English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 27/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.september27.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut
Book of Revelation 03/07-13: “‘To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens: ‘I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 26-27/2022
Parliament approves 2022 state budget with 63 votes
Bou Saab says Hochstein's written proposal expected this week
US official says resolving Lebanon-Israel border dispute a priority for Biden
Lebanon: US proposal for maritime border deal with Israel to be sent by end of week
Israel, Lebanon Near Agreement on Mediterranean Gas Field
Mikati expected to meet Aoun Tuesday over govt. formation
Berri lauds Daryan's speech, says president election 'more than necessary'
Lebanese banks reopen partially after weeklong closure
'I need my salary': Anger as Lebanese banks reopen
Retired servicemen try to storm parliament in protest at state budget
Ship with Ukrainian corn, vegetable oil docks in Lebanon
Lebanon retirees scuffle with police near Parliament as MPs approve budget
Lebanon retirees scuffle with police near Parliament as MPs approve budget
Desperate Lebanese will continue to risk all to flee/Chris Doyle/Arab News/September 26/2022
Hope in Lebanon will never die/Ali Qassem/The Arab Weekly/September 26/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 26-27/2022
Canada to lift border vaccine requirements, use of Arrive
Canada sanctions Iran morality police as protests flare
Iran protests flare for 10th night as tensions grow with West
Analysis: Latest Iran protests likely not last for Tehran
Amid protests, Iran's Guard strikes Kurdish groups in Iraq
Iran vows to crush women-led protests with ‘no leniency’ as unrest enters 10th day
4-Iran accuses U.S. of trying to use unrest to undermine country
U.S. May Allow Payment to Iran for Hostages
Death toll in Russia school shooting rises to 15
Inside the Ukrainian Counterstrike That Turned the Tide of the War
Ukraine war: Images show 10 miles of queues as Russians flee Vladimir Putin's call-up to fight
Putin's mobilization draws public blowback, especially in minority regions
Putin’s Top Cheerleaders Panic Over Russian Army ‘Mutiny’
Orthodox Church leader says Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine will be cleansed of sin
Head of Russian church tells soldiers that death in Ukraine will cleanse their sins
Desperate Russian Shoots Recruitment Officer Instead of Signing up to Fight in Ukraine
Tunisian mayor held after fruit seller suicide
Renewed militia clashes rock western Libya; 5 killed
Muslim Brotherhood’s Qaradawi, who endorsed suicide bombings against Israelis, dies

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 26-27/2022
Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests/Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The Dispatch/September 26, 2022
Christians ‘Face Routine Torture’ in Afghanistan/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/September 26, 2022
Iran’s malign theocracy is unraveling before our eyes/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/September 26/2022
Iran regime has nothing to offer the people but violence/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/September 26/2022
Why Mahsa Amini’s death will deepen the alienation of Iran’s secular Kurdish minority/Robert Edwards/Arab News/September 26, 2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 26-27/2022
Parliament approves 2022 state budget with 63 votes
Naharnet/September 26, 2022
Parliament on Monday approved the 2022 state budget with 63 MPs voting for it, 37 voting against it and 6 abstaining out of 106 lawmakers present in the session. The budget includes a three-fold wage hike for public sector employees and the armed forces as well as for retirees. A first session was adjourned more than a week ago due to a loss of quorum. At the beginning of Monday’s session, the head of the finance committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan objected against the numbers sent by the Finance Ministry which were based on a value of LBP 15,000 for the so-called “customs dollar.”The lawmakers later approved hiking passport issuance fees to LBP 1 million for a validity of five years and LBP 2 million for a validity of 10 years. Legislators also approved a suggestion from the Lebanese Forces-led Strong Republic bloc for exempting retirement salaries from income taxes. The bloc also raised the issue of recovering $52 million from a number of airlines for the benefit of the Lebanese University. Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil meanwhile said his Strong Lebanon bloc was “living a dilemma.”“On the one hand, it is not right to continue with such an unclear budget whose numbers are unorganized and lacking reforms. On the other hand, the budget’s approval would help regulate public finances and rectify state administrations’ situation,” Bassil added. “There is an unserious approach in dealing with the budget issue,” the FPM chief lamented. Speaker Nabih Berri for his part hit back at remarks by caretaker PM Najib Mikati. “You’re saying something wrong that should be omitted from the minutes of meeting. Neither I nor parliament will submit to the International Monetary Fund or others. Parliament is the master of itself and there is sovereignty in our parliament,” Berri added. Mikati had said that “the IMF has pledged to cover the deficit after an agreement is reached or else we would be heading to inflation.”

Bou Saab says Hochstein's written proposal expected this week
Naharnet/September 26, 2022
President Michel Aoun held talks Monday in Baabda with Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab, who briefed him on the outcome of the visit he made to New York last week. Bou Saab also briefed Aoun on the meetings he held there with U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein regarding the sea border negotiations with Israel. “The written proposal that Hochstein will send is expected to reach Baabda before the end of the current week,” the Deputy Speaker told the President.

US official says resolving Lebanon-Israel border dispute a priority for Biden
Naharnet/September 26, 2022
U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein is continuing efforts aimed at reaching an agreement over the demarcation of the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel, an official at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said on Monday. In remarks to al-Jadeed TV, the unnamed official said the U.S. administration is continuing to narrow the gaps between all parties and that it believes that a sustainable settlement is possible.
The official also lauded the spirit of cooperation which he said is being shown by both Lebanon and Israel, pointing out that resolving the border dispute is a priority for President Joe Biden’s administration.The official added that Washington deeply believes that an agreement would provide sustainable stability and economic prosperity for both sides.

Lebanon: US proposal for maritime border deal with Israel to be sent by end of week
Times Of Israel/September 26/2022
Lebanese president Michel Aoun briefed on deputy speaker’s recent talks with American mediator Amos Hochstein, day after Israeli TV says agreement expected in next two weeks. An American proposal to resolve a maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon is expected to be sent to Lebanese President Michel Aoun in the coming days, his office said Monday. According to a statement posted to Twitter by the Lebanese presidency, US mediator Amos Hochstein’s written offer of a border demarcation will arrive at Aoun’s desk before the end of the week. The statement also said the deputy speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Elias Bou Saab, briefed Aoun on his recent talks with Hochstein in New York. No details were provided about the expected proposal. The maritime dispute relates to some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea that include lucrative offshore gas fields.

Israel, Lebanon Near Agreement on Mediterranean Gas Field
FDD/Flash Brief/September 26, 2022
Two years of U.S.-mediated negotiations on demarcating a maritime border between Israel and Lebanon appear to be reaching a conclusion, with senior envoys meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week. In 2020, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government claimed rights to Karish, an Israeli gas field located in the Mediterranean Sea. This insistence constituted a negotiating tactic aimed at compelling Jerusalem to make territorial concessions on the entirety of the disputed maritime area, including Qana, a prospective gas field that lies within both Lebanese and Israeli waters.
Expert Analysis
“Hezbollah, as always, is playing with fire — and, as always, the fuel is being poured from Tehran while ordinary Lebanese and Israelis are liable to get burned. While the Biden administration seeks an Israel-Lebanon deal soon, it should make it clear that this is in no way a response to Hezbollah threats and that Washington and Jerusalem will not be spooked into capitulation.” – Mark Dubowitz, FDD Chief Executive. “Once this deal goes through, the Biden administration will have set the precedent of extracting territorial concessions from Israel under the threat of attack leveraged by the United States on behalf of Iranian assets. What’s more, the deal, by design, will turn Hezbollah into a player in Eastern Mediterranean energy.” – Tony Badran, FDD Research Fellow
Israel’s Ownership of Karish
Karish has always lain within Israel’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Before 2020, Lebanon had never claimed control of Karish and has not formally registered its claim to own Karish with the United Nations. Thus, Lebanon’s claim to it is disingenuous. In June 2022, Israel declared it would begin extracting gas by the end of September despite protests by Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s Threats
Hezbollah has threatened to attack Israeli offshore platforms should Jerusalem fail to meet its demands. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said last month that it could expand its attacks “beyond Karish” if the two countries failed to reach an agreement that satisfies the terrorist group. In late June and early July, Hezbollah launched four drones toward Karish that the Israeli military shot down. Hezbollah’s objective is to force Israel into conceding the entire disputed area, including all of the Qana prospect, under the threat of terrorism in return for Israel’s retention of its already existing rights to Karish. Israel, noting that Karish is indisputably within its waters, insisted that the rig’s activation will take place as scheduled by month’s end regardless of progress — or lack thereof — in diplomacy.
A Familiar Playbook
Hezbollah is following a playbook familiar to those watching the Vienna talks over Iran’s nuclear program, where Iranian nuclear escalation has led to a steady stream of American concessions. Hezbollah seems to expect intransigence will result in financial benefits, just as Tehran’s stonewalling in Vienna has led to promises of extensive sanctions relief.

Mikati expected to meet Aoun Tuesday over govt. formation
Naharnet/September 26, 2022
The new government will be formed this week or in the beginning of next week at the latest, informed sources said. “What’s important is that the concerned officials have taken a political decision to form the government, and accordingly any pending details will be resolved,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday. Ministerial sources meanwhile told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that “following PM-designate Najib Mikati’s from abroad and parliament’s meeting to approve the state budget on Monday, Mikati is expected to meet with President Michel Aoun on Tuesday.”

Berri lauds Daryan's speech, says president election 'more than necessary'
Naharnet/September 26, 2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has lauded the latest speech of Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan, saying it was “more than good and unifying.”“What concerns us is holding the presidential vote within the constitutional timeframe,” Berri said in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. “There is a need to form the government, but the election of a new president is more than necessary to the foil the plans of those betting on presidential vacuum,” the Speaker added.
“We have to await the results (of the upcoming meeting between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Najib Mikati) to see if the government will be formed or if its formation will suffer a setback in the last moment,” Berri went on to say.

Lebanese banks reopen partially after weeklong closure
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
Banks in crisis-hit Lebanon partially reopened Monday following a weeklong closure amid a wave of heists in which assailants stormed at least seven bank branches earlier this month, demanding to withdraw their trapped savings. The Association of Banks in Lebanon said last Monday it was going on strike amid bank holdups by depositors and activists — a sign of growing chaos in the tiny Mideast nation. Lebanon's cash-strapped banks had last closed for a prolonged period back in October 2019, for two weeks, during mass anti-government protests triggered by the crisis. That year, the banks imposed strict limits on cash withdrawals, tying up the savings of millions of people. The country's economy has since spiraled, with about three-quarters of the population plunged into poverty. The Lebanese pound has lost over 90% of its value against the dollar. The frustrations boiled over this month, with angry and desperate depositors — including one armed with a hunting rifle — started holding up the banks. One of them, Sali Hafez, broke into a Beirut bank branch with a fake pistol and retrieved some $13,000 in her savings to cover her sister's cancer treatment. However, only a handful of bank branches opened Monday — accepting only customers with prior appointments for corporate transactions. The partial reopening was to continue indefinitely, until banks can secure the safety of their employees. Crowds of anxious Lebanese gathered around ATM machines. "I've been here for three hours, and they won't let me in or schedule an appoint," Fadi Al-Osta told The Associated Press outside a bank branch in Beirut. "The security guards can let us in one at a time and check for weapons. Isn't that their job?"George al-Hajj, president of Lebanon's Federation of Bank Employees Syndicates, said branches have downsized, to have a larger number of security guards per branch. "Our goal isn't to harm anyone, but we want to go to work feeling safe and secure," al-Hajj said. "We're also human beings." Tensions were simmering in the southern city of Sidon, where State Security forces armed with assault rifles stood outside some bank branches. Some police officers and army soldiers, whose salaries have lost over 90% of their value, unsuccessfully tried to break into a bank branch to collect small cash bonus recently granted by the government. Lebanon's talks with the International Monetary Fund on a bailout have progressed sluggishly, with authorities failing to implement critical reforms, including restructuring the banking sector and lifting banking secrecy laws. Last week, a visiting IMF delegation criticized the government's slowness to implement desperately-needed financial reforms.

'I need my salary': Anger as Lebanese banks reopen
Agence France Presse/September 26, 2022
Depositors scuffled and long lines formed at Lebanese banks Monday as they partially re-opened after a week-long closure following a slew of heists by customers desperate to access their money. But most banks remained shuttered and there was anger from those seeking to withdraw frozen funds desperately needed to weather a crushing economic crisis. At a closed Beirut branch of Fransabank, dozens of soldiers, internal security forces members and customers had queued for hours. "I don't care about anything, I need my salary," one ISF member yelled from behind the locked gates.
Banks started imposing draconian restrictions on withdrawals after Lebanon's economy collapsed in 2019. Since then, the Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 percent of its market value meaning public sector salaries have slumped to as low as $40 a month. Earlier this month five banks were stormed in one day with depositors seeking to unlock frozen savings, after a slew of similar heists in past weeks. The Association of Banks in Lebanon said Sunday that banks would reopen in a limited capacity to businesses, educational institutions and hospitals. Many banks have also now hired security guards. ATMs will be available "for everyone else," to allow public and private sector institutions to transfer salaries, while depositors will also be able to make appointments for urgent matters, the banks said. At a Beirut branch of the Fransabank branch, more servicemen and ordinary depositors queued in front of an ATM which was empty of any cash. One man who declined to give his name said he had been waiting for two hours to withdraw his meager salary. "I have nothing to say, I am drained," he said. In the southern city of Sidon, heavy security has been deployed at several banks, an AFP correspondent reported, after a security forces member tried to get into a BLOM bank branch by force to retrieve his salary.

Retired servicemen try to storm parliament in protest at state budget
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
Hundreds of retired Lebanese army soldiers briefly broke through a police cordon near Parliament in downtown Beirut as the legislature was in session, discussing the 2022 budget. The protesters demanded an increase in their monthly retirement pay, decimated during the economic meltdown. After a brief commotion that involved the firing of tear gas, the protesters moved away from the parliament building, and gathered nearby. MP Jamil al-Sayyed and caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim later emerged from parliament separately and met with the protesters in a bid to calm their anger. Slim reassured the retired servicemen that it has been decided to grant them a three-fold wage hike. Sayyed for his part told them that he was seeking to issue a law during the session, with the parliament speaker’s approval. He also asked to form a delegation and enter with him into parliament to explain their demands, a suggestion that was refused. “We give the government and parliament a 10-day grace period to do the right thing,” Sayyed added. A spokesman for the protesters, retired Brig. Gen. George Nader, meanwhile stressed “the need to reevaluate the state budget and be fair towards the servicemen, because they have become in a miserable situation and they can’t enroll their children in schools and hospitals nor win their bread with dignity.”

Ship with Ukrainian corn, vegetable oil docks in Lebanon
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
A ship carrying thousands of tons of corn and vegetable oil from war-ravaged Ukraine docked in northern Lebanon on Monday, the first such vessel since Russia's invasion of its neighbor started seven months ago. AK Ambition, registered in Panama and loaded with 7,000 tons of corn and 20 tons of vegetable oil, arrived in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest, with Ukraine Embassy officials waiting at the port. Last month, Razoni, carrying grain from Ukraine, was turned back and eventually docked in Syria, Russia's ally, after the Lebanese importer refused to accept the shipment, allegedly because of a delay. Razoni was the first ship to leave from Ukraine heading to Lebanon after a wartime deal signed between the United Nations and several countries for the save passage of movement of the ships carrying vital cargo. Ukraine's ambassador to Lebanon, Ihor Ostash, said AK Ambition's arrival was part of a deal signed between Ukrainian and Lebanese companies to bring weekly shipments to Lebanon. It comes at a time when the small Mediterranean nation is in desperate need amid an unprecedented economic meltdown. Ukraine is one of the world's major global grain suppliers but the war has blocked most exports. This led world food prices to soar in a crisis, including in Lebanon. The Lebanese are heavily reliant on Ukraine grain products, which accounted for 60% of Lebanon's supply. In early August, a Syrian ship that Ukraine said was carrying stolen Ukrainian grain left Tripoli after officials in Lebanon allowed it to sail following an investigation. The Syrian-flagged Laodicea had been anchored in Tripoli for days, with 10,000 tons of wheat flour and barley. Moscow denied Ukraine's claim of stolen grain. Lebanon's economic crisis has led to soaring inflation and shortages of food items, such as wheat. Long bread lines recently plagued the country, where around two thirds of the population of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees, now lives in poverty.

Lebanon retirees scuffle with police near Parliament as MPs approve budget
Arab News/September 26, 2022
Banks reopen to queues and security service patrols
BEIRUT: Lebanese army retirees scuffled with Parliament guards in Beirut during a rally on Monday amid anger over decimated monthly pay. Hours after the protest, Parliament passed the 2022 budget, with 63 legislators voting in favor, 37 voting against and six abstaining.
The new budget will calculate customs tax revenue at 15,000 Lebanese pounds to the US dollar at a time when the black market rate is more than double that at 37,000 pounds to the dollar.
Since the country’s economic meltdown began three years ago, customs tax revenue has been calculated at the official rate of 1,500 pounds to the dollar. According to the new budget, government expenditures stand at 40.9 trillion pounds ($1.1 billion) at the parallel market rate, while revenue stands at 30 trillion pounds. The protesters, who appealed to the army chief to listen to their concerns, demanded that their salaries be tripled to account for the loss of purchasing value due to the economic crisis.
A stampede took place earlier as the army and Parliament guards were summoned to tackle the protesters.
The retirees — including military widows — were later able to break the security cordon in the face of what they described as their “military sons.”Security personnel in charge of protecting Parliament used a tear gas grenade to prevent the protesters from reaching the stairs of the Parliament building.
MP Jamil Al-Sayed, a retired major general, walked out of the plenary session to address the protesters.
He was preceded by MP Cynthia Zarazir, from the Change Representatives bloc, who went out in solidarity with demonstrators.
“This police state is repressing protesters,” the MP shouted as she faced the stampede.
Some protesters sprawled on the ground to prevent attempts to remove them. A small delegation of protesters, accompanied by Al-Sayed, entered one of the corridors of Parliament. “The message from the protest has been received, and we don’t want to clash with our military colleagues,” said George Nader, a retired brigadier general. Caretaker Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Maurice Selim left the Parliament hall to meet retired soldiers in Najma Square. He told them that it had been decided that salaries would be tripled. The detailed calculations will be handled by specialized agencies in the Ministry of Finance, the minister said. MP Sami Gemayel warned that increasing salaries would lead to more currency printing, higher inflation, and consequently, a decrease in purchasing power.
Gemayel called for more focus on carrying out reforms and bringing more US dollars into the country.
Independent MP Michel Moawad described the budget as a “crime against the Lebanese” since it was being discussed without balancing the accounts, which meant a “new escape from accountability.”
MP Ibrahim Kanaan objected to figures sent by the Ministry of Finance for the customs dollar to be based on the exchange rate of the dollar at a value of 15,000 Lebanese pounds.
Director-General of Parliament Financial Affairs Dr. Ahmad Al-Laqis, an academic specializing in budgets and taxes, told Arab News: “It is the least possible budget. It is required by the International Monetary Fund. All objections are for political purposes.”
Al-Laqis added that the budget is only relevant for the remaining three months of the year.
As of next year, there will be general financial regulation, and the solutions required to resolve the economic crisis can be included in the draft 2023 budget as the state sets its economic plan, the official said. The increase in retired military personnel salaries will be three times the basic salary, and will not include the benefits they receive, Al-Laqis said. Meanwhile, Lebanese banks, which reopened their doors to customers after a week-long closure, witnessed crowding in front of their doors by employees and military personnel, who flocked to complete transactions and withdrawals.
The Association of Banks has adopted new procedures for receiving customers, including the need for appointments.
Some operations, including cash withdrawals and deposits related to transfers, can be completed through ATM exchange platforms.
Lebanese security services patrolled around bank branches during the reopening. The banks, which initially resorted to opening a few branches to customers, took strict security measures to prevent a recurrence of the holdups carried out two weeks ago by angry depositors.
Some depositors had used weapons and incendiary devices to threaten employees in order to obtain their dollar deposits, which have been frozen since a decision by the Banque du Liban in 2019.

Desperate Lebanese will continue to risk all to flee
Chris Doyle/Arab News/September 26/2022
The island may be just a trifling 800 meters long and 500 meters wide, but Arwad off the coast of Syria has experienced its fair share of grim history over three millennia. A host of empires competed over it, from the Assyrians to the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Crusaders — all were aware of its strategic location. Arwad is the only inhabited island between Tripoli and the Turkish border, yet it has so far remained physically unscathed from the Syrian war fought not far from its shores. It is, though, still affected by the drop in tourism and the crash of the economy that hit its other major economic activity: Boat building.Last week, Arwad found itself at the center of the latest tragedy off the coasts of Syria and Lebanon. The numbers are not clear, but out of 150 people, perhaps nearly 100 died in the sea close to Arwad after an overloaded, dangerous death boat capsized. Dozens of the victims were children. They hoped, it seems, to reach Italy. They tried to call the Lebanese authorities, but no help materialized.
Having left the Miniyeh region, the boat was crammed with desperate refugees and migrants fleeing the economic crisis in Lebanon. It represents perhaps the worst such disaster in recent years. Bodies washed up on Syrian beaches. According to the Syrian authorities, 20 people survived and are being treated in hospitals. Of these, 12 were Syrian and three Palestinian. Imagine, for a moment, being a Syrian refugee in Lebanon. You try to flee only to wash up into the arms of the very brutal regime that has terrorized your country and people. It is far from clear whether Syrian survivors will be allowed to return to Lebanon. Thus far, only survivors of other nationalities have been able to return and many families cannot get into Syria to identify bodies.
The people of Arwad were called into action. Its acute economic crisis forced its population to take tough decisions. The fishermen had barely any diesel for their boats. The people had been hoarding the fuel for the forthcoming winter months, unsure they would be able to afford or be able to obtain any. They fear death by freezing. In a display of compassion rarely on display in recent years, the population gave up their cherished winter supplies to ensure the fishermen could be in the first line of rescuers.
Most people outside of Lebanon do not appreciate how regular these maritime disasters have become. Only the week before, Cypriot authorities rescued 477 people in two boats. The UN says that 3,460 people have tried to leave Lebanon by sea in 2022, already more than double the number for 2021.
All of this points to so much of what has gone wrong, not just in this region but farther afield. The prospects for the future are grim. Lebanon’s last three years of crushing economic mayhem has taken its toll. The currency has lost 90 percent of its value, with 80 percent of the population now classed as poor. Lebanese citizens and Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the country are just desperate to get out. At least 25 refugees from the Nahr Al-Bared camp were on the boat that sank off Arwad. Many of those who remain made it clear that they had become so desperate that even these latest deaths would not put them off. The scenes from the funerals in Tripoli would break all but the most leaden of hearts. In Lebanon’s second city, the conditions are perhaps at their worst. Many not only have limited access to electricity, but also often do not have access to water.
Tripoli is drowning in poverty, the poorest city in the country. But also, for an elite few, it is drowning in wealth. Some of the country’s richest politicians come from Tripoli. This includes the country’s billionaire Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the fourth-richest man in the Arab world. This wealthy elite is held responsible for many of the country’s failings and nowhere more so than in the north.
Is there much chance of Lebanon recovering in the near future? This seems unlikely. Who knows when the current caretaker government will be replaced by one with electoral legitimacy? Even then, will it be even semi-effective? The country has endured 20 months without a functioning government. Many ask whether anyone in Lebanon will ever be held accountable for this crisis and for the rampant corruption? The international community seems content to just let Lebanon become a failed state.
The Mediterranean has become a death zone. At a wider level, remember that the Eastern Mediterranean is not even the most dangerous sea crossing into Europe. That remains the central one, where migrants’ risks are even greater when making that crossing from Libya to Italy. That route will become even more dangerous once the incoming far-right government in Italy implements its migrant-hating policies as pledged. Many in the richer world are seemingly anesthetized to major fatality incidents elsewhere in the world.
But in the east, while the crises in Syria and Lebanon may be the proximate cause, the European reaction is also responsible. Instead of establishing safe and secure routes for refugees in conformity with international law, as occurred with Ukrainian refugees this year, those from the Middle East are not wanted. Countries like the UK are trying to send asylum seekers as far away as Rwanda. This explains why these disasters barely register in the European and American media. It was a nonissue, a nonstory in all bar a few newspapers. Many in the richer world are seemingly anesthetized to major fatality incidents elsewhere in the world. The specter of anti-Arab racism also lurks in the background. Simply put, these fatalities are too often just numbers, not humans. One thing all Lebanese agree on is that this problem will just get worse. The deaths will not discourage the desperate. However, one does have to wonder just how many corpses it will take to make the rest of the world wake up.
*Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, in London. Twitter: @Doylech

Hope in Lebanon will never die
Ali Qassem/The Arab Weekly/September 26/2022
Lebanon will exist as long as there is one Lebanese. This is what the victory of The Mayyas means.
In the sixties the world used to call Lebanon the Switzerland of the East. The reason was the banking system, which at the time had no match in the region, especially with regard to its secrecy of transactions. At the beginning of the last century, there was no competitor to Lebanon, a small country in terms of geographic area and population, among Arab state except maybe Egypt, which exceeds it in area and population. There is no need to recall the very long list of Lebanese artists, poets, writers, playwrights, filmmakers, media professionals and fashion leaders who dominated the artistic and cultural scene in the Arab world, with their aura extending to the rest of world. The influence of Lebanon, which was left by great innovators, was not limited to the region, but spanned the whole world. Creativity seemed to be part of the Lebanese genes. The Lebanese have been able to achieve success wherever they went. Their success stories are too many to count. But Lebanon has not been spared turmoil throughout much of its modern history. The civil war that extended over 15 years resulted in the death of more than 120,000 people and in 2012 nearly 76,000 people displaced inside Lebanon. It also witnessed the exodus of nearly one million people. Then what the war failed to do was accomplished by Hezbollah. The militant party was founded in 1982 with direct support from Iran. Its leaders were loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini and its forces were trained by a 1,500-strong unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah's efforts eventually succeeded in ensuring Lebanon became a failed state. Economic collapse, poverty, inflation, unemployment, debt, faltering production, loss of legitimacy, lack of public services, inability to meet the daily needs of citizens, including health services, medicine and food, the absence of human rights and endless foreign interventions ... are the usual criteria used to define a failed state.
They all apply to Lebanon today.
With its institutions dying, the state may be doomed to failure, but the genes of the Lebanese are immune to such a fate. At a time when people were saying that Lebanon was over and everyone prepared to deliver the country's eulogy, a glimmer of light suddenly emerged reminding the world that the superior brand of ingenuity that the Lebanese possess is not a myth. Of course, we are talking about a Lebanese dance troupe, which astonished the world and provoked tears of joy in the eyes of the Lebanese and all Arabs. The moment of celebration came from Los Angeles, where the Mayyas band proved with its extraordinary performance that "Lebanon has got talent".
Prominent arts figures reacted to the band's victory with enthusiasm and pride in Lebanon and the wider Arab region. A Lebanese citizen summed up the feelings of his people, if not the feelings of the Arabs, by saying that the dancers “came from a country torn by crises and despite the difficulties, they managed to be the best. The Lebanese all over the world are proud of you." Everyone in Lebanon expressed pride in The Mayyas. The Lebanese Army was jubilant at the victory. President Michel Aoun awarded the band the Lebanese Gold Medal of Merit, saying that the band's victory is "a cause of pride for the Lebanese", thanking them for their efforts, which, he said, planted hope and shone light into the hearts of all Lebanese. Prime Minister Najib Mikati also congratulated the band for winning the top award, saying, "Once again, the Lebanese creativity is manifested in a wonderful performance by Mayyas band in the United States."
The Lebanese were not deceived by politicians' thinly-veiled attempts to exploit the moment of joy. Nadim Cherfan, founder of the Mayyas band, denounced the political class, calling, from the moment he arrived in Beirut, for a “revolution” in Lebanon.
"We don't need you (referring to the politicians)," Cherfan said at the airport. We, at the Mayyas band, were able to raise the name of Lebanon sky-high without you,” he said as expressed the Lebanese people’s displeasure over the political situation in their country.
Lebanon, which transformed Lebanese specialities such as Hummus and tabbouleh into international dishes cannot wither away. Lebanon will exist as long as there is one Lebanese. This is what the victory of The Mayyas means. After four decades of artistic decay, during which Hezbollah sat on the chests of the Lebanese, a Lebanese dance troupe was able to dazzle the world and remind it of the Lebanon that was. Of course, Hezbollah was not on the list of well-wishers. Owls and crows are not impressed by expressions of joy.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 26-27/2022
Canada to lift border vaccine requirements, use of Arrive
Alicja Siekierska/Yahoo Canada/Mon, September 26, 2022
Travelers wearing face masks are seen at the arrivals hall of Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, on April 1, 2022. Border measures were eased in Canada on Friday as fully vaccinated travelers no longer need pre-arrival COVID-19 testing to enter Canada either by land or air.
The federal government said COVID-19 border measures will be lifted as of Saturday, including mandatory vaccine requirements, masking on planes and trains and the use of the ArriveCan app. Starting Oct. 1, any traveller entering Canada will no longer have to provide proof of vaccination, undergo COVID-19 testing, quarantine, or monitor and report symptoms of the virus if they develop. The government also said travellers will no longer have to undergo health checks for air and rail travel, or wear masks on planes or trains. Travellers will no longer be required to use ArriveCan to enter the country, however government officials said the use of the app will be optional and available for passengers to submit their customs declaration in advance at major airports. "We've always maintained that the extraordinary measures we introduced at our borders and on airplanes, trains and boats are temporary, and that we would adjust them as the situation changes," Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said at a press conference on Monday. "Today, we're doing just that."

Canada sanctions Iran morality police as protests flare
AFP/September 26, 2022
OTTAWA: Canada on Monday announced sanctions against Iranian officials over the Islamic republic’s lethal crackdown on protests driven by the death of a young woman after her arrest by the morality police. “We will implement sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities, including Iran’s so-called morality police,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference. “We join our voices, the voices of all Canadians, to the millions of people around the world demanding that the Iranian government listen to their people, end their repression of freedoms and rights and let women and all Iranians live their lives and express themselves peacefully.” More than 75 people have been killed in the Iranian authorities’ crackdown against unrest sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, a rights group said Monday. The authorities last put the death toll at 41, including several members of the security forces. Officials said Monday they arrested more than 1,200 people as the dragnet widens against the nationwide demonstrations over Amini’s death, following her arrest for allegedly breaching the country’s strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing. Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group said at least 76 people have been killed in the crackdown in Iran, up from a previous count of 57. “We call on the international community to decisively and unitedly take practical steps to stop the killing and torture of protesters,” said IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

Iran protests flare for 10th night as tensions grow with West
Agence France Presse/September 26, 2022
Tensions have grown between Iran and Western powers over the Islamic republic's lethal crackdown on 10 nights of protests driven by outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. At least 41 people have been killed and more than 1,000 arrested, officials say, in the unrest sparked by the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman after she was detained for allegedly breaching strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing.  Angry protests flared again in Iran overnight to Monday, where crowds in Tehran called for the downfall of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, shouting "death to the dictator" in footage posted online by Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. "Woman, Life, Freedom!" has been the rallying cry as women have taken off and burnt their hijabs in bonfires or symbolically cut off their hair, cheered on by crowds. About 450 "rioters" have been arrested in just one province, Mazandaran, its chief prosecutor Mohammad Karimi said according to the official IRNA news agency, two days after over 700 arrests were reported in neighboring Gilan. "Over the past few days, rioters have attacked government buildings and damaged public property in several parts of Mazandaran under the direction of foreign anti-revolution agents," Karimi said. The Tasnim news agency published around 20 photos of "riot leaders", including women, taken in the holy shrine city of Qom, saying security forces were calling on citizens to "identify them and inform the authorities." The European Union has slammed Iran, charging that "the widespread and disproportionate use of force against nonviolent protestors is unjustifiable and unacceptable," in a statement by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday. He said the EU would "continue to consider all the options at its disposal ... to address the killing of Mahsa Amini" and the state response to the protests in Iran, a country already under punishing sanctions over its nuclear program.
Internet blackout
Tehran has summoned Britain's ambassador to protest what it called an "invitation to riots" by London-based Farsi language media, and Norway's envoy over the parliamentary speaker's "unconstructive comments" on the protests. In Iran's biggest protests in almost three years, security forces have used batons and water canon but also fired bird shot and live rounds, rights groups say, against the protesters who have hurled rocks, torched police cars and set public buildings ablaze. The IHR rights group said Sunday at least 57 protesters have been killed, but noted its reporting was limited by internet blackouts and the blocking of WhatsApp and Instagram following earlier bans on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other services. There were fears the violence could escalate further after judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei spoke of "the need for decisive action without leniency" against "riot" leaders, echoing a warning by ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi. Solidarity protests have been held in cities worldwide, and tensions flared into street clashes in Paris and London at the weekend, where crowds tried to reach Iran's embassies. In London, 12 people were arrested and five officers "seriously injured", the Metropolitan Police said, after "masonry, bottles and other projectiles were thrown and a number of officers were injured", some with broken bones. In Paris, thousands took to the streets, many chanting "Death to the Islamic republic", before riot police fired tear gas to prevent protesters from marching on Tehran's diplomatic mission, AFP reporters and eye-witnesses said.
Call for teachers strike
Iran has blamed "foreign plots" for the unrest and accused its arch enemy the United States and its allies of stoking the demonstrations. U.S. President Joe Biden last week saluted the protesters, telling the U.N. General Assembly that "we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights." Iran's government has organized large rallies in defense of the mandatory hijab rules, including one on Sunday in Tehran's Enghelab (Revolution) Square. "Martyrs died so that this hijab will be on our head," said female demonstrator Nafiseh, 28.
The main reformist group inside Iran, the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party, however, has called for the repeal of the mandatory dress code. IHR reported Sunday that Iranian teachers' unions were calling on staff and students to boycott classes on Monday and Wednesday in support of the protests.

Analysis: Latest Iran protests likely not last for Tehran
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
Only glimpses of videos that make it online show the protests convulsing Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the nation's morality police. But those flashes show that public anger across the country, once only simmering, is now boiling.
The demonstrations surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini — and the government crackdown emerging to stifle them — represent just the latest cycle of unrest to grip Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. It likely won't be the last as the Islamic Republic lurches between crises at home and abroad. The window through which the wider world can view them will only become more dim as authorities restrict internet access, detain journalists and tightly control all levers of the government's power. Protests over Amini's death have spread across at least 46 Iranian cities, towns and villages. State TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began on Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities puts the death toll at at least 13, with more than 1,200 demonstrators arrested. But the tightening crackdown doesn't come as a surprise, given Iran's modern history. Iran's theocracy has viewed itself as under threat from the moment the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Tehran in 1979. Bombings in 1981 blamed on dissidents killed dozens of top officials. One even paralyzed the right arm of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched a bloody eight-year war on Iran in which 1 million people were killed. In Tehran, enmity toward the United States began with the American-backed 1953 coup that cemented the shah's reign. For Washington, the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis stoked hostility toward Iran.
And the mutual distrust continues today. Since the collapse of a deal in 2015 intended to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions, Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium to produce an atomic bomb if it chose to do so.
The Iranian government has dismissed the latest protests as a foreign plot, rather than an expression of public outrage over the death of a woman detained only because her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, wasn't to the morality police's liking. Pro-government marches in Tehran and other cities echoed the official line, with some marchers chanting "American mercenaries are fighting the religion." The government's decision to restrict Instagram, LinkedIn and WhatsApp — three of the last Western social media apps working in the country — has limited the ability for protesters to organize and share their videos with the outside world. Instead, only short clips find their way out, including those of security forces firing at protesters and women defiantly cutting off their hair and burning their hijabs. Security forces, including motorcycle-riding volunteers with Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, have attacked peaceful demonstrators. There's also been footage of apparent demonstrators setting fires, flipping over police cars and fighting back against riot police. These scenes are similar to those that occurred in 2019 after the government dropped fuel subsidies, prompting demonstrators to set gas stations ablaze and ransack banks. Rights groups say that the unrest across more than 100 cities and towns — and the government crackdown that followed — killed over 300 people and led to thousands of arrests.
Because of the internet restrictions, it remains unclear if the latest protests have eclipsed those of 2019. Exiled opposition groups and Iranian hard-liners have both used the short clips online to paint their own pictures of the unrest as the government largely remains silent.
Independent observers such as human rights activists face threats, intimidation and arrest in Iran. Text messages from the government to the public warn of criminal charges for joining demonstrations. At least 18 reporters are known to have been arrested so far in the crackdown, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Like other rounds of unrest since 2009, when millions took to the streets as part of the so-called Green Movement to protest a disputed presidential election, the latest demonstrations appear spontaneous and leaderless. Even if a government crackdown eventually quells the protests, it likely won't eradicate the deep-seated rage. Iran's economy has cratered, and Western sanctions have destroyed the savings of a generation. The value of the currency has plummeted, from 32,000 rials for a dollar in 2015 to 315,000 rials for a dollar in 2022. Iranian youth increasingly try to find new livelihoods abroad at whatever cost. Those left behind struggle to make ends meet. Iranian politics have grown insular and uncompromising. In the 2021 presidential election, all serious contenders were disqualified to allow Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Khamenei, to take the presidency in the lowest turnout vote in the Islamic Republic's history. The economic challenges and hard-line political positions are only likely to solidify. Even if Iran agreed to a road map to restore the nuclear deal, it likely will face new U.S. sanctions over selling so-called suicide drones to Russia to use in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
A battle over leadership could turn Iran's focus further inward. There is no designated successor for the 83-year-old Khamenei, though some analysts suggest his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, might be considered by clerics to become the next supreme leader.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to the supreme leader, has grown increasingly powerful — both militarily and economically — during the recent tensions with the West. The U.S. Treasury said the Guard has smuggled "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of sanctioned oil into the international market. Both the theocracy and the Guard have financial and political incentive to continue the status quo. And with no other outlets, mass protests by the Iranian public seem likely to continue.

Amid protests, Iran's Guard strikes Kurdish groups in Iraq
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday unleashed a wave of drone strikes and artillery, targeting what Tehran says are bases of Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, a semiofficial news agency reported. It was the second such cross-border assault since the weekend, at a time when Iran is convulsing with protests over the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was been detained by the nation's morality police. On Saturday, the Guard said it targeted bases and training camps of Kurdish separatist groups in northern Iraq, claiming it inflicted serious damage. Protests over the death of Mahsa Amini have spread across at least 46 cities, towns and villages. Iranian state TV has suggested that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the protests began Sept. 17. An Associated Press count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 13 dead, with more than 1,200 demonstrators arrested. In Monday's report, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the Guard's attacks were in response for the support that the separatists have allegedly provided for the unrest inside Iran, as well as their attempts to smuggle in weapons. Last year, the Guard similarly attacked what it called bases of "terrorist groups" in northern Iraq. There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government. The two neighboring countries have close political and military ties, and Tehran had provided extensive military support for Baghdad, during its yearslong war against the extremist Islamic State group. The German foreign ministry said Monday it has summoned Iran's ambassador following the protests in Iran and especially regarding the brutal actions of police there. A spokesman for German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Berlin that there were consultations within the European Union as well on how to respond to the regime's brutal reaction to the protests.

Iran vows to crush women-led protests with ‘no leniency’ as unrest enters 10th day
Shweta Sharma/The Independent/September 26, 2022
The massive anti-government demonstrations in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini continued unabated for the 10th day on Monday, despite authorities warning of intensified “action without leniency”.
The number of dead during clashes between protesters and security forces increased to 41 people, including some members of the security forces, according to state TV. However, the real figure is believed to be much higher. Iran’s foreign ministry criticised the US and UK governments on Monday for their alleged support of the protesters, accusing the countries of destabilising Tehran. Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told Nour that the US’s attempts to “weaken Iran’s stability and security” will not go unanswered. Iran also summoned Britain’s ambassador to protest what it described as a hostile atmosphere created by London-based Farsi language media outlets. The state-run IRNA news agency reported that the ministry also summoned Norway’s ambassador to Iran and strongly protested recent remarks by the president of the Norwegian parliament, Masud Gharahkhani.
“If my parents had not made the choice to flee in 1987, I would have been one of those fighting in the streets with my life on the line,” Mr Gharahkhani tweeted on Sunday. Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Sunday “emphasised the need for decisive action without leniency” against the core instigators of the “riots”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said. The comments were in line with president Ebrahim Raisi’s statement that said the country must “deal decisively with those who oppose the country’s security and tranquillity.”The outpouring of anger that began with dissatisfaction directed towards Iran’s morality police has now spread to least 46 cities, towns and villages. More than 1,200 demonstrators have been arrested. At least 18 journalists have been arrested during the protests as of Sunday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
A fifth member of an Iranian volunteer paramilitary group died on Sunday, succumbing to injuries sustained on Thursday in Urmia city, northwest of Iran, IRNA said. State media said the person died clashing with “rioters and thugs”. Other deaths of personnel belonging to Basij, a paramilitary organisation connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were reported in Qazvin, Tabriz, Mashhad and Qouchan. Visuals showed protesters chanting slogans against the government and also Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, shouting “death to dictator,” Freedom, freedom, freedom!” and “We will fight, we will die, we will take back Iran!” An emotional video showed the sister of an alleged victim of the police’s crackdown on protesters, Javad Heydari, cutting off her hair on the grave of her brother. The gesture of women chopping off their hair across Iran has become a symbol of resistance in the country. The protests have also spread to other countries, with Iranian demonstrators and activists raising slogans outside Iranian embassies in London, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Istanbul, Madrid, New York and Paris, among other cities.
Twelve people were arrested and at least five officers “seriously injured” in clashes outside the Iranian embassy in London over the weekend, the Metropolitan Police said. Iran’s Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi called on activists and artists around the world to stand in solidarity with Iranian women. He said in an Instagram post that they were “looking for simple and yet fundamental rights that the state has denied them for years”. “I deeply respect their struggle for freedom and the right to choose their own destiny despite all the brutality they are subjected to,” Mr Farhadi added.

4-Iran accuses U.S. of trying to use unrest to undermine country
DUBAI, Reuters/ September 26, 2022
Iran accused the United States on Monday of using unrest triggered by the death of a woman in police custody to try to destabilise the country, and warned it would not go unanswered, as the biggest protests since 2019 showed no signs of abating. Iran has cracked down on nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was detained by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic's strict restrictions on women's dress. The case has drawn international condemnation. Iran said the United States was supporting rioters and seeking to destabilise the Islamic Republic.
"Washington is always trying to weaken Iran's stability and security although it has been unsuccessful," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told Nour news, which is affiliated with a top security body, in a statement. On his Instagram page, Kanaani accused the leaders of the United States and some European countries of abusing a tragic incident in support of "rioters" and ignoring "the presence of millions of people in the streets and squares of the country in support of the system". Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador in Berlin on Monday over the crackdown, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said. Asked about the possibility of further sanctions on Tehran in response to the unrest, the spokesperson said "we will consider all options" with other European Union states. Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on Iran's morality police over allegations of abuse of Iranian women, saying it held the unit responsible for the death of Amini. Iran summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors on Sunday over what it called interference and hostile media coverage of the unrest. The anti-government protests are the largest to sweep the country since demonstrations over fuel prices in 2019, when Reuters reported 1,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protesters - the bloodiest bout of internal unrest in the Islamic Republic's history.At least 41 people have been killed in the latest unrest that started on Sept. 17, according to state TV.
President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran ensures freedom of expression and that he has ordered an investigation into Amini's death.
STRIKE CALL
A main Iranian teachers' union, in a statement posted on social media on Sunday, called for teachers and students to stage the first national strike since the unrest began, on Monday and Wednesday. Women have played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning their veils. In a video circulating on social media, the sister of a man killed in the anti-government demonstrations, Javad Heydari, cut her hair on his grave in defiance of Iran's conservative Islamic dress code. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the video. The state has organised rallies in an attempt to defuse the crisis. Although the demonstrations over Amini's death are a major challenge to the government, analysts see no immediate threat to the country's leaders because Iran's elite security forces have stamped out protests in the past. Iran has blamed armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents of involvement in the unrest, particularly in the northwest where most of Iran's up to 10 million Kurds live. Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched an artillery and drone attack on Iranian militant opposition bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Additional reporting by Rachel More in Berlin; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Christian Schmollinger, Alex Richardson and Alison Williams)

U.S. May Allow Payment to Iran for Hostages
FDD/Flash Brief/September 26, 2022
The Biden administration may be preparing to issue a national security waiver authorizing the transfer of $7 billion to Iran from South Korean-based accounts subject to U.S. terrorism sanctions. The transfer would proceed in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages and would reportedly be the first step in a multi-phased nuclear deal with Iran. However, the payment may occur prior to the accord’s announcement in order to evade legal prohibitions on suspending Iran sanctions prior to congressional review of a nuclear agreement. Transferring $7 billion to Iran in exchange for U.S. hostages would be a significant change in U.S. policy, which prohibits paying for hostages, and would ignore requests by Gold Star Families to compel Tehran to pay federal terrorism judgments prior to the release of funds.
Expert Analysis
“Paying for hostages is a dangerous policy that incentivizes the kidnapping of American citizens. This is also a slap in the face to Gold Star Families who asked President Biden not to release any funds until all terror judgments are paid. Congress should not allow the administration to circumvent the law by releasing billions in funds tied to terrorism sanctions prior to congressional review of the broader nuclear deal.” – Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
U.S. and South Korea Coordinating on Iran Deal, Hostages
Following a meeting last week between U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley and South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister, Malley tweeted, “We thank the Republic of Korea for their close partnership, including their efforts to help ensure the return of our wrongfully detained citizens in Iran and to reach a deal on JCPOA.” Malley’s tweet apparently links the potential release of $7 billion held in South Korea to the broader nuclear deal negotiations. In late August, leaked details of the nuclear agreement revealed that the release of $7 billion from South Korea would be the first step taken in a new nuclear deal’s sequencing.
Evasion of Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act
A presidential national security waiver would likely be necessary to facilitate the transfer of funds from South Korea to Iran. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), however, explicitly restricts the president from waiving statutory sanctions as part of a nuclear agreement with Iran for 30 days — giving Congress time to review and potentially reject the deal. By ostensibly tying the $7 billion to the release of prisoners and issuing a waiver prior to announcing a nuclear deal, the administration may intend to provide Iran upfront sanctions relief that would otherwise be in violation of INARA.
A Dangerous Precedent of Paying for Hostages
Even if the $7 billion release of funds to Iran were truly disconnected from the nuclear deal, policymakers should object to a policy of paying for the release of U.S. hostages. In 2015, the Obama administration negotiated a similar scheme alongside the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, sending Iran $400 million — the first installment of a $1.7 billion payment — at the same time Tehran released four Americans. The result was more hostages taken by Iran, including Baquer Namazi, Xiyue Wang, Morad Tahbaz, and Emad Shargi. If $1.7 billion encouraged the regime to take more hostages, $7 billion will guarantee much more hostage-taking to come.

Death toll in Russia school shooting rises to 15
Agence France Presse/September 26, 2022
The death toll has risen to 15 people, including 11 children, after a man opened fire Monday at his former school in central Russia, authorities said. The attack was the latest in a series of school shootings that have shaken Russia in recent years and came with the country on edge over efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the "inhuman terrorist attack" in the city of Izhevsk, the Kremlin said, adding that the shooter "apparently belongs to a neo-fascist group". According to investigators, the attacker "was wearing a black top with Nazi symbols and a balaclava" when his body was discovered. He was later identified as a local man born in 1988, who graduated from the school. Investigators have said two security guards and two teachers were among the victims, while the attacker "committed suicide". Authorities previously announced a death toll of seven children and six adults but did not specify if that included the suspected shooter. Investigators said they were searching his home and probing his "adherence to neo-fascist views and Nazi ideology". The region's governor Alexander Brechalov confirmed there were "casualties and wounded among children", speaking in a video statement outside school No88 in Izhevsk. Rescue and medical workers could be seen in the background, some running inside the school with stretchers. Brechalov declared a period of mourning in the region to last until Thursday. A city of around 630,000 people, Izhevsk is the regional capital of Russia's Udmurt Republic, located around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) east of Moscow. The attack came just hours after a man had opened fire and severely wounded a recruitment officer at an enlistment centre in Siberia. Russia's last major school shooting was in April, when a man opened fire in a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region, leaving a teacher and two children dead. The shooter, described as "mentally ill", was later found dead, with officials saying he had shot himself.
Tightening gun laws -
Mass shootings at schools and universities in Russia were rare until 2021, when the country was rocked by two separate killing sprees in the central Russian cities of Kazan and Perm that spurred lawmakers to tighten laws regulating access to guns. In September 2021, a student dressed in black tactical clothing and helmet armed with a hunting rifle swept through Perm State University buildings killing six people, mostly women, and injuring two dozen others. The gunman resisted arrest and was shot by law enforcement as he was apprehended and moved to a medical facility for treatment.
It was the second such attack that year, after a 19-year-old former student shot dead nine people at his old school in the Kazan in May. Investigators said that the gunman suffered from a mental impairment, but was deemed fit to receive a license for the semi-automatic shotgun that he used. On the day of that attack Putin called for a review of gun control laws and the age to acquire hunting rifles was increased from 18 to 21 and medical checks were strengthened. Authorities have blamed foreign influence for previous school shootings, saying young Russians have been exposed online and through television to similar attacks in the United States and elsewhere. Other high-profile shooting cases have taken place in Russia's army, putting the issue of hazing in the spotlight in the country where military service is compulsory for men aged between 18 and 27. In November 2020, a 20-year-old soldier killed three fellow servicemen at a military base near the city of Voronezh. In a similar attack in 2019, a young recruit shot dead eight servicemen, saying he faced bullying and harassment in the army.

Inside the Ukrainian Counterstrike That Turned the Tide of the War
Simon Shuster/Time/September 26, 2022
A Ukrainian tank passes a former Russian checkpoint on Sept. 16 in the retaken city of Izyum. Credit - Evgeniy Maloletka—AP
It would be easy to underestimate Valeriy Zaluzhny. When not in uniform, the general prefers T-shirts and shorts that match his easygoing sense of humor. When he first heard from aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July 2021 that he was being tapped to lead the country’s armed forces, his stunned response was, “What do you mean?” As it sank in that he would become commander in chief, he tells TIME in his first interview since the Russian invasion began, he felt as if he had been punched “not just below the belt but straight into a knockout.” George Patton or Douglas MacArthur he is not.
Yet when the history of the war in Ukraine is written, Zaluzhny is likely to occupy a prominent role. He was part of the Ukrainian brass who spent years transforming the country’s military from a clunky Soviet model into a modern fighting force. Hardened by years of battling Russia on the eastern front, he was among a new generation of Ukrainian leaders who learned to be flexible and delegate decisions to commanders on the ground. His dogged preparation in the run-up to the invasion and savvy battlefield tactics in the early phases of the war helped the nation fend off the Russian onslaught. “Zaluzhny has emerged as the military mind his country needed,” U.S. General Mark Milley wrote for TIME of his counterpart last May. “His leadership enabled the Ukrainian armed forces to adapt quickly with battlefield initiative against the Russians.”
That initiative has now taken a key turn in Ukraine’s favor. In Kyiv’s biggest gains since the war began in February, a lightning counteroffensive in the country’s northeast in early September stunned Russian troops, who fled in disarray and ceded vast swaths of occupied territory. Combined with a second operation in the south, Ukrainian forces say they wrested back more than 6,000 sq km from Russian control in less than two weeks, liberating dozens of towns and cities and cutting off enemy supply lines. The Ukrainian army’s deft game of misdirection, touting a counter-offensive in the south before attacking in the northeast, caught Russia off guard. And it validated the Ukrainians’ arguments that intelligence collaboration and billions of dollars in weapons and materiel supplied by Western allies would yield results on the battlefield.
The sudden victories came at a critical point in what had become a grinding war of attrition. As the economic pressures built across Europe and around the world, skeptics were beginning to doubt whether Ukraine could endure a protracted fight. The dramatic rout rattled Moscow, forcing Kremlin propagandists to admit the setback and upping the military and political pressures on Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Sept. 21 he responded by announcing the first mass conscription since World War II, a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 citizens.
Ukrainian and U.S. officials alike believe the war will be longer and bloodier than most imagine. Putin has shown he’s willing to sacrifice his troops and commit atrocities to exhaust his adversary. In a menacing speech, he warned that he was “not bluffing” when he threatened to use everything at his disposal to defend Russia—an allusion to nuclear weapons. The recent Ukrainian offensive may be a turning point, but it is not the decisive blow. “In hindsight, we’ll look at this like the Battle of Midway,” says Dan Rice, a U.S. Army combat veteran and leadership executive at West Point who serves as a special adviser to Zaluzhny, referring to the pivotal 1942 clash that preceded three more years of war.
Zaluzhny is just one of many Ukrainians responsible for the grit and progress of the nation’s outmanned army. Other key officers include General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, who led the defense of Kyiv and, more recently, the counteroffensive in the east, and Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. But after the President, Zaluzhny has become the face of the war effort. His persona is omnipresent on Ukrainian social media. One widely shared image shows the “Iron General” kneeling in front of the sobbing mother of one of his soldiers, head bowed in grief in front of a casket. In another he flashes a grin presiding over the wedding of one of his servicemen during a lull in the fighting. Fan channels on Telegram have hundreds of thousands of followers, with many changing their profiles to a photo of the general with his hands held in the shape of a heart. “When Zaluzhny walks into a dark room he does not turn on the light, he turns off the darkness,” one viral TikTok video jokes.
It’s hard to predict where the war is headed or the part Zaluzhny will play in the end. But perhaps for the first time, it now seems possible that the army he commands could achieve victory.
Zaluzhny was drinking a beer at his wife’s birthday party when he stepped outside to take a cell-phone call and learned about his new job. The 48-year-old general’s rank and stature at the time were far below the position Zelensky was offering him. Commander in chief of the armed forces of Ukraine is the nation’s top military title, outranked only by the President himself. The height of that perch induced a feeling like vertigo. “I’ve often looked back and asked myself: How did I get myself into this?” Zaluzhny told TIME in a June interview.
To some, the choice seemed rash. While he had earned a reputation as an aggressive and ambitious commander, Zaluzhny was also considered a bit of a goofball, better known for clowning around with his troops than disciplining them. Born on a Soviet military garrison in northern Ukraine in 1973, he says he had dreams of becoming a comedian, much like Zelensky himself. Instead, he followed in the footsteps of his military family, entering the academy in Odessa in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine descended into crisis.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny attends a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv on April 24, 2022.<span class="copyright">Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters</span>
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny attends a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv on April 24, 2022.Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters
Zaluzhny rose through the ranks with a new generation of officers that bridged very different eras: raised in Soviet Ukraine, but eager to shed USSR military dogma. For a master’s thesis, Zaluzhny analyzed U.S. military structure. Seeing how Ukrainian forces were still weighed down by the Soviet model that relied on rigid, top-heavy decision-making, he began to implement changes to mirror the forces of U.S. and NATO partners.
Zaluzhny worked his way from commanding a platoon to leading the country’s forces on the eastern front following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. In that role, he developed junior officers and encouraged more agile decision-making, pushing down authority to commanders on the ground. Unlike in the Russian army, sergeants would not be “scapegoats,” but rather real deputies meant to create a pipeline of military talent, he said in a 2020 interview published by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. “There is no going back,” he said, to “the army of 2013.”
But Zaluzhny also respected and admired the institutions of his Russian counterparts. In his office, he keeps the collected works of General Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian armed forces, who is 17 years his senior. “I was raised on Russian military doctrine, and I still think that the science of war is all located in Russia,” Zaluzhny says. “I learned from Gerasimov. I read everything he ever wrote … He is the smartest of men, and my expectations of him were enormous.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a flag hoisting ceremony in Izyum after the Ukrainian forces took back control of the city from the Russians.Metin Aktas–Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
When Zelensky took office in 2019, the war in eastern Ukraine was already in its fifth year, and Zaluzhny was acting commander in the war zone. It fell to him to brief the new President on military operations and command structures. He knew Zelensky had never served in the military, and had no plans to school him in the tactical details of warfare. “He doesn’t need to understand military affairs any more than he needs to know about medicine or bridge building,” Zaluzhny says. To his surprise, Zelensky seemed to agree. “This has turned out to be one of [Zelensky’s] strongest features,” says Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Ukrainian Assistant Defense Minister. He has allowed his generals to run the show “without direct interference into military business.”
In 2020, Zaluzhny oversaw an ambitious set of military exercises, which included a test of the Javelin anti-tank missile. With the President watching from the observation deck, the demonstration failed, and pundits went on Ukrainian TV to debate the bad omen for the nation’s military. Zaluzhny was sure he would be known in the President’s office as “the loser with the faulty Javelins.”
Yet Zelensky has shown a determination to jettison an older generation of officials in search of new blood, and a habit of elevating leaders with whom he feels a rapport, regardless of rank. In July 2021, with the Russians hauling tanks to the border and the Americans warning that Ukraine could soon face a full-scale attack, the President decided to put Zaluzhny in charge. “I gave my opinion that he strikes me as a fairly professional, smart person,” says Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff. “But the President made the call.”
Unlike Zelensky, who was skeptical of intelligence reports that a mass-scale Russian invasion was imminent, Zaluzhny was part of a corps of Ukrainian officers who viewed it as a matter of time. Within weeks of taking up his post, he began to implement key changes. Officers would be free to return fire “with any available weapons” if they came under attack, with no need for permission from senior commanders. “We needed to knock down their desire to attack,” Zaluzhny says. “We also needed to show our teeth.”
By early February, the pressure of his new role was starting to show. The launch of an ambitious set of military exercises involving thousands of Ukrainian troops had been a disappointment, with basic maneuvers meant to simulate a Russian attack exposing cracks in Ukraine’s defenses. In Zaluzhny’s view, the drills were a centerpiece of Ukraine’s defensive strategy, its best chance of survival, and the commanders were not taking them seriously enough. “I spent an hour yelling,” he recalls. “I lost it.” The men seated around the table were mostly older and more experienced than Zaluzhny, who did not have a reputation for losing his cool. “I explained to them that if they can’t pull this off, the consequences will not only cost us our lives, but also our country.”
After the outburst, the generals picked up their preparations. They relocated and camouflaged military hardware, moving troops and weapons out of their bases and sending them on tours around the country. This included aircraft, tanks, and armored vehicles, as well as the antiaircraft batteries Ukraine would soon need to maintain control of its skies. “There’s no mistaking the smell of war,” Zaluzhny says, “and it was already in the air.” But when it came to the details of his strategy, Zaluzhny held them close. “I was afraid that we would lose the element of surprise,” he says. “We needed the adversary to think that we are all deployed in our usual bases, smoking grass, watching TV, and posting on Facebook.”
When the invasion started on the morning of Feb. 24, the general had two strategic goals for Ukraine’s defense. “We could not allow Kyiv to fall,” he said. “And, on all the other vectors, we had to spill their blood, even if in some places it would require losing territory.” The aim, in other words, was to allow the Russians to advance and then destroy their columns in the front and supply lines in the rear. By the sixth day of the invasion, he concluded it was working. The Russians had failed to take airports around Kyiv and had advanced deep enough to begin straining supply lines, leaving them exposed.
Milley, Zaluzhny’s U.S. counterpart, was in some ways astounded when he saw the Ukrainians holding out. He asked Zaluzhny whether he planned to evacuate to safer ground. “I told him, ‘I don’t understand you,’” Zaluzhny says. “For me the war started in 2014 … I didn’t run away then, and I’m not going to run now.”
He too was surprised by Russia’s blunders. When the enemy faced heavy resistance or lost the ability to resupply, they did not retreat or shift to a different approach. “They just herded their soldiers into the slaughter,” Zaluzhny said. “They chose the scenario that suited me best of all.”
Even as the U.S. and allies continued to flood the country with billions in military aid, the news was grim. Russia pounded the strategic port city of Mariupol, killing thousands of civilians. In May, hundreds of Ukrainian fighters who had defended the last stronghold in the city, the Azovstal steel plant, surrendered. (More than 150 were returned Sept. 21 in a prisoner swap, including five top Ukrainian commanders.) Mass graves were discovered in towns and villages occupied by Russian troops. Still, Ukrainian officials insisted they could win. “We will fight until the last drop of blood,” Zaluzhny told TIME.
A few weeks later, Ukraine began to do something that struck military analysts as unusual. From the top of the government, Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, began to publicly tout their preparations for a large-scale operation to retake territory in the south. In anticipation of an attack, Russia began to reposition troops, including some of its most elite units from other regions to reinforce its positions in the south. On Aug. 29, the Ukrainian military announced that the long-anticipated southern offensive had begun.
A Ukrainian soldier assists a wounded comrade on Sept. 12 in the Kharkiv region.Kostiantyn Liberov—AP
But there were indications something else was afoot. “We have a war on, not only in the south,” Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told TIME on Sept. 1. “The front line is 2,500 km long.” Many experts doubted that Ukraine would be capable of mounting a counter-offensive on one front, let alone two.
Five days later, Ukrainian troops launched a surprise strike in the country’s northeast. The Russians were caught off guard. Many fled in disarray, leaving behind weapons and equipment. Local reports painted a humiliating picture of retreat, describing soldiers stealing civilians’ clothes, bicycles, and cars to escape.
In six days, the Ukrainian military retook an estimated 3,000 sq km of Russian-held territory, including strategically important rail hubs used to resupply its forces. The strike stunned the Kremlin, U.S. officials, and even top Ukrainians. “I taught myself to moderate my expectations, so as not to be disappointed later,” Reznikov tells TIME. “Some breakthroughs occurred a little faster than planned.”
Intelligence and advanced weaponry provided by the West also helped. “They gave us the location of the enemy, how many of them are at that location, and what they have stored there,” Reznikov says. “Then we would strike.” The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) provided by the Pentagon allowed Ukraine to destroy warehouses of ammunition, fuel, and command posts. Lighter vehicles like U.S.-donated humvees, as well as trucks and tanks sent by the U.K., Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic, allowed them to outmaneuver the Russians. “Ukrainians have demonstrated much better distributed tactical-level operations,” says Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA analyst and Russia director on the National Security Council. “They’re much more disciplined.”
Also crucial, Ukrainian officials say, was the flexible command structure that allowed them to exploit the quick Russian collapse. “The Ukrainian army has the freedom to make decisions at every level,” Reznikov says, likening it to NATO standards. “They do it quickly, unlike the Russians.”
Ukrainian officials are careful to spread the credit for the military successes so far. “It’s not a story of one star, but a constellation of our military elite,” Reznikov says, naming a long list of celebrated officers from the armed forces—the infantry, navy, air force, medical corps and others.
There are rumors of tensions between Zelensky and his top military commander, though the President and his aides have dismissed them. “The so-called conflict with Zaluzhny was invented by our opposition from start to finish,” says Oleksiy Arestovych, a Zelensky aide and veteran of Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “On the one hand, it’s obviously made up. On the other, it has a painful effect, because stirring up conflict between the military commander and the commander in chief is a catastrophe.”
Hardened by war, Ukrainian leaders know the recent successes have only bought time. “Russia has staked everything on this war,” says Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. “Putin cannot lose. The stakes are too high.”
Ukraine’s operations in the south have moved slowly. As winter approaches, Kyiv must take care not to overextend its forces. And there are forces at play outside Ukraine’s control. The looming energy crisis could sap Western military support, with Russia already cutting its gas supplies to Europe from 40% to 9%. For his part, Zaluzhny is girding for a long and bloody slog. “Knowing what I know firsthand about the Russians, our victory will not be final,” he told TIME. “Our victory will be an opportunity to take a breath and prepare for the next war.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah.

Ukraine war: Images show 10 miles of queues as Russians flee Vladimir Putin's call-up to fight
Sky News/September 26, 2022
New satellite images showing large numbers of Russians fleeing to Georgia and Mongolia have been released after Vladimir Putin's order to mobilise hundreds of thousands of reservists for the conflict in Ukraine. The images show queues of vehicles - cargo trucks and cars - waiting in long traffic jams attempting to get over the borders.And according to Maxar, which has been tracking the conflict from its satellites, the queue to cross into Georgia stretches for well over 10 miles (16km). At one point on Sunday, the estimated wait to enter Georgia hit 48 hours, with more than 3,000 vehicles queuing to cross the frontier, Russian state media reported. The Georgian capital Tbilisi had already seen an influx of around 40,000 Russians since Moscow invaded Ukraine on 24 February, according to government statistics. It comes amid unconfirmed Russian media reports that the Kremlin might soon close its borders to men of fighting age. German officials have voiced a desire to help Russian men deserting military service and have called for a European-wide solution. And in France, senators are arguing that Europe has a duty to help and warned that not granting refuge to fleeing Russians could play into Mr Putin's hands.
However, other EU countries are adamant that asylum should not be offered to Russian men fleeing now - as the war has moved into its eighth month. His counterpart in Latvia, also an EU member bordering Russia, said the exodus poses "considerable security risks" for the 27-nation bloc and that those fleeing now cannot be considered conscientious objectors since they did not act when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. One person who managed to escape to Finland, told Sky News that those who stay behind and protest face being killed. Aleksander - not his real name - said: "I have some friends and acquaintances who were on the same wave as me and at the moment they are in Azerbaijan and Armenia and Belarus and some of them are also in the European Union. "They all understand that it is impossible to make any difference while you are in Russia, to make any good, because soon it will not even be possible to talk about what's going on even in your own kitchen. "All those protests which are held in Russia, they are dispersed. Russia is a police state ruled by tyrants, and they will have enough of the police officials, special armed forces, to disperse all citizens. "If a large number of people takes the streets, they can easily use arms. They already tried those methods in Belarus and we know how it ended. "The regime will not fall. The regime is strong. They will have enough resources to kill their own citizens. I don't want to be neither witness nor a participant of these events."

Putin's mobilization draws public blowback, especially in minority regions
Yahoo news/Michael Weiss and James Rushton/September 26, 2022
The young man that walked in the recruitment center in Ust-Ilimsk, Siberia, early on Monday morning had told his mother he was going to enlist. But he had other plans. When he arrived, he calmly entered the building and walked up to the podium, where military commissar Alexander Eliseev, the head of the local draft committee, was working. The young man took out a concealed firearm and opened fire. According to Igor Kobzev, the governor of Irkutsk Oblast, Eliseev remains in critical condition in a hospital. When arrested, 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin told Russian media he was motivated by the drafting of his best friend into the army. Russia is continuing to experience a wave of protests and civil unrest as its people come to terms with the implication of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization that he announced last week. Initially said to be a call-up of 300,000 reservists, the Latvia-based independent Russian news outlet Meduza has reported that the real figure could be as high as 1.2 million. The same outlet also reported that since Putin’s order came down, the Federal Security Service (FSB), which controls Russia’s border service, recorded 261,000 men exiting the country.
The most significant street protests so far have come in the region of Dagestan, where protesters filled the streets. Video posted to social media shows people blocking roads, fighting with Russian police, and chanting antiwar and anti-mobilization slogans. There is also growing evidence of protesters becoming more organized and more determined to resist Russian police who attempt to arrest fellow demonstrators.
The protests in Dagestan have partly been driven by the belief that the war and these latest mobilization orders are disproportionately targeting Russia’s poorer areas and ethnic-minority-dominated republics. The republic of Dagestan, a state in southern Russia that borders Armenia and Georgia, is one of several heavily Muslim-majority enclaves with a complicated history of insurgency, separatism and terrorism. Moscow fought two brutal wars against the breakaway republic of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s; now the warlord-president of that republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a staunch Putin ally who has deployed his own militants into Ukraine.
Research published in August by the BBC and the Russian media outlet Mediazona found that, of 3,798 casualties they could identify via local media reports and the statements of families and local authorities, Dagestan and Buryatia — a state that borders Mongolia and contains a sizable indigenous Mongolic population — had suffered the largest number of confirmed fatalities: 270 and 245, respectively. By contrast, Moscow, home to 9% of Russia’s total population, lost only 14 people. “In Buryatia, the campaign is called Bartholomew’s Night, after the 16th century Catholic massacre of Protestants in France,” said Paul Goble, a former State Department and CIA official who specializes in Russia’s ethnic and religious minorities. “That’s not something you hear very often in the Russian far east, is it? Dagestan is at the point where people are now talking of a Maidan in the regional capital Makhachkala,” (Maidan refers to Ukraine’s revolutionary protest movement in 2014.) The Kremlin’s bloody entanglement with the North Caucasus even has a historical antecedent in Ukraine’s post-Soviet development. When Ukrainians of all backgrounds voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union in a 1991 referendum, Russian President Boris Yeltsin prevailed in vain upon his Ukrainian counterpart, Leonid Kravchuk, to bring Kyiv into a new union with Moscow. One of Yeltsin’s motives, as repeatedly relayed to then-President George H. W. Bush, was “that without Ukraine, Russia would be outnumbered and outvoted by the Muslim republics,” according to Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy.
Police officers detain protesters in Moscow
Nevertheless, Goble thinks a better indicator of where mobilization is hitting hardest is economic rather than ethnic or religious. “Moscow is targeting places that are poorer because those people are more likely to see military service in a positive way, with the exception of those who’ve already seen people come home dead. And a lot of Buriyats have done just that already.”Moscow and St. Petersburg have had demonstrations on a smaller scale. Russian riot police have been deployed there to disperse crowds and can be seen beating and aggressively dragging off protesters — or simply anyone standing in their midst. Videos published on social media captured incredibly confused scenes in which Russian police detain pro-Putin counterdemonstrators, even a woman bystander simply waiting at a bus stop. According to independent monitors in Russia, over 1,300 men and women had been detained following protests in these Russian cities earlier in the week, with many Russian men of age apparently being given their draft papers after their arrests.
“Sergey” (not his real name) fled St. Petersburg within 24 hours of the mobilization order last week. He told Yahoo News that his best friend is a first-order candidate for call-up because he served in the military for a year seven years ago. “He’s a businessman and supports his entire family, including his parents and sister,” Sergey said. “And he’s really frustrated because he did everything right, paid his debt to the Motherland and meanwhile people are claiming medical excuses — many of them fake — to get out of being sent to Ukraine.”
Russians are also turning to more extreme forms of resistance as peaceful protests have been predictably ignored or repressed. In Ryazan, a city southeast of Moscow, a Russian man set himself on fire at a bus station while shouting slogans against the war, and his impending participation in it.
Recruitment offices have been set on fire or attacked. Video released by Russian media outlet Mash shows a station wagon ramming the entrance of an office in the Volgograd district, before the driver tossed several Molotov cocktails through the doors and windows of the building, seriously damaging the office.
Arson is also said to count as more than a symbolic gesture: Some observers have pointed out that the Russian army still largely relies on paper records, which would likely be destroyed in any fire. The Volgograd attack was far from an isolated event, according to Meduza, which claims 11 military enlistment offices and 6 administrative buildings have been set ablaze in Russia since the start of mobilization. The furor occurs against a backdrop of increasing discontent against the hastily implemented mobilization policy, whose critics include hawks and regime loyalists. Margarita Simonyan, head of Russian state media outlet RT, complained that mobilization officers were “infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite, ... as if they’d been sent by Kyiv,” while also grumbling that mobilization papers were being handed out to those too old or sick for military service. Vladimir Solovyov, host of Russian state television’s flagship talk show and another prominent Kremlin mouthpiece, called for those responsible for the botched roll-out of the policy to be shot.
Ukrainian soldiers  Anger at mobilization has been stoked by recently conscripted Russian men who have published footage of the dire conditions and decrepit equipment they’ve been issued with on social media. One widely shared video shows new recruits inspecting issued AKM assault rifles, which are covered in rust both externally and internally, appearing to be barely functional. Training barracks are shown to be in a substandard state, with conscripts being made to sleep on filthy mattresses with no bedding. Other Russians have been complaining that their conscripted relatives have been sent immediately to the front, with little or none of the promised training. In the city of Lipetsk, the wife of a recently mobilized man told Russian media that her husband and 1,000 other men had been given just one day of training before being sent to join the 237th Tank Regiment, currently fighting in Ukraine. “There comes a point, as Gorbachev found out,” said Goble, “when using repression is like throwing water at a grease fire — the fire spreads.”

Putin’s Top Cheerleaders Panic Over Russian Army ‘Mutiny’
Julia Davis/The Daily Beast./September 26, 2022
Russia’s “partial mobilization” cast another shadow on the already dire situation its Armed Forces are facing in Ukraine. The situation is so grotesque that even Russian President Vladimir Putin’s biggest cheerleaders find themselves trashing the way the mobilization is being conducted.
Top pro-Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and head of RT Margarita Simonyan spent much of the broadcast of the state TV show, Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, by complaining about the issues with the mobilization. Solovyov said, “There are panicked calls on my phone, on Margarita’s phone, which shows that a number of people involved have forgotten how to do their jobs.”Simonyan added that after listening to Putin’s announcement and the follow-up message from Russia’s Defense Ministry, she was under the impression that only people with prior military experience were subject to mobilization—but that’s not what happened. RT’s head said that she knows many people with prior combat experience, but none of them received any call-up notices.
Russia Desperately Tries to Sell Its Ukraine War Draft as Citizens Flee
She angrily recounted numerous instances where the new recruits included students, those outside the age limit, people with serious illnesses, barbers, teachers, musicians and a single mother of two young children. Among the people swept up in the mobilization efforts, Solovyov and Simonyan recounted seeing information about draftees as old as 62 and 59 years of age.
Solovyov brought up another egregious instance, where a severely ill musician was mobilized in Novosibirsk, prompting Senator Alexander Karelin to intervene. The recruiter explained that he drafted the musician, because he previously made some sort of a complaint against him. The host also mentioned the instance of rusty automatic weapons being distributed to new recruits, angrily questioning why that was done. Simonyan chimed in to say that these “small things” have a major impact on people.
Solovyov pointed out: “All of them have phones and they won’t stay silent. If they’re being handed rotten things, if they have no helmets, no body armor, no one is going to hide it... I will tell you very politely: don’t play games with people… This isn’t some liberal riff-raff, these are our people and I refuse to be silent about it.” Continuing with the same theme, Simonyan cautioned: “Comrades Commanders, this is not the time for this... don’t anger the people!” The head of RT urged those involved in the process of mobilization to remember the story of the mutiny that occurred on the battleship Potemkin, sparked by the crew being fed maggot-infested meat. Simonyan exclaimed: “Let me remind you that in 1905, small things like these led to the first mutiny of an entire military unit in the history of our country. Is that what you want?” She starkly warned: “You’re toying with armed people.”
Solovyov bitterly pointed out the split in Russia’s society: “Now we see that we have two sides. One side is being sent off as heroes to a people's war, while others are cowardly looking where and how to buy a ticket.” With unconfirmed reports claiming that over a quarter of a million Russians have left the country since the mobilization was announced last week, Simonyan had a message for those who left: “Good riddance... Just remember, no one is waiting for you there. Your money will run out and then you’ll have to come back.” Solovyov revealed that approximately 300 people called asking him for advice as to whether they’ll be able to leave the country after September 27, when Russia may officially start preventing people of the draft age from departing. There are reports that such measures are already being implemented at some international airports and border crossings.
Simonyan added: “It would be tremendous if the help of our civil society wasn’t needed... Partial mobilization is a forced measure. Of course, we would all prefer that it wasn’t taking place. For example, on February 24, I didn’t think that such a necessity would arise... We thought that all of this could be accomplished with much less blood and of course, we weren’t anticipating such strong resistance from NATO and the collective West. This happens in the beginning of any war: underestimating the resistance, overestimating your own force. So here we are with this partial mobilization.”
The head of RT expressed her concerns about supplying the newly drafted people with equipment, technology and basic essentials: “Since we had to gather and send the goods to those tens of thousands that were already on the frontlines... truckloads that added up to trainloads of UAVs, body armor, socks and the rest, will these three hundred thousand be supplied with all that they need?”
Her solution was to punish those responsible for the shortcomings and urge the rich to contribute to the war effort—an idea that has been picking up steam in Russian state media. Simonyan said, “We have many such people in our country. Right now, they have to share their wealth with those who have been mobilized and their families... I personally know hundreds, hundreds of people who wouldn’t go poor by doing that... Write me, call me, everybody knows my number... Let’s create a united front. Those who aren’t with us have left already—good riddance.”
She also had harsh words for the mothers trying to protect their children from the draft, calling their efforts shameful. Simonyan noted: “My children are small, but had I given birth to them at the right time, they would be of the draft age right now.”
‘The Time Has Come’: Top Putin Official Admits Ugly Truth About War
But there was one person who received no blame, no questions and no harsh words from Solovyov or Simonyan: Russian President Vladimir Putin. To the contrary, Simonyan praised Putin for taking “the heavy load of responsibility” solely upon himself. Likewise, Solovyov never criticized the very person responsible for Russia’s ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine, preferring to lay the blame on everyone else involved in the process. Referring to the mobilization criteria set forth by Putin, Solovyov said that anyone not following the mandated guidelines should be subjected to “the harshest punishment.” He added: “If someone is trying to discredit our Supreme Commander-in-Chief, I would strongly advise them not to do it.”
Having previously tweeted that RT received over seven hundred complaints pertaining to the mobilization, Simonyan promised to publicize the names of the Commanders involved in problematic cases of mobilization, if the situation does not improve. Solovyov had a more radical proposal to boost the sinking morale in the country, asking, “Could we have executions by shooting?”

Orthodox Church leader says Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine will be cleansed of sin
Reuters/September 26, 2022
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has said that Russian soldiers who die in the war against Ukraine will be cleansed of all their sins, days after President Vladimir Putin ordered the country's first mobilisation since World War Two. Patriarch Kirill is a key Putin ally and backer of the invasion. He has previously criticised those who oppose the war and called on Russians to rally round the Kremlin. "Many are dying on the fields of internecine warfare," Kirill, 75, said in his first Sunday address since the mobilisation order. "The Church prays that this battle will end as soon as possible, so that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war.""But at the same time, the Church realises that if somebody, driven by a sense of duty and the need to fulfil their oath ... goes to do what their duty calls of them, and if a person dies in the performance of this duty, then they have undoubtedly committed an act equivalent to sacrifice. They will have sacrificed themselves for others. And therefore, we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins that a person has committed."Russia says it is calling up some 300,000 additional troops to fight in Ukraine, in a mobilisation drive that has stoked public anger, led to an exodus of military-age men and triggered protests across the country. Kirill's support for the war in Ukraine has deepened a rift between the Russian branch of the Orthodox Church and other wings of Orthodoxy around the world. Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, has been a vocal opponent of the war, and has appeared to scold Kirill's position in several public addresses, including earlier this month when he said God does not support war.

Head of Russian church tells soldiers that death in Ukraine will cleanse their sins
Emily Cleary/Yahoo news/September 26, 2022
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has told Russian soldiers that death in Ukraine will absolve them of all sins.
Patriarch Kirrill, who in February justified Putin's decision to invade Ukraine on spiritual and ideological grounds, made the remarks shortly after Russian officials said up to 300,000 reservists would be called up to fight. Russia's top priest said: "Willingness to make sacrifices is the greatest expression of the best of human qualities."We know that today many die in the fields of internecine warfare. The Church prays that this battle will end as soon as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war."He then went on to reassure those called up to fight that should they die, their death would be a "sacrifice" and would "cleanse" their sins. He said: "At the same time, the Church realises that if someone, guided by a sense of duty, by the need to be loyal to the oath, remains true to his calling and goes to fulfil what their duty calls, and if that person dies while fulfilling this duty, he is undoubtedly accomplishes an act that equals a sacrifice. "He sacrifices himself for the others. "That is why we believe that this sacrifice cleanses all the sins that a person has committed."Patriarch Kirill also said in his sermon on Sunday that he prays for the fighting to end. Last week Russia began its first military mobilisation since World War Two to enlist citizens to fight in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin announced plans to mobilise 300,000 reserves to fight in the war in Ukraine, prioritising those with combat experience. He signed a new decree on Saturday that soldiers who surrender, desert, or refuse to fight can face up to ten years in prison. Last week, after the mobilisation announcement, Kirrill said in a sermon that a person of "true faith" is not subject to the fear of death. He said that a person becomes "invincible" when there is a "strong dimension associated with eternity" in him, and he ceases to be afraid of death. "Faith makes a person very strong, because it transfers his consciousness from everyday life, from material worries, to caring for the soul, for eternity," he said. "Namely, the fear of death drives a warrior from the battlefield, pushes the weak to betrayal and even to rebel against their brothers. But true faith destroys the fear of death."On Monday a report by independent Russian media outlet Meduza, which is based in Latvia, suggested that men of military age could be banned from leaving the country, as thousands try to flee Putin's call-up.The initial call to action led thousands to try and escape the country, with tickets to neighboring countries Turkey and Azerbaijan - neither of which require visas for Russians - selling out within hours and thousands traveling to Finland by land. The ban is expected to be introduced on Wednesday, after voting in the referendums in Russian-seized areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine has ended.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the Mirror: “We know what Vladimir Putin is doing. “He is planning to fabricate the outcome of those referenda, he is planning to use that to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory, and he is planning to use it as a further pretext to escalate his aggression.”

Desperate Russian Shoots Recruitment Officer Instead of Signing up to Fight in Ukraine
Dan Ladden-Hall/The Daily Beast/September 26, 2022
While many Russians have opted to flee the country to dodge Vladimir Putin’s desperate draft for the war in Ukraine, one man took his protest a little bit further and shot a recruitment commander.
Local authorities announced Monday’s attack, which unfolded in the city of Ust-Ilimsk in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. A video of the incident inside an enlistment office appears to show the gunman dressed in military fatigues firing on the official at point-blank range, causing other potential draftees to flee the room.
The shooter identified himself in a video published on social media as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, Reuters reports. Writing on encrypted messaging app Telegram, Irkutsk regional governor Igor Kobzev said the draft officer was left fighting for his life and remained in a critical condition after the shooting. Kobzev added that the shooter had been detained and “will absolutely be punished.”“I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united,” the governor added. “We must fight not against each other, but against real threats.”
A witness to the shooting said the gunman opened fire after the recruiting commander had delivered a “clumsy” pep talk for the men assembled in the office to go off to battle in Ukraine. “Nobody is going anywhere,” the shooter said before beginning the assault, the witness told the Baikal People outlet, according to The Guardian.The shooter was said to have been upset about his friend being conscripted. Separately, another man tried to burn himself alive at a bus station in Ryazan, about 115 miles southeast of Moscow. A witness to the self-immolation attempt told a local news channel that the man “laughed and shouted that he did not want to be part of the special operation” in Ukraine, referring to the legally-enforced euphemism that Putin is using to describe the war. Disturbing CCTV footage shows the man dousing himself in lighter fluid before erupting in flames, Meduza reports. The man’s condition is not known, though he reportedly suffered 90 percent burns across his body. The shooting is just the latest attack on Russian enlistment offices since Putin announced the mobilization of around 300,000 new troops last Wednesday, which has plunged the country into chaos. At least 17 administrative offices have been torched in arson attacks since the call-up was announced, according to the independent Mediazona news site, with many fearing that the initially limited mobilization will eventually expand to encompass much greater numbers than those touted by the Russian president.
Hundreds of Russians have also been arrested after public protests opposing the draft as thousands more have attempted to get out of their homeland before it’s too late. An alarming report over the weekend suggested that the Kremlin is planning to take the extreme measure of closing the border to men of fighting age on Wednesday in order to stop the drain of potential reserves for Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Tunisian mayor held after fruit seller suicide
Agence France Presse/September 26, 2022
Tunisian police on Monday arrested the mayor of a town where a fruit seller committed suicide after his scales were seized by council officials, sparking protests, a judicial spokesman said. Mohamed Amine Dridi, 25, hanged himself on Saturday two days after the electronic scales he used on his fruit and vegetable stall were taken, Tunisian media reported. On Sunday night, protesters in his hometown of Mornag, south of the capital Tunis, took to the streets criticizing high rates of unemployment and soaring costs of living. They torched tires and blocked the main street in Mornag, while police fired tear gas to disperse them. Dridi's suicide echoes the death of fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, a university graduate who set himself on fire in 2010 in the town of Sidi Bouzid to protest police harassment and unemployment. Bouazizi's death triggered weeks of mass protests against unemployment, high living costs, nepotism and state repression, and Sidi Bouzid became the birthplace of Tunisia's revolution that eventually toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. On Monday, Mornag's mayor was taken into police custody as part of an investigation into the suicide, a judicial spokesman for the Ben Arous governorate said. Tunisia's interior ministry said Dridi had faced "serious family problems", claims his brother rejected in an interview on local radio on Monday. The protests come amid brewing social discontent in the North African country of 12 million people, the torchbearer of the pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings that rocked the region in 2011. Tunisia is facing a serious economic crisis with regular shortages of basic foodstuffs and high inflation. Since President Kais Saied staged a power grab in July 2021, opposition parties and civil society activists have accused the security services of resorting to methods reminiscent of those of the former dictatorship of Ben Ali. Overnight Sunday, another demonstration against living conditions took place in the working class Tunis suburb of Douar Hicher, media reported.

Renewed militia clashes rock western Libya; 5 killed
Associated Press/September 26, 2022
Militia infighting that erupted over the weekend in western Libya and killed at least five people, including a 10-year-old girl, continued on Monday, authorities said. It was the latest round of violence to rock the North African nation mired in decadelong chaos. The fighting broke out on Sunday between rival militias in the western town of Zawiya, where armed groups — like in many other towns and cities in oil-rich Libya — are competing for influence. Along with the five who were killed, at least 13 other civilians were wounded in the clashes, the Health Ministry's emergency services said. The fighting trapped dozens of families living in the area for many hours, said Malek Merset, a spokesman for the emergency services. He said emergency services were still trying to evacuate trapped civilians. Local media reported that one militia fired at a member of its rivals, wounding a militiaman who was taken to hospital. Footage circulating online shows heavy fire lighting up the sky at night. The clashes caused widespread panic among residents, and many government facilities and businesses in the town closed down. By midday Monday, the Libyan Red Crescent announced a cease-fire, without offering further details. Violence has regularly escalated between militias in western Libya. In August, clashes in the capital of Tripoli killed more than 30 people — one of the deadliest bouts of fighting in Libya in many months. Libya was plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The oil-rich county has now for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. In Tripoli, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah has refused to step down after Libya failed to hold elections last year. His rival, Prime Minister Fathy Bashagha, operates from the eastern city of Benghazi after failed efforts to install his government in the capital.

Muslim Brotherhood’s Qaradawi, who endorsed suicide bombings against Israelis, dies
Times Of Israel/September 26, 2022
Egyptian-born cleric, 96, exiled to Qatar, was considered movement’s spiritual leader; helped grant legitimacy to Hamas terror campaign, justified killing Israeli women, children
An Egyptian cleric who was seen as the spiritual leader of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood and long advocated for suicide bombings against Israelis, has died at the age of 96. Youssef al-Qaradawi’s death on Monday was announced on his official website. He died in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, where he had been living in exile following the military’s overthrow of a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt in 2013. Al-Qaradawi had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt. For many years while living in exile, he had a popular talk show on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera network and often weighed in on controversial political topics. He published over 100 books about Islam and Muslim law, with many considering him one of the religion’s leading theologists. Al-Qaradawi was long close with the Hamas terror group, a Palestinian split-off the Muslim Brotherhood that rules the Gaza Strip.
Hamas waged a relentless campaign of suicide bombings against Israel in the early 2000s that enjoyed a degree of mainstream Muslim legitimacy thanks to the cleric. Al-Qaradawi was eulogized by Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas terror group’s political bureau, who hailed the cleric’s “great impact” in the fields of “jihad, advocacy, and science.” In Israel, Al-Qaradawi was mourned by Safwat Frij, chair of the Shura Council of the Islamic Movement’s Southern Branch, the religious council behind the Ra’am party that is currently a member of the outgoing Israeli government. Right-wing opposition parties have long sought to delegitimize the party and the government by accusing the faction of supporting terrorism. “Al-Qaradawi dedicated his life for the benefit of the defense of Islam and Muslims,” Frij said, and expressed hope he would be rewarded in the afterlife. Al-Qaradawi was a major religious proponent of terror against Israelis. In 2004, he gave an interview to the BBC justifying Palestinian terror and the killings of Israeli women and children. “Israeli women are not like women in our society because Israeli women are militarized… I consider this type of martyrdom operation as indication of justice of Allah almighty… Through his infinite wisdom, he has given the weak what the strong do not possess and that is the ability to turn their bodies into bombs like the Palestinians do,” he said. During a visit to Gaza in 2013, he denied Israel’s right to exist. “This land has never once been a Jewish land. Palestine is for the Arab Islamic nation,” he said at the time.Al-Qaradawi partially reversed himself in 2016, declaring that suicide attacks — even against Israelis — were no longer permissible, as the Palestinians now had “other capabilities” to defend themselves such as the rocket arsenals possessed by Hamas and other Gaza-based terror factions.
He continued, however, to laud deadly acts of terror against Israelis. Qaradawi has also condoned domestic violence and the murder of members of the LGBT community. Al-Qaradawi also voiced support for the Iraqi insurgency that erupted after the US-led invasion of 2003 and called on all Muslim nations at the time to prepare to fight the Americans there “if the Iraqis fail to drive them out.” In 2012, al-Qaradawi was barred by France from attending a conference, with the French government saying at the time that it did not want “extremist preachers” on its soil.Four years later, the UK denied him entry after announcing it would “not tolerate the presence of those who seek to justify any acts of terrorist violence or express views that could foster inter-community violence.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 26-27/2022
Biden’s Iran Policy After the Protests
Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad/The Dispatch/September 26, 2022
The recent wave of unrest is an opportunity to reset America’s approach to the Islamic Republic.
Few world leaders gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) appeared as isolated as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. As he delivered predictable anti-American attacks from the podium, Iranians were risking life and limb to protest the Islamic Republic at home. While the Biden administration’s approach to Iran has featured one too many pulled punches, the recent protests offer an opportunity to recalibrate.
The latest round of protests were sparked by the Iranian government’s killing of a woman named Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old had been detained and beaten by Iran’s morality police—which enforce strict Islamic social norms—over alleged violations of the country’s hijab laws. She was pronounced dead at Tehran’s Kasra hospital last week.
Iranian authorities alleged that Amini had a pre-existing health condition, a dubious explanation rejected by her family and broad swaths of Iranian society. Amini’s death touched off days of protests and acts of defiance across the country. Media reports suggest the regime has killed dozens of people already, and that number is expected to rise. Authorities have again resorted to using internet blackouts to mask the regime’s repression and impede protesters. This is not the first time in recent years that demonstrators have moved from demanding reform to openly seeking revolution.
Yet officials from the Iranian government were welcomed to New York this week, as clear a symbol of the Biden administration’s Iran policy incoherence as any. Raisi sits at the helm of the most sanctioned cabinet in Iranian history. Raisi and his chief of staff are subject to U.S. and EU sanctions, yet both were granted visas to New York.
It’s too late to undo this embarrassment, but it’s still possible for the administration to live up to its promise of a human-rights–centric foreign policy. More specifically, Biden and other top national security officials can act on their stated desire to stand with demonstrating Iranians and hold “accountable” those involved in Amini’s death or repressing protests.
We have previously recommended in these pages what amounts to a “maximum pressure” against the Islamic Republic—and one of “maximum support” to the Iranian people. This includes walking away from negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, implementing a “protest policy playbook” to support Iranians who are demonstrating, and isolating the government at international organizations. But there are actions short of these broader steps that can be taken immediately.
The administration currently has all the legal and political authorities necessary to engage in a targeted campaign of designations against those responsible for killing Amini, as well as those cracking down on protesters across Iran.
The administration can work with the Treasury Department to sanction persons and entities who engage in human rights violations or censorship activities, pursuant to executive orders 13553 and 13846. These orders target persons and entities who engage in human rights violations or censorship activities including but not limited to penalizing freedom of expression and assembly, respectively. Put simply, these penalties put offenders on America’s economic blacklist through an asset freeze.
There is also a route for diplomatic pressure. The State Department, under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2021, can levy a visa ban against foreign government officials and their families for gross rights violations. Children and families of regime elites live extravagant lives abroad. The reason for such a ban was best made by popular retired Iranian footballer Ali Karimi, who tweeted in the aftermath of the killing of Mahsa Amini that, “Their children leave. Our children die.”
On Thursday, the Biden administration drew on some of these authorities to target Iran’s morality police, which is a component of the already sanctioned law-enforcement forces (LEF). The administration also appears to have issued a string of designations against officials who have supported cracking down on protesters in jurisdictions witnessing demonstrations.
Individuals that the administration recently designated include the Tehran and national chiefs for the morality police, Haj Ahmad Mirzaei and Mohammad Rostami. The administration also sanctioned four security officials at the national level including but not limited to the head of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces as well as the Minister of Intelligence. But there are more targets that the administration can and should consider.
Following the logic of local designations, additional provincial law enforcement chiefs could be subject to sanctions due to the use of force against protesters. Two prominent examples include Hossein Rahimi and Ali Azadi, who serve as chief of police for Tehran and Kurdistan. And while LEF chief Hossein Ashtari is already sanctioned, he could be subject to the aforementioned 2021 law to ensure a visa ban against him and his family. The same could apply for Ashtari’s deputy, Qasem Rezaei, in addition to all the other senior security officials designated this week.
Scaling down, the administration could even target LEF commanders of smaller cities witnessing protests and violent repression. Potential candidates could include the commanders of the LEF in Divandarreh, Saqqez, Babol, and Bokan, who are Col. Abbas Abdi, Col. Seyyed Ali Saffari, and Col. Mohammad Zaman Shalikar and Colonel Salman Heydari, respectively. In Bokan for instance, a 10-year-old girl was shot in the head. Washington could also explore the potential applicability of sanctions against local political officials, who are likely to retain ties to LEF units in their jurisdiction such as governors. In Saqqez for instance, protests took place outside of governor Kamil Karimian’s office.
Scaling up, the administration could study the feasibility of sanctioning national level political officials, such General Ahmad Vahidi, who serves as minister of interior, and Issa Zarepour, who serves as minister of information and communications technology. The Treasury Department previously sanctioned Vahidi’s predecessor for control over the LEF, and has already sanctioned Vahidi but not under human rights authorities. Vahidi also has an INTERPOL red notice against him for his role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Argentina in 1994. Now would be a prudent time to update Vahidi’s designation.
Treasury previously sanctioned Zarepour’s predecessor for internet censorship and throttling internet access, particularly after the Aban or November 2019 protests. Given that the Islamic Republic continues to engage in this activity, Treasury should update its sanctions lists by targeting the next person in charge of continuing internet censorship in Iran.
We aren’t delusional about the chances of this happening, but it would be logical to apply sanctions against Iran’s supreme leader himself, Ali Khamenei. Sitting atop the regime, Khamenei is the ultimate arbiter of Iran’s security policy at home and abroad. He also serves as the country’s commander in chief.
While sanctioned under Executive Order 13876, which targets his office and network of appointees, Khamenei has not been subject to any human rights penalties. This is despite his reported authorization of the violent crackdown in 2019 that led to the death of about 1,500 Iranians. “The Islamic Republic is in danger. Do whatever it takes to end it. You have my order,” is what one source quoting Khamenei told Reuters in December 2019. It’s likely that Khamenei continues to be involved in, or at least made abreast of, regime responses to protests of a similar scale against the Islamic Republic.
The Biden administration faces a simple question: Does it have the political will to act in a sustained manner against Iran’s human rights abuses and repression of protests? Or will the recent string of designations be yet another one-off?
*Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser. Both contribute to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP), among others. The views expressed are their own. Follow Saeed on Twitter @SGhasseminejad. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Christians ‘Face Routine Torture’ in Afghanistan
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/September 26, 2022
The estimated 15,000-20,000 Christians who remain in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover “face routine torture and persecution from both the government and their own friends, families and communities,” according to a new report.
This is not a new development. From the start, matters significantly worsened for Christians on August 15, 2021, following the Biden administration’s abrupt and poorly-planned withdrawal of U.S. troops, which caused the Central Asian nation to fall right back into the grips of the Taliban, an Islamic terrorist group complicit in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
During the chaos of withdrawal, there were even reports that the Biden administration was actively preventing the rescue of Christian minorities from what has since become the sharia-enforcing Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Once U.S. withdrawal was complete, reports indicated that “Taliban militants are even pulling people off public transport and killing them on the spot if they’re Christians.” Any Afghan caught with a Bible app on their phone was reportedly executed. “How we survive daily only God knows,” a Christian Afghan reported on condition of anonymity. “But we are tired of all the death around us.”
According to the World Watch List 2022, which ranks the 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted for their faith, Afghanistan is now the worst nation in the entire world in which to be Christian.
Similarly, Voice of the Martyrs, an international humanitarian nonprofit, offers the following about the 99.8 percent Muslim nation:
Beatings, torture and kidnappings are routine for Christians in Afghanistan. … Christians are martyred every year in Afghanistan, but their deaths generally occur without public knowledge. A few are also in prison… Christian converts from Islam are often killed by family members or other radicalized Muslims before any legal proceedings can begin.
Rather tellingly, immediate family members are most prone to persecute and murder converts to Christianity. As Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs recently explained, although conditions for Christians have “certainly worsened” since the Taliban takeover, “the first line of persecution is your family members, it’s your neighbors.” He explained how converts arouse suspicion when they fail to appear for prayers at their mosques. In just the first eight months of the Taliban’s resumption of power, one clandestine Christian man had to relocate his family three times due to the threat of discovery.
It is worth noting that, while Afghanistan was always bad for Christians, it became significantly worse in response to the U.S. invasion of 2001 (which, over twenty years later, and after spilling much blood and treasure, produced nil). Because Muslims tend to conflate Christians with the West in general, and America in particular—based on the popular but erroneous belief among Muslims that the West and America are still Christian—Afghan Christians were especially targeted after the U.S. invasion as a form of “collective punishment.”
In neighboring Pakistan, as usual (here, here and here) , Christian minorities were also attacked:
Life on any given day for Pakistani Christians is difficult. But members of Pakistan’s Christian community say now they’re being persecuted for U.S. drone attacks on Islamic militants hiding on the border with Afghanistan. The minority, which accounts for an estimated one percent of the country’s 170 million [mostly Muslim] population, says because its faith is strongly associated with America, it is targeted by Muslims.
“When America does a drone strike, they come and blame us,” said one Christian. “They think we belong to America. It’s a simple mentality.”
On the other hand, Western leadership is very careful not to show any concern for Christian minorities—a sentiment that goes hand in hand with Western acquiescence to Islamic sensibilities. If anything, Western leaders are more prone to turn a blind eye to, if not actively discriminate against, already persecuted Christians—as was the case with the UN and the UK, and during the Obama administration.
There is a final aspect to the plight of Christians in Afghanistan, one that more “pragmatic” observers will, no doubt, cite to blame the persecuted themselves. Apparently, many of the few thousand Christians that remain in Afghanistan are there on the same rationale that motivated the earliest Christians. According to David Curry, of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom:
Many Christians did flee Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. Some did stay because they want to be ‘salt and light’ [Matt. 5:13-16 Matt] in a theological sense in that country, even though it became more hostile. So, they want to be part of the community. They love their country. It’s totally understandable why many fled, but there is an embattled Christian community there in Afghanistan still today.
Todd Nettleton confirms this: [Those remaining Christians] made the incredible bold decision to stay in the country. And their attitude was, ‘Listen, if all the Christians flee the country, who’s going to be here to share the gospel, who’s going to be here to be the church?’ And so they made that courageous decision to stay, even knowing that the Taliban would be taking over; knowing it was a very risky thing. However one wishes to interpret this, here are the weak and vulnerable altruistically risking their lives for what they at least believe is the good of their fellow man, while many of the world’s rich and powerful, who habitually preach about “human rights” and “religious freedom”—at least when it suits their agendas, for example, to create racial divisions in the U.S., demonize Israel, or cover up for Islamist radicalization—have seemingly done everything possible to exacerbate their situation.

Iran’s malign theocracy is unraveling before our eyes
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/September 26/2022
Notorious mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi was running scared at the UN last week. As leader of the world’s foremost pariah regime, this truly evil man had plenty of time on his hands in New York, with few heads of state willing to engage with him.
News outlets such as The Washington Post and Reuters were barred from the Iranian president’s press conference after they refused to refrain from asking about the mass protests that have swept Iran in the past week. CNN’s British-Iranian chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour commendably refused to enable regime propaganda by wearing hijab to interview Raisi, who duly failed to turn up. To the few who attended his press conference, Raisi explained that “bad things” happened to people at the hands of authorities everywhere. He should know, having the blood of thousands of murdered Iranians on his hands after decades as the Islamic Republic’s chief hatchet man. Raisi has pledged “decisive action” to crush the protests, and he has also promised to investigate their proximate cause — the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of Iran’s “morality police.” Does he plan to investigate his own complicity? It was Raisi himself who in July personally ordered the latest violent crackdown on women after eight years of relatively looser enforcement of Iran’s preposterous dress code.
Raisi is the personification of why a beautiful and intelligent young woman, just a couple of hours after leaving her home, was admitted to hospital with fatal brain damage. Mahsa was neither a criminal nor a threat, but she represented the right that every Iranian demands — to go freely about their lives, without being subject to extreme violence.
The thuggish nature of Raisi and Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime is highlighted by the way Mahsa’s family came under intolerable pressure to back the authorities’ distorted version of events. Similar gangster-like pressures are being systematically exerted upon families of the dozens of citizens killed in last week’s protests. This criminal theocracy, directly and through its proxies, has also visited terrible afflictions on Arab nations, and has the blood of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis and Yemenis on its hands. But we mustn’t forget that the biggest victims of this dictatorship are its own citizens. During the bloody 2019 uprisings well over 1,900 Iranians were murdered. The 2009 protests were comparably brutal. Khamenei insisted last week that “resistance, not submission” was the means by which Iran would be victorious on the world stage. His citizens appear to be taking him literally, demonstrating their refusal to submit to their oppressors and showing Khamenei what genuine “resistance” looks like. The ayatollahs’ children live lives of debauched opulence overseas, while citizens starve. Damn right Iranians are angry!
Thousands of fearless women, from the very young to the elderly, have taken part in protests. They burned their hijabs, publicly cut their hair, and danced on the roofs of police cars chanting “Death to the dictator” —and suffered beatings and arrests for these acts of courage. There were even protests in the women’s wing of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran.
Demonstrations have been reported in all of Iran’s 31 provinces and over 80 cities, from the capital Tehran to Qom, the ideological birthplace of Khomeinism — all despite internet blockages, disruption to mobile networks, the closure of universities, the deployment of tear gas and live ammunition against peaceful protesters, and thousands of arrests and killings. Some of the fiercest demonstrations have been in the Kurdish north, Mahsa’s home province, where entire towns have fallen into the hands of protesters.
In recent years, Iranian families have fallen into ever-worsening poverty, as billions of dollars of their national wealth was exported overseas to bankroll wars, terrorism and militancy. The ayatollahs have destroyed the economy, consolidating Iran’s position as a sanctioned and marginalized pariah state while enriching themselves through vast, corrupt theological foundations that swallow up most of the state budget. The ayatollahs’ children live lives of debauched opulence overseas, while citizens starve. Damn right Iranians are angry!
The army has threatened to violently crush protests and act decisively against “the conspiracies of the enemies.” Regime supporters marched through major cities chanting “death to the seditionists,” insisting that the protests were a plot by America, Israel and “Kurdish separatists.”
The regime has moved to criminalise VPNs in order to drastically reduce internet access. Millions of Iranians are being sent text messages threatening them with the consequences of participating in “sedition.”
Many of the riot police deployed to confront the protesters are young and penniless, and have little love for the evil dictatorship they are propping up. Even some of the usual regime mouthpieces have criticized its heavy-handed tactics.
Are Western nations so restrained in their expressions of “concern” because they are still holding out for a quickie nuclear deal with these terrorists, in the hope that the mullahs will reopen the oil taps and stabilize global energy markets? It is exactly such deals with the devil that enable industrial-scale crimes against humanity. Instead, these “freedom-loving nations” should be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom from tyranny.
Even if this malign theocracy musters sufficient self-preservation instinct to crush these latest protests in a lake of blood, it will only be months before desperate, enraged citizens rise up again. Never before has a regime invested such ceaseless efforts into making itself so hated, at home and abroad.
For Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis living out the appalling consequences of “wilayat al-faqih” tyranny, the greatest consolation is that soon — perhaps even in the coming days — we will see this whole Satanic edifice, along with its puppets, cheerleaders and militias, disintegrate before our eyes.
• 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.

Iran regime has nothing to offer the people but violence
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/September 26/2022
The arrest of a young Kurdish woman, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, by Iran’s “morality police,” followed by her death inside a detention facility, has brought the debate over the hijab and violence against women in Iran to the forefront, sparking a growing wave of popular anti-regime protests.
As news of Amini’s death spread, Iranian authorities attempted to deflect the blame by falsely claiming that she had been suffering from a chronic disease, which caused her death. The country’s authorities categorically rejected reports of Amini having been subjected to beatings, even publishing video footage of the young woman filmed inside the detention facility to support their narrative.
The young woman’s father flatly denied the regime’s version of events, asserting that his daughter was a healthy young woman who had never suffered from any health problems and blaming the police for her death. And harrowing photographs showing Amini unconscious in a hospital bed clearly showed the bruising and other signs of violence perpetrated against her by the so-called morality police, which has recently been given carte blanche to brutally target Iranian women.
Iranian authorities wronged this innocent young woman not just once, but twice, firstly by killing her in one of their detention facilities and secondly by denying her real identity. Like all members of Iran’s ethnic minorities, Mahsa, as she was known, was a victim of systematic racial, cultural and ethnic persecution. Her real forename, given to her by her parents at birth, was Zhina. Iran’s authorities refused to register her birth under this name because it is Kurdish, instead insisting that she should be given the name Mahsa, which is Persian.
There is plentiful evidence of the brutal beating that this young woman was subjected to. Most damningly, a CT scan leaked to a few media outlets revealed a fracture to the right side of her skull caused by heavy direct blows.
In a Twitter post, prominent Iranian lawyer Saeed Dehghan straightforwardly called Amini’s killing a murderous act, noting that she sustained severe trauma from being hit so hard on the head that one of the blows fractured the base of her skull.
Recent statements by the morality police saying that Amini’s death was regrettable and that they do not want to see any future incidents of a similar nature reflect a tacit admission of responsibility for her death. These statements also reveal the confusion among Iranian officials, who cannot even get their own story straight, claiming at one time that she had died of an existing illness, then that she had died of a stroke, and finally that her death was the result of a “regrettable incident.”
As is customary, the Iranian security authorities have attempted to pursue a policy of disinformation and media blackout in order to obscure their heinous crime against this young woman and to evade responsibility, particularly in light of the angry official and popular reactions to the incident, which has shaken Iranian society and awakened its dormant conscience. The police and intelligence agencies have put pressure on the deceased woman’s family to silence them, forcing them not to speak to the media. They also attempted to bury Amini at night to reduce the number of mourners and ensure they would be unable to see the evidence of beatings on her body.
While the Iranian authorities have successfully intimidated Amini’s family into remaining silent, the bitterness of the injustice inflicted on this woman in the bloom of youth is too much for the Iranian street. As a result, Iranians have taken to the streets in several cities to protest at her extrajudicial killing, as well as against Iran’s repressive policies regarding the hijab. Protesters have chanted anti-regime slogans, including “Death to (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” with activists and anti-hijab groups launching “No to hijab” campaigns in Tehran and other cities. Famous Iranian women have cut their hair and removed their headscarves in protest at Amini’s death, in open defiance of the authorities, particularly in rejection of their draconian hijab policies.
This widespread public reaction reflects the level of discontent across Iranian society, as well as the growing chasm between the regime and the Iranian public generally. This has added to the existing pressure on the regime, which is already facing a number of serious challenges, such as the cost of living crisis, its diplomatic isolation and international pressures.
While Amini’s Kurdish ethnicity is one of the factors fueling the protests, particularly in Kurdish areas, the fact that Iranian citizens from all ethnic backgrounds are taking to the streets and chanting anti-regime slogans demonstrates that a common cause and shared sense of suffering are uniting Iranians from various ethnic backgrounds against the regime’s policies. As a result, more protests are likely in the future and they will grow bigger by the day.
The Iranian regime has nothing to offer the people in the face of this round of protests apart from further repression and violence. Despite international organizations and some world powers condemning Amini’s killing and the authorities’ mishandling of the protests, it appears that the repressive regime will, once again, face no accountability for its crimes. This means that Amini could be added to the very long list of Iranians subjected to injustice and violence by the very authorities that are supposed to protect them.
The bitterness of the injustice inflicted on this woman in the bloom of youth is too much for the Iranian street.
This unfortunate fact could lead observers to conclude that there are political reasons for the international community, particularly Western nations, to ignore the systematic nature of the brutal policies pursued by Iran’s repressive apparatuses against the Iranian people, focusing obsessively on efforts to bring Iran back to the 2015 nuclear deal rather than highlighting its horrendous and blatant violations of human rights and individual freedoms. If the international community raises concerns about these issues, Iran may use this as a pretext to reduce its compliance with its nuclear commitments and to further prolong negotiations. All this means that resisting the regime’s injustice against Iranians remains an internal struggle. The Iranian regime’s increasingly brutal crushing of protests, contradicting its professed principles of protecting the vulnerable and marginalized among the Iranian people, is an obstacle to an uprising that will uproot corruption and injustice in Iran.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). Twitter: @mohalsulami

Why Mahsa Amini’s death will deepen the alienation of Iran’s secular Kurdish minority
Robert Edwards/Arab News/September 26, 2022
Ethnic group that champions gender equality was already a misfit in the authoritarian theocracy
Kurds have known the heavy hand of the security state since the Islamic Revolution of 1979
LONDON: Since the death of Mahsa Amini after being taken into custody by Iran’s notorious morality police, protests have raged in cities across the Islamic Republic, beginning in Amini’s home province of Kurdistan.
Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurdish woman, died on Sept. 16, three days after she was arrested in Tehran by the Gasht-e Ershad, the regime’s vice squad, which enforces strict rules on women’s dress, including the hijab.
Her death has highlighted the oppression and marginalization of women in Iran. It has also cast a light on the ill-treatment of the country’s non-Persian ethnic minorities, particularly its substantial Kurdish population, concentrated in the west of the country.
In turn, this has highlighted the contrasting treatment of women in other areas of the Middle East in which Kurds make up a majority of the local population — in northern Iraq, southeast Turkey and northern Syria — where women are prominent in both civic and military life.
On Sept. 24, a protest was held in solidarity with the women of Iran outside the UN compound in Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq. Many of those who took part were Iranian Kurds living in self-imposed exile in a city known for its culture of tolerance.
Bearing placards with Amini’s face, the protesters chanted “women, life, freedom,” and “death to the dictator,” in reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“They killed (Amini) because of a piece of hair coming out from her hijab. The youth are asking for freedom. They are asking for rights for all the people because everyone has the right to have dignity and freedom,” one protester Namam Ismaili, an Iranian Kurd from Sardasht, a Kurdish town in Iran’s northwest, told Reuters.
“We are not against religion, and we are not against Islam. We are secularists, and we want religion to be separate from politics,” Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish Iranian actor and director living in Irbil, told the news agency.
Last week, Masoud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan’s governing party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, called Amini’s family to express his condolences, saying he hoped justice would be served.
Kurdish political identity throughout the region and among the community’s large European diaspora embraces secularist, nationalist and even socialist traditions. In the case of Iran’s Kurds, this frequently puts them at odds with the country’s theocratic regime.
On Sept. 23, the Kurdish-majority town of Oshnavieh in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province briefly fell into the hands of protesters, who set fire to government offices, banks, and a base belonging to the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In response, the IRGC shelled the offices of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in Sidakan in Iraq, accusing the Kurdish parties of inciting “chaos.”
Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC, said the shelling targeted the offices of Komala and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran for allegedly sending “armed teams and a large amount of weapons … to the border cities of the country to cause chaos.”
The KDPI is a Kurdish opposition party that has waged an on-and-off armed campaign against the regime since the Islamic Revolution. Komala, meanwhile, is a leftist Kurdish armed opposition party, which fights for the rights of Kurds in Iran.
Although Iran’s constitution grants ethnic minorities equal rights, allowing them to use their own language and practice their own traditions, the Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs, Baloch, and other groups say they are treated as second class citizens — their resources extracted, their towns starved of investment, and their communities aggressively policed.
Kurdish opposition groups in Iran have fought for decades to obtain greater political and cultural rights for their communities, which are spread across a part of the country known to Kurds as Rojhelat — or Eastern Kurdistan. This nationalist spirit has often meant women’s emancipation has been viewed as a secondary concern against the overarching fight for Kurdish nationhood, especially in the case of Iraqi Kurdish leaders, who have long drawn their support from traditional tribal structures.
However, elsewhere in the region, Kurdish opposition groups have consistently fought for an alternative vision for society — one that is based on democratic values and on the equal status of women.
Nowhere is this perhaps more obvious than in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, where the political arm of the US-allied Syria Democratic Forces has established a self-governing polity known to Kurds as Rojava — or Western Kurdistan.
On Friday, Mazloum Abdi, commander in chief of the SDF, condemned the killing of Amini, describing it as a “moral failure” of the ruling authorities in Iran.
He also expressed solidarity with the protests in Iran via Twitter, saying: “The Kurdish and women’s issues must be resolved in appropriate ways.”
In Rojava, Kurdish women fighting in guerrilla brigades against Daesh have achieved iconic status — especially the Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ, the all-women brigades of the People’s Protection Units. These YPJ fighters won global acclaim in 2014 for their role in the liberation of the Kurdish-majority city of Kobane in northern Syria from an extremist group whose warped interpretation of Islam would have seen them enslaved.
Soon after their victory, images of young, unveiled, mostly Kurdish YPJ fighters appeared on magazine covers and in newspapers around the world, demolishing many prevailing stereotypes in the West about Middle Eastern women as passive victims.
Within the AANES, there are now several women-only organizations, while in the areas of Syria under YPJ control, child marriage has been abolished, the practice of men taking multiple wives outlawed, and domestic abuse treated with the utmost severity.
The focus on women has also led to a policy called the “co-chair” system, whereby all positions of authority are held by both a man and a woman with equal collaborative power. As a result, women in Kurdish areas of Syria hold 50 percent of official positions.
A similar model is employed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party in Turkey and among the ranks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, inspired by the values of its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan.
Although honor killings and female genital mutilation have remained all too common in parts of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, women’s political participation and leadership has improved greatly in recent years, with the role of speaker in the Kurdistan parliament twice being held by a woman.
In 2018, the Kurdistan Regional Government raised its gender quota in Parliament from 25 percent to 30 percent, so that 34 out of 111 sitting MPs are now women. The Daesh attack on Yazidi women in Sinjar in Aug. 2014 also encouraged more Kurdish women to join the frontline war effort, challenging their victim role in warfare and broadening their identity from being mere caregivers to protectors.
This brought forward changes in Kurdish society concerning women’s roles and identities, making it easier for women to join the Peshmerga — the armed forces of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Despite the region’s recent achievements, Iraqi Kurdish women’s campaigner Sherri Talabany reported during the MERI Forum 2019 that women still face high rates of domestic violence and a low share in the labor market of just 14 percent.
Kurdish opposition groups in Iran have fought for decades to obtain greater political and cultural rights for their communities. (AFP)
Meanwhile, only three representatives in the 23-member Iraqi Cabinet are women, and only one in the KRG cabinet of 21 ministers.
But the picture is far bleaker in Iran, where female labor force participation reached just 17.54 percent in 2019, compared with the global average of 47.70 percent, giving Iran one of the lowest levels of labor force female participation in the world.
Women in Iran also face restrictions in reaching managerial and decision-making positions in the public and private sectors. In addition, owing to Western sanctions, erratic economic policies and the COVID-19 pandemic, Iran’s economy has shrunk in recent years, affecting women’s employment opportunities.
What the protests sweeping Iran in response to Amini’s death appear to show is a general rejection of the maltreatment of women and ethnic minorities, frustration over the economic situation, and outrage at the heavy-handed ways of the morality police.
Some Iranians who cross into Iraqi Kurdistan for work or to see relatives have told AFP that while Amini’s death was a trigger, the long-running economic crisis and the climate of repression fed into the explosion of anger.
“The difficult economic situation in Iran … the repression of freedoms, particularly those of women, and the rights of the Iranian people led to an implosion of the situation,” Azad Husseini, an Iranian Kurd who now works as a carpenter in Iraq, told the news agency. “I don’t think the protests in Iranian cities are going to end anytime soon.”