English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 30/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2025/english.march30.25.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006 

Click On The Below Link To Join Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FPF0N7lE5S484LNaSm0MjW
اضغط على الرابط في أعلى للإنضمام لكروب Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group

Elias Bejjani/Click on the below link to subscribe to my youtube channel
الياس بجاني/اضغط على الرابط في أسفل للإشتراك في موقعي ع اليوتيوب
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOOSioLh1GE3C1hp63Camw

Bible Quotations For today
Fifth Sunday of the Great Lent/The Healing Miracle of the Paralytic
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 02/01-12/When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven", or to say, "Stand up and take your mat and walk"?But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ he said to the paralytic ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 29-30/2025
The Healing Miracle of the Paralytic & The Power of Praying for Others/Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Mini-States and Hotbeds for Terrorist Organizations, Islamists, and Fugitives from Justice/Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
Hezbollah has become like a chameleon, changing colors every day: fear, cowardice, and defeat/Elias Bejjani/March 28/2025
Nawaf Salam: A Self-Appointed Spokesperson Who Doesn't Represent All Lebanese/Elias Bejjani/March 27/2025
Dr. Ahmad Yaqssin/Hezbollah’s Ministate Controls the Lebanese State
Has an American-French battle erupted in Lebanon, with the two sides being the presidency and the prime minister?/Ali Hamadeh/March 29, 2025
Israeli reconnaissance aircraft violate Lebanese airspace over Beirut
Hezbollah says it will act if Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue
Iraq agrees to supply Lebanon with fuel for six months
Aoun to hold meetings in Lebanon over latest Israeli escalation
Hezbollah's Qassem: Continued Israeli aggression would force Hezbollah to consider alternative responses
UNIFIL reports Israeli warning shots, laser targeting at peacekeepers in South Lebanon
Another chance: Can Lebanon's Parliament pass key financial laws before IMF meetings in Washington?
Lebanon's 2026 elections: Debate over electoral law sparks political tensions
Palestinian weapons in Lebanon: A key issue in President Abbas' upcoming visit to Beirut amid US calls
Lebanese PM Nawaf Salam heads to Saudi Arabia for Eid prayers with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Joseph Aoun Calls for Lifting Sanctions on Syria
Aoun: My resolve will not waver in fulfilling my pledge to the Lebanese
Israeli reconnaissance drones fly over Beirut and its suburbs
US: We expect the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups
Figure of the weekLebanon's Solar Energy Market Faces Sharp Decline
Gebran Bassil: Navigating His Political Exit Strategies/Johnny Kortbawi/This is Beirut/March 29, 2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 29-30/2025
Report: Iran responds to Trump's nuclear talks proposal as US sends bombers to region
Iran urges 'decisive measures' from int'l community after Israel's attack on Dahieh
Ghalibaf: Any Attack on Iran Will Ignite the Entire Region
New US strikes against Houthi rebels kill at least 1 in Yemen
Syria’s president Al-Sharaa forms new transitional government
Sharaa Announces Government of "Change and Construction"... Defense and Foreign Ministers Remain
Syrian Kurds Frustrated with Damascus Over Exclusion from Transitional Govt Formation
US embassy in Syria warns of increased risk of attacks
Israeli military admits to shooting at ambulances
Hamas says Gaza truce talks with mediators stepping up
US: We expect the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups
US Sanctions Lebanese Hezbollah Financing Network
Israeli Military Begins ‘Ground Activity’ to Extend ‘Security Zone’ in Southern Gaza
Hamas says it accepts a new Gaza ceasefire proposal but Israel makes a counter-offer
Turkiye opposition calls mass rally in Istanbul
Misinformation, online hate speech fuels panic in South Sudan
Does military’s recapture of Khartoum mark a crossroads in Sudan’s conflict?
Hundreds of thousands join Istanbul protest rally
Bannon: Trump ‘going to prison’ if Democrat wins White House in 2028
Following US Withdrawal, WHO Faces 20% Budget Cut

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 29-30/2025
No Time Left: China and Russia Making Sure Iran Goes Nuclear Before End of Trump's Ultimatum/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/March 29, 2025
A sad week for Israeli democracy/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Terrorism assessment for Afghanistan/Luke Coffey/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Italy’s surprising new political stability under Meloni/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Tigray are sleepwalking into war/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/March 29, 2025
A new dimension in Turkiye-US relations/Dr. Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 29, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 29-30/2025
The Healing Miracle of the Paralytic & The Power of Praying for Others
Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/73457/
On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Catholic Maronites reflect with great reverence on the Gospel of Saint Mark (2:1-12), which recounts The Healing Miracle of the Paralytic. This powerful miracle underscores the immense value of intercession, affirming that prayers and supplications for others are faith-driven acts that Almighty God attentively hears and graciously answers.
Notably, the paralytic man in this Gospel passage did not personally seek Jesus' help, nor did he ask for healing, forgiveness, or mercy. Many theologians believe that Jesus frequently preached in Capernaum’s synagogue, the very town where this man lived, yet he remained distant—lacking faith, hope, and spiritual awareness. He did not believe that the Lord could cure him.
What makes this miracle particularly remarkable is the unwavering faith of the paralytic’s friends, relatives, or perhaps some of Jesus' disciples. They were convinced that if Jesus merely touched him, the man who had been crippled for 38 years would be healed. Their deep faith and determination compelled four of them to carry him on a mat to the house where Jesus was preaching. When they could not break through the crowd, they climbed onto the roof, made an opening, and lowered the paralytic before Jesus, pleading for his healing.
Moved by their faith, Jesus first forgave the man’s sins: "Son, your sins are forgiven." Only afterward did He heal his body, commanding: "Arise, take up your bed, and walk."
Like the scribes in the Gospel, many today question why Jesus prioritized the forgiveness of sins over physical healing. His divine wisdom reveals that sin is the true death, leading to eternal suffering in Hell. Sin cripples the soul, destroys faith and hope, erodes morals and values, and numbs the conscience, separating individuals from God. Jesus sought to restore the man’s soul before curing his body, teaching an eternal truth: "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37).
Our merciful God never turns away those who seek Him in faith and humility. He listens with boundless love and responds in His divine wisdom, time, and manner:"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened." (Matthew 7:7-8)
"Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will heal the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up." (James 5:15)
Within this divine context of mercy and intercession, prayers for others—whether they are living or deceased, loved ones or enemies, relatives or strangers—are acts of faith and compassion. God listens and responds because He never abandons His children, provided they turn to Him with sincere repentance and trust. Numerous biblical passages demonstrate God’s acceptance of prayers offered on behalf of others:
Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant at the request of the Centurion, not the servant himself. (Matthew 8:5-13)
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in response to the pleas of his sisters, Mary and Martha. (John 11:1-44)
Praying for others—whether family, friends, strangers, or even nations—reflects faith, love, and hope. Almighty God, as a loving and merciful Father, hears these prayers and answers them according to His divine wisdom, which often transcends human understanding:
"Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Matthew 21:22)
God is always waiting for us, His children, to seek His mercy—whether for ourselves or for others. He never leaves us alone. Moreover, it is our duty of faith to extend a helping hand to those who cannot pray for themselves—the lost, the suffering, the unconscious, and the paralyzed. This spirit of intercession is why we also pray to the Virgin Mary and the Saints—not as objects of worship, but as intercessors who bring our pleas before the Lord.
O Lord, grant us the grace of faith, hope, wisdom, and patience.Help us to be loving, humble, and compassionate.Guide us on the path of righteousness.May we stand with the just on the Day of Judgment.God sees and hears us always—let us live in reverence to Him in all we think, say, and do.

Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: Mini-States and Hotbeds for Terrorist Organizations, Islamists, and Fugitives from Justice
Elias Bejjani/March 30/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141716/
Refugee Camps or Armed Strongholds?
No country in the world—especially within Arab and Islamic nations—permits refugee camps to transform into armed mini-states beyond the authority of the state. However, in Lebanon, the 13 refugee Palestinian camps have been a glaring exception since the 1970s. These camps have become lawless zones, controlled by armed groups that operate beyond state control. They serve as hotbeds for terrorism, extremism, fugitives from justice, smuggling networks, and illicit drug trafficking.
A Historical Attempt to Occupy Lebanon
Since the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, armed Palestinian factions allied with leftist and Arab nationalist forces attempted to impose their control over Lebanon, seeking to replace the Lebanese state with a Palestinian entity. These groups waged brutal wars against state institutions, security forces, and particularly Christian areas, turning Lebanon into a regional battlefield. Despite the official end of the war, the Taif Agreement, and the forced disbanding of Christian, Druze, and Sunni militias, Palestinian camps remained militarized strongholds. Similarly, terrorist factions such as Hezbollah, Amal Movement,, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Ba'ath Party, and radical Islamist organizations never surrendered their arms. This was due to the influence of the Syrian Assad regime, which occupied Lebanon until 2005. After Assad's withdrawal, Hezbollah—an Iranian armed terrorist proxy—took over, ensuring that Palestinian camps remained armed and outside state authority, perpetuating the same destabilizing agenda. What were supposed to be humanitarian refugee settlements instead became closed military zones.
Palestinian Camps: Epicenters of Terrorism and Crime
The Palestinian camps—most notably Ain al-Hilweh in Sidon and Rashidieh in Tyre—have become safe havens for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and Al-Nusra Front. These factions stockpile weapons inside the camps, turning them into direct threats to Lebanese security and regional stability.
The 13 Palestinian Camps and the Armed Organizations that controls them
Lebanon’s Palestinian camps are distributed across various regions:
Sidon: Ain al-Hilweh, Mieh Mieh
Tyre: Rashidieh, Burj al-Shamali, Al-Bass
North Lebanon: Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi
Beirut: Burj al-Barajneh, Shatila, Mar Elias
Metn: Dbayeh
Baalbek: Al-Jalil, Wavel
Several armed organizations operate within these camps, including:
Hamas
Islamic Jihad Movement
Abdullah Azzam Brigades
ISIS
Al-Nusra Front
Jamaat Ansar Allah
Fatah Movement (armed factions)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
Fatah al-Islam (eliminated after the Battle of Nahr al-Bared but left a dangerous security legacy)
The Battle of Nahr al-Bared: A Case Study in Armed Anarchy
In 2007, a fierce battle erupted between the Lebanese army and the terrorist group Fatah al-Islam, which had entrenched itself inside the Nahr al-Bared camp. Hundreds of Lebanese soldiers were martyred, and numerous civilians lost their lives. The Syrian regime, which was still exerting control over Lebanon, provided political cover, weapons, and funding to the militants, obstructing state efforts to restore sovereignty.
The Taif Agreement and the Failure to Disarm the Camps
The Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese Civil War, stipulated the disarmament of all militias and the extension of state control over all Lebanese territory. However, under Syrian occupation, this was selectively enforced—only Christian and Druze militias were disarmed, while Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Ba'ath Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and Islamist factions were allowed to keep their weapons. Palestinian camps also remained outside state control, despite national consensus on the need to disarm them.
The Lebanese National Dialogue: A Useless Exercise
In 2006, the Lebanese National Dialogue, chaired by Nabih Berri and attended by Hassan Nasrallah and other political leaders, agreed on the necessity of disarming the camps. However, Hezbollah deliberately obstructed any implementation, as it benefits from the continued existence of these armed enclaves, which serve as rear bases for its fundamentalist allies.
UN Resolutions Ignored
United Nations Resolutions 1559, 1701, and 1680, as well as the Lebanese Armistice Agreement, mandate the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon. However, Hezbollah’s dominance, along with continued chaos in the camps, has prevented any enforcement. As a result, these camps remain breeding grounds for extremism and organized crime, endangering Lebanon and its people.
Palestinian Authority’s Calls for Disarmament Ignored
For years, the Palestinian Authority has urged Lebanon to disarm the camps and reassert full state control. However, Lebanon—whose political and military decisions are controlled by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy—has failed to act. Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime have exploited these camps for decades to serve their expansionist and terrorist agendas, at the expense of Lebanon’s security and sovereignty.
The Only Path Forward: Restoring Lebanese Sovereignty
Lebanon cannot achieve stability and sovereignty unless it decisively disarms Palestinian camps—just as Christian and Druze militias were forcibly disarmed after the war. The continued existence of these lawless enclaves ensures that Lebanon remains a hostage to armed chaos, foreign interference, and perpetual instability. The Lebanese people must demand an end to this dangerous anomaly. The state must reclaim its authority and enforce a monopoly on arms to build a sovereign, independent nation capable of protecting its citizens and ensuring lasting peace.

Hezbollah has become like a chameleon, changing colors every day: fear, cowardice, and defeat
Elias Bejjani/March 28/2025
Hezbollah is cowardly, impotent, and hypocritical because it launches rockets directly or through its terrorist thugs, then denounces and denies responsibility. Expired.

Nawaf Salam: A Self-Appointed Spokesperson Who Doesn't Represent All Lebanese
Elias Bejjani/March 27/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141623/
There's a Lebanese saying: "We brought the bald man to cheer us up, but he revealed his baldness and scared us." This perfectly illustrates the actions of Nawaf Salam, who once again insists on making divisive statements detached from reality, falsely believing himself to be the legitimate and sole representative of the Lebanese people.
In a statement reeking of authoritarianism and exclusion, Salam declared yesterday: "Normalization with Israel is rejected by all Lebanese."
The fundamental question here is: who authorized him to speak for all Lebanese? What right does he have to appropriate the voice of the Lebanese people and impose his opinion on them without any legal or popular mandate?
His words are not simply a personal opinion; they are a blatant misrepresentation of the will of the majority of Lebanese. We are weary of wars and unjustified hostility and yearn for peace and reconciliation with the State of Israel and all nations. We want an end to the absurd situation imposed by the Iranian-backed, fundamentalist, and terrorist Hezbollah through force of arms and all forms of criminal oppression.
We ask loudly: who gave him the authority to assert that all of Lebanon rejects peace? Did he conduct a public opinion poll? Has he listened to the voices of the Lebanese people oppressed under the dominance of illegal weapons, those who long to escape the forced isolation imposed upon them by the deceptive and hypocritical doctrine of a hollow resistance? Or does he still believe that Lebanon is captive to the outdated rhetoric of Nasserist and Muslim Brotherhood Arabism, which has brought nothing but defeats and collapses to the region?
Nawaf Salam's history is evident to anyone familiar with him. He has never truly aligned himself with a genuine Lebanese identity. Instead, he has consistently and publicly been part of Arabist and fundamentalist agendas allied with both Sunni and Shiite political Islam. This individual has never strayed from the ideology of the radical left and pan-Arabist Muslim Brotherhood concepts. He was a follower of the Palestinian Fatah organization, closely associated with Yasser Arafat, and even wrote speeches for him. Furthermore, his wife, a journalist, shares the same destructive ideological leanings.
Today, despite the significant shifts in the region, Salam remains trapped in the mindset, concepts, and culture of the 1960s. He refuses to acknowledge that times have changed and that the Lebanese people desire a future free from the wars and destruction of political Islam. He stubbornly clings to empty slogans that have mired Lebanon in successive crises, despite the clear realities: there is no fundamental issue between Lebanon and Israel, only minor border disputes that can be resolved diplomatically. This is a fact understood by the majority of Lebanese who aspire to peace and stability, not to bombastic rhetoric, blind hostility, and futile wars.
More concerning than Salam's arrogant pronouncements is the composition of his ineffective government, which includes figures as exclusionary and intellectually barren as he is. His deputy, Tariq Mitri, is merely a reflection of him. Moreover, his cabinet is filled with ministers aligned with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, making it a government subservient to the very system that has devastated Lebanon for decades. It is crucial to ask how such a government can claim to represent the Lebanese people when it only serves the interests of Hezbollah's mini-state and its allies.
Ultimately, Nawaf Salam does not represent the Lebanese people. He represents only himself and his ossified Nasserist and Muslim Brotherhood ideology. His condescending and misleading statements are simply a parrot-like repetition of outdated slogans.
It is disheartening that the pan-Arabist, Nasserist Salam suffers from a complete disconnect from reality. He is unable to grasp that the Middle East is moving towards peace and openness, and that outdated hostile and pan-Arabist mentalities no longer have a place in this era.
Therefore, if Salam is incapable of adapting to this new phase – and he clearly is – he should resign and step aside. He must cease imposing his leftist and fundamentalist illusions on the people of Lebanon.
The Lebanese people are no longer willing to pay the price for his blind hatred. Consequently, they will not allow him or anyone else to falsely claim to speak on their behalf. This is an era of peace, and those who fail to understand this belong in the dustbin of history.

Dr. Ahmad Yaqssin/Hezbollah’s Ministate Controls the Lebanese State
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141700/
Link to a video commentary by the Shiite sovereign opposition figure Dr. Ahmed Yassin, in which he explains in details and with facts what is happening inside the Hezbollah Ministate, where the Lebanese state and its forces do not exist. He also recounts the story of the military cards issued by Wafiq Safa, which allow their holders, members of his Iranian gang, to pass through army and public security checkpoints without inspection.
The video demonstrates that the Lebanese state has n controls over the Ministate state. Hezbollah forbids the state military figures from entering its southern suburbs, while the puppet state facilitating the passage of Hezbollah’s weapons and armed militias through its checkpoints.
March 29, 2025

Has an American-French battle erupted in Lebanon, with the two sides being the presidency and the prime minister?
Ali Hamadeh/March 29, 2025
Link to a video commentary by journalist Ali Hamadeh, in which he explains the French conspiracy hatched to thwart the Cabinet's appointment of Karim Saeid as governor of the Central Bank. The spiteful, saboteur, and leftist Arabist Nawaf Salam spearheaded the failed conspiracy, and it has become clear that he is diabolically seeking to derail the presidency and thwart President Aoun.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141746/
Commentary title: Has an American-French battle erupted in Lebanon, with the two sides being the presidency and the prime minister?
Ali Hamadeh: A secret meeting at the Pine Palace brought together French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian for "Mastermind" along with a number of figures involved in the battle to overturn President Joseph Aoun's and Washington's choice for the governorship of the Central Bank. Has Paris become a party to the third presidency against the first?
Note: The main headline is from the Coordination Committee's text, not Hamadeh's. Hamada titled the comment as follows: Has an American-French battle erupted in Lebanon, with the two parties being the presidency and the government?

Israeli reconnaissance aircraft violate Lebanese airspace over Beirut
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/March 29, 2025
BEIRUT: President Joseph Aoun said on Saturday that Lebanon has entered a “new phase” in its history “after decades of violence, wars, economic and financial crises, and the deterioration of the state’s structure.”In his address to the Lebanese people to mark Eid Al-Fitr, Aoun added: “For those who think our resolve will weaken or our determination will waver; there is no turning back.”Aoun, who returned from Paris on Friday evening after holding talks with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and officials from Cyprus and Greece, continued: “What distinguishes Lebanon is its adherence to the values of unity, solidarity, and rising above selfishness and personal interests. There is no salvation for Lebanon unless we live by these values, which, alongside the implementation of laws and the realization of justice, form the only path to combating corruption, achieving structural reforms in our national institutions, and advancing Lebanon to keep pace with global progress and modernity.”Also on Saturday, the Lebanese army continued its investigations to determine who was responsible for the rockets fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel on Friday, an event that led to an escalation of Israeli aggression unprecedented since a ceasefire agreement came into effect four months ago. A military source said: “Night raids were conducted by army intelligence in the south and the western Bekaa aimed at finding suspects involved in launching rockets from the south.”
An Israeli airstrike on the Hadath area in the southern suburbs of Beirut resulted in the complete destruction of two buildings and damage to numerous neighboring structures, including two schools in the area. Students from those schools organized a protest on Saturday to “denounce the Israeli assaults,” and asking for clarification on “the fate of the academic year in light of the damages that hinder an immediate return to the two schools.”
Morgan Ortagus, US deputy special envoy to the Middle East, said in an interview with a local Lebanese station on Friday night that the United States “supports the Lebanese Army,” adding: “The launching of rockets from Lebanon into Israel constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement reached between the two parties, and this escalation raises significant international concern.”Ortagus also stated that the Lebanese government is “responsible for disarming Hezbollah,” but noted “the government is unable to control everything, which contributes to the deterioration of the security situation in the country.”
The US envoy continued: “It cannot be claimed that Israel is violating the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon,” and urged Lebanese authorities to “take responsibility instead of blaming Israel.”
Ortagus reaffirmed the US administration’s stance, urging “the full disarmament of Hezbollah, as it threatens stability in Lebanon and the region.” She also accused Iran and Hezbollah of “destroying the south and dragging Lebanon into a war that could have been avoided were it not for Iran’s interference and Hezbollah’s involvement. The US is committed to using all available measures to prevent the arming of Hezbollah, as it poses a significant threat to regional security. “The US does not seek a larger conflict between Lebanon and Israel, but instead aims to maintain the ceasefire agreement between the two sides. As a gesture of goodwill, Israel released Lebanese prisoners, signaling its willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution. In addition, the Lebanese president supports diplomatic negotiations, making it a critical time to activate diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon,” Ortagus added.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Low-altitude reconnaissance aircraft have been regularly spotted over Beirut and its southern suburbs, including the towns of Bechamoun, Aramoun, Khaldeh and Choueifat in Mount Lebanon.
In the south, an Israeli warplane dropped two stun grenades near a crowd of residents in the town square of Yaroun in Bint Jbeil. The municipalities of Beirut’s southern suburbs have called on the residents to refrain from using firecrackers or engaging in celebratory gunfire during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday, stating that violators will be “referred to the appropriate judicial authorities.”The municipalities have also banned merchants from selling firecrackers, “under the threat of having their shops shut down.”

Hezbollah says it will act if Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue
AP/March 29, 2025
BEIRUT: The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group warned Saturday that if Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue and the Lebanese state does not act to stop them, the group will eventually resort to other alternatives. Naim Kassem’s comments came a day after Israel launched an attack on Lebanon’s capital for the first time since a ceasefire ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. The strike on Beirut came hours after two rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel and Hezbollah denied it fired them. There was no immediate response from Israeli officials. Kassem was supposed to give his speech on Friday to mark Jerusalem Day that is usually held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. However, it was postponed because of the Israeli airstrikes on different parts of Lebanon including a suburb of the capital. Jerusalem Day is an annual international day launched by Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 in which Iranians and many of their allies show support for the Palestinians. Under the US-brokered ceasefire that end the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw from all Lebanese territory by late January while Hezbollah had to end its armed presence south of the Litani river along the border with Israel. The deadline was extended to Feb. 18, but Israel has remained in five border locations while carrying out dozens of strikes on what it said were Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon. Last week, Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Lebanon killed six people while an airstrike on a southern village on Friday killed three and wounded 18, most of them women and children. “We fully complied and we have no presence south of the Litani but Israel did not abide. Israel is carrying aggressions every day,” Kassem said in his televised speech Saturday night. “These (Israeli strikes) are not violations. They are an aggression that crossed all limits,” Kassem added. He said Israel appears to be pressuring Lebanon to normalize relations with it, a move the Hezbollah totally rejects. “Israel will not get during peace time what it was not able to achieve by war,” he said. “Let everyone know that this resistance (Hezbollah) is present and ready and at the same time is committed to the agreement.”But Kassem warned that if Israel does not abide by the deal and the Lebanese state is not able to impose the implementation of the deal through political means, then “we will have to resort to other alternatives.” It was an apparent reference that Hezbollah might resort to its weapons to fight Israeli troops inside Lebanon. “We will not allow anyone to deprive us from using our force and capabilities to confront this enemy,” said Kassem. He added that Hezbollah “is not weak in facing the projects of America and Israel.” “Our patience so far aims to give a chance to solutions that could reduce the pains and casualties,” Kassem said. Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel by its Hamas allies ignited the war in Gaza. Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 in Israel and abducted 251 others during the 2023 attack. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict exploded into all-out war last September when Israel carried out waves of airstrikes and killed most of the militant group’s senior leaders. The fighting killed over 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced about 60,000 Israelis.

Iraq agrees to supply Lebanon with fuel for six months
Reuters/March 29, 2025
BEIRUT: Iraq has agreed to supply Lebanon with fuel for six more months, the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said in a statement on Saturday, renewing a deal meant to alleviate Lebanon’s acute power shortage. Under the heavy fuel oil deal, first agreed in July 2021, Iraq provides the Lebanese government with the fuel in exchange for services including health care for Iraqi citizens. Lebanon then swaps the heavy fuel oil for gas oil that it can use at its power stations. These have operated for decades at partial capacity, but electricity provision deteriorated further during a financial crisis that has hit the state’s ability to buy fuel.

Aoun to hold meetings in Lebanon over latest Israeli escalation
Naharnet/March 29, 2025  
The Israeli attack that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time since the latest war will be discussed in meetings that President Joseph Aoun is expected to hold following his return from France on Friday evening, informed sources said. “The attack that took place was a message to the Lebanese state regarding the file of Hezbollah’s weapons and the dismantling of its military infrastructure and facilities is a responsibility that falls on the shoulders of security authorities and agencies, especially the Lebanese Army,” the sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Saturday. The sources also did not rule out that Aoun might convene Cabinet or the Higher Defense Council to discuss the developments.

Hezbollah's Qassem: Continued Israeli aggression would force Hezbollah to consider alternative responses
LBCI/March 29, 2025
Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem warned that Lebanon remains on Israel's expansionist agenda, particularly in the south, citing historical precedents. He asserted that any Israeli attempt to establish a new military equation is unacceptable and called on the Lebanese state to confront such efforts. Qassem described Israel as an expansionist enemy, insisting that Hezbollah's actions are a defensive response and a legitimate right that must continue. He also addressed recent Israeli strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, stating that while Hezbollah remains committed to the ceasefire agreement, continued Israeli aggression would force the group to consider alternative responses. "The Israeli assault has crossed all limits, and its justifications are meaningless," Qassem said, rejecting any normalization efforts or political negotiations that could grant Israel what it failed to achieve through war. On border security, he stressed that the Lebanese Army is responsible for defending Lebanon's frontier with Syria, reaffirming that this duty falls under the state's jurisdiction.
Related Articles

UNIFIL reports Israeli warning shots, laser targeting at peacekeepers in South Lebanon
LBCI/March 29, 2025
UNIFIL peacekeepers were subjected to warning shots fired by the Israeli army during a scheduled reconnaissance patrol near the village of Rmeish in South Lebanon Saturday afternoon. According to a statement from the peacekeeping force, the shots were fired from a machine gun across the Blue Line, in what UNIFIL described as a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. In a separate incident on the same day, a UNIFIL patrol reported that Israeli forces aimed a laser at them, targeting both their bodies and eyes. "Any act that compromises the safety of U.N. peacekeepers as they carry out their mandated tasks is unacceptable," UNIFIL said, emphasizing the importance of respecting the security of its personnel. The peacekeeping mission stated that it follows up with the Israeli army regarding both incidents.

Another chance: Can Lebanon's Parliament pass key financial laws before IMF meetings in Washington?
LBCI/March 29, 2025
With the countdown underway for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings in Washington on April 21, Lebanon is scrambling to finalize key financial legislation. Alongside efforts to complete appointments to the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the Lebanese delegation is expected to present two crucial financial laws. The first is an amended banking secrecy law aimed at easing confidentiality restrictions. The government has already approved the draft and referred it to Parliament for review. The second and more contentious is the banking sector restructuring law, which has faced repeated delays, particularly over disagreements on distributing financial losses and return deposits to account holders.  To break the deadlock, the IMF has proposed dividing the law into two phases. The first would focus solely on establishing criteria for evaluating banks and determining which institutions are viable under international standards. This will be the focal point of discussions with the IMF in Washington. The second phase, dealing with loss distribution and deposit recovery, would be addressed at a later stage. The government is expected to discuss the first phase of the banking law in its next session before referring it to Parliament. However, the real test lies in securing its approval in time for the Washington meetings.  Many recall the political deadlock of 2022 when Lebanon reached a preliminary agreement with the IMF only to see the opportunity slip away due to infighting between the government and Parliament. This time, the stakes are high. The IMF is waiting, and Lebanon cannot afford to miss another chance.

Lebanon's 2026 elections: Debate over electoral law sparks political tensions
LBCI/March 29, 2025
With Lebanon's 2026 parliamentary elections approaching, political debate is intensifying over which electoral law will govern the vote. The key question is whether elections will be held under the current proportional representation system with amendments or under an entirely new law, such as the "single electoral district" proposal by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Under the existing proportional representation law, Christian representation has improved significantly. In the 2009 elections, held under the majoritarian "1960 law," only 24 Christian MPs were elected primarily by Christian voters. However, the 2018 elections, conducted under proportional representation, saw 53 Christian MPs elected by Christian votes. This level of representation was maintained in the 2022 elections, with 53 out of 64 Christian MPs winning their seats through Christian votes.
The proposed "Lebanon as a single electoral district" system raises concerns among major Christian parties and independent Christian MPs, who argue that it would significantly diminish Christian political influence. In this system, candidates would run on closed lists comprising all 128 parliamentary seats, meaning that voters would not cast their ballots for candidates within their specific district but rather for an entire nationwide list. Seats would then be distributed proportionally based on the percentage of votes each list receives. For instance, a list that secures 30% of the nationwide vote would be awarded 30% of the seats in parliament. Christian political factions fear that this mechanism could allow Muslim-majority voter blocs to determine the outcome of Christian representation. If Christian candidates are included on a list primarily backed by Muslim voters, and that list wins a significant percentage of the national vote, Christian MPs could be elected with a majority of Muslim votes. They argue that this would undermine Christian self-representation and shift the balance of power in parliament. Currently, the electoral landscape is dominated by the Shiite political duo of Hezbollah and Amal, which collectively formed the largest voting bloc in the 2022 elections. In that election, the Shiite electorate accounted for approximately 542,000 voters out of the 1.95 million total ballots cast across Lebanon. In contrast, Christian votes were more fragmented across various parties and independent candidates. However, if the Future Movement fails to return to the electoral arena to consolidate Sunni votes, the Amal-Hezbollah duo, known to be running in the elections as united, is expected to control the identity of the 2026 Parliament, particularly if elections are held under the single-district system. If adopted, this law could enable the alliance to determine the composition of the next parliament, shifting Lebanon back to a system where a single dominant bloc holds decisive control.

Palestinian weapons in Lebanon: A key issue in President Abbas' upcoming visit to Beirut amid US calls
LBCI/March 29, 2025
In a series of interviews with Lebanese and Arab media, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus emphasized the need for the Lebanese government to take action to disarm Hezbollah and other armed factions. While she did not specify which factions, her remarks were widely interpreted as a reference to Palestinian groups operating within Lebanon's 12 refugee camps. Is the Lebanese government prepared to take such a step? Two weeks ago, a Palestinian General Intelligence Service delegation met with Lebanese officials to discuss various security and administrative issues concerning the camps. During these discussions, the topic of Palestinian weapons and the possibility of handing them over to Lebanese authorities was raised in anticipation of an upcoming visit to Beirut by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. While the Palestinian Authority appears open to disarmament, other factions aligned with Iran and its allies oppose surrendering their weapons. These groups advocate for maintaining an armed presence within the camps to 'defend the resistance.' They argue that weapons should remain available but regulated through the Joint Palestinian Action Committee, which coordinates with Lebanese security agencies. A Palestinian official from one of these factions stressed the need for an urgent meeting of all Palestinian groups to establish a unified position. He warned that if an agreement is not reached internally, the Lebanese government might unilaterally implement its own plan, which is reportedly already in motion. Lebanese sources informed LBCI that Abbas' visit will focus heavily on the issue of Palestinian weapons. The recent appointment of Ambassador Ramez Dimashkieh as head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee is seen as a step toward serious negotiations on this matter. The Lebanese government is said to be committed to addressing the issue but expects strong resistance from factions outside the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Some factions have attempted to link the debate over arms control to broader social and economic demands for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. However, Lebanese officials insist that these are separate issues. Ultimately, disarming Palestinian factions in Lebanon requires a high-level political decision before it can be enforced on the ground. Observers note that if Hezbollah—a Lebanese party—is expected to disarm in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1701, then disarming non-Lebanese armed groups should be an even more pressing priority.

Lebanese PM Nawaf Salam heads to Saudi Arabia for Eid prayers with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
LBCI/March 29, 2025
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is set to travel to Saudi Arabia tonight to perform Eid prayers alongside Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Mecca.

Joseph Aoun Calls for Lifting Sanctions on Syria
This is Beirut/March 29, 2025
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun emphasized on Friday the importance of lifting international sanctions on Syria to enhance stability in Lebanon and the region as a whole and to facilitate the return of displaced persons. He made these remarks during a virtual summit organized by France at the Élysée Palace while on an official visit to Paris. The meeting brought together five leaders: French President Emmanuel Macron, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Syrian President Ahmad al-Shareh, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulidis, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Aoun stressed the need to strengthen security coordination between Beirut and Damascus in response to shared threats, according to a statement from the Syrian presidency. He also expressed his support for Syria’s reconstruction and political reform efforts, noting that Lebanon is also suffering from the repercussions of the conflict and that cooperation between the two countries is essential to overcoming regional challenges. For his part, President Shareh highlighted the growing security challenges facing Syria, particularly along its southern border with Israel. He denounced the Israeli presence on Syrian territory as a constant threat to regional peace and security. Shareh also reiterated his rejection of Israeli attacks and asserted that Syria would continue to defend its sovereign rights, stressing that Arab and international support is no longer an option but a necessity. Additionally, he called for the lifting of Western economic sanctions, condemning their devastating impact on Syria’s economy and living conditions. President Macron stated that lifting sanctions had become essential to facilitate political progress in Syria. He expressed his willingness to explore mechanisms to ease certain economic restrictions to stabilize the region. The Greek and Cypriot leaders also voiced their support for Syria’s efforts to combat terrorism along its borders, emphasizing that lifting sanctions is a key step toward strengthening regional economic cooperation. President Christodoulidis underscored the importance of enhanced cooperation on transitional justice and respect for maritime law. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mitsotakis highlighted the need for greater collaboration among Mediterranean countries to curb illegal migration. He also reaffirmed Greece’s readiness to contribute to energy projects in Syria and the broader Middle East.

Aoun: My resolve will not waver in fulfilling my pledge to the Lebanese
Beirut/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun affirmed today (Saturday) that his country has entered a new phase, after decades of violence, wars, and economic and financial crises. In a congratulatory message on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, Aoun said, "What distinguishes Lebanon is its adherence to the values ​​of unity and solidarity, and its transcendence of selfishness and personal interests, as called for by the divine religions." He stressed that "there is no salvation for Lebanon if we do not live according to these values, which constitute the only way, along with the implementation of laws and the establishment of justice, to combat corruption, achieve structural reforms in our national institutions, and advance Lebanon to keep pace with development and modernity in the world." He added, "Today, we have entered a new phase in our nation's history, after decades of violence, wars, economic and financial crises, and the weakening of the state structure. There is no turning back for those who think that our resolve will weaken, and that our determination will falter, to achieve what I pledged to myself and the Lebanese people to achieve, through solidarity and cooperation with the government, parliament, and civil society forces."

Israeli reconnaissance drones fly over Beirut and its suburbs
Beirut/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
Lebanese media reported today (Saturday) that Israeli reconnaissance aircraft flew at very low altitudes over the capital, Beirut, and its suburbs, as well as over Bchamoun, Aramoun, Khalde, Choueifat, and the surrounding areas. The southern suburbs of Beirut are experiencing a cautious calm today (Saturday) after the Israeli airstrikes that targeted them yesterday for the first time since the ceasefire agreement. The Israeli army announced yesterday (Friday) that it had attacked a Hezbollah drone storage infrastructure in the southern suburbs of Beirut, after issuing an urgent warning to residents of the suburb, particularly in the Hadath neighborhood, to evacuate several homes.

US: We expect the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups
Washington/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
The United States said on Friday that it expects the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce explained in a regular briefing to reporters, "As part of the cessation of hostilities agreement, the government of Lebanon is responsible for disarming Hezbollah, and we expect the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to disarm these terrorists to prevent further hostilities." The State Department spokesperson added, "Israel is defending its people and interests by responding to rocket attacks by terrorists in Lebanon." She indicated that the department had imposed sanctions on five individuals and three entities working to evade sanctions to support Hezbollah's financing. Israel has increased its escalation against Hezbollah to its highest level in four months, bombing Beirut's southern suburbs for the first time since a ceasefire agreement was reached. It also threatened to repeat the bombing if northern Israel was targeted. It held the Lebanese government responsible for the rocket fire from southern Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee region on Friday, an incident in which Hezbollah denied involvement. The Israeli military announced in a statement that "two rockets" were fired from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, noting that one was intercepted and the second fell inside Lebanon. The statement read: "Following the sounding of the sirens... two rockets were detected coming from Lebanon. One was intercepted, while the second fell inside Lebanese territory." Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that "if calm does not prevail in the towns of the Galilee, there will be no calm in Beirut." He added: "The Lebanese government bears direct responsibility for any fire toward the Galilee. We will not allow a return to the reality before October 7. We will ensure the safety of the residents of the Galilee and will act forcefully against any threat." The Lebanese army announced that it had identified the location from which the two rockets were launched towards Israel. In a statement, the army said: “The army was able to identify the launch site in the Qaqaiyat al-Jisr area of ​​Nabatieh, north of the Litani River, and has begun an investigation to determine the identity of those who launched them.” A Lebanese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Agence France-Presse that the site is only 15 meters from the Litani River, to which Hezbollah was scheduled to withdraw under the ceasefire agreement. The launch of the two rockets came days after three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon at Israel on Saturday, in the first operation of its kind since the ceasefire came into effect. A responsible source in Hezbollah confirmed that the party had no connection to the rockets fired from southern Lebanon, noting that the launching of rockets from southern Lebanon comes within the context of fabricating dubious pretexts to continue the aggression. He stressed the party’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement.

Figure of the weekLebanon's Solar Energy Market Faces Sharp Decline
Liliane Mokbel & Abd Farchoukh/This is Beirut/March 29, 2025
The solar energy market in Lebanon experienced a dramatic decline. In 2024, imports of solar panels dropped by 41% compared to 2023 and by 82% compared to 2022, according to data from the Lebanese Customs Authority. A record high was reached in 2022, with 5 million panels imported, while only 2.24 million were imported in 2024, valued at a significantly lower amount of just $75 million. This sharp drop highlights the slowdown of a sector that had seen remarkable growth during the economic crisis. Experts suggest that several factors are behind this drastic decrease in demand for solar panels, including the stabilization of generator bills and the decision by their owners to operate them at full capacity, ensuring a continuous electricity supply 24/7.

Gebran Bassil: Navigating His Political Exit Strategies
Johnny Kortbawi/This is Beirut/March 29, 2025
Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun, is hardly envied for his limited options, particularly with the upcoming parliamentary elections. He is growing increasingly concerned about the potential alliance between Majd Harb, son of former MP and Minister Boutros Harb, and the Lebanese Forces (LF) in Batroun, a partnership that threatens his ability to run and secure a win in the district he has represented since 2005 at risk. Additionally, his strained relationship with Hezbollah only complicates matters. Bassil has been outspoken in his dissatisfaction with the support war and has distanced himself from Hezbollah on several key issues during the conflict. This growing divide was symbolized by his absence at the funeral of former Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium. Politically, Bassil has surrounded himself with hardline Christian figures, notably Naji Hayek, empowering them to make provocative statements — fully aware this would irritate Hezbollah, a reaction he deliberately sought to strengthen his independence from the party. However, Bassil has come to the realization that he cannot enter the upcoming parliamentary elections without Hezbollah, regardless of his options. He cannot afford to play the opposition card, as it would not benefit him — especially given that, while the current government has lacked significant achievements, the ministers who oppose him have performed exceptionally well. Consequently, Bassil has no choice but to ally with Hezbollah to secure several key seats, particularly in districts where he stands no chance without the party’s support. These include Beirut II, Baabda, Western Beqaa, Zahle, Baalbek-Hermel and even Jbeil, where Hezbollah guarantees him the second Christian seat through preferential votes.
Bassil is entering this battle with a bloc that is six seats short unless he forms an alliance with Hezbollah. Another challenge is the potential loss of his own seat, especially if he decides to step away from Batroun due to the complexities of the race there. If Majd Harb and the Lebanese Forces secure their positions and push him out, benefiting from their ability to win more than two-thirds of the votes, Bassil’s options for running become very limited. He won’t shift his candidacy to Kesrouan, as his father-in-law Michel Aoun once did, because he must preserve Nada Boustani's seat (former MP and minister). He also has no incentive to move to Metn North to challenge Ibrahim Kanaan, as this would pit him against both the Kataeb and LF, where he would likely finish third — a scenario he wants to avoid. Beirut I is not an ideal district for him, especially since the seat belongs to the son of Bachir Gemayel.
His only remaining option is to shift his candidacy to Baabda, according to sources within the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), who suggest he may consider this move. Baabda, Michel Aoun’s hometown, provides Bassil an opportunity to justify the move as his son-in-law. Moreover, Bassil needs Baabda to energize the ‘Aounist’ base there, particularly since Alain Aoun has gained more support than other MPs who left the FPM. However, running in Baabda would require an alliance with Hezbollah, as he would not be able to secure enough votes without it. Additionally, he would face direct competition from the LF, likely finishing second to their candidate, making it difficult for him to claim the top Christian seat.Bassil is not envied for his limited political and electoral options. However, everything unfolding is a consequence of his own decisions and political approach.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 29-30/2025
Report: Iran responds to Trump's nuclear talks proposal as US sends bombers to region
Naharnet/March 29, 2025
Iran has delivered a formal written response to U.S. President Donald Trump's letter proposing new nuclear talks and threatening consequences if a deal is not reached swiftly, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Thursday. Trump gave Iran a two-month deadline to sign a new nuclear deal or face potential military action in his letter, sent three weeks ago. Iran delivered its response via the Gulf Sultanate of Oman, which duly notified the U.S., a source with knowledge of the issue confirmed to U.S. news portal Axios. The Omanis briefed the U.S. on the messages they received from the Iranians and will deliver the Iranian letter to the White House in the coming days, the source said. Araghchi said in a news conference that Iran maintains its position that it won't negotiate directly with the Trump administration so long as Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign is in place, but is willing to hold indirect talks.
In recent days, the U.S. military sent several B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean in a deployment a U.S. official said was "not disconnected" from Trump's two-month deadline. The B-2 bombers can carry huge bunker buster bombs that would be a key element in any possible military action against Iran's underground nuclear facilities. A spokesperson for U.S. Strategic Command confirmed the deployment to Axios and said Stratcom "routinely conducts global operations in coordination with other combatant commands, services, and participating U.S. government agencies to deter, detect and, if necessary, defeat strategic attacks against the United States and its allies." Three weeks ago in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, Trump revealed that he'd sent a letter to the Iranian leader proposing direct negotiations. That letter was delivered by his envoy Steve Witkoff to United Arab Emirates Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), with MBZ's envoy Anwar Gargash traveling to Tehran to deliver it to Araghchi. That same week, Trump said the U.S. is "down to the final moments" with Iran. "We can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Something is going to happen very soon. I would rather have a peace deal than the other option, but the other option will solve the problem," he said. Oman played a key role mediating between the U.S. and Iran during the Obama and Biden administrations. Several rounds of indirect talks have been held in Oman between Biden's advisers and Iranian officials. Those talks mostly focused on regional issues and hostages, but didn't lead to serious negotiations over the nuclear program.

Iran urges 'decisive measures' from int'l community after Israel's attack on Dahieh
Agence France Presse/March 29, 2025
Iran has described the "excuses" put forward to justify Israel's attack Friday on a Beirut southern suburb as "completely unjustified and baseless."Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei called for "decisive measures" from the international community to address the "lawlessness" of Israel's continual use of military force from Gaza to Syria and Lebanon.The Israeli airstrike destroyed two buildings in the Beirut southern suburb of al-Jamous after Israel said two rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel. Israeli strikes also targeted areas across south Lebanon, killing three people and wounding 18 others in the town of Kfar Tebnit. Two Syrian workers were also killed in Yohmor al-Shaqif.

Ghalibaf: Any Attack on Iran Will Ignite the Entire Region
Tehran: Asharq Al Awsat/March 29, 2025
Iran has warned that any US attack on its territory could lead to the explosion of the entire Middle East, hinting at potential strikes on American bases in the region. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stated on Friday: “If the United States carries out its military threat against Iran due to the failure to reach a new nuclear agreement, its bases in the region will not be safe.” He added: “Any attack on Iran will mean the explosion of the entire region,” according to Tasnim, a news agency affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).Iran claimed that it had exercised “restraint and balance” in its response to a message from US President Donald Trump while reaffirming its rejection of military threats and its willingness for indirect talks with Washington. Iranian state television quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying that Iran had sent its response to Trump’s message through Oman. He reiterated that Iran’s policy is to avoid direct negotiations with the US while it continues its “maximum pressure” campaign and military threats. However, Araghchi noted that Iran “may engage in indirect negotiations with the US, as it has done in the past.” Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, described Iran’s response to Trump’s message as “measured,” stating that it included “a willingness for indirect dialogue.” Shamkhani, who oversees Iran’s nuclear negotiations, explained that the country’s specialized agencies had carefully crafted the response, ensuring that Iran’s stance was conveyed clearly while maintaining diplomatic restraint. “Iran has always conducted indirect talks with the Americans, and if such talks are based on mutual respect, we are open to taking further steps toward negotiation,” Shamkhani said. He added: “We take every threat seriously—not out of surrender, but to confront it. The Iranian people have never and will never accept submission. We are confident that the United States has no choice but to adopt a fair approach in any dialogue with Iran.” Meanwhile, Ali Larijani, another senior adviser to Khamenei, expressed optimism about the current diplomatic path between Tehran and Washington, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency. “We will reach a conclusion, and we are optimistic. The agreement must be acceptable to both parties, not just one,” Larijani stated. Commenting on US threats of military action against Iran, Larijani remarked: “Those who intend to act do not talk too much.”Ghalibaf also criticized Trump’s message, stating that it did not contain “any logical discussion about lifting sanctions,” according to Tasnim.

New US strikes against Houthi rebels kill at least 1 in Yemen
AP/March 29, 2025
DUBAI: Suspected US airstrikes pounded Yemen overnight into Saturday, reportedly killing at least one person as the American military acknowledged earlier bombing a major military site in the heart of Sanaa controlled by the Houthi rebels. The full extent of the damage and possible casualties wasn’t immediately clear. The attacks followed a night of airstrikes early Friday that appeared particularly intense compared to other days in the campaign that began March 15. An Associated Press review has found the new American operation under President Donald Trump appears more extensive than those under former President Joe Biden, as the US moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in cities. Meanwhile, satellite photos analyzed by the AP show a mysterious airstrip just off Yemen in a key maritime chokepoint now appears ready to accept flights and B-2 bombers within striking distance of the country Saturday.
New strikes come as US releases video of one bombing
The strikes into Saturday targeted multiple areas in Yemen under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis, including the capital, Sanaa, and in the governorates of Al-Jawf and Saada, rebel-controlled media reported. The strikes in Saada killed one person and wounded four others, the Houthi-run SABA news agency said. SABA identified the person killed as a civilian. Houthi fighters and their allies often aren’t in uniform. However, analysts believe the rebels may be undercounting the fatalities given the strikes have been targeting military and intelligence sites run by the rebels. Many of the strikes haven’t been fully acknowledged by the Houthis — or the US military — while the rebels also tightly control access on the ground. One strike early Friday, however, has been confirmed by the US military’s Central Command, which oversees its Mideast operations. It posted a black-and-white video early Saturday showing an airstrike targeting a site in Yemen. While it didn’t identify the location, an AP analysis of the footage’s details corresponds to a known strike Friday in Sanaa. The footage shows the bomb striking the military’s general command headquarters held by the Houthis, something the rebels have not reported. The Houthi-controlled Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry in Sanaa separately said US strikes Friday destroyed “broadcasting stations, communication towers and the messaging network” in Amran and Saada governorates. The strikes in Amran around the Jebel Aswad, or “Black Mountain,” had appeared particularly intense.
US campaign follows Houthi shipping threats
The new campaign of airstrikes, which the Houthis now say have killed at least 58 people, started after the rebels threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels in the past have had a loose definition of what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning other vessels could be targeted as well. The Houthis had targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors during their campaign targeting ships from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships, though none have been hit so far. The attacks greatly raised the Houthis’ profile as they faced economic problems and launched a crackdown targeting any dissent and aid workers at home amid Yemen’s decadelong stalemated war that has torn apart the Arab world’s poorest nation. The Houthis have begun threatening both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two American allies in the region, over the US strikes. That’s even as the nations, which have sought a separate peace with the Houthis, have stayed out of the new US airstrike campaign. An AP analysis of satellite photos from Saturday shows the American military has moved at least four long-range stealth B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — a base far outside of the range of the rebels that avoids using allies’ Mideast bases. Three had been earlier seen there this week. That means a fourth of all the nuclear-capable B-2s that America has in its arsenal are now deployed to the base. The Biden administration used the B-2 with conventional bombs against Houthi targets last year. The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has launched attacks from the Red Sea and the American military plans to bring the carrier USS Carl Vinson from Asia as well. Meanwhile, France said its sole aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, was in Djibouti, an East African nation on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The French have shot down Houthi drones in the past, but they are not part of the American campaign there. Mysterious airstrip in Bab el-Mandeb appears ready Satellite images Friday from Planet Labs PBC show an airstrip now appears ready on Mayun Island, a volcanic outcropping in the center of the Bab el-Mandeb. The images showed the airstrip had been painted with the designation markings “09” and “27” to the airstrip’s east and west respectively.
A Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis had acknowledged having “equipment” on Mayun, also known as Perim. However, air and sea traffic to Mayun has linked the construction to the UAE, which backs a secessionist force in Yemen known as the Southern Transitional Council. World powers have recognized the island’s strategic location for hundreds of years, especially with the opening of the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The work on Mayun follows the completion of a similar airstrip likely constructed by the UAE on Abd Al-Kuri Island, which rises out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.

Syria’s president Al-Sharaa forms new transitional government
Reuters/March 30, 2025
The cabinet included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transportation minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa announced a transitional government on Saturday, appointing 23 ministers in a broadened cabinet seen as a key milestone in the transition from decades of Assad family rule and to improving Syria’s ties with the West. Syria’s new Sunni Islamist-led authorities have been under pressure from the West and Arab countries to form a government that is more inclusive of the country’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.That pressure increased following the killings of hundreds of Alawite civilians — the minority sect from which toppled leader Bashar Assad hails — in violence along Syria’s western coast this month. The cabinet included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transportation minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry. Hind Kabawat, a Christian woman and part of the previous opposition to Assad who worked for interfaith tolerance and women’s empowerment, was appointed as social affairs and labor minister.
Mohammed Yosr Bernieh was named finance minister.
It kept Murhaf Abu Qasra and Asaad Al-Shibani, who were already serving as defense and foreign ministers respectively in the previous caretaker cabinet that has governed Syria since Assad was toppled in December by a lightning rebel offensive. Sharaa also said he established for the first time a ministry for sports and another for emergencies, with the head of a rescue group known as the White Helmets, Raed Al-Saleh, appointed as the minister of emergencies. In January, Sharaa was named as interim president and pledged to form an inclusive transitional government that would build up Syria’s gutted public institutions and run the country until elections, which he said could take up to five years to hold. The government will not have a prime minister, with Sharaa expected to lead the executive branch. Earlier this month, Syria issued a constitutional declaration, designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period led by Sharaa. The declaration kept a central role for Islamic law and guaranteed women’s rights and freedom of expression.

Sharaa Announces Government of "Change and Construction"... Defense and Foreign Ministers Remain
Damascus/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
Syrian President Ahmad Sharaa said on Saturday that the new government in Syria will seek to open new horizons in education and health, stressing that "corruption will not be allowed to infiltrate our institutions."
During a speech announcing the formation of the new Syrian government, Sharaa added, "Our plan for the future will be based on axes, including preserving and developing human resources, and we will seek to attract Syrian human resources from abroad."
He continued, "The formation of a new government today is a declaration of our shared will to build a new state, and this government will seek to open new horizons in education and health."
Sharaa indicated that the government will work to reform the energy sector "to maintain sustainability and provide electricity around the clock," as well as to support farmers to maintain food security.
The Syrian president drew attention to the establishment of a ministry dedicated to sports and youth, believing in the important role of youth, and stressed the need to "maintain stable foreign relations, which ensures the sustainable interests of Syria and its friends." The ministers were sworn in before Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara at the People's Palace in Damascus. The new Syrian cabinet includes:
Anas Khattab, Minister of Interior
Marhaf Abu Qasra, Minister of Defense
Asaad al-Shaibani, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Mazhar al-Wais, Minister of Justice
Mohammad Abu Khair Shukri, Minister of Endowments
Marwan al-Halabi, Minister of Higher Education
Hind Qabawat, Minister of Social Affairs and Labor
Mohammad al-Bashir, Minister of Energy
Mohammad Yusr Barniyeh, Minister of Finance
Nidal al-Shaar, Minister of Economy
Musab Nazzal al-Ali, Minister of Health
Mohammad Anjarani, Minister of Local Administration
Raed al-Saleh, Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management
Abdul Salam Heikal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology
Amjad Badr, Minister of Agriculture
Mohammad Abdul Rahman Turko, Minister of Education
Mustafa Abdul Razzaq, Minister of Public Works and Housing
Mohammad Saleh, Minister of Culture
Mohammad Sameh Hamed, Minister of Sports and Youth
Mazen al-Salhani, Minister of Tourism
Mohammad Skaf, Minister of Administrative Development
Ya'rab Badr Minister of Transport
Hamza Mustafa as Minister of Information

Syrian Kurds Frustrated with Damascus Over Exclusion from Transitional Govt Formation
Qamishli: Asharq Al Awsat/March 30, 2025
Discontent among Syria’s Kurds has been evident following their exclusion from consultations regarding the formation of the transitional government, which is set to be announced by Damascus within hours. The Kurdish National Council (KNC) has confirmed its decision to boycott the government’s inauguration ceremony, despite receiving an official invitation to attend. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, KNC spokesperson Faisal Youssef stated that the new administration in Damascus “did not engage with us regarding the formation of this government, nor did it consult us in selecting its members or portfolios.”
He emphasized that Kurdish political forces are the sole representatives and defenders of Kurdish rights, adding: “We are not interested in merely attending the announcement ceremony; our concern is ensuring our people’s demands are constitutionally recognized.”
Youssef further clarified that the Kurdish bloc was not offered participation in the upcoming government. Expressing his disappointment, he said: “We had hoped the new administration would acknowledge the demands of the Kurdish people, who constitute the country’s second-largest ethnic group, and grant them their rights as partners in building a new Syria.”The constitutional declaration grants President Ahmad Al-Sharaa sweeping powers to manage the transitional phase but fails to meet the aspirations of minorities, including Kurds and Christians. These groups fear the reproduction of an authoritarian regime, as the declaration sets the transitional period at five years and grants the president control over legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, despite nominally upholding the principle of “separation of powers.”Zaid Sefouk, from the Independent Kurdistan Movement, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Al-Sharaa government “lacks legitimacy from the people, was formed through unilateral decision-making, and represents a single political faction. It will not be capable of governing Syria or overcoming the destruction left behind by the ousted Ba’athist regime.”
Previously, Al-Sharaa had signed a so-called historic agreement with Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The agreement stipulated the integration of the civil and military institutions of the Autonomous Administration, which is controlled by the SDF in northeastern Syria, into the structures of the central government. It also placed border crossings, Qamishli Airport, and oil, gas, and energy fields in Deir ez-Zor under the central administration in Damascus.The agreement allows technical committees time to negotiate the details until early next year, providing the SDF an opportunity to push for its demands. Sources familiar with the government formation have indicated that ministerial positions will be assigned to Kurdish figures. However, when asked about these individuals or political blocs expected to participate, Faisal Youssef denied any contact between the new administration and the Kurdish political movement or any party regarding government participation. He said: “There has been no discussion with us about the basis on which any Kurdish representatives would join, their level of representation for Kurdish regions, or how our national demands would be met within the framework of state institutions.” Since its establishment in mid-2014, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has governed civil councils across four provinces: Hasakah, Raqqa, parts of Deir ez-Zor, and the city of Ain al-Arab (Kobani) in eastern Aleppo. This region holds 90% of Syria’s oil and gas reserves.

US embassy in Syria warns of increased risk of attacks
AFP/March 29, 2025
“The US Department of State cautions US citizens of the increased possibility of attacks during Eid Al-Fitr holiday,” said a statement posted on the embassy website. “Methods of attack could include... individual attackers, armed gunmen, or the use of explosive devices“
DAMASCUS: The US embassy in Syria has warned its citizens of an “increased possibility” of attacks during the upcoming holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “The US Department of State cautions US citizens of the increased possibility of attacks during Eid Al-Fitr holiday, which could target embassies, international organizations, and Syrian public institutions in Damascus,” said a statement posted on the embassy website late Friday. “Methods of attack could include... individual attackers, armed gunmen, or the use of explosive devices,” it added, without elaborating on specific threats or who may be behind them. Eid Al-Fitr, marking the end of the Ramadan fasting month, is expected begin in the coming days but its exact timing will be determined by the sighting of the crescent moon, in accordance with the Muslim lunar calendar. Security in Syria remains tenuous after Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December following nearly 14 years of war that erupted with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011. Washington advises its citizens not to travel to Syria “due to the significant risks of terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, hostage-taking, armed conflict, and unjust detention,” according to the statement. The embassy’s operations have been suspended since 2012. A French diplomatic source said on Saturday that “messages have been passed to French citizens currently in Syria about a heightened terror risk.”
A worker at a United Nations body, requesting anonymity, told AFP that employees at international organizations in Syria had received a warning email about public gatherings that urged precautionary measures in the coming week. War-torn Syria is awash with weapons and for years has been home to myriad armed groups and fighters including militants. Syria’s transitional authorities face the daunting task maintaining security in the ethnically and religiously diverse country whose new security forces are still dominated by former Islamist rebels. The interior ministry said Saturday that forces had raided a “hideout of (Assad) regime remnants” in the central city of Homs, seizing weapons and explosives that were to be used for unspecified “terrorist acts” in the area. The ministry regularly announces security operations, including the confiscation of weapons, in various locations. Last month, authorities arrested an alleged Daesh group commander accused of planning a foiled attempt to blow up a revered Shiite Muslim shrine near Damascus. It was the first time Syria’s new authorities said they had foiled an Daesh attack. Daesh seized large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in the early years of Syria’s civil war, declaring a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014. US-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria territorially defeated Daesh in 2019, but the militants have maintained a presence in the country’s vast desert.

Israeli military admits to shooting at ambulances
AFP/March 29, 2025
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israel’s military admitted Saturday it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles,” with Hamas condemning it as a “war crime” that killed at least one person.
The incident took place last Sunday in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border. Israeli troops launched an offensive there on March 20, two days after the army resumed aerial bombardments of Gaza following an almost two-month-long truce. Israeli troops had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists,” the military said in a statement to AFP. “A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops... The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.”
The military did not say if there was fire coming from the vehicles.
It added that “after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks,” and condemned “the repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”The day after the incident, Gaza’s civil defense agency said in a statement that it had not heard from a team of six rescuers from Tal Al-Sulta who had been urgently dispatched to respond to deaths and injuries. On Friday, it reported finding the body of the team leader and the rescue vehicles — an ambulance and a firefighting vehicle — and said a vehicle from the Palestine Red Crescent Society was also “reduced to a pile of scrap metal.”Hamas spokesman Basem Naim accused Israel of carrying out “a deliberate and brutal massacre against Civil Defense and Palestinian Red Crescent teams in the city of Rafah.”“The targeted killing of rescue workers — who are protected under international humanitarian law — constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” he said. Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since March 18, “Israeli airstrikes in densely populated areas have killed hundreds of children and other civilians.”“Patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed,” he said in a statement. “If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act while it can to uphold them.”

Hamas says Gaza truce talks with mediators stepping up
Agence France Presse/March 29, 2025
A senior Hamas official said Friday that talks between the Palestinian Islamist movement and mediators over a ceasefire deal are gaining momentum as Israel continues intensive operations in Gaza. "We hope that the coming days will bring a real breakthrough in the war situation, following intensified communications with and between mediators in recent days," Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas' political bureau, said in a statement. Palestinian sources close to Hamas had told AFP that talks began Thursday evening between the militant group and mediators from Egypt and Qatar to revive a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza.The talks aim to "achieve a ceasefire, open border crossings, (and) allow humanitarian aid in", Naim said Friday. Most importantly, he said, the proposal aims to bring about a resumption in "negotiations on the second phase, which must lead to a complete end to the war and the withdrawal of occupation forces".A fragile ceasefire that had brought weeks of relative calm to the Gaza Strip ended on March 18 when Israel resumed its bombing campaign across the territory. Negotiations on a second phase of the truce had stalled -- Israel wanted the ceasefire's initial phase extended, while Hamas demanded talks on a second stage that was meant to lead to a permanent ceasefire. According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 896 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes. Days after Israel renewed its strikes, Palestinian militants resumed rocket launches towards Israel from Gaza. During the first phase of the truce which took hold on January 19, 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were freed in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza, most of them since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. Of 251 hostages seized by Palestinian militants during Hamas's attack which triggered the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. The talks in Doha started a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to seize parts of Gaza if Hamas did not release hostages, and Hamas warned they would return "in coffins" if Israel did not stop bombing the Palestinian territory. Naim said Hamas was approaching talks "with full responsibility, positivity, and flexibility", focusing on ending the war.

US: We expect the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups
Washington/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
The United States said on Friday that it expects the Lebanese Army to disarm armed groups. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce explained in a regular briefing to reporters, "As part of the cessation of hostilities agreement, the Government of Lebanon is responsible for disarming Hezbollah, and we expect the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to disarm these terrorists to prevent further hostilities." The State Department spokeswoman added, "Israel is defending its people and interests by responding to rocket attacks by terrorists in Lebanon." She indicated that the department had imposed sanctions on five individuals and three entities working to evade sanctions to support Hezbollah's financing. Israel has increased its escalation against Hezbollah to its highest level in four months, bombing Beirut's southern suburbs for the first time since a ceasefire agreement was reached. It also threatened to repeat the bombing if northern Israel was targeted. It held the Lebanese government responsible for the rocket fire from southern Lebanon toward the Upper Galilee region on Friday, an incident in which Hezbollah denied involvement. The Israeli military announced in a statement that "two rockets" were fired from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, noting that one was intercepted and the second fell inside Lebanon. The statement read: "Following the sounding of the sirens... two rockets were detected coming from Lebanon. One was intercepted, while the second fell inside Lebanese territory." Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that "if calm does not prevail in the towns of the Galilee, there will be no calm in Beirut." He added: "The Lebanese government bears direct responsibility for any fire toward the Galilee. We will not allow a return to the reality before October 7. We will ensure the safety of the residents of the Galilee and will act forcefully against any threat." The Lebanese army announced that it had identified the location from which the two rockets were launched towards Israel. In a statement, the army said: “The army was able to identify the launch site in the Qaqaiyat al-Jisr area of ​​Nabatieh, north of the Litani River, and has begun an investigation to determine the identity of those who launched them.” A Lebanese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Agence France-Presse that the site is only 15 meters from the Litani River, to which Hezbollah was scheduled to withdraw under the ceasefire agreement. The launch of the two rockets came days after three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon at Israel on Saturday, in the first operation of its kind since the ceasefire came into effect. A responsible source in Hezbollah confirmed that the party had no connection to the rockets fired from southern Lebanon, noting that the launching of rockets from southern Lebanon comes within the context of fabricating dubious pretexts to continue the aggression. He stressed the party’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement.

US Sanctions Lebanese Hezbollah Financing Network
Washington/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 29, 2025
The US State Department announced on Friday the imposition of sanctions on a Lebanese network working to evade sanctions to support Hezbollah's financial team, which oversees commercial projects and oil smuggling networks that generate financial revenue for the organization. Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce explained in a statement that "such networks contribute to strengthening the influence of Iran and Hezbollah, undermining Lebanon's stability." The sanctions include five individuals and three associated companies, including family members and associates of prominent Hezbollah figures. The statement emphasized that this step comes within the framework of the US government's "maximum pressure" policy against Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, in accordance with the presidential National Security Memorandum. The State Department added that "the United States is committed to supporting Lebanon by exposing and disrupting Hezbollah's terrorist financing schemes and Iran's destabilizing influence in the region," stressing that the party "cannot continue to hold Lebanon hostage." The Department also announced a reward of up to $10 million, under the Rewards for Justice Program, for information leading to the disruption of Hezbollah's financial mechanisms. The U.S. Treasury Department announced that the sanctions included the following individuals:
• Rashid Qasim al-Bazzal: A Lebanese national born on August 7, 1994, was sanctioned for his association with Hezbollah and faces secondary sanctions under Executive Order 13224.
• Fatima Abdallah Ayoub: A Lebanese national born on July 13, 1983 (alternative date of birth: April 28, 1989), has ties to Hezbollah financing and is subject to secondary sanctions under U.S. law.
• Hawra Abdallah Ayoub: A Lebanese national born on August 7, 1993, holds multiple Lebanese passports and different identity records, and is subject to sanctions for her support of Hezbollah. • Jamil Muhammad Khafaja: A Lebanese national born on January 7, 1984, residing in Aley and Nabatieh, accused of financing Hezbollah and subject to secondary sanctions under US law.
• Mahasin Mahmoud Mortada: A Lebanese national born on March 23, 1971, residing in Istanbul and Beirut, involved in Hezbollah's financial operations.
The Treasury Department also blacklisted three Lebanese companies for their connections to the aforementioned individuals and Hezbollah:
• Lebanese United Group SAL: Based in Beirut and Baabda, registered in 2016, and sanctioned for its association with Fatima Ayoub, Mahasin Mortada, and Hawra Ayoub.
• Ravee SARL: Operating in non-specialized wholesale trade, based in Baalbek, and registered in 2022, and sanctioned for its association with Hezbollah.
• Securol Glass Curtains: Operating in the field of advanced glass, headquartered in Khaldeh and Tyre, the company is subject to sanctions due to its association with Jamil Khafaja.
The Treasury Department confirmed that these measures aim to restrict Hezbollah's funding sources and prevent it from exploiting the Lebanese economy for its illicit activities.
Tensions escalated between Lebanon and Israel after two rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. An Israeli airstrike targeted Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday for the first time since the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel went into effect on November 27, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency. The agency reported that "Israeli warplanes bombed the densely populated Hadat neighborhood in the southern suburbs," where schools were closed after the Israeli military ordered the area to evacuate following the launch of two rockets into Israel. No group claimed responsibility for the operation, and Hezbollah denied responsibility.

Israeli Military Begins ‘Ground Activity’ to Extend ‘Security Zone’ in Southern Gaza
Asharq AlAwsat/March 29/2025
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had begun "ground activity" in the Jneina neighborhood of Rafah to expand what it described as the security zone in southern Gaza. On March 18, Israel resumed bombing and ground operations in Hamas which it said were intended to increase pressure on the Palestinian group Hamas to free hostages.

Hamas says it accepts a new Gaza ceasefire proposal but Israel makes a counter-offer
AP/March 29, 2025
CAIRO: The Hamas militant group said Saturday it has accepted a new Gaza ceasefire proposal from mediators Egypt and Qatar, but Israel said it has made a counter-proposal in “full coordination” with the third mediator, the United States. Egypt early in the week made a proposal to get the troubled ceasefire back on track, following Israel’s surprise resumption of fighting. It was not immediately clear whether the proposal changed before Khalil Al-Hayyah, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, announced it had been accepted. Early in the week, an Egyptian official described the proposal to The Associated Press, saying Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, from Gaza in return for Israel allowing aid into the territory and a weekslong pause in fighting. Israel would release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the closed-door talks. On Saturday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave no details about Israel’s counter-proposal, which it said was offered after Netanyahu held consultations on Friday. Israel a week and a half ago ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise wave of strikes that killed hundreds of people. The White House blamed Hamas for the renewed fighting. Israel has vowed to escalate the war until Hamas returns the 59 hostages it still holds — 24 of them believed to be alive. Israel also wants Hamas to give up power, disarm and send its leaders into exile. On Saturday, Israel widened its ground operations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Frustrated by the threat to remaining hostages in Gaza, families and others rallied again Saturday evening to call for a deal that would bring everyone home.
“The price of your war is the life of the hostages!” some protesters chanted in Tel Aviv. Minor scuffles broke out with police. “War will not bring our hostages home, it will kill them,” Naama Weinberg, cousin of deceased hostage Itay Svirsky, told a weekly gathering of families in Tel Aviv.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. Israel’s bombardment and ground operations have caused vast destruction and at their height displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of over 2 million people. Early this month, Israel again cut off all supplies to Gaza to pressure Hamas to accept new terms to the ceasefire that started in mid-January.Israel had balked at entering negotiations over the truce’s second phase, which were meant to begin in early February. Under the agreement, phase two was meant to bring the release of the remaining 24 living hostages, an end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Turkiye opposition calls mass rally in Istanbul
AFP/March 29, 2025
Imamoglu’s detention on March 19 has prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad. The protests over his arrest quickly spread across Turkiye, with vast crowds joining mass nightly rallies outside Istanbul City Hall
Istanbul: Protesters were to join a mass rally in Istanbul Saturday at the call of Turkiye’s main opposition CHP over the jailing of the city’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a top figure in the party whose arrest has sparked 10 days of the country’s biggest street demonstrations in a decade.
Imamoglu’s detention on March 19 has also prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad. The rally, which begins at 0900 GMT in Maltepe on the Asian side of Istanbul, is the first such CHP-led gathering since Tuesday and comes on the eve of the Eid Al-Fitr celebration marking the end of Ramadan, which starts Sunday. Widely seen as the only Turkish politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as the CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential race on the day he was jailed. “Imamoglu’s candidacy for president is the beginning of a journey that will guarantee justice and the nation’s sovereignty. Let’s go to Maltepe.. and start our march to power together!” CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said on X.
The protests over his arrest quickly spread across Turkiye, with vast crowds joining mass nightly rallies outside Istanbul City Hall called by the CHP, that often degenerated into running battles with riot police.
Although the last such rally was Tuesday, student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked despite a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested. Among them were 20 minors who were arrested between March 22-25, of whom seven remained in custody, the Istanbul Bar Association said Friday. In Istanbul, at least 511 students were detained, many in predawn raids, of whom 275 were jailed, lawyer Ferhat Guzel told AFP, while admitting that the number was “probably much higher.” The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and arresting a Swedish reporter who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest. Although 11 journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, two more were detained on Friday as was Imamoglu’s lawyer Mehmet Pehlivan, who was later granted conditional release. Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who flew into Turkiye on Thursday to cover the demonstrations, was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP, saying it was not immediately clear what the charges were.
’Accusations 100 percent false’
Unconfirmed reports in the Turkish media said Medin was being held for “insulting the president” and belonging to a “terror organization.”“I know that these accusations are false, 100 percent false,” Dagens ETC’s editor-in-chief Andreas Gustavsson wrote on X account.
In a post on social media, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said Stockholm was taking his arrest “seriously.”Turkish authorities held BBC journalist Mark Lowen for 17 hours on Wednesday before deporting him on the grounds he posed “a threat to public order,” the broadcaster said.
Turkiye’s communications directorate put his deportation down to “a lack of accreditation.”Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, the legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities “seem to be very determined on limiting coverage of the protests.
“As such, we fear that the crackdown on the press will not only continue but also increase.”

Misinformation, online hate speech fuels panic in South Sudan
AFP/March 29, 2025
NAIROBI: Misinformation and online hate speech are fueling panic and division in South Sudan at a time of acute political tensions that observers fear could drive the country back to war. Ethnic divisions, particularly between the largest communities, the Dinka and Nuer, fueled the brutal civil war of 2013-18 in which some 400,000 people died.After years of relative calm, there are worrying signs of renewed ethnic polarization, said Nelson Kwaje, chair of Digital Rights Frontlines, an organization based in the capital Juba that monitors hate speech and misinformation online.
FASTFACT
After years of relative calm, there are worrying signs of renewed ethnic polarization, said Nelson Kwaje, chair of Digital Rights Frontlines, an organization that monitors hate speech and misinformation online. It comes as the 2018 peace agreement between President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival, First Vice President Riek Machar — who are respectively of Dinka and Nuer ethnicity — is hanging in the balance after Machar’s arrest on Wednesday. He said mobile phone penetration in South Sudan is only 40 to 50 percent, and social media use around 10 percent at a conservative estimate.
However, those with access are often “the loudest voices,” and their messages spread through communities by more traditional means, helping poison the atmosphere. Kwaje, speaking from Juba, said life in the city was still “relatively calm.”But “social media disinformation and hate speech, which is very intense,” is stoking fears. “There are rumors of assassinations, talk of retaliatory violence ... warnings about ethnic violence,” he said. First, the brutal killing of an army general captured by members of a predominantly Nuer militia known as the White Army, and then a video appearing to show a young Dinka man being savagely treated by people with Nuer accents. Ethnic polarization had reduced considerably in recent years, said Kwaje, but those videos have once again “radicalized people.”“The polarization is obvious,” he said. “If more incidents go in this direction, it will go to the next level of people taking up arms.” “South Sudan has limited access to good information and free media. It creates a vacuum,” said Kwaje.“The people who fill the vacuum are not all nefarious; many just want to share information to protect their community. “But then you have actors who want to engage in fan engagement, and a small section who are politically motivated.”He said it was hard to identify who was behind these political messages, but they were consistent and well-designed. “When we see that level, we know there’s someone on a payroll,” said Kwaje. “We have better shock absorbers now,” said Kwaje. When the civil war broke out in 2013, there was an evident tribal divide “from day one,” he said. The peace agreement that ended the war in 2018, “for all its faults,” engaged the international community, partially unified and disarmed Kiir and Machar’s respective armies, and installed an arms embargo that limited the supply of weapons to some extent, said Kwaje. “Young people are also aware of the dangers of dividing along tribal lines. There is a lot of messaging about peace. “But what pushes people to the edge is sharing content showing someone from your tribe being mistreated. Whether that content is factual or not, that immediately radicalizes you.”

Does military’s recapture of Khartoum mark a crossroads in Sudan’s conflict?
ROBERT BOCIAGA/Arab News/March 29, 2025
LONDON: Sudan’s de-facto military ruler visited the presidential palace in Khartoum on Wednesday after his forces recaptured the city from a rival paramilitary group. Whether the development will prove to be a decisive moment in the conflict that has devastated the country since April 2023 remains to be seen.
Khartoum, once one of East Africa’s fastest-growing capitals, is today a ghost city, its residents displaced and its basic infrastructure in ruins. “It’s heartbreaking to see people dying in huge numbers from hunger in Sudan, once the breadbasket of East Africa,” Mathilde Vu, a Sudan-based aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Arab News. According to Vu, the humanitarian response in the capital depends heavily on grassroots efforts. “Local responders are the one hope of Sudan,” she said. “They operate without logos, without any resources, and yet they’ve organized evacuations, run soup kitchens, offered psychosocial support, even repaired water systems.”But these efforts are fragile and increasingly under threat, with at least 10 local responders killed during intensified fighting in March. “If one local responder dies, one kitchen is closed. And with that, entire families are left without food,” Vu said.
The Sudanese Armed Forces have in recent days consolidated control not just over the presidential palace, but also the central bank, the airport and the strategic Al-Yarmouk weapons manufacturing complex, having dislodged its adversary, the Rapid Support Forces.
These are symbolic gains. But whether they will translate into stability or reconstruction is far from certain. Abiol Lual Deng, a South Sudanese-American political scientist, cautions against assuming that the SAF’s return to the city signals a new era. “This is a city where people died from starvation and infectious disease — not just bullets,” she told Arab News.
“The fighting disrupted every part of urban life. Shops closed, fuel ran out, water became contaminated, and no one could move because of snipers and shelling.”
She added: “Now that SAF has retaken key areas like the airport, we might see some humanitarian aid trickling back in, especially for the wounded and those in critical need. But the scale of need is just unfathomable. Two-thirds of Sudan’s population requires assistance. This is not something a few aid flights can solve.”The destruction of Khartoum’s civilian infrastructure has been especially devastating because of the city’s role in the national economy. Once home to the country’s key financial institutions, markets, and trade corridors, Khartoum’s paralysis has sent ripples across Sudan and beyond.
The SAF’s ability to maintain control over the capital will depend not just on military gains, but also on whether it can stabilize these essential services. Dallia Abdelmoniem, a Sudanese analyst with deep experience in civil society networks, points out that many displaced civilians are already planning to return — despite the lack of security guarantees. “For many Sudanese, they don’t have the privilege to wait for full reconstruction,” she told Arab News. “They’re returning to neighborhoods where there’s no running water, no banks, no healthcare. Civil society will be forced to fill the vacuum again.”
Yet any suggestion that the war is winding down would be premature. Having withdrawn from Khartoum, the RSF has entrenched itself in Darfur and other regions. There, it continues to function as a parallel authority, with reports of its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, making diplomatic overtures to regional leaders. “The RSF has already established a parallel government,” said Deng. “They’re not disappearing. They have a base of power in Darfur, strong cross-border supply networks, and deep-rooted ethnic and regional dynamics backing them.”She reminds observers that the RSF originated as a paramilitary force — evolving from the Janjaweed militias once backed by the central government — and has long been used to destabilize peripheries under the guise of counterinsurgency. Abdelmoniem warns the SAF’s territorial gains may embolden it to pursue an outright military solution to the conflict. “Negotiations appear dead in the water,” she said. “SAF has political momentum now, and it would be naive to think that pushing the RSF into Darfur means an end to hostilities. We’re more likely to see Darfur become a sustained war zone again.”
Even as the geography of the conflict shifts, the consequences remain grim for civilians. In Darfur’s Al-Fasher and Zamzam camp, where thousands are trapped in siege-like conditions, Vu describes haunting scenes of families trying to escape on donkeys under the cover of night — leaving everything behind.
“They’re too scared to take cars during the day because they could be arrested or attacked,” she said. Access to these areas remains severely limited. “We must be realistic about the fact that both sides have obstructed aid,” said Deng. “But RSF-controlled areas are among the worst-hit. Famine conditions are spreading, and aid blockades are used as a weapon of war.”
Still, she says, international humanitarian organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres continue to engage with non-state actors.
“Groups like the ICRC or MSF operate based on neutrality, and the RSF knows that,” said Deng. “Sometimes access is possible — but it requires pressure, not just on the ground, but also on the states backing these groups with arms and logistics.”
That pressure, so far, has been uneven. The international response to Sudan’s war has been widely criticized as inadequate, both in scale and in coherence. Vu underlines that while the world debates political solutions, people are starving.
“Humanitarian access must prevail, whether there is peace or not,” she said. “Aid should have no side.”Meanwhile, SAF’s internal cohesion remains uncertain. Analysts have long warned of leadership fractures within the army and its allied militias. Deng points out that the SAF and RSF were not always rivals — they once operated in concert, often carrying out atrocities in Darfur and the south together. “Now they’ve turned those tactics on each other,” she said. “That a power vacuum would emerge inside the SAF is no surprise. Everyone wants to be seen as the legitimate inheritor of military authority.”In the background looms a larger question: How much of Sudan’s war is about Sudan at all? “We’re entering an era where global geopolitics is less about rules and more about resources,” said Deng. “Sudan manufactures its own weapons. It’s geographically pivotal. And it’s being drawn into the gravitational pull of multiple regional powers. That changes how this war plays out — and how it ends.”For now, Khartoum remains in limbo. The SAF may have reclaimed the city, but it has not yet won the peace. Displaced civilians are navigating shattered neighborhoods. Aid might be trickling in, but it is far from sufficient. Across the country, war rages on in new theatres. And a political resolution, however desirable, feels no closer. “The international community must increase pressure on the warring parties and their backers,” said Vu. “Without strong engagement, especially from countries with influence over SAF and RSF, aid will remain politicized and civilians will keep paying the price.”

Hundreds of thousands join Istanbul protest rally
AFP/March 29, 2025
ISTANBUL: Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied Saturday in Istanbul in defense of democracy after the arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkiye’s worst street unrest in over a decade.
Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkiye’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid Al-Fitr celebration which starts Sunday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition party CHP which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but AFP was unable to independently confirm the figure. The mass protests, which began with Imamoglu’s March 19 detention on contested fraud and “terror” charges, have prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.Widely seen as the only politician capable of challenging President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as CHP’s candidate for the 2028 race on the day he was jailed. As his wife, Dilek, arrived on stage, massive applause arose from the crowd which was a sea of Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkiye’s founding father. Imamoglu was resoundingly re-elected mayor for the third time last year. The anger over his arrest which began in Istanbul quickly spread across Turkiye.
Nightly protests outside Istanbul City Hall drew vast crowds and often degenerated into running battles with riot police, who used teargas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters. “We are here today for our homeland. We, the people, elect our rulers,” insisted 17-year-old Melis Basak Ergun, a young protester who vowed they would never be cowed “by violence or tear gas.”
“We stand behind our mayor, Imamoglu.”
Turkish authorities did not comment on the latest mass protest. Erdogan has previously branded the demonstrations “street terror.”In a letter read out to the crowd, Imamoglu addressed Turkiye’s youngsters, saying: “If young people are on the front line, it’s because they’re the ones who feel most anxiety about the future.“The youth are telling Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Show the people respect. Don’t touch the nation’s will. Don’t cheat — compete fairly. But Erdogan is closing his ears to these voices,” he wrote. “This is not about Ekrem Imamoglu, it’s about our country... It is about justice, democracy and freedom,” he said, as the crowd roared back: “Rights! Law! Justice!““Everywhere is Taksim, resistance is everywhere!” they chanted, referring to Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, site of the last massive wave of protests in 2013.The last major demonstration called by CHP was Tuesday ahead of Saturday’s big rally, although students have continued to protest throughout the week.Speaking to French newspaper Le Monde, Ozel said there would be weekly rallies every Saturday in different cities across Turkiye as well as a weekly Wednesday night demo in Istanbul. “If we don’t stop this attempted coup, it will mean the end of the ballot box,” he said.“I joined the rallies outside City Hall for four days together with university students. I told them not to give in,” protester Cafer Sungur, 78, told AFP.“There is no other way than to keep fighting,” he said. “I was jailed in the 1970s but back then there was justice. Today we can’t talk about justice anymore.”Student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked, in the face of a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested. The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arresting a Swedish reporter who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest. Eleven journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul.Swedish journalist Joakim Medin was jailed on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP. Reporters Without Borders’ Turkiye representative Erol Onderoglu said Medin had been charged with “insulting the president” — a charge often use to silence Erdogan’s critics. “The judicial pressure systematically brought to bear on local journalists for a long time is now being brought to bear on their foreign colleagues,” he told AFP, two days after the deportation of BBC correspondent Mark Lowen. He said authorities had accused him of being “a threat to public order.”Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, a legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities “seem to be very determined to limit coverage of the protests.
“We fear the crackdown on the press will not only continue but increase,” she said.

Bannon: Trump ‘going to prison’ if Democrat wins White House in 2028
Ailia Zehra/The Hill/March 29/2025
President Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon predicted Thursday that President Trump will go to prison if a Democrat wins back the White House in 2028.
“God forbid we don’t win in ’28, President Trump is going to prison,” Bannon, who was Trump’s adviser in his first presidency, said Thursday during an appearance on Real America’s Voice. “And people are sitting around — still with the glow of Nov. 4 and all the inaugurations and all the balls. We’re at war, and things that’ve happened in the last 72 hours — if you don’t understand we’re in political warfare, you’re not awake,” he said in remarks highlighted by Mediaite. Trump’s flurry of executive actions since taking office in January has spurred myriad legal cases. Courts have repeatedly paused actions such as mass firings of federal workers and sweeping moves on immigration. Trump and his allies have gone on the attack against judges standing in their way, fueling concerns about a constitutional crisis if his administration starts ignoring court orders. Trump’s outstanding criminal cases were effectively halted when he returned to the presidency. Last year, special counsel Jack Smith dismissed his two cases after Trump’s electoral victory, referencing Department of Justice policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents. A fourth case in Georgia remains technically open, though it is effectively inactive. He was convicted on 34 felony counts in a hush money case in New York. Bannon did not specify what charges Trump might be sent to prison for. He also warned Democrats would seek to remove Trump from office if they win back the House next year. “We are kidding ourselves if we don’t think that Democrats are pulling all stops out to stop President Trump, to take the House through any means necessary to impeach Trump,” he said.
The Hill reached out to the Trump administration for comment.

Following US Withdrawal, WHO Faces 20% Budget Cut
This is Beirut/AFP/March 29, 2025
In response to the US decision to withdraw its support, the World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed a 20% budget reduction, necessitating cuts to its missions and staff, according to an internal email from its director accessed by AFP on Saturday. WHO is confronting a projected shortfall of nearly $600 million by 2025 and has "no other option" but to initiate cuts, explained Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the UN health agency, in a message sent to WHO personnel on Friday. Following his inauguration, President Donald Trump triggered the US withdrawal and froze nearly all American foreign aid, including significant programs aimed at global health improvement. The US had started the process to leave WHO during Trump’s first term in 2020. He justified his January decision by highlighting the disparity between US and Chinese financial contributions, accusing the organization of "ripping off" the US. Consequently, Tedros had already warned at the end of January that WHO would need to implement cost-saving measures. The US was the largest contributor to WHO's budget: in the last two-year budget cycle for 2022-23, they provided 16.3% of the organization's $7.89 billion total budget. "Drastic reductions in public development aid by the US and other countries are causing major disruptions for countries, NGOs, and UN agencies, including WHO," emphasized Tedros in his email. Even before the US withdrawal process began, WHO was already facing financial constraints and had started working on efficiency improvements over nine months ago, noted its leader. "However, the US announcement, combined with recent cuts in public development aid by some countries to fund increased defense spending, has made our situation much more critical," Tedros further explained. "Although we have achieved substantial cost savings, the current economic and geopolitical conditions make resource mobilization particularly challenging," he wrote. In February, WHO’s executive board reduced the proposed budget for 2026-2027 from 5.3 billion to 4.9 billion. "Since then, the outlook for development aid has deteriorated," Tedros reminded. Therefore, "we have proposed to member states a further reduced budget of $4.2 billion, a 21% decrease from the initially proposed budget."The majority of US funding was from voluntary contributions for specific projects rather than a fixed membership fee. "Despite all our efforts, we have reached a point where we have no choice but to reduce the scope of our work and our staff," Tedros concluded. He specified, "These measures will first apply at headquarters, starting with senior management, but will affect all levels and regions."

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 29-30/2025
No Time Left: China and Russia Making Sure Iran Goes Nuclear Before End of Trump's Ultimatum
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/March 29, 2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/03/141707/
Now, with Trump's ultimatum delivered on March 7 to Iran— giving the regime a two-month deadline either to give up its nuclear and missile programs or face severe consequences — Beijing and Moscow have simply been accelerating Tehran's efforts to join the nuclear club and to possesses at least six nuclear bombs before Trump's deadline expires.
A meeting between Iranian and Chinese officials in Beijing, followed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's outright rejection of Trump's warnings, could signal a dangerous development: Iran has likely received guarantees from China and Russia that they will protect the regime, support its nuclear program, and ensure that it acquires nuclear weapons before the possibly-too-generous deadline Trump has set, no matter the consequences.
Iran's bold rejection of Trump's threats may not be based on internal strength but on external guarantees. Beijing and Moscow have likely calculated that if Iran regime joins the nuclear club and possesses nuclear bombs before Trump's deadline expires and he takes direct action, then the West will be forced to accept a nuclear-armed Iran, just as it has had to accept a nuclear North Korea.
With Trump's ultimatum in place, these adversaries are racing against the clock to ensure that Iran becomes a nuclear-armed state. If the US and its allies fail to act immediately, the balance of power could shift permanently, and the West could lose the war before realizing it had even begun.
Talk surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions has long focused on the ruling ayatollahs and their determined pursuit of nuclear weapons. The West's primary focus has been mainly on Iran's domestic leadership: the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iran's nuclear scientists. What remains overlooked is the significant role that China, North Korea and Russia have been playing to make sure that Iran achieves nuclear weapons breakout before US President Donald J. Trump's "two-month ultimatum" runs out.
While the Iranian regime wants nuclear bombs to secure its survival, export its revolution, deter foreign intervention, and project power across the Middle East, China and Russia, appear invested in turning Iran into a nuclear-armed state. Iran is a critical pillar in their geopolitical struggle against the United States and its allies. For Beijing and Moscow, a nuclear Iran is about their broader joint, strategic confrontation with the West. Having Iran as a linchpin strengthens their alliance, which they call the "Axis of Resistance" -- they do not say resistance to what, but presumably it is to the US and the West.
The real danger lies in the way China and Russia have embedded themselves in Iran's nuclear program, most likely to guarantee that the Iranian regime will not fail in its pursuit of the bomb.
Russia has a longstanding strategic and military alliance with Iran. Tehran has provided Moscow with suicide drones, long-range missiles and artillery, allowing Russia to continue its brutal attempted takeover of Ukraine despite Western sanctions and deliveries of weapons. For the Kremlin, ensuring that Iran remains a strong, stable, and militarily capable ally could be essential, both to deter Western intervention in the region and as a powerful counterbalance to US influence in the Middle East, probably in the hope of driving out US forces there.
Communist China, meanwhile, has continued to shield Iran from Western sanctions and provide it with vital economic and technological support. More importantly, China has a history of aiding nuclear proliferation among anti-Western states. It played a significant role in helping Pakistan develop its nuclear weapons program in the 1990s. In turn, Pakistan provided nuclear assistance to North Korea. The latest beneficiary of this strategic proliferation network appears to be Iran.
China has long viewed Iran as a vital part of its broader Belt and Road Initiative to expand Chinese economic and strategic influence across the globe. Iran's geographic position makes it a crucial gateway for China's trade routes, energy supply chains and military expansion. By protecting Iran from Western pressure and facilitating its nuclear ambitions, China ensures that Iran remains a key partner in its broader geopolitical contest with the United States.
Now, with Trump's ultimatum delivered on March 7 to Iran— giving the regime a two-month deadline either to give up its nuclear and missile programs or face severe consequences — Beijing and Moscow have simply been accelerating Tehran's efforts to join the nuclear club and to possesses at least six nuclear bombs before Trump's deadline expires.
A meeting between Iranian and Chinese officials in Beijing, followed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's outright rejection of Trump's warnings, could signal a dangerous development: Iran has likely received guarantees from China and Russia that they will protect the regime, support its nuclear program, and ensure that it acquires nuclear weapons before the possibly-too-generous deadline Trump has set, no matter the consequences.
Iran's bold rejection of Trump's threats may not be based on internal strength but on external guarantees. Beijing and Moscow have likely calculated that if Iran regime joins the nuclear club and possesses nuclear bombs before Trump's deadline expires and he takes direct action, then the West will be forced to accept a nuclear-armed Iran, just as it has had to accept a nuclear North Korea.
This anti-Western coalition means that the world is facing a new, more imminent nuclear crisis. An Iranian official has claimed they could assemble a nuclear bomb in as little as a week. The combination of Iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program, its strategic alliance with China and Russia, and the pressure created by Trump's ultimatum, creates an urgent reality — one in which delaying action could mean that Iran joins the nuclear club before the West has the chance to stop it.
The implications of these developments mean that the West no longer has the luxury of waiting, or even possibly of negotiating. The window to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran has already closed. The only question is whether the US and its allies will act before the Iranian regime officially announces its nuclear breakout.
While President Trump's ultimatum to Iran was intended to pressure the regime into nuclear negotiations, it has had the unintended effect of giving China, Russia, and Iran a clear deadline to rush the nuclear program forward before the window closes.
With Trump's ultimatum in place, these adversaries are racing against the clock to ensure that Iran becomes a nuclear-armed state. If the US and its allies fail to act immediately, the balance of power could shift permanently, and the West could lose the war before realizing it had even begun.
**Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu
**Follow Majid Rafizadeh on X (formerly Twitter)
© 2025 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.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21507/nuclear-iran-no-time-left

A sad week for Israeli democracy
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Democracies do not just suddenly disappear they are gradually eroded from within by their enemies, similar to the way in which cliffs are eroded by the ocean: wave after wave, sometimes gentle, sometimes ferocious, until they finally collapse.
Because democracy is a maze of ideologies, values, procedures, institutions, intentions and, above all, those people who deeply believe in it and are devoted to it, harming it requires an assault on all of them, and that is what the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been doing for more than two years now. During this week of all weeks, however, it seems as though the “mere” tidal wave of antidemocratic measures has grown into a destructive tsunami. This was a week in which the government decided to move to dismiss one of the most crucial gatekeepers of the democratic system, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, while continuing its efforts to remove from his post the head of security agency Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.
This was a week in which legislation that is at the heart of the government’s so-called judicial reform process but is effectively judicial vandalism, a law that grants the government unprecedented influence over judicial appointments, was passed in the Knesset while police brutality against pro-democracy protesters reached new and appalling levels.
This was a week in which Netanyahu shamelessly tried once again to avoid giving evidence in his corruption trial, and derail the investigation into allegations of corruption and breaches of security among his close advisers by exploiting the power of his office.
This was a week in which the war in Gaza was resumed to ensure the stability of Israel’s governing coalition, at the expense of the people of Gaza and probably the hostages still held by Hamas. It had nothing to do with the security of the country.
And it was also a week in which the government approved the construction of 13 new settlements to ensure that millions of Palestinians, through the occupation and the possible annexation of their land, will remain deprived of their political, human, and civil rights.
These were seven days that might change Israel forever. Seven days that raise serious doubts about the ability of its democracy to survive.
A country that is defined by its own Declaration of Independence as being Jewish and democratic is currently fighting a rearguard action to retain that democracy. The strands of Judaism that dominate its present government, and as a result the rest of the country, range from the ultranationalistic-messianic to a version that is parasitic and out of touch with the modern world.
This dire situation is likely causing those who wrote and were signatories to this seminal document to turn in their graves.
The only good news, sort of, is that the very last remaining democratic mask — the one worn by Netanyahu for many years as he masqueraded as a democratic leader who puts the interests of his country, his people, and the rule of law above his own political and personal needs — was stripped away this week.
I know, this has not been much of a shock to most of us. But at least the battle lines between the democratic and authoritarian camps are now clearer. Netanyahu’s level of cynicism in being prepared to lead his country, with ever-increasing haste, down the slippery slope of authoritarianism has been frightening in its pace and its nature.
Not a single sacred value, institution or role that protects the very foundations of Israel’s democratic system, which admittedly has always been fragile, has been spared the rage of a politician who is clinging to power while abusing his position without compunction in an attempt to get off the hook in his corruption trial. This was a week in which Netanyahu shamelessly tried once again to avoid giving evidence in his corruption trial.
But increasingly there is also the impression that the trail of destruction caused by his unquenchable thirst for power is motivated by a hunger for revenge against his own people — political opponents, the gatekeepers of democracy, even those who loyally serve their country and are ready to sacrifice their lives for it — for daring to put him on trial or question his suitability for the job, let alone demand an independent inquiry into the Oct. 7 disaster.
Netanyahu rages, as do his minions in government and the right-wing media, at the mere suggestion that they should abide by the law, as is expected of any citizen. The reason — the only reason — the government is so adamant about getting rid of the attorney general is that Baharav-Miara is asking it to respect the law and the rule of law. For that she is bravely facing, and resisting, vicious onslaughts from members of the governing coalition and their loyal attack dogs in the right-wing media.
She is doing her job, as are the other gatekeepers of democracy, as the last line of defense against illegal government behavior, as she struggles to preserve the principles of transparency and accountability.
Netanyahu’s abuse of power is as manipulative as it is calculated. When Itamar Ben Gvir, the leader of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, left the coalition government over his opposition to the ceasefire deal with Hamas he demanded that the attorney general be sacked. Now Shin Bet has suggested that Khanists, Jewish supremacists who follow the deplorable racist ideology of assassinated ultranationalist politician Meir Khana (of whom Ben Gvir is one), have infiltrated police ranks to arrest and throw into jail Bar, the agency’s chief.
With the war in Gaza now raging again and the government moving to dismiss both Bar and Baharav-Miara, and declaring that any Supreme Court ruling that reverses the decisions will be ignored, Otzma Yehudit is back as part of the government, ensuring that Netanyahu’s coalition now enjoys the most support it has had in the Knesset since the prime minister returned to power two years ago.
This is the sad reality of Israel’s democracy this week. The nation’s parliament, which should be a bastion against the antidemocratic legislation and policies of the government, has been transformed into a rubber stamp for laws that discriminate against those who are most devoted to the country’s security and prosperity, in order to bestow privileges on those who contribute next to nothing and even harm the country.
This week the budget bill, which in Israel amounts to a vote of no confidence should it fail to pass, passed with a big majority. This means tax hikes and public service cuts, while billions of shekels are handed out to the ultraorthodox sector, the least productive in Israel, and more money is allocated to the expansion of settlements, a major tool for burying any hopes for a peace agreement with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.
Netanyahu is doing all of this simply because it keeps him in power, which is the only ideology he adheres to. So, too, does his support for legalization of the draft dodging by the ultraorthodox, despite the unbelievable and intolerable sacrifices of everyone else who serves in the army as regular or reserve troops.
When the entirety of a country’s political and social systems exists merely to serve the needs and whims of a leader, democracy dies. It is left for those who believe that Israeli democracy can be salvaged to fight for that cause and, unlike their opponents, to do so while respecting the law.
Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

Terrorism assessment for Afghanistan
Luke Coffey/Arab News/March 29, 2025
According to the US government’s annual threat assessment, released by its intelligence community this week, Daesh remains the most significant terrorism challenge facing America and its partners.
The assessment is part of a broader report that addresses all threats to the US including, but not limited to, terrorism. Notably, this year’s report includes an alarming section about the role of Daesh in Afghanistan.
It states that Daesh’s Afghan branch, the so-called ISIS-K, “remains the most capable of carrying out external terrorist attacks and maintains the intent to conduct attacks in South and Central Asia, and globally, although its capabilities vary.” The report also warns that the group is “expanding capability beyond South Asia and ability to inspire individuals to conduct attacks abroad.”
The US is not alone in this assessment. A recent report by the UN Security Council similarly highlighted the growing threat from Daesh in Afghanistan. It stated that the group maintains a presence throughout South and Central Asia, even though its operational hub remains in Afghanistan.
The report included detailed intelligence on the group’s infrastructure, noting: “The recruits (for Daesh) received training near the Yawan district of Badakhshan province, where a camp for fighters and suicide bombers was located.”
The fact that the UN report could provide such precise details without prompting meaningful international discussion about how to address the threat is deeply concerning.
But it is not only Daesh that remains a concern. It is well known that Al-Qaeda has been allowed to reestablish its foothold in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. This is evidenced by open-source intelligence gleaned from social media posts, publicly available assessments from various intelligence agencies, and the US drone strike that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Kabul in July 2022.
According to the same UN report, Afghanistan is now a “permissive environment allowing Al-Qaeda to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps scattered across” the country. The report goes on to state that lower- and mid-ranking members of Al-Qaeda’s leadership have been granted sanctuary in Kabul, while senior members deemed high-value targets are sheltered in the provinces.
A recent report by the UN Security Council highlighted the growing threat from Daesh in Afghanistan.
Despite the warnings from the UN and the US intelligence community, no significant international response has emerged. Many observers are looking to Washington to take the lead, especially given the belief that the current crisis stems from the manner in which the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
The Biden administration showed little appetite for re-engagement with Afghanistan after its chaotic exit from the country. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has commented several times on the country, but usually as a way to criticize Biden’s withdrawal of forces.
However, one point Trump regularly raises is the strategic importance of Bagram airfield and what he sees as the catastrophic mistake of abandoning it. He has even gone so far as to suggest that the US should look into ways of returning to the base, although he says this not in the context of the terrorism threat but as a result of the proximity of the base to key military facilities in China.
There are small signs that there could be a change in the US approach to Afghanistan under Trump. His administration is expected to release a new Central Asia strategy in the coming months. This will be a crucial opportunity to present a coherent policy response to the challenges posed by Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Despite the often strained relationship between Washington and Islamabad, there have also been signs of renewed US-Pakistan intelligence cooperation, particularly on counterterrorism issues. This was demonstrated recently when Pakistani forces captured the Daesh ringleader responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing during the US withdrawal in August 2021. Beyond these minor points, it remains to be seen what more the US will do.
According to the UN report, more than two dozen terrorist groups currently operate in Afghanistan. It describes the “security threat emanating from the country as a continuing driver of instability in the region and beyond.” It is time this threat was treated with the seriousness it warrants.
Today, the attention of the world is understandably focused on other global crises, from the war in Ukraine to the ongoing violence in Syria, Gaza and elsewhere. But the international community cannot afford to ignore the growing terrorism threat in Afghanistan. The world must act before it is too late.
**Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. X: @LukeDCoffey

Italy’s surprising new political stability under Meloni
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Italy has long been famed for the large number of governments, almost 70, it has had in the post-war era. Yet this political instability might be changing under the country’s first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose administration on Thursday became the fifth-longest-serving in the almost eight-decade history of the Italian Republic. Certainly, 887 days in power is still relatively short by the standards of governments in many other European nations. It is nonetheless a key milestone in Italy that moved the Meloni government ahead of the first Romano Prodi administration, which lasted 886 days between May 1996 and October 1998. Moreover, with the next Italian national election potentially not taking place until December 2027, Meloni could serve about half a decade in power before going to the polls. That would be a significant feat, given that the average tenure of Italian prime ministers has been so much shorter in the post-war era. It would not only see her government best the tenure of the fourth-longest-serving government, led by ex-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which served for 1,024 days from February 2014 to December 2016, she might even top the term of the longest-surviving administration, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s second government, which served for 1,412 days between June 2001 and April 2005.
Not only might Meloni be a major exception to the long-standing pattern in Italy of constantly switching political leaders in office, she could also have a reasonable shot at reelection if she can remain in power. Her rightist Brothers of Italy organization is currently polling at just below 30 percent, significantly ahead of the left-of-center Democratic Party, its closest rival.
One of the several ironies of Meloni’s political longevity to date is that few, if any, forecasters saw it coming. When she took office in 2022, many perceived her as little more than a probable footnote in the nation’s history.
Yet she has not only become the country’s key domestic politician; she is also helping Italy to “punch above its weight” on the international stage too. This is in part because of her ideological bond with US President Donald Trump and key members of his team, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is informally leading the Department of Government Efficiency initiative in Washington.
Musk was a keynote speaker at the Brothers of Italy national political convention in 2023, and Meloni was the only European national leader invited to Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January.
One of the several ironies of Meloni’s political longevity is that few forecasters saw it coming. If Meloni’s political stock has not yet peaked, it is likely to happen during Trump’s second presidency. Not only do the two share common policy goals, including clamping down on immigration, she also aspires to lead Europe’s diplomacy with the administration in Washington and has asserted that “the US-EU axis (now) passes through Italy.”Certainly, Trump has other admirers in Europe, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. However, Meloni believes she is the political “bridge” between the Trump team and Europe as part of a populist alliance between Washington and Rome. One key test of Meloni’s ambition to become Europe’s interlocutor with the new administration in the US will be how much she shifts her stance on foreign policy in a Trumpian direction. This includes the issue of Ukraine. While she has shown strong support for Kyiv so far, public opinion in Italy is more sympathetic to Russia than it is in much of the rest of Europe.
Meloni’s political calculus on this issue is also shaped by the sympathy that anti-establishment political parties such as The League, which forms part of her Italian coalition, have had for Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
Beyond Ukraine, another area of foreign policy over which Meloni and Trump can bond is China. Trump’s first administration was furious when, in 2019, Italy became the first G7 nation to sign up for Beijing’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure project, a decision that was reversed by Meloni for security and economic reasons. However, her global leadership credentials are undercut by the fact that Italy is one of the lowest spenders in the NATO alliance on defense. The nation contributed just 1.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2024, which is well below the 2 percent threshold NATO says members should spend, and far from the 5 percent demanded by Trump. While Meloni’s longevity in office so far owes much to her perceived pragmatism, she has shown some authoritarian tendencies, too. This is reminiscent of her rightist political roots, including prior praise for the former Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini.
Yet Meloni has so far avoided major international controversy. At the same time, she has benefited from the perception that her brand of rightist populism has the political winds blowing in its sails internationally.
**Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Tigray are sleepwalking into war
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/March 29, 2025
The Pretoria peace agreement that halted Ethiopia’s two-year war in its Tigray region is unraveling. Fighting has flared again as rival factions within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front turn on each other, raising fears that Ethiopia and its northernmost region are sliding back into conflict. This comes barely two years after a ceasefire agreement purportedly ended the brutal 2020-2022 war. That conflict, which pitted the TPLF’s Tigray Defense Forces against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal military (backed by Eritrea), killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. The truce in November 2022 was intended to silence the guns, create an interim administration in Tigray, and initiate the disarmament of the TDF, and the withdrawal of Eritrean troops. Yet key grievances remained, resulting in renewed tensions. Eritrea, which had intervened in the conflict in an attempt to crush its old TPLF enemies, was excluded from the Pretoria talks and reportedly maintained forces inside parts of Tigray despite the peace deal. The TPLF, meanwhile, never fully reconciled with Ethiopia’s political fold, sowing the seeds of future discord.
One of the immediate causes of the present meltdown in Tigray is a bitter power struggle within the leadership of the region. The TPLF has split into rival camps led by its longtime chairperson, Debretsion Gebremichael, and the federally appointed interim president, Getachew Reda.
This feud has now spilled over into open confrontation, with each side claiming to represent the true Tigrayan cause. The resulting divide has paralyzed governance and security in the region. The interim regional government — short on trust and beset by factional mutiny — is pleading for Prime Minister Abiy to intervene as armed loyalists on both sides jostle for control.
What was left of the Pretoria Agreement’s security framework is rapidly collapsing, with former comrades-in-arms now clashing, civilians again fleeing in fear, and Addis Ababa’s authority in the region becoming increasingly tenuous.
Neighboring Eritrea is watching these developments with growing alarm — and, naturally, some sense of opportunism. It remains deeply hostile to the TPLF, in any form, and seeks to prevent any resurgent Tigrayan power along its border.
Also at the heart of the Eritrean unease is Ethiopia’s revived push for access to the Red Sea coast. Abiy has repeatedly declared that regaining a seaport is an existential imperative for landlocked Ethiopia, which lost its coastline when Eritrea gained independence in 1993. Ethiopia currently pays about $1 billion a year to ship goods via Djibouti, and Abiy’s government has openly stated that Ethiopia has a sovereign right to sea access.
To Eritrea, such discourse sounds like a direct, certainly an implied, threat to its territory, and in particular to the port of Assab, which Ethiopia covets.
The bad blood runs deep. Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war from 1998 to 2000 and remained bitter rivals until Abiy’s rapprochement in 2018. Eritrea then aligned with Abiy against the TPLF during the Tigray war. But this “enemy-of-my-enemy” alliance soured quickly after Addis Ababa and the Tigrayan authorities made peace.
Should Ethiopia and Eritrea relapse into war, the consequences would reverberate across the region. Eritrea sees Ethiopia’s federal government and the TPLF’s interim administration converging, a scenario it has long feared. Some reports even suggest Eritrean leaders felt more threatened after the Pretoria deal because they believed it increased cooperation against Eritrean interests between the leadership in Tigray and Abiy’s government. With Abiy eyeing access to the Red Sea, and Tigray in turmoil, Eritrea might calculate that confrontation is looming. Should Ethiopia and Eritrea relapse into war, the consequences would reverberate across an already fragile region. The ongoing civil war in Sudan would probably be the first arena of spillover; the Sudanese Armed Forces and its rival military faction, the Rapid Support Forces, each seek external support, and the conflict in Tigray has already aroused suspicions of meddling. The RSF at one point accused Tigrayan fighters of joining the fray on the side of the SAF. At the same time, Eritrea has reportedly been backing tribal militias in eastern Sudan to help contain the spread of the RSF near the border.
A full-on Ethiopia-Eritrea war could therefore entangle Sudan on several fronts: Ethiopia might lean on it for strategic access or support, while Eritrea could intensify its covert support for Sudanese factions for instance. Naturally, such proxy entanglements would demolish the fragile efforts to bring stability to Sudan, dimming hopes for peace in the short term.
Meanwhile, Somalia’s security woes would likely deepen. The country’s federal government relies heavily on regional support, including Ethiopian troops, to keep militants at bay. If Ethiopia becomes consumed by a war at home, its military deployments in Somalia could cease, providing insurgent group Al-Shabab with an opening.
Therefore, a wider conflict would be catastrophic at a time when cooperation against extremists and famine relief is crucial.
Even Egypt is possibly a part of the equation. Cairo has had reservations with Ethiopia over the waters of the Nile. Egypt has cultivated ties with Eritrea and Sudan as counterweights. This week, Eritrea’s foreign minister visited Egypt to coordinate their positions, with both governments pointedly asserting that Red Sea security should be led by coastal nations — implicitly sidelining Ethiopia.
Eritrea and Egypt share concerns about an ascendant Ethiopia, and a conflict could bring them into even closer alignment. Egypt might see an opportunity to press Ethiopia on the Nile issue if the country were bogged down with fighting on several fronts.
Tremors from any of these, and other, interconnected fault lines — the civil war in Sudan, South Sudan’s fragility, Somalia’s insurgency, Ethiopia’s rivalries with Eritrea and Egypt — would not stop at the borders of one country but would likely spread across the Red Sea corridor, potentially undermining security on African and Arabian shores.
With the Horn of Africa teetering on the brink, the window for preventive diplomacy is rapidly closing. The cost of inaction would be enormous. A renewed interstate war in the region could make other, existing flashpoints dramatically worse, and risk drawing in extra-regional powers.
Yet so far, external engagement has been dismal and inadequate, given the urgent need for high-level, proactive diplomatic interventions. A first step could be to press all sides to halt military build-ups and inflammatory rhetoric; essentially hitting the pause button on the march to war.
Above all, mediators need to be laser focused on internal reconciliation within Tigray. The feuding TPLF factions must be brought back to the negotiating table to prevent a political breakdown from sparking a full-blown civil war.
If the global community remains passive, Ethiopia and Tigray might well sleepwalk into a war that no one truly wants, in a region that has known enough bloodshed. With firm and farsighted diplomacy, however, another catastrophe can still be averted.
**Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. X: @HafedAlGhwell

A new dimension in Turkiye-US relations
Dr. Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 29, 2025
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s discussions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington last week covered a wide range of issues including defense, trade, and regional concerns. Diplomatic corridors in Ankara and Washington are busy preparing for visits by the two presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump. Last week they had a phone conversation described by Turkish officials as “highly positive” and by the US as “transformational.” Turkish-American relations are clearly taking a new direction and adopting a new dimension. The relationship between the two NATO allies is often framed around structural issues that include a long list of grievances on both sides. With each change of US administration, these issues have remained unresolved, or in many cases worsened.
One is the Syrian Arab Republic. Fidan said Trump should withdraw US troops from Syria, which would be cost-effective for Washington. Turkiye is clearly signaling to the US that regional countries are taking full responsibility for combating Daesh, so there is no longer a need for the US to legitimize its presence in Syria or its support for the PKK under the pretext of fighting the militants. Trump may be convinced, as the dynamics in Syria have dramatically shifted in favor of Turkiye, a country that is now increasingly important for the US to cooperate with. A second point of divergence concerns Russia. Under the Biden administration, Ankara’s close political and economic ties with Moscow were a source of tension. However, Trump views Moscow through a different lens, which Ankara sees as an opportunity. When examining the leadership styles of Russian, Turkish, and American leaders, it becomes clear that there are more commonalities than differences in how they approach politics. Ankara and Washington seem keen to capitalize on the personal ties between their leaders, as Turkiye and Russia do.
If a new era in Turkish-American relations is to begin, it must be built on a sincere convergence that respects both national and regional interests.
A third unresolved issue are the obstacles to defense industry cooperation. Ankara expects the US to lift sanctions and start technical talks on the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act and the F-35 program. During his first term, Trump refrained from imposing sanctions on Turkiye following its acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense missile system in 2019. However, he eventually imposed sanctions in 2020, when relations reached a low point. Several issues contributed to this deterioration, including US cooperation with the Kurdish militias in Syria that are considered a threat by Ankara, Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the Abraham Accords. Ankara’s strong reactions to these developments clearly influenced Trump’s decision to impose sanctions and remove Turkiye from the international F-35 program, in whch it was both a manufacturer and a buyer.
Despite these challenges, defense cooperation is the cornerstone of Turkish-American relations. Turkiye’s admission to NATO received substantial support from the US, due to Turkiye’s perceived military strength and its strategic position. Especially in the current geopolitical climate, both states are aware that they do not have the luxury of allowing this cooperation to deteriorate. Not surprisingly, Rubio sought Turkiye’s support for peace initiatives in Ukraine.
During Fidan’s visit, Erdogan said Turkiye and the US should and would achieve meaningful cooperation for the sake of regional stability “despite all the challenges, and despite the lobbies seeking to poison the cooperation between our two countries.” This highlighted the role of lobbies in shaping Turkish-American relations.
The US political system is structured in a way that allows pressure groups and lobbies to exert considerable influence over the policymaking process. Countries aiming to influence US foreign policy often lobby Congress or the White House. The Armenian, Greek, and Jewish lobbies are particularly significant, especially in shaping Turkish-American relations. The Armenian lobby’s focus is on issues related to Turkiye and Azerbaijan, while the Greek lobby centers on disputes in Turkish-Greek relations, such as the Aegean Sea and Cyprus. The Jewish lobby, which historically supported Turkish-Israeli relations, has shifted its stance because of deteriorating relations, particularly regarding the Gaza war.
The central point remains how Turkiye and the US prioritize material interests over politics. Fidan’s visit took place amid the biggest protests in Turkiye in over a decade, sparked by the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoglu and other opposition figures. The US State Department said it would “not comment on the internal decision-making processes of another country.” This was notable, as the US would typically seize any opportunity to comment on Turkish domestic politics. This clearly reflects the Trump administration’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy and its focus on material interests rather than politics.
If a new era in Turkish-American relations is to begin, it must be built on a sincere convergence that respects both national and regional interests. Only then can such convergence lead to a meaningful shift in Turkish-American relations and the broader Middle East. However, in Turkish-American relations, every convergence seems to carry a hidden divergence. The devil that lies in the detail is the unpredictability of the Trump administration’s policies and the uncertain evolution of regional dynamics.
*Dr. Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkiye’s relations with the Middle East. X: @SinemCngz