English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 01/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew12/38-45: Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here. “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Jordan PM Meets Lebanese Leaders, Vows to Hasten Gas Delivery
Aoun Meets Lazard as Part of Preparations for IMF Talks
Aoun discusses ongoing preparations for transfer of Egyptian gas to Lebanon via Jordan and Syria with Jordan's PM
Aoun meets Minister of Interior and Municipalities, head of Maronite League
Prime Minister and Jordanian counterpart tackle electricity and gas importation
Berri welcomes Jordanian Prime Minister, discusses situation with Kordahi
Israel officers kill woman after Jerusalem stabbing attempt
Hizbullah Downs Israeli Drone in South
Israel investigating after Hezbollah says it shot down Israeli drone in South
Miqati, Hajjar and Salam Sign Ration Card Resolution
Expats to Vote Abroad but Won't Get Six Seats
Kanaan Slams State, BDL over Decree 151 Extension
Greek Military Ship Arrives in Lebanon Carrying Aid
In Crisis-Struck Lebanon, School Year Is Gripped by Chaos
With the victims/Ronnie Chatah/September 30/2021
Lebanese Forces Party Official: Hizbullah Is Part Of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Aims To Change Lebanon's Character As A Civil State; Coexistence With It Is Impossible/MEMRI/September 30, 2021
IRGC General Gholamali Rashid: Hizbullah In Lebanon, Hamas And PIJ In Palestine, PMU In Iraq, And The Houthis In Yemen Are All Armies Ready To Defend The Iranian Regime/MEMRI/September 30, 2021
Il est temps de faire ce qu'il faut. Sauf si c'est trop tard/Jean-Marie Kassab/September 30/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Israeli FM Lapid Heads to Bahrain for First Official Visit
Egyptian authorities say they blocked Brotherhood financing scheme
Iran to hold military drill near border with Azerbaijan amid Tehran-Baku tensions
Saudi Crown Prince, French President discuss regional stability over phone call
US says top aide planned to discuss oil prices with Saudi Arabia
US and Russia say they held ‘substantive’ arms control talks in Geneva
Rivals Iran, KSA Hold New Round of Talks in Iraq
Israel officers kill woman after Jerusalem stabbing attempt
UAE officially launches Expo 2020 Dubai, world’s biggest cultural gathering
PRESS RELEASES: The United States and Qatar Take Coordinated Action Against Hizballah Financiers/U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Putin, Erdogan Sit Down for Talks on War-Torn Syria

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Kuwait Needs U.S. Support to Combat Iranian Terror Finance/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Policy Brief-FDD/September 30/2021
Congress Joins European Allies in Targeting Erdogan’s Far-Right Partners/Aykan Erdemir/Policy Brief-FDD/September 30/2021
The Sanctioned Cabinet of Ebrahim Raisi/Behnam Ben Taleblu/FDD/September 30/2021
If Biden Won’t Stand Up to Iran, Congress Should Stand Up to Biden
Gabriel Noronha/Andrea Stricker/Matthew Zweig/The ispatch/FDD/September 30/2021
Iran's IRGC Quds Force head hints at group's power at home and Middle East/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 30/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Jordan PM Meets Lebanese Leaders, Vows to Hasten Gas Delivery
Naharnet/September 30/2021
Prime Minister Najib Miqati met Thursday with his Jordanian counterpart Bisher al-Khasawneh at the Grand Serail. Al-Khasawneh arrived yesterday, Wednesday, at Beirut airport heading a Jordanian ministerial delegation and was greeted by Miqati and Jordanian ambassador to Lebanon Walid al-Hadid.
The delegation includes Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi, Minister of Presidential Affairs Ibrahim al-Jazi, Minister of Energy Hala al-Zawati and Minister of Industry Maha al-Ali. “We will not hold back our capabilities, we'll respond with all we can for our brothers in Lebanon,” Khasawneh said in a press conference, after the meeting. “We discussed ways to expedite Lebanon receiving Egyptian gas to help some of the energy challenges and electricity sector.” He said there are efforts to provide Lebanon with some electricity from Jordan. He offered no details and said detailed discussions will follow.
From his side, Miqati said that "we want the agreements between the two countries to be fruitful." Jordanian Energy Minister Hala al-Zawati said earlier this month that the infrastructure to resume Egyptian gas flow to Lebanon needed checks after a 10-year hiatus. Maintenance was expected to be finalized by early October. After his meeting with Miqati, the Jordanian PM visited the presidential palace and met with President Michel Aoun, who sent with al-Khasawneh a written message to King Abdallah II, the presidency said.Al-Khasawneh re-affirmed Jordan's support to Lebanon especially in the electricity supply issue. Lebanon had also reached a deal with Iraq to secure fuel to help in generating several hours of power a day.

Aoun Meets Lazard as Part of Preparations for IMF Talks
Naharnet/September 30/2021
President Michel Aoun on Thursday met in Baabda with a delegation from Lazard, which is one of the world's leading financial advisory and asset management firms. “He discussed with them the need to continue their advisory mission for the Lebanese state, as part of preparing for the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund,” the Presidency said. The President emphasized “the need to reassess the economic recovery plan that was prepared by the previous government due to the change in numbers that happened over the past year,” calling for “unifying these numbers so that Lebanon’s stance can be strong during the negotiations.”The delegation for its part thanked Aoun for the Lebanese state’s confidence in their firm, stressing the “importance of unifying numbers, conducting reforms and devising a plan for the restructuring of the banking sector.”

Aoun discusses ongoing preparations for transfer of Egyptian gas to Lebanon via Jordan and Syria with Jordan's PM
NNA/September 30/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, expressed his deep appreciation for the distinguished gesture made by Jordanian King, Abdullah II to Lebanon during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, few days ago. The Jordanian King had called on the international community to help in the revival of Lebanon, and he was one of the first to provide urgent aid to Lebanon after the Beirut Port explosion.
The President also emphasized the strength of historical relations between Lebanon and Jordan, and the exchange of feelings of love and respect between the two peoples.
In addition, President Aoun pointed out that Lebanon looks forward to strengthening official meetings between Jordan and Syria and the return of flights between Amman and Damascus, which contributes to facilitating the opening of the Arab depth in our country. The President welcomed the reopening of Jaber crossing between Jordan and Syria, and wished that all necessary facilities would be provided to Lebanese trucks transporting Lebanese agricultural goods, by land, to some Gulf countries.
Stances of the President came while meeting with the Jordanian Prime Minister, Mr. Bishr Al-Khasawneh, today at the Presidential Palace.
PM Khasawneh was accompanied by Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, and Jordan’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Abdul Rahman Jafal Al-Hadid. Lebanese Foreign Minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, also attended the meeting. President Aoun conveyed a written message to the Jordanian King, through Prime Minister Khasawneh, in which he thanked King Abdullah for his positions in support of Lebanon, and the invitation launched for help.
Letter Text: “I have great confidence that those who are keen on the rise of Lebanon, like your Majesty, will not leave its people under this ordeal. The launch of the new government’s work constituted a very important opportunity for our country at this stage to gather its forces, strengthen the solidarity of its people, and begin the stage of advancing the support of brothers and friends”.
Several files of concern between both countries were also tackled, in addition to the assistance provided by Jordan to Lebanon to confront the severe economic crisis. For his side, PM Khasawneh conveyed the greetings of King Abdullah, to President Aoun, in addition to his solidarity and love for Lebanon and its people. The Jordanian PM asserted that King Abdullah always Lebanese issues in his heart, meetings and work.
In addition, PM Khasawneh pointed out that his visit to Lebanon with the accompanying delegation is a solidarity visit, after the formation of the new government, to find out about the urgent needs and how Jordan can help, especially in energy and security. Moreover, the Jordanian Prime Minister stated that Jordan is conducting intensive talks with both Egypt and Syria in order to complete arrangements for securing Egyptian gas to Lebanon, and that the results so far are more than positive.
The possibility of providing Lebanon with electricity from Jordan was also discussed, where PM Khasawneh indicated that work is underway to reform the electricity network in some Syrian regions to be able to achieve this goal, and “This process may not take more than 3 months”.
Statement:
After the meeting, the Jordanian Premier made the following statement: “I was honored to meet His Excellency the President of the Republic. I conveyed the greetings of King Abdullah and the lasting and supportive feelings of your brothers in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as King, government and people. His Excellency also sent a written message to his brother King Abdullah. We have several meetings during this continuous solidarity visit with the brotherly Lebanon, and as you know His Majesty stressed, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, his constant and sure concern for this brotherly and beloved country, which has a high position and rank in the hearts of all Jordanians. Our support for Lebanon is continuous, and we seek and work towards several practical measures which will meet some urgent and necessary needs which Lebanon wants. I also expressed our continued support for the needs of our beloved and dear Lebanon, and I will meet the Parliament Speaker also today. We also have numerous bilateral meetings with a group of Ministers who are accompanying me today with their Lebanese counterparts, especially in the energy and electricity field, which we seek to find ways secure.
We stressed our full readiness to secure all requirements which Lebanon needs, and which we will spare no effort, as we have always done under the leadership of His Majesty the King, to support. Lebanon is a very dear country for us, since it has done a lot to its Arab surroundings and made many contributions with the talents of the brotherly Lebanese”. --Presidency Press office

Aoun meets Minister of Interior and Municipalities, head of Maronite League
NNA/September 30/2021 
Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Judge Bassam Mawlawi, who met President Michel Aoun this afternoon at Baabda Palace, reiterated: “We are ready to hold the elections on time, without delay. The process of registering expatriates in (diplomatic) missions will begin tomorrow, Friday, October 1. The process will continue according to the legal deadline.”He stressed that "all preparations are underway and we are able to complete the elections on time." He pointed out, that “With regard to expatriates voting, we are proceeding and have formed a committee that will determine the minutes of implementing the law that will be applied as it is, with regard to expatriates and residents. We are committed, according to the ministerial statement, to holding the elections according to the law in force and without any change and the government will not initiate any request to amend the law in force.
If the law is amended to have six expatriates MPs, this has to come from the House of Representatives."After the meeting with the president of the Republic, minister Mawlawi made the following statement: “I had the honor of meeting His Excellency the President of the Republic, and as usual, I benefited from his experience and guidance in the government work that is required at this time, mainly regarding the preparation for the elections and the Election Supervisory Board. We have started the procedures for appointing the Election Supervision Committee to exercise its role in the with regard to the media and electoral spending and all that secures the integrity of the electoral process. "He added: "His Excellency the President was briefed on my meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on issue of expatriates’ voting, which we are proceeding. We have formed a committee that will determine the minutes of implementing the law with regard to expatriates. I assured His Excellency that we will implement the law as it is, for expatriates and residents. We, as a government, are committed, according to the ministerial statement, to holding elections in accordance with the law in force and without any change. We discussed the general security situation in the country and the municipality conference.”
Minister Mawlawi, replied to a question about the willingness of some countries to send international observers for the elections, he said: “We always welcome international observers. I remember in 2005, there were international observers on elections.”
Asked about the constant skepticism about holding the parliamentary elections on time, he said: “The government has committed itself, in its ministerial statement to completing the parliamentary elections on time and was very clear. The government continues on its promise, and it will hold the elections. We will work to secure all the required obligations.
I have two main concerns: security and elections, and security for elections. We are ready to hold the elections on time, without any delay. The process of registering expatriates will begin tomorrow, Friday, October 1, and will continue according to the legal date. At home, all preparations are underway, the logistical matters are there, and the required equipment, including computers and others are ready. We are able to complete the elections on time, prepare the electoral lists and turn them into cross-listed lists and send them on time.”
Asked on amendments to have six expatriate MPs, he said: "The government does not have a say whether the matter needs to be amended or not. This matter is up to the legislation and parliament. We, as a government, will not initiate any request for amendment. We will apply the law as it is. If the law is amended with respect to the six MPs of expatriates, it has to come from the House of Representatives, and we apply the law formulated by the representatives. We will not initiate any bill regarding the amendment of any text of the electoral law.
Asked about the magnetic card and the megacenter, he replied: “The megacenter is a reform revolution in the world of elections, but the megacenter is not stipulated in the law. It is a very good idea, and we want to implement it, but it must be codified. The megacenter is linked to the magnetic card, we cannot create it without the magnetic card in it. How can the voter vote in Beirut, while he is registered in Akkar or the south? This does not happen if we do not have a magnetic card with all the data in it. The process was tried in Lebanon before. If we are able to do it, we will do so. And if we are not able, the elections will be as they happened In 2018. In any case, this issue was brought before the Constitutional Council in one of the appeals in 2018.
I will not accept that the failure to take these steps is a pretext for not holding the elections. Neither would the government as a whole, nor His Excellency the President.
Asked whether there would be quotas in the formation of the election supervisor committee, he replied: "The law determines how the election supervisory committee will be formed.
I do not see quotas. We are all one team and one hand, and we are all working the right way. Where is the quota? Based on my suggestion, the Cabinet will select the ones with competence and experience in electoral matters."
President of the Maronite League, former MP Neamtallah Abi Nasr, visited President Aoun and discussed the general situation in the country. After the meeting, Mr. Abi Nasr, said he had proposed to the President of the Republic the necessity of implementing the law establishing the Kesrouan-Jbeil Governorate that was issued during the term of President Aoun.  He added, "I raised with His Excellency the President the issue of the parliamentary elections and the need of the expatriates' participation because their participation was stipulated in Article 3 of the law, and it has become a legal and constitutional right because the electoral college is composed of residents and expatriates, and the elections will not be subject to revoke otherwise.—Presidency Press Office

Prime Minister and Jordanian counterpart tackle electricity and gas importation
NNA/September 30/2021
Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed after his meeting with his Jordanian counterpart Bishr Al-Khasawneh that "bilateral relations were discussed, especially with regard to the issue of energy and the import of electricity from Jordan and gas from Egypt." He pointed out that "discussions touched upon the work of the joint committee established between Lebanon and Jordan," and said: "We want the agreements to be useful, not fictitious."For his part, the Jordanian prime minister affirmed "interest in supporting Lebanon and preserving its stability. We will not delay in securing its needs. The place that Lebanon has in the hearts of the Jordanians and His Majesty the King is great." "We have discussed the issue of importing gas and electricity to deal with some of the ramifications of the energy crisis in Lebanon," he went on to say, thus declaring solidarity with Lebanon. "The United Nations stresses its concern for brotherly Lebanon, and the Lebanese needs and requirements for stability are always at the forefront of all the King's meetings," Khasawneh assured, stressing that "Jordan has no differences with anyone, and we have always been and are still governed by relations with our brothers. (…) We are committed to coordinating with all parties and countries capable of securing the needs of the Lebanese within the framework of the existing international consensus."

Berri welcomes Jordanian Prime Minister, discusses situation with Kordahi
NNA/September 30/2021 
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Thursday welcomed at the Second Presidency in Ein Al-Tineh, visiting Jordanian Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Bishr Al-Khasawneh, in the presence of Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, and Jordan's Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Al-Hadid.
Talks reportedly touched on the current general situation and the bilateral relations between Lebanon and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. On the other hand, Speaker Berri met with Minister of Information, George Kordahi, who came on a protocol visit, during which they discussed the current general situation and the latest political developments.

Israel officers kill woman after Jerusalem stabbing attempt
AFP/September 30/2021
Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian woman who tried to stab officers in Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday, police said. And in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead a male "terrorist" who opened fire on them during clashes prompted by an overnight arrest operation, police said.
According to a police statement, the woman in Jerusalem tried to stab police in one of the streets leading to Al-Aqsa mosque. An AFP journalist heard gunshots and saw the body of a woman on the ground, later draped in a survival blanket.
Israeli police "opened fire" at the assailant and "medical forces who arrived at the scene determined her death," police said, adding that the attempted attack did not result in any casualties. The 30-year-old assailant, from Qabatiya in the north of the occupied West Bank, was leaving the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third holiest site, when she approached officers, police said. In the village of Burqin, also in the northern West Bank near Jenin, Israeli troops and border police were conducting an operation "to arrest suspects and locate weapons," a police statement said. "During the operation an armed terrorist fired at the forces who were operating in the village during a riot," police said. "Border police forces responded with gunfire toward the terrorist and neutralised him," police said, with a spokesman confirming his death to AFP. Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said the man killed was a member of its military wing. No Israeli forces were wounded in the incident, police said. In Jerusalem, Israeli security forces are stationed at each entrance to the Al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The compound lies in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the city which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community. Five Palestinians were killed on Sunday after an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank sparked gunbattles with Hamas militants, two of them in Burqin, officials said. --

Hizbullah Downs Israeli Drone in South
Naharnet/September 30/2021
Hizbullah on Thursday announced downing an Israeli unmanned drone in south Lebanon. In a statement, the group said its militants downed the drone at 1:55 pm after targeting it with the "appropriate weapons."The statement said the drone was brought down as it was hovering over the Maryamin valley in the outskirts of the southern town of Yater. The Israeli army meanwhile announced that the drone "fell during routine activity" and that the incident was being "investigated."Hizbullah had vowed to down Israeli drones overflying Lebanon after an explosive-laden drone blew up over Beirut's southern suburbs in August 2019. It has since announced downing several Israeli drones in Lebanon's skies.

Israel investigating after Hezbollah says it shot down Israeli drone in South
Reuters, Beirut/30 September ,2021
Israel said it was investigating an incident on Thursday after Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it had shot down an Israeli drone in the south of Lebanon. A statement by the armed group said it had brought down the drone on the outskirts of the village of Yater by targeting it with “suitable weapons.”
“A short time ago, during routine activity, an IDF drone fell within Lebanese territory. The incident is being investigated,” IDF spokesman on Twitter.

Miqati, Hajjar and Salam Sign Ration Card Resolution
Naharnet/September 30/2021
Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar and Economy Minister Amin Salam on Thursday signed a resolution defining the mechanism and standards of the implementation of the law related to the ration card plan. The resolution also includes the opening of an additional line of credit to finance the plan. “We have completed a phase and we must complete other phases before the registration on the platform can begin, and a press conference will be held later to explain all details,” Hajjar said. Salam for his part said that “some technical stages will be finalized in the coming days ahead of the implementation phase.”

Expats to Vote Abroad but Won't Get Six Seats
Naharnet/September 30/2021
A political decision has been taken to hold the parliamentary elections on time on March 27, media reports said on Thursday. The polls will be held according to the current electoral law, which is based on one preferential vote and proportional representation in some districts. Al-Joumhouria newspaper said the political parties have agreed that expats should take part in the elections abroad, unless “technical and logistic reasons” prevented that. There is however an inclination not to introduce six new parliamentary seats for expats, the daily added. Prime Minister Najib Miqati had said Tuesday that he supports “the implantation of the law” as to expat voting. “They took part in the 2018 elections and must participate in the upcoming polls,” Miqati told a delegation from the Economic Committees. Miqati, however, did not show enthusiasm for the introduction of six new seats, citing “technical difficulties.”

Kanaan Slams State, BDL over Decree 151 Extension
Naharnet/September 30/2021
The head of the finance parliamentary committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, on Thursday said that the central bank’s decision to extend the implementation of Decree 151 is an attempt to “anesthetize the depositors.”“It is unacceptable to continue the game of winning time, seeing as Decree 151 was issued more than a year and a half ago, when the dollar exchange rate was around LBP 7,000. The dollar exchange rate reached LBP 24,000 and depositors continued to withdraw their money at the LBP 3,900 rate, which amounts to an 85% veiled haircut,” Kanaan added. “The Banque du Liban (BDL) is still extending this situation,” he lamented. Noting that the bank has only offered “general answers” and cited “possible inflation” in response to the committee’s questions, Kanaan dismissed BDL’s response as “nonscientific.”“This indicates that the state and the central bank have an intention to liquidate their losses at the expense of depositors. Postponement is anesthetization,” he added.

Greek Military Ship Arrives in Lebanon Carrying Aid
Naharnet/September 30/2021
Greek military transport ship HS Lesvos arrived Thursday in Lebanon carrying aid. The aid, deliver to the Lebanese Army, consisted of military equipment and spare parts, Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) and tests, foodstuffs, medical equipment and personal care material.
The shipment has been donated by the Greek army, the Greek health ministry, the Greek private sector and the Hellenic Aid organization.

In Crisis-Struck Lebanon, School Year Is Gripped by Chaos
Associated Press/September 30/2021
This fall, the academic year in Lebanon is gripped by the same chaos that has overwhelmed everything else in the country in its financial and economic meltdown. Thousands of teachers are on strike, demanding salary adjustments to cope with hyperinflation and the currency's free-fall. A month's pay is now barely enough to fill a vehicle's gas tank twice. With severe fuel shortages, it is not even certain they can fill up. School buses are no longer a given, and heating for classes in the cold winter months is far from guaranteed. The start of school has been postponed several times as the cash-strapped government negotiates with the teachers' union for an adjustment package estimated at about $500 million.
As a result, while some private schools have begun classes, most of Lebanon's 1.2 million students still don't know when they will go back to school. Meanwhile, teachers have been quitting in droves, looking for better opportunities abroad. Many fear not just a missed academic year, but a lost generation in a country that prided itself in competing globally with the number of scientists and engineers it graduated.
Schools have already been disrupted the past two years by a series of events — protests starting in late 2019 that interrupted the academic year, the switch to largely online classes in 2020 because of the pandemic, and rising poverty. Some 400,000 children were not in school in 2020, according to UNICEF.
Struggling parents have moved their children from private schools, usually touted as first-class education, to public schools. More than 50,000 students transferred last year, and the number is likely much higher this year, said Alaa Hmaid, of Save the Children.
This pressures the under-resourced public sector, likely at the expense of enrollment of Syrian and Palestinian refugees, who rely on Lebanon's public system. "We don't want to create a potential gap in the future where a full generation would be without education," Hmaid said, calling for more resources for education. According to U.N. figures, 55% of Lebanon's population now lives in poverty, compared to 28% in 2018, effectively wiping out the once large middle class. Salaries plummeted as the currency lost 90% of its value against the dollar.
No fewer than 15% of Lebanon's 53,000 private school teachers have left the country, creating a large shortage, said Rodolph Abboud, the head of the Teachers Union. Adding to the woes, last year's Beirut port explosion, which devastated the capital, damaged more than 180 educational facilities.
Amid the hardships, parents are resolutely searching for ways to keep their children in schools. Lara Nassar, 38, has been managing her family's slow descent into poverty.
She was once an Arabic kindergarten teacher, her husband ran a thriving food business, and their three children went to private school. But the past three years, to cut costs, she was forced to move her two boys, now 18 and 15, out of a top-end private school, first to a cheaper school, then to a public school.
It was a tough decision, but she wanted to ensure she could afford to keep her youngest, now in 5th grade, in private school until the end of her primary education. "I am keeping her in the picture. She knows that in two years, I will have to move her to a public school. We can't continue like that," Nassar said.
Nassar was laid off last year because of the reduction in face-to-face classes during the pandemic. Because of the financial crisis, her husband had to lay off his staff and scale back his business dramatically. Instead of preparing home-cooked meals, he runs a small, basic grocery with no fuel and unreliable refrigeration. Nassar is now his only employee. Amid the teachers strikes, Nassar's kindergarten offered her her job back. But she declined so she could help her husband. "We are living drip by drip," she said. She was able to secure financial assistance from her daughter's school -- a 50% reduction in the fees. A week before classes start, she is still searching for second-hand books at local charities. She broke down in tears talking about her sons' love of basketball. They used to save their allowance to buy new shoes every year. Now she can barely get them shoes for school — their cost is worth nearly a month's salary at the national minimum wage. "See what kind of things we have to worry about?" she said.
Naima Sadaka said she watched the economic crisis unfold on the Facebook page she set up three years ago to help figure out which schools to enroll her kids in, after she returned from Saudi Arabia with her family.
Over the last few months, membership in the "Schools in Lebanon" page grew by 50% to 12,000. The queries and comments changed from parents seeking recommendations for private schools to posts advertising second-hand books or arranging car-pools amid shortages of school buses.
Many reached out to Sadaka in private messages asking for second-hand school uniforms, too embarrassed to post on the page, Sadaka said.
A parent should be worried about their kids' development and skill set, but "here, we worry about just getting them to school," said Sadaka, who lives in the southern city of Sidon. There is almost no public transportation, school bus fees have tripled and government officials are no help; so Sadaka had to figure out rides to school for her three kids on her own.
For her 9- and 10-year-olds, she arranged rides with a neighbor who works near the school they attend, which is funded by an Islamic charity. For her daughter, a first grader in a public school, Sadaka accepted a job there teaching French, which basically pays for gas. Her husband drops her and their daughter off there every morning. Once a teacher in Saudi Arabia, Sadaka said she regrets coming back. "It is as if I went back 15 years," accepting a meager salary, she said. After Lebanon's banks and hospitals, once a source of national pride and cash, were crippled by the economic crisis, she said, "if they don't save the education sector, then we will have nothing." Maya, a mother of two, took no chances. She decided to leave in August after fuel shortages become so severe and no date for a return to school was set. She and her husband left to Cyprus, where she enrolled her 6- and 8-six-year-old kids in an English language school. The island's only French school has been overwhelmed by recently arriving Lebanese students. Speaking by phone from Cyprus, she asked that her last name not be used to maintain her privacy as she adjusts in the new community, At her kids' private school in Lebanon, at least 50 teachers and half of the students in her daughter's class have left, she said. "Who will teach our kids? What friends will they have left? This is what I worried about. It is not the same standard anymore."

With the victims
Ronnie Chatah/September 30/2021
Ronnie Chatah tells the story of how any serious investigation into his father’s assassination was dismissed with empty promises.
Lebanese economist and former Minister of Finance Mohamad Chatah, Ronnie's father, who was assassinated on December 27, 2013 in Central Beirut.
There is no reason to have any faith in local investigations pursuing political crimes in Lebanon.
The reason is simple: Hezbollah.
Yes, there are many repugnant individuals that represent Lebanon’s lethargic, corrupt, too often thuggish political class. Many of them were better at running civil war fiefdoms than national aspirations or good governance. Their mediocrity bears no reflection on our society or our sectarianism. Enough with the self-flagellation and blaming our confessionalism for our flaws.
We cannot get rid of these torturous leaders because of the real threat of violence. The defenders of the violent realm we live in – a militia that intimidates its foes with personal threats delivered to pressure, assassinates those that do not pander to their ‘politics’, subjugates whatever is left of the Lebanese state to its security interests that preserve the Syrian regime and Iran’s military leverage, and defiantly portrays any serious inquiry into why more than 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were parked in Beirut’s port as an American conspiracy serving a Zionist agenda – will never surrender.
They will not yield either to local judges cautiously questioning the outer realm of the regime or to a population increasingly aware that this group has taken Lebanon to hell.
And within that population, many citizens, including myself, have waited for years for one small step in the right direction.
Allow me to make things personal. The 27th of every month is a date that haunts me. I have woken up to 94 of these reminders since my father was murdered on December 27, 2013. The suspension of the port blast investigation followed by the dismissal case against Tarek Bitar landed on the 27th, making a personal wound open up more than usual. But this country is a landmine of markers of murder, and somehow brought a private exchange full circle.
In the days after the car bombing that took my father’s life in front of Starco in downtown Beirut at 9:40am, I made multiple visits. I sat with the current (then) prime minister in his Ottoman history-woven office at the Grand Serail. He assured me that the killers would be found within a week. And his confidence was hilarious. I told him I knew that he knew that would not happen. He told me my emotions were right, my skepticism was well-earned, and I had every reason to doubt his intentions. But if I gave him just one week, he would deliver with answers. I markedly asked him if that also meant Hezbollah. He repeated: “One week.”
They will not yield, either to local judges cautiously questioning the outer realm of the regime or to a population increasingly aware that this group has taken Lebanon to hell.
Ninety-some weeks later, no answers.
I made my way to Baabda to speak to a previous army commander on his way out. The then-president produced through forced national unity offered no promises. We turned to the windows from his palatial office looking towards the greenery long depleted from Beirut (and most of Baabda). I asked him why he was unable to point the finger at those he knew were responsible. He gave no answer, and instead replied with kind words and memories of working with my father. I pressed him that if he respected the Baabda Declaration he presided over, which my father helped bring to life – even if Hezbollah signed and ignored it – he would have the courage to speak truth to ill-gained power.
He sat in silence.
I continued my personal (and knowingly limited) crusade in search of anyone with authority willing to condemn the hitmen who burned my father’s body to charcoal black, injured and killed multiple passersby commuting through downtown and robbed Lebanon of a proud patriot diplomatically determined to end this country’s geopolitical nightmare.
I had a short call with the then-self-exiled-yet-to-return eventual caretaker-turned-resigned-former-prime minister. He was, for years, my father’s employer. It was straight to the point: he would not sleep until those killers were brought to justice.
When the three-time-former prime minister returned for his fourth round, I insisted on meeting him. I had met him twice before, briefly, both in Washington, DC. The first in 2005, in the months following his own father’s assassination. I went to pay my condolences and wish him success – that encounter may have lasted a minute. Again, ten years later, for less than a minute, I crossed paths with him in a hotel lobby shortly after his arrival. Good to his word, he was sleep-deprived. He did not speak – I simply said hello with well wishes.
That third encounter was at a restaurant downtown in early 2017, not far from Starco. I was invited to lunch with a number of his advisors and the then-minister of interior. The same man who submitted the most recent dismissal case against Bitar.
The conversation was limited. Local (and in my mind, shallow) politics were being discussed at the table, and I looked for a minute to ask the then-prime minister why there was no progress into my father’s assassination. I managed to squeeze in one question: “Do you have any information about his killers?” He replied: “We know who did it, and when they come out of hiding, we will arrest them.” I suppose in retrospect I knew he would have nothing else to say. Why would his answer be any different than any figure who has served under Hezbollah’s state capture? He had already compromised March 14’s principles to the point that he was the militia’s preferred prime minister. I told him I did not believe him, and that was the last time I saw him.
And within that population, many citizens, including myself, have waited for years for one small step in the right direction.
Just over two years later, long having abandoned any expectation from local trial or sincere effort into ending impunity, by complete chance, I was sitting near the then-turned-former minister of interior. In downtown once again, at a hotel bar, with entirely different company and sharing alternate universe conversations.
I saw him get up to leave. The flood of memories of everything that went wrong after December 27, 2013 hit me. I wanted, once more, to press him with the same question. I managed to get to the exit before his entourage arrived, and as they were about to usher me away, I used my family name, insisting on having a word. The former minister recognized me and instructed his security to let me approach.
“You were Minister of Interior for over four years. I know you had little appetite for my father’s politics, and I know he had none for yours. But beyond making this personal, this is a matter of principle. You never lifted a finger into investigating who killed him. There was no interrogation, no arrest and absolutely no justice for his loved ones. Had there been any effort made, I would have saluted you proudly and publicly. But I know without you saying it: there was no investigation.”
Unlike the others, his response was somewhat honest: “It was a political decision not to pursue those answers. The situation in this country does not work in favor of men like your father. And regardless, it was beyond my control.”
In the end, those questions are best asked directly to Hezbollah. But in a country where fingers point at them, investigations die with the victims.
Honest to a point. After filing the case of dismissal against a far more modest and honest judge on September 27, he seems to be in control.
In control of making sure that investigations that approach Hezbollah run dry. Joining others in protecting the militia in return for their own political survivability. Politics perverted by proxy, nominal opponents spared for turning their blind eye and the mafia and militia becoming one. Bitar began to press for answers, only to make a direct threat against him known before having his investigation suspended.
In the end, those questions are best asked directly to Hezbollah. But in a country where fingers point at them, investigations die with the victims.
*Ronnie Chatah hosts The Beirut Banyan podcast, a series of storytelling episodes and long-form conversations that reflect on all that is modern Lebanese history. He also leads the WalkBeirut tour, a four-hour narration of Beirut’s rich and troubled past. He is on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @thebeirutbanyan.
The opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOW.

Lebanese Forces Party Official: Hizbullah Is Part Of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Aims To Change Lebanon's Character As A Civil State; Coexistence With It Is Impossible
MEMRI/September 30, 2021
On August 31, 2021, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sent a letter to Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah thanking him for his words of congratulations upon Raisi's election to the presidency and praising Hizbullah and its activity, which, he said, "is no longer confined to Lebanon and Palestine." In his letter Raisi compared Hizbullah to a tree that produces fruit -- young jihad fighters and "the blood of the martyrs of the resistance" -- and called Hizbullah "the hope of the entire Islamic nation" and a regional element whose influence is such that "no political, military or security element in the region or the world can ignore it." He added that Hizbullah "can constitute a unique political model operating according to the religious principles and the directives of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei."[1]
This letter evoked a response from Charles Jabbour, head of the media and communications department of Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces party, known for its opposition to Hizbullah. In an article he published in the Lebanese daily Al-Jumhouriyya, which is identified with the party, he wrote that Raisi's letter proves once again that Hizbullah receives its orders from Iran's Supreme Leader, forms an integral part of Iran's Islamic revolution and acts to promote Iran's goals, one of which is to transform Lebanon from a civil state into a religious one. Jabbour stressed that this contravenes the Lebanese constitution, which defines Lebanon as a pluralistic civil state. Therefore, he said, there is no way to coexist with Hizbullah and maintain a stable country in its presence. According to Jabbour, Raisi's letter describes Hizbullah as a tool for establishing the Islamic nation and for confronting Israel. This, he said, belies the claim that Hizbullah has been marketing for years, namely that it is fighting Israel in order to defend Lebanon's sovereignty, and shows that Hizbullah is actually fighting Israel as part of the great Iranian program.
It should be noted that this article is part of the growing criticism voiced against Hizbullah by its opponents inside Lebanon, which regard it as a tool of the Iranian regime which violates Lebanon's sovereignty.
Charles Jabbour (Source: Al-Jumhouriyya, Lebanon)
The following are excerpts from Jabbour's article:[2]
"The letter Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah received from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in response to [the former's] words of congratulation upon [that latter's] election to the presidency is significant in many ways. Its importance lies in the fact that it underscores what is already known and presents the Iranian perception of Hizbullah, this time in statements by the Iranian president himself…
"What does [this] letter include?… First of all, [by stating that Hizbullah is the hope of the Islamic nation, the letter] clearly indicates that that the Islamic nation relies upon the Islamic resistance, i.e., upon Hizbullah, to realize the program of the Islamic nation… But this role contradicts the Lebanese constitution, as well as the pluralist character of the state and its historical role.
"Second, [Raisi's statement] that 'in accordance with the political instructions of the Exalted Imam Khamenei, the Islamic resistance [Hizbullah] can constitute a unique political model operating according to the religious principles…' indicates two things. First, that the Islamic resistance, i.e., Hizbullah, receives orders from Imam Khamenei, namely from outside Lebanon, which contravenes the [Lebanese] constitution, the role of the state and [Lebanon's] sovereignty. Second, that Iran is interfering in Lebanon's affairs and openly calling to establish a religious regime in [the country], when Lebanon is a civil state and any attempt to change its identity is [in fact] an attempt to perpetrate a coup…
"Furthermore, Raisi stresses [in his letter] that the Islamic resistance is not confined to a limited area [region, i.e., "Lebanon and Palestine," as Raisi wrote in his letter], which means that he does not recognize states and their sovereignty. The phrase he used [in the letter, namely], 'the geographical [scope] of the Islamic resistance,' has many meanings, the most prominent of which is that this resistance has a geographical [scope] of its own that does not recognize the existing geographical [national boundaries]. This is part of its ambition of [establishing] the Islamic nation… In other words, the role of the resistance is determined by Tehran. This is known, of course, but the public declaration [of this fact] is important, and has further significance, as follows:
"1. The decision that Hizbullah has a central role in the ambition of establishing the Islamic nation originated in Tehran.
"2. Hizbullah's main role contravenes the Lebanese constitution and the existence of Lebanon as a fait accompli.
"3. Hizbullah is an integral part of the Iranian program and revolution. Its source of authority is in Tehran and that is where its decisions are made.
"4. Hizbullah's decisions on Lebanese affairs are made by [Hizbullah] itself, whereas the decisions regarding the Islamic nation and [Hizbullah's] role in spreading the [Iranian] revolution are made exclusively by Tehran.
"5. Hizbullah draws a distinction between its temporary role in the domestic Lebanese arena and its strategic role of Islamizing Lebanon.
"6. Hizbullah's inner beliefs and orientations are Islamic and contravene the civil character of the Lebanese state and the existence of Lebanon as a fait accompli.
"Also conspicuous is the way the Iranian president addresses Hizbullah's secretary-general, [namely, as] 'my dear brother, Hujjat al-Islam wal-Muslimin[3] Sayyid[4] Hassan Nasrallah'… This indicates Nasrallah's important place in the chain of command of the Iranian revolution…
"Raisi ascribes no importance at all to Lebanon. He sees it merely as Hizbullah's sphere of influence, not as an independent entity, and focuses exclusively on Hizbullah's role as one of the fruits of the Iranian revolution. [This is evident from the fact that] he wrote in his letter that 'the role of the Islamic resistance, namely Hizbullah, in ensuring security [and] confronting the state-terror (of Israel) and the takfiri terror [i.e., of extremist Islamic organizations that accuse fellow Muslims of heresy] has turned this revolutionary jihad-fighting current into an influential element in the regional equations, so much so that no political, military or security element, including even global powers, can ignore it'…
"In light of all the above and in light of Raisi's letter to Nasrallah, the question is this: How can a state be built and how can coexistence and stability be maintained in the presence of a political group [i.e., Hizbullah] that believes in a religious [Shi'ite Iranian] program that fundamentally contravenes the Lebanese program and forms an integral part of the Iranian revolution...
"Raisi's statements refute the narrative Hizbullah tried to market after the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon [in 2005, namely] that its role is limited to resisting Israel and establishing a balance of terror vis-à-vis [this country] so as to defend Lebanon's sovereignty – when [the fact is that] its confrontation with Israel is part of the Iranian program. In order to ease the Lebanese pressure on it, Hizbullah had no choice but to make the excuse that its weapons are meant to deter Tel Aviv, which cannot be deterred with the ordinary weapons [of the Lebanese army, especially] since the U.S. refuses to arm Lebanon...
"Now that the Iranian president has once again highlighted what was already known – Hizbullah's Iranian identity and its religious program – we can once again ask the questions: Is it possible to reach understandings with a party that does not believe in Lebanon, which promotes a program that is larger than Lebanon and which seeks to change the character of the Lebanese regime from a civil rule into a religious one -- especially considering that [Hizbullah's] weapons are an organic part of [Iran's] revolutionary and ideological program? The answer is unequivocal: there is no way to reach any understandings with Hizbullah. The upshot is that the conflict will go on and on, and each phase will look different [from the last], until Hizbullah manages to change Lebanon's character and role and turn it into an Islamic state. Alternatively, perhaps the domestic or foreign opposition to [Hizbullah's] program… will compel it to turn back and accept Lebanon's historical role, its neutral identity, its sovereignty, its very existence as a fait accompli and the fact that the state is an arena shared by all Lebanese."
[1] Alahednews.com.lb, September 1, 2021.
[2] Al-Jumhouriyya (Lebanon), September 3, 2021.
[3] Title of a senior Islamic jurisprudent.
[4] Title denoting people accepted as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

IRGC General Gholamali Rashid: Hizbullah In Lebanon, Hamas And PIJ In Palestine, PMU In Iraq, And The Houthis In Yemen Are All Armies Ready To Defend The Iranian Regime
MEMRI/September 30, 2021
https://www.memri.org/reports/irgc-general-gholamali-rashid-hizbullah-lebanon-hamas-and-pij-palestine-pmu-iraq-and-houthis
General Gholamali Rashid, the commander of Khatam Al-Anbiya central headquarters of Iran's armed forces, said that the U.S. and the Zionist regime are angry at Iran's "regional power," because they know that in addition to Iran's local military forces, it now has armed forces in countries beyond its border, who will come to its defense if invaded. He made his remarks in a speech at a ceremony commemorating the Iran-Iraq war that aired on IRINN TV (Iran) on September 25, 2021.
General Rashid said that three months before the "martyrdom" of IRGC Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, he briefed the Iranian joint military command at the Khatam Al-Anbiya central headquarters, saying that he created a "corridor" to the Mediterranean Sea, with six "armies" outside of Iran who will fight on its behalf. He went on to list the forces, saying that in Lebanon there is Hizbullah, in Palestine, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an army in Syria, in Iraq there is the PMU and Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, in Yemen. For more information about General Gholamali Rashid, see MEMRI TV clip no 8174.To view the clip of IRGC General Gholamali Rashid on MEMRI TV, click here or below.
Three Months Before His Martyrdom, General Soleimani Said: 'I Assembled Six Armies Outside Iranian Territory And Created A Corridor To The Mediterranean Sea'
Gholamali Rashid: "In the 1980's, we lacked defense and security alliances with other governments and countries. We have changed this now by connecting with other nations and some governments, thus creating popular, religiously devout, regional forces. May God have mercy upon the martyr Hajj Qasem Soleimani. Three months before his martyrdom, at a meeting of the Khatam Al-Alanbiya HQ, with the commanders of the armed forces, he said:
"'My dear [comrades], with the backing of the IRGC command, the army command, the general command of the armed forces, and of the Defense Ministry: I have assembled for you six armies outside of Iran's territory, and I have created a corridor 1,500km long and 1,000km wide, all the way to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In this corridor, there are six religiously devout and popular divisions.
"Any enemy that decides to fight against the Islamic Revolution, and against the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, will have to go through these six armies. It won't be able to do so.
Iran's Armies Are In Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, And Yemen; "This Has Created A Deterrence In The Service Of Our Dear Iran"
"'One army is in Lebanon. It is called Hizbullah. Another army is in Palestine, and it is called Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
"One army is in Syria. Another army is in Iraq, and is called the PMU, and another army is in Yemen and is called Ansar Allah [Houthis.]'
"This has created deterrence in the service of our dear Iran. The anger of the trespassing Americans and of the Zionist regime with regard to Iran's regional power stems from their realization that the Islamic Republic of Iran possesses two elements of power:
"The first is a powerful armed force which is ready for battle, and prepared to defend from within Iran's territory against any foreign invader, and the second is a regional force outside of Iran's territory."

Il est temps de faire ce qu'il faut. Sauf si c'est trop tard...
Jean-Marie Kassab/September 30/2021
Fût un temps où j'étais dans l'équipe des gagnants. On ne gagnait pas toujours mais souvent le simple fait de survivre à une bataille et ne pas perdre trop de mètres de terrain suffisait pour crier hourra.Sauf que ces victoires coutaient énormément car le sang coulait abondement. La terre est gourmande , elle a de temps en temps soif de sang. Loin d'être un cliché, cette soif pernicieuse est une realité.
J'ai perdu trop d'amis, porté sur mon épaule trop de cercueils, et annoncé la terrible nouvelle à trop de mamans , et croyez moi c'était la partie la plus cruelle.
Croyant avoir gagné je compris dernièrement que nous avions perdu, et que tout ces sacrifices avaient été inutiles. Que mes amis étaient morts pour rien, que leurs âmes erreraient pour toujours et hanteraient les rues désolées de mon pays.
Il est vrai que le Liban a survécu bon gré mal gré. Que ce qui en reste est strictement du aux sacrifices de mes copains. Je le dis en regardant dans les yeux ceux qui diraient le contraire. Ce ne sont que de sales ingrats, des sangsues, des profiteurs de la pire espèce et sans doute responsables de ce qui nous arrive. Responsables oui, car ils ont laissé nos portes largement ouvertes à l' ennemi qui s'est faufilé sans être inquieté. Responsables parce qu'ils gesticulent toujours et à ce jour comme des guignols.
Eparpillés , divisés, illettrés, castrats et manquant de courage. Les uns veulent la fédération, les autres font l'éloge de laïcité et autant de sujets hors sujet. Ils ne se rendent même pas compte que débattre du sexe des anges n'est pas la priorité du moment: Constantinople est en feu.
Pour gagner il faut savoir faire ce qu'il faut, être prêt à s'investir totalement mais surtout aller dans la bonne direction. Pour la trouver à cette direction il faut un timonier, un chef qui sache tout et qui devance les troupes pour donner le bon exemple.
Mais oú se cache-t-il ?
Le Liban est en guerre contre l'occupant Iranien. On ne botte pas le cul d' un occupant avec des élections. On ne défend pas ses frontières avec des slogans . On ne chasse pas l'occupant avec des réunions et encore des réunions. On ne boutte pas dehors l'occupant en vociférant à la télé. Des " likes" sur les réseaux sociaux ne libérent pas un pays. Des milliers de suiveurs sur insta ne sont pas des troupes prêtes à se battre, ces suiveurs sont simplements des connards qui n'ont rien à faire de leurs vies.
Il est temps de faire ce qu'il faut. Sauf si c'est trop tard...
Triste sort. Triste pays.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Israeli FM Lapid Heads to Bahrain for First Official Visit
Associated Press/30 September ,2021
Israel's foreign minister headed to Bahrain on Thursday, the first high-level visit to the small Gulf state by a senior Israeli official since the signing last year of a landmark agreement to establish diplomatic ties. Yair Lapid flew to Bahrain's capital, Manama, for meetings with his Bahraini counterpart and to inaugurate Israel's embassy. It will be the first official visit by an Israeli Cabinet member. After Lapid lands, Bahrain carrier Gulf Air will launch its first direct flight between Manama and Tel Aviv. The Israeli diplomatic delegation was to meet with its Bahraini counterparts and sign a raft of agreements to further cement bilateral ties. The two countries had long enjoyed clandestine security ties over a shared distrust of regional rival Iran, but only last year took the relationship public. Israel established formal diplomatic relations with four Arab states last year as part of the U.S.-brokered "Abraham Accords." Lapid has already visited the United Arab Emirates and Morocco and opened Israel's diplomatic offices there since he became Israel's foreign minister in June. Bahrain's first ambassador to Israel arrived earlier this month and presented his credentials to Israel's figurehead president on the anniversary of the signing of the accords. The deals to establish relations with Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and the UAE were the first peace accords between Israel and Arab states in decades, after peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1995. The deals enraged the Palestinians, who felt a betrayal of their national cause. They saw it as an abandonment of a longstanding commitment in the Arab world not to normalize relations with Israel until there was progress in resolving the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Egyptian authorities say they blocked Brotherhood financing scheme
Reuters/ 01 October ,2021
Egyptian authorities said on Thursday they had blocked a scheme aimed at financing the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and alleged a link to the imprisoned founder and former chairman of dairy and juice firm Juhayna , Safwan Thabet.
The scheme aimed to funnel funds using Thabet’s companies into “terrorist activities”, the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that $8.4 million and ammunition had been found in an apartment in Giza, across the Nile from central Cairo. It described Thabet as a “Brotherhood leader”.The Thabet family have denied any wrongdoing in statements on social media. A lawyer for Juhayna could not be reached. Thabet was arrested in December, and his son Seifeldin was detained in February after taking over as chairman. In a statement released on Monday, rights group Amnesty International said authorities were holding the men in conditions that amounted to torture after they refused to cede assets to a government-owned entity. Amnesty said the authorities had failed to produce evidence for the alleged affiliation with the Brotherhood. Juhayna is a household name in Egypt and the country’s largest dairy products and juice producer. The Brotherhood has been subject to a sweeping crackdown since then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led their ouster from power in 2013. Juhayna continued to operate normally after Sisi became president the following year.

Iran to hold military drill near border with Azerbaijan amid Tehran-Baku tensions
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/30 September ,2021
Iran will hold a military exercise on Friday near the border with Azerbaijan, the Iranian army announced on Thursday, amid tensions between the two countries over drills. The exercise will be held “with the aim of improving combat readiness” in northwest Iran, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heydari, commander of the army’s ground forces, as saying. The drill is dubbed “Conquerors of Khaybar” in reference to the battle of Khaybar, fought in 628 CE between Muslims and Jews. Iran has been wary of Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel, a major supplier of arms to Baku.

Saudi Crown Prince, French President discuss regional stability over phone call
Rawad Taha, Al Arabiya English/30 September ,2021
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has received a phone call on Thursday from French President Emmanuel Macron, according to Saudi Press Agency. During the call, they reviewed relations between the two countries and opportunities to develop and develop them in various fields to achieve the common interests of the two countries, in addition to a number of issues and developments in the region. “They agreed on the importance of maintaining peace in the region and supporting efforts to enhance security and stability,” Saudi Press Agency added.

US says top aide planned to discuss oil prices with Saudi Arabia
Reuters/Published: 01 October ,2021
National security adviser Jake Sullivan planned on discussing high oil prices with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a meeting earlier this week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday. “Obviously, the price of oil is of concern. We have been in touch with OPEC, and I believe it was going to be raised but I haven’t had a chance to get a readout beyond that,” Psaki told reporters.Sullivan had a detailed discussion about the war in Yemen on Tuesday in a meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, a senior administration official told Reuters.

US and Russia say they held ‘substantive’ arms control talks in Geneva
Reuters/01 October ,2021
The US and Russia said in a joint statement on Thursday that they had held “intensive and substantive” talks in their second meeting within a framework that is aimed at easing tensions between the world’s largest nuclear weapons powers.
The two countries have agreed to set up two working groups, which will convene ahead of a third plenary meeting. A date for the third gathering was not provided. US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countries hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, agreed at a June summit in Geneva to embark on an integrated bilateral ‘Strategic Stability dialog’ to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures. Armed with mandates from their leaders, delegations from the two nations restarted talks in July, the first time in nearly a year that the two had held so-called strategic stability talks amid frictions over a range of issues, including arms control. During the second meeting held on Thursday in Geneva, the delegations headed by US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov agreed the working groups would focus on principles and objectives for future arms control and capabilities and actions with strategic effects. A senior US administration official told reporters that Washington thought it was “a very productive meeting.”“Today the discussion was very interactive and broad-based, and we think we were able to cover a variety of issues,” the administration official said, declining to provide specifics. “I think this was a good building-on of the meeting that we had in July and both delegations really engaging in a detailed and dynamic exchange,” the official added.

Rivals Iran, KSA Hold New Round of Talks in Iraq
Agence France Presse/30 September ,2021
Regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran have met again in Iraq, several local sources said, as talks aiming to ease tensions have continued under Iran's ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi. Muslim Shiite-majority Iran and Sunni power Saudi Arabia, on opposing sides in multiple Middle East conflicts, have been engaged in talks since April at the highest level since cutting ties in 2016. The discussions, hosted by Iraq as it seeks to act as a regional mediator, were launched under Iran's former, moderate president Hassan Rouhani, who was replaced in August by Raisi. The talks have led to "serious progress" regarding Gulf security, Tehran's foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said on September 23. The latest round of talks was confirmed by three Iraqi sources, all speaking on condition they not be named. "An Iranian official met with a Saudi official in Baghdad, following previous meetings between the two countries," one source told AFP, confirming the talks took place in recent days. A government official and a source close to the government confirmed the meeting, without providing more details. U.S. ally Saudi Arabia and Washington's arch-foe Iran are at odds over many regional issues, including the wars in Yemen and Syria. Riyadh also has concerns about Iran's nuclear program, despite the Islamic republic's insistence it is pursuing only "peaceful" nuclear technology. Saudi King Salman said in his recent speech by video conference to the U.N. General Assembly that "we hope that our talks will lead to tangible results that would build trust" and revive bilateral "cooperation." He again called on Tehran to "cease all forms of support" for armed groups in the region and reaffirmed the kingdom's support for "international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

Israel officers kill woman after Jerusalem stabbing attempt
AFP/30 September ,2021
Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian woman who tried to stab officers in Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday, police said. And in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead a male "terrorist" who opened fire on them during clashes prompted by an overnight arrest operation, police said.
According to a police statement, the woman in Jerusalem tried to stab police in one of the streets leading to Al-Aqsa mosque. An AFP journalist heard gunshots and saw the body of a woman on the ground, later draped in a survival blanket. Israeli police "opened fire" at the assailant and "medical forces who arrived at the scene determined her death," police said, adding that the attempted attack did not result in any casualties. The 30-year-old assailant, from Qabatiya in the north of the occupied West Bank, was leaving the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third holiest site, when she approached officers, police said. In the village of Burqin, also in the northern West Bank near Jenin, Israeli troops and border police were conducting an operation "to arrest suspects and locate weapons," a police statement said. "During the operation an armed terrorist fired at the forces who were operating in the village during a riot," police said. "Border police forces responded with gunfire toward the terrorist and neutralised him," police said, with a spokesman confirming his death to AFP. Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said the man killed was a member of its military wing. No Israeli forces were wounded in the incident, police said. In Jerusalem, Israeli security forces are stationed at each entrance to the Al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The compound lies in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the city which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community. Five Palestinians were killed on Sunday after an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank sparked gunbattles with Hamas militants, two of them in Burqin, officials said. --

UAE officially launches Expo 2020 Dubai, world’s biggest cultural gathering
Rawad Taha, Al Arabiya English/30 September ,2021
The United Arab Emirates has officially launched Expo 2020 Dubai, the world’s biggest cultural gathering, in a ceremony streamed by millions across the world. Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed have attended the opening ceremony.
Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum announced the official launch of Expo 2020 during the opening ceremony. “The entire world gathers in the United Arab Emirates, today, we witness, together, a new beginning, as we inaugurate, together, with the blessings of God, Expo 2020 Dubai, May God grant us success,” Dubai Crown Prince added. The opening ceremony took place beneath the 130-metre-wide, 67.5-metre-tall Al Wasl Plaza dome, the world’s largest 360-degree projection screen, which enabled spectators to experience an immersive audio and visual display of the featured live performances. To celebrate the opening day, Dubai hosted fireworks around the city at three locations: The Frame, Dubai Festival City and The Pointe on Palm Jumeirah. UAE’s Cabinet Member and Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, said during the opening ceremony that the UAE has worked hard to create a better life by “building people and promoting investment.”“By connecting minds, we can achieve achievements. Through Expo, we affirm our commitment to making the world better through cooperation. 192 countries will meet for the first time in history,” the minister added. The minister added that through Expo, UAE affirms its commitment to making the world better through cooperation. “We welcome participants to the Expo as an opportunity for cooperation and action among the world's population, we carry a message of cooperation, tolerance, coexistence and peace to achieve a prosperous future for all,” he added. The Secretary General of the International Bureau of Exhibitions, Dimitri S. Kerkentzes, said that Expo 2020 enhances partnership and cooperation between countries of the world. Kerkentzes added that International Bureau of Exhibitions strives for a better world in which people transcend their differences. “The UAE has endeavored with the countries of the world to successfully organize the Expo, we appreciate the vision of the UAE in hosting this important international event,” he added. Kerkentzes added that experiences will be exchanged between the organizers and participants in the Expo and that Expo Dubai 2020 will create new partnerships to shape a better future for the world. World-renowned classical musicians and chart-topping pop stars have come together for the opening of Expo 2020 Dubai as a host of global stars raise the roof at the opening ceremony for the world’s greatest show. Celebrated Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli has led the line-up at the iconic al-Wasl Plaza. Bocelli, who has sold more than 90 million records worldwide, was joined by an array of global stars: British popstar Ellie Goulding, internationally acclaimed Chinese pianist Lang Lang, four-time Grammy winner Angelique Kidjo and Golden Globe-winning actress, singer and songwriter Andra Day. Highlighting the creative diversity and talent of the region, the electrifying event also featured Hussain al-Jassmi, Expo 2020 Dubai Ambassador and a trendsetter on the Gulf music scene; much-loved Emirati singing sensation Ahlam al-Shamsi; rising UAE singer Almas; the ‘Artist of the Arabs’ Mohammed Abdu; and Grammy-nominated Lebanese-American singer-songwriter Mayssa Karaa. Expo Dubai 2020 is the first World Expo in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region. The Expo will run from October 1, 2021 until March 31, 2022, and will bring together more than 190 countries to explore new ideas, form new connections and collectively tackle some of the greatest global challenges of our time.

PRESS RELEASES: The United States and Qatar Take Coordinated Action Against Hizballah Financiers
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
The United States and Qatar Take Coordinated Action Against Hizballah Financiers
September 29, 2021
WASHINGTON — Today, the United States, through the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Government of Qatar both designated in coordinated actions a major Hizballah financial network based in the Arabian Peninsula.
“Hizballah seeks to abuse the international financial system by developing global networks of financiers to fill its coffers and support its terrorist activity,” said Office of Foreign Assets Control Director Andrea M. Gacki. “The cross-border nature of this Hizballah financial network underscores the importance of our continued cooperation with international partners, such as the Government of Qatar, to protect the U.S. and international financial systems from terrorist abuse.”
The United States designated Hizballah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on October 8, 1997 and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on October 31, 2001, and the Gulf Cooperation Council designated Hizballah as a terrorist organization on March 2, 2016. Today, Ali Reda Hassan al-Banai (Ali al-Banai), Ali Reda al-Qassabi Lari (Ali Lari), and Abd al-Muayyid al-Banai (Abd al-Muayyid) are being designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Hizballah.
Ali al-Banai and Lari are longstanding supporters of Hizballah and have secretly sent tens of millions of dollars to the terrorist organization through the formal financial system and cash couriers. They both regularly met with Hizballah officials during their travels to Lebanon and Iran. Ali al-Banai initially began contributing funds to Hizballah via another Kuwait-based Hizballah donor and a Kuwait-based branch of the U.S.-designated Martyrs Foundation, which was designated in 2007 for providing financial support to the families of killed or imprisoned terrorists, including suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories. Ali al-Banai and his brother, Abd al-Muayyid, who is also being designated today, held joint accounts in several banks, transferred funds to Hizballah as recently as late 2020, and maintained ties to senior Hizballah associates. In 2017, Ali al-Banai planned to transfer millions of dollars to a senior Hizballah official from a bank account from which Hizballah representatives could also withdraw and transfer funds. Lari has been providing financial support to Hizballah since 2000 when he would deliver cash to Hizballah during his trips to Lebanon. During a trip to Iran, Lari met with a high-ranking Hizballah official to transfer funds to the group. As of 2018, Lari was involved in financial facilitation activities supporting Hizballah and worked with al-Banai to move money from Qatar to Hizballah-run organizations.
Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Nabi Shams (Shams), Yahya Muhammad al-Abd-al-Muhsin (Abd-al-Muhsin), Majdi Fa’iz al-Ustadz (Ustadz), and Sulaiman al-Banai are being designated as SDGTs pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Ali al-Banai.
As of 2019, Shams, Ali al-Banai’s Bahrain-based nephew, coordinated the development of two real estate projects in Bahrain and the delivery of funds to Gulf-based individuals on behalf of Ali al-Banai. As of 2019, Ali al-Banai had transferred millions of Qatari riyals to an account held by Shams. Concurrent with this action, the Government of Bahrain has frozen the bank accounts of this individual and has additionally referred three individuals to their prosecutor’s office.
As of 2019, Abd-al-Muhsin, a Saudi Arabia-based relative of Lari, managed Ali al-Banai’s real estate throughout the Gulf, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and was tasked by Ali al-Banai to manage Lari’s businesses in the UAE. Abd-al-Muhsin also maintained power of attorney for Banai’s properties in Bahrain. As of 2018, Abd-al-Musin maintained regular contact with both Ali al-Banai and Lari and made regular trips to Qatar to meet with Ali al-Banai. As of 2019, Ali al-Banai had transferred hundreds of thousands of Qatari riyals to Abd-al-Muhsin. As of 2019, Ustadz coordinated Ali al-Banai’s commercial activities in Qatar. Ustadz owned properties on behalf of Ali al-Banai, which Ali al-Banai used as collateral to obtain loans to fund investments in Turkey. Ustadz also oversaw financial matters for Ali al-Banai.
As of 2019, Sulaiman al-Banai, a relative of Ali al-Banai, was a primary manager of Ali al-Banai’s business and financial activity in Qatar and abroad.
Qatar-based AlDar Properties is being designated for being owned, controlled, or directed by, directly or indirectly, Sulaiman al-Banai. According to its public website, AlDar Properties is owned and managed by Sulaiman al-Banai. AlDar Properties is engaged in property management of multi-family residential and commercial properties in Qatar. Qatar-based AlDar Properties is not associated or affiliated with the real estate company Aldar Properties PJSC in the UAE.
Through sustained information-sharing and collaboration on this and other networks of Lebanese Hizballah financial facilitators operating in the Arabian Peninsula, the U.S. government will continue to disrupt the financial support that flows to terrorist groups such as Hizballah, including through multilateral and bilateral initiatives.
Sanctions Implications
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of these individuals and entity named above, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly 50 percent or more by them, individually, or with other blocked persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC or otherwise exempt, OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.
Furthermore, engaging in certain transactions with the individuals and entity designated today entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended. Pursuant to these authorities, OFAC can prohibit or impose strict conditions on the opening or maintaining in the United States or a correspondent account or a payable-through account by a foreign financial institution that either knowingly conducts or facilitates any significant transactions on behalf of an SDGT, or that, among other things, knowingly facilitates a significant transaction for Hizballah or certain persons designated for their connection to Hizballah.
For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, please refer to OFAC’s Frequently Asked Question 897 at https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/faqs/897. Additional information regarding sanctions programs administered by OFAC can be found at https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information.

Putin, Erdogan Sit Down for Talks on War-Torn Syria
Associated Press/September 30/2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that were expected to focus on war-torn Syria. It was the first in-person meeting for Putin in over two weeks. On Sept. 14, the Russian president went into self-isolation after a staff member he worked closely with contracted coronavirus. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin's two-week self-isolation ended on Wednesday. As the two leaders sat down for talks, Putin pointed out that relations between the two countries "develop positively."
"Negotiations are sometimes difficult, but with a positive final result. Our (government) bodies have learned to find compromises that are beneficial to both sides," Putin said. Erdogan echoed that sentiment and said he believed "there is great benefit in continuing our Turkish-Russian relations by strengthening them every day." On Syria, Russia is the main ally of the Syrian government while Turkey supports groups that have fought to unseat Syrian President Bashar Assad. However, Russian and Turkish troops have cooperated in Idlib, the final holdout of rebel forces, and in seeking a political solution in the country.
"Peace (in Syria) depends on the relations between Turkey and Russia," the Turkish leader told Putin. The talks between the two presidents come amid an increase in airstrikes on Turkey-backed opposition fighters' positions in northern Syria, especially in the province of Idlib. Last year, Turkey and Russia reached a cease-fire agreement that halted a three-month Syrian government offensive in Idlib and also saw rare direct fighting between Syrian and Turkish troops. That Russia-backed offensive killed hundreds of civilians and displaced nearly 1 million people in Idlib province. Turkey fears that an escalation of the violence in northern Syria will lead to a new influx of refugees surging across its borders. Turkey already hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees. For its part, Russia accuses Turkey of failing to take measures to push out radical groups from northern Syria. Earlier this month, Putin met with Assad in Moscow and criticized the presence of Turkish and U.S. forces in northern Syria, calling their presence a flagrant violation of international law. The Russian leader was referring to hundreds of U.S. troops stationed in eastern Syria who are working with Kurdish-led fighters in battling the militant Islamic State group, as well as Turkish forces in northern Syria. The war in Syria broke out in March 2011. It has left hundreds of thousands dead and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million people, including more than 5 million refugees outside the war-torn nation. The talks between Putin and Erdogan on Wednesday lasted for about three hours, Russia's state news agency Tass reported. The two leaders didn't make any statements after the talks, but Erdogan said on social media that he left Sochi after holding a "productive" meeting with his Russian counterpart.

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 30 - October 01/2021
Kuwait Needs U.S. Support to Combat Iranian Terror Finance
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Policy Brief-FDD/September 30/2021
The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on two Kuwaiti nationals earlier this month for their role in transferring millions of dollars from Kuwait to Lebanese Hezbollah. The two sanctioned individuals appear to have channeled their illicit transactions through a private hospital, consistent with other efforts by Hezbollah and its sponsors in Tehran to exploit humanitarian institutions for criminal purposes.
One of the Kuwaitis, Talib Husayn Ali Jarak Ismail, commonly known as Talib Jarak, owns Dar Al-Shifa, the country’s oldest and most prestigious healthcare institution, which he opened in 1963. Jarak is a Kuwaiti Shiite, a group that comprises about one-third of Kuwait’s 1.2 million citizens.
After the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran created transnational Shiite networks throughout the region, both to cultivate political influence and to sponsor terror attacks. With U.S. sanctions tightening after Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Tehran became increasingly reliant on these networks to skirt sanctions as well.
In 2006, Jarak hired as the hospital’s CEO Ahmad Nasrallah, the brother of Lebanese lawmaker Mohamed Deeb Nasrallah, who is a member of the Shiite party Amal, Hezbollah’s junior partner in government.
According to Treasury, Talib Jarak “coordinated the transfer of millions of dollars to Hizballah from Kuwait” with the help of Jamal Husayn Abd-Ali Abdull-Rahim al-Shatti, the second sanctions target. Jarak “also travelled to Lebanon to meet with Hizballah officials to donate money to the group.”
Al-Shatti is the brother of former lawmaker Khaled al-Shatti, who was elected to Kuwait’s National Assembly in 2012 and 2016 but lost his seat in last year’s election. When a Kuwaiti court convicted Jamal’s son Abdul-Muhsin of joining a Tehran-backed armed militia that came to be known as the Abdali Cell, his uncle Khaled defended him and his companions before Kuwaiti courts.
Khaled al-Shatti styles himself as a human rights lawyer and activist and has refused to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist group, insisting that it is “a resistance movement.”
The Kuwaiti government has so far avoided confronting Shiite lawmakers and militants who sympathize with Iran and offer Tehran support. Kuwait fears that cracking down on this illicit activity might complicate the state’s relations with its Shiite citizens, except in cases that pose clear and present danger, such as in the case of the Abdali Cell. For lesser offenses, however, Kuwait has looked the other way for fear of inviting Iranian retaliation.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told the UN General Assembly last week that America is committing “crimes against humanity” by imposing “sanctions on medicine.” Yet Tehran and its clients are using increasingly complicated and hard-to-detect money laundering tools and channels, including humanitarian organizations and healthcare providers.
The United States should make clear its expectation that Kuwait will prosecute Jarak and al-Shatti in its own court system. Yet for the Kuwaiti government to prosecute Hezbollah’s money laundering through Kuwaiti hospitals and banks, Washington has to show steadiness in defending its allies against possible Iranian retaliation.
One way to empower U.S. allies against Iran’s financing of terrorism and other illicit activity is for Congress to express bipartisan support for these allies in the face of Iranian bullying and to encourage the administration to show resolve in dealing with Tehran’s harassment of U.S. allies. Such a stance would help ensure consistent U.S. support for allies’ legislation and enforcement of anti-terrorism laws, regardless of the ruling party in the White House.
*Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from Hussain, the Iran Program, and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Hussain on Twitter @hahussain. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Congress Joins European Allies in Targeting Erdogan’s Far-Right Partners
Aykan Erdemir/Policy Brief-FDD/September 30/2021
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on September 23 that includes an amendment requiring the secretary of state to submit a report assessing whether Turkey’s Grey Wolves — a far-right militant group — meet the criteria to be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). If the Senate adopts a comparable provision, the United States will join key European allies in targeting a violent group linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s far-right coalition partners.
Representative Dina Titus (D-NV) proposed the Grey Wolves amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022 in mid-September. If Foggy Bottom determines that the Grey Wolves do not meet the criteria for designation as an FTO as set forth in section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the amendment would then require the secretary of state to provide a justification explaining which criteria have not been met.
The Grey Wolves movement brings together myriad ultranationalist groups in Turkey and beyond. At the center of the movement is Idealist Hearths, a pan-Turkist and neofascist organization established in 1968 by the late Turkish ultranationalist leader Alparslan Turkes, the founder of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP). Since 2016, the MHP has served as a key coalition partner for Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), and Grey Wolves militants have repeatedly assaulted political figures who oppose the AKP-MHP ruling bloc.
During the 1970s, Grey Wolves militants played a leading role in an assassination campaign targeting Turkey’s left-wing politicians. They also carried out pogroms against Turkey’s Alevi religious minority, such as the 1978 Maras Massacre, which left at least 111 people, including pregnant women and children, dead and dismembered. Mehmet Ali Agca, the would-be assassin who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, was also affiliated with the MHP and Idealist Hearths.
Since 2019, various EU member states have taken action against the Grey Wolves. In February 2019, the Austrian Interior Ministry banned the flags and symbols of the Grey Wolves alongside those of Hamas and Hezbollah. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned Vienna’s move as “scandalous,” warning that the ban “deeply offends bilateral relations between Turkey and Austria.”
In November 2020, France banned the Grey Wolves, accusing the group of “extremely violent” threats and actions. The ban came after Grey Wolves militants attacked French residents of Armenian descent and spray-painted Erdogan’s initials on an Armenian Genocide memorial, prompting a call by the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism to outlaw the militant group. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry criticized Paris, warning that Ankara “will react to this decision in the harshest way.”
The Grey Wolves also came under scrutiny from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which flagged the militant group as a potential threat to the German constitution. Germany’s former Green Party co-leader Cem Ozdemir, who is of Turkish background, stated his support for banning the Grey Wolves, saying that its militants “threaten members of the Turkish opposition and minorities in Germany.” In November 2020, the German parliament adopted a motion urging the government to outlaw the group’s affiliates, prevent its online agitation, and monitor its activities.
That same month, four Italian members of the European Parliament called on the European Union to add the Grey Wolves to the EU terrorist list. Later in the month, members of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands passed a motion with near-unanimity asking the Dutch government to impose a similar ban, blaming the militant group for causing “serious tension within the Dutch community.”
Since 2014, journalists have reported that the Grey Wolves have fought in Syria and colluded with U.S.-designated jihadist groups. If the Senate agrees to include the measure against the Grey Wolves in its version of the NDAA, Washington will join its European allies in their pushback against Erdogan’s far-right partners, who serve as his militant long arm in the West.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from Aykan, the Turkey Program, and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Aykan on Twitter @aykan_erdemir. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Sanctioned Cabinet of Ebrahim Raisi
Behnam Ben Taleblu/FDD/September 30/2021
The Cabinet1 of Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, represents the culmination of a decades-long political project by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to promote ultra-hardline elites to key leadership positions.2 Drawn from an increasingly narrow bench, Raisi’s appointees include several persons who served under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005–2013),3 who also harbored immense hostility to the West and stacked his Cabinet with veterans of Iran’s security forces.4
Reflecting this new constellation of power, Raisi’s Cabinet boasts 12 sanctioned individuals, more than any other in the history of the Islamic Republic. These persons are subject to overlapping international penalties imposed by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and United Nations due to their role in Khamenei’s networks, support for Iran’s nuclear program, ties to terrorist groups, and human rights abuses. These 12 also hold some of the most important portfolios, including the ministries of defense, interior, and petroleum as well as two vice presidencies.
The Cabinet members under sanctions include eight persons on the U.S. Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List,5 seven persons subject to UK sanctions,6 seven persons subject to EU sanctions,7 and one person on a UN sanctions list.8 The EU and UK lists mirror one another, and both entities will delist the same three persons come October 2023, pursuant to the implementation timeline of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).9 Similarly, UN sanctions will terminate in October 2023 pursuant to the same JCPOA implementation timeline.10 The other four EU and UK designations against members of Raisi’s Cabinet will remain, as they were issued under human rights-related authorities and are separate from each entity’s JCPOA commitments. Three of those four individuals have yet to be sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.11
While Raisi is by now known for serving on a “death commission” in 1988 that led to the execution of several thousand political prisoners, he is subject to U.S. sanctions for having been elevated by Khamenei to a state position.12 Several other Cabinet members have been designated under this broad and unique U.S. sanctions authority, which exposes and penalizes the supreme leader’s network of appointees.13 They include First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber,14 who previously led a multibillion-dollar holding company owned by the supreme leader, known by its acronym, EIKO,15 as well as three others.16
Some cabinet members are subject to multiple sanctions authorities given their myriad crimes. A prime example is Rostam Ghassemi, a brigadier general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an ideological force parallel to the Artesh (national military). The U.S. Treasury Department, using counterproliferation authorities, sanctioned Ghassemi in 2010 for supporting the IRGC’s “engineering arm.” Treasury designated him again in 2019, this time using counterterrorism authorities, for working for the IRGC’s Quds Force and its then-chief, Major General Qassem Soleimani, to illicitly export Iranian oil.17 Ghassemi is also subject to EU and UK nuclear-related sanctions but is slated to be delisted by October 2023 pursuant to the JCPOA.18
Furthermore, two members of Raisi’s Cabinet are subject to Interpol Red Notices — requests to locate wanted criminals — for their involvement in the 1994 terror attack against the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 85 people.19 Both are affiliated with the IRGC.20 Although Raisi’s Cabinet, like his predecessor’s, has an Artesh officer at the helm of the defense ministry,21 there at least three individuals in Raisi’s Cabinet who attained the rank of general in the IRGC. Multiple other Cabinet members have worked with or retain ties to the IRGC. The United States has designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,22 but Iranian official sources allege that Washington will drop this penalty if nuclear negotiations result in a new agreement.23
During confirmation proceedings in the Iranian Majlis (parliament), Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf confirmed an open secret: Khamenei personally approved key appointments to the Cabinet for positions related to national security, including but not limited to the minister of intelligence.24 Accordingly, the Majlis approved all but one of Raisi’s Cabinet nominees.25
Per Iranian law, the minister of intelligence must be a Mujtahid (a religious scholar),26 which remains the case for Raisi’s Cabinet. Ahmadinejad unsuccessfully contested the supreme leader’s choice for minister of intelligence in 2011, resulting in a political crisis late in his second presidential term.27
Khamenei’s willingness to have a Cabinet in which almost 40 percent of its members are subject to sanctions reflects his comfort with escalating tensions with the outside world and his confidence in not needing to feign moderation to garner relief from sanctions.

If Biden Won’t Stand Up to Iran, Congress Should Stand Up to Biden
Gabriel Noronha/Andrea Stricker/Matthew Zweig/The Dispatch/FDD/September 30/2021
It should intervene using the legislation it passed in 2015 to force a vote to deny Iran sanctions relief.
The Biden administration’s Iran policy is collapsing, and it is well past time for Congress to intervene using a key tool it crafted in 2015: the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA). Soon after President Biden took office, the United States and five other world powers—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China—engaged Iran in six rounds of talks to restore the 2015 nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which the Trump administration withdrew in 2018. The negotiations have stalled since June, shortly after the installation of Iran’s ultra-hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi. The administration—in apparent desperation to revive the deal—appears on the verge of offering Iran extensive new sanctions relief that would underwrite an expansion of the regime’s malign activities.
Judging by Raisi’s appointing a slate of hardliners to his Cabinet, including Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani, Tehran appears ready to steamroll U.S. negotiators. The Biden administration, which had unilaterally relaxed some U.S. sanctions and reportedly agreed to concessions above and beyond the JCPOA’s flawed terms, now appears eager to flood the Tehran regime with some $90 billion in frozen assets and to lift terrorism, ballistic missile, and human rights sanctions unrelated to the JCPOA.
What’s more, the administration is ignoring Congress’s questions about what exactly it has already agreed to. Behind the scenes, the Biden State Department is stonewalling Congress by ignoring letters from senators and representatives asking for details and documents on Iran policy and planned sanctions relief. Requests have either gone unanswered or the administration has provided insignificant information. Career officials privately report that the administration has ignored or silenced their internal concerns and objections.
Before and after Biden took office, his advisers protested Trump’s maximum economic pressure campaign that the former president instituted after withdrawing from the JCPOA. Biden’s team warned that sanctions only worsened Iran’s malign behavior and nuclear escalations. Now, the administration has had had eight months to try its approach: much-vaunted diplomacy and multilateralism, paired with a pause in enforcement of key U.S. sanctions to induce moderation in the Islamic Republic’s behavior.
The results have been disastrous. This summer alone, the return of diplomacy and conciliatory gestures has resulted in the clerical regime’s bombing of foreign oil tankers and attacks on U.S. assets in Iraq, as well as the revelation of a plot to kidnap and rendition a prominent Iranian-American dissident, Masih Alinejad, from her home in Brooklyn. And as Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted earlier this month, the regime is still targeting other American citizens, including current and former U.S. officials.
The nuclear file fares no better, where Iran is deftly outmaneuvering world powers. Tehran has enriched uranium to 60 percent and produced uranium metal—key steps toward developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has also reduced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring and stonewalled the agency’s investigation into the regime’s undeclared nuclear sites, materials, and activities. Tehran has successfully dodged IAEA board censure for its violations.
Iran has ignored the many European and American statements of concern—from “deep concern” to “grave concern”—about Tehran’s growing nuclear activity, with zero consequence from Western capitals. Blinken is doing his best “bad cop” impression, threatening that the negotiation process would not go on forever, but the administration seems paralyzed as to what comes next.
Meanwhile, American leverage is slipping away.
At the beginning of Biden’s term, Iran was in a massive financial crunch, left with only $4 billion in accessible foreign exchange reserves and a mounting debt and stagflation crisis brought on by the combination of American sanctions and the regime’s own gross corruption and mismanagement. The Biden administration reportedly estimated that Iran’s trade dropped by 40 percent ($18 billion) between 2019 and 2020. But in exchange for thus-far inconsequential dialogue, Iran has been able to reap the rewards of lax sanctions enforcement, nearly doubling its oil exports over 2020. This business has brought Tehran around an additional $7 billion in revenue and staved off fiscal collapse that would threaten the regime and its illicit activities.
Enough is enough. Congress should intervene against the administration’s bungled Iran policy using the legislation it passed ahead of the JCPOA’s 2015 implementation: INARA. Congress should use this law to force a vote to deny Iran sanctions relief before Washington cedes more ground to Tehran.
To date, Congress has focused on the first part of the law, which provides Congress the right to review and approve any nuclear deal reached with Iran. The statute gives Congress significant oversight over any effort by the administration to re-enter the original JCPOA or to conclude new, modified, or follow-on agreements: INARA specifies that within five calendar days after the executive branch reaches any such agreement, the president must transmit the full text to Congress for a 60-day review process.
The administration can’t provide Iran relief from sanctions imposed by Congress until the congressional review process is finished. Congress must also insist that any mechanism or bridging agreement to return all parties to compliance with the original accord would still be subject to INARA’s transmittal and review requirements.
But in the meantime, Congress should exercise another INARA oversight mechanism colloquially known as the “legislative snapback.” This tool guarantees a vote on the floor of the House and the Senate to prevent sanctions relief for the Iranian regime, if the majority or minority leaders exercise this right. The vote can occur only during a 60-day window that re-opens every 90 days due to the administration’s continued inability to certify that the Iranians are meeting their nuclear commitments under the JCPOA. The current window to initiate legislative snapback is open from September 22 until November 21. Since the Biden administration has not yet re-entered the JCPOA, Republican congressional leadership should avail themselves of the opportunity to pursue the legislative snapback. The leadership must act before the Biden administration attempts to present JCPOA re-entry as a fait accompli and gives the regime access to frozen assets.
Both houses of Congress would need to pass a joint simple-majority resolution to prevent sanctions from lifting, which would then go to the president, who would certainly veto it. It is unlikely that Congress could override a presidential veto with the required two-thirds majority, given that Democrats hold majorities in the House and Senate, and many would feel compelled to support a key Biden foreign policy initiative. A Republican-controlled Congress was similarly unable to muster enough votes to stop the JCPOA in 2015, although 61 percent of members opposed the accord, including 25 House Democrats and four Senate Democrats. However, House minority leaders could still attempt to reach the two-thirds threshold as Democrats’ frustration with Biden’s policy continues to mount.
Regardless of the outcome, a vote on this matter indicating significant congressional opposition would send a strong message to Tehran that the next Republican president will likely restore sanctions unless Iran agrees to cease all manner of malign activities. A vote would also demonstrate to the international business community the risks of engaging in the Iranian economy: U.S. sanctions may return. A symbolic vote would further show that Iran cannot bully the United States through nuclear extortion without consequence.
Likewise, Congress can use the review process associated with INARA to pressure the Biden administration to take tangible and decisive action against Iran for its continuing targeting of American citizens and other international provocations. Until now, Congress has taken few concrete actions to counter Iran’s malign activities, and there have been no significant Iran-related votes in either the House or the Senate since Biden took office. The House of Representatives has signaled some initial action this week, including several provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that mandate the administration to report to Congress on terrorism-related sanctions relief, and Tehran’s military development and partnership with China.
A snapback vote under INARA would provide a much firmer, even if symbolic, political backstop against massive concessions by U.S. negotiators, who have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot hold the line against Iran’s blackmail. Congress must act now to rein in the administration’s worst foreign policy impulses. Starting INARA’s legislative snapback process would restore Congress’ much-needed oversight over Biden’s Iran policy.
*Gabriel Noronha is the executive director of the Forum for American Leadership and previously served as the State Department’s special adviser for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Iran Action Group. Andrea Stricker is a research fellow and Matthew Zweig is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow them on Twitter @GLNoronha, @StrickerNonpro, and @MatthewZweig1.

Iran's IRGC Quds Force head hints at group's power at home and Middle East
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/September 30/2021
Qaani's meeting with the Foreign Ministry is to show coordination between Iran's diplomats and officers.
Recent years have seen an ascendancy of key individuals linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran. The IRGC already has a parallel state in Iran, controlling parts of the economy and foreign policy, and building up new military technologies such as missiles, drones and attack boats.
According to the Tasnim News Agency, IRGC Quds Force head Ismail Qaani congratulated Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on his election as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a visit to the ministry.
Why does this matter? In the past, former IRGC Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani was seen as the “shadow commander” in reports, a figure who moved around the Middle East and pushed Iran’s agenda far and wide, but who did not often brag of his role. When the US killed Soleimani in a drone strike in January 2020, he was replaced by Qaani, a man of unclear abilities. Qaani was rumored to be an expert on Afghanistan, and it may be that his role there helped remove the US from Kabul this year, but his role in Iraq and Syria is not yet fully formed.
Nevertheless, the reports of his meeting at the Foreign Ministry seek to showcase his power and influence. In the meeting he emphasized “the special and significant position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in securing the national interests of our country,” the report said.
But why does the Ministry, previously run by Javad Zarif, who had fame in the West, need the blessings of the Quds Force? Because this illustrates the real power structure and how the ministry works hand in glove with the IRGC.
Zarif – although he postured as being close to the IRGC when necessary, and as a “moderate” when speaking to Western audiences – was not really close to Soleimani. Of interest here, the report says that Amir-Abdollahian, “while appreciating the valuable presence of Sardar Qaani in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed to the irreplaceable role of Soleimani in the fight against terrorism.” Iran uses the term “terrorism” to refer to ISIS and other extremists. “Today our region was different,” the minister apparently said. “If ISIS had succeeded in Syria and Iraq, it would have faced terrorism and extremism all over the world today.”
Why did they discuss ISIS? Because the Quds Force helped Iraq defeat the worldwide jihadist group. “Amir Abdullahian called the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a soldier without borders who has made a great contribution... to regional and global security and peace,” the report says. The minister said that today Iran seeks to follow in the path of Soleimani in the region, using the Quds Force to achieve its goal of extending “friendship with the countries of the region.”
It’s important to note here that he used the word “terror” several times and that Iran has recently accused Israel of “terror” attacks in Iran. Iran also bragged this week about defeating a “terrorist group” and other reports in Iran appeared to indicate that the Islamic Republic was angry at Azerbaijan, which it has accused of having close ties to Israel.
Iran’s top diplomat also accuses the US of “terrorism” and claims the US killing of Soleimani was “terrorism.” Pro-Iran groups often claim that America backs ISIS, even though it is fighting ISIS.
This means the Iranian use of the term “terror” is quite broad and may refer to Quds Force action against Israel, the US and other countries, as well as the battle against ISIS. Iran claims it is the “axis of resistance” in this framework. The publication of details of the Qaani meeting is intended to show that the new regime of Iran coordinates closely with the Quds Force.Iran’s IRGC Quds Force head hints at group’s power at home and Middle East
Qaani’s meeting with the Foreign Ministry is to show coordination between Iran’s diplomats and officers.