English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 04/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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15 آذار/2023
Bible Quotations For today
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Matthew 28/16-20: “The eleven disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him,
they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on June 03-04/2023
Rai meets Frangieh after
returning from France
Israel Complains to UN about Hezbollah Maneuvers
Lebanon's Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Paris Still Supports Franjieh’s Presidential
Bid
Turning the page: A new chapter in Iran-US relations
Forging consensus: The path to endorsing Jihad Azour's nomination
The blood of Rooney the Irishman corners
"Hezbollah".
From prey to prison: Unraveling the criminal network of Jahjah Jaafar
Mikati in Turkey to attend Erdogan's inauguration ceremony
Case of Lebanese ambassador to France continues to unfold
MoFA decides to urgently dispatch an investigation committee to France to
investigate Ambassador Adwan and hear testimony from embassy staff
Coordination meeting between Jumblatt and his son with a delegation from
occupied 48-Arabs in Larnaca
Hajj Hassan: The team that rejects dialogue and understanding contributes to
prolonging the crisis
Berri says to call for vote once Azour's nomination becomes 'serious'
Lebanese ambassador in France accused of rape, violence
Last Call for UNIFIL? Israel and Hezbollah in a 2006 Deja Vu/Assaf Orion/The
Washington Institute/Jun 03/2023
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on June 03-04/2023
Israeli military says Egyptian
police officer kills 3 soldiers in gunbattle at Egyptian border
Three Europeans return home after release by Iran in prisoner swap
Bring Iran’s Mullahs to justice for the Evin massacre
Iran says to form naval alliance with Gulf states to ensure regional stability
Blinken outlines conditions for ‘true’ peace in Ukraine
Putin's family owns lavish mansions in Moscow and France and has spent millions
refurbishing them, leaks say
Russia warns United States: don't brandish ultimatums on arms control
Zelenskiy says Ukraine ready to launch counteroffensive
Russian forces tried to blow up my men, says mercenary boss Prigozhin
Kremlin: Western journalists won't get accreditation for Russian economic forum
US, Canadian navies stage rare joint mission through Taiwan Strait
Pope to visit Mongolia, home to just 1,300 Catholics
Turkiye’s Erdogan sworn in for third term as Turkish president
UNSC condemns Sudan violence, calls on parties to honor ceasefire agreements
Titles For
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published
on June 03-04/2023
Crusaders Overcome Jihad at Antioch and Godfrey’s Valor/Raymond Ibrahim/June
3, 2023
The Anti-Western Nuclear Club: North Korea, China, Russia and Iran Dangerously
Target the West/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/June 3, 2023
Sanctioning a Syrian Jihadist Leader: Implications of a Joint U.S.-Turkish
Designation/Aaron Y. Zelin/The Washington Institute/Jun 03/2023
Extraordinary Popular Mobilization Force Expansion, By The Numbers/Amir al-Kaabi,
Michael Knights/The Washington Institute/June 03/ 2023
Iran: Heroic Flexibility Returns/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/June 03/2023
The Specter Haunting Sudan and the Drawers of Oblivion/Jamal Al-Keshky/Asharq Al
Awsat/June 03/2023
Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on June 03-04/2023
Rai meets Frangieh after returning from France
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
Sources told LBCI on Saturday that the leader of the "Marada Movement," Sleiman
Frangieh met with Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai upon his return from France.
The same sources added that Rai notified Frangieh that the major Christian
parties had reached an agreement to nominate Jihad Azour and that Bkerke, which
does not prefer one candidate over another, will not stand in opposition to the
major Christian blocs. He added that he conveyed this message to French
President Emmanuel Macron, who understood his position.
Israel Complains to UN about Hezbollah
Maneuvers
Tel Aviv:/Asharq Al Awsat/June 03/2023
Israel submitted an official complaint against Hezbollah to the UN Security
Council regarding the recent military maneuvers conducted by the party
.Meanwhile, the Israeli Army launched an exceptionally large multifront military
drill across the country to face any threat by Iran or its proxies in Lebanon,
Syria and the Gaza Strip. In the complaint also addressed to Secretary General
Antonio Gueterres, the Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN, Gilad Erdan,
said on Thursday that 700 Hezbollah fighters participated in the Lebanese
party’s maneuvers that used live ammunition and were openly held in southern
Lebanon near the border with Israel. “The maneuvers dealt with anti-Israel
scenarios, including infiltration into Israeli territory and the kidnapping of
Israeli soldiers or citizens,” the Israeli diplomat said. In the complaint,
Erdan considered these maneuvers a flagrant violation of Security Council
Resolutions 1701 and 1559. Israel demands the Lebanese government to impose
state sovereignty over its territory, and prevent Hezbollah from turning Lebanon
into a terrorist base, he said. The Israeli diplomat then called on the Security
Council to strongly condemn Iran and Hezbollah for their role in destabilizing
the region, and said that “Israel will take all necessary measures to protect
its citizens and its sovereignty.” On Monday, Israel began a multifront air,
sea, land and cyber drill that includes simulated Israeli strikes inside Iran as
well as a surprise Israeli attack on Hezbollah and its power centers.
CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, along with the Israeli Army Chief of
Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, attended the first three days of the two-week long
Israeli drill. Israeli troops from the standing and reserve army, from nearly
all units, would participate in the exercise — dubbed Firm Hand.
The forces will practice handling challenges and sudden events, simultaneously
on multiple fronts including in Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank. An Israeli Army spokesperson said the forces involve the Israel Air Force,
Navy, ground force, and units active on the electromagnetic spectrum and in the
cyber arena. But he said the exercise will focus on the northern borders, led by
Northern Command’s 91st “Galilee” Division, responsible for defending against
Hezbollah from Lebanon, and the 36th Ga’ash (Golan) Armored Division, which is
responsible for the Syrian border.
The first week of the drill tests these divisions’ ability to deal with attacks
from the northern front, he said.
Lebanon's Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Paris
Still Supports Franjieh’s Presidential Bid
Asharq Al Awsat/June 03/2023
Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he has not yet “seen encouraging
signs” that would prompt him to call for a presidential election session, given
that as of yet, there are no two serious candidates for the post. In remarks to
Asharq Al-Awsat, he again stressed that he will not call for elections before
his condition for having serious candidates be met. He noted that the nomination
of former minister Jihad Azour has not been formalized and continues to be
discussed between the opposition and Free Patriotic Movement. Lebanon has been
without a president since late October. Eleven elections sessions have been
held, but no candidate garnered enough votes to be named winner given the
disagreements between the political parties. Berri said months ago that he would
only call for an elections session if political parties are in consensus over
the names of candidates. Berri told Asharq Al-Awsat that “if we wanted a repeat
of previous elections sessions, I would have called for elections every
week.”But given a lack of serious candidates “and out of respect for the
legislature, which has become a laughingstock by many, I won’t,” he stressed.
Moreover, the speaker said he was satisfied with France’s stance on the
elections, revealing that it still supports the nomination of Marada Movement
leader former minister Suleiman Franjieh. Paris is working on securing a
regional and international understanding on his candidacy, he revealed. Saudi
Arabia, he continued, is not opposed to Franjieh. It is not vetoing anyone’s
nomination. The Kingdom has called for the election of a president and demanded
that he present a reform program. Only then will it judge and so will other
countries, added Berri. The speaker often ignores the criticism of some
politicians, but recent US remarks that it may impose sanctions on figures –
believed to be the speaker - whom it believes are impeding the elections,
prompted him to issue a statement to clarify some points. Berri believes that
failure to call parliament to elect a president is not a form of obstruction.
Rather, the lack of seriousness in tackling the elections is the greatest
hurdle, he said.
“I will call parliament to a session as soon as serious candidates are
available,” he stated. This includes the speaker’s preferred candidate, Franjieh,
whom he believes is the “best choice to end the crisis”. He added that he is not
opposed to any other candidate, “even if they were a rival”, saying he doesn’t
view any of the potential nominees as his opponents. On Azour, Berri said he
will call for an election session as soon as his candidacy is formalized.
Moreover, he dismissed speculation that the former minister could garner 68
votes in the elections, noting that the FPM has yet to officially back his
nomination.
Turning the page: A new chapter in Iran-US relations
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
Do you remember the prisoner exchange operations between Iran and European
countries in the past two weeks? The latest was the release of two Austrians and
a Danish national on Friday. Do you remember the report from the Atomic Energy
Agency last Wednesday, announcing that they had reinstalled some monitoring
equipment that Iran had been ordered to remove the previous year? Do you also
remember that the Atomic Agency closed the file on the presence of nuclear
materials at an undisclosed nuclear site in southern Tehran on Monday, following
"clarifications" from Tehran?
Amidst all these positive steps, talks of resuming indirect negotiations between
Tehran and Washington, suspended for months, have resurfaced. Some observers
believe that this does not mean the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement in its
original form, which involved lifting all US sanctions on Iran in exchange for
Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal. However, all these developments could
eventually lead to a temporary agreement between Iran and the United States. It
is worth noting that Iran has rejected such an agreement several times. The
terms of this agreement could include Iran freezing its uranium enrichment in
exchange for the US easing some sanctions on Tehran. Talks of resuming
negotiations between Tehran and Washington have been present in several
meetings, most recently between US envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, and Iran's
representative at the United Nations, as reported by the Financial Times. The
discussions focused on the possibility of a prisoner exchange with Iran, with
the newspaper considering that a successful exchange could improve the
environment for nuclear talks. Therefore, in light of the talk of a significant
increase in Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, which could lead to it possessing
a nuclear bomb, are we witnessing another agreement between Iran and the US in
the near future that would deter Iran's rush toward acquiring a nuclear bomb? Or
will the race between diplomacy and war favor a war with an Israeli signature?
Forging consensus: The path to endorsing Jihad
Azour's nomination
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
Did things work out between the opposition and the Free Patriotic Movement to
endorse the nomination of former Minister Jihad Azour in the near future? On
Friday evening, a coordination meeting was held at the central headquarters of
the Kataeb Party in al-Saifi, attended by representatives from the Kataeb Party,
the Lebanese Forces, as well as members of the Tajadod bloc, Change MPs and
independent MPs, in addition to representatives from the Free Patriotic
Movement. According to opposition sources, the meeting was positive. Consensus
was reached on Azour's name, but the most important thing is to secure more than
65 votes to ensure that Jihad Azour reach the presidency. Therefore, today's
actual discussion revolves around how to manage the battle, as the main
objective is to dispel all concerns among political opponents who agree on Azour
to ensure their commitment to the battle until the end against the Amal-Hezbollah
duo. Sources close to the meeting, who remain silent about its content, confirm
that merely endorsing Azour's name is insufficient. The focus of today's
discussions is on how to confront the situation, as any retreat would make it
difficult to reach a similar consensus to what exists today and allow the duo to
impose their candidate. In light of these developments, opposition sources
confirm that the announcement of support for Azour, which was expected to take
place on Saturday or Sunday, has not been postponed. The final touches are being
put on it, and the announcement will be made in the coming days. The opposition
forces that attended the meeting in al-Saifi and previously supported the
nomination of Michel Moawad will announce their support for Azour from Maouad's
residence. As for the Free Patriotic Movement, the opposition atmosphere
indicates they will announce their support in parallel but separately. This is
because both sides want to maintain their political positions, even if they
agree on Azour. Sources within the Free Patriotic Movement confirm that the
timing of announcing their candidate is left to the party's leader, Gebran
Bassil. The focus is on two events: Bassil's speech at an FPM dinner on Saturday
evening and the upcoming meeting of the party's political council on Monday,
where the presidential file will be a primary topic of discussion. Until Azour's
nomination is officially endorsed, what will come after the Christian consensus
on a candidate against the Hezbollah-Amal duo? Where will the confrontation
lead?
The blood of Rooney the Irishman corners
"Hezbollah".
Janoubia/03 June/2023
It has been unfortunate for “Hezbollah”, and fortunate for “UNIFIL” and its
soldiers, despite the fall of the Irish victim Sean Rooney (23 years) on
December 14, 2022 in Al-Aqabiya, by bullets from “Hezbollah” members, that
Rooney’s blood embarrassed Hezbollah and its Secretary General, Mr. Hassan
Nasrallah, his media official, Muhammad Afif, and Haret Hreik. All were crammed
into “corner”, with confirmations from the military court documents in audio and
video that the killer and the five attackers were a group of “Hezbollah” who
ambushed the Irish convoy and wounded its four members dead or wounded. Southern
sources following the case indicated to Janoubia that this embarrassment, and
with the bloodshed in the Al-Aqabiya attack, would prevent Hezbollah once again
from “violating” UNIFIL or using “excessive force” and military action with any
new patrol. And it ensures that the “people’s lie” is removed from circulation
or the famous phrase “what belongs to us” that the “party” invokes to disavow
any incident committed by its members or officials and that it does not wish to
appear that it is behind it or wants to send veiled and encrypted messages to
UNIFIL and others.
From prey to prison: Unraveling the criminal network of Jahjah Jaafar
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
Jahjah Mohammad Jaafar, a valuable prey, was captured in a qualitative and
complex security operation by the Intelligence Directorate in the Bekaa region.
The operation was initially challenging, but it ultimately led to his arrest.
How did it unfold? The noose tightened around Jahjah in the heart of Shrawneh.
He escaped from the first ambush in Iaat, taking advantage of the Intelligence
Directorate's efforts to prevent casualties in a densely populated area. The
pursuit continued with a new ambush in hopes of apprehending him. After hours of
pursuit, the ambush near al-Kayal in Baalbek, a less crowded area, proved
successful. Jahjah was arrested after an exchange of gunfire that resulted in
the injury of one citizen. Who is Jahjah Jaafar, the valuable prey who was
recently captured? Jahjah Jaafar is one of the key members of the gang that
kidnapped the Saudi citizen Mashari Al-Mutairi, who was later liberated by the
Intelligence Directorate of the Lebanese Army in a qualitative operation on the
Lebanese-Syrian border. Jahjah's crimes go beyond the case of planning the
abduction of a Saudi citizen from Beirut. What does his criminal record entail?
He is wanted in several reports for charges related to shooting incidents,
involvement in drug trafficking and distribution, entrapment, and kidnapping. He
has a lengthy criminal record. About a year ago, the detainee participated in
the abduction of a Saudi individual for 17 days, releasing him in exchange for a
sum of $650,000. He also took part in the kidnapping of two Iraqi citizens and a
Kuwaiti citizen. He is a member of a gang involved in kidnapping and drug
trafficking, led by the most wanted figure, Moussa Ali Wajih Jaafar. Imagine
that the leader of the gang, Moussa Ali Wajih Jaafar, who is currently hiding in
the Syrian villages along the border, holds Dutch citizenship. There are 18
arrest warrants against him for charges including kidnapping, drug trafficking,
shooting incidents, forming a criminal gang, and theft, as well as search
warrants and verdicts. His most recent criminal activities involve the abduction
of a Saudi citizen. Before that, he and his gang impersonated security personnel
and kidnapped an Iraqi individual, releasing him in exchange for a ransom. He is
the same person who clashed with his gang and a force from the Army Intelligence
during the liberation of a Syrian national they had kidnapped. After the
valuable catch of apprehending Jahjah, the Directorate of Intelligence is
determined to dismantle Moussa Jaafar's gang, which consists of eight members.
They have succeeded so far in arresting four individuals who participated in the
abduction of the Saudi citizen. The investigations with the detainees have led
to the discovery of the freed Saudi abductee's vehicle on the coastal road in
Dora.
Mikati in Turkey to attend Erdogan's inauguration ceremony
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and his wife arrived in the Turkish
capital, Ankara, today afternoon upon an official invitation to attend the
inauguration ceremony of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a new presidential
term. Lebanon's Ambassador to Ankara, Ghassan al- Mouallem, joined the
delegation. Mikati congratulated President Erdogan on his victory in the
elections, wishing the Turkish people prosperity and harmony. He also
highlighted the strong relations between Lebanon and Turkey, expressing
gratitude to President Erdogan for his continuous initiatives to support Lebanon
and stand by its side.
Case of Lebanese ambassador to France continues to
unfold
LBCI/Sat, June 3, 2023
The case of Lebanese ambassador to France Rami Adwan, who is facing charges of
harassment against two women before the French judiciary, continues to unfold.
Amidst reports circulating in the media about the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs receiving a request from the French authorities to lift Adwan's
diplomatic immunity for his trial, a reliable source at the Lebanese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs told LBCI that Lebanon had not received any official
communication regarding this matter from the French side or the French
ambassador to Beirut. The same source emphasized that all information circulated
in the media is inaccurate until now. Later in the day and in light of what is
being circulated in Lebanese and French media outlets regarding legal
proceedings in Paris against Lebanese ambassador Adwan, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs emphasized its firm commitment to dealing responsibly with the issue at
hand in a manner that preserves the status and reputation of the state and its
diplomatic representation worldwide, including within the French Republic.
MoFA decides to urgently dispatch an investigation
committee to France to investigate Ambassador Adwan and hear testimony from
embassy staff
NNA/Sat, June 3, 2023
In response to what the Lebanese and French media are circulating about the
judicial prosecutions in Paris against the Lebanese ambassador, Rami Adwan, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates expressed in a statement its “firm
keenness to deal responsibly with the issue at hand in a way that preserves the
status and reputation of the state and its accredited diplomatic representation
in the world, including in the French Republic."Accordingly, the Ministry
decided to “send an investigation committee quickly headed by the
Secretary-General of the Ministry and the membership of the Director of
Inspection to the embassy in Paris to investigate the concerned ambassador and
listen to the statements of the embassy staff, including diplomats and
administrators. The committee will also meet with the necessary French official
authorities to clarify what was circulated about them in the media and the
Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not duly notified through diplomatic
channels to act accordingly and legally in order to preserve public interest."
Coordination meeting between Jumblatt and his son
with a delegation from occupied 48-Arabs in Larnaca
NNA/Sat, June 3, 2023
Head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, and the head of the
"Democratic Gathering", MP Taymour Jumblatt, are currently holding a
coordination meeting with a delegation of 48 Arabs from the occupied Palestinian
territories, in the city of Larnaca in Cyprus, with the participation of MP Wael
Abu Faour, former Minister Ghazi Al-Aridi and Mrs. Nora Jumblatt.
Hajj Hassan: The team that rejects dialogue and
understanding contributes to prolonging the crisis
NNA/Sat, June 3, 2023
Head of the "Baalbek Hermel" bloc, MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, affirmed that "the
election of the president of the republic is a national issue and a Lebanese
sovereign matter," adding that assistance in electing a president is welcome,
but threat and interference are rejected. The MP considered that the team that
rejects dialogue and understanding contributes to prolonging the crisis, and
this harms the interests of the Lebanese. Finally, Hajj Hassan deemed that the
U.S. influence has begun to recede in the world, and there are signs of a new,
multipolar world.
Berri says to call for vote once Azour's
nomination becomes 'serious'
Naharnet/Jun 03/2023
Speaker Nabih Berri has said that he will “immediately” call for a presidential
election session once Jihad Azour’s nomination becomes “serious.” According to
media reports, the opposition and the Free Patriotic Movement are expected to
announce Azour’s nomination on Saturday. “The nomination of ex-minister Jihad
Azour is still mere intentions and once his nomination becomes serious I will
immediately call for a session,” Berri said in an interview with Asharq al-Awsat
newspaper. He added that domestic and international pressures will not force him
to hold a session that would not lead to a new president. “If I wanted to repeat
the scenario of the previous sessions, I would have called for a session every
week, but with the lack of seriousness and out of respect for parliament, which
has become a mockery for a lot of parties, I won’t, and some slanderers inside
and outside the country will not make me do so,” Berri added. “Should we keep
exhausting people with security measures around the parliament and make
ourselves a mockery by holding useless sessions? The goal is to reach solutions
and this is what we’re doing every day,” the Speaker went on to say.
Moreover, Berri told Asharq al-Awsat that France is “still clinging to
Franjieh’s nomination.”
Lebanese ambassador in France accused of rape, violence
Agence France Presse/Jun 03/2023
Lebanon's ambassador to France, Rami Adwan, has been investigated for rape and
intentional violence following complaints by two former embassy employees,
informed sources said, confirming an earlier media report.
Due to his position, Adwan enjoys diplomatic immunity from prosecution, but the
French government urged the Lebanese authorities to lift this and allow him to
go on trial. "In view of the seriousness of the facts mentioned, we consider it
necessary for the Lebanese authorities to lift the immunity of the Lebanese
ambassador in Paris in order to facilitate the work of the French judicial
authorities", the French foreign ministry told AFP late Friday. The first woman,
aged 31, filed her complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in
May 2020 in the ambassador's private apartment, according to sources close to
the investigation confirming a Mediapart report. According to her deposition
seen by AFP, she made clear her lack of interest in having sex and that she
screamed and burst into tears. The woman, who was working as an editor, had
already reported to police in 2020 that Adwan, in his post since 2017, had
struck her during an argument in his office. She said she had not filed a
complaint because she did not want to "break the life" of the ambassador.
According to the complaint, she had a relationship with the ambassador, who
carried out "psychological and physical violence with daily humiliations". The
second woman, aged 28, made a complaint last February after what she said was a
series of physical attacks after she turned down sexual relations. She claims
Adwan tried to hit her with his car after an argument on the sidelines of last
year's Normandy World Peace Forum. She also accused the ambassador of trying to
suffocate her at her home last December by pressing her face to her bed. "My
client contests all accusations of aggression in any shape or form: verbal,
moral, sexual," Adwan's lawyer Karim Beylouni told AFP. "Between 2018 and 2022
he had with these two women romantic relationships punctuated by arguments and
breakups," Beylouni said. An informed source said the Paris judicial police had
closed the case. Asked by AFP to comment, the Paris prosecutor's office said it
was not immediately in a position to do so.
Last Call for UNIFIL? Israel and Hezbollah in
a 2006 Deja Vu
Assaf Orion/The Washington Institute/Jun 03/2023
أساف أوريون: آخر نداء لليونيفيل؟ إسرائيل وحزب الله في عيش حالة حرب 2006
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/118754/118754/
The exchange of threats between Israeli and Hezbollah officials is just one in a
series of developments indicating higher risk of miscalculation and large-scale
regional conflict.
Late May saw a high-profile exchange of threats between top Israeli and
Hezbollah officials, including mutual warnings of war. Is escalation imminent,
and, if so, how likely is the prospect of a regional war?
What Did They Say?
On May 22, Israel’s chief of defense intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, told
attendees at the annual Herzliya Conference that Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah is once again seeking to “stretch the equations” with Israel. He
explained: “Nasrallah is close to making a mistake that might deteriorate the
region toward a big war…in addition to [Syrian leader] Bashar al-Assad’s
increasing confidence in allowing an Iranian drone to be launched at Israel.
This creates high potential for escalation in the region, and we must be
prepared…Make no mistake, we’re ready to employ force, and using force against
us from Syria and Lebanon might escalate to a collision of a very wide scale
between Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon.”
The next day, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevy told
the conference that Hezbollah’s military buildup is a major challenge, noting
that Israel must “consider the right timing for an advantageous initiative.” He
continued: “While Hezbollah is very much deterred from a comprehensive war
against Israel, it thinks it understands how we think, and this brings it to
dare and challenge us where it is confident this won’t lead to war. I see this
as a good path for generating surprises when needed…The IDF’s readiness for
fighting in the north is good and improving, but such a campaign will be tough
for the Israeli home front, sevenfold tougher for Lebanon, and tougher still for
Hezbollah.” Halevy also noted, “On the horizon are potential negative
developments in Iran’s nuclear program, which might bring about action.”
The same evening, an IDF spokesperson told reporters that Halevy’s remarks do
not indicate an imminent war in Lebanon or strike on Iran. Yet Israel’s security
cabinet has reportedly been briefed about both the situation with Hezbollah and
the May 29-June 8 General Staff exercise simulating a war with Iran and in the
north
Meanwhile, Nasrallah gave a speech on May 25 for “Resistance and Liberation
Day,” which commemorates the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Responding to
“the enemies’ threats,” he warned Israel to beware of miscalculation that could
lead to a major war. He also pointed to Israel’s domestic divisions and its
failure to deter opponents during its recent operation against Palestinian
Islamic Jihad in Gaza (see below).
What Spurred the Warnings?
Apparently, the IDF generals’ warnings were not based on any specific alerts
about an imminent attack, but rather on Hezbollah’s increasingly evident
appetite for risk. The group is seeking to challenge Israel right up to—but
without crossing—the threshold of war, and this trend did not begin last week.
Four recent incidents highlight the escalatory dynamic:
On March 13, a terrorist sent by Hezbollah detonated an explosive device near
Megiddo after breaching the Lebanese border and infiltrating seventy kilometers
deep inside Israel. One Israeli citizen was severely injured, and the
perpetrator was killed on his way back to Lebanon.
On March 31, an apparent Israeli strike in Damascus killed five officers from
Hezbollah’s chief military patron, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On April 6, Hamas operatives in Lebanon launched thirty-four rockets into Israel
alongside other launches from Gaza and Syria. In response, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu announced Israeli strikes against Hezbollah targets and other
sites in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Yet Nasrallah dismissed this statement,
claiming that Israel struck “banana farms” and nothing more. Interestingly, an
Israeli reporter insisted that a special operation was conducted against a
Hezbollah target known to Nasrallah, but no further details followed. Although
the IDF was careful to attribute this attack to Hamas alone, many observers
wondered how the Palestinian group could possibly conduct an operation involving
dozens of launchers at multiple sites in south Lebanon without Hezbollah’s
consent.’
On May 4, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired 104 rockets from Gaza into Israel,
spurring the IDF to launch Operation Shield and Arrow (May 9-15) against the
group. Notably, Hamas did not participate and was not targeted, despite the
rocket strikes emanating from its territory.
What Hezbollah might have inferred from these exchanges is that Israel generally
prefers to target enemies in less volatile theaters and with less potential for
blowback when responding to attacks. Nasrallah could therefore conclude that the
IDF is so deterred from striking Lebanese territory and Hezbollah targets that
the group can attack Israel without risking too forceful a retribution.
Signs of this apparent overconfidence were evident on May 21, when Hezbollah
regaled a large crowd of observers and reporters with a military display at its
training site in Aaramta, just nineteen kilometers from the border. The event
showcased rockets, artillery pieces, drones, all-terrain vehicles, and
motorcycles. Two hundred troops were present, including members of the elite
Radwan unit. More troubling, the participants simulated a breach of Israel’s
border, an attack on IDF positions inside Israel, and the abduction of an IDF
soldier—the exact type of operation that unintentionally sparked the 2006
Lebanon war at a time when neither side was actively seeking such a large-scale
conflict. Also present at the event was senior Hezbollah official Hashem
Safieddine, who threatened Israel with a “rain of precision missiles.”
In response to this display, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati and thirty-one
members of parliament condemned the infringement on Beirut’s sovereignty. Yet
Nasrallah’s May 25 speech celebrated the event, claiming that it had contributed
to panic inside Israel.
UN reports have likewise documented various indicators of Hezbollah escalation
and overconfidence over the past year, from drone threats against Israel’s
offshore gas platform to the placement of military observation towers along the
border (disguised as environmental outposts used by the “Green Without Borders”
facade group). Among the most worrisome trends are:
Shooting ranges and tactical training. According to UN reports from July and
November 2022 and March 2023, UNIFIL helicopter patrols have repeatedly observed
active shooting ranges in at least five locations across south Lebanon, some of
them upgraded with permanent structures. Holding tactical training and live-fire
shooting at fixed ranges in broad daylight is a clear expression of the group’s
growing brazenness. In addition, Hezbollah members shot fireworks toward a
UNIFIL helicopter near the Deir Aames firing range in October; two months later,
armed members aimed their weapons at another helicopter near the Zibqin range.
The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) agreed to facilitate joint visits with UNIFIL to
such ranges as far back as March 2022, but this has not taken place.
Attacks against UNIFIL. In 2022, the average number of UN-reported assaults,
harassment, and restrictions of movement against UNIFIL personnel reached an
all-time peak of about five incidents per month, well above previous years. The
murder of Irish UNIFIL soldier Sean Rooney on December 14 was just the
high-water mark of this trend. Whether senior Hezbollah officials ordered his
killing directly or not, the operatives on the ground surely acted in line with
the intent and spirit of their leaders. A military judge reportedly accused five
Hezbollah members of the murder, but only one is in custody.
Israeli overflights. In 2019, Nasrallah vowed to curb Israeli military flights
over Lebanon; since then, Hezbollah has apparently managed to make progress
toward this goal by improving its air defenses. After the UN reported a 95
percent decline in Israeli overflight hours between summer 2020 and summer 2021,
the following year saw a further drop of 35 percent (for graphics illustrating
these declines, see PolicyWatch 3626). Although this may indicate Israel’s
success in developing alternative reconnaissance capabilities, at least part of
the decline is presumably due to the growing threat of Hezbollah surface-to-air
missiles and, concurrently, its increasing confidence and appetite for risk.
Recommendations
At the end of the 2006 war, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 correctly
identified two of the main escalatory conditions that led to the conflict:
Hezbollah’s arms remained out of the Lebanese government’s control, and
Hezbollah maintained a military presence in south Lebanon and along the border
with Israel. The resolution called on the Lebanese government, with UNIFIL’s
assistance, to establish an area “between the Blue Line and the Litani
River…free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the
Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.” They have failed in this critical
mission—similar conditions prevail today and have in fact worsened. The
proximity of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan troops to the Blue Line is an immediate
threat to Israel’s northern communities, and the resultant potential for attack
on short notice has shrunk the margin for de-escalation. As mentioned
previously, the group is also conducting cross-border abduction drills of the
type that triggered the 2006 war.
This volatility is exacerbated by Hezbollah’s activities in Syria, Hamas attacks
from Lebanese territory, and rocket fire from the Palestinian theater, all
encouraged by their Iranian patron’s growing sense of power. To be sure, the
pervasive talk about “unity of theaters” against Israel remains more of a
propaganda and logistics effort for members of Iran’s “axis of resistance”—they
have yet to conduct simultaneous operations from multiple fronts, let alone form
a unified command. Yet escalation in Lebanon is more likely this year due to the
combination of factors described above. Nasrallah’s overconfidence in his
ability to predict Israel’s responses fed his adventurism in 2006, and he
admitted his miscalculation after the war, expressing regret. Yet his rhetoric
is similarly hubristic today, and IDF generals are warning that such a mindset
may lead to another cycle of miscalculation and escalation even more destructive
than 2006.
Moreover, a June 1 Lebanese news story reported that tensions were rising due to
a tent erected in the Shebaa Farms area along the Israel-Syria frontier,
possibly on Israel’s side of the Blue Line. Hezbollah’s al-Manar television
network also reported that leaflets had been spread there warning Israeli forces
that this area belongs to Lebanon. Hezbollah has historically used the same area
to launch attacks on Israel in the name of Lebanese sovereignty, so these
developments may presage a new opening move by the group.
This summer, the international community will have another opportunity—perhaps
its last—to reduce the risk of war during the next annual vote to renew UNIFIL’s
mandate. Doing so will require breaking a pernicious “copy-paste” cycle in which
UNIFIL’s mission and composition undergo minimal changes, peacekeeping troops
face increased attacks by Hezbollah, and UNIFIL cedes more ground to the group’s
military presence in the south, further heightening tensions along the frontier
with Israel.
First and foremost, summoning the political will needed to break this cycle
requires that officials recognize the rising probability of war. Instead of
focusing entirely on Lebanon’s economic crisis, UN Security Council members need
to strategize stronger efforts to prevent a major conflict with Hezbollah—a
disastrous humanitarian scenario that would make the current economic crisis
pale in comparison. They can begin by highlighting Hezbollah’s violations of
Resolution 1701 and its warmongering rhetoric. Proposals for improving UNIFIL’s
reporting, force structure, and mandate (e.g., changing the renewal period to
six months instead of twelve) should be seriously considered after being
dismissed in past years. Countries that contribute troops to UNIFIL would also
do well to reassess the risk to their personnel in case of escalation, since
peacekeepers are located in the heart of a potential blazing battle zone. The
chances of war are perhaps the highest since 2006, so now is not the time for UN
business as usual.
**Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (Res.) is the Rueven International Fellow at The
Washington Institute and former head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/last-call-unifil-israel-and-hezbollah-2006-deja-vu
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And
News published
on June 03-04/2023
Israeli military says Egyptian
police officer kills 3 soldiers in gunbattle at Egyptian border
JERUSALEM (AP)/Sat, June 3, 2023
A gunbattle involving an Egyptian police officer in southern Israel along the
Egyptian border left three Israeli soldiers dead Saturday, the army said. It was
a rare instance of deadly violence along the frontier. Lt. Col. Richard Hecht,
an army spokesperson, said the fighting began overnight when soldiers thwarted a
drug-smuggling attempt across the border. He said several hours later, two
soldiers in a guard post were shot and killed. Their bodies were found after the
shooting, when they did not respond to radio communications. Hecht said the
killings appeared to be connected to the thwarted drug smuggling attempt. The
army said the Egyptian police officer was killed in a second exchange of fire in
which a third soldier was killed. Hecht said an investigation was being
conducted in full cooperation with the Egyptian army. He said troops were
searching for other possible assailants. It was the first deadly exchange of
fire along the Israel-Egypt border in over a decade. The army said one of the
killed soldiers was a woman. Criminals sometimes smuggle drugs across the
border, while Islamic militant groups are also active in Egypt’s restive north
Sinai. Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement in 1979 and maintain close
security ties. Fighting along their shared border is rare. The exchange of fire
reportedly took place around the Nitzana border crossing between Israel and
Egypt. The crossing is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the
point where Israel’s border with Egypt and the Gaza Strip converge. It's used to
import goods from Egypt destined for Israel or the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Israel built a fence along the porous border a decade ago to halt the entry of
African migrants and Islamic militants who are active in Egypt’s Sinai desert.
Three Europeans return home after release by Iran in
prisoner swap
Reuters/Sat, June 3, 2023
Three Europeans returned home on Saturday a day after being released by Iran in
a prisoner swap, and Tehran said there was no reason for Europeans to be
arrested if they were not "exploited" by foreign security services. The three
men - two with dual Austrian-Iranian nationality and one Dane - were released on
Friday by Iran in return for Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi as part of a swap
in which Iran freed Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele last week, a
Belgian government spokesperson said. Assadi was convicted in Belgium in 2021 in
connection with a foiled bomb plot in France and sentenced to 20 years in
prison. Iran said the charges against him were fabricated. After a stop in Oman
and medical tests, the three Europeans were flown to Melsbroek military airport
in Belgium, which had helped secure their release. They arrived around 2:45 a.m.
(0045 GMT) and were greeted by Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib, Belgium's
Belga news agency reported. Danish citizen Thomas Kjems flew on to Copenhagen,
landing at around 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Saturday. "It's been up and down. I
haven't really believed that this was real, but it has happened - I'm in Denmark
and logic is back," he told reporters. "There has been no physical torture or
anything," he said about his time spent in an Iranian prison. "I've been given
my food and drink etcetera, but when your freedom is taken away from you, that's
what you think about," he added. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander
Schallenberg tweeted photos of the two Austrians arriving in Vienna. Iranian
Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian tweeted on Saturday that he had told
Lahbib that he hoped the prisoners' release would "open a new page" in Iran's
relations with Belgium and Europe. "If some European citizens are not exploited
by foreign security services, there is no reason to detain them,"
Amirabdollahian said. Many Western countries have advised their nationals not to
travel to Iran, citing issues including the risk of arbitrary arrests.
SPY CHARGES
Austria's Foreign Ministry said its citizens, Massud Mosaheb and Kamran Ghaderi,
had been released after 1,586 and 2,709 days respectively.
In a statement on Friday, the Belgian government said the two dual nationals
were "wrongfully arrested in ... January 2016 and January 2019", while the Dane
was arrested in Iran in November 2022 in connection with women's rights
demonstrations. Mosaheb is the co-chairman of the Iranian-Austrian Friendship
Society and had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage, while
Ghaderi is a businessman who was also sentenced to 10 years for espionage. On
Friday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen declined to give more
information about the Danish citizen but said in a statement that he was "both
happy and relieved that a Danish citizen is now on the way home to their family
after having been jailed in Iran". Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran's top human rights
official, said the three men were released on humanitarian grounds, Iranian
state media reported. Oman also helped in getting the prisoners freed. The Gulf
Arab country has good relations with both Iran and Western countries and has
acted before as a mediator. Belgian government officials said that officially
there were still 22 Europeans in Iranian prisons, but that no more Europeans
would be exchanged for Assadi. They also said that Belgium was continuing to
work for the release of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian national who
guest-lectured at the university of Brussels and who was arrested in 2016 while
on an academic visit to Iran. Iran has arrested dozens of foreigners and dual
nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage and security-related accusations.
Rights groups have criticised the arrests as a tactic to win concessions from
abroad by inventing charges, an accusation Tehran denies.
Bring Iran’s Mullahs to justice for the Evin
massacre
Geoffrey Robertson/The Telegraph/Sat, June 3, 2023
Those who like to consider the worst way to die – for Montaigne, it was to be
hanged on piano wire; for Orwell, to be eaten by rats – need not rack their
imagination any longer. It was allegedly inflicted on young women in Evin prison
and elsewhere in Iran in 1988. First came the death sentence, then, according to
some accounts, forced marriage and rape just before being hanged or shot, in
order to deny them the fast track to heaven accorded to virgins in the Mullahs’
warped theology. When I investigated these prison massacres some years ago, I
heard of this horrific allegation but dismissed it for lack of evidence. But I
believe there is good reason to return to them now. Many thousands of imprisoned
oppositionists were killed at this time by order (a fatwa) of Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. Many were students, sentenced years before for minor political crimes
like participating in demonstrations or handing out leaflets. Ebrahim Raisi, now
president of Iran, is believed to have sat on a “death committee”, which
sentenced them to death without a trial as “mohareb” (enemies of God) for
allegiance to groups that opposed the state or its religion. The whole episode
reflects the contempt that women still face in Iran, as its vicious morality
police have recently demonstrated. There cannot be much doubt that Raisi knew of
these stomach-turning practices. Knowledge can also be imputed to Ali Khamenei,
president at the time and now Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Of course,
this was just the worst part of a colossal crime against humanity as many
thousands of political prisoners were put to death. Their bodies were allegedly
stacked in refrigerated lorries and buried secretly in a mass grave in Tehran’s
cemeteries, where even today parents and relatives of the victims are not able
to mourn them. Iran has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up the crime.
When some news of it leaked at the time, a naïve international agency rapporteur
was welcomed to Evin with a brass band, where schooled prisoners pretended they
were well-treated. It was only years later, with the publication of the diaries
of a senior Mullah who reprimanded the death committee during their work at Evin,
that the truth began to come out, but not about the fate of the women who were
allegedly raped before execution. The diaries also included a copy of the
merciless fatwa issued by the Ayatollah in fury at having to sign a truce in the
war with Iraq. There is little prospect of bringing the perpetrators to justice
while the Mullahs, whose cruel sexist beliefs contributed to the insupportable
treatment of the female prisoners, remain in power. One perpetrator who ventured
overseas was caught in Sweden and last year sentenced to life imprisonment. No
doubt the Iranians are looking for a Swede they can falsely accuse of espionage
in order to swap for him. Belgium recently succumbed to Iranian blackmail and
freed a diplomat sentenced to 20 years for planning a thwarted bomb attack
against an exiled Iranian opposition group. He was swapped for a Belgian aid
worker, sentenced in Iran for “espionage”. Given the impunity of the Mullahs,
the best that can be done is to expose the extent of their crimes as an
indication of the barbarity of which their government is capable – if, for
example, they possess a nuclear bomb. We know how Hitler had the Stauffenberg
plotters hanged with piano wire and how he gloated over a film of their death
agonies. We did not know, until recently, how a depraved regime put hundreds of
young women to the worst of deaths. Geoffrey Robertson KC is founding head of
Doughty Street Chambers and the author of ‘Mullahs Without Mercy’
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph
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Iran says to form naval alliance with Gulf states to ensure
regional stability
(Reuters)/Sat, June 3, 2023
Iran's navy commander said his country and Saudi Arabia, as well as three other
Gulf states, plan to form a naval alliance that will also include India and
Pakistan, Iranian media reported on Saturday. "The countries of the region have
today realized that only cooperation with each other brings security to the
area," Iran's navy commander Shahram Irani was quoted as saying. He did not
elaborate on the shape of the alliance that he said would be formed soon. Iran
has recently been trying to mend its strained ties with several Gulf Arab
states. In March, Saudi Arabia and Iran ended seven years of hostility under a
China-mediated deal, stressing the need for regional stability and economic
cooperation. Naval commander Irani said the states that will take part in the
alliance also include the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq,
Pakistan, and India. Saudi Arabia's rapprochement with Iran has frustrated
Israel's efforts to isolate Iran diplomatically. The UAE, which was the first
Gulf Arab country to sign a normalization agreement with Israel in 2020, resumed
formal relations with Iran last year. Bahrain and Morocco later joined the UAE
in establishing ties with Israel.
Blinken outlines conditions for ‘true’ peace
in Ukraine
RT /Sat, June 3, 2023
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has argued that a ceasefire in Ukraine that
might benefit Russia would not create a lasting peace. In a speech at Helsinki
City Hall in Finland on Friday, Blinken reiterated Washington’s support for Kiev
and outlined his vision of what would bring an end to the fighting between
Russia and Ukraine. “Now, over the coming weeks and months, some countries will
call for a ceasefire. And on the surface, that sounds sensible – attractive,
even. After all, who doesn’t want warring parties to lay down their arms? Who
doesn’t want the killing to stop?”Blinken said. He added that “a ceasefire that
simply freezes current lines in place” would allow Russia to “consolidate”
control over territory and “re-attack,” arguing “that is not a just and lasting
peace. It’s a Potemkin peace.”Blinken was referring to the type of
window-dressing reportedly practiced by Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin while
seeking to impress Catherine the Great. “It would reward the aggressor and
punish the victim,” Blinken said. Instead, the diplomat argued that a potential
deal must ensure Ukraine’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity, and
independence” and that it would require Kiev’s “full participation and assent.”
He also insisted that Russia must pay “its share” in Ukraine’s post-conflict
recovery. If and when Russia is ready to work for true peace, the United States
will respond in concert with Ukraine and other allies and partners around the
world,” Blinken stated. Western officials have said in the past that Kiev should
only make peace on its own terms. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky revealed
a “peace formula” last year, calling for Russia to surrender its four newly
incorporated regions, as well as Crimea. Moscow has repeatedly rejected these
terms as unacceptable. Moscow, in turn, has insisted that peace can only be
achieved if Ukraine becomes a neutral state by dropping its bid to join NATO and
recognizes Russia’s territorial acquisitions. --- RT
Putin's family owns lavish mansions in Moscow and France
and has spent millions refurbishing them, leaks say
Tom Porter/Business Insider/Sat, June 3, 2023
Putin's family owns expensive property via offshore companies, according to a
Russian investigative outlet. Proekt said the properties are located near
Putin's Moscow mansion. The Russian president has long sought to keep secret the
vast wealth he and his family own. Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted
valuable properties to family members via a network of offshore firms, an
investigation by Russian independent media outlet Proekt found. According to the
report, the ownership of the properties was established by examining emails by
Putin's former son-in-law, Kiril Shamanov, that were leaked to Russian
independent media outlets. The emails reportedly show that Putin bought land
close to his Novo-Ogaryovo estate near Moscow and gave it to his adult daughters
and their mother, concealing its true ownership. Putin has long lived on the
estate outside Moscow, that Proekt said is fitted out with a bathhouse, a
swimming pool, a gym, and a secret railway line. Earlier in the week, a drone
attack was downed by Russian air defense systems near the estate, reports claim.
The Russian president is believed to have two adult daughters with his first
wife, Lyudmila Shkrebneva, but rarely talks about them and has not confirmed
their identities. They are Maria Vorontsova, an academic, and Katerina Tikhonova,
an academic and businesswoman who has also taken part in dancing contests, the
US government has said. Tikhonova in 2013 married Shamalov, the son of a
longtime Putin ally, though the two are reported to have separated. According to
the emails cited by Proekt, Tikhonova's land was registered firstly in the name
of an offshore company and then in the name of her then husband, Shamalov.
Meanwhile Vorontsova's land was registered in the name of offshore companies.
Proekt said the emails showed that Shamalov and Tikhonova discussed lavish
renovations they planned on making to their property, totalling $9 million. The
couple ordered a custom-made gilded chandelier for their dining room "which came
with a price tag equivalent to that of a small apartment in the suburbs of
Moscow - $72,000," the report said. Another nearby property was reportedly owned
by Shkrebneva, Putin's ex-wife, and her new partner, though was registered in
Shamalov's name. As well as the expensive Moscow property, Proekt also reported
that Tikhonova and Shamalov owned a mansion in Biarritz, in the south of France,
which they lavishly decorated. Proekt reported that after splitting up with
Tikhonova in 2018, Shamalov was abruptly stripped of the Novo-Ogaryovo
properties, as well as his 20% stake, worth around $2 billion, in Sibur, an oil
and gas firm. Putin has long shielded his private life from scrutiny, but is
believed to also have children with Alina Kabaeva, his mistress. Putin's
holdings are infamously shadowy and dispersed, and his actual fortune may be
entangled with a slew of associates and wealthy Russians, previous reports
claim. The US and other Western nations sanctioned Putin and his adult daughters
in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. However, the unknowability of what,
exactly, Putin owns makes it difficult to actually gauge what impact a direct
sanction would have on his assets, Juliana Kaplan previously reported.
Russia warns United States: don't brandish ultimatums on
arms control
Guy Faulconbridge/MOSCOW (Reuters)/Sat, June 3, 2023
Russia warned the United States on Saturday it should stop brandishing
ultimatums over the collapse of arms control agreements, saying Moscow would
only return to a nuclear arms reduction treaty if Washington abandons its
hostile stance. Russia and the United States, by far the biggest nuclear powers,
have both expressed regret about the disintegration of the tangle of arms
control treaties which sought to slow the Cold War arms race and reduce the risk
of nuclear war. Amid the crisis triggered by the Ukraine conflict, President
Vladimir Putin announced in February that Russia was suspending participation in
the New START treaty - an agreement signed in 2010 that limits the number of
Russian and U.S. deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The United States said
this week it would stop providing Russia some notifications required under the
treaty, including updates on its missile and launcher locations, to retaliate
for Moscow's "ongoing violations" of the accord. Russia's point man for arms
control, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said Washington had informed
Moscow about the move ahead of going public with it so it was no surprise. But
Ryabkov said the pillars of arms control were collapsing and were in a
"semi-lethal" condition due to what he cast as the hostile policies of the
United States. "Talking to the Russian Federation in the language of ultimatums
just does not work," Ryabkov told Russia's three main news agencies. "Through
the fault of the United States, many elements of the former architecture in this
area have either been completely destroyed or moved in a semi-lethal state."
DETAILED ASSESSMENT
The United States is eager to begin discussions with Russia on a strategic arms
limitation pact to replace New START when it expires in 2026, U.S. national
security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday. Ryabkov said Russia would give a
detailed assessment of Sullivan's remarks later. After the fears of nuclear war
triggered by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet
Union sought to slow the arms race with what ultimately became a tangle of arms
control agreements which gave each side greater understanding of their foe's
arsenal and capability. Both Moscow and Washington, which still control about
90% of the world's nuclear weapons, slashed the number of their weapons as the
Soviet Union crumbled. The New START Treaty, struck in 2011, obliged the United
States and Russia to limit deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles,
deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and deployed heavy bombers
equipped for nuclear armaments. It also put limits on nuclear warheads on those
deployed missiles and bombers and the launchers for those missiles. Both sides
reached the central limits of the treaty by Feb. 5, 2018, and the treaty was
extended to Feb. 4, 2026. "Our decision to suspend the START Treaty is
unshakable," the TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. "Our own condition
for returning to a fully operational treaty is for the U.S. to abandon its
fundamentally hostile stance toward Russia."There was one positive glimmer:
Ryabkov said the U.S. appeared willing to abide by the 1998 Ballistic Missile
Launch Notification Agreement. "Accordingly, a certain transparency and
predictability will remain in this area and will allow us to avoid further
dangerous exacerbation," he said.
Zelenskiy says Ukraine ready to launch counteroffensive
KYIV (Reuters)/Sat, June 3, 2023
Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive to recapture
Russian-occupied territory, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview
published on Saturday. "We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelenskiy
told the Wall Street Journal. "I don’t know how long it will take. To be honest,
it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it,
and we are ready." Kyiv hopes a counteroffensive to reclaim territory will
change the dynamics of the war that has raged since Russia invaded its smaller
neighbour 15 months ago. Zelenskiy said last month Ukraine needed to wait for
more Western armoured vehicles arrived before launching the counteroffensive. He
has been on a diplomatic push to maintain Western support, seeking more military
aid and weapons, which is key for Ukraine to succeed in its plans. Russia holds
swaths of Ukrainian territory in the east, south and southeast. A long spell of
dry weather in some parts of Ukraine has driven anticipation that the
counteroffensive might be imminent. Over the past several weeks Ukraine has
increased it strikes on Russian ammunition depots and logistical routes. On
Saturday Ukraine's military said in a daily report that Mariinka in the Donetsk
region in the east was the focus of fighting. Ukrainian forces repelled all 14
Russian troops' attacks there, the report said.
Russian forces tried to blow up my men, says mercenary boss
Prigozhin
(Reuters)/Fri, June 2, 2023
Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been arguing with top military
brass for months, on Friday escalated the feud by accusing pro-Moscow forces of
trying to blow up his men. Prigozhin's Wagner Group troops have largely pulled
back from the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, most of which they captured
last month after taking heavy casualties, and handed over their positions to
regular Russian forces. Prigozhin, writing on Telegram, said his men had
discovered a dozen locations in rear areas where defence ministry officials had
planted various explosive devices, including hundreds of anti-tank mines. When
asked why the charges had been set, the officials indicated it was an order from
their superiors. "It was not necessary to plant these charges in order to deter
the enemy, as it (the area in question) is in the rear area. Therefore, we can
assume that these charges were intended to meet the advancing units of Wagner,"
he said. None of the charges went off and no one was hurt, he said, adding: "We
assume this was an attempt at a public flogging."Russia's defence ministry was
not immediately available for comment. Prigozhin, who regularly complained his
men were not given enough ammunition for the assault on Bakhmut, said on
Wednesday that he had asked prosecutors to investigate whether senior Russian
defence officials had committed any "crime" before or during the war in Ukraine.
Kremlin: Western journalists won't get accreditation for
Russian economic forum
MOSCOW (Reuters)/Sat, June 3, 2023
The Kremlin said on Saturday that journalists from "unfriendly countries" would
not be allowed into the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which
President Vladimir Putin has used to showcase the Russian economy to global
investors. "It has indeed been decided this time not to accredit publications
from unfriendly countries to the SPIEF," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told
TASS, using the acronym for the forum which is held annually in Russia's former
imperial capital. "Interest in SPIEF is always great, all other journalists will
work on the site," Peskov said. "Unfriendly countries" is a definition used by
Moscow to describe those who have sanctioned it over the war in Ukraine.Reuters'
Moscow bureau was told by the organisers of the forum on Friday that
accreditation for its journalists had been cancelled after receiving an earlier
confirmation of accreditation on Thursday. Reuters sought written clarification
but none has been issued yet. The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will not close
"the window" to Europe which Tsar Peter the Great sought to open 300 years ago
even though the West has imposed the most onerous sanctions in recent history
over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
US, Canadian navies stage rare joint mission through Taiwan
Strait
TAIPEI (Reuters)/Sat, June 3, 2023
A U.S. and a Canadian warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, the
U.S. Navy said, in a rare joint mission in the sensitive waterway at a time of
heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over Chinese-claimed Taiwan.
The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and
Canada's HMCS Montreal conducted a "routine" transit of the strait "through
waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance
with international law". "Chung-Hoon and Montreal's bilateral transit through
the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the commitment of the United States and our
allies and partners to a free and open Indo-Pacific," it said in a statement.
While U.S. warships transit the strait around once a month, it is unusual for
them to do so with those of other U.S. allies. The mission took place as the
U.S. and Chinese defence chiefs were attending a major regional security summit
in Singapore. At that event, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin rebuked
China for refusing to hold military talks, leaving the superpowers deadlocked
over Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. There was no
immediate response to the sailing from China's military, which routinely
denounces them as a U.S. effort to stir up tensions. The last such publicly
revealed U.S.-Canadian mission in the narrow strait took place in September.
China has been ramping up military and political pressure in an attempt to force
Taiwan to accept Beijing's sovereignty claims, which the government in Taipei
strongly rejects.
Pope to visit Mongolia, home to just 1,300 Catholics
Philip Pullella/VATICAN CITY (Reuters)
Pope Francis will make an Aug. 31-Sept. 4 trip to Mongolia, one of the most
far-flung places he has ever visited and which has only about 1,300 Catholics
but is strategically significant for the Roman Catholic Church because of its
proximity to China. The Vatican announced the trip in a brief statement on
Saturday, saying it was being made at the invitation of the country's president
and Catholic leaders. Details would be announced in the next few weeks, Vatican
spokesman Matteo Bruni said. Last August, Francis named Archbishop Giorgio
Marengo, an Italian, the first cardinal to be based in Mongolia, where he is the
Catholic Church's administrator. Marengo was in Rome last month and met with the
pope to discuss the trip. Francis first spoke of the possibility of going to
Mongolia in a conversation with reporters aboard the papal plane returning from
a trip to Africa in February.
According to Fides, the news agency of the Vatican's missionary activities,
there are about 1,300 baptized Catholics in Mongolia among a population of about
3.3 million people. According to the U.S. State Department, about 60% of the
population identifies as religious while the remainder has no religious
identity. Among those who express a religious identity, 87.1% identify as
Buddhist, 5.4% as Muslim, 4.2% as Shamanist, 2.2% as Christian, and 1.1% as
followers of other religions. Although the number of Catholics in Mongolia is
smaller that most individual parish churches in many countries, the country is
significant for the Vatican. It has a long border and close ties with China,
where the Vatican is trying to improve the situation of Catholics in the
communist country. Mongolia, once known as Outer Mongolia, was part of China
until 1921, when it achieved independence with the help of the then Soviet
Union. Inner Mongolia remained part of China. Visiting places where Catholics
are a minority is also part of Francis' policy of drawing attention to people
and problems in what he has called the peripheries of society and of the world.
He still has not visited most of the capitals of Western Europe in his ten years
as head of the 1.3 billion-member Church. Francis is due to visit Portugal from
Aug. 2-6 to attend the World Youth Day in Lisbon and visit the Shrine of Fatima.
He has said he said he would probably go to India next year.
Turkiye’s Erdogan sworn in for third term as
Turkish president
AFP/June 03, 2023
ANKARA: urkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan was on Saturday sworn in for a third term
as president, promising to serve “impartially” after winning a historic runoff
election to extend his two-decade rule.The inauguration in parliament will be
followed by a lavish ceremony at his palace in the capital Ankara attended by
dozens of world leaders. Turkiye’s transformative but divisive leader won the
May 28 runoff against a powerful opposition coalition, despite an economic
crisis and anger over a February earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people.
Erdogan won 52.18 percent of the vote while his secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu
scored 47.82 percent, official results show. “As president, I swear upon my
honor and integrity, before the great Turkish nation ... to work with all my
power to protect the existence and independence of the state ... and to fulfil
my duty impartially,” Erdogan said in parliament after a ceremony outside the
building where he saluted soldiers under pouring rain. Supporters in parliament
gave Erdogan a minute-long standing ovation after his swearing in, while some
opposition lawmakers refused to stand up. In his oath, Erdogan also promised not
to deviate from the rule of law and the secular principles of the republic
founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk 100 years ago. Turkiye’s longest-serving leader
now faces significant immediate challenges in his third term, including the
slowing economy and tensions with the West.
“From a geopolitical point of view, the election will reinforce Turkiye’s recent
pursuit of an independent foreign policy,” said Matt Gertken, chief geopolitical
strategist at BCA Research. “This policy aims to extract maximum economic and
strategic benefits from eastern and autocratic states while still preventing a
permanent rupture in relations with western democracies,” he said. “Tensions
with the West will likely increase again,” Gertken added.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Iran’s vice president Mohammad Mokhber,
Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the speaker of the lower
house of Russia’s parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, are among the foreign guests
expected at the ceremony later Saturday.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will also be present, his office said,
the latest sign of a thaw between the two arch foes. Addressing the country’s
economic troubles will be Erdogan’s first priority, with inflation running at
43.70 percent, partly due to his unorthodox policy of cutting interest rates to
stimulate growth. The president is due to unveil his new cabinet on Saturday,
with media speculating that former finance minister Mehmet Simsek, a reassuring
figure with international stature, could return. A former Merrill Lynch
economist, Simsek is known to oppose Erdogan’s unconventional policies.
He served as finance minister between 2009 and 2015 and deputy prime minister in
charge of the economy until 2018, before stepping down ahead of a series of lira
crashes that year. “Erdogan’s government looks like it will pursue an orthodox
stabilization program,” said Alp Erinc Yeldan, professor of economics at
Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “What we see now is that the news about Mehmet
Simsek and his team is greeted with enthusiasm by the markets,” he told AFP.
Turkiye’s new members of parliament were sworn in on Friday in its first session
after the May 14 election, with Erdogan’s alliance holding a majority in the
600-seat house. Kilicdaroglu’s future as leader of the CHP party remains in
doubt following his defeat to Erdogan. NATO allies are anxiously waiting for
Ankara to green-light Sweden’s drive to join the US-led defense alliance, before
a summit in July.
Erdogan has delayed approving the application, accusing Stockholm of sheltering
“terrorists” from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which is listed as
a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg
will attend Erdogan’s inauguration and hold talks with him, the alliance said
Friday. Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom, said on Twitter that “a
clear message” had emerged at a NATO meeting in Oslo for Turkiye and Hungary to
start the ratification process. His Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu
responded on Twitter: “A crystal clear message to our Swedish friends! Fulfil
your commitments (and) take concrete steps in the fight against terrorism.
UNSC condemns Sudan violence, calls on parties
to honor ceasefire agreements
Arab News/June 03, 2023
NEW YORK: The UN security council on Friday expressed concern over the continued
fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces
and condemned attacks on civilians and UN and humanitarian workers, as well as
on medical workers and facilities, and the looting of humanitarian aid. In a
statement issued after a meeting on Sudan late on Friday afternoon, council
members called on the warring parties to grant humanitarians safe and unimpeded
access across the country, in line with international law and UN principles.
According to the UN, at least 730 people have been killed and 5,500 injured
since the outbreak of hostilities last month. The actual toll could be much
higher. Clashes between military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan’s Sudanese
Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, a paramilitary group
led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have continued across several parts of the
country, including in the capital Khartoum, and in Zalingi, Central Darfur, Al-Fasher,
North Darfur and Al-Obeid. Security Council members stressed the need for an
immediate ceasefire to allow for humanitarian access, and to arrange for a
permanent ceasefire as well as “resume the process toward reaching a lasting,
inclusive, and democratic political settlement in Sudan.” Their statement
reaffirmed the council’s support of the United Nations Integrated Transition
Assistance Mission in Sudan, or UNITAMS, and urged its continued engagement in
the war-ravaged country.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday rejected a request from Gen.
Abdel Fattah Burhan to remove his office’s special envoy, Volker Perthes, who
serves as the special representative for Sudan and head of UNITAMS. Guterres
said that the Security Council had the final say on the fate of the mission. The
15-member body, tasked with the maintenance of international peace and security,
underscored the need for “strengthened international coordination and continued
collaboration,” and reiterated its support for African Union, or AU, efforts to
establish mechanisms to address the conflict. They also welcomed UN and Arab
League efforts toward a viable peace process and the resumption of the
transition to democracy in Sudan. They also backed the AU Roadmap toward those
goals. The Security Council statement welcomed the May 11 signature in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, by the SAF and RSF, of the Declaration of Commitment to Protect
the Civilians of Sudan — or the “Jeddah Declaration” — and called on both
parties to implement its provisions. Council members encouraged international
support for the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement, which “remains binding for all its
signatories (and) must be implemented in full, in particular its provisions on a
permanent ceasefire in Darfur.” The statement concluded by reaffirming the
Security Council’s “strong commitment to the sovereignty, unity, independence,
and territorial integrity of the Republic of Sudan in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations and the principle of good neighborliness,
non-interference and regional cooperation.”
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on June 03-04/2023
Crusaders Overcome Jihad at Antioch and Godfrey’s Valor
Raymond Ibrahim/June 3, 2023
Nine-hundred and twenty-five years ago today, on June 3, 1098, a dramatic
Christian victory over Islamic oppression took place: the liberation of the
ancient Christian city of Antioch.
Context: In the years preceding the First Crusade, Turkish invaders were running
amok in Asia Minor, formerly a bastion of Christianity (now “Turkey”). An
anonymous Georgian chronicler tells of how “holy churches served as stables for
their horses,” the “priests were immolated during the Holy Communion itself,”
the “virgins defiled, the youths circumcised, and the infants taken away.”
Similarly, Anna Comnena, the princess at Constantinople, tells of how “cities
were obliterated, lands were plundered, and the whole of Anatolia was stained
with Christian blood.”
Outraged to hear what was happening in the East, Christians from all over
Europe, under the leadership of the Franks, set out on what would become known
as The First Crusade (1096-1099). After entering and winning several battles in
Turkic-controlled Asia Minor, by October 1097, the Europeans were at and
besieging the walls of Antioch. For long, Antioch had resisted Islam. Even when
“all the East was shaken and the successors of Muhammad were subjugating by
force entire provinces to their impious superstition and perverse dogma,”
chronicler William of Tyre writes, Antioch had “as long as possible refused to
bear the domination of an infidel nation,” that is, until its capture by the
Turks in 1084.
Now, more than a decade later, its indigenous Christians were much oppressed by
their Turkish master, Yaghi-Siyan, a notorious persecutor of Christians who had
also converted Antioch’s ancient cathedral into a horse stable.
“Alas! How many Christians—Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians—who lived in the city,
were killed by the maddened Turks,” lamented Fulcher of Chartres, who travelled
with the crusaders. “With the Franks looking on, they threw outside the walls
the heads of those [Christians] killed, with their petrariae and slings. This
especially grieved our people.”But because the Frankish and Norman warrior
aristocracy had no qualms about giving tit for tat, Bohemond, a Norman leader
that would go on play a decisive role in the reconquest of Antioch, “brought
those [Muslims] he had captured back to the gate of the city, where, to terrify
the citizens who were watching, he ordered that they be decapitated” and their
severed heads catapulted over the city walls. (Anna Comnena, who had met and
described Bohemond as a towering “marvel for the eyes to behold,” added that “a
certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the
horrible.” He was clearly not one to be cowed by Islamic terror tactics.)
Another crusade leader, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, also “performed there a famous
deed worthy of remembrance forever”—to quote Robert the Monk, a contemporary—“a
feat which rendered him illustrious in the eyes of the entire army.” During a
particularly brutal battle before the walls of Antioch, a Turkish chieftain,
“bolder than the rest, unusually heavily built and of greater strength…saw the
Duke savaging his men mercilessly.”
[So the Muslim chief] urged his horse towards him with bloodstained spurs, and
lifting his sword high, he sliced through the whole shield of the Duke, which he
held above his head. If the Duke had not parried the blow with the boss of the
shield and twisted over to the other side, he would have paid the debt of
death…. The Duke, ablaze with furious anger, prepared to return the blow and
thus aimed for his neck. He raised his sword and plunged it into the left side
of his shoulder blades with such force that it split the chest down the middle,
slashed through the spine and vital organs and, slippery with blood, came out
unbroken above the right leg. As a result, the whole of the head and the right
side slipped down into the water, whilst the part remaining on the horse was
carried back into the city. All those inside rushed together to see this
horrible sight, and were struck with amazement, panic and fear, overcome with
terror; here there were screams like those of a woman in labor, their voices
raised in misery, because he had been one of their emirs.
The terrified Muslims retreated back to Antioch and unleashed a “hailstorm of
missiles and arrows” directly onto Godfrey, but he successfully absconded. It
was a great victory and allowed the Christians to tighten the noose around the
city.
Even so, it had now been nearly eight months since the Europeans first laid
Antioch to siege, and still it would not be breached. Desperate crusaders were
reduced to eating dogs, rats, and thistles. Many died of starvation, thirst, and
pestilence.
Eventually, a Muslim tower captain—an Armenian Christian converted to Islam
during Yaghi-Siyan’s persecutions—made a deal with Bohemond.
As a result, on today’s date, June 3, 1098, under the cover of night, the
emaciated crusaders, having clandestinely climbed over the walls into the city,
were running wildly and slaughtering anyone in the streets. “Those who were
Christians chanted Kyrie Eleison”—the Christian mantra, “Lord have mercy,” in
Greek—“to make it clear to our men that they were not Turks but Christians.”
Once their startle was over, these same Christians, “Syrians, Armenians, and the
true believers of other nations, rejoiced exceedingly over what had happened.
They at once took arms and joined forces with the army.” The result was a
bloodbath not unlike those Muslims had visited upon Christian cities all
throughout Asia Minor in the preceding decades. Yaghi-Siyan managed to escape
the carnage, but local Christians tracked, killed, beheaded and hurled their
former tormentor’s head “into the view of all the Christian princes. The head
was of enormous size, the ears very wide and hairy, his hair was white and he
had a beard which flowed.” The Europeans remained and recuperated in the ancient
Christian city for the rest of the year. Bohemond was crowned prince of Antioch.
The crusaders sent a letter to the pope in Rome, chronicling their tragedies and
triumphs, and urged him to come in person to Antioch, reminding him that “it was
here that the name Christian was born [Acts 11:26].”
*The above account was excerpted from Raymond Ibrahim’s Defenders of the West:
The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
The Anti-Western Nuclear Club: North Korea,
China, Russia and Iran Dangerously Target the West
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/June 3, 2023
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered this January that his country carry out
"exponential" expansion of its nuclear arsenal and the manufacturing of a more
powerful ICBM.
"Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies
to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All
four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their
willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their
nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a
deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons.." — Rep. Mike Turner,
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior member of the House
Armed Services Committee, Fox News, May 4, 2023.
Russia is most likely helping Iran to boost its nuclear program in exchange for
the weapons that the Islamic Republic is supplying to Russia for use against
Ukraine.
The headline of a report by Iran's state-controlled Afkar News read: "American
Soil Is Now Within the Range of Iranian Bombs". The report boasted: "The same
type of ballistic missile technology used to launch the satellite could carry
nuclear, chemical or even biological weapons to wipe Israel off the map, hit US
bases and allies in the region and US facilities, and target NATO even in the
far west of Europe...."
"After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration revived missile defense.... In
2009, the Obama administration scrapped this plan. Then it canceled key parts of
its own plan, leaving the U.S. and Europe vulnerable to an array of threats and
potential nuclear coercion by adversaries." — Rep. Mike Turner, Fox News, May 4,
2023.
"[T]he Biden administration has shown a lack of foresight. In its 2021 Missile
Defense Review, President Biden ignored our defense industrial base supply chain
issues..." — Rep. Mike Turner, Fox News, May 4, 2023.
Unfortunately, through its failure to take on the Free World's adversaries in a
serious, credible way, the Biden Administration has been empowering tyrants and
rogues states, at the forefront: North Korea, Russia, China and Iran.
The anti-Western nuclear club -- North Korea, Russia and China, with Iran close
to joining the club -- have become emboldened and empowered as never before,
thanks to the Biden administration's feeble leadership. Pictured: Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iran's then President
Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019.
The anti-Western nuclear club -- North Korea, Russia and China, with Iran close
to joining the club -- have become emboldened and empowered as never before,
thanks to the Biden administration's feeble leadership.
China, North Korea and Russia are building up their nuclear weapons. China may
have even surpassed the United States when it come to the number of nuclear
warheads on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that it currently
possesses. On February 21, 2023, the U.S. Strategic Command informed Congress
that China now has more ICBM launchers than the United States.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered this January that his country carry out
"exponential" expansion of its nuclear arsenal and the manufacturing of a more
powerful ICBM. Russia is also upgrading and expanding its nuclear arsenal.
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a senior
member of the House Armed Services Committee, warned last month:
"Today, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran continue to invest in technologies
to expand their capabilities to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. All
four countries have also escalated their threatening rhetoric, indicating their
willingness to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict. By expanding their
nuclear programs, each has made clear that our nuclear arsenal is no longer a
deterrent to their potential use of nuclear weapons.
"If deterrence is dead, then the concept of mutually assured destruction is
obsolete and comprehensive missile defense must be revisited as an essential
capability to protect our citizens."
The Iranian regime, at present, reportedly has enough enriched uranium to
produce five nuclear bombs. "Make no mistake, Iran will not be satisfied by a
single nuclear bomb," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his Greek
counterpart Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos during a visit to Athens on May 4, 2023.
"So far, Iran has gained material enriched to 20% and 60% for five nuclear
bombs... Iranian progress, and enrichment to 90%, would be a grave mistake on
Iran's part, and could ignite the region."
Russia is most likely helping Iran to boost its nuclear program in exchange for
the weapons that the Islamic Republic is supplying to Russia for use against
Ukraine. According to a report by Associated Press:
"The United States accused China and Russia on Monday of shielding North Korea
from any action by the U.N. Security Council for its unprecedented spate of
intercontinental ballistic missile launches, which violate multiple U.N.
resolutions and jeopardize international aviation and maritime safety."
The Iranian regime has made its intentions clear. In November 2022, Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed, "Death to America will happen. In
the new order I am talking about America will no longer have any important
role." The Iranian regime, now that it is aligned with Putin's Russia and the
Chinese Communist Party, would like to conquer the US. The headline of a report
by Iran's state-controlled Afkar News read: "American Soil Is Now Within the
Range of Iranian Bombs". The report boasted:
"The same type of ballistic missile technology used to launch the satellite
could carry nuclear, chemical or even biological weapons to wipe Israel off the
map, hit US bases and allies in the region and US facilities, and target NATO
even in the far west of Europe...."
As Rep. Mike Turner pointed out, the Bush and Trump Administrations took US
missile defense seriously, but the Obama and Biden administration have ignored
it:
"After 9/11, the George W. Bush administration revived missile defense with its
deployment of ground-based midcourse defense systems in Poland and the Czech
Republic to defend against intermediate-to-long-range ballistic missiles
targeting Europe or the U.S.
"In 2009, the Obama administration scrapped this plan, opting to adopt a short-
and medium-range missile defense architecture instead of an ICBM-focused
posture. Then it canceled key parts of its own plan, leaving the U.S. and Europe
vulnerable to an array of threats and potential nuclear coercion by adversaries.
"The Trump administration correctly re-prioritized homeland missile defense as a
central component of its National Defense Strategy in 2018.
"But despite a war in Europe and the increasing adversary capabilities, the
Biden administration has shown a lack of foresight. In its 2021 Missile Defense
Review, President Biden ignored our defense industrial base supply chain issues
and emerging technologies such as directed energy."
Unfortunately, through its failure to take on the Free World's adversaries in a
serious, credible way, the Biden Administration has been empowering tyrants and
rogues states, at the forefront: North Korea, Russia, China and Iran.
**Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated
scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and
president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has
authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at
Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Sanctioning a Syrian Jihadist Leader:
Implications of a Joint U.S.-Turkish Designation
Aaron Y. Zelin/The Washington Institute/Jun 03/2023
Their willingness to sanction the top HTS money man after years without a
designation suggests that the group’s charm offensive has not assuaged concerns
in either capital.
On May 2, the U.S. and Turkish governments jointly designated Abu Ahmed Zakour (aka
Omar Alsheak or Jihad Isa al-Sheikh), a senior leader with the Syrian jihadist
group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The bilateral action with Ankara suggests that
both countries are signaling their unhappiness with the group’s push into areas
controlled by the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish proxy militia. Zakour
has been a key HTS liaison to those areas.
The designation also represented both good news and bad news for HTS on the
sanctions front. On one hand, the announcement is the first U.S. government
document to acknowledge that HTS broke with al-Qaeda years ago; all prior
designations and reports claimed they were still together. On the other hand,
this is the first U.S. designation of an HTS official since July 2021,
indicating that group leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani’s various pleas for
delisting have not gained traction in Washington.
Who Is Abu Ahmed Zakour?
In July 2021, two biographies of Zakour were released: one by Zakour himself and
another by anti-HTS ideologue Muzamjir al-Sham. Between these documents and the
details provided in last month’s designation, a thorough history of Zakour’s
involvement in the jihadist movement and HTS can be pierced together,
illustrating not only his importance and institutional knowledge, but also why
the designation is so significant to the group’s takeover bid in SNA areas.
Zakour grew up in al-Nayrab southeast of Aleppo city. His father is a leading
figure in both the city and the Baggara tribe; indeed, Zakour grew up in a
strict tribal environment. After years of standard schooling, he began taking
religious lessons from Mahmoud Qul Aghassi (Abu Qaqa)—who turned out to be an
intelligence asset that the Syrian regime used to recruit foreign fighters for
combat in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. (Damascus feared that American
forces would invade Syria next and sought to bog them down in Iraq.) At the
time, Zakour and many other jihadists did not know Aghassi was an illegitimate
cleric. Once they discovered his true background, they exposed him; Abu Qaqa
would later be killed in 2007 by operatives from the Islamic State of Iraq.
According to Zakour, Aleppo youths began to join the Kurdish-led jihadist group
Ansar al-Sunnah after 2003, and later Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, the
organization headed by future al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yet
Zakour himself did not become a foreign fighter. Instead, he was responsible for
coordinating accommodations and other needs for fighters transiting Syria on
their way to Iraq. Together with his uncle Zakaria Afash, Zakour leveraged his
tribal relationships, farms, and family cars to help move these fighters. After
Afash was arrested by the Assad regime, Zakour collaborated with Umar Khattab on
this project. Khattab would soon be killed in a clash with regime forces in Dael,
a southern town on the old road between Deraa and Damascus, suggesting that he
may have worked on logistics for the southern route into Iraq while Zakour
managed the northern route.
Not long thereafter, Zakour fell into an ambush in Aleppo and was arrested.
After being held in various facilities for a year, he was transferred to the
infamous Sednaya Prison sometime in 2004. There, he reconnected with Afash and
purportedly took on two key roles: head of the facility’s al-Qaeda youth
faction, and a military official in the 2008 prison insurgency that lasted for
more than eight months and claimed the life of his uncle.
Zakour remained in prison until after the first wave of the 2011 Syrian
uprising, when the Assad regime released a number of jihadists to discredit the
legitimate protest movement—namely, by radicalizing the burgeoning anti-regime
insurgency, which had begun as a primarily nationalist rather than Islamist
movement, let alone jihadist. According to Muzamjir al-Sham’s biography, Zakour
was eventually released in 2012 following the public emergence of Syrian
jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), the predecessor of HTS. His first position
with JN was deputy emir of Aleppo; later, he became overall emir of Aleppo.
Sham also claims that Zakour played a prominent role in encouraging then-JN
leader Jawlani to rebel against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s attempts to consolidate
Syrian jihadists under the nascent Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)
banner, urging him to pledge baya (allegiance) to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
instead. Later, Zakour had a working relationship with the so-called “Khorasan
Group,” a JN external operations cell that was primarily loyal to al-Qaeda
central and not necessarily in line with Jawlani’s plans.
After JN lost monthly funding from ISIS and formally broke ties with the
organization, Jawlani promoted Zakour to head of JN’s economic file, a role he
continued to fill as late as February 2019, according to the Treasury
designation. Later, he became JN’s “border emir,” likely due to the money that
could be derived from border crossings.
Following JN’s transition to HTS, Jawlani appointed Zakour as commander of the
Jaish Halab military formation (aka the Aleppo Army), and then as head of
relations with the SNA. Sham’s biography notes that Zakour has close relations
with the SNA’s Suleyman Shah Division and holds regular meetings in areas of
Syria that Turkey entered during Operations Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield.
According to the Treasury designation, Zakour is also a member of the HTS Shura
Council, emir of its Security Department, supervisor of its economic portfolio
abroad (likely why Washington coordinated the action with Turkey), and chief of
its General Relations Office as of last October. The latter appointment was
likely made in relation to his work with the SNA, since October is when HTS
pushed to take over SNA territory as far as Azaz (in the end, it was only able
to consolidate as far as Jindires and the Afrin countryside due to pushback from
Turkey).
Will the Designation Be Effective?
In response to the designation, Zakour released a statement calling it
“meaningless” because he does not “have a single dollar outside of Syria” and is
not “financially or economically responsible for the group.” He also called the
sanctions “sad” because they came from an “allied country [Turkey] that we have
always thought well of” due to its support for the Syrian revolution. In
contrast, Zakour called the United States the “origin of terrorism and
oppression of tyrannical regimes”—a message that will hardly help Jawlani’s
public entreaties for U.S. delisting of HTS and its members.
Whatever Zakour might think, the more pertinent question is whether or not the
new designation will make much material difference to HTS. The answer is likely
not. Even if Zakour is lying and turns out to have targetable assets in Turkey,
many other HTS leaders probably do as well—the group is highly unlikely to put
all of its finances in one person’s hands. The designation is therefore more of
a political statement than a major step toward choking off HTS financial
capabilities.
Impeding the Path to More Territory and Legitimacy
Given Washington and Ankara’s willingness to sanction the top HTS money man
after years of refraining from such designations, it seems clear that the
group’s long-running charm offensive has not assuaged concerns in either
capital. Turkey probably aims to be the ultimate guarantor of security and
decisionmaking in northern Syria, and allowing an independent actor like HTS to
wrest territory from a loyal proxy like the SNA would undermine that goal. HTS
has been signaling such a takeover for almost a year, so Ankara likely concluded
that it could wait no longer to target the group’s assets.
From Washington’s perspective, the designation likely has less to do with power
politics and more to do with residual U.S. discomfort over the group’s past, its
authoritarian governance, its support for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
terrorism against Israel, and its unwillingness to go after smaller designated
terrorist groups in its territory that it considers allies. There is also no
U.S. precedent for delisting a jihadist group while it is still an active
entity. Therefore, even if interests may converge between the United States,
Turkey, and HTS on key fronts—such as the Assad regime’s unpalatability, the
need for greater humanitarian assistance in northwest Syria, and the desire to
stem larger refugee flows into Turkey and then onto Europe—the latest
designation suggests that this is not enough to overcome deeper concerns about
HTS in Washington or Ankara.
*Aaron Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at The Washington Institute and founder
of Jihadology.net.
Extraordinary Popular Mobilization Force Expansion, By The Numbers
Amir al-Kaabi, Michael Knights/The Washington Institute/June 03/ 2023
The PMF is growing fast by every metric, from budget to authorized manpower to
training and economic programs. They seem wary of this becoming fully
appreciated and try to downplay the growth rate.
Iraq’s new 2023-2025 multi-year draft budget is yet to be ratified by parliament
in its final form, but it is almost certain to include a major expansion of the
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the new post-2014 security force led by its
chairman/president, U.S.-designated human rights abuser Falah al-Fayyadh, and
its operational chief, U.S.-designated terrorist, Kataib Hezbollah’s Abdal-Aziz
al-Mohammadawi or Abu Fadak.
Open imageiconFayyadh claims PMF will have 204,000 members.
Some disagreement was aired in public over exactly how rapidly the PMF’s
authorized manpower is growing. A report issued on April 17 by the Iraqi
parliament’s finance committee stated that the PMF’s authorized manpower
increased by 95% in the 2023 budget, practically doubling, from 122,000 to
238,000 personnel. This was disputed by Falah al-Fayyadh in an interview with
UTV on April 18 (Figure 1), when he claimed the manpower allocation had only
increased from 170,000 in 2021 (the last authorized budget before this one) to
204,000, which is still a sizeable 20% year-on-year increase. (In comparison,
Ministry of Defense manning increased by 6% and Ministry of Interior by 3% in
the draft budget.)
Open imageiconFalah al-Fayyadh announces PMF Service and Retrement Law is close
to passing
Disagreement over the size of the PMF – its authorized manpower and its actual
mobilized manpower – are long-standing. As discussed in detail in Chapter 3
(pages 55-64) of the Washington Institute study Honored Not Contained: The
Future of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, the registered manpower of the PMF
has been deliberately left opaque for years on end, and the actual manpower has
always exceeded the registered numbers. Interestingly, until this budget, the
first under the “muqawama government” of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani,
the PMF had been content to aim for a registered membership of 160-170,000, and
their primary aim was to get about 25-35,000 unregistered fighters on the
official payroll. Whether expanded to 204,000 (as Fayyadh claims) or more likely
238,000 (as parliament claims and the draft budget shows), the PMF is growing
well beyond these earlier ambitions.
The PMF’s budget is also growing, albeit not as fast as its membership. In the
2023 budget, the PMF budget rose from $2.16bn in the last authorized budget (in
2021) to $2.6bn in the 2023 budget, which is intended to be repeated twice more
in 2024 and 2025. This is a 23% increase, and is probably lower than the (at
minimum) 40-95% increase in manpower because some of the additional registered
members were previously carried within the budget as unregistered part-timers.
Yet while the wage bill may not rise strongly today, the expansion of the PMF
will have a long “tail” in terms of new pension obligations to PMF fighters. On
May 25,
2010). One explanation is that ‘’PMF fighters will be called Jihadist under the
new law… PMF will be one of the state’s institutions that doesn’t lose its
Jihadist description or its religious background.’’ Another interpretation is
that the PMF wants a separate and more privileged status than other security
forces, in its service and retirement regulations, much as the PMF has developed
a separate military justice system to screen its members from external
accountability.
Open imageiconAbbas Al-Zamili describing new investment budget for PMF.
Figure 3: Badr parliamentary block leader Abbas al-Zamili describes the new
investment budget for the PMF and full hiring of 37,000 new members.
Two final interesting aspects of PMF expansion are the inclusion of capital
investment and secret funds for the PMF. Abbas al-Zamili, the head of Badr
Organization’s parliamentary bloc, revealed on May 22, 2023 that 400 billion
Iraqi dinar ($305 million) had been “added to the added to the investment budget
of the PMF’’ for the use of its new Muhandis General Company (Figure 3).
Iraqi government spokesperson Basim al-Awadi said on May 23, 2023 that the
Council of Ministers voted to authorize a 1.5 billion Iraqi dinar ($1.2 million)
“Secret Expenses for PMF” fund. This is a privilege only extended until now to
the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (Figure 4).
Open imageiconAl-Awadi, GOI spokeperson says that council of ministers has
alocated 1.5 billion dinar for PMF secret expenses
Figure 4: Government spokesman al-Awadi announces the allocation of 1.5 billion
dinar for PMF "secret expenses" on May 23, 2023.
Taken together, these developments suggest a near-doubling of registered PMF
fighters and their provision with long-term government benefits, plus the
extension of the PMF civil works and industrial base, and finally unprecedented
intelligence-gathering arrangements without oversight. As Falah al-Fayyadh's
muddying of hiring numbers suggests, the PMF and self-styled resistance (muqawama)
are wary of being seen to expand too quickly, even against the backdrop of an
unprecedented mega-budget. However, the breakneck speed of PMF expansion is
impossible to hide.
*Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow of The Washington
Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and
the Persian Gulf states. He is a co-founder of the Militia Spotlight platform,
which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to the Iranian-backed
militias in Iraq and Syria.
Iran: Heroic Flexibility Returns
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/June 03/2023
“Easy does it!” These days in Tehran the phrase seems to have become the
guideline for a ruling elite that has realized it can no longer go about its
shenanigans at no cost.
Almost six months of on-and-off protests virtually everywhere has persuaded the
“Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he cannot put down a popular revolt
at home while pursuing adventurous policies abroad. As a result, he has decided
to perform what he calls “heroic flexibility” in foreign policy in the hope of
focusing on a slow but steady suppression of dissent at home. In a speech last
week, he said he was applying the tactic of “taqiyeh” (dissimulation), a
theological concept, to diplomacy. Echoing Lenin’s famous phrase “One step
backwards, two steps forward,” he said when a revolution hits a tough rock on
its path it need not break its head against it; the wisest course would be to
try and go around it.
It is against that background that Tehran now hails its recent “normalization”
with Saudi Arabia followed by “dispersing the clouds” in relations with the
United Arab Emirates as “a major step towards Islamic solidarity.”
This is to be followed by “normalization” with Egypt, partly thanks to mediation
by Sultan Haitham bin Tarik of Oman.
Under the “easy does it” scheme Tehran has already managed to exchange a Belgian
hostage it held with an Iranian diplomat serving a sentence in Belgium on
charges of terrorism. By the time this column appears Tehran hopes to have made
another exchange between one of its diplomats, again found guilty of terrorism,
with a Swedish hostage.
Four French and American hostages have also been released in line with the same
tactic. More importantly, perhaps, Tehran has quietly “rescheduled” its annual
“A World without America” seminar and the annual “Holocaust as a Hoax” cartoon
exhibition.
Addressing Iranian envoys aboard, the “Supreme Guide” ordered them to be on
their best behavior. This was in contrast with previous sermons in which he had
urged his diplomats to always raise the banner of revolution and emphasize
Iran’s role as the leader of a new power bloc seeking to establish a new world
order in alliance with Russia and China.
However, the most dramatic illustration of this “turn the other cheek” game came
with two recent border “incidents”. In the first incident a group of gunmen
coming from Pakistan attacked an Iranian border post, killing and wounding a
number of Iranian guards.
The surprise was that Tehran did not invoke a 1973 agreement with Islamabad
under which Iranian forces could chase the attackers in “hot pursuit” and bring
them to justice. The attack came a day after President Ibrahim Raisi had held a
meeting with Pakistani Premier Shahbaz Sharif just miles from the border post
that was attacked. The implicit message of the attackers was clear: We could
have hit you a day earlier and exactly where you happened to be!
The second “incident” happened further north on the Iran-Afghanistan border with
a group of Afghan Taliban supposedly straying into Iranian territory by
accident, provoking an exchange of fire with Iranian border guards. A few days
later tension was heightened with a four-hour gunbattle on three border
locations with both sides accusing the other as the initiator.
The “incidents” happened against a background of dispute over the sharing of the
waters of four rivers originating in Afghanistan and irrigating the northern
part of the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan. Tehran claims that Kabul
is deliberately denying Iran its share of the waters as specified in a treaty
signed in 1972. Kabul claims that the Iranian share has been reduced because
Afghan rivers have suffered four years of severe drought.
The irony in all that a new dam that is believed to be part of the problem was
built by Iran before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul. For two decades
Iran was the third largest donor of aid to Afghanistan under Presidents Hamid
Karzai and Ashraf Ghani in the hope of turning the Afghan ruling elite against
the United States. Now, however, Tehran claims that “the remnants of the
previous Afghan regime” are responsible for the water dispute in the hope of
forcing Iran to attack the Taliban and help their opponents regain power.
There are also elements on the Iranian side who urge the leadership to “teach
Afghans a lesson” in the hope of arousing nationalistic sentiments and divert
attention from the popular protests that started last summer. There is some
jingoistic talk on the Afghan side as well with several commanders even talking
of marching up to Tehran.
Both sides, however, have shown no interest in starting a war at a time that
they both face challenges to their legitimacy. Khamenei’s recently adopted
posture of moderation is mirrored by that of his Afghan counterpart Hibatullah
Akhund, the Taliban “Emir of the Faithful”.
Will Khamenei’s “heroic flexibility” also affect relations with Western
democracies? A cautious yes seems in order. He has already declared that his
regime has “never been hostile to relations with Europe” and talks are under way
to arrange a visit to Paris by Foreign Minister Hussain Amir-Abdullahian.
The big enchilada, of course, is whether the “Supreme Guide” will prove flexible
enough to accept a new version of the Obama “nuke deal” or JCPOA which President
Donald Trump dumped, and his successor President Joe Biden is determined to
bring out of the wastepaper basket. Biden seems determined to get a deal before
next year’s presidential election to claim success in bringing Iran into the
fold where Trump had failed. Iran has already smoothed its relations with its
Arab neighbors and released most American hostages. It has also kept its
Hezbollah surrogates on a tight leash while also reducing aid to the Houthis in
Yemen and the Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza.
More importantly, the new JCPOA that is on offer will tighten the control that
the US and five other major powers will gain on key aspects of Iranian economic,
trade and scientific policies. A tight leash on Tehran will enable Washington to
regain some influence as Iran heads for the unchartered waters of Khamenei’s
succession.
The Specter Haunting Sudan and the Drawers of Oblivion
Jamal Al-Keshky/Asharq Al Awsat/June 03/2023
The war in Sudan broke out nearly fifty days ago. Considerations and figures
have been changing by the day. Fatalities and casualties increase, the
humanitarian crises exacerbate, hope is pinned on Arab and international
mediations, and the level of fear rises. In mirrors into the future, we see
apprehensions regarding the number of refugees fleeing this hell, a resurgence
of terrorism, and the reinvigoration of illegal immigration and illicit trade.
Whenever I reflect on what the future holds for this brotherly nation, I am
overwhelmed with fear about the fate of a pivotal Arab country that is among
dearest to me personally.
Sudan does not deserve all this. Indeed, it is not only the fact that this war
broke out that should worry us. The real fear is that it continues as the world
looks the other way. Wars that go into oblivion are the most dangerous, and I
worry that this could happen in Sudan and that violent scenes from the war
underway in this brotherly nation will become familiar and normalized - that we
will adapt to and coexist with scenes of blood, chaos and destruction.
The moment that happens, a hefty price will be paid by Sudan and its civilized
and educated people, whose qualities reflect the kindness of the people of the
Nile. Some may ask: Why do you worry that the Sudanese war could be forgotten?
It makes sense to pose this question, and my answer also makes sense.
Contemporary history and the events currently unfolding remind us of similar
cases seen in the past. Indeed, we can point to several wars that were
perpetuated for years until they were eventually forgotten. However, their scars
can still be seen on the maps of these countries.
Lebanon, for example, is no longer the country we had known before the outbreak
of its civil war in 1975, which went on for 15 years and took the lives of over
120,000 victims. With time, we became accustomed to seeing violent scenes in
Lebanon on a daily basis. We learned to live with them after it became apparent
that the belligerents had no intention of building peace and social cohesion.
The outcome was disastrous, and no attempts were made to fix the problems
plaguing this country that we used to call the “Switzerland of the East” and
whose capital we called the “Paris of the East” and “the queen of the
coast.”Beirut was sick with this disease. It became home to a forgotten war,
whose perpetuation was a scourge on the country, making it increasingly fragile,
weakening its economy, and opening the door to foreign actors seeking to
intervene in the country’s domestic affairs and to undermine the country’s
sovereignty.
Israel dared to attack Lebanon several times, both during and after this war.
Lebanon was invaded and occupied, and we see attempts to erase its identity.
This country was and continues to be a lung for the Arab world, as well as a hub
for Arab thought and creativity. If its political parties had prioritized the
interests of the country, and put an end to the bloodshed and the queues at
funerals, it would not have remained forgotten, and it would not be facing the
threats it is currently exposed to.
The pain of Beirut remains forgotten. It is stacked away in the same drawer of
oblivion as the pain of Damascus, which continued to bleed for an entire dark
decade. The West and the East raced to drain the country of everything, igniting
a civil war that left scorched earth, devastated institutions, and a broken
nation-state in its wake. Its squares lost the aroma of Damascene jasmines and
now reek of blood. As time went on, the destruction and violence accumulated,
and its people left their homes to escape its hell.
Now recovering from this war, Syria has returned to the Arab fold by unanimous
approval. However, the memories linger: Syria is not the same country it had
been before the war, as the world watched on while it burned.
Algeria’s “Black Decade” is another example. Libya and Yemen have yet to rid
themselves of this scourge, and before them all, Iraq sipped from this bitter
cup over “black decades” of wars with neighbors, occupation, and civil wars.
When faced with civil strife, we must look into and learn from the profound
lessons of others. We must ring the alarm bells before Sudan becomes another
painful memory. Sudan has already undergone civil wars, and it paid for them
with the lives of its citizens, its stability, and its wealth.
Now, with this war, there is no time for complacency. The moment to be decisive
has come. If left unchecked, this conflict will branch out into labyrinths. We
must prevent it from snowballing until it is forgotten.
If we reach a point at which it is forgotten, Sudan might cease to be a single
entity. This certainly is not the wish of the Sudanese people or any segment of
Sudanese society. No Arab wishes fragmentation on this country rich in
civilization, culture and humanity.
Given these fears and the tragic experiences we have undergone, I will be frank
and ask that all the parties in Sudan overcome their intellectual, ideological,
ethnic, and political differences, to save this important African and Arab
country. This is the only way to prevent Sudan from becoming an arena in which
foreign actors vie for influence.
It might be the moment to quote some lines by Ahamd Shwaki, the prince of poets.
Even if thoughts of immortality distract me from it
The eternity within me draws me to my homeland