LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
FEBRUARY 12/2006

Below News from miscellaneous sources for 12/2/06
Hezbollah Faces Price of Joining Politics. By ZEINA KARAM (AP)12.2.06
Jumblat Says Hizbullah is a Militia that Should be Disbanded
Sheikh Subhi Tufaili Says Hizbullah Should Disarm for Fear of Civil War
Syria's Assad reshuffles cabinet amid Western pressure-Reuters 12.2.06
Assad Appoints Sharaa as Vice-President, Moallem as Foreign Minister-Naharnet
Aoun and Nasrallah -By: Abdel Wahab Badrakhan Al-Hayat 12.2.06
Hezbollah stand up and say 'thank you' please instead of 'shut up' Bush- Iranian.ws  12.2.06
New Lebanese Equations.By: Amir Taheri 12.2.06
Sharon Undergoes Surgery after Serious Deterioration
Danish Ambassador Leaves Syria over Security Concerns
Brammertz Discusses Progress of Hariri Probe, Gets Backing of Security Council
Assailants Throw Dynamite Stick at Syrian-Owned Car, Woman Injured
Jumblat Says Hizbullah is a Militia that Should be Disbanded
Ill-fated Building Housing Danish Mission Burns Again
Welch Criticizes Aoun Over His Agreement With Hizbullah
Saniora Hosts a Meeting of Religious Leaders to Prevent Riot Backlash
Brammertz Discusses Progress of Hariri Probe, Gets Backing of Security Council
Assailants Throw Dynamite Stick at Syrian-Owned Car, Woman Injured
Ahmadinejad Threatens Revision of Nuclear Policy

Jumblat Says Hizbullah is a Militia that Should be Disbanded
Druze leader Walid Jumblat has said that Hizbullah was a militia that should be disbanded or integrated into the army as all Lebanese armed groups did after the end of the civil war. Jumblat, speaking at his hometown of Mukhtara Friday, said that Lebanon cannot remain a battle front until the disputed Shabaa Farms are liberated as their ownership remains a subject of much controversy. The Druze leader, whose relationship with former ally Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has soured over the past months, notably referred to the Party of God's military wing as a militia.
Jumblat said the group's "defensive net outside the army is rejected" and that the solution was for it to "join the army according to what we agreed o in 1992 to disband all militias." "Therefore Hizbullah's militia will be disbanded and it will enter the army. We do not object to that," Jumblat added. The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party said he would present a paper to Parliament to discuss the issue of Hizbullah's disarmament and the ownership of the Israeli-held Shabaa Farms. He said the farms were owned by Lebanon but did not fall under its sovereignty.
"The Shabaa Farms issue lies at the heart of this motion that will be put before parliament. The ownership of these farms is Lebanese but Lebanon does not exercise sovereignty there," Jumblat told reporters.
He said he had maps that showed that the farms and the nearby Kfarshouba hills have not been under Lebanese sovereignty since 1962. They were added to Lebanese territorial claims in 2001, he added. The Shabaa Farms are the last region still held by Israel after Hizbullah's relentless military campaign against Israelis troops in south Lebanon forced the Jewish state to withdraw its forces in the year 2000. After the pullout, U.N. cartographers said that the farms were in Syrian territory, whereas Lebanon and Syria maintain that they are Lebanese.
The pro-Syrian Hizbullah has vowed to hold on to its weapons until Shabaa is liberated. It also went further saying it would not disarm as long as Lebanon was faced with the possibility of renewed Israeli aggression.
"We refuse to allow this front to remain open until we have proved Lebanon's claim to these farms and secured their liberation," Jumblat said "Lebanon cannot remain an open battle front with Israel and there cannot be states within the state," he added.
A dispute about the classification of Hizbullah is at the root of a government crisis that was resolved last week ending a 7-week cabinet boycott by Shiite ministers. The group wanted the government to officially declare that Hizbullah is a resistance movement not a militia. The Party of God acquiesced when Prime Minister Fouad Saniora devised a compromise solution saying in parliament that the government "has neither named nor will we name the resistance other than by its name: the resistance."The government has been under international pressure to disarm the group according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls on all militias in Lebanon to give up their weapons.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, Updated 11 Feb 06,

Israel violates Lebanese Air space
date: 11 02, 2006
Beirut, Feb. 11, (BNA) The Israeli military war planes violated once again the Lebanese air space, hovering over South Lebanon and Al Biqa'a. Lebanese National News Agency (NNA)reported on a Lebanese military statement as saying that six Israeli war planes violated, today, the Lebanese air space and flew over areas in South Lebanon, Beirut, Mount Lebanon, reaching Tripoli in the north and Ba'alabak in the east. The Lebanese anti-aircraft artillery in Saida and Sour intercepted the Israeli fighters and forced them to fly away towards the sea and Occupied Territories, the NNA said

Syria's Assad reshuffles cabinet amid Western pressure
Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:44 PM GMT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appointed new interior and foreign ministers on Saturday, filling a major vacuum in his government as the country faces pressure over its role in Lebanon.
The appointment of senior security officer Bassam Abdel Majeed as interior minister and career diplomat Walid al-Moualem to the foreign affairs portfolio were the key changes in a cabinet reshuffle announced through the state news agency SANA.
Majeed succeeds the late general Ghazi Kanaan, whom the authorities said committed suicide last year. As Syria's most senior army commander in Lebanon, Kanaan managed Syria's military and political role there for over a decade before he was recalled to Damascus.
Walid al-Moualem, a former ambassador to the United States, replaces Farouq al-Shara, who became vice president.
"Mr Shara will be responsible for executing foreign and media policy under the directions of the president," the SANA agency said. Shara is wanted for questioning in a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri a year ago, which has implicated Syria.Syria has repeatedly denied involvement in the killing of Hariri and promised to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, led now by a new Belgian prosecutor. Damascus however still faces the prospects of sanctions after a U.N. resolution in October demanded Syria cooperates in the investigation or face unspecified action. Shara, who has a degree in English literature from the University of Damascus, had been foreign minister since 1984. He remained in his post although he fell ill a few years ago and represented Syria in discussions in the United Nations over Syria's alleged role in the killing of Hariri. Syria has two vice president positions, but all power effectively rests with the president. Assad had left the two posts vacant since last year, when Abdel-Halim Khaddam resigned before defecting to Paris months later.

Aoun and Nasrallah
Abdel Wahab Badrakhan Al-Hayat - 11/02/06//
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and General Michel Aoun's meeting has been widely perceived as a tough political blow, well brewed and shocking, though expected by all the Lebanese political circles on the eve of Baabda - Aley by-elections. A masterstroke indeed! For this meeting couldn't have been held at a better time with the fears fomented by Sunday's Tabaris demonstration still fresh. Perhaps, we must thank both leaders for their commendable step that has foiled a latent, but easily sparkled sedition.
"The Free Patriotic Movement" and "Hezbollah" are not said to have forged an alliance but an acceptable and satisfactory agreement. Nonetheless, it is hard to believe that their supporters have been finally convinced, have understood, and heartily blessed this breakthrough. Like all other Lebanese, they need to watch things closely to fully grasp this meeting symbolically held at St. Michael Church. Yet, symbols alone do not effect real change on the ground.
In truth, General Aoun followers have never been zealous sympathizers of "Hezbollah" and its leader. With no doubt, some do respect Sayyed Nasrallah and the party, appreciating the Resistance great role in liberating South Lebanon. Yet, the majority has endured since 1990 and until 2005 a harsh political and psychological climate. Throughout this period, the two movements were neither enemies nor friends. Most importantly, they have never thought they could meet on strategic bases. On the other hand, "Hezbollah" supporters have never admired Aoun-led demonstrations against the Syrian presence before the withdrawal and prior to PM Rafik Hariri's assassination. Likewise, they remember quite well that Aoun supporters were the driving force behind the "Independence or March 14 Intifada" against "March 8 Intifada," which was never portrayed as struggling for independence and sovereignty, but as one staged by the parties rejecting Syria's then imminent withdrawal.
For this reason, it would be interesting and important to see both parties demonstrate side by side on any future occasion, whether against the government or the international pressures on Iran and Syria. If this takes place, it will not only constitute a putsch, but one of the miracles of the well-known "Lebanese experience." Why not? For everything is possible and authorized on a national basis. But nothing conclusively proves that this "common document" can pave the way for such project, especially that "Hezbollah" has joined a majority government representing the Shiite bloc too. As we all know, this government has also adopted a statement synonymous of a "common document" but more important, since it does not only bind the political parties, but also the State and its institutions. Still, this party has failed to embrace the government project, supposedly a national one too. While searching for allies to its other "project," the party has indeed found one - General Aoun.
Congratulations for the two new "allies!" With no doubt, they realize their meeting will be put to the test before the Lebanese to determine to what extent it serves the country or personal interests. Generally speaking, when two parties fail to achieve the strategic goals they have espoused, their meeting will be then depicted as built on mere tactics. In other words, General Aoun cannot guarantee Hezbollah's weapons. Nor can the party alone elect Aoun president. In the same vein, Aoun cannot brush aside UN resolution 1559, alleging it has been internally implemented. In parallel, "Hezbollah" cannot build alone 'sound relations' with Syria. But if their meeting was, by contrast, intended to vex other confessions and parties, then their intention will be soon unraveled. Until recently, Walid Jumblatt, previously "Hezbollah" ally - rather arms companion - is now harshly in conflict with it.
Anyway, the Majority in the Cabinet must now reconsider its activities and alliances. With a competent and skillful Prime Minister still needing a more effective political support, this majority seems with no leader. Its opponents are even capable of imposing their own agenda with all its falseness and opportunism.

New Lebanese Equations
Amir Taheri
Is Iran reverting to one of the late Shah’s pet politics: An alliance between Shiites and Christians against the Sunnis and the Druze in Lebanon?
The question is not fanciful.
In a move that has surprised even the most seasoned observers of Lebanese politics the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah movement has just forged an alliance with the main Maronite political coalition in the Parliament. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, and Gen. Michel Aoun, the Maronite standard-bearer, met in Beirut last week to give the alliance their seal of approval. The idea of such an alliance has been gestating in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut for weeks and was given the final boost it needed by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to Damascus last month. While in Damascus, Ahmadinejad received the Hezbollah leaders for what was described as a “brain storming session.” But the real purpose of the meeting was to convey Iran’s decision to counter attempts by the United States and France to foster a pro-Western regime in Beirut and work for regime change in Damascus.
Ahmadinejad considers Lebanon and Syria as part of Iran’s glacis in its struggle against the United States and its regional allies, especially Israel. He is, therefore, determined not to allow the US to bring veritable regime change in either nation.
Under the Shah, Iran considered Lebanon as part of its glacis against radical Arab regimes backed by the Soviet Union. At that time, however, the Lebanese Shiite community was weak and disorganized. So the Shah based his Lebanon policy on the Maronite Christian community while the Sunnis and the Druze sided with the radical pro-Soviet Arab regimes, including those in Damascus and Cairo.
Iran began organizing the Lebanese Shiites soon after the 1958 Lebanese civil war. Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi, then the Marjaa Taqlid (Source of Emulation) of the Shiite community dispatched one of his brightest pupils, Moussa Sadr, to Lebanon for the purpose. The Iranian government backed the enterprise with money and diplomatic support until the early 1970s. On the Maronite side Iran’s chief interlocutor in Lebanon was former President Camille Chamoun who was a frequent visitor to Tehran where he met the Shah and Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda.
The Iranian-backed alliance in Lebanon fell apart after the Khomeinist revolution in Tehran. And Iran’s view of the Maronites soured further when some of them, under Bashir Gemayel, forged an alliance with Israel while another group, led by Aoun, received money and arms from Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
Many in Tehran must have worked hard at anger control to forget Aoun’s close ties with Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s when Iraq was at war with Iran. But there is little sentiment in geo-strategy, and what matters for the present Iranian leadership is to contain the American advance in the Middle East until President George W. Bush is replaced by a more pliable adversary in Washington.
The strange alliance makes sense when we take into account the interests of those concerned. Aoun who had fought and then fled the Syrians makes his peace with Damascus. And that enhances his hopes of replacing Emile Lahoud as Lebanon’s president. The Maronite community as a whole will benefit by keeping the present constitutional arrangements in place under which the Christians, who now account for some 23 percent of the population, retain half of the political power at national level.
Nasrallah benefits from the deal not only by proving his usefulness to Iran once again but also by breaking his party’s political isolation inside Lebanon.
Since the start of the “Cedar Revolution” last year, Hezbollah had been shut out of the country’s mainstream politics and unable to side either with Syria or the rising democracy tide in Lebanon. More importantly, Aoun has now committed the Maronites to a policy of allowing the Hezbollah to retain all its weapons, including heavy ones that make its forces a veritable army alongside Lebanon’s national army. The Nasrallah-Aoun accord consolidates Hezbollah’s position not as a political party but as a bona fide regime with its own administration, army and territory inside Lebanon.
Outside Lebanon the chief beneficiary of the new alliance will be the Syrian government. It can now be certain that the Lebanese opposition, now consisting mainly of the Sunnis and the Druze, will not have enough votes to impeach Emile Lahoud let alone appoint a new president who might be hostile toward Damascus.
In fact, I would not be surprised if the Syrians were to jettison Lahoud and help Aoun win the presidency with support from Hezbollah. Throughout last year Aoun worked hard to win American and French support for his bid for the presidency. The Americans never warmed up to Aoun because of the ex-general’s long history of association with Saddam Hussein. The French, who had hosted Aoun in exile for 15 years, were not enthusiastic either because they know the ex-general to be unpredictable as friend and implacable as foe.
In the meantime Lahoud will keep the entire machinery of government in a state of paralysis by refusing to sign the laws passed by the Parliament and the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers. In fact, the Lebanese government is now an autopilot at a time that the economic situation is steaming toward crisis point while the threat of political violence looms larger.
Can the Nasrallah-Aoun duo, backed by Tehran and Damascus, offer Lebanon the kind of political stability it needs to rebuild its sense of nationhood? No one could know for sure. The alliance has taken Lebanese politics several steps back in time by putting the emphasis on sectarian rather than national strategies.
There is, however, no guarantee that the genies released by the “ Cedar Revolution” will simply return to the bottle. A majority of the Lebanese seem to favor policies that will end their nation’s isolation and reintegrate it into the mainstream of global life. The Hezbollah-Maronite alliance might not be able to offer an alternative vision if only because it must take into account the broader strategic interests of Iran and Syria.
By keeping the situation frozen in Lebanon, both Iran and Syria might wish to enhance their own protection against the threat of regime change. But that could have an unexpected result: Those interested in regime change might conclude that things in Lebanon will not change until they change in Syria and that, in turn, will not happen, until there is change in Iran.
All that could turn Lebanon into a regional battlefield, yet again. In the 1950s and then in the 1970s and 1980s Lebanon paid a heavy price because international and regional powers fought their proxy wars in its territory. And that is precisely what a majority of the Lebanese, including those supposedly represented by Aoun and Nasrallah wish to avoid.

Hezbollah stand up and say 'thank you' please instead of 'shut up' Bush?
Feb 10, 2006
Iqbal Latif Paris, Persian Journal
Under Saddam's secular Baath Party, Shiites were thrown in jail or executed for planned sacramental parades. Ashura chanting were banned, the expression of majority millions was chained under draconian measures executed by a dreadful regime in Baghdad. The conscience of the global nation of Islam never bothered with the denial of freedom of majority of Iraqis. Shiites were the nameless majority suffering under a tyranny that was supported by a very elitist Sunni minority.
The Shi'ite Hezbollah leader Nasrallah should have marked his gratitude to Bush rather than asking to shut up for Bush is responsible for the emancipation of millions of Shi'ites. If freedom of expression and performance of rituals is the benchmark by which we measure freedom then Iraq today is a religiously and politically free nation!
These ideologically incarcerated millions of Iraqis are liberated today; millions of them reach Kerbala for Ashura. Mourners slept on blankets thrown down on the sidewalks. Large tents were set up for Iraqis coming to the city freely without any restrictions. They were unhindered by Saddam's security forces, which prevented organized processions and their chanting as overtly political and threat to his despotic regime.
Under Saddam, thousands would walk veiled and concealed among orchards on the approach to Kerbala to evade army patrols blocking processions. In a free Iraq today millions of pilgrims descend on Kerbala, for Shiites it is the holiest and the largest congregation second to none where Husayn is revered for the martyrdom. Some slice their foreheads with the edge of a sword in a practice known as "al-Tatbeer" - meaning "sword" in Arabic - and beat themselves while chanting "Haider, Haider," a name by which Hussein's father, Ali, is known. Others slap chains across their backs until their clothes are soaked with blood, while others beat their heads with the flat side of long swords and knives until blood ran freely in a ritual of grief that was banned under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
As Voltaire says, "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." As a lover of humanity the rite of self-flagellation and blood-letting has no relevance and its prohibition under Saddam's regime may have actually been for the better so as to spare the birth of excessive violence but if belief demands than no one can chain belief. Under no pretext of secularism or no secularism ideological expression can be curtailed; man should have the right to express his belief this is a fundamental human right.
The Baathists considered legitimate right of mourning tradition established over 1400 years to grieve the death of Husayn as a definite political overtone of defiance against the authorities. Their religious freedom was as restricted as well as their political rights. Husayn, the grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, was massacred along with about 70 followers by an army of Umayyads, their rivals for leadership of the Muslim community, during a 680 A.D. battle in Kerbala. Husayn's death cemented the split in Islam between Shiites and Sunni Muslims.
The mourning of the death of Husayn is looked as abhorred rite, a detested revisionism by many Sunni scholars like Abdul Wahab al-Najadi and Ibn Taymiyah. There has been a debate going on among the Shi'a as well upon the bereavement of a sacrifice. Yazid's actions in regards to Husayn and the battle have made him a notorious figure; he is hated by Shi'a Muslims. On the other hand those who follow Abdul Wahab al-Najadi and Ibn Taymiyah claim that he did not order Husayn's death and attribute the tragedy at Kerbala to overzealousness on the part of Yazid's generals.
Until today Sunni insurgency takes its inspiration from Ibn Taymiyah and Abdul Wahab and if they had their way they would raze these mausoleums to the ground as they have done it in the most sacred of holy places in Islam. The monuments of the family and the companions of the Prophet are no more to be found under excessive puritanical approach of Wahabism.
Two million Shiites marched in drum banging and flag waving parades or watched as the teeming crowd moved by. They openly wept out their sorrow, swept by a sandstorm; mass processions choked Kerbala's wide streets, more than 8,000 security forces and additional militiamen. The United States military were using unmanned, unarmed aerial drones to provide an overhead view of processions.
Imagine one of the grandest occasions to pay tributes to the fallen heroes of Shiites was being performed freely after decades under watchful guard of the American. The drones in the skies in a 'free Iraq' prevented terrorist attacks that had rocked Ashoura ceremonies over the past two years, killing more than 230 people.
The ceremony ended in Iraq ended with no security violations and no insurgents induced stampede, except for one rocket launched from an area west of Kerbala that fell in a field six miles away. On the other hand where drones were not in the sky, a suicide bomber killed 35 of their own brethren who were killed and dozens wounded in HANGU in Pakistan in a suicide bombing on a Shiite Muslim procession and subsequent violence on the holiest day of the year for the religious minority. The bombing targeted a procession in the town of Hangu in North West Frontier Province to mark Ashura, the end of 10 days of mourning for Shiites.
Shiite bloodletting and extreme expression of sorrow is a ritualism that has no place in the modern world, one can disagree with the excessive gesture of the custom but if some one's faith is based on such an expression of pain and self flagellation, so be it, I am happy that today Shiites have that autonomy to convey their gestures in open, I join in to cheer the Islamic world for the freedom obtained to express their sorrowfulness.
Even I a believer in Shakespeare saying that 'Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead'; excessive grief the enemy of the living that democracy and freedom ushering in revival of antiquated banned 'Islamic' norms demand vote of thanks not a shut up call from Shi'ite Hezbollah leader Nasrallah! Freedom to express belief is the most basic right and anyone who helps millions to obtain it deserves our gratefulness.