Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 17-18/2024
The necessity of defeating Hamas, the mullahs, and all branches and groups of the Muslim Brotherhood//Elias Bejjani/January 17/2024
The necessity of defeating Hamas, the mullahs, and all branches and groups of the Muslim Brotherhood/Elias Bejjani/January 17/2024
Israel targets places of worship in Lebanon
UN chief warns Israel-Lebanon war would be 'disaster'
Retaliatory rocket barrage: Al-Qassam targets 'Liman' military barracks
Report: Hezbollah advised to lower intensity of attacks on Israel
Border clashes resume after day of intense Israeli strikes
European diplomats rule out bigger Israel-Hezbollah war
Report: Top Lebanese officials urge Qatar to play presidential role
Libyan delegation to visit Beirut over Sadr's disappearance case
Court of Cassation suspends arrest warrants for Fenianos, Khalil in port blast case
Geagea slams govt. for 'ceding strategic decisions to Hezbollah'
Resolution 1701 stalled: Hezbollah rejects talks before ceasefire; Israeli statements suggest prolonged conflict
Mikati: Influential nations must exert pressure on Israel to cease its aggression on southern Lebanon
By the numbers: A closer look at Lebanon's ski season - 80% demand, 100% hotel occupancy
Lebanon's Airport cybersecurity wake-up call: Cyber vulnerabilities exposed
The story of Israel’s assassinations against Hezbollah: Part 1 - 1982-2000

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 17-18/2024
Yemen's Houthi rebels attack a US-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden with bomb-carrying drone
Israel says killed senior Palestinian militant in airstrike in West Bank
UN chief says parties to Gaza war 'trampling' on international law
At Davos, Blinken calls pathway to Palestinian state a necessity for Israeli security
How watermelon, symbol of solidarity with Palestine, spread around the planet
Pakistan condemns Iran over air strike that killed 2 children
After Strikes, Iran Says It Won’t Hold Back on Using Its Military Might
Pakistan recalls ambassador to Iran over airstrike by Tehran that killed 2 people
Medicine for hostages and civilians bound for Gaza after night of deadly strikes
Chaotic wave of attacks, reprisals in Middle East fuel worries of broader regional war
Riyadh signals steady interest in normalisation with Israel, but wants Palestinian state
Saudi-Israel normalization: Gaza post-war evaluation
Davos hosts top diplomats of US, Iran on day 2 of World Economic Forum
Iran’s attack on Erbil triggers Iraqi anger, widespread condemnation
Turkey to widen operations against Kurdish groups in Syria, Iraq
Jordan fears ‘existential threat’ of Palestinian exodus, war’s impact on economy
Kuwait forms first government under new emir and prime minister, key portfolios reshuffled
Russian missiles hit Ukraine, injure 17 in latest strikes on civilian areas
US, South Korea and Japan conduct naval drills in show of strength against North Korea
Macron uses broad news conference to show his leadership hasn't faded

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 17-18/2024
Islam Overtaking Europe?/Drieu Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2024
Israel’s historical roots and the moral decline of the West/Francis Ghiles/The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
Egypt’s Red Sea muddle/Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Deployed in Yemen/Jay Solomon/The Washington Institute/January 17/2024
Redesignating Houthis, Biden admin hopes terror group will become ‘constructive actor/ANDREW BERNARD/JNS/January 17, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 17-18/2024
The necessity of defeating Hamas, the mullahs, and all branches and groups of the Muslim Brotherhood
Elias Bejjani/January 16/2024
Can anyone imagine what the situation of Lebanon and the rest of the countries would be like if jihadist Hamas won the war, and behind it were the mullahs, ISIS, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood? They will certainly take us back to the law of the jungle and to pre-lithic eras

"Elias Bajani/Video and Text/Dangers and Disasters of the Victory of the Jihadist and Terrorist Iranian Governance Model, Represented by its  proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)/  & Baku Haram
Elias Bejjani/January 17, 2024 The Video is in Arabic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyIYzVche54&t=32s
There is a significant and vast difference between the culture of life, peace, and human rights represented by most Arab countries, led by Lebanon and the Gulf states, and the culture, schemes, delusions illusions, and hallucinations of the so-called political Islam embodied by ISIS, Al-Nusra, Baku Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood in all its jihadist branches. In the same diabolical and jihadist category, we can freely list the terrorist, jihadist, and expansionist regime of the Iranian mullahs, along with all its terrorist proxies like the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, PMF, and others.
The model of political Islam, with all its sectarian variations, knows nothing but invasions, wars, destruction, expansion, bigotry, hatred, eternal enmity. This evil model practices its destructive, oppressive, revengeful, arbitrary, dictatorial, suppressive, and impoverishing culture and satanic education and governance in Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza. The unprecedented destruction caused by Hamas in Gaza is a bold example.
As for the Western and civilized model, it strives for peace, stability, decent living, securing and maintaining the rule of human rights, respecting humanity, democracy and freedom.
Therefore, the victory of the Hamas's model and its sponsor Iran will only bring disasters of all kinds and forms not only to the region. (Middle East), but definitely to the whole world.
It is imperative to defeat Hamas, the mullahs, and all branches and groups of the Muslim Brotherhood, or otherwise the whole world will know no peace or stability at any level.
Can anyone imagine what the situation in Lebanon and other countries will be like if the jihadist war led by the Iranian mullahs are victorious? Surely, they will  drag humankind to the law of the jungle and for stone age and prehistoric eras."

Israel targets places of worship in Lebanon
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/January 17, 2024
BEIRUT: The Israeli military has targeted places of worship for the first time in southern Lebanon in its war against Hezbollah. For the past 100 days, the Israel Defense Forces has hit forests, residential homes and roads in the border area, but on Wednesday an Israeli drone raided the National Evangelical Church in the center of the town of Alma Al-Shaab, causing major damage to the home of the church’s cleric, Pastor Rabie Talib. The IDF fired five smoke shells at Syrian workers in a grape orchard in the Wazzani plain, but there were no casualties.
A security source in the south said: “The bombing carried out by the Israeli Army on Tuesday on the Wadi Al-Saluki area is unprecedented in its ferocity. On Wednesday, it targeted the town of Hula after targeting the town of Mays Al-Jabal during the past days.”
According to the source, the IDF considers any activity in the area to be associated with Hezbollah. Therefore, the bombing of Wadi Saluki aims to disrupt the supply route that this valley provides to the party, specifically toward the towns of Hula and Mays Al-Jabal. The ultimate goal is to isolate and directly target these two towns.
Preemptive Israeli bombing on the border area targeted the Kafr Shuba Heights, the towns of Kafr Kila, Taybeh, Markba, Wadi Al-Saluki, Aita al-Shaab, the outskirts of Naqoura, the area between Ramia and Marwahin, and the outskirts of the towns of al-Dhahira, Yarin, Jebin, and Tair Harfa.
An Israeli drone raided a house near the mosque in the town of Aita al-Shaab, causing the house to burn. The Israeli attacks focused on the town of Hula, specifically targeting houses. However, no one was injured and only material damage occurred. Israeli artillery targeted the Marjayoun Plain and the area located on the outskirts of the town of Deir Mimas, towards the town of Taybeh, with three artillery shells. Videos showed the widespread damage to houses, roads, and infrastructure. The people who were left took refuge in their homes, and the sound of women’s screams echoed whenever the houses trembled from the rockets exploding nearby, both on the outskirts and in the center of certain villages.
A cautious calm prevailed over the western and central sectors last night, amid continued enemy reconnaissance aircraft flying and firing flares over the border villages adjacent to the Blue Line. Hezbollah said it targeted “a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Raheb site with appropriate weapons.”
Later, Hezbollah announced “the use of Burkan missiles to strike the vicinity of Ruwaisat Al-Alam in the Kfar Shuba Heights.”Israeli artillery responded by bombing the outskirts of Rashaya Al-Fakhar and Al-Habaria. On Wednesday, Hezbollah mourned one of its members, Rashid Mohammed Shaglil, from the town of Tamnin in the Bekaa.
Firas Al-Abiad, Lebanon’s caretaker health minister, visited the southern region and inspected several hospitals and health centers in the Nabatieh region, adjacent to the hot spot. At the Lebanese People’s Rescue Hospital in Nabatieh, Al-Abiad said: “Our mission is to stand by our people, whatever the circumstances. At the same time, we face a danger similar to any site of confrontation and resistance. Our enemy is a criminal who does not respect any international or humanitarian conventions or laws, and the health sector has been suffering casualties in this battle and fighting without weapons. Many health institutions have been subjected to direct and indirect aggression.” After a meeting about health security in Nabatieh, Al-Abiad told a press conference: “We have created a plan for emergencies and coordination among different groups on the field to ensure that there are no shortcomings in delivering healthcare services, whether it's for the injured, displaced individuals, or families who are staying strong, despite limited resources. It is our responsibility to provide as much assistance as we can.”Al-Abiad said the government has approved $98 million “to support government hospitals in covering the expenses of treating the injured. We have government hospitals on the front line, such as Mays Al-Jabal Hospital, which was subjected to a direct attack, and the hospitals of Marjayoun, Bint Jbeil, Hasbaya, Salah Ghandour, Jabal Amel, and others. These hospitals are undergoing training for emergency plans, and they have received batches of medical supplies to enhance their services.”
He added: “It is true that all of this is not enough in these circumstances, and we have listened to the problems facing health institutions in preparation for further assistance.”Al-Abiad went to the civil defense center in Nabatieh, which is part of the Islamic Health Authority associated with Hezbollah.
These centers consist of approximately 1,000 volunteers, along with numerous ambulances and fire trucks, ready for any unforeseen situation. They are also connected to an operations room. Meanwhile, families displaced to areas deep in the south began to complain of their inability to pay hight rents for furnished apartments. Hezbollah had called on other southerners to host the displaced in unoccupied homes. However, “it seems that the grace period has ended, and homeowners have started demanding rent in dollars, despite our halted work in the south,” as one of the displaced said. Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces party, said: “At the heart of the caretaker government’s responsibilities is to eliminate the specter of war in Lebanon and confront the dangerous issues that threaten the citizen’s security, life, family, livelihood, interests, and the future of the country.”

UN chief warns Israel-Lebanon war would be 'disaster'
Agence France Presse/January 17/2024
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that a "full-fledged confrontation" between Israel and Lebanon would be a "total disaster" amid fears of a wider war. Addressing the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, Guterres reiterated his call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza. Fighting has ravaged Gaza since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel. Since then, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally. "The spillover that is already taking place, the risk of a full-fledged confrontation in Lebanon, it would be a total disaster. We need to avoid it at all cost," Guterres said. Yemeni Houthi rebels have also struck what they consider Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza since the war there started on October 7. The United Nations chief suggested that a ceasefire would help to avoid further chaos. "What we are seeing in the Red Sea, all this demonstrates that it's not enough. It's very important to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It's very important to have a humanitarian ceasefire," he said. Guterres repeated his call for an independent Palestinian state to be established. "I believe that the present situation has demonstrated that the two-state solution is an absolutely central way to solve this problem," he said.

Retaliatory rocket barrage: Al-Qassam targets 'Liman' military barracks
LBCI/January 17/2024
Al-Qassam Brigades announced on Wednesday that they successfully targeted the 'Liman' military barracks located in the western Galilee of northern occupied Palestine. The operation involved the launch of a barrage consisting of 20 rockets from southern Lebanon. The attack was carried out in direct response to what the group referred to as "Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip." Additionally, the Al-Qassam Brigades cited the assassination of martyr leaders and their counterparts in the southern suburbs of Lebanon as contributing factors to their retaliatory action.

Report: Hezbollah advised to lower intensity of attacks on Israel
Naharnet/January 17/2024
European and Western diplomats have advised Hezbollah, through Lebanese officials, to lower the intensity of its cross-border attacks on Israel during this period in order not to give Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu an excuse to expand the war on the South, a media report said. Israel is “speaking of halting the aerial and ground military operations against Gaza and moving to the third phase, which will be a security war, and this has begun on the ground through the withdrawal of of elite military units from northern Gaza,” the diplomats said, according to Lebanon’s al-Binaa newspaper. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth meanwhile reported that “all signs indicate that the patience of Israel over the Lebanese border is about to run out.” “Currently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are giving a chance to diplomatic efforts through U.S. presidential envoy Amos Hochstein in order to reach a political settlement,” the Israeli daily added. Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of cross-border clashes, including over 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents on both sides of the border and Israel says it is keen on returning its residents to their homes even if that required a military campaign.

Border clashes resume after day of intense Israeli strikes
Agence France Presse/January 17/2024
The Israeli army bombed several southern border towns overnight through Wednesday, while Hezbollah targeted groups of soldier in al-Raheb post. Israeli artillery and warplanes struck the Kfarshouba heights, Kfarkila, Markaba, al-Taybeh, Wadi Slouqi, Aita al-Shaab and the outskirts of al-Naqoura, Yarine, Dhaira, al-Bustan, Merwahine, al-Jebbayn, Aita al-Shaab, Ramia and Houla. On Tuesday, Israel launched its most intense attacks on a single location in Lebanon's south, targeting the border Slouki valley with air strikes and artillery. Israel's army said it hit "dozens of Hezbollah posts, military structures, and weapons infrastructure". Hezbollah also claimed several attacks on Israeli positions and troops on Tuesday. During more than two decades of Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000, the Slouki valley and neighbouring areas were known as Hezbollah's main areas of operations against Israel. Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of violence, including over 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists, according to an AFP tally. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

European diplomats rule out bigger Israel-Hezbollah war
Naharnet/January 17/2024
A major war between Israel and Hezbollah is ruled out until the moment and the U.S. and France have played a key role in weakening this possibility, European diplomatic sources said. “The chances of a broad war were present during the first days of the war in Gaza, but the supposed regional and international parties of this war understood its calamities and destructive results in advance and managed to avoid it, even preventing any wrong calculation that could lead to igniting the war,” the sources added, in remarks to al-Joumhouria newspaper published Wednesday. And as a Lebanese official said “the chances of a broad war remain present as long as the Israeli aggression against Gaza and Lebanon continues,” Lebanese diplomatic sources told the daily that Washington is “serious about preventing an expansion of the war.” Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of cross-border clashes, including over 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents on both sides of the border and Israel says it is keen on returning its residents to their homes even if that required a military campaign.

Report: Top Lebanese officials urge Qatar to play presidential role
Naharnet/January 17/2024
Senior Lebanese officials have contacted the Qatari leadership, including during caretaker PM Najib Mikati’s meetings in Davos, asking it to send Qatari envoy Jassem bin Fahad Al-Thani to Lebanon as soon as possible in order to revive the presidential election file, political sources told a-Liwaa newspaper.
Doha has sought to facilitate the presidential election file in Lebanon but its efforts stopped with the eruption of the Gaza war. It reportedly enjoys the support of the five-nation group for Lebanon -- which comprises the U.S., France, KSA, Qatar and Egypt -- as well as most Lebanese parties in Lebanon.

Libyan delegation to visit Beirut over Sadr's disappearance case
Agence France Presse/January 17/2024
A delegation from the Libyan Ministry of Justice is expected to travel to Beirut in the coming days to revive a memorandum of understanding from 2014 regarding the disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric imam Moussa Sadr in 1978. The delegation will meet with the Lebanese justice ministry and the committee overseeing the case of the son of Libya's former leader Moammar Gadhafi, a Lebanese judicial official said. Human Rights Watch had called on Lebanon on Tuesday to release Hannibal Gadhafi, saying he had been held on "spurious charges" for eight years. The official slammed the HRW report as "biased and one-sided", telling AFP it was based solely on "information obtained from Hannibal Gadhafi's defense team". Gadhafi is "detained in a purely judicial matter", the source continued, charging that he was responsible for prisons during his father's rule, "including the one in which the imam was held". Lebanon in 2015 arrested and accused Gadhafi of withholding information about the disappearance of Sadr. But HRW said he was only two years old at the time the cleric disappeared, and accused Lebanon of subjecting him to an "apparent arbitrary detention on spurious charges". "Spending eight years in pre-trial detention makes a mockery of Lebanon's already strained judicial system," the group's Hanan Salah said in a statement. In August, Beirut received a letter from Libyan authorities demanding Gadhafi's release, but a judicial source told AFP that he would not be freed before Tripoli revealed information about Sadr's disappearance. Later that month, Amal movement chief Nabih Berri accused Libya of "failing to cooperate" with the Lebanese judiciary and "concealing" information about the case.

Court of Cassation suspends arrest warrants for Fenianos, Khalil in port blast case
Associated Press/January 17/2024
A judge at Lebanon's highest court suspended the arrest warrants against two former cabinet ministers in the 2020 Beirut port blast case, officials said. The explosion was one of the world's largest non-nuclear blasts ever recorded. Judge Sabbouh Suleiman of the Court of Cassation lifted the warrants against former public works minister, Youssef Fenianos, as well as former finance minister and current member of parliament Ali Hassan Khalil, judicial officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. In 2021, Judge Tarek Bitar, who has led the investigation into the explosion, issued warrants against Fenianos and Khalil. Fenianos in turn asked for Bitar's removal over "legitimate suspicion" of how he handled his case. The judge accused Fenianos, Khalil and two other former senior government officials of intentional killing and negligence that led to the deaths of more than 200 people in the explosion. Some politicians and security officials have also been asking for Bitar's removal as anger and criticism by families of the victims and rights groups have grown with the investigation being stalled for over a year. Despite arrest warrants issued for cabinet ministers and heads of security agencies, no one has so far been detained amid political interference in the work of the judiciary. The United States Treasury in September 2020 slapped sanctions on Fenianos and Khalil, accusing them of corruption and providing "material support" to the militant Hezbollah group. Bitar had also charged and pursued Khalil in the port blast probe with homicide and criminal negligence. The Aug. 2020 blast killed at least 218 people and more than 6,000 wounded, according to an Associated Press tally. It also devastated large swaths of Beirut and caused billions of dollars in damages. More than three years later, there are still no answers to what triggered the explosion, and no one has been held accountable. Rights groups and local media revealed that most state officials knew of the presence of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers that had been improperly stored there for years, in the port.

Geagea slams govt. for 'ceding strategic decisions to Hezbollah'
Naharnet/January 17/2024
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday lashed out at the caretaker government for “ceding the strategic military and security decisions to Hezbollah” and “putting the Lebanese people and Lebanon’s higher interests in the face of the region’s storms and the open conflicts among all its parties.”
“At a time all Arab countries, from the biggest one to the smallest one, are distancing themselves from the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the Middle East, we don’t understand according to what logic Lebanon is being implicated in this war, especially that it is currently the smallest and poorest nation due to its ongoing financial, economic and political crisis,” Geagea said in a written statement. “Perhaps the caretaker government, seeing as it is acting in caretaker capacity, cannot carry out developmental projects and economic initiatives and cannot rehabilititate the infrastructure and so on, but at the core of its responsibilities lies the mission of sparing Lebanon war and confronting the dangerous things that threaten the citizen’s security, life, family, work, interests and future,” Geagea added. He also accused the government of “endorsing the Axis of Defiance’s stance on the ongoing wars in the Middle East.”
Geagea is apparently referring to recent stances by caretaker PM Najib Mikati, who on Friday noted that pacifying the situation in south Lebanon without taking into consideration what’s happening in Gaza would be “illogical.”“Based on our Arab identity and principles, we demand a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible, in parallel with a serious ceasefire in Lebanon,” Mikati added. “We do not accept that our brothers be facing genocide and destruction as we seek an own agreement with anyone,” the premier went on to say. More than three months of cross-border violence have killed 190 people in Lebanon, including more than 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians including three journalists. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border.

Resolution 1701 stalled: Hezbollah rejects talks before ceasefire; Israeli statements suggest prolonged conflict
LBCI/January 17/2024
There are no arrangements in southern Lebanon regarding the implementation of Resolution 1701 and addressing reservations along the Blue Line and violations along Ghajar before a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza. There is no indication of an imminent ceasefire there. Based on Israeli statements, there is no ceasefire in the foreseeable future. The war continues until achieving the objectives, including the elimination of Hamas. The US envoy, Amos Hochstein, conveyed to the Lebanese that the phrase "ceasefire" is not on the Israeli agenda. Prime Minister Najib Mikati acknowledges this reality but still signals that Lebanon is preparing for a post-ceasefire phase. In this context, his sources suggest that Lebanon received ideas from Israelis through Americans and responded with alternative ideas related to Lebanon's interests, starting with Israel's commitment to cease violations of Resolution 1701. However, despite no concrete steps, Prime Minister Mikati went further when he spoke about working towards ensuring long-term stability in the South. The Americans understand that there is no time frame to reach a ceasefire. Thus, Hochstein's current task involves waiting with an interspersed gathering of answers and ideas and leaving it to the new US Ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, to follow up on communication with Lebanese officials in a mission whose first point is to avoid further deterioration. Discussing any arrangements in the South presents numerous challenges. Hezbollah rejects any discussion before a ceasefire and also refuses to engage in talks about the issue of weapons. Resolution 1701 is based on Resolution 1559, and negotiations on these arrangements face challenges amid the presidential vacuum.

Mikati: Influential nations must exert pressure on Israel to cease its aggression on southern Lebanon
LBCI/January 17/2024
Prime Minister Najib Mikati has urged influential nations to exert pressure on Israel to cease its aggression on southern Lebanon and violations of Lebanese sovereignty. Mikati reiterated Lebanon's commitment to the provisions of Resolution 1701 in meetings with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the UN Secretary-General on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He called for pressure on Israel to fully implement the resolution and adhere to all international decisions since the 1949 armistice agreement.

By the numbers: A closer look at Lebanon's ski season - 80% demand, 100% hotel occupancy
LBCI/January 17/2024
The skiing season in Lebanon has kicked off this year in several resorts. It is a season that many eagerly await. Despite the delayed start of the "ski season" this year, enthusiasts of this sport are always ready to enjoy the pleasant weather and the quality of the snow. This winter sport attracts people of all ages, and their enthusiasts are many, reaching 75,000 last year and 100,000 in previous years, with the season extending for several months. This season, despite expectations of its limited duration, a large number of young people are counting on it. Not only that, but mountainous areas in general, and areas surrounding ski resorts in particular, come to life during this season. The percentage of demand for restaurants surrounding the ski centers, which number about 200, reaches 80 percent, while interest during the off-season is minimal. Hotels and guesthouses are fully booked on weekends, with reservation rates reaching 100 percent. And so, the ski season has begun, with Lebanese and Arab tourists especially looking forward to more snowfall for all resorts to open and for everyone to experience winter as they are accustomed to.

Lebanon's Airport cybersecurity wake-up call: Cyber vulnerabilities exposed
LBCI/January 17/2024
More than ten days after the airport cyberattack, machines and devices have returned to regular operation. The hacking incident disrupted screens and data, causing confusion among travelers arriving and departing. The hacking operation was solved the following day but affected baggage handling systems (BHS) or baggage tractors, resulting in an alternative manual inspection method. At the airport, where 40 ticket registration offices send bags through automated tractors, each equipped with a scanning device and data readers, the data-reading devices malfunctioned due to the cyberattack. They were promptly replaced with new devices. The airport cyber breach shed light on the cybersecurity weaknesses faced by public facilities in Lebanon. One manifestation of this vulnerability is the failure to adhere to international standards, such as ISO 27001, as experts said to LBCI. Cybersecurity is a critical issue globally, and the airport incident serves as a warning to address this concern urgently. This reality can be avoided by applying a strategy approved by the Cabinet in 2018 to establish a security unit that follows the latest developments in cybersecurity to protect the country and its citizens from potential breaches.

The story of Israel’s assassinations against Hezbollah: Part 1 - 1982-2000
LBCI/January 17/2024
Israel has a long history of political assassinations in Lebanon, escalating during the presence of armed Palestinians and the civil war. However, the 1980s marked a turning point after the Israeli invasion. The nucleus of Islamic resistance groups emerged, conducting operations against the Israeli occupation in the south. One of the resistance's "spiritual fathers," Sheikh Ragheb Harb, was from Jibchit, a village that became a religious and political center in the south. According to the book "Rise and Kill First" by Israeli author Ronen Bergman, Sheikh Ragheb's speeches reached Israelis. An ex-Mossad leader, Meir Dagan, later the agency's chief, mentioned, "Sheikh Harb became a significant religious authority in the south, consistently calling for attacks against Israel and Israelis."Consequently, Dagan sought permission to eliminate Harb. On the night of February 16, 1984, two Mossad operatives assassinated Sheikh Ragheb at his home in Jibchit, becoming one of the first and most important Shiite martyrs. A year later, on March 4, 1985, acting on Meir Dagan's orders, Israelis assassinated Amal Movement leaders Mohammed Saad and Khalil Jradi with an explosive device in the Husseinieh of the town of Maarakeh in Tyre.
With the 1980s ending and Hezbollah gaining prominence, according to the book, Israel struggled to recruit agents from within the environment. The pace of operations against Israelis increased, prompting the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate to decide to assassinate the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi. The assassination, carried out by reconnaissance aircraft and an Apache helicopter near the village of Tefahta, happened on February 16, 1992, during his return from commemorating Sheikh Ragheb Harb's assassination. Al-Musawi, along with his wife, child, and companions, were all martyred. Al-Musawi's killing escalated operations and rocket launches. Israel halted assassinations for a while, but remote operations inspired them to attempt a similar act three years later. Field leaders became preferable due to diminished chances of prolonged consequences. The first operation in this phase was the assassination of Hezbollah's official in the Nabatieh region, Reda Yaseen. Tracked during his route from his home in Zawtar El Charqiyeh, he was assassinated by a helicopter strike on March 30, 1995, on the Hameiry-Derdghaiya road. Afterward, Israel carried out 27 operations, succeeding in 20. However, the assassination attempts ceased after a significant failure on September 4, 1997, which was supposed to be carried out by the naval commandos in Ansariyeh. Hezbollah's intelligence exposed the operation before execution, setting an ambush that killed 12 Israeli soldiers. Consequently, Israel concluded its southern operations. Even hours before the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon on May 22, 2000, Israel could locate Imad Mughniyeh, a commander whom it had been searching for for years. However, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak refused the assassination, fearing a retaliation that might force them to stay in southern Lebanon, halting the withdrawal. Stay tuned for Part 2: Post-Liberation Assassinations.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 17-18/2024
Yemen's Houthi rebels attack a US-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden with bomb-carrying drone
JERUSALEM (AP)/January 17, 2024 at 4:38 p.m. EST A U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Wednesday from a bomb-carrying drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels, officials said. The attack on the Genco Picardy represented the second in recent days targeting vessels directly linked to America after U.S.-led strikes targeting the Houthis. It also underlined the risks to shipping in the vital waterway amid Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The attack happened some 70 miles (110 kilometers) southeast of Aden, where the drone smashed into the vessel, said the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, an arm of the British navy that oversees Mideast waterways. The ship's captain reported there was fire onboard that had been extinguished, it said. “Vessel and crew are safe and proceeding to next port of call,” it added. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, identified the ship attacked as the bulk carrier Genco Picardy. Satellite-tracking data had put that vessel off Saudi Arabia in recent days as it was bound for India. The Houthis “confirm that a response to the American and British attacks is inevitably coming, and that any new attack will not remain without response and punishment,” Saree said in a prerecorded video address. Ship-ownership data listed the Genco Picardy's owner as New York City-based Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd., which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In a statement, Genco acknowledged the attack and said the vessel was carrying a load of phosphate rock. "All seafarers aboard the vessel are confirmed to be uninjured," the company said. “An initial inspection by the crew indicates that damage to the vessel’s gangway is limited, and the vessel has remained stable and underway on a course out of the area.” The Houthis say the attacks are aimed at backing Hamas and Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s war on Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade. The attacks have now expanded to hitting U.S.-linked vessels. On Monday, the Houthis hit the U.S.-owned Gibraltar Eagle. The U.S. and its allies have carried out three rounds of airstrikes targeting Houthi sites over the last week, to try to deter the militants. However, the Houthis have launched several attacks in the time since, further imperiling ships traveling on a crucial trade route for cargo and energy shipments moving from Asia and the Middle East toward Europe. The Houthi attacks are one part of the wider tensions gripping the region. Iran staged airstrikes late Monday in Iraq, killing at least four people. The U.K.’s ambassador to Iraq, Stephen Hitchen, said Wednesday that a British national, Karam Mikhael, was among the civilians killed there. Meanwhile, Iran has been edging closer to acknowledging its own role in attacking a vessel in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka and India back on Jan. 4. Then, the chemical tanker Pacific Gold was struck by what the U.S. Navy called “an Iranian one-way attack” drone, causing some damage to the vessel but no injuries. On Wednesday, the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen reported Iran's Revolutionary Guard carried out that attack, as well as another one not independently confirmed on a separate vessel. Al-Mayadeen is a channel politically affiliated with Hezbollah that has previously announced other Iran-linked attacks in the region. The Pacific Gold is managed by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, a company that is ultimately controlled by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer. Eastern Pacific previously has been targeted in suspected Iranian attacks.
But Iran potentially acknowledging the Pacific Gold attack comes as Tehran has been trying to lash out without directly targeting either the U.S. or Israel.

Israel says killed senior Palestinian militant in airstrike in West Bank
Associated Press/January 17/2024
Ahmed Abdullah Abu Shalal, who the Israeli military said was responsible for infrastructure and had planned multiple attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem, was killed along with four others early Wednesday in the built-up Balata refugee camp in the city of Nablus. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces prevented medics from reaching the site of the strike, saying in a social media post that “gunfire was directed at our teams.” The military alleged that Abu Shalal and his cell planned to carry out an imminent attack and had received funding and guidance from “Iranian sources.” It did not provide evidence for the allegation. Violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed in the last three months, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, mainly during Israeli arrest raids and violent protests. Israel has increasingly used airstrikes in the West Bank as the fighting has grown more intense, but targeted killings are still relatively rare in the territory.

UN chief says parties to Gaza war 'trampling' on international law
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters)/Wed, January 17, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that parties to the conflict in Gaza were "trampling" on international law and urged them to implement an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Guterres said the warring parties were "ignoring international law, trampling on the Geneva Conventions, and even violating the United Nations Charter"."The world is standing by as civilians, mostly women and children, are killed, maimed, bombarded, forced from their homes and denied access to humanitarian aid," he said. "I repeat my call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and a process that leads to sustained peace for Israelis and Palestinians, based on a two-state solution."Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a ceasefire, saying Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza until it defeats Hamas and recovers the hostages taken there during a deadly rampage by Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7. The Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas attacks has driven most of Gaza's 2.3 million people from their homes. It has also caused a grave humanitarian crisis as deliveries of food, fuel and medical supplies have been severely restricted. The Israeli military recently focused its offensive on the southern end of the enclave, where nearly 2 million people are sheltering in tents and other temporary accommodation, after the initial phase of the war centred on the north.

At Davos, Blinken calls pathway to Palestinian state a necessity for Israeli security
Associated Press/January 17/2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the need for a "pathway to a Palestinian state" Wednesday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, saying that Israel would not "get genuine security absent that."If Israel can be brought into the fold of the Middle East, Blinken said, the region would be coming together to isolate Iran, which he called "the biggest concern in terms of security," as well as its proxies, which include Yemen's Houthi rebels who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea.
"The problem is getting from here to there, and of course, it requires very difficult, challenging decisions. It requires a mindset that is open to that perspective," Blinken said. He said that what is different now is the mindset of leaders in the Arab and Muslim world on integrating Israel into the region and that he feels "a fierce urgency of now" because "we're in the midst of what is human tragedy in so many ways in the Middle East right now — for the Israelis and Palestinians alike."
His comments come as a key Iranian official graces the same hallways of the glitzy event in the Alpine snows of Davos: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is sitting down for a one-on-one chat with CNN's Fareed Zakaria later Wednesday. A day earlier, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said in a Davos panel that his country agreed "regional peace includes peace for Israel" and responded "certainly" when asked if Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel as part of a larger political agreement.
"But that can only happen through peace for the Palestinians, through a Palestinian state," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a right-wing government that is opposed to Palestinian statehood, and Netanyahu himself recently said that his actions over the years prevented the formation of such a state. Blinken said Israelis would need to decide on its leadership and its direction, saying it's up to them whether the country can "seize the opportunity that we believe is there" and calling this "an inflection point" for the Middle East that requires hard decisions. The leaders of France, Argentina and Spain also will deliver speeches on a busy second day of the elite gathering, where heads of state mingle with corporate executives, activists and more.
It also takes a turn toward the environmental and climate concerns that have animated plea after plea from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the world to come together to take more united action against global warming.
"Let me be very clear — the phaseout of fossil fuels is essential and inevitable," Guterres said in a speech at Davos.
He cited scientists' recent findings that last year was the hottest on record, but forecasts show Earth could grow hotter still.
"As climate breakdown begins, countries remain hellbent on raising emissions," Guterres said. "Our planet is heading for a scorching three-degree increase in global temperatures. Droughts, storms, fires and floods are pummeling countries and communities."Experts and policymakers at Davos will take up weighty issues like ensuring a sustainable Middle East and North Africa, working to crack down on plastic waste and searching for ways to maintain life on Earth, no less, amid growing threats to biodiversity. Blinken, after meetings Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others, was asked in a conversation with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman whether Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives. He responded, "No, period."
"What we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching, and the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women and children breaks my heart," he said.
To ease that trauma, the U.S. is pushing to get more humanitarian assistance to Palestinians, to "get better protections and minimize civilian casualties," and impress upon Israel its responsibility to do ensure that is the case every step of the way, Blinken said. South Africa has formally accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and pleaded with the United Nations' top court to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Israel has responded by calling its war in Gaza a legitimate defense of its people and that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide.
Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza after the militant group launched a series of attacks on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250. Amid a barrage of bombings and intense fighting, 24,285 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, Gaza's Health Ministry says. France, along with Qatar, helped mediate the delivery of a shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas on Wednesday, the same day French leader Emmanuel Macron will speak in Davos.
Recently reappointed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Argentina's new president — self-described "anarcho-capitalist" Javier Milei — also will take the podium. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy shuttled from room to room to meet with CEOs, financiers and political leaders and made a speech blasting his Russian leader Vladimir Putin and seeking more Western support amid signs of war fatigue."Please, strengthen our economy, and we will strengthen your security," the Ukrainian leader said.

How watermelon, symbol of solidarity with Palestine, spread around the planet
Associated Press/January 17/2024
Over the past three months, on banners and T-shirts and balloons and social media posts, one piece of imagery has emerged around the world in protests against the Israel-Hamas war: the watermelon. The colors of sliced watermelon — with red pulp, green-white rind and black seeds — are the same as those on the Palestinian flag. From New York and Tel Aviv to Dubai and Belgrade, the fruit has become a symbol of solidarity, drawing together activists who don't speak the same language or belong to the same culture but share a common cause. To avoid repressive censorship, Chinese dissidents once pioneered "algospeak," or creative shorthands that bypass content moderation, recently seen with Winnie the Pooh memes mocking Chinese President Xi Jinping. People around the world began using algospeak to subvert algorithmic biases on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms. The internet is now teeming with pictorial signs — pixelated images, emoji and other typographical codes — that signal political dissent. The watermelon emoji is the latest example. Here's how the watermelon went from being a symbol of protest in the West Bank and Gaza to a global sign of solidarity with Palestinians online.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
After the 1967 Mideast war, the Israeli government cracked down on displays of the Palestinian flag in Gaza and the West Bank. In Ramallah in 1980, the military shut down a gallery run by three artists because they showed political art and works in the colors of the Palestinian flag — red, green, black and white.
The trio was later summoned by an Israeli officer. According to artist and exhibit organizer Sliman Mansour, an Israeli officer told him, "It is forbidden to organize an exhibition without permission from the military, and secondly, it is forbidden to paint in the colors of the Palestinian flag." The officer mentioned a watermelon as one example of art that would violate the army's rules, Mansour told The Associated Press last week. In protest, people began to wave the fruit in public.
"There are stories of young men who defiantly walked the streets with slices of the fruit, risking arrest from Israeli soldiers," Jerusalem-born author Mahdi Sabbagh wrote. "When I see a watermelon, I think of the unbreakable spirit of our people."
From the mid-90s, when Israelis and Palestinians reached interim peace deals, until the current nationalist Israeli government took office a year ago, raising the Palestinian flag receded as a major issue. Three decades later, "it became a national symbol" again, Mansour said. A year ago, Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir banned Palestinian flags in public places. This effort was met with fervent opposition. In response, Zazim, an activist group of Arab and Jewish Israelis, plastered taxis in Tel Aviv with large watermelon stickers that read: "This is not a Palestinian flag.""Our message to the government is clear," the organization said in a written statement. "We'll always find a way to bypass any absurd ban and we won't stop struggling for freedom of expression and democracy — whether this involves the Pride flag or the Palestinian flag."For some, embracing the colors of the flag is about striving for freedom and equality rather than necessarily statehood. "I've never cared for flags or nationalism," says Mayssoun Sukarieh, an expert in Middle Eastern studies at King's College London. "But when it comes to Palestine, it's a flag of a colonized people who never saw independence. And because it has been banned, it becomes more of a symbol of resistance than it is of nationalism."
WATERMELON EMOJI
Watermelons have long been a staple of food in the region, with some dishes, like a popular salad in southern Gaza, originating with Bedouin Arab tribes.
Increasingly, young activists have adopted the watermelon emoji in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Emoji may confuse algorithms that advocates say tech companies deploy to suppress posts with keywords like "Gaza" and even just "Palestinian.""With the watermelon (emoji), I think this is actually really the first time where I've seen it widely used as a stand-in. And that to me marks a notable uptick in censorship of Palestinian content," says Jillian York, the director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The Berlin-based York has analyzed Meta's policies. While "shadow banning," or the limited visibility of certain posts, can be difficult to discern, advocacy and nonprofit organizations studying digital rights in the Middle East say they have tracked stark biases, especially on the Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram. Meta hasn't said much directly about this but cites a statement it released in October. "Censorship is somewhat obvious" on Instagram, York said. In mid-October, people began to notice that if one's Instagram bio said "Palestinian" in English alongside the Palestinian flag emoji and "Praise be to god" in Arabic, the app translated the text to "Terrorist." Meta released a public apology.
Watermelons are not the only symbol to catch on with activists. Other signs of global Palestinian solidarity include keys, spoons, olives, doves, poppies and the keffiyeh scarf. In November, to connect with the peaceful message of Armistice Day, when many Brits traditionally wear red poppy pins, protesters this year passed out white poppy pins, to commemorate victims of all wars. On the holiday, scores of protesters wearing poppy pins marched across London calling for an end to the war in Gaza. In the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace amplified watermelon imagery in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza last month. The group held signs in New York in the colors of the Palestinian flag and with triangular watermelons, leveraging the triangle symbol of ACT UP, the historic AIDS activist group. Jason Rosenberg, a member of both organizations, said, "Our reinvented image shows that our fight for liberation and fight to end the epidemic is intrinsically connected to the Palestinian struggle."
SEED IMAGERY
Another reason the watermelon might resonate: It has seeds. There is a saying, often attributed to the Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos, that is popular among activists: "They wanted to bury us; they didn't know we were seeds."
"You might be able to smash a watermelon. You might be able to destroy a fruit, but the seed is a little harder to crush," says Shawn Escarciga, an artist who created the coalition's design. "It's really powerful that life can come out of something so small and something so resilient — and that it can be spread so, so easily."The image of a watermelon punctuated by bold, triangular seeds was held up at the groups' protest at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, and has since proliferated online. That often happens — art emerges from protest movements and then enters the mainstream. "Artists have always been at the forefront of revolution, resistance, politics, in varying degrees," Escarciga says. "We're doing this, using this iconic imagery, because AIDS isn't over — and war is obviously not over."
Israel's air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 24,000 people, some 70% of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Throughout, activists around the world have continued to call for peace and a permanent cease-fire. Israel says ending the war now, before Hamas is crushed, would give a victory to the militants who attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. "We're seeing Palestinian flags being banned, even the emoji online being flagged — and, you know, the word 'Palestine' being censored online," Escarciga said. "But having this image that transcends language, that transcends culture, that transcends algorithms — can really reach people."

Pakistan condemns Iran over air strike that killed 2 children
Associated Press/January 17/2024
Pakistan on Wednesday condemned Iran for launching airstrikes the previous day that Tehran claimed targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group. Islamabad angrily denounced the attack as a "blatant violation" of its airspace and said it killed two children.
Tuesday's strike on Pakistan's restive southwestern Baluchistan province imperiled diplomatic relations between the two neighbors, but both sides appeared wary of provoking the other. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks.
The attack also threatened to further ignite violence in a Middle East unsettled by Israel's ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran launched strikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people earlier this month.
In state media reports, which were later withdrawn without explanation, Iran said its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, or the "Army of Justice." The group, which seeks an independent Baluchistan and has spread across Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, acknowledged the assault in a statement shared online. Six bomb-carrying drones and rockets struck homes that the militants claim housed children and wives of their fighters. Jaish al-Adl said the attack killed two children and wounded two women and a teenage girl.
Videos shared by the Baluch activist group HalVash, purportedly from the site, showed a burning building and two charred, small corpses. A Pakistani intelligence report said the two children killed were a 6-year-old girl and an 11-month old boy. Three women were injured, aged between 28 and 35. The report also said three or four drones were fired from the Iranian side, hitting a mosque and other buildings, including a house. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it issued a strong protest late Tuesday with Iran's Foreign Ministry, and summoned an Iranian diplomat in Islamabad "to convey our strongest condemnation of this blatant violation of Pakistan's sovereignty."
"The responsibility for the consequences will lie squarely with Iran," it said. A senior Pakistani security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said Iran had shared no information prior to the strike. He said Pakistan reserved the right to respond at a time and place of the country's choosing and such a strike would be measured and in line with public expectations. "The dangerous precedent set by Iran is destabilizing and has reciprocal implications," the official said. However, there were signs Pakistan was trying to contain any anger over the strike. The country's typically outspoken and nationalistic media covered the attack Wednesday with unusual restraint. Pakistani defense analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said the government would weigh potential retaliation carefully. The country's air defense and missile systems are primarily deployed along the eastern border to respond to potential threats from India. But it might consider taking some measures to respond to such strikes from the western border with Afghanistan and Iran, Ali said. Jaish al-Adl was founded in 2012, and Iranian officials believe it largely operates in Pakistan. The group has claimed bombings and kidnapped members of Iran's border police in the past. In December, suspected Jaish al-Adl members killed 11 people and wounded eight others in a nighttime attack on a police station in southeastern Iran. Another recent attack killed another police officer in the area.
In 2019, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting a bus that killed 27 members of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Iran has suspected that Sunni-majority Pakistan is hosting insurgents, possibly at the behest of its regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia. However, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated détente last March, easing tensions. Pakistan, meanwhile, has blamed Iran in the past over militant attacks targeting its security forces. Iran has fought in border areas against militants, but a missile-and-drone attack on Pakistan is unprecedented. It remains unclear why Iran launched the attack now, particularly as its foreign minister had met Pakistan's caretaker prime minister the same day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. After the Islamic State bombings this month, Iran's Intelligence Ministry alleged the two bombers involved in the attack had traveled from Afghanistan into Iran through its southeastern border at the Jalg crossing — meaning they had traveled through Baluchistan. Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as Iran's neighboring Sistan and Baluchestan province, have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. They initially wanted a share of provincial resources, but later initiated an insurgency for independence. Iran's attack on Pakistan came less than a day after Iranian strikes on northern Iraq that killed several civilians. Iraq recalled its ambassador from Tehran for consultations and summoned Iran's chargé d'affaires in Baghdad on Tuesday in protest. Iran separately struck Syria as well.

After Strikes, Iran Says It Won’t Hold Back on Using Its Military Might
Vivian Yee and Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/Wed, January 17, 2024
The morning after Iranian attacks on neighboring Pakistan and Iraq, Iran’s defense minister vowed Wednesday that his country would “not set any limits” on using its missile capabilities against enemies whenever necessary.
“We are a missile power in the world,” the minister, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, told reporters at a Cabinet meeting, according to state media. “Wherever they want to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will react, and this reaction will definitely be proportionate, tough and decisive.”Iran has demonstrated its willingness to use its military might — even when it involves striking the territory of its allies and neighbors — with back-to-back attacks on Syria late Monday, then Iraq and Pakistan on Tuesday. The strikes could further inflame a widening conflict across the Middle East.
Iran said it had launched the missiles at targets connected to a major terrorist attack this month, the country’s deadliest ever, as well as in retaliation for the targeted killings of Iranian and Iran-allied commanders, which Iran has blamed on Israel. Analysts say Iran is walking a fine line, hoping to flex its strength to show conservative supporters of the government at home that it can hit its enemies — without getting directly entangled in a fight with Israel, the United States or their allies. By Tuesday morning, murals and banners had gone up around the Iranian capital, Tehran, praising the missile attacks and vowing revenge. At Palestine Square, a mural on the side of a building depicted a missile being fired. It bore a caption that warned, in Hebrew and Farsi, “Prepare your coffins.”
Some conservative Iranians celebrated the missile strikes as appropriate vengeance, a defiant show of force against regional foes. One of those foes is the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for a bombing in Kerman, Iran, that killed nearly 100 people this month. Iran said its attacks had also targeted “anti-Iran terror groups in occupied territories of Syria.” It hit Idlib province in Syria, which is controlled not by President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, but by a Syrian opposition group.
Iran accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of a senior Iranian commander in Syria in December. On Tuesday, Tehran claimed it was targeting Israel in one of the strikes on Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, accusing it of operating a spy outpost there. Officials in Iraq rejected the charge, and the country pulled its ambassador from Tehran in protest.
Militants in Pakistan were also apparently in Iran’s sights in one of the missile strikes on the country’s Baluchistan region. Iran said it had struck a remote mountainous area believed to be the base of Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant group that claimed responsibility for a December attack that killed 11 security officers in Rask, a town near Iran’s border with Pakistan.
Pakistan also denounced the strike.
Government supporters had been incensed over the recent attacks inside Iran, which seemed to expose the authoritarian clerical regime’s weaknesses and security failings. The bombing in Kerman, in particular, rattled a country that has tried as much as possible to maintain stability by keeping Iran’s regional conflicts from bleeding onto Iranian soil. Iran usually prefers to confront its enemies at a distance, relying on the armed groups it funds and supports in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Houthis in Yemen, instead of committing its own forces. Still, said Sanam Vakil, an Iran expert at Chatham House, the fact that Iran suffered such a deadly Islamic State attack on its own soil suggested the risks of its activities across the region.
Iran has tried to “export” its conflicts abroad “rather than manage them closer to home,” she said. Yet “the great irony for Iran,” she added, “is that being so present beyond its borders has attracted high-level security risks inside Iran.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company

Pakistan recalls ambassador to Iran over airstrike by Tehran that killed 2 people
ISLAMABAD (AP)/Wed, January 17, 2024
Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday, a day after Iran launched airstrikes on Pakistan that it claimed targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group. Islamabad angrily denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said it killed two children. Tuesday's strike on Pakistan's restive southwestern Baluchistan province imperiled diplomatic relations between the two neighbors, but both sides appeared wary of provoking the other. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks.The attack also threatened to further ignite violence in a Middle East unsettled by Israel's ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran launched strikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people earlier this month. Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, announced that Islamabad is recalling the country’s ambassador to Iran over the strikes. “Last night’s unprovoked and blatant breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty by Iran is a violation of international law and the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations,” she said in a televised address. Baloch added that Pakistan asked the Iranian ambassador, who was visiting Tehran when the attack took place, not to return. Iran did not immediately acknowledge Pakistan's decision.
Iranian state media reports, which were later withdrawn without explanation, said the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted bases belonging to the militant group Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice.” The group, which seeks an independent Baluchistan and has spread across Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, acknowledged the assault in a statement shared online. Six bomb-carrying drones and rockets struck homes that the militants claim housed children and wives of their fighters. Jaish al-Adl said the attack killed two children and wounded two women and a teenage girl.
Videos shared by the Baluch activist group HalVash, purportedly from the site, showed a burning building and two charred, small corpses. A Pakistani intelligence report said the two children killed were a 6-year-old girl and an 11-month-old boy. Three women were injured, aged between 28 and 35. The report also said three or four drones were fired from the Iranian side, hitting a mosque and other buildings, including a house. A senior Pakistani security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said Iran had shared no information prior to the strike. He said Pakistan reserved the right to respond at a time and place of the country's choosing and such a strike would be measured and in line with public expectations. "The dangerous precedent set by Iran is destabilizing and has reciprocal implications,” the official said.
However, there were signs Pakistan was trying to contain any anger over the strike. The country's typically outspoken and nationalistic media covered the attack Wednesday with unusual restraint. Pakistan is three weeks away from an election, and politicians are focused on campaigning and boosting voter momentum. There is news coverage of the air strike and its fallout, but people are not on the streets protesting. The attack was in a remote part of Baluchistan, and no independently verified photographs or footage have emerged of its aftermath, making it harder for the air strike to feed the country’s voracious TV news cycle.
Iranian state media meanwhile continued not to address the strikes, instead discussing a joint naval drill held by Pakistan and the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. Pakistani officials acknowledged the drill but said it came earlier than Iran's strikes.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian acknowledged Tehran carried out the attacks in Pakistan while speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He defended the action while repeatedly being told by the interviewer that Pakistan had condemned the attack.
"Regarding Pakistan, none of the nationals of our neighbor, brother and friend Pakistan were the target of Iran’s drones and missiles,” Amirabdollahian said. “We have discussed them with Pakistan’s high-ranking military, security and political officials. Our response is against Iranian terrorists inside Pakistani soil.”
Iran also said Revolutionary Guard forces killed a suspected Jaish al-Adl member in the city of Rask near the Pakistani border. Activists had described seeing drones and aircraft overhead at the site. Pakistani defense analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said the government would weigh any potential retaliation carefully. A military response is unlikely as the country's air defense and missile systems are primarily deployed along the eastern border to respond to potential threats from India. Cash-strapped Pakistan also cannot afford a war with Iran. But it might consider taking some measures to respond to such strikes from its western border with Afghanistan and Iran, Ali said. Jaish al-Adl was founded in 2012, and Iranian officials believe it largely operates in Pakistan. The group has claimed bombings and kidnapped members of Iran's border police in the past. In December, suspected Jaish al-Adl members killed 11 people and wounded eight others in a nighttime attack on a police station in southeastern Iran. Another recent attack killed another police officer in the area.
In 2019, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting a bus that killed 27 members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Iran has suspected that Sunni-majority Pakistan is hosting insurgents, possibly at the behest of its regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia. However, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated détente last March, easing tensions. Pakistan, meanwhile, has blamed Iran in the past over militant attacks targeting its security forces. Iran has fought in border areas against militants, but a missile-and-drone attack on Pakistan is unprecedented. It remains unclear why Iran launched the attack now, particularly as its foreign minister had met Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-haq Kakar the same day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Kakar has yet to comment publicly on the attacks.
His predecessor, Shehbaz Sharif, said he was shocked at the breach of sovereignty. Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sharif said “sincere dialogue and meaningful cooperation” between the two countries was needed. After the Islamic State bombings this month, Iran's Intelligence Ministry alleged the two bombers involved in the attack had traveled from Afghanistan into Iran through its southeastern border at the Jalg crossing — meaning they had traveled through Baluchistan. Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as Iran's neighboring Sistan and Baluchestan province, have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. They initially wanted a share of provincial resources, but later initiated an insurgency for independence. Iran's attack on Pakistan came less than a day after Iranian strikes on northern Iraq that killed several civilians. Iraq recalled its ambassador from Tehran for consultations and summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad on Tuesday in protest. Iran separately struck Syria as well.

Medicine for hostages and civilians bound for Gaza after night of deadly strikes
Associated Press/January 17/2024
A shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas was en route to Gaza on Wednesday after France and Qatar mediated the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong cease-fire broke down in November. The medicines will be shipped through Egypt and delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will then hand them over to Hamas. Qatar said the deal also includes the delivery of additional medicine and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave. The deal came more than 100 days into a conflict that shows no sign of ending and which has sparked tensions across the Middle East, with a dizzying array of strikes and counterstrikes in recent days from northern Iraq to the Red Sea and from southern Lebanon to Pakistan. In Gaza, Palestinian militants are still putting up resistance across the narrow coastal strip in the face of one of the deadliest military campaigns in recent history. Some 85% of the territory's population of 2.3 million people have fled their homes and the U.N. says a quarter of the population is starving. Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas' military and governing abilities to ensure that it can never repeat the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Militants burst through Israel's border defenses and stormed through several communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250. Israel has also vowed to return the more than 100 hostages still held inside Gaza after Hamas released most of the rest in November in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. Israel says only military pressure will bring about the release of more captives, but as the fighting grinds on they are at increased risk of being killed in Israeli strikes or during rescue operations. Hamas has said it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent cease-fire, something Israel and the United States, its top ally, have ruled out.
A WELTER OF STRIKES ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST
In just the last few days, a U.S.-led coalition has carried out strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Iran has struck what it described as an Israeli spy headquarters in northern Iraq and militant bases in Pakistan and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah have escalated the intensity of their fighting across the border. Iran-backed militant groups across the region say they are striking U.S. and Israeli targets to pressure them to halt the Gaza offensive. Iran itself has encouraged the attacks while avoiding direct involvement, but appeared to be flexing its muscles with the strikes in Syria and Pakistan. The Houthis have vowed to continue attacking international shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is a blockade of Israel, with repercussions for global trade. Each party appears to be seeking some form of deterrence against its adversaries, but the longer the war in Gaza lasts, the more likely it is that one of them goes a step too far, potentially triggering another war. The biggest risk is in Lebanon, where Israel has vowed to halt Hezbollah attacks so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to their homes in communities evacuated in October. Hezbollah hopes to take the pressure off Gaza by tying down Israeli troops in the north.
Tensions are also soaring in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces have conducted near-daily arrest raids that often trigger shootouts with Palestinian militants. Israel said Wednesday that an airstrike in the urban Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank killed a senior militant implicated in recent attacks on Israelis. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.
HEAVY FIGHTING IN GAZA
Israel said at the start of the year that it had largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza and would scale back operations there, focusing on dense urban areas in the center and south of the territory. But there has been little apparent letup in strikes, with scores of Palestinians killed every day. Gaza's Health Ministry says 24,285 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children. Over 60,000 people have been wounded, and less than half of Gaza's hospitals are even partially functioning. Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense residential areas. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 190 of its own soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive. Palestinian militants are still fighting in all parts of the territory, and Israel appears no closer to freeing the scores of hostages still held by Hamas. Two hostages' deaths were confirmed on Tuesday after Hamas said they were killed in Israeli airstrikes.
AID BOUND FOR HOSTAGES AND PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS
France said it took months to organize the shipment of the medicines. Qatar, which has long served as a mediator with Hamas, helped broker the deal, which will provide three months' worth of medication for chronic illnesses for 45 of the hostages as well as other medicine and vitamins. Several elderly men are among the remaining hostages held by Hamas after most women and children were released in November. Qatar said the deal includes the provision of additional humanitarian aid to Gaza, without elaborating. Senior U.N. officials have warned that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease if more aid is not allowed in. Israel completely sealed off Gaza after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and only relented under U.S. pressure. It says there are now no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and that U.N. agencies could reduce the delays by providing more workers and trucks. But U.N. officials say aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process, and continuing fighting throughout the territory — all of which is largely under Israel's control.

Chaotic wave of attacks, reprisals in Middle East fuel worries of broader regional war
Associated Press/January 17/2024
A barrage of U.S., coalition and militant attacks in the Middle East over the last five days are compounding U.S. fears that Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza could expand, as massive military strikes failed to stall the assault on Red Sea shipping by Yemen-based Houthis.
Even as the U.S. and allies pummeled more than two dozen Iran-backed Houthi locations on Friday in retaliation for attacks on ships, the Houthis have continued their maritime assaults. And Tehran struck sites in Iraq and Syria, claiming to target an Israeli "spy headquarters," then followed that Tuesday with reported missile and drone attacks in Pakistan.
The chaotic wave of attacks and reprisals involving the United States, its allies and foes suggested not only that last week's assault had failed to deter the Houthis, but that the broader regional war that the U.S. has spent months trying to avoid was becoming closer to reality. And underscoring the gravity of the roiling situation, the Biden administration is expected to announce plans to redesignate the Houthis as global terrorists, according to people familiar with the decision who requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of its announcement.
At the White House earlier Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stressed that the U.S. is "not looking for a war. We're not looking to expand this. The Houthis have a choice to make." But in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that the expanding array of attacks mean that allies must "be vigilant against the possibility that in fact, rather than heading towards de-escalation, we are on a path of escalation that we have to manage."
Ever since the devastating attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 triggered a massive air and ground campaign by Israeli forces, the U.S. and other allies have worried about it expanding to a broader regional war. U.S. diplomatic and military officials have shuttled urgently across the Middle East, working to ease tensions but the enormous Palestinian death toll has fueled anger and is being touted as a reason for at least some of the attacks.
Since November, the Houthis have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea, saying they were avenging Israel's offensive against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade.
In rapid succession in recent days, the Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward a U.S. Navy destroyer over the weekend, but the ship shot it down. The Houthis then struck a U.S.-owned ship in the Gulf of Aden on Monday and a Malta-flagged bulk carrier in the Red Sea on Tuesday. The attacks came despite the bombardment by U.S. and British ships and fighter jets of more than 60 Houthi targets in 28 locations on Friday.
Although the U.S. said that the subsequent Houthi maritime attacks have been smaller, and not as complex as earlier ones, it does appear that the militant group has not been deterred. And Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has praised the group's actions.
According to U.S. Central Command, the U.S. launched a new strike against the Houthis on Tuesday, hitting four anti-ship ballistic missiles that were prepared to launch and presented an imminent threat to merchant and U.S. Navy ships in the region. Hours later, the Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack on the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Zografia. The ship was hit, but no one was injured and it continued on its way. The attack Monday on the U.S.-owned Gibraltar Eagle also resulted in damage but no injuries, and it too continued on its journey.
The Houthis' military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, said in a pre-recorded statement that it fired at the Zografia after the ship's crew refused to answer warning calls and that the vessel was heading for a port in Israel. According to the shipping tracking website Vessel Finder, Zografia was bound for Suez, Egypt. While Iran arms and backs the Houthis, its not been clear how much it has helped plan or direct the attacks. But, Tehran launched its own assault on Israel's interests late Monday, firing missiles near the U.S. Consulate in northern Iraq at what it said was a headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, Four civilians were killed and six injured in the strike in Irbil, the seat of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to the security council of the Kurdish regional government. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that it also fired a number of ballistic missiles at "terrorist operations," including Islamic State targets, in Syria and destroyed them. And on Tuesday, Iran struck targets inside Pakistan killing two "innocent children" and wounded three other people, the Pakistani government said. Iran described the targets as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, state media reported.
Jaish al-Adl, or the "Army of Justice," is a Sunni militant group which largely operates across the border in Pakistan. Iran has fought the militants in border areas, but a missile-and-drone attack on nuclear-armed Pakistan would be unprecedented for Iran. Amid the latest attacks, U.S. Navy SEALs seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry from a ship bound for Yemen's Houthi rebels in a raid last week that saw two of its commandos go missing, the U.S. military said Tuesday. The raid marks the latest seizure by the U.S. Navy and its allies of weapon shipments bound for the rebels. As they were boarding the ship in rough seas, one SEAL got knocked off by high waves and a teammate went in after him. Both remain missing. The U.S. Navy ultimately sank the ship carrying the weapons and detained the 14 crew members. The Houthis have not acknowledged the seizure, and Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. A United Nations resolution bans arms transfers to Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Tehran has long denied arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran.

Riyadh signals steady interest in normalisation with Israel, but wants Palestinian state
AFP/The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
“We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday the kingdom could recognise Israel if a comprehensive agreement were reached that included statehood for the Palestinians. While indicating continued interest in normalisation with Israel, the current climate created by the war in Gaza makes the prospect of the resumption of talks about establishing normal relations between Riyadh and the Jewish state fairly remote for the time being. “We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Asked if Saudi Arabia would then recognise Israel as part of a wider political agreement, he said: “Certainly.”Prince Faisal said securing regional peace through the creation of a Palestinian state was “something we have been indeed working on with the US administration, and it is more relevant in the context of Gaza”. Securing a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia would be the grand prize for Israel after it established diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco and could transform the geopolitics of the Middle East. Before October 7 when Hamas triggered an all-out war with Israel, Saudi Arabia held talks with the US about establishing formal relations with Israel. Analysts believe, however, those talks focused then more on finalising a US security pact with Riyadh than on pushing for the creation of a Palestinian state. The Gaza war has since put on hold normalisation talks while highlighting the need for a durable settlement of the Palestinian issue. Israel knows very well that Saudi Arabia, the most powerful country in the Arab world and home to the most sacred sites in Islam, wields considerable religious clout across the globe. But it still wants normalisation to proceed with minimum concessions. There will be accordingly at least some delay in the US-backed talks on normalisation of Saudi-Israel ties.
The Palestinians want a state in territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as their capital. US-sponsored negotiations with Israel on achieving that goal stalled more than a decade ago. Among the hurdles have been the expansion of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land and feuding between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas Islamists, who reject coexistence with Israel. A more recent hurdle is the growing popularity of Hamas in both Gaza and the West Bank despite the ravages caused by its military assault on Israel. The growing popularity of Hamas might dissuade the PA from holding new elections any time soon. “There is a pathway towards a much better future for the region, for the Palestinians, and for Israel, that is peace, and we are fully committed to that,” said Prince Faisal.
“A ceasefire on all sides should be a starting point for permanent sustainable peace, which can only happen through justice to the Palestinian people.”
Despite world clamouring for a ceasefire in Gaza, the US still backs Israel’s military offensive, which has caused more than 24,000 Palestinian deaths, mostly among women and children. Israel’s hard-right government has played down the prospect of it making significant concessions to the Palestinians as part of any potential normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia. Its position was hardened by the shock caused in Israel by Hamas’ assault of October 7, which killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 240 hostages. Israel says more than 130 remain in captivity. Israel responded to Hamas’ assault with a siege, bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza that have devastated the tiny coastal territory and displaced the population and brought it the brink of starvation. Although refraining from direct involvement in the US-led efforts to rein in Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis who have wreaked havoc on international shipping through the Red Sea, the Saudis worry about mounting regional tensions. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Houthi attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea are connected to the war in Gaza and there is a need for an immediate ceasefire there. The war in Gaza has also raised fears of wider regional instability. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah has frequently clashed along the border with Israel, while pro-Iranian militias have attacked US targets in Iraq. Prince Faisal said the kingdom’s priority is finding a path to de-escalation through a ceasefire in Gaza.

Saudi-Israel normalization: Gaza post-war evaluation
LBCI/January 17/2024
Before the eruption of the Gaza war, the world closely monitored the potential for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Talks of an imminent agreement were overshadowed by the outbreak of the October 7 war, prompting Saudi Arabia to suspend discussions on normalization and informing US officials, according to AFP, a source close to the Saudi government at the time.In the days following the war, US officials visited Saudi Arabia diplomatically, shedding light on the Kingdom's evolving stance. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham conveyed Saudi interest in normalization to Axios. In contrast, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, expressed a clear interest in advancing normalization. However, he emphasized that progress would be delayed until the Gaza war is resolved. After these statements, American author Thomas Friedman, after visiting Saudi Arabia, wrote in The New York Times that "the most hopeful thing that I can report from Riyadh is that Saudi Arabia remains committed in principle to resuming the negotiations shortly after the conclusion of the war." Approximately three months after the war, Saudi statements became more evident. On January 9, Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid bin Bandar, told the BBC that Saudi Arabia is interested in normalizing relations with Israel post-Gaza war. Still, any normalization agreement must contribute to establishing a Palestinian state. In a decisive response, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan addressed on Tuesday whether Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel as part of a broader agreement on the Palestinian cause. While not ruling out normalization, he stated that it might come at a "higher cost" than before October 7. Saudi analyst and writer Ali Shihabi outlined to CNN the steps Israel should take to establish a two-state solution foundation, including lifting the Gaza siege entirely, empowering the Palestinian Authority in both Gaza and the West Bank, and withdrawing from central areas in the West Bank. Moreover, promises should be tangible commitments from Israel, distinct from past agreements with other nations that were eventually forgotten after normalization.

Davos hosts top diplomats of US, Iran on day 2 of World Economic Forum
Associated Press/January 17/2024
The top diplomats of Iran and the United States sit down for public — and separate — one-on-one chats while the U.N. chief and leaders of France, Argentina and Spain will deliver speeches as the World Economic Forum's annual meeting saunters into a busy second day on Wednesday. The elite gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos takes a turn toward the environmental and climate concerns that have animated plea after plea from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the world to come together do take more united action against global warming — after a record-hot year in 2023. Experts and policymakers will take up issues like ensuring a sustainable Middle East and North Africa, working to crack down on plastic waste and searching for ways to maintain life on Earth, no less, amid growing threats to biodiversity. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after a day of meetings Monday including one with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is on tap for a broadcast conversation with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian will speak with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. On Tuesday, U.S. forces led a new strike against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, known as Houthis, who have been troubling Red Sea shipping lanes in recent weeks by firing missiles against vessels off the coast of the impoverished and divided Arabic Peninsula country. It came hours after one missile strike earlier Tuesday hit a U.S. vessel. The Yemeni rebels have carried out the campaign in response to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, when the Palestinian militant group carried out a murderous rampage in Israel and seized hostages. French President Emmanuel Macron, recently reappointed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Argentina's new president — self-described "anarcho-capitalist" Javier Milei — will take the podium Wednesday afternoon, after a morning address by Guterres. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy shuttled from room to room to meet with CEOs, financiers and political leaders and made a speech blasting his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over Moscow's long-running military campaign in Ukraine and seeking more Western support when Ukraine's allies are showing signs of war fatigue. "Please, strengthen our economy, and we will strengthen your security," the Ukrainian leader said.

Iran’s attack on Erbil triggers Iraqi anger, widespread condemnation
Reuters/January 17/2024
An Iranian attack on the city of Erbil, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, drew condemnation from Iraq and a number of Western countries. With tensions spreading, Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani cancelled a meeting with Iran’s foreign minister at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland in protest over the strikes, a source said on Wednesday. The Iranian strikes have led to a rare diplomatic row with Iraq’s government, with Baghdad filing a complaint at the United Nations Security Council over Iranian “aggression”. In reaction to the attack, Iraq also recalled its ambassador from Tehran to discuss the development, according to a statement by the country’s foreign ministry. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani said that the Iranian strike was a “clear aggression” against Iraq and a dangerous development that was undermining the strong bilateral relationship, the state news agency reported. The government reserved the right to take any diplomatic and legal measures that its sovereignty allows, Sudani added. Tehran has grown its influence in Iraq since the US toppled former ruler Saddam Hussein in a US-led invasion in 2003, particularly among Shia Muslim factions, while the Kurds have traditionally been closer to the West. Sudani, himself a Shia, was brought to power with the backing of some pro-Iranian factions, but has been keen to show his government opposes any infringement of Iraq’s sovereignty.
After the strikes, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they attacked the “spy headquarters” of Israel in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region late on Monday. Iraq condemned the “aggression” that led to civilian casualties in residential areas, according to a statement by the country’s foreign ministry.
Iraqi regional Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani also condemned the attack as a “crime against the Kurdish people.”At least four civilians were killed and six injured in the strikes, the Kurdistan government’s security council said. Multimillionaire Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee and several members of his family were among the dead, killed when at least one rocket crashed into their home, Iraqi security and medical sources said. Dizayee, who was close to the ruling Barzani clan, owned businesses that led major real estate projects in Kurdistan. Additionally, one rocket had fallen on the house of a senior Kurdish intelligence official and another on a Kurdish intelligence centre, while air traffic at Erbil airport was halted, the security sources said. Condemnation of the Iranian attack also poured in from a number of Western countries, with France accusing Iran of violating Iraq’s sovereignty. “Such acts represent blatant, unacceptable and worrying violations of Iraq’s sovereignty and an attack on its stability and security, as well as that of Kurdistan within it,” France’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “They contribute to the escalation of regional tensions and must stop.” The US State Department also condemned the attack. “We oppose Iran’s reckless missile strikes, which undermine Iraq’s stability,” said department spokesman Matthew Miller. “We support the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s efforts to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people,” he said in a statement. The strikes did not hit any US facilities and there were no US casualties, two US officials said on Monday.
Pope Francis also condemned the Iranian missile attack and urged all parties to avoid an escalation of conflicts in the Middle East. The strike has deepened worries about worsening instability across the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, with Iran’s allies also entering the fray from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. “I express my closeness and solidarity with the victims, all civilians, of the missile attack that hit an urban area of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan,” Francis said during his weekly audience at the Vatican. “Good relations between neighbours are not built with similar actions, but with dialogue and collaboration. I ask everyone to avoid any step that fuels tension in the Middle East and other war scenarios,” he added. The pope called for prayers for the “many victims of war,” mentioning specifically Ukraine, Gaza and other Palestinian territory and Israel.

Turkey to widen operations against Kurdish groups in Syria, Iraq
AFP/January 17/2024
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Tuesday to widen military operations against groups linked to Kurdish militants in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, days after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers. Turkish warplanes and drones have been carrying out air strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq believed to be affiliated with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, since attackers attempted to infiltrate a military base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Friday. Five soldiers died in the attack while four others died later of critical injuries. In a televised address following a cabinet meeting, Erdogan said Turkish jets had struck a total of 114 targets in Syria and Iraq in operations launched in the last five days. A further 60 pieces of infrastructure were destroyed in separate operations by Turkey’s intelligence agency, the president added. Erdogan said Turkey was determined to eliminate the threat from Kurdish militants “at its source” in Iraq and Syria. It was not clear if Ankara, which has carried out land offensives in the past, is contemplating a new ground operation. “Our operations will continue until every inch of the mountains in northern Iraq that have become the source of terrorist actions … are secured,” he said. “In the same way, we will not stop until the terror nests in Syria … are completely destroyed.”The Turkish leader continued: “God willing, in the coming months, we will definitely take new steps in this direction, regardless of who says what, what threats they make or what their plans are.” On Monday, Kurdish led-authorities said Turkish shelling and air strikes have targeted dozens of pieces of infrastructure in northeast Syria over the past days wounding at least ten people and cutting off electricity and water supplies in wide areas held by the main US-backed group in the war-torn country. The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, is considered a terror organisation by Turkey’s Western allies, including the United States. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
Turkey also considers Syrian Kurdish groups to be terrorist organisations but the US disagrees with that status and regards them as allies in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Jordan fears ‘existential threat’ of Palestinian exodus, war’s impact on economy
The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher al Khasawaneh said on Tuesday that peace with Israel remained a strategic choice but any push to drive Palestinians to the kingdom would pose an “existentialist” threat. Jordan, which shares a border with the West Bank, fears that the Gaza conflict could spread with wider violence by armed settlers encouraged by the army, thus triggering a large scale Palestinian exodus to the other side of the Jordan River. “In the event that there are actions and conditions that generate and create mass displacement of populations, that is a clear violation of the peace treaty,” Khasawneh said, referring to the country’s 1994 deal with Israel during a session in Davos. “It poses an existentialist threat … that we will have to react to and we hope we will never arrive at that point or juncture because we are firmly committed to comprehensive peace.”Khasawneh said multi-million dollar regional projects with Israel in the pipeline before October 7 where both countries would trade energy and water were for now effectively suspended. “Today under the existing conditions it’s quite inconceivable for any Jordanian minister to just sit on a podium and have that type of interaction and transaction with an Israel counterpart. As regrettable as it is, it is a fact of life,” he added. “The horrific scenes that are on the screens day in day out and hour in hour out of the carnage wreaked on Gaza by the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, a majority children and women is something that renders that unimplementable under the existing circumstances,” Khasawneh said. The war has driven nearly all Gazans from their homes, some several times, and caused an humanitarian crisis, with food, fuel and medical supplies running low. The only solution to avoid deeper conflict and regional instability was to put in place a political process with a time frame that leads to a two-state solution where a Palestinian state would emerge alongside Israel, Khasawneh said.
Economic woes
Khasawneh added the Gaza conflict’s has had an adverse effect on his country’s economy. The negative impact on the country’s aid-dependent economy had put the brakes on a promising performance last year that had seen a surge in tourism revenues and higher growth, he said. “Last year (2023) before October 7 economically was an extremely, extremely promising year,” Khasawneh said. Khasawneh said disruptions to Red Sea shipping on the main East-West route caused by Houthi militant attacks was the latest hit alongside the plunge in tourism that had prior to the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel seen a boom that outstripped levels nearly five years ago. “Tourism took a major hit and other sectors are still suffering,” Khasawneh said in Davos, according to state media. Rating firm S&P Global said last November the tourism sector could suffer the most in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, hampering real GDP growth although it could be mitigated by support from donors. The economy last year was headed for a 2.8 percent growth rate that could signal a reversal of years of stagnant growth hovering around two percent and with foreign investments rising by around $300 million from the previous year.
The country last year witnessed a nearly 40 percent surge in tourism receipts that generated $5.15 bn in revenues, official data showed. Transport costs for cargo arriving at Aqaba’s Red Sea port from southeastern Asia had risen by around 160 percent while Europe- and US-bound cargo went up between 60 percent and 100 percent, Khasawneh said. Businessmen fear it will have inflationary pressures in a country where inflation is projected at a low 2.6 percent this year. “It has posed a challenge,” said Khasawneh, whose country was seeking to improve its competitive edge through an economic modernisation plan launched last year that seeks to generate over a million jobs within ten years. Last weeks’ approval by the International Monetary Fund of a new $1.2 billion, four-year loan programme to support Jordan’s economic reforms was a sign of investor confidence in the country, Khasawneh said. “This is a testimony to economic policies that are sound and to our political stability,” Khasawneh said, adding that Jordan was able to maintain stable sovereign credit ratings against “the odds” in a climate where many of its peers were downgraded. The IMF said the new programme would build on Jordan’s “consistently strong performance under the previous programme” to support the Middle Eastern country’s work on maintaining macro-stability, further building resilience and accelerating structural reforms. Jordan’s resilience and stability and its accelerated reform agenda would help it mitigate the negative impact of the conflict, Khasawneh added. “We are hoping to see things back on track soon,” he said.

Kuwait forms first government under new emir and prime minister, key portfolios reshuffled
AFP/KUNA/January 17/2024
Kuwait on Wednesday formed a government headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, the state news agency said, the country’s first cabinet after the death of its previous ruler. Sheikh Mohammed appointed new ministers for oil, finance and foreign affairs in the first cabinet formed under Kuwait’s new Emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, which he said would carry out reforms to comply with the emir’s guidance. “This is a heavy responsibility of a new phase of Kuwait’s history which includes challenges and aspirations, and requires further hard work and genuine accomplishment,” the prime minister said, quoted by KUNA. The prime minister appointed Emad Mohammed al-Atiqi as oil minister, Anwar Ali al-Mudhaf as finance minister and Abdullah Ali al-Yahya as foreign minister. Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who came to power in December after his predecessor Sheikh Nawaf died, is expected to preserve Kuwaiti foreign policies including support for Gulf Arab unity, Western alliances, and good ties to Riyadh – a relationship seen as a priority.Kuwait will have to grapple with long-running strains between the ruling family and its critics in the deadlocked and fractious parliament that critics say has hindered fiscal and economic reform. The legislature wields more influence than similar bodies in other Gulf monarchies, and political deadlock has for decades led to cabinet reshuffles and dissolutions of parliament

Russian missiles hit Ukraine, injure 17 in latest strikes on civilian areas
Associated Press/January 17/2024
Russia fired two missiles at Kharkiv city in northeastern Ukraine during the night, hitting apartment buildings and a medical center and injuring 17 people, officials said Wednesday, in Moscow's latest strikes on civilian areas in the almost two-year war. The S-300 missiles landed after dark Tuesday, Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. The surface-to-air missiles have been adapted by Russia to hit land targets and are cheaper to produce than ballistic or cruise missiles. However, they are inaccurate and have a shorter range, analysts say. Both sides are looking to replenish their weapons stockpiles as fighting along the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line is largely bogged down by winter weather and the war's focus tuns to long-range missile, drone and artillery strikes. Russia's intense aerial attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks sharply increased civilian casualties in December, with over 100 killed and nearly 500 injured, according to the United Nations. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been making a diplomatic push for Kyiv's Western allies to keep supplying weaponry. He recently visited three Baltic countries and was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to make his case on Tuesday. The night-time attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, struck 20 residential buildings and a medical center, authorities said. Deeper inside the region of the same name, areas close to the front line came under artillery fire, according to officials. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted 19 out of 20 Shahed-type drones fired by Russia overnight, though regional officials reported that other drones made it through air defenses. In the southern city of Odesa, three people were injured in a drone attack that forced the evacuation of about 130 people from an apartment building, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. In Kherson, another southern city, artillery fire injured three people and damaged residential districts overnight, according to regional chief Oleksand Prokudin. The missile attacks on Kharkiv came from the Russian border region of Belgorod, Ukrainian officials said. That area has experienced a recent increase of cross-border attacks by Ukraine. The Russian defense ministry said Wednesday that two winged Ukrainian drones and four missiles were shot down over the Belgorod region overnight and another around noon local time on Wednesday. It provided no details about damage or injuries.

US, South Korea and Japan conduct naval drills in show of strength against North Korea
Associated Press/January 17/2024
The United States, South Korea and Japan conducted perhaps their biggest-ever combined naval exercises in a show of strength against nuclear-armed North Korea, South Korea's military said Wednesday. The three allies' senior diplomats were to meet in Seoul to discuss the worsening standoff with Pyongyang.
The training in waters off South Korea's Jeju island, which involved an American aircraft carrier, was aimed at sharpening the countries' combined deterrence and response capabilities against North Korean nuclear, missile and underwater threats, and also training for preventing illicit maritime transports of weapons of mass destruction, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It didn't specify whether the training reflected concerns about North Korea's alleged arms transfers to Russia to help that country's war in Ukraine. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been on a provocative run of weapons testing and threats that raised regional tensions to their highest point in years. On Monday at Pyongyang's rubber-stamp parliament, Kim declared that North Korea would abandon its long-standing commitment to a peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of North's constitution to eliminate the idea of a shared statehood between the war-divided countries. He said South Koreans were "top-class stooges" of America who were obsessed with confrontation, and repeated a threat that the North would annihilate the South with its nukes if provoked. Kim's speech came a day after the North conducted its first ballistic test of 2024, which state media described as a new solid-fuel, intermediate-range missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead, reflecting its push to advance its lineup of weapons targeting U.S. military bases in Guam and Japan. In response to the North's heightened testing activity, the United States and its Asian allies have been expanding their combined military exercises. Kim condemns the demonstrations as invasion rehearsals, and the drills increasingly feature major U.S. military assets, including aircraft carriers, long-range bombers and nuclear-capable submarines. Kim has also been strengthening his regional footing by boosting the visibility of his ties with Russia and China — two neighbors that are also locked on confrontations with the United States — as he attempts to break out of isolation and join a united front against Washington. North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui traveled to Moscow, where she met Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks on improving bilateral relations amid growing international concern about alleged arms cooperation between the countries. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the trilateral naval drills — a three-day program that concluded Wednesday — involved nine warships, including U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and Aegis destroyers from South Korea and Japan. The drills usually involve around five vessels. South Korea's military did not immediately confirm media assessments that the exercise was countries' largest trilateral naval drill.
In Seoul, South Korean nuclear envoy Kim Gunn met Wednesday with Japanese counterpart Hiroyuki Namazu ahead of a trilateral meeting planned for Thursday with U.S. President Joe Biden's deputy special representative for North Korea, Jung Pak, to coordinate their response to the North. Kim and Namazu discussed the North Korean leader's latest comments toward the South and the North's recent military actions, including Sunday's missile test and its recent artillery firings near a disputed sea boundary with the South, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said.
"The two sides regretted North Korea's aggressive rhetoric that misrepresents the cause of rising regional tensions and threatens war, and agreed that such actions will only strengthen trilateral security cooperation" with Washington, the South Korean ministry said in a statement. The envoys also discussed Choe's visit to Russia and vowed to coordinate a "stern and unified" international response to any illicit military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, the ministry said, including the alleged transfers of North Korean missiles to Russia. The U.S. and South Korean governments have claimed that North Korea has been providing Russia with arms supplies, including artillery and missiles, to help prolong its invasion of Ukraine. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the accusation. While expanding his country's military cooperation with Washington and Tokyo, conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has also been seeking stronger reassurances from Washington that it would swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to defend its ally in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack.

Macron uses broad news conference to show his leadership hasn't faded
Associated Press/January 17/2024
French President Emmanuel Macron made a point of showing his leadership hasn't faded in more than two hours of answering questions at a news conference in which he promised a stronger France to face the world's challenges. "I still have three years and a half in office," he said, describing an ambition to both change the daily life of the French and tackle global crises. Macron's wide-ranging news conference followed the appointment last week of France's youngest-ever prime minister. The 46-year-old centrist president promised "audacity, action, efficiency" in the hopes of strengthening his legacy through a series of reforms, starting with an economic bill meant to boost growth and tax cuts for middle-class households. He also detailed how he would preserve France's struggling health system and accelerate changes at schools. He advocated for uniforms in public schools, learning the national anthem at a young age and expanding a two-week training period in high schools to promote French values and encourage youth to give back to the community. With no majority in parliament, Macron suggested many of the changes could be implemented without passing new laws. The French president vowed to make France "stronger" to face global crises, announcing plans to deliver more long-range cruise missiles as well as bombs to Ukraine. He also proposed a joint initiative with Qatar to mediate a deal between Israel and Hamas to allow the delivery of medications to around 45 of the more than 100 Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza. He also suggested that he'd find ways to work with Donald Trump in the event that he wins another presidency.
Under growing pressure from an emboldened far-right ahead of June's European elections, he denounced the National Rally as "the party of the lies." He warned about the "danger zone" as voters across Europe are increasingly choosing the far-right. We must tackle issues that "make people vote for them," he said, including fighting unemployment and better controlling immigration. "Basically, the National Rally has become the party of easy anger," he added. "Let's not get used to it." Macron also mentioned with irony the many wannabe-candidates for the next presidential election, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen who already said she intends to run again. "I realize that a lot of people were getting nervous about 2027," Macron said. "But I also realize that ... a lot can happen in three years and a half."He also sought to respond to the controversy over two newly appointed ministers. Macron suggested Education Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra should remain in office despite facing strong criticism from teachers' unions. Oudéa-Castéra said last week she preferred to send her children to a private Catholic school in Paris. "The minister made ill-chosen public comments. She apologized and she was right to (apologize)," Macron said. "The minister will succeed in working with teachers."About Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who has been named in a 2021 corruption-related preliminary charges, Macron argued the justice system is independent and she has the right to the "presumption of innocence."Macron acknowledged only one "regret" in response to a question about his apparent siding with actor Gérard Depardieu, who is facing sexual misconduct allegations, in televised remarks last month. "I haven't said enough how important it is for women who are victims of abuse to speak out, and how crucial this fight is to me," he said, while standing by his defense of the presumption of innocence of Depardieu.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 17-18/2024
Islam Overtaking Europe?
Drieu Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2024
What seems to have created the current chaos is the well-meaning but calamitously unthinking jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), combined with the disastrous "Wir schaffen das" ("We can manage this") of Germany's then Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The ECHR's extreme interpretation of "open borders" hinders the development of a workable asylum policy.
Immigration is not a natural disaster that befalls Europe, like a plague of locusts or a drought. The migration chaos we are experiencing in Europe is purely a human catastrophe, caused by dreamy policies and faceless judges who are accountable to no one.
[F]urther mass influxes of migrants, such as many countries are experiencing, can be stopped the day after tomorrow by neutralizing the ECHR -- simply by opting out of it.
To think now that Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Antwerp will inevitably become Islamic is to promise victory in advance. It is defeatist thinking, which Winston Churchill, in his six-volume series, The Second World War, described as more threatening than all the Nazi divisions put together.
A moratorium on immigration might be a good place to start.
What seems to have created the current chaos is the well-meaning but calamitously unthinking jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), combined with the disastrous "Wir schaffen das" ("We can manage this") of Germany's then Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The ECHR's extreme interpretation of "open borders" hinders the development of a workable asylum policy.
In New York, as in the Belgian parliament, you can meet more and more people who are convinced that the Islamization of Brussels -- and London and other capitals, they often add -- is now inevitable and only a matter of time.
The growth of the Muslim population in Brussels has been both enormous and meteoric. Over the past 50 years, the number of Muslims has grown steadily, and given the erasure of Europe's borders, thanks to the 1985 Schengen Agreement, there seems to be no end in sight.
The figures
As many countries in Europe do not designate people by race or ethnicity, figures are not easy to establish. If we want to remain scientific and factual, it is not by noting the popularity of the first name Mohamed. The last reliable study on the number of Muslims, unfortunately, was done by Prof Jan Hertogen, dates from 2015/2016, and has been adopted by the US State Department. According to that study, the percentage of Muslims in Brussels in 2015 was 24% of the population. More recent figures have been provided by the Pew Research Center, but only for Belgium as a whole, without details by city. In another, 2016 poll, 29% of Brussels residents claimed to be Muslim. Looking at the growth curve, we can estimate that the percentage of Muslims now in Brussels is likely to be slightly beyond 30%.
These figures obviously are not evidence of a Muslim majority in Brussels – or anything near it – at least for now – although birth rates still remain higher for Muslims than for "native" Belgian women.
Immigration
So far, Brussels is not predominantly Muslim. Immigration is not, like gravity, an immutable fact. Across Europe, with the exception of Wallonia, we are witnessing an awakening of the population and the rise to power of parties and personalities seeking zero immigration, or at least a moratorium on immigration.
Despite the claims of many that in Europe, immigration is inevitable, there may be nothing necessarily inevitable about it. What seems to have created the current chaos is the well-meaning but calamitously unthinking jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), combined with the disastrous "Wir schaffen das" ("We can manage this") of Germany's then Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The ECHR's extreme interpretation of "open borders" hinders the development of a workable asylum policy.
In 2012, the ECHR introduced the "Hirsi ruling," named after the legal case of Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy. This ruling asserts that European states are legally obligated to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, even if they are just 200 meters from the Libyan coast, and transport them to a European port, allowing these individuals to claim refugee status. When the Italian Navy intercepted illegal migrants in the Mediterranean and returned them to Libya, the ECHR not only condemned Italy for what it considered an "evident" violation of human rights but also required the Italians to pay 15,000 euros ($17,000 at the time) to each of these illegal migrants as compensation for "moral damage." This amount is equivalent to more than 10 years of income in the home countries of Mr. Hirsi Jamaa and his companions, Somalia and Eritrea, and most probably the reason they wanted to come to Europe in the first place. (In 2016, Somalia's GDP per capita was estimated at $400, and Eritrea's at $1,300.)
The Hirsi ruling became widely known, particularly in Africa, leading many to understand that if they could just reach the Mediterranean, European navies would now be obligated to transport them directly to Europe. Before the Hirsi ruling, individuals attempting to reach European shores each year faced tragic deaths at sea – sometimes in the hundreds. After Hirsi, the goal of many migrants shifted to being intercepted and rescued. Consequently, literally millions of people now make this journey, often with the assistance of non-governmental organizations, such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), whose activists wait for boats near the Libyan coast.
Immigration is not a natural disaster that befalls Europe, like a plague of locusts or a drought. The migration chaos we are experiencing in Europe is purely a human catastrophe, caused by dreamy policies and faceless judges who are accountable to no one.
The migrants already here are here, but further mass influxes of migrants, such as many countries are experiencing, can be stopped the day after tomorrow by neutralising the ECHR -- simply by opting out of it. It will be interesting to see what Dutch MP Geert Wilders brings to the Netherlands. He may have watered down his most extreme views, but still might want to end the flow of migrants to his beautiful country. In any event, leaving the ECHR is at least one option.
The European Union, by the way, and the Council of Europe -- on which the European Court of Human Rights depends -- are two distinct international organizations. The Netherlands could leave the Council of Europe, if they wished, while remaining a member of the EU.
The temptation to prejudge
The massive settlement of Muslim populations in Europe -- 57 million people by 2050, as projected by the Pew Research Center -- is being experienced dramatically by attacks on civilians, harassment of civilians, no-go-zones with inhabitants who appear not to wish to assimilate, and outspoken concern that a significant proportion of the newcomers are, or are becoming, radicalized.
This new sentiment in Europe could be seen long before the current Israel-Hamas war, with the proselytization of these new Europeans by programs from the Middle East (such as here and here). In Belgium, anti-Semitic prejudice is reportedly more widespread among Muslims. Pro-Palestinian marches since October 7 have all too often been the pretext for raw anti-Semitic slogans not seen since Nazi rallies in the 1930s and 1940s. In France, sadly, the vast majority of anti-Semitic acts and attacks have apparently been committed by Muslims.
In London, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to his great credit, condemned the "Hamas sympathisers" who joined these demonstrations and were "singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing".
We all, however, must guard against the temptation to oversimplify and prejudge – a tendency that appears widespread. Although Islam is a religion, with laws and a doctrine like other religions, one cannot, however, leave it in the same way as one might leave socialism, environmentalism or Catholicism. In Islamic law, apostasy can be punishable by death.
Additionally, many Muslims in Europe feel an intensity about Islam that we do not feel about our Judeo-Christian tradition. Often, we even seem -- dangerously -- to take it for granted and risk throwing it away. Many Muslims, conversely, appear to take for granted that wherever they are should be Islamic. To many Muslims, Islam appears to be "very important" in their life. To many in the West, religion is not necessarily "very important," but often somewhere in the periphery, except perhaps during the high holidays. Many Muslims also seem have the conviction, that the world should bend to Islam, not the other way around.
If, then, we assume Islam is an immovable and timeless concept that disregards all other factors and dominates all considerations, we are just reaffirming the mindset of Islamists. Perhaps it is important to remember that over time, nothing remains unchangeable.
To think now that Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Antwerp will inevitably become Islamic is to promise victory in advance. It is defeatist thinking, which Winston Churchill, in his six-volume series, The Second World War, describedas more threatening than all the Nazi divisions put together.
Tolerating the representatives of Islamist terrorism
One of the elements that lends credence to the idea of an "Islamist Brussels" -- or anyplace-- is the astonishing tolerance shown by the Belgian authorities towards representatives and individuals linked to Islamist terrorist organisations. For example, The London Times recently revealed:
"A British man has been accused by the German authorities of being Hamas's key liaison in Europe with numerous alleged links to the terrorist organisation... Der Spiegel, a German news magazine, names Al-Zeer as the 'person responsible for Hamas' in Germany and across Europe."
Al-Zeer has an office in Brussels that enables him to directly monitor events at the European Commission. According to a December 2023 report by 7sur7, Al-Zeer is the "real boss" of a non-profit association called EUPAC, which describes itself as the "European Palestinian Council for Political Relations".
According to Laatste Nieuws, Al-Zeer, aged 61, is from Bethlehem, and fled to Kuwait with his family at the age of six during Israel's Six Day War. In the 1990s, he settled in Britain, becoming an influential Palestinian activist, already, at the time, linked to Hamas.
According to The Times, in 2009, in an interview with Felesteen, a newspaper affiliated with Hamas, he spoke about a relative who had joined the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades.
In London, Al-Zeer was reportedly one of the founders of the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a pressure group set up in 1996 to defend the "right of return" of all refugees to "Palestine." In 2018, Germany's internal security agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, described the PRC as a Hamas front organisation and a "central propaganda organisation for Hamas in Europe", used by Hamas and its supporters in Germany and Europe for their activities. A photograph dating from 2008 shows Al-Zeer alongside Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, and another picture from 2015 shows him alongside Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
According to The Daily Mail:
"A file from the German interior ministry, first reported by magazine Der Spiegel, named Al-Zeer as the 'person responsible for Hamas' in Germany and across Europe."
EUPAC has other members close to Hamas, including the second and third members of its organisational chart — Mazen Kahel and Omar Faris — who have held senior positions in the PRC. One of them Mazen Kahel was also a co-founder of the Council for Euro-Palestinian Relations, a non-profit organisation based in Brussels, founded in 2010 and dissolved in 2016, but was on the European Union's official list of pressure groups.
EUPAC, which also appears to be dedicated to lobbying, has its official headquarters on Place Robert Schuman in Brussels, overlooking the European Commission's Berlaymont building -- a perfect symbol of the Belgian authorities' appalling laxity.
Islam and Islamism as a totalitarian ideology can be defeated. With its policy of open borders, Europe has taken the path of submission. The freedom of movement of Hamas's "key liaison" in Europe is the ultimate symptom of this submission. A moratorium on immigration might be a good place to start.
*Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain), philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green Reich (2020).
© 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.

Israel’s historical roots and the moral decline of the West
Francis Ghiles/The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
The West’s equivocation on Gaza exposes a global order facing mutiny over its domination of the international discourse. The US double standards on Israel plays into a dangerous game, in which the EU follows suit.“We are sons of light, they are sons of darkness”. Thus, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu summed up his view of Israelis and Palestinians in a state broadcast in early
Then-Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, Knesset (parliament) speaker Yariv Levin, President Isaac Herzog, prime-minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, and the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party Itama
Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has responded with extreme rhetorical and military harshness to the brutal Hamas attack inside southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The Israeli army has so far killed more than 24,000 people in Gaza, including 8,800 children. However, Western leaders and media have all too often given the impression of blanket support for the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. European leaders’ equivocation over the Israeli onslaught against Palestinians is undermining the EU’s “principled” stand on Ukraine and standing in the Global South. It is also fuelling populism and threatening democracy in Europe. We are sons of light, they are sons of darkness”. Thus, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu summed up his view of Israelis and Palestinians in a state broadcast in early November 2023, a month after the brutal Hamas attack inside southern Israel had claimed an estimated 1200 lives and 240 hostages, many of whom are still held by Hamas. His peers in government were equally uncompromising. The deputy speaker of the Knesset, Nissim Vaturi tweeted that Israel should “Burn Gaza now, nothing less!” (The Times of Israel November 17 2023) while the minister of heritage, Amihai Eliyahu suggested Israel could “drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza” (The Times of Israel, November 5 2023).
Such harsh words have surprised some western observers. Yet, anyone familiar with the context in which the state of Israel was created by the United Nations in 1948 will not be surprised. “Israel had been established by Jews from Europe and prided itself on being part of the West, of what was at the time commonly called the Free World. It saw itself and presented itself to the rest of the world, as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism.” These words from Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford, in his book “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew”(2023), are drawn from a biography which is a reflection on the “other victims of Zionism”. It refers to these Jews who were exiled “from their old Arab homelands where they were well-integrated and transplanted to Israel, to serve as a subaltern class of the Hebrew settler nation” in the words of Moshe Machover, founder of the radical organisation Matzpen which disappeared in 1983. The flourishing Jewish community of Baghdad, which Avi Shlaim brings back to life so vividly, has all but vanished. So have the Jewish communities in other Middle East countries and across North Africa. An exception confirming the rule is the small community founded after the second destruction of the Temple in 79 AD that remains around the Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Jerba.
From its very birth in late 19th century Vienna, Zionism emphasised the historic connection of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland in the Middle East but it spawned a state whose cultural and geopolitical orientation identified itself exclusively with the West. When they reached Israel in the 1950s, members of these Jewish communities from Arab countries found the new state “despised Arabic (as) the language of ‘the enemy’… One key factor which shaped my early relationship to Israeli society [was] an inferiority complex. I was an Iraqi boy in the land of the Europeans”, writes Avi Shlaim, reflecting many other Sephardic (Arab) Jews’ feelings vis à vis the Ashkenazi Jews from Europe who dominated the Zionist movement and the new state.
The Palestinians, 700,000 of whom were forced out of Israel after 1948 and the broader Arab world, regarded Israel as an extension of European colonialism. It was in the Middle East but not of it. David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) referred to Israel’s immigrants from the east as “savage hordes”. Another purveyor of this arrogance was foreign minister Abba Eban, who stated that “the goal must be to instil in them a ‘Western spirit’, and not let them drag us into an unnatural Orient”.
The Israeli establishment has always regarded the creation of the modern state of Israel as compensation for the Holocaust, one of the greatest crimes in history. This makes Israel an extension of the West and a reliable ally. It is a paradox of history that Israelis feel closer to European countries who for centuries practised a virulent form of anti-Semitism which culminated in the Holocaust, than Muslim countries who afforded them the status of dhimi, or protected minority and never demonised them however violent relations could be at times.
As Vichy France stripped French Jews of their nationality in 1940, Algeria’s ulamas preached respect for their Jewish brothers and told Muslims not to acquire any Jewish properties that might have been spoliated by the French. Algeria was then part of France. King Mohamed V of Morocco, then a French colony, refused to play the Vichy game. Thousands of Jews were helped by their Muslim brothers as the Nazi general Erwin Rommel retreated across Tunisia, another French colony, after his defeat at the hands of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein in the Libyan desert. The risk of Tunisian Jews being deported to concentration camps in the winter of 1942-1943 was real. The monarch Moncef Bey and the leader of the nationalist Neo Destour party Habib Bourguiba would have no truck with Nazi ideology and practises. Breathing life into an almost forgotten world will not bring that world back. That is true of Baghdad as it is of Cairo and Tunis.
One of the greatest paradoxes in Israeli politics since the 1970s is that Sephardic Jewish votes have underpinned the hold on power of the right-wing Likud and its successive leaders from Menachem Begin to Binyamin Netanyahu. Likud’s leadership has always been Ashkenazi and its neo-liberal economic policies have never served the interests of the underprivileged sectors of society. Shlaim argues that “Sephardic Jews brought with them to Israel a deep hatred and mistrust of the Arabs and therefore naturally gravitated towards the overtly nationalistic, Arab-scorning parties of the right”. According to him, Menachem Begin was one of the first Israeli politicians to resort to the manipulation of anti-Arab feelings, even if the tactic was not a monopoly of the Israeli Right.
Since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, Western leaders and media have all too often given the impression of blanket support for the indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza. The critical Israeli daily Haaretz has been much freer and more daring than its western counterparts. The efforts Israel has made over the decades to redefine its ethnic cleansing of the Arab population of Palestine in 1948 as being a consequence of the Arabs voluntarily departing from their homes appears to have paid dividends. Israelis succeeded in undermining the accusation that their state was built on the foundations of what some observers consider to be a crime against humanity. Yet today the transfer of the Palestinian population out of Gaza is being openly discussed as an official solution by the most senior Israeli leaders and former officials.
The West’s equivocation on Gaza exposes a global order facing mutiny over its domination of the international discourse. The US double standards on Israel plays into a dangerous game, in which the EU follows suit.
As David Levy notes: “For much of the Global south and in many cities in the West, Palestine now occupies a symbolic space. It is a line of avatar of a rebellion against western hypocrisy, against an unacceptable global order, and against the post-colonial order.” In February 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the West rediscovered itself and was proud of how it responded, with unprecedented solidarity, to Vladimir Putin’s aggression. The liberal order, tattered by defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq had revived itself. Two years later, such pride died in the ruins of Gaza.
It is also worth noting that massive American, French and British arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have hugely increased instability in Yemen and Sudan, thus encouraging Iran to build up proxy forces, notably in Lebanon and Yemen and further eroding EU and US influence in the broader Middle East. These very same weapons are also destabilising Europe. This growing instability is all to the benefit of Russia and China: the West seems to have turned shooting oneself in the foot into an art form.
Recent history lies at the root of the widespread feeling of a “decline of the West”and its inevitable consequence, the rise of right-wing populism. If Western leaders cannot stand up to the values which underpin the world they built after 1945, if they are tempted to consign to the dustbins of history the ideas of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” inherited from the French Revolution and just race to sell ever more weapons to despotic regimes, why should their own voters, let alone people across the world, believe in them?
*Fancis Ghiles is a Senior Associate Researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB). An earlier version of this article was published by CIDOB.
Syndication Bureau

Egypt’s Red Sea muddle
Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/January 17/2024
In 2016, the Egyptians celebrated receiving two helicopter carriers, the “Gamal Abdel Nasser” and the “Anwar Sadat” from France. The two carriers are Mistral-class, the type used by the French Navy to maintain a presence around the world. The two carriers were built for Russia, but the contract was cancelled and they were subsequently transferred to Egypt.
Helicopter carriers are just a notch below aircraft carriers. A country which posses this type of naval vessel is a country with global ambitions and the projection of power that are supposed to draw everyone’s attention. There is no point in having a helicopter carrier if it is just to have it stationed on the country’s coast. It is more cost-efficient and more appropriate to use land and air bases to station helicopters and keep them flying. For a country like Egypt with long Mediterranean and the Red Sea coastlines, acquiring these expensive naval vessels is an unjustifiable investment if the goal is to keep them tied up at an Egyptian naval base without their being used for more ambitious tasks.
Egypt is a maritime country that controls the most important sea strait, that of the Suez Canal, through which passes a significant part of global commercial shipping traffic. Naval vessels appear to be an essential part of the country’s national security and its advanced defences. On paper, and in the many of the country’s naval bases, Egypt is slated to be a leading global naval power (it ranks seventh in the world and first in Africa). It has different warships at its disposal: from frigates, to support carriers and missile ships. But the continued stationing of these units in Egyptian naval bases renders the Egyptian navy more like a de facto coast guard that is force equipped with heavy weapons which are not even suitable for protecting maritime borders.
Threats have hovered over the southern part of the Red Sea for years. The Houthis were eventually able to control Yemen’s access to the Red Sea, after trying to control access to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Egyptians realised how serious was the issue early on, especially with the outbreak of the war in Yemen and the role played there by the Saudi-led coalition. But for some reason, they decided to keep their distance from the conflict, presenting themselves as a reserve force that would intervene when needed, or at a “moment’s notice” as President Sisi said at the time.
At the beginning of the war, Egypt dispatched four naval vessels to the Red Sea in an attempt to appease its Saudi allies, who understood that this was the furthest Egypt was willing to go in involving itself in the war and Riyadh thereafter acted on the basis of that understanding
What the Egyptians missed is that if they had actually intervened in the Red Sea, they would have safeguarded their own national security interests, regardless of whether or not their Saudi allies were appeased.
The Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden form an integral part of Egypt’s vital space because these commercial maritime gateways are the southern flank of the strategic Suez Canal corridor. The canal is of course not only the most important link to global trade, but it is also Egypt’s second source of income after expatriate remittances. All things considered, Egypt should have been present in that vital region to help prevent the Houthis and, by extension, the Iranians from controlling it
This viewpoint is not necessarily influenced by the ongoing crisis triggered by Houthi attacks on naval shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, under the pretext of supporting the Palestinians in Gaza. The same perspective was initially shared by the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser whose name is ironically borne today by one of Egypt’s helicopter carriers. Nasser understood Egypt’s vital areas and acted accordingly. The Red Sea and Yemen were at their heart, which is what prompted Egypt to send its army to Yemen in the 1960’s, for two tasks; once to support the young republican regime, which was established after the coup against the monarchy there, and a second to make sure Egypt had a consequential political presence in South Yemen after it became clear that Britain’s days east of Suez were numbered. Egypt won the two wars in Yemen as the republican regime held out in the north, the British presence in Aden ended and the Republic of South Yemen was established. But Cairo eventually lost another war with Israel in the northern Red Sea, the Six Days War of 1967. As a result, this muddled the picture of the role that Egypt could play in the region.
Garnering all the variables in the southern Red Sea is beyond Egypt’s ability. One must remember that Cairo has for years, during and after the Mubarak era, limited its regional role to controlling the Rafah crossing. Although the final outcome of the war in Yemen proved to be in favour of the Houthis, especially after the attack on Hodeidah was halted in 2018, Egypt has acted as if it were dealing with a static situation that would not budge. During the past few years, Cairo lost sight of how bold the Houthis had become, and of how the Saudis’ military strategy had limited itself to simply cutting their losses in the war.
Many regional actors, countries and groups, understood the extent of the unfolding developments. Cairo’s belated realisation that the rapid pace of the changes and their multi-fold impact on Egypt is what made it treat the visit of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with such coldness. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was even dispatched to Eritrea on the same day as Blinken’ arrived, to seek a regional formula for dealing with the memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland. The Egyptians realised that controlling the traffic of the Rafah crossing, before and during the ongoing Gaza war, is not as important as the traffic of the Red Sea, which is undisputedly one of lifelines for Egypt and the rest of the world.
The problem now is that nothing Egypt can do is likely to have much impact on developments in the Red Sea. Western fleets are roaming the region, and US and British fighter jets, warship missiles and submarines are striking the Houthis. Even the Saudi allies are echoing Egypt’s “one moment’s notice” policy with a policy of “restraint” towards Houthi harassment of ships.
Egypt, which has evaded its role in the Red Sea and Yemen for years, is unable today to offer anything that could change the outcome of the crisis or push the actors to retreat. Cairo cannot compete with the Americans and the British in striking the Houthis or intimidating them so they stop targeting passing ships, nor can it influence Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia, nor Eritrea in a way that would change the new geostrategic mapping in the Horn of Africa, let alone influence what might happen in Sudan.
No one knows whether Egypt will act or not, and whether its action, if it happens, will have any impact on events. But indicators are not in its favour, and the signs of confusion are pervasive. The last time one heard of a movement by Egypt’s helicopter carriers was when one was dispatched to the coast of Derna on a rescue mission after the devastating storm Daniel struck the city, demolishing its dams and flooding it with water and mud.
Sending a combat helicopter carrier on a rescue mission is not a means of projecting power, regional presence nor of influencing events.
Cairo is acting out of fear that a Houthi missile or drone would go astray and strike one of Egypt’s large naval units. It is better, Cairo feels, that such a unit remains docked and guarded at a naval base out of harm’s way than being, God forbid, hit or sent to the bottom of the sea.
* Haitham El-Zobaidi is the executive editor of Al Arab Publishing Group.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Deployed in Yemen
Jay Solomon/The Washington Institute/January 17/2024
Tehran has previously been able to conduct a “hidden-hand operation” via the Houthis at a very low cost, but that price may now be set to rise if allied counter-strikes continue.
Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in recent weeks, these officials said.
The Houthis say that its military operations are designed to aid the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, which has been locked in a three-month war with Israel. On Monday, the Pentagon said the Houthis struck a U.S.-owned and -operated container vessel, the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, in the Red Sea, but caused no significant damage. The Houthis fired a second anti-ship ballistic missile into the southern Red Sea, the U.S. Central Command said, but it “failed in flight and impacted on land in Yemen.”
The IRGC’s overall presence inside Yemen is overseen by Gen. Abdul Reza Shahlai, a Tehran-based commander whom the Trump administration attempted to assassinate in a 2020 drone strike inside Yemen, U.S. and Mideast officials said. American intelligence believes Shahlai is deeply involved in Tehran’s overseas terrorist operations through his role as the Qods Force’s deputy commander.
This includes a role in overseeing an unsuccessful 2011 Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, at a Washington, D.C. restaurant. Shahlai, who’s been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, also helped oversee IRGC attacks against U.S. military personnel in Iraq over the past two decades. The Department of Justice offered $15 million in 2019 for information related to the commander’s operations and networks.
Last month, the White House declassified some information related to Iran’s backing of the Houthis, including the intelligence and targeting support. But it didn’t reference the IRGC’s on-ground presence in Yemen, or Shahlai’s role in the Houthis’ operations.
The IRGC’s ground presence in Yemen, and role in directing strikes against Western targets, risks fueling a direct confrontation with the U.S. as the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip grinds on. The Biden administration has to date voiced its intent on avoiding a military conflict with Tehran and preventing a wider regional conflagration. But the Pentagon and U.S. allies started directly hitting Houthi targets inside Yemen last week, raising the possibility of the U.S. also harming IRGC personnel.
U.S. and Mideast officials say Tehran began significantly ramping up its military support for the Houthis in the mid-2010s, when the Yemeni militia and political movement engaged in a war with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Houthis share Iran’s Shiite faith and antipathy to these regional Sunni powers, but had previously been a poorly funded and equipped military force. Today, it has an advanced armory of attack drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that have allowed the Houthis to seriously disrupt global traffic through the Suez Canal and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and attempt strikes on targets as far away as Israel’s Eilat port.
Current and former U.S. military officials say Iran has developed the Houthis into a central cog in Tehran’s regional alliance system, known as the Axis of Resistance, which includes Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraqi and Syrian militias. This system allows Iran to project military power well beyond its borders, while also providing some deniability of involvement in military or terrorist operations.
“Iran has the luxury of really fighting, what I would call, a hidden-hand operation, with various Iranians on the ground, Qods Force people, on the ground [in Yemen],” retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Mideast, said last week at a forum on the Red Sea crisis. “First of all, they fought a major war against Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and now they’re choking world shipping in the Bab-el-Mandeb [Strait] at a very low, very low price for Iran.”The question now is whether the price is set to rise for Iran. Current and former U.S. military and intelligence officials have described to me what is essentially a blood feud between Washington and the IRGC that stretches back decades. Shahlai has played a central role in this covert war.
The U.S. believes the IRGC oversaw Hezbollah suicide bombings on American diplomatic and military targets in Lebanon in the 1980s. And the IRGC is accused of training Iraqi Shiite militias in the use of roadside bombs, known as IEDs, that were the largest cause of U.S. military deaths in Iraq. The U.S. government has also claimed that Shahlai oversaw a 2007 IRGC operation in the central Iraqi city of Karbala that resulted in the executions of five American soldiers.
The View from Tehran
Iran has voiced its support for the Houthis’ attacks in the Red Sea, claiming that they’re part of the Resistance Axis’ support for Hamas. But Tehran has denied any direct role in either the Houthis’ operations or Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. “The resistance [Houthis] has its own tools...and acts in accordance with its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, told Iranian state media last month. “The fact that certain powers, such as the Americans and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement...should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region.”The Houthis have also denied relying on Iran to conduct its attacks. “It’s strange to attribute everything to Iran as if it were the world’s strongest power,” a Houthi spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal last month. “We have intelligence facilities that have proven themselves over the years of aggression against us.”
*Jay Solomon is an adjunct fellow with The Washington Institute and global security editor for Semafor. This article originally appeared on the Semafor website.

Redesignating Houthis, Biden admin hopes terror group will become ‘constructive actor’
ANDREW BERNARD/JNS/January 17, 2024
“If the Houthis cease their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the United States will immediately reevaluate this designation,” the U.S. national security advisor said. The United States plans to re-designate the Yemen-based Houthi militant group as a terrorist organization following its repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping that have wreaked havoc on international trade, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said on Wednesday. That designation of the Iran-backed group will take effect 30 days from the announcement in order to allow for “humanitarian carve-outs” intended to ensure that the sanctions do not harm the Yemeni population, according to Sullivan. The Houthis control 70% to 80% of Yemen’s population of more than 31.5 million and about one-third of the country’s territory, per the U.S. State Department. “Over the past months, Yemen-based Houthi militants have engaged in unprecedented attacks against United States military forces and international maritime vessels operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Sullivan stated. “These attacks fit the textbook definition of terrorism.”“Today, in response to these continuing threats and attacks, the United States announced the designation of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT),” he added. “This designation is an important tool to impede terrorist funding to the Houthis, further restrict their access to financial markets and hold them accountable for their actions.”
The SDGT designation is less punitive than a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, requiring a higher threshold of evidence for prosecution and preventing victims from suing for compensation, among other differences. Former president Donald Trump applied both designations to the Houthis at the end of his term in 2021. The Biden administration removed those designations nearly one month later, over the objection of some U.S. partners in the region, including the United Arab Emirates that had been subject to Houthi ballistic missile attacks. Speaking to reporters Tuesday in an embargoed, background briefing, senior officials said that the administration believes that the SDGT designation provides them with greater flexibility than the FTO one, including for the creation of humanitarian exemptions.
The officials added that the new terror designation will be focused on the Houthis’ attacks on shipping and not their “broader suite of behavior,” a point that Sullivan repeated in his statement on Wednesday.
“If the Houthis cease their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the United States will immediately re-evaluate this designation,” Sullivan said.
The statements imply that if maritime attacks cease, Washington might remove the designation even if the Houthis continue to fire ballistic missiles at Israel and other neighboring countries. The Houthis have long carried out drone and ballistic missile attacks against civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as part of Yemen’s nearly decade-long civil war, in which a Saudi-led coalition supported Yemen’s internationally-recognized government against Houthi rebels, who control Yemen’s capital Sanaa. Those attacks have largely subsided in recent years, as the Saudis have led peace negotiations between the Houthis and Yemen’s official government.
CENTCOMU.S. Central Command forces, in coordination with the United Kingdom, and support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Bahrain, conducted joint strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Jan. 11, 2023. Credit: X/U.S. Central Command.
But in October, shortly after Israel began military operations in Gaza in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attacks, the Houthis began launching missiles against shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They also attempted to fire missiles at Israel. The Houthis have also hijacked an oil tanker, the Galaxy Leader, which they claim is tied to Israel and are holding its 25 crew members as hostages.
Those attacks have continued despite the formation of a U.S.-led naval force in the Red Sea, repeated warnings by the international coalition and U.S. airstrikes on Houthi military sites. On Tuesday, the Houthis successfully hit the Greek-owned bulk carrier Zografia in a missile attack as it was sailing from Vietnam to Israel. The attack reportedly caused only minor damage and no casualties.
The attacks have almost completely diverted international shipping around the Red Sea, disrupting some 20% of global trade, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this month.
The Houthis’ ability to carry out these attacks is enabled by Iran, which supplies them with missiles, small arms, and other forms of material and operational support. Semafor reported Monday that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is deployed in Yemen to directly assist the Houthis.
The senior Biden administration officials said they hope that the sanctions will press the Houthis to sever ties with Iran, as part of a “comprehensive strategy” combining diplomacy at the United Nations and with coalition partners, sanctions and military action. “We believe this designation will apply additional pressure on the Houthis to change its behavior and turn away from Iran, and then for the Houthis to become a constructive actor in the United Nations Security Council process,” one of the senior officials said.
“I think we have a pretty comprehensive strategy already underway,” another senior official added. A spokesman for the Houthis responding to the designation on Wednesday said that the sanctions will have no impact on the group’s operations. “The American designation will not deter us from our support for Palestine,” said Mohammed Abdulsalam, the official Houthi spokesman. “The recent American decision will only make us more committed to our position in support of the Palestinians.”