English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 13/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the
lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2024/english.December13.24.htm
News Bulletin Achieves
Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Click On
The Below Link To Join Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FPF0N7lE5S484LNaSm0MjW
اضغط
على الرابط في
أعلى للإنضمام
لكروب
Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
Elias Bejjani/Click
on the below link to subscribe to my youtube channel
الياس
بجاني/اضغط
على الرابط في
أسفل للإشتراك في
موقعي ع اليوتيوب
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOOSioLh1GE3C1hp63Camw
Bible Quotations For today
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say,
"Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!" Yet
wisdom is vindicated by her deeds
Saint Matthew 11/16-19/:'‘But to what will I compare this
generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one
another, "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you
did not mourn." For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has
a demon"; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a
glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!" Yet wisdom is
vindicated by her deeds."’
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on December 12-13/2024
Elias
Bejjani/Text & Video: The Rise of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Shadows of Daesh-like
Islamic Governance in Syria
They Failed to Thank Netanyahu, So They Mocked Bashar/Writer and Director:
Youssef Y. Khoury/December 12, 2024
Lebanon PM condemns Israeli airstrike on Khiam as ‘treachery’
2 killed in Israeli strike on Khiam, Mikati asks committee for 'quick and firm'
action
Neemat Frem officially announces his nomination for presidency
Geagea willing to run for presidency, floats idea of early polls
Berri says Quint gave 'positive' feedback on Jan. 9 session
Amnesty says Israeli strikes that killed 49 Lebanese civilians further evidence
of war crimes
Top US military commander in Mideast visits Lebanon for talks with army chief
Migrant workers in Lebanon try to return home after alleged abuses and then war
Lebanon must be stable, united in wake of Assad’s fall/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab
News/December 12, 2024
Massad Boulos, hailed as a billionaire lawyer advising Trump on Middle East
policy, probably isn't a lawyer or a billionaire/Jack Newsham/Business
Insider/December 12, 2024
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on December 12-13/2024
US sees
Assad's fall as chance to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal 'once and for all'
American prisoner found in Syria is not journalist Austin Tice
Syria’s new government says to suspend constitution, parliament for three months
Blinken meets Erdogan for talks in Turkiye
‘Uplifting’ Gulf development model will return to US, Eric Trump predicts
US official Sullivan says 'got the sense' Netanyahu ready for Gaza deal
Trump 'vehemently' opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep into Russia
Trump wants Gaza war to 'end', says Mideast problems will 'get solved'
Israel lifts restrictions on outdoor activities in northern Golan Heights
Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill 58, hit flour trucks
Israel's ability to attack Iran greatly improved from prior operations, IDF
warns
UN says 1.1 million newly displaced in Syria since offensive that toppled Assad
Syria’s rebel victors expose ousted government’s drug trade
Saudi Arabia’s successful World Cup bid receives congratulations from around the
world
Iran accepts tougher oversight at Fordow enrichment plant, IAEA reports
Syria faces crisis and Gaza heads toward famine, World Food Program official
says
America's closest ally in Syria is losing ground as a new order takes shape
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on December 12-13/2024
The
Debacle/Charles Chartouni/his is Beirut/December 09/2024
Biden Takes Credit for Syria Regime Change He Tried to Prevent/Daniel
Greenfield/Gatestone Institute/December 12, 2024
Syrian rebels expose Assad's labs with Captagon, 'poison' drug fueling deadly
trade/Dr.Itay Gal/December 12/2024
Why the Left Fears Pete Hegseth’s Crusader Tattoos/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ
Media/December 12/2024
Is France contributing to ongoing problems in the Middle East?/Gol Kalev/Jerusalem
Post/December 12/2024
Tackling region’s water scarcity amid rising temperatures/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News/December 12, 2024
The Real War and Line 33 for Sednaya and Roumieh Prisons/Elie Aoun/December
12/2024
Who Will Rule Syria?/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2024
Syria: An Attempt at Rearranging Hopes and Fears/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/December
12/2024
How Are We to Deal With Syria Now?/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December
12/2024
Assad exhibited little of the tackiness of Iraq’s Saddam. But his rule was just
as brutal/Analysis by Ivan Watson, CNN/December 12, 2024
on December 12-13/2024
Elias Bejjani/Text
& Video: The Rise of
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Shadows of Daesh-like Islamic Governance in Syria
Elias Bejjani/December 11/ 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/12/137865/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntqvXDKBGoA
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime in Syria brought joy to many
Syrians who had endured 54 years of brutal, inhumane, and oppressive rule.
However, the rise of jihadist and extremist groups, primarily Hay’at Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS), to fill the power vacuum left by Assad raises pressing questions
about Syria’s future. HTS, an extremist Islamist group deeply connected to
al-Qaeda and the global terrorist Muslim Brotherhood network, has a history of
jihadist violence in Iraq and Syria. Designated a terrorist organization by the
United States, the rise of HTS could plunge Syria into a new era of repression
and instability, akin to the darkness seen in Gaza, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and
Afghanistan under Islamist rule.
HTS, under the leadership of Abu Muhammad al-Julani (Ahmed al-Sharaa), is known
for its violent tactics, oppressive governance, and exploitation of religious
doctrines to justify its actions. While the fall of Assad represents a pivotal
moment for the Syrian people, replacing one form of tyranny with another rooted
in extremist Islamist ideology poses an existential threat to Syria’s
ethnically, sectarianly, and culturally diverse fabric. Moreover, such a regime
could pose a serious threat to neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.
Under jihadist rule, countries often regress into authoritarian theocracies that
impose draconian laws, curtail freedoms, and suppress dissent. For instance, the
iron-fisted rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan has resulted in public
executions, restrictions on women’s rights, and suppression of opposition.
Similarly, Iran’s theocratic regime rules through fear, employing executions,
arbitrary arrests, and systemic oppression of minorities and women. Yemen’s
collapse under the control of extremist Islamist factions demonstrates how
radical governance exacerbates humanitarian suffering and stifles development.
HTS often projects a façade of moderation, particularly to gain local and
international support. This deceptive approach aligns with the concept of
taqiyya, an Islamic principle permitting deceit under certain circumstances to
safeguard religion. From this perspective, HTS’s promises of governance aligned
with the aspirations of the Syrian people must be scrutinized critically.
History has shown that such groups often make conciliatory statements to pacify
local populations and international observers while implementing oppressive
practices in reality.
HTS’s track record inspires little confidence. In areas under its control, the
group has enforced strict Sharia laws, silenced dissent, and marginalized
women’s rights. These actions contradict its claims of prioritizing justice and
the welfare of the Syrian people. Instead, HTS governance threatens to
institutionalize dhimmitude, relegating non-Muslims to second-class citizenship,
thereby undermining Syria’s pluralistic and diverse societal fabric.
One of the most dangerous aspects of HTS’s rule, should it come to fruition, is
its use of deception. Its application of taqiyya allows it to present a moderate
and acceptable face publicly while concealing extremist intentions. This
ideological duplicity makes it challenging to assess their true motives,
presenting a significant obstacle to international efforts to counter their
influence.
The rise of HTS under al-Julani’s leadership represents a grim and disheartening
scenario for Syria. The group’s extremist ideology and authoritarian practices
could plunge the country into an era of fear and regression. Syrians who fought
for freedom and dignity under Assad now face the prospect of losing those
hard-won rights under a new, ideologically driven oppressor.
Should HTS consolidate its power, the consequences could be dire. The group’s
strict interpretation of Sharia law might lead to harsh punishments, such as
public executions and amputations. Women would likely face severe restrictions
on their rights, including limitations on education and employment. Furthermore,
HTS’s ties to al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood organization could integrate
Syria into a global jihadist network, destabilizing the region and threatening
international security.
To prevent Syria from following the paths of Gaza, Yemen, Iran, or
Afghanistan, the international community and moderate Syrian forces must
collaborate to counter the influence of jihadist groups like HTS. This effort
should include advocating for inclusive, secular governance, promoting education
and human rights, and ensuring that Syrians do not exchange one form of tyranny
for another.
While the fall of Assad’s regime is a cause for celebration, it should also be a
moment for caution. Syrians must remain vigilant against the rise of extremist
groups like HTS, which threaten to impose a regressive and oppressive regime.
The lessons from other nations under Islamist rule are clear: the struggle for
freedom and justice does not end with the removal of a dictator but requires
constant vigilance to prevent the emergence of new forms of tyranny.
They Failed to Thank Netanyahu, So They Mocked
Bashar
Writer and Director: Youssef Y. Khoury/December 12, 2024
(Freely translated, summarized, and quoted by Elias Bejjani)
The distinguished political activist, director, and writer Youssef Y. Khoury
published a compelling critique today on his Facebook page. Using his signature
theatrical style, he addressed the toppling of the Syrian Assad dictatorship and
the celebrations that erupted in Lebanon and Syria. He began by questioning:
“Who truly paved the way for this moment?”According to Khoury, the undeniable
architect of this regional shift is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Through his visionary leadership, Netanyahu has reshaped the Middle East’s power
dynamics, striking at the heart of Hezbollah’s dominance and enforcing adherence
to UN Resolution 1701, almost under Chapter VII.Khoury emphasized that without
Netanyahu’s dismantling of Hezbollah’s hegemony and weaponry cache, such
celebrations would have been inconceivable. Instead of acknowledging Netanyahu’s
pivotal role, Lebanese politicians refuse to thank him, failing to grasp that
Assad’s downfall is intrinsically tied to Netanyahu’s achievements and his
vision for a new Middle East. Khoury also highlighted the courage of exiled
Lebanese leaders like Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz), unsung heroes who deserve
recognition for their sacrifices. Khoury’s critique exposed the hypocrisies of
Lebanon’s political class, calling out their cowardice and opportunism.
Key Excerpts
Khoury stated: “No one can deny the people the right to rejoice over the end of
the Syrian Baath era, but what good are such celebrations when the Baath’s
collaborators are among the participants!?” He further asked: “What is the point
of these celebrations if we have yet to avenge those who facilitated the Baath’s
grip over the Lebanese people?” He directly criticized successive Lebanese
governments during the era of economic Harirism, Hezbollah’s Iranian-backed
occupation, and the infamous Hariri-Berri-Jumblatt troika. Khoury argued: “This
troika’s oscillation between aligning with Syria one day and opposing it the
next does not absolve its members and followers from standing trial.”Khoury
pointedly noted: “I haven’t heard of anyone actively seeking Bashar al-Assad’s
appearance before an international court on charges of genocide in Syrian
prisons, where a million victims disappeared into dark dungeons. Why are they
silent?! Where are those who clamored to accuse Netanyahu of war crimes in
Gaza?” He asked: “Is the crime defined differently in the streets of Gaza
compared to the corridors of Syrian prisons? Or do they fear that the world
might forget the innocent victims of Gaza when confronted with the atrocities of
the Syrian criminal, most of whom were his accomplices?” Khoury challenged media
platforms, stating: “Wouldn’t it have been more honorable for the media to
banish the Syrian butcher’s collaborators from their screens instead of allowing
them to reposition themselves in people’s minds after decades of suppressing
freedom with the blessings of Lebanon’s security apparatus and Hezbollah?”
Honoring True Heroes
Khoury proposed: “Wouldn’t it have been more honorable for the celebrants to
demand the return of South Lebanon Army (SLA) families to their homeland,
apologize to them, and compensate them, rather than calling for the return of
the terrorist Hezbollah into the Lebanese fold?”
He recalled seeing Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz), the heroic Lebanese leader, kneeling
in solitude. Abu Arz, exiled for a quarter-century, has long defended Lebanon’s
sovereignty against Syrian-Iranian influence. Khoury also highlighted the
struggles of families like those of Amer Fakhoury, lighting candles at his
grave, and the plight of Captain Ghassan Al-Homsi, still fighting for justice
against the remnants of Lebanon’s Syrian-backed security regime. Khoury
asserted: “By honoring heroes like these, we move toward a new Lebanon—not by
electing a new president, reviving the criminal partnership system, cozying up
to Hezbollah, or reintegrating it into the national fold.”
A Call for Justice
Khoury concluded: “Closing the chapter of the Syrian Baath on the basis of ‘no
victor, no vanquished’ is futile and will plunge the country into chaos. We must
prepare prisons spacious enough to hold all the villains and conspirators
against Lebanon, and ready public squares to display the collaborators’ bodies
hanging from the gallows.” Only then, he declared, “can we celebrate—and there
will be no need to thank Netanyahu.”
Lebanon PM condemns Israeli airstrike on Khiam as ‘treachery’
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/December 12, 2024
BEIRUT: Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday accused Israel of
“treachery” following a deadly airstrike on the border town of Khiam that came
less than 24 hours after the Lebanese army began a deployment there under a
ceasefire agreement. The US brokered the truce between the Israeli army and
Hezbollah last month. Mikati said that Israeli forces resumed attacks on the
town less than 24 hours after the Lebanese army began deploying in the Khiam and
Marjeyoun areas to implement the ceasefire. His protest came as Israeli forces
targeted the town square a few hours after the Lebanese army entered the area,
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar station reported. The strategic hilltop town is less than 5
km from the border with Israel. The Israeli army occupied the area during its
land operation in southern Lebanon last October. Lebanese soldiers were
positioned in five posts on Thursday after Israeli forces reportedly withdrew
from Khiam earlier in the day. The army was also preparing to deploy 6,000
soldiers north of the Litani River. Mikati said Israeli “treachery” contradicted
the commitments of the US and France, who sponsored the ceasefire agreement. The
two countries must address the situation and act against Israeli aggression, he
said. “These continued violations are the responsibility of the monitoring
committee tasked with supervising the implementation of the ceasefire, which is
required to address what happened immediately and firmly and prevent its
recurrence,” said Mikati. In a statement, the US Central Command leader, Gen.
Erik Kurilla, earlier described the Israeli pullout as an “important first step
in the implementation of a lasting cessation of hostilities and laid the
foundation for continued progress.”Kurilla arrived in Beirut on Wednesday and
met Lebanese Army Chief Gen. Joseph Aoun. In its statement, the Israeli army
earlier said that its 7th Brigade had ended its mission in Khiam.
In accordance with the ceasefire agreement and in coordination with the US, the
Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will be deployed to the area, the Israeli army
said. The first phase of the Israeli withdrawal was accompanied by a series of
Israeli violations, especially of Lebanese airspace. Reconnaissance aircraft
flying at low altitudes were seen over Beirut and its southern suburb. Israeli
warplanes were also seen over Rashaya, the western Bekaa, the Zahrani area, and
the eastern sector. Civil Defense workers continued to search for victims buried
under rubble following Israel’s 64-day assault on Lebanon.
Human remains were found in a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike near
the town of Maarakah. Israeli forces continue to stop the Lebanese crossing into
areas they have occupied south of the Litani River, while also destroying houses
and facilities in the border area to make it uninhabitable. Parliament Speaker
Nabih Berri’s office in Beirut said he discussed the latest developments with
Maj. Gen. Patrick Gaushat, chief of staff of the UN Truce Supervision
Organization. Hezbollah had appointed Berri as its representative in the
negotiations. Hezbollah MP Hussein Jashi said the party was now exercising
restraint in response to Israeli violations. “This situation will not last long,
as Hezbollah fighters are determined to confront the enemy to the very end,” he
said. “Those who were able to liberate Lebanon under the most challenging
circumstances — from Beirut to Sidon, Tyre, and most of the southern lands in
2000 — are capable today of liberating what remains of our land so our people
can live with dignity and pride in our country and on our land. “There is no
place for occupation among us, as the time of living under occupation is
over.”Hezbollah’s reaction came as Amnesty International said on Thursday that
four recent airstrikes by Israeli forces that left at least 49 people dead must
be investigated as war crimes. “Under international law, direct attacks on
civilians or civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure
civilians, and disproportionate attacks that cause excessive incidental civilian
loss are war crimes,” it said. In a research briefing titled “The Sky Rained
Missiles: Israeli Airstrikes in Lebanon Must Be Investigated as War Crimes,”
Amnesty International claimed that Israeli forces unlawfully targeted
residential buildings in several locations. These strikes occurred in the
village of Al-Ain in northern Bekaa on Sept. 29, in the town of Aitou in
northern Lebanon on Oct. 14, and in Baalbeck city on Oct. 21. Israeli forces
also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern
Lebanon on Oct. 16. “The Israeli military did not issue warnings ahead of these
strikes,” the group said. “These four attacks are emblematic of Israel’s
shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout
international law,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior
director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.
“The Lebanese government must urgently call for a special session at the UN
Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into
the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in the conflict.”
2 killed in Israeli strike on Khiam, Mikati
asks committee for 'quick and firm' action
Associated Press/December 12, 2024
An Israeli drone targeted Thursday the square of the town of Khiam, reportedly
killing two people, a day after Israeli troops withdrew from the strategic town,
handing it back to the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army had warned civilians to
stay out of Khiam until it can clear the area of any unexploded munitions. The
strategic hilltop town, located less than 5 kilometers from the border with
Israel, saw some of the most intense fighting during the war. Caretaker Prime
Minister Najib Mikati called on the U.S., France and the ceasefire monitoring
committee to prevent Israeli violations after the strike on Khiam, slamming the
deadly strike as "blatant treachery.""The monitoring committee is required to
immediately and firmly address the issue and prevent its reoccurrence," Mikati
said. The Israeli army also detonated houses Thursday in a southern border
region between Shamaa and Tayr Harfa. Israel says the truce deal gives it the
right to use military force against perceived ceasefire violations. Israel has
launched near-daily strikes, mostly in southern Lebanon, that have killed at
least 28 people and wounded 25 others since the ceasefire took effect on Nov.
27. Still, the shaky truce appears to be holding. Israeli forces withdrew
Wednesday from Khiam and handed it back to the Lebanese army in coordination
with U.N. peacekeepers, marking an important test of the recent ceasefire
between Israel and Hezbollah militants. It was Israel's first pullout from a
Lebanese border town captured during this fall’s ground invasion, and comes as
part of the initial phase of the ceasefire, which — if it endures — would end
nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The Lebanese army
said Wednesday it has deployed units to five positions around the town of Khiam
coinciding with the Israeli army’s withdrawal. Thousands of Lebanese displaced
by the war returned home two weeks ago after the ceasefire took hold, driving
cars stacked with personal belongings and defying warnings from Lebanese and
Israeli troops to avoid some areas.
Neemat Frem officially announces his nomination for presidency
Naharnet/December 12, 2024
Independent MP Neemat Frem of Keserwan on Thursday officially announced his
presidential nomination. “Amid the developments that our country and region have
witnessed, and after a January 9 date was set for the presidential vote, I see
that a new dawn in every sense of the word is beginning in Lebanon and the
Middle East,” Frem said at a press conference. “It is a dawn that offers us a
precious opportunity that we must quickly seize, seeing as it may not last for
long, and we all realize the magnitude of the opportunities that we have wasted
over more than 20 years,” the candidate added.
Below are the commitments that Frem announced in his speech:
- Implementing the “cessation of hostilities” agreement between Lebanon and
Israel “as a mechanism for enforcing U.N. resolution 1701 with all its
stipulations”
- Forming a government that would “seriously and fully implement Resolution 1701
and monopolize arms in the hands of the legitimate forces”
- Endorsing a comprehensive rescue and reformist plan
- Implementing and developing the Taif Agreement
- Devising and implementing reconstruction plans
- Approving a “decent social protection” plan
- Financial recovery and the rights of depositors
- The judiciary’s independence
- Restructuring administration, modernizing the state’s operational system and
achieving decentralization
- Addressing the Syrian refugee crisis
- Producing a modern electoral law
- Restoring confidence and credibility to attract capital and investments and
create jobs
- Building a productive and pioneering state
Geagea willing to run for presidency, floats idea of early
polls
Naharnet/December 12, 2024
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that he is willing to announce his
nomination for the presidency “if there is an acceptable number of parliamentary
blocs that are willing to endorse this nomination.”“Nominating oneself is not
heroism,” he noted, an in interview with the Hala London TV. Noting that some
candidates who were proposed in the past are no longer suitable because the
country has entered a “new situation,” Geagea said the Jan. 9 electoral session
might not produce a president because he senses that “a number of blocs are
dealing with things the same way they did in the past.”“In the face of this
situation, I’m not proposing nor demanding, but it is permissible to mull early
parliamentary polls, seeing as we cannot face the new situation with an old
parliament,” the LF leader added.
Berri says Quint gave 'positive' feedback on Jan. 9 session
Naharnet/December 12, 2024
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has received "positive and encouraging signals"
from the ambassadors of the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
Egypt. Envoys from the five countries who met with Berri Wednesday have been
working for months to facilitate the election of a president, as crisis-hit
Lebanon has been without a head of state for more than two years amid deadlock
between pro- and anti-Hezbollah blocs in parliament. Berri vowed that a
parliament session scheduled on January 9 to elect a president will not be
postponed. He told An-Nahar newspaper, in remarks published Thursday, that the
Quint's ambassadors were positive and encouraging in regard to the presidential
election session. "Enough with the void," Berri said, expecting the upcoming
session to be productive. He added that all blocs and lawmakers must shoulder
their responsibilities and work to elect a president.
Amnesty says Israeli strikes that killed 49 Lebanese civilians further evidence
of war crimes
Naharnet/December 12, 2024
Four separate air strikes by Israeli forces, which killed at least 49 civilians
and decimated entire families in Lebanon during the latest war, must be
“investigated as war crimes,” leading international rights group Amnesty
International said on Thursday.
Under international law, direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects,
indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians, and disproportionate
attacks that cause excessive incidental civilian loss are war crimes. Amnesty
found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village
of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, the village of Aitou in northern
Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbek city on October 21. Israeli forces also
unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon
on October 16. The Israeli military did not issue warnings ahead of any of these
strikes. “These four attacks are emblematic of Israel’s shocking disregard for
civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law,”
said Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research,
Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.
“These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must
urgently call for a Special Session at the U.N. Human Rights Council to
establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and
crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the
International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on
Lebanese territory,” Rosas added.
Amnesty International interviewed 35 survivors and witnesses, surveyed the
locations of the strikes in Nabatieh, Aitou and Baalbek city and visited a
hospital where some of the wounded received treatment. Researchers also
photographed remnants of the munitions used in the attacks for expert
identification, verified dozens of videos and photographic material from local
sources and available on social media, and examined satellite imagery of the
locations.
The organization wrote to the Israeli authorities on November 11 seeking
information about the military objectives targeted at these locations and the
measures taken to avoid or minimize causing civilian casualties, but did not
receive a response prior to publication. On September 29, at approximately
4:50am local time, an Israeli strike on the outskirts of al-Ain destroyed the
house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who
were sleeping inside.Ibrahim al-Shaar, the only surviving family member who was
not home that night, told Amnesty International he had no idea why his house was
hit. Another man, Youssef Jaafar, the mukhtar of the village, told Amnesty
International that the al-Shaar family had lived in the village for years: “This
is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever. It is full of
kids. This family is well-known in town.” In a separate strike on October 21, at
around 5:45am local time, Israeli forces hit the al-Nabi Inaam neighborhood in
Baalbek, destroying a building housing 13 members of the Othman family. The
strike killed six people, two women and four children, and injured the seven
others. Fatima Drai, who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the
attack, told Amnesty International: “My son woke me up; he was thirsty and
wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his
brother. […] When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I’ll tell his
father how our son is when he comes back. I went to pray, and then everything
around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within
seconds, it consumed my kids’ room.”
“Given that all those killed in these two attacks were civilians and that
Amnesty International found no evidence of military objectives being present in
the houses or their immediate vicinity, this raises serious concerns that the
strikes on the al-Shaar and Othman family homes were direct attacks on civilians
and civilian objects. These strikes should be investigated as war crimes,”
Amnesty said. An Israeli air strike on October 14 destroyed a building in Aitou,
killing 23 civilians displaced from southern Lebanon, as well as Ahmad Fakih,
the man presumed by those staying in the building to be the target of the
attack. The attack took place minutes after Ahmad Fakih arrived at the house.
The youngest casualty was Aline, a five-month-old baby who was flung from the
house into a pick-up truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after
the strike.
The Israeli military did not publicly comment on the strike and who or what it
was targeting in Aitou, deep in Lebanon’s Christian heartland and more than 115
kilometers away from the border with Israel. Amnesty International researchers
visited the site of the strike and saw children’s books, toys, clothes and
cooking utensils among the rubble where the house once stood. “Even if Israel
intended to target Ahmad Fakih, whom survivors believed was affiliated with
Hezbollah, the means and method of this attack on a house full of civilians
likely would make this an indiscriminate attack and it also may have been
disproportionate given the presence of a large number of civilians at the time
of the strike. It should be investigated as a war crime,” Amnesty added.
A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analyzed by an
Amnesty International weapons’ expert and based upon its size, shape and the
scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a Mk-80
series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500lb bomb. The United
States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel. One of the
survivors, Jinane Hijazi, who lost her 11-month-old child, Ruqayya Issa, said:
“I’ve lost everything, my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I
wish I had died that day too.”During the morning of October 16, an Israeli air
strike hit the municipal headquarters of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killing
11 civilians, including the mayor, and injuring at least three other civilians.
The air strike took place without warning, just as the municipality’s crisis
unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water and
medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment
in other parts of southern Lebanon. Following the strike, the Israeli military
stated that its forces attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh
area, without explicit reference to this particular strike. However, Amnesty
International did not find any evidence of a military target at the municipal
headquarters at the time of the attack. “Israel has an appalling track record of
carrying out unlawful air strikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a
devastating toll on civilians. The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes
during Israel’s most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for
all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel
due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international
humanitarian law,” Amnesty's Erika Guevara Rosas said.
Top US military commander in Mideast visits Lebanon for
talks with army chief
Associated Press/December 12, 2024
The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East was in Lebanon on Wednesday
meeting with the head of the Lebanese army. In the wake of shocking overthrow of
the government in neighboring Syria, the two military leaders discussed the
security situation in Lebanon, a statement from the country's army said. U.S.
Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, met with the head of the
Lebanese army Gen. Joseph Aoun to discuss ongoing American support for the
implementation of the U.S.-and French-brokered ceasefire agreement, which ended
more than a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel has said the truce
deal gives it the right to use military force against perceived ceasefire
violations. Israel has launched near-daily strikes, mostly in southern Lebanon,
that have killed at least 28 people and wounded 25 others since the ceasefire
took effect on Nov. 27. Still, the shaky truce appears to be holding. Five
people were killed Wednesday by at least three Israeli strikes in different
southern towns, Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state news agency said. On
Tuesday, Kurilla was in eastern Syria visiting U.S. military bases and meeting
with members of a Kurdish-led Syrian force that is backed by the U.S. He was
assessing what CENTCOM described as efforts to counter a resurgence of the
Islamic State group. He also visited Baghdad for talks with Iraqi officials on
regional security and counter-IS operations.
Migrant workers in Lebanon try to return home after alleged
abuses and then war
Associated Press/December 12, 2024
Isatta Bah wakes up from a nap in a crowded shelter on the outskirts of Beirut,
clutching her baby, Blessing. The 24-year-old from Sierra Leone spends her days
waiting for an exit visa that could put her and her 1-year-old on a plane back
to the West African nation. She wants to reunite with her family after what she
called exploitative work conditions and sexual violence, along with the recent
horrors of war in Lebanon."My experience in Lebanon is not good for me. I am
really tired," Bah said. "I want to go home." Hundreds of migrant workers in
Lebanon are waiting to be repatriated after the ceasefire ending the 14-month
war between Hezbollah and Israel went into effect last month. Lebanon has long
drawn migrant workers dreaming of building better lives for their families.
Enticed by promises of stable jobs and decent pay, they enter Lebanon via
recruitment agencies under a sponsorship-based labor system known as Kafala —
only to find themselves often trapped with confiscated passports, long hours,
withheld wages and, for many, abuse. The Kafala system has long been criticized
by human rights groups, but the government rarely if ever addresses the
criticism. But Bah knew little of that when she came to Lebanon in 2022. She was
promised a job at a supermarket with a $200 monthly salary, she said. Instead,
she was sent to care for an older woman once she arrived. Within a month of her
arrival, her 3-year-old son back home fell ill and died. She said she was not
given the time to grieve and fled her employer's house. Since her employer held
her passport and other documents, Bah said she had to leave them behind. Her
experience in Lebanon then took a darker turn. One day she and five housemates
were picked up by a taxi driver who said he would take them home. Instead, she
said, the driver dropped them at the wrong spot. As they tried and failed to
find another cab, a group of men chased them and raped them."Men were coming and
they were cheering for us," said Bah, who gave her consent to be named. "They
beat us and they had sex with us." She said it took her about two weeks to
recover and resume work at two hotels. Without documents, migrants can hesitate
to go to police.
Two months later, she and another friend found out they were pregnant.Bah
recounted the experience as she watched her baby's wobbly footsteps. With war,
their lives became more precarious. When Israel intensified its bombardment of
Beirut's southern suburbs in September, Bah fled the area with her baby and
friends on foot. Not every migrant worker escaped the attacks. An estimated 37
have been killed and 150 wounded since October 2023, said Joelle Mhanna with the
U.N.'s International Organization for Migration. There were few places to turn.
Most government-run shelters refused to take in displaced people who were not
Lebanese, said activist Dea Hajj Shaheen. After supporting migrant women during
previous crises in Lebanon, she stepped in again along with other volunteers. To
house over 200 women from Sierra Leone including Bah, they repurposed an
abandoned space owned by her family — a former car dealership that was later a
venue for pop-up events and named The Shelter. The kitchen was alive with
activity as women cooked, some dancing to Nigerian music. In another area, rows
of thin mattresses lay in the dim light from broken windows. Despite the modest
conditions, the women set up a Christmas tree crafted from sticks.While some
migrants have been accepted at government-run shelters, there were regular
reports of others being evicted or denied access, the IOM said. Some migrants
hesitate to approach the government shelters for fear of detention or
deportation, Mhanna said. "As a result, most are being hosted by embassies, NGOs
and community-based organizations including churches, monasteries and other
religious groups."
The Lebanese government has not directly addressed the issue of migrant workers
being rejected from government-run shelters, despite repeated calls for action
from rights organizations and the United Nations.
Moving on from the shelters they found posed another challenge for migrants like
Bah, as many had passports and other documents confiscated by former employers.
"We had to secure exit permits, immigration clearances and even child travel
documents for the five children in this group," said Shaheen, who coordinated
the repatriation last month of 120 women and their children with the support of
IOM, who chartered the flight. IOM said it has received requests from around
10,000 migrants seeking to be repatriated, a small fraction of the over 175,000
in Lebanon. As of Nov. 26, the IOM had supported over 400 migrants to return
home. That included two charter flights for people from Bangladesh and Sierra
Leone. It wasn't clear how many more flights are planned. or to where. Laughter
and cheer filled Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Nov. 19. The women
from Sierra Leone arrived in groups, dragging suitcases and sharing hugs. Some
danced in celebration for their long-awaited flight. "It wasn't easy in
Lebanon," said Amanata Thullah after four years. "I am happy to be going back to
my country."Mariam Sesay, who described herself as the head of Sierra Leone's
community in Lebanon, said there had been "a lot of distress and trauma" in
recent months. Bah was not among those leaving, but she said she and others at
the shelter were happy to see friends return home. She now awaits her turn,
along with over 50 others. At first she was told she needed official documents
for her baby and the father's consent to travel. But a lawyer waived the
requirement due to her circumstances, Shaheen said. "I wish to go back home to
continue my education," Bah said. "Since I was little, I always wanted to be a
computer science student, because I'm good at that."
She looked down at Blessing. "Now I have something to take care of," she said.
"When I watch her walk or laugh, that gives me joy."
Lebanon must be stable, united in wake of Assad’s fall
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/December 12, 2024
The scenes of joy in Lebanon following the end of the Assad regime are
understandable and justified. Lebanon lived through decades of Syrian
occupation. This occupation was the pure definition of an extractive, violent
and oppressive policy. There is no need to go into the details as everyone is
well aware of the methods of the regime and the culture of suspicion and fear it
pushed.
This occupation was supposed to have ended in 2005, when Syrian troops left the
country. Yet, there was merely a transition to the same occupation by Hezbollah
and its allies. Syria, although no longer at the forefront, continued to give
strategic and logistical depth. Hence, there was never the possibility to
celebrate, heal and rebuild after its occupation ended. The so-called Cedar
Revolution that brought this withdrawal shed its needles and ended up with more
of the same oppression.
The scenes of horror coming out of Syrian prisons, where Lebanese were also
held, are surreal and perhaps answer the questions of Lebanese families. Now,
just like the prisoners, Lebanon will have to deal with the scars. It must
rebuild its identity to reclaim its cultural heritage. Recreate the institutions
and real links with the outside world. Undoubtedly, Lebanon’s future will stay
linked to Syria. Yet, regardless of the political outcome in Damascus, Beirut
should immediately seek to insulate itself from these events and their
influence. There is hence a need for stability and unity in the country. We need
to build unity among the people destroyed by years of occupation.
There are several steps Beirut needs to take to achieve this and manage the
difficult task of rebuilding stability. As a first step, Hezbollah needs to
immediately surrender its arsenal to the Lebanese Armed Forces. Its supply route
through Iraq and Syria is now shut. Its access to Rafic Hariri International
Airport has also been cut off by the Israelis. Today, its weapons could be
labeled as a danger by the new Syrian state due to their role in supporting the
Assad regime during the Syrian revolution. Failure to achieve this puts Lebanon
at risk of being dragged into a new and horrific ordeal.
Regardless of the political outcome in Damascus, Beirut should immediately seek
to insulate itself from these events
Pressure needs to come from the entire population, as well as the army, to
achieve this as soon as possible. For the sake of the country’s future, this
should not and cannot be delayed. Hezbollah is now obsolete and, as I have
previously written, it was an artificial power. It needs to be stopped now.
In the same way, Lebanon cannot and should not harbor former Assad regime
members, as has been reported. They need to be escorted out of the country. This
is also another possibility for the new Syrian state, which will seek justice to
interfere in Lebanese affairs. These figures are a representation of the
barbarity that was used to destroy Lebanon and Syria alike. We owe them nothing.
The current situation also demands that the Lebanese military controls the
border and prevents any crossings or smuggling that could lead to attacks or an
unstable situation. Respect for the country’s borders by both Lebanese and
Syrians needs to start now. This is a point of unity for the entire country.
The Lebanese Armed Forces have had to accommodate Hezbollah. This is a secret
for no one. Whether on the international support given to it or on the domestic
front, the rationale behind this was to cooperate and not be a threat to
Hezbollah. This has to stop now. The military needs to be impartial and fulfill
its true mission, including protecting the borders. It needs to fill the vacuum
and show enough trust on both sides of the border. If it fails to do so, we will
be heading for a catastrophic outcome.
We as Lebanese need to do the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us to do
and what every single minority has done
We as Lebanese need to do the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us to do
and what every single minority has done. We have invited external power for
domestic gains, just riding a merry-go-round. One community after another. This
must stop now. Lebanese Sunnis, to which I belong, should not see the change in
Syria — if it is maintained — as an opportunity to replace Hezbollah. We cannot
as Sunnis and should not use this new power as a way to shapeshift the
power-sharing to our advantage once again. This is inviting instability and war.
This consequently means that the weapons in the Palestinian camps also need to
be surrendered to the military.
The army needs to be the only armed force in the country and it must represent
the entire state, not a single community. It must uphold the creed of “Honor,
Sacrifice, Loyalty” — loyalty to the nation. The people across minorities need
to stand with the army. Christians, Muslim Shiites and Muslim Sunnis all need to
feel pride in our army and stand by it and with it. This is the first and only
way to have a shot at stability. It is not certain that we will be able to
achieve this, but not doing it will most certainly doom us. If this is achieved,
we can prove to ourselves and to our neighbors that we can hold it together.
This will be the true celebration of the end of the occupation for all of us, or
else it will be a very short-lived one.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of SpaceQuest Ventures, a space-focused
investment platform. He is CEO of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.
Massad Boulos, hailed as a billionaire lawyer advising
Trump on Middle East policy, probably isn't a lawyer or a billionaire
Jack Newsham/Business Insider/December 12, 2024
Massad Boulos helped Trump win Arab voters in Michigan. He's also Tiffany
Trump's father-in-law.
News outlets have called him a "billionaire" and repeated Trump's description of
him as a "lawyer."
But he doesn't appear to have a law license, and his company has a market cap of
$865,000.
Massad Boulos, who has been widely described as a billionaire and a lawyer and
was recently named as one of Donald Trump's advisors on Middle East affairs,
appears to be neither a billionaire nor a licensed attorney, according to public
records and interviews.
Boulos first entered the public eye in 2018, when his son Michael met Tiffany
Trump at a club in Greece and the pair began dating. The couple married at
Mar-A-Lago in 2022, making Massad Boulos Tiffany's father-in-law. He was
credited in news stories with playing a key role in Donald Trump's 2024
electoral victory, helping peel Arab American voters away from Democrats in
battlegrounds like Michigan.
Earlier this month, Trump said Boulos would be a "senior advisor" on Middle
Eastern affairs, joining a team that includes Trump's longtime friend and
supporter Steven Witkoff, his pick for ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and
Marco Rubio, his nominee for secretary of state, who will shape US policy in the
region. At the time, Trump described Boulos as an "accomplished lawyer" and a
"highly respected leader in the business world."
But Trump apparently inflated Boulos's résumé. Business Insider found no proof
of Boulos's supposed billions. And while he may have attended law school, he
hasn't passed a bar exam and can't practice law.
No connection to a company that shares his last name — but he does control a
truck dealership worth less than $1 million in Nigeria
Claims of the Boulos family's wealth first started circulating in
English-language media in 2018, when Tiffany Trump's relationship with Michael
Boulos became public. The New York Post said his family "owns a
multibillion-dollar conglomerate" and later mentioned Boulos Enterprises. Vanity
Fair echoed the description of the Boulos businesses as "worth billions," a
description that was picked up by the Times.
On December 2, the New York Times said Massad Boulos built "his wealth in West
Africa" and runs two companies, SCOA Nigeria and Boulos Enterprises. The
Financial Times called him an "auto tycoon" who leads both companies, while ABC
called him a "billionaire businessman" who "runs Boulos Enterprises."
But Massad Boulos doesn't run Boulos Enterprises, according to several former
employees and its actual boss, Boulos Boulos. Boulos Enterprises is part of the
Boulos Group, a holding company owned by a different group of Lebanese Nigerians
with the same last name.
A due-diligence report for Boulos Enterprises Ltd. created by Moody's Orbis
database doesn't mention Massad Boulos. Archived copies of the Boulos Group
website from 2016 and 2018 didn't mention him, either. And Elephant Africa
Holding, a Mauritius company created by the Boulos Group to hold its paper
businesses, also doesn't mention Massad in its corporate filings.
On Thursday, the Times called Boulos's wealth and backstory into question and
said he previously misled one of its reporters by answering "yeah" when asked if
it was accurate to call his company a multi-billion dollar business.
Beyond headlines in news outlets, BI couldn't find any evidence to suggest
Massad Boulos is a billionaire. The company Massad Boulos actually does run,
SCOA Nigeria, which has a subsidiary called SCOA Motors, is a penny stock. Its
shares trade for about two Nigerian naira, roughly a tenth of a US cent, making
the entire business worth about $865,000. That's not Billionaire's Row money,
but it could buy you a 957-square-foot condo in Queens.
The company's latest annual report, which is partly printed in Comic Sans, is
consistent with such a valuation. For its financial year ending September 30,
SCOA reported about 5.9 billion naira, or $3.7 million, in revenue and about 25
million naira, or $15,562, in post-tax profits. The year before, when sales were
weaker, SCOA lost about 715 million naira, or $444,000.
In interviews with the New York Times, Boulos has said he didn't correct the
record because he doesn't discuss his businesses. He also said it was hard to
value his family's businesses.
It's possible that Massad Boulos's family could have other sources of wealth.
His wife, Sarah Fadoul Boulos, is the daughter of another Lebanese businessman
in Africa, Michel Zouhair Fadoul, whose company boasts of a presence in "more
than 10 countries" and has been listed among the most successful Lebanese
businesses in Africa.
On social media, Massad and his family seem to live large, posting content from
a yacht floating off the southern coast of France and a ski run in the Alps.
While Massad Boulos has virtually no history of political giving, his son
Michael made $200,000 in political contributions in two days in 2020. Michael
was also reported to have proposed to Tiffany with a $1.2 million ring — which
he "upgraded" to an even pricier piece by their wedding day.
Phone numbers listed for Massad Boulos and his wife were disconnected. Efforts
to reach him through family members and political associates weren't successful.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
'Is not now, and never has been, an attorney licensed to practice law'
It's also not clear that Massad Boulos is a "lawyer," as Donald Trump has
described him. Some news outlets say that Boulos has a law degree from the
University of Houston. But a spokesman for the University of Houston system said
that's not correct; Boulos has a bachelor's degree in "general business" from
one of its smaller schools, the University of Houston-Downtown.
In a 2015 interview on Nigerian TV, Sarah Boulos said her husband "graduated as
a lawyer from Thurgood Marshall School," part of Texas Southern University,
before they moved to Nigeria. Massad Boulos also listed a law degree from the
school on his LinkedIn profile before the profile went offline, according to
information saved in the contact database Rocketreach.
Texas Southern officials didn't respond to several requests for comment on
Wednesday and Thursday.
But graduating from law school doesn't make someone a lawyer. Nahdiah Hoang, the
executive director of the Texas Board of Law Examiners, said in an email that
Boulos applied to take the July 1996 bar exam, but he either didn't take it or
didn't pass.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Bar said Boulos "is not now, and never has been, an
attorney licensed to practice law in Texas."
BI also checked bar records for DC and 47 other states — covering 99% of the US
population — and found Boulos wasn't registered as a lawyer in any of those
states, either. (BI was unable to confirm if Boulos was registered to practice
law in Alaska or South Dakota.)
L'Orient Le Jour, a Lebanese newspaper, reported that Boulos is also a citizen
of Lebanon, Nigeria, and France. There's no public evidence that Boulos is
licensed as a lawyer in any of those places.
He was not listed in the directories for the 11 largest French bar associations,
which cover two-thirds of French lawyers. Lawyers in Lebanon must be registered
with one of two bar associations; one of them, the Beirut Bar Association, said
Boulos wasn't in its database, and the other didn't respond to repeated
inquiries. The Nigerian Bar Association and the country's Supreme Court, which
maintains its registry of lawyers, did not respond to emails about whether
Boulos was an attorney.
Narimes Parakul contributed reporting.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on December 12-13/2024
US sees Assad's fall as chance to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal 'once
and for all'
Reuters/December 12/2024
The OPCW is a treaty-based organization in the Netherlands tasked with
implementing the 1997 chemical nonproliferation treaty.
The United States sees the fall of Bashar al-Assad as an extraordinary chance to
rid Syria "once and for all" of chemical weapons that killed or injured
thousands of people in its civil war, a senior US official said on Thursday.
Washington will strongly back efforts by the global chemical weapons watchdog to
eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, Nicole Shampaine, US ambassador to the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told Reuters in an
interview ahead of a closed-door OPCW session on Syria in The Hague. At the
meeting due to begin at 1430 GMT, the OPCW's chief was expected to seek approval
from key member states for funding and technical assistance to implement a
time-consuming chemical nonproliferation process in Syria. Syria joined the OPCW
in 2013 under a US-Russian deal and agreed to eliminate its chemical arsenal.
But after more than a decade of inspections, Syria still possesses banned
munitions and investigators found such weapons were used repeatedly by President
Assad's forces during the 13-year civil war. "We want to finish the job and it's
really an opportunity for Syria's new leadership to work with the international
community, work with the OPCW to get the job done once and for all," Shampaine
said. She expects "there will be a lot of support in trying to seize this
opportunity ... and get Syria to comply with its obligations under the Chemical
Weapons Convention" (CWC).
What is the OPCW?
The OPCW is a treaty-based organization in the Netherlands tasked with
implementing the 1997 chemical nonproliferation treaty. It oversaw the
destruction of 1,300 metric tons of Syrian chemical weapons and precursors, a
large portion on a US ship equipped with specialized hydrolysis systems. Assad-ruled
Syria and its military ally Russia always denied using chemical weapons in the
devastating civil war.Three investigations - a joint U.N.-OPCW mechanism, the
OPCW's Investigation and Identification team, and a U.N. war crimes
investigation - concluded that Syrian government forces did use the nerve agent
sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in the drawn-out conflict with opposition
forces.
DANGEROUS DISORDER
With Syria still in disorder with myriad armed groups around the shattered
country, the OPCW will be concerned to act quickly to prevent any chemical
weapons falling into the wrong hands. Immediate priorities, diplomatic sources
said, include locating and securing chemical weapons sites, taking inventory of
remaining chemicals and munitions and determining how and where to destroy them
safely. The demise of the Assad family's 54-year-long rule also provides an
opportunity to access areas where chemical weapons were used and to collect
evidence, they said. Diplomats at the OPCW believe Assad's exit creates an
opportunity to gain access to the production and storage facilities of the
program, which has included sarin nerve agent, chlorine bombs and other
poisonous munitions. The OPCW conducted 28 rounds of consultations with Assad's
government. Among the unresolved issues are "potentially undeclared, full-scale
development and production of chemical weapons at two declared chemical
weapons-related facilities," OPCW chief Fernando Arias said in November.
The issue will be tackled at Thursday's session of the OPCW's 41-member
executive council,convened after the sudden collapse last weekend of Assad's
government in the face of a lightning rebel offensive after years of battlefield
stalemate.“The Syrian regime, the Assad regime, used chemical weapons, used
sarin, used chlorine barrel bombs repeatedly, and never declared those to the
OPCW, never verifiably destroyed those. That is inherently a proliferation
concern,” Shampaine said.
American prisoner found in Syria is not journalist Austin Tice
Agencies/December 08, 2024
WASHINGTON: The American prisoner reportedly found in Az-Zyabeyeh district south
of Damascus was not journalist Austin Tice, AlArabiya reported on Thursday.
There have been conflicting reports earlier on whether Tice has been found, with
Syria TV citing sources the individual found in the Damascus countryside was not
the missing journalist. AlArabiya later reported that the individual was named
Travis Timmerman, who illegally traveled into Syria from Lebanon seven months
ago and has been held in captivity since. A video posted on social media
meanwhile showed Timmerman telling the interviewer that he went to Syria on a
‘religious pilgrimage.’“The American who was found in Syria is not Austin Tice.
He told me his name is Travis. He refused to give a last name. He said he was a
“pilgrim” and that he crossed into Syria by foot before he was detained. He was
held in prison for seven months and said he was well treated,” journalist Matt
Bradley posted on X. “When I asked him about the religious beliefs that
compelled him to cross the mountains from Lebanon into Syria, he told me he had
“been reading the scripture a lot” lately but others interrupted before he could
elaborate.” President Joe Biden said Sunday that the US government believes
missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared 12 years ago near the
Syrian capital, is alive and that Washington is committed to bringing him home
after Bashar Assad’s ouster from power in Damascus. “We think we can get him
back,” Biden told reporters at the White House, while acknowledging that “we
have no direct evidence” of his status. “Assad should be held accountable.”Biden
said officials must still identify exactly where Tice is after his disappearance
in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. “We’ve
remained committed to returning him to his family,” he said. Tice, who is from
Houston and whose work had been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy
newspapers and other outlets. A video released weeks after Tice went missing
showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not
been heard from since. Syria has publicly denied that it was holding him. The
United States has no new evidence that Tice is alive, but continues to operate
under the assumption he is alive, according to a US official. The official, who
was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said
the US will continue to work to identify where he is and to try to bring him
home. His mother, Debra, said at a news conference Friday in Washington that the
family had information from a “significant source,” whom she did not identify,
establishing that her son was alive.“He is being cared for and he is well — we
do know that,” she said. The Tice family met this past week with officials at
the State Department and the White House. “To everyone in Syria that hears this,
please remind people that we’re waiting for Austin,” Debra Tice said in comments
that hostage advocacy groups spread on social media Sunday. “We know that when
he comes out, he’s going to be fairly dazed & he’s going to need lots of care &
direction. Direct him to his family please!”
Syria’s new
government says to suspend constitution, parliament for three months
AFP/December 12, 2024
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new government spokesman said on Thursday the country’s
constitution and parliament would be suspended for the duration of the
three-month transition period following president Bashar Assad’s ouster. “A
judicial and human rights committee will be established to examine the
constitution and then introduce amendments,” Obaida Arnaout said. The current
constitution dates back to 2012 and does not specify Islam as the state
religion. Militants led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham
seized the capital Damascus on Sunday, sending Assad fleeing into exile. On
Tuesday, they named Mohammed Al-Bashir, who headed the militants’
self-proclaimed “Salvation Government” in their northwestern bastion of Idlib,
as the country’s transitional prime minister until March 1. Arnaout said a
meeting would be held on Tuesday “between Salvation Government ministers and the
former ministers” of Assad’s administration to carry out the transfer of power.
“This transitional period will last three months,” he added in an interview with
AFP. “Our priority is to preserve and protect institutions.”Speaking at the
state television headquarters, now seized by the new militant authorities,
Arnaout pledged that they would institute “the rule of law.”“All those who
committed crimes against the Syrian people will be judged in accordance with the
law,” he added. Asked about religious and personal freedoms, he said “we respect
religious and cultural diversity in Syria,” adding that they would remain
unchanged. The Sunni majority country was ruled with an iron fist by Assad, a
follower of the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam who sought to project himself
as a protector of minority communities.
Blinken meets Erdogan for talks in Turkiye
AFP/December 12, 2024
ANKARA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed straight into talks with
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after landing in Ankara on Thursday, a US
official said. The plane touched down at 8:14 p.m. (1714 GMT), an AFP
correspondent traveling with him said. Blinken headed straight into talks with
Erdogan “in the VIP lounge” at Ankara’s Esenboga airport, the US official said.
Washington’s top diplomat flew in from the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba
where he kicked off a regional tour on Thursday to discuss fallout from the
ouster of Syria’s Bashar Assad.
Turkiye was expected to put heavy emphasis on its security concerns following
the upheaval in Syria, where it has been fighting a Kurdish-led force that
Washington backs as a key player in the fight against Daesh group militants.
Before leaving Aqaba, Blinken said the role of the US-backed Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF) was “critical” to preventing a resurgence of Daesh militants in the
country.
‘Uplifting’ Gulf development model will return to US, Eric
Trump predicts
Marco Ferrari/Arab News/December 12, 2024
RIYADH: The mindset in the Gulf region that fosters the development of iconic
projects is “uplifting” and will make its way back to the US under Donald
Trump’s next presidency, Eric Trump told Arab News on Thursday. The
president-elect’s second son, who serves as executive vice president of the
Trump Organization, praised the region for its innovative approach, which he
believes defies common misconceptions held by Western nations. During a visit to
the Saudi capital following an official launch event in Jeddah for a new Trump
Tower, Eric Trump suggested that the Gulf’s no-limits mentality is something
that the incoming US president will adopt. “It’s a different mindset in the
Gulf, and that mindset is going to return to America, believe me, in the next
four years under my father. But that mindset really, it’s uplifting. It’s almost
empowering. It makes you want to come over here and do something really great.
And it kind of makes you want to say no to those other countries where it’s just
impossible to navigate the political system. They’re just too cumbersome.
They’re too lethargic.” Trump went on to explain that Gulf countries actively
encourage developers to realize their grand visions, offering not just permits
but also support for larger, more ambitious projects. “They tell you, ‘not only
are we going to give you the permits, but we actually want you to make your
project bigger. We want you to make it even more iconic. We want you to make it
more luxurious. We want you to attract the greatest restaurants and the greatest
amenities. Sky’s the limit.’ And that's a beautiful thing for a developer,” he
said. He also revealed that the Trump Organization is planning additional
projects in Riyadh, though he did not disclose further details. The Trump
Organization has lent its branding to several properties across the Gulf region,
including a hotel and golf club in Oman, a golf club and tower in Dubai, and
most recently, the Jeddah hotel. Trump Tower Jeddah is being developed in
partnership with Saudi developer Dar Global, with the two companies having
previously collaborated on projects in Oman and Dubai.
Praising Saudi Arabia’s safety and political stability, Trump said: “Obviously,
the people in this country love us, love our company, love our brand, love what
we stand for. We have so much unbelievable support in this amazing country.”
Ziad El Chaar, CEO of Dar Global, told Arab News that the Trump brand is
synonymous with success. “The Trump name is a global brand that people attach to
it always a very big sense of success,” he said. “You can see the projects of
Trump; they always feature the best material, the best design, and are really
created for a great living experience and customer experience.”Eric Trump’s
visit to the Kingdom came after attending a cryptocurrency conference in Abu
Dhabi earlier in the week. The Trump family has ties to a new cryptocurrency
called World Liberty Financial, and Donald Trump has pledged to launch a
strategic national crypto stockpile during his second term. Bitcoin’s value
surged following Trump's election win in November, and this week it surpassed
the $100,000 mark for the first time.
US official
Sullivan says 'got the sense' Netanyahu ready for Gaza deal
Agence France Presse/December 13, 2024
Visiting U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared prepared to negotiate a deal
for the release of hostages held in Gaza. "We're now looking to close a hostage
release deal and a ceasefire (in Gaza). It's time to finish the job and bring
all of the hostages home ... I got the sense from the prime minister he's ready
to do a deal," Sullivan said at a press conference at the U.S. embassy in
Jerusalem after meeting Netanyahu.
Trump 'vehemently' opposed to Ukraine firing missiles deep
into Russia
Agence France Presse/December 13, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that he
disagrees "very vehemently" with Ukraine firing U.S.-supplied missiles deep into
Russia. But Trump insisted he would not abandon Ukraine as U.S. support for Kyiv
would be key leverage in efforts to bring the war to a close. Washington has
supplied its long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine which can penetrate inside
Russia, provoking angry retaliation from Moscow which has responded with its new
hypersonic missile. "I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds
of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?" he said in an interview with Time
Magazine which named him its "person of the year" on Thursday. ATACMS missiles
have a maximum range of 190 miles (300 kilometers) according to publicly
available data. The interview was conducted before Thanksgiving and Trump's
high-profile meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky brokered by
France's president on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.
"We're just escalating this war and making it worse." Pressed on his support for
Ukraine, which has been lukewarm with the Republican questioning the cost of
backing Kyiv, Trump said he would use Washington's backing as leverage to bring
the war to a close. "I want to reach an agreement and the only way you're going
to reach an agreement is not to abandon."
Russian news agencies have jumped on Trump's comments, drawing attention to the
Republican's apparent criticism of Kyiv's approach.
Trump wants Gaza war to 'end', says Mideast problems will
'get solved'
Naharnet/December 13, 2024
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said that “the Middle East is an easier
problem to handle than what's happening with Russia and Ukraine.”“As we speak,
things are happening very productively on the Middle East. I think the Middle
East is going to get solved. I think it's more complicated than the
Russia-Ukraine, but I think it's … easier to solve,” Trump said in an interview
with Time magazine. Asked whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
given him assurances about when he would end the Gaza war, Trump said: “I think
he knows I want it to end … I don't want people from either side killed.”As for
the chances of going to war with Iran during his upcoming term, Trump said:
“Anything can happen. Anything can happen. It's a very volatile situation. I
think the most dangerous thing right now is what's happening, where (Ukrainian
President Volodymyr) Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the
(U.S.) President, to start shooting missiles into Russia.”“I think that’s a
major escalation. I think it's a foolish decision. But I would imagine people
are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think
that would be very smart to do that,” Trump added. Asked whether he trusts
Netanyahu, the U.S. president-elect said he does not trust “anybody.”As for the
reports that Elon Musk had recently met with the Iranians at his behest, Trump
said he did not “know that he met with them.”
Israel lifts restrictions on outdoor activities in northern
Golan Heights
Associated Press/December 13, 2024
Israel has lifted restrictions on public gatherings and outdoor activities in
areas near the Lebanese border in the northern Golan Heights, two weeks after a
ceasefire with Hezbollah. The army’s Home Front Command said it was changing its
public safety guidelines to “full activity” from “partial activity.”Israel had
tightened restrictions on Nov. 25, reflecting concerns that fighting could
intensify ahead of any possible cease-fire between Israel and Lebanese
militants. The truce went into effect on Nov. 27. In recent days, Israeli tanks
and troops have advanced out of Israeli-held territory in the Golan Heights and
pushed into a buffer zone inside Syria — a move Israel said it took to prevent
attacks on its citizens.Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967
Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally, except by
the United States.
Gaza rescuers say
Israeli strikes kill 58, hit flour trucks
AFP/December 13, 2024
GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defense agency said a series of Israeli air strikes on
Thursday killed at least 58 people, including 12 guards securing aid trucks,
while the military said it targeted militants planning to hijack the
vehicles.The latest bloodshed came despite growing optimism that negotiations
for a ceasefire and hostage release deal might finally succeed, with US National
Security Adviser Jake Sullivan saying on Thursday that the regional “context”
had changed in favor of an agreement. Seven guards were killed in a strike in
Rafah, in southern Gaza, while another attack left five guards dead in nearby
Khan Yunis, agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said. “The (Israeli) occupation once
again targeted those securing the aid trucks,” Basal told AFP, though the
military said it “does not strike humanitarian aid trucks.”Basal added that
around 30 people, most of them children, were wounded in the two strikes.
“The trucks carrying flour were on their way to UNRWA warehouses,” Basal noted,
referring to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. Witnesses later
told AFP that residents looted flour from the trucks after the strikes.
The military said its forces “conducted precise strikes” overnight on armed
Hamas militants present in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in southern
Gaza.
“All of the terrorists that were eliminated were members of Hamas and planned to
violently hijack humanitarian aid trucks and transfer them to Hamas in support
of continuing terrorist activity,” a military statement said. The United Nations
and aid agencies have repeatedly warned about the acute humanitarian crisis in
the besieged Gaza Strip, exacerbated by the war that has persisted for more than
14 months. “Conditions for people across the Gaza Strip are appalling and
apocalyptic,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told journalists during a visit
to Nuseirat in central Gaza.
She added that life-saving aid to “besieged areas in north Gaza governorate has
been largely blocked” since the Israeli military launched a sweeping assault
there in early October. In southern Gaza, UNRWA said earlier this week it had
successfully delivered enough food aid for 200,000 people.
But on Thursday it said “a serious incident” meant that only one truck out of a
convoy of 70 traveling along Gaza’s southern border reached its destination. The
agency did not provide any details on the incident, but called on “all parties
to ensure safe, unimpeded and uninterrupted” aid deliveries.
As diplomacy aimed at ending the war appeared to be gaining pace again, the
violence continued.
The civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes on two homes, near Nuseirat
refugee camp — which was again hit later in the evening — and Gaza City killed
21 people. Fifteen people, at least six of them children, died “as a result of
an Israeli bombing” of a building sheltering displaced people near Nuseirat,
Bassal said.Bassam Al-Habash, a relative of the dead in Nuseirat said: “These
people are innocent, they are not wanted. They have nothing to do with the
war.”“They are civilians, and this is not a war between two armies, but a war
armed with weapons, planes and Western support against a defenseless people who
own nothing.”Another strike late on Thursday killed at least 25 people and
wounded 50 others in the Nuseirat refugee camp, the civil defense said. In the
latest diplomatic effort to secure an end to the violence, the UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution on Wednesday calling for an immediate and
unconditional ceasefire. The non-binding resolution was rejected by the United
States, Israel’s main military backer. However, in recent days, there have been
indications that previously stalled ceasefire negotiations could be revived.
Families of the 96 hostages still in Gaza since the Hamas attack that triggered
the war, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead, are pressing for their
release. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who visited Israel on
Thursday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he “got the sense”
that the Israeli leader was “ready to do a deal.”
He also said that the Hamas approach to negotiations had changed, attributing it
to the overthrow of their ally Bashar Assad in Syria and the ceasefire that went
into effect in the war between Israel and another ally, Lebanese group
Hezbollah.Militants abducted 251 hostages during the October 7, 2023 attack on
Israel, which killed 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally
based on official figures. This count includes hostages who died or were killed
while held in Gaza.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,805
people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the
Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers
reliable.
Israel's ability to attack
Iran greatly improved from prior operations, IDF warns
Jerusalem Post/December 12/2024
IDF sources said that there is heavy ongoing planning work going on to be ready
to strike the Islamic Republic again if that becomes necessary.
The IDF on Thursday said that its past two attacks on Iran this year have
greatly improved its likely success in the event any future attack on Iran is
necessary. Further, IDF sources said that there is
heavy ongoing planning work going on to be ready to strike the Islamic Republic
again if that becomes necessary. On April 13-14 and
again on October 1, Iran launched massive direct missiles and drone attacks on
the Jewish state. Israel counterattacked on April 19
and again with a much larger counterstrike on October 26, which took out around
20 different Iranian anti-aircraft and ballistic missile sites as well as one
nuclear site.
Weakened Iranian air defenses
This latest IDF statement on Thursday signaled that not only are Iranian air
defenses weaker than they have been in years but that the air force believes its
direct experience in engaging Tehran has substantially improved its
understanding of how to better manage such long-range and complex attacks in the
future. Meanwhile, the IDF said that the air force's
report on the October 7 failure has been ready for some time and submitted to
the IDF high command. This follows prior statements by
the IDF navy, land forces, and other portions of the IDF, who have said even
weeks ago that their October 7 reports had also been submitted. It appears that
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi has held all of these reports on his
desk until all IDF reports are in so that they can all be released at the same
time, giving a comprehensive picture. Many also
anticipate that Halevi may resign around when he presents the October 7 reports,
with the latest predictions for that being by the end of February.
Despite these predictions, the IDF previously committed to producing the
October 7 reports by June and then by July-August. However, after withering
criticism of its Be'eri October 7 report in July, Halevi recalculated the
rollout of the reports so that any criticism of field commanders would only
occur at the same time as criticism of himself and other top IDF officials.
UN says 1.1
million newly displaced in Syria since offensive that toppled Assad
AFP/December 13, 2024
BEIRUT: The United Nations humanitarian agency said Thursday that more than a
million people, mostly women and children, had been newly displaced in Syria
since rebels launched an offensive ousting President Bashar Assad. “As of 12
December, 1.1 million people have been newly displaced across the country since
the start of the escalation of hostilities on 27 November. The majority are
women and children,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) said in a statement.
Syria’s rebel victors
expose ousted government’s drug trade
AFP/December 13, 2024
DAMASCUS: The dramatic collapse of Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime has thrown light
into the dark corners of his rule, including the industrial-scale export of the
banned drug captagon. Victorious Islamist-led fighters have seized military
bases and distribution hubs for the amphetamine-type stimulant, which has
flooded the black market across the Middle East. Led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham
(HTS) group, the rebels say they found a vast haul of drugs and vowed to destroy
them. On Wednesday, HTS fighters allowed AFP journalists into a warehouse at a
quarry on the outskirts of Damascus, where captagon pills were concealed inside
electrical components for export. “After we entered and did a sweep, and we
found that this is a factory for Maher Assad and his partner Amer Khiti,” said
black-masked fighter Abu Malek Al-Shami. Maher Assad was a military commander
and the deposed strongman’s brother, now presumed on the run. He is widely
accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade. Syrian
politician Khiti was placed under sanction in 2023 by the British government,
which said he “controls multiple businesses in Syria which facilitate the
production and smuggling of drugs.”In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse
and loading bays, thousands of dusty beige captagon pills were packed into the
copper coils of brand new household voltage stabilizers. “We found a large
number of devices that were stuffed with packages of captagon pills meant to be
smuggled out of the country. It’s a huge quantity. It’s impossible to tell,”
Shami said. Above, in the warehouse, crates of cardboard boxes stood ready to
allow the traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallet-loads of standard goods,
alongside sacks and sacks of caustic soda. Caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, is
a key ingredient in the production of methamphetamine, another stimulant.
Assad fell at the weekend to a lightning HTS offensive, but the revenue from
selling captagon propped up Assad’s government throughout Syria’s 13 years of
civil war. Captagon turned Syria into the world’s largest narco state. It became
by far Syria’s biggest export, dwarfing all its legal exports put together,
according to estimates drawn from official data by AFP during a 2022
investigation.The warehouse haul was massive, but smaller and still impressive
stashes of captagon have also turned up in military facilities associated with
units under Maher Assad’s command. Journalists from AFP this week found a
bonfire of captagon pills on the grounds of the Mazzeh air base, now in the
hands of HTS fighters who descended on the capital Damascus from the north.
Behind the smoldering heap, in a ransacked air force building, more captagon lay
alongside other illicit exports, including off-brand Viagra impotence remedies
and poorly-forged $100 bills. “As we entered the area we found a huge quantity
of captagon. So we destroyed it and burned it. It’s a huge amount, brother,”
said an HTS fighter using the nom de guerre “Khattab.”“We destroyed and burned
it because it’s harmful to people. It harms nature and people and
humans.”Khattab also stressed that HTS, which has formed a transitional
government to replace the collapsed administration, does not want to harm its
neighbors by exporting the drug — a trade worth billions of dollars.
Saudi Arabia’s
successful World Cup bid receives congratulations from around the world
Arab News/December 13, 2024
RIYADH: Abdulaziz Al-Wasel, Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN,
has urged General Assembly members to participate in an international
conference, organized by Saudi Arabia and France, to resolve the Palestinian
issue. Al-Wasel said during a speech at the UN General Assembly’s emergency
session on Palestine on Thursday that the Saudi-French conference was taking
place in June in New York. He called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and
welcomed the deal between Israel and Lebanon that ended the year-long armed
conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israeli forces in November. The UN
held an emergency session to discuss the urgent support needed by the UN Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to enhance humanitarian efforts in the
Gaza Strip. The Saudi ambassador to the UN said that the arbitrary use of the
veto and the selective application of international law had contributed to the
ongoing genocide and the escalation of Israeli crimes in Gaza, the Saudi Press
Agency reported. He stressed the necessity of a ceasefire in Gaza and expressed
the Kingdom’s support for the ceasefire deal in Lebanon while condemning Israeli
violations of it. Al-Wasel said that Saudi Arabia supported the Palestinian
people and their rights to an independent state based on the Arab Peace
Initiative and UN resolutions. He condemned Israeli airstrikes which had taken
place on Syrian territory since Sunday following the collapse of the Assad
regime in Damascus, according to the SPA. He added that Israeli actions
undermined Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability, and territorial
integrity, as well as its rights in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Iran accepts
tougher oversight at Fordow enrichment plant, IAEA reports
Francois Murphy/VIENNA (Reuters)/December 12, 2024
Iran has agreed to tougher monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog at its Fordow
site dug into a mountain after it greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to
close to weapons grade there, the watchdog said on Thursday in a report seen by
Reuters.
Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported Iran had
multiplied the pace of its enrichment to up to 60% purity, close to the 90% of
weapons grade, at Fordow, which Western powers called an extremely serious
escalation in their standoff with Iran over its nuclear programme.
At that time the agency said it would discuss the need for tougher so-called
safeguards measures, such as inspections, at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP),
one of two sites where Iran is enriching to that highest level.
"Iran agreed to the Agency's request to increase the frequency and intensity of
the implementation of safeguards measures at FFEP and is facilitating the
implementation of this strengthened safeguards approach," the IAEA said in
Thursday's confidential report to member states.By switching to up to 20% from
up to 5% the enrichment level of the uranium hexafluoride feedstock for
centrifuges at Fordow already enriching to up to 60%, Iran has multiplied the
pace at which it produces uranium in that highest enrichment bracket. The IAEA
has said it will now be able to produce more than 34 kg a month of uranium
enriched to up to 60% at Fordow, around six times the 5-7 kg it was producing in
total at both Fordow and an above-ground pilot plant at Natanz in recent months.
Around 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60% is theoretically enough, if enriched
further, for a nuclear bomb, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran already has
more than four times that amount, and enough for more weapons at lower
enrichment levels. Western powers say there is no civil justification for Iran
enriching to that level since no other country has done so without producing a
nuclear weapon. Iran denies having such intentions, saying its nuclear programme
is entirely peaceful.
Syria faces crisis and Gaza heads toward famine, World Food
Program official says
Edith M. Lederer/UNITED NATIONS (AP) /December 12, 2024
— The deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Program has been on
whirlwind visits to hotspots in the Middle East and Sudan to assess dire
humanitarian situations and escalating demands for food from millions of people
trapped or fleeing conflicts. But Carl Skau said in an interview with The
Associated Press this week that the Rome-based agency has been forced to make
major cuts to the numbers of people it can help because of a lack of funding.
WFP is working to diversify its funding, including targeting the private sector,
but Skau said, “it’s going to be a tough time ahead, no doubt, with increasing
gaps.”“Needs continue to rise, and the funding done not even remain stable at
the levels we have currently,” he said.
‘A triple crisis’ in Syria
Syria is facing the fallout from a 13-year civil war, the surge in arrivals from
the recent Israel-Hezbollah war in neighboring Lebanon, and rebels unexpectedly
ousting longtime leader Bashar Assad, Skau said. Even before Lebanon and the end
of the Assad family’s more than 50-year rule, he said 3 million people were
acutely food insecure and very hungry. But the agency was only providing food
aid to 2 million because of funding cuts. Now, Skau said, “it’s a triple crisis,
and the needs are going to be massive.”While the situation in Aleppo, Syria’s
largest city, is “quite calm and orderly,” he said there is still uncertainty in
the capital, Damascus, where markets are disrupted, currency values have
dropped, food prices are going up and transport isn’t working. This means a
bigger humanitarian response in the short term. In the next phase, the U.N. will
be focusing on Syria’s recovery and ultimately its reconstruction, Skau said.
Gaza is heading toward famine
Skau says the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza is dire but he’s equally
worried about southern Gaza, “if not even more,” because of the million or so
people on the beach north of Khan Younis as winter approaches. In northern
areas, where the U.N. estimates there are still 65,000 Palestinians and no aid
has arrived for more than two months, Skau said Israeli military operations,
lawlessness and taking of food aid have prevented access to the needy. He said
some humanitarian convoys have gotten through to the broader northern area
including Gaza City, where the U.N. estimates some 300,000 people are located.
In the south, Skau said, WFP assisted around 1.2 million people in June, July,
August and into September. In October and November, only one-third of that
number — 400,000 Palestinians — got aid. At the same time, the entry of
essential commercial goods was very little compared with the summer months, Skau
said. He blamed the limited number of entry points and the inability to move
food to WFP warehouses as well as the “total breakdown of civil and public
order.”Skau said international famine experts reported three weeks ago that if
nothing changed there would be famine in Gaza, “and I think that’s where we’re
heading.”
Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis
The needs are overwhelming: 25 million people in war-torn Sudan are acutely food
insecure, with famine declared in the huge Zam Zam camp for the displaced in
western Darfur. Skau cited progress over the past month in getting clearances to
deliver aid across conflict lines and the border from Chad. And with roads
drying up at the end of the rainy season, WFP is able to deliver “much more
food.”One convoy reached Zam Zam camp and two others were on the way but have
been held up because of fighting in the past 10 days in El Fasher, the capital
of North Darfur, Skau said.
It is the only capital in Darfur still held by Sudanese forces. The others are
held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Sudan plunged into conflict in
mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and
paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other
regions, including western Darfur. WFP reached some 2.6 million people this
month, Skau said, stressing that the international community should have done
more to address the Sudan crisis “and needs to do more going forward.”
America's closest ally in Syria is losing ground as a new order takes shape
Joseph Krauss/AP/December 12, 2024
The jihadi rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad say they want to
build a unified, inclusive country. But after nearly 14 years of civil war,
putting that ideal into practice will not be easy. For Syria’s Kurdish minority,
America’s closest ally in the country, the struggle for a new order is entering
a potentially even more challenging phase. Over the course of Syria’s civil war,
Kurdish fighters have fended off an array of armed factions, partnered with the
U.S. to rout the Islamic State group and carved out a largely autonomous region
in the country’s oil-rich east.
But the gains of the non-Arab Kurds are now at risk. The ascendance of the Sunni
Arab rebels who overthrew Assad — with vital help from Turkey, a longtime foe of
the Kurds — will make it hard for the Kurds to find a place in the new Syria and
could prolong the conflict.
The jihadi rebels who rode into Damascus over the weekend have made peaceful
overtures to the Kurds. But the rebels violently drove Kurdish fighters out of
the eastern city of Deir al-Zour days after government forces abandoned it.
To the north, a separate opposition faction backed by Turkey that has been
battling the Kurds for years seized the town of Manbij. And Turkey carried out
airstrikes on a Kurdish convoy it said was carrying heavy weapons looted from
government arsenals.
The Kurds have long counted on U.S. aid in the face of such challenges. Around
900 American troops are in eastern Syria, where they partner with Kurdish forces
to prevent an Islamic State resurgence. But the future of that mission will be
thrown into doubt under president-elect Donald Trump, who has long been
skeptical about U.S. involvement in Syria.
Here's a closer look at the predicament the Kurds find themselves in.
Who are the U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria?
The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with some
30 million concentrated in a territory straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
They are a minority in each country and have often suffered persecution, which
has fueled armed Kurdish uprisings. In Syria, they carved out an autonomous
enclave early in the civil war, never fully siding with the Assad government or
the rebels seeking to topple him. When the Islamic State group seized a third of
the country in 2014, Kurdish fighters — who are secular and include women in
their ranks — proved their mettle in early battles against the extremists,
earning support from the U.S.-led coalition. They formed a group known as the
Syrian Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab fighters, and drove the
Islamic State group out of large areas of Syria with help from U.S.-led
airstrikes and American special forces. In 2017, these Kurdish-led forces
captured Raqqa, the capital of the extremists' self-styled caliphate.
Why is Turkey fighting the Kurds?
Turkey has long viewed the SDF as an extension of the decades-old Kurdish
insurgency within its own borders. It considers the main Kurdish faction a
terrorist group on par with the Islamic State and has said it should have no
presence in the new Syria. In recent years, Turkey has trained and funded
fighters known as the Syrian National Army, helping them wrest control of
territory from the Kurds in northern Syria along the border with Turkey. These
Turkish-backed fighters have portrayed themselves as part of the opposition
against Assad, but analysts say they are largely driven by opportunism and
hatred of the Kurds. The Kurds have focused on battling the SNA in recent years.
But the new leadership in Damascus, which also has longstanding ties to Turkey,
could open another, much longer front.
How do the Syrian rebels view the Kurds?
The main rebel faction is led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed
al-Golani, a former al-Qaida militant who cut ties with the group eight years
ago and says he wants to build a new Syria free of dictatorship that will serve
all its religious and ethnic communities.
Nawaf Khalil, head of the Germany-based Center for Kurdish Studies, said the
early signs were positive. He said the rebels steered clear of two SDF-controlled
enclaves of Aleppo when they stormed the city two weeks ago at the start of
their rapid advance across the country. “It is also positive that they did not
speak negatively about the Syrian Democratic Forces," he said. It remains to be
seen if those sentiments will endure. After sweeping into Deir al-Zour this
week, a fighter from al-Sharaa's group posted a video saying they would soon
advance toward Raqqa and other areas of eastern Syria, raising the possibility
of further clashes with the Kurds. The rebels could still seek some kind of
agreement with the Kurds to incorporate them into the post-Assad political
order, but that would likely require accepting a degree of Kurdish autonomy in
the east. It would also risk angering Turkey, which now appears to be the chief
power broker in Syria.
Will the Trump administration support the Kurds?
The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, met
with SDF forces in Syria on Tuesday, in a sign of the Biden administration's
commitment to the alliance post-Assad. But things could change on Jan. 20. Trump
has provided few details about his Middle East policy, aside from saying he
wants to end the region's wars and keep the United States out of them. In a
social media post shortly before Assad was overthrown, Trump wrote that “Syria
is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO
WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”
During his previous term, in 2019, Trump abandoned the Kurds ahead of a Turkish
incursion, casting it as the fulfillment of a campaign promise to end U.S.
involvement in the region's “endless wars.”The move prompted heavy criticism,
including from prominent Republicans who accused him of betraying an ally. Trump
backtracked weeks later, approving a wider mission to secure oil fields in the
east. The troops remained where they were and the alliance endured.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on December 12-13/2024
The Debacle
Charles Chartouni/his is Beirut/December 09/2024
The meteoric downfall of the Alawite regime in Syria is symptomatic of the
systemic changes taking place throughout the Middle Eastern geopolitical
spectrum and its overall reverberations. However inchoate, the ongoing military
and political dynamics are substantively overhauling the regional landscape. The
inevitable demise of Iranian influence, the equivocations of the Turkish role,
the ambivalent return of Sunni jihadism, and the steady decline of the Christian
communities in the Near East are ushering in new geopolitical and geostrategic
dynamics and initiating paradigmatic shifts. The Israeli counteroffensive lies
at the roots of the substantive geostrategic transformations that unveiled the
rickety foundations of the Iranian power politics, the flimsiness of their
projections, and the resurgence of Sunni militance and its attempt at
repositioning itself as an accommodating political actor with no further
evidence so far.
The whole strategic plot featured by the Iranian Islamic dictatorship is
systematically unraveling and retreating from the external operational theaters.
Defeated in Gaza and Lebanon and badly battered in Syria, the Iranian vagrant
militancy is retreating beneath its shaky inner defenses. The Iranian regime’s
strategy based on the outlying strategic defenses is not only challenged but
ultimately made irrelevant. Its regional defenses are subsiding by the day while
losing their operational platforms, political allies, and coming to terms with
its elusive strategic alliances. However controversial the emerging actors might
be, the erstwhile configuration of power is eroding without yielding the terrain
to concrete and conclusive political alternatives; we are in a flux, and the
dynamics are ongoing.
The political purview of the incoming Islamic militancy is yet to be defined,
and its strategic configuration is not set. The brunt of the Syrian cascading
civil wars has not come to an end and needs to be closely monitored, and
observers have to wait before engaging in hazardous conjectures. The downfall of
the Assad regime is sealed off, and the big question mark is whether it is able
to safeguard its traditional strongholds in Northern Syria after losing what was
deemed to be useful Syria, which overlaps Central Syria and its outlying
regions. None of these questions is answerable before the ongoing battles come
to an end. The downfall of the Alawite dictatorship, aside from questioning the
viability of Iranian power politics in the region, raises the more critical
issue of the existing Near Eastern geopolitics, their future coordinates,
political actors, and incoming geostrategic conflicts. None of these questions
is predefined, and there are no standard scripts that apply to a fleeting
reality. The actual state of ethnopolitical splintering and putative Islamic
political dominions are still moot and subject to the pull and sway of hardwired
political convulsions.
The ongoing unraveling revealed the elusive foundations of the projected Iranian
power politics, the shortsightedness of Western political quiescence,
self-defeating political and military inhibitions, and pliability to the induced
political migrations and their instrumentalization by Islamic power politics.
Rather than engaging the conflict dynamics, the choice of political and
strategic aloofness has paved the way to the destructive Russian, Turkish, and
Iranian power politics and nurtured their embedded illusions. Now that the whole
political tapestry has unraveled, it’s about time to finish off with the Iranian
imperial inroads, reckon with the limitations of Russian power projections, and
engage Turkish power politics and their jihadi cohorts for the better or for the
worse.
The containment of Iranian nuclear militarization, let alone its destruction, is
left to warfare diplomacy and its strictly defined thresholds. The meticulous
screening of the ongoing dynamics impels major geostrategic realignments and the
immediate tackling of the expanding wastelands. The debunking of the Islamic
political myths and their conventional scripts, and the magnitude of the
political, strategic, and humanitarian challenges at hand, are important levers
to be instrumented in future diplomatic undertakings. Nonetheless, the Israeli
counteroffensive has proven the ultimate importance of power politics and
military sway if we were to move towards working solutions and consistent
diplomacy.
A cursory review of the political landscape helps identify the prior assignments
in the various political landscapes. The outcome of the ongoing battles in Syria
is essential to define the political configuration and its wherewithals. The
defeat of Hezbollah is a prelude to any constructive political conversation and
the finalization of transition politics in both Lebanon and Syria. The defeat of
Hamas is a preliminary stage that should pave the way for inter-Palestinian
reconciliation and the resumption of negotiations with the Israelis.
The ultimate containment or destruction of the Iranian Islamic regime is
mandatory if we were to oversee a deconfliction process in the greater Middle
East. Otherwise, the chances for a graduated normalization depend largely on
Islamic de-radicalization and the reengagement of Western democracies on the
basis of democratic and liberal political agendas and a more pluralistic
worldview. The major strategic turnaround initiated by the Israeli strategic
counteroffensive is a good omen and might usher in a new era.
Biden Takes Credit for Syria Regime Change He
Tried to Prevent
Daniel Greenfield/Gatestone Institute/December 12, 2024
There are lots of mostly bad things that President Joe Biden can justly take
credit for, but the fall of Syria is not one of them.
Biden provided Iran with sanctions relief and bailed out Hezbollah just as it
was on the verge of defeat. He's trying to take credit for other people's
victories while pretending that this was a desired outcome, rather than Turkey
taking the initiative and exploiting a weakened Hezbollah.
There are lots of mostly bad things that President Joe Biden can justly take
credit for, but the fall of Syria is not one of them. The only real reason this
happened is because Israel threw off the shackles and decided to go after
Hezbollah after a year of terror. And Biden did everything to prevent that.
At the very end, he used an arms embargo to force Israel into a fake "ceasefire"
with Hezbollah. But by then Israel had done enough damage to Hezbollah that
Turkey's Jihadists were able to just roll into Syria, and Iran decided to sell
them out and pull back.
But now Biden is trying to take credit.
Biden delivered a mumbling teleprompter speech that looked like an Arab Spring
leftover, calling it "a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering
people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country," and promised
that "the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in
Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk."
And promised more "humanitarian relief."
Mostly, though, Joe tried to take credit.
"You know, for years, the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah, and
Russia. But over the last week, their support collapsed — all three of them —
because all three of them are far weaker today than they were when I took
office," Biden mumbled. "The upshot for all this is, for the first time ever,
neither Russia nor Iran nor Hezbollah could defend this abhorrent regime in
Syria. And this is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine, Israel have
delivered upon their own self-defense with unflagging support of the United
States."
Ukraine certainly had the support of the administration. And that contributed to
Assad's fall. But Israel did not have the administration's support. And it was
Israel's campaign against Hezbollah that most directly led to this moment.
Biden provided Iran with sanctions relief and bailed out Hezbollah just as it
was on the verge of defeat. He's trying to take credit for other people's
victories while pretending that this was a desired outcome, rather than Turkey
taking the initiative and exploiting a weakened Hezbollah.
Biden gets no credit here for anything except trying to save Hezbollah. And
therefore, by extension, Assad.
**Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz
Freedom Center.
**Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Front Page Magazine.
Follow Daniel Greenfield on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
© 2024 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.
Syrian rebels expose Assad's labs with Captagon, 'poison'
drug fueling deadly trade
Dr.Itay Gal/December 12/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/12/137927/
Captagon, one of the world’s most infamous stimulants, carries a complex legacy
with devastating implications for health, society, and politics.
In a video circulating on social media recently, Syrian rebels are shown
storming what appears to be a substantial Captagon manufacturing lab.
Rebels are seen expressing their outrage at the production site, saying, “A
bunch of pigs. All of this is poison, hallucinogenic pills."
Captagon, one of the world’s most infamous stimulants, carries a complex legacy
with devastating implications for health, society, and politics. Initially
developed for medical purposes, it has become synonymous with illegal activity,
trafficking, and addiction in the Middle East. The drug was first produced in
1961 by German pharmaceutical company Degussa, but it quickly transformed from a
treatment for attention disorders and narcolepsy into a dangerous substance with
catastrophic consequences.
Fenethylline, the active compound in Captagon, was marketed as a milder
alternative to amphetamines. However, its use was banned as its severe side
effects and high addiction potential became evident. By the 1970s and 1980s,
Captagon gained popularity among artists and athletes in France until it was
fully prohibited in 1993 due to its harmful effects. Today, the drug lies at the
core of extensive illegal operations, mainly in the Middle East, where it plays
a significant role in trafficking and terrorism.
Syria as the global center of Captagon production
In recent years, Syria has emerged as a global center for Captagon production.
The country’s prolonged civil war has created fertile ground for the drug’s
manufacture, with illegal factories producing millions of pills annually.
These are smuggled into Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In Saudi
Arabia, Captagon is reportedly popular among truck drivers seeking alertness and
is even used by teenagers. Despite Islamic fatwas prohibiting its consumption,
the drug remains widespread and is sometimes seen as a survival tool in extreme
situations.
Beyond its role in illicit trade, Captagon inflicts severe harm on users. The
stimulant, which combines theophylline (a substance used to treat asthma but
with heart rate-accelerating effects) and amphetamine (a well-known stimulant),
induces heightened energy, euphoria, appetite suppression, and mood elevation.
However, prolonged use can lead to psychiatric disorders such as paranoia and
hallucinations, alongside physical symptoms like tachycardia, high blood
pressure, and psychosis.
Captagon addiction is marked by increased energy despite sleep deprivation,
weight loss, extreme mood swings, and anxiety. Over time, these symptoms worsen,
with long-term consequences including confusion, tremors, and seizures.
Currently, there is no antidote for Captagon; treatment is purely symptomatic.
Use of Captagon by terrorist groups
Terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS, increasingly rely
on Captagon both for financial and operational purposes. The drug enhances
combatants’ aggression and fearlessness while serving as a source of income
through trafficking. During Operation Swords of Iron, evidence of Captagon use
was found on the bodies of terrorists, highlighting the drug’s role in fueling
violent acts.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria could significantly alter the
region’s Captagon trade. Assad’s government has relied on Captagon production to
sustain its economy amid international sanctions. Illegal drug factories, often
linked to terrorist groups and regional smuggling networks, are a major source
of revenue for the regime.
Regime change could disrupt industrial-scale Captagon production and dismantle
its distribution network.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-833156
Why the Left Fears Pete Hegseth’s Crusader
Tattoos
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/December 12/2024
Once again, the “Left” is exposing its fear that Christians, who still make up
sizeable majorities in the West, may one day do the unthinkable: reclaim their
true Christian heritage and abandon the “Doormat Christianity” variety that has
long been imposed on them.
Because Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the incoming Department of Defense,
has Christian tattoos — including the Crusader Cross and the Latin phrase Deus
Vult (“God wills it”) — the media are suggesting that this is proof positive
that, once in office, Hegseth will put all his domestic and foreign enemies to
the sword. For example, quoting several obscure academics, New Lines Magazine
writes: “There is no version of Deus Vult that means anything other than
Crusader fanboy.” Hegseth’s Christian tattoos are “a call to religious violence,
expressly linked to a pretty horrific episode in history. There isn’t another
way of reading it other than that.”Incidentally, nowhere does that article (or
any of them, including the New York Times’) even hint that the Crusades, which
it simply defines as “one of the bloodiest periods of Christian history,” were
justified. Rather, they, and those who support them, were and are “explicitly
Islamophobic.”Although the fears expressed in these media hit pieces are
obviously exaggerated, they do touch on a certain truth: if the Left has little
to fear from Christians waging a physical “holy war” against them, it does have
to fear the resurrection of the “church militant,” long defined as “the
Christian church on earth regarded as engaged in a constant warfare against its
enemies, the powers of evil” (aka, “the Left”).
In short, the real fear is that, after decades of prostration, Christians may
finally stand up again. Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood
Against Islam gives an idea of what that might look like. Most of the men
profiled in it sacrificed their lives — though they were emperors, kings, and
lords who had much to live for and enjoy — fighting to defend and strengthen
Christianity.
The contagiously inspiring image invoked by these men who boldly and
unapologetically sacrificed everything in the name of their faith and
civilization is precisely what the Left does not want today’s Christians to
recollect as part of their heritage, a thing available to them to emulate in
times of crisis: standing up against evil. Much better Christians remain
convinced that the highest virtue of their religion is to be passive doormats
that never “judge” (a position that is also conveniently easier than taking a
stand).
From here one realizes why, for decades, all departments in service of the Left
— from the public school system to Hollywood — have done everything in their
power to 1) emasculate men and 2) present “good” and “true” Christianity as
being nothing more than a welcome doormat (the antithesis of church militant).
There’s a reason why the powers-that-be have for decades idolized the effeminate
and extolled the homosexual; portrayed sword-waving women as the true and only
embodiment of courage, heroism, and self-sacrifice; demonized true masculinity —
without which civilization perishes — as “toxic”; and, most insidiously,
depicted any Christian who wishes to do anything other than “turn the other
cheek” as being the epitome of hypocrisy if not evil. One can go on and on as to
how the Left has done everything, subtle and increasingly not so subtle, to
neuter men, but the point should be clear: the first and foremost enemy of
anyone or thing — in this case, the Left — is men. As such, teaching men not to
be men has been one of the most strategic ways to defeat men. Little wonder the
lgb-whatever agenda has been to infiltrate and indoctrinate the minds of
children — whether through schools and libraries, or television programming and
books for children. While that agenda is dark on several fronts, one of its
chief goals is to strip boys of their latent manhood while they’re still young
and pliable — nipping them in the “bud,” as it were, so they become compliant in
adulthood.
Incidentally, unlike the aforementioned “Defenders of the West,” who had no
choice but to fight, today’s Christians need not take up arms in a physical
manner.
Rather, if today’s Christians were simply to stand up — which in large and
practical measure means if their men start behaving like men — and, most
importantly, if they all believe in a Cause greater than themselves, then all
the insane ills plaguing Western society would inevitably dissipate like vapor.
Is France contributing to ongoing problems in the Middle
East? - opinion
Gol Kalev/Jerusalem Post/December 12/2024
In the 1920s, France disrupted peace and stability in the Middle East through
its assault on Syria.
Art Basel and related art events in Miami last weekend showcased
thought-provoking ideas, expressed through art. One was a time-travel exhibit:
Upon stepping into the capsule, one enters a 1970s living room, which in turn
helps the visitor enter a 1970s frame of mind.
That same weekend, Syrian rebels provided a real-life time-travel capsule – not
only to the 1970s (the beginning of the Assad regime) but also to the 1920s.
Anyone stepping into that time capsule would enter a Middle East where Arabs
were pro-Zionist, lived in peace with Jews, advocated for the establishment of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine, and understood that its prosperity served their
interests.
Indeed, the year 1920 witnessed a utopian Middle East. At its core was an
organic version of what we today define as a two-state solution: A Jewish state
in the making in British Palestine (today’s Israel, the West Bank, and parts of
Jordan), living peacefully side-by-side with an Arab kingdom in Syria. Organic
two-state solution
King Faisal, ruler of Hashemite Syria, was beloved by Arabs across the entire
Middle East, not just in Syria. Faisal traveled to the 1919 Paris Peace
Conference and advocated for the establishment of a Jewish state – in front of
US President Woodrow Wilson, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (who was
an acquaintance and a fan of Herzl), and British Prime Minister David Lloyd
George. Reflecting on those days, Lloyd George wrote that the British wished to
verify that Arabs were indeed supportive of the Zionist endeavor. They tasked
T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, with checking, and he confirmed: The
Arabs supported Zionism. As Faisal requested, the League of Nations gave Britain
a mandate to usher in a Jewish homeland in Palestine. And so, the Middle East in
1920 was a fulfillment of Theodor Herzl’s vision of a peaceful Middle East..
There was just a slight problem: France wanted Syria for itself. This was not
based on historic claims but on an agreement made between a mid-level French
Foreign Office official named Francois Picot and the British diplomat Mark
Sykes.
Syria, according to the French, is Dar el-Français.
France did not wait for its claims to Syria to be settled through diplomatic
channels. Instead, it did what Herzl identified as a European obsession: make
war. It invaded the nascent Arab kingdom in 1920 and deposed the king. Some
decades later, Syrians rebelled against the French, and in a series of coups
that followed, the Assad family took over in the 1970s and kept power for over
50 years, until last weekend.
From Syrians to Palestinians
The degree to which, the Israeli-Arab conflict is “made in France” is often
ignored. To compensate the Hashemite Arab king of Syria, the British carved
Palestine into two. Suddenly, the “two-state solution” was reduced from being
about a Jewish state in Palestine next to an Arab kingdom in Syria to being
about a Jewish state in half of Palestine (west of the Jordan River) living next
to an Arab Hashemite kingdom in the other half of Palestine (east of the Jordan
river). But the more devastating effect was on the Arabs: The French robbed
Arabs in Palestine and other parts of the Middle East of expressing their
prototype nationalist sentiments through Syria.Nascent Arab nationalism in
Palestine in 1920 was unequivocally Syrian, but the British, in cahoots with the
French, worked tirelessly to impose a new identity on those Arabs living between
the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea: Palestinian.
In the following decades, this identity was nurtured by the British, who reneged
on their mandate and wished to keep Palestine for themselves, hence resorting to
their “divide and rule” strategy; and later, the Germans, who “drafted” Arabs in
Palestine for their war with the British, by cultivating Palestinian
nationalism. Some 70 years later, Western powers once again imposed a new
identity of Arabs living “from the river to the Green line,” giving birth to the
modern Western framework of the two-state solution.
And so the “two state solution” traveled in time, from being an organic,
truth-based, abstract template for a stable peace, into a Western-imposed
slogan-based, dogmatic template to perpetuate instability.
It also became a tool in the Western ideological assault on Judaism and was even
drafted by the Biden Administration as an indirect reason to sanction Israeli
Jews who dared undermine it.
Time for creative solutions
Indeed, the assault on Judaism is nuanced, abstract, and layered. While Art
Basel and Miami Art Week may not be conventional stops for book tours, they
served as the perfect backdrop for discussions about my new book, The Assault on
Judaism. Countering the attack requires creative inspiring frameworks rather
than conventional linear thinking. Stepping out of the 1970s time capsule, a
popular feature at Design Miami, the city was gearing up for its next festival,
The Jerusalem Post conference, aimed at proactively crafting a better future. As
suggested in its title, it is about “shaping tomorrow”.
Stepping out of the 1920s time capsule, on the other hand, brought us back to
yet another French disruption of global peace and stability. As I discussed in
my Wall Street Journal op-ed that weekend, the collaboration of France and other
Western countries with the ICC embeds in it a dangerous challenge to the US-led
world order.
Indeed, it is becoming more and more evident that the Western assault on Judaism
is not just a proxy for an assault on America but also a growing threat to US
national security and global stability.
In the 1920s, France disrupted peace and stability in the Middle East through
its assault on Syria. In the 2020s, France is in the early stages of disrupting
peace and stability in the West through the assault on Judaism.
This can be stopped: As suggested in my WSJ piece, Trump should link US support
to France to a pledge never to collaborate with the ICC or any other lawfare
efforts directed against the Jewish state or the United States.
This could benefit France itself. The Jewish state’s stunning military actions
in Syria this week are eerily reminiscent of those performed there by its
founding father, Abraham, some 4,000 years earlier. Both are viewed as miracles;
both invoke the clear simple choice that the nations of the world need to make,
to either bless Israel or curse it.
As evident in the Abraham Accords, many in the Middle East are choosing to bless
Israel. Let’s hope that those in Europe and the West who choose otherwise will
change course and be blessed themselves.
*The writer is the author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential
Threat Is Coming from the West, and is currently on tour in the US. He is
chairman of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s
Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com). His geopolitical articles are
featured on EuropeAndJerusalem.com
Tackling region’s water scarcity amid rising
temperatures
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/December 12, 2024
The Middle East and North Africa region is facing an acute and intensifying
water crisis. Already the most water-scarce region in the world, MENA is now
contending with the escalating impacts of climate change, which have exacerbated
water shortages through rising temperatures, reduced rainfall and more frequent
and prolonged droughts.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, every single
country in the region will experience extremely high water stress by 2050. The
urgency of the situation is underscored by the latest climate data, which shows
that 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record.
The consequences of water scarcity in MENA are profound, spanning economic,
social and environmental dimensions. Water scarcity threatens agriculture, which
is the backbone of many economies in the region, undermining food security and
livelihoods. The environmental repercussions also include soil degradation,
desertification and the collapse of ecosystems that sustain biodiversity.
Socially, the scarcity of water can spark conflicts and internal displacement as
communities compete over dwindling resources.
This crisis is not only a regional issue but also a global concern, as its
ripple effects could exacerbate migration, destabilize governments and fuel
geopolitical tensions. Dr. Mahmoud Fathallah, director of the Arab League’s
Environment and Meteorology Department, last month summarized the region’s
vulnerability: “The Middle East and North Africa are particularly susceptible to
these effects due to their dry and semi-arid climates. The region is witnessing
significant challenges, such as declining annual rainfall, rising temperatures
and soil degradation.”
The MENA region’s predicament highlights a grim paradox: despite being among the
least responsible for global carbon emissions, it bears some of the harshest
consequences of climate change.
Despite being among the regions least responsible for global carbon emissions,
it bears some of the harshest consequences
Delaying action to address water scarcity and climate change in MENA would only
compound the problem. The stakes are high: if temperatures in the region rise by
4 degrees Celsius, freshwater availability could drop by 75 percent, with
devastating consequences for agriculture, industry and human survival.
Projections suggest that many countries in the region could warm by as much as 5
C by the end of the century. Such an increase could render parts of MENA
uninhabitable, forcing mass migrations and heightening the potential for
resource-based conflicts.
The economic toll of inaction would also be catastrophic. Agriculture, which
consumes more than 80 percent of the region’s water, would suffer significant
declines in productivity, threatening food security and driving up prices.
Industries dependent on water, such as energy production and manufacturing,
could face disruptions, stifling economic growth. Furthermore, the cost of
managing crises — whether through emergency relief or rebuilding after
climate-related disasters — would far exceed the investments needed for
proactive measures today.
Socially, the ramifications of inaction are equally dire. Water scarcity has
already contributed to instability in the region and worsening conditions could
further fuel unrest.
To avert these grim outcomes, MENA governments, regional organizations and the
international community must act decisively. Several key measures are essential
to mitigate the water crisis.
Raising awareness about the severity of the crisis and encouraging conservation
efforts at the community level can have a significant impact. Education
campaigns can empower individuals to adopt water-saving practices and advocate
for policy changes.
Secondly, adopting sustainable water management practices, such as modernizing
irrigation systems, reducing water waste and implementing policies to regulate
water use are critical as well. Techniques like drip irrigation and the reuse of
treated wastewater can significantly enhance water efficiency in agriculture and
other sectors. To avert these grim outcomes, MENA governments, regional
organizations and the international community must act decisively
Investments in technology can also provide solutions to the region’s water
challenges. Gulf states are making significant strides in investing in advanced
technologies, such as desalination and renewable energy, to address water
scarcity and enhance climate resilience in the region, with Saudi Arabia being a
notable leader in this effort. Climate change knows no borders and neither
should the efforts to combat its effects. In other words, MENA countries ought
to strengthen regional cooperation to share resources, knowledge and technology.
Collaborative initiatives, such as transboundary water management agreements,
can help ensure equitable and sustainable access to shared water resources.
More importantly, the international community and global powers have a moral and
strategic obligation to support MENA in addressing its water crisis. While the
region’s contribution to global emissions is minimal, the major emitters bear a
significant responsibility for the climate change that is exacerbating MENA’s
water scarcity. Fathallah highlighted this disparity by stating: “While the Arab
world is not a major emitter of carbon dioxide, the effects of climate change
are disproportionately visible here.”
Financial and technical assistance from developed countries can play a crucial
role in helping MENA adapt to climate change. This support can take the form of
investments in infrastructure, such as desalination plants and renewable energy
projects, as well as funding for the research and development of innovative
water technologies. In conclusion, water scarcity in MENA is not just a regional
problem, it is a global challenge with far-reaching implications. If the
international community fails to act, the consequences will extend beyond the
region’s borders. The displacement of millions of people due to uninhabitable
conditions could spark migration crises in neighboring regions and beyond. The
economic disruptions caused by resource scarcity could destabilize global
markets, while the geopolitical tensions over water resources could escalate
into broader conflicts.
Addressing water scarcity in MENA requires a collective effort. By investing in
sustainable solutions, fostering regional and international cooperation, and
acknowledging the interconnectedness of our world, we can mitigate the impacts
of climate change and build a more resilient future for MENA and the global
community. The time to act is now because the alternative — a future marked by
scarcity, conflict and suffering — is intolerable.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian American political scientist.
X: @Dr_Rafizadeh
The Real War and Line 33 for Sednaya and
Roumieh Prisons
Elie Aoun/December 12/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/12/137933/
Many think that the world is ruled by politics and economics. In reality, it is
ruled by spirituality.
In the spiritual realm, there are many things that we do not understand. What is
known and declared is only a part of the truth.
The magnitude of the crimes committed at the Sednaya prison cannot be motivated
only by politics. When we realize that the Sednaya Prison aligns with the
Roumieh Prison and a list of other death row prisons in other parts of the world
(specifically on the 33rd parallel North latitude), we realize that executions
committed at these locations are connected for reasons that extend beyond each
nation’s borders.
The Sednaya Prison has a geographical location coordinates at 33.6656° N.
The Roumieh Prison is located at 33.8856° N.
It is not a coincidence for both prisons to be on the same 33° parallel North
latitude.
The Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, the Rawalpindi District Jail in Pakistan, and a
list of jails in the USA (such as in Parchman, Mississippi; Jackson, Georgia;
Atlanta, Georgia; Ridgeville, South Carolina) are all death row prisons located
on the same 33° N latitude.
Every state, in the United States, which is located on the 33° N enforces the
death penalty. Every country through which the 33rd parallel passes allows the
death penalty (Afghanistan, Algeria, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia, and the United States).
China, Iran, and the United States are the top governmental executioners.
The Sednaya Prison is nicknamed as the “Human Slaughterhouse.” The Roumieh
Prison is located slightly above the so-called “River of Death” (which is
between Jdeideh and Zalka). Based on some research, freemasonry treats the 33rd
Parallel as the “Line of Death” – where executions on this line are intended to
be part of a ritual for “psychic energy” for more power.
https://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/12dec/33rdsacrifice.html
From the 1970’s until the present, most of the assassinations, military
confrontations, displacements and massacres (that took place in Lebanon) were
within this 33° N zone (which extends from the Lebanese-Israeli border at 33.05°
N until Dbayeh’s at 33.9° N). This zone (going east) has been the primary “human
slaughterhouse” for decades of fighting on Lebanese soil.
As an example, could anyone explain this scenario: the freemason Yasser Arafat
being at war with Freemason Ariel Sharon who was allied with some freemasons in
the Lebanese Front against the Freemason Hafez Al-Assad who in turn is aligned
with Freemasons from the Lebanese National Movement? Why didn’t they all go to a
freemason lodge and reconcile, instead of waging wars and killing people?
How many of the wars and assassinations were political and how many were rituals
of “human sacrifices”, for whatever being sacrificed for?
The clergy (Christian, Muslim, and Jews) and the so-called secret societies (the
33° Freemasons, etc.) should step forward and provide us with answers.
After decades of killings, nothing is justly resolved and no culprits are
brought to justice. Those who claim not to be politically, financially, or
spiritually corrupt did nothing to expose the truth or prosecute those who are.
One can fairly conclude that all institutions (clergy, military, security,
political, etc.) are infiltrated.
About ten years ago, a Lebanese newspaper mentioned on its “secrets” section
that there is about 100,000 freemasons in Lebanon and that half of the Lebanese
Cabinet and the Lebanese Parliament members are freemasons and taking their
orders from outside Lebanon. If that is true, then freemasonry is the largest
political party in the country.
There are three regular Grand Lodges in Lebanon and 54 lodges classified as
“irregular and unrecognized.” Israel has 55 Lodges. Syria’s former President
Hafez Al Assad, who built the Sednaya Prison, was a freemason.
https://linfordresearch.info/fordownload/World%20of%20Fmy/Nairn%20Middle%20East.pdf
How is freemasonry using its regional and global influence? If they are not
responsible for any of the evils that they are being accused of, what is the
good which they have accomplished?
The real war is a spiritual warfare. The religious institutions and the secret
societies that have been involved in politics for hundreds of years cannot tell
us that they do not know anything regarding who is killing whom and why. If they
truly do not know, what are they doing to find out and to put an end to the
slaughter – especially when the leaders of the warring factions and opposite
parties are all members of the same club?
All freemason lodges throughout Lebanon must be closed, and all clergymen,
politicians, military, security and media personnel who are members of any
secret society must publicly announce their membership as well as the membership
of those known to them.
Freedom of association must be respected, but it should not be allowed to an
organization whereas some of its members instigate wars and are executioners of
innocent people, while the organization takes no measures to halt or correct
their member’s deeds – and thus shall be treated as approving of those deeds and
must be disbanded.
Who Will Rule Syria?
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2024
After the celebrations end and the last statues of al-Assad are toppled in the
squares, Syrians will face a new and uncertain day. Who will govern them? A
single individual or committees? Or will there be more than one Syria – three or
four perhaps?
The situation may not be so straightforward and smooth, as al-Assad has left
behind a fragmented country divided among various factions. The group that
toppled Aleppo and led the change was “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” under the
leadership of Ahmad al-Sharaa, emerging from the Turkish-influenced area.
The force that entered Damascus (the Southern Operations Room led by Ahmad al-Ouda)
advanced from Daraa province, a small faction of the remnants of the Free Syrian
Army. Meanwhile, the group securing the border with Iraq was the
Kurdish-majority “SDF” (Syrian Democratic Forces) operating within the
US-influenced zone. Damascus resembles Berlin in April 1945 when allied forces
entered the city: Britain and America from the west, and the Soviets from the
east. They agreed on the demise of Hitler – who committed suicide just before
they arrived – but disagreed on governing Berlin. The Soviets occupied the east,
while the western part of the city was handed to the Western Allies.
On Damascus’ victory day, all the victors are Syrians arriving from different
zones of influence, as toppling the regime would not have been possible without
external support. According to the agreements preceding Bashar’s departure –
rumored to have vanished at 10 p.m. on a Thursday –governance is expected to
transition to Syrian forces, revolutionaries, and independents in line with UN
Security Council Resolution 2254.
This document, endorsed by the five major powers, stipulates governance by a
transitional government, the drafting of a constitution, and subsequent
elections. However, it is likely that “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” will ultimately
emerge as Syria’s de facto ruler, given that it is the most powerful force,
which managed to overthrow al-Assad’s regime in roughly two weeks. The SDF will
likely continue ruling eastern Syria, with the Euphrates River serving as a
Berlin Wall dividing the two Syrian sides – unless the factions agree on a
federal distribution of power, as previously proposed by Ahmad al-Sharaa or
something similar.
Even if they agree, Syria is not for the Syrians alone, a reality that has
shaped its fate throughout history. Regional and global powers have always had a
say. I recently finished James Barr’s book A Line in the Sand, which details the
British-French rivalry, much of which involved the struggle over the Levant
between the two World Wars. Iran, Türkiye, Iraq, and Israel are unlikely to give
up their influence and interference in Damascus.
Relations with these countries will depend on their interests and known
policies. Some nations will pose a threat to the stability of the new Syria,
fearing it might emerge as a rival power. Others will support stability in the
new Syrian government to rebalance the regional power dynamics, which have
previously favored Iran. These countries believe that the changes in Damascus
will contribute to regional stability.
This means that Damascus faces a choice: Either navigate through landmines or
act preemptively to reassure concerned nations, including its neighbor Iraq, as
well as Iran and even Israel. All share apprehensions about the fall of al-Assad’s
regime.
The interests of Syria and the region lie in forming a new regional system that
reduces dangerous tensions and ends the severe polarization that al-Assad’s
regime contributed to, ultimately causing its downfall. A policy of
reconciliation could serve as insurance for the nascent regime. This is what
Ahmad al-Sharaa hinted at in his televised message to Iraq’s Prime Minister,
stating that Syria will not be an adversary to Iraq and extended a hand of
friendship and respect.
Syria has just emerged from a 60-year era and faces numerous internal and
external challenges. The nascent state will need money, advice, and patience. It
will require support from its fellow Arab countries, not just politically but
also in humanitarian efforts.
Providing moral support through presence and participation is crucial, ensuring
the new leadership is not left vulnerable to those with harmful agendas,
reckless intentions, and adventurists who have destroyed their own and others’
countries. The fires in the region have not been extinguished for the past 13
years and continue to burn today. Look around, and you will see numerous failed
changes that serve as sufficient lessons for the new revolutionaries.
Syria: An Attempt at Rearranging Hopes and Fears
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2024
It might be useful to rearrange the achievements and fears of the Syrian
earthquake.
1. “Forever” is no more. Now, we have the freedom of free people, their choices,
and their pursuits. The nightmare went on for 54 of Syria's 78 years of
independence.
2. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Syrians are returning after
having been part of one of the world’s largest waves of forced displacement, and
it is difficult to count the sheer number of people who are leaving one of the
most brutal and darkest prisons on earth.
3. In principle, there is an opportunity to build a future that breaks with
military coups, single-party rule, an ideological army, militias, the
militarization of society, and nationalist discourse- that is, everything that
Syria had been built on before Hafez al-Assad and that has continued to
aggravate since he took power.
4. If this process succeeds and sustains, its impact on its surroundings will be
similar to that of the Soviet Union’s collapse on its surroundings. There might
be no words to capture the significance of this hypothetical shift.
5. With this seismic development, Syria has regained the light that October 7
was meant to steal from it. The freedom agenda has thereby returned to the
forefront in the Levant.
6. Iran and its influence have been pushed out, probably for good.
7. One of this phase’s duties will be addressing dregs of the past, from
chemical weapons to ISIS, that must be cleaned out of the present. This comes at
a time when war continues to shape conditions in Gaza and to a certain extent
Lebanon. Nonetheless, managing to ensure stability and demilitarize society
remains the most effective way to remove these dregs. As for Israel’s strikes on
Syria and its expansion of the Syrian territory it occupies- even under the
pretext of preempting surprises from a new and obscure situation that has
emerged- they can only have the opposite effect, making it more difficult for
this novel experiment to succeed, humiliating it, and reinforcing the arguments
of those who oppose and want to foil it. Thus, the theory of absolute Israeli
security, and the sick selfishness inherent to it that was exacerbated by
October 7, has become another cause of concern.
8. Longer term, the trade in the Palestinian cause has lost its biggest tycoon.
The Palestinian cause is something to be resolved, not sanctified. If the
experiment succeeds, Syria would, as a respected and non-belligerent state,
become more capable of helping the Palestinian people. Using political means, in
a post-Netanyahu era, reclaiming its occupied land, which cannot be regained
through violence, will become more likely as well.
9. Lebanon will feel more secure. The era of sending arms and incitement is
over. Iran cannot reach the country anymore.
10. Iraq could resolve its issues with Iran on better terms, anchored by
reassurance regarding its neighbor to the west.
11. Syria could no longer be the exception. It could establish normal ties with
its Arab neighbors and the world, facilitating the pursuit of a stable and
prosperous region. If both these neighbors and the world embrace Syria today,
politically and economically, its chances of success would be enhanced and
failure would become less likely.
12. Reconstituting Syria, after a long history of destruction, will be an
extremely arduous task. Denial does not help.
13- We cannot count on the "transformations" of Ahmad al-Sharaa (al-Joulani)
alone, and deep suspicions and concerns about his organization remain. However,
is Sharaa merely a function that has ended after serving its purpose, and does
its survival depend on the extent to which it fits into a new, stable, and
pluralistic Syria, and complies with the demands of the regional and global
actors it urgently needs?
In the worst-case scenario- the emergence of a theocratic tyrannical project-
would influential foreign powers, and with them vigorous domestic forces, not
take action and foil such an untenable project given the country’s composition-
a project that would deprive its people of stability and freedoms, as well as
undermining the interests of its neighbors? The fact that Syrians are weak, for
reasons everyone knows, means that an excessive aversion to the involvement of
foreign actors would harm the country and empower religious extremists.
Between these two extremes, the poorly chosen new prime minister is concerning,
and the events unfolding in Manbij are very painful. There remains a pressing
need to set up a transitional governing body overseen by the United Nations that
replaces the current regime as soon as possible.
14. Syria is riddled with divisions of all kinds. However, swiftly configuring
these divisions into political parties and then competitive parliamentary
elections that Islamists take part in like everyone else, would do more to
prevent violence than anything else. This process should be accompanied by the
development of theoretical and institutional frameworks for ensuring justice
through which the rights of victims are upheld and unconstrained vengeance is
averted.
15. Though the significance of sectarianism should not be downplayed, the most
urgent and dangerous issue today is ethnic, this is, Arab-Kurdish tensions. The
paradox, here, is that Turkey's influential role, which has been beneficial on
many other fronts, could be negative on this front in particular. Syrians might
find themselves obliged, if they are to safeguard this experiment, to reach a
new settlement: the "Syrian” (not “Syrian Arab”) Republic adopting a federal
system in which no group or region feels aggrieved, afraid, or coerced, with
communities and regions severing their political and partisan ties to forces
beyond the country’s borders. In any event, it is extremely natural that after
decades of attempts to kill it, Syria is dealing with problems like those
mentioned here. It makes sense that great hope is coupled with grave
apprehension regarding the future of Syrians. Nonetheless, acknowledging
problems, whatever they may be, and efforts to overcome them, has begun to
replace denying these problems or kicking the can down the road in the name of
false commitments to grand causes.
How Israelis Spied for Iran in Biggest Infiltration in Decades
How Are We to Deal With Syria Now?
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 12/2024
Bashar al-Assad has fallen, and with him, a grand destructive project has
collapsed. We must always keep this in mind when discussing Syria and its
future, what it should look like, how we should deal with it, and what we should
expect from it.
The fall of Assad is not like the fall of Saddam Hussein. In Iraq, a regime and
a party, the Baath, fell. However, in Syria, a criminal who governed at the
behest of a destructive sectarian project fell- a project that began by
destroying the social fabric of Syria and turning the country from a state into
a hotbed of conspiracies. He had turned Syria into a massive prison even before
the revolution, fueled conflict in Iraq, and turned Syria, since the fall of
Saddam's regime, into a corridor for terrorists where they could receive
training and forged documents. He made Damascus a meeting for most Gulf
terrorists.
Bashar destroyed institutions in Lebanon, engineered most of the assassinations
in Beirut alongside Hezbollah, sought to rip apart Lebanon's social fabric, and
paralyzed Lebanese government institutions until his fall.
Today, Assad and the sectarian destruction project have fallen- a political
earthquake that the region has not yet absorbed- and less than a week later, we
are seeing demands, criticisms, and doubts about Syria's new leadership,
especially Ahmed al-Sharaa and his allies.
That is understandable and expected, but it is not how we should deal with
Syria, especially not so early on. What we need today, in dealing with the new
Syria, is not to believe in promises or raise expectations. Instead, we, both
Syrians and its Arab neighbors, must all work together.
Syrians must now raise their voices, not in conflict but in discussions,
presenting their visions and ideas and remembering that a long road lies ahead.
The aftermath of the collapse of brutal dictatorial regimes in the region has
often been cruel and difficult. We need to be cautious and learn from the past.
With regard to the Arab countries, the moderate states must engage and provide
advice, protecting the new Syrian project from being ideologically hijacked or
sabotaged. The sectarian terrorist project that fell with Assad will not forgive
what happened, and it has yet to recover from the shock.
The Arab states, particularly the Gulf countries, with Saudi Arabia at the
forefront, must communicate with the new Syria, establish rules of engagement,
offer political advice and assistance, and seek to lift sanctions on the new
Syria international community, developing legal frameworks that ensure the past
is not repeated.
Today is not the time to criticize the new rulers, as they are presumed to be
temporary. There should be a timeline for the transition that will shape future
governance in Syria. This process encompasses drafting a new constitution and
the legal agreements and systems that build on it.
That does not mean silencing the media, which would be a mistake and a crime. It
means offering responsible and constructive criticism. We must be vigilant to
avoid supporting a new ideological project in Syria that serves outdated agendas
that were defeated with Assad's fall and are now poisoning the well.
We should offer criticism when it is needed, call for caution, comment, and
advise, but without undermining a new project that seeks to recover from a
sixty-year disaster engendered by the Assad family and their allies.
This is what Syria needs from us. That is how we should deal with it because the
road is long, difficult, and full of dangers.
Assad exhibited little of the tackiness of Iraq’s Saddam.
But his rule was just as brutal
Analysis by Ivan Watson, CNN/December 12, 2024
It was 2007 and the insurgency against US troops was raging next door in Iraq.
Toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a fellow secular Baathist like Assad, had
been executed just six months earlier.
But Syria’s then leader, who had succeeded his father Hafez seven years before,
represented a stable contrast to the chaos engulfing neighboring Iraq.
Assad met us without a large entourage, folding his long body into a chair at
the head of the room. At no stage were we physically searched.
His security team displayed absolute confidence, by staying mostly invisible.
The assumption was that the much-feared Syrian security services had eyes on us
from the moment we landed in Damascus, while probably also searching our rooms
and listening to us. Little did I know then that this tall, thin man dressed in
a suit would one day be the fiercest opponent of the Arab Spring, surviving
where other regional strongmen fell by unleashing a ruthless crackdown that
plunged his country into 13 years of civil war, only to then see his dynastic
rule collapse in a matter of days.
I was with a group of more than a dozen correspondents and editors from National
Public Radio. A fleet of black limousines escorted by motorcycles brought us
from a luxury Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus to a mansion on a hill overlooking
the city.
During an hour-long discussion conducted almost entirely in English in 2007,
Assad flatly denied various allegations against his regime. No, Syria had no
role in a series of assassinations of critics in neighboring Lebanon. He denied
the existence of a pipeline of jihadi fighters traversing Syria to fight in
Iraq. In response to questions about Syria’s lack of press freedoms and system
of one-party rule, he engaged in classic “whataboutism.” He exhibited absolutely
no responsibility nor remorse about Syrian human rights violations, instead
deflecting and highlighting examples of US abuses in Iraq.
Palaces and prisons
Assad wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as his fellow dictator Saddam, whose
monstrous palaces in Iraq were slathered with tacky gold.
But the Syrians now exploring Assad’s abandoned properties have revealed that
the former ophthalmologist-turned-president certainly had his own taste for
luxury.
One video showed dozens of luxury cars parked in the president’s garage,
including a red Ferrari F50, a Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce and a Bentley.
Meanwhile, his regime’s reputation for absolute brutality was cemented long ago,
during the civil war that ground on for 14 bloody years.
Basat al reeh. Dulab. Falaqa. These were Arabic names for torture techniques
repeated to me by Syrians who had been jailed during the regime crackdown on the
anti-government uprising that erupted across the country in 2011. We soon became
familiar with them. “We suffered torture all the time,” said Tariq, an
opposition activist from the port city of Latakia who recounted to me the 40
days he spent in solitary confinement.
Dulab, Tariq explained from exile in Turkey, involved forcing a victim’s head
into a car tire and beating them. Basat al reeh was when a prisoner was tied to
a board and beaten. Falaqa involved beating a victim’s feet.
In the opposition-held province of Idlib, I interviewed a dentist in 2012 who
was arrested for secretly providing medical care to wounded demonstrators.
He said he endured beatings, near-drownings in buckets of toilet water and
electric shocks to his genitals during a 45-day stint in a prison cell built for
60 people, but crammed full of 130 prisoners. Eventually, Assad’s forces, backed
by Iran, Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, succeeded in regaining control of much
of Syria.
The prisons stayed full of inmates and the torture continued.
Then, in late November, as the saying goes: “There are decades where nothing
happens; and then there are weeks where decades happen.”
A rebel offensive disintegrated Assad’s regime in just under two weeks.
The crowds of Syrians desperate for signs of missing loved ones outside of
Saydnaya Military Prison underscore the cruelty of the dynastic Assad
dictatorship.
Syrian and Lebanese prisoners have emerged from Syrian dungeons as if
resurrected, after having been thought lost for decades.
Cynicism and hypocrisy
During the Assad dynasty’s 53 years in power, Damascus played an incredibly
cynical game of regional politics. This fiercely secular government which bombed
its own city of Hama in 1982 to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising later
funneled Sunni jihadi fighters to Iraq to battle the US occupation. Some of
these militants returned to eventually battle the Syrian government. Meanwhile
Syria’s closest allies were also Iran - a theocracy - and Hezbollah, Lebanon’s
Shiite “party of God.”
For decades, Damascus acted as a patron for Kurdish PKK separatists in a
long-running insurgency against the government in neighboring Turkey, while also
denying many Syrian-born Kurds the full rights of citizenship.
And Syrian officials constantly denounced the Israeli occupation of Palestinian
territories, even as the Syrian military and secret police tormented ordinary
people at checkpoints in Lebanon during a Syrian occupation that lasted nearly
30 years.
These ideological contradictions were astounding. They also served to project
Syrian power and influence far beyond the country’s borders.
The hypocrisy and cynicism displayed by Assad was a family business.
In a 2009 interview with CNN, the president’s British-born wife Asma condemned
allegations of Israeli military human rights abuses committed in Gaza and talked
about the responsibilities of being a First Lady.
“What do you do in the position that you hold?” she said. “As a mother and as a
human being, as I said, we need to make sure that these atrocities stop.”
But three years later, she proudly stood by her husband’s side, ignoring the
horrors inflicted by Syrian government forces during the civil war, which
included the repeated bombing of hospitals. There is one memory of a reporting
trip to Damascus that still haunts me. In 2005, I went undercover, posing as a
tourist visiting a nightclub on a hill overlooking the city. There, amid strobe
lights and booming dance music, I spoke with 14 and 15 year old girls from
neighboring, war-torn Iraq who worked as prostitutes. Some of the boys and girls
laboring in this brothel were even younger.
The nightclub stood just a few miles from Assad’s presidential palace.
In a country as ruthlessly controlled by the Syrian secret police - where any
sign of dissent was swiftly crushed - it is impossible to imagine that the
authorities were unaware of the club’s existence and the work the children were
doing there.
It was hard to imagine the slender, lisping man I met ruling this kind of
system, and yet Assad governed as president for 24 years.
A wiser person than me, Hannah Arendt, wrote about the banality of evil.
Based on what I saw long ago during my hour-long audience with a dictator,
Bashar al-Assad personified this.