English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  January 11/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2026/english.january11.26.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 Elias Bejjaninews 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
Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds
Second Letter to the Corinthians 10/01-11/:”I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I am away! I ask that when I am present I need not show boldness by daring to oppose those who think we are acting according to human standards. Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. We are ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Look at what is before your eyes. If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this, that just as you belong to Christ, so also do we. Now, even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem as though I am trying to frighten you with my letters. For they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.’ Let such people understand that what we say by letter when absent, we will also do when present.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 10-11/2026
The Imperative of Toppling the Mullahs’ Regime, Dismantling Its Terrorist Arms, and Liberating the Iranian People from the Nightmare of Wilayat al-Faqih/Elias Bejjani/January 08/2026
Video Link to an interview with writer and director Youssef Y. El-Khoury from the "Spot Shot" Youtube Platform
Lebanese FM urges Iran to find ‘new approach’ to Hezbollah’s weapons
Israel reportedly backs down from 'major strike' against Hezbollah
France hails Lebanon gas exploration deal in Block 8
Israeli Reports Discuss a "New Operation" in Lebanon
Influx of Envoys to Lebanon: Le Drian Launches Workshop from Beirut
French Embassy on Block 8 Exploration Agreement: "Good News for Lebanon"
We Are Coming: Threatening Messages Spark Panic in Israel
Minister of Justice: Lebanon-Syria Agreement Imminent
One-Third of Syrian Refugees Have Left Lebanon; 300,000 Remain
Israeli Preparations for a Ground Operation to Eliminate Hezbollah
Hezbollah’s "Zionism" Seizes Christian Lands/Tony Atieh/Nidaa Al-Watan/January 11, 2026
On the Weapons of the "Party" and Hamas: How Long Will the State Stand By While Rebels Act?/Lara Yazbeck/ Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026
Recent Ain al-Hilweh killing highlights extremist threat and personal motives — the details
Fairuz receives condolences for death of son Hali Rahbani—Video
The Sovereignty Trap: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Fragile States/Pierre A. Maroun/Face Book/January 10, 2026
From The Archive/Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddine to Shiites: Integrate Into Your States
/Asharq Al Awsat/10 January 2026
WHEN DEATH STRIKE THE IMMORTAL/Lara Khoury Hafez/Face Book/January 10, 2026

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 10-11/2026
Trump says US ‘ready to help’ as protests in Iran persist
Iran is in big trouble: US President Donald Trump
Iran ‘nationwide internet blackout’ still in place after 36 hours: Monitor
Iran crackdown fears grow as protests persist
Son of ousted Iran shah urges protesters to ‘prepare to seize’ city centers
Iranian army vows to protect public property
'There wasn't even time for CPR': Iran medics describe hospitals overwhelmed with dead and injured protesters
Iran’s IRGC arrest foreigner accused of spying for Israel
Protester pulls down national flag from Iranian embassy in London
Netanyahu says wants Israel to cope without US aid within decade
Netanyahu hopes to ‘taper’ Israel off US military aid in next decade
Bangladesh seeks to join international force in Gaza
Syrian security forces say some Kurdish fighters left Aleppo, others still holed up
US announces ‘large-scale’ strikes against Daesh in Syria
US urges fresh talks between Syria govt, Kurds after deadly clashes
Syrian security forces say some Kurdish fighters left Aleppo, others still holed up
Trump signs emergency order to protect US-held revenue from Venezuela oil
Four tankers that had left Venezuela in ‘dark mode’ are back in its waters
Number of prisoners released in Venezuela rises to 18, rights groups say
Settlers launch multiple attacks on West Bank villages
Yemen’s PLC chief says all camps in Hadramout, al-Mahra and Aden under government control
Ukraine drone strike causes fire at oil depot in Russia’s Volgograd region
UN Security Council plans emergency meeting on Ukraine: Official
Winter pierces Kyiv homes after Russia knocks out heat
Listen to abuse victims, pope tells cardinals

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 10-11/2026
Thank You President Trump for Bravely Standing with the Iranian and Venezuelan People, and for Freedom and Peace/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 10, 2026
Who's next? Trump hints at military intervention beyond Venezuela/Francesca Chambers/USA TODAY/January/10, 2026
How the US could take over Greenland and the potential challenges/EMMA BURROWS and BEN FINLEY/Associated Press/January 10, 2026
Netanyahu goes to Mar-a-Lago/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 10, 2026
From the US to Brazil, key polls will reshape the world order/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/January 10, 2026
Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process requires momentum/Luke Coffey/Arab News/January 10, 2026
Iran’s Transformations and Gulf Security/Mohammed al-Rumaihi/Asharq Al Awsat/January 10/2026

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 10-11/2026
The Imperative of Toppling the Mullahs’ Regime, Dismantling Its Terrorist Arms, and Liberating the Iranian People from the Nightmare of Wilayat al-Faqih
Elias Bejjani/January 08/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/150884/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3kbnJVaYOs
From the very moment Ayatollah Khomeini set foot in Tehran in February 1979—arriving from Paris aboard an Air France flight—the Middle East entered a dark tunnel from which it has yet to emerge. The so-called Iranian “revolution,” driven by an alliance of mullahs and leftist forces against the Shah’s rule, was not merely a domestic popular uprising. Rather, it was the product of strange ideological alliances, international complicity, and covert operations, later exposed in intelligence documents revealing significant U.S. involvement. These dynamics led to the removal of the Shah and the handover of power to an extremist sectarian current bearing a dictatorial, expansionist, imperial, and transnational terrorist project.
The Expansionist Project: An Empire of Militias
From its first day, the mullahs’ regime adopted the doctrine of “exporting the sectarian revolution” under the guise of Wilayat al-Faqih—a concept that recognizes neither national sovereignty nor international borders. This ideology gave rise to armed terrorist proxies fully subordinate to Tehran’s command, transforming Lebanon and several Arab states into arenas of influence and de facto Iranian provinces.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah confiscated the state’s sovereign decision-making, turning the country into a missile platform and a large open-air prison.
In Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, Iranian-backed militias destroyed the social fabric and national institutions, spreading chaos, poverty, devastation, and civil wars.
Contradictory Alliances
The mullahs’ regime did not limit its support to Shiite proxies. It also entered into pragmatic alliances with Sunni political-Islam groups, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots—such as Hamas, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and others—in order to destabilize Arab states and undermine moderate regimes.
A Black Record: Domestic Repression and External Terror
Internally, the mullahs transformed Iran—from a promising nation with a great civilizational heritage—into a vast prison. Since 1979, the regime’s criminal record has been endless:
Mass executions, including the liquidation of thousands of political opponents, most notoriously during the 1988 massacres.
Assassinations, targeting intellectuals and dissidents both inside Iran and abroad.
The Collapse of the State
Today, the Iranian people suffer from water and electricity shortages, collapsing education, the absence of an independent judiciary, and the repression of personal freedoms—while the country’s wealth is squandered on financing foreign wars and missile and nuclear programs.
The Nuclear Threat: A Sword Hanging Over the World
The regime’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities is not peaceful, as it claims, but rather a protective shield for its terrorist project. Granting a regime driven by apocalyptic and destructive messianic ideologies access to nuclear weapons would place the entire world under the threat of nuclear blackmail and constitute a direct danger to global peace.
The Moment of Truth: The Third Revolution and the National Alternative
Today, for the third time, the Iranian people—across all components of society—are rising up, openly rejecting this regime.
Their demands are clear: the return of Iran to the international community and the restoration of its national identity, embodied by Prince Reza Pahlavi as a symbol of historical legitimacy and stability. Accordingly, the international community—Arab and Western alike—must abandon the failed policy of “containment” and move decisively to support the liberation of the Iranian people. A free Iran is a strategic regional and global interest, as it would mean a safer Middle East, the end of political Islam in both its Shiite and Sunni forms, and the cessation of global terrorism financing.
Hezbollah: Iran’s Tool for the Destruction of Lebanon and the Exhaustion of the Region
No assessment of Iranian subversion is complete without confronting the demonic functional role played by Hezbollah in Lebanon. This organization has never been a national project; it is merely a faction of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking with a Lebanese accent and operating as mercenaries in every sense of the word. Hezbollah has dragged Lebanon into futile and devastating wars in service of Tehran’s agenda—starting with the 2006 war that destroyed infrastructure and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to improve Iran’s negotiating position, and culminating in the 2023 war against Israel under the pretext of “supporting Gaza,” a war in which the Lebanese people had no stake. Southern Lebanon was turned into scorched earth, sacrificed on the altar of the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions.
Hezbollah’s terrorism has not been confined to Lebanon. It has functioned as a transnational mercenary army in the service of Tehran:
In Syria, it participated in the slaughter of the Syrian people and supported the collapsing Assad regime, contributing to one of the largest demographic-engineering and forced-displacement operations in modern history. In Yemen and the Gulf, it provided military and technical support to the Houthi militia targeting the security of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while operating espionage and sabotage cells and carrying out assassinations, kidnappings, bombings, and acts of chaos in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The Greatest Crime: Against Lebanese Shiites
Hezbollah’s gravest crime has been committed against the Shiite community in Lebanon itself. The party hijacked its free political will, turning it into a hostage of its project through extremist sectarian indoctrination, brainwashing young people and throwing them into endless wars. It isolated Lebanese Shiites from their national and Arab environment and transformed their towns and villages into weapons depots and missile platforms, sacrificing entire generations for the survival of the Wilayat al-Faqih regime in Tehran.
Liberating Lebanese Shiites from this terrorist ideological grip is the essential gateway to restoring the kidnapped Lebanese state.
Conclusion
All free nations must cooperate to topple the mullahs’ regime and dismantle its terrorist arms. A fundamental structural truth must be acknowledged: Lebanon will not regain its sovereignty and independence, nor will Gaza, Damascus, or Baghdad emerge from chaos and collapse, unless the head of the snake in Tehran is severed.
Hezbollah is nothing more than a sectarian functional tool of the Iranian regime. When the root falls, the branches inevitably collapse. Lebanon’s true liberation and independence begin with the fall of the Wilayat al-Faqih regime—so that the Middle East may once again become a region of construction rather than militias and death.
Elias Bejjani is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Email: phoenicia@hotmail.com
Website: https://eliasbejjaninews.com

Video Link to an interview with writer and director Youssef Y. El-Khoury from the "Spot Shot" Youtube Platform
The South Lebanon Army (SLA) are heroes and their cause is patriotic and sovereign par excellence/A documented historical reading into the reality and backgrounds of the South Lebanon Army era... A testimony to the truth and calling things by their names.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2026/01/150970/
Spot Shot: Revisiting the file of "Lebanese in Israel" and the armies of Antoine Lahad and Saad Haddad: Traitors or men of honor? Is an invasion of Lebanon inevitable? And what is the story behind the "Peace Pipeline" between Lebanon and Israel? A "fundamentalist" alliance or a "Sunni Crescent" to diminish Israel and others? Director Youssef El-Khoury answers these questions and more in this episode of "Viewpoint" on "Spot Shot."
Elias Bejjani: The South Lebanon Army (SLA) members are honorable heroes who fought only to defend their land, honor, state, dignity, and identity. The real agent is the "Persian," terrorist, and jihadist Hezbollah, which boasts of its allegiance to the Iranian Mullahs. The SLA was the only Lebanese force that fought Hezbollah in the South, inflicting hundreds of casualties among its jihadists—the "Battle of Al-Hamra" is a prime example. The heroes of the South Lebanon Army deserve to return home, receive a formal apology, and be awarded medals of honor.

Lebanese FM urges Iran to find ‘new approach’ to Hezbollah’s weapons
The Arab Weekly/January 10/2026
Foreign Minister Youssef Raji on Friday urged his visiting Iranian counterpart to find a “new approach” to the thorny issue of disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Lebanon is under heavy US pressure to disarm Hezbollah, which was heavily weakened in more than a year of hostilities with Israel that largely ended with a November 2024 ceasefire, but Iran and the group have expressed opposition to the move. Iran has long wielded substantial influence in Lebanon by funding and arming Hezbollah, but as the balance of power shifted since the recent conflict, officials have been more critical towards Tehran.“The defence of Lebanon is the sole responsibility of the Lebanese state,” which must have a monopoly on weapons, Raji told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a Lebanese foreign ministry statement said. Raji called on Iran to engage in talks with Lebanon to find “a new approach to the issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, drawing on Iran’s relationship with the party, so that these weapons do not become a pretext for weakening Lebanon.”He asked Araghchi “whether Tehran would accept the presence of an illegal armed organisation on its own territory.”Last month, Raji declined an invitation to visit Iran and proposed meeting in a neutral third country. Lebanon’s army said Thursday that it had completed the first phase of disarming Hezbollah, doing so in the south Lebanon area near the border with Israel, which called the efforts “far from sufficient.”Araghchi also met President Joseph Aoun on Friday and was set to hold talks with several other senior officials.After arriving on Thursday, he visited the mausoleum of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli air strike on south Beirut in September 2024. Last August, Lebanese leaders firmly rejected any efforts at foreign interference during a visit by Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani, with the prime minister saying Beirut would “tolerate neither tutelage nor diktat” after Tehran voiced opposition to plans to disarm Hezbollah. Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets in several areas of Lebanon on Friday, a day after the Lebanese army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm the group. Under US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming the Iran-backed militant group, which was weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel including two months of all-out war that ended with a November 2024 ceasefire. Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes in Lebanon, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives, and has maintained troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic, accusing the group of rearming. In a statement on Friday, the Israeli military said it struck “several areas in Lebanon,” targeting “weapons storage facilities and a weapons production site that were used for the rehabilitation and military build-up of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation.”“Additionally, several launch sites and rocket launchers, along with military structures, were struck,” it added. Also on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the “encouraging announcements by the Lebanese authorities,” calling for the disarmament process to be pursued “resolutely”.“The second phase of the plan will be a decisive step,” he wrote on X, adding that “the ceasefire agreement must be strictly respected by all parties.” “Lebanon’s sovereignty must be fully restored,” he added, saying an international conference would soon be held in Paris “to provide them with the concrete means to guarantee this sovereignty.”

Israel reportedly backs down from 'major strike' against Hezbollah
Naharnet/January 10, 2026
Israel's airstrikes on Lebanon on Friday were the response chosen by the Israeli army to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that Lebanon's efforts to disarm Hezbollah are an "encouraging beginning" although they are "far from sufficient," Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted informed sources in Tel Aviv as saying. "Israel has started to back down from the idea of a major strike at the moment, deciding instead to settle for severe but limited strikes," the daily quoted Israeli political and military sources as saying. According to the sources, Netanyahu had agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump in their Florida meeting last week on "waging a major military strike against Hezbollah in return for Netanyahu agreeing to the majority of American demands in Gaza and Syria.""The alibi for striking Hezbollah was ready and almost enjoys unanimity, seeing as polls indicate that 57% of the public are in favor of an immediate strike," the sources said. The rhetoric, however, changed over the past hours, with military sources saying Netanyahu "fears that such an operation now would deviate attention from the major dramatic events that are happening in Iran, and that Israel, the side most concerned with the fall of the Iranian regime, must not at all disrupt the protest campaign that is taking place there.""That's why Israeli security agencies will keep preparing for a scenario of a new ground incursion with large forces into Lebanese territory, especially after Netanyahu obtained U.S. support for that, but they will choose the appropriate time for implementation," the sources added. Other Israeli media reports meanwhile talked about the negative impact of such an operation on north Israel and its residents.

France hails Lebanon gas exploration deal in Block 8
LBCI/January 10, 2026
The French Embassy in Lebanon described the signing of a gas exploration agreement in Block 8 of Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone with TotalEnergies, Eni, and QatarEnergy as “good news” for the country. The deal underscores the international community’s commitment to continue exploration activities in cooperation with Lebanese authorities.

Israeli Reports Discuss a "New Operation" in Lebanon
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
The Wall Street Journal quoted Israeli officials stating that a "new operation" might be required in Lebanon to "assist" the Lebanese Army in disarming Hezbollah. This proposal reflects an Israeli tendency to link the disarmament process to the possibility of field escalation if current steps are deemed insufficient. According to the report, the idea of a "new operation" arises amid internal Israeli discussions on handling weapons outside state control and addressing security challenges on the northern border, especially given ongoing tensions and mutual accusations regarding responsibility for the escalation.

Influx of Envoys to Lebanon: Le Drian Launches Workshop from Beirut
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
With the arrival of French Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian in Beirut to participate in the "Mechanism" meeting, Al-Jadeed learned that Le Drian will not attend all sessions; instead, a civilian official will be appointed if France reaches a settlement with the U.S. and Israel. The latter two prefer Lebanon's sole presence, limiting French participation to technical rather than political arrangements. Simultaneously, Le Drian will launch a workshop with ambassadors of relevant countries to prepare for a support conference expected in late February or early March. France views itself as Lebanon's primary supporter based on historical ties. Additionally, MTV reported that Le Drian will discuss the "post-UNIFIL" phase and France's desire to maintain troops in southern Lebanon. He will also urge Parliament to pass the Financial Gap Law. Sources also noted that Saudi Envoy Prince Yazid bin Farhan, a Qatari envoy, and U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison (referenced as Michel Issa in text) are expected to meet Lebanese officials to discuss army support and the reactivation of the "Quintet" group.

French Embassy on Block 8 Exploration Agreement: "Good News for Lebanon"
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
The French Embassy in Lebanon announced via "X" that the signing of the gas exploration agreement for Block 8 in Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone with a consortium comprising TotalEnergies, Eni, and QatarEnergy is "good news for Lebanon." It confirms international commitment to continued exploration in cooperation with Lebanese authorities.

We Are Coming: Threatening Messages Spark Panic in Israel
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
On Saturday afternoon, many Israelis received SMS threats appearing to originate from British numbers. The English message read: "We are coming, look at the sky at midnight," hinting at missile attack scenarios similar to the "12-Day War" with Iran. Channel 12 reported that this follows similar messages from last week. Experts suggest these are part of a psychological warfare campaign by Iranian entities, while Israel’s National Cyber Directorate dismissed it as an attempt to spread panic. This coincided with alleged hacks of social media accounts belonging to prominent figures, including PM Chief of Staff Tzachi Braverman and former PM Naftali Bennett. An Iranian hacking group named "Handala" claimed responsibility.

Minister of Justice: Lebanon-Syria Agreement Imminent
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
Justice Minister Adel Nassar told Al-Jadeed that a meeting was held to study a prisoner transfer agreement between Lebanon and Syria. The goal is to allow convicts to serve their sentences in their home countries while respecting state sovereignty. Nassar confirmed that Lebanon requested three items from Syria: full support for the committee on the forcibly disappeared, the extradition of fugitives from Lebanon to Syria, and technical/security cooperation regarding investigations into assassinations that occurred from 2025 to the present.

One-Third of Syrian Refugees Have Left Lebanon; 300,000 Remain
Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
Minister of Social Affairs Hanin El Sayed announced that one-third of Syrian refugees in Lebanon returned to Syria in 2025 according to official figures. She noted ongoing political coordination with the Syrian side. Approximately 300,000 Syrians will remain in Lebanon legally this year due to their participation in and the needs of the Lebanese economy.

Israeli Preparations for a Ground Operation to Eliminate Hezbollah
Youssef Fares/ Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
The previous year ended with Israeli threats of a military strike on Lebanon after PM Netanyahu reportedly received a "green light" from U.S. President Donald Trump. Hebrew media revealed rapid military movements on the border, including the deployment of elite units and rapid intervention teams. Retired Brigadier General Bassam Yassin told Al-Markazia that February will be a turning point between stability and destruction. He stated that the government has been given two months to restrict arms to the state; failure to do so may lead to an expanded war. He warned that if Hezbollah does not comply with international pressure to disarm, the Israeli army may occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River to eliminate the group and impose "peace through force" accompanied by normalization.

Hezbollah’s "Zionism" Seizes Christian Lands
Tony Atieh/Nidaa Al-Watan/January 11, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
The issue of Hezbollah’s seizure of lands belonging to Christians and others is not merely financial greed or pure real estate investment; rather, it is in its essence and depth a part of its integrated ideological and political project. While the issue of the Akoura commons and the lands of Lassa remains the most visible face of this conflict, what is happening away from the spotlight—particularly on the Shouf coast—reveals an organized movement that relies on secrecy and Taqiyya (dissimulation) to impose demographic realities through devious and suspicious methods. Just as the "Party" maintains secret units to carry out assassinations against sovereignists and dissidents, it has conversely established front associations—social, educational, and environmental in appearance—that serve as tools to penetrate the Lebanese fabric and strike at diversity through disguised real estate control.
Remarkably, the "Islamic Resistance in Lebanon" has adopted the same methods used by "Zionism" in Palestine to acquire Palestinian lands: establishing funds, agencies, and associations (some shell, some public) and offering financial inducements alongside moral pressure. All of this is executed within a systematic policy of gradual encroachment to change the identity of regions step by step. In this context, the "Al-Kawthar Social Association" has recently come to light, with documents revealing its illegal ownership of numerous properties on the Shouf coast. Rita Boulos, a lawyer and member of the Kataeb Political Bureau, was the first to raise the alarm, exposing the secrets of this association and its suspicious goals before the Lebanese public, security agencies, and the judiciary.
In a significant report prepared by Boulos regarding suspicious ownership operations in the Rmeileh area, she noted that properties "1748, 2305, and 2306" in the town of Rmeileh have been subject to building violations since 2019. Violations were marked on properties 2305 and 2306 due to encroachments on a watercourse, and a master plan was drafted for property 1748 to classify the area as agricultural and touristic to limit chaotic construction. "Despite this," she stated, "we were surprised by the aforementioned association’s pursuit of ownership, signing surveyed sale contracts and registering them in the real estate departments as a precautionary measure."Under the slogan "From one hand to another," documents exposed that the transfer of ownership of the three properties in Rmeileh involved a temporary "buyer" named Khaled Harmoush from Tripoli, who is close to "Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiya." He purchased them and obtained building permits for four residential complexes before transferring ownership to the Al-Kawthar Association. Furthermore, Boulos added that photographed documents from the real estate information system (Damour Real Estate) indicated that the association managed to register final sale contracts in its favor at the Damour real estate offices for properties 2378 (Sections 4 and 7). She also pointed out that the association purchased three properties in the Debbieh area.
As for this "social" association, it was founded under a 2002 permit. Its stated objectives include supporting marriage, strengthening family ties, and providing aid to newlyweds. However, the founding documents reveal seven founders, most notably the primary founder and owner of the land where the association was built: Issa Ali Asghar Tabatabaei Najafi (Boulos asks: "Is he Lebanese?"). Among the list of 28 members is Ali Tajeddine, a prominent financial and real estate figure linked to Hezbollah who is on the U.S. sanctions list. He and his brother, Ali, managed a business network spanning Lebanon, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola, and the British Virgin Islands, using the company "Tajco" to purchase and develop real estate in Lebanon on behalf of the "Party."Thus, Hezbollah, which has long falsely boasted of protecting Christians (who certainly do not need anyone to protect or defend them), was in truth "placing poison in the honey." It has exploited certain weak-willed, greedy individuals and those deceived by its slogans to implement its old "True Promise," back when it considered "Christians to be invaders" whose lands must be taken through trickery and dissimulation. However, this "cunning" does not absolve Christian landowners of their responsibility; selling their properties constitutes a moral and historical crime against the heritage of their grandfathers and the blood of their fathers, contributing—knowingly or unknowingly—to changing the identity of the land and emptying it of its original inhabitants.

On the Weapons of the "Party" and Hamas: How Long Will the State Stand By While Rebels Act?
Lara Yazbeck/ Al-Markazia/January 10, 2026 (Translated from Arabic)
On Monday, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued two separate warnings to the residents of Lebanon via his account on "X." The warnings included orders to evacuate buildings in several villages, citing strikes targeting military infrastructure belonging to both Hamas and Hezbollah within Lebanese territory.In the first warning, the Israeli army called on the residents of the towns of Anan and Al-Manara (Al-Hamara) to evacuate specific buildings, warning of imminent attacks on military infrastructure allegedly belonging to the Hamas movement in these two areas. The Israeli army subsequently targeted these points before launching a devastating strike on an industrial zone in Siniq, Sidon, at dawn on Tuesday without prior warning. This follows an incident last November where 13 people were killed in Israeli shelling targeting the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon. At that time, a drone targeted a vehicle near the Khalid bin Walid Mosque in the camp’s "Lower Street." The Israeli army released a video clip claiming to document the targeting of "Hamas operatives" inside a training complex belonging to the movement in southern Lebanon.
Just over a month separates these strikes, and the common denominator is that they involve targets belonging to the Hamas movement, rather than just Hezbollah, which the Israeli army targets on an almost daily basis.
According to sovereignist political sources speaking to Al-Markazia, these operations raise several questions:
First: What is the Palestinian Hamas movement doing in Jezzine (the Al-Hamara area), which had remained neutralized from Israeli raids, much like all the villages that chose to seek protection solely under the umbrella of state legitimacy?
Second: Regarding Hamas’s weaponry as a whole—how long will the Lebanese state remain a bystander while the movement refuses to implement official decisions to collect Palestinian arms?
Third: These developments bring the organic relationship between "The Party" (Hezbollah) and Hamas back into the spotlight. Despite their differences, they converge on rebelling against Lebanese legitimacy, with clear incitement from Iran. It has become evident that there is no solution to the issue of Hezbollah's weapons in Lebanon without first resolving the issue of Hamas's weapons, and vice versa; in their stubbornness, they serve one another. Therefore, the sources conclude with the biggest and most important question: Will the Lebanese state finally take a firm stand and decide to impose its authority on the Party, Hamas, and anyone else who dares to overpower it? Would you like me to provide a breakdown of the specific Lebanese laws or international resolutions (like Resolution 1559) often cited in these debates regarding Palestinian and Hezbollah weaponry?

Recent Ain al-Hilweh killing highlights extremist threat and personal motives — the details
LBCI/January 10, 2026
In the Safsaf neighborhood of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, footage documents the killing of Abed Fodda by Mohammad Hamad, who shot him multiple times inside the camp. The video shows Abed Fodda lying on the ground as the gunman stands over him, retrieves his handgun, and then leaves the scene.
There was no political or security-related motive behind the killing. The motive was purely familial. The shooter had previously refused to approve Abed Fodda’s marriage to his sister, while the victim had earlier threatened a man who sought to marry her. On Friday evening, the two men met in the Safsaf neighborhood. An argument broke out, after which Mohammad Hamad shot Abed Fodda and fled.While the motive was personal, both the victim and the shooter are well-known figures among extremist groups operating in Ain al-Hilweh.
Israeli strike on Ain al-Hilweh camp raises fears of wider fallout: The details
Abdel Aziz Mohammad al-Hammoud, known as Abed Fodda, was a senior figure in an extremist group in the Safsaf neighborhood. He was affiliated with Fatah al-Islam and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. He took part in fighting against the Lebanese army during clashes in 2014 and was involved in several confrontations inside the camp alongside Fatah al-Islam. He had planned to plant an explosive device in a school inside the camp and to bomb a military bus. Abed Fodda was considered one of the most prominent leaders of extremist groups in the camp for many years, alongside Bilal Bader, Haitham al-Shaabi, and Toufic Taha, in addition to other figures who later left the camp. The shooter is also described as an extremist who led a small group in the Safsaf neighborhood and was affiliated with the Islamic State group. Several sources say he, the victim, and a third individual were involved in incitement against singer Fadel Chaker, calling for his removal from the camp after he released new artistic and musical works. Although the incident was personal in nature, it once again highlights a central challenge facing Palestinian refugee camps, particularly Ain al-Hilweh, the largest such camp in Lebanon. Efforts to limit weapons in the camps have focused on arms held by the Palestine Liberation Organization, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not cooperated. As for extremist groups, whose presence, ideology and external ties pose a greater threat than the weapons they possess, they have remained dormant for some time. However, questions persist about whether there is any official plan to address them, with the aim of removing them from the camps. Proposals have included assigning a media figure to engage with these groups to better understand their demands.

Fairuz receives condolences for death of son Hali Rahbani—Video
LBCI/January 10, 2026
https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/lebanon-news/899030/fairuz-receives-condolences-for-death-of-son-hali-rahbanivideo/en
Lebanese singer Fairuz on Saturday received condolences following the death of her son, Hali Rahbani. Messages of sympathy poured in from political, cultural, and artistic figures, paying tribute to the Rahbani family’s legacy in Lebanon’s cultural life.

The Sovereignty Trap: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Fragile States
Pierre A. Maroun/Face Book/January 10, 2026
U.S. statecraft in the Levant has entered a paradoxical phase. In countries such as Lebanon and Syria, Washington’s reliance on expansive financial sanctions has contributed to a condition best described as Strategic Freezing: formal institutions erode under the weight of compliance costs, while resilient non-state actors—especially Hezbollah—adapt and consolidate influence through informal and illicit systems. The result is a sovereignty trap in which the state becomes too weak to govern yet too central to abandon.¹
This argument does not claim that sanctions cause state failure or strengthen non-state actors directly. Rather, it contends that sanctions applied without a theory of institutional sufficiency can shift the balance between formal and informal power in unintended ways, undermining the state capacities required for durable security outcomes. The problem, in other words, is not sanctions as a tool but sanctions as a system: a durable policy architecture that reshapes incentives, governance, and institutional behavior over time. This analysis builds on a growing body of scholarship that questions the effectiveness of sanctions in fragile environments, arguing that existing debates often overlook how coercive pressure interacts with institutional weakness, political economy, and the adaptive behavior of non‑state actors.
This dynamic is not unique to Lebanon. Similar patterns have emerged in Yemen, Iraq, and Venezuela, where coercive pressure has interacted with institutional fragility to produce governance vacuums rather than political recalibration.² Lebanon, however, offers a particularly clear illustration of how sanctions-driven governance can weaken sovereign institutions while leaving adaptive networks intact.
The urgency of reassessment has grown in the post-2020 regional environment, marked by the rise of illicit economies, the diffusion of Iranian-linked networks, and the normalization of sanctions as a default instrument of U.S. statecraft. As sanctions have become increasingly embedded in U.S. national security practice, scholars have warned that their institutional effects—rather than their immediate economic impact—may be the more consequential driver of long-term political outcomes. The central question is no longer whether sanctions impose costs, but whether they can produce strategic outcomes in fragile environments.
I. How Strategic Freezing Emerges
Lebanon’s collapse is profoundly overdetermined—rooted in elite predation, fiscal malpractice, and sectarian fragmentation.³ U.S. policy did not cause this collapse. Yet when policy is framed through a broad threat-convergence lens—treating diverse actors as components of a unified adversarial system—sanctions pressure can accelerate institutional decay through three reinforcing mechanisms.
1. Asymmetric Exposure to Financial Pressure
Regulated entities—central banks, commercial banks, and state agencies—are acutely vulnerable to enforcement by the United States Department of the Treasury.⁴ To avoid exposure, these institutions engage in aggressive de-risking, severing ties with entire sectors and sharply contracting the formal economy.⁵
By contrast, Hezbollah’s reliance on cash-based operations, informal transfer systems, and parallel financial institutions such as al-Qard al-Hasan insulates it from the pressures that cripple state institutions.⁶ The result is not immunity from pressure, but relative resilience within a collapsing formal system.
2. Redistribution of Legitimacy
As the state loses the ability to pay soldiers, maintain hospitals, or deliver basic services, citizens increasingly turn to non-state welfare providers.⁷ This welfare gap transforms Hezbollah from a political actor into a survival mechanism for some communities, deepening social entrenchment and eroding the state’s claim to legitimacy.⁸
Sanctions do not create these networks, but they can magnify their relative importance as formal institutions lose viability.
3. Expansion of Grey and Black Economies
When the formal economy contracts, illicit markets fill the vacuum. In the Levant, this has included the rapid expansion of the Captagon trade—an illicit economy whose growth has been facilitated by state collapse and sanctions-induced de-formalization, even if not caused by sanctions alone.⁹
These markets generate revenue streams that bypass the global financial system entirely, further marginalizing sovereign institutions and entrenching non-state and regime-linked actors.¹⁰
Together, these mechanisms produce a self-reinforcing equilibrium: the state weakens, adaptive networks endure, and sanctions become structurally easier to evade than to comply with.
II. The Missing Ingredient: A Theory of Political Sufficiency
U.S. policy in Lebanon reflects a broader pattern in fragile states: a theory of pain without a theory of political sufficiency. Pressure is applied with increasing precision, but without a clear definition of which political or institutional capacities must survive for strategy to succeed.¹¹ This gap mirrors a broader critique in the sanctions literature: that coercive tools often lack an articulated political terminus, resulting in pressure that is operationally coherent but strategically indeterminate.
A sufficiency-based approach begins with a simple premise:
state capacity is not a luxury—it is the precondition for sustainable security outcomes.
This requires distinguishing between:
• the corrupt elite that must be constrained, and
• the sovereign institutions that must endure for pressure to have political effect.¹²
Absent this distinction, sanctions risk degrading the very institutions needed to counter malign networks, producing a sovereignty trap rather than a pathway to recalibration.
III. Breaking the Freeze: A State-Anchored Strategy
A credible alternative to Strategic Freezing requires re-anchoring the state while maintaining calibrated pressure on adversarial networks. The following state-anchored framework offers a practical blueprint.
1. White-Listed Corridors (Security Anchor)
Establish protected, audited channels for critical state functions.
• Action: Direct, externally monitored dollar payments to the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces.¹³
• Objective: Preserve the state’s monopoly on legitimate force. A viable national army shifts the balance of power away from militias.
2. Performance-Based Digital Governance (Social Floor)
Digitize aid delivery to prevent diversion and eliminate ghost beneficiaries.
• Action: Deploy biometric digital payment systems for public health and education workers.¹⁴
• Objective: Deliver resources directly to civil servants, bypassing sectarian intermediaries and reducing opportunities for institutional capture.
3. Conditional Reintegration of Formal Finance (Economic Thaw)
Revitalize the formal economy to undercut illicit networks.
• Action: Reintegrate audited commercial banks into the SWIFT system under a Lebanon-specific conditional general license modeled on prior Treasury authorities.¹⁵
• Objective: Draw economic activity out of cash-based grey markets and back into transparent, regulated channels.
This approach does not abandon coercion; it embeds coercion within a strategy that defines what must survive for pressure to produce political effect.
IV. The Military-Elimination Question as a Coercive Ceiling
A recurring argument in regional debates is that if sanctions hollow out the state while leaving Hezbollah intact, then only the military elimination of Hezbollah can revive the formal economy and reduce Iranian influence.¹⁶
This claim is best understood not as a policy proposal, but as a stress test for the logic of coercion itself. Military elimination represents one theoretical endpoint on the coercive spectrum, but it does not guarantee institutional restoration. The structural drivers of Lebanon’s collapse—elite predation, sectarian fragmentation, fiscal implosion, and regional interference—would persist even if a single non-state actor were degraded by force.¹⁷
The Strategic Freezing framework clarifies the underlying issue: the decisive variable is not the level of pain inflicted, but whether coercion is embedded in a strategy that defines what must survive inside the state.
Without a theory of political sufficiency, additional coercion—financial or military—risks deepening fragmentation and expanding the grey economies that empower rival networks.¹⁸
V. Anticipating Adversary Adaptation
Any move toward protected financial corridors will trigger adaptive resistance. Hezbollah is likely to:
• tax liquidity entering the system through exchange houses, or
• embed ghost workers within protected ministries.¹⁹
To counter this, enforcement should be trigger-based and automatic: any diversion from protected channels should result in immediate, publicly signaled re-imposition of sectoral sanctions.²⁰ This creates a predictable enforcement environment that deters manipulation while preserving the integrity of state-anchored mechanisms.
Conclusion: From Containment to Institutional Survival
Lebanon illustrates a broader challenge in U.S. engagement with fragile states: a policy can be fully compliant with Treasury regulations yet ineffective in achieving political outcomes. Strategic success requires ensuring that the formal state—however flawed—remains more viable than the shadow networks that seek to replace it.²¹ The sovereignty trap identified in Lebanon echoes patterns observed across fragile environments, suggesting that the institutional consequences of sanctions deserve far greater attention in debates about U.S. strategy.
By adopting a Theory of Political Sufficiency, the United States can shift from indefinite containment toward institutional survival, offering a model for recalibrating strategy across fragile environments.
Author
Pierre A. Maroun
Former Legislative Assistant to Congressman Phil English (Capitol Hill)
President SOUL
SOUL for Lebanon

From The Archive/Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddine to Shiites: Integrate Into Your States
London: Asharq Al Awsat/10 January 2026
Asharq Al-Awsat begins publishing an extended text in the form of a dialogue held in 1997 between the late Sheikh Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddine, then head of Lebanon’s Higher Islamic Shiite Council, and figures close to Hezbollah’s milieu.
The text is of exceptional importance, as it addresses the situation of Shiites in their countries and the need for them to integrate into their states rather than become part of a project subordinate to Iran.
As is well known, Shamseddine was marginalized for many years by supporters of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement. He was displaced from Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs and lived outside it because of positions that conflicted with those of Iran-aligned forces in Lebanon.
The dialogue is scheduled to be published by Ibrahim Mohammad Mahdi Shamseddine, the cleric’s son, in a book titled Lebanese Shiites and Arab Shiites: The Relationship with Others and the Relationship with the Self. Asharq Al-Awsat is publishing lengthy excerpts from the text on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Lebanese Shiite cleric’s death, which falls today, Saturday, January 10.
Ibrahim Shamseddine: Why now?
Ibrahim Shamseddine introduces the publication with a preface explaining why he chose to reveal the contents of the dialogue after all these years. He writes that he decided to publish the text marking 25 years since his father’s passing in order to honor him, revive his thought, and recall his deep insight, courage and firmness in expressing what he believed to be the truth — truth that safeguards people and preserves the nation and the state for all.
Central to this vision, he notes, was placing the unity of the national political community above any particularism, without exception, including that of Lebanese Shiites and Arab Shiites, who are part of the broader national, Arab and Islamic collectives.
The text is the outcome of a dialogue session, preserved on audio recordings, lasting more than four hours on the night of Tuesday, March 18, 1997. It brought together Sheikh Shamseddine and a large group of cadres from the “Islamic movement” in Lebanon, closely linked to the party-based Shiite political current that emerged in the mid-1980s under direct and sustained Iranian sponsorship.
Ibrahim Shamseddine explains that he was especially motivated to publish this previously unpublished text because it addresses highly sensitive and contentious issues — particularly relations between Lebanese Shiites and their fellow citizens, their national framework, their Arab and Islamic surroundings, and, most notably, their relationship with Iran.
He adds that these same issues remain at the heart of today’s debates, charged with urgency and tension, and continue to interact with shifting regional and global geopolitical dynamics. For this reason, he argues that the document is not a relic of the past but a living text that speaks directly to a volatile and uncertain present. The full text, with an expanded summary, will later be published in the aforementioned book.
Lebanese Shiites and Arab Shiites
The dialogue opens with a question from one of the young participants, who tells Shamseddine that he had long been regarded as a leading figure of the Islamist movement, but that over time a distance had emerged between him and part of its base. The questioner suggests this may be due to Shamseddine’s position and proximity to official authority, and asks whether he now speaks in the name of state necessities or the choices of the people.
Shamseddine replies that he remains in his original position, unchanged “by even a hair’s breadth,” but rather deeper, broader and more mature. What some perceive as distance, he insists, did not originate from him but from certain clerics and those influenced by them, driven by a purely partisan spirit he describes as almost idolatrous. Barriers were erected, through suspicion or inducement, leaving him personally surprised by developments he had not planned.
He speaks of hidden maneuvering rooted in the pursuit of status and influence, noting that such dynamics have existed within Shiism since the era of the infallible imams. He recounts how the Lebanese Union of Muslim Students, which he helped establish and nurture, was later taken out of his hands, eventually aligning with partisan currents that later fed into Hezbollah. He stresses that many were innocent or misled, while responsibility for others he leaves to divine judgment.
Shamseddine affirms that assuming the presidency of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council did not alter his religious understanding or commitments formed since the 1950s. He reiterates his well-known formulation distinguishing between “the necessities of regimes and the choices of Al-Umma (the community),” stressing that the council has always expressed the latter. Disagreement over whether a given stance falls under necessity or choice, he says, is legitimate.
He laments deliberate distortions portraying him and the council as aligned with the state, exploiting Shiite sensitivities toward authority. While a few acted knowingly, he says the majority were misled. He declares that he harbors no personal grievance, leaving judgment to God.
The relationship with regimes
Responding to a question about the cordiality shown during his visits to Arab states and whether it served the interest of avoiding escalation, Shamseddine dismisses the premise. Affection, he says, is natural and mutual among Muslims, whether in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, India or Pakistan. He notes that during his visits he met governments and oppositions alike, including Islamist groups critical of their own states.
He rejects the suggestion that cordiality implies submission, stressing that shared causes, above all the broader Islamic cause and opposition to the Zionist project, create common ground and understanding.
Shamseddine then addresses what he calls a deep-seated Shiite psychological complex: the belief of being universally rejected. While acknowledging that Shiites do face hostility at times, he argues that the deeper problem is self-isolation rooted in a siege mentality cultivated through poor social and political upbringing. This mindset, he says, has been cynically exploited by some Shiite leaders, particularly after the rise of Islamist movements, to mobilize followers without ethical restraint.
He adds that conflict is not unique to Shiites. Sunnis fight Sunnis in Algeria, Sudan and Afghanistan, just as Shiites have fought Shiites in Iraq and Lebanon. Social struggle, he says, is a universal reality.
“Integrate into your states”
Shamseddine then lays out his central message. His overriding concern, he says, is for the blood, dignity, freedom and honor of Shiites. To protect these, Shiites must be accepted within their homelands and not perceived as a threat or contagion.
“I say this openly,” he declares. “Integrate into your states. Integrate into your societies. Integrate into your systems of shared interests. Do not create a separate system of interests. Do not arouse suspicion. Respect your laws.”
He insists this position is grounded in firm religious conviction, stressing that stealing public funds is forbidden regardless of whether a state is Sunni or Shiite. He argues that acceptance should come from being a constructive citizen, not from acting as a proxy or protected extension of another state.
Shamseddine warns against behavior that seeks to intimidate others through transnational partisan threats, recounting instances where individuals exploited partisan affiliations to evade accountability abroad. Such conduct, he says, ultimately harms the broader Shiite community.
He concludes that his mission is to make Shiites accepted within their societies and the wider Islamic world, accepted as they are, in their religious practices and traditions. Portraying Shiites as a distinct, abnormal case within Islam, he argues, is both false and dangerous. He says that his religious and intellectual duty is to pull Shiites out of this predicament, a task he believes he had already achieved to a significant extent.
Below are some of the key issues addressed by Shamseddine in the dialogue, revealed for the first time:
• When you do not threaten others’ system of interests with your own, few people will stand in your way.
• I say: integrate into your states, integrate into your societies, integrate into your systems of interests. Do not create a separate system of interests. Do not arouse the suspicions of others. Respect your laws.
• My message is to make Shiites acceptable within their societies and within the wider Muslim community. I want them to be accepted in their own right, not because they represent a “protectorate” of another state, meaning to be accepted because Iran protects me.
• The secret group that was formed in Egypt as the nucleus of a party or grouping, including that wretched creature “Shehata” and others like him, does not concern us, whether they are sincere or charlatans.
• The psychological complex among Shiites, that they are ostracized, stems from the fact that they themselves ostracize others. The world is not against us. We are against the world. One of the tasks of my mission is to remove Shiites from a posture of being against the world.
• If Iran is building a party for itself in Egypt and wants to build work upon it, that is not my business. Iran manages its own affairs.
• Shiites make up one-fifth of Muslims compared with four-fifths. My role is to create a state of friendship between them and their societies, far from any political sectarianism.
• I am not speaking only about Arab Shiites. Shiites in Türkiye or Azerbaijan belong to Türkiye and Azerbaijan, not to Iran. Shiites in the Indian subcontinent belong to their homelands, ethnicities and peoples. Iran represents neither a political nor a religious authority for them.
• It is impermissible for there to be a separate project for Shiites within their homelands.
• What interest do Shiites have in killing the emir of Kuwait? Why do we conspire against this or that regime or official? Managing Shiite affairs begins with integration.
• I moved into besieged Beirut in 1982 and said: Shiites will not leave Beirut. Their glory and dignity lie in being besieged alongside Sunnis and Palestinians inside it.
• Shiites are not in danger. If there is any danger to them, it comes from themselves, not from others.
• Had I wanted to flatter the Iranians, I would have mentioned them, praised and lauded them, and you would then have heard applause from Iran and Hezbollah.
• The state cannot deal with secret systems of interests, as some are trying to create here or elsewhere.
• Shiites have no interest, regionally or nationally, in establishing a separate system of interests and linking it to Iran.
• Shiite strength lies in integrating into the body of Islam, not in becoming a special community affiliated with Iranians.
• I call for citizenship without deceit. If one of the turbaned pretenders issues a fatwa saying that stealing the property of a Sunni or a Christian is permissible, absolutely not. This is forbidden.
• The concept of an unjust system or an unjust ruler no longer exists. The modern state has legitimate ownership. We issue religious rulings forbidding the embezzlement of public funds, the betrayal of laws and the undermining of public order.

WHEN DEATH STRIKE THE IMMORTAL...
Lara Khoury Hafez/Face Book/January 10, 2026
We cry Hali, but we think of Feyrouz.
Not the icon, not the voice of an entire country. But the mother.
A woman who, at 91 years old, has just lost a child for the third time...
Life spared him nothing.
She who gave us so much finds herself, once again, facing this absolute pain: surviving her offspring.
Hali leaves, this son who remained so fragile since childhood, as hanging halfway between the world and elsewhere and who was his daily companion.
And here comes the one who has nothing to prove, who no longer needs glory, has been back in the news for a few months not for a new masterpiece, but for her misfortunes.
As if life wanted to remind us that our Goddess is first a woman, human, vulnerable, exposed to all aspects of existence just like any of us.
For us, Feyrouz has already triumphed over death - his own death!
Her works made her immortal.
And it seems that the reaper, vexed to have been transcended by a simple voice, is rushing to take what is due, hitting Feyrouz by the dearest beings, one by one.
On l’appelle “l’éternelle Feyrouz”.
And it's true that she gives the impression that she's floating out of time, between two lives, two shores, as if her voice is still holding Lebanon by an invisible thread.
We clinging on to her. But what is she still holding on to?
To a few whispered prayers in a house gone too quiet?
To some memories that smell the scene, the whole family, and Lebanon of the past...?
What dialogues does she have with God, the one who has lent her voice to the prayers of an entire people?
What wisdom does one attain when one has seen, all lived, glory, loneliness, brokenness, illness, loss - and are still here?
And then there's this strange, almost unavoidable phenomenon:
Every time a disaster strikes, a sneaky thought crosses our minds:
"What if, this time, it was her? ”
As if we were repeating, in silence the departure of a woman who is still alive.
Not out of morbid curiosity, but because deep down we can't imagine Lebanon without it.
We anticipate its departure as we fear an announced earthquake, wondering what will be us, and what will remain when it is gone.
For more than six decades, Feyrouz has summarized Lebanon: its feasts and mourning, its illusions and disillusions, its open houses and its closed borders.
She sang to keep us standing.
Today, she is the one who wavers, and it is up to us to watch over her in thought as she watched over us in song.
May God give her, for what remains of her way, a little gentleness, a lot of peace, and the quiet consolation of knowing that an entire country owes her a piece of what she is, and will continue to breathe infinitely to the rhythm of the immense work she left her...

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 10-11/2026
Trump says US ‘ready to help’ as protests in Iran persist
AFP/10 January/2026
President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States is “ready to help” as protesters in Iran faced an intensifying crackdown by authorities of the Islamic Republic. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” Trump said in a social post on Truth Social, without elaborating. His comments come a day after he said that Iran was in “big trouble” and again warned that he could order military strikes.

Iran is in big trouble: US President Donald Trump
Al Arabiya English/10 January/2026
US President Donald Trump said Friday that “Iran is in big trouble” after anti-government protests rocked the country for consecutive days. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump told reporters after meeting US oil company executives. Trump reiterated previous threats to the Iranian authorities not to shoot at protesters. He said the US was watching the situation very carefully, warning, “We will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts.”But he quickly added that that didn’t mean boots on the ground. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on Friday insisted the Islamic Republic would “not back down” in the face of protests after the biggest rallies yet in an almost two-week movement that has shaken the clerical authorities. Chanting slogans including “death to the dictator” and setting fire to official buildings, crowds of people opposed to the leadership have marched through major cities.Trump called the protests “pretty incredible” and an “amazing thing to watch.”

Iran ‘nationwide internet blackout’ still in place after 36 hours: Monitor
AFP/10 January/2026
A “nationwide internet blackout” implemented by the Iranian authorities as protesters take to the streets has now been in place for 36 hours, monitor Netblocks said on Saturday. “After another night of protests met with repression, metrics show the nationwide internet blackout remains in place at 36 hours,” it said in a post on X

Iran crackdown fears grow as protests persist
AFP/10 January/2026
Rights groups expressed alarm on Saturday that Iranian authorities were intensifying a deadly crackdown under cover of an internet blackout, after another night of mass protests in the biggest demonstrations to face the Islamic Republic in years. The two weeks of demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic authorities who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although supreme leader Ali Khamenei has expressed defiance and blamed the United States. Following the movement’s largest protests yet on Thursday, new demonstrations took place late Friday, according to images verified by AFP and other videos published on social media. This was despite an internet shutdown imposed by the authorities, with monitor Netblocks saying Saturday evening that “Iran has now been offline for 48 hours.”Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces have intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday in an escalation “that has led to further deaths and injuries.”Norway-based Iran Human Rights group has said at least 51 people have been killed in the crackdown so far, warning the actual toll could be higher. It posted images it said were of bodies of people shot dead in the protests on the floor of Alghadir hospital in eastern Tehran. “These images provide further evidence of the excessive and lethal use of force against protesters,” IHR said. ‘Seize city centers’ In Tehran’s Saadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans including “death to Khamenei” as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed. Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels outside Iran showed similarly large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom. In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun amid fires and people dancing. The same flag briefly replaced the current Iranian flag over the country’s embassy in London, when protesters managed to reach the building’s balcony, witnesses told AFP. Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, hailed the “magnificent” turnout on Friday and urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests on Saturday and Sunday.
“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Pahlavi said in a video message on social media.

Son of ousted Iran shah urges protesters to ‘prepare to seize’ city centers
AFP/10 January/2026
Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, hailed the “magnificent” turnout on Friday and urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests this Saturday and Sunday with the aim of taking and then holding city centers. “Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Pahlavi said in a video message on social media. Pahlavi, whose father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted by the 1979 revolution and died in 1980, added he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” at a time that he believed was “very near.”Activists have expressed concern that the internet shutdown could mask repression by authorities, and the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group has said at least 51 people have been killed in the crackdown so far. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi warned on Friday that security forces could be preparing to commit a “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout.”Authorities say several members of the security forces have been killed, and Khamenei in a defiant speech on Friday lashed out at “vandals” and vowed the Islamic republic would “not back down.” He blamed the US for stoking the unrest in comments echoed by several other Iranian officials. US President Donald Trump again refused on Friday to rule out new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June. “Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said. Asked about his message to Iran’s leaders, Trump said: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”

Iranian army vows to protect public property
Reuters/January 10, 2026
A witness in western Iran reached by phone said the Revolutionary Guards were deployed and opening fire in the area from which they were speaking, declining to be identified for their safety TEHRAN: Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned on Saturday that safeguarding security was a "red line" and the military vowed to protect public property, as the clerical establishment stepped up efforts to quell the most widespread protests in years. The statements came after US President Donald Trump issued a new ​warning to Iran's leaders on Friday, and after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday declared: "The United States supports the brave people of Iran."Unrest continued as state media said a municipal building was set on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, and blamed “rioters.”
FASTFACT
On Friday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said rioters were attacking public properties and warned that Tehran would not tolerate people acting as 'mercenaries for foreigners.' State TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces, it said, who were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan. A witness in western Iran reached by phone said the Revolutionary Guards were deployed and opening fire in the area from which they were speaking, declining to be identified for their safety. In a statement broadcast ‌by state TV, the IRGC — an elite force which has suppressed previous bouts of unrest — accused terrorists ‌of targeting military ​and law ‌enforcement bases over the past two nights, killing several citizens and security personnel and saying property had been set on fire. Safeguarding the achievements of the 1979 revolution and maintaining security was "a red line," it added, saying the continuation of the situation was unacceptable. The military announced it would "protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property."In a statement published by semi-official news sites, the military accused Israel and “hostile ‌terrorist groups” of seeking to “undermine ‌the country’s public security.”On Friday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said rioters were attacking public properties and warned that Tehran would not tolerate people acting as “mercenaries for foreigners.”The Revolutionary Guards’ public relations office said three members of the Basij security force were killed and five wounded during clashes with what it described as “armed rioters” in Gachsaran, in the southwest. Another security officer was stabbed to death in Hamedan, in western Iran. The son of a senior officer, Brig. Gen. Martyr Nourali Shoushtari, was killed in the Ahmadabad area of Mashhad, in the northeast. Two other security personnel were killed over the past two nights in Shushtar, in Khuzestan province. Authorities have ‌described protests over the economy as legitimate while condemning what they call violent rioters and cracking down with security forces. Iranian rights group HRANA said it had documented 65 deaths, including 50 protesters and 15 security personnel as of January 9. The Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said more than 2,500 people had been arrested over the past two weeks. A doctor in ⁠northwestern Iran said that since Friday, large numbers of injured protesters had been brought to hospitals.

'There wasn't even time for CPR': Iran medics describe hospitals overwhelmed with dead and injured protesters
Soroush Pakzad; Roja Assadi - BBC News Persian,; Helen Sullivan/BBC/January 10, 2026
Staff at three hospitals in Iran have told the BBC their facilities are overwhelmed with dead or injured patients, as major anti-government protests continue. A medic at one Tehran hospital said there were "direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well", while a doctor said an eye hospital in the capital had gone into crisis mode. Two of the medical workers who spoke to the BBC said they treated gunshot wounds from both live ammunition and pellets. On Friday, the US repeated that killing protesters would be met with a military response. Iran blamed the US for turning peaceful protests into what it called "violent subversive acts and widespread vandalism". Reacting to the latest developments, President Trump posted on social media: "Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!" Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of death and injury. The protests began in the capital Tehran a fortnight ago over economic hardship. They have since spread to more than 100 cities and towns across all of Iran's provinces. Hundreds of protesters are believed to have been killed and injured, and many more detained. BBC Persian has confirmed the identities of 26, including six children. Members of the security forces have also been killed, with one human rights group putting the number at 14. BBC Persian has verified that 70 bodies were brought to Poursina Hospital in Rasht city on Friday night. The morgue there was at full capacity, so the bodies were taken away. The authorities asked the relatives of the dead for 7 billion rials (£5,222; $7,000) to release them for burial, a hospital source said. The BBC and most other international news organisations are barred from reporting inside Iran, and the country has been under a near-total internet blackout since Thursday evening, making obtaining and verifying information difficult.A hospital worker in Tehran described "very horrible scenes", saying there were so many wounded that staff did not have time to perform CPR. "Around 38 people died. Many as soon as they reached the emergency beds... direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well. Many of them didn't even make it to the hospital. "The number was so large that there wasn't enough space in the morgue; the bodies were placed on top of one another. "After the morgue became full, they stacked them on top of one another in the prayer room," she said.
The hospital worker said the dead and wounded were young people. "Couldn't look at many of them, they were 20-25 years old."A doctor who contacted the BBC via a Starlink satellite connection on Friday night said Tehran's main eye specialist centre, Farabi Hospital, had gone into crisis mode with emergency services overwhelmed. Non-urgent admissions and surgeries were suspended and staff called in to deal with emergency cases, he said. Iran's security forces often use shotguns which fire cartridges filled with pellets during confrontations with protesters.
'I saw one person who had been shot in the eye'
Another doctor from the city of Kashan in central Iran told the BBC many injured protesters had been hit in the eyes, and that his colleagues in hospitals across the city reported receiving many wounded people during Friday night's unrest. Thursday night produced similar accounts. A doctor at a medical centre in Tehran told the BBC: "The number of injured people and fatalities was very high. I saw one person who had been shot in the eye, with the bullet exiting from the back of his head. "Around midnight, the centre's doors were closed. A group of people broke the door and threw a man who had been shot inside, then left. But it was too late - he had died before reaching hospital and could not be saved." The BBC also obtained a video and audio message from a medic at a hospital in the south-west city of Shiraz on Thursday, who said large numbers of injured were being brought in, and the hospital did not have enough surgeons to cope with the influx. What footage is emerging from Iran shows protesters in Tehran taking to the streets en masse on Friday night, burning vehicles, and a government building set alight in Karaj, near the capital. The Iranian army has since said it will join security forces in defending public property. It follows reports that Iranian security forces were spread thin as the unrest extended throughout the country. Iranian authorities issued a series of co-ordinated warnings to protesters on Friday, with the National Security Council saying "decisive" legal action would be taken against "armed vandals". Iranian police maintained that no one was killed in Tehran on Friday night, though they said 26 buildings were set on fire, causing extensive damage. An eyewitness who joined the protests on Thursday and Friday nights in Tehran told BBC Persian Television that Gen Z Iranians have been instrumental in encouraging their parents and older people to come out and join the protest marches, urging them not to be afraid. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Saturday that Europe backed Iranians' mass protests and condemned the "violent repression" against demonstrators. UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday the international body was very disturbed by the loss of life. "People anywhere in the world have a right to demonstrate peacefully, and governments have a responsibility to protect that right and to ensure that that right is respected," he said. French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz released a joint statement on Friday calling on Iranian authorities to "allow for the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly without fear of reprisal".
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remained defiant in a televised address on Friday, saying: "The Islamic Republic came to power through the blood of several hundred thousand honourable people and it will not back down in the face of those who deny this."In later remarks broadcast on state television, Khamenei reiterated that his regime "will not shirk from dealing with destructive elements" who he said were "trying to please the president of the US". Meanwhile, the son of Iran's last shah, who was deposed by an Islamic revolution in 1979, described the protests as "magnificent" and urged Iranians to continue over the weekend. "Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres," Reza Pahlavi said in a social media video. US-based Pahlavi also said he was preparing to return to the country. But former UK ambassador to Iran Sir Simon Gass told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "we really shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves" when discussing regime change. He said the lack of organised opposition within Iran meant people did not have an alternative figure to coalesce around as things stood.
However, he noted the protests were "a much wider movement" than previous flare-ups, which were triggered by Iranians finding it "almost impossible to make ends meet because of the disaster to the economy". On Friday, President Trump reiterated his threat to Iran's leadership that the US would "hit them very hard" if they "start killing people". He clarified that this did not mean "boots on the ground". Last year, the US conducted air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, the US state department said accusations by Iran's foreign minister that Washington and Israel were fuelling the protests were a "delusional attempt to deflect" attention from the challenges the regime was facing.Taghi Rahmani, an Iranian political activist who spent 14 years in prison and whose wife, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, was re-arrested in December, said any lasting change must come from Iranians instead of foreign intervention. The protests have been the most widespread since a 2022 uprising sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly. More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 detained, according to human rights groups.
Additional reporting by Soroush Negahdari, Mallory Moench and Aleks Phillips

Iran’s IRGC arrest foreigner accused of spying for Israel
Reuters/10 January/2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) intelligence wing said ‍it had arrested a foreigner suspected of spying ⁠for Israel, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday. Protests have spread ‍across Iran since ‍December 28 ‍in response ⁠to ‌soaring inflation ⁠and ‍quickly turning political, with protesters ⁠demanding an end to ‌clerical rule. Authorities accuse the US and Israel ‍of fomenting unrest.

Protester pulls down national flag from Iranian embassy in London
Nadeem Badshah/Guardian/January 10, 2026
A protester has climbed on to the balcony of the Iranian embassy in central London and pulled down the country’s flag during an anti-regime demonstration. Social media footage appeared to show a man replacing the flag with the pre-Islamic revolution lion and sun flag, often used by opposition groups in the country.The Metropolitan police said an estimated 500 to 1,000 people attended the protest on Saturday at its peak in Kensington. Two arrests were made, one for aggravated trespass and assault on an emergency worker and one for aggravated trespass. Officers are also seeking another individual for trespass. The force said: “We saw no serious disorder and officers will remain in the area to ensure the continued security of the embassy.”People demonstrating against the regime have been gathering outside Iranian embassies across the world. In Berlin, hundreds of people were seen waving Iran’s former imperial flag and carrying pictures of exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi as they marched through the German capital. The demonstrations in Iran began on 28 December and have transformed into the most significant challenge to the regime for several years. Earlier this week, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, condemned the killing of protesters in the country and urged Tehran to “exercise restraint” amid a crackdown on demonstrations. At least 62 people are reported to have been killed and 2,300 detained during weeks of protests initially sparked by anger over the country’s ailing economy. Iran’s leaders have shut down access to the internet and international telephone calls in response to the protests. Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah of Iran, called for protesters to take to the streets on Saturday and Sunday and seize control of their towns. Based in the US, Pahlavi, 65, asked people on social media to hoist the pre-1979 “lion and sun” flag, which was used during his father’s rule. He said the Islamic Republic would be brought “to its knees”, adding: “Our goal is no longer merely to come into the streets; the goal is to prepare to seize city centres and hold them.”

Netanyahu says wants Israel to cope without US aid within decade
AFP/10 January/2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Israel to be able to cope without US military aid within a decade, he said in an interview published on Friday. Washington has approved the sale of tens of millions of dollars in military equipment to aid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and the close defense ties between the countries date back decades. “In my visit to President Trump, I said we deeply appreciate the military aid that America has given us over the years,” he told The Economist. “But we too have come of age, we’ve developed incredible capacities and our economy will soon within a decade reach $1 trillion. “So I want to taper off the military aid within the next ten years.”Israel receives approximately $3.8 billion in annual financial aid from the United States for arms purchases under an agreement signed in 2016, which entered into force in 2019 and is valid until 2028. US Senator Lindsey Graham quickly took to X to say that he will look to expedite terminating US military assistance. According to the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, Israel has received more than $300 billion in military and economic aid since its founding in 1948, adjusted for inflation. In May, as relations between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump appeared strained, the Israeli premier suggested that Israel would eventually have to “wean itself off” American military aid, without providing further explanation. In a controversial speech in September, Netanyahu also said Israel was becoming increasingly isolated and had to adopt a “super-Sparta” approach. Following a backlash after the remark, the Israeli leader later said he was referring to the defense industry, and that the country had to become more self-reliant to avoid potential supply bottlenecks.

Netanyahu hopes to ‘taper’ Israel off US military aid in next decade
Reuters/January 10, 2026
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper ​off” Israeli dependence on American military aid in the next decade. Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel ‌would be ‌fully independent from ‌the ⁠US “I ​want ‌to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told the Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said, “Yes.”Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump ⁠during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the ‌military aid that America has ‍given us ‍over the years, but here too ‍we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on ​developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries. In ⁠2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems. Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense ‌technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.

Bangladesh seeks to join international force in Gaza
Reuters/January 11, 2026
WASHINGTON: Bangladesh said on Saturday it has told the United States that it wants to join the international stabilization force ​that would be deployed in Gaza. Bangladesh said its national security adviser, Khalilur Rahman, met US diplomats Allison Hooker and Paul Kapur in Washington. Rahman “expressed Bangladesh’s interest in principle to be part of the international stabilization force that would be deployed in Gaza,” a Bangladeshi government statement added. It did ‌not mention the ‌extent or nature of ‌its ⁠proposed involvement. ​The ‌State Department had no immediate comment.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized a so-called Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force in Gaza where a ceasefire began in October. The truce has ⁠not progressed beyond its first phase, and little progress has been ‌made on the next steps. ‍More than 400 Palestinians ‍and three Israeli soldiers have been reported killed ‍since the ceasefire took effect, and nearly all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people live in makeshift homes or damaged buildings in a sliver of territory ​where Israeli troops have withdrawn and Hamas has reasserted control. Both Israel and Hamas remain ⁠far apart on the more difficult steps envisaged for the next phase of the ceasefire and have accused each other of violations. Israel’s military assault on Gaza since late 2023 has killed tens of thousands, caused a hunger crisis and internally displaced Gaza’s entire population. Multiple rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel called its actions self-defense after a 2023 Hamas ‌attack in which 1,200 were killed and over 250 taken hostage.

Syrian security forces say some Kurdish fighters left Aleppo, others still holed up
Reuters/10 January/2026
Dozens of Kurdish fighters left Syria’s second city on Saturday, security sources told Reuters, and the army said it was still working to clear a remaining group of hardened fighters after a ceasefire failed to end days of deadly clashes. The violence in Aleppo has deepened one of the main faultlines in Syria, where President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s promise to unify the country under one leadership after 14 years of war has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his government. The United States and other world powers welcomed a ceasefire earlier in the week, but Kurdish forces refused to leave the last stronghold of Sheikh Maksoud under the deal. Syria’s army said it would conduct a ground operation to clear them and combed through the neighborhood on Saturday. Reuters reporters then saw dozens of men, women and children streaming out of the neighborhood on foot. Syrian troops put them onto buses and said they would be taken to displacement shelters. More than 140,000 people have already been displaced by the fighting this week. The Reuters reporters later saw security forces put more than 100 men in civilian clothes on buses. Syrian security officials at the scene identified them as members of the Kurdish internal security forces, known as the Asayish, and said they had surrendered. The Asayish later denied any of those who left Aleppo were fighters, saying they were all civilians that had been forcibly displaced.
Accusations over violations
US envoy Tom Barrack said on Saturday he had met al-Sharaa in Damascus, and urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint, immediately cease hostilities, and return to dialogue.” He said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team was ready to mediate. Barrack earlier said a consolidated ceasefire would see the “peaceful withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Aleppo,” referring to the main Kurdish force. Three Syrian security sources told Reuters a batch of Kurdish fighters including some commanders and their families were secretly ferried out of Aleppo overnight to the country’s northeast. Ilham Ahmad, who heads the Kurdish administration’s foreign relations department, had overnight welcomed a deal to “safely redeploy fighters from Sheikh Maksoud” to eastern Syria. She was the only Kurdish official to acknowledge their exit from Aleppo as part of the deal, and there was no public announcement later of a completed withdrawal. Kurdish fighters were still holed up in a hospital in Sheikh Maksoud on Saturday, security sources said. The SDF said it was waging street battles against government forces, accusing them of indiscriminately bombing civilian infrastructure, including the hospital, where civilians were taking cover. The Syrian army has denied conducting indiscriminate attacks and accused the ٍSDF of attacking Aleppo’s town hall with a drone. The SDF denied the claim. The takeover of Sheikh Maksoud by the army would oust Kurdish forces from pockets of Aleppo they have held since Syria’s war began in 2011. Kurdish forces still run a semi-autonomous zone in large parts of Syria’s northeast. They have resisted efforts to integrate into Syria’s new government, made up of former opposition fighters who ousted longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. With negotiations on their merging stalled, fighting erupted in Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least nine civilians. The clashes are the latest bout of sectarian violence in Syria. In 2025, more than 1,000 people from the Alawite minority were killed by government-linked forces and hundreds from the Druze minority were killed in the southern province of Sweida, including in execution-style killings. The fighting in Aleppo has closed a key highway to Turkey and factories in its industrial zone. Syria’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Saturday Aleppo’s international airport would remain closed until further notice.

US announces ‘large-scale’ strikes against Daesh in Syria
Arab News/January 11, 2026
WASHINGTON: US and allied forces carried out “large-scale” strikes against the Daesh group in Syria on Saturday in response to an attack last month that left three Americans dead, the US military said. “The strikes today targeted Daesh throughout Syria” and were part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, which was launched “in direct response to the deadly Daesh attack on US and Syrian forces in Palmyra, Syria” on December 13, US Central Command said in a statement on X. CENTCOM said the operation was ordered by President Donald Trump following the ambush and is aimed at “root(ing) out Islamic terrorism against our warfighters, prevent(ing) future attacks, and protect(ing) American and partner forces in the region.”The statement continued: “If you harm our warfighters, we will find you and kill you anywhere in the world, no matter how hard you try to evade justice,” adding that US and coalition forces remain “resolute in pursuing terrorists who seek to harm the United States.”The statement did not note whether anyone was killed in the strikes. The Pentagon ⁠declined to comment on more details and the State Department did ‌not immediately respond to ‍a request for comment. About 1,000 US troops remain in Syria, while Syria has been cooperating with a US-led coalition against Daesh, reaching an agreement late last year when President Ahmed Al-Sharaa visited the White House.

US urges fresh talks between Syria govt, Kurds after deadly clashes
AFP/January 10, 2026
ALEPPO, Syria: The United States on Saturday urged the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to negotiations after days of deadly clashes in the northern city of Aleppo. Conflicting reports emerged from the city, as authorities announced a halt to the fighting and said they began transferring Kurdish fighters out of Aleppo, but Kurdish forces denied the claims shortly after. An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men leaving the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud district accompanied by security forces, with authorities saying they were fighters though Kurdish forces insisted they were “civilians who were forcibly displaced.”AFP could not independently verify the men’s identities. Another correspondent saw at least six buses entering the neighborhood and leaving without anyone on board, with relative calm in the area. It came as US envoy Tom Barrack on Saturday met with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and afterwards issued a call for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with an integration agreement sealed last year. The violence in Aleppo erupted after efforts to integrate the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and military into the country’s new government stalled. Since the fighting began on Tuesday, at least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people have been displaced. On Saturday evening, state television reported that Kurdish fighters “who announced their surrender... were transported by bus to the city of Tabaqa” in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. In a statement to the official SANA news agency, the military announced earlier on Saturday “a halt to all military operations in the Sheikh Maqsud neighborhood.”A Syrian security source had told AFP that the last Kurdish fighters had entrenched themselves in the area of Al-Razi hospital in Sheikh Maqsud, before being evacuated by the authorities. Kurdish forces said in a statement that news of fighters being transferred was “entirely false” and that the people taken included “young civilians who were abducted and transferred to an unknown location.”
Residents waiting to return -
On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who were unable to flee the violence were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces, according to an AFP correspondent.Men were carrying their children on their backs as women and children wept, before boarding buses taking them to shelters. Dozens of young men in civilian clothing were separated from the rest, with security forces making them sit on the ground, heads down, before being taken by bus to an unknown destination, according to the correspondent.At the entrance to the district, 60-year-old resident Imad Al-Ahmad was waiting for permission from the security forces to return home. “I left four days ago... I took refuge at my sister’s house,” he told AFP. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to return today.”Nahed Mohammad Qassab, a 40-year-old widow also waiting to return, said she left before the fighting to attend a funeral. “My three children are still inside, at my neighbor’s house. I want to get them out,” she said. The clashes, some of the most intense since Syria’s new Islamist authorities took power, present yet another challenge as the country struggles to forge a new path after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024. Both sides have blamed the other for starting the violence in Aleppo.
‘Fierce’ resistance -
In neighboring Iraq’s Kurdistan region, thousands of people had gathered on Saturday to protest against Damascus’ campaign in Aleppo. They chanted slogans including “one united Kurdistan,” and “we are ready to extend a hand to the Kurds of Syria.”
A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until late Saturday. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) control swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which they captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group. But Turkiye, a close ally of neighboring Syria’s new leaders, views its main component as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which agreed last year to end its four-decade armed struggle against Ankara. Turkiye has launched successive offensives to push Kurdish forces from the frontier. Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, accused Syrian authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts and of “seeking to put an end to the agreements that have been reached.”“We are committed to them and we are seeking to implement them,” she told AFP. The March integration agreement was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralized rule, have stymied progress as Damascus repeatedly rejected the idea. Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the renewed clashes cast doubt on the government’s ability to unite the country after years of civil war. Syria’s authorities have committed to protecting minorities, but sectarian bloodshed rocked the Alawite and Druze communities last year.

Syrian security forces say some Kurdish fighters left Aleppo, others still holed up
Reuters/10 January/2026
Dozens of Kurdish fighters left Syria’s second city on Saturday, security sources told Reuters, and the army said it was still working to clear a remaining group of hardened fighters after a ceasefire failed to end days of deadly clashes. The violence in Aleppo has deepened one of the main faultlines in Syria, where President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s promise to unify the country under one leadership after 14 years of war has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his government. The United States and other world powers welcomed a ceasefire earlier in the week, but Kurdish forces refused to leave the last stronghold of Sheikh Maksoud under the deal. Syria’s army said it would conduct a ground operation to clear them and combed through the neighborhood on Saturday. Reuters reporters then saw dozens of men, women and children streaming out of the neighborhood on foot. Syrian troops put them onto buses and said they would be taken to displacement shelters. More than 140,000 people have already been displaced by the fighting this week. The Reuters reporters later saw security forces put more than 100 men in civilian clothes on buses. Syrian security officials at the scene identified them as members of the Kurdish internal security forces, known as the Asayish, and said they had surrendered. The Asayish later denied any of those who left Aleppo were fighters, saying they were all civilians that had been forcibly displaced.
Accusations over violations
US envoy Tom Barrack said on Saturday he had met al-Sharaa in Damascus, and urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint, immediately cease hostilities, and return to dialogue.” He said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team was ready to mediate.Barrack earlier said a consolidated ceasefire would see the “peaceful withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Aleppo,” referring to the main Kurdish force. Three Syrian security sources told Reuters a batch of Kurdish fighters including some commanders and their families were secretly ferried out of Aleppo overnight to the country’s northeast. Ilham Ahmad, who heads the Kurdish administration’s foreign relations department, had overnight welcomed a deal to “safely redeploy fighters from Sheikh Maksoud” to eastern Syria. She was the only Kurdish official to acknowledge their exit from Aleppo as part of the deal, and there was no public announcement later of a completed withdrawal. Kurdish fighters were still holed up in a hospital in Sheikh Maksoud on Saturday, security sources said. The SDF said it was waging street battles against government forces, accusing them of indiscriminately bombing civilian infrastructure, including the hospital, where civilians were taking cover. The Syrian army has denied conducting indiscriminate attacks and accused the ٍSDF of attacking Aleppo’s town hall with a drone. The SDF denied the claim. The takeover of Sheikh Maksoud by the army would oust Kurdish forces from pockets of Aleppo they have held since Syria’s war began in 2011. Kurdish forces still run a semi-autonomous zone in large parts of Syria’s northeast. They have resisted efforts to integrate into Syria’s new government, made up of former opposition fighters who ousted longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. With negotiations on their merging stalled, fighting erupted in Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least nine civilians. The clashes are the latest bout of sectarian violence in Syria. In 2025, more than 1,000 people from the Alawite minority were killed by government-linked forces and hundreds from the Druze minority were killed in the southern province of Sweida, including in execution-style killings. The fighting in Aleppo has closed a key highway to Turkey and factories in its industrial zone. Syria’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Saturday Aleppo’s international airport would remain closed until further notice.

Trump signs emergency order to protect US-held revenue from Venezuela oil
AFP, Washington/10 January/2026
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order protecting US-held money derived from sales of Venezuelan oil, after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, the White House said. In an order signed Friday, Trump - who has made clear that tapping Venezuela’s vast oil reserves was a key goal in the US ouster of Maduro - is acting “to advance US foreign policy objectives,” the White House said in a fact sheet accompanying the order. The action follows a meeting Friday in Washington where Trump pressed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela, and was met with a cautious reception - with the chief executive of ExxonMobil describing the country as “uninvestable” without sweeping reforms. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited in 2007 after refusing demands by then-president Hugo Chavez to cede majority control to the state. They have been fighting to recoup billions of dollars they say Venezuela owes them.
Chevron is currently the only US firm licensed to operate in Venezuela. Trump’s executive order signed Friday declares a national emergency “to safeguard Venezuelan oil revenue held in US Treasury accounts from attachment or judicial process,” the White House fact sheet said. In effect, it places those revenues under special protection in order to prevent them from being seized by courts or creditors. The action is decreed to be necessary for US national security and foreign policy. “President Trump is preventing the seizure of Venezuelan oil revenue that could undermine critical US efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela,” the fact sheet said. Sanctioned by Washington since 2019, Venezuela sits on about a fifth of the world’s oil reserves and was once a major crude supplier to the United States. But it produced only around one percent of the world’s total crude output in 2024, according to OPEC, having been hampered by years of underinvestment, sanctions and embargoes. Trump sees the country’s massive oil reserves as a windfall in his fight to further lower US domestic fuel prices. The executive order comes one week after US forces seized authoritarian leader Maduro in a nighttime operation in the Venezuelan capital that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.

Four tankers that had left Venezuela in ‘dark mode’ are back in its waters
Reuters/10 January/2026
At least four tankers, most ‍of them loaded, that had departed from Venezuela in early January in “dark mode” - ‍or with their transponders off amid a strict US blockade - are now back in the South American country’s waters, according to state company PDVSA and monitoring service TankerTrackers.com. A flotilla of about a dozen loaded vessels and at least ⁠three other empty ships left Venezuelan waters last month in apparent defiance of an embargo imposed by US President Donald Trump since mid-December, which has dragged down the country’s oil exports to minimum. One of the ships, the Panama-flagged supertanker M Sophia, was intercepted and seized by the US this week when returning to the country; while another, the Aframax tanker Olina with a flag ‍from Sao Tome And Principe, was intercepted but released to Venezuela on Friday, state company PDVSA ‍said. Three more of ‍the vessels that had ⁠departed in that flotilla, Panama-flagged Merope, ‌Cook Islands-flagged Min Hang and Panama-flagged ⁠Thalia III, were spotted ‍by Tankertrackers.com in Venezuelan waters late on Friday through satellite images. US authorities had said on ⁠Friday that Olina -previously known as Minerva M - would be freed. The next step for the country, ‌which remains under strict US supervision after it captured and extracted President Nicolas Maduro last week, would be the beginning of organized crude exports as part of a $2 billion oil supply deal Caracas and Washington are negotiating, they ‍said. In a meeting with top oil company executives on Friday, US President Donald Trump said arrangements for the supply had progressed. Global trading houses Vitol and Trafigura received this week the first US licenses to negotiate and carry Venezuela’s exports, and naphtha supplies to the ‌OPEC country also are expected, sources said.

Number of prisoners released in Venezuela rises to 18, rights groups say
Reuters/10 January/2026
The number of prisoners released in Venezuela has risen to ‍18, human rights groups said on Saturday, from nine on Friday afternoon. The release ‍of hundreds of political prisoners in the South American country is a long-running demand of human rights groups, international bodies and opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has several close allies imprisoned. Both US ⁠President Donald Trump and Venezuela’s top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, the brother of acting President Delcy Rodriguez, have said the releases are a gesture of peace. Trump added in a post on Truth Social that he had canceled a second wave of attacks on Venezuela following cooperation from the South American nation. The releases cap a week of political turmoil in Caracas: ‍the US attack on Venezuela, the stunning capture of President Nicolas Maduro, his arraignment in a ‍New York court ‍on narcoterrorism charges, the swearing-in ⁠of Rodriguez and the announcement that ‌the US would refine ⁠and sell up to ‍50 million barrels of crude oil from Venezuela. For years, Venezuela’s opposition and human rights ⁠groups have said the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent, a charge authorities have ‌consistently denied. There is no official list of exactly how many prisoners will be released, nor who they are.Local rights group Foro Penal estimates there are 811 political prisoners in the country. That figure includes more than ‍80 foreign detainees, including two from the United States and one with American residency. Five Spanish citizens, including Venezuelan Spanish rights activist Rocio San Miguel, were the first confirmed releases on Thursday. They arrived in Madrid the following day. Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Enrique Marquez ‌is also among the prisoners who have been ‍released.
Yemen president announces formation of Supreme Military Committee, thanks Saudi Arabia for support
Arab News/January 10, 2026
ADEN: Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council announced the formation of a Supreme Military Committee on Saturday. The committee will be tasked with overseeing and preparing all military forces for the next phase of the Yemeni conflict, as government-aligned forces secured control of key camps across the country, Council president Rashad Al-Alimi said. In a televised address on Saturday, Al-Alimi said the committee, operating under the leadership of the Coalition to Support Legitimacy, will also be responsible for equipping, organizing and leading all military formations, and readying them in case the Houthi militias reject peaceful solutions. The Yemeni leader praised Saudi Arabia for its “sincere brotherly role” in supporting Yemen’s unity, legitimacy and stability, describing the Kingdom’s backing as a lasting and responsible partnership for Yemen and the wider region. Al-Alimi said government forces had successfully taken over camps in Hadramout, Al-Mahra, the temporary capital Aden and other liberated governorates, calling on Yemenis to unite behind efforts to restore state institutions and end the Houthi coup. “The difficult decisions that were taken during the past pivotal days were not aimed at strength, but rather at protecting citizens and preserving their dignity,” he said, stressing the need for full commitment to the constitution, the law and the transitional framework. ained a top priority for the leadership, confirming his support for a comprehensive southern dialogue conference under Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship. Al-Alimi urged those who had “gone astray” to surrender their weapons, return looted property and rejoin the ranks of the state, while directing governors to ensure continuity of vital services and improve living conditions during what he described as an exceptional phase. He also underlined the importance of strengthening security, protecting social peace and working closely with the Coalition and the international community to combat terrorism, prevent arms smuggling, secure waterways and deter cross-border threats. Al-Alimi accused the Houthis of refusing to engage in dialogue, saying Yemen’s prolonged suffering was the result of their coup against constitutional legitimacy, and that the council’s message remained clear: embrace peace or face continued confrontation.

Settlers launch multiple attacks on West Bank villages
WAFA/January 10, 2026
RAMALLAH: Armed Israeli settlers attacked the villages of Al-Mughayir, located northeast of Ramallah, and Yabrud to the east on Saturday, according to local sources. The sources told the Palestinian Wafa news agency that settlers stormed the Al-Qala’a area east of Al-Mughayir and fired live bullets at residents who confronted them, though no injuries were reported. The sources added that Israeli forces stormed the area, deploying sound grenades and tear gas against residents, and spread throughout the old park of the village and near homes. Also, settlers attacked residents near Yabrud, while two armed colonists trespassed on Palestinian-owned lands in Umm Safa, northwest of Ramallah. Also on Saturday, settlers stormed the Bedouin village of Shalal Al-Auja, located to the north of the city of Jericho. According to local sources, dozens of Israeli settlers raided the community, spread out among residents’ homes, and deliberately grazed their livestock on farmlands, causing massive damage to crops.The attacks comes as part of a systematic policy targeting Bedouin communities, aimed at depriving the population of the most basic necessities of life and pushing them towards forced displacement. Settlers attacked a young man from the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, on Saturday as he was traveling along the road connecting the towns of Biddya and Saniriya, west of Salfit. Local sources said that the group attacked Sharhabil Al-Tawil, assaulting him before seizing his vehicle. A settler, under the protection of the Israeli army, grazed his sheep on Saturday on Palestinian-owned land in the village of Al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah. Local sources said that the settler grazed his sheep in the southern part of the village before residents confronted him. The sources added that Israeli forces then raided the area, fired live ammunition toward residents, and forced them to return to their homes to provide protection for the colonists. According to AFP, Israeli forces arrested three suspects after dozens of Israeli settlers stormed an area near a West Bank village on Thursday, injuring two Palestinians and vandalizing property. The army said that soldiers were dispatched after receiving news of “dozens of masked Israeli suspects vandalizing property in the area” of Shavei Shomron, an Israeli settlement near Nablus. The settlers “set Palestinian vehicles on fire” and “attacked a Palestinian who was inside one of the vehicles,” the army said, adding that two Palestinians were injured as a result.

Yemen’s PLC chief says all camps in Hadramout, al-Mahra and Aden under government control
Al Arabiya English/10 January/2026
Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council head Rashad al-Alimi said on Saturday that government forces have successfully taken over camps in Hadramout, al-Mahra, Aden and “the rest of liberated governorates.” “The tough decisions made in the past few days… aimed to protect citizens and their dignity… during times that required upholding responsibility and fully committing to the constitution,” al-Alimi said in a televised speech. Al-Alimi called on the Yemeni people to unite, prioritize wisdom, and work toward restoring state institutions and ending the coup of the Houthi militia which he accused of “still refusing to sit for dialogue.”“The [presidential] council’s message has been clear since its formation: to opt for peace or continue the battle and end the threat posed by the coup on constitutional legitimacy.” Al-Alimi also announced the formation of the Supreme Military Committee under the command of the coalition in support of legitimacy in Yemen, adding that it will be in charge of preparing and equipping all military forces and formations and will support them to “prepare for the upcoming phase shall militias refuse peaceful solutions.”Al-Alimi reiterated the state’s commitment to the close partnership with the coalition’s leadership and the international community to combat terrorism and arms smuggling, secure naval passages and deter cross-border threats. He also called on those “who have gone astray” to surrender their arms and return to the state’s bosom.

Ukraine drone strike causes fire at oil depot in Russia’s Volgograd region
Reuters/10 January/2026
A drone strike by ‍Ukraine caused a fire at an oil depot in the Oktyabrskiy district in the southern part of ⁠Russia’s Volgograd region, regional authorities said on Saturday.Governor Andrei Bocharov was quoted as saying in a post on his administration’s Telegram channel that there had been no casualties ‍reported so far, but that people living ‍nearby may have ‍to be ⁠evacuated. Ukraine’s military ‌said on Saturday ⁠it had ‍struck the Zhutovskaya oil depot overnight. Ukraine has ⁠been targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure in recent months, ‌aiming to cut off Moscow’s ability to finance its military campaign against Kyiv.Russia’s Defense Ministry on ‍Saturday said its air defenses had downed 67 Ukrainian drones as of 0600 GMT.

UN Security Council plans emergency meeting on Ukraine: Official
AFP/10 January/2026
The UN Security Council will meet Monday to discuss Ukraine, a revised scheduled showed, after Kyiv’s mayor urged residents to leave the capital due to mass heating outages caused by Russian strikes. “The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians,” Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk said in a letter to the Security Council seen by AFP on Friday. The latest strikes left half of the residential buildings in Kyiv without heating in sub-zero temperatures, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said. The Kremlin also confirmed firing an Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine for the second time since the war began in February 2022. “The Russian Federation regime officially claims that it used an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the so-called ‘Oreshnik,’ against the Lviv region,” the ambassador’s letter continued. “Such a strike represents a grave and unprecedented threat to the security of the European continent.”Moscow claims the Oreshnik, which can be equipped with both nuclear and conventional warheads, is impossible to stop Ukraine’s request for the emergency UNSC meeting was supported by six members -- France, Latvia, Denmark, Greece, Liberia and the United Kingdom -- diplomatic sources told AFP.

Winter pierces Kyiv homes after Russia knocks out heat
Reuters, Kyiv/10 January/2026
Kyiv residents huddled against bitter winter cold inside their unheated apartments on Saturday as engineers struggled to restore power, water and heat knocked out in the latest salvo of Russian strikes. Russia has regularly conducted intense bombardments of Ukraine’s energy system since it invaded its neighbor in 2022. The war’s fourth winter could be the coldest and darkest yet, with the accumulated damage to the grid bringing utilities to the brink, and temperatures already below minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 F) and set to plunge further this week. On Saturday, Kyiv’s heat, power and water, hit hard by a strike two nights earlier, were shut down again as engineers tried to repair the ruined power grid. Galina Turchin, a 71-year-old pensioner living on Kyiv’s badly affected eastern bank, had a window covered by plastic sheeting after it was blown out when drone debris hit another part of her building during the last overnight attack. She said she had not cooked food for two days, eating whatever had been left in their kitchen before the power, water and heat went out, and would now try to cook on a gas camping stove. “We hope they will give us heat. If not power, then at least heat,” she said, standing wrapped in layers of jumpers in her kitchen. The city administration said around noon local time (1000 GMT) on Saturday that the state grid operator Ukrenergo had ordered the city’s power system to be shut down, and that the water and heating systems, as well as electrified public transport, would also stop working as a result.
Less than an hour later, Ukrenergo said engineers had managed to remedy the immediate issue, which had been caused by damage from previous Russian strikes, and that power was coming back online in parts of Kyiv. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the heating system, which in Ukrainian cities is centralized and pumps hot water to homes in pipes, was also coming back on, and that she expected heat supply to be fully restored on Saturday. However, she said that the power situation in the capital was still difficult, as the grid was badly damaged and people were using more electric heaters because of the cold. On Friday, with about half of Kyiv’s apartment blocks left without heating after the latest Russian missile and drone attack, Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents who had a warm place to go to temporarily leave the city. Turchin, the pensioner in her cold apartment, said she had a village cottage in another region but it was unheated and would take three days to warm up with logs. “The neighbor wrote. She said it was already minus 17 (Celsius) there last night.”

Listen to abuse victims, pope tells cardinals
AFP/January 10, 2026
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV stressed the importance of listening to victims of clerical sex abuse during a meeting with cardinals from around the world this week, according to comments released Saturday. In a speech concluding the two-day, closed-door consistory, the US pope said the abuse of children and vulnerable adults by priests was still a “wound” in the Catholic Church. “Listening is profoundly important,” Leo said, according to a Vatican transcript, adding: “We cannot close our eyes, nor our hearts.”He noted that abuse was not a specific topic for discussion during the consistory, his first since taking over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May following the death of Pope Francis. But he said he wanted to raise it in his closing remarks, saying the scourge was “a problem that still today is truly a wound in the life of the Church in many places.”“I would like to say, and encourage you to share this with the bishops: many times the pain of the victims has been worsened by the fact that they were not welcomed and listened to,” he said. “The abuse itself causes a deep wound that can last a lifetime. “But many times the scandal in the Church is because the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed.”He added: “A victim recently told me that the most painful thing for her was that no bishop wanted to listen to her.”Some 170 cardinals were present at the Vatican for the consistory on Wednesday and Thursday, where they discussed the future direction of the Church.Leo invited them to meet again at the end of June, in what the Vatican said would become an annual event.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 10-11/2026
Thank You President Trump for Bravely Standing with the Iranian and Venezuelan People, and for Freedom and Peace
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 10, 2026
President Donald J. Trump has emerged as the first leader to stand decisively, openly, and courageously with the Iranian people themselves — against the dictatorship, against repression, and in favor of genuine freedom, democracy and peace.
What distinguishes Trump's position is not rhetoric, but resolve. For years, Western leaders have issued statements of "concern" while avoiding any action that might inconvenience their diplomatic calculations or economic interests. President Trump broke from that spinelessness.
More importantly, Trump sent a direct warning to the Iranian regime: if it continues to kill innocent protesters, he will "rescue" them: the United States will not stand idly by. This is the opposite of a call for war; it is deterrence in the service of peace -- a warning designed to prevent bloodshed, signaling to all violent regimes that massacres will not be tolerated or ignored.
Thank you, President Trump, for standing with the oppressed, for choosing people over tyrants, and for reminding the world that peace is not achieved by silence in the face of evil, but by courage in defense of individual freedom. May the Iranian, Venezuelan, Gazan and Cuban people -- and others held hostage by cutthroat leaders -- achieve their long-denied dream of freedom, democracy, and peace. God bless you, President Trump.
Over the past decade, the Iranian people have turned out again and again against one of the most entrenched and brutal dictatorships in the modern world. From students and workers to women, minorities, and the urban poor, Iranians have poured into the streets demanding dignity, freedom, and a government that represents them rather than ruling them through fear.
These uprisings have been nationwide, sustained and extraordinarily courageous, often carried out in the face of live ammunition, mass arrests, torture and executions. Yet despite the clarity of the Iranian people's demands and the scale of the regime's violence, no European country, no self-described democratic power, and no U.S. administration claiming to champion freedom and human rights has ever stood with them in a meaningful way -- until now.
President Donald J. Trump has emerged as the first leader to stand decisively, openly, and courageously with the Iranian people themselves — against the dictatorship, against repression, and in favor of genuine freedom, democracy and peace.
What distinguishes Trump's position is not rhetoric, but resolve. For years, Western leaders have issued statements of "concern" while avoiding any action that might inconvenience their diplomatic calculations or economic interests. Trump broke from that spinelessness. He made it unmistakably clear that in Iran, the United States stands with the oppressed Iranian people, not with the ruling clerics who have hijacked the country.
More importantly, Trump sent a direct warning to the Iranian regime: if it continues to kill innocent protesters, he will "rescue" them: the United States will not stand idly by. This is the opposite of a call for war; it is deterrence in the service of peace -- a warning designed to prevent bloodshed, signaling to all violent regimes that massacres will not be tolerated or ignored.
This posture represents a moral clarity long absent from international politics. In theory, the United Nations exists explicitly to prevent mass atrocities of civilians through principles such as the "Responsibility to Protect." In practice, the UN has repeatedly failed. When thousands of civilians in Iran and Venezuela were murdered in confrontations with repressive regimes, and thousands of civilians in Ukraine and Israel killed by hostile foreign powers, the international response amounted to little more than press releases and closed-door meetings. No protection was offered, no accountability imposed, and no deterrence established. Trump, by contrast, has stepped into the vacuum left by international institutions. By warning regimes directly, he assumed the role that the global community has refused to play: defending civilians against states that wage war on their own population.
Previous U.S. administrations, during earlier nationwide protests, particularly under the Obama administration, when Iranians desperately looked to the United States for moral leadership, many Iranians openly asked whether President Barack Obama stood with them or with the ruling clerics. The response they received was silence. The administration's priority at the time was negotiating a bogus nuclear agreement and lifting sanctions to enable Iran's nuclear build-up, even if that meant overlooking the bloodshed in Iran's streets. Human rights were subordinated to diplomacy, and the Iranian people were treated as an inconvenience rather than as central actors in their own struggle for freedom. European governments, eager to preserve trade ties and economic engagement while turning a blind eye to repression, followed a similar path. The message to Iranians was that commercial interests mattered more than their lives.
Trump reversed that message. He did not wait weeks or months, or balance his words to appease Iran's regime. He stood immediately and unambiguously with the Iranian people from the very first days of unrest. Speed matters. For protesters risking everything, early international support means the difference between hope and despair. No leader in recent history has responded so directly or forcefully to the Iranian people. For the first time, they heard a powerful voice from the outside saying, clearly and without ambiguity: you are not alone.
Now, if Europe and other Western democracies truly believe in freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, they need to prove it when it is costly, not only when it is convenient. Issuing generic statements while maintaining business as usual with Tehran exposes the most repulsive hypocrisy. The Iranian people see this clearly. European governments need to decide whether they will stand with a people demanding freedom or continue prioritizing trade deals with a regime that survives through torture, repression and mass-executions.
The Iranian regime's survival strategy is brutally consistent. Whenever protests erupt, it responds with overwhelming force. Security services fire on crowds, conduct mass arrests, extract forced confessions, and use torture to instill fear. The year 2025 saw the hangings of more than 1,500 Iranians. The objective is not merely to suppress a particular protest, but to crush the very idea of resistance. That is why words alone are insufficient. A credible deterrent is essential. A clear military warning -- with follow-through -- that mass killings will trigger consequences, can save lives by forcing the regime to reconsider the cost of violence. Such a warning does not escalate conflict; it restrains it by telling regimes that there is a line they cannot cross.
Equally refreshing is Trump's response to communications. One of any brutal regime's most effective tools is its ability to shut down the internet during moments of unrest. By cutting their citizens off from one another and from the outside world, these regimes create an environment in which abuses can occur unseen and unchallenged. Access to the internet in moments like these is a lifeline. It allows protesters to organize, to document atrocities, and to alert the world in real time. Any serious commitment to freedom must include concrete efforts to keep communication channels open.
Supporting democratic change in Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere is a strategic necessity for the West. Many current regimes that pose as friends but are secretly hostile to Western interests -- such as Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan -- actively support terrorists, undermine regional stability, and quietly align themselves with other authoritarian powers against democratic nations. A free and representative Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Gaza would serve as stabilizing forces in the Middle East, the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Helping people there achieve the governments they seek is an investment in long-term peace and security, not a risk to it.
Trump's stance toward the Iranian and Venezuelan people reveals great leadership in moments of moral clarity. By standing openly with those demanding freedom, by warning violent regimes against killing their own citizens, and by refusing to hide behind empty diplomatic language, he is demonstrating the courage that everyone else lacked. This is what it means to be a true advocate of peace — not one who merely speaks about it, but one who acts to prevent injustice and bloodshed. For that, the Iranian and Venezuelan people have been heard: history will take note.
Thank you, President Trump, for standing with the oppressed, for choosing people over tyrants, and for reminding the world that peace is not achieved by silence in the face of evil, but by courage in defense of individual freedom. May the Iranian, Venezuelan, Gazan and Cuban people -- and others held hostage by cutthroat leaders -- achieve their long-denied dream of freedom, democracy, and peace. God bless you, President Trump.
*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)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22185/trump-iranian-venezuela
© 2026 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.

Who's next? Trump hints at military intervention beyond Venezuela
Francesca Chambers/USA TODAY/January/10, 2026
WASHINGTON — If the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term was focused on brokering peace deals around the globe, his sophomore year is gearing up to be one that emphasizes American military power. That begins with challenging nations in America’s backyard, from adversaries such as Venezuela and Cuba to partners like Colombia and Mexico that Trump wants to more forcefully address narcotics trafficking and illegal migration to the United States. It's becoming a political sore spot for Trump, whose foreign forays are beginning to frustrate some lawmakers in his own party.
After arresting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a deadly raid on their compound in Caracas, Trump and top U.S. officials warned that other countries in the Western Hemisphere and beyond could be the next targets of U.S. intervention.
The list includes Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark, and Iran, which the U.S. bombed last summer. Trump recently threatened to "knock the hell" out of Tehran and said America is “locked and loaded and ready to go” if the regime uses deadly force against protesters.
Current and former Trump administration officials say more U.S. military action could very well be in the offing. “I think he is serious about all these things,” Victoria Coates, who served as deputy national security adviser to Trump in his first administration, said of the president.
She called Greenland and the Panama Canal, which Trump has previously talked about reclaiming from the Central American country, as "almost strategic imperatives” for the U.S. to acquire. “I don't think he felt he was getting very much traction and now wants them to pay attention to this, that he is serious, that he will take action if pushed,” Coates said of Denmark. She said the Greenland and Panama Canal disputes are “much more likely” to be resolved diplomatically than through force. However, the administration refused this week to rule out using the military to take over Greenland, a former Danish colony that’s been under home rule since 1979. Trump has sought to acquire the Arctic territory since his first term.
"I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," Trump told reporters on Jan. 9. The president has intentionally remained ambiguous about how far he’s willing to go to make nations that are irking him fall in line.Maduro “effed around” and found out, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Jan. 3 news conference with Trump, hours after his capture. “This is America first. This is peace through strength,” the Pentagon chief said. “Welcome to 2026.”In the last month, the U.S. has carried out strikes against Islamist terrorist targets in Syria and Nigeria, in addition to the attack on Venezuela. Trump said this week if militants in Nigeria kill more Christians, what he hoped would be a one-off “will be a many-time strike” inside the West African nation. Trump has also suggested that several other nations, much closer to home, could become his next targets. Cuba is a “failing nation” that’s “very similar” to Venezuela, he said of the communist country. Colombia is a “very sick” country, he charged, and “run by a sick man.” Trump accused Colombia’s democratically-elected president, Gustavo Petro, of “making cocaine and selling it to the United States” and proclaimed on Jan. 4, “He’s not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.” Petro, a leftist who has clashed with Trump, responded that the U.S. president should stop “slandering” him. He has previously rejected Trump’s accusations that he is involved in the drug trade and his government collaborates with the DEA.
“Mexico has to get their act together,” Trump said at another point, referring to his belief that the neighboring country’s government could do more to stop drug trafficking to the United States. “And we’re going to have to do something.”
Backing him up was close ally and hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham, who stood beside Trump on Air Force One as the president fielded questions from the press. “You just wait for Cuba,” Graham chimed in. “Their days are numbered. We’re going to wake up one day, I hope in ‘26, in our backyard, we’re going to have allies in these countries, doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.”The Republican who represents South Carolina then declared: “This is a big fricking day. And everybody in the world is thinking differently than they were just a few days ago, because of what you did.”
Venezuela is still the most ripe for additional action, former U.S. officials say, with Trump pledging to make interim President Delcy Rodriguez “pay a big price” if she doesn’t cooperate with his administration. He said on Jan. 9 that he canceled a planned second wave of attacks and no longer thought they would be necessary. “I don't think we're going to see any likely in the next few days or weeks, but certainly that's an option that remains on the table,” said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, a former senior leader in the Organization of American States, a multinational body that aims to strengthen peace and security in the western hemisphere. Hernandez-Roy noted that Trump has also told Petro, of Colombia, he needs to “watch his undefined” and sounded off on Mexico and Denmark, as the U.S. sought to maximize its leverage following the strike on Venezuela.
In the case of Mexico, Trump is likely trying to squeeze further concessions from President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government on migration, fentanyl and trade. “So are we likely to see more acts in the near future? I personally don't think so, but with the action in Venezuela, the president has signaled that he is in fact willing to use force to achieve certain objectives. And that puts a whole bunch of adversaries and even some friends on notice,” said Hernandez-Roy, who worked on Venezuela at OAS during Trump’s first administration.
‘The Donroe Doctrine’
Trump laid out his approach to the region that has long been a focus of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s in the administration’s National Security Strategy, a 29-page document the White House released in December to little fanfare.
The goal is for the Western Hemisphere to remain "reasonably stable and well-governed enough" to discourage mass migration to the United States" and free from "hostile foreign incursion or ownership" of core assets, strategic locations and critical supply chains. It goes on to say the United States will “assert and enforce” its modern day take on the Monroe Doctrine, an early 19th century proclamation which holds that the U.S. will stop any foreign power from interfering in the Americas. Trump’s administration argues that adversaries such as China are exercising undue influence in Latin American countries like Venezuela and the Panama Canal. Trump has begun publicly referring to his aggressive posture as the Donroe Doctrine and said it is in keeping with his administration’s pursuit of peace through a robust demonstration of American strength. “This isn’t a country that’s on the other side of the world,” Trump said of Venezuela on Jan. 4. “It’s in our area. The Donroe Doctrine.” The military operation around Maduro’s capture, which the Venezuela government says left 100 people dead, prompted five Republicans, including Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, to join Democrats in voting for a Senate resolution this week that attempts to keep Trump “from striking within or against Venezuela” without prior approval from the legislative branch. Maduro’s apprehension followed months of U.S. missiles hitting Venezuelan boats that the Trump administration alleged were bringing drugs to the United States, killing at least 115 people and plunging the administration into controversy.
“In the Senate, we Democrats are fighting to prevent military adventurism in Venezuela and other countries and endless wars,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a Jan. 8 news conference. Trump has said it could take years to solve the problem in Venezuela, Schumer, who represents New York, added. “That is not what Americans want.”Vice President JD Vance responded by saying at a White House news conference that the Trump administration does not believe it is legally required to seek congressional approval. The administration has pointedly said it offered Maduro multiple off-ramps, which he ignored.Trump said on Jan. 7 he’d be seeking a $1.5 trillion budget for the Department of War, which he renamed from the Department of Defense, next year — a more than 50% increase over what Congress appropriated in 2026.
“If there is more muscular behavior, it probably is most likely to take place in Latin America because the ‘Donroe Doctrine,’ as the president described, is specifically about the U.S. neighborhood and taking care of what is close to home,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
Sheinbaum said this week that she didn’t believe a U.S. invasion of Mexico was likely and didn’t think Trump was seriously considering one. Petro called Trump on Jan. 7 and took the temperature down. Trump said afterwards that he would meet with the Colombian president in the near future at the White House. A snatch and grab of the Colombian president was already viewed as unlikely. Historically, the U.S. has had a strong military partnership with and deep economic ties to Colombia, and Petro’s term ends in a few months. He’s constitutionally barred from competing in the next election.
“That's a situation that may resolve itself politically without a whole lot of effort on our part,” said Coates, now a vice president at the Heritage Foundation.
And unlike Venezuela, the vote that brought Petro to power is not in question nor has he been charged by the U.S. government with drug crimes. The United States justified its attack on Caracas by categorizing it as a law enforcement operation against Maduro. The Venezuelan strongman was an illegitimate president, the U.S. says, whose last election victory was widely disputed by international observers. The Justice Department has indicted Maduro on charges of narcotrafficking.
Cuba has been so dependent on Venezuelan oil, which the Trump administration is taking control over, that the regime could now collapse on its own. Trump indicated and regional experts said that weakening Cuba — which the administration immediately reclassified as a state sponsor of terror following former President Joe Biden's removal of the designation just before he left last year — may have been a secondary objective of the strike on Venezuela. Trump's secretary of state and national security adviser, Rubio, is Cuban American and has long wanted to see a return to democracy on the island, Hernandez-Roy, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/10/trump-military-intervention-greenland-venezuela-iran/88033967007/
read in USA Today

How the US could take over Greenland and the potential challenges
EMMA BURROWS and BEN FINLEY/Associated Press/January 10, 2026
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that's part of NATO ally Denmark.
Officials from Denmark, Greenland and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island. Trump said Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” If it's not done “the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," he said without elaborating what that could entail. In an interview Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don't want to become part of the U.S. This is a look at some of the ways the U.S. could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.
Military action could alter global relations
Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several U.S. presidents towards Washington's position in the Arctic. The current fixation is partly down to “the realization we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don’t yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said. If the U.S. took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one. While Greenland is the largest island in the world, it has a population of around 57,000 and doesn't have its own military. Defense is provided by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S. It's unclear how the remaining members of NATO would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark's aid
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen has said. Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region, but “it's not true” said Lin Mortensgaard, an expert on the international politics of the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, or DIIS. While there are probably Russian submarines — as there are across the Arctic region — there are no surface vessels, Mortensgaard said. China has research vessels in the Central Arctic Ocean, and while the Chinese and Russian militaries have done joint military exercises in the Arctic, they have taken place closer to Alaska, she said. Bayoumi, of the Atlantic Council, said he doubted Trump would take control of Greenland by force because it’s unpopular with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely “fundamentally alter” U.S. relationships with allies worldwide. The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement, and Denmark and Greenland would be “quite happy” to accommodate a beefed up American military presence, Mortensgaard said.
For that reason, “blowing up the NATO alliance” for something Trump has already, doesn’t make sense, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenland at DIIS.
Bilateral agreements may assist effort
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers this week that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force. Danish and Greenlandic officials have previously said the island isn't for sale. It's not clear how much buying the island could cost, or if the U.S. would be buying it from Denmark or Greenland. Washington also could boost its military presence in Greenland “through cooperation and diplomacy,” without taking it over, Bayoumi said. One option could be for the U.S. to get a veto over security decisions made by the Greenlandic government, as it has in islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gad said. Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands have a Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the U.S. That would give Washington the right to operate military bases and make decisions about the islands’ security in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and around $7 billion of yearly economic assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service. It's not clear how much that would improve upon Washington's current security strategy. The U.S. already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and can bring as many troops as it wants under existing agreements.
Influence operations expected to fail
Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz told The Associated Press that Greenlanders want more rights, including independence, but don't want to become part of the U.S. Gad suggested influence operations to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S. would likely fail. He said that is because the community on the island is small and the language is “inaccessible.”Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen summoned the top U.S. official in Denmark in August to complain that “foreign actors” were seeking to influence the country’s future. Danish media reported that at least three people with connections to Trump carried out covert influence operations in Greenland. Even if the U.S. managed to take control of Greenland, it would likely come with a large bill, Gad said. That’s because Greenlanders currently have Danish citizenship and access to the Danish welfare system, including free health care and schooling. To match that, “Trump would have to build a welfare state for Greenlanders that he doesn’t want for his own citizens,” Gad said.
Disagreement unlikely to be resolved
Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, Rasmussen said last year. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Denmark has neglected its missile defense obligations in Greenland, but Mortensgaard said that it makes “little sense to criticize Denmark,” because the main reason why the U.S. operates the Pituffik base in the north of the island is to provide early detection of missiles. The best outcome for Denmark would be to update the defense agreement, which allows the U.S. to have a military presence on the island and have Trump sign it with a “gold-plated signature,” Gad said. But he suggested that's unlikely because Greenland is “handy” to the U.S president. When Trump wants to change the news agenda — including distracting from domestic political problems — “he can just say the word ‘Greenland' and this starts all over again," Gad said.

Netanyahu goes to Mar-a-Lago
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 10, 2026
If there is a favorite place in the world where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loves to spend time, it is the US. Elsewhere, especially in Israel, he has perfected the role of the indignant rogue. According to Netanyahu and his supporters, he has been wronged by the legal system that indicted him for corruption; he and his family are mistreated by his political opponents and the media; and the mere idea that he should take the blame for anything that goes wrong in the country, including the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, is preposterous.
Furthermore, he is resentful at not receiving the credit he thinks he deserves for strengthening Israel's position by changing the security architecture of the Middle East. But all of this is different in the US, where he believes he has built a close relationship with President Donald Trump and his administration, as well as with certain sections of the media and the public. Hence, Trump’s invitation to Netanyahu to visit the US for the sixth time since the former returned to the White House was eagerly accepted by the Israeli prime minister, more so as he would be able to extend his and his wife’s stay to spend New Year’s Eve in the glitzy black-tie celebration at Mar-a-Lago. Admittedly, the relationship between the two leaders seems close, but given the characters involved, there is a subtext in which they play each other to advance their own interests, while showering each other with praise. Despite this, there is a worrying lack of progress on pressing issues.What was at stake in the discussions between the two leaders is crucial for the rest of the Middle East, and most urgently for progress on the Gaza ceasefire. For now, there seems to be no sense of urgency among the decision-makers involved to take the second phase forward, and as we witnessed recently with events in Venezuela and Ukraine, the agenda and focus can quickly shift in Washington and internationally. Consequently, there is a real risk that Gaza, its people, and advancing a path towards a two-state solution will be abandoned.
Netanyahu returned to Israel triumphantly, believing that Israel’s main ally is entirely aligned with him.
Trump told reporters that he planned to speak with Netanyahu about “five major subjects,” including Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, and later claimed that they had agreed almost immediately on three of these, leaving the remaining areas of agreement and disagreement vague. On Gaza, and especially Hamas, it seems that Washington and Israel are aligned, which might suggest a long impasse and even renewed hostilities. It is likely, although extremely damaging, that for their own different reasons both Israeli and Hamas leaderships would rather maintain the situation as it is in Gaza than agree on how to move forward. It has become clear that Netanyahu and his government oppose a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In a recent statement, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told soldiers that the Yellow Line now separating Israel and Hamas in Gaza is the “new border” for Israel. Zamir’s political superior, Defense Minister Israel Katz, has been more reckless, repeatedly insisting that Israel will never fully withdraw and should build settlements there. This is not what the Trump plan says, and there is no suggestion that in the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu the latter was challenged about that.
On the other side of the Yellow Line, Hamas — seeking to stay in control of the population and remain politically relevant — continues to be ambiguous about its commitment to disarm. Trump insisted that if it continues in this vein, Hamas would be wiped out, which suggests a resumption of the war, in which neither side would be better off. Instead of the use of force, there is an urgent need to find a political formula by which this Islamist movement never again poses a military threat to Israel, a Palestinian technocratic government is enabled to take over, and an international peace enforcement body is deployed, followed by Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also met with Netanyahu on this occasion, said that these are Washington’s top priorities, but unless there is a different approach behind closed doors, there is a real danger that Netanyahu will ignore the push to change course — not only on Gaza but also the West Bank, where Trump was clear that he opposed any Israeli attempt to annex the territory. Yet, all the US leader was prepared to say on the issue was that he and Netanyahu disagree “on the West Bank 100 percent.” It will be a real worry if they agree on anything there, considering the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements and the increase in settler violence, both of which threaten Trump’s declared intention to bring this conflict to an end. The US leader is no stranger to expressing views that are wishful rather than factual, and this seemed to be the case when he declared after their meeting that Netanyahu is “going to get along” with Syria. Trump’s growing ties with Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa are well documented. Still, it is hard to see how the Syrian president can get along with someone who attacked his country and expanded its territory there.
Furthermore, for the region, Trump giving Israel the green light to attack Iran if the Tehran regime continues to develop long-range missiles must be alarming since it suggests there is no diplomatic route to prevent this. Doubts over Iran’s intentions are understandable, but as its domestic unrest gathers momentum, any external military attack could be counterproductive for the protesters in the street. In the meantime, a diplomatic path has not even begun, let alone a new agreement with Tehran over its nuclear and missile development, or its support for subversive allies in the region.
For now, Netanyahu returned to Israel triumphantly, believing that Israel’s main ally is entirely aligned with him. The US president even reiterated his request to the Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu. Trump’s plea has no legal standing; however, if he wants to achieve his goals in the region, he should have whispered in Netanyahu’s ear that the Israeli leader’s best chances of a pardon are if he admits guilt and leaves politics. This, in turn, would serve the US, Israel, and the rest of the region’s interests on the path of peace and normalization.
• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

From the US to Brazil, key polls will reshape the world order
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/January 10, 2026
The 2026 global election landscape will be dominated by the US midterms, which could reconfigure Donald Trump’s remaining presidency. However, beyond that major ballot in November, a series of key polls across the world will also help reshape international relations and the economic outlook.
Little wonder that markets are already looking ahead to these eye-catching events. Across the next 12 months, these ballots will be held across time zones and geographies. This includes Bangladesh in February, Hungary in April, Colombia in May, Ethiopia in June, Russia in September, plus Brazil in October. One of the key questions will be whether several longstanding incumbents, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, can win new mandates. Lula, now 80, is seeking a fourth term. It has been widely tipped that Tarcisio de Freitas, the conservative Sao Paulo governor, will challenge him. However, this has been made more uncertain by former populist leader Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes called the “Trump of the tropics,” who recently endorsed one of his sons, Flavio Bolsonaro, potentially fragmenting the political right against Lula. After this news, Brazilian markets fell significantly, with stocks having their worst day since 2021. Another ballot that much of the world will be watching closely is in Israel, where Netanyahu, the nation’s longest-serving prime minister, will attempt to defy political gravity again with a further election win. The ballot must come no later than October, but is widely expected to be called sooner. Netanyahu has experienced a tumultuous past few years in power, particularly since the October 2023 Hamas terror attacks, which followed the worst intelligence failure in the country for decades. Since then, the Israeli leader has launched a series of offensives, including in Gaza, which have rallied domestic support despite the resulting international controversy.
The outcome of many of these ballots remains unclear.
While few would bet against Netanyahu winning again, several opposition leaders are in talks to establish a united front against him. The result could be another nailbiter with not only significant domestic implications for Israel, but also even bigger foreign policy consequences at a time when the wider region is unstable. In Asia, perhaps the most pivotal election will be in Bangladesh, expected in February. This will be the first ballot since the removal from power of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League in 2024, replaced since then by an interim administration. The primary opposition group during the Hasina prime ministership was the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. However, while it was the early favorite to win, some polls indicate that the once-banned Islamic party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, may be closing in. Yet, the election with the biggest consequences globally may be the US midterm ballot. This will likely be a referendum on Trump’s second presidency since January 2025. In the past 15 midterm elections, the party of the incumbent president has won seats in the House of Representatives only two times. The average loss during this same period has been 24 seats, a timely reminder the current Republican seven-seat margin in the house is at risk. If Democrats retake the house and/or the Senate, the likely outcome will be political gridlock in domestic policy during the final two full years that Trump is constitutionally permitted in the White House in 2027 and 2028. If this electoral gridlock does occur, it may well result in Trump — like several other reelected presidents of recent decades — increasingly turning to foreign policy. Presidents have more latitude to act independently of Congress in international affairs, and the legacy they are generally keen to build usually includes key overseas achievements.
For instance, Richard Nixon, a president sometimes cited by Trump as a role model, scored a string of international successes, including his landmark meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in China, and his signing two agreements with Moscow to limit nuclear weapons. More recently, George W. Bush sought to spread his self-proclaimed freedom presidential agenda after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, not least with the toppling of the regimes of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. This scenario of Trump doubling down on foreign policy would be especially likely if he sees significant potential foreign policy opportunities on the horizon, beyond Venezuela. This might even include having a new attempt at engaging North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as he did between 2017 and 2021. The goal now, as then, would be to try to deescalate tensions in the world’s last Cold War-era frontier through the prize of verifiable and comprehensive Korean denuclearization.Amid the uncertainty that 2026 brings, the outcome of many of these high-profile ballots remains unclear. However, whatever their eventual result, what is certain is that they will shape not only domestic politics but also the wider global landscape into the 2030s.
• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process requires momentum
Luke Coffey/Arab News/January 10, 2026
It has been more than five months since the historic meeting at the White House, in which US President Donald Trump hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for a breakthrough peace agreement that, once finalized, could bring an end to the longest-running conflict in the South Caucasus. The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan began during the final years of the Soviet Union, when Armenian-backed forces invaded Azerbaijan and occupied a sizable portion of its territory. That occupation lasted nearly three decades, until Azerbaijan regained control of those lands during two short conflicts in 2020 and 2023. After decades of violence, both sides now appear genuinely ready for peace. Yet, until Trump returned to the Oval Office, they had been unable to find a viable way forward. That changed in August, when the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, alongside Trump, signed an agreement committing to ratify a peace treaty and normalize relations. At the time, the ratification process was expected to take about 12 months. Now, nearly halfway through that timeline, little tangible progress has been made and several core issues remain unresolved. Four key areas will determine whether this opportunity is realized. The first test will be Pashinyan’s political stability as Armenia heads into parliamentary elections this June. While he has shown political courage in pursuing reconciliation with Azerbaijan, hard-line nationalist forces inside Armenia continue to challenge both his leadership and the legitimacy of the peace process. These groups are often emboldened by segments of the Armenian diaspora living thousands of kilometers away, far removed from the consequences of renewed conflict. The elections are likely to be contentious and political stability afterward will be essential if the peace process is to move forward. Nearly halfway through that timeline, little tangible progress has been made and several core issues remain unresolved
Closely linked to this is the sensitive but critical issue of Armenia’s constitution. Azerbaijan has been clear that this matter must be addressed before Baku can ratify a final peace agreement. Armenia’s constitution contains an implied territorial claim against Azerbaijan through its reference to the 1990 declaration of independence. That declaration cites a 1989 joint statement by the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic Supreme Council and ethnic Armenians living in the neighboring Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, calling for the unification of Armenians in both territories and the extension of Armenian citizenship to ethnic Armenians residing in Azerbaijan.
For Azerbaijan, this is not a symbolic or semantic issue but a fundamental obstacle to peace. Aliyev has repeatedly stated that Armenia must amend its constitution to remove any territorial claims against Azerbaijan before a final agreement can be signed. Whether the political will exists in Yerevan to pursue such an amendment will largely depend on the outcome of June’s elections. A third issue that urgently requires progress — though not necessarily full completion — is the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. This initiative is intended to meet Azerbaijan’s long-standing demand for transit access between Azerbaijan proper and its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory. Armenia currently blocks this passage, despite committing to open such a route under the Russia-brokered November 2020 agreement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Trump’s proposal would place the operation of this 42-km corridor in the hands of a private, international consortium backed by the US. While Armenia has formally agreed to the concept, no meaningful steps have been taken to implement it. No construction has begun and no roads or rail lines have been built or renovated. Aliyev has recently expressed concern over this lack of progress, warning that continued delays could undermine confidence in the broader peace deal. If construction inside Armenia does not begin in 2026, the credibility of the agreement could be seriously weakened.
It is still possible for 2026 to become the year that peace finally takes hold between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The fourth challenge is pressure from Russia and Iran, particularly in the lead-up to Armenia’s elections. Neither Moscow nor Tehran welcomes Washington’s role in brokering the peace, as both view the South Caucasus as part of their traditional sphere of influence. The Trump route proposal is especially sensitive for both capitals.
Russia is wary of any US-backed presence — even one operated by the private sector — in a region where it currently patrols Armenia’s border with Iran. Tehran, meanwhile, relies on this same 42-km stretch as a key northbound trade route. A US-supported transit corridor could therefore intersect with Iranian commercial interests and Russian security responsibilities, creating friction neither country wants. It is thus in the interest of both Moscow and Tehran to preserve the status quo and quietly undermine efforts to establish a new transit route.
Despite these challenges, it is still possible for 2026 to become the year that peace finally takes hold between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Achieving this will require sustained international engagement and continued pressure on both sides to honor their commitments. Trump, having rightly received credit for brokering the agreement, now needs to see it through to completion to ensure the peace is durable rather than symbolic.The potential benefits are significant. Armenia has missed out on nearly every major regional energy and transit project over the past three decades, leaving its economy isolated and in need of foreign investment. A peace agreement with Azerbaijan would likely open the door to normalization with Turkiye as well, creating new trade corridors that could transform the regional economy and bring long-overdue stability to the South Caucasus.That outcome, however, will require focus and follow-through from the White House at a time when the US faces many competing global challenges. If Trump and his team remain engaged, the opportunity exists not only to end a decades-long conflict but to reshape a volatile region in a way that benefits all involved.
• Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. X: @LukeDCoffey

Iran’s Transformations and Gulf Security
Mohammed al-Rumaihi/Asharq Al Awsat/January 10/2026
Following the fast-moving scene in Iran, one could be misled. The mass protests, far from the first to erupt against a regime that emerged on ideological (theocratic) grounds nearly five decades ago. Bolder and less fearful, the youths have begun to rise as the economy wobbles under the weight of sanctions and mismanagement, but change proves elusive. Here, a question emerges: is Iran finally on the cusp of an implosion, or are we witnessing the slow erosion of the region that will end with change from within? Different scenarios are on the table.
The most important for the Gulf states is which of these two scenarios would do more to threaten their security and stability in the short and medium term: massive, uncalculated change, or a slow decline in a region that cannot tolerate surprises. Both come with costs. Anticipating the first scenario, a big bang, entails mass discontent reaching a point of no return and the convergence of four elements at a single moment: a comprehensive popular uprising that goes beyond major cities, a real split within the regime’s hard institutional core, an international environment that allows for - or turns a blind eye to - radical change in Tehran, and alternative leadership with a program and acceptable figures. So far, these elements have not come together. The Iranian street is in flames, but the movement lacks organization and leadership. The regime remains cohesive; and the international community, for now, treats Iran as a problem to be contained and managed, not a regime to be overthrown. Regardless of how high the cost of survival may be, it is still lower than the cost of uncalculated change.
From the perspective of Gulf security, an implosion is the most dangerous scenario. State collapse could open the door to chaos, ethnic violence, and a struggle for control and state institutions, with the risk of violence spilling into the region. Any strategic vacuum in Iran would also invite direct international and regional interventions, pulling the Gulf back into the heart of an open conflict whose outcomes and duration cannot be predicted. Most influential powers seek to avoid this eventuality. The second scenario, slow erosion, seems more likely given development on the ground. In this hypothetical trajectory, the regime does not fall all at once, but gradually changes from within, under pressure from the economy, society, and generational shifts within the ruling elite. The signs of this erosion are clear: revolutionary rhetoric is declining as a discourse of pragmatism gains strength within state institutions, the gap between state and society is widening, and protests are now less exceptional events than periodic outbreaks. Moreover, the regime faces intractable problems. It seeks to acquire a nuclear program, dedicating vast financial resources to this end and isolating itself on the world stage. At the same time, it seeks to keep its economy afloat and break this isolation. These are two irreconcilable objectives: since antagonizing and provoking key global powers, whether through advanced enrichment or via armed proxies designated as terrorist groups that destabilize neighboring countries, kills any real chance of economic recovery. Rather than strengthening Iran, these policies effectively undermine it.
This equation has drained Iranian power in all its economic and political dimensions, eroded public hope for a near exit from the impasse, and, with declining living standards and the erosion of the middle class, popular protests have multiplied and drawn closer together in time.
Here, the comparison with Venezuela rises to the fore. Venezuela’s regime clung to a rigid ideology that led to severe economic collapse, international sanctions, and mass protests, but the regime did not collapse in a moment. Instead, both its state and society were hollowed out, with power maintained through security forces and foreign alliances. When the president was detained, some people danced in the streets, while the top brass prepared to cooperate. The case of Venezuela shows that ideological regimes can endure for long periods, even as they manage poverty instead of development, unless something changes at the top of the pyramid. Iran is not Venezuela, but it could take a similar path, adjusting for differences in context. Iran is a regional actor in a volatile neighborhood, which makes the cost of its erosion higher for its neighbors. Still, the survival of an eroding regime remains a real possibility, especially if international equations do not change or the regime does not split from within. For the Gulf, this scenario carries a delicate paradox. Slow erosion is less dangerous than a comprehensive explosion, but more troubling over the long term. An internally beleaguered Iran may be more inclined to export its crises and use regional arenas as pressure cards. At the same time, this erosion opens a limited window for managing tensions through small, swift wars. Waiting for Tehran to collapse in a moment will not safeguard Gulf security, nor will managing tensions over the medium or long term. A deep understanding of the trajectory of Iran’s erosion, or unforeseen developments, is needed, so that we can prepare for the consequences and address the risks without being drawn into a costly confrontation. This requires cohesive, long-term Gulf policies that balance deterrence with precaution and protect regional stability from the repercussions of slow or sudden collapse. To conclude: politics is the art of avoiding calamity.

Selected Face Book & X tweets/ January 10/2026