English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 10/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
First Letter to the Thessalonians 05/01-11/:”Concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‘There is peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 09-10/2021
Health Ministry: 680 new Corona cases, 3 deaths
Lebanon's National Electricity Grid Totally Collapses
Lebanon left without power as grid shuts down
Hizbullah Plane Hijacker Wanted by FBI Dies of Cancer
Army Chief meets with a delegation commissioned by US Department of Energy
FPM: Holding parliamentary elections in March is surprising & limits voter participation
Geagea: One of the first results of the arrival of Iranian fuel is the stopping of all power plants
If Lebanon gets gas from Egypt, Syria will be the biggest winner/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
New judge to take over Lebanon investigation of Lokman Slim killing/Sunniva Rose/The National/October 09/2021
La fin tragique d’une république bananière/Charles Elias Chartouni/Octobre 09/2021
Hezbollah’s role in the global drugs trade — the West Africa connection/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/October 09/2021
The Pandora Papers Open a Window On Hezbollah-Affiliated Businessmen/Diana Moukalled/Lebanese Writer and Journalist/Daraj/October 5, 2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 08-09/2021
Two Killed in Israeli Strike on Syria Base
Iran FM 'Optimistic' on Nuclear Talks if U.S. Plays Ball
INTERPOL reintegrates Syria in information exchange network
Athens ratifies defence deal with France, says it ‘shields’ Greece
Libyan rivals adopt plan for withdrawal of mercenaries
Turkish opposition closes ranks putting pressure on Erdogan
Morocco king urges new parliament to confront ‘external threats’
Assad's Uncle Returns Home from Decades-Long Exile

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 09-10/2021
Iran Regime's Hostage Taking: Where Are the West and the UN?/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute./October 09/2021
Growing relations between Turkey, Russia is concern for Israel - opinion/Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/October 09/2021
Pandora Papers: Leaks prompt investigations in some countries — and denial in others/Erin Cunningham and Ellen Francis/The Washington Post/October 09/2021
Biden and Xi have a chance to reframe their relationship/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/October 09/202

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 09-10/2021
Health Ministry: 680 new Corona cases, 3 deaths
NNA/October 09/2021
In its daily report on the COVID-19 developments, the Ministry of Public Health announced the registration of 680 new infections with the Coronavirus, which raised the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 629,561. The report added that 3 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Lebanon's National Electricity Grid Totally Collapses
Naharnet/October 09/2021
Lebanon's national electricity grid totally collapsed on Saturday, after the al-Zahrani and Deir Amar power plants stopped operating due to a lack of diesel, LBCI television said. The two power plants' separation from the grid lowered national power production to below 200 megawatts forcing the collapse. Lebanon's state-run electricity firm, Electricite du Liban, was meanwhile "conducting maneuvers to rebuild the national grid manually, amid the absence of the national control center which was destroyed by the Beirut port blast," LBCI added.

Lebanon left without power as grid shuts down
Agencies/October 09/2021
Lebanon has been left without electricity, plunging the country into darkness amid a severe economic crisis. A government official told Reuters news agency the country's two largest power stations, Deir Ammar and Zahrani, had shut down because of a fuel shortage. The power grid "completely stopped working at noon today" and was unlikely to restart for several days, they said. For the past 18 months Lebanon has endured an economic crisis and extreme fuel shortages. That crisis has left half its population in poverty, crippled its currency and sparked major demonstrations against politicians.
A lack of foreign currency meanwhile has made it hard to pay overseas energy suppliers. Lebanon country profile In a statement, Lebanon's state electricity company also confirmed the shutdown of the two power plants, which together provide some 40% of the country's electricity. Their closure led to the "complete outage" of the power network, the statement reportedly said, "with no possibility of resuming operations in the meantime".Al Jazeera reports protests in the northern town of Halba, outside the offices of the state power company, as well as residents blocking roads with burning tyres in the city of Tripoli.
Many Lebanese people already depend on private diesel-powered generators for power. These however have become increasingly expensive to run amid the lack of fuel, and cannot cover for the lack of a nationwide power grid. People were often receiving just two hours of electricity a day in the country before this latest shutdown. The country is also grappling with the aftermath of the Beirut blast in August 2020, which killed 219 people and injured 7,000 others. After the explosion its government resigned, leaving political paralysis. Najib Mikati became prime minister in September, more than a year after the previous administration quit. Last month the militant group Hezbollah brought Iranian fuel into the country to ease shortages. Its opponents say the group is using the fuel delivery to expand its influence.

Hizbullah Plane Hijacker Wanted by FBI Dies of Cancer
Agence France Presse/October 09/2021
A Lebanese man who is wanted by the FBI for his involvement in a 1985 plane hijacking died of cancer on Friday, a relative told AFP. Ali Atwi is among three Lebanese on a list of people sought by the FBI in connection with the June 14, 1985 hijacking to Beirut of TWA flight 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was tortured and murdered. "Ali Atwi died... of cancer," his relative told AFP on the condition of anonymity, without providing additional details. His whereabouts before his death remain unknown. Atwi is a member of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbullah.
The group said it will receive condolences for Atwi on Saturday in the southern suburbs of Beirut. It mourned him as one of its "loyal men." TWA Flight 847 was traveling from Cairo to San Diego with stops in Athens, Rome, Boston and Los Angeles. It was hijacked on June 14, 1985 after it took off from Athens. Over 17 days, TWA pilot John Testrake was forced to crisscross the Mediterranean with his 153 passengers and crew members, from Beirut to Algiers and back again, landing in Beirut three times before he was finally allowed to stop. The hijackers' demands included the release of Shiite Muslims held by Israel. On June 15, 1985 during the first stop in Beirut, one of the passengers, 23-year-old U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, was severely beaten, shot point blank in the head and his body thrown onto the tarmac. The United States had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on Atwi for his role in planning and participating in the hijacking. Washington has issued many charges against him, including air piracy resulting in murder and placing a destructive device aboard an aircraft.

Army Chief meets with a delegation commissioned by US Department of Energy
NNA/October 09/2021
Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, received at his Yarzeh office today a delegation from Tetra Tech Inc., commissioned by the US Department of Energy, accompanied by representatives of the US Embassy in Beirut. The meeting was devoted to discussing ways of providing assistance to the Lebanese Army in terms of training, equipment and enhancing its capabilities, with the aim of detecting dangerous materials.

FPM: Holding parliamentary elections in March is surprising & limits voter participation
NNA/October 09/2021
The Free Patriotic Movement’s political body indicated, in an issued statement following its periodic meeting held electronically today, chaired by MP Gebran Bassil, that “the proposal to hold parliamentary elections in March, instead of May 2022, is surprising and difficult to implement due to several circumstances and reasons, foremost of which is the impossibility of moving about in mountainous areas due to rain, snow and cold, particularly in light of the high fuel prices, alongside the difficulty of organizing the election day and the hindrances that may arise.”
“This limits the electoral campaigns and the participation of voters, and reduces the time needed to secure the requirements for the election of expatriates, not to mention the unconstitutionality of shortening the deadlines related to the disqualification regulations and the abolition of the right of thousands of eligible voters, unless some intend to reduce the participation rate deliberately,” the statement added. It continued to indicate that holding the elections at an earlier date will also coincide with the Christians and Muslims’ fasting during the months of March and April, expressing wonder at the reasons behind exposing the electoral process to all these risks and defects, while it can be conducted in the month of May within the constitutional deadline and outside the months of fasting and holidays. The FPM political council reminded that the electoral law currently in effect has consecrated the sixteenth constituency, which includes the six continents as a special constituency for expatriates to be represented in Parliament, as of the 2022 electoral round, whereby six deputies will be elected by the Lebanese Diaspora, without depriving expatriates the right to vote within their original constituencies if they so choose. “FPM will do all that is necessary to prevent the circumstantial interests and vote-winning calculations that some envisage through abandoning this legal, constitutional and strategic right of expatriates, which cost years of joint struggle by both the Lebanese expatriates and residents,” the council pledged in its statement. “The Free Patriotic Movement regrets that the parliamentary majority in the session of the joint committees canceled a basic reform approved by the election law, which is the magnetic card, with a clear tendency to prevent the establishment of mega-polling stations (megacentres), two reforms that would increase the percentage of voting and prevent any fraud or distortion of the electoral process,” the council statement went on, noting that megacentres also serve to increase liberty and transparency and reduce the impact of money and transportation costs. “FPM asserts that it will continue to press for the re-installation of these reforms, in line with the content of the electoral law and the intention of the legislator when it was approved in 2017,” the statement concluded.

Geagea: One of the first results of the arrival of Iranian fuel is the stopping of all power plants
NNA/October 09/2021
Lebanese Forces Party Chief, Samir Geagea, tweeted today on the issue of Iranian fuel, saying: "One of the first results of the arrival of Iranian fuel to Lebanon and the lifting of the American siege on it is that all power plants stopped operating due to lack of fuel…It is indeed a sincere promise!"

If Lebanon gets gas from Egypt, Syria will be the biggest winner
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
The plan, after all, gives Assad the regional and global recognition he has been desperate for.
While parties in Lebanon and the government of Syria celebrated a plan for pumping Egyptian gas to Lebanon, depicting it as a victory against their imperial enemies, first and foremost America, the plan was in fact American, designed as a “crisis management” measure to help mitigate the effects of a free-falling Lebanon. Controlled by a militia whose endless regional wars have killed economic growth, Lebanon has run out of foreign currency and therefore its imports of basic staples, including fuel, have dwindled to a crisis-inducing level. Without fuel, electric-power cuts have become endemic. Lebanese households now receive about two hours of electricity a day, thus increasing their reliance on small, private power generators. But these too have to find “fresh dollars” to buy diesel, while their customers settle their bills in the ever-devaluating national currency. Both dollars and diesel have become scarce.
Electricity cuts and diesel scarcity now threaten the work of important sectors of the economy, including healthcare. The American University of Beirut, whose hospital has been operating without interruption since 1860, in August issued a dire statement begging for help. The hospital said that without either uninterrupted state electricity or diesel, it would have to shut down vital medical equipment, which would cause the death, within days, of around 100 patients.
It was perhaps this plea that prompted the US embassy in Beirut to work on a plan involving importing gas from Egypt and electricity produced in Jordan with Egyptian gas, in order to avoid impending disaster. Ambassador Dorothy Shea called President Michel Aoun to tell him that her country had a plan and Aoun boasted that the electricity crisis was soon coming to an end. While details are still scant, the plan’s basic outline is to revive the “Arab Pipeline” that saw Egypt pump gas to Lebanon through Jordan between 2008 and 2010. According to former prime minister Fouad Siniora, Syria received the Egyptian gas in the south and supplied Lebanon from its reserves in the north. Of the dozen power plants in Lebanon, only three of them are powered by gas. All are in the northern town of Deir Ammar and can produce a total of 435 megawatts of power.
Shea also said that Washington would facilitate payments to Cairo, on behalf of Beirut, using World Bank assistance funds budgeted for Lebanon. On average, producing one gas-powered megawatt of electricity costs $50 an hour. If Deir Ammar plants operated on a 24-hour basis, Lebanon’s gas bill from Egypt will come up to roughly $200 million a year.
But 435 MW barely cover Lebanon’s electricity needs. Peak demand is estimated at over 3,000 MW. Deir Ammar will therefore supply only 15 percent of Lebanon’s needs, or the equivalent of three-and-a-half hours of electric supply a day, hardly a victory for the country’s ruler, Hezbollah, or its protege, Aoun. But then, better than that tanker full of Iranian fuel supposedly headed ultimately for Lebanese power plants, and how long would that oil last? So a double whammy against Hezbollah.
If the plan pans out, Lebanon will produce electricity for the needs of vital sectors, such as hospitals. Second in line will be public facilities, like the airport. Lastly, households might get an extra hour or two of power to the two they now receive. The Lebanese will keep suffering because of electricity cuts, but the US embassy would have at least avoided the shutdown of hospitals.
The American plan for Lebanon’s electricity still faces several hurdles. To start with, the gas has to go through Syria, which gives the Syrian government a say in the whole process. Plans for Jordanian-produced electricity seems now to have been dialed down. But that electricity would also have had to transit through Syria. The reason it is now only a “future” possibility, as the Lebanese energy minister put it, is because the grid in Syria needs repair.
Syria, however, is under US sanctions imposed on the Bashar Al-Assad regime. This means that the US plan requires the White House to file a waiver with Congress to suspend parts of the sanctions-imposing Caesar Act. In his recent visit to Beirut, Senator Chris Van Hollen said he and a number of his colleagues were working on ways to allow the Egyptian gas to pass through Syria.
Syrian officials have so far expressed their willingness to facilitate the US plan, even if Damascus does not get a cut. The plan, after all, gives Assad the regional and global recognition he has been desperate for. Once the pipes start pumping, the world will have a vested interest in keeping Al-Assad in place. Over the past half century, the regime has perfected the art of “being useful” to global powers, expecting favors in return.
For helping Lebanon with its electricity crisis, Washington will have to grant Assad some recognition and attention, a price the Biden administration seems willing to pay. The American plan will only marginally improve Lebanon’s electricity situation. How much it benefits Al-Assad is immeasurable.
Copyright: Syndication Bureau

قاضي لبناني جديد سيوكل له ملف التحقيق في جريمة اغتيال لقمان سليم
New judge to take over Lebanon investigation of Lokman Slim killing
Sunniva Rose/The National/October 09/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/103163/103163/
Inquiry was transferred in June from south Lebanon to Beirut, then halted.
The investigation into the killing in February of prominent Lebanese intellectual and Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim will start again later this month after a five-month break, a high-ranking judicial source told The National. Beirut First Investigative Judge Charbel Abou Samra is expected to hear plaintiffs’ claims on October 21, said the source.
Under Lebanon’s system, an investigative judge carries out pretrial inquiries into allegations of crime and in some cases makes a recommendation for prosecution. No accused party will be present because no one has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Slim, 58, who was found shot dead in his car on February 4 in south Lebanon on the side of a busy motorway near Saida city.
“We have been waiting for this the whole summer,” said Slim’s widow Monika Borgmann. “Things are moving forward.”
Neither the family nor their lawyer Moussa Khoury had been officially notified of the hearing at the time of writing, but the judicial source said that this should take place on Monday. Lebanon has been suffering for the past two years from a crippling economic crisis the has caused the near-collapse of public services, including the state power utility.
Legal proceedings are delayed.
The investigation was put on hold after being transferred from Saida city, to Mr Abou Samra in Beirut in June, at the request of state prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat.
Mr Abou Samra had a choice between taking over the investigation himself or handing it over to another judge. A lawyers’ strike and a two-month judicial holiday, which happens annually, were major factors in the five-month interruption in the probe.
Mr Khoury said that such transfers of an investigation may take place when a judge believes that public safety is at risk. This could include protests or public displays of anger triggered by controversial cases.
Hezbollah, which Slim’s family believes is responsible for his death, has a strong influence in south Lebanon. Legal experts previously told The National that the first judge to work on Slim’s death, Rahif Ramadan, was close to Hezbollah’s political ally the Amal Movement. Mr Ramadan denies this.
Information gathered by Mr Ramadan has been transferred to Mr Abou Samra, who can also work with documents provided by Slim’s family and ask for assistance from the local police or another judge, said the judicial source. Hezbollah, which also has a powerful national and regional militia, has repeatedly rejected accusations that it is linked to Slim’s killing.
Yet a report recently published by Lebanese media watchdog Skeyes shows that high-profile pro-Hezbollah journalists led a Twitter campaign to vilify Slim shortly after his death. They both denigrated Slim as an irrelevant commentator and accused him of collaborating with the US and Hezbollah’s arch-enemy Israel.
Slim, who co-ran a local NGO with his wife, had been receiving death threats for more than a decade. In December 2019, after threats were placarded directly on his home’s walls, Slim wrote that the leaders of Hezbollah and its ally Amal should be personally held responsible if something happened to him. Slim lived in a Hezbollah controlled southern suburb of Beirut, home to his family for more than a century.
His killing added to a list of political assassinations in Lebanon, a grim phenomenon that some trace back to the start in 1975 of a bloody 15-year civil war, when Saida-born politician Maarouf Saad became the first prominent victim.
Killers are rarely found or jailed. Activists often criticise what they call Lebanon’s “culture of impunity and political interference” in judicial processes.
UN human rights experts called in March for the Lebanese government to ensure a “credible and effective investigation” into Slim’s death, writing that authorities should consider embedding a unit of international experts to advice and support local probes into political assassinations.

شارل الياس الشارتوني: النهاية المأساوية لجمهورية الموز
La fin tragique d’une république bananière
Charles Elias Chartouni/Octobre 09/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/103153/charles-elias-chartouni-la-fin-tragique-dune-republique-bananiere-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84/
Le simulacre gouvernemental, la tutelle iranienne et le démantèlement systématique de l’État libanais récapitulent de manière sommaire la situation politique au Liban. Il est désormais inutile de s’appesantir sur les intrications politiques des oligarques qui affichent leur vraie couleur, celle d’être la courroie de transmission d’une mainmise directe de la république islamique iranienne. La visite du ministre iranien des affaires étrangères et les démarches tapageuses du régime iranien ne font que répercuter la vélocité d’une politique de mainmise qui ne s’embarrasse plus de mise en scène, de détours, ou de reconnaissance formelle d’une soi disant république libanaise, la politique du Hezbollah a fini par cannibaliser le Liban sans autre forme de procès et par réduire à néant la fiction étatique. Somme toute, il n’y a plus de vie politique libanaise et tout l’ébruitement en cours n’est que théâtre d’ombre qui ne renvoie qu’aux vides d’une vie politique éviscérée et dépourvue de toute substance.
La nature intercalaire de la vie politique libanaise dénote une évolution inquiétante dans la mesure où on assiste pour la première fois à la mort des dynamiques endogènes de la vie politique libanaise au profit d’une annexion de fait qui s’effectue par l’entremise d’une politique de subversion pilotée par le régime islamique iranien. La crise endémique de la souveraineté libanaise est un fait historique largement étayé durant le centenaire mouvementé de la république libanaise, mais ce qui la distingue, à l’heure actuelle, c’est la mise à mort progressive de toute velléité de résistance et des cadres institutionnels de la vie politique libanaise qui n’existe plus que par prétérition. Le présumé compromis entre l’oligarchie sunnite et le Hezbollah s’avère illusoire dans la mesure où il n’a servi que de relais à la mainmise chiite via la formation d’un gouvernement de pantins qui ne sont, en réalité, que les mandataires d’une occupation de fait.
La déficience congénitale de ce gouvernement ne fait qu’entériner les réalités des condominiums alternatifs qui ont scandé la république de Taef (syro-saoudien, syrien, iranien, turc), et annoncer le début d’une nouvelle phase de liquidation de l’entité nationale libanaise au bénéfice d’une nouvelle géopolitique inchoative qui évolue au gré de la politique expansionniste de l’Iran. L’absence d’un programme de réformes aux articulations et échéances précises ne font que révéler la nature intérimaire et fallacieuse de ces formations gouvernementales alternées, dont le but est de dissimuler les stratégies de l’ombre qui projettent l’effondrement insidieux d’une république déboulonnée.

Hezbollah’s role in the global drugs trade — the West Africa connection
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/October 09/2021
When Saudi Arabia banned the import of Lebanese produce in April because these shipments were being abused to smuggle narcotics into the Kingdom, Hezbollah found itself with a problem.
Following the collapse of the Lebanese and Syrian economies, Assad family mafiosi and Hezbollah set about remodeling their nations as narco states — world production centers for the amphetamine-based drug Captagon, a favorite among partygoers and terrorist groups. Syria’s Captagon trade is estimated to be worth over a billion dollars a year.
Captagon production had become established in areas such as Homs and Aleppo, but given Syria’s extreme dysfunction, many major factories have been reconsolidating themselves along the Lebanon-Syria border, particularly in Hezbollah strongholds such as Qusair and the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon’s former Justice Minister and security chief, Ashraf Rifi, describes a “partnership between Hezbollah and the Syrian side in terms of manufacturing and smuggling” Captagon. This is in addition to Syria and Lebanon becoming favored routes for heroin, crystal meth and hashish.
Since the GCC shipping ban, Hezbollah has resorted to diverting these illegal shipments via transit states to obscure the country of origin, once again exploiting its connections with the worldwide Lebanese diaspora. West Africa has become a preferred option, with 450,000 Captagon pills turning up at a port in Lagos, discovered as a result of Saudi-Nigerian cooperation. GCC authorities have also discovered millions of Captagon pills in West African shipments of cocoa, with Syria almost certainly the original point of production.
This isn’t the first time Hezbollah has embroiled West Africa’s Lebanese communities in the narcotics trade. During the 2000s, Hezbollah and Iran found themselves with a different problem: Thanks to President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s outreach to Latin American states, Hezbollah began reaping billions of dollars from cocaine, but it had no means of repatriating these funds to Beirut and Tehran. It hit on an ingenious idea: Investing the money in tens of thousands of second-hand American cars that were then shipped to Benin, where hundreds of Lebanese expats set themselves up in the West African car market. The proceeds from these sales were then repatriated to Lebanon.
In a dying nation where so many have lost the will to live, “Hizb Al-Shaitan” has made deadly narcotics more affordable than baby milk.
Cote d’Ivoire has an 80,000-strong Lebanese diaspora who dominate about 50 percent of the economy, while Hezbollah-affiliated mafia elements play major roles in the narcotics trade. Cote d’Ivoire is a major transit point for money laundering, with numerous instances of youths beig stopped trying to carry suitcases containing millions of dollars back to Lebanon. Other West African states such as Guinea, Togo, the Congo, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, have played pivotal roles in Hezbollah operations, involving money laundering, weapons proliferation, drugs and organized crime.
One 2021 calculation suggests that this activity nets the group about $1 billion a year, probably in the same ballpark as the stipends Hezbollah receives from Iran. With the annual worldwide narcotics trade worth about $500 billion, this could be a gross underestimate. As Lebanon’s economy continues its remorseless slide, the day may come soon when this Hezbollah black economy comes to dominate Lebanon’s markets, with the risk that country permanently descends into being a narco state.
Iran and Hezbollah are meanwhile involved in millions of dollars’ worth of weapons shipments, to Yemen, Africa, Iraq, and a host of other war-wracked states. Thus we have a perfect storm, with the narcotics trade being used to fund terrorism and paramilitarism. Yet still I encounter a remarkable lack of curiosity about these issues among diplomats and journalists.
This comes at a time when Tehran is saber rattling on its northern frontiers in the Caucasus region. Following a succession of assassinations of nuclear scientists and “mysterious” explosions at sensitive Iranian sites, today Tehran sees Mossad agents under every rock. The ayatollahs have become intensely paranoid about Azerbaijan and Israel’s close defense relationship, and have recently begun engaging in provocative military exercises on their shared border. They have long feared that Baku could arouse separatist sentiments among the vast Azeri population in northern Iran.
The consequences of Hezbollah provoking a ban on exports of Lebanese agricultural produce to major regional markets are massive, and will ruin the lives of farmers who, like most citizens, have been devastated by economic disintegration and the collapse in the currency’s value. Just as in Afghanistan, impoverished farmers turned to growing heroin, which bankrolled the Taliban’s return to power; it is as if Hezbollah is doing everything in its power to transform Lebanon into an economy based on the wares of death. The high-profile visit to Beirut by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is a reminder of how Lebanon’s embroilment in Tehran’s economic orbit means embracing pariah statehood.
In a dying nation where so many have lost the will to live, “Hizb Al-Shaitan” has made deadly narcotics more affordable than baby milk. Lebanon’s Mediterranean location makes this historical trading nation the perfect outlet for deluging European markets with narcotics, while Hezbollah’s continued involvement in the Latin American cocaine trade is perhaps the closest Tehran will get to achieving its slogan of “Death to America.”
The world shouldn’t wait for Lebanon’s compromised and dysfunctional justice system to solve this problem. Legal cases against a smattering of Lebanese drug-dealers are risible — people jailed for laundering a few hundred capsules! It would seem that the major players are trying to eliminate the small-scale competition.
By tackling this threat head on, the world not only prevents millions of lives being irreversibly ruined, but it can also prevent the funneling of billions of dollars of drug revenues into terrorism and paramilitarism. So why this international failure to address the fact that the Hezbollah-Tehran nexus has become by far the world’s most globalized network for criminality and terrorism?
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

The Pandora Papers Open a Window On Hezbollah-Affiliated Businessmen
Diana Moukalled/Lebanese Writer and Journalist/Daraj/October 5, 2021
Two businessmen under US sanctions for allegedly supporting Hezbollah appeared in the Pandora Papers., which triggers that most complex and ambiguous of questions: the one related to Hezbollah's finances …
“The aura surrounding me is a lie,” Saleh Assi mumbled, while shaking his head.
He was referring to his image being a wealthy Lebanese businessman with suspicious ties between, among other countries, Lebanon, Congo and France, and his alleged laundering of large sums of money on behalf of Hezbollah. According to him, he is “politically targeted.”
Assi is sitting in his luxurious apartment in the Platinum Tower, Lebanon’s most expensive building overlooking the Beirut waterfront, where Prime Minister Najib Mikati also resides. Assi and his family spend most of their time there, as US sanctions hamper most of his cross-border business.
In 2019, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Assi and several other Lebanese businessmen. They stand accused of raising funds and laundering money on behalf of Hezbollah, which the US classifies as a terrorist organization.
Assi’s name also features in the Pandora Papers, which have revealed a wealth of information about the offshore secrets of numerous world leaders and public figures. Assi’s name appears as the sole beneficiary of Veriolia Holdings Ltd.The leaked documents from Trident Trust, one of 14 external service providers that were the source of the Pandora Papers, contain an email exchange between Trident Trust and someone at the British bank Barclays, who in 2013 asked Trident to close the company owned by Assi. The company was dissolved a year later.
It is not clear why the company was opened, and closed. However, it is in itself not a strange procedure in order to avoid the tax authorities. It is a legal procedure too, although it raises questions about the aims of establishing such companies, whether their aim was to disguise specific activities or names.
In his interview with Daraj, Assi denied the company belonged to him, and he denied any link with the leaked documents. However, he did not deny establishing offshore companies “to evade taxes.”
Number One ClientsAssi was one of the many Lebanese names mentioned in the Pandora Papers. In fact, the Lebanese were Trident Trust’s number one clients, a selective group who chose tax havens to either hide and protect their wealth from fees and taxes or from oversight regarding the names they are associated with.
Another name mentioned in the Papers was that of Lebanese businessman Kassem Hojeij, who also features on the US sanctions list.
It is remarkable that so many Lebanese personalities went into a frenzy to invest their wealth away from the public eye, while millions of Lebanese are struggling to collect their life savings, which are held in banks following the great financial collapse in 2019. This collapse was caused by the corruption of the ruling elite, which put over half of the Lebanese population under the poverty line. Indeed, the same corruption caused the huge explosion that destroyed the city’s waterfront in August 2020.
Yet, the sectarian political structure hindered all accountability mechanisms. Here the fact emerges that a large number of influential politicians and businessmen benefit greatly from tax havens, while in a bankrupt and devastated country most citizens struggle to obtain the basics of life, such as electricity, fuel and medicine.
Saleh Assi
Who is Saleh Assi?
The biography of Saleh Assi, who is in his fifties, contains many paradoxes. He grew up in a poor and leftist Shiite family in southern Lebanon. Several family members were affiliated with the Communist Party. His father was a policeman.
Poverty was widespread among Lebanon’s Shiites, who generally lived on the margin of the wave of prosperity Lebanon witnessed in the 1960s and 70s. The wealth in the time was mainly concentrated in the hands of the Christians and, to a lesser extent, Sunnis.
After the Civil War, however, as Hezbollah grew in strength with Iranian support and Lebanese Shiites expanded abroad, the status quo gradually changed, and today there is a strong Shiite financial elite present in the country.
Assi recalled his poverty and the poverty of his direct environment. “The Shiites used to work efficiently, now look what they’ve become,” referring to the irony of the fact that he lives in Lebanon’s most expensive building, which offers a home to many wealthy Shiites.
In the mid-1980s, Assi traveled to Italy to complete his engineering studies. There he started working as a translator for merchants, before entering the trade sector himself and seeing his business grow to reach Congo and Angola.
People familiar with Assi’s career path link him with suspicious trade activities between Italy and Africa and claim he benefited from forging ties with ruling African elites, which contributed to his flourishing business. Many Lebanese in Africa did.
But Assi ridicules such stories and emphasizes his work is legal and transparent. The sanctions targeting him, he claims, are either politically motivated or stem from his competitors. Assi sees himself as a success story: a young man from a poor family who managed to rise above and be someone.
Assi is a prominent name in the food business in Congo, where media reports indicate that he sets the price of bread. He is even known as the “King of Bread,” as he owns a huge industrial bakery in the capital Kinshasa. “I was poor and I thought wealthy people were dirty,” he told Daraj.
“I did not eat meat in Lebanon in those days. I did eat it in Italy, a country I love and consider ‘my’ country. Now I work in bread. I work with flour and fish. A kilo, for example, costs a dollar, but I sell it for $2. In Marxism this is unacceptable, but ultimately, this is work.”
Assi categorically denies all accusations regarding money laundering for Hezbollah and is trying to lift the sanctions levelled against him, which is an extremely complicated procedure in the US. He complains that the sanctions have caused numerous obstacles for him and his family.
“This is slander,” he said. “I want to prove my innocence. If my son wanted to open a bank account he couldn’t, due to sanctions.”
In the past few years, several media reports have linked Assi to other key figures who have been placed under sanctions, including Adham Tabaja, regarding whom the US have issued a $10 million reward for information.
Sanctions were imposed on Assi based on allegations he worked for Tabaja and thus Hezbollah. Yet, Assi claims his financial dealings through Lebanese banks are fully transparent. Turkish media reports in early 2020 linked him to businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, with whom Assi allegedly partnered to avoid sanctions. Korkmaz was arrested in Austria on charges of money laundering and wire fraud. He was extradited to Turkey last August.
Korkmaz is wanted in the US for the same reasons.
In his interview with Daraj, Assi admitted his friendship and acquaintance with Korkmaz, but denied trying to use Turkey as an alternative arena to do business. Several Turkish media, however, published documents proving Assi’s partnerships in Turkey.
Assi claimed Korkmaz’s problems are solely due to US restrictions.
Kassem Hojeij
Kassem Hojeij is a well-known and wealthy Lebanese businessman. In 2015, he too was targeted by US sanctions for allegedly supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraq. Videos on YouTube and other platforms show many of him and his family on social occasions with political figures and songs of his “generosity” and “patriotism.”
Hojeij is considered a pillar of the Lebanese expatriate community. He was head of the Lebanese community in Gabon and consul of Gabon in Lebanon. He is also mayor of Deir Antar in the district of Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon.
The Hojeij family owns several investments in Lebanon, most notably the Coral Beach Hotel and MEAB Bank.
According to the US Treasury statement accompanying the sanctions: “Hojeij helped open bank accounts for Hezbollah in Lebanon and invested in the infrastructure used by Hezbollah in both Lebanon and Iraq.”
The Pandora Papers show that Hojeij is the sole director and owner of a private airline called Comet Jet S.A. The company was registered in the British Virgin Islands in 2009, using MEAB bank statements in the correspondence.
Comet Jet is a member of Phoenix XXVI Aviation alongside Lebanon’s Imperial Jet, which recently lost an international arbitration case against the Lebanese state. The Lebanese authorities alleged Imperial Jet was operating unsafely, while the company argued its license was revoked for political reasons.
This raises the question if Comet Jet and Imperial Jet are related. The question seems logical, especially since there is no public trace of Comet Jet.
We did not find a website for it, and it is unclear what happened to it.
Daraj tried contacting Hojeij but did not receive an answer.
A Collar of Diamonds
The presence of Lebanese businessmen allegedly linked to Hezbollah in the Pandora Papers raises that most complex and ambiguous of questions: the one related to Hezbollah’s finances and its influence standing within the Shiite community, which, under Iranian patronage, has undoubtedly grown since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1991
The question regarding Hezbollah’s network of funding only gains importance in the context of the financial collapse Lebanon is witnessing under an authority almost completely sponsored by Hezbollah. The latter stood as an impenetrable dam protecting the reign of President Michel Aoun during the 2019 wave of protests, and prevented many of the ruling political elite from being held accountable on corruption charges, especially those responsible for the Beirut Port explosion.
During the ongoing and worsening crisis, Hezbollah launched and supported several charitable initiatives for low-income families, thus turning an institution as Qard al-Hassan into the largest microfinance organization in the country. In September 2021, Hezbollah imported Iranian fuel via Syria in an attempt to deal with the escalating fuel crisis in Lebanon.
Joseph Daher
In an interview with Daraj, Joseph Daher, who teaches at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and wrote the book The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God, said that the party presented such social services as part of “a jihad against the blockade imposed by the US” and “a political victory”
The party has strengthened such networks to respond to the socio-economic needs of the environment it operates in. However, such measures have contributed to the consolidation of its role as a statelet within the state.Yet, strengthening its influence within the Shiite community is not complete without the Shiites of the diaspora. The rise of the party in the last two decades, and its expansion across the borders, made it easier to include the social and financial network of Shiites in Africa and Latin America.
There are no clear or official figures on Hezbollah’s finances. Estimates speak of a budget of up to a billion dollars annually, which to a large extent goes to covering the salaries of the organization’s some 100,000 employees, making Hezbollah Lebanon’s second largest employer after the state.
Hezbollah’s financial transactions are mostly done in cash, as the banking system is monitored or subject to sanctions. It is therefore hard to estimate the exact size of such transactions, but those we met in the context of this investigation confirm that the routes of Hezbollah’s cash bags pass by Lebanon.
There is no doubt that the largest support for Hezbollah stems from Iran. But with the ongoing sanctions restricting its movement, the party continues to search for other sources of funding. Hence, it appears that Hezbollah has strengthened its influence in and ties with the Shiite diaspora, especially in West and Central Africa, where it has established an important network among businessmen.
Researcher Daher pointed at the intertwined relationship between Hezbollah and Lebanese Shiite businessmen.
“With the growth of Hezbollah in the country over the past decade, it was seen by the Shiite bourgeoisie in Lebanon and the diaspora as the best option to best serve the country’s interests,” he said. “The sanctions imposed on the party and some businessmen, for obvious reasons, prompted many to hide any such links. At the same time, due to Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon, others rushed to deal with the party to take advantage of contracts and other benefits.”
Kassem Tajeddine
Some well-known names were sanctioned by the US, including the Tajeddine family, who own real estate, dealt in diamonds, and established supermarkets and food processing companies in Angola, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Congo. Companies in West Africa owned by businessmen close to or affiliated with Hezbollah play a role in financially supporting the party through formal and informal schemes. Activities include import, export, used cars trade and real estate.
In 2020 the US released one of the most prominent punished Shiite businessmen, Kassem Tajeddine who had been detained on charges of money laundering for Hezbollah. He was released in unclear circumstances. He suffered from poor health and paid a high fine. Media have reported that Tajeddine’s release was part of a swap, which saw former Lebanese-American national Amer Fakhoury released in Lebanon. Fakhoury stands accused of being a torturer in the notorious Khiam Detention Center during the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.
Tajeddine seems to have a prominent position within Hezbollah, which would explain the party’s acceptance of Fakhoury’s release, while ignoring the widespread anger that erupted among Lebanon’s Shiites as a result. Upon his release, Tajeddine received a huge reception in Beirut. He is still in Lebanon, but remains out of the public eye.
Joseph Daher believes that talk about Hezbollah’s dependence on a network of Shiite businessmen for funding is exaggerated.
“The main financial support comes from Iran, in particular the Wilayat al-Faqih, the Ayatollah Khamenei Foundation, which is funded separate from the general Iranian budget,” he said. “Iranian funding is a necessity for Hezbollah, especially with the escalating sanctions and the growing activities of the party in Lebanon and elsewhere. The networks of Shiite businessmen affiliated with the party serve the same purpose.”
The general impression of Hezbollah, among many of its supporters and opponents, is that the party is not corrupt. Nothing is known about its leaders’ wealth and they do not prominently display it, which over the years has attracted a lot of support. Unlike the Shiite Amal movement, it moved the party closer to the left. In recent years, however, resentment has grown over Hezbollah’s perceived role as a pillar in consolidating Lebanon’s corrupt system.
However, Mohanad Hage Ali, a resident fellow at the Malcolm Kerr-Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, does not believe the overstated “leftism” of the party has any actual foundations.On the contrary, according to him, the organization has adopted a neoliberal economic policy and has allied with merchants and corrupt politicians. The Hezbollah-allied merchants who built their fortune in Africa, often lack the education and required know-how to integrate or compete globally, so they present little value to their communities and private sectors.
The Framework of Hezbollah’s Power
Perhaps this partially explains why the Shiite community continues to have limited influence in most sectors, from industry and tourism to finance. Hage Ali believes that both dominant Shiite parties, Amal and Hezbollah, remain hostile to traditional Shiite bourgeoisie and elite.
“The wealthy are roughly divided into two groups, those who descended from traditional elites (landowners and merchants) and the newly rich, the nouveau riche, mostly migrants to Africa,” Hage Ali explained.
“The former group is far removed from the whole equation, from the economy and politics, locally and nationally, as the Shia duo has completely seized the public space. Under the pretext of confronting America and Israel, and amidst a narrative of endless conspiracies, repression prevails, and is relatively higher than in other sectarian communities. To maintain control, the guiding concept for Hezbollah is ‘popular security,’ with the organization’s supporters acting as informants against any form of dissent.”
“Such a state of affairs confines all forms of progress in the Shia community to Hezbollah, its military power and political influence,” he added. “This is why it represents a very blunt, and unsustainable social force, with little impact on people’s livelihoods and welfare.”
Nazim Saeed Ahmed
Diamonds, Art and … Resistance
The feeling of social and political rise due to Hezbollah military prowess in confronting Israel during the 2006 war, and the party’s growing influence, is quite common among the wealthy Shiites who have emerged in the past two decades, and who are trying to balance their political relations within Lebanon with their activities outside of it.
“I am proud I am from south Lebanon, where 70 years ago few had clothes on them” said Nazim Saeed Ahmed in an interview with Daraj in his luxurious apartment in downtown Beirut, which he turned into a kind of museum that is filled with so many valuable paintings and antiques that hardly a wall remains empty.
Ahmed dwells on the struggle of his family, and how his grandfather immigrated from his hometown of Haris in southern Lebanon to Africa, due to poverty at the beginning of the last century. He remembers how much his father suffered there before he started the diamond trade in Sierra Leone, which became the family’s trade between Africa and Belgium, also a major headquarters in the diamond trade.
Ahmed’s father suffered a lot before he started working in the diamond trade in Sierra Leone, which became the family’s main trade with Belgium, a major center in the global diamond trade.For his work in the diamond trade Ahmed moved a lot between Africa and Belgium, where he obtained citizenship, and where he started collecting and selling art works.
However, according to the US Treasury the latter is just a front to launder millions of dollars for Hezbollah, which was the reason to impose sanctions on Ahmed. In a statement, the US Treasury even accused Ahmed of “personally” providing funds to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
Nazim smiled when asked about these charges and did not comment about his relationship with Nasrallah or any other leaders of Hezbollah. He reduced the charges to being part of a war against the Shiites.
Ahmed’s story as a “major Hezbollah donor” began when his business started to boom. He blamed the campaign against him on “Belgian intelligence reports” of “pro-Israel figures.” “The success tax started after the year 2020. At the time, we were selling about $450 million a year. This upset a lot of people and the battles against us started.”
“They investigated me, and I was disavowed in Belgium. They accused me of financing Hezbollah and inciting sectarian strife. Whoever did this is a Belgian Jewish intelligence officer who is loyal to Israel. I have Jewish friends who are not with Israel and some of them are against Israel. This is the work of Mossad. The report was published in Belgian newspapers, after which a fact-finding committee was held on the Congo and a report was issued by the United Nations that we fund Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. This is nonsense, because the two organizations are against each other. It took years before the file finally closed.”
The file’s closure in Belgium did not stop accusations being levelled against him, especially following his increased activities in the world of art.
The art market is particularly vulnerable to dodging sanctions, as it offers buyers and sellers a high degree of anonymity with little transparency, according to the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Often brokers and shell companies are used to buy or sell precious works and to make and receive payments, which allows the people behind the scenes to remain anonymous.
“Ahmad stores some of his personal funds in high-value art in a pre-emptive attempt to mitigate the effects of US sanctions, and he opened an art gallery in Beirut, Lebanon, as a front to launder money,” thus OFAC justified the sanctions.
Ahmed does not hide his passion for collecting art. He continuously uploads photos of his “treasures” on his Instagram page, which has some 190,000 followers. Through it he conducts interviews with his followers and artists in many countries.
Ahmed is proud of his collection that is spread around his house, and he likes receiving visitors.
He draws attention to several pieces by Spanish artist Javier Calinga. “I bought 8 of his paintings for 7000 euro each. Today, his paintings cost around one and a half million euros,” he said.
Despite Ahmed’s passion, the American accusations claim he merely chose art as a cover.
The issue of art and money laundering has been widely discussed for a while, especially as commercial art transactions cannot be controlled, often the identities of sellers and buyers, not even their whereabouts, are not revealed, while the value of art is relative in nature and therefore easy to inflate. Consequently, this could easily allow for speculation, the transfer of large sums of money, and the spread of fraudulent business.
Ahmed is aware of the suspicions. “They punished me with art. A law was made afterwards because of me about art,” he said referring to sanctions and restrictions imposed on him by the US.
In Ahmad’s house art, and talking about art, seems a family affair, as his eldest daughter Hind owns an art gallery in downtown Beirut, “I made my children love art,” he said. “God gave me an eye to see art.”
Rima, Ahmed’s wife and the mother of his six children, said that ever since they lived in Belgium she has been taking her children to museums. “My husband has a passion for art,” she said. “From early morning to late at night, whenever he has time, my husband looks at art. In Belgium, we used to go to museums all the time. We satisfied the eyes of our children with art.”
Apart from having a connection with art, Ahmed has connections with many of the Hezbollah financiers classified as such on the US sanctions lists, including Kassem Tajeddin and Mohamed Bazzi. Sanctions even link him to Saleh Assi, Adham Tabaja and Qassem Hojeij in the case of buying a $240 million land, which Washington considers a front for Hezbollah. It was one of the reasons to issue sanctions against him.
“I know everyone in the country,” said Ahmed. “I reside here and I have relations with everyone.”
“I bought lands which made Walid Joumblatt and Saad Hariri crazy angry, and accused Hezbollah of purchasing. But I mean isn’t it ridiculous for Hezbollah to need to buy land in order to send missiles to Palestine? I bought the land. Kassem Hojeij and I did. I had $150 million, and I asked Hojeij to pay the rest.”
“Shiites are being targeted,” he added. “I am known in the country and I do not work with anyone. I don’t work with gasoline, nor with oil.”
Politics and Money
The relationship with Shiite businessmen took on a more complex dimension ever since the power sharing between the sect’s two main political poles came into play: the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. It is true that Hezbollah has the strongest presence, but it left a key margin for its ally, Parliament Speaker and Amal leader Nabih Berri, whose name, and those of his family members, are associated with illegal enrichment.
Perhaps the case of Saleh Assi and the Lebanese judiciary is an example of the intertwined relationship between politics and money in Lebanon and the distribution of roles between the two Shiite poles. In 2018, Assi was accused of assaulting a Lebanese person and threatening him in Congo. The case was registered in Beirut, a false address of Assi was included in the case papers. The general security issued a sign at the airport to arrest him upon entering Beirut, a measure that prompted Assi not to return to Lebanon for about a year and a half, until the Court of Cassation annulled his case in 2020.
The story has a basic background, but it is not talked about publicly. It is an example of how the Shiite duo Amal and Hezbollah hold the keys to wealthy Shiites by providing facilities on the one hand and taking on the cost on the other hand.
A prominent businessman familiar with the Assi case spoke to Daraj, asking not to be named. He put the case of his prosecution in Lebanon down to tension in the relationship between Assi and Ahmed Baalbaki, Berri’s security advisor. In a country rife with corruption and sectarianism, it was not difficult to file charges against Assi .
“If Assi truly was affiliated with Hezbollah, would anyone dare threaten him?” said the businessman. “Here you have Wafiq Safa [a senior Hezbollah official [ threatening Judge Bitar [investigating the Beirut Port explosion]). If Assi was funding the party, he would not have to be absent from Lebanon for more than a year. And he would not be living out of sight, avoiding public appearances.”
This brings us back to a parallel fact, which is that the sanctions are more complex than the relationship of Shiite businessmen with Hezbollah, even if they do not deny them, and even if the US administration itself is not far from what these riches represent in terms of corruption and bartering. And resorting to “offshore” companies is nothing but an acceptance of the current financial system, led by America in ways of circumventing sanctions, but also in accepting to hide the sources of wealth.
Saleh Assi’s Response to the Pandora Papers
We received businessman Saleh Assi’s statement regarding the investigation that was published.
Here it is below without any edits in its language or content, alongside Daraj’s comment on what was stated in his response.
Mr. Assi’s Statement:
“If you wanted to kill someone, spread a rumor about him.”
This is exactly what happened to me by some media sources, behind the guise of press investigations about what was reported about me in the Pandora Papers, which are not considered credible in the first place.
A correspondent came to me from Daraj, through one of my acquaintances, under the pretext that I should respond to documents and information related to what Pandora Papers published about me and others (I was surprised when she arrived that she did not carry any of those documents with her).
At first, I explained to her all about my industrial activity as founder and owner of the largest mills and bakeries in Africa, the most modern with highest quality of production, comparable to the best mills and bakeries in Europe. I explained that all my industrial and commercial activities are characterized by absolute transparency and respect for the law, as well as honesty in business, and that thanks to this I succeeded as a Lebanese immigrant on the African continent.
In her report, the reporter mentioned incorrect things about me, and the tone adopted by her was one aimed at discrediting me.
What she added from her imagination, which I did not say, requires the following clarifications:
1. She mentioned many things that are not true and even strange, and it will suffice here to give one example, which was her claim that I confessed to her frankly that I evaded taxes.
Is it conceivable that a person with his full mental powers utters words of this kind in which he incriminates himself while he is innocent?!… Is this reasonable?…
2.The reporter fully revealed her real role. Presenting rumors as facts, starting with the title of the report in which she claimed that I was affiliated with Hezbollah. It is also clear here that she intends to offend me exclusively, knowing that I have previously denied this and that everyone knows that I have nothing to do with Hezbollah or any political party, and that I grew up secular and am still secular.
3. The correspondent was not satisfied with that, but also tried to link me with the crimes of corruption that destroyed Lebanon at all levels, that were committed by the corrupt political class, which I was never a part of nor a partner to any of its symbols. I used to visit my beloved country Lebanon only a little, spending most of my time following up with my work as an industrialist in the mills and bakeries sector.Within my institutions hundreds of Lebanese work alongside thousands of their African brothers, and the truth is that what I achieved, thanks to my Lord and prayers from my parents, is a career path of success in every sense of the word: For a self-made Lebanese immigrant, to become the object of fierce competition to large and powerful mills and bakeries, at a time when corruption was eating away at the Lebanese state and preventing it from taking any actual interest in the Lebanese expatriate.
4. It is unfortunate today that organizations and institutions claiming to be media are participating in a campaign to destroy the successful Lebanese expatriate society, in parallel with the destruction of the resident Lebanese society.
5. It suffices for me to be honored that everything I do is done with complete transparency, and this is what my African brothers, their love for me and my devotion to them, testify to.
6. In view of what the reporter, the author of the aforementioned article, did with an intentional distortion of our reputation, we reserve the right to review the competent judiciary to ward off any slander against us.
Finally, we thank God that most Lebanese media professionals are honest and do not slander nor participate in the destruction of the resident and expatriate Lebanese society…
Daraj’s Response: In the investigation, we used the phrase “affiliated with Hezbollah” and not the phrase ‘a member of Hezbollah’ or ‘close to Hezbollah’. The term ‘Mahsoub’ (affiliated) means that someone considers him connected to Hezbollah, and here we mean specifically the US administration, which imposed sanctions on him for this reason.
*Daraj will not participate in a debate regarding Mr. Assi’s responses, but we stand by the accuracy of what has been published.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 09-10/2021
Two Killed in Israeli Strike on Syria Base
Agence France Presse/October 09/2021
An Israeli missile strike on an airbase in central Syria has killed two Damascus-allied foreign fighters and wounded several Syrian service personnel, a Britain-based war monitor said on Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the two foreigners were killed in the raid on the T4 airbase late Friday, but their nationality was not immediately clear. The official Syrian news agency SANA earlier said that, "at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT), the Israeli enemy... fired a volley of missiles towards the T4 military airport.""The aggression wounded six soldiers and led to some material damage," it added. The Observatory said the attack targeted a drone depot at the base. Contacted by AFP, an Israeli army spokesperson said the military did not comment on foreign media reports. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out air strikes inside Syria, mostly targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hizbullah forces allied to the Damascus regime, as well as Syrian government troops. The Israeli army rarely acknowledges individual strikes but has said repeatedly that it will not allow Syria to become a stronghold of its arch-foe Iran.

Iran FM 'Optimistic' on Nuclear Talks if U.S. Plays Ball
Agence France Presse/October 09/2021
Iran is optimistic talks on reviving a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with major powers will bear fruit, provided the U.S. fully resumes its commitments, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said. The deal, which gave Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program, has been on life support since 2018, when then U.S. president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out and reimposed crippling sanctions. U.S. President Joe Biden has signalled a willingness to return to the deal, but his Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned last week that time was running out and the ball was in Iran's court. Amir-Abdollahian said Iran was looking for concrete signs from the US that it was ready to resume all of its commitments but said he was confident a deal could be done if it was. "It is important that we receive signals from the other side, including from the United States, showing that they are intent on returning fully to their commitments," the minister told a news conference in Beirut. "We are assessing the behaviour of the United States. If it reflects a full return to their commitments, we can be optimistic about the Vienna talks." The talks in the Austrian capital between Iran and the remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- have been on hold since a June election in Iran led to a change of president. New President Ebrahim Raisi -- an ultraconservative former judiciary chief -- is thought to be less ready than his predecessor Hassan Rouhani to make concessions to the West for the sake of a deal. Tehran has gradually rolled back its nuclear commitments in response to the US pull-out, and Washington has been demanding that Iran return to its obligations too. The United States has had no seat at the Vienna talks but has been participating indirectly. Amir-Abdollahian said in Moscow on Wednesday that he expected the talks to resume "soon". "We are coming back to the Vienna talks," the minister said. "We are nearing a final decision within the Iranian government. It is very important to the new government that the interests and rights of the Iranian people be fully guaranteed in the talks. We will not waste our time in negotiations."

INTERPOL reintegrates Syria in information exchange network
The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
The move by INTERPOL to allow Syria access to informational networks has aroused disquiet among some activists.
LYON--International police organisation INTERPOL on Thursday said it had reintegrated Syria into its information exchange network, lifting restrictions imposed on President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2012.
The curbs were introduced against the background of international sanctions against Damascus over abuses by the regime in the early phase of the Syrian civil war. “In line with the recommendation from the General Secretariat headquarters, INTERPOL’s executive committee endorsed that corrective measures applied to Syria be lifted,” an Interpol statement said. The move means that Damascus can directly receive and send messages from other INTERPOL national offices. These access rights had been suspended since 2012. The statement emphasised that it was incorrect to state that Syria had been readmitted to INTERPOL as it has been a member country since first joining in 1953. The recommendation to lift the “corrective measures” was made following close monitoring of messages from Syria’s national INTERPOL office, it said. Individual national INTERPOL offices still have the power to decide with which other countries to share information, the statement said. It added that Syria does not have the power as a member state to issue international “Red Notice” arrest warrants, though it can, like any member state, request the general secretariat of INTERPOL to do so. All requests are subject to a thorough compliance review, it added. Despite such assurances, the move by INTERPOL to allow Syria access to information networks has aroused disquiet among some activists. Human Rights Watch Syria researcher Sara Kayyali described it on Twitter as a “a dangerous development” saying “despite claims to the contrary” there was a history of Red Notices being misused by “repressive governments to make politically-motivated arrests.”The French foreign ministry also declined to endorse the move. “As long as the Syrian regime continues to fuel instability, the humanitarian crisis and the risk of terrorism, France will remain opposed to the normalisation of relations with Damascus and to any easing of the sanctions regime,” it said in a statement, adding Paris would reaffirm this position at Interpol’s general assembly next month.

Athens ratifies defence deal with France, says it ‘shields’ Greece
The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
“In the event of an attack, our country will have the backing of the strongest army on our continent,” the Greek prime minister said.
ATHENS--Greece’s parliament on Thursday ratified a landmark defence deal with France for the purchase of three French warships with an eye to confronting Turkish challenges in the Aegean. French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis say the agreement benefits both the EU and NATO by promoting security in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. Turkey, which has an uneasy history and relationship with its fellow-NATO neighbour Greece, has criticised the agreement as threatening “regional peace and stability”. The deal was backed by 191 MPs in the country’s 300-member assembly. It got support from the ruling New Democracy party, Socialists, Movement of Change and junior nationalist party Greek Solution. Mitsotakis told parliament that the deal “shields” Greece “in a troubled Mediterranean”, saying that Athens had been trying to secure such an agreement since 1974, when Turkey invaded neighbouring Cyprus which has a majority Greek-Cypriot population. “In the event of an attack, our country will have the backing of the strongest army on our continent,” the prime minister said. The three Belharra frigates are to be delivered starting from 2025, in a deal to be finalised by the end of this year to the tune of €3 billion ($3.5 billion). The main opposition left-wing Syriza party, which voted against the deal, has questioned clauses that require Greece to support French military operations in the war-torn Sahel in Africa and vowed to change this if it comes to power.
It also expressed doubts over whether the deal means France would provide support if there was a conflict between Greece and Turkey over its maritime zones. Party leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras says the agreement embroils Athens in “particularly dangerous adventures” abroad and increases defence outlays at the expense of the health budget during the coronavirus pandemic. A Greek diplomatic source this week called the conflict-ridden Sahel “a potential time bomb for the Mediterranean”. In September 2020, Mitsotakis unveiled Greece’s most ambitious arms purchase programme in decades after a dangerous standoff with Turkey over hydrocarbon resources and naval influence in the waters off their coasts. A month earlier, Turkey had sent an exploration ship and a small navy flotilla to conduct seismic research in waters which Greece considers its own under postwar treaties. In contrast to other EU and NATO allies, France strongly backed Greece and Cyprus at the time, sending warships and fighter jets to the eastern Mediterranean.

Libyan rivals adopt plan for withdrawal of mercenaries
The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
The roadmap for the departure of mercenaries is key to helping Libyans “regaining their sovereignty.”
TRIPOLI--A military commission made up of rival camps in Libya’s conflict has agreed on a roadmap for the departure of foreign fighters, the United Nations said Friday after talks in Geneva. The so-called 5+5 committee “agreed on, and signed a comprehensive Action Plan, which will be the cornerstone for the gradual, balanced, and sequenced process of the withdrawal of mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces from Libyan territory,” the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said in a statement. The plan is key to helping Libyans “regaining their sovereignty and integrity, maintain the peace, stability and security of their country,” it added, urging UN member states to implement the plan. A decade-long conflict in Libya has drawn in multiple foreign powers, complicating efforts to draw a line under a decade of bloodletting since 2011. The UN estimates that 20,000 mercenaries and foreign fighters are deployed in Libya, including hundreds of mercenaries dispatched by Turkey from Syria, Russians from the private security company Wagner as well as Chadians, Sudanese and others.
A UN report released on Monday revealed that all sides, “including third states, foreign fighters and mercenaries, have violated international humanitarian law… and some have also committed war crimes.” The world body last October oversaw a landmark ceasefire deal between eastern and western factions and along with Libya and several other countries, has repeatedly called for the departure of foreign forces. The October agreement included a 90-day deadline for the withdrawal of foreign forces, but that has long passed with little sign of their departure. Libyan Foreign Minister Najlah al-Mangoush earlier this month announced a “very modest start” to the withdrawal of foreign fighters from the North African country. The UN’s envoy Jan Kubis on Friday welcomed the latest deal as “another breakthrough achievement” by the 5+5 committee. The October 2020 ceasefire brought to an end a fierce year-long battle sparked by Libyan National Army military chief Khalifa Haftar’s bid to seize the western capital, Tripoli. His bid was thwarted by the Government of National Accord forces backed by Turkey.

Turkish opposition closes ranks putting pressure on Erdogan
The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
Opinion polls show the AK Party on around 31-33%, down from 42.6% in the 2018 parliamentary election.
ISTANBUL--Six Turkish opposition parties are stepping up collaboration in their bid to unseat Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party at elections due by 2023, raising pressure on the president as opinion polls point to dwindling support for his ruling alliance.
Broadening the coordination which helped them deal a blow to Erdogan at 2019 local elections, the parties held a third meeting on Tuesday and plan weekly meetings to agree shared principles by year-end, those involved in the talks said. “The opposition in Turkey is trying something that has never been tried before: getting united to confront the government,” political commentator Murat Yetkin said.
Support for Erdogan’s government is ebbing amid criticism of its handling of economic woes such as high inflation and unemployment, the COVID-19 pandemic and forest fires and floods. Opinion polls show the AK Party on around 31-33%, down from 42.6% in the 2018 parliamentary election, and its nationalist MHP ally on 8-9%, down from 11.1%, levels which would lead to Erdogan losing control of parliament at the next election. The opposition talks aim to identify shared principles, rather than agreeing a presidential candidate, with the goal of ditching the presidential system of government introduced in 2018 and returning to a parliamentary system, participants said. IYI Party deputy chairman Bahadir Erdem said they agreed to focus on issues such as independence of the judiciary, media and academia, and laws concerning political parties and elections, with the aim of boosting the separation of powers and democracy.
“These six parties coming together is giving people hope. Instead of divisiveness, there is togetherness, uniting on common ground,” Erdem told Reuters, contrasting it with what he said was the polarisation under two decades of AKP rule. CHP deputy chairman Muharrem Erkek, who also attended the talks, said Turkey was being “dragged to the edge of a precipice” by the presidential system, which puts far greater powers in the hands of the head of state. “Citizens’ problems are worsening under this one-man system… A strengthened parliamentary system will inspire confidence,” he said. Senior AK Party deputy Bulent Turan dismissed the talks on restoring the parliamentary system as “reactionary”, saying the new system worked well and had reduced political instability. Worries for Erdogan  An alliance of the right-wing IYI Party and the centre-left CHP led to Erdogan’s AKP losing control of Istanbul and Ankara municipalities in 2019, shattering his image of invincibility. Since then, the government has faced growing economic and political challenges, and its handling of them has triggered rare expressions of concern in pro-Erdogan media. Sabah newspaper columnist Dilek Gungor questioned the government’s success in communicating its achievements, such as major infrastructure projects over the last 20 years. “Unfortunately, the government cannot even motivate its own base despite all these services and huge projects,” she wrote. One-time allies of Erdogan are among the leaders of parties involved in the opposition talks, with ex-prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Future Party and ex-economy minister Ali Babacan’s Deva Party taking part. However the talks do not include the second biggest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP, which has said it is not seeking to join any alliance. Polling consultancy Konda’s general manager Bekir Agirdir said left-wing and Kurdish voices needed to be involved in discussions if they aim to boost democracy. “If the opposition does not look from the perspective of pluralism, it may win the election… but this change may create new and bigger chaos as it does not solve the country’s real social problems,” he told the T24 media outlet.

Morocco king urges new parliament to confront ‘external threats’
The Arab Weekly/October 09/2021
King Mohammed VI urged lawmakers to focus on “consolidating Morocco’s standing.”RABAT--Morocco’s King Mohammed VI urged the country’s new parliament on Friday to defend the country’s sovereignty and “stand up to external threats” amid “challenges and risks” in the region.
Addressing lawmakers a day after he named a new government, the king urged them to focus on “consolidating Morocco’s standing and the defence of its supreme interests, especially in a context charged with challenges, risks and threats.”He did not specify the threats or their source, but the North African kingdom has been locked in a deepening crisis with neighbouring Algeria, which in August cut diplomatic ties following mounting tensions over Western Sahara. Morocco claims sovereignty over the former Spanish colony, a position backed by Washington since a deal last year that also saw Rabat normalise ties with Israel. Algeria backs the separatist Polisario Front, which seeks control over the territory and has declared a 30-year-old ceasefire with Morocco “null and void.”King Mohammed called Friday for measures to secure self-sufficiency in foodstuffs, medical supplies and energy “to strengthen the country’s strategic security.”“The Covid-19 crisis has shown that sovereignty issues are, once again, front and centre,” the king said, adding that each country “is striving to preserve sovereignty in various domains, be it in relation to health, energy, industry, food or other sectors.”“In this regard, our national needs should be regularly updated in order to enhance the country’s strategic security,” he added. The king’s speech via video link came a day after he announced the cabinet of incoming prime minister Aziz Akhannouch, who trounced incumbent Islamists in September elections but will face pressing economic issues exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The king said the economy was set to grow by 5.5 percent in 2021, after a seven percent recession last year in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic. He called on Akhannouch to lead “national effrts” to overcome the crisis and push forward a programme to bring healthcare to 22 million of the country’s 36 million population by 2025.

Assad's Uncle Returns Home from Decades-Long Exile
Agence France Presse/October 09/2021
The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has returned home from 36 years of exile to dodge arrest in France, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported. Rifaat al-Assad, 84, arrived in Damascus on Thursday, al-Watan said on its Facebook page, nearly a month after a Paris appeals court upheld a four-year prison sentence issued against him last year for misappropriating public funds in Syria, laundering the spoils and building a vast property portfolio in France with ill-gotten gains. Formerly Syria's vice president, Rifaat al-Assad left his home country in 1984 after mounting a failed coup against his brother Hafez, who led Syria from 1971 to 2000. "In order to prevent his imprisonment in France ... President Assad rises above what Rifaat al-Assad has said and done and allows him to return to Syria," al-Watan said. Rifaat is not expected to take up any political role, al-Watan added. Dubbed the "Butcher of Hama" for his alleged role in putting down an uprising in central Syria in 1982, Assad has been under investigation in France since 2014. He was tried for crimes allegedly committed between 1984 and 2016, including aggravated tax fraud and misappropriation of Syrian funds. A Paris court last June dismissed charges against Assad for the period 1984 to 1996, but found him guilty of organized laundering of funds embezzled from the Syrian public purse between 1996 and 2016. He was also convicted of tax fraud. Last month, the Paris appeals court upheld the verdict against him. He may not have to serve in prison given his advanced age, but the confiscation of his French real estate assets, worth an estimated 90 million euros ($106 million), ordered at his initial trial, will now go ahead. His French fortune includes two townhouses in chic Parisian neighborhoods, a stud farm, about 40 apartments, and a chateau.
Assad and his family also built up a huge portfolio of properties in Spain, valued at around 695 million euros, which were all seized by the authorities in 2017.

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 09-10/2021
Iran Regime's Hostage Taking: Where Are the West and the UN?
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute./October 09/2021
In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.
Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother.... Amid the ongoing nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and world powers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps court sentenced her to yet another year in prison in April 2021.
American citizens held as prisoners in Iran include Iranian-Americans Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and businessman and conservationist Emad Shargi. Shargi's family has pleaded with the Biden administration to help free him.
Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.
Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother, who, along with her then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family for Nowruz, and was arrested as she was about to board a plane to return home to the UK. Pictured: Richard and Gabriella Ratcliffe, the husband and daughter Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff, during a news conference in London on October 11, 2019.
In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.
Some of the foreign hostages in Iran come from Western countries, including the United States, France, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother, who, along with her then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, after the nuclear deal had been reached and sanctions against the Islamic Republic had been lifted. As she was about to board a plane to return home to the UK, she was surrounded by officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and arrested.
Amid the ongoing nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and world powers, the IRGC's court sentenced her to yet another year in prison in April 2021.
American citizens held as prisoners in Iran include Iranian-Americans Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and businessman and conservationist Emad Shargi. Shargi's family has pleaded with the Biden administration to help free him. "Our family has been torn apart. My husband has been taken," his wife, Bahareh Shargi, told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan. Shargi's daughter, Hannah, said:
"The image I'm just working towards is having him walk through our front door. Like, that is all I want. And that is what I dream about... him coming home, walking through the door, like, surprising us. And then I wake up, and it's, of course, a dream."
Imprisoning foreign nationals is generally under the control of Iran's hardline judiciary system. The head of the judiciary, also known as the Chief Justice of Iran, is directly appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The judiciary system, in other words, requires the Supreme Leader's approval to make decisions about foreign prisoners and hostages.
It is no secret that Iranian authorities use foreign citizens as bargaining chips and pawns for extracting economic concessions or receiving political and financial gains, as well as to swap prisoners. This has been the policy of the theocratic establishment since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, starting on the first day of the establishment of the Islamic Republic with the US Embassy takeover in Tehran and 52 Americans being held hostage for 444 days.
The regime releases hostages only when it has achieved its political, economic and ideological objectives. The Obama administration, for example, transferred $1.7 billion in cash to Iran in exchange for releasing several Iranian-American citizens.
Currently, the regime most likely sees foreign nationals held in its detention as a powerful means of leverage to gain an upper hand in any nuclear talks.
Foreign nationals are also held in extremely difficult conditions. They generally have no access to due process, are routinely denied a lawyer, and are often held in solitary confinement. According to the Human Rights Watch report for 2021:
"Iranian courts, and particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court. Authorities have failed to meaningfully investigate numerous allegations of torture against detainees. Authorities routinely restrict detainees' access to legal counsel, particularly during the initial investigation period.
"The IRGC's Intelligence Organization continues to arrest Iranian dual and foreign nationals on vague charges, such as 'cooperating with a hostile state.'"
Recently, a hacking group calling itself Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) leaked videos of Iran's prisons, some of which revealed abuse, including beatings and unspeakable treatment of detainees carried out by the authorities at the notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are held. "We will continue to expose the oppression," that the Iranian government is "inflicting on people," the group said.
Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Growing relations between Turkey, Russia is concern for Israel - opinion
Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/October 09/2021
As Ankara engages in outreach to avoid diplomatic isolation, Jerusalem is likely to be wary.
At a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed the growing links between Moscow and Ankara. The Sochi talks came after Erdogan failed to secure a meeting with US President Joe Biden on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Speaking to reporters after the meeting with Putin, Erdogan noted that he had proposed that Turkey work together with Russia on the construction of two more nuclear power plants on Turkish soil. The Russian company Rosatom is currently building a power plant in Akkuyu, in southern Turkey. The Turkish president also said last week that Turkey still intends to purchase a second supply of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia. The purchase of the system by Turkey last year led to US sanctions on Turkey’s Defense Industry Directorate, and the cancellation of Turkish reception of the F-35 fighter jet.
In an interview with the CBS network, quoted by Reuters, the Turkish president said that “In the future, nobody will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defense systems we acquire, from which country and at what level.”The US State Department, responding to Erdogan’s statement, warned that any additional purchase of Russian defense systems would risk triggering additional sanctions.Erdogan’s statements confirm the Turkish tilt toward Russia, and Ankara’s growing estrangement from Washington.
The latest Turkish moves also reflect a contradiction at the heart of Turkish regional strategy, between an immediate desire to avoid isolation, and the deeper strategic goal of unilateral regional assertion and support for Sunni political Islam which are part of the core outlook of Erdogan and those around him. The understanding of this contradiction is likely to determine Israeli responses to Turkish diplomatic moves.
The Turkish move toward Russia is not only determined by Ankara’s declining relations with Washington. There is anger and concern in Turkey regarding a recent major naval defense deal between France and Turkey’s traditional rivals, Greece. The $5 billion deal, according to which Greece commits to the purchase of three Belharra frigates and three Gowind corvettes from France, will serve to sharply advance Greek defense capabilities in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, at a time when tensions between the two countries over disputes in these areas are increasing.
The French-Greek naval deal follows an agreement last year in which Athens committed to the purchase of 18 fourth generation Rafale fighter jets, for $2.5 billion. Taken together with the assertive French stance against Turkish moves in the Eastern Mediterranean, these major defense deals cement a strategic alliance between France and Greece. France is now committed to come to Greece’s military aid if requested. Erdogan’s statements confirm the Turkish tilt toward Russia, and Ankara’s growing estrangement from Washington.
The latest Turkish moves also reflect a contradiction at the heart of Turkish regional strategy, between an immediate desire to avoid isolation, and the deeper strategic goal of unilateral regional assertion and support for Sunni political Islam which are part of the core outlook of Erdogan and those around him. The understanding of this contradiction is likely to determine Israeli responses to Turkish diplomatic moves.
The Turkish move toward Russia is not only determined by Ankara’s declining relations with Washington. There is anger and concern in Turkey regarding a recent major naval defense deal between France and Turkey’s traditional rivals, Greece. The $5 billion deal, according to which Greece commits to the purchase of three Belharra frigates and three Gowind corvettes from France, will serve to sharply advance Greek defense capabilities in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, at a time when tensions between the two countries over disputes in these areas are increasing.
The French-Greek naval deal follows an agreement last year in which Athens committed to the purchase of 18 fourth generation Rafale fighter jets, for $2.5 billion. Taken together with the assertive French stance against Turkish moves in the Eastern Mediterranean, these major defense deals cement a strategic alliance between France and Greece. France is now committed to come to Greece’s military aid if requested.Erdogan’s statements confirm the Turkish tilt toward Russia, and Ankara’s growing estrangement from Washington.
The latest Turkish moves also reflect a contradiction at the heart of Turkish regional strategy, between an immediate desire to avoid isolation, and the deeper strategic goal of unilateral regional assertion and support for Sunni political Islam which are part of the core outlook of Erdogan and those around him. The understanding of this contradiction is likely to determine Israeli responses to Turkish diplomatic moves.
The Turkish move toward Russia is not only determined by Ankara’s declining relations with Washington. There is anger and concern in Turkey regarding a recent major naval defense deal between France and Turkey’s traditional rivals, Greece. The $5 billion deal, according to which Greece commits to the purchase of three Belharra frigates and three Gowind corvettes from France, will serve to sharply advance Greek defense capabilities in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, at a time when tensions between the two countries over disputes in these areas are increasing.
The French-Greek naval deal follows an agreement last year in which Athens committed to the purchase of 18 fourth generation Rafale fighter jets, for $2.5 billion. Taken together with the assertive French stance against Turkish moves in the Eastern Mediterranean, these major defense deals cement a strategic alliance between France and Greece. France is now committed to come to Greece’s military aid if requested.With major disputes extant between Athens and Ankara over air and sea rights in the Aegean, and drilling rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is not hard to see why the direction of events has Turkey rattled, nor why Erdogan is looking around for new partners. The US is engaged in a general drawdown in the region. Greece has been active in efforts to ensure Washington of its firm pro-US alignment in any emergent strategic competition with Russia. US anger over the Turkish purchase of Russian military equipment and over human rights violations, along with other US alliances, make Washington unavailable as a partner for Turkey’s regional ambitions.
Turkey, however, is not in a position simply to exchange Washington’s patronage for Moscow’s. On a number of key regional files, Ankara and Moscow too are on opposite sides. In Libya, Turkey supports the Tripoli-based, Muslim Brotherhood associated Government of National Accord. In Syria, crucially, Turkey underwrites a remaining area of Sunni Islamist control in the northwest of the country. Moscow, meanwhile, backs the Tobruk-based authority of General Khalifa Haftar in eastern Libya. Moscow is also committed to the Assad regime’s recovery of sovereignty over the whole of Syria. Shelling and air attacks by the regime and the Russians on the Turkish enclave have increased sharply in recent weeks, even as Turkish-Russian diplomacy advances.
TO COUNTER its potential isolation, Turkey is therefore seeking rapprochement with a number of additional regional players from which it became estranged in recent years. Efforts at Turkish diplomatic outreach are under way toward the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and, notably, Israel.
A second round of talks between Egyptian and Turkish officials took place in Ankara in September. Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Cairo in 2013, furious at the military coup that removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in Egypt that year. Regarding the UAE, Erdogan spoke by telephone with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed last month.
Regarding Israel, President Isaac Herzog to much media fanfare spoke with Erdogan in July. Little of substance has emerged since this call. But Israel will need to consider carefully the wisdom and benefit of any possibly short-lived rapprochement with Turkey, when set against the deeper direction of events. This is so not only with regard to Israel’s developing strategic ties with Greece, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France, countries which have taken and are likely to continue to take a continued stance of firm opposition to Turkish ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean.
As Turkey continues its path of decoupling from its Cold War set of alliances, Israel may well wish to consider Ankara’s ongoing stance concerning events west of the Jordan River.
The Israeli security establishment considers Iran and its ambitions to represent the main threat to Israel’s security. An additional key long-term strategic challenge facing Israel, however, is the near parity of populations between Jews and Arab Muslims west of the Jordan. The main advantages Israel enjoys in this regard are its advanced economy and civil society, its unified state structures, and the division of the Arab population into four different political dispensations (Hamas-controlled Gaza, the Ramallah Palestinian Authority, Jerusalem, and pre-1948 Israel). Maintaining this division is a vital Israeli interest.
The only serious challenge to the maintenance of this situation in the medium to long term is the mobilizing symbols of Sunni Islam, and organizations seeking to make political use of these. Turkey, largely below the radar screen, has been energetically engaged in recent years in seeking to gain advantage in this area. Through “Dawa” (welfare-religious activities) via TIKA (Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency), property purchases and support for Islamist activism in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, through financial contributions to Hamas-controlled Gaza, and through domiciling and granting citizenship to Hamas operatives on Turkish soil, Ankara seeks to cast itself as the protector of Islamic holy places, and the patron of the long struggle against Israel.
There are few indications of this effort bearing significant results at the present time. But it looks set to continue for as long as the Muslim Brotherhood-associated AKP and Erdogan remain in power in Turkey. Ankara’s ongoing efforts in this area, its increasing estrangement from Washington, its moves toward Russia and its direct opposition to Israel’s closest and emergent regional allies mean that imminent rapprochement between Turkey and Israel is unlikely, and excessive effort toward it is futile and probably inadvisable, for the foreseeable future.

Pandora Papers: Leaks prompt investigations in some countries — and denial in others
Erin Cunningham and Ellen Francis/The Washington Post/October 09/2021
Days after The Washington Post and partner news outlets published a series of stories based on the Pandora Papers, a trove of more than 11.9 million documents exposing the secretive financial dealings of the world’s elite, more than eight countries have promised investigations. But not all of them have been as eager to look into the findings. Some governments whose nationals and politicians feature prominently in the records have instead gone the other way, doubling down on the denials, dismissing the revelations or ignoring them altogether.
JORDAN
Authorities appear to have tried to curb scrutiny in some places, such as Jordan. One of the key revelations included in the documents was the more than $100 million that King Abdullah II spent on luxury homes in London, California and other locations, hiding transactions through a network of offshore accounts. Jordan, with scant resources, relies heavily on U.S. funds. Most media outlets there avoided covering the leaks and the one that did ended up getting a swift call from Jordanian intelligence requesting that the story be removed from the site, according to the journalist who wrote it.
The royal court blasted media reports on the papers as “a threat to His Majesty’s and his family’s safety.” Its statement added that the king bought the residences with his own money, calling them neither “unusual nor improper.”“None of these expenses have been funded by the state budget or treasury,” it said. And the king told tribal leaders at a gathering that he had nothing to hide.
RUSSIA
Several Russian outlets covered the leaks but the Kremlin was quick to dismiss the reports as “groundless.” Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the allegations were “hard to understand” and did not merit investigation. The cache exposed assets stashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, including the purchase of a waterfront apartment in Monaco by a Russian woman who reportedly had a child with the longtime leader.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which obtained the records, identified hundreds of offshore companies with 4,400 beneficial owners who were Russian — more than any other nationality. They include 46 Russian oligarchs.Despite the evidence, however, the Kremlin has insisted that no secret riches were uncovered. “We didn’t see any hidden wealth of Putin’s inner circle there,” Peskov said. “We haven’t seen anything special thus far.”Meanwhile, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, seized on the Pandora Papers to highlight reporting that South Dakota now rivals some of the world’s most notorious tax havens as a harbor for foreign money.
UKRAINE
The Pandora Papers named 38 Ukrainian politicians — the most out of any country — but President Volodymyr Zelensky, who campaigned as an anti-corruption candidate, has yet to respond to the investigation.
The leaks disclosed that Zelensky, a former comedian, and his partners in show business owned multiple offshore companies, including at least one that was involved in the purchase of several properties in central London.
Just before his election, Zelensky transferred his stake in one of the companies registered in the British Virgin Islands to an associate who later became the president’s top aide.An adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff said Monday that the Ukrainian leader established the offshore network in 2012 to “protect” the income generated by him and his associates in the entertainment industry under the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych. “Journalists have de facto confirmed the president’s absolute respect for the standards of anti-corruption legislation,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podoliak, told Agence France-Presse.
LEBANON
In Lebanon, the papers have fueled the belief that the ruling elite enriched themselves while the rest of the nation sank into its worst-ever economic crisis.Six Lebanese nationals were named in the leaks, including Prime Minister Najib Mikati, his predecessor and the central bank governor. But few there are convinced that the government, whose corruption and negligence led last year to a deadly explosion of ammonium nitrate at the port in Beirut, will pursue allegations of financial impropriety.
The investigation revealed that the billionaire Mikati, now one of Lebanon’s richest men, used a Panama-based company to purchase a property in Monaco for more than $10 million in 2008. He recently formed a government that is in desperate need of foreign aid.
“Not all wealth is necessarily accumulated at the expense of public interest and the needy,” he said in a statement, adding that he had disclosed his offshore assets to authorities.The previous prime minister, Hassan Diab, also denied wrongdoing after the files showed that he set up an offshore shell company in the British Virgin Islands.“Is founding a company against the law?” Diab said, adding that he reserved the right to sue anyone trying to defame him.
BRITAIN
British officials have so far sought to downplay the revelations — or fired back at critics calling for further investigation. The cache raised questions about London’s role as a global hub for tax avoidance. It also named a number of donors to the Conservative Party who have been linked to corruption schemes in other countries. Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak said that the Revenue and Customs Department would review the information “to see if there is anything we can learn,” but defended Britain as having a “very strong” record when it comes to stamping out tax evasion.
Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, laughed off questions about whether his party plans to return the funds from potentially corrupt donors, saying that all donations were vetted according to the rules.
“I’ll go and have a look at it if I have time,” Johnson said when asked by a reporter for comment on the Pandora Papers. He then made a dig at former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was also named in the documents.
Blair and his wife, Cherie, have defended their 2017 decision to purchase an $8.8 million townhouse through the acquisition of an offshore company that was partially owned by a Bahraini minister.
The move saved the couple from paying more than $400,000 in taxes.
*Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report.

Biden and Xi have a chance to reframe their relationship
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/October 09/2021
Perhaps the most important remaining meeting in international relations this year is neither the G20 summit or the COP 26 climate conference, but the newly announced encounter between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
Since Biden’s inauguration the US and Chinese leaders have spoken only twice, in February and September, in what has been a frosty start to their relationship. A key question is whether the third Biden-Xi session may presage a thaw in ties as part of an ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the countries. In support of this claim, Biden said last week that he and Xi had discussed Taiwan, where China has stepped up its military maneuvers. The US president says Beijing agreed to “abide by the Taiwan agreement, and we made it clear that I don’t think he should be doing anything other than abiding by it.” Biden appeared to be referring to Washington’s longstanding “one China” policy under which it recognizes China, diplomatically, rather than Taiwan. However, this agreement also allows Washington to maintain a robust unofficial relationship with Taipei, selling arms as part of the Taiwan Relations Act which states that the US must help the island defend itself. That aside, expectations around the meeting are already being played down, but it will nevertheless set the tone for the world’s most critical bilateral relationship for at least the remaining three years of Biden’s term of office. This is because, while economic and security fundamentals will largely determine the course of ties in coming years, personal chemistry could also be key.
The importance of this personal factor was shown during the Trump era when the US president’s erratic nature accentuated the natural volatility in ties. During the Obama years, by contrast, when Biden was vice president, the fact that relations remained generally cordial reflected, in significant part, the commitment of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama to bilateral stability. While Biden was a key part of the Obama team, he knows that the dynamics of the relationship have changed significantly since then. This is not just because of the controversies of the pandemic, and the extra uncertainty injected by Trump. Many of China’s policies that the US finds troubling, including Hong Kong and the South China Sea, were a feature of the Obama era too.
A key question is whether the third Biden-Xi session may presage a thaw in ties as part of an ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the countries. And the Obama team’s constructive engagement with China did not produce many of the longer-term desired results in terms of shaping Beijing’s behavior. Both sides will put these issues on the table when Biden and Xi meet, with the goal of forestalling significant further tensions. The inbuilt hazards in the US-China landscape that could cause tensions in coming years include legislation requiring the US Commerce Secretary to deliver a “Report on Chinese Investment” in the US to Congress and the Committee on Foreign Investment every two years up to 2026. It singles out Chinese investment as a security threat, and homes in on Beijing’s “Made in China 2015” plan. This law, and others, sowed the seeds for potential future strife, with the Chinese Defense Ministry asserting that they “abound in Cold War thinking, exaggerates the level of the China-US confrontation ... undermine the atmosphere of development of China-US military ties, and damage China-US mutual trust and cooperation.”
With the two sides far apart on many key issues, the meeting is an opportunity to size each other up and gauge intent. This is true just as much for Beijing as for Washington, as Xi tries to get a better sense of what Biden’s election means for relations. For all of the new US president’s indications that he might row back some of Trump’s overt hostility to China, he has yet to reverse any of his predecessor’s key policies. Amid all the (mainly security-related) disagreements, what remains unclear is the extent to which the Biden team may seek to work with Beijing in areas where there are clearly defined common interests, such asclimate change. Tackling global warming is a key political priority of both nations, both before and after November’s COP 26. If measures in such areas can be agreed, it would show that US relations with Beijing need not inevitably head in a direction of greater tension. Instead, it may yet indicate that there is still potential to evolve a strategic partnership to underpin a renewed basis for relations in the post-pandemic era.
*Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics