LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 22/19

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ As he was saying these things, many believed in him
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/25-30: “They said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.’ They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ As he was saying these things, many believed in him.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 21-22/19
Constitutional Council Annuls Tripoli MP's Elections Win
First Government Session Stumbles amid Syria Ties Divergences
Hezbollah hits back at US criticism of its role in Lebanon
Hariri Receives Letters from Saudi King, Crown Prince
Aoun Ends Cabinet's 1st Session after Heated Debate on Syria
Aoun: Dissociation is from events, not the displaced
Jarrah says Cabinet approved most items on agenda
Jamali after meeting Hariri announces she will run in byelection
Future bloc: Constitutional Council's decision political par excellence
Loyalty to Resistance bloc: For governmental agreement over priorities
Bogdanov, Amal Abou Zaid talks refugee dossier
Al-Jadeed, PSP Drop Lawsuits against Each Other
Shots Fired as Families of Prisoners Try to Storm al-Qobbeh Jail
Karami Urges Constitutional Council to Give Jamali's Seat to Taha Naji
Mustaqbal Slams 'Treachery' against Hariri after Jamali's Seat Revoked
Jumblat Slams 'Campaign to Stir Tensions' with Hariri, Meets Him after Rift
Report: Russia Offers to Build Power Plant in Lebanon
Hankache Calls for Halting Bisri Dam Project
Report: Banks Started Reducing Interest Rates
Lebanon's Speaker to Question Government over Illegal State Hires

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 21-22/19
Car bomb kills 20, including oil workers, near anti-ISIS base in east Syria
2,500 foreign children languishing in northeast Syrian camps
More than 150 ISIS militants handed over to Iraq from Syria
Syria Forces Negotiating to Free Civilians from IS Holdout
Iran Informs Amman it Will Release 3 Detained Jordanians
Iran: Infiltration to Missile Program Thwarted
Iran announces ‘Velayat-97’ navy drill in key Strait of Hormuz
Kurds Demand Deployment of Int’l Observers on Turkey-Syria Border
UAE Denies Change in Qatar Shipping Ban
Israel’s Netanyahu to meet Putin in Moscow next week
Delegation from Congress, US-Jewish Organization Visits West Bank
Iraq Says Ready to Cooperate with Neighbors in Combating ISIS
Trump Extends National Emergency with Respect to Libya
Algeria: Cautious Calm Ahead of Nationwide Marches
US: Efforts to Remove Sudan from Terror List Under Threat
Venezuela's Guaido to Leave for Colombia as Aid Standoff Hardens

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 21-22/19
What Ails Europe's Economy/Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg View/February 21/19
Google and Facebook’s Next Big Fight/Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg View/February 21/19
Iranian leaders can only blame themselves for deadly attacks/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 21/19
Venezuela crisis about survival, not politics, for nation’s poor/Nick Paton Walsh/Arab News/February 21, 2019
What Washington—and Iran—Should Take Away from the Warsaw Conference/Dennis Ross/The Washington Institute/February 21/19
Saudi Arabia's powerful prince tours Asia — with purpose/Simon Henderson/The Hill//February 21/19
Turkey: Uniting an "Army of Islam" to Defeat Just One Country/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/February 21/19
Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/February 21/19

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on February 21-22/19
Constitutional Council Annuls Tripoli MP's Elections Win
Kataeb.org/Thursday 21st February 2019/The Constitutional Council on Thursday has annulled the win of Tripoli MP Dima Jamali in the parliamentary elections, eight months after the polls were held. The annulment was based on an appeal submitted by unsuccessful candidate Taha Naji. In a press conference on Thursday, the Constitutional Council head, Judge Issam Sleiman, called for holding by-elections within a period lc two months in the electoral district of Tripoli and Minieh-Doniyeh to fill the vacant Sunni post following the annulment verdict. Speaking following the government session, Interior Minister Rayya Al-Hassan pointed out that the by-elections will be held two months after the relevant decree is published in the official Gazette. MP Dima Jamali will continue assuming its role until a new lawmaker is elected in the by-elections, Sleiman pointed out. “Following a thorough examination, the Constitutional Council has found that there is no reason to annul the election results in Beirut's first and second districts,” he added, also pointing out that the Council has rejected the appeal contesting the election results in Metn given that it was based on mere media reports. Sleiman also stated that the two appeals challenging the election results in North Lebanon's second district have also been rejected because it was presented after the legal deadline. After meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri later in the day, Jamali announced that she will run again for the same parliamentary seat.

First Government Session Stumbles amid Syria Ties Divergences
Kataeb.org/Thursday 21st February 2019/The government on Thursday held its first official session since gaining the Parliament's vote of confidence last week, having the ties with Syria as the first major controversial issue to be put on the table. Earlier this week, divergences regarding the normalization of ties with the Syrian regime have resurfaced in the wake of State Minister Saleh Al-Gharib's visit to Damascus to discuss the refugees' return and the statements made by Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab regarding Syria at the Munich Security Conference. Bou Saab once again defended his stances as totally compliant with the Lebanon's dissociation policy, saying that he had represented PM Saad Hariri at the Munich conference at that the latter didn't object to what he said there. Likewise, State Minister for Refugee Affairs, Saleh Al-Gharib, said that visiting Syria is not an accusation or a wrongdoing. During the session, a heated debate reportedly erupted between the ministers, thus prompting President Michel Aoun to adjourn the meeting. Information Minister Jamal Jarrah, however, denied that Aoun had ended the meeting because of the debate, noting that the latter adjourned the session due to time constraints. Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil told reporters that he had outlined the need to consolidate ties with Syria to the "utmost extent" for the sake of Lebanon, as clearly stipulated by the Constitution. According to a statement issued following the government session held at the Baabda Palace, President Aoun reiterated the need for Syrian refugees to return to their country, adding that this issue must not be linked to reaching a political solution. “President Aoun asserted that we must rely on ourselves to find all ways possible to ensure the return of the displaced," it added.

Hezbollah hits back at US criticism of its role in Lebanon
Reuters, Beirut/Thursday, 21 February 2019/Hezbollah hit back against US condemnation of its role in Lebanon on Thursday, calling it a “violation of sovereignty”, after the United States expressed concern over the organization’s expanding influence. After meeting Lebanon’s prime minister on Tuesday, the US ambassador said the United States was worried about the “growing role” in the cabinet of Hezbollah, an armed Shi’ite group backed by Iran and listed as a terrorist organization by Washington.“The negative American position on Hezbollah, and which American ambassadors are eager to repeat after meeting any official in Lebanon, is rejected and condemned,” Hezbollah’s lawmakers said in a statement.
Violation of national sovereignty
They said US stance “violates national sovereignty and ignores a legitimate right in international law - the right to self defense and to resist every threat and aggression” and was biased towards “the terrorist entity” - a reference to Israel. Hezbollah controls three of the 30 ministries in Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri’s new cabinet, the largest number it has ever held. They include the Health Ministry, which has the fourth-largest budget in the state.Set up in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah last fought a major war with Israel, its life-long enemy, in 2006. Its regional clout has expanded through deployments of fighters to other Mideast conflicts, including the war in neighboring Syria, where it has fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad.Together with groups and individuals that see its arsenal as an asset to Lebanon, Hezbollah won more than 70 of the 128 seats in parliament in an election last year. Hariri lost more than a third of his MPs.

Hariri Receives Letters from Saudi King, Crown Prince
Naharnet/February 21/19/Prime Minister Saad Hariri has received letters congratulating him on the formation of the government from Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, his office said. The monarch wished Hariri “success in his governmental missions,” the office said in a statement. The premier also received similar letters from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez, Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Hariri's government held its first session on Thursday after winning a vote of confidence last week in parliament.

Aoun Ends Cabinet's 1st Session after Heated Debate on Syria
Naharnet/February 21/19/President Michel Aoun on Thursday ended the Cabinet's first session after the ordinary agenda was discussed and after a heated debate erupted over the thorny issue of the relation with Syria. “The President stressed the need for the return of Syrian refugees to their country without linking the issue to the political solution and we can only approach the issue in a serious manner,” Information Minister Jamal al-Jarrah said after the session. State Minister for Administrative Development Affairs May Chidiac of the Lebanese Forces said “the President ended the session when a heated debate erupted without giving the ministers who requested to speak the permission to do so.”“Everyone supports the return of the refugees, but does the Syrian regime really want them to return?” Chidiac asked. “We are dismayed over the normalization of tied with Syria and Prime Minister Saad Hariri was also dismayed over everything, including the issue of the Tripoli parliamentary vote appeal,” the minister added. State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib meanwhile said that he visited Syria to “serve the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese” and “with the knowledge of all the relevant parties.”“Nothing will deter us from performing our duty in order to turn the page on the past,” he added. “We clarified that we did not go to Syria to be part of an axis,” Gharib said, expressing keenness on “governmental solidarity.” “We stressed that we reject the intimidation campaign against us in the media and Syria's visit is not an accusation. We said that we would visit Syria and this is what happened,” he went on to say. Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab meanwhile reiterated that Hariri had tasked him to represent him at the Munich security conference. “I put him in the picture of the conference and I did not violate the government's Policy Statement,” Bou Saab stressed. “The LF's ministers announced their stance on the issue of the relations with Syria and criticized my stance in Munich, but I was not allowed to respond because President Aoun ended the session,” the minister added. Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil of the AMAL Movement meanwhile said that he stressed the need to “expand relations with Syria to the maximum level, primarily for the sake of Lebanon and because the constitution calls for that.”Thursday's was the Cabinet's first meeting since gaining a vote of confidence in Parliament last week. Aoun chaired the meeting in the presence of Hariri. As per custom, the two held a closed-door meeting before the session. Before the session, Chidiac had said that she was going to raise the issue of Gharib's controversial visit to Syria.
Gharib visited Syria early this week, a move that raised controversy. Discussions in Syria focused on the issue of the return of Syrian refugees.

Aoun: Dissociation is from events, not the displaced
Thu 21 Feb 2019/NNA - President Michel Aoun maintained that dissociation is from the events taking place in Syria and not from 1.5 million displaced Syrians present on the Lebanese soil. In his word to the Cabinet which convened at Baabda palace Thursday, Aoun said Lebanon must establish special ties with Syria as a neighboring country."Our relation with Syria is different from that with Turkey or Iran for instance," he said. "I frankly tell you that the foreign states do not want to host refugees, nor do they allow us to bring them back home. How is this possible? I do not accept anything that harms Lebanon's interest," he continued. "I do not accept to have on my soil this huge number of displaced," he stressed. "How can we possibly coordinate the transfer of 1.5 million individuals without communicating with the Syrian state?" he wondered. "I am aware of Lebanon's best interest; I am the one who determines it as I am in charge and this is my competence," Aoun said. "I have established national balance in order to restore stability and rebuild Lebanon. This is my concept of the national best interest and I am responsible towards my people," he concluded.

Jarrah says Cabinet approved most items on agenda
Thu 21 Feb 2019/NNA - Information Minister, Jamal Al Jarrah, on Thursday announced that the Cabinet has approved during today's session most items on its agenda. The Council of Ministers met on Thursday in an ordinary session at Baabda Presidential Palace under the chairmanship of President, Michel Aoun and in the presence of Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, and cabinet members. Reading out Cabinet decisions in the wake of the meeting, Minister Jarrah said that President Michel Aoun stressed the need for the return of the displaced Syrians without awaiting a political solution. "The Head of State emphasized that we must rely on ourselves to find all possible means to ensure the return of the displaced Syrians," Minister Jarrah quoted the President as saying during Cabinet session. "The foreign countries have not done any serious work so far to help in this file," the president noted. Jarrah said that the President's stance comes in line with his presidential oath to preserve laws and the safety of the Lebanese territories and the Lebanese people, as well as to seek solutions to ease displacement burden on Lebanon.

Jamali after meeting Hariri announces she will run in byelection
Thu 21 Feb 2019 /NNA - The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received this afternoon at the Center House MP Dima Jamali, whose election has been invalidated today by the Constitutional Council. She said after the meeting: "After hearing the ruling of the Constitutional Council, we must all respect it, knowing that there were political interventions. But what was issued became a reality. I would like to thank Prime Minister Hariri for renewing his confidence in me by inviting me to the Center House to ask me to run again in the name of the Future movement for the Sunni seat in Tripoli. I therefore reiterate my thanks to him for the trust he has given me."Jamali added: "I know that my legitimacy stems from the Lebanese people as a whole and from the people of Tripoli in particular, who elected me and placed their confidence in me the first time. I am sure that they will grant me this trust again, because they saw what we did during a short period in parliament for the capital of the north."Jamali concluded: "I hope to continue to serve Tripoli through Parliament after the parliamentary by-election. I will continue the battle and hope for the best."In reply to a question about she means by political interference, Jamali said: "Sure, there were political interventions and this is not strange to Lebanon. These interventions have found responsiveness."

Future bloc: Constitutional Council's decision political par excellence
Thu 21 Feb 2019/NNA - The Future parliamentary bloc on Thursday deplored a fresh decision by the Constitutional Council to nullify the election of MP Dima Jammali, saying that the resolution is "political and vengeful.""The bloc is keen to put the Lebanese public opinion in the picture of the backdrops of the Constitutional Council's decision, which are political and vengeful par excellence, to say the least," the bloc said in a statement. The statement added that the bloc sensed "political betrayal" that targeted Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Future bloc held today an urgent meeting at the Center House, under the chairmanship of MP Bahiya Hariri.

Loyalty to Resistance bloc: For governmental agreement over priorities
Thu 21 Feb 2019/NNA - The Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc on Thursday called the new government to reach an agreement in order to determine the priorities that must be tackled to shun dangers and fulfill citizens' pressing needs. In a statement issued following its weekly meeting, the bloc highlighted the necessity to reduce the budget deficit, as well as to resolve vital issues such as electricity and waste management. Moreover, the bloc welcomed House Speaker Nabih Berri's invitation to hold extraordinary Parliament sessions. The bloc met at its headquarters in Haret Hreik, under the chairmanship of MP Mohammad Raad.

Bogdanov, Amal Abou Zaid talks refugee dossier
Thu 21 Feb 2019/NNA - Foreign Ministry's Representative on the joint Lebanese-Russian committee for the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, Amal Abu Zaid, met this Thursday with the Russian President's Special Envoy for the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. Talks between the pair reportedly touched on means to seek opportunities and ensure a suitable environment for the return of the displaced Syrians to their country. Bogdanov stressed his country's unyielding stance in support of the unity and sovereignty of Lebanon, expressing Moscow's determination to follow up on the process of the return of displaced Syrians to their homeland as soon as possible.

Al-Jadeed, PSP Drop Lawsuits against Each Other
Naharnet/February 21/19/Al-Jadeed television and the Progressive Socialist Party announced Thursday that they would drop the lawsuits that they had filed against each other in the wake of the grenade attack on the TV network. The announcement was made during a visit to the network's building by Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour of the PSP, where he met with al-Jadeed's chairwoman Karma Khayyat. The young man who carried out the grenade attack, Mazen Lamaa, had turned himself in a few days ago, confessing that he was behind the assault and that his cousin who was with him in the car had not been aware of his intentions. PSP leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat had met with Druze clerics in Mukhtara weeks ago and urged them to find a settlement regarding Lamaa, who said that he hurled the grenade in protest at a satirical show that “insulted” the Druze community. Khayat on Thursday thanked the PSP and Jumblat for “the civilized manner in which the culprit was handed over and in which the attack on al-Jadeed was approached.”

Shots Fired as Families of Prisoners Try to Storm al-Qobbeh Jail
Naharnet/February 21/19/Security forces fired in the air on Thursday to prevent angry relatives from storming the al-Qobbeh prison in Tripoli. The National News Agency said the families burned tires outside the prison after a number of inmates staged a riot that involved starting a fire inside the facility. Al-Jadeed television reported later that the situation was brought under control. No injuries were reported during the incidents according to NNA.

Karami Urges Constitutional Council to Give Jamali's Seat to Taha Naji
Naharnet/February 21/19/The National Dignity List led by MP Faisal Karami on Thursday criticized the Constitutional Council for not declaring the win of Taha Naji after invalidating the 2018 election of Dima Jamali in Tripoli's parliamentary elections. In a statement recited by Karami, the list said the ruling “violated all constitutional and legal rules and the simplest standards of justice and fairness.”Describing the decision to revoke Jamali's membership of parliament as correct, the list said the council erred when it declared the vacancy of Tripoli's fifth Sunni seat. “It is our right to draw this council's attention to the fact that it does not have jurisdiction to come up with new explanations when the text -- which stipulates the win of the candidate who gets the highest fraction (in the proportional counting) of votes -- is clear,” the list added. “Accordingly, the Constitutional Council's ruling in this regard is invalid and marred by essential flaws,” it said. “The members of the Constitutional Council, who are among Lebanon's top judges, should have declared the win of the candidate who won the challenge instead of ordering by-elections,” the list went on to say. “We renew our appeal against the Constitutional Council's ruling and call on it to abide by the legal text that is in line with logic and the constitution,” it urged. And blaming the council for the constitutional “heresy,” the Karami-led list said “the biggest responsibility fall on the political authority,” which has “begun its work by the biggest corruption process that violates the constitution, the law and reason.”“The arguments of the Constitutional Council have confirmed Taha Naji's victory but political influence has turned the Constitutional Council into a tool for stealing this win,” the list added.

Mustaqbal Slams 'Treachery' against Hariri after Jamali's Seat Revoked
Naharnet/February 21/19/Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Thursday decried “political treachery” against it and against Prime Minister Saad Hariri, after the Constitutional Council invalidated Dima Jamali's membership of parliament.
In a statement issued after an emergency meeting, the bloc regretted the Council's ruling but announced that it will deal with it “according to the applicable legal and constitutional framework.”Slamming what it called “the political par excellence motivations” behind the Council's ruling, the bloc lamented “political interference” in the Council's work.“A member of the Council reversed his signed report and his vote in a previous session following clear political interference, so that the Council could garner the seven votes needed to revoke Jamali's parliamentary membership,” Mustaqbal added.
“The bloc, which senses that a political treachery operation has targeted it and PM Saad Hariri in person, stressed that the ways of backstabbing and using the highest judicial posts to settle political scores will not deter it from its decision to protect the Constitutional Council from intruders,” the bloc emphasized. Adding that it will stand by Jamali in Tripoli's upcoming parliamentary by-election to fill the vacant seat, Mustaqbal underscored that the lawmaker “proved within a few months her competence and special presence, which were lauded by citizens in her city in particular and in Lebanon in general.” Earlier in the day, the Council revoked Jamali's membership of parliament without giving her seat to Taha Naji, who had appealed her win.

Jumblat Slams 'Campaign to Stir Tensions' with Hariri, Meets Him after Rift
Naharnet/February 21/19/Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat held talks Thursday evening at the Center House, after the latest war of words between them was contained. “We will discuss topics that we disagree on and others that we agree on,” said Jumblat upon his arrival at the Center House. Commenting on leaks and media reports that preceded the meeting, Jumblat said they were “part of a systematic campaign to stir tensions.”“I'm not responsible for them,” he added. According to LBCI television, Hariri will host Jumblat over dinner. A PSP delegation had visited the Center House weeks ago in a bid to pacify the rhetoric between the once-close allies. In a recent interview with An-Nahar newspaper, Hariri emphasized that there is no “dispute” with Jumblat and that the PSP leader “does not know how much I'm on his side.”“There is a war on me as well, not only on Walid Jumblat, and the dispute between us emboldens the others while accord between us deters them,” Hariri added. Jumblat had escalated his rhetoric against Hariri and Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil in the wake of the formation of the new government. The PSP leader criticized the manner in which the Cabinet was formed, decrying perceived “unilateralism” and disregard for the Taef Accord and the premiership post, which sparked an unprecedented exchange of tirades with Hariri on Twitter. Jumblat was reportedly dismayed after Hariri failed to tell him that Ghassan Atallah would become the new minister of the displaced during their meeting on the eve of the government's formation and also did not tell him that the third Druze seat, which Jumblat ceded, would go to Saleh al-Gharib, an ally of Damascus.

Report: Russia Offers to Build Power Plant in Lebanon
Naharnet/February 21/19/Lebanon’s problematic electricity file is one of the government's focal issues amid reports claiming that a Russian proposal to build a power plant could end the suffering of Lebanese, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday. Ministerial sources told the daily, the government is keen on finding a permanent solution and that Lebanon’s various political parties have adamantly vowed that there will be “no turning back.”They said “a serious debate on finding a near solution for the electricity file has started, putting an end for dubious tenders adopted over the past years that wasted large amounts of treasury and were the main reason for the serious deficit it suffers.”Well-informed sources said the Russian proposal aims to build a power plant that supplies Lebanon with 24/24 electricity. “The plant can be established in a short period of time,” they said. According to the sources, this offer includes willingness to build an atomic energy plant, similar to a plant built by the Russians in Turkey at no cost. Lebanon suffers a severe shortage in electricity. The sector is a substantial drain on the state’s treasury.
According to the World Bank, it is responsible for 40 percent of Lebanon’s public deficit.

Hankache Calls for Halting Bisri Dam Project
Kataeb.org/Thursday 21st February 2019/Kataeb MP Elias Hankache on Thursday called for halting the controversial Bisri dam project, urging the relevant authorities to pay heed to the viewpoint of environmentalists and experts. "This project must be stopped just by knowing that it jeopardizes swathes of green spaces and puts at stake at least 50 archeological sites," Hankache told Voice of Lebanon radio station. The World Bank’s Inspection Panel announced in December that it had completed reviewing a request for inspecting the Water Supply Augmentation Project, which includes the Bisri Dam and of which the World Bank is a primary financer. Although supporting water management plans, the lawmaker rejected the radom establishment of dams.

Report: Banks Started Reducing Interest Rates
Kataeb.org/Thursday 21st February 2019/Several Lebanese banks have cut the interest rates on deposits by an average of 2% after the recent political breakthrough has calmed fears over the national currency, The Daily Star reported. “A handful of big banks have offered their special clients lucrative return on their deposits. But these offers were confined to customers who deposited large amount of money and for longer maturity,” the newspaper quoted one banker as saying, noting that some banks had offered interest rates of up to 15% for deposits in Lebanese pound and up to 10.25% for those in dollar. The banker noted the cost of these "illogical" rates has become a burden on the lenders, especially since the margin of profits was extremely low. "I can’t understand the rationale behind offering very high interest rates. I think some of these banks have decided to gradually reduce the interest rates on deposits after realizing that the margin of profits from these operations was insignificant,” another banker said, warning of an economic recession should the high interest rates persist. “Above all the private sector and merchants will become the first casualties from the high interest rates policy. Merchants are already struggling to pay their debts to the banks,” the banker stressed.

Lebanon's Speaker to Question Government over Illegal State Hires
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri received on Wednesday the final report released by the Central Inspection Authority on random employments made in government agencies and institutions. During a meeting earlier this week with a delegation from the Press Syndicate, Berri revealed that around 5,000 people were hired in the public sector in 2018 alone, stressing that the number excluded the security forces. The speaker was quoted by his visitors as saying that this issue would not go unnoticed, expressing his intention to hold parliamentary sessions to question the government on the mass state hiring. In this regard, the head of the parliamentary finance committee, MP Ibrahim Kenaan, said on Wednesday that he delivered to Berri the final report released by the Central Inspection on the issue of employment.
During the meeting, the two officials also discussed financial issues. “I carried with me the final report released by the Central Inspection on the issue of employment. It is now in the hands of Speaker Berri,” Kenaan said. “We are fully concerned with accountability, and we have no ceiling but that of the law,” he added. A member of the finance and budget committee, Free Patriotic Movement MP Salim Aoun, said that according to the available data, “5,000 people were hired in 2018, a thousand of them by a cabinet decision, while contracts were signed with 4,000 others in secret in several ministries.”
He added that the committee would study the report in detail next week and submit its recommendations to the government. Kenaan emphasized that the workers were hired on a contractual basis, not as permanent employees, but said they would be treated fairly taking into account the laws in force on one hand, and the situation of the workers on the other.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on February 21-22/19
Car bomb kills 20, including oil workers, near anti-ISIS base in east Syria
AFP, Beirut/Thursday, 21 February 2019/A car bomb on Thursday killed 20 people including 14 oil workers near a base used by US-backed forces battling the ISIS group in east Syria, a war monitor said. “The car bomb was detonated remotely in the village of Shheel” close to an oil field acting as a base for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) forces fighting ISIS, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Six conscripts from the Kurdish-led SDF were also killed as they escorted the workers in vehicles from the Omar oil field, it said.

2,500 foreign children languishing in northeast Syrian camps
AFP-Beirut/Thursday, 21 February 2019/More than 2,500 foreign children from 30 countries who have fled the ISIS’s last redoubts are living in desperate conditions in camps in northeastern Syria, Save the Children said Thursday. The charity urged their countries of origin to “take action to ensure the safety of their citizens” as US-backed forces battle the extremist group in the final sliver of territory it holds near the Iraqi border. “They need specialized help to recover from their experiences and return to normality, together with their families,” the charity said. “This is impossible in overwhelmed displacement camps in a volatile war zone. The international community must act now before it is too late.”It said the children, including 38 unaccompanied minors, were from families “with perceived or actual associations” with ISIS. They were separated from others in the camps, affecting their access to aid and services.
“Harsh winter conditions have left the camps in a desperate state, with children facing life-threatening risks,” it said. The children are “victims of the conflict and must be treated as such”, said Sonia Khush, Save the Children’s Syria response director. “All states whose nationals are trapped in Syria must take responsibility for their citizens.”The charity said the children had already been deprived of adequate medical care and food for months, or even years while in ISIS-held areas even before having reached the displacement camps. “While some states have begun to do so, many countries -- including several European countries -- have yet to take steps to ensure the safety of the children and their families,” said Khush.
Life-threatening dangers
“Given the life-threatening dangers these children and their families face in Syria, this is unconscionable.”Save the Children urged countries to repatriate the children and their families “for the purposes of rehabilitation and/or reintegration, in full compliance with international law, including the right to a fair trial where appropriate”. After years of battling extremists and with all but a sliver of land left under ISIS control, US-backed forces have detained hundreds of foreigners suspected of being ISIS militants, as well as related women and children. Syria’s Kurds, whose fighters have been at the forefront of the battle, have long urged their home countries to take them back, but many nations have been reluctant. US President Donald Trump has urged European governments to take back their citizens who fought for the extremist group in Syria, but his administration said on Wednesday it would refuse entry to a US-born ISIS member who wants to return from Syria. The country’s conflict has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.

More than 150 ISIS militants handed over to Iraq from Syria
The Associated Press, Outside Baghouz, Syria/ Thursday, 21 February 2019/US-backed Syrian forces fighting the ISIS group in Syria handed over more than 150 Iraqi members of the group to Iraq, the first batch of several to come, an Iraqi security official said on Thursday. The official said the ISIS militants were handed over to the Iraqi side late on Wednesday, and that they were now in a “safe place” and being investigated. The transfer marks the biggest repatriation from Syria of captured militants so far - an issue that poses a major conundrum for Europeans and other countries whose nationals have been imprisoned as foreign fighters in Syria. The SDF is holding more than 1,000 foreign fighters in prisons it runs in the country’s north, many of them Iraqis and Europeans. The Kurdish-led Syrian force - and more recently President Donald Trump - have called on these countries to take back their nationals. SDF says it cannot afford to keep the captured foreigners in Syria, but few of their countries want them back. Earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi said Iraq will take back all Iraqi ISIS militants in Syria, as well as thousands of their family members. The Iraqi security official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the SDF are holding more than 20,000 Iraqis suspected of ISIS membership in prisons in northern Syria, adding that they will be transferred back home in batches.
Final standoff
The handover came as the US-backed Syrian force is involved in a standoff over the final sliver of land held by the ISIS group in southeastern Syria, close to the Iraqi border. A few hundred people - many of them women and terrified-looking children - were evacuated Wednesday from the group’s tiny tent camp on the banks of the Euphrates River, signaling an imminent end to the territorial rule of the militants’ self-declared “caliphate” that once stretched across a third of both Syria and Iraq. Some 300 ISIS militants, along with hundreds of civilians believed to be mostly their families, have been under siege for more than a week in the tent camp in the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria. It is not clear how many civilians remain holed up inside, along with the militants. More trucks were sent in Thursday to the tip of a corridor leading to the camp to evacuate more people, but Associated Press journalists on the ground outside Baghouz said no civilians emerged. “We thought more civilians will come out today and we sent 50 trucks over,” said an SDF commander who goes by his nom de guerre, Aram. “We don’t know why they are not coming out.” It was not immediately clear whether the 150 Iraqis repatriated late Wednesday were among those recently evacuated from Baghouz or militants who had been captured earlier. The Baghouz enclave’s recapture by US-backed Syrian fighters would spell the territorial defeat of ISIS and allow Trump to begin withdrawing American troops from northern Syria, as he has pledged to do, opening a new chapter in Syria’s eight-year civil war. Few believe, however, that ending the group’s territorial rule will end the threat posed by an organization that still stages and inspires attacks through sleeper cells in both Syria and Iraq.

Syria Forces Negotiating to Free Civilians from IS Holdout
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 21/19/US-backed Syrian forces are negotiating to evacuate civilians from the Islamic State group's last redoubt which now faces "inevitable defeat", the international coalition against the jihadists said Thursday. Hundreds of people including women and children were trucked out of the last patch of IS territory on Wednesday, but the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that a large number of civilians remained inside. The Kurdish-led SDF, backed by the warplanes of the US-led coalition, have trapped IS fighters in less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) in the village of Baghouz. "Coalition forces, to include the US, continue to support the SDF as they negotiate having innocent civilians released and their fighters returned with the inevitable defeat in Baghouz," coalition spokesman Sean Ryan told AFP. There was no immediate comment from the SDF, which has previously identified the remaining civilians as mostly wives and children of IS fighters. Thousands of people -- mostly women and children related to IS members -- have streamed out of Baghouz in recent weeks. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Wednesday that there were negotiations "for the surrender of the last IS fighters". It said there were "reports of a deal" but the details were unclear. At the height of its rule, IS imposed its brutal interpretation of Islamic law on a territory roughly the size of Britain. But the jihadists have since lost almost all their territory and hundreds of foreigners suspected of being IS fighters, as well as related women and children, are being held by the SDF.

Iran Informs Amman it Will Release 3 Detained Jordanians
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday that Iran has informed the senior Jordanian diplomat about its decision to release three Jordanian detainees, who were held by Tehran around two months ago on charges of “mistakenly” entering the country's territorial waters while on a fishing trip off the UAE. Sufian Qudah, Jordan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement that the Iranian Foreign Ministry has informed the Jordanian embassy of the decision. The Jordanians will only be fined for illegally entering Iranian waters and in compensation for a damage to an Iranian security boat, the statement explained. Qudah expressed Jordan’s appreciation for the Iranian government’s decision, adding that the Jordanian embassy in Tehran is coordinating with Iran’s Foreign Ministry to settle the payment of the fines and ensure the three citizens' return to Jordan. On Monday, Jordanian Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh called on Iranian authorities to release the three men. He raised the case during a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Amman Mojtaba Ferdosipour, according to Petra news agency. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said in January that the Jordanians accompanied by Emirati and Egyptian friends had entered Iranian waters “by mistake” during a boat trip on December 27.

Iran: Infiltration to Missile Program Thwarted
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said on Wednesday that Iran has thwarted an attempt to infiltrate its missile program through a range of indigenous equipment and spare parts. IRGC news agencies also quoted Hajizadeh denying recent claims made by US officials that Washington has managed to sabotage Tehran’s missile program, describing them as “a very big lie”. While Hajizadeh did not elaborate on the nature of the equipment and spare parts that the “enemy” used in trying to penetrate the program, he pointed out that the threat “turned into an opportunity after detecting the plot.”Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said relations with the United States had rarely been so bad. “The struggle between Iran and America is currently at a maximum. America has employed all its power against us,” Rouhani was quoted as saying in a cabinet meeting by the state broadcaster IRIB, as reported by Reuters. “The US pressures on firms and banks to halt business with Iran is one hundred percent a terrorist act,” he said. The Iranian president stressed that his country was ready for cooperation and interaction with the world, “but the states doing business with us must be careful not to pursue excessive demands, because the Iranian nation does not retreat from its principles and does not favor such demands when it comes to outstanding issues involving its national interests.” Commenting on the recent US-organized conference in Warsaw, Poland, Rouhani said that Washington’s attempts to persuade other countries to oppose the nuclear deal had led to “a humiliating political defeat” for the US at the UN Security Council.

Iran announces ‘Velayat-97’ navy drill in key Strait of Hormuz
AP, Tehran/Thursday, 21 February 2019/Iran’s navy says it will hold an annual drill in the strategic Strait of Hormuz as pressure mounts on the country months after the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran, targeting its vital oil sector. The strait is located at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf and is crucial to global energy supplies, with about a third of all oil traded at sea passing through it. Iranian Adm. Hossein Khanzadi told state TV on Thursday the 3-day maneuvers will start on Friday. He said submarines, warships, helicopters and surveillance planes will participate in the drill, dubbed as “Velayat-97.” The exercise will include missile launches from the vessels. Iran regularly holds maneuvers in the strait. On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a new domestically-built submarine armed with cruise missiles at a time of rising tensions regionally and internationally.

Kurds Demand Deployment of Int’l Observers on Turkey-Syria Border
London - Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/The political wing of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by the US-led international coalition against ISIS, renewed its demand for European countries to deploy an international observer force on the Turkish-Syrian border to protect Kurds from Ankara. Co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council – the political arm of the SDF-- Ilham Ahmed is leading a Kurdish delegation touring Washington, Paris and London to persuade western countries not to betray the Kurds by leaving them exposed to the threat of a Turkish attack.
Ahmed told Asharq Al-Awsat that she will be meeting with high-profile “decision-makers” to discuss developments in northeast Syria, the long-threatened Turkish offensive, as well as the status of foreign ISIS militants captured by the SDF, recent battles in the town of Baghuoz, and the final offensive against the extremist organization’s last pocket on the Syrian-Iraqi border.”Ahmed reiterated her call to Western allies on presenting "logistical support and protection" that will allow the trial of ISIS militants detained by the SDF in the eastern Euphrates region. She also made general demands to compensate for the US withdrawal, including a continued no-fly zone, the deployment of European observers on the Turkish border and military support to fight terror sleeper cells in east Syria. “The SDF have not received any response from Western countries yet,” Ahmed said.“If they do not agree to receive them (foreign ISIS  members captured by the SDF), we will keep them and will need logistic and judicial support to maintain the stability of the region,” she added. Ahmed also demanded that about 1,000 to 1,500 international troops remain in Syria to fight ISIS and expressed hope that the United States, in particular, would halt plans for a total pullout. US President Donald Trump had made a shock announcement last December on planning to withdraw some 2,000 American troops in Syria. It is believed that Ahmed is looking to secure political support for establishing autonomy in Kurdish-controlled areas, which make up one-third of Syrian territory (185,000 square kilometers). But Ahmed faces rejection by several countries for reasons, one of which is international law recognizing the Syrian government as legitimate. Europe is also unlikely to support Kurdish autonomy near the Syrian-Turkish border given that Ankara, a NATO member, perceives Kurdish entities in Syria as ‘terrorists.’ The SDF claim having cornered remaining ISIS militants in Baghouz near the Iraqi border. Foreign fighters and families have featured prominently among those who have fled the town, which had been a collection point for extremists who had escaped from other areas across Syria and Iraq. Ahmed said a final SDF assault on the last ISIS redoubt would finish within days. Plans requiring “time and patience” were being drawn up to eradicate sleeper cells, she said.

UAE Denies Change in Qatar Shipping Ban
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/The UAE Federal Transport Authority – Land & Maritime has stressed in a circular that its policy regarding access to Qatar at UAE ports and border crossings has not changed. The periodic circular is issued in line with official decisions, the UAE news agency, WAM, said on Thursday. The Authority clarified that the news reports regarding export and import to and from Qatar are “inaccurate” and “misconstrued.” According WAM, the Authority also pointed out that it is responsible for regulating the land and maritime transport sector in the UAE. “Any regulatory procedures in this connection are under its jurisdiction. Any information in this regard are issued only by the Authority and none else.”The statement came after reports that the UAE has eased the ban on the shipping of goods between it and Qatar enforced under a political and economic boycott of Doha.

Israel’s Netanyahu to meet Putin in Moscow next week
Reuters, Jerusalem/Thursday, 21 February 2019/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on February 27, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Thursday. The two leaders had spoken by phone and discussed “regional developments”, according to a separate statement released earlier in the day.

Delegation from Congress, US-Jewish Organization Visits West Bank
Ramallah - Kifah Zboun/Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace with Israel is on the verge of collapsing. “These days, peace is on the verge of collapsing, and we count on you very much to make efforts whether in the US administration and in Congress or even with Israelis to convince them that peace is of interest for the US, the world and us,” Abbas told a delegation from US J Street (A US-Jewish organization) and several Democratic congressmen on Tuesday. After Abbas congratulated the elected Congress members and welcomed them in Ramallah alongside the Jewish lobby, he expressed regret that relations with the United States have reached this point. He also told them that his doors are still open for talks if the US administration changes its stances on the two-state solution and Jerusalem. During his four meetings with US President Donald Trump, Abbas affirmed he was always optimistic, adding that he asked Trump in their last meeting if he believes in the two-state solution and 1967 border and the latter’s answer was “yes." “He told me ‘of course, and I am ready to announce that now,’” Abbas said. “I asked him if he agrees on the fact that security needed by Palestinians and Israelis could be provided by NATO forces, and his answer was ‘yes,’” Abbas further noted. “However, two weeks later, he announced transferring the US embassy to Jerusalem, declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, agreed on 1967 settlement in the Palestinian territories and then cut the aid provided to UNRWA, which has been given since 1949 to this day following a UN resolution. We were surprised,” Abbas explained. He then added that he informed Trump of his country’s decision to cut relations with the US if it doesn’t recognize the two states based on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. “We haven’t received a response, and we stick to our stance.”Abbas also accused the United States of being biased to Israel and not heeding Palestinian demands.

Iraq Says Ready to Cooperate with Neighbors in Combating ISIS
Baghdad - Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/Iraq is ready to cooperate with regional countries on military training and combating ISIS’ ideology, head of Iraqi National Security Falih al-Fayyadh has announced. He reiterated that there are no foreign forces or military bases in Iraq, asserting that Baghdad refuses to be a tool or a platform for attacks on other nations. Fayyadh was delivering a speech on behalf of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi at the opening of the Fourth International Conference to Fight ISIS Media and Ideology. Iraq cooperates with other countries in the war on terrorism, he said. Referring to the controversial presence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil, Fayyadh said the International Coalition in Iraq is cooperating in the field of training and consultation. “We will not accept military bases and there are no ground forces on Iraqi territory.”
Spokesman for the Conference, Haidar Jabr al-Aboudi, told Asharq al-Awsat that Baghdad is grateful for the countries that supported it in the war against ISIS remnants. He assured that the unity of the Iraqi people will prevent the return of extremism through ISIS remnants. “Iraq is a pillar in the region’s stability,” and mutual coordination and cooperation between Baghdad and the international community in security and information falls in line with Iraqi sovereignty, said the spokesman. The Conference was held as the risk of ISIS’s re-emergence has created controversy, especially after the organization executed six out of 15 people who were abducted in al-Karbala province in the desert between Najaf and Al-Anbar provinces. Top official of Binaa Alliance and MP of Fatah Bloc Naim al-Aboudi ruled out an ISIS return. In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Aboudi asserted that the current situation, which enjoys military, social, political and media cohesion against ISIS and other terrorist organizations, differs from 2014 when the group proclaimed its self-styled “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. He called for security forces to be more mobilized in order to carry out pre-emptive operations and fight the extremist ideology.
However, head of Reform and Reconstruction Alliance Ammar al-Hakim warned of the consequences of the terrorist organization’s return. In a statement, Hakim reiterated the importance of securing all Iraqi territories and called for improved intelligence assessment to bring the perpetrators to justice for their heinous crimes. For its part, Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) urged intensified efforts to monitor ISIS movements. The Commission indicated that the resurgence of ISIS is a real challenge for security forces to expose sleeper cells which use caves and tunnels to hide in desert areas.
The statement added that in the past few days, 19 people have been abducted in Umm al-Jadaan on the road between Arar and Nukhaib.

Trump Extends National Emergency with Respect to Libya
Cairo - Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/US President Donald Trump has extended the national emergency with respect to Libya declared in 2011 till after February 25, 2019, in a letter sent to Congress. The letter, published by the White House website, indicated that the foregoing circumstances, the prolonged attacks against civilians, and the increased numbers of Libyans seeking refuge in other countries caused a deterioration in the security of Libya and posed a serious risk to its stability. “The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and measures are needed to protect against the diversion of assets or other abuses by members of Gaddafi’s family, their associates, and other persons hindering Libyan national reconciliation.” Meanwhile, the eastern-based commander of the state Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG), Naji al-Maghrabi, announced the implementation of the plan to secure el-Sharara oilfield after taking its control from army forces in a bid to encourage state oil firm National Oil Company (NOC) to restart production that has been halted since December. He asserted that PFG members are keen on adhering to Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar’s instructions in coordinating with the oilfield’s officials. The PFG commander indicated that his guards had been appointed to secure Sharara oilfield, adding that the facility was very secure and that the NOC should resume work. “We call on NOC to lift the force majeure,” said Maghrabi. NOC, chaired by Mustafa Sanallah in the west of Libya where the internationally recognized government is based, has said it will not reopen the field without a new security arrangement and once other conditions are met, such as ensuring its workers are safe. “NOC has sent an inspection team to assess security at Sharara and to verify that all armed militia have left the field prior to force majeure being lifted,” a spokesman said by text message sent to Reuters. The field, which had been producing about 315,000 barrels per day (bpd), was closed after a group of state guards and tribesmen seized it, making financial and other demand. NOC declared force majeure, a waiver on its contracts. In related news, LNA forces increased their military presence south of the country, where the 73rd Infantry Brigade relocated three military battalions to support the forces in their fight against terrorist groups and criminal gangs. Military sources said that the army was preparing to launch an attack on Merzek town, where there is a combination of Chadian opposition groups, extremist militias affiliated with what was known as the “Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries” and similar militias led by Ibrahim al-Jadran, former oilfield commander of the central region. Commander of the southern force Hasan Moussa said in a televised statement that the situation is relatively calm in Merzek, following air strikes targeting three different locations that killed one person and injured two others.
LNA jets have raided various outposts of extremists and Chadian groups in Merzek and Um al-Aranab, some 240 km south of the southern Libyan city of Sabha. LNA spokesman Brigadier Ahmed al-Mismari announced that his forces have taken full control of all the airports and oil fields in the south, pointing out that there is coordination with all neighboring countries regarding the military offensive in the area.

Algeria: Cautious Calm Ahead of Nationwide Marches
Algiers - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/Algeria is witnessing cautious calm ahead of popular rallies due to be held after Friday prayers. A movement launched an initiative to organize popular rallies in the capital and various other states to protest President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s candidacy for a new presidential term, after having stayed 20 years in power. The Mouwatana or the Citizens’ Democracy movement – which comprises a group of opposition political activists – has called for protests to be held on Friday. At the same time, many opposition parties announced their withdrawal from the presidential race scheduled for April 18, calling on Algerians to boycott the polls “which will not bring anything new except the appointment of the incumbent president for a fifth term.”The movement aims to “enact real change and gather citizens in protest for introducing change into the system of governance and to prepare necessary conditions needed for peaceful means of a transitional period which preserves the country and the people.”“Upcoming presidential elections will be a sorting tool to reshape the new balance of power and make a significant impact on the future of the country,” said the authors of the initiative, mainly top Algerian writers, lawyers and political activists. A few days ago, crowds of Algerian populists took to street, calling on Bouteflika to go back on his decision to run for the presidency. Residents of the state of Bejaia and Khorata (300 km east of the capital) and the state of Bordj Bou Arreridj (200 Km from Algiers) marched in peaceful rallies raising different slogans, with other marches taking place in Tizi Ouzou and other Algerian states. Demonstrators hoisted black flags, expressing their utmost rejection of the country’s political situation, while thousands of police and security officers were deployed in the streets and neighborhoods of the capital, especially after news emerged about plans for a “million-people march.”According to local sources, the organizers of the demonstrations belong to local cultural and social organizations, with the absence of partisan members and human rights activists, although the region is a stronghold of opposition parties and large human rights organizations such as the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights.

US: Efforts to Remove Sudan from Terror List Under Threat
Khartoum - Ahmed Younis/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 21 February, 2019/“Excessive violence” used by Sudanese security forces to suppress anti-government protests could threaten talks to remove Sudan from Washington’s state sponsors of terrorism list, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
Cyril Sartor, senior director for Africa at the US National Security Council, said that the US-Sudan negotiating process “which could eventually lead to the lifting of state sponsors of terrorism designation... is being threatened by the current developments.”In an interview with AFP at the end of a four-day visit to Khartoum, Sartor said: “It is absolutely unacceptable for security forces to use excessive violence to crack down on demonstrators, to use detention without charge, certainly unacceptable to use brutality, torture... and needless to say there’s no reason anyone should be killed.” Meanwhile, several cities are preparing for a march organized by the Sudanese Professionals’ Gathering and its allied forces, where opposition leaders are expected to participate publicly for the first time since the protests began in December. “All political leaders of the political forces will participate in the march against President Omar al-Bashir. It is set to kick off from several areas in the center of the capital Khartoum,” Communist Party Secretary Mohammad Mokhtar al-Khatib told Asharq Al-Awsat. Spokesman for the Professionals’ Gathering, Mohammed Yusuf Ahmed Mustafa, said: “We expect the authorities to confront us in a violent manner, with arrests and beatings, but we will not halt the demonstrations or stop exercising our freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by the constitution and not restricted by any Sudanese law. We are determined to follow the peaceful path.”“Despite our insistence on peaceful assembly, we are certain that the authorities will treat us in a violent manner, like criminals,” Mustafa noted, in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Venezuela's Guaido to Leave for Colombia as Aid Standoff Hardens
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 21/19/Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido made plans to head for the border with Colombia to personally bring in US-supplied food and medicine in defiance of the military-backed government, raising fears of possible weekend confrontations. Guaido, who has set a Saturday deadline for bringing in the aid, planned to depart at 6:00 am Thursday in a caravan of buses with members of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, forcing a high-stakes showdown with President Nicolas Maduro. On Maduro's orders, the military has beefed up border security and barricaded a major border bridge to prevent the supplies from entering the country from Cucuta, Colombia, where tons of supplies are stockpiled. Although it was unclear exactly what Guaido intends to do, he says he has enlisted hundreds of thousands of volunteers in recent days to help bring in and distribute the aid. On Wednesday, he rallied bus drivers to go to the borders to collect aid for Venezuelans suffering shortages. "Even though they point guns at us -- and all of us have received threats, rubber bullets and even live ones -- we are not afraid," Guaido said, standing on the back of a truck in a throng of supporters. "We will stay out in the street with our chests bared, demanding freedom for all of Venezuela."Shipments of food and medicine for the crisis-stricken population have become a key focus of the power struggle between Maduro and Guaido. The 35-year-old leader of the Venezuelan legislature proclaimed himself acting president January 23, and has since won the backing of more than 50 countries. He wants to oust Maduro, set up a transitional government and hold new elections. "This could be very soon, between six and nine months, once Maduro's current usurpation ends," Guaido told Mexican television station Televisa.
A million volunteers
Guaido, who says 300,000 people could die without an influx of aid, says he aims to rally a million volunteers to start bringing it in by Saturday. Addressing supporters he listed the planned transit points of entry at the Brazilian and Colombian borders, the island of Curacao and the seaports of Puerto Cabello and La Guaira. However the pro-Maduro military has already blocked the Tienditas bridge across the Colombian border, and Vice President Delcy Rodriguez confirmed the government was shutting down air and sea links between Curacao and Venezuela. The military said in a decree that it was banning vessels from sailing out of Venezuela's ports until Sunday to avoid actions by "criminal" groups. Amnesty International's Americas director Erika Guevara urged authorities to "not only recognize this serious crisis... but also to guarantee access" for those bringing in aid.
Underlining the swell of international support for Guaido, British entrepreneur Richard Branson plans to hold a pro-aid concert just inside Colombia on Friday, while Maduro's government stages a rival concert on its side of the border, around 1,000 feet (300 meters) away. US officials say the aid will reach thousands of Venezuelans and last for a few weeks. Further details of how the opposition aims to distribute it were scarce. Private bus driver Jose Figueroa, 60, said he planned to leave Caracas in the coming days in a convoy of some 30 vehicles.
Foreign 'aggression'
"The government is leading us to war. It will be very difficult. The situation is extremely tense," he said, as drivers parked their buses and pick-up trucks at a rally in central Caracas. "But a bullet will kill you more quickly than hunger."Wednesday's rally gathered just a couple of dozen buses and pick-up trucks in Guaido's support. The pro-opposition drivers had planned to hold their rally at a major crossroads further west but found the avenue blocked by a far bigger demonstration. Hundreds of state bus drivers rallied in the red shirts of the pro-government "Chavismo" movement, in a gathering convened by the authorities. They yelled their loyalty to Maduro -- himself a former bus driver -- and the memory of his predecessor, the father of Venezuela's socialist "revolution," Hugo Chavez. State-employed bus driver Julio Arocha, 53, admitted he was "negatively affected" by the crisis, "economically, psychologically", but was getting by thanks to state food handouts.
Catalyst for change
Like Maduro, Arocha blamed the crisis on foreign "aggression." "The aggression is intensifying. The word 'humanitarian' is a euphemism," he said. Despite sitting on the world's biggest oil reserves, Venezuela is gripped by an economic and humanitarian crisis, with acute shortages of food and medicine. "Even if the February 23 deadline does not serve as a catalyst (for regime change), Maduro will likely pay a cost either way," wrote Eurasia Group analyst Risa Grais-Targow in a note this week. "Barring the entrance of food and medicine into the country will prompt additional international condemnation and isolation, while it will also probably fuel opposition protests and deepen popular demand for change."

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 21-22/19
What Ails Europe's Economy?
Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg View/February 21/19
In the space of just two years, the euro zone has gone from the world economy’s hero to zero.
In 2017, the bloc expanded at the fastest rate in a decade, as it benefited from a combination of booming global trade and ultra-easy monetary policy. Now, the currency union has become the prime concern for those who worry about a wider downturn. The International Monetary Fund cut its forecasts for global growth mainly due to downward revisions for the euro area.
But look closely at the map, and the picture is much more heterogeneous than you’d think. Italy and Germany – ironically the sick man and the powerhouse of the bloc – are in trouble, with the former now officially in recession and the latter only narrowly missing one. But, elsewhere, there is no shortage of countries still growing at a decent clip. The monetary union may be down; it isn’t out.
The euro zone’s most consistent surprise is Spain, which grew by 0.7 per cent in the fourth quarter, marginally up from the 0.6 percent expansion seen in each of the previous three quarters. The country may be headed for an election after Pedro Sanchez’s minority government failed to secure sufficient support for its budget, but the political uncertainty has had relatively little impact. In 2018, the country expanded by less than 3 percent for the first time in four years, but growth still came in at a decent 2.5 percent.
France’s economic performance is even more surprising. The bloc’s second-largest economy has been jolted by the protests of the gilets jaunes, which shook the political system and dented investor confidence. Yet it expanded by 0.3 percent at the end of last year, in line with the previous quarter and marginally faster than in the first two quarters of the year.
Other countries, from north to south, also tell a more positive story. Growth in Finland rebounded from 0.5 percent in the third quarter to 0.9 percent in the final stretch of the year. Portugal expanded by 0.4 percent, pretty much in line with the other three quarters. The Netherlands also bounced back after a poor third quarter, posting a rate of expansion of 0.5 percent.
Policy makers across Europe will take a very close look at the economic indicators at the start of this year to understand whether the downturn will worsen. The European Central Bank can take heart from the euro zone labor market, which continues to strengthen both in terms of employment and of wages. This should offer continuous support to domestic demand. However, the central bank has to balance this with risks from abroad, including a slowdown in China and the trade war between Beijing and Washington. All of this has important knock-on effects on business confidence, with entrepreneurs putting investment on hold as they wait for greater clarity.
Europe’s uneven picture suggests that there is a problem with the growth model of some countries as opposed to the bloc as a whole. In Italy, the fiscal plans of the new populist government have pushed up bond yields, contributing to a reduction in the flow of credit. Domestic demand fell in the fourth quarter, showing that consumers and entrepreneurs are being cautious. Meanwhile, Germany’s export-driven growth model is facing its biggest test in decades as Berlin discovers it is vulnerable to the global trade outlook and China’s economic fortunes. But unlike Italy, the country has scope to boost growth by raising public investment: Such spending would provide short-term relief and help to re-balance the economy towards domestic demand.
The world is right to look at Europe’s slowdown and wonder what is going on. But, as often in the past, it’s hard to find a single explanation. The strength of Europe is its variety; it can also be its weakness.

Google and Facebook’s Next Big Fight
Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg View/February 21/19
For many people, it probably sounds a little rich to hear the European Union accuse Silicon Valley of being a graveyard of innovation. But that’s where we are in 2019. Regulators are hitting the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. with a flurry of antitrust fines and data-privacy probes, implying that they regard tech billionaires as more John D. Rockefeller than Nikola Tesla.
The end-game, according to Brussels’ top data watchdog, is to make sure new startups aren't blown out of the water by Big Tech (or gobbled up), which should ultimately benefit consumers by allowing them more choice.
Tackling this so-called “kill zone,” where fledgling tech companies are acquired or copied out of existence by deep-pocketed incumbents, is a prime ambition for European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli, nicknamed “Mr GDPR” after the data-privacy law. When I met him in Brussels recently, Buttarelli checked off the barriers to entry for a startup: It needs to first outbid the likes of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook and others for engineering talent; then sell its product through an app store probably run by Google or Apple Inc.; and finally compete against big players with established networks and huge cash piles. And even it clears all these hurdles, it’s still vulnerable to being taken out.
There’s a connection between this dominance of Big Tech – which is proven by the decline in venture-capital financing for upstarts, as my colleague Noah Smith has written – and harm to consumers. The EU view is that the “free” price tag of social media and apps is not a public good if it’s underpinned by a business model that hoovers up data from users without consent. And if the profits from that are spent on blocking competition, there’s less chance of a market-based alternative. Google and Facebook rebut this view, insisting that a disruptive rival could unseat them anytime. But regulators have given up waiting for one. The recipe for fixing things, according to Buttarelli, is threefold. He wants more competition through antitrust enforcement, more data protection through GDPR, and more fairness and transparency for customers from the tech giants themselves.
None of this would destroy Facebook or Google. GDPR is estimated to have inflicted a negative impact of 2 to 3 percent on the two companies’ total ad revenues, according to Bank of America analyst Justin Post. The running total of EU antitrust fines against Google is about 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion), while the company’s yearly sales are more than $100 billion. Still, Eric Leandri, co-founder of French search engine Qwant, says he’s confident that recent fines against Google on competition and data-privacy grounds – which the US firm is appealing – will have had a chilling impact.
Defenders of the Silicon Valley faith will grumble about mission creep in Brussels. It’s certainly true that regulators need to be careful not to muddy the waters with inconsistent or unclear regulation. The recent German competition ruling against Facebook uses data privacy as its main argument, but without a prior ruling on GDPR infringement. That’s a potential problem because it’s hard to separate the need to enforce user privacy with the need to safeguard competition. Indeed, both things might be in conflict one day, says Ariel Ezrachi, a competition specialist at Oxford University. Imagine the right to keep your data private under one law alongside the need to share your data in a competitive market under another.
Another thing not covered in Buttarelli's plan is where investment comes from. It was no surprise when Sweden’s music-streaming giant Spotify Technology SA decided to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange last year. If Europe fails to unify its fragmented capital markets, especially after Brexit, the fruits of Buttarelli's labor will end up in America regardless.

Iranian leaders can only blame themselves for deadly attacks
د. ماجد ربيزاده : لا يمكن للقادة الإيرانيين إلا لوم أنفسهم على هىجمات المعارضة المميتة في الداخل  
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 21/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72359/dr-majid-rafizadehiranian-leaders-can-only-blame-themselves-for-deadly-attacks-%D8%AF-%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AF-%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%87-%D9%84%D8%A7-%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%83%D9%86/
This week, one of the top stories in Iran’s state-controlled Persian outlets has been linked to the recent suicide attack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the volatile southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan. According to Fars News Agency, 40 members of the IRGC were on the bus that was targeted on Feb. 13 and at least 27 were killed.
The timing of the attack is significant as it occurred during the month that the Islamic Republic has been celebrating the 40th anniversary of it coming to power.
But this attack is not an isolated incident — the number of attacks on the Iranian regime and its military bases appears to be increasing. On Jan. 29, at least four police officers were wounded by a handmade stun grenade and another explosive device, also in Sistan and Baluchistan Province.
In September 2018, during a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, gunmen opened fire, killing at least 25 people and wounding 55 more. This was considered one of the deadliest ever attacks against Iran’s military inside the country. The military parade was being carried out by members of the IRGC and its elite Quds Force.
In addition, in 2017, a pair of attacks shocked the capital of Tehran, where at least 12 people were killed at the Iranian Parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum, which is one of Iran’s most sacred places. In addition, IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Ali Jafari admitted that several other attacks have been prevented. Addressing a large crowd at a funeral following the most recent attack, he stated: “Just in the past year, six or seven suicide attacks were neutralized, but they were able to carry out this one.”
In these situations, the Iranian regime immediately reacts by resorting to its modus operandi of blaming other state or non-state actors, without providing any evidence or proof. Iranian leaders generally point fingers at the US, the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, extremists, and Israel. This time, Jafari accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Both the moderates and hard-liners in Iran reiterate the same message announced by Khamenei and play the blame game.
During last year’s deadly attack in Ahvaz, without providing any evidence, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused other countries in the region, particularly the Gulf Arab states. He said in a statement on his website: “This crime is a continuation of the plots of the regional states that are puppets of the US, and their goal is to create insecurity in our dear country.”
Both the moderates and hard-liners in Iran reiterate the same message announced by Khamenei and play the blame game. The reason for this strategy is to deflect attention from the regime’s support for terrorist and militia groups across the region.
By blaming other nations for the latest attack, the Iranian leaders are also attempting to deflect media attention away from the dire situation of the people in Sistan and Baluchistan. The majority of the population in the province is Sunni and they have long been neglected and discriminated against by the Iranian regime. They are plagued by severe socioeconomic deprivation and suffer from one of the highest rates of poverty in Iran.
In these scenarios, the regime also immediately vows to take revenge through hard power and military forces. Jafari threatened last week that: “The treacherous Saudi and UAE governments should know that Iran’s patience has ended and we will no longer stand your secret support for these anti-Islam criminals.”
It is ironic that the Iranian leaders accuse other countries of harboring radical forces, all while the regime is the top state sponsor of terrorism year after year. It cooperated with and harbored Al-Qaeda members and it arms, supports, trains and funds terror and militia groups across the region, including in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.
With the Iranian regime’s widespread military adventurism across the Middle East, its continuing support for militia groups that commit egregious human rights violations in foreign countries, and widespread suppression and oppression of its own citizens, it should not come as a shock to Tehran’s leaders that discontent toward the IRGC and the Quds Force is reaching a new level.
The ruling mullahs will more than likely attempt to buttress their unfounded arguments that extremist groups are the country’s rivals, or that Iran is fighting extremism and terrorism in the region. This is to assist the hard-liners in further justifying the deployment of more forces and intensifying their involvement in the region. As Jafari demanded more power for the military, he stated: “We will avenge the blood of our martyrs from the Saudi and UAE governments and ask the President (Hassan Rouhani) ... to leave our hands free more than ever for reprisal operations.”
In a nutshell, as a top state sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian regime has no one to blame but itself for the recent attacks on the IRGC.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Venezuela crisis about survival, not politics, for nation’s poor
Nick Paton Walsh/Arab News/February 21, 2019
Carolina beckons us into the hilltop slum where she and her extended family live. The drive up has taken us past burned-out police stations, overturned rubbish bins, the remains of tire fires — the tell-tale signs that the poor of Caracas, once President Nicolas Maduro’s support base inside Venezuela, are turning.
Inside her three-room apartment, she shows me a tiny bowl of scrambled egg. “This is for four persons,” she says. She opens the fridge and, along with mold and aging condiments, are two bottles of soda, but little else. This is life now for the Venezuelan poor. Maduro used to feed them; and they supported him back. But now — like every other constant of Venezuelan life — that is collapsing.
The fury here is not political or bound in the geopolitical tussle that the nation’s fate has become. It’s about food, like it really is elsewhere too. The night before we arrived, the special police forces of Maduro were inside their community and shots were fired. They have continued to return all afternoon, causing Carolina to twitch. She shows us video of the raids the night before, and the tire fires and pot-banging (a local sign of loud protest) that preceded them. “My hand was shaking,” she says, apologizing for the wobbly footage.
This is an often-untold element of Venezuela’s crisis, which often focuses on the mild, simmering bourgeois anger in the streets in support of self-declared interim president Juan Guaido, recognized by much of the West and Venezuela’s neighbors.
But the slums, which once benefited from the largesse of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Maduro, have fallen the hardest. The deaths in clashes with police now often evade the headlines and meld into the 80 murders a day blighting Venezuela nationwide.
The fury here is not political or bound in the geopolitical tussle that the nation’s fate has become. It’s about food, like it really is elsewhere too. One cousin, named Ronny, said: “We can’t hold it in anymore. We are being crushed. We are beggars now, always begging. This isn’t political, it’s survival. People are killing each other for a kilo of rice, or flour, or water.”On the other side of town, near a richer street of restaurants, a gang of children roams, settling on a pile of trash near the river to scavenge for food.
They are united by the bleached hair they all sport as their gang’s sign. Fourteen-year-old Uzmaria is the most vocal, as two of the older boys play-fight with knives — not for innocent amusement but for practice in self-defense. “We gather stuff, we beg, a piece of chicken skin to take home,” Uzmaria says. “My brother got killed in July by another gang. He just disappeared and then they found the body in the river.”
As the sun drops over Caracas’ once glittering infrastructure, one of the boys plays with a stick as a rifle. “Maduro,” he yells as he takes fake aim. “I am hungry,” he cries before seizing up with a wheezing cough....
• Nick Paton Walsh is senior international correspondent at CNN.

What Washington—and Iran—Should Take Away from the Warsaw Conference
Dennis Ross/The Washington Institute/February 21/19
The moderator of a landmark Middle East panel explains why the conference may signal growing Arab-Israeli strategic convergence, firmer European action on Iran, and further stalemate in Syria.
“Takeaways” is the classic Washington term used to encapsulate the outcomes of high-profile diplomatic gatherings. Last week, I was invited to moderate a panel at the “Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East,” cohosted in Warsaw by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz on February 13-14. The panel included three senior Arab officials—Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir, Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed, and Bahraini foreign minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa. Afterward, I interviewed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who also attended the event. These and other conversations yielded several interesting—and in many cases promising—takeaways.
First, the event was marked by a variety of convergences that should make Iran take notice. From the outset, Secretary Pompeo acknowledged the participants’ clear differences of opinion on certain regional issues, urging everyone to discuss these rifts openly and honestly as they worked to advance common positions. Regarding Iran, European ministers reemphasized that they would not walk away from the nuclear deal, yet they also embraced the need to counter unacceptable Iranian behaviors, including ballistic missile tests and threatening military actions in the Middle East.
Second, the Europeans were alarmed by the strikingly similar stories they have heard from Arab ministers and Netanyahu in describing Iran’s efforts to destabilize the region and exploit conflicts, whether by smuggling arms into Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, using Shia militias to coerce governments, providing missiles to Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, encouraging terrorism and subversion, deploying missiles on bases in Syria and western Iraq, or developing factories to build precision guidance capabilities for thousands of rockets in Lebanon and Syria. In essence, those on the frontlines of regional conflicts told their European friends that Iran will not stop fomenting trouble abroad unless its costs for doing so become far more acute. Interestingly, Arab ministers noted that sanctions are only part of the solution; in their view, creating consequences for Iran also entails unifying their own efforts, portraying a solid, collective front of opposition, and doing much more to tell the Iranian public about the costs of their government’s adventures.
Third, the Arab-Israeli strategic landscape appears to be changing, even if the “new Middle East” envisioned by the late Shimon Peres is not yet in the offing. The Warsaw meeting was not like other international gatherings or peace conferences involving top Arab and Israeli officials. Beginning with Madrid in 1991 and stretching to Annapolis in 2007, past meetings involved each side giving set-piece speeches with no real discussion or engagement. Warsaw was different: it was about moderated questions and comments, with all participants sitting in closed settings and listening to each other directly, including Arab foreign ministers and Israel’s prime minister.
For example, during a discussion of how to counter Tehran’s low-cost tactic of using Shia militias abroad, I noted that Israel had carried out more than 200 operations against Iranian and proxy forces attempting to embed themselves in Syria. When I asked one of the Arab ministers for his reaction, he stated that Israel was exercising its “right of self-defense.” Netanyahu was present for that remark and other notable statements by the seven Arab ministers in attendance, consistently agreeing with their analysis in later comments he made to me and others. This may not be normalization, but it is creating a new normal.
Fourth, while the Palestinians made clear that they do not want any “new normal” to emerge so long as nothing is happening to advance peace or alter Israel’s occupation, they lost out by boycotting the conference. Ironically, if PA officials had simply shown up, all of the Arab and European ministers would necessarily have raised Palestinian concerns, and not just in passing. Instead, the issue was just an afterthought at best, subordinated to higher-priority threats. Although the Palestinians reaffirmed their reputation as masters of defiance, they once again failed to advance their national movement—the fatal flaw of any strategy based exclusively on defiance.
Fifth, the participants showed consensus on several key Syria items. Everyone favored implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for ceasing hostilities, drafting a new constitution, and implementing a political transition over eighteen months. No surprise there, but I was struck by another point of consensus: that Russian and Iranian interests in Syria diverge, and that those differences can be exploited to limit Iran’s presence and perhaps even advance Resolution 2254. But I am deeply skeptical that these differences can be widened anytime soon, even if one ignores the fact that Bashar al-Assad has no intention of stepping aside, and that Moscow has shown no sign of curtailing its support for him. So long as Syria is undergoing even low-level insurgency, Russia will need Iranian/Shia boots on the ground.
These doubts do not detract from the other Warsaw takeaways. In the end, however, the conference’s true test will be whether it results in tangible European steps to take tougher action against Iran’s regional meddling. Participants discussed certain measures toward that end (e.g., universally designating all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization rather than distinguishing between its political and military “wings”), but no conclusions were reached. It remains to be seen whether the working groups proposed in Warsaw are willing to convene soon and make progress on sensitive issues. In any case, unless Iran’s decisionmakers begin to see the costs—and not just the benefits—of foreign interference by the Qods Force and other organs, there is little prospect of the regime altering its behavior.
*Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Saudi Arabia's powerful prince tours Asia — with purpose
Simon Henderson/The Hill//February 21/19
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
Saudi Arabia’s effective leader, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, this week is visiting Asia — and what a trip it is turning out to be.
On Sunday, MbS, as he is known, arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, for a two-day visit. For unexplained reasons, he arrived a day late. And he did leave Monday, but he was actually in Pakistan less than 24 hours.
His late arrival meant that his itinerary was changed at the last moment. He is still due to go to India and China, but visits to Malaysia and Indonesia have been cancelled. (Saudi officials prefer to use the word “postponed.”)
His arrival in Pakistan, and intended next stop in India, was overshadowed by a terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir, a Muslim majority area, in which 44 Indian paramilitaries died. Pakistan displayed injured innocence to India’s accusations of Pakistani involvement, but New Delhi is considering a military response. In the meantime, India increased tariffs on Pakistani goods by 200 percent and Islamabad on Monday withdrew its ambassador “for consultations.” We are not talking a nuclear exchange between the the two South Asian giants — at least, not yet.
The trip to Pakistan was, in publicity terms, a lovefest between MbS and Prime Minister Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician elected last year. The Saudi prince, whose authority in the kingdom apparently is total, declared he feels “at home in Pakistan.” Khan, whose rule is circumscribed by his powerful military, was suitably grateful for the reported $20 billion in Saudi financial aid and contracts. Additionally, according to the Pakistani media, Riyadh picked up the tab for the whole trip, which included eight containers of MbS’s personal belongings for his overnight stay and 3,500 pigeons procured from local markets to be released on his arrival.
It is notable that MbS had a side meeting with Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, head of the Pakistani army, who was accompanied by Gen. Asim Munir, the director-general of the feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the agency topping many people’s list as likely responsible for the Kashmir attack. In the past, Saudi Arabia has taken more than a passing interest in Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program, so it may be ominous that the official statement issued at the end of the trip said: “Both sides noted with satisfaction their strong defense and security ties, and agreed to further enhance cooperation in this field to advance shared objectives.”
When announced last week, MbS’s trip was depicted as a “pivot to Asia,” both commercially and because the countries there are less likely than the United States and Europe to ask pesky questions about Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist murdered on Oct. 2 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Both India and China are economic giants. While Pakistan wanted financial support, New Delhi and Beijing want greater commercial links — oiled, if that is the word, by Saudi energy supplies.
But India will be disturbed by any enhancement in the Riyadh-Islamabad relationship, especially if the kingdom is not appearing to be any restraint on nefarious activities in Kashmir or Afghanistan. As it is, New Delhi insisted that MbS could not fly directly from Pakistan, forcing the Saudi leader to go back to Riyadh for a night. Iran, no less, also complained last week of Pakistani involvement in an attack on revolutionary guards near their mutual border.
The visit to China arguably should be a stand-alone item. Beijing’s political support for Pakistan stretches back decades and is notably less fickle than Washington’s. Commercially, also, there are strong links. Pakistan is notionally part of the Chinese “One Belt, One Road” vision, though their land border is high in an extension of the Himalayan mountains. The road climbs to over 15,000 feet, so the long sea voyage remains the more viable.
But China is the end of the week. There is a lot to get through before then.
*Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Turkey: Uniting an "Army of Islam" to Defeat Just One Country
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/February 21/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13559/turkey-army-of-islam
At the conference, Adnan Tanriverdi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's top military advisor, delivered a speech detailing the inner workings of the "Islamic Confederal State" that Tanriverdi's Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM) aims to establish with 61 Muslim countries.
Judging by an article Tanriverdi penned in 2009, the purpose of this joint Islamic force is to defeat Israel, which "should be made to get engaged [in war] and the length of the war should be extended."
Erdogan and his chief military advisor are obviously engaging in projection. It is Turkey that has ethnically cleansed itself of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, and that is now targeting Syrian Kurds. It is the Turkish government's continued aggression against various peoples in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus and other countries that is a threat to world peace; not Israel. It is Turkey, not Israel, whose destabilizing foreign policy needs to change.
In 2016, Necati Yılmaz, an MP from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), submitted a written parliamentary motion to then-Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, questioning the activities and international connections of "SADAT International Defense Consultancy," which is headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi. Pictured: Necati Yılmaz. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
Istanbul recently hosted the second "International Islamic Union Congress," sponsored mainly by the Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM), which is headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi, a retired lieutenant general and an Islamist .
At the conference, Tanriverdi delivered a speech detailing the inner workings of the "Islamic Confederal State" that ASSAM aims to establish with 61 Muslim countries. In his address, Tanriverdi said that a "rapid deployment force" should be created. Judging by an article Tanriverdi penned in 2009, the purpose of this joint Islamic force is to defeat Israel, which "should be made to get engaged [in war] and the length of the war should be extended."
"If Israel has to call all of its reserve soldiers to duty," he explained, "there will be no one left at home or in their businesses. It cannot continue like that for a long time."
Tanriverdi also suggested how this could be accomplished:
"The Defense Ministers of Islamic Countries should be invited to an urgent meeting, at which possibilities for 'defense cooperation' should be examined; Turkey, Iran, Syria, the Iraqi Resistance Organization and Palestine should be the core of this cooperation."
Within this context, he said, a "'rapid Deployment Force of Islam,' which will consist of an amphibious brigade, an armored brigade and an aero-landing brigade, should be encouraged."
He went on:
"A peace force of Islamic countries should be deployed in Gaza... International efforts should continue, and the use of military force in Islamic countries should be encouraged. A joint military operation by our ground, naval and air forces should be carried out in the international waters of the Eastern Mediterranean. Aid convoys from Turkey, accompanied by Turkish warplanes, should land at the Gaza port. The resistance movements in Gaza should be supported with anti-tank and low-altitude anti-aircraft weapons.
"An aid fund should be formed by Islamic countries; the monthly budget of the legitimate Palestinian government should be paid from this fund and every adult individual in [the Palestinian territories] should be paid a monthly salary... Egypt should be pressured to open the Rafah border crossing. Syria should be encouraged to enhance its military presence on the Israeli border."
Tanriverdi also claimed that: "Turkish states, throughout history, prevented 21 crusades through which the West targeted Islam. Turkey did not get involved in the invasions following World War II, the establishment of the State of Israel and the US invasion of Iraq, which we could call the 22nd, 23rd and 24th crusades. It is Turkey's duty to rectify this. Avoiding this responsibility would be contrary to our historic mission, our commitment to the civilization to which we belong and to Turkey's survival."
Tanriverdi's views are the impetus for the founding in 2012 of his company, "SADAT International Defense Consultancy." On its official website, Tanriverdi writes:
"The Turkish Armed Forces give services of training, consultancy and equipment to 22 friendly Turkish and Muslim countries. But it is impossible for them to respond to all the needs of 60 Islamic countries in the defense sector.
"In order to give services in needed fields, to prevent dependence on crusader-minded colonialist countries, to help form an environment of defense industry and defense cooperation among Islamic countries, and to serve the Islamic alliance, SADAT was formed by 23 founding shareholders and with the support of 64 army officers and non-commissioned officers who have successfully served the Turkish armed forces and who are respectful of the religious sensitivities of Islamic countries."
Four years after SADAT's establishment, Necati Yılmaz, an MP from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), submitted a written parliamentary motion to then-Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, questioning SADAT's activities and international connections. The motion read, in part:
"SADAT states on its official website that that it tries to 'help establish a military force in the Islamic world that will be self-sufficient.' With what countries does SADAT have connections? Is there any other country to which SADAT gives military and intelligence training? Does it have camps in other countries?
"Is it true that Sadat has connections with al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and ISIS? Is it true that Sadat has trained ISIS militants?"
Yıldırım did not answer the motion during his tenure, but allegations about SADAT's providing military training to jihadist organizations abroad and to some pro-Erdogan groups in "secret military camps" in Turkey have not subsided. Tanriverdi and other SADAT officials have repeatedly denied the accusations, going as far as to sue some newspapers that published pieces repeating them.
In an interview last January with the pro-government newspaper, Habertürk, Tanriverdi called claims about SADAT "slanderous" and "imaginary." Replaying SADAT's "founding objective," he insisted that it "engages with the state organs of friendly nations and provides them with services of corporate consultancy, training and equipment in line with their laws in their own countries."
He continued: "With very pure and decent feelings, we just want to transfer the experiences of our armed forces to Islamic countries. That is all. We also want the Islamic countries to get united."He failed, however, to remind readers that SADAT's objective is to unite against the West and Israel. He also omitted comments from his 2009 article entitled "Palestine too should have an army", such as:
"The states whose peoples are Muslim should either protect Palestine with their own armed forces or form a modern armed force for Palestine to deal with Israel."
Although Tanriverdi's dream of an "army of Islam" to fight Israel has yet to be realized, his company, SADAT, seems to be aiding Palestinian-Arab jihadist organizations targeting Israel. In February 2018, for instance, Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet, said that Hamas was funneling terror funds to the West Bank and Gaza through Turkey. The Shin Bet statement also accused Turkey of aiding Hamas' military build-up via SADAT. Kamil Tekeli, a Turkish law professor who was arrested in Israel in mid-January, told his interrogators that SADAT sends money and arms to Hamas. Tekeli, after being interrogated, was deported back to Turkey, according to the Israeli media. The Turkish Foreign Ministry, however, rejected the Shin Bet's accusations.
Tanriverdi's statements and his company nevertheless appear to reflect Erdogan's worldview.
"We as Turkey and myself -- as long as I am in charge -- can never have a positive view of Israel," Erdogan said in 2014. "The obvious reality is that Israel is the country that threatens peace in the world and in the Middle East."
More recently, on December 15, Erdogan repeated one of many hostile claims he has made over the years -- comparing Israel to the Nazis.
Erdogan and his chief military advisor are obviously engaging in projection. It is Turkey that has ethnically cleansed itself of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, that refuses to recognize the religious rights of the Alevi minority and that is now targeting Syrian Kurds. It is the Turkish government's continued aggression against various peoples in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus and other countries that is a threat to world peace, not Israel. It is Turkey, not Israel, whose destabilizing foreign policy needs to change.
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute and is currently based in Washington D.C.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/February 21/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13787/palestinians-slap-of-the-century
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.
All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians, and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Syria.
For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called David Friedman, the US Ambassador to Israel, a "son of a dog" in a televised speech, on March 19, 2018. (Image source: MEMRI video screenshot)
The US administration is now saying that it will announce its plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the "Deal of the Century," after the April 9 election in Israel . The unseen plan has already been rejected by Palestinian leaders, who continue to denounce it as a "conspiracy aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause and rights."
In light of the Palestinians' vehement opposition to the "Deal of the Century," it is already clear that the plan will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas will hardly accept a plan that he has repeatedly referred to as a US "conspiracy" and the "Slap of the Century." In one of his recent speeches, Abbas said: "We will not accept the 'Deal of the Century' and we will not accept a situation where the US is the sole broker in the peace process."
Abbas has turned US President Donald Trump and his senior advisers into enemies of the Palestinians. Abbas and Palestinian Authority officials have been boycotting the US administration since December 2017, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Abbas and his associates have since been using harsh language to condemn Trump's senior advisers, especially US Ambassador David Friedman, and special envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. Abbas himself has called Friedman a "son of a dog." Palestinian officials and media outlets regularly refer to Kushner, Friedman and Greenblatt as "Zionist extremists" and "settlers."
Palestinian leaders have incited their people against the Trump and his advisers to the point where it would be almost impossible for them even to be seen meeting with any US official. In recent months, Abbas has been quoted as saying that he does not intend to end his life as a "traitor." The comment also means that it would also be impossible to accept any peace plan presented by the current administration.
Abbas knows that the American plan will not give him everything he is asking for. He wants, among other things, a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, including east Jerusalem.
His rivals in Hamas and other Palestinian groups, on the other hand, want to see Israel replaced by an Islamic state, where some Jews may be permitted to live as a minority under Muslim rule.
In short, Hamas rejects Israel's existence on what they claim to be totally Muslim-owned land.
Anyone who thinks that the Palestinians may change their mind about the "Deal of the Century" -- either before or after the Israeli election -- is living in an illusion. There is no reason why Abbas should not be taken seriously when he says he does not intend to end his life as a "traitor." One has to give him credit for at least being honest. He is all too aware that the moment he accepted the "Deal of the Century," he would go down in history and in the eyes of Palestinians -- as well as many Arabs -- as having sold them out, and, of all people, to the "colonizers."
All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Iraq.
The US could also agree to urging the Arab and Muslim world to continue normalizing its ties with Israel. This mission, though, could easily turn out to be "mission impossible."
Arab foreign ministers who attended the recent US-sponsored conference in Poland on peace and security in the Middle East are now facing strong condemnations from many Arabs. The ministers are being denounced for appearing in public with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Warsaw summit. They are being accused by Arabs of promoting normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
Earlier this week, Palestinian and Arab activists launched an online campaign, under the title, "Normalization is Treason," to condemn the Arab officials who participated in the Warsaw summit.
Notably, Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas have joined one another in the campaign against the Arabs who reportedly support normalization with Israel and have begun using the exactly same language to voice their condemnation.
Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chairman of Fatah (headed by Abbas), said that Arab normalization with Israel is a "stab in the back of the Palestinians."
PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat also condemned attempts to promote normalization between the Arab states and Israel as a "stab in the back of the Palestinians."
Hamas's military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, has also endorsed the rhetoric of its political rivals, Aloul and Erekat. Abu Obaidah, a spokesman for Hamas, warned that normalization with Israel is a "stab in the back of the Palestinian resistance. Normalization is a betrayal of the blood of thousands of our martyrs."
While Fatah and Hamas clearly agree that normalization with Israel is a stab in the back, one group of Palestinian Islamic scholars begs to differ. The scholars disagree with the phrase "stab in the back" not because they support peace and normalization with Israel. Instead, these scholars believe that normalization between Arabs and Israel is a "stab in the heart" -- the front, not the back -- of the Palestinians
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.
For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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