of a draft law based on proportionality and 13 electoral districts.

French envoy calls on Lebanese leaders to rally around Salam
Now Lebanon/French Ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli called on the country’s leaders to join ranks with Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam and help him form a new government.“All Lebanese leaders must join ranks around Salam and help him form a new government that would guarantee the interest of Lebanon,” the National News Agency quoted Paoli as saying during a tour he held in Sidon on Tuesday. Lebanon’s political parties are jockeying over the composition of the country’s new government as Salam has set to work to create a government.Regarding the issue of the Syrian shelling of Lebanese territory he stated: “Lebanon must stay away from the Syrian crisis and all other regional problems.” Two people were killed and at least four others injured in northeastern Lebanon on Sunday in rocket attacks purportedly perpetrated by Syrian rebels. Syrian shells have frequently landed on Lebanese towns and villages near the Lebanese-Syrian border during the course of the past months, causing casualties as well as material damage. Tension along the Lebanese northern and eastern borders has generated fears of a spillover of the violence gripping Syria where an armed anti-regime uprising has been raging since March 2011. Also, Paoli condemned the twin blasts that rocked the Unites States’ city of Boston on Monday. "We condemn terrorism whatever it is and wherever it is... I have no other comment other than complete condemnation." On Monday, two deadly explosions hit the Boston Marathon in an apparent terror attack that left three people dead and over 100 injured.

Aoun: Demanding neutral government ‘unconstitutional’
Now Lebanon/Lebanon’s Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun said that demanding a neutral government is “unconstitutional.” “The demands being made for forming a neutral government are unconstitutional; how will MPs be able to participate in it then?” Aoun asked following his bloc’s weekly meeting on Tuesday. The bloc leader also stated: “We are being consistently attacked by [the opposition March 14 coalition] because what they were not able to do in 25 years, we accomplished in 18 months.” Lebanon’s political parties are jockeying over the composition of the country’s new government as PM-designate Tammam Salam has set to work to create a government. Some March 14 figures have called for the new government to not include ministers who are running for election as parliamentarians in the upcoming vote, while others have called for a “rotation” of portfolios. Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement has interpreted both suggestions as attempts to unseat from them the Energy and Telecommunications ministries. Aoun continued: “We are hearing a lot about the formation of a neutral government… How will a government that is meant to supervise elections be formed when there is no electoral law [in place]?”“The electoral sub-committee discussed the electoral law issue and the opposition did not present any law for discussion. As for us, we are still in favor of the Orthodox Gathering proposal,” he added. Lebanon is set to elect new parliamentary representatives in June 2013, but the country's political circles are divided over the electoral law issue despite the cabinet’s approval in September 2012 of a draft law based on proportionality and 13 electoral districts.
In February, Lebanon’s joint parliamentary commissions approved the Orthodox law that calls for proportional voting along sectarian lines. The law is supported by the country’s major Christian parties and top March 8 parties but is rejected by the Future Movement, Progressive Socialist Party, National Liberal Party and independent Christians. In March, caretaker PM Najib Miqati and President Michel Suleiman had signed off on a decree to hold the elections on June 9, a move that would have the elections held according to the current 1960 law if the country’s political parties fail to reach a consensus on a new electoral law.
However, the parliament held a session last week and approved the amendment of the deadlines regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections, candidacy applications, withdrawal of candidacies and the elections date.

Lebanese judge denies link with STL leak
Now Lebanon/Lebanon’s Public Prosecutor Hatem Madi said that his office was not responsible for the leak that revealed the identity of alleged tribunal witnesses on the internet. According to the National News Agency, Madi met with Special Tribunal for Lebanon President David Baragwanath on Tuesday and denied any links with the leak, “since we do not possess” the list of the tribunal witnesses. The Lebanese judge also reiterated that he will do what it takes to reveal the identity of the perpetrators. The names on the controversial list are purported witnesses in the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister and founder of the Future Movement Rafiq Hariri, whose killing on February 14, 2005 prompted the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). Earlier in April a group calling itself “Journalists for the Truth” hacked the website of Future newspaper and briefly published the names of the alleged witness. On its website, Journalists for the Truth describes itself as “a group of journalists seeking to unveil corruption in the STL.” The group aims to “disclose information proving the role of STL senior officials in corruption and bribe cases, which eventually led to leaking of confidential material.” The group did not respond to an interview request NOW sent to the email address listed on its site.
Formally established on March 1, 2009, the STL has repeatedly been the subject of news reports based on alleged leaks concerning the investigation of Hariri’s murder, evidence in the prosecutor’s possession and witnesses who will supposedly be called to testify when the trial starts.

Lebanon's Electoral sub-committee might be dissolved Thursday
Now Lebanon/Lebanese lawmaker and electoral sub-committee head Robert Ghanem said that the meeting the sub-committee will hold on Thursday will decide whether or not to go through with these sessions.  “In the light of Thursday’s meeting, my fellow [MPs] will decide if they… will carry on with these meetings or end them,” Ghanem said in a statement following the electoral sub-committee’s Tuesday session. The head of the sub-committee also noted that the Thursday meeting will be “lengthy” with the aim of “reaching an agreement on a [new] electoral law.” “[We have] one month… to reach [consensus] on a new law for the elections,” Ghanem added.
Meanwhile, Kataeb bloc MP Sami Gemayel expressed his discontent with the mixed electoral draft that the sub-committee reviewed on Tuesday, which he said “does not provide just representation for all Lebanese.”
However, he added that his bloc will not stand in the way of adopting this proposal if the majority of the parties agree to it. The electoral sub-committee was reported to have looked into a mixed electoral draft that proposes adopting proportional voting in the districts and majoritarian voting in provinces. Other reports claim the sub-committee discussed a mixed electoral law based on the Orthodox proposal, something that Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Ali Fayyad denied after the meeting. Fayyad added that Thursday’s session will be “extremely important and decisive.”Elsewhere, Lebanese Forces bloc MP George Adwan said that in case no new electoral law was adopted, “the parliament’s term will be extended.” Election deadlines were extended until May 19 by Lebanon’s parliament last week as the scheduled June 9 parliamentary elections loom closer.
The country’s president and premier had signed in March a decree to hold the elections on June 9, which would see the vote held under the auspices of the 1960 law if no new law is adopted.
This decision sparked angry responses from the March 8 coalition, who refuse to contest an election under the 1960 electoral law, and have repeatedly called for the sectarian-based Orthodox proposal to be brought up for a vote in a plenary session of the parliament.  The electoral law deadlock was one of the reasons that prompted Speaker Nabih Berri to call for a parliamentary session to convene on Wednesday of last week in order to amend the upcoming parliamentary elections’ deadlines, including candidacy applications, withdrawal of candidacies and the election date.

The Lebanese Future Movement calls for swift filing of memorandum against Syria
Now Lebanon/The Future Movement urged Lebanese authorities to expedite the filing of a complaint with the Arab League and the UN against the recent lethal Syrian border violations. In their weekly statement released on Tuesday, the opposition party denounced “in the strongest of terms” the attacks originating from Syrian territory which targeted some Lebanese border towns in recent days.
The March 14 party described these incidents as “a new breach of Lebanon’s sovereignty.” Earlier on Tuesday, Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour announced that his ministry will present a memorandum to the Arab League concerning the Syrian violations of the Lebanese sovereignty, after two people were killed and at least four others were injured in the northeast of Lebanon on Sunday in rocket attacks purportedly conducted by Syrian rebels.  At the beginning of the week, Lebanon’s top political and security officials held an emergency meeting at the Baabda Presidential Palace to discuss measures to be taken following the fatal Syrian border shelling and asked the Foreign Ministry to send a memorandum to the Arab League regarding the incident. The Future Movement also held Hezbollah responsible for the “dangers and offensives Lebanon is being subjected to by the Syrians.” Hezbollah has been reportedly fighting alongside the Syrian regime against rebels in the Homs province and outside of Damascus, with news outlets in the past week reporting that a number of party members had been killed while fighting in Syria. The Future statement went on to condemn the internet leak that contained a list of alleged Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) witnesses. The Movement cast blame for this incident on “certain political parties and media outlets [allegiant] to such parties.” It deemed this act as “a crime of contempt against the international tribunal,” and called on the STL to prosecute the perpetrators. The Future statement also urged Lebanese judicial authorities to cooperate with the STL in order to reveal the identity of “those who carried out this criminal act.” Earlier in the day, Lebanon’s Public Prosecutor Hatem Madi said that his office was not responsible for the leak, which was published on a website that belongs to a group which calls itself “Journalists for Truth.” The names on the controversial list are purported witnesses in the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister and founder of the Future Movement Rafiq Hariri, whose killing on February 14, 2005 prompted the establishment of the STL. Elsewhere, the Future Movement addressed the thorny issue of the cabinet formation, reiterating its call for the creation of a government of non-candidates for the parliamentary elections. The statement also warned against “setting personal and political conditions” on Premier-designate Tammam Salam concerning the formation of the new cabinet, of which he is in charge. The Future Movement underlined the importance of holding the upcoming parliamentary elections according to a new mixed electoral law that would “provide just representation” for all the country’s political parties. The electoral law deadlock was one of the reasons that prompted Speaker Nabih Berri to call for a parliamentary session to convene on Wednesday of last week in order to amend the upcoming parliamentary elections’ deadlines, including candidacy applications, withdrawal of candidacies and the election date.
The country’s parliament agreed to extend the election deadlines until May 19 as the scheduled June 9 parliamentary elections loom closer.
The president and premier had signed in March a decree to hold the elections on June 9, which would see the vote held under the auspices of the 1960 law if no new law is adopted.
This decision sparked angry responses from the March 8 coalition, who refuse to contest an election under the 1960 electoral law, and have repeatedly called for the adoption of the sectarian-based Orthodox proposal.
However, opponents of this controversial draft pushed for the endorsement of a new electoral law that would combine majoritarian voting with proportional representation.

Strong quake hits Iran, felt across Gulf and South Asia
Now Lebanon/A powerful earthquake rattled Iran on Tuesday, and was felt in the Gulf and South Asia where at least five people died and frightened office workers fled their buildings, reports said. Iran's Seismological Centre said on its website that the 7.5-magnitude quake struck at 3:14 pm (1044 GMT) in the southeast near the Islamic republic's border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. The website of the US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 7.8, and said it struck near the Iranian city of Khash, in the province of Sistan Baluchistan. In Pakistan, the quake brought down homes, killing at least five people and injuring others, a hospital official said.
"We have received five dead bodies," Ashraf Baloch told AFP by telephone from Mashkail in Washuk district, around three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the border with Iran. Seven people were reportedly hurt in Iran, but there was no immediate official confirmation of any deaths in the country. Iran's official IRNA news agency said crisis management authorities had declared a state of emergency in the quake-hit area."The quake is unprecedented in 56 years" for Iran, Mehdi Zare, an official at the Seismological Centre, told state television without elaborating. The head of Iran's Red Crescent rescue corps, Mahmoud Mozafar, said communications to the stricken areas have been cut by the quake. The earthquake also shook buildings in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, across the waters of the Gulf in the United Arab Emirates. It was also felt in the Saudi capital Riyadh and in Oman.
In the tourist hub of Dubai, residential and office buildings were evacuated and thousands of people gathered outside skyscrapers "Everybody's on the streets. There's a state of panic," said the director of an insurance company in the city center who identified himself only as Rami. The grandiose Dubai Mall was completely evacuated, according to employees who said people were evacuated from towers in Downtown Dubai, home to the world's tallest building. The quake was also strongly felt in Kuwait, particularly in coastal areas, and in the Bahraini capital Manama, where buildings in the central financial district were evacuated. The earthquake was felt across northern India, including in the capital New Delhi where tremors rattled buildings and led many office workers to run into the street as a precaution. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties in India, but concern remains high just 10 days after a building collapse in Mumbai killed 72 people. "We felt the jerks," said S.C. Basu, a retired government engineer who lives in the east of the Indian capital. "Our beds shook and crockery rattled. Many people left for outside." The deputy head of Iran's state crisis management organization, Morteza Akbarpour, told Fars news agency casualties should be low considering the rural setting of the stricken area.
The quake comes a week after a strong earthquake struck near Iran's Gulf port city of Bushehr, killing at least 30 people and injuring 800 but leaving Iran's only nuclear power plant intact.

Syria's Forgotten Front
David Pollock/New York Times
April 16, 2013
To keep yet another Syrian frontier from spiraling downward, Washington should urge Israel and the mainstream Syrian opposition to focus on keeping Hizballah and jihadist groups away from the border.
As the civil war in Syria rages on, the risk that Israel will be drawn into the fray is rising.
Just last Friday, shells fired from Syria again hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and Israel fired back. It's not the first time tensions in the area have flared.
On Jan. 30, Israel staged an airstrike on a weapons convoy in Syria, reportedly destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. On March 6, jihadist rebels kidnapped 21 Filipino peacekeepers in the Golan Heights. The risk that Israeli retaliation for cross-border fire could spiral into a major skirmish, or even a larger Israeli intervention to set up a buffer zone in Syria, is real. To prevent it, the United States should broker a tacit agreement between Israel and moderate elements of the Syrian opposition. Israel and the Syrian opposition don't have much in common, but they do share some important mutual enemies, namely Hezbollah and Iran, both of which are fighting furiously to save Bashar al-Assad's government. This convergence of interests provides an opening for America to quietly strike a deal between Israel and the leadership of the Syrian opposition: Israel should agree to refrain from arming proxies inside Syria to protect its border; and the Syrian opposition should work to keep extremist groups like Hezbollah and Jabhat al-Nusra and other affiliates of Al Qaeda far away from the Israeli frontier. This would demonstrate the Syrian opposition's bona fides to potential Western supporters and dissuade Israel from intervening or arming allies in Syria.
The Assad regime's army, increasingly pressed for manpower on other fronts, recently withdrew many troops from the Israeli border, leaving the field open to extremist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra.
The recent high-profile visit by Israel's defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, to the front line in the Golan Heights led to rumors in Syria that Israel was planning to create and support a proxy army among the Syrian Druse population. Although these rumors are probably exaggerated, there is little doubt that Israel is trying to step up its contacts across this border.
But if Israel tries to establish proxy forces in a buffer zone along the border, it would almost certainly backfire. Such a move would invite Hezbollah, its allies and other extremists to join the conflict. That would be very much like what happened in Lebanon, with disastrous long-term consequences, beginning in the late 1970s when Israel invaded southern Lebanon and set up the South Lebanon Army to protect its border before staging a second, larger invasion in 1982. The result was the creation of Hezbollah, with Iranian support, to "liberate" south Lebanon -- a threat that remains today.
Over the past 18 months, my colleagues and I have traveled extensively in the region and conducted interviews with hundreds of armed and unarmed Syrian opposition leaders and activists. Three surveys we conducted for the firm Pechter Polls revealed intense animosity toward both Iran and Hezbollah. This disdain means that the Syrian opposition will most likely want to keep Hezbollah forces far from any rebel-held territory, something that would please Israel. In addition to Israel's agreement not to deploy proxies in Syria, American and international Jewish charities could agree to step up the humanitarian assistance that they are already providing to Syrian civilians on a small scale. These efforts are generally being carried out quietly, for fear that too much publicity might provoke a public relations backlash.
Besides food and shelter, there is one medical donation that would have a huge symbolic impact: atropine, an antidote against the chemical weapons that many believe Mr. Assad is starting to use against his own population. This kind of aid would definitively refute the false but widely held conspiracy theory among Syrians that Israel, and its legendary lobby, still secretly support the Assad regime. It would chip away at Syrians' entrenched mistrust of Israel.Finally, the United States could also restrict the aerial intelligence that it misguidedly still provides to the Syrian government under a 1974 agreement -- information that could be used by Mr. Assad to target rebel soldiers.
Any arrangement that distances the opposition from the jihadis, avoids Israeli intervention on Syrian soil and focuses all efforts squarely against Mr. Assad should appeal to Syrian opposition leaders. It would also accomplish multiple goals without any direct American intervention: stabilizing an increasingly precarious front line; preventing further regional conflict; helping alleviate a humanitarian crisis; and setting the stage for a better post-Assad future.
The key is to do it quickly, before the situation on another one of Syria's borders spirals even more dangerously downward.
David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute.

Azerbaijan's Cooperation with Israel Goes Beyond Iran Tensions
Brenda Shaffer/Washington Institute
Azerbaijan has ample, independent strategic reasons for its cooperation with Israel and poor relations with Tehran, notwithstanding the recent spike in Iranian tensions.
In recent years, Israel and Azerbaijan have intensified their security cooperation and military trade. At the same time, tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran have increased. Yet these two developments have been largely independent of each other, despite Tehran's efforts to promote misconceptions to the contrary.
ISRAELI-AZERBAIJANI RELATIONS
Israel recognized Azerbaijan's independence in 1991 and opened an embassy there in 1993. Since then, several Israeli delegations have visited the country: in 1997, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with then-president Heydar Aliyev; in 2009, three Israeli ministers and fifty businessmen joined President Shimon Peres to visit current president Ilham Aliyev, with whom Peres is close; and former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman visited in February 2010 and April 2012.
Baku has not reciprocated by opening an embassy in Israel, citing fears that Muslim-majority states in the UN would vote unfavorably on its conflict with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Yet several Azerbaijani officials have visited Israel, including Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Huseyn Bagirov (December 2002 and November 2006), Minister of Communications and Information Technologies Ali Abbasov (November 2003), Minister of Emergency Situations Kemaleddin Heydarov (March 2007), and Transportation Minister Ziya Mammadov (June 2007). Moreover, the Azerbaijani national airline AZAL has had regular flights to Tel Aviv since 1993, and Israelis are among the few passport holders eligible for visas at the Baku airport.
More broadly, Israel has been among Azerbaijan's top five trade partners in recent years. Baku is Israel's top oil supplier, providing around 40 percent of its annual consumption, while Israel is the sixth highest importer of Azerbaijani oil exports. The oil arrives via a pipeline through Turkey that continued to function even when Israeli-Turkish relations hit rock bottom in recent years. In addition, a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) participates in oil and gas exploration off Israel's coast. The project is the first of its kind for SOCAR outside the Caspian region and could contribute to the firm's quest to become an international oil company.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has become a major consumer of Israeli armaments and military expertise. In February 2012, the two countries confirmed the signing of an arms-supply agreement valued at $1.6 billion, to include Israeli drones and antiaircraft/missile-defense systems. Israeli firms are also involved in technology transfers as part of Azerbaijan's efforts to establish an indigenous arms industry; one joint company is already producing unmanned military vehicles in Baku.
On the cultural front, Azerbaijan has been home to a Jewish community for over 2,000 years, based in Baku and the northern city of Quba. Today, this community numbers around 20,000-25,000, similar to the Jewish populations in Iran and Turkey. Azerbaijani Jews enjoy safety and freedom of worship and culture; President Aliyev visits their community institutions in Quba annually and issues regular greetings on Jewish holidays and a solidarity statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
IRANIAN-AZERBAIJANI RELATIONS
Iranian officials and media outlets have attempted to portray Tehran's hostility toward Azerbaijan as a response to Baku's close ties with Israel, depicting the Islamic Republic as the victim of cooperation between the two states. History does not support this claim, however -- Tehran has acted against independent Azerbaijan from its inception in 1991, long before it formed close links with Israel.
The most plausible explanation for this antagonism is fear that Azerbaijani nationalism and prosperity could incite Iran's own Azerbaijani community, which comprises a full third of the country's population. Whatever the reason, Tehran has long threatened its neighbor's security and economic progress, supporting Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh war during the early 1990s and attempting to thwart Azerbaijan's energy export projects. In a recent conference at Johns Hopkins University, Armenian diplomats openly acknowledged Iranian assistance during the war.
Tehran also sponsors or maintains ties with Islamist and other antigovernment groups next door. Baku has thwarted a number of local terrorist plots by Iranian-connected groups targeting the U.S. and Israeli embassies as well as Jewish community institutions in the capital. In 2008, for instance, officials announced that they had foiled a plan to explode car bombs near the Israeli embassy; two Lebanese citizens with ties to Iran were later convicted for the plot in an Azerbaijani court. And in 2011, Iranian-connected operatives attempted to assassinate the U.S. ambassador in Azerbaijan (for more details on the plot, see Matthew Levitt's recent study Hizballah and the Qods Force in Iran's Shadow War with the West).
For its part, Baku has been largely cautious in its policy toward the Azerbaijani minority in Iran. For instance, Iranian delegations have been conspicuously excluded from officially sponsored diaspora conferences in Baku for two decades. During periods of intense Iranian hostility, however, Baku often uses the "South Azerbaijan" issue to remind Tehran that it has the means to threaten Iran's stability. In July 2001, for example, Iranian gunboats threatened a BP exploration vessel in the Azerbaijani-controlled sector of the Caspian Sea, and Iranian warplanes violated the country's airspace several times. Baku responded by publishing schoolbooks containing maps of Azerbaijan that encompassed northwestern Iran, while television outlets renewed broadcasts of a series on the culture of "South Azerbaijan."
More recently, Baku allowed the South Azerbaijan National Liberation Movement to hold a conference in the capital on March 30, highlighting the latest spike in tensions with Tehran. In response, Hossein Shariatmadari -- the publisher of Kayhan (Iran's largest newspaper) and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- demanded that Azerbaijan hold a referendum on whether to join Iran.
As described above, however, the particularly tense atmosphere of late is not exceptional. Tehran has clashed with Baku numerous times over the past two decades, and the character of their relations has not been a direct result of Azerbaijan's dealings with Israel. To be sure, Azerbaijani-Israeli rapprochement is a function of the wider strategic challenges Baku faces (including frequent destabilization attempts from Iran and Russia as they attempt to regain control over the Caspian region), but Tehran is only part of this calculus. In short, Azerbaijan has good, independent strategic reasons for its cooperation with Israel and poor relations with Iran. Notwithstanding Tehran's rhetoric to the contrary, Baku and Israel share a common regional orientation, strong strategic cooperation with the United States, and a potent security threat from Iran. Brenda Shaffer is a visiting researcher at Georgetown University's Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies, a political science professor with the University of Haifa, and a former visiting professor at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Her publications include the 2002 book Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity.
 

Free Syrian Army Turns guns on Lebanese village
Now Lebanon/NOW visits the scene of an unprecedented Syrian rebel strike on Lebanon that left one dead
The road from the northeastern Beqaa town of Hermel to the border village of al-Qasr doesn’t feel like one leading to a bloody war zone. Lined on both sides with neatly cultivated olive groves, the green plains of the distant Homs basin gleaming under a pastel blue sky, the scene Tuesday morning was positively serene. Even the Bashar al-Assad posters and Hezbollah flags that tile the route from the central Beqaa to Hermel grew increasingly sparse as NOW neared the village. Nor did al-Qasr itself feel like a place hit by lethal rocket fire just two days ago. Despite an army statement Sunday declaring its increased presence in the area, there wasn’t so much as a routine checkpoint impeding our entrance. In the village center, all shops were open; adults and children alike going about their business as usual. It could have been anywhere in the Beqaa.
Except, of course, for the two crumbled walls near the main mosque, results of an unprecedented series of rockets fired Sunday by Syrian rebels that, for the first time, left one resident dead and up to nine injured (another was killed by the same attack in Hosh al-Sayyid Ali, a nearby village on the Syrian side of the border). The blood of 23-year-old Ali Hassan Qataya, light brown by now, still spans the width of the street where he died.
“He was just visiting,” said a local resident who did not give his name. “He lived in Beirut, and came here to visit his fiancée.”
Why, then, was Qataya killed? The Syrian National Coalition, the opposition body recognized by over a dozen countries as the representative government-in-exile, said Monday that “the Free Syrian Army was forced to respond to [the] repeated aggressions” of Hezbollah, whom it accused of carrying out “military operations on Syrian territory.” Reports have long suggested fierce clashes between Hezbollah and the Free Syrian Army in the Homs province, with five Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria being buried just Monday. As a result, the Free Syrian Army has been threatening to attack Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon since February.
However, NOW saw no evidence of a Hezbollah military presence in al-Qasr itself, and indeed, the area where the rockets fell appeared entirely residential – a few modest breeze block homes surrounded by others under construction. “They call this a military area? Show me the military area!” demanded another resident scornfully. A clue also lies in the particular weapons used by the rebels. NOW sent a video purporting to show the rockets being launched to Eliot Higgins, the Syria analyst who gained international renown after uncovering, among other things, the use of cluster bombs by the Assad regime and a Croatian arms supply channel to the rebels (as first reported by NOW’s Michael Weiss). Higgins told NOW the weapons included 107mm and S-5 rockets (both launched from a homemade device), a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer, and a mortar. That the Lebanese army confirmed Qataya’s death was the result of a 107mm rocket would seem to attest to the video’s veracity (as does the rebel excitedly shouting, “To Qasr, to Qasr!” after one launch). Higgins further unearthed similarities in the equipment used in other videos by the “Omar Farouq Brigade,” a possible relative of the Independent Farouq Division (IFD). Significantly, Higgins described the weapons as “pretty indiscriminate” and “of questionable accuracy,” suggesting that the rebels ran the risk of hitting civilians even if they were aiming at military targets. And there is in any case reason to doubt that they were, given what the IFD commander told AFP: “If we have to, we will target civilians just like [Hezbollah] do. Our civilians are not less valuable than theirs.” Another rebel vowed to strike Lebanon again if the government did not “take practical steps to put a stop to [Hezbollah’s] shelling.”
Such a course of action could potentially take border clashes to levels yet unseen. The mayor of al-Qasr, Hassan Zeaiter, has publicly said essentially the same thing in reverse; namely, that if the government did not prevent rebels from attacking Lebanese villages, the villagers would “take matters into our [own] hands.” In an attempt to calm the situation, the government has declared it will file a complaint about the strikes to the Arab League.
NOW met Zeaiter after leaving al-Qasr in his Hermel dentistry, where he complained of a government “absence” from the area. “Look at all the kidnappings,” he said. “Look at the pilgrims held in Aazaz. If we’re going to wait for the state to help us, we’ll be waiting forever.” A fast and charismatic talker, Zeaiter’s photo of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on his shelf proved a sound indicator of his political views.
“The people who fired these rockets are not from Qusayr. I lived in Qusayr, I know all the young guys there. These ones aren’t even Syrians! I saw them on video, they’re all Chechens, Afghans, Pakistanis. The people of al-Qasr and Qusayr are one; it’s only the Jabhat al-Nusra foreigners who want to drive us apart.” Nevertheless, when NOW asked Zeaiter if he expected further rockets from Syria, his reply was optimistic.
“I don’t think they’ll do it again. The government sent a letter of protest to the Arab League, who are financing Jabhat al-Nusra. I think President [Michel] Suleiman is negotiating under the table with the Arab League so as to ensure there will be no more attacks like this.”

Lebanon says it wants UN aid for Syria refugees
AFP/Lebanon said on Tuesday it will ask for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to ask for aid to help it cope with the influx of refugees from its war-ravaged larger neighbor Syria. "I will ask our UN envoy Nawaf Salam to contact the necessary parties to ask for an urgent Security Council meeting to discuss the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and to help us shelter them," Foreign Minister Adnan Mansur told reporters. The United Nations says that Lebanon currently houses 400,000 Syrians who have fled the more than two-year conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people. Beirut has asked the UN for $363 million to finance a government plan to help the refugees in Lebanon, but has so far received only a small amount. On Monday, Jordan's Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur said the impact of the war in Syria was threatening the kingdom's security and that Amman will seek UN Security Council help to tackle the fallout. The UN estimates that around 385,500 Syrians have sought refuge in Jordan, including nearly a quarter of a million children. Jordan puts the overall figure at around 500,000.