Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources/August 22/13

Iranian Jailed for Distributing Bibles
Naharnet/An Iranian Christian convert has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for distributing Bibles in his home country, the Vatican missionary news agency Fides reported on Wednesday.
Mohammad-Hadi Bordhar was arrested in Iran in December and reportedly said he wanted to "evangelize by handing out 12,000 pocket bibles". He was accused of "crimes against state security". After being baptized, the man had created a "domestic church" in his home in Rasht in northern Iran, Fides reported. Iranian police found books, CDs and more than 6,000 Bible at his place. Fides said he had already been arrested in 2009 and found guilty of apostasy but had since been released. The Catholic news agency quoted non-governmental groups saying that interest in Christianity among young Iranians is worrying the authorities and that churches have been shut down. The agency said Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, has raised hopes with his rhetoric about civil rights. The Christian minority in Iran is tiny, estimated at less than 1.0 percent of the population.
Source/Agence France Presse.

Reported Syrian gas attack killing hundreds after first US-trained rebel incursion from Jordan
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 21, 2013/Syrian opposition activists report between 200 and 650 dead and hundreds more wounded in a poison gas strike by Bashar Assad’s forces on rebel-held areas of eastern Damascus. They claim nerve gas canisters were dropped by Syrian Air Force fighter planes which were seen flying over the area after the attack, the most extensive reported till now. Their claim has not been verified. The regime denied the accusation, saying there was “no truth whatsoever” in reports that chemical gas was used near Damascus, and maintaining over state television that the Syrian army was conducting a conventional attack on rebel positions south and east of Damascus. debkafile reports exclusively that Assad is acting to counter the first organized incursion of US-trained Syrian rebels from Jordan into southern Syria. The first group of 250 rebels, trained in special operations tactics by US and Jordanian instructors, entered Syria Saturday, Aug. 17, armed with weapons of Russian provenance supplied by the US and Saudi Arabia.
They are fighting under US and Jordanian commanders based in the Hashemite Kingdom.
A second group of 300 fighters crossed into Syria from Jordan Monday. They are linking up with local rebel groups chosen from amongst those with no ties with the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria).
According to our military sources, the rebel units are advancing at speed along the Syrian-Israeli border. They have forced the Syrian brigades posted there into retreating from positions inside a strip of 1-25 kilometers from the border, and captured the villages of Raihaniya, Breiqa and Beer Ajam. This tactic has moved the Syrian army back from the area opposite the Israeli Golan, and started marking out a buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Horan province. DEBKA’s military sources report that additional Syrian rebel forces are standing ready in Jordan to cross into Syria. The incoming forces will then start extending the nascent buffer zone northward towards Deraa (fountainhead of the Syrian uprising in 2011) and east toward Jabal Druze.
This Jordan-based rebel offensive was launched shortly after Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, visited US forces in Jordan and inaugurated the underground US war room near Amman for commanding the operation in Syria. Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has more than once declared that if the Syrian capital Damascus came under threat, he would resort to chemical warfare and the entire Middle East including Israel would go up in flames. For now, his army is fighting to keep the rebels from taking control of southern Syria.

Canada Concerned by Report of Syrian Gas Attack
August 21, 2013 - Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“Canada is concerned by reports of a poison gas attack near Syria’s capital of Damascus that left hundreds of people dead, including children.
“Such reports are extremely concerning, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely with our allies and to seek further information.
“Canada is supporting a United Nations team, now in Syria to investigate the possible use of chemical weapons, by providing up to $2 million to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
“Such an attack is completely unacceptable, and we call on the Assad regime to cooperate with the UN officials investigating these disturbing reports.”
 

At Least 1300 Dead in 'Chemical' Bombing near Damascus
Naharnet/Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death.
The accusation came as a team of U.N. inspectors was in Syria to probe previous allegations of chemical weapons strikes leveled against both sides during the 29-month conflict. Western governments demanded immediate access for the inspectors to investigate the new allegations. Russia, a longstanding ally of the Damascus regime, echoed the call for an inquiry but said it suspected a "provocation" by the opposition and its foreign backers. Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed.
More footage showed dozens of people laid out on the ground, among them many children, some of them covered in white sheets. The claim of chemical weapons use, which could not be independently confirmed, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the work of the U.N. weapons inspectors already in the country. Opposition sources accused the army of multiple chemical weapons strikes -- one in Moadamiyet al-Sham, southwest of Damascus, and more in the capital's eastern suburbs.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists, reported hundreds of casualties in the "brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime". And in videos posted on YouTube, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another activist group, showed what it called "a terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas."
The attack "led to suffocation of the children and overcrowding field hospitals with hundreds of casualties amid extreme shortage of medical supplies to rescue the victims, particularly atropine," the LCC said.
In one video, children are seen being given first aid in a field hospital, notably oxygen to help them breathe. Doctors appear to be trying to resuscitate unconscious children. Specialists in the impact of chemical weapons said the video evidence was not entirely convincing.
"At the moment, I am not totally convinced because the people that are helping them are without any protective clothing and without any respirators," said Paula Vanninen, director of Verifin, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. "In a real case, they would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms." John Hart, head of the Chemical and Biological Security Project at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said he had not seen the telltale evidence in the eyes of the victims that would be compelling evidence of chemical weapons use.
"Of the videos that I've seen for the last few hours, none of them show pinpoint pupils... this would indicate exposure to organophosphorus nerve agents," he said.
Gwyn Winfield, editor of CBRNe World magazine, which specializes in chemical weapons issues, said the evidence did not suggest that the chemicals used were of the weapons grade that the Syrian army possesses in its stockpiles. "We're not seeing reports that doctors and nurses... are becoming fatalities, so that would suggest that the toxicity of it isn't what we would consider military sarin. It may well be that it is a lower-grade," Winfield told Agence France Presse.The opposition National Coalition's George Sabra said more than 1,300 people had been killed in what he described as a "coup de grace that kills all hopes for a political solution in Syria".
"The Syrian regime is mocking the U.N. and the great powers when it strikes targets near Damascus, while the (U.N. weapons inspectors) are just a few steps away," he said. State news agency SANA said "reports on the use of chemical weapons in Ghouta (the Damascus suburbs) are totally false. It's an attempt to prevent the U.N. commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission."
The U.N. Security Council was to hold an urgent meeting on the allegations later on Wednesday as U.N. officials said that talks were already under way with the Syrian government on securing access to the alleged attack sites.
The head of the U.N. inspection mission, Ake Sellstrom, was "in discussions with the Syrian government on all issues pertaining to the alleged use of chemical weapons, including this most recent reported incident," a statement said. Washington demanded that the inspectors be given unfettered access. "For the U.N.'s efforts to be credible, they must have immediate access to witnesses and affected individuals, and have the ability to examine and collect physical evidence without any interference or manipulation from the Syrian government," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. Washington has previously described chemical weapons use as a red line that might prompt it to intervene militarily in Syria. Moscow, which has said it has proof of chemical weapons use by the rebels in March, expressed skepticism about the opposition's claims. The foreign ministry said the timing of the allegations as U.N. inspectors began their work "makes us think that we are once again dealing with a premeditated provocation." Source/Agence France Presse.

U.S. Demands U.N. Access to al-Ghouta as France, UK Urge Security Council Meet
Naharnet/The United States on Wednesday demanded "immediate access" for United Nations inspectors to the site of an alleged chemical weapons attack by government forces on civilians in Syria."We are working urgently to gather additional information," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest in a statement expressing deep concern over the reports. "Today, we are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation," Earnest said, saying a U.N. team in the country was ready to move. "For the U.N.'s efforts to be credible, they must have immediate access to witnesses and affected individuals, and have the ability to examine and collect physical evidence without any interference or manipulation from the Syrian government." "If the Syrian government has nothing to hide and is truly committed to an impartial and credible investigation of chemical weapons use in Syria, it will facilitate the U.N. team's immediate and unfettered access to this site." Syria's main opposition group earlier accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death. The U.N. team is in Syria to probe previous allegations of chemical weapons strikes leveled against both sides during the 29-month conflict. Meanwhile, France, Britain and the U.S. have requested an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting over the reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria. Security Council members Luxembourg and South Korea also asked for the meeting, which was expected to be held in the afternoon in the form of closed-door consultations, a diplomat said. Source/Agence France Presse.

EU Seeks Probe of 'Unacceptable' Syria Chemical Weapons Use
Naharnet/The European Union condemned the suspected use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces Wednesday as "totally unacceptable," demanding an immediate investigation.
EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton said charges by Syria's main opposition group that a chemical attack by the regime had left over 1,300 people dead, "should be immediately and thoroughly investigated."
A U.N. mission in Syria to probe previous allegations of chemical weapons use "must be allowed full and unhindered access to all sites," Ashton said, according to a spokesperson. "The EU reiterates that any use of chemical weapons, by any side in Syria, would be totally unacceptable," she said. The authorities and all other parties in Syria "need to provide all necessary support to and cooperation with the mission's operations," Ashton said as she gathered EU foreign ministers for a meeting on the crisis in Egypt. British Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed concern at the reports, saying it "is a very important matter to pursue (and)... we are pursuing this with urgency." His German counterpart Guido Westerwelle demanded that the U.N. chemical weapons team in Syria should "immediately have the opportunity to verify the allegations comprehensively." The charges were "very serious and alarming," Westerwelle said. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking in Brussels, said if proven the use of chemical weapons would "not only be a massacre, but also an unprecedented atrocity". Fabius said however that the accusations from the Syrian opposition were "not yet verified." Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt called on Syria to grant "urgent" access to U.N. investigators to determine whether the regime has used the weapons. The main Syrian opposition group said President Bashar Assad had attacked rebel areas near Damascus on Wednesday using chemical weapons.
The charges could not immediately be verified and were vehemently denied by the authorities. There have been frequent claims by the rebels of the use of chemical weapons by the army, particularly in Damascus province and Homs in central Syria.SourceAgence France Presse.

U.N. Security Council to Meet on Syria Attack Claims
Naharnet/The U.N. Security Council was to meet at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) Wednesday over reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria that allegedly killed hundreds, diplomats said. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office said he was "shocked" by the reports of the attack and that U.N. inspectors in Syria to probe previous allegations were in discussions with Damascus. Security Council members France, Britain, the United States, Luxembourg and South Korea requested the meeting, which was to be held in the form of closed-door consultations, a diplomat said. Paris and London were to send a joint letter Wednesday to the secretary general asking him to order the team of U.N. experts in Syria to go to the scene to investigate. The United States demanded that Syria provide immediate access to the site, while Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, called the opposition claims a "provocation." The main Syrian opposition group claims as many as 1,300 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack Wednesday on rebel areas near Damascus.
Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed. The objective of the Security Council consultations is to "take the temperature and to inform" the 15 members, but it was not expected to result in any formal position, a diplomat said. The diplomat also said it would be difficult for the U.N. experts to investigate the incident because the alleged attack site was not one of three where the Syrian regime had agreed to U.N. inspections. That means that the head of the U.N. experts in Syria, Ake Sellstrom of Sweden, must negotiate access to the new site with Syrian authorities, the diplomat said. The U.N. statement said Sellstrom's team is "following the current situation in Syria carefully, and remains fully engaged in the investigation process that is mandated by the Secretary General. "Professor Sellstrom is in discussions with the Syrian Government on all issues pertaining to the alleged use of chemical weapons, including this most recent reported incident." Source/Agence France Presse.

Israel Says Syria Regime Used Chemical Weapons
Naharnet/Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Wednesday that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, backing opposition claims of multiple deadly strikes around Damascus.
"In Syria, the regime has used chemical weapons and it's not the first time," Yaalon told Israeli defense correspondents. "It's a life and death struggle between a regime based on the Alawite minority and a disparate opposition composed of Sunni Muslims, some Muslim Brotherhood members, others linked to al-Qaida. "We don't see any end to the fighting -- even the fall of (President Bashar) Assad won't bring it to a halt, there will a bloody settling of accounts over a long period," the minister said. "We could see the implosion of Syria with the Alawites controlling the western part -- the coastal region and a corridor to Damascus -- and the Kurds and Sunnis controlling the east and north." The head of research at Israeli military intelligence, Brigadier General Itai Brun, already said in April that he believed the Syrian regime had made use of its chemical weapons stockpiles against the rebels.
Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death.
The accusation came as a team of U.N. inspectors was in Syria to probe previous allegations of chemical weapons strikes leveled against both sides during the 29-month conflict. Western governments demanded immediate access for the inspectors to investigate the new allegations. Russia, a longstanding ally of the Damascus regime, echoed the call for an inquiry but said it suspected a "provocation" by the opposition and its foreign backers.
Source/Agence France Presse.

UK's Hague: Syria Attack Should Wake Up Assad Supporters
Naharnet/British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday that he hoped the alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria would "wake up" President Bashar Assad's supporters to the nature of his regime.
"I hope all members of the (U.N.) Security Council will join us," he told reporters before talks in Paris with French counterpart Laurent Fabius. "I hope this will wake up some who have supported the Assad regime, to realize its murderous and barbaric nature." His comments came as the Security Council prepared to meet over claims from the main Syrian opposition group that as many as 1,300 people were killed in chemical weapons attacks Wednesday on rebel areas near Damascus. Paris and London were to send a joint letter to the secretary general asking him to order the team of U.N. experts in Syria to go to the scene to investigate.
"We hope that the U.N. team will be given immediate and unrestricted access to this area to try to establish the truth," Hague said. "There is no reason for them to not be given access to an area a few miles away from where they are." Fabius also called for U.N. inspectors to be given "immediate" access to the sites of the alleged attacks. He called the alleged attacks "a terrible tragedy" and "an attack that is probably without precedent since what we saw with Saddam Hussein in Iraq." In a separate statement, Fabius said he had spoken with the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, to express his "horror at the massacre carried out today by the Syrian regime". "The evidence gathered by the Coalition tends to corroborate the suspicions of the use of chemical weapons. If confirmed, they are extremely serious," Fabius said.
SourceAgence France Presse.

Hariri Lashes Out at International Community's Silence over Assad's 'Massacres'
Naharnet/Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri “strongly condemned” Wednesday's Reef Damascus massacre, considering that the problem lies in “the international community that continues to allow Syrian President Bashar Assad to commit crimes.”“No words can describe the massacre inflicted by Assad’s forces on hundreds of children, women and innocent Syrian civilians in the suburban Damascus town of Ghouta,” Hariri said in a released statement. He continued: “This massacre is comparable to other horrible crimes in history, such as those committed by Hulagu and Hitler, the massacres of Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia, to the massacres of the Haganah in Palestine and Sabra and Shatila.”The former premier accused Assad of “losing any human feeling towards his people.”“The problem, however, is not with Assad only, but it lies in the international community that is allowing the Damascus murderer to persist in committing massacres and systematically destroying Syrian cities and their history.”Hariri elaborated: “The worst is that there are, among Arabs and Muslims, parties that are covering these murders and participating in them. They are not moved by the horrible images reported by the media.” He called on the international community “to shoulder its responsibility once and for all and stop the policies of inaction towards the regime's activities.” Also, Hariri warned on the other hand Lebanese factions “who insist on getting involved in the ongoing genocide in Syria.”“History will have no mercy for the murderers and killers and it will certainly not grant any certificates of moral and human innocence to Bashar’s accomplices in burning Syria,” he said. Meanwhile, the head of the al-Mustaqbal bloc former PM Fouad Saniora stated that Ghouta massacre is the “worst event that can ever cross someone's mind.”"We have never witnessed such crimes except in rare historical cases when human beings were turned into predators that have no mercy,” Saniora expressed in a released statement. He also accused the international community of “allowing the Syrian regime to reach this degree of violence and nonchalance.” "We urge Arabs and the international community to stop these massacres and try this criminal regime through conducting a quick and transparent probe into this event."Saniora addressed Lebanese political parties, calling on them to give a “firm and honest stand towards the activities of the Damascus regime.” Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death.
Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed. More footage showed dozens of people laid out on the ground, among them many children, some of them covered in white sheets. The claim of chemical weapons use, which could not be independently confirmed, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the work of the U.N. weapons inspectors already in the country.

Geagea Calls on Chemical Experts to Inspect Ghouta, Urges U.N. Meeting over 'Horrific Massacre'
Naharnet/Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea urged the United Nations' investigators present in Syria to inspect the Reef Damascus town where “a horrific massacre” took place earlier on Wednesday. "We strongly condemn the horrific massacre that killed hundreds of civilians and children in Reef Damascus this morning,” Geagea said in a released statement. "And we call on the U.N. investigators already present in the country to inspect the location of the massacre to uncover what really happened there,” he added. Geagea also called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on the latest Syrian developments, “to take the necessary decisions in this matter.”"The Arab League must also convene immediately to look into the massacre.”The LF leader remarked that Wednesday's attack cannot be considered in the same context as the ongoing military operations between the regime's forces and the opposition's rebels. "The victims were killed in locations where no armed clashes that require such attacks take place,” he pointed out. "We call on all the Lebanese, regardless of their backgrounds and political views, to condemn this massacre for the human aspect it entails.”The Syrian National Coalition said that at least 1300 people were killed in a “chemical” attack in the Damascus suburban town of Ghouta.The claim of a chemical attack, which could not be independently verified, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the mission of U.N. chemical weapons inspectors now in the country.

Activists Protest Ghouta Massacre in Martyrs Square, Hope World 'Would Notice' Syria's People
Naharnet/Independent social activists staged a sit-in on Wednesday evening at Beirut's Martyrs Square to protest the massacre of the Syrian Ghouta town in Reef Damascus.
The sit-in was held with the participation of National Struggle Front MP Akram Shehayeb, al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Ahmed Fatfat and a number of social activists and Syrian non-governmental organizations.
It took place amid strict security measures around the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) headquarters in downtown Beirut and Martyrs Square.
"We decided to file a complaint with the United Nations, hoping that the world would notice the Syrian people,” Shehayeb told MTV. He expressed: “The Arab and European silence, the American loss and the Russian and Iranian firmness are killing the Syrian people.”Fatfat said “everyone is responsible for what is happening and history will hold accountable all who cooperated and allied with (Syrian President Bashar) Assad.”"What is happening stigmatizes the silent Arab conscious.”Meanwhile, Syrian activist Sarah al-Sheikh Ali said the protest aimed at condemning the Ghouta massacre, and saving “what is left of Syria's children.”Activist Assem Hamcho called on the U.N. to task its chemical experts to probe the Ghouta massacre. “We also demand holding an urgent U.N. Security Council session to condemn this striking violation and take the necessary preemptive measures to stop the committing of massacres,” he stated, pointing out to the importance of allowing humanitarian organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to "enter the disastrous locations, save the wounded and provide the necessary medications." The participants marched silently while lifting banners and lighting candles towards the ESCWA headquarters.
Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death. Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed. More footage showed dozens of people laid out on the ground, among them many children, some of them covered in white sheets. The claim of chemical weapons use, which could not be independently confirmed, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the work of the U.N. weapons inspectors already in the country.

Report: Govt. Formation Efforts on Hold as Suleiman Takes Short Vacation
Naharnet /The efforts to form a new government are likely to come to a halt as President Michel Suleiman is scheduled to take a short vacation, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Wednesday. It said that family obligations are forcing him to take the vacation that he had previously canceled in light of the recent security developments in Lebanon. The president had initially canceled his vacation over the weekend after receiving “worrying information” on the security situation in the country. He was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia on a brief visit before heading on holiday to Europe. Thirty people were killed and 336 wounded in a bombing in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahieh on Thursday. On Saturday afternoon, security agencies seized a car filled with 250 kilograms of explosives near the municipality building in the Naameh region in southern Lebanon.
At least three people detained by the General Security Directorate confessed that they were planning to detonate the car in an undisclosed location in Lebanon.

Salam Denies Heading Saudi Arabia, Suleiman Insists on Including Hizbullah in Cabinet Line-up
Naharnet/Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam denied on Wednesday that he will head to to Saudi Arabia amid reports that President Michel Suleiman won't approve the formation of a new cabinet if Hizbullah was excluded. Al-Joumhouria newspaper reported that earlier on Wednesday that Salam will head to Riyadh to offer condolences over the death of Prince Musaed bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the bother of Saudi King Abdullah.
The daily said that he will also hold talks with senior Saudi officials including the chief of General Intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, and ex-PM Saad Hariri.
However, Salam denied later on the report. Meanwhile, the cabinet formation deadlock is expected to face further complications as the daily reported that Suleiman informed Salam that he will not “sign any formation decree if Hizbullah wasn't included in the line-up.Sources told the newspaper that Salam is expected to hold talks with Suleiman later on Wednesday. Salam, since his appointment to form a cabinet in April, is seeking the formation of a 24-member cabinet in which the March 8, March 14 and centrists camps would each get eight ministers. He is also rejecting granting veto power to any power, which the March 8 camp has been demanding. The March 14 coalition is meanwhile calling for keeping Hizbullah out of the cabinet over its role in Syria's war.

Hizbullah Turns Beirut's Southern Suburbs into 'Fortress'
Naharnet /Streets leading into powerful Hizbullah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut have been cordoned off, as guards in civilian clothes search a long line of cars.
Hizbullah was already accused of running a "state-within-a-state," but two car bombings in the area in as many months have spurred Hizbullah to turn the suburbs into a fortress. At entrances to "dahieh", or the suburbs, young loyalists of the group which has thrown its military weight behind Syria's embattled president order drivers to open up their car boots. Others wear uniform, carry walkie-talkies and are members of the Hizbullah-run "Union of Municipalities of the Southern Suburbs". They also stop and ask for the IDs of bikers entering the densely populated neighborhood. "It's time to be vigilant. People are more relaxed when they see us," a Hizbullah guard told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity. Backed by Tehran and a key ally of Syria's President Bashar Assad, the heavily armed Hizbullah suffered a severe blow on Thursday when a car bomb killed 27 people. The attack, Lebanon's bloodiest since its 1975-1990 civil war, came just over a month on from another car bomb attack in the same area that wounded around 50 people.
Thursday's bombing was claimed by an unknown cell that said it was revenge for Hizbullah's engagement in Syria's war alongside Assad's troops. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused radical Sunni Islamists of staging the attack. Beyond the improvised checkpoints at main roads and bridges around the suburbs, drivers park their cars in cordoned-off streets and metal barriers block off alleyways. Critics accuse Hizbullah of using its arsenal to impose its will, such measures reinforce the fortress-like image of the southern suburbs, where the Lebanese army and police rarely venture. The party has long worked in secret, especially when it comes to security. But today, its draconian measures appear to be making residents feel safer. In the Rowais area, near the target of the latest bomb attack, people conceal their fears when speaking to journalists. "Naturally, everything has changed. This was a safe neighborhood," said Moussa, a thirty-something who owns a lamp store damaged by the August 15 bombing.
But the man who "miraculously" survived the attack added: "We are not afraid. Even the Israelis couldn't scare us." 'Syria's war has arrived here' --
Hizbullah fought a devastating summer war in 2006 against Israel, which used its air force to bombard the southern suburbs nightly for a month, flattening hundreds of apartment blocks.
Dahieh's defiance is vented on neighborhood walls. "Never will we be humiliated," reads a sign posted on a building damaged in the latest bombing.
Hizbullah, meanwhile, has been getting to work repairing the damage, with members of the movement's Jihad al-Binaa (Struggle for Reconstruction) organization fixing destroyed balconies.
After the 2006 war, it was this group that took charge of rebuilding southern Lebanon, outdoing the Lebanese government. Hizbullah's critics say the party itself is to blame for the bombing because it has sent troops across the border to fight in Syria. But in the massively pro-Hizbullah neighborhood, no one criticizes the group, despite the anxieties the bombing has stirred. "We hope there won't be any new attacks, thanks to God and the resistance (Hizbullah)," said Zeinab, a young mother of two girls. Far from the gaze of Hizbullah's guards, other residents say they fear new car bombs.
"Everyone here is thinking, where will the next one hit? Ouzai? Hay al-Sellom?" said one man, Mohammed, referring to two neighborhoods of the southern suburbs.
"Many Shiites have traveled to Iraq on pilgrimage, and they know what it's like there, the attacks, the checkpoints," he said. People have started to fear that crowds and especially busy areas might be the targets of new bombings, like in Iraq. "We think it's better to avoid popular markets, but what we're really worried about is the reopening of schools," Mohammed added.
Such fears are just as valid in other Hizbullah bastions. In Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, armed men in civilian clothing inspect vehicles at night and have set up metallic barriers at the entrance to the city, an AFP journalist said.
Residents say that Syrians are the prime suspects in the attacks. Because of Hizbullah's involvement in Syria's war, the conflict has spilled over into Lebanon.
"Syria's war has arrived here," said a young Hizbullah loyalist tasked with security in the Beirut suburbs. "And this is just the beginning."Source/Agence France Presse.

Report: Al-Asir Residing in Ain El-Hilweh Camp
Naharnet/Fugitive Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir is residing in the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, reported An Nahar daily on Wednesday. Intelligence information said that it was almost certain that he is staying at the Abdullah bin al-Zabir Mosque in the Tawari neighborhood in the camp. It added that Islamist Haitham al-Shaabi and his armed supporters are providing him with protection. Al-Asir is in contact with his supporters in various locations in Lebanon. Fatah leader in Lebanon Munir al-Maqdah later denied these reports to Voice of Lebanon radio(93.3). Singer turned Salafist Fadel Shaker meanwhile is residing in the Taamir neighborhood of Ain el-Hilweh and he is in constant communication with the cleric through common Lebanese and Palestinian friends, said An Nahar. In a related note, security sources told the daily that two of al-Asir's supporters Sheikhs Otham Hnaineh and Iyyad al-Saleh were released from custody after being given a stern warning against calling the Salafist cleric's to a rally. A third cleric, Sheikh Assem al-Arefi, remains in custody. He was arrested for leading a campaign to garner al-Asir's supporters to rally in support of the fugitive cleric. On August 6, the army arrested two supporters of al-Asir Hadi Qawwas and Mohammed Wehbeh in the Sharhabil region near of Sidon over their involvement in June's clashes against the military institution. The fighting near Sidon was sparked on June 23 when al-Asir's supporters opened fire at an army checkpoint, leaving around 18 soldiers and more than 20 gunmen dead. The gunbattles were concentrated in the area of Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque and nearby buildings in Abra. Al-Asir, a 45-year-old cleric who supports the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, has been on the run since June. In July, Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr issued eight arrest warrants against fugitives, including al-Asir and Shaker over the clashes against the army.

Berri Warns Security Situation 'Dangerous': My Initiatives on Cabinet Formation were Spurned
Naharnet /Speaker Nabih Berri reiterated on Wednesday that he has nothing new to add over the cabinet impasse, pointing out that the security situation has reached a “critical stage.” “I have suggested all my proposals and initiatives but they rejected them, I am waiting for the others now to present me with what they have,” Berri said in comment published in al-Joumhouria newspaper. Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is seeking the formation of a 24-member cabinet in which the March 8, March 14 and centrists camps would each get eight ministers. He is also rejecting granting veto power to any power, which the March 8 camp has been demanding. The March 14 coalition is meanwhile calling for keeping Hizbullah out of the cabinet over its role in Syria's war. Concerning the security situation in Lebanon, Berri urged officials to pay attention to it as it reached a delicate stage. Beirut's southern suburbs neighborhood of Rowais was targeted with a car bomb that killed 27 people and wounded more than 336 other. The attack, Lebanon's bloodiest since its 1975-1990 civil war, came just over a month on from another car bomb attack in the same area that wounded around 50 people. Thursday's bombing was claimed by an unknown cell that said it was revenge for Hezbollah's engagement in Syria's war alongside Assad's troops. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused radical Sunni Islamists of staging the attack

Truck Carrying Hidden Rockets Seized in Bekaa
Naharnet/A truck coming from Syria and carrying 10 hidden rockets was seized on Wednesday in the Bekaa. "The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau seized a truck that carried 10 hidden 107 mm rockets,” LBCI television reported. "The rockets were hidden in a secret place in the vehicle." LBCI added that the driver was arrested. It noted that he is a Lebanese national who hails from the border region of Wadi Khaled.
Future TV remarked that the Grad rockets were found in the truck. Meanwhile, MTV said that the Intelligence Bureau seized the rockets on Tuesday night.  On Sunday, a car containing five boxes of TNT, explosive material, fuses and detonators along with a device to remotely detonate it was found in the town of Naameh in the Shouf district of Mount Lebanon. Reports said eight people, of Lebanese and Palestinian nationalities, were found involved in the scheme to detonate the booby-trapped car. The same sources added that the suspects are believed to be supporters of Islamic cleric Ahmed al-Asir.

Qahwaji Confirms Discovery of Terrorist Cell 'Aimed at Creating Strife in Lebanon'
Naharnet /Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji declared on Wednesday “war against terrorism” that will not stop before any intimidation or explosion, reported Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3).He confirmed during a ceremony to commemorate retired officers “the discovery of a terrorist cell in Lebanon aimed at creating strife and carrying out attacks in the country.”The security forces, in cooperation with political authorities, are exerting efforts to apprehend the members of the cell, he stated. The attacks they were planning could target any region in Lebanon regardless of its sectarian identity, the army commander warned. “The war on terror is an international and regional one that is taking place in coordination with friendly intelligence agencies,” remarked Qahwaji. “The situation in Lebanon is very dangerous and it requires exceptional internal efforts to confront it,” he stressed. On Monday, the General Directorate of General Security circulated the pictures of two suspects accused of forming a “terrorist network” that was allegedly plotting to detonate the explosive-laden car that was discovered Saturday in Naameh. “Lebanese national T. B. T. and the Palestinians A. H. S., aka Abu Youssef, and his brother Kh. H. S. are being held at the directorate on charges of forming a terrorist network, conducting acts of sabotage in the country, and plotting to stage a bomb attack through the seized car,” it added. The directorate said the rest of the network's members are on the run, identifying two of them as “Lebanese national Mohammed Qassem al-Ahmed, born in Beirut in 1983 and a resident of Haret al-Naameh, and Lebanese national Saeed Mohammed Bahri, born in Beirut in 1985 and a resident of Dawhat Aramoun.”On Saturday, a car filled with 250 kilograms of explosives was discovered near the municipality building in Naameh. The car carried a fake license plate and contained five boxes of TNT, an unidentified explosive substance, fuses and a device for remote detonation.

Berri: Involving Lebanon in 'Ethnic' Divisions Will not Pass
Naharnet/Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Wednesday of the dangers of involving Lebanon in ethnic divisions, assuring that any such plots will not be fruitful, reported the state-run National News Agency.
“Attempts to involve Lebanon in ethnic divisions are extremely dangerous. Lebanon is not another Iraq and such plots will not pass,” said Berri during the weekly meeting with MPs. He renewed calls to deter attempts aiming to instigate tension, and said: “The situation is worrisome and requires vigilance. Attempts to obstruct the state institutions should be stopped.” Beirut's southern suburbs neighborhood of Rweiss was targeted with a car bomb that killed 27 people and wounded more than 336 other. Thursday's bombing was claimed by an unknown cell that said it was revenge for Hizbullah's engagement in Syria's war alongside Assad's troops. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused radical Sunni Islamists of staging the attack. Moreover, the Speaker denounced how some politicians continue to boycott the parliament sessions “the fact of having a caretaker cabinet should actually double the efforts of the parliament instead of boycotting its sessions,” he said. A parliamentary session dedicated to tackling a number of draft-laws was postponed on Tuesday over a lack of quorum. Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is seeking the formation of a 24-member cabinet in which the March 8, March 14 and centrists camps would each get eight ministers. He is also rejecting granting veto power to any power, which the March 8 camp has been demanding. The March 14 coalition is meanwhile calling for keeping Hizbullah out of the cabinet over its role in Syria's war.

Relatives of Kidnapped Pilgrims Vow to File Complaint against Turkey
Naharnet/Relatives of the Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria's Aazaz revealed on Wednesday that they are planning to file a complaint with the European Union against Turkey “for protecting the abductors.”
"Turkey must stop its maneuvers and release the abducted pilgrims because it is the party responsible for their freedom,” stated Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case of the pilgrims. “We will file a complaint with the EU and other international platforms against the Turkish government for nurturing the abductors.”Zgheib revealed the families' plans following a meeting between a delegation of the pilgrims' relatives and the deputy head of the Higher Shiite Islamic Council Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan. In May 2012, eleven Lebanese pilgrims were kidnapped in Syria's Aleppo region as they were making their way back to Lebanon by land from pilgrimage from Iran. Two of them have since been released, while the rest remain held in Aazaz. The families accuse Turkey of being behind the kidnapping. They, however, denied any involvement in the abduction of a Turkish pilot and copilot earlier in August in Beirut. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Claude Karam filed a lawsuit against 13 members of these families on charges of “forming an armed gang and abducting the two Turkish pilots,” state-run National News Agency reported. But Daniel Shoaib, a relative of one of the Aazaz abductees, warned that "they will break the hands of anyone who tries to attack the families of the kidnapped pilgrims.” Shoaib threatened to block roads to prevent Intelligence Bureau agents from arresting any member of the families.

Obama is Back from Vacation, so Expect the Worst
By: Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Alawsat/One of the funniest jokes told about the former US president George W. Bush’s vacations was what Pam Spaulding said on August 12, 2007: “I guess you could look at it this way—the more he’s on vacation, the less damage he can do to the country.” The current US president Barack Obama came back yesterday from a week-long vacation he spent in the state of Massachusetts. The vacation comes at a bad time in terms of Obama’s Middle Eastern policy. With the accumulation of the US administration’s mistakes as well as the increase in Washington’s hypocrisy towards the Middle East, I believe that Spaulding’s remark applies to Obama as well. The worst that the Obama administration brought to the peoples of the region—who naively believed in the US ideals—is the illusion of “positive engagement” and the lie of Washington’s ethical commitments to justice, human rights, public freedoms and democracy. Today, all illusions are dispelled and lies are uncovered a little more than four years after Obama’s Cairo speech—which he delivered on June 4, 2009 promising us with more US understanding based on mutual respect and common interest. The Palestinians and Israelis genuinely seeking a just and lasting peace and freezing of settlement have woken up to the bitter reality. Syrians who believed that Washington would eagerly rescue them from a corrupt, sectarian and bloody regime, as well as the Egyptians— who had big hopes for Obama whom they thought would understand the deep meaning of democracy in countries that rarely experienced it and endured the consequences— were confronted with the same reality.
In this painful and decisive period for the region it has become clear for Arabs, first, and their neighbors, second, that the Obama administration attaches weight neither to the positive engagement based on mutual respect, nor to ethical commitments, save in clichés. These clichés might fool a good US voter who is able to hold US statesmen accountable when they lie but they are no longer convincing to the Arabs who have been deceived by the US policy over and over again, particularly during the last two years. Obama’s ideals failed in the first real test represented by Netanyahu’s insistence on building settlements. He turned his back on the moderate Palestinians willing to negotiate and the Israelis who believe in peace, granting hardliners on both sides—Hamas and the two Likud as well as similar-minded factions— an invaluable favor. Now we are witnessing new, farcical negotiations which Netanyahu’s government preceded by Israel’s approval of more settlement homes. As usual, the US Secretary of State John Kerry only expressed his regret and urged both sides to go ahead with their empty and fruitless negotiations.
In Syria, the situation is just as bad. The Obama administration is no longer interested in toppling the Assad regime which the successive US administrations persevered to put on the list of countries supporting terrorism and that had carried out the most appalling of massacres and crimes. This US administration is continuing what the George W. Bush’s administration had started, namely to leave the region fall victim to the Israel and Iran’s intersecting ambitions. Obama, I think, remembers how Iraq was dealt with. He also remembers how the Iraqis—whose main interest was to topple an oppressive regime that only knew the language of murder—were deceived to realize later that their country has become a fragile entity subordinated to Iran, with its Kurdish-dominated north almost independent, security absent, and future uncertain.
Although Obama endeavored to adopt policies completely different from the ones George W. Bush and his pro-Likud neocons had pursued, especially in Iraq, he is currently following in the footsteps of his predecessor, though in a different manner. He is handing Syria to Iran on the pretext of a more serious danger posed by the Syrian opposition, namely radical Islamists and the similar-minded Takfirist groups. The problem is that Washington realizes well that the presence of Takfirists in Syria is only accidental and the majority of them came to Syria from abroad several months after the popular, peaceful revolution erupted.
The “self-distancing” policy adopted by the US towards the most horrible crimes committed against civilians in the Middle East’s modern history has been a part and parcel of the Syrian tragedy. Following the buffoonery of Iran’s presidential elections, which have been used for public relations purposes, the obvious intersection of interests between Israel and Iran in the region suggests that we have moved to a more serious political and military stage. The serious consequences of this stage will arouse hostility between Erdogan’s Turkey and Egypt following the military-backed popular uprising against the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president Mohamed Mursi.
The Turkish democratic model has suffered a loss of prestige around the world following the Taksim square protests, as well as Reccep Tayyeb Erdogan’s take on the transformation taking place in Egypt.
The Egyptian military’s attempt to rescue the country from a destructive state of polarization provoked the anger of the West that deplored democracy. Incidentally, the West that refuses to provide aid to Syrian rebels on the pretext of Islamist Takfirists, fails to realize that Egypt’s Brotherhood represented a hotbed for radical Islamists. In fact, Hamas. which Israel and US accuse of terrorism and radicalism, is the Palestinian franchise of Egypt’s Brotherhood. In contrast, Iran managed to depict the election of Hassan Rouhani as a “quantum leap” marking the return of discretion, moderation and the desire to arrive at an understanding with the world after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s aggressive term and provocative tone. However, Ahmadinejad’s term was fairly good in terms of promoting Iran’s “regional project” that aims in appearance at confronting the West and Israel, as well as embarrassing the Arab regimes which Tehran bellicosely accused of weakness and cowardice. Today, it is noted that the Western capitals are willing to believe the so-called quantum leap in Iran’s policy even though they realize it is a fake one. In brief, Western capitals, particularly Washington, do not mind being deceived because they have a significant interest in Iran. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s comments on the danger of Takfirists signal the implicit agreement among US, Israel and Iran that Tehran’s—and its lackeys in the region such as Assad regime, Hezbollah and the like—relationship with Takfirists is worth investigation and serious review.
Sponsoring Takfirists and facilitating their movement through the Middle East have been a part and parcel of Iran’s strategy, with Israel’s consent and perhaps the US blessing.

The West is selectively blind
By: Mshari Al-Zaydi/Asharq Alawsat
Perhaps those who prefer to use the power of reasoning to analyse events have to relinquish this task during these days of chaos, unrest and contradiction.
In a legitimate and serious question about the West’s attack on the interim leaders of Egypt and support of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told the Saudi Press Agency on Sunday: “We see unfortunately today international positions which have taken a strange course to ignore these irrefutable facts and focus on general principles as if they want to cover up the committing of crimes, the burning of Egypt, and killing of its people and even to encourage these parties to persist in such practices.”
Al-Faisal continued: “Regrettably, we see that the international position towards the current events in Egypt is contrary to their attitudes towards the events in Syria. Where is the concern for human rights with the carnage that takes place every day in Syria which led to the killing of more than 100,000 Syrians and destruction of whole areas of Syria without hearing a whisper from the international community, which adheres to human rights according to its interests and whims.”
The Syrian tragedy is more than two years old now. Before the whole world and according to several international reports, the death toll in Syria— since the conflict started mid-March 2011—has exceeded 100,000. According to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) the majority of the dead are civilians including 5144 children and 3330 women. This is not to mention the approximately 10,000 documented prisoners as well as the many more that are missing. As for Syrian refugees, scattered across several countries, they amount to approximately two million, with Lebanon and Jordan hosting two thirds, according to the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees’ (UNHCR) latest report published in August.
The destruction of Syria’s ancient cultural heritage has spurred stakeholders to ring alarm bells. According to the Independent, UNESCO warned of the imminent danger facing the great cultural ruins of Syria due to the raging civil war. It indicated that the ancient souk of Aleppo has been burnt down completely and that violent fighting damaged the Great Mosque of Aleppo (the Umayyad)—built between the 8th and the 13th centuries—which is believed to contain the remains of John the Baptist as well as Islamic, Christian and other landmarks.
Compare the West’s cold and weak responses over the destruction and the violations against human rights in Syria with the international community’s muscle flexing and propaganda against the Egyptian government confronting chaos by law with a public mandate and the least possible use of force. How can one understand the West’s relaxed stance in Syria and the rigid one in Egypt?
This remains a puzzle.

Gunman in U.S. School Surrenders, No One Hurt
Naharnet/A man entered a U.S. elementary school armed with a Kalashnikov Tuesday and took employees hostage before surrendering, authorities said. No one was wounded when he "held a few staff members captive in the front office," then fired about six shots at police from inside the building, said Lieutenant Kyle Jones of the DeKalb Sheriff's Office near Atlanta. The suspected gunman had an AK-47 and several other firearms, Jones said, and surrendered after police shot back at him. His identity has not been revealed nor have officials said whether he was associated with the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy where the incident took place. According to Mekka Parish, spokeswoman for the DeKalb County Police Department, the suspect is 25 years old. Scores of children were safely evacuated from the elementary school to a nearby Walmart superstore to be reunited with their parents. As the shooting unfolded, U.S. President Barack Obama was coincidentally tweeting about the need to strengthen U.S. gun laws. This newest incident comes eight months after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, when a young gunman killed 20 students and six adults in a shooting spree. Meanwhile, several U.S. states have tightened their gun laws, but on a federal level, legislation has remained unchanged. The U.S. Senate in April killed a watered-down bill favored by Obama that would have imposed background checks on all gun buyers. Source/Agence France Presse

U.S. Reopens Yemen Embassy after 'Qaida Threat'
Naharnet/The United States has reopened its embassy in Yemen, the State Department said Tuesday, two weeks after it closed for fear of an al-Qaida attack. A statement said that the embassy in Sanaa had "re-opened to provide limited public services" on Sunday. Sanaa was one of 19 U.S. consulates and embassies in the Muslim world that were shut on August 4 amid what American officials said was a threat of an imminent attack.
The other missions had already re-opened, but Yemen -- the home base of the militant faction al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula -- was seen as the epicenter of the threat. Yemeni authorities have since claimed to have thwarted the alleged plot, and there have been several reports of U.S. drone strikes killing suspected militants.
Source/Agence France Presse.

Morsi detained, bloodbath in Egypt,Whatever happened to the Arab Spring?
by Raymond Stock/Fox News
http://www.meforum.org/3588/morsi-detained-bloodbath-egypt
As Egypt explodes in what could be civil war, with a reported death toll of at least 628 dead and rising in clashes between security forces and Islamists that began August 14, many are wondering, whatever happened to the Arab Spring? That is, to the wave of popular uprisings against the long-lasting dictatorships of the Middle East and North Africa that began nearly three years ago in Tunisia, and brought the promise of democracy to the region at last? And what should the U.S. do now that the Muslim Brotherhood--President Obama's chosen horse in the race for control of the largest Arab state and our most important Arab ally—has apparently lost?
To answer the first question, the Arab Spring never happened as advertised. Rather than a series of straightforward, largely peaceful popular risings led by social-media savvy youth that swept decades-old repressive regimes into the dustbin of history, as first portrayed by the media, something else occurred.
In their place were a couple of military coups in Tunisia and Egypt, prompted by—or under the cover of—of the largest demonstrations yet seen in those countries; armed uprisings in Libya and Syria (the former successful with help from the U.S. and NATO, the latter locked in a stalemate that has claimed a 100,000 lives), and scattered demonstrations that have led nowhere--or next to it--in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan and beyond.
Western governments and the global media hailed both these coups as popular revolutions. True, they did follow massive protests in each country, but they only succeeded in changing the regime so quickly and without large-scale fighting because the army had agreed with them.
In both Egypt and Tunisia, the only groups large enough--or at least sufficiently funded and organized to form a viable opposition--were the Islamists.
The secular, Arab nationalist regimes that took control of most of the region beginning with independence from the West in the 1950s tried suppress these extremist interpreters of mainstream Islam—itself a system that distinguishes legally between believers and non-believers, viewing the latter as second or third-degree citizens at best—with only limited success.
Using charities, an appeal to traditional values and even coercion when necessary to gain both members and influence, they were divided between the often subtle and highly-politicized Muslim Brotherhood and the more carelessly outspoken Salafis, "those who follow the ancestors"—who both did shockingly well in Egypt's nation's elections.
In Tunisia, secular groups got the majority of votes, but only the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, al-Nahda, received enough to form the government.
The Salafis, meanwhile, set about attacking the symbols of what had been the most socially liberal of all the Arab states, starting with bars and prostitutes, but also including synagogues and secular universities.
In most of the Arab Spring countries, decades of autocratic rule atop crushing pyramids of social and political injustice seemed the perfect recipe for massive unrest, which finally rose in a tsunami of public anger after a frustrated Tunisian fruit-and-vegetable vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, set himself afire on December 17, 2010, dying in a coma on January 4, 2011.
Ten days later, on January 14, the 23-year dictatorship of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali was over, stunning the world—and inspiring the neighbors.
But what had inspired the Tunisians, and soon others, to risk all in revolution?
Though few would admit it, President George W. Bush's drive for democracy in the Arab world, despite the traumas in and over the war in Iraq, had brought the call for serious political change back into public discourse for the first time in decades.
The bloodily-repressed demonstrations against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran in 2009, which President Obama refused to criticize, also played a role.
Two other factors common to most of these movements, as important as the others, were also at play.
First was the largely underground presence of Islamist revolutionaries in all of these countries. They had been working to overthrow the established, insufficiently religious social order since Hassan al-Banna had founded the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in the Salafi library in Ismailia, Egypt in 1928.
Their goal was and remains the gradual takeover of society through al-Da'wa, (The Call), a subversive strategy for the incremental takeover of society, in which a pretense of moderation masks the ultimate aim of reestablishing the caliphate, abolished by Ataturk in Turkey in 1924.
They also seek the spread of Sharia—Islamic law—over the whole world, beginning with the Muslim lands, who had strayed from the true path under blasphemous modes of government borrowed from the West.
Second was that, for the first time, the U.S. has a president who apparently believes—though undoubtedly not quite as the Islamists themselves—the MB's most famous political slogan, "Islam is the solution."
On June 4, 2009, Obama gave his famous speech to the Islamic world, from Cairo, co-sponsored by al-Azhar, the highest institution in Sunni Islam, and Cairo University. The concept of addressing the world's 1.6 billion Muslims this way, defining them as members of the Islamic community rather than citizens of their respective countries, is itself a Muslim supremacist idea.
Tellingly, he invited the leaders of the banned Muslim Brotherhood to attend, where they sat in the front row. This effectively excluded his official host and America's friend, President Hosni Mubarak, who pleaded ill health.
It also seemed to tell the MB, an anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-female and anti-gay group that spawned the ideology that created Al Qaeda, "You are the future."
Reportedly, in August 2010, Obama commissioned a special intelligence report on the Arab countries, which essentially predicted what became known as the Arab Spring (a term reputedly coined by Mark Lynch in Foreign Policy Magazine on January 6, 2011).
According to Mark Landler, writing in The New York Times in February 2011, "Mr. Obama's order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States." (The eighteen page paper this order generated is classified, according to Landler.)
When the revolt in Tunisia broke, Ben Ali's embarrassed French ex-colonial patrons quickly abandoned him—and so did the U.S., which had security cooperation with him.
Then in Egypt, where sporadic self-immolations had begun, copying the human bonfire in Tunisia, a coalition of anti-Mubarak youths called for demonstrations on National Police Day—January 25, 2011--to protest the beating death of an Alexandrian blogger by police in an Internet café in Alexandria the previous year.
A group of young Egyptians using Facebook and Twitter were credited with launching the demonstrations, which drew crowds much larger than normal. Before that day, the Muslim Brotherhood declared its support for the effort, but cautiously sent only its youth wing to take part on the first day of action.
But seeing their success, the group issued an order making it "mandatory" for its members to take part in the next day of protest, on January 28. Their networks in the mosques overcame the government's shutdown of the Internet and cell phone service to limit the demonstrations, resulting in huge protests that electrified the global audience, a fact the press missed: the myth of the secular revolution was born. That two of the key organizers on Facebook had ties to the Brotherhood was also not widely known until this writer exposed it in July 2012.
As the demonstrations continued to grow all over Egypt and hundreds died on both sides in fights with the police, Mubarak offered a number of compromises, ultimately promising to yield most of his powers to a vice-president, Omar Suleiman, until the next scheduled election that September.
He warned that if he stepped down too quickly, chaos and the Muslim Brotherhood were bound to succeed him.
His critics said that he had created the MB bogeyman to persuade the U.S. to keep him power -- when in fact, it was the only opposition force in Egypt that he could not crush completely. And, after all, the MB was "moderate," so there was nothing to fear.
On February 10, Obama issued a statement that said,
"too many Egyptians remain unconvinced that the government is serious about a genuine transition to democracy." The next day, Mubarak--who had angered the army by acceding to his wife Susanne's demand that their non-military son Gamal succeed him as president--was gone.
The armed forces would now run the country. They would organize elections, for which they worked hand in hand with the MB. After all, the MB and the more openly-hardline Salafis were the most capable of filling the vacuum of civilian authority, and the army itself was riddled with Islamists, even at the top. Only worries about being prosecuted for business dealings with Mubarak and his cronies, and the desire to keep the military budget under wraps from parliament, really divided them.
Through the next eighteen months of unstable transition, as skyrocketing crime, incessant strikes and sporadic waves of increasingly violent demonstrations, plus escalating attacks on Christians, dried up foreign investment, drained hard currency reserves and drove tourists away, the young secularists kept calling for the immediate return to civilian rule. That, of course, meant the MB and the Salafis, but—having not yet lived under them—their greatest fear was the perpetuation of army rule, which is all Egypt had known since 1952.
Finally, the MB and the Salafis together won 75% of seats in the first parliamentary elections in the late 2011 and early 2012. But the Islamists behaved so outrageously in office that their share of the vote dropped by half in the presidential balloting of April and May, 2012—when Mohamed Morsi, the hardline ideological enforcer of the MB—barely beat an albeit respectable holdover from the ancien regime.
But this seemed to cause no worry in Washington. In February 2011, National Intelligence Director James Clapper assured a Congressional panel that the Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organization: few seemed to believe his hurried correction.
Despite escalating complaints of the MB's tyrannical behavior, Morsi's apparent complicity with an assault by a mob on our Cairo embassy on September 11, 2012, his call for the release of the "Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel-Rahman from a North Carolina Prison for the first World Trade Center Bombing (in 1993), and his actual freeing of scores of convicted, often Al Qaeda-connected terrorists from Egyptian prisons, along with the ever-worsening attacks on Christians and the addition of Shiite Muslims to the list of victims, the Obama administration uttered nary a word in complaint.
Instead, Obama sent Security of State John Kerry to Cairo in March 2013 to announce that he would increase our aid by $250 million dollars this year.
U.S. and world leaders praised Morsi for brokering a truce between the MB's Palestinian branch and Israel in a military crisis last November.
Morsi responded with an unprecedented decree that put him above all judicial review while he rammed through a new Islamic constitution that a majority of a tiny minority of voters approved. And still, the White House said nothing.
And it continued to say nothing until the largest demonstrations in human history—up to perhaps 30 million souls, dwarfing those against Mubarak—demanded that the army remove Mohamed Morsi.
It then fell to Morsi's own appointee as secretary of defense and head of the military, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi—himself an Islamist, but also a nationalist appalled the chaos that the MB had caused, as well as Morsi's covert dealings with terrorists who had killed and kidnapped Egyptian soldiers in Sinai—felt that he had to do something.
On July 3, al-Sisi removed Morsi, leading to the confrontation still unfolding Obama and some members of Congress, including prominent Republicans, have threatened to cut off our annual assistance in response—which has left the vast majority of Egyptians furious, and many hoping that he does it.
But to answer our second question, what should our president do? In light of all the above, he should cancel the president's pointless cancellation today of Bright Star—the bi-annual joint training exercise between our military and theirs.
And then he should finally speak out against the Islamists' mayhem--the killing and torture of opponents, policemen, Christians and suspected informants; the torching of between seventeen and twenty-one churches yesterday alone, not to mention four Shiites slaughtered in June, and the attempt to create a state within a state by propaganda and violence. Other than that, since threats don't work, he should do nothing.
He has done enough already.
**Raymond Stock, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a former Assistant Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Drew University, spent twenty years in Egypt, and was deported by the Mubarak regime in 2010.


A Terror Leader Behind Bars in Egypt
by Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPageMagazine.com
http://www.meforum.org/3589/muhammad-badie-egypt
The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the head of the Islamist snake, Muhammad Badie—who had slipped security forces by traveling in and out of the Brotherhood torture camps (known as "peaceful sits ins" by the mainstream media")—has finally been arrested in Egypt and is awaiting trial. Not only was he the leader of the Brotherhood, but, according to Brotherhood members themselves, he was giving orders to his underling, Muhammad Morsi, the now ousted Egyptian president.
Among other serious accusations, Badie is being charged with inciting widespread terrorism and murder and playing a key role in the current violence and unrest in Egypt—also known as "the jihad"—which has led to the destruction of some 80 Christian churches and monasteries, the violent slaughters of Egyptian police, and any number of other criminal activities.
If Badie, as a Brotherhood member on live TV slipped into saying, used to order president Morsi around, surely his authority over the average Brotherhood member—the very fellows now burning and slaughtering—was ironclad. Nor was Badie's terrorism limited to domestic Egypt. After his protégée Morsi became president, an emboldened Badie publicly proclaimed "the necessity for every Muslim to strive to save al-Quds [Jerusalem] from the hands of the rapists [Israelis] and to cleanse Palestine from the clutches of the occupation, deeming this an individual duty for all Muslims." More specifically, he "called on all Muslims to wage jihad with their money and their selves to free al-Quds"—the same exact language one finds in al-Qaeda's tracts. Unsurprisingly, the Wiesenthal Centernamed him the top anti-Semite of 2012.
Nor did the United States escape his venom. Badie has described the U.S. as an infidel nation that "does not champion moral and human values and cannot lead humanity," while referring to both the U.S. and Israel as "the Muslim's real enemies," asserting that "[w]aging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded." And he maintains that the "change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."
"Mastership of the world" was his stated goal and ultimate aspiration for the Brotherhood.
In a normal world, then, Americans—like millions of anti-Brotherhood Egyptians—should be glad to hear that this leading inciter of terrorism and hate has been arrested.
But of course, in the bizarro world that is the mainstream media of America, the arrest of the Brotherhood chieftain is bad news. For example, the consistently pro-Islamist and terrorist-apologist David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times is portraying the arrest of Badie and possible release of president Hosni Mubarak—whose predictions concerning the Brotherhood, including how they exploit democracy to eliminate democracy and engage in terrorism but then portray themselves as victims before the world, have all come true—as "a measure of how far and how quickly the tumult shaking Egypt in recent days and weeks has rolled back the changes brought by the revolution of 2011." In other words, arresting the man responsible for the slaughter of innocent officers, the burning of dozens of Christian churches, and the sexual harassment of nuns—is a return to "autocracy." Such is the whole tone and tenor of the silly NYT report.
As for the murders and terrorism attributed to the Brotherhood, Kirkpatrick tries to brush these away as "claims" that cannot be trusted, since they are being broadcast on "Egyptian media"—the bogey man word, as if Egypt's media was as corrupt as America's leftist media—without bothering to mention that any number of free, independent media have also been reporting the same things the Egyptian media has—that the Brotherhood are terrorizing Egypt. But of course the NYT is simply following the White House's lead, which, when recently asked at a press conference about the idea that Egypt is considering dissolving the Brotherhood due to the organization's terrorist activities, said that dissolving the Brotherhood would be a "bad idea." Such are the signs of our times: when 30 million Egyptians march in the streets calling for the ouster of the Islamist Brotherhood, and the people's military obliges them, and then the Brotherhood responds with nonstop terrorism against Egypt—the U.S sides with the terrorists.
Thus we are left with good news and bad. With the June 30 revolution, millions of Egyptians awoke to the reality of a corrupt, Islamist government, and rejected it. That would be the good news. Meanwhile, the U.S. media and government continue lying to a half-asleep people—portraying good as evil and evil as good. That would be the bad news.
Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War in Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013). He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.