Bible Quotation for today/He who observes the wind won’t sow; and he who regards the clouds won’t reap.
Ecclesiastes 11/01-10/11:1 Cast your bread on the waters; for you shall find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, yes, even to eight; for you don’t know what evil will be on the earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth; and if a tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there shall it be. He who observes the wind won’t sow; and he who regards the clouds won’t reap. As you don’t know what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child; even so you don’t know the work of God who does all. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening don’t withhold your hand; for you don’t know which will prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both will be equally good. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the sun. Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
 

Latest analysis, editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 05 and 06/14

Hamas and the Delusion of Victory/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 06/14

A Strategy for Beating the Islamic State/By: Dennis Ross /September 06/14

Iran’s covert military buildup and operations/Majid Rafizadeh /Al Arabiya/September 06/14

Striking ISIS without Assad’s permission/By: Abdulrahman al-Rashed /Al Arabiya/September 06/14

While Still Risky, Military Intervention Against ISIS May Be the Only Good Option /By: Matthew Levitt/September 06/14
OP-ED – ISIL’s Campaign of Terror Must Be Stopped/oreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada/September 06/14
Lebanon must unite against the ISIS threat/By: Nayla Tueni /Al Arabiya/September 06/14

Terrorism is everyone’s problem/By: Abdullah Hamidaddin /Al Arabiya/September 06/14

Lebanese Related News published on September 05 and 06/14

Qatar intervenes to help free kidnapped Lebanese soldiers
Israeli Device Spying on Hizbullah Communications Explodes in Adloun

Reports: Israeli intelligence device explodes in Lebanon

Report: March 14 Members Will Submit Nominations for Parliamentary Polls despite Divisions
Nine Hostages Appear in Video Depicting Hizbullah's Alleged Crimes in Syria, Arsal

Arrest Warrants Issued against 7 Suspects Linked to Imad Jomaa

Christians mobilize against Mideast menace
Report: Qatari Delegation in Arsal to Negotiate Release of Captives

Lebanon minister willing to sacrifice own freedom for soldiers
Top Iranian Official in Beirut Next Week to Discuss Latest Developments
Mashnouq, Ibrahim to Discuss Case of Arsal Captives in Doha

Salam to Meet Delegation of Relatives of Captives

Lebanon rejects jihadists’ terms to free soldiers
Killing of Lebanese man stirs anti-Syrian sentiments
2 Jabal Mohsen Residents Shot in Tripoli's al-Mallouleh

Italian official offers condolences over slain Lebanese soldier

Lebanon state spending rises by 17 pct in Q1
A wrench in peace talks
 

Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 05 and 06/14

Report: Iran 'backs US military contacts' to fight Islamic State

US-Iranian military, intelligence cooperation in war on ISIS reaps first successes in Syria and Iraq
U.S. Calls for International Coalition to 'Destroy' IS

Iran: Nuke deal possible if world is 'sincere'

Qaeda-rebels: UN soldiers to be judged by God

Haniyeh rejects calls for Hamas disarmament

Report: Hamas' Mashaal agreed in Doha meeting with Abbas to Palestinian state within 1967 borders
Israel Issues Tenders for 283 Homes in W.Bank Settlement

American among 18 IS Jihadists Killed in Syria Raid

Egyptian militants say Islamic State guiding Sinai-based jihadists
Ukraine Government, Separatists Agree Ceasefire from Friday

U.N. Says Libya Fighters Committing Grave Rights Violations

Watchdog Slams Kuwait's Blasphemy Charge against Blogger

Rights Groups Demand Freedom for Prominent Syria Activists

Gazans Dig Deep after Ceasefire as Water Shortage Bites

Iran Frees Dutch Human Rights Campaigner Held on Death Row
ISIS beheadings may have inspired London madman

US says forms ‘core coalition’ to counter Iraq militants

Saudi Arabia, France issue joint warning over global terror threat

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry bans anti-Sunni celebrations

Qatar intervenes to help free kidnapped Lebanese soldiers
Hashem Osseiran| The Daily Star/HERMEL, Lebanon: The Qatari delegation has finished its first meeting with Nusra Front commanders and is preparing to bring their demands to the Lebanese government Friday. Qatar has stepped in to help secure the release of nearly two dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen held captive by jihadists, dispatching a delegation overnight to the northeastern town of Arsal to negotiate their freedom. The move came as Prime Minister Tammam Salam said Thursday that he opposed any negotiations between the government and the kidnappers that would require a prisoner exchange. “The Qatari delegation has stepped in to negotiations,” said local mediator Sheikh Mustafa Hujeiri, “they are now the new mediators.”
According to Hujeiri, the Qatari delegation has finished its first meeting with Nusra Front militants after visiting the outskirts of Arsal earlier Friday.  “During the meeting, the new mediators heard the militant’s demands,” he said, adding that the Qatari delegation was set to deliver the militants' requests to the Lebanese government. “This is the first visit,” he added, implying more meetings would take place in the near future. When asked about the success of the meeting, Hujeiri said that “the militant’s principle demands haven't changed despite the fact that new mediators have joined negotiations.”The local mediator said that if the Lebanese government would not negotiate, then there was nothing the new mediators could do.
The delegation did not include security or military officials, said Hujeiri, clarifying that the mediators “are most likely civilians.”The Qatari delegation was also set to negotiate with ISIS militants Friday, said Hujeiri, however the meeting did not happen.
“They were not able to meet with ISIS mediators” he said. In a statement released Friday, ISIS in Qalamoun accused the Qatari delegation of obstructing negotiations by refusing to meet with mediators from the group.
The new mediators, according to ISIS, “are now directly responsible for obstructing negotiation and are [also responsible] for the blood of the soldiers,” the group said in a statement on Twitter. “Serious negotiations have been launched,” said Justic Minister Ashrafi Rifi before entering a meeting for the emergency ministerial committee in the Grand Serail. "Prime Minister Tammam Salam was personally contacting the Qatari negotiator" he said. “It appears that the situation is going in a positive direction."
The ministerial committee which is tasked with following up on the hostage crisis, was set to meet with the families of the captive soldiers in the Grand Serail Friday, however the family members boycotted the session in protest of the Government’s stance over negotiations. The Cabinet stressed during its Thursday meeting that it would not conduct any negotiations with the hostage-takers and rejected any swap deal. It also gave the Lebanese Army a free hand to launch a military operation to free the captured soldiers.
A senior security source told The Daily Star that some of the hostages were still inside Arsal, raising the prospect of a military operation to free them. Jihadists holding at least 23 servicemen captive have demanded the release of Islamist inmates held in Roumieh Prison in exchange for the hostages. During Thursday's Cabinet session, Salam told the ministers that he had held secret contacts with countries that could help secure the release of the troops. The Cabinet also agreed to continue needed contacts with countries that could have some leverage to release the soldiers. In remarks to As-Safir newspaper, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said the hostages’ crisis would be the focal point of discussions during his visit to Doha in the company of General Security head, Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim.
“We will exert every effort with the countries that could have a positive influence on the kidnappers,” he said.

Report: March 14 Members Will Submit Nominations for Parliamentary Polls despite Divisions
Naharnet /Members of the March 14 alliance will submit their nominations for the parliamentary elections despite the differences among them over holding the polls in light of the vacuum in the presidency, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday.
Leading sources from the camp told the daily: “The two camps within the alliance will respect constitutional deadlines and they will not hesitate to stage the polls if there was agreement among all political blocs to hold them.”“Submitting nominations is a normal matter and any action other than that will be interpreted as a boycott of the polls,” they added. “The only reservations that camp has lies in staging the polls before the election of a new president,” they explained. Sources from the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc meanwhile told al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday that the members of the March 14 alliance will begin submitting their nominations at the Interior Ministry next week. “This does not necessarily mean that the elections will be held,” they said.
On Thursday, Speaker Nabih Berri and his Development and Liberation parliamentary bloc submitted their candidacies for the polls. Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq issued a memo last week detailing the documents needed for those seeking to run in the elections on November 16. The memo was based on a decree that he issued last month, calling on the electoral bodies to elect lawmakers. Last year, the rival MPs extended their tenure until November 2014 after they failed to agree on a new electoral draft-law. Lebanon has been without a president since May 25 when Michel Suleiman's six-year term ended amid differences between the rival parliamentary blocs on a compromise candidate.

Arrest Warrants Issued against 7 Suspects Linked to Imad Jomaa
Naharnet/Arrest warrants were issued on Friday against seven detainees over their links to August's clashes in the northeastern border town of Arsal between the army and Islamist militants, reported the National News Agency.
It said that Military Examining Magistrate Imad al-Zein issued the warrants against a Lebanese and six Syrians for their connection to the clashes and Imad Jomaa, a member of the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front whose arrest sparked the Arsal unrest. NNA said that Friday's arrest warrants bring the total number of detained suspects in the case to 28. In August, State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged Jomaa and 42 Syrians with belonging to armed terrorist groups.
They were also been charged with seeking to carry out terrorist attacks, seizing control of Lebanese territories in order to set up their own emirate, killing soldiers and civilians, sabotaging military vehicles, and damaging public and private property.
Several soldiers were killed and wounded in the Arsal clashes that started on August 2 and ended five days later with a ceasefire. The Islamists withdrew from the town, abducting with them a number of troops and security forces.

Report: Qatari Delegation in Arsal to Negotiate Release of Captives
Naharnet /A Qatari delegation arrived in Lebanon and headed to the northeastern border town of Arsal to meet with the Islamist gunmen, media reports said on Friday. The delegation will reportedly head to the Syrian Qalamun border region to negotiate with gunmen the release of abducted Lebanese soldiers and policemen, who were taken hostage last month after militiamen overran Arsal. Since the abduction of Lebanese soldiers and policemen, Lebanon has been reportedly seeking the help of Qatar and Turkey to ensure their safe release. The militants released several hostages in different stages but had beheaded Lebanese army sergeant Ali al-Sayyed. The militants included fighters from the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. The jihadists have reportedly called on the Lebanese government to release Islamist inmates from the country's largest prison in Roumieh in exchange for the captive security personnel. Only a few of the estimated 90 Islamists have been tried. Most of them were arrested over their involvement in bloody clashes with the Lebanese army at the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in 2007. The fighting in Arsal was the most serious border incident since the conflict in Syria began in March 2011.

Mashnouq, Ibrahim to Discuss Case of Arsal Captives in Doha
Naharnet/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq will tackle the case of the abducted Lebanese soldiers and policemen, who were taken hostage by Islamist gunmen in the northeastern border town of Arsal, with Gulf senior officials. According to As Safir newspaper on Friday, General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim will accompany Mashnouq to the Qatari capital Doha during the weekend. The two officials will reportedly call on senior officials to mediate the release of the kidnapped security personnel.
“We will focus on the case of the abductees... We will exert efforts and persuade countries that could have a positive impact on the case to play a role,” Mashnouq told the newspaper. Mashnouq has been reportedly invited to attend a meeting for the Gulf Cooperation Council's interior ministers. The meeting is aimed at discussing ways to coordinate efforts to confront terrorism. Analysts have said that advances by jihadists in Syria and Iraq, and U.S. calls for a coalition against them have made Gulf monarchies set aside disputes over Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Since the abduction of Lebanese soldiers and policemen in Arsal last month by Islamist gunmen, Lebanon has been reportedly seeking the help of Qatar and Turkey to ensure their safe release. The militants released several hostages in different stages but had beheaded Lebanese army sergeant Ali al-Sayyed. The militants included fighters from the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. The jihadists have reportedly called on the Lebanese government to release Islamist inmates from the country's largest prison in Roumieh in exchange for the captive security personnel. Only a few of the estimated 90 Islamists have been tried. Most of them were arrested over their involvement in bloody clashes with the Lebanese army at the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in 2007. The fighting in Arsal was the most serious border incident since the conflict in Syria began in March 2011.

Reports: Israeli intelligence device explodes in Lebanon
Roi Kais /Ynetnews/09.05.14, 19:18 / Israel News /Lebanese media reports listening device blown up near Sidon killing Hezbollah militant; Israeli UAV possibly hit device after being found. Official Lebanese media reported Friday afternoon that an Israeli intelligence device was destroyed Friday in the town of Aadloun, near the city of Sidon. According to the report, the device was buried in a park and Hezbollah operatives acted to destroy it. In another Lebanese news website, al-Nashra, reports indicated that it was in fact an Israeli UAV that blew up the device after it was discovered earlier in the morning. According to all the reports from Lebanon, a Hezbollah operative, Hassan Haider, was killed in the explosion and another was wounded by the blast. The Lebanese Army released a statement saying that, "At 3:45pm a Lebanese Army intelligence patrol found an unidentified object near the village of Aadloun. When the patrol tried to reveal the nature of the object, Israel remotely detonated it, causing the death of a citizen who was nearby. The blast area was closed off for security and an investigation has been launched into the event." Over the last several years, Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army have claimed to have uncovered Israeli spy devices in southern Lebanon. In October, Lebanese media sources reported that an eagle had been captured with Israeli spy equipment attached to its body. The report said that such devices had been found on animals previously in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Israeli Device Spying on Hizbullah Communications Explodes in Adloun
Naharnet /An Israeli espionage device was detonated Friday in the al-Nabi Sari area in the southern coastal town of Adloun, amid conflicting reports on the identity of the party that blew it up. Hizbullah's al-Manar TV said “the Israeli spy device was discovered by the Lebanese army and it was detonated by an Israeli drone that is still hovering over the area.” Al-Mayadeen television earlier said Hizbullah “confirmed detonating an Israeli spy device in the town of Adloun.” Meanwhile, al-Jadeed TV said “the resistance has destroyed the device” as LBCI television said “army intelligence agents" discovered the device before Israel blew it up as they approached it.  A person was seriously wounded in the explosion, LBCI added. According to Future TV, the person wounded is a “Hizbullah member.”
“The spy device was placed on a telecom network belonging to Hizbullah and the army immediately closed the road leading to the location as plumes of smoke covered the area,” Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported. Al-Manar television confirmed that the device was planted on Hizbullah's communication network. Later on Friday, state-run National News Agency said “the resistance blew up the Israeli device that was planted in a grove in the area, amid tight security measures.” It is not the first time that such a device has been discovered in southern Lebanon. Similar espionage apparatuses had been detonated in December 2011 and July 2012. The devices had also been placed on Hizbullah's military telecom network.

U.S. Calls for International Coalition to 'Destroy' IS
Naharnet /The United States on Friday called for the creation of a broad international coalition against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by the time of the U.N. General Assembly this month. "There is no time to waste in building a broad international coalition to degrade and, ultimately, to destroy the threat posed by ISIL," Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a joint statement. Britain and the United States chaired talks with defense and foreign ministers from eight other allies: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Turkey. The statement said the formation of a new Iraqi government would be critical and added the U.S. was hopeful this could happen "over the coming days." "We discussed in detail how NATO allies can extend immediate support to a new government," it said. It listed some of the measures as offering military support to the Iraqi government; stopping the flow of foreign jihadist fighters; taking action against IS funding; addressing the humanitarian crisis; and "de-legitimizing" IS ideology.
"We will form a multinational task force to share more information about the flow of foreign fighters," it said, after an extremist speaking with a British accent was shown beheading two U.S. kidnapped journalists and threatening a British hostage.
In a transcript released by U.S. officials of Kerry's comments at the meeting, the diplomat said: "We must be able to have a plan together by the time we come to UNGA (U.N. General Assembly)" later this month." "They're not as organized as everybody thinks," he said, referring to IS. "And we have the technology, we have the know-how. What we need is obviously the willpower to make certain that we are steady and stay at this." "We need to attack them in ways that prevent them from taking over territory, that bolster the Iraqi security forces, others in the region who are prepared to take them on, without committing troops of our own," he said. Agence France Presse

Top Iranian Official in Beirut Next Week to Discuss Latest Developments
Naharnet /A top Iranian official is expected to arrive in Beirut next week for talks with senior Lebanese leaders, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday. Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister for the Arab and African Affairs Hussein Amir-Abdollahian will hold talks with senior Lebanese officials and brief them on the latest talks between his country and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia are on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, with Tehran backing President Bashar Assad and Riyadh supporting the rebels trying to topple him. However, a meeting was held last month between Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal with Amir-Abdollahian. The visit was considered to be the first by a high-level official from Shiite Iran to Sunni Saudi Arabia since Hassan Rouhani became the Islamic republic's president in August last year. Amir-Abdollahian will reportedly call on Lebanese officials to safeguard the local situation and call for dialogue among them to reach common grounds concerning the constitutional deadlines. He will also offer aid to Lebanon to combat terrorism.
Amir-Abdollahian has held talks with several senior officials during his last visit in July, including his country's long-time ally Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

2 Jabal Mohsen Residents Shot in Tripoli's al-Mallouleh
Naharnet /Unidentified gunmen on Thursday shot and wounded two residents of the Tripoli district of Jabal Mohsen in the nearby al-Mallouleh area during a “personal dispute.” “Two young men who hail from Jabal Mohsen have been shot and wounded,” OTV reported. The duo were in a “Mercedes 300 car,” according to the Tripoli News Network Facebook page. One of them is a civilian called Asef al-Jurdi and he was seriously wounded while the other is the soldier Ahmed Dandashli, TNN said. It described the incident as an “individual” dispute, adding that the wounded were rushed to the Saydeh hospital in neighboring Zgharta. This is the first such development since five months, when Jabal Mohsen resident Hassan Ali Mazloum was shot dead while driving near Tripoli's al-Taqwa Mosque on March 26.Prior to that date, several attacks had targeted civilians from Jabal Mohsen is many areas of Tripoli amid sectarian tensions fueled by the recurrent clashes with the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood and the war in neighboring Syria.
The tensions abated as the army started implementing an unprecedented security plan on April 1, which saw the arrest of a number of top militants from both districts and the fleeing of several others, including Arab Democratic Party leader Ali Eid and his son Rifaat.

Salam to Meet Delegation of Relatives of Captives
Naharnet /Prime Minister Tammam Salam is expected to meet on Friday with a delegation of relatives of the soldiers and policemen kidnapped by Islamists in August, reported As Safir newspaper on Friday. It said that the meeting will be attended by Interior Minister Nouhad Mashnouq and will be part of the recently formed ministerial crisis committee tasked with following up on the case. On Thursday, the cabinet formed the committee, which is chaired by Salam and comprised of Mashnouq, Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi. The relatives' follow up committee meanwhile convened on Thursday night and took the decision against heading to the Grand Serail to meet with Salam “because it does not have faith in the government, making the talks pointless,” reported As Safir. Earlier, relatives of the abducted troops and policemen called on Army chief General Jean Qahwaji to “arrest all ministers” and swap them for the hostages, warning that the state has 24 hours to act or face unknown consequences. “We have an initiative that involves the (army's) arrest of all ministers and swapping them for the troops held by the militants out of respect for the state's prestige,” a spokesman for the families said during a lengthy sit-in outside the Grand Serail, where the cabinet was holding a regular session. “We give the state 24 hours to act or else we won't be responsible for the consequences,” the man cautioned on Thursday. Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas meanwhile expressed to al-Akhbar newspaper on Friday the cabinet's “great annoyance” with their position. The relatives warned on Thursday of a “strife” in the Bekaa, calling for the release of Roumieh inmates if the matter ensures their loved ones' safe release. The cabinet had however rejected the idea of holding a swap in exchange for the captives. The soldiers and policemen were kidnapped in August in light of clashes between the army and Islamsist in the northeastern border town of Arsal.

Lebanon minister willing to sacrifice own freedom for soldiers
The Daily Star/BEIRUT: The only woman in Prime Minister Tammam Salam's 24-member Cabinet offered herself in exchange for the release of the captured soldiers. In remarks to An-Nahar newspaper, Minister of the Displaced Alice Shabtini said: "I ask [the relatives] to hold needed contacts to secure the safe return of their children in exchange for handing me over to whoever they want." During a protest in Beirut outside the Grand Serail as the Cabinet was meeting to devise a plan to release the captured soldiers, some of their relatives asked Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi to trade the 24 Cabinet ministers for the soldiers and policemen held by ISIS and Nusra Front for nearly a month.

A wrench in peace talks
The Daily Star/For the first time since the latest devastating Israeli assault on Gaza that left over 2,100 Palestinians dead, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Wednesday with Palestinian negotiators. He later called the talks “constructive.”The meeting followed a phone call between Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the former expressed his concerns over Israeli plans to take some 988 acres of land from the West Bank for settlement building – the largest land grab since the 1980s.Although Kerry has shown genuine concern for the peace process, he is perhaps verging on delusional if he thinks his talks with Saeb Erekat and co. were constructive. For that would ignore the overriding problem: the belligerent, stubborn and dangerously arrogant policies of the Israeli leadership. His talks in Washington with Palestinian negotiators may well have been positive. But as long as Israel maintains its position toward the peace process, nothing is going to change. Not only does Israel have no regard for achieving peace, it actively throws any hope for a détente off course, at each potential stage for optimism grabbing more land or killing more Palestinians. It is hard to imagine that Netanyahu put down the phone after his conversation with Kerry feeling threatened, or that he began to doubt himself and his actions or America’s unwavering support. Kerry may well have expressed his “concerns” to the premier, but Netanyahu knows full well that land grab or no, with a sitting duck president in the White House, he can continue to count on financial, military and ideological support from the U.S. Until this wavers, “constructive” talks will lead nowhere.

Italian official offers condolences over slain Lebanese soldier
The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Italy will stand by Lebanon as it works to resolve the hostage crisis, Italian Defense Commission head Nicola Latorre pledged Friday as he visited the family of slain soldier Ali al-Sayyed, who was beheaded by ISIS last month.
During his visit to Sayyed's house in the northern town of Fnaydeq, Latorre said Islam stood against terrorism, expressing his country's support for Lebanon and the Army in the face of the growing threat. "We are following up on the Lebanese government's efforts in the hostage crisis and we are ready to offer any help that would end this case." Sayyed's father, Ahmad, thanked the Italian official for his visit, saying: "I hope you can help secure the release of the rest of the captured soldiers."
Earlier this week, ISIS handed over the body of Sayyed to the government after the group beheaded the soldier in a bid to pressure negotiations in their favor. Sayyed was among at least 15 soldiers and policemen who ISIS captured during battles with the Lebanese Army last month in the border town of Arsal.  ISIS and Nusra Front attacked Army and police posts with the aim of seizing the town, known for its support for the Syrian opposition. An ISIS-affiliated man released an image of the soldiers, saying the group was sharpening its knife with a caption that read: “Are you going to negotiate or not?” Thousands attended Sayyed’s funeral Wednesday in his hometown, while families of the rest of the soldiers held protests in several parts of the country, demanding the government negotiate with militants to release their loved ones.
 

Christians mobilize against Mideast menace
Associated Press, Lebanon
Friday, 5 September 2014
Every day around sunset, dozens of residents of this small Lebanese Christian village on the border carry their automatic rifles and deploy on surrounding hills, taking up positions and laying ambushes in case Muslim extremists from neighboring Syria attack.
“We all know that if they come, they will slit our throats for no reason,” said one villager as he drove through the streets of Qaa, an assault rifle resting next to him. For months, Lebanese Christians have watched with dread as other Christians flee Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq, fearing their turn will come next. Fears multiplied after militants from Syria overran a border town last month, clashing with security forces for days and killing and kidnapping Lebanese soldiers and policemen. Now, for the first time since the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990, Lebanese Christians are rearming and setting up self-defense units to protect themselves, an indication of the growing anxiety over the expanding reach of radical Islamic groups. Across the Middle East, Christian communities as old as the religion itself feel their very survival is now at stake, threatened by militants of the Islamic State group rampaging across Iraq and Syria. In Iraq, thousands of Christians have fled their homes after they were made to choose between leaving, converting to Islam or facing death. For the first time in centuries, Iraq’s Ninevah region and the provincial capital of Mosul have been emptied of Christians. After they left, the militants spray-painted their houses with the letter “N” for “Nasrani” - an archaic term used to refer to Christians - marking the homes as Islamic State property. In Syria, thousands of Christians have been displaced during its three-year conflict. Christian towns and villages have come under attack by jihadists, most recently the historic central town of Mahradeh. Islamic fighters in Syria rampaged through the ancient Christian town of Maaloula near Damascus earlier this year, destroying historic churches and icons. Christians in the militant stronghold of Raqqa were forced to pay an Islamic tax for protection.
Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria are now sheltering in Lebanon, sensing safety in a pluralistic country which has the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East. Lebanon is also the only Arab country with a Christian head of state.
But the fear has spread to Lebanon as well. This week, after a video was posted online showing a group of boys burning an Islamic State flag in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut, vandals spray-painted the outer walls of several churches in northern Lebanon with the words: “The Islamic State is coming.”
In Qaa and Ras Baalbek, two Christian villages in the northeast, on the border with Syria, the anxiety is palpable. Many of the thousands of expatriates who used to spend the summer here stayed away this year. Restaurants and the villages' main squares were deserted on a recent day. The sale of weapons on the black market has climbed sharply. The arming effort is backed by some leftist and communist Lebanese militias who have long had weapons. The Shiite armed group Hezbollah has also indirectly supported such efforts, seeing the communities as a first line of defense for Shiite towns and villages in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa region.
Sitting in his house few kilometers (miles) away from areas controlled by jihadi fighters in Syria, Suleiman Semaan, a political activist in Ras Baalbek, said the mobilization in the village was purely for self-defense.
He and other residents said they were especially alarmed by an attack last month in which militants from Syria overran the Lebanese border town of Arsal for several days, killing and abducting a number of soldiers and police. The attack was the worst spillover of Syrian violence since the uprising began in March 2011. “We don’t want to attack anyone and we don't want anyone to attack us,” Semaan said.
But the rearming of Christians could raise tensions in Lebanon, which is already bitterly split over the Syrian conflict. During Lebanon’s own 15-year civil war, the right-wing Phalange party engaged in heavy fighting on behalf of the country’s once-dominant Christians.
In Syria and Iraq, however, Christians have always been a scattered minority, and rather than mobilize to protect themselves, they enjoyed relative security for decades under the rule of secular dictatorships. Now, as vast swaths of both countries have fallen out of government control, many Christians are looking elsewhere for safety.
In northeastern Syria, small Christian units have been fighting under the umbrella of the People’s Protection Unit, a Kurdish militia. But most Christians in Syria, as well as Iraq, say they simply don’t have the numbers, arms or training to combat the battle-hardened Islamic militants.The number of Christians in the Middle East has been in decline for decades because of waves of attacks, regional upheaval and sectarian tensions.
Iraq was home to an estimated 1 million Christians before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Since then, militants have frequently targeted Christians across the country, bombing their churches and killing clergymen. Under such pressure, many Christians have left, and church officials now put the community at around 450,000.
Many Syrian Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million, left for Europe over the past 20 years, with the flight gathering speed since 2011.
Amir, a 41-year-old Christian, came to Lebanon last year from the northeastern Syrian region of Hassakeh, where Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Syriacs and Armenians traditionally lived together in peace. He is now looking for work in Lebanon, staying with his brother in a Christian area north of Beirut, and considering whether to apply for immigration. “I don’t want to give up on Syria, but I want my children to grow up feeling safe. I want them to grow up in a place where they can proudly make the sign of the cross without fear,” he said, as two of his children played with cousins nearby. He said 25 members of his extended family have left Syria over the past two years.
Umm Milad, a 27-year-old Iraqi housewife, came to Lebanon with her husband and two sons after Islamic State fighters put the “N” sign on their home in Mosul’s Al-Arabi neighborhood in July. They were given 24 hours to leave. “We are scared,” she said while waiting to collect aid at a Chaldean church in Beirut. “We don’t want to go back. We want to go anywhere else. Canada or America.”Many Christian villagers, like the driver in Qaa, only spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety. Others, like Amir and Umm Milad, gave only their first name or nickname for the same reason. During a visit to Iraq on Aug. 18, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, a member of the right-wing Christian Free Patriotic Movement, urged Christians not to leave the region. “If Christianity becomes extinct in Iraq it will end in the whole region. Iraq and our region will lose pluralism.”But for Sahira Hakim, a housewife from Baghdad who is now in Lebanon applying to immigrate to a third country, there is no going back to Iraq, and her native country will never be the same. “We Christians are like roses. If you remove them from a garden, it will not be beautiful anymore,” she said.

Killing of Lebanese man stirs anti-Syrian sentiments
Samar Kadi| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A Lebanese man was stabbed to death and his mother severely injured by two Syrian refugees who tried to rob them in Abadieh, in the mountains east of Beirut, triggering anti-Syrian sentiments in the town, its mayor told The Daily Star Friday. “The culprits were two Syrian refugees who knew the victim and were visiting him last night, when they committed the ugly crime,” Adnan Najed said. The mayor said the 28-year-old victim, identified as Sleiman Abu Hamra, died shortly after being stabbed several times, while his mother, Hala Hassan, was in a critical condition in hospital. Najed said the killers were arrested as they attempted to escape. “Screams and the noise of altercation alerted neighbors and passersby who were able, with the municipality police, to arrest the killers before they tried to jump in their car,” Najd said, stressing that robbery was the crime’s motive. The Internal Security Forces said they arrested the suspects who stabbed the 51-year-old woman and killed her son, who was stabbed in his neck and back.
The two were identified by their initials and they were aged 20 and 21.  The first suspect was hiding on the roof of the building where the crime took place, while the other was at the entrance with his clothes drenched in blood, the ISF said. The two confessed to killing the man and attempting to kill his mother with the motive of robbery. The incident caused uproar in the village, including calls to evict all Syrian refugees and workers, estimated to be more than 700, Najed said. The Army, police, local figures and the Progressive Socialist Party, which has a strong popular base in the village, intervened immediately to calm down tensions and prevent any violent repercussions. “The fact that the criminals were apprehended somehow eased the tensions. We were firm in assuring that the refugees should not pay the price for the felony committee by two reckless people. And, fortunately, no Syrian was attacked or harmed,” Najed said. A PSP statement condemned the “ugly crime,” calling on the victim’s relatives and the residents of Abadieh to exercise self-restraint and avoid taking security into their hands. “It is important to keep the crime within its private framework and avoid generalizing such an incident on the innocent Syrian refugees,” the statement said. “We renew our trust in the Lebanese state and its security and legal institutions and place this issue in the hands of justice, while demanding the harshest sentences to be served against the criminals." Anti-Syria feelings have been mounting following fighting between the Army and Syria militants in the northeast Bekaa town of Arsal last month, in which 19 soldiers were killed. Sentiments further escalated when takfiri militants from ISIS beheaded a Lebanese soldier and handed over his body to the authorities earlier this week. He was among 29 Army troops and policemen held hostage by ISIS and the Nusra Front.
Lebanon hosts the largest Syrian refugee community of Syria’s neighboring countries, estimated to have exceeded 1.3 million.

Nine Hostages Appear in Video Depicting Hizbullah's Alleged Crimes in Syria, Arsal
Naharnet /Al-Nusra Front posted a video on Friday purporting the alleged crimes of Hizbullah in the neighboring country Syria and the northeastern border town of Arsal and includes statements by the Lebanese army soldiers and policemen against the party.
A previously unknown channel on Youtube aired a video under the title: Who Will Pay the Price? The Price of Hizbu Allat Support to Al-Nusairi Regime and The Slaughtering of Sunnis in Syria. The video starts with a speech for Hizbullah's chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in which he says that the Lebanese shouldn't interfere in the war raging in the neighboring country, but then showed another speech where he says that he is ready to double his fighters in Syria. A Hizbullah fighter was seen in the video vowing to “crush every Sunni on the face of earth” and to head to Saudi Arabia to “take back Mecca.” Hizbullah has deployed thousands of fighters into neighboring Syria to back President Bashar Assad's army as he battles insurgents who have been trying to overthrow him for the past three years.
Islamist groups repeatedly demanded Hizbullah to withdraw from Syria “before it is too late.”The video also shows the supporters of Hizbullah calling on Nasrallah to send more fighters and crush the rebellion in Syria. Other footage shows the party's members in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk and how one of them assaults a woman. A woman was also shown accusing three Hizbullah fighters of raping her in front of her children. More scenes allegedly for Hizbullah's crimes in Syria are displayed in the 28-minute video.
The fighting in Arsal is also documented in the video, claiming that Hizbullah launched rockets at the Bekaa town with the Lebanese army's knowledge. Nine abducted security personnel appear in the video with one policeman accusing Hizbullah of killing children and women in Syrian encampments and in Arsal. Another accused the residents of the Shiite Bekaa town of al-Labweh of launching rockets at mosques in the neighboring village of Arsal. The policemen lashed out at Hizbullah's interference in the war in Syria, calling on the Nusra Front to put an end to the party's actions. They address the party and the Lebanese state, saying that they're not ready to pay the price of Hizbullah's intervention in Syria. Since the abduction of Lebanese soldiers and policemen, Lebanon has been reportedly seeking the help of Qatar and Turkey to ensure their safe release. The militants released several hostages in different stages but had beheaded Lebanese army sergeant Ali al-Sayyed. The militants included fighters from the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front
The jihadists have reportedly called on the Lebanese government to release Islamist inmates from the country's largest prison in Roumieh in exchange for the captive security personnel.
Only a few of the estimated 90 Islamists have been tried. Most of them were arrested over their involvement in bloody clashes with the Lebanese army at the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in 2007.
The fighting in Arsal was the most serious border incident since the conflict in Syria began in March 2011. The video also shows the Lebanese army assaulting Islamist prisoners. At the end of the video a message is displayed for the Sunnis in Lebanon, calling on them to support their “brothers in Syria,” and warning them of backing the Lebanese army against the jihadists. “You will pay the price,” the message added. Another warning message appears, urging the remaining sects in Lebanon not to aid “the Iranian party in Lebanon.”The jihadists also vowed to continue their battle against the Shiites, saying: “Your support for Hizbullah will make you pay the price doubled.”

Israel Issues Tenders for 283 Homes in W.Bank Settlement
Naharnet/Israel said Friday it published tenders for 283 new homes in a West Bank settlement, just days after announcing its biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territory for three decades. The expansion of the Elkana settlement, in the northwest of the West Bank, was approved in January and the tenders published Thursday, Israel's Land Authority said on its website. The Jewish state in January said it would advance the construction of some 5,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, including in Elkana, Haaretz newspaper reported at the time. Haaretz said that move was aimed at diffusing Israeli public anger over the release of Palestinian prisoners under U.S.-brokered peace talks that later collapsed.
The process for those units had been put on hold over the summer during the Gaza war, housing ministry spokesman Ariel Rozenberg told AFP. Israel announced Sunday its biggest land grab in the West Bank since the 1980s, saying it planned to expropriate 400 hectares (988 acres) of land in the south of the territory, between the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron. That move drew international condemnation, even from ally the United States and some Israeli cabinet ministers. The U.S. State Department urged Israel to "reverse this decision," and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "alarmed" by Israel's plans. Israel's settlement building, which is illegal under international law, is seen as an obstacle to any lasting peace with the Palestinians, who want their future state to be on land much of which Israel has annexed or built settlements on. Jerusalem's municipality on Wednesday authorized the construction of 2,200 residential units in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem, saying it was aimed at "upgrading the standard of living and assuming responsibility for all activities taking place in Arab neighborhoods." Agence France Presse

Ukraine Government, Separatists Agree Ceasefire from Friday
Naharnet/Ukraine's Russian-backed separatists said they had agreed with Ukrainian officials on a ceasefire starting Friday, at peace talks in Minsk. "Representatives of Ukraine and Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic signed a ceasefire protocol from 6 pm on Friday," the Twitter account of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic said, without providing further details. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later said his envoy had signed a "preliminary" truce deal with the rebels aimed at halting five months of fighting that has claimed 2,600 lives. "A preliminary protocol to the ceasefire agreement has been signed in Minsk. This protocol should enter into force on Friday," Poroshenko wrote on his official Twitter account. Meanwhile the fighting continued on Friday and the tense hours preceding the peace talks that opened in Minsk saw the rebels advance to the very edge of the industrial port of Mariupol -- the latest strategic flashpoint in a conflict that has plunged East-West ties to a post-Cold War low. Agence France-Presse correspondents also reported overnight shelling that killed five civilians in the main rebel bastion of Donetsk, a city that government forces had all but encircled until being beaten back by separatists last week.
The seven-point ceasefire plan -- unveiled Tuesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin after telephone talks with Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko -- calls on both sides to halt "offensive operations" and for government troops to retreat from much of the eastern industrial regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. Poroshenko said he held out "very careful optimism" that peace could return to the splintered ex-Soviet country once the pact is signed at the European-brokered talks. "The only thing we need now for peace and stability is just two main things," Poroshenko said Thursday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Wales
"First, that Russia withdraw its troops; and second, to close the border."
NATO leaders reaffirmed their unanimous backing for Ukraine at their two-day meeting that has focused largely on Russia's new expansionist threat. EU and U.S. officials have said sanctions against Russia would be announced Friday in response to a major escalation of Moscow's military support to the rebels that has raised fears of another land grab after the annexation of Crimea in March. But British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the measures could be lifted in the event of a sustained truce. "If there is a ceasefire, if it is signed and if it is then implemented, we can then look at lifting sanctions off," he said at the NATO meeting. Any ceasefire would nonetheless leave the political status of Ukraine's economically-vital east uncertain and expose Poroshenko to charges that he had signed his government's surrender to Russian troops. Poroshenko had vowed after his May election to crush the rebellion -- a mission on the brink of success until NATO last week reported that more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had flooded across the border with heavy weapons in support of a sweeping rebel counter-offensive.
The Kremlin accuses the Western military alliance of concocting the evidence in order to expand its own presence along Russia's western frontier. But Western allies suspect Putin of trying to throw Kiev's leaders -- in power since the February ouster of a Moscow-backed administration -- off balance and keep the east's huge industrial base dependent on Russian trade. "While talking about peace, Russia has not made one single step to make peace possible," NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen observed.
EU leaders are considering new reprisals that would keep Russia's biggest energy and defense corporations from raising money in the West. They are also holding early discussions about boycotting the 2018 football World Cup in Russia -- an event especially dear to Putin's heart. NATO has already agreed to set up new funds to help Ukraine's military effort and is set to approve the deployment of a rapid response force for ex-Soviet bloc countries unnerved by Russia's actions.
The conflict has seen around 2,600 people killed and more than half a million forced from their homes since mid-April.
And renewed heavy fighting was reported in Mariupol just hours before the peace talks opened.
"The situation is quite tense," said a fighter with the pro-Kiev volunteer Azov Battalion who identified himself only as "Zhivchick", reporting attacks by rebels on several checkpoints. The Eurasia Group political risk consultancy said even in the event of a peace deal, "Russia is highly unlikely to cut support to the separatists, and Western governments will likely escalate sanctions in the coming weeks."Putin's push for peace would leave the rebels -- fighting what they claim is anti-Russian discrimination by Poroshenko and his more nationalist government -- in effective control of a region that accounts for one-sixth of Ukraine's population and a whopping quarter percent of its exports. A Kremlin account of the ceasefire plan said it requires both sides to halt offensive actions and for "Ukrainian armed forces units to withdraw to a distance that would make it impossible to fire on populated areas." It also establishes a "safe zone" that one rebel negotiator said should enable the militias to hold on to territories stretching to the very edges of the two separatist districts.
It also calls for a prisoner swap and for observers from the OSCE European security group to monitor the porous border. Poroshenko himself has never spelled out the terms of the truce and is only sending former president Leonid Kuchma as his representative for the OSCE-brokered meeting with rebel leaders and a top Putin envoy. Signs of discontent among his allies were highlighted by Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk's contention that Putin drafted the agreement to "pull the wool over the eyes of the international community" and avoid further punishment. Agence France Presse

While Still Risky, Military Intervention Against ISIS May Be the Only Good Option
Matthew Levitt /New York Daily News/September 5, 2014
In addition to hitting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the United States should target the Assad regime's military infrastructure to ensure that Damascus cannot take advantage of the situation. There are risks when attacking ISIS, but some more manageable than others. If President Obama is serious that the objective now is to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, then U.S. air strikes must be stepped up against the Islamic State. The U.S. cannot rely simply on military advisers to the Iraqi Army, an Iraqi political agreement, and a few air strikes here and there. Nor can it stop at the Iraq-Syria border because ISIS certainly does not. Destroying ISIS will only happen if it is hit hard in both northern Iraq and eastern Syria. Yet the U.S. should not give Syrian President Bashar Assad a free pass while it takes out his enemies. Officials repeat that in Syria, the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. The government needs to stand by that, and it has low-risk options. Assad has only 15 to 18 heavy runways capable of taking the massive Russian and Iranian cargo planes stuffed with weapons. Bombing even a handful of these runways out of commission would seriously impair Assad's ability to restock his arsenal. Striking both Assad and ISIS would have the added benefit of boosting moderate rebels in Syria. Otherwise, action against ISIS runs the risk of enabling Assad to devote more resources toward defeating groups that the U.S. has not designated as terrorists. Instead, the U.S. can buy time to help arm and train moderates. We should not throw them under the bus as an unintended consequence of not at least degrading Assad's capabilities while weakening one of his most dangerous enemies. It may be the case, as the President has repeatedly said, that there is no military solution in Iraq or Syria. Yet it is hard to imagine a viable political solution without an improvement in the military situation. Obama staked much of his reputation on getting American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it does not surprise that he is not keen on returning. But the most extreme Islamist group the world has ever seen now controls huge swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria. Although Obama has kept the U.S. out of the conflict on the basis of "don't do stupid stuff," it is hard to see how military involvement could have made the situation worse. Now, it is hard to see how the situation will get better without it.
**Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.

A Strategy for Beating the Islamic State
Dennis Ross / Politico/September 5, 2014
Since containment is no longer a viable option, Washington must build a regional coalition of the willing to roll back the terrorist group.
"We don't have a strategy yet." With those words, President Obama seems to have encapsulated everything that his critics have been alleging for months: that he's improvising, halting and altogether slow to react to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, the brutal terrorist group that has seized much of Iraq and Syria and on Tuesday claimed to have beheaded a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff. And certainly, the president's detractors have pounced on his poorly chosen words.
It's easy to focus on Obama's comment and ignore the real issue: What is the right strategy for countering ISIL? The president has an approach for countering ISIL in Iraq but understands that he cannot succeed against ISIL without also dealing with it in Syria. A safe haven in Syria where ISIL is able to plan, recruit, rearm, recover and return to battle is a prescription for enduring war in Iraq and for increasing threats in the region and even to the U.S. homeland.
So the administration is now wrestling with what its real options in Syria might be. But options need to be guided by a clear objective. In Syria since 2011, there has been a mismatch between the United States' objective of having President Bashar al-Assad go and the means it has been prepared to apply to achieve that end. Small wonder, therefore, that the administration is struggling now to decide what it should do against ISIL in Syria. It wants to weaken ISIL without strengthening Assad, and yet not be drawn into the Syrian civil war. Avoidance as a strategy in Syria, however, is no longer tenable. If ISIL is a "cancer," as President Obama has correctly called it, we cannot avoid attacking its presence in Syria. Containment cannot be the objective; rollback must be our aim. The president has said as much -- including in last week's press conference -- but again, we are not applying the means to achieve that end.
Clearly, ISIL is not a threat only to us, and the answer is not and cannot be just a military one. Here again, President Obama is right. To defeat ISIL, Sunnis must turn against it. The Sunni tribes, who revolted against its earlier incarnation in Iraq in 2007, must do so again. They must be backed as they do so financially and militarily -- in both Iraq and Syria. The region's leading Sunni powers -- the Saudis, Emiratis, Jordanians and Turks -- must all play a role here. As is often the case, however, if the United States does not mobilize and coordinate a multinational response, one is unlikely to emerge, much less be coherent. Moreover, the readiness of others in the region to act -- overtly and covertly -- will depend on seeing what the United States is prepared to do. Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken eloquently about putting together a global coalition to confront ISIL; when he goes to the Middle East later this week, however, the Saudis and others will ask him pointed questions about U.S. strategy. The secretary will need to show that the United States has a game plan in mind. He will need to be able to spell out that President Obama is prepared to carry out air strikes against ISIL positions in Syria as well as Iraq -- and that the United States will, in a timely fashion, provide significant lethal assistance and logistical support to those fighting not just ISIL but Assad as well.
The latter is essential, particularly given the narrative that has emerged among Sunnis in the region: The United States did nothing when thousands of Sunnis were slaughtered in Syria, but when Yezidis, Christians and Kurds were threatened, America began to bomb ISIL. Launching attacks against ISIL but doing nothing against Assad will feed this narrative. The same is true of appearing to be working in tandem with the Iranians, and Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias, against ISIL.
Although ISIL is trying to exploit this narrative to build its appeal among Sunnis, the good news is that the United States doesn't have to convince the Saudis and others that ISIL is a threat. Saudi King Abdullah has become vocal in condemning ISIL, and now Saudi religious authorities are doing so as well.
Kerry needs to capitalize on the Saudi posture. Yes, the Saudis will press to know what the United States is prepared to do, but he can also press them to step up and take a leadership position in challenging ISIL.
Why not ask them to host an international conference designed to counter the ISIL threat? Prepare the conference so that all who attend know in advance that they must make a tangible commitment to defeating ISIL. Having a Sunni Arab state in the lead can only add to the legitimacy of the campaign against ISIL -- and the Arab states in this campaign must also provide military support -- involving forces, arms, training; subsidies for the tribes; intelligence; and diplomatic and even religious efforts to discredit ISIL. (Egypt's al-Azhar University, which is the leading regional center for Sunni religious scholars, could be enlisted to condemn ISIL and the threat it poses to Islam.) Only a comprehensive strategy can defeat ISIL. But the objective must be clear; it must involve rolling back ISIL in Syria; it must provide the means to support and protect those Sunni tribes that will fight the group; and it must enlist the leading Sunni states and have them play a role that goes beyond only writing checks. None of this will happen by itself. The United States will have to be prepared to act in Syria in a way that is credible to our key Sunni partners. But if they want us to use air power, logistical support and our intelligence means more systematically, including in Syria, we need to know what they are prepared to do directly as well. After all, ISIL is far more of a threat to them than it is to us. As a general principle, President Obama has sought to have international support and participation when the United States uses force abroad. The threat posed by ISIL makes an international response possible, provided we don't equivocate about our objective or the means we are prepared to employ to achieve it. We need, in a word, a strategy.
**Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute. He served as special assistant to President Obama from 2009 to 2011.

US helpless in the face of ISIS
Orly Azoulay/ 09.05.14/Ynetnews/Israel Opinion
Analysis: America has learned once again that ideology and feelings of deprivation and disrespect cannot be defeated with smart bombs and laser-guided missiles. It was a cruel and heartbreaking illustration of the limitations of power: The knife which beheaded the two American journalists ripped through the world power's heart as well: There were not only tears in America in the past few days, but also a burning insult. As if someone had given them the finger. Americans have been executed by their rivals in the past, but this time it was in defiance, with special effects, a professional camera and an echoing microphone, against the backdrop of the dunes and the Islamic State flag blowing in the wind. As if the executors had written a script and issued directing instructions. America, which has the strongest army in the world, learned once again that ideology – even an insane one – and feelings of deprivation and disrespect cannot be defeated with smart bombs and laser-guided missiles. The rules have changed, the messages have been aggravated, and the US is now playing in a field it is still unfamiliar with in terms of its nature, the impulses raging in it and the unrestrained motivation of the new players. James Foley's execution three weeks ago brought along a feeling of anxiety. But after Steven Sotloff's murder on Tuesday, the world power has sunk into the most dangerous place for a country pretending to be the world's spotlight: Helplessness. Sotloff was a soldier in the army of journalists who are accustomed to covering dangerous areas and battlefields: He possessed the two essential traits for such a job – curiosity and determination. I met him in Washington several years ago, at a conference about the Middle East. He approached me after hearing that I had embarked on journalistic missions myself across the axis of evil. He told me that it was important for him to bring the human story behind every war. When I asked him if he was afraid, he replied in Hebrew, "Ktzat" (a bit).
In the distributed video, minutes before he was murdered, he read a short statement. Not a single muscle stirred in his face. If there was any fear in him, it was undetectable. But his story left behind a terrified nation: The US has no response for this type of fighting, and even President Barack Obama himself admitted it several days ago when he said that there was no strategy for handling ISIS. On Wednesday he changed his tone and promised to destroy them. He definitely wants to, if only to erase the shame of the past two weeks. He will continue bombing their posts in Iraq, and will maybe even make a decision to strike in Syria. But that's not what will make ISIS disappear.  In the new world order, terrorist gangs are beating America's rear and Obama doesn’t really have a response, unless he decides to return to the optimistic spirit of his first days as president, when he promised to advance global reconciliation and completely remove the American army from Iraq. It was that damaging war waged by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, without any justification, which in fact sowed the weeds on the desert hills where ISIS grew

US-Iranian military, intelligence cooperation in war on ISIS reaps first successes in Syria and Iraq
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 5, 2014/At least 18 foreign ISIS fighters including Americans and Europeans were killed Thursday, Sept. 4, in a Syrian air raid of the Al Qaeda-ISIS’ northern Syrian headquarters in the Gharbiya district of Raqqa. The raid caught a number of high Al Qaeda commanders and a large group of foreign adherents assembled at the facilty. A second group of high ISIS officers were killed or injured in another Syrian air raid over their base in Abu Kamal near the Iraqi border.debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report that top men of the Islamist terrorist group were holding meetings at both places Thursday to coordinate IS strike plans in Syria and Iraq. For Syria, these plans center on the Deir a-Zor and Al Qaim areas, while in Iraq, they focus on targets in the east and center of the country. The twin Syrian air offensive coincided with the opening of the two-day NATO Summit outside the Welsh town of Newport .
The information about the two Al Qaeda meetings at Raqqa and Abu Kamal could have come from only two sources: US surveillance satellites and aircraft or Iranian agents embedded at strategic points across Syria. Syria does not have the necessary intelligence capabilities for digging out this kind of information. Nor does its air force normally exhibit the surgical precision displayed in the two strikes on Al Qaeda bases. It is therefore more than likely that they owed their success to the widening military and intelligence cooperation between the United State and Iran in Iraq and Syria. President Barack Obama will have taken his seat at the NATO summit to discuss ways of fighting ISIS after word of the successful Syrian strikes was already in his pocket. While they must be credited to top-quality US aerial surveillance over Syria and Iraq, they were undoubtedly made possible by the Obama administration’s deepening military and intelligence ties with Iran. Many of the allies present at Newport will not welcome these tidings - Britain, Germany and Australia, in particular. They deeply resent being displaced as America’s senior strategic partners by the Revolutionary Republic of Iran, after their long partnership with the US in fighting terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But they will find it hard to argue with success. On Aug. 31, our military sources reveal, US and Iranian special forces fighting together, broke the 100-day IS siege of the eastern Iraqi town of Amerli, 100 km from the Iranian border, to score a major victory in their first joint military ground action. Then, Wednesday, Sept. 3, US jets struck an IS base in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, killing its commander, Abu Hajar Al-Sufi, and two lieutenants of the IS chief Abu Baker Al-Baghdadi.
While President Obama has denied having a strategy for fighting ISIS, a working mechanism appears to have been put in place to support a trilateral military offensive against al Qaeda’s Islamist State. The successful attacks in the last 24 hours were apparently made possible by this mechanism: Iranian intelligence collected US surveillance data from the Americans and passed it on to Syria for action.

Report: Iran 'backs US military contacts' to fight Islamic State
Ynetnews/09.05.14 /Israel News
BBC claims Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei open to working with US on fighting Islamic State threat, as America's top diplomatic, defense leaders pressed for a core coalition of 10 nations.  Iran's Supreme Leader has reportedly approved cooperation with the United States as part of the battle against Islamic State (formerly ISIS) in Iraq, the BBC reported, citing sources who spoke to Persian-language BBC.Sources reportedly old the BBC that Khamenei ordered Ghassem Soleimani, the commander of the elite al-Quds force (the overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guard) - to work with international forces fighting the Islamic State, including US forces. According to the BBC, General Soleimani has been active in the recent months in strengthening Baghdad's defenses together with Iraqi Shia militias. The BBC further reported that Soleimani was spotted in northern Iraq, indicating that this cooperation may have already begun. Meanwhile, America's top diplomatic and defense leaders pressed a core coalition of 10 nations to summon the willpower to go after the Islamic State group in Iraq militarily and financially, and said they must build a plan by the time the UN General Assembly meets in about two weeks. In a private meeting with the foreign and defense ministers from the United Kingdom, France, Australia and six other nations, Secretary of State John Kerry said leaders need a clear strategy and a solid idea about what each country will contribute to the fight. And, while noting that many won't be willing to engage in military strikes, he said they can instead provide intelligence, equipment, ammunition or weapons. "We have the technology, we have the know-how," Kerry said. "What we need is obviously the willpower to make sure that we are steady and stay at this."Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, sitting alongside Kerry, said the group of 10 nations represents a core coalition that will be needed to face the insurgent challenge. He said the group can then be expanded. The morning meeting was a late addition to the NATO summit here, and is part of a broader US strategy to bring more nations into the fight against the Islamic State militants who have taken control of large swaths of northern and western Iraq and across the border into Syria. The session, which also included dignitaries from Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark, focused on the Islamic State group in Iraq, but Kerry said there are obviously "implications about Syria in this" and suggested they could discuss that later in the day. "We very much hope that people will be as declarative as some of our friends around the table have been in order to be clear about what they're willing to commit, because we must be able to have a plan together by the time we come to (the United Nations General Assembly)," said Kerry. "We need to have this coalesce." The Associated Press contributed to this report

OP-ED – ISIL’s Campaign of Terror Must Be Stopped
Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/news-communiques/2014/09/05a.aspx
Over the summer we’ve all watched with horror as a human tragedy is unfolding in Iraq. The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) campaign of terror has been brutal. But while the summer is waning, ISIL’s evil campaign is not. They’ve already killed thousands, maimed many more, traumatized whole families, and left mothers, daughters, sons and fathers homeless in dusty internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in their own country. A staggering 1.8 million people are believed to have fled ISIL’s advances.
The long-term damage caused by ISIL is something you can’t put a number on. They have terrorized and murdered Christians, Yezidis, Shia Turkomens and other ethnic and religious minority groups. They have destroyed ancient religious monuments that are hundreds of years old. They have raped children and forced women into sexual slavery. They have summarily executed Iraqis of any creed or ethnic group who have shown resistance to their reign of terror. Time and time again, ISIL has shown its total depravity and inhumanity. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated, Canada condemns the systematic campaign of persecution that is being perpetrated by ISIL to force hundreds of thousands of Christians to convert to ISIL’s nefarious brand of Islam. The very notion of religious freedom is what ISIL is working to eradicate and what the Iraqi people and the international community cannot surrender.
The legacy they’ve left Iraqis will take the strong will of the international community to overcome. I visited Iraq over the last few days to demonstrate visibly that Canada stands with the government and people of Iraq at this challenging time. We met with the Iraqi leadership to convey this strong message of support and to express our hope that a united government would soon be formed to govern for all Iraqis regardless of their faith or ethnic identity.
We spoke to the leadership in Baghdad and Erbil about the dire security situation and the catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Talk and diplomacy during these times are crucial. But actions speak louder than words. I was pleased to see first-hand with my colleagues the positive impact of Canada’s two-pronged assistance to Iraq—helping the victims of ISIL’s actions and supporting those who are on the front lines in the fight against ISIL.
Canada is providing much-needed humanitarian assistance. This support will directly result in more tents on the ground, more access to clean water and other basic items that displaced people desperately need. On security, Canada is helping to provide critical military supplies to security forces in Iraq fighting ISIL, including through two of our own transport aircraft. And we are supporting regional efforts to prevent foreign fighters from entering Iraq and Syria.
These commitments have made Canada one of the top single-country donors to respond to the crisis in Iraq—something all Canadians can be proud of. From the front lines with the Peshmerga forces, to the families in the IDP camps, praying they can safely return home soon—Canadians have made a profound difference. But there is much more to do, and Canada can’t do it alone.
ISIL poses a threat not only to Iraq, Syria and the region, but also to global security. We all have an interest in stopping this scourge because it is threatening not just Iraq and its citizens, but freedom-loving people around the world. I believe terrorism is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. The international community must unite to destroy this scourge, and we must defend the principles that have made our nations great, prosperous and free.
The smells, heat and vastness of the Iraqi desert—but mostly the plight and courage of the Iraqi people in the face of unspeakable suffering—are things I will never forget. The Iraqi people’s fight for their dignity and freedom from bigotry and oppression will forever stay ingrained in my thoughts and will guide Canada’s foreign policy in the region and beyond, moving forward.

Striking ISIS without Assad’s permission
Abdulrahman al-Rashed /Al Arabiya
Friday, 5 September 2014
In response to the Syrian foreign minister’s statement on the need to obtain permission from Bashar al-Assad’s government to strike ISIS, British Prime Minister David Cameron has said Assad’s government lacks political legitimacy, so taking its permission before striking ISIS in Syrian territory would not be necessary, in statements made at the NATO summit this week. Assad will not mind as long as the strikes do not target him later on – if, for example, the mission changes to bombing his forces and the militias fighting for him. Those militias include the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Assaeb Ahl al-Haq and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Syrian foreign minister’s goal when requesting that foreign countries take Assad’s permission was to restore the recognition of Assad’s government as heading a sovereign state. It is this notion that Cameron has rejected. “Eradicating ISIS cannot be accomplished with air strikes, especially since terrorist groups are hiding out in city centers” The most difficult aspect in all this is that eradicating ISIS cannot be accomplished with air strikes, especially since terrorist groups are hiding out in city centers, using civilians as human shields. This is what al-Qaeda did in Iraq in the past. How will NATO forces and regional allied countries be able to eradicate ISIS with air strikes? The Americans have fiercely fought against al-Qaeda in Iraq for many years with all kinds of weapons, but they were only able to succeed with the help of Iraqi citizens and tribes.
Questioning the effectiveness
Therefore, we question the effectiveness of the “leadership from behind” policy alone. We are also sure that the policy of air strikes will fail too. The solution lies, first and foremost, in “coordinating” with a Syrian ally on the ground. The only Syrian ally ready to fight ISIS, the al-Nusrah Front, Ahrar al-Sham and the rest of these terrorist organizations is the Free Syrian Army (FSA). It is the only national Syrian force that has legitimacy and civil values, gained from popular support. The war on terrorist groups will take up to two years - this is a relatively long period of time that requires arrangements on the ground, just like what happened in Iraq. Today, Syria has become the home of global terrorism; it is no longer based in Iraq. This is because Syria is home to ISIS’ headquarters, its armies and other terrorist groups. Air strikes alone cannot do much in Syria; the limited support of the FSA cannot succeed in besieging terrorists. The members of the FSA won’t accept turning their attention to fighting ISIS and its affiliates while abandoning the mission of overthrowing Assad.
Their main project is to control the capital, Damascus, and to establish a new government for all Syrians. The new government will be responsible for the liberation of the rest of the Syrian territories from terrorist groups and mercenaries who are fighting alongside the Syrian regime. The new alliance has to recognize and support the FSA, enabling it to take full responsibility and not only be a mere brigade chasing ISIS for the sake of the West and the Arabs.

Striking ISIS without Assad’s permission
Abdulrahman al-Rashed /Al Arabiya
Friday, 5 September 2014
In response to the Syrian foreign minister’s statement on the need to obtain permission from Bashar al-Assad’s government to strike ISIS, British Prime Minister David Cameron has said Assad’s government lacks political legitimacy, so taking its permission before striking ISIS in Syrian territory would not be necessary, in statements made at the NATO summit this week. Assad will not mind as long as the strikes do not target him later on – if, for example, the mission changes to bombing his forces and the militias fighting for him. Those militias include the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Assaeb Ahl al-Haq and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Syrian foreign minister’s goal when requesting that foreign countries take Assad’s permission was to restore the recognition of Assad’s government as heading a sovereign state. It is this notion that Cameron has rejected. “Eradicating ISIS cannot be accomplished with air strikes, especially since terrorist groups are hiding out in city centers”The most difficult aspect in all this is that eradicating ISIS cannot be accomplished with air strikes, especially since terrorist groups are hiding out in city centers, using civilians as human shields. This is what al-Qaeda did in Iraq in the past. How will NATO forces and regional allied countries be able to eradicate ISIS with air strikes? The Americans have fiercely fought against al-Qaeda in Iraq for many years with all kinds of weapons, but they were only able to succeed with the help of Iraqi citizens and tribes.
Questioning the effectiveness
Therefore, we question the effectiveness of the “leadership from behind” policy alone. We are also sure that the policy of air strikes will fail too. The solution lies, first and foremost, in “coordinating” with a Syrian ally on the ground. The only Syrian ally ready to fight ISIS, the al-Nusrah Front, Ahrar al-Sham and the rest of these terrorist organizations is the Free Syrian Army (FSA). It is the only national Syrian force that has legitimacy and civil values, gained from popular support. The war on terrorist groups will take up to two years - this is a relatively long period of time that requires arrangements on the ground, just like what happened in Iraq. Today, Syria has become the home of global terrorism; it is no longer based in Iraq. This is because Syria is home to ISIS’ headquarters, its armies and other terrorist groups. Air strikes alone cannot do much in Syria; the limited support of the FSA cannot succeed in besieging terrorists. The members of the FSA won’t accept turning their attention to fighting ISIS and its affiliates while abandoning the mission of overthrowing Assad.
Their main project is to control the capital, Damascus, and to establish a new government for all Syrians. The new government will be responsible for the liberation of the rest of the Syrian territories from terrorist groups and mercenaries who are fighting alongside the Syrian regime. The new alliance has to recognize and support the FSA, enabling it to take full responsibility and not only be a mere brigade chasing ISIS for the sake of the West and the Arabs.

Iran’s covert military buildup and operations
Majid Rafizadeh /Al Arabiya
Friday, 5 September 2014
Iran has exercised a tactical shift regarding publicizing its military, ballistic and nuclear capabilities. In the past, its leaders and state media did not hesitate to project its military power more publicly, but they have become less strident in doing so.
Does this mean that Iran has become less inclined to pursue its regional hegemonic ambitions? Recent developments suggest otherwise. Although it denies involvement in other countries’ affairs - including Yemen, Bahrain and Iraq - its covert operations in several states, including Iraq and Syria, have been on the rise. Tehran’s most crucial instrument for covert operations is the Quds Force and Etela’at (the Intelligence Ministry). The increasing power of the Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, has been clear in several parts of the Middle East. Tehran’s political and military relationships - with some powerful non-state players, including Hamas - have also progressed. In addition, Iran has become increasingly engaged in Syria, alongside Hezbollah.
“Although it denies involvement in other countries’ affairs, its covert operations in several states have been on the rise”
Majid Rafizadeh
In terms of strategic influence, Tehran would previously frequently threaten to block or cause serious damage to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. These threats have been absent under the presidency of Hassan Rowhani, but according to a classified Pentagon assessment and Bloomberg News, Iran “continues a low-profile buildup of weapons in and near the Strait of Hormuz.”
Crucial for the global economy
The strait is crucial for the global economy, since approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil and nearly 35 percent of seaborne traded oil pass through it. The classified report points out: “Iran continues to develop its anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities to control the Strait of Hormuz and its approaches. Tehran is quietly fielding increasingly lethal symmetric and asymmetric weapon systems, including more advanced naval mines, small but capable submarines, coastal defense cruise missile batteries, attack craft, and anti-ship ballistic missiles.”In addition, Iran - which possesses a covert long-range ballistic missile development program - is expected to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile by 2015. This has become a growing concern in the region and the West.
Tehran refuses to discuss its ballistic missile program and capabilities in nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States plus Germany), describing the issue as a “red line.”
Iran appears to be ratcheting up its nuclear technological capabilities, even after an interim deal was reached. According to the classified report, “Iran continues to develop technological capabilities that could be applicable to nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, which could be adapted to deliver nuclear weapons, should Iran’s leadership decide to do so.”
Fundamental objectives
Iran has learned from its past mistakes. Publicizing its military and nuclear capabilities triggered stringent economic sanctions and isolated it regional and globally, endangering the government’s hold on power. Although there are disagreements between Rowhani and the IRGC senior cadre, the country’s underlying tactical shift follows his modern agenda: speaking softly while still pursuing Iran’s hegemonic ambitions. Tehran has attempted to alleviate the concerns of other countries. “Our neighbors should know that if we become powerful in defense industries, it is not merely for our own security, but it is for the security of the entire region,” said Rowhani. “We do not seek an arms race, but we ourselves will make the necessary decisions for defending ourselves and we do not seek the permission of others in this regard.”
The government’s fundamental objectives behind keeping a low profile are most likely to:
1. Ensure the power and rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2. Exert more direct or indirect power by secretly strengthening alliances with Shiite states and non-state actors.
3. Project Iran as the sole regional power.
4. Pursue regional hegemonic ambitions.
5. Remove economic sanctions.
6. Wield direct power regionally and internationally via nuclear and atomic capacities.

Lebanon must unite against the ISIS threat
Nayla Tueni /Al Arabiya/Friday, 5 September 2014
Despite Lebanon’s history of wars, fighting, occupation and tutelage, it has not known such a fateful phase as dangerous as the one it currently confronts. An indicator of this is the unprecedented shock felt after a photo of a beheaded man - allegedly of Ali al-Sayyed, a Lebanese soldier - was circulated. Through this photo, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) aimed to terrify the Lebanese people. Time constraints no longer allow us to continue addressing our local issues with shallow talk. Lebanon, and the Lebanese people, confront an existential threat which can only be addressed by ending the prevailing political and social coma. Therefore, we would not be exaggerating if we say that we are being called upon to defend our existence and to prove - for once in our history - that we, as citizens and not as narrow-minded people or followers of a certain sect or religion or party, are capable of defeating the threat posed against us.
United the Lebanese people
The martyrdom of army personnel on the battlefield and in the captivity of ISIS has united the Lebanese people like no war or terrorist operation has done before. All Lebanese people feel that army soldiers and security forces’ members held hostage by the ISIS are part of their own terrified families. This is where we should begin crystallizing a sense of Lebanese unity that stands as a bulwark against the conspiracy of strife, which terrorist organizations aim to spread in Lebanon. There are no more Christians, Muslims, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze in Lebanon, only a slogan that ascends above Lebanon and it’s that the Lebanese people are above all “Lebanese” during these trying times.
“It’s time that we all wake up and realize that the threat is existential”
Some may say these are beautiful and sentimental statements which impossible to attain in Lebanon - the country of sects and religions. However, if we do not translate these statements by taking a historical stand in support of the army and if we do not all work together to confront terrorism, then we are risking our existence and our country. It’s time that we all wake up and realize that the threat is existential. We must be ready for the fight no matter what it takes and we have no choice but to quickly rise up to the threat. The entire region is shaking in front of ISIS’ threat and the Western world remains lumbering and observant while the terrorist organization expands by the day. So what are we waiting for? Isn’t it time to be on a state of alert and to get ready for all scenarios following the attacks on the army in Arsal and following the daily threats against our families? Shouldn’t we all stand as recruits, ready for any emergency and for deterring the existential threat against us, standing by the army in unity? Such unity will deliver the terrorists a message that stipulates the Lebanese people are not up for grabs and will also send the world a message, telling them to rise up to help Lebanon.

Terrorism is everyone’s problem
Abdullah Hamidaddin /Al Arabiya
Friday, 5 September 2014
A week ago, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz told ambassadors that their governments need to take the threat of terrorism very seriously, otherwise their countries would be targeted next. The king’s warning comes after two important messages mainly targeted at Saudis. On Aug. 1, he sent a clear message denouncing terrorism, in what was taken by many as a warning to Saudis who encourage or join terrorist organizations. Another statement came in a meeting he had with senior Saudi religious scholars. He accused them of being idle in performing their duties, and passive in promoting tolerance and combating radicalism. This is probably the first time in Saudi history that a monarch publicly criticizes religious scholars. Saudi society is conservative, and religious scholars are considered by many as the guardians of its conservative collective conscience. “The Saudi government knows that it cannot combat terrorism alone. It has been insisting on the need for collective action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its ilk” In the past, when monarchs wanted to publicly convey a message to scholars, it would usually be a reminder of their duty, and include praise for their efforts. They had never been publicly accused of being inept. His statement sent shockwaves through Saudi society and the religious establishment.
Cooperation
The Saudi government knows that it cannot combat terrorism alone. It has been insisting on the need for collective action against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its ilk. Three weeks ago, Riyadh contributed $100 million to the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Centre. The message was clear: unless the world works together, terrorism will not be eradicated. However, Western governments are still reluctant to intervene, and preferred to believe that ISIS has local ambitions and is a local problem. This has been changing since the tragic execution of American journalist James Foley, and the threat of ISIS is steadily becoming an international concern. The king is taking this as an opportunity, asking not only for a collective response to terrorism, but a comprehensive, multi-level, global approach.
Today there is much talk about military action against ISIS, as if that is the main and only solution. That is not enough. ISIS is part of a larger, very complex problem. Muslims have engaged in a discourse of victimization for over a century, which makes radicalism appealing even to the non-terrorist. Terrorists are able to thrive in failed states such as Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Their source of funds depends on access to international markets. ISIS controls some oilfields, but if that oil cannot find its way to international markets, it is of no use. ISIS fighters come through stable countries such as Turkey. Their message is disseminated through social media. These are but some issues that can only be solved if countries work together.
Saudis against terrorism
The good news is that King Abdullah is not the only one calling for a global coalition against terrorism. On the same day he spoke to ambassadors to the kingdom, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote an op-ed calling for the same thing. Also, in Saudi Arabia there are signs of a coalition being formed between the government and citizens. In the past, many Saudis preferred to stay on the sidelines in the war between their government and terrorists. In a clan-based society, family loyalties superseded loyalty to the country. People were not willing to give up members of their clans. However, last week citizens living in rural areas informed the government of recruiting activities among them. This is a breakthrough, and if continues, it could change the tide against home-grown terrorism.
It would help if foreign media picked up such stories. The world mostly hears about the negative aspects of terrorism, or about the successes of security forces against it. The world also needs to hear how the average citizen is risking his wellbeing to combat it.

Hamas and the Delusion of Victory
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat
Friday, 5 Sep, 2014
While victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is always an orphan. The Latin proverb came to my mind the other day as I watched Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh boasting on live television about his group’s “historic victory” in the recent mini-war with Israel.
The 90-minute harangue was interesting for at least one reason: Haniyeh punctured the global media’s narrative, according to which Israel triggered the mini-war, ostensibly to gain some unspecified advantage, while the world was distracted by the blood-fest organized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in parts of northwest Iraq.
“We started the war by striking Haifa with rockets,” Haniyeh boasted, while wiping the sweat off his brow.
The Hamas leader did not say who took the decision to start a war in which more than 2,000 Gazans died, nor how that decision was taken. In his vision, people count for nothing, except as cannon fodder to be used in an unequal war against a much stronger enemy, and in the absence of any credible strategy.
To hammer that point home, Haniyeh paid tribute to the handful of Hamas figures who died in the mini-war, while sailing over the fact that the overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians used as human shields. Nor did he seem too concerned about the fact that his victory was marked by the destruction of 90 percent of Gaza’s already meager infrastructure.
According to UN experts, it may take the enclave up to 20 years to rebuild what the Israelis destroyed. Some victory, indeed. Nevertheless, Haniyeh was right, at least in a sense, about having won a victory. He and his gunmen are still around, and in control of Gaza. Israel’s chicken-hawk Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, did an Ehud Olmert (Israel’s former Prime Minister) by starting what he did not have the guts to finish. He wreaked havoc in Gaza, but allowed Hamas not only to continue existing, but also to retain its iron grip on a helpless and unarmed population. (The Italian Renaissance diplomat and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli’s sound advice is not to wound a mortal enemy but let him live. Either kill him or turn him into a friend, he urged).
Haniyeh’s message to Gazans was clear: we start a war when we like and finish it when we like! You count for nothing! Worse still, it was clear that the decision to start a war had not been discussed even inside Hamas. A handful of men operating as a star chamber ran the macabre show.
However, Haniyeh’s boastful speech, in front of a crowd whose silence was more telling than the loudest of protests, may have been premature. A day later, it was the turn of the daily newspaper Kayhan, published by the office of the “Supreme Guide,” to claim “victory in Gaza” on behalf of the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.
In an editorial, the paper claimed that “the fate of the Middle East is decided here, in the Imam Khomeini Hussainiah in Tehran.” The paper quoted “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei as saying that, ostensibly to achieve similar victories, “the West Bank should also be armed like Gaza.”
The paper went on to praise Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who was reshaping the Middle East on behalf of the “Supreme Guide.”
To back the claim, the Tehran official media splashed a series of messages from Hamas leaders thanking the Islamic Republic for backing them in the “Great Battle” against the “Zionist enemy,” all in the name of “Islamic solidarity.”
Some Tehran newspapers have a tradition of printing quotations from the late Ruhollah Khomeini, the mullah who founded the Islamic Republic, as examples of words of wisdom. The latest quote they published from Khomeini appeared to be in response to Hamas leaders’ talk of “Islamic solidarity.” The quote runs thus: “You must know that just being Muslim is of no use. You must also acknowledge the Islamic Republic.” (From Khomeini’s Sahifat al-Nour, Vol. 18, page 198).
In other words, the message to Hamas leaders is: there is no free lunch as far as Tehran is concerned. If we give you money and missiles, you ought to obey orders, as do the Lebanese Hezbollah and the gang of President Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus. The Islamic Republic does not want, indeed can’t have, allies. Like other empires, established or aspirant, it wants servants.
It is ultimately useless to debate who won the mini-war in Gaza. As the Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu, noted more than 2,000 years ago, no war is won unless one side admits defeat.
Haniyeh cannot admit defeat because that would expose him to the charge of reckless adventurism, to say the least. He and his unnamed associates ignored the advice not only of Sun Tzu, but also of the Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), not to join a battle without having at least a 50 percent chance of winning it. To take one’s people into an unequal war is tantamount to leading them to the slaughter.
For his part, Netanyahu is unlikely to admit that he has lost the mini-war. Such an admission would spell the end of his tumultuous career. So he too claims victory by claiming that he has destroyed the bulk of Hamas’s rocket-launching infrastructure. That may or may not be true. However, that infrastructure could be quickly rebuilt, especially as Hamas would give it priority over rehousing the tens of thousands of unarmed Gazans made homeless. Lost rockets could also be quickly replaced from the same sources that provided the ones destroyed.
The latest Gaza war broke out because both Israel and Hamas found the status quo hard to bear. Hamas knew its support base was collapsing inside Gaza. Earlier this year, the US’s PEW Research Center global poll showed that 63 percent of Gazans had a negative opinion on Hamas. Interestingly, Hamas was slightly less disliked in the West Bank where 53 percent had a negative opinion of it. That was in line with a dramatic change of mood across the Muslim world, where between 50 percent (in Turkey) and 79 percent (in Nigeria) of people rejected radical Islamists.
The status quo that led to war has not changed in Gaza. Hamas is still there with only one strategy: firing occasional rockets against Israel. And Israel is still there with an aversion to having rockets fired against it.
If Haniyeh thinks that is a great victory, he had better seek treatment for an acute attack of delusion.