LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 22/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.july22.19.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
I do not call you servants any longer, but friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15/15-17:”I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on July 21-22/2019
Hizbullah Reportedly Backs Efforts to Refer Aley Incident to Military
Khalil Says Contacts 'Should Lead to Solution' for Qabrshmoun Crisis
Finance Minister says possibility of reaching an understanding regarding Mountain incident exists
Jumblat Urges Decisiveness on Aley Incident Suspects
Lebanese-American Mueller Witness Now Faces Child Sex Trafficking Charge
Palestinian President: We Do Not Want Clash with Lebanon
Btaich: Lebanon is on the right track
Kouyoumjian from Hrajel: We joined the government on basis of consensus, democracy
Adwan points to a wide opposition climate within the Parliament, says all parties have to cooperate to bring about real reform
MP Mohammad Nasrallah: The next stage is to implement the government's budget promises, draft the 2020 budget within the constitutional deadline
Palestinians of Lebanon and the Lebanese Palestinians
Incident involving Hezbollah MP exposes faults of Lebanon’s religious system
Syria’s returnees out of the frying pan into the fire

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 21-22/2019
Audio recording reveals Iranians ordered British tanker to change course
Gulf Tanker Incidents May Raise Shippers' Costs, Cut Traffic
Iran: IRGC Seizure of British Tanker Pushes Risk of Escalation
2 Iran Revolutionary Guards Members Killed in Pakistan Border Attack
Iran Says Its Tanker Held in Saudi Arabia Released
Iran Says Probe into Seized Ship Depends on Crew Cooperation
Zarif: Bolton failed to lure Trump into war, turning his ‘venom’ against UK
Iranian MPs thank IRGC for seizing British-flagged tanker, call for Gulf tolls
Bolton May Discuss in Tokyo US Request for Japan to Join Military Coalition in Gulf
Syrian Regime Bombing of Opposition Stronghold Kills 11
SDF Commander: We Will Open 600Km-Front in Response to Any Turkish Attack
Hamas Chief: We Don’t Oppose State within 1967 Borders, But We Won’t Recognize Israel
Egypt Interior Minister Vows to Continue Fighting Terrorism in Cooperation with Army
Israel Says Hosting Iraqi, Saudi Journalists in First
Egypt expresses dismay to UK envoy over British Airways flight suspension
US accuses Venezuela jet of aggressive action over Caribbean

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 21-22/2019
Palestinians of Lebanon and the Lebanese Palestinians/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/July 21/2019
Incident involving Hezbollah MP exposes faults of Lebanon’s religious system/Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/July 21/2019
Syria’s returnees out of the frying pan into the fire/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/July/2019
Opinion/Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Proxy Wars Have a New Battlefield: Indian-controlled Kashmir/Abhinav Pandya/Haaretz/July 21/2019
The fate of Erdogan's Turkey hangs on its relations with the US and Russia/Raghida Dergham/The National/July 20/2019
“We Are Never Heard”: Persecution of Christians, May 2019/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/July 21, 2019
Iranians demand fundamental political and economic change/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/July/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on July 20-21/2019
Hizbullah Reportedly Backs Efforts to Refer Aley Incident to Military
Naharnet/July 21/2019
There are indications that the upcoming hours will witness efforts aimed at securing the resumption of cabinet session and achieving a breakthrough in the Qabrshmoun incident file, a media report said. “Hizbullah backs the efforts, which come on the basis of the exit proposed by (President Michel) Aoun’s staff, which is supported by (Speaker Nabih) Berri, (Prime Minister Saad) Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat,” Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper reported on Sunday. The proposed solution calls for the handover of suspects from both the PSP and the Lebanese Democratic Party and the referral of the case to the Military Court and not to the Judicial Council. LDP chief MP Talal “Arslan has been informed of the need to accept the exit proposed by Aoun and has been given a grace period to find the appropriate way to announce his concession, amid reports that a Hizbullah delegation will visit Arslan to seriously discuss the available exits,” al-Rai quoted senior March 8 coalition sources as saying. Hariri had announced after parliament’s last session that he expects an imminent solution for the crisis sparked by the incident.

Khalil Says Contacts 'Should Lead to Solution' for Qabrshmoun Crisis
Naharnet/July 21/2019
Speaker Nabih Berri’s political aide Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil on Sunday sounded an upbeat tone regarding the possibility of resolving the crisis created by the deadly Qabrsmhoun incident. “There is a possibility to reach an agreement over the Mt. Lebanon incidents,” Khalil said, revealing that “contacts have been resumed in the manner that should lead us to a solution.”“What’s important to us is the ability to reach a reconciliation in parallel with the judicial and security solutions,” Khalil added. “The priority on which Speaker Nabih Berri worked from the very first day was to work on three aspects: judiciary, security and politics, whose integration would lead to identifying those responsible” for the bloodshed, the minister went on to say. Two bodyguards of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib were killed in a clash with Progressive Socialist Party supporters in the Aley town of Qabrshmoun. The minister escaped unharmed as one of his bodyguards and a PSP supporters were injured. The PSP has handed over a number of suspects to authorities while Gharib’s Lebanese Democratic Party has been reluctant to hand over any wanted men, saying the PSP has failed to surrender all suspects belonging to it. The LDP has also been insisting on the referral of the case to the Judicial Council, a demand that the PSP and its allies are opposed to. The parties are reportedly mulling a solution involving the referral of the case to the Military Court.

Finance Minister says possibility of reaching an understanding regarding Mountain incident exists
NNA - Sun 21 Jul 2019
Minister of Finance, Ali Hassan Khalil, stressed Sunday that the possibility of reaching an understanding over the events of the Mountain incident still stands, adding that communication has resumed in this respect to reach a solution. "It is important for us to have the ability to establish reconciliation in parallel with a judicial, security and political follow-up, in order to contain the problem," Khalil added. "The priority that House Speaker Nabih Berri has adopted since the first day has been to work on three levels: justice, security and politics, and through their integration we can know who is responsible while at the same time working to open doors of understanding and reconciliation," he explained. Minister Khalil's words came before a delegation including heads of unions, municipalities and mukhtars from the region of Hasbaya in South Lebanon who visited him at his Khiyam residence earlier today, headed by MP Anwar El-Khalil. The delegation thanked Khalil for his help in the annual budget through providing them with financial support for their olive plantations. "It is the duty of the state to ensure the survival and steadfastness of citizens in their villages, and the issue of oil support is one of the simple duties of the state towards the people of this region, and we will complete this step with more projects for the region of Marjayoun and Hasbaya," Khalil underlined. The Minister highlighted the need for "preserving our unity and our inner circle," and to make sure that differences remain in politics without being reflected on the ground and threatening stability and security in the region.

Jumblat Urges Decisiveness on Aley Incident Suspects
Naharnet/July 21/2019
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Sunday urged decisiveness over the crisis sparked by the deadly Qabrshmoun incident. “When will authorities take a decisive decision on the handover of the rest of the wanted suspects in the al-Basatin incident?” Jumblat tweeted. He was referring to bodyguards of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib who were involved in the deadly clash with PSP supporters in the Aley town of Qabrshmoun. Two of Gharib’s bodyguards were killed while a third and a PSP supporter were injured. The PSP has handed over a number of suspects while Gharib’s Lebanese Democratic Party has been reluctant to hand over any wanted men, saying the PSP has failed to surrender all the suspects. The LDP has also been insisting on the referral of the case to the Judicial Council, a demand that Jumblat and his allies are opposed to.

Lebanese-American Mueller Witness Now Faces Child Sex Trafficking Charge
Associated Press/Naharnet/July 21/2019
A businessman who served as a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation now faces a charge of child sex trafficking in addition to transporting child pornography. An indictment made public Friday in federal court in Alexandria charges Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, 60, with transporting a 14-year-old boy from Europe to Washington, D.C., in February 2000 and engaging in sex acts with him. That charge comes on top of child pornography charges that had been leveled against him when he was arrested last month. Nader's name shows up more than 100 times in Mueller's report. It details his efforts to serve as liaison between a Russian banker close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of President Donald Trump's transition team. Nader also served as an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally, and in April 2017 wired $2.5 million to a top Trump fundraiser, Elliott Broidy, through a company in Canada, The Associated Press reported last year. The goal was to persuade the U.S. to take a hard line against Qatar, a longtime American ally but now an adversary of the UAE. Nader's lawyers did not immediately return emails seeking comment. While the sex trafficking indictment is new, the allegations that Nader engaged in sexual activity are not. Nader was convicted in the Czech Republic by Prague's Municipal Court of 10 cases of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term in 2003. Nader also pleaded guilty to a charge of transporting child-pornography images in Virginia in 1991. The current investigation of Nader began last year when images depicting child pornography and bestiality were found on his phone after it was confiscated under a search warrant connected to the Mueller probe. Nader is jailed as he awaits trial, which is set for Sept. 30.

Palestinian President: We Do Not Want Clash with Lebanon
Ramallah – Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that recent developments in Lebanon regarding Palestinian refugees should be resolved only through dialogue. During a Fatah meeting in Ramallah, he stressed that he would exert efforts to prevent any attempt to undermine “the excellent relationship” between the Palestinians and the Lebanese people. The Lebanese Labor Ministry recently decided to regulate illegal foreign labor, a move originally intendedto target Syrian refugees, but which will have ramifications on Palestinian refugees as well. “We do not want any tensions or escalation with Lebanon, and we want to foil any attempt by anyone who wants to destroy the excellent relations between us and our brothers in Lebanon,” Abbas emphasized. The Palestinian president also asserted that his position has not changed with regards to the US “Deal of the Century”. “Our position… has not changed: We will not accept the Deal of the Century and will not accept the Manama workshop,” he said, in reference to the Manama meeting held last month under US patronage in Bahrain. Abbas also stressed the Palestinian leadership’s rejection to receive the tax revenues - collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinians - if they were not paid in full. He also condemned the recent Israeli excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, saying: “The excavations taking place in the occupied city of Jerusalem are a very serious issue, and we must not allow the Israelis to continue to tamper with the eternal capital of Palestine.”

Btaich: Lebanon is on the right track
NNA -Sun 21 Jul 2019
"The position of the Regional Director for Lebanon and the Middle East at the World Bank has confirmed that Lebanon is on the right track towards emerging from its difficult situation," said Economy and Trade Minister, Mansour Btaich, via his Twitter account today.
"The fiscal figures for the first four months of the year and the endorsed budget indicate that we are on the right path of reform," he added, noting that "a lot still awaits us." Btaich vowed to continue to work hard in line with the conviction of achievement.

Kouyoumjian from Hrajel: We joined the government on basis of consensus, democracy
NNA -Sun 21 Jul 2019
Minister of Social Affairs, Richard Kouyoumjian, said Sunday that the Lebanese Forces chose to be represented in the Council of Ministers on grounds of consensus and democracy, asserting that his Party caters to the needs of the Lebanese first and foremost. Kouyoumjian's words came during his visit to Hrajel earlier today, accompanied by a member of the "Strong Republic" Bloc, MP Shawki Daccash, and number of Party officials and the Mayor of Hrajel. The Minister stated that his Party has the right to support or vote against the annual budget within the cabinet, a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
"Our presence in the government does not prevent us from practicing our free decision...All our political positions stem from Lebanon's supreme political, economic and financial interests, and based on this came our decision to vote against the budget," he explained. "The essence of our struggle and our policy is to keep the people in their land, and to ensure that Lebanon remains for us," Kouyoumjian emphasized. He vowed to maintain his commitment to human dignity as a member of cabinet, a state official, an LF partisan and a citizen.

Adwan points to a wide opposition climate within the Parliament, says all parties have to cooperate to bring about real reform
NNA -Sun 21 Jul 2019
"Strong Republic" Parliamentary Bloc Member, MP George Adwan, disclosed Sunday that a broad opposition and a disturbed climate prevails over the Parliament Council, adding that all parties have to join efforts to bring about real reform in the country. During an interview with "MTV" Station this afternoon, Adwan said: "We, as Lebanese Forces, have a clear political policy and public approach, and the budget is part of it.""What has happened must restore confidence and be a motive for trust, since the demands of the Lebanese Forces Party fall within public interest, including state institutions, the government and premiership. We have a common goal, namely to serve the people and build the state," Adwan reassured. "Everyone must know that the Lebanese Forces Party has a plan and will not be complacent about it," he maintained. "My relationship with Prime Minister Saad Hariri is excellent, and will continue to be so, but the position on public affairs is one thing, and assessment is something else. We have a clear policy and we shall continue in its pursuit," he emphasized. Adwan indicated that the problem lies in the insufficient steps that have been taken in comparison with the country's critical situation, noting that the state budget should have been one of real structural reform. "The wide opposition within the Parliament reflects a truly disturbed council regarding the prevailing situation. We must cooperate with the opposition climate to bring about real reform, because there is indeed a reformist atmosphere within the Parliament," Adwan underscored.

MP Mohammad Nasrallah: The next stage is to implement the government's budget promises, draft the 2020 budget within the constitutional deadline
NNA -Sun 21 Jul 2019
"The next stage should be devoted to addressing the challenges before the government, foremost of which is the implementation of the budget promises in terms of achieving its figures," said MP Mohammad Nasrallah on Sunday. He added that "the cabinet should also work on drafting the upcoming 2020 annual budget within the constitutional deadline, especially that the Finance Ministry has set its vision in this respect." Nasrallah was speaking before a number of popular delegations who visited him at his West Bekaa office earlier today. He continued to "ascertain the government's duty to convene, ensuring its proper functioning and dealing with the repercussions of the Mountain incident, in wake of which all sides are required to cooperate to put an end to its ramifications for the country's sake." The MP noted that a lot of work still awaits state officials, especially as citizens openly express their deep concern and high fears about their economic and social situation in the face of the growing unemployment and weak purchasing power, despite the strenuous efforts made to prevent the imposition of new taxes on essential goods and to protect the middle and underprivileged classes. "The lesson remains in the proper and responsible implementation of what has been endorsed," Nasrallah corroborated.

Palestinians of Lebanon and the Lebanese Palestinians
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/July 21/2019
Even before the new Labor Ministry regulations, Palestinians in Lebanon posed a problem to the country. Despite their connection to the not-too-distant civil war, the current proposals are driven by the desire to stoke tensions. The regulations may target recently-arrived Syrian refugees, but the Palestinians have been in Lebanon since Israel’s formation in 1948. If the Syrians number “several”, the Palestinians are “few” in comparison. Figures released in 2017 revealed that they total 174,422 residing in 12 refugee camps and 156 encampments. UNRWA puts the figure at 470,000, but it remarked that it does not have an exact figure of Palestinians currently living Lebanon. It acknowledged that it does not have a record of Palestinians who choose to leave the country. As it stands, Palestinians, driven by despair, are indeed leaving the country and have been doing so for the past three and a half decades. The few that remain are desperately searching for the opportunity to leave.
The small figures should shock those who use numbers to stoke fear. It is useless to delve too deep into conspiracies that threaten Lebanon and into the issue of naturalization that no one is asking for. Theodor Hertzl had previously described his negotiations with Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid as arduous. “You know what Turkish negotiation are. If you want to buy a carpet, first you must drink half a dozen cups of coffee and smoke a hundred cigarettes. Then you discuss family stories, and from time to time you speak a few words again about the carpet.”
The first lines of the carpet are the Lebanese, who are famous for their immigration. Their ultimate goal in countries they immigrate to, is as we all know, citizenship. It is therefore, unacceptable to demand the most for ourselves in countries we willingly go to and deny the most basic of rights to others who are forced to come to ours.
Palestinians in Lebanon are approached on two levels: On the first, the security level, the authorities are repeating the same mistake and they have been doing so since 1948. When hunger and oppression prevail, the answer is sought by taking up arms and forming armed groups. Just a reminder, the “Palestinian brothers” are barred from occupying 72 jobs, traveling abroad, owning houses, joining unions… On the second level, the fate of Lebanon is on the line. Do the Lebanese want it to transform into a hateful racist country or do they want it to be a country of openness, rights and diversity? Yes, some sides resort to stoking sectarian sentiments. This issue will plague us to the end of time. However, approaching these sensitive issues with discrimination is like treating a patient with another disease. This does not treat the patient, but rather changes the name of the problem.
However, the issue that harms the Palestinians in Lebanon are the so-called Lebanese Palestinians. These figures emerge from the margins of political or cultural life and seek to seek to gain meaning through investing in the Palestinian issue. They are the “lovers of Palestine”, who strive in “loving” it, imagining epic scenarios that are reminiscent of Bollywood romances from a quarter of a century ago. The differences between the Palestinians in Lebanon and the Lebanese Palestinians are vast. The former seek basic civil rights, while the latter pursue a war mentality. This mentality harms the civilian call. Moreover, the Palestinians in Lebanon are seeking rights in a society that cannot meet their demands until this society regains its health and sets itself on the right path. The Lebanese Palestinians have no problem in breaking up this society, especially when it comes to its internal relations and the borders and sovereignty of its state over the decision of war and peace. Ultimately, the Lebanese Palestinians and their allies are seeking their own interests when claiming solidarity with Palestinians in Lebanon.
The Lebanese Palestinians always win and the Palestinians in Lebanon always lose. The former boast a few competencies and talents, most significant of which is a way with words. From this background, emerge politicians and intellectuals who grab headlines with their “love” for Palestine. The unfortunate latter, are burdened by both Lebanon and Palestine.

Incident involving Hezbollah MP exposes faults of Lebanon’s religious system
Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/July 21/2019
The real measure of power is not gauged by tribal, economic, political or military might but by the state’s ability to protect its people by updating laws and upholding the rule of law.
Members of the Lebanese parliament, much like lawmakers elsewhere, are elected with a mandate to uphold the constitution and represent constituents’ interests.
Nawaf al-Moussawi, an MP for the Tyre constituency in southern Lebanon, accompanied by 20 armed men, on July 13 stormed a police station in the coastal town of Damour and assaulted his former son-in-law, who was being questioned about an altercation with Moussawi’s daughter.
Moussawi’s vigilantism stirred heated debate throughout Lebanon and many embraced the incident as an act of a desperate father going to the aid of his abused daughter and her children.
Others condemned Moussawi, who was clearly breaching the law he was entrusted to uphold. The critics said Moussawi violated the rule of law when tried to take matters into his own hands.
Complicating matters is that Moussawi is a senior member of Hezbollah, whose Iranian agenda and arsenal make it the antithesis of Lebanese statehood. Considered one of Hezbollah’s most hawkish elements, Moussawi is famous for verbal altercations on the parliament pulpit. A recent such performance earned him a disciplinary suspension of activities by his own party because of remarks deemed offensive to Christians.
The crux of this tragic event is not solely the continued implications of Hezbollah weapons and its impediment to the Lebanese state but, rather, that Hezbollah and other Lebanese political parties have failed to provide a proper legal framework that governs the rights of women, especially in disputes that arise from marriage.
Moussawi’s daughter’s ordeal is rather a very common occurrence. Hundreds of Lebanese women are victims of the patriarchal system that renders them feeble before religious courts that often take the side of the husband.
The Ja’fari Shia courts, in which Moussawi’s daughter has been battling her former husband, has deprived her of child custody, which discriminatorily grants custody to the father at the age of 2 for the boy and 7 for the girl.
That Moussawi’s ex-husband belongs to a powerful Shia clan from the Bekaa Valley and that his father heads the office of the representative of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Lebanon made him untouchable and even more powerful than an elected Hezbollah MP.
Despite the colossal efforts of civil society and women activists to amend discriminatory laws and push towards a civil legal code for marriage, the Lebanese political class has refused to accommodate the demands, preferring to side with religious institutions instead.
As fate would have it, Moussawi is a member of the parliamentary subcommittee that was reviewing civil status laws that would empower his daughter and women in general.
Addressing the committee with a tear in his eye when announcing that his family was affected by these laws, Moussawi still fell in line with Hezbollah conservative proclivities and declared that “women rights can be protected by the current laws and that what was needed was to reform the judicial body rather than asking for the amendments of the pre-existing texts.”
However, it is not only about Moussawi or his theologically driven Iranian party but rather about an archaic political system that flaunts liberal values and diversity yet fails at every juncture to prove that it is willing to reform.
Moussawi’s assault at police precinct brought back the just demand for equality and justice to women and to all Lebanese by revising existing legislation that treat them as subjects of sects rather than citizens.
All those who condone the vigilante act of Moussawi as that of a desperate father and claim they would do the same for their own daughter have to remember that, if Hezbollah and its weapons and the immunity of Moussawi’s parliamentary office could not save a battered women from legal abuse then what would? The real measure of power is not gauged by tribal, economic, political or military might but by the state’s ability to protect its people by updating laws and upholding the rule of law, something that would protect Moussawi’s daughter and all generations to come.

Syria’s returnees out of the frying pan into the fire
بارعة علم الدين: السوريون العائدون إلى بلدهم من المقلاة إلى النار
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/July/2019
A Lebanese official exclaimed: “These Syrians are going to eat us alive” after coming off the phone from an animated discussion about the ongoing crackdown against illegal Syrian workers and Syrian-run businesses. Sitting in his office, I asked how he felt that many who had lost sources of revenue would be compelled to return to Syria and suffer their fate. “That’s not my problem” was the reply.
Lebanon doesn’t have a particularly good record for the sympathetic treatment of refugees. The Palestinian refugee population (estimated at 400,000 as of 2014) was for decades prevented from integrating and blocked from taking jobs and state benefits. Nevertheless, we can sympathize with the frustrations of Lebanese bearing the brunt of the global refugee burden, with close to 2 million Syrians now constituting about a quarter of the population. In a nation with soaring unemployment, the huge pool of desperate arrivals willing to work for almost nothing to feed families sucks up career openings and drives down wages. Conversely, the sizable contributions that Palestinian and Syrian entrepreneurs have made to the Lebanese economy should be recognized. Meanwhile, some Lebanese have bigheartedly opened their homes and lands to refugees.
The refugee crisis has pummeled an already broken governing system, which is crippled by protracted political standoffs and corruption. Chronic failures in rubbish collection are just one foul-smelling symptom of the public services meltdown. This will be exacerbated by the austerity budget currently passing through Parliament; a consequence of Lebanon having one of the world’s heaviest debt burdens, at 150 percent of gross domestic product.
Just as during the 1970s, when the influx of Palestinian factions helped trigger civil war, the ramifications of today’s refugee crisis have cleaved Lebanon along confessional and factional lines. Hezbollah and its Christian allies want to rid themselves of this huge, mostly Sunni demographic. President Michel Aoun asks why the UN isn’t doing more to facilitate returns, although he should know that forcibly repatriating refugees facing a credible risk of persecution is a breach of international law. Hezbollah ally and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil demands that UN aid be directed to Syria to avoid perpetuating the Lebanon refugee presence, which would literally starve people into returning.
Hezbollah, Russia and Bashar Assad are, furthermore, anxious to normalize the situation in Syria, paving the way for envisaged 2021 elections, which they would engineer to perpetuate Assad’s tenure and draw a line under the conflict. A distracted international community may air token reservations about blatantly rigged elections, while scarcely hiding its relief that this protracted conflict can be swept under the carpet. Yet we haven’t seen the end of Syrian instability or its internationalized ramifications. In rebel-held Idlib, the regime has thus far made little headway, despite Russian warplanes killing hundreds in intense bombing campaigns.
The ramifications of today’s refugee crisis have cleaved Lebanon along confessional and factional lines.
About 170,000 Syrian refugees have reportedly returned since late 2017. Testimonies cite returnees facing official harassment and arrest. Many have vanished into Assad’s torture prisons, in which thousands were murdered. Young men are the principal targets, but women have faced vicious interrogation sessions over innocuous social media postings. Several of those who left have returned through European voluntary returns programs. Although there is no overt compulsion, penniless and desperate refugees can be seduced by financial incentives. Many aren’t equipped to make informed decisions about the grave risks.
In Lebanon, compulsion is more blatant. Hezbollah has sought to block the establishment of refugee camps and refugees have been forced to destroy their own makeshift homes. During last year’s particularly bitter winter, the very young and very old died through lack of adequate shelter.
Even Syrians lucky enough to return unmolested must start from nothing: A shattered economy, destroyed homes, disputes over land rights, and a deeply traumatized society. Adults have experienced unimaginable horrors. Children endure post-traumatic stress, missing limbs and life-shattering disabilities. Many never attended school and enjoy questionable life prospects, making them prime targets for recruitment into militancy, organized crime and terrorism.
While certain factions have behaved maliciously, it would be wrong to wholly condemn Lebanon’s handling of this crisis. Europeans clearly prefer that Syrian refugees limit themselves to bordering states like Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan — which between them host more than 4 million Syrians. Yet refugee programs habitually receive much less than half their required funding, resulting in appalling living conditions and host nations bearing the burden.
The fact that Lebanon has endured the last decade engulfed by the destabilizing ramifications of Syria’s war without (yet) dissolving into conflict is nothing short of miraculous. But we shouldn’t take Lebanon’s stability for granted. Inappropriate and illegal forced returns and the manipulation of the refugee crisis for factional gain are symptoms of the global failure to properly support Lebanon and other overstretched states. With the number of those globally displaced by conflict approaching 70 million, and fascists in Europe and America fanning the flames of anti-refugee hatred, the world’s inability to compassionately address this issue may become one of the defining failures of the 21st century.
As the principal theaters of conflict wind down in Syria, Hezbollah fighters are relocating to battlefronts in southern Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights region in southwestern Syria. In the context of growing US-Iran tensions, many Hezbollah personnel are convinced that a renewed conflict with Israel is only a matter of time. The weekend strike against a paramilitary base in central Iraq, where Hezbollah cadres were reportedly stationed, and repeated Iranian attacks against multinational oil tankers, including the abduction of a British freighter, are additional warning signs of how close we are to the spark that could inadvertently trigger regional conflagration. During the 1970s, 1980s and in 2006, thousands of war-ravaged Lebanese refugees poured into Syria. In 1982, I was one of the Lebanese who (unsuccessfully) tried to take the road to Damascus. Given expectations that a renewed Israel-Hezbollah confrontation could be exponentially more brutal than in 2006, there would be a deeply bitter irony if those Lebanese who gripe about being deluged by refugees once again find themselves pleading for Syrian hospitality.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 21-22/2019
Audio recording reveals Iranians ordered British tanker to change course
AFP/Sunday, 21 July 2019
Iranian forces ordered a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf to change course, telling the Stena Impero it would be safe “if you obey,” according to a verified audio recording released Sunday. The recording of radio communications between the Stena Impero, British warship HMS Montrose and the advancing Iranian forces was obtained and released by London-based maritime security risk analysts Dryad Global, and confirmed as genuine by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). Iranian forces seized the Swedish-owned tanker on Friday in what Britain says was an illegal operation in Omani waters. Video footage released by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday showed a ship with the tanker’s markings being surrounded by speedboats before troops in balaclavas descended onto the vessel by rope from a helicopter. In the audio recordings, the Iranians told the Stena Impero: “You are ordered: change your course to three six zero. Three six zero degrees immediately. If you obey, you will be safe.” The frigate HMS Montrose (F236), in the Gulf to provide maritime security to merchant shipping, told the Stena Impero: “As you are conducting transit passage in a recognized international strait, under international law your passage must not be impaired, impeded, obstructed or hampered.”Communication is established between HMS Montrose and the Iranians. They told the British warship: “Foxtrot 236 this is SEPAH navy patrol boat. No challenge is intended. No challenge is intended. I want to inspect the ship for security reason.” HMS Montrose replied: “SEPAH navy patrol boat, this is British warship Foxtrot 236. Your requests that you are transmitting to the Stena Impero... hinder and impede her passage. You must not impair, impede, obstruct or hamper the passage of the MV Stena Impero. “Please confirm that you are not intending to violate international law by unlawfully attempting to board the MV Stena.”The message from the Iranians to the Stena Impero was repeated: “If you obey, you will be safe.”The MoD confirmed that the recording was genuine. “We’ve just had that verified. That is legitimate,” the ministry told AFP. Iran detained the Stena Impero on allegations it failed to respond to distress calls and turned off its transponder after hitting a fishing boat. HMS Montrose earlier this month intercepted Iranian patrol boats surrounding another UK-flagged tanker.

Gulf Tanker Incidents May Raise Shippers' Costs, Cut Traffic
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Seizures of oil tankers and other hostile Iranian measures in the Strait of Hormuz are already raising insurance rates for shipping companies and could eventually reduce tanker traffic in the vital waterway, with a spike in global oil prices a serious risk even without war, energy and maritime experts say. On Friday, Iran seized a British-flagged oil tanker in the narrow passageway that carries one-fifth of the world's crude exports and a second Liberian-flagged ship was briefly detained. Britain's foreign minister promised a "considered but robust" response.
"If this kind of problem continues, you might see people start to shy away from the Gulf or try to reflag — not be a British tanker," said energy economist Michael Lynch, according to The Associated Press. The near-term impact will fall most heavily on the shipping industry in the form of higher insurance rates, said Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. Richard Nephew, a Columbia University researcher who wrote a book on sanctions, agreed that the tanker seizure and a pair of minor but mysterious attacks on tankers that preceded it — and for which Iran denied responsibility — could create "a real risk premium" for companies that operate in the Gulf and insurers that underwrite them. Lawrence Brennan, a maritime attorney and Fordham University professor, said Saturday that so-called "war risk" maritime insurance rates have already risen since May — and Iran could wreak havoc with global oil supply were it to decide to mine the strait or otherwise move to choke other nations' oil exports through Hormuz. The risks will only rise because Iran's leaders, as their economy strains under US sanctions, "feel they have little to lose if they are mischievously provocative" and engage in sabotage, intimidation and other acts short of war, said Larry Goldstein, director of special projects and former president of the industry-backed Energy Policy Research Foundation. On Friday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard impounded the British tanker Stena Impero with helicopter-borne commandos for allegedly violating international shipping regulations. An Iranian news agency said the Liberian-flagged Mesdar was briefly detained and then released after being told to comply with environmental rules.
Friday's seizure was retaliation for the July 4 seizure for alleged sanctions-busting of an Iranian tanker by Gibraltar, a British territory.
It marks a sharp escalation of regional tension triggered by the Trump administration when it withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and imposed severe restrictions on Iranian oil exports and other sanctions. Many of the 2,000 companies operating ships in the region have ordered their vessels to transit Hormuz only during the daylight hours and at high speed. But only a handful of the companies have halted bookings. The tensions in the Gulf also pushed oil prices slightly higher. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.9% to $62.47 a barrel on Friday, while benchmark US crude gained 0.6% to settle at $55.63. Goldstein said the fact that oil prices haven't risen more reflects an overly calm attitude in a market that feels it "doesn't know what's happening and ... will play it very close to the vest day to day. There is very little forward planning going on." The risk to global oil markets "looks acute no matter how you slice it," said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, LLC, noting that US State and Defense department officials discussed on Friday multinational military escorts for ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz to and from ports of major oil producers. "If you put more combat ships into a small place you are increasing the risk of confrontation and that alone increase the risk of oil prices," he said. While the United States is energy self-sufficient, the economies of countries including China, Japan and South Korea depend heavily on Gulf oil, which supplies about one-third of seaborne oil shipments.
"A doubling in oil prices if there is no oil for the rest of the world is not unimaginable," said Brennan, the maritime lawyer, a former Navy captain.

Iran: IRGC Seizure of British Tanker Pushes Risk of Escalation
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
The most significant in a series of events involving Iran during the week occurred July 19 with an announcement from the Revolutionary Guards Corps that it had seized a British tanker — and briefly halted the progress of another — in the Arabian Gulf. The tanker's capture adds yet another layer of stress atop already tense relations between Iran and the United States and its allies, said the Stratfor intelligence platform. Several previous incidents either involving or aimed at Iranian interests earlier this week have added to the air of tension surrounding the US-Iranian standoff. Before news of the tanker seizure broke, a fire ripped through a facility in Iraq storing ballistic missiles that Iran provided to Iraqi militias aligned with Tehran — possibly as a result of an airstrike by unknown assailants. And on July 13, the IRGC detained a tanker in the Gulf that it said was involved in a fuel-smuggling operation. Amid the escalation, the US Navy claimed on July 18 it had destroyed an Iranian drone that had been menacing one of its ships.
Possible act of retaliation
Late in the day on July 19, a large British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, made a sudden and unplanned turn toward Iran. The vessel was tracked sailing toward Iranian ports near Bandar Abbas before its transponder quit transmitting. A second tanker, the British-owned and Liberian-flagged Mesdar followed a similar course before its transponder was shut off. The IRGC subsequently said, however, that it had briefly halted the Mesdar to caution it about "environmental regulations" and other matters before permitting it to proceed.
The incidents prompted British officials to convene an emergency ministerial meeting. The Iranian actions are likely being construed as a retaliatory measure for the United Kingdom's July 4 detention of the Iranian tanker Grace 1, which British authorities are holding in Gibraltar on suspicion of smuggling Iranian oil to Syria. If so, Iran is likely to hold the Stena Impero as a bargaining chip to convince the United Kingdom to release the Grace 1. Every such hostile incident, however, elevates the risk that a wider conflict will emerge between Iran and its adversaries. And the possibility of new British sanctions on Iran over these incidents could lead Iran to engage in even more provocations, increasing the chances that the United States and its allies will respond with a limited military strike targeting Iranian assets.
A tanker no one claims
The United States was first to suggest that Iran may have detained a tanker whose transponder had gone silent on July 13 as it entered Iranian waters in the Strait of Hormuz. The MT Riah, a small oil products tanker with a capacity of just 2 million liters (about 12,500 barrels), was initially identified as Panamanian-flagged and Emirati-owned. However, the United Arab Emirates disavowed ownership and said no Emiratis had been detained. The initial events resembled those of previous incidents in the region over the last two months in which Iran or Iranian-linked militias targeted six oil tankers in two separate incidents. The US State Department's response to Iran on July 18 — a demand for an immediate release of the MT Riah — suggests that Washington is viewing the incident as yet another Iranian provocation. The US characterization of the event, however, was blunted somewhat by a later IRGC claim that it had detained the tanker and arrested the crew on for allegedly smuggling fuel. That explanation has the ring of plausibility, given Iran's long campaign to rein in smuggling operations in which fuel subsidized in Iran is sold abroad for higher prices. In fact, in April, the IRGC seized a small tanker bearing 11 million liters of fuel smuggled out of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. However, given the seizure of the Stena Impero on July 19, Iran might have seized the Panamanian-flagged MT Riah on the mistaken belief that it was British-owned, which could account for why Iran’s story is unclear at this point. The MT Riah certainly exhibits the hallmarks of a vessel used in smuggling operations. Over the past year, it has turned off its transponder more than two dozen times, making no port calls while conducting dozens of ship-to-ship transfers. The IRGC, of course, is itself involved in lucrative oil smuggling operations, meaning that the detention of the MT Riah could represent an effort by the IRGC to undermine a competing smuggling ring. Nonetheless, since the news broke, no entity has either claimed ownership of the MT Riah or revealed the nationalities of the crew members in custody.
An airstrike no one claims
Meanwhile in Iraq, video footage of a fire in a warehouse facility housing Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles early on July 19 points to the possibility of an attack. The Pentagon, however, has so far denied involvement in any airstrike. Nevertheless, US involvement remains plausible. The reported deaths of two Lebanese Hezbollah members in the July 19 incident could also point to possible Israeli involvement in the attack, given the country's concerns about growing stockpiles of Iranian weapons in Shiite militia warehouses in Iraq. If Israel was involved in the warehouse explosion, it would mark a notable escalation toward Israeli efforts to challenge Iran militarily. This week, the United States also enacted sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act to push against Iran’s reach into Iraq by restricting the ability of two leaders of Iranian-allied militias to travel or conduct financial transactions. The leaders of the 30th and 50th Brigades of the Popular Mobilization Units — Waad Qado and Rayan al Kildani — were sanctioned along with two former provincial governors, one of whom is known to have close ties with Iran. The sanctions highlight the multifaceted nature of US efforts to curtail Iranian influence across the Middle East. And despite Washington's denial, if the United States was involved in the warehouse explosion, it would be a logical effort to send a message to Iran that using Iraq as a staging ground to attack US forces, assets and allies will not be tolerated.

2 Iran Revolutionary Guards Members Killed in Pakistan Border Attack
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Two members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were killed late Saturday in an attack by gunmen near the border with Pakistan. Two others were injured by the “terrorists”, state television reported. The southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province has been the scene of past clashes involving militants. Relations between Pakistan and Iran were strained after a suicide bomber killed 27Guards members in mid-February in a southeastern region, with Iranian officials saying the attackers were based inside Pakistan. The Jaish al Adl group, which says it seeks greater rights and better living conditions for the ethnic Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for that attack. Iranian authorities say militant groups operate from safe havens in Pakistan and have repeatedly called on the neighboring country to crack down on them.

Iran Says Its Tanker Held in Saudi Arabia Released
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 21/2019
An Iranian tanker held in Saudi Arabia since being forced to seek repairs at Jeddah port has been released and is returning to the Islamic republic, a minister said Sunday. The Happiness 1 tanker "has been released following negotiations and is now moving toward Persian Gulf waters," said transport minister Mohammad Eslami, quoted by state news agency IRNA. The ship had been forced to seek repairs in Saudi Arabia in early May after suffering "engine failure and loss of control", the Iranian oil ministry's SHANA news agency said at the time.The rare docking came despite escalating tensions between staunch enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. "Yesterday, with follow-ups from the ports and maritime authority the issue was resolved," Eslami said. "The tanker is moving towards the Persian Gulf with the permission of the Jeddah port, towed by two Iranian tug boats."

Iran Says Probe into Seized Ship Depends on Crew Cooperation
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 21/2019
Iran said on Sunday that the speed of its investigation into a British-flagged tanker depends on the cooperation of its crew, after ignoring calls to hand back the vessel. The Stena Impero tanker was impounded with its 23 crew members on board at the port of Bandar Abbas after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized it on Friday. The Guards on Saturday released video footage showing a ship with the Stena Impero's markings being surrounded by speedboats before troops in balaclavas descend down a rope from a helicopter onto the vessel. The Islamic republic has detained the oil tanker on allegations of failing to respond to distress calls and turning off its transponder after hitting a fishing boat. Its crew is made up of 18 Indians, including the captain, three Russians, a Latvian and a Filipino. "All of them are in full health, they are on the vessel and the vessel is... anchored in a safe place," said Allah-Morad Afifipoor, director-general of the Hormozgan province port and maritime authority. "We are ready to meet their needs. But we have to carry out investigations with regards the vessel," he told Press TV. "The investigation depends on the cooperation by the crew members on the vessel, and also our access to the evidence required for us to look into the matter. "God willing, we will make every effort to gather all the information as soon as possible," he added.

Zarif: Bolton failed to lure Trump into war, turning his ‘venom’ against UK
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 21 July 2019
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday that US National Security Adviser John Bolton is “turning his venom against the UK” after failing to “lure Trump into [the] War of the Century].”On his official Twitter account, he added that only “prudence and foresight” could alleviate tensions between his country and Britain after Tehran's seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker. “Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys.”
ake no mistake:
Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his #B_Team, @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire. only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) July 21, 2019
Britain has called Iran's capture of the Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday a “hostile act.” Tehran for weeks has vowed to retaliate for the seizure of its Grace 1 oil tanker by British forces for violating European Union sanctions on Syria.

Iranian MPs thank IRGC for seizing British-flagged tanker, call for Gulf tolls
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 21 July 2019
A group of Iranian MPs thanked the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for seizing a British-flagged oil tanker on Saturday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The MPs thanked the IRGC for their “decisive move” in a statement which so far has been signed by 160 MPs, according to Tasnim. Earlier today, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani said that “[Britain] committed maritime piracy, so [the IRGC] gave them a response for it,” in response to an MP who criticized him for not issuing a statement in support of the IRGC’s seizure of the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero on Saturday. At the end of the statement, the MPs asked President Hassan Rouhani to attend to the topic of charging tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a motion which was proposed in the Iranian parliament earlier this month. Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, a member of the presiding board of the parliament, said on July 7 that the tolls would compensate Iran for the expense of “providing security” for foreign ships, the semi-official Tasnim news agency had reported.
As foreign ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz, they enter Iranian waters and therefore Iran should collect tolls from them, he said, according to Tasnim. The strait, which is only about 20 miles wide at its narrowest point, is split between the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
Maritime legal experts say tolls would not be permissible in the strait, which is considered an "international strait” according to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Bolton May Discuss in Tokyo US Request for Japan to Join Military Coalition in Gulf
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces a tough diplomatic challenge from an expected US request to send its navy to join a military coalition to safeguard strategic waters off Iran and Yemen. It could be on the agenda when US national security adviser John Bolton visits Tokyo next week, domestic media said, according to Reuters. A decision to join such a coalition would likely inflame a divide in Japanese public opinion over sending troops abroad. Japan’s military has not fought overseas since World War Two. Abe’s coalition is expected to win a solid majority in an upper house election on Sunday but ruling bloc lawmakers have avoided discussing the possible maritime mission during the campaign. “Until the election is over, they can’t touch such a touchy subject”, said a source familiar with the government’s stance. Below is an explanation of why this issue is contentious and what Japan’s options are. Japan’s stake in the region . Japan is the world’s fourth-biggest oil buyer and 86% of its oil supplies last year passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond. Last month, a tanker operated by a Japanese shipping company was attacked in the Gulf of Oman and the United States blamed Iran. Tehran denied the allegation. Abe is also keen to maintain and strengthen the US-Japan security alliance, the pillar of its defense policies. US President Donald Trump has criticized the pact as unfair and rejecting a US request to join a maritime coalition could exacerbate that dissatisfaction. “Japan has to do something to protect our own vessels,” said a former Japanese senior diplomat. “We cannot keep asking others to do it.”Abe made an unsuccessful bid to ease tensions in the region when he met Iranian leaders in Tehran last month.
Why is this politically contentious?
Japan in 2015 enacted legislation that could let its troops fight overseas for the first time since its defeat in World War Two, a milestone in Abe’s push to loosen the limits of the pacifist constitution on the military. The legislation allows Japan to go to the defense of a friendly country under attack if it constitutes an “existential threat” to Japan. If the government decides the situation could lead to an armed attack on Japan, it can offer logistical support to multi-national forces. Enactment of the laws, which Abe said were needed to meet new security challenges, triggered huge protests from opponents who said it violated the constitution and could ensnare Japan in US-led conflicts. A move to send the navy to take part in a US-led operation would almost certainly revive that debate.
Japan’s options
Experts have pointed to four legal frameworks that could be used to justify a decision to send Japanese warships and planes to join the maritime mission. The most likely option, they said, would be for Japan to take part based on an existing Anti-Piracy Law for anti-piracy and escort missions, as long as attackers are considered non-state actors. Japan currently takes part in a multilateral mission off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. Or Japan could exercise its right of collective self-defense, or aiding an ally under attack, based on the 2015 laws, but the legal hurdle is higher. The defense minister could dispatch naval vessels or planes as a maritime security operation to protect Japanese ships and goods bound for Japan. In principle, other countries’ vessels would not be protected. Japan could also enact special, one-off legislation, but that would be a time-consuming process.

Syrian Regime Bombing of Opposition Stronghold Kills 11
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Syrian first responders and activists said Sunday that regime bombing of the last opposition stronghold in the country has killed at least 11 civilians, as the nearly four-month offensive shows no sign of abating. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people were killed, including a child, in the bombing of the village of Urum al-Joz in southern Idlib province. The opposition-operated Shaam news agency said those killed had been displaced from the southern tip of the rebel stronghold. Rescue workers, known as Syria's Civil Defense or White Helmets, said three children and a woman were killed in Kfaruma, south of Urum al-Joz. A White Helmet volunteer was killed in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, the group says. The offensive began in late April, displacing more than 300,000 people. Also Sunday, Syria's transport ministry said a freight train carrying phosphate derailed and caught fire after getting hit by explosives planted on the tracks by militants in the country's center. The government-owned train was transporting phosphate from mines in Khunayfis in Homs province, and the ministry said technical teams were working to repair the railway and restore traffic. Last week, militants also targeted a gas pipeline in Homs province.

SDF Commander: We Will Open 600Km-Front in Response to Any Turkish Attack
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
The Arab-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander warned that any attack by Turkey and its loyal factions regions east of the Euphrates would lead to the opening of a 600-km long front in retaliation. General Mazloum Kobani (Ebdi) said the front will be opened from al-Malikiyah, near the Iraqi border, to Ain al-Arab near the Euphrates River in the vicinity of the Turkish border. He pointed out that his forces are ready to confront any provocations and conspiracies by the Turkish state, which mobilized large forces to its border with Syria, Kurdish-Syrian sites quoted him as saying in an interview with the Kurdish newspaper, “Yeni Ozgur Politika,” which is published in Netherlands. “Eastern Euphrates and Afrin are not similar. These are two separate areas. It is not possible to repeat here what happened in Afrin. We won’t allow that,” he stressed, warning of a great war if the Turkish army launches an attack. “We took a strategic decision regarding Afrin, and we did not want to expand the fighting. Instead, we wanted to limit it to that area, which is indeed what happened.”The Turkish strategy is based on occupying Tel Abyad and Ain al-Arab, but any attack will cause a permanent war until the forces withdraw. Kobani noted that the SDF leadership has informed the US-led international coalition against ISIS about its decision, stressing that such a war would lead to a second internal war in Syria and would continue until Turkey withdraws. The United States does not want that, and 73 countries in the international coalition do not want this, he added. “This is an international issue and that’s why there is great pressure on the Turkish state, while this pressure was not put in Afrin.” On Washington’s position from a possible Turkish attack, Kobani explained that there is an agreement with the US regarding the war against ISIS. “Our war against ISIS is now the aking place in Raqqa and Deir Ezzour,” he said, adding that if any attack takes place against his forces, People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces will withdraw to border areas, ending the war against ISIS. Asked about the border safe zone, which was said to be established, Kobani said: “Turkish President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan has stated since 2018 that the Turkish army has completed preparations and will begin with the East Euphrates operation.”“We know that over the past seven years we haven’t attacked any area in Turkey, but our presence poses an issue for Erdogan and the Turkish state,” he explained. “We have said this before and I repeat now, we don’t want a new war… We have asked US Special Envoy James Jeffrey to deliver this message, and he expressed his pleasure to do so,” he stressed.

Hamas Chief: We Don’t Oppose State within 1967 Borders, But We Won’t Recognize Israel
Ramallah – Kifah Zboun/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said his movement did not oppose the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders in a gradual manner, but insisted on not recognizing Israel. “In the interim framework, Hamas is not opposed to establishing a state on the 1967 borders, but we are steadfast in not recognizing the occupation of the rest of the Palestinian territories,” he told a meeting organized by the Palestinian Association for Communication and Information in Istanbul on Saturday. He attacked the American and Israeli governments, saying they were “historically the most extreme in their policy toward Palestine.”“Unfortunately, the United States and Europe are going along with the Israeli narrative, and this contradicts the [UN] Charter and the international conventions on the right of peoples to resist their occupants,” he stated, also condemning a meeting between the Bahraini foreign minister and Israeli officials in Washington. Haniyeh revealed that a senior Hamas leadership delegation began a visit to Iran on Saturday, which will last several days. “We look forward to important results from this visit,” he noted. Hamas has recently reactivated its shaky relations with Iran, but the Syrian regime refused to normalize its ties with the movement, despite an Iranian mediation. “The decision to quit Syria was an institutional decision, which was well studied… We have not intervened in internal Syrian affairs before and we will not intervene at any stage,” he said, hoping for the country’s “strong recovery”.

Egypt Interior Minister Vows to Continue Fighting Terrorism in Cooperation with Army
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 21 July, 2019
Egypt's Interior Minister Major General Mahmoud Tawfik vowed Saturday to keep the police in action and to offer “sacrifices” alongside the army to confront “the dangers of terrorism and organized crime.” Addressing a graduation ceremony at the police academy, he stressed police forces “have been keen to use the latest mechanisms and techniques to establish a sophisticated security system.” The event was attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and several senior officials. The minister also spoke about what he called “foreign-backed plots,” adding that the police is decisively confronting conspiracies to thwart endless attempts to plant sedition and spread rumors. He stressed that these attempts aim at destabilizing Egypt. Tawfik also shed light on “the most difficult international challenges and the turbulent regional environment,” noting that the world has witnessed “the extent to which Egypt enjoys stability, which contributed to the success of organizing international and regional conferences and championships.”He highlighted the police’s sacrifices, saying that they have been working around the clock to maintain security and fight terrorism. Addressing the new graduates, Tawfik said they should take advantage of the support provided by the state to the police force to continue implementing programs to develop and modernize various areas of security work. “Security training system in the ministry has relied on developing the concept of functional specialization,” he remarked.

Israel Says Hosting Iraqi, Saudi Journalists in First
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 21/2019
Israel's foreign ministry said Sunday the country will this week host six journalists from Arab countries including, for the first time, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The visit comes as Israel seeks to improve ties with Gulf Arab countries, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.
Those states have resisted offering Israel formal recognition due to its continuing occupation of Palestinian territory, but their relations have warmed of late, largely due to common concerns over Iran. The journalists will visit Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, parliament and holy sites, among others, the foreign ministry said in a statement. It said it had "the aim of exposing the journalists –- some of whom come from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel -– to Israeli positions on diplomatic and geopolitical issues". Jordan is also participating, the ministry said. Jordan is one of only two Arab countries, along with Egypt, that have diplomatic relations with Israel. In another recent sign of a thaw, a group of Israeli journalists attended the U.S.-led economic conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Gulf state of Bahrain in late June. The Palestinian leadership boycotted the conference, citing a series of moves against them by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. On Thursday, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said that he had met his Bahraini counterpart publicly for the first time during a visit to Washington last week. Katz also recently visited Abu Dhabi for a U.N. climate conference, where he met United Nations chief Antonio Guterres and an unnamed "high ranking UAE official."

Egypt expresses dismay to UK envoy over British Airways flight suspension
Reuters/Sunday, 21 July 2019
Egypt’s aviation minister on Sunday expressed his dismay over British Airways’ decision to suspend flights to the Egyptian capital to the UK’s ambassador to Cairo. International Airlines Group’s British Airways suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday for seven days “as a security precaution” as it reviews security at the city’s airport. Later on Saturday, Germany’s Lufthansa said it had canceled services from Munich and Frankfurt to Cairo but it resumed flights on Sunday. Air France, Emirates and Etihad Airways continued to operate flights to Cairo. Younis Al-Masry “expressed his displeasure at British Airways taking a decision unilaterally concerning the security of Egyptian airports without referring to the competent Egyptian authorities,” the aviation ministry said in a statement released after a meeting between the Egyptian aviation minister and British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams.The statement went on to say that Adams had apologized for not informing Egyptian authorities before the decision was made and cited him as saying the flight suspension was not related to the security measures at Egyptian airports. The British embassy in Cairo could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for Air France, in a statement sent to Reuters, said the airline had decided to maintain its service to Cairo after liaising with French and Egyptian authorities. An Emirates spokeswoman said its flights were operating to schedule. “We are closely assessing the situation and are in contact with the relevant aviation authorities with regards to our flight operations to Egypt,” the spokeswoman said. The website for Abu Dhabi’s Etihad showed its services were also operating and a spokesman said the airline was monitoring the security situation in Cairo.

US accuses Venezuela jet of aggressive action over Caribbean
The Associated Press/Sunday, 21 July 2019
US authorities say a Venezuelan fighter jet “aggressively shadowed” an American intelligence plane flying in international airspace over the Caribbean, underscoring rising tensions between the two nations. The US Southern Command said Sunday that Venezuela’s action demonstrates reckless behavior by President Nicolás Maduro, whose government accused the US of breaking international rules. US authorities say their EP-3 plane was performing a multi-nationally approved mission and the Venezuelan SU-30 fighter jet closely trailed the plane, which the US says endangered its crew.
Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez says the US plane entered Venezuelan airspace without prior notification. He says it also endangered commercial flights from Venezuela’s main airport. The US backs opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s attempt to oust Maduro.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 21-22/2019
Opinion/Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Proxy Wars Have a New Battlefield: Indian-controlled Kashmir
ابهيناف بانديا/هآرتس: كشمير الواقعة تحت سيطرة الهند هي ساحة الحرب الجديدة بين إيران والأذرع السعودية
Abhinav Pandya/Haaretz/July 21/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/76871/%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%81-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d9%83%d8%b4%d9%85%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%82%d8%b9%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d8%ad/
Tehran is targeting the hearts and minds of Indian-controlled Kashmir’s 1.4 million Shia Muslims. Once limited to India and Pakistan, the Kashmir conflict is now becoming much wider – and more explosive
The Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan has so far remained a localized conflict. But thanks to Iran’s growing influence and entrenchment in Kashmir, particularly targeting its Shia population, that could be about to change.
Other Muslim-majority states, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey, are jostling for position in Kashmir too, whether to counter Tehran or push their own political and religious agendas. But India’s politicians, strategic experts and its mammoth intelligence-bureaucracy aren’t ready for this internationalization of the Kashmiri conflict – and its dangerous consequences.
Iran is targeting the 1.4 million Shia Muslims who make up 15 percent of the entire population of Indian-administered Kashmir. They are mostly concentrated in the Budgam district of Central Kashmir, parts of Srinagar and Kargil
Despite a history of Shia-Sunni friction in Kashmir, the Sunnis mostly followed a syncretic and locally-rooted Sufi form of Islam, known as Kashmiriyat, that was particularly amenable to coexistence with diverse faiths and sects within Islam and other religions.
The sectarian divides have never been as virulent in Kashmir as in the Middle East – but now, Middle East states are exporting their partisan divisions to the territory.
Traditionally pro-India, Kashmir’s Shias are primarily seen by India’s security apparatus, think tank circles and popular opinion as a key bulwark against separatism which, for the overwhelming majority of its adherents, aims for an independent Kashmir. In the past, the Shia community has shunned separatism. But this, too, has begun to change.
Shias are not prominent proponents of the mainstream separatist narrative, but they are undergoing an ideological transformation towards a far greater sympathy for separatism, a cause that Iran enthusiastically supports. The younger generation of Shias are far more vulnerable to both Iranian indoctrination and to separatism.
It’s easy to observe the rapid rise in Iranian influence over Shias in Kashmir.
In a series of recent visits. I saw plenty of billboards celebrating Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution in Iran. In a place like Kargil, cut-off from the rest of the world by snow for six months a year, there are large Khomeini billboards and a burgeoning lay following that venerates him.
The identification with Iranian heroes goes further than just with the regime’s founding Supreme Leader. Mohsen Hojaji, the iconic Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer beheaded by ISIS, also drew a huge following among Kashmir’s Shias. Srinagar, the largest city, witnessed huge protests by Shia Muslims against the execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia. Streets in Shia areas are named after the Shia martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war.
Every year a significant number of Kashmiri Shia scholars visit seminaries in Iran and Iraq to study Shia Islam in its heartland. The traffic is not one way.
Iranian Shia scholars also visit Shia regions in Kashmir and have carved out a distinct niche for their preaching. Last year, the union government red-flagged the visit of Iranian scholars in Kashmir for giving fiery speeches in mosques and congregations. There is hardly any systematic research about the scale of these traveling preachers; whatever raw data is there, is a strict preserve of India’s intelligence agencies.
A progressive scholar from the Shia community described to me the increasing popularity of Iranian-Lebanese resistance literature among the Shia Muslims of Kashmir.
The Urdu translation of the biography of Dr. Mustafa Chamran, who participated in the Iranian revolution, and helped found Lebanon’s Shia militia, Amal, and biographies of Lebanese-Iranian Shia scholars Musa al-Sadr, who founded Amal, and Ayatollah Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s founding spiritual leader, are ubiquitous in Shia households and community libraries.
Shia Imam-baras, or congregational halls, religious processions, demonstrations, conventions and rallies feature posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah.
For Kashmiri Shias, who experience human rights abuses by Indian security forces such as inconvenient, humiliating security checks, sudden cordons, extensive search operations – including of their homes and land, extended curfews, beatings and even the killing of civilians like themselves, the message of resistance literature – that the answer to the suppression of the Shia community is resistance – has obvious resonances.
Iran has had a consistent policy on Kashmir since 1979. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had roots in Kashmir, and he once made it clear to a visiting Indian delegation that Indo-Iranian relations cannot prosper until the bloodletting in Kashmir is not stopped.
In May 1990, his successor Ayatollah Khamenei observed that the Kashmir conflict is about “truth and justice” and the (Indian) oppressors “have an unjust cause.” In 1994, Khamenei categorically stated that Kashmiris were facing tyranny and oppression at the hands of Indian forces, and their cause was one of justice and humanity.
As recently as last February, when discussing with foreign officials the problems faced by Muslims globally, Iran’s supreme leader included Kashmir with other conflict-ridden states like Afghanistan, Palestine, Bahrain, and Yemen, much to the chagrin of Indian authorities.
“Muslims the world over should openly support the people of Bahrain, Kashmir, and Yemen and repudiate the oppressors and tyrants who attacked people in Ramadan,” said Khamenei.
Though Iran has voted against India on the issue of Kashmir issue several times in sessions of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, this was the first time Iran gave a distinctly religious coloring to the Kashmir insurgency, something which the local separatist leaders have so far refrained from doing.’
When Burhan Wani, the poster boy of militancy in Kashmir, was killed in an encounter with security forces in 2016, it led to mass civil unrest in Kashmir. The Al Mustapha University in Mashad, Iran commemorated the anniversary of his death – the first time that a Kashmiri militant has been glorified in such a way in a foreign country other than Pakistan.
The Kashmiri progressive scholar told me that an overwhelming majority of the community has adopted Khamenei’s geopolitical outlook, which classifies the world into the oppressors, or “mustakbireen,” an axis of evil that traditionally included the U.S., UK, Israel and the West in general ; and the “mujtazafeen,” or oppressed, constituted by Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, also known as the “axis of resistance.”
Iran’s highest religious authorities have now classified the people of Kashmir, as well as Bahrain and Burma’s Rohingyas, as part of the axis of resistance. And it is not just offering Kashmiri Shia sympathy: Tehran is encouraging them to actualize the connection with Iran and the global Shia community by coming to fight for Shia militia and terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Young Shia boast of their connections to Iran-backed Shia terrorist groups like Hezbollah. In a place like Kashmir, where militancy is sometimes almost a fashion among younger people, boasting of access to transnational terrorist organizations is a gateway to social prestige and sometimes even monetary gain. That means some skepticism is warranted. But there are clearly sufficient grounds to research these claims of Hezbollah links, based on the clear evidence of Kashmiri Shia involvement in another Mideast battleground – Syria.
Iran made systematic attempts to recruit Kashmiris for Liwa Zainebiyoun, one of several pro-Assad Shia forces formed, trained and operated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. A number of veterans of fighting against ISIS in Fallujah and Mosul have returned to Kashmir.
But at this stage, Shia radicalization is mostly ideological: Iran focuses its messaging on Shia global unity and strengthening the Kashmiri community’s connections and solidarity with the ideological, cultural, and intellectual Shia heartlands in the Middle East.
Along with this “Iranization,” separatist sentiment is developing fast within the Shia community.
The Shia community in Indian-administered Kashmir are caught between, and targeted by, several national and religious conflicts. They are a religious minority, and the far larger Sunni majority is overwhelmingly sympathetic to separatism – known as the Tahreek movement.
The Indian authorities have long assumed that Shias would be permanently committed to India’s sovereignty over the territory – squeezed as they are between Pakistan’s rising Sunni extremist violence, and the Sunni-controlled, Pakistan-backed separatist movement.
But this assumption has led taking Shia’s commitment to Indian control for granted. A veteran Shia leader from central Kashmir told me that Shias feel New Delhi values them more as “strategic assets” than as equal citizens.
Kashmiri Shias suffer from a deep deficit of trust and investment with New Delhi which has been simmering since 1947. Shias feel the Indian state has promoted a few token Shia elite families, such as the financially and politically powerful Ansaris, key figures in the religious hierarchy and whose members also serve as prominent lawmakers but allegedly have never encouraged the economic development of the community and the political participation of other Shias.
The young generation is angrily dissatisfied with community elites who allegedly received all the benefits accruing from their proximity to power, and did nothing for the socio-political development of the community. That resentment is fueled by allegations of colossal corruption by elite leaders, including grabbing for their own benefit the land belonging to the Aukaf, meant for the community’s religious needs cemeteries, mosques and community centers.
Alongside this alienation from India’s governing structures, Shias also face significant pressure from their Sunni neighbors. The community fears being seen as a traitor by Pakistan-backed terrorist groups, extremist organizations like Jamaat-i-Islami, and separatist political organizations like the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
The Shia live in a perpetual state of threat from a separatist movement which is fast acquiring Sunni-extremist tones. To safeguard their lives, religious freedom and cultural identity, Kashmiri Shias now feel compelled to show their identification with separatism.
Shias have joined the separatist Hurriyat Conference – and one, Maulana Abbas Ansari, has even led it; his son has publicly confessed his admiration for the separatist “martyr” Burhan Wani, and displayed his portrait at the Shia Muharram mourning processions.
For younger Shia, there’s also the pull factor of the ‘glamor’ of separatist style and violence.
A new generation of homegrown militants, inspired by Burhan Wani, includes young professors, engineers, and Ph.D. scholars within its ranks. They’re a far cry from the image of separatists only a decade ago as illiterate and uncouth footsoldiers, graduates of primitive madrassahs.
These young separatists tote their guns and gadgets and post their action-snaps on social media – so much so that the older generation of militants call them “Facebook mujahids.” This new branding of separatists as young revolutionaries attracts a huge fan following across the religious and sectarian divide- among Shia youth, as well as their Sunni peers. Very few Shia have gone on to adopt violent separatism, but the conditions are maturing for that to happen.
For their part, the Sunni separatist hierarchy takes some care not to push the Shia community away through gratuitous abuse or insults in their prodigious Facebook and WhatsApp video messages. Even Zakir Musa, the commander of Ansar Ghazwat ul-Hind, Al-Qaida’s ideological front dedicated to an independent Kashmir ruled by Islamic law, has never pushed venomous messages against the Shia community.
There are other factors which may accelerate the eventual reach and depth of Iranian influence in Kashmir.
India’s tilt towards Israel is not popular at all with Kashmiris in general, as can be seen in a wealth of skeptical, if not hostile, social media posts. Many in the Shia community, traditionally pro-India, have expressed a strong hostility towards the emerging Indo-Israel bonhomie. India’s recent vote in favor of Israel in the UN was severely criticized in Kashmir.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, Iran appeals to Sunni Kashmiris too. Though Kashmir is a Sunni-majority state, Iran’s keen support for Muslims in conflict zones around the world is widely welcomed, far beyond the Shia community.
When Iran’s supreme leader urged Muslims to support the Kashmiri “freedom struggle,” Sunni Kashmiri separatist leaders warmly welcomed it. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the most vocal and influential voice of the Kashmiri separatist Hurriyat Conference, called the statement “timely and pragmatic.”
Interestingly Iran’s support for the Kashmiri separatist struggle has come at a time when Sunni extremist organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaida are making inroads in Kashmir. ISIS has already penetrated Kashmir, ideologically as well organizationally.
Recently, ISIS declared Kashmir a wilayat or one of its provinces. Al-Qaida chief Ayman Zawahiri urged Kashmiris in a recent video to unite to engage in jihad, and to attack government buildings and security installations.
Saudi Arabia’s robust involvement in Kashmir has also spurred Iran’s interest. Saudi non-government organizations have invested vast amounts in Kashmir to spread Salafism, and today, out of seven million people, about 1.6 million are Salafis. They have grown exponentially since 2011.
The spread of this non-indigenous, fundamentalist form of Islam has led to sectarian frictions (for instance, Sufi shrines have been set alight) and the rise of jihadi extremism that is foundationally hostile to Shias, non-Wahhabi Sunnis – such as the indigenous Etaqadi Sufis – and non-Muslims, a phenomenon that is entirely new to Kashmir.
But India’s response has been modulated by the changing geopolitical realities of the Middle East, and its overriding need to sustain good relations with Saudi Arabia.
In a recent crackdown on jihadi organizations radicalizing young Kashmiris, the government banned the Pakistan-backed Jamaat-i-Islami, but did not act against the Saudi-backed Ahl-i-Hadith. The Ahl-i-Hadith refrains from direct discussion of politics, including the Kashmir conflict, focusing on preaching an Arabized fundamentalist Islam. Policy experts believe that India can leverage its good ties with Saudis to put pressure on Ahl-i-Hadith groups in Kashmir to keep them in check.
Along with Tehran and Riyadh’s outreach efforts in Kashmir, Turkey, too, is staking a claim. Turkish authorities are making systematic attempts to woo clerics, youngsters, the business community, and intellectuals in Kashmir. The now-banned Jamaat–i-Islami has close connections with Turkey.
Erdogan’s ambitions to be the pre-eminent leader of the Muslim world face stiff resistance from the Saudis, and a U.S.-Iran face-off in the Middle East will make the Muslims of Kashmir an even more attractive population for him to cultivate. Turkey is likely to play a more active role in the socio-cultural, political, and intellectual life of Kashmir in the future.
Kashmir is becoming the ground zero for a new geopolitical race for influence: Iran and Turkey have deep, sometimes overlapping interests, Saudi Arabia wants to ensure a return on its financial and ideological investment, and all that before considering great power China’s determination to grow its influence.
The question is whether these states – who have carefully cultivated minority and majority populations in Kashmir, and prepared them for radicalization – will weaponize those supporters in a future proxy conflict between themselves, or between separatists and India itself.
Abhinav Pandya, a Cornell University graduate in public affairs, is a policy analyst specializing in counterterrorism, Indian foreign policy and Afghanistan-Pakistan geopolitics. He is currently researching Wahhabi radicalization in India and is a consultant with Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur. His book, “Radicalization in India: An Exploration” will be published later this year by Pentagon Press. Twitter: @abhinavpandya

The fate of Erdogan's Turkey hangs on its relations with the US and Russia
Raghida Dergham/The National/July 20/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/76876/%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%ba%d8%af%d8%a9-%d8%af%d8%b1%d8%ba%d8%a7%d9%85-%d9%85%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b9-%d8%a3%d8%b1%d8%af%d9%88%d8%ba%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b1%d9%83%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d9%88%d8%a7/
A web of complex alliances will determine whether the Turkish president can achieve his goals
The current phase of Turkey's relations with the US and other Nato members is extremely delicate. Washington has now removed Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program in response to Ankara completing its purchase of the Russian-made S-400 missile defence system, which could be used to acquire technological intelligence on Nato systems, including the F-35 itself.
President Donald Trump recently said he understood his Turkish counterpart's position, and blamed his predecessor Barack Obama for the crisis, indicating that the US may relent before deciding to slap sanctions on Turkey as desired by both sides of Congress.
Jens Stoltenberg, Nato secretary general, meanwhile, rushed to dismiss any talk of expelling Turkey from Nato, describing the nation as an important ally with whom co-operation goes deeper than the F-35 issue, albeit he did not downplay the issue of Ankara's acquisition of the S-400 system.
These relatively flexible positions do not mean that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has succeeded in his attempt to bring in Russia into the heart of the Nato alliance without recriminations. Indeed, the strategic response Mr Trump is choreographing against Mr Erdogan's actions will include Russian, Kurdish, Syrian, and Iraqi rhythms.
There will also be internal Turkish elements that could end up with the ousting of Mr Erdogan, either through the army or through the elections. That is, if he continues to press ahead with arrogant plans that resemble Iran's expansionist projects in the Arab world, such as his Muslim Brotherhood project, which has antagonised many countries in the region. In other words, the S-400 crisis is much bigger than it seems, and is laden with geopolitical, commercial, and security implications.
Turkey has already been sanctioned by being removed from the F-35 program as a result of Mr Erdogan's dogged insistence on going ahead with the S-400 deal. Ankara will also come under economic sanctions approved by Congress that range from reducing US banking loans to Turkish entities to harsher measures that could collapse the Turkish economy – for example if it is cut off completely from the US financial system.
Interestingly, all Nato members are entitled to access the defence systems of other member states. This means the US still comes out on top because it will be able to study the S-400 system's Russian technology now that Turkey has it.
So why did Russia sell the system if it knew it could fall into Nato hands? Sources say that the Russian military industrial complex had objected to the sale two years ago, but political and commercial considerations swayed the final decision. Mr Putin hopes that developments could lead Turkey to exit or be expelled from Nato. In commercial terms, Moscow wants to use the S-400 deal with Turkey as a dry run to sell the platform to India and possibly Arab Gulf countries and beyond.
The US is not rushing to action on the complex Turkish crisis because it does not consider itself the losing party, according to sources familiar with the thinking of the Trump administration. It also has many options, including sanctions.
Mr Erdogan's Turkey will also fall under European scrutiny. There is talk in Brussels, Nato's headquarters, that Ankara's membership in a number of Nato programmes can be frozen. But Turkey's membership of the alliance itself is not currently at risk. This is not only because Turkey's Nato membership is of vital importance, but because removing it from the alliance would serve the Russian agenda.
The US, in other words, will not allow this, and will not allow the Astana co-operation in Syria to become a Russian-Turkish-Iranian alliance. This may explain Mr Trump's flexibility and accommodation, and his aversion to swift recrimination and sanctions. He seems to prefer a gradual response, beginning with blocking the sale of US hardware to Turkey, sanctions on Turkish arms manufacturers and exporters, and freezing the assets of Turkish entities that had been part of the F-35 development programme. Mr Trump feels he still needs Turkey in the Nato alliance, and hopes to gain its co-operation in the region, especially in Syria. He is also probably keen to learn the secrets of the S-400 system and perhaps, later even the S-500 system.
But Mr Trump may not forgive Mr Erdogan's defiance and the embarrassment he has caused him, domestically and internationally. Some observers say the Turkish military establishment could take matters into its own hands if Mr Erdogan goes too far in compromising Turkey's Nato credentials, regardless of how in control he has appeared to be since the failed coup attempt against him. Some say the US does not need to rush to get rid of Mr Erdogan via a military coup, because he is likely to be ousted in the elections in three years’ time. Many now believe that strong leaders in his party and the opposition are likely to emerge and challenge him and his project to turn Turkey from a secular state to a Muslim Brotherhood vanguard in the region.
With Mr Erdogan's fall, the Muslim Brotherhood project, which he is still trying to market in Libya and Sudan, despite its dismal failure in Egypt, would be buried, once and for all. Mr Erdogan is also still meddling in Gulf affairs, especially in Saudi Arabia, in a manner that has set off alarm bells in Washington.
The Kurdish issue is also important to Washington, despite its failed promises to the Kurds. Recent Turkish air strikes in Iraq, some 160 km deep into Iraqi territory against PKK positions, are noteworthy. The strikes were preceded by the assassination of the Turkish vice consul in Erbil, which triggered vows of retaliation in Ankara. In Syria, Turkey continues to intervene against Kurdish forces, and to engage the Syrian regime in various ways in line with Russian demands.
All this means that US-Turkish relations are complex and multi-layered.
Today, the main issues preoccupying the American president are the developments in the Gulf and the threats to international navigation there. The US is pushing for a maritime task force to address Iranian provocations.
Sources familiar with decision-making in Tehran say Tehran intends to go beyond seizing foreign oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz or Bab Al Mandeb, and is gearing up for a naval show of force in a “very personal” way. “They are cooking something, but it's not yet clear what … something more dangerous than oil tankers and drones,” one said. The sources stressed that Iran has run out of patience vis-a-vis US sanctions, which are expected to intensify, and could escalate further after next week.
The Iranian priority will dictate the rhythm of Washington's measures against Turkey. After the US president announced an American warship had shut down an Iranian drone, he said that the US reserves the right to defend its facilities and interests. In light of these mutual threats and intentions, the US-Iranian confrontation could thus be about to cross a dangerous military threshold, but time alone will tell.

“We Are Never Heard”: Persecution of Christians, May 2019
ريموند إبراهيم/قائمة بأضطهاد المسيحيين لشهر أيار2019/إضطعاد المسيحيين المغيب عن الإعلام والإهتمام الرسمي والدولي
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/July 21, 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/76879/%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%88%d9%86%d8%af-%d8%a5%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85-%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a8%d8%a3%d8%b6%d8%b7%d9%87%d8%a7%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%ad%d9%8a/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14573/persecution-christians-may-2019e others refused.” So “they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead.” — World Watch Monitor, Burkina Faso, May 2, 2019.
“When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say ‘We are all Christians’?” — Rev. Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, in an address delivered in London.
” [A] new form of persecution is on the rise—Christian girls are being targeted by Muslim men… Influential leaders are literally training young men to target Christian girls to impregnate them”… “[T]hey’re forced into marrying that daughter into a Muslim family…. Once girls are married into the Muslim families, they’re often cut off from or abandoned by their families and they face even more difficult circumstances. In some cases, girls are the second or third wife of their persecutor and they have few freedoms.” — Mission Network News; Lindsey Steele; May 22, 2019. — Indonesia.
“The mob began shouting outside our home asking for our family to exit our home and receive divine retribution for our sin. It did not seem very divine—we just saw raging evil violent people ready to kill us.” — British Pakistani Christian Association; May 21, 2019 — Pakistan.
The May 14 torture and murder of an 86-year-old Greek Christian man on the island of Imbros, in Turkey, is believed to have been a hate crime. Pictured: The island of Imbros. (Image source: by rock/Wikimedia Commons)
The Slaughter of Christians
Burkina Faso: A number of fatal Islamic terror attacks on Christians and their churches took place or were reported in May:
On Sunday 26 May, armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church during mass and opened fire on the gathered worshippers; four were killed and several others injured. killing four and injuring others.
On May 13, armed Muslims attacked a Catholic procession, slaughtered four Christians and “burned a statue of the Virgin Mary.”
On May 12, approximately 30 armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church, slaughtered at least six worshippers—including the officiating priest—and then burned the church to the ground.
On Sunday, April 28, Islamic terrorists stormed a Protestant church and killed six worshippers, including the 80-year-old pastor and his two sons. According to a local, “The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused.” So “they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead.”
On April 5, Islamic gunmen entered a Catholic church and murdered four Christians.
Nigeria: On Sunday, May 26, Muslim Fulani herdsmen ambushed and slaughtered as many as 30 Christians as they walked home after church service. The Muslim tribesmen also torched approximately 20 Christian households as part of their planned “Islamization” of Nigeria, said a local pastor, adding, “These targeted attacks on innocent Christians are unacceptable, particularly with confirmed arrests of over 30 Christian women [who work as] fruit and food vendors by soldiers … after the attack.” Separately, on May 18, Islamic gunmen killed a Christian and kidnapped two others at a Baptist church.
Central African Republic: An elderly Christian nun of Spanish/French origins who spent her days teaching young girls how to sew in the African nation was beheaded by a militant group representing and partially composed of Muslim Fulani herdsmen; around the same time the group massacred at least 26 people, in what one report refers to as “one of the biggest single losses of life in the Central African Republic (CAR) since a February peace deal.”
Turkey: The murder of an elderly Christian man is believed to have been a hate crime. According to the report, the “86-year-old Greek man was found murdered in his home with his hands and feet tied. He was reportedly tortured”:
Zafir Pinari’s death on May 14 comes just five days before the commemorative anniversary of the Greek Genocide. This genocide was conducted from 1913-1922 by the Ottoman Empire and was the systematic killing of Christian Greek citizens. By the time the Ottoman Empire collapsed and modern Turkey formed in 1923, most of the Greek population were either murdered or had fled the country. A wave of killing of Greek Christians again occurred in the 1960s.
A suspect has been arrested in this case and three others are under investigation. It is not yet clear as to what motivated the murder. However, given the historical context, local press covering the incident are labeling it as a hate crime.
Pakistan: A Muslim man kidnapped and tortured his Christian employee to deathafter he tried to quit his job. Javid Masih, 45, worked as a livestock farmhand for Abbas Jutt. According to a source acquainted with the case “Masih wanted to quit because he was often subjected to discrimination and religious hatred.” The deceased’s widow confirms:
“We had been experiencing religious hatred from [Jutt] and his colleagues, however, we had no courage to register this with police. We are poor and belong to a downtrodden segment of society. Therefore, we are never heard. Jutt has damaged our lives and we have nothing to live for now.”
Egypt: A Muslim employee murdered his Christian supervisor on May 7, “because of his Christian faith” notes a report. Surveillance footage from a nearby building captured the incident. While passing each other, the two men speak briefly, before the Muslim man returns with a knife and butchers the Christian, who leaves behind a wife and two boys aged 15 and 9. “The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began nearly two weeks ago,” the report adds. “It is common for Christians to suffer increased violence and harassment during this time. Persecution is a constant theme of life for Egyptian Christians, as they are already viewed as second class citizens in this Islamic nation.”
Syria: Islamic militants bombed a Christian village; five children and a 35-year-old woman were killed. “The kids went out to play after some days of calm” near a monastery, said a local priest, when a rocket struck near them, “instantly killing five and wounding others… the woman was killed in a nearby street by a separate rocket.”
Iraq: On May 13, Islamic militants joined with the Shia group, Shabak, which is supported by Iran, broke into the home of two elderly Christian women, a mother and daughter, and stabbed them. Although the mother’s age is unknown, it can be surmised considering that her daughter—who was last reported as “struggling with death” and “in critical condition“— as around 69. According to one report, “The women were repeatedly stabbed with a knife and their gold and money were stolen. The two victims were then hospitalized in Mosul. The daughter, who sustained a violent head injury, remains in critical condition.” Although the women were robbed, local Christians say that plunder was not the primary motive:
“The attackers tried to deliver a message of threat…. I don’t think it was a robbery because they stabbed the daughter on her head by a knife which means the criminals tried to kill them…. You know who could be the ones who may attack Christians. Everyone knows them. But no one can give you the names since they are supported by the militia.”
Separately, in an address delivered in London, the Rev. Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, accused Britain’s Christian leaders of indifference to the genocide of Iraq’s Christians. Parts of his comments follow:
Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom…. Our tormentors confiscated our present, while seeking to wipe out our history and destroy our future. In Iraq there is no redress for those who have lost properties, homes and businesses. Tens of thousands of Christians have nothing to show for their life’s work, for generations of work, in places where their families have lived, maybe, for thousands of years…. Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us? When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say “We are all Christians”? And yes I do say, the “next wave of violence”, for this is simply the natural result of a ruling system that preaches inequality, and justifies persecution. The equation is not complicated. One group is taught that they are superior and legally entitled to treat others as inferior human beings on the sole basis of their faith and religious practices. This teaching inevitably leads to violence against any “inferiors” who refuse to change their faith. And there you have it—the history of Christians in the Middle East for the last 1,400 years.
Attacks on Churches
Nigeria: Muslim Fulani herdsmen stormed a church during evening choir practice and kidnapped 17 Christians on May 18. “As we were in the church, Fulani herdsmen numbering over 20 just surrounded the church and started shooting,” a church member recalled.
“Everybody was terrified, but there was no way we could run because they had already surrounded the church. They were asking for the pastor’s house, and they threatened to shoot us if we don’t show them the house. Some of them went to the pastor’s house while others kept watch over us.”
Kenya: On May 17, a rampaging mob of Somali Muslims destroyed the properties of four churches—Kingdom Gospel for All Nations Ministry, Evangelical Victory Church International, End Time Army Church, and Kale Heywot Church—and injured several Christians. On the previous day, locals had called police on an outdoor Islamic event because it was getting too loud and rowdy. Citing “public disturbance,” police responded by pulling the plug on the event. On the next day, “a group of Muslim adherents stormed our church building armed with stones, machetes, and petrol,” the pastor of one of the destroyed churches said.
“They broke into the church and damaged everything; from chairs to sound equipment. They also attempted to set the church on fire, but police arrived and contained the situation…. After they destroyed the chairs and equipment of this church, they split into small groups and went around stealing from the nearby shops operated by Christians. This was outright persecution of the people that subscribe to the Christian faith.”
Another pastor of an attacked church said:
“Our freedom of worship has been violated and we can only pray for a time when the Muslim community will allow Christians to worship without fear of being attacked. Our members are now scattered and … we have received notes at our church warning us against going to church, praying and preaching.”
“The influx of the Somali people who are majorly Muslims has posed a great danger to the churches,” said the leader of another attacked church. “They have erected four mosques and are looking for portions to build other mosques. They have been threatening churches to leave so that they can build mosques on those plots.”
Turkey: On May 21, police interrupted a baptismal ceremony while raiding and subsequently shutting down an unauthorized church composed of Iranian Christian asylum seekers. “Turkey does not have a pathway for legalization of churches,” the report adds:
Many are instead forced to register as a foundation or association, and most even then will not be allowed to open a church building. For this reason, many like the church in Bolu are forced to exist in apartment buildings. It is common for Christians to report harassment and intimidation by the police who monitor their church services. For Iranian Christians, they are often challenged in that as asylum seekers, they are usually housed in extremely Islamic areas who do not want a Christian presence.
Iran: Authorities directly under the control of the Supreme Leader raided an Assyrian Presbyterian Church on May 9. They tore down the church’s cross, changed the church’s locks, and made it clear that worship was no longer be permitted at the church. Apparently the church’s crime was that it used the Persian language alongside its own Assyrian language; because the overwhelming majority of Iran’s Muslim population speaks only Persian, conducting church services in that language is seen by the Islamist regime as a seductive threat to the Muslims’ faith.
Algeria: Citing a law that requires special authorization for non-Muslim places of worship, authorities shut down another church and its Bible school on May 22. “I am sad to have to face this injustice,” its pastor said: “We prayed for those authorities who are persecuting us, as our Lord Jesus Christ commanded.” The church had filled all other prerequisites for legalization, and had been waiting since 2017 for approval, which never came. This is the latest of several churches to be closed in recent years. According to the report, “Officials have yet to issue any license for a church building under the regulation…
Several churches have since received written orders to cease all activities, and authorities have closed a number of them for operating without a license. Islam is the state religion in Algeria, where 99 percent of the population of 40 million are Muslim.”
Egypt: Authorities closed down another church in response to Muslim disapproval. “This is a very hard situation,” said one local Christian. “You can see kids praying in tears because of their feelings of fear … that is very painful for us as Christians personally. I don’t trust in the government promises, but we have to continue praying for [a] reopening [of] the church.” “Many years ago we were praying in our houses with the priest because there was not an [existing] church,” said another local Christian.
“Now there are more than 400 Coptic persons in our village and the number of us increases day by day… During the last feast days (Orthodox Easter) many Copts prayed and the police had secured the building, but then the police asked Bishop Georgius to close the church because some Muslims in the village disagreed.”
In a separate incident, an American professor teaching at Cairo’s American University was fired for refusing to emphasize Islam over other religions during his Religions of the World Class. According to one report:
Professor Adam Duker has taught Comparative Religions at the university since 2016. His dismissal reportedly comes after a conflict with Saudi billionaire Tarek Taher, who maintains close ties to the university. Taher had requested that Professor Duker focus more heavily on Islam. When Professor Duker refused, his contract was terminated effective October 2019. Professor Duker says that Taher asked him to encourage non-Muslim students to convert to Islam and that Taher wanted his lectures pre-approved before teaching. [A more detailed report on this development appears here.]
Pakistan: “A pastor … received a letter on May 1 warning him that his church would be the site of a terrorist attack unless he paid a ransom of more than $3,500.00,” notes a report. “The threat has many church leaders in Karachi on edge and calling on local authorities to provide their communities with protection….The letter also warned that if Pastor Azeem went to police, there would be consequences like the recent terrorist attacks on churches in Sri Lanka.”
Separately, 38 Christian graves at a Pakistani cemetery were desecrated; the unknown assailants also defaced several crosses fixed to the graves.
Attacks on Apostates and Blasphemers
Uganda: Muslims burned the home of a former Muslim convert to Christianity and his large family (when still a Muslim he had married three women who gave birth to 14 children). Most of the family was indoors and barely made it out in time before the charred roof collapsed. “We thank God that no one was physically hurt but emotionally are very hurt as we continue receiving threatening messages warning us of a possible attack,” the father said. “The pressure from the extended family and radical Muslims is really troubling my family, and we cannot risk going back to our houses.” Problems began once Muslims learned the family had embraced Christianity; local Muslims, on the same day they saw the family attend church, began stoning their home. Muslim villagers and the imam of the local mosque also began insulting and harassing the family, with one villager remarking, “If you do not come back to Islam, then expect something unusual to befall your family.” “Since then,” the father said, “my family became vigilant, and we even hired a guard to take care of the family during the night, but the stone-throwing continued in one of the houses while the guard was on patrol on the other side of the homestead.” Even after being made homeless, the family continues to receive threatening messages. These include: “The burning of the house was just warning. If you continue hardening your hearts and fail to return to Islam, then expect a worst thing that you have never seen before.” The father concluded,:
“We sincerely need prayers and financial support… My family is scattered, and the children are unable to go to school. We gave our lives to Jesus and here we are living a troubled, restless life. The law should bring these perpetrators to book.”
Pakistan: On May 15, a Muslim mob attacked a Christian family accused of allegedly blaspheming against Islam. The incident began after a Christian man asked a Muslim who was loudly cursing on his phone near the Christian family home to move away. The Muslim responded with a derogatory, anti-Christian slur, which led to a physical altercation, until the Christian family managed to separate the two men. That night, the local mosque’s megaphones started blaring out against the Christian household, accusing its members of blasphemy and adding: “All the lovers of Islam must gather together and force these demonic creatures out of this village.” A family member explained what happened next:
“This was a horrifying moment for my whole family and other Christians. We felt totally helpless. In our panic we started to get ourselves ready to flee our homes and get far away from the village, however, we were all to slow. In no time we start to hear Muslims gather outside our home—even the children. The violent mob surrounded our home and all of them had weapons including guns—which were being shot in the air, sticks, axes, poles and farming tools. Even the small children had weapons [and] we feared for our lives. The mob began shouting outside our home asking for our family to exit our home and receive divine retribution for our sin. It did not seem very divine—we just saw raging evil violent people ready to kill us.”
Seven Christian family homes were attacked before the mobs dispersed.
Sexual Abuse of Christians
Indonesia: A May 23 report says that ” a new form of persecution is on the rise—Christian girls are being targeted by Muslim men… Influential leaders are literally training young men to target Christian girls to impregnate them”:
They target them to try and sort of diffuse the spread of Christianity because the family of the Christian girl is so ashamed that…they’re forced into marrying that daughter into a Muslim family…. The family, because the shame is so overwhelming, they agree to that… and the Muslims who are being trained to do this, they understand that. That’s why they’re doing that. They’re taking a Christian into a Muslim family so they can influence [her]. Once girls are married into the Muslim families, they’re often cut off from or abandoned by their families and they face even more difficult circumstances. In some cases, girls are the second or third wife of their persecutor and they have few freedoms.
Pakistan: Neha Pervaiz, a 15-year-old Christian girl, was raped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to a 45-year-old Muslim man.
“I was taken by my aunt, a Muslim convert, to her house on April 28 to help her look after her sick son,” recalls Neha. “But there I was asked to marry a Muslim man named Imran. When I refused, they beat me up and threatened to kill my minor brother who was with me.” She was then forced into another room and raped by Imran. “They then pressurized me to convert to Islam and marry Imran.” Over the following two days she was forced to convert, renamed Fatima, and taken to court where she was illegally married to Imran. She eventually managed to escape back to her parents.
Egypt: Muslims reportedly kidnapped a Christian wife and mother of three near Cairo. Her family has since received threatening messages saying that unless the woman embraces Islam one of her sons will targeted for slaughter. After the family took the matter to the authorities, the police refused to open a case. They suggested that the woman had left her home of her own free will.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location.
© 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.

Iranians demand fundamental political and economic change
د.مجيد رافيزادا: الإيرانيون يطالبون بتغيير جذري سياسي واقتصادي
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/July/2019
It is critical for the international community to pay attention to the voices and demands of the Iranian people in order to form policies more efficiently.
What is the public opinion in Iran regarding the political and economic systems? Some foreign polls, conducted through limited questions or phone interviews, may indicate that Iranians are solely dissatisfied with the economic situation rather than the political establishment.
But it is important to point out that it is extremely difficult to conduct accurate polls and obtain public opinion under the repressive rule of the Islamic Republic. The voices of Iranians living under Iran’s theocratic and authoritarian rule can be better understood through the people’s true expressions in public and private spaces.
In the last couple of years, we have witnessed tens of thousands of Iranians pouring on to the streets of cities across the country to protest against corruption, the thievery and tyranny of the ruling theocracy, and its funding of proxy armies and terrorists across the region.
We have heard how protesters echoed national sentiments with chants of “death to the dictator,” “death to (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” “death to (President Hassan) Rouhani,” “reformists, hardliners, your game is now over,” “mullahs, have shame and let go of our country,” and “we will die but will take our country back.”
In the last couple of years, we have witnessed tens of thousands of Iranians pouring on to the streets of cities across the country
Protests and demonstrations against the political and economic systems are continuing in Iran, although they have been receiving less attention from mainstream media outlets, partially thanks to other major news, such as Iran’s nuclear defiance and destabilizing behavior in the Strait of Hormuz. This includes attacking, sabotaging and seizing oil tankers, such as the Japanese Kokuka Courageous and Norwegian Front Altair, whose crews had to abandon ship, and the British-flagged Stena Impero.
Last week, a large group of retired government employees came together outside the Labor Ministry in Tehran to protest. The retirees held aloft banners with slogans such as: “The hands of plunderers must be cut short of the retirees’ fund,” “Our homes have been plundered, we have no fear to expose (the government), we will stand till the end,” and “The 1 percent are making profits out of the pockets of the 99 percent.” The protesters were also heard chanting messages such as: “Stellar wages (of government officials) are in contrast with public misery,” “If (the government) embezzlement is stopped, our problems will be solved,” and “The line of poverty is 70 million rials, our salary is 20 million rials.” These slogans reveal both political and economic dissatisfaction with the Islamic Republic.
Also last week, in the town of Abejdan, Khuzestan Province, a large group of public sector workers gathered in front of the governor’s office to protest a 10-month delay in receiving their salaries. The workers held a banner that read: “We are the workers of Abejdan, we haven’t received our wages for 10 months. We haven't received our New Year bonus. We don't have insurance. Officials. Respond to us. We are hungry.”
In Tehran, there was also a protest at the Central Bank, where customers of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated financial institution demanded the return of their invested money.
In another protest last week, locals in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, blocked the Siman Road over the government’s failure to supply water. The Iranian parliament’s Research Center in January indicated that almost half of the country’s population faces problems accessing drinking water. Its report warned that, “as a result of the drinking water crisis, some cities saw scenes of unrest, creating challenges for the authorities.”
Furthermore, protests have been documented this month in the province of Tabriz over the “prohibition of hawking their wares in the historical market place of Tabriz,” as well as in the capital Tehran for unpaid wages. Teachers are another sector that contributes to the unrest. Many teachers demonstrated this month in the city of Kermanshah, western Iran, demanding the release of an imprisoned colleague. Hamidreza Rahmati, a member of the Isfahan Teachers’ Association, has been sentenced to three years in prison, 74 lashes in public and a fine because he dared to hold a sit-in protest against the regime.
Pushing back against the hard-liners, many Iranian women are also continuing to refuse to obey the regime’s rules on how women should dress and act.
Even the findings of a 2018 report issued by Iran’s own Interior Ministry showed that people are demanding fundamental changes. The report pointed out that “people’s trust in the regime has been diminished, institutions have lost their effectiveness.” It added that: “The slogans raised in the protests were 30 percent economical, 70 percent political, and 75 percent of the people sympathized with the demonstrators in 80 Iranian cities.”
Despite the revolutionary guards’ brute force and repression, many people in Iran are continuing to protest against the regime and are demanding fundamental changes.
*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