Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources/August 31/13

Israel conducts two days of heavy flights over Lebanon

August 30, 2013/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The past two days have seen heavy illegal air traffic from Israeli war and reconnaissance planes over Lebanon’s airspace, the military announced Friday. Six Israeli warplanes and three reconnaissance planes violated Lebanon's airspace in the past two days, the Army said in statement. The flights go against U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which affirms the sovereignty of Lebanese territory. At 11 a.m. Friday, a reconnaissance plane entered the country's airspace above Naqoura and conducted aerial maneuvers over the Chouf and the southern region. It left at 1:10 p.m. above Alma Shaab. At 10:50 a.m. two Israeli warplanes entered Lebanon above Aytaroun and left at 1:30 p.m. after conducting similar maneuvers over all Lebanese areas.  Around 6:30 a.m. Thursday, three reconnaissance planes entered Lebanon above the southern area of Naqoura and conducted aerial maneuvers above various Lebanese regions before returning to Israel at 1:15 a.m. Friday. At 9 p.m. Thursday, six Israeli warplanes entered Lebanon above Shebaa Farms and Aytaroun, conducting aerial maneuvers above all Lebanese areas. The warplanes left Lebanese airspace nine hours later at 6 a.m. Friday, according to the military. Israel violates Lebanon’s airspace almost on a daily basis but the recent air traffic is a notable spike in flights that is likely connected to increasing tensions surrounding a possible Western strike on Syria. Beirut has filed several complaints to the U.N. with regards to airspace violations. Earlier this year, Israeli warplanes targeted a Hezbollah-bound arms shipment in Syria, lofting weapons from Lebanon’s airspace onto a target near Damascus.
 

U.S. says world cannot let Assad get away with chemical attack
By Steve Holland and Catherine Bremer
WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - The United States made clear on Friday that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the "brutal and flagrant" chemical weapons attack that it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus last week.
"We can not accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House.
He said the United States was still in the planning process for a "limited, narrow" military response that would not involve "boots on the ground" or be open-ended.
Earlier, Secretary of State John Kerry said it was essential not to let Syria get away with the attack, partly as a sign to those who might consider using chemical weapons in the future. He said the United States was joined by allies including France, "our oldest ally," in its determination to act.
"History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator's wanton use of weapons of mass destruction," Kerry said in a televised statement delivered at the State Department.
"If a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity," it would set a bad example for others, such as Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea, Kerry said.
"Will they remember that the Assad regime was stopped from those weapons' current or future use? Or will they remember that the world stood aside and created impunity?" Kerry said.
Kerry laid out a raft of evidence he said showed Assad's forces were behind the attack, and the U.S. government released an unclassified intelligence report at the same time including many of the details.
The report said the August 21 attack killed 1,429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children.
The intelligence gathered for the U.S. report included an intercepted communication by a senior official intimately familiar with the attack as well as other intelligence from people's accounts and intercepted messages, the four-page report said.
France said on Friday it still backed military action to punish Assad's government for the attack despite a British parliamentary vote against a military strike.
An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close Assad ally, seized on Thursday's British "no" vote which set back U.S.-led efforts to intervene against Assad, saying it reflected wider European worries about the dangers of a military response.
Assad's government has repeatedly denied carrying out the chemical weapons attack, blaming rebels who it suggested were trying to provoke intervention.
Syrian state television, which did not carry Kerry's speech live, reported that Kerry said the "first and last" aim of any action the Obama administration will carry out in the Middle East was to "guarantee the security of Israel".
Any military strike looks unlikely at least until U.N. weapons inspectors leave Syria on Saturday.
Kerry said their report would only confirm that chemical weapons were used, and he made clear that would not change much for Washington since "guaranteed Russian obstructionism" would make it impossible for the U.N. to galvanize world action.
"The primary question is really no longer, what do we know? The question is, what are we - we collectively - what are we in the world going to do about it?" Kerry said.
He said the president had been clear that any action would be "limited and tailored" to punishing Assad, that it would not be intended to affect the civil war there and that Washington remained committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
The timing of any strikes may be complicated by Obama's departure late on Tuesday for Sweden and a G20 summit in Russia. He was not expected to order the strikes while in Sweden or Russia.
Kerry made clear Washington would not be swayed from acting either by the opinions of other states: "President Obama will ensure that the United States of America makes our own decisions on our own timelines, based on our values and our interests."
SHIFTING ALLIANCES
Kerry was speaking the day after British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to win parliamentary backing for military action in Syria.
Finance minister George Osborne, one of Cameron's closest allies, accepted that the vote had raised questions about Britain's future relations with its allies.
"There will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system," he said.
French President Francois Hollande told the daily Le Monde he still supported taking "firm" punitive action over an attack he said had caused "irreparable" harm to the Syrian people, adding that he would work closely with France's allies.
Hollande is not constrained by the need for parliamentary approval of any move to intervene in Syria and could act, if he chose, before lawmakers debate the issue on Wednesday.
"All the options are on the table. France wants action that is in proportion and firm against the Damascus regime," he said.
Britain has traditionally been the United States' most reliable military ally. However, the defeat of a government motion authorizing a military response in principle underscored misgivings dating from how the country decided to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Russia, Assad's most powerful diplomatic ally, opposes any military intervention in Syria, saying an attack would increase tension and undermine the chances of ending the civil war.
Putin's senior foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the British vote represented majority opinion in Europe.
"People are beginning to understand how dangerous such scenarios are," he told reporters. "Russia is actively working to avert a military scenario in Syria.
Even a limited strike risks causing unintended consequences.
Syrian ex-soldiers say that military sites in Syria are packed with soldiers who have been effectively imprisoned by their superiors due to doubts about their loyalty, making them possible casualties in any U.S.-led air strikes.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE REPORT
Kerry said the U.S. intelligence community had carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack. "I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment."
Laying out the evidence, Kerry said Assad's government has the largest chemical weapons program in the Middle East and was determined to rid the Damascus suburbs of the opposition.
"We know that for three days before the attack, the Syrian regime's chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area, making preparations," Kerry said.
"And we know that the Syrian regime elements were told to prepare for the attack by putting on gas masks and taking precautions associated with chemical weapons."
He said rockets were launched from Assad-controlled areas and fell only on opposition-controlled areas, and he pointed to the thousands of reports and videos on social media from 11 sites in Damascus showing the impact of the attacks.
"We saw rows of dead lined up in burial shrouds, the white linen unstained by a single drop of blood," he said.
"We know that a senior regime official who knew about the attack confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime, reviewed the impact, and actually was afraid that they would be discovered," Kerry said.
"In all of these things that I have listed, in all of these things that we know - all of them - the American intelligence community has high confidence, high confidence. This is common sense. This is evidence. These are facts."
Obama's national security team is holding at least two more briefings on Syria via conference call for members of Congress on Friday, congressional aides told Reuters.
Polls show the public is largely opposed to U.S. military action, and after the Thursday briefing some lawmakers said they were still not convinced of the need for it. Some questioned whether the Pentagon could afford to attack Syria after spending cuts imposed on the federal government earlier this year.
Some allies have warned that military action without U.N. Security Council authorization may make matters worse.
Russia holds veto power as a permanent U.N. Security Council member and has blocked three resolutions meant to press Assad to stop the violence since a revolt against him began in 2011.
Western diplomats say they are seeking a vote in the 15-member Council on a draft measure, which would authorize "all necessary force" in response to the alleged gas attack, to isolate Moscow and show that other nations back military action.
But China said there should be no rush to force a council decision on Syria until the U.N. inspectors complete their work.
"Before the investigation finds out what really happened, all parties should avoid prejudging the results, and certainly ought not to forcefully push for the Security Council to take action," Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a phone call, Xinhua reported.
The United Nations said its experts had completed the collection of samples and evidence from last week's attack. U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane left Damascus on Friday via Beirut and was expected to stop in Istanbul before heading for New York.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said all the analysis of the samples must be completed before conclusions can be drawn and it was not clear how long that would take.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Andrea Shalal-Esa, Patricia Zengerle, Thomas Ferraro and Jeff Mason in Washington, Erika Solomon and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Sarah Marsh in Berlin, Timothy Heritage in Moscow, Phil Stewart in Manila, Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing, John Irish in Paris and Andrew Osborn, Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Peter Apps in London; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Claudia Parsons; editing by David Storey and Jim Loney) Interactive timeline: http://link.reuters.com/rut37s

Strike on Syria will burn Israel: Iran army chief
August 30, 2013/Daily Star/TEHRAN: Any military action against Syria will have consequences beyond the region and leave Israel in flames, Iran’s army chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi said in remarks reported Thursday. “Any military action against Syria will drive the Zionists to the edge of fire,” Firouzabadi said in a statement carried by official news agency IRNA. His remarks came in response to reports of possible U.S.-led military strikes against Syria’s government – Iran’s chief regional ally – in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in Damascus last week. The regime of President Bashar Assad and the rebel forces fighting to oust it accuse each other of carrying out the attacks that are said to have killed hundreds of people. Firouzabadi, Iran’s most decorated general, said: “The US, Britain and their other allies will face losses by marching their armies into the region and Syria.” “Any new [military] operation in the region will leave behind a lot of damage, which will be of interest to no one except the Zionists,” he said, warning that the fallout from the conflict would not be limited to the region.
His remarks echoed those of Iranian officials in recent days. “The U.S. intervention will be a disaster for the region,” supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s most powerful authority, said Wednesday.
“The region is like a gunpowder depot. [Its] future cannot be predicted” in case of any military strikes against Syria.

Syrian officer, 4 others charged over n. Lebanon blasts

August 30, 2013/By Youssef Diab/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Lebanon charged five people Friday, including one Syrian intelligence officer and two sheikhs, over the twin Tripoli bombings that killed 47 people last week.
Military Prosecutor Saqr Saqr filed charges against sheikhs Ahmad Gharib and Hashem Minqara as well as informant Mustafa Houri, a judicial source said. The source said Saqr charged two Syrians, including an intelligence officer, in absentia. The Syrian suspects were identified as Capt. Mohammad Ali Ali, an officer in the Syrian Intelligence, and Khodr Lutfi al-Airouni. Saqr charged Gharib and Houri in his court documents with tasking the two Syrians to set up a “monitor and planning cell to carry out terrorist acts in Lebanon, particularly in the north, by preparing bombs and booby trapping cars and putting them in specific areas, including religious institutions with the aim of killing and assassinating political and religious figures.” The two Syrians were charged with “rigging two cars with explosives and placing them, through the help of other individuals, outside Al-Taqwa and Al-Salam mosques in Tripoli that left hundreds killed or wounded.”At least 47 people were killed and 500 wounded in the dual car bombings last week in front of two mosques.
Minqara, the head of a pro-Assad Islamist group in Lebanon who was detained by police for interrogation Thursday, was charged with withholding information about the Tripoli cell’s terrorist activities.
Gharib was known to be a close associate with Minqara while Houri, who worked with Gharib, tipped the police off about the bombing plot before it occurred. Saqr questioned the motives of Houri in tipping off police and decided to charge him with the same crimes as Gharib. Houri is also known for having close ties to Syrian intelligence. If convicted, the suspects face the death penalty. Saqr referred the suspects and the case to Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghayda, requesting further questioning and arrest warrants against the five men, the judicial source said.

Lebanon boosts security as strike on Syria looms
August 30, 2013/By Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Haunted by fears of more car bombings in Beirut and the specter of a looming U.S.-led military strike on Syria, Lebanese officials scrambled Thursday to calm jittery citizens by taking a series of measures aimed at beefing up security in the capital. Meanwhile, caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said exceptional security measures had been taken to ensure that flights at Beirut airport would not be disrupted in the event of a Western attack on Syria. He also denied that any Arab or foreign airlines had canceled or suspended flights to Beirut because of growing concerns over security in Lebanon after the United States and its allies stepped up warnings that they could launch a punitive military strike against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. “No Arab or foreign airline companies have canceled their flights to Beirut airport. Only Air France has informed us that they do not want their crewmembers to sleep in Beirut,” Charbel told The Daily Star. In a statement later issued by his media office, Charbel said some foreign airline companies had only altered the timing of their flights rather than canceling them. Charbel’s remarks came as media reports surfaced that British Airways, Cyprus Airways and Air France were suspending their night flights into Lebanon for at least two months.
British Airways denied it was suspending flights, telling The Daily Star that “its operations were still normal.”
Air France has modified the timing of one of its two daily return flights between Paris and Beirut, a spokeswoman told Agence France Presse. “Air France has changed its flight schedule to and from Beirut,” she said, adding the move followed developments in the Middle East. An operator working for Cyprus Airways told The Daily Star the carrier would suspend night flights into Beirut airport and all Wednesday flights.A source at Beirut airport said Cyprus Airways decided to change the time of its night flights and cancel its Wednesday flights until further notice. Cyprus Airways flights used to arrive in Beirut at 9 p.m. and depart the next day at 7 a.m.
The new measures will see flights arriving at 6 a.m. and departing an hour later, with no night stops, the source said.
Caretaker Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi could not be reached for comment on security at Beirut airport and the status of foreign airliners in light of an anticipated fallout from any assault against Syria on Lebanon’s security and stability, already jolted by the repercussions of the war in the neighboring country and fears of a new wave of car bombings.
However, Charbel was confident that work and flights at Beirut airport would not be disrupted even in the event of a Western attack on Syria.
“Everything is proceeding as normal at the airport. Security measures have been taken to ensure that work will not be affected at the airport if Syria is attacked,” Charbel told The Daily Star.
But he cautioned that any possible Israeli attack on Lebanon – a follow-up to a U.S.-led strike on Syria – might disrupt air traffic at Beirut airport. “If Israel attacks Lebanon, we will act accordingly,” Charbel said.
Fears of a negative fallout from any Western attack on Syria on the already fragile security situation on Lebanon – like the possibility of Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel and the latter retaliating against the group’s positions in the south and Beirut – have put the Lebanese on edge. The threat of a military strike on Syria comes as the Lebanese are haunted by the specter of a new wave of car bombings following recent blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the northern city of Tripoli that killed nearly 80 people and wounded hundreds in the deadliest attacks since the 1975-90 Civil War.
The car bombings, which were directly tied to the 29-month-old civil war raging in Syria, coincided with the arrest by the Lebanese Army and security forces of suspected members of a car-bombing network seeking to incite sectarian strife in the country. In an attempt to reassure jittery citizens faced with the threat of car bombings, officials agreed during a special meeting of the Beirut Municipal Council on a series of measures, including the installation of surveillance cameras, to boost security in Beirut. “Emanating from the basis that security in the capital is a red line and that national duty requires taking extraordinary measures aimed at enhancing the citizens’ confidence in security, we have decided to install a net of [surveillance] cameras covering Beirut’s streets connected with a modern control room,” Bilal Hamad, Beirut’s mayor, told a news conference.
He said he would ask the council to take appropriate measures to implement the decision as soon as possible. Hamad said that during a security meeting held earlier in the day and attended by chiefs of security agencies, the Municipal Council decided “to energize the role of municipal guards in the capital by mounting foot and vehicle patrols in full coordination with the Internal Security Forces.”
During the meeting held at the office of the governor of Beirut, Nassif Qaloush, the participants also agreed on the need to increase the presence of security forces in the capital’s vital streets and take security measures in front of places of worship as well as various commercial and touristic malls. In a gesture of solidarity with the victims of the bombings in the Ruwaiss neighborhood in the southern suburbs and the two mosques in Tripoli, the Beirut Municipal Council decided to donate LL150 million to the Municipalities of Haret Hreik, Tripoli and Mina, Hamad said. Twin car bombings on Aug. 23 targeting two mosques in Tripoli killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 500. That attack came eight days after a car bomb killed 30 people and wounded over 300 in Ruwaiss. Fears of more car bombings have sparked calls from President Michel Sleiman and religious leaders for the formation for an-all embracing government to face security challenges.

Britain leaves U.S. to go it alone
August 30, 2013/Agencies /WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: Britain voted against military intervention in Syria Thursday, possibly leaving the U.S. to act alone in sending a message to the Assad regime over its alleged use of chemical weapons last week. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government’s motion was defeated by 285 votes to 272, after a lengthy debate that revealed just how divided Parliament was over the issue. Though the vote was nonbinding, Cameron pledged not to override the decision, as one MP shouted at him to resign.
But the United States Thursday implicitly reserved the right to strike Syria, alone, in its own national interest, without waiting for allies to join an operation or for global approval.
The White House said President Barack Obama prized the United Nations and closely consulted allies, but that in the end, his first duty was to U.S. security, which he sees threatened by a Syrian chemical weapons attack.
“We certainly are interested in engaging with the global international community on this issue,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “But at the same time, the president’s chief accountability is to the American people that he was elected to protect. “The president believes strongly in making the kinds of decisions and taking the kinds of steps that are necessary to protect our core national security interests that we’ve acknowledged are at stake in this situation.” At the U.S. State Department, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that “we make our own decisions in our own timeline,” though styled international consultations on Syria as “incredibly important.”
The Obama administration also hinted that unlike Britain, it did not see the need to wait for a report by U.N. inspectors in Syria on the chemical attack on a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21.
“It’s not within the mandate of those U.N. inspectors to assess the responsibility for the use of those weapons – it’s just within their mandate to assess whether or not they were used,” Earnest said. “That’s no longer an open question.” Administration officials have said that Obama sees perils for U.S. national security in the belief that Syria shattered international norms by using chemical weapons and that U.S. interests and allies could be threatened.
“The Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons against their own people presents a situation where, yes, U.S. national security interests are threatened,” Harf said.
Syrian opposition sources said President Bashar Assad’s forces had removed several Scud missiles and dozens of launchers from a base north of Damascus, possibly to protect them from a Western attack, and Russia was reported to be moving ships into the region. Britain sent six RAF Typhoon jets to its Akrotiri base in Cyprus, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.
But expectations of imminent turmoil eased as the diplomatic process was seen playing out into next week, and the White House emphasized that any action would be “very discrete and limited,” and in no way comparable to the Iraq war.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel were among senior U.S. officials expected to brief congressional leaders later Thursday. Some lawmakers complained they had not been properly consulted.
While U.N. chemical weapons inspectors spent a third day combing the rebel-held area where the attack took place, elsewhere in Damascus traffic moved normally, with some extra army presence but little indication of any high alert. The U.N. said its team of inspectors would leave Syria Saturday and report to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
France and Germany urged the world body to pass its report on to the decision-making Security Council as soon as possible “so that it can fulfil its responsibility with regards to this monstrous crime.”The United States and France say they can act with or without a U.N. Security Council resolution, which would likely be vetoed by Russia, a close ally of Assad. However, some countries are more cautious: Italy said it would not join any military operation without Security Council authorization.
Western diplomats say they are seeking a vote in the 15-member council to isolate Moscow and demonstrate that other countries are behind airstrikes.
A meeting of the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members ended quickly Thursday with no sign of progress on an agreement over Syria’s crisis.
The meeting Thursday afternoon started breaking up after less than an hour, with the ambassadors of China, France, Britain, Russia and the United States steadily walking out.
It was the second time in two days that the five Security Council powers came out of a meeting on Syria with no progress.
Syria denies blame for the gas attacks and says they were perpetrated by rebels. Washington and its allies say the denial is not credible. Assad vowed Thursday that “Syria will defend itself” against Western military strikes.
Western leaders are expected in Russia next Thursday for a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, an event that could influence the timing of any strikes. The hosts have made clear their view that Western leaders are using human rights as a pretext to impose their will on other sovereign states. “At this stage it is necessary to take all needed actions to avert possible negative developments ... or some kind of military action regarding Syria,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told state-run Rossiya-24 television. “And that is what we ... [are] focusing our efforts on now.”
A spokesman for the main Syrian opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Coalition, said the alliance was confident Western leaders were prepared to act.
SNC leader Ahmad Jarba met French President Francois Hollande. An SNC spokesman said they discussed a two-wave intervention to first target installations used to launch chemical weapons and then hit other government bases in Syria. “We are very happy. France and its partners are quite decided to punish the Syrian regime,” SNC envoy Monzer Makhous told Reuters after the talks. “Then there will be military aid to help the opposition to change the balance of power.” Hollande urged Jarba to create a credible military force, highlighting Western concern that the mainstream opposition is unable to control Al-Qaeda-linked militias on the ground in Syria. Syrian officials say the West is playing into the hands of its Al-Qaeda enemies. In Damascus, residents and opposition forces said Assad’s forces appeared to have evacuated most personnel from army and security command headquarters in the center in preparation for Western military action. Diplomats based in the Middle East told Reuters the removal of some of Assad’s Scud missiles and launchers from the foothills of the Qalamoun mountains, one of Syria’s most heavily militarized districts, appeared to be part of a precautionary but limited redeployment of armaments in areas of central Syria still held by Assad’s forces.
 

Obama says no decision yet on strike on Syria.

DEBKA: He stalls for deal with Putin on softened strike
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 29, 2013/In the face of statements by senior US officials that the Obama administration had crossed the Rubicon on military intervention in Syria, President Barack Obama declared early Thursday, Aug. 29, that he had not yet made a decision on whether to order a military strike against Syria. Although Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that US armed forces were “ready to go,” Obama said he was still examining options with his security team.The US president added that he had no doubt that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regime, not the rebels, saying that for violating international norms and human decency, Assad “should be held accountable.”At the same time, the White House suddenly appeared Wednesday night to be engaging in maneuvers for buying time and holding up military action against Syria, after the armies of the Middle East and half of Europe were already standing ready after completing massive war preparations. One such maneuver was a leak from White House sources about a delay in releasing to America and the world the promised evidence of Assad’s culpability in the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. It was postponed because “the report was not yet ready.”
Another were grumbles from the president’s circle that President Obama had found himself jammed in an awkward timeline generated by his foreign travel schedule – he is due to take off next Wednesday, Sept. 4, for Sweden on his way to the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg of Sep. 5-6. This left the optimal dates for his decision to go through with the attack as Friday night, early Saturday, Aug. 31 or after Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 2.
Although Obama appeared still to be standing by that decision, debkafile’s Washington and Moscow sources disclose he has applied the brakes on the momentum for its implemention to buy time for US Secretary of State John Kerry to wind up secret negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and strike a deal: The US would soften its military action against the Assad regime and his army and reduce it to a token blow, after which the American and Russian presidents would announce the convening of Geneva-2 to hammer out a solution of the Syrian crisis and end the civil war. The Kerry-Lavrov back channel has not yet achieved results and so, Thursday, the fate of the US strike on Syria was still highly fluid and its timeline changeable.

Obama holds White House meeting on Syria before officials release intelligence reports
By The Associated Press | The Canadian Press/WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is meeting with senior national security advisers at the White House to discuss plans for possible military action against Syria.
The meeting should be followed by the public release of a report on intelligence the U.S. has gathered about last week's deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria. Obama says the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad perpetrated the attack. But he has yet to present definitive evidence to back up the assertion. Secretary of State John Kerry will speak about the intelligence report and the broader situation in Syria on Friday. Obama may also speak about Syria during the public portion of a White House meeting with Baltic leaders

Iran commander: U.S. strike on Syria would bring Israel's destruction
Reuters – Thu, 29 Aug, 2013/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief said a U.S. military attack on Syria would lead to the "imminent destruction" of Israel and would prove a "second Vietnam" for America, according to an Iranian news agency. Shi'ite Muslim Iran, an arch-enemy of Israel, is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels trying to oust him in a two-and-a-half-year-old revolt. Iran has blamed the rebels for a suspected chemical weapons on August 21 that killed hundreds of civilians. Opposition activists blame Assad's forces, Washington has agreed and President Barack Obama made the case for a limited military strike against Syria in response to the chemical attack. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said in an interview late on Wednesday with the Tasnim news agency that a U.S. strike on Syria would not help Israel. "An attack on Syria will mean the imminent destruction of Israel," Jafari said, according to Tasnim. The interview was widely picked up by Iranian media on Thursday. Tasnim, which launched in 2012, says on its website that it is devoted to "defending the Islamic Revolution against negative media propaganda". Jafari, as quoted by Tasnim, also warned the United States that it risked embroilment in a costly and protracted struggle if it intervened in Syria. "Syria will turn into a more dangerous and deadly battlefield than the Vietnam War, and in fact, Syria will become the second Vietnam for the United States," he said. (Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. ready to go it alone on Syria after stinging British defeat
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | Yahoo News /“As we’ve said, President Obama’s decision-making will be guided by what is in the best interests of the United States,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement. “He believes that there are core interests at stake for the United States and that countries who violate international norms regarding chemical weapons need to be held accountable.”
The statement came after Britain’s Parliament dealt Prime Minister David Cameron a stinging defeat, beating back a measure that could have set the stage for London to join Washington in military action against Syria.
"It is very clear tonight that while the House has not passed a motion, it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action,” Cameron said. “I get that, and the government will act accordingly." With Cameron seemingly chastened and certainly humiliated by the 272-285 vote, Labour leader Ed Miliband asked whether the prime minister would pledge not to ignore the results and go ahead with military action. "I can give that assurance,” Cameron replied. “I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons.” Hayden said the White House was aware of the “result” of the vote and vowed that Washington will continue to “consult” with London “one of our closest allies and friends.”
France has signaled support for a tough response against Syria over the alleged massacre of civilians last week with chemical weapons — but favors waiting until after U.N. inspectors who scoured the Damascus suburb where the slaughter took place return and deliver their findings.

Canadian Defence minister rebuffs 'anti-Semitic conference'
CBC news.ca/Another federal politician is moving to distance himself from a conference taking place next month organized by a fringe religious group accused of anti-Semitism. Defence Minister Rob Nicholson's name appears several times in a brochure, letter and news release for the "Path to Peace" forum being put on in his riding by a southern Ontario group called the Fatima Centre. His communications director, however, said Wednesday that Nicholson never intended to participate, never agreed to lend his name to the event and will seek to have it removed. On Monday, CBC News reported that Senator Roméo Dallaire had been booked to speak at the event without realizing who was behind it, and pulled out when his staff were alerted to the background of the Fatima Centre and some of the other conference speakers. The conference has come under fire from a U.S. non-profit that campaigns against organizations it deems to be hate groups. On its website, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Path to Peace symposium an "anti-Semitic conference" and says the Fatima Centre is "part of the 'radical traditionalist Catholic' movement, perhaps the single largest group of hard-core anti-Semites in North America Coralie Graham, a conference convenor and one of the Fatima Centre's directors, said her organization has been the victim of smear campaigns and guilt by association, which have deterred a number of dignitaries from attending. "Politicians have to be careful with their image. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong; they don't want to be tarnished with someone else' s brush," she said Wednesday. She added that Nicholson "knows what we're about and who we are, but if he doesn't come for that reason, it's because of the media, of the libels."
The Fatima Centre had stated in literature for its conference that Nicholson and several legislators from various U.S. states "have already announced that they will attend."
A separate press release said, "We have already received the endorsement of the Minister of Defence for Canada, the Hon. Rob Nicholson."But Nicholson's communications director, Genevieve Breton, said in emails to CBC News that the minister "was never scheduled to attend this event." "No indication was ever given to the conference organizers that the minister would participate," she said. "The minister never endorsed this conference and we never agreed to have his name referenced in literature," she added. "We will be taking steps to have his name removed." The Fatima Centre, a dissident Catholic group that believes the Pope has an as-yet unfulfilled duty to consecrate Russia to bring about world peace, ardently denies any anti-Semitism. On one of its websites, it says "hatred of the Jews as a race" is "detestable."Those same publications also have references, though, to "the duty incumbent upon Catholics of combating valiantly for the integral rights of Christ the King and opposing Jewish Naturalism" and to "Satan's plans against the Church," among which is "the granting of full citizenship to the Jews."
Speakers named in the schedule for the conference next month in Niagara Falls include the president of the U.S.-based John Birch Society, a right-wing American group that campaigns against the U.S. Federal Reserve, says the UN is trying to control "all human activity" and claims Nelson Mandela is "carrying forward a communist program of terrorism and genocide."
Others listed in the program are a pair of Italian politicians from radical right-wing movements.
One, Mario Borghezio, belongs to a party striving to preserve Italy's "Christian culture," and said earlier this year that Italy's first black cabinet minister "wants to impose her tribal conditions from the Congo." He later apologized. British and Italian newspapers have reported he was convicted of arson for his role in a 2001 incident where some people set fire to a makeshift camp set up by immigrants living beneath a Turin bridge.
The other, Roberto Fiore, co-founded Italy's extremist Forza Nuova party, which has campaigned for the expulsion of immigrants and has been widely characterized as neo-fascist. The European press has reported he was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to nine years in prison (commuted on appeal to 5½) for his ties to a political faction associated with a fascist militant group.  The Fatima Centre recently posted a statement online saying that "Mr. Fiore is concerned about the loss of national identity in Italy and other European countries as a result of the influx of immigrants from Islamic nations. There is nothing uncharitable about loving one's heritage and desiring to preserve and protect it." It has since been taken down, and Fiore has pulled out of the conference, Graham said.  The conference's website and brochures state its keynote speaker is Ron Paul, the former U.S. congressman and three-time candidate for president. Photos of Paul and Senator Dallaire featured in ads for the conference on the internet and on a billboard near the Peace Bridge to the U.S. The Fatima Centre is now rejigging those ads to remove Dallaire. The Toronto-based Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement that it was "concerned by anti-Jewish content" on some websites affiliated with the Fatima Centre and that "it’s important that people of good will — particularly public officeholders — distance themselves from such extremism."

White House ready for solo strike on Syria as US allies and influence fade
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis August 30, 2013/The shock Thursday, Aug. 29, of Britain’s David Cameron parliamentary defeat – thereby knocking America’s foremost partner out of the coming strike against Syria – highlighted public opposition to the operation in America and criticism in the top US military command. The White House hastened to stress that America, while still interested in engaging allies, was ready to act unilaterally without UN or allied support. Nonetheless, the Syrian conflict after nearly three years continues to be covered in confusion, much of it generated by the Obama administration’s conflicting policies.
After resolute condemnation of the Assad regime’s “heinous crime” of using chemical weapons against its people, the president opted for a low-key, practically painless military strike against Syria. The Syria ruler would be able to wave his hands in a gesture of victory, followed by Vladmir Putin. Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would say, I told you so, the United States is a paper tiger and will never attack our nuclear program.
By voting for opposition Labor’s motion against UK involvement in military action in Syria, the British parliament not only shattered Obama’s multinational coalition for Syria; it struck at the heart of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), the historic bulwark of Western security since the last world war. The alliance’s fortunes have faded progressively under the vacillating foreign and security polices of President Barack Obama.
In 2009, the US president announced a new policy direction that would henceforth hinge on a “tilt to the East.” It was followed by America’s untidy military exit from Iraq and fumbles in Afghanistan leaving both countries prey to the havoc of bloody sectarian warfare. His refusal to acknowledge the menacing spread of al Qaeda was compounded by his muddled approach to the Arab Revolt : While endorsing the overthrow of two autocrats, Mubarak and Qadafi, he conducted a hands-off policy for the most bloodthirsty tyrant of the Arab world, Bashar Assad, and Iran’s hired terrorist chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
In the Middle East, Obama insisted that the US and the West stay out of the region’s affairs. While advising its leaders, including Israel’s, not to depend on America, he demanded their obedience at the same time.
In the Syrian crisis, Obama is reaping the harvest of his inconsistent foreign policies, which can no longer be papered over with fine speeches. The fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which he championed as the epitome of Islamic moderation, shattered US influence in the region and placed it at a hazardous crossroads, while his tepid military plans for Bashar Assad have resulted in the sounding NATO’s death knell.
The half-hearted military operation against Syria, due to be launched in the coming days, and its muddled objectives, may finally close the book on the current chapter of US history in the Middle East – even if it successful.
The world will be left rubbing its eyes in amazement at the achievement of one individual, president Barack Obama of the USA, in smashing American influence in this sensitive region and Europe in the space of a few short years. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s political future is in grave doubt after the House of Commons withheld endorsement from the government’s policy of participation in a US-led strike on Syria. Parliament voted 285 in favor to 272 against, with 30 members of his own Conservative party and 9 of his coalition partner, the Liberals, crossing the line and voting with the Labor opposition against the government.
Cameron may be just the first victim among Western and Middle East leaders who opted to toe Obama’s wavering line and continually shift around their national interests.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is fond of saying his policies are “responsible and balanced.” This mostly translates into inaction or procrastination on such vital issues as Iran’s nuclear aspirations and Hizballah’s massive buildup of rockets. But now, Khamenei, Assad and Nasrallah will be buoyed up by America’s loss of allied support and more likely than not make good on their threats, heard repeatedly in the past week, to destroy Israel once and for all. It won’t be enough to keep on intoning solemnly that Israel is not involved in the Syrian conflict – which no one believes anyway. Netanyahu will have to start looking squarely at the perils just around the corner and move proactively.

Syria says 'terrorists' will strike Europe with chemical weapons
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria's deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday that the United States, Britain and France helped "terrorists" use chemical weapons in Syria, and that the same groups would soon use them against Europe. Speaking to reporters outside the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus, Faisal Maqdad said he had presented U.N. chemical weapons inspectors with evidence that "armed terrorist groups" had used sarin gas in all the sites of alleged attacks. "We repeat that the terrorist groups are the ones that used (chemical weapons) with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and this has to stop," he said. "This means these chemical weapons will soon be used by the same groups against the people of Europe," he added. (Reporting by Marwan Makdesi; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Jon Boyle)

France says ready to act over Syria, despite British refusal
By Catherine Bremer and John Irish | Reuters
PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande said a British parliamentary vote against taking military action in Syria would not affect France's will to act to punish Bashar al-Assad's government, which it blamed for a chemical attack on civilians. Hollande told the daily Le Monde he still supported taking firm punitive action over an attack he said had caused irreparable harm to the Syrian people, and said he would work closely with France's allies.
Diplomatic sources said that while the British decision could add to the French public's reservations about strikes, Hollande may now feel an even stronger duty to carry through on a promise to punish the perpetrators of the poison gas attack. "The chemical massacre in Damascus cannot and must not go unpunished. Otherwise we'd run the risk of an escalation that would trivialize the use of these arms and put other countries at risk," Hollande told Le Monde. Asked if France could take action without Britain, he replied: "Yes. Each country is sovereign to participate or not in an operation. That is valid for Britain as it is for France."
France, the former colonial power in Syria, has backed the opposition rebels since the start of the conflict yet is worried spiraling violence could spill over into Lebanon, where it has its strongest political and economic links in the region. France has some 20,000 nationals living in Lebanon, myriad companies operating there and a peacekeeping force of around 800 soldiers. Diplomatic sources say Paris fears Assad's forces could attack its interests there in retaliation for strikes.
Unlike British Prime Minister David Cameron - who lost a parliamentary vote sanctioning military intervention on Thursday - Hollande could, if he chose, act before a French parliamentary debate set for Wednesday.
Hollande, who was due to talk on Friday to U.S. President Barack Obama, told Le Monde France had "a stack of evidence" that Assad's forces were behind last week's gas attacks. "I believe punitive action must be carried out against a regime that is doing irreparable harm to its people," he said.
France would act if the conditions justified it, he said, and any response would be firm and proportionate.
"There are few countries that have the capacity to inflict a sanction by the appropriate means. France is one of them. We are ready. We will decide our position in close liaison with our allies," Hollande said.
France most likely would deploy Rafale and Mirage fighter jets fitted with Scalp air-to-surface missile with a range of up to 250 km (155 miles), from Corsica in the Mediterranean.
PUBLIC LUKEWARM
France and Britain have become close diplomatic allies in the years since their disagreement over joining the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq and coordinate closely in defense operations.
Cameron stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hollande's predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy two years ago when the EU members launched air strikes against the forces of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to stop his crushing of a rebel uprising. French diplomatic sources said Paris had been braced for a refusal by British lawmakers to countenance British military action over Syria. While disappointing, it would likely make France more determined to join any U.S. action, they said. "It wasn't a surprise that Cameron lost the vote but it has made Hollande's decision more complicated and more political. There are a lot of parameters to take into account," one senior source told Reuters. "It's not an easy decision." He said France had not yet decided on its course of action but believed that not acting would create a dangerous precedent.
Francois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research and former defense ministry adviser, said France was now waiting for the U.S. government to make public its own intelligence assessment about the chemical attack. "The Americans will make their proof public this afternoon. It will prejudge what Obama will say and he will, either privately or publicly, let loose the dogs of war," he said.
Two opinion polls published this week, and carried out after the gas attack in Damascus, indicated lukewarm support among French voters for military intervention in Syria.
A survey by pollster CSA found 45 percent of respondents would support a U.N. military intervention and 40 percent would be opposed. Separately, 59 percent of people in an IFOP poll did not want France to take part in any intervention. Hollande, whose popularity has been hurt by economic gloom, showed unexpected military mettle when he dispatched troops to help Mali's government fend off Islamist rebels earlier this year, an intervention backed by two-thirds of the public. (Additional reporting by Julien Ponthus, Patrick Vignal and Nicholas Vinocur; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Erdoğan’s insults have a sinister purpose
Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Alawsat
The Turkish prime minister has gone too far in his criticism of Egypt, for he did not content himself with the political stance he took up against the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather, he has issued defamatory statements assailing Al-Azhar and its grand sheikh, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb. This time, Erdoğan’s statements cannot be viewed as a purely political position. Erdoğan’s insult of Al-Azhar cannot be separated from the entire Muslim Brotherhood’s attempts to cast doubt on state institutions and leaderships. Ever since its foundation, the Brotherhood’s discourse endeavored to demolish political institutions, aiming at undermining political stability and tearing down religious institutions in order to undermine the state’s religious legitimacy. The Muslim Brotherhood did so in Egypt even when it was in power, for it sought to distort the images of the judiciary, the army and the media, and of course Al-Azhar and its leadership. The aim was clear: to mobilize public opinion in order for the Brotherhood to be able to dominate society by taking control of its institutions. The Brotherhood did not content itself with doing so in Egypt only, for it sought to do so in the entire region. It tended to portray moderate regimes that disagree with it as agents of the West, although it was the Brotherhood that sought assistance from abroad to stay in power. The Brotherhood acted similarly with other Islamic groups that were carried away by their discourse, in a way that reflects their political shortcomings. The Brotherhood used those groups, whether peaceful or violent, to prompt people to say that the Brotherhood alone was moderate and that other groups were hardliners. This happened in Egypt—we must here bear in mind the terrorism prevalent in the Sinai, and we must also remember the number of terrorists who were released by presidential pardon.  This is also happening today in Tunisia at the hands of the ruling Ennahda party, who are Brotherhood adherents. The Brotherhood is doing all of this in order to distort the image of whomever disagrees with it and enable the Brotherhood affiliates to impose their own views and appoint their own men in institutions by exploiting the slogan “Islam is the Solution.”
Therefore, Erdoğan’s insult of Al-Azhar and its grand sheikh comes as part of the endeavor to defame whoever disagrees with the Brotherhood. When Erdoğan sensed that his criticism of the Egyptian army was not working, he sought to assail Al-Azhar and its grand sheikh. He understood that the new Egypt is seeking to increase Al-Azhar’s stature after the Brotherhood strove to diminish it, which is a very wise endeavor, particularly after Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that “Al-Azhar is the sole religious institution in Egypt and terrorism cannot be confronted unless Al-Azhar is held in high esteem.” Erdoğan thus became mindful of how religion and politics are the cornerstones in Egypt. The religious part has been undertaken by Al-Azhar, whereas the political one has been systematized by the army. Therefore, Erdoğan sought to defame Al-Azhar after the military’s steadfastness had been affirmed. Erdoğan’s insult of Al-Azhar comes as part of the core of the Brotherhood’s course, which aims at undermining religious and political legitimacy in Egypt and elsewhere. Therefore, we see that, for example, religious zealots in Saudi Arabia never miss the opportunity to assail the Council of Senior Religious Scholars. In summary, Erdoğan’s insult of Al-Azhar and its grand sheikh is not a slip of the tongue, but is at the core of the Brotherhood’s plot of demolishing our institutions and distorting their image.

Obama and Putin’s Danse Macabre
Amir Taheri /Asharq Alawsat
Is Vladimir Putin working for Barack Obama? Despite its provocative tone, the question is not fanciful. When faced with a tough foreign policy decision, Obama tends to try and wiggle his way out of it.
That tendency has three reasons. The first is that, despite his African, Asian and American background, Obama has little understanding of how international politics works. The second reason is that Obama built his career around an isolationist theme by portraying the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq under President George W. Bush as a political version of the original sin. Finally, Obama’s aversion to foreign “adventures” reflects the mood in the United States. Polls show that a majority of Americans are fed up with the outside world and do not wish to be sucked into other people’s quarrels—quarrels they often don’t understand.
The problem Obama faces, however, is that the US remains a superpower with vital and/or important interests across the globe; it cannot simply crawl back into its isolationist carapace. So, how could he appear to be maintaining America’s position of global leadership without doing anything even remotely risky?
Enter Putin to furnish an answer.
Obama fixes “red lines” and talks a good talk on this or that issue, but ends up doing nothing because of Putin’s veto—or, better still, Putin’s threat of veto.
Both men benefit from this pas-de-deux. Obama can project himself as a principled leader, ready to use the United States’ might in support of just causes but, sadly, thwarted by Russia’s abuse of its position in the UN Security Council.
For his part, Putin can pose as the leader who has restored part of the prestige that Russia enjoyed in its previous incarnation as the Soviet Union.
Putin is obsessed with a craving for parity of prestige between the US and Russia. He knows that he cannot do that in terms of tangible power. Russia’s GDP of USD 2.2 trillion cannot compare with that of the US’s 16 trillion. In terms of GDP per capita, Russia stands 77th in the world, while the US is 14th. In military terms, Russia has little to compete with the United States’ global reach, thanks to a massive blue-water navy and a network of bases in more than 60 countries across the world. Worse still, Russia is caught in a downward demographic trend while the US has one of the healthiest in the world.
Putin uses rhetoric to bridge part of that gap. In a recent talk with one of the satellite television channels he controls through the Kremlin, Putin offered a glimpse of his deep hatred for the United States. He talked of the US as the product of ethnic cleansing carried out against America’s native “Indian” tribes and recalled “the ravages of slavery” before grudgingly admitting that the Americans “had to create a sort of democracy” because “settlers from Europe” had to find a way of living together. Putin then made an even more astonishing claim. Stalin, he said, would not have used the nuclear bomb against Germany as the US did against Japan in the penultimate phase of the Second World War. In other words, Stalin was more touched by human feelings than President Harry S. Truman, who ordered the atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Part of Putin’s anti-Americanism may be due to relative powerlessness. However, it is also possible that he believes that Russia can regain its international standing only by assuming the leadership of an anti-American bloc.
Adopting a macho posture, Putin can hide the fact that, today, Russia has virtually no influence in the Middle East—not even in Syria. Putin is trying to use what strategists call “denial capacity”: denying an advantage to your real or imagined adversary even though you get nothing out of it. Thus, even if Assad were to win and survive in Syria, Russia will reap hardly any benefit. However, the fact that Assad’s victory and survival could be a setback for the US and its allies is enough to satisfy a Kremlin that is doing anything for glory.
Knowingly or not, Obama and Putin complement each other. This is why they agreed on a cynical project: a Geneva conference on Syria.
The absurdity of that project is self-evident. Why should two powers who cannot agree on the mildest of resolutions at the Security Council—where they hold the initiative—do any better in the uncertain atmosphere of a Geneva conference, where they will be two players among scores of others?
But what happens if Obama is forced to “do something,” something that part of the US establishment is clamoring for today?
My guess is that Putin will put up with a bellicose pirouette from Obama as long as that does not lead to regime change in Damascus. If Obama lobs a few cruise missiles against meaningless targets—as Bill Clinton did against Sudan and Afghanistan—Putin will make little noise. For him, the best scenario would be for Obama to use a bit of saber-rattling, supported by declamatory outbursts of the kind that John Kerry indulged himself in this week, but ultimately do nothing that could tip the balance in favor of the Syrian rebels.
There is, of course, a possibility that Obama and Putin—partners in this danse macabre—may use the threat of American “military action” to persuade the Syrian rebels to attend Geneva II at the same time that the big talking shop of the United Nations opens its new season next month.
And then, in Geneva and New York, people will talk and talk and talk—while in Syria, people die and die and die.

Question: "Is the Holy Spirit a person?"
GotQuestions.org/Answer: Many people find the Holy Spirit confusing. Is the Holy Spirit a force, a person, or something else? What does the Bible teach?
The Bible provides many ways to help us understand that the Holy Spirit is truly a person. First, every pronoun used in reference to the Spirit is “he” not “it.” The original Greek language of the New Testament is explicit in confirming the person of the Holy Spirit. The word for “Spirit” (pneuma) is neuter and would naturally take neuter pronouns to have grammatical agreement. Yet, in many cases, masculine pronouns are found (e.g., John 15:26; 16:13-14). Grammatically, there is no other way to understand the pronouns of the New Testament related to the Holy Spirit—He is referred to as a “He,” as a person.
Matthew 28:19 teaches us to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a collective reference to one Triune God. Also, we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). The Spirit can be sinned against (Isaiah 63:10) and lied to (Acts 5:3). We are to obey Him (Acts 10:19–21) and honor Him (Psalm 51:11).
The personhood of the Holy Spirit is also affirmed by His many works. He was personally involved in creation (Genesis 1:2), empowers God’s people (Zechariah 4:6), guides (Romans 8:14), comforts (John 14:26), convicts (John 16:8), teaches (John 16:13), restrains sin (Isaiah 59:19), and gives commands (Acts 8:29). Each of these works requires the involvement of a person rather than a mere force, thing, or idea.
The Holy Spirit’s attributes also point to His personality. The Holy Spirit has life (Romans 8:2), has a will (1 Corinthians 12:11), is omniscient (1 Corinthians 2:10–11), is eternal (Hebrews 9:14), and is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7). A mere force could not possess all of these attributes, but the Holy Spirit does.
And the personhood of the Holy Spirit is affirmed by His role as the third Person of the Godhead. Only a being who is equal to God (Matthew 28:19) and possesses the attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, and eternality could be defined as God.
In Acts 5:3–4, Peter referred to the Holy Spirit as God, stating, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” Paul likewise referred to the Holy Spirit as God in 2 Corinthians 3:17–18, stating, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is a person, as Scripture makes clear. As such, He is to be revered as God and serves in perfect unity with Father and Son to lead us in our spiritual lives.