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The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straigh
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 01/01-08: "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" ’, John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.".

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends.
Second Letter to the Corinthians 10/12-18: "We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another, and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense. We, however, will not boast beyond limits, but will keep within the field that God has assigned to us, to reach out even as far as you. For we were not overstepping our limits when we reached you; we were the first to come all the way to you with the good news of Christ. We do not boast beyond limits, that is, in the labours of others; but our hope is that, as your faith increases, our sphere of action among you may be greatly enlarged, so that we may proclaim the good news in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in someone else’s sphere of action.‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on january 10-11.16.htm
Starving to death in Madaya among ‘walking skeletons’/Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
Assad reveals his latest weapon of war/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
World doing little to curb North Korea’s nuke ambitions/Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
The Islamization of Germany in 2015/"We are importing religious conflict"/Soeren Kern/© 2016 Gatestone Institute/January 10/16
Oman, stuck between Saudi Arabia and Iran/Giorgio Cafiero/Al-Monitor/January 10/16
The Saudi predicament/Week in Review/Al-Monitor/January 10/16

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on january 10-11.16.htm
Bassil Rejects Arab League Statement Accusing Hizbullah of Meddling in Bahrain
Safieddine: Propaganda Machine behind Madaya Lie, Famine Can't Hit Only 15-20 People
Security Forces Arrest 'Main Member' of Group behind Bourj Barajneh Blast
Sierra Leone Denies Claims it Will Receive Lebanon's Trash
Hariri, Suleiman Stress Need to End 'Dangerous' Presidential Void
Report: Berri, Aoun Advocate Holding Municipal Elections on Time
Report: FPM Undecided on Attending Cabinet Session
Saniora: Dialogue Table Appropriate Place to Address Pending Affairs

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on january 10-11.16.htm
Arab League Backs Saudi against 'Hostile Acts' from Iran
Zarif Says Saudi Using Iran Row to Hurt Syria Peace Talks
Saudi Executes Ethiopian Woman for Axe Murder
Threat to Saudi Arabia to evoke Pakistan response
Saudi accuses Iran of undermining regional security
Video shows ‘Iranian rockets’ near U.S. warships
Air strike kills dozens in Syria rebel-held town
Syrian rebel group casts new doubt on peace process, wants missi
Bombs hamper troops two weeks after victory declared in Iraq’s Ramadi
Turkish forces kill 32 Kurdish militants as conflict escalates: Sources
Rights group: 162 civilians have died in Turkey conflict
Houthis accused of arbitrary detentions: HRW
Egypt’s parliament meets after long absence
Organization of Islamic Cooperation appoints four women in key posts
Next round of Yemen peace talks postponed: minister
Swedish tourist hurt in Egypt hotel attack leaves hospital: medics
Israel Appoints Interior Minister who Served Time for Graft

Bassil Rejects Arab League Statement Accusing Hizbullah of Meddling in Bahrain
Naharnet/January 10/16/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Sunday expressed Lebanon's rejection of an Arab League statement condemning Hizbullah over alleged interference in Bahrain. “This Lebanese stance is based on Lebanon's interest in preserving the region's stability and its domestic unity and stability,” Bassil told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo. “We came here to express solidarity with Saudi Arabia against the attacks on its diplomatic missions in Iran and we rejected a statement linking Hizbullah to acts of terror,” the minister told reporters after the meeting. Protesters in Tehran stormed the Saudi embassy and a Saudi consulate elsewhere in the country after Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shiite cleric and opposition leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr earlier this month. The session was requested by Saudi Arabia to discuss the attacks. The ensuing crisis has seen Saudi Arabia and several Arab states cut or downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran.The meeting's closing statement condemned Iran over the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions and alleged interference in the affairs of several Arab countries. Against the backdrop of the Iranian-Saudi row, Riyadh's ally Bahrain announced Wednesday that it had dismantled a “terror” cell linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon's Hizbullah. The alleged cell was planning to carry out a "series of dangerous bombings" in the tiny Sunni-ruled kingdom, a Bahraini interior ministry statement said.

Safieddine: Propaganda Machine behind Madaya Lie, Famine Can't Hit Only 15-20 People
Naharnet/January 10/16/A senior Hizbullah official on Sunday slammed as “blatant lies” reports accusing his party and the Syrian regime of imposing a so-called starvation siege on the Syrian town of Madaya. “The so-called Madaya issue reflects utter lying, charlatanry, malice and ignorance, seeing as some people do not want to think or to use their brains,” said Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, head of Hizbullah's Executive Council. “If a famine hits a certain town, it is illogical to imagine that it would only affect 15-20 people without the others. When a famine hits a certain place, it affects the entire spot,” Safieddine added. “The footage clearly contain blatant lies,” the Hizbullah official went on to say, referring to pictures and videos that have spread on social networking websites in recent days. He added: “A well-known propaganda machine has fabricated and circulated this lie, supplying a lot of politicians and social networking websites with the needed material.”Madaya, home to 42,000 people, had last received humanitarian assistance in October but has since been inaccessible "despite numerous requests," according to a statement from the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Reports have recently claimed that Hizbullah has a hand in the Madaya siege, the thing that the party denied in a statement issued on Thursday. The town has been surrounded by regime troops for six months. The Syrian government agreed Thursday to allow aid into Madaya as part of a deal that will see aid simultaneously reach 20,000 people trapped in the mainly Shiite Syrian towns of Fuaa and Kafraya. Aid is expected to arrive into Madaya on Monday, the Red Cross said. According to Doctors Without Borders, at least 23 people have starved to death since December 1 in the town. The U.N. Security Council is to discuss the matter behind closed doors on Monday, although no decision is expected.

Security Forces Arrest 'Main Member' of Group behind Bourj Barajneh Blast
Naharnet/January 10/16/Security forces announced on Sunday the arrest of the main member of the group that was responsible for twin bombings in Beirut's southern suburbs on November 12, reported Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3). It said that a man, known as “Abou Talha”, was arrested in al-Qobbeh neighborhood in the northern city of Tripoli. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Bourj al-Barajneh blast that left at least 40 people killed and 200 wounded. Security forces had since the attack succeeded in arresting several members of the group involved in the bombing.

Sierra Leone Denies Claims it Will Receive Lebanon's Trash
Naharnet/January 10/16/Sierra Leone denied on Sunday media reports that said that it is willing to receive Lebanon's garbage as part of a recently approved deal to tackle the country's waste management problem, reported al-Jadeed television. Sierra Leone's consul in Lebanon Donald Roy Josepeh Abed deemed the reports as “baseless.” “The Sierra Leone authorities warned against spreading such clams and will practice their right to resort to the judiciary and General Prosecution against all who contributed to the reporting of such news attributed to the presidency of Sierra Leone, which has harmed its reputation on the international scene,” he added in a statement. As Safir newspaper on Saturday said that the African country has accepted to receive Lebanon's trash. The Lebanese government has been informed of the approval through the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A letter signed by the adviser of President of Sierra Leone was addressed to Holland’s Howa BV firm that is tasked by the Lebanese cabinet with the exportation of the trash, the daily added. A trash management crisis erupted in July 2015 when the Naameh landfill that receives the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon was closed. The government's failure to find alternatives led to the piling up of garbage on the streets and in random locations, which raised health and environmental concerns and sparked unprecedented street protests against the entire political class. In December, the cabinet approved an export plan with representatives of Britain’s Chinook Urban Mining International firm and Holland’s Howa BV. The exportation plan will include the newly generated trash excluding the piles that were burnt and buried.

Hariri, Suleiman Stress Need to End 'Dangerous' Presidential Void
Former president Michel Suleiman held talks Sunday in Riyadh with al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri. A statement issued by Hariri's press office said the meeting at the ex-PM's residence focused on “the threats posed by the presidential vacuum and the need to end this abnormal and dangerous situation through electing a president as soon as possible.”Hariri briefed Suleiman on “the contacts and the efforts that are being exerted to this end,” the press office added. “They also discussed the regional developments, especially the Arab solidarity in the face of the foreign interferences and sedition schemes that the Arab region and its countries are facing,” Hariri's office said. Suleiman had earlier in the day met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz. Hariri had recently launched an initiative involving the nomination of Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency in a bid to end the vacuum that has been running since May 2014.But the initiative ran aground after it drew reservations and objections from the country's main Christian parties – the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Party. Hizbullah has also voiced reservations over the move and reiterated its commitment to the nomination of Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun -- its main Christian ally.

Report: Berri, Aoun Advocate Holding Municipal Elections on Time
Naharnet/January 10/16/The vacuum in the presidency has raised questions in whether the municipal elections, set for later this year, will be held on time, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Sunday. Speaker Nabih Berri had informed Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Friday that he supports holding the polls on their scheduled time. Mashnouq also received similar assurances from Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun during their talks on Saturday. Informed sources told the daily that the Mustaqbal Movement, which Mashnouq is a member of, had informed him of its support to staging the election. Some of the members however wondered how they can be held in wake of the presidential vacuum, added al-Hayat. Mashnouq is scheduled to hold meetings soon with Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, Progressive Socialist Party head MP Walid Jumblat, and Hizbullah leaderships to tackle the municipal elections. Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a compromise candidate have thwarted the polls.

Report: FPM Undecided on Attending Cabinet Session
Naharnet/January 10/16/The Free Patriotic Movement has not yet determined whether it will attend next week's cabinet session, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday. A prominent FPM source told the daily that Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun “is awaiting answers to certain questions” before taking any decision. “Should some of the FPM's demands be met, then the movement's participation in the cabinet meeting will be productive,” it added. “The movement is keen on reactivating government work, but it is still awaiting answers to its demands,” it stressed. The cabinet's work has been crippled in recent months over the FPM's insistence that an agreement be reached over its decision-making mechanism. Ongoing disputes over the issue have hindered the government's work, resulting in the accumulation of hundreds of articles. Some media reports placed that number at around a thousand. Prime Minister Tammam Salam scheduled a government meeting for Thursday. It is set to discuss “non-contentious” issues.

Saniora: Dialogue Table Appropriate Place to Address Pending Affairs
Naharnet/January 10/16/Head of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora confirmed that the movement will be taking part in the dialogue with Hizbullah on Monday, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday.
He told the daily: “The dialogue table is the appropriate place to address pending issues, most notably sectarian tensions and the presidency.”Consultations were held with movement leader MP Saad Hariri over the dialogue and he is leaning towards resuming the bilateral talks, added the former premier. Speaker Nabih Berri has been sponsoring the talks between the rival parties. The dialogue is scheduled for his Ain el-Tineh residence.
Speculation has been rife that the Mustaqbal-Hizbullah dialogue would be suspended in wake of the tensions between the two sides. Tensions boiled over between them when Saudi Arabia and Iran severed ties a week ago after the kingdom executed prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammed Raad launched on Monday a scathing attack against Hariri, saying: “Those who are suffering from bankruptcy in their exile must not find a place to return to in Lebanon in order to rob the country once again.”He also fired at Hariri's presidential initiative that involves nominating MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency, noting that “the issue is not about a person whom we would give the presidential post to without him having any powers to rule the country with.” “All of the powers would be usurped by the person who is entrusted with preserving the interests of this kingdom or that state,” Raad added, referring to Hariri and Saudi Arabia.

Arab League Backs Saudi against 'Hostile Acts' from Iran
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/January 10/16/Top Arab diplomats rallied behind Saudi Arabia on Sunday in a dispute with Iran that has threatened to derail efforts to resolve Middle East conflicts including the war in Syria. After meeting in Cairo for emergency talks requested by Riyadh, Arab League foreign ministers issued a joint statement denouncing the "hostile acts and provocations of Iran" in the dispute. The diplomatic row erupted following Saudi Arabia's execution on January 2 of a prominent Shiite cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 others on terrorism charges. The execution touched off anti-Saudi demonstrations in many Shiite countries including in Iran where demonstrators sacked and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in second city Mashhad. Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran the next day and was followed by a number of its Sunni Arab allies including Bahrain and Sudan. Other Arab countries downgraded ties or recalled their envoys to Tehran. The dispute escalated, with Tehran on Thursday saying Saudi warplanes had bombed its embassy in Yemen, wounding staff, and vowing to protest to the U.N. Security Council. Riyadh, which is leading an Arab military intervention against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen, denied the accusation, saying no operations were carried out near the mission.
- Yemen efforts threatened -
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have also cut air links with Iran, while Tehran has banned Saudi goods from import. Iran, which denounced the attacks on the embassies and vowed to punish the perpetrators, has accused Saudi Arabia of using the crisis to distract attention from the execution and as a cover for anti-Iranian diplomatic efforts. Iran's signing of a deal with world powers over its nuclear program last year sparked deep concern in Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, that its longtime rival was emerging from international isolation. As well as the Syria peace talks, the crisis also threatens a fragile U.N.-backed initiative to end the war in Yemen, where the Huthi rebels have seized control of large parts of the country including the capital Sanaa. On Saturday officials said another round of peace talks due to take place in Geneva on January 14 had been delayed by at least a week after the Huthis refused to take part.

Zarif Says Saudi Using Iran Row to Hurt Syria Peace Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 10/16/Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of using its row with Tehran to "negatively affect" peace talks on the Syrian conflict. "Saudi Arabia's approach is to create tension intended to negatively affect the Syrian crisis," Zarif said in a foreign ministry statement. "We will not allow Saudi actions to have a negative impact," he said. The statement coincided with a visit to Tehran for talks by Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. peace envoy on Syria, one week after Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran in a row that began with the Sunni kingdom's execution of a Shiite cleric. The U.N. Security Council is backing an 18-month plan to end Syria's nearly five-year war and the roadmap was the result of recently launched international talks aimed at ending the conflict. Saudi Arabia and Iran joined world powers at those discussions but there are concerns their split over the execution of cleric and activist Nimr al-Nimr could damage the talks. Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran and its mission in Mashhad, Iran's second city, were attacked by mobs and set on fire after the killing. Diplomatic ties were cut 24 hours later. Since then Saudi Arabia has "intensified its actions" against Iran, Zarif said, citing an alleged Saudi air strike said to have caused damage at Iran's embassy in Yemen's capital Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and Iran back opposite sides in the Yemen conflict. "They hide their negative approach by attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran's embassy in Sanaa and injuring the personnel of the embassy," Zarif said.

Saudi Executes Ethiopian Woman for Axe Murder
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 10/16/Saudi authorities on Sunday executed an Ethiopian woman convicted of murdering a Saudi female with an axe, the 50th death sentence carried out in the kingdom this year, the interior ministry said. Jinat Farid was found guilty of killing Ghalia Eida al-Harithi by striking her repeatedly with an axe as the victim knelt to perform Muslim prayers, the ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA. After killing Harithi, the Farid stole two gold rings and an unspecified amount of money, the ministry said. She was executed in the western city of Taif. The ministry did not specify any connection between the culprit and the victim, but the kingdom hosts large numbers of domestic workers that come from African and South Asian countries. On January 2, the kingdom executed 47 men convicted of "terrorism", including Al-Qaida-linked militants and Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, whose death has prompted a diplomatic row with Iran. In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people convicted of various crimes, including drug trafficking, up from 87 in 2014, according to AFP tallies. Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia last year was the highest for two decades. However, the number is way behind that of Iran and China. Under the kingdom's strict Islamic legal code, murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. Most executions in the kingdom are carried out by beheading with a sword.

Threat to Saudi Arabia to evoke Pakistan response
By AP Islamabad Sunday, 10 January 2016/Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif has reiterated that any threat to Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity will evoke a response from Islamabad. Sharif made the remarks Sunday in a statement after Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman called on him in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital. Salman earlier arrived in Islamabad, making him the second top Saudi official to visit Pakistan in a week amid growing tension with Iran over Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr's recent execution. The prince is also expected to meet with other Pakistani leaders. The visits came after Saudi Arabia and several of its allies announced the severing or downgrading of diplomatic relations with Shiite powerhouse Iran. Pakistan, a predominantly Sunni state, also has a large Shiite population.

Saudi accuses Iran of undermining regional security
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Sunday, 10 January 2016/Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir accused Iran on Sunday of interfering in Arab affairs and undermining regional security, speaking at an emergency Arab League session called to discuss attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran earlier this month. "These attacks clearly reflect the approach that the Iranian policy is taking in our Arab region specifically ... with its interference in the affairs of the (region's) states and instigation of sectarian strife and shaking its security and stability," said Jubeir. Top Arab diplomats met Sunday in Cairo for emergency talks to discuss tensions with Iran after attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions there. A general view shows Arab foreign ministers during an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in the Egyptian capital Cairo on January 10, 2016. (AFP) In his opening remarks, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan accused Iran of intentionally failing to protect Saudi diplomatic posts. Al Nahyan said the attack "took place under the nose and within the earshot of security forces." Meanwhile, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi accused Tehran of "provocative acts" and called on Arab states to take a "clear stance" against Iran's meddling in Arab affairs. The crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran erupted when the Saudi kingdom executed Shiite preacher Nimr al-Nimr on Jan. 2. In Iran, protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, prompting Riyadh to sever relations. Tehran cut all commercial ties with Riyadh, and banned pilgrims from traveling to Makkah.(with Reuters and AFP)

Video shows ‘Iranian rockets’ near U.S. warships
By Will Dunham Reuters, Washington Sunday, 10 January 2016/The U.S. Navy released black-and-white video on Saturday it said was taken by an American helicopter showing an Iranian Revolutionary Guards vessel firing unguided rockets on Dec. 26 near warships including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran on Dec. 31 denied that its Revolutionary Guards vessels had launched the rockets as the United States claimed, with a Revolutionary Guards spokesman saying the "false" accusation was "akin to psychological warfare." The U.S. Navy said the infrared radar footage showed an Iranian "fast inshore attack craft" launching several rockets on Dec. 26 "in close proximity" to the Truman, the guided missile destroyer USS Bulkeley, the French naval frigate FS Provence and commercial ships in the busy waterway. The dispute underscored the ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran despite last year's international agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program. The video, taken by a Seahawk helicopter, runs about 30 seconds. The Navy said the rockets were fired "within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane" as the Truman and the other ships were passing through the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf. The U.S. military on Dec. 29 made public its account of the incident. A U.S. Central Command spokesman at the time called the Iranian actions "highly provocative, unsafe and unprofessional" and said they called into question Iran's commitment to the security of a waterway vital to international commerce. Central Command also said at the time that Iran had provided only 23 minutes of advance notification of its intention to fire rockets. It said the Truman and the two other warships were part of the U.S.-led coalition supporting air strikes against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria. Iran and six world powers, including the United States, reached a deal last July to remove certain U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions on Tehran in exchange for Iran accepting limits on its nuclear program.

Air strike kills dozens in Syria rebel-held town
By Tom Perry and Mariam Karouny Reuters, Beirut Sunday, 10 January 2016/
An air strike reportedly killed dozens of people in a rebel-held town in Syria on Saturday as a U.N. envoy visited Damascus to advance preparations for peace talks planned this month despite opposition misgivings. Agreement was also reached for aid to be delivered on Monday to an opposition-held town besieged by pro-government forces where United Nations says there have been credible reports of people dying of starvation, sources said. Aid will be sent simultaneously to two villages blockaded by rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 57 people were killed in the air strike, which hit a court house and prison in the town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province. It identified the jets as Russian, and said the court house was operated by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front. Infographic: Air strike kills dozens in Syria rebel-held town. Russia has been staging air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad since September. The building was struck with four missiles. The dead included 23 members of the al-Nusra Front, three women and at least one child, the Observatory said. Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The war has raged on since last month when the Security Council endorsed a plan for peace talks, a rare case of U.S.-Russian agreement over a conflict that has killed 250,000 people. The talks are due to begin on Jan. 25 in Geneva. The Syrian government told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura on Saturday it was ready to participate but wants to know who would take part from the opposition, Syrian state media reported. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem also said it was important to see a list of groups that would be classified as terrorists as part of the new diplomatic process, flagging another potential complication. Damascus views all the groups fighting to topple Assad as terrorists, including rebels who support a political solution and are represented in a recently formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations. A statement from de Mistura’s office described Saturday’s meeting as useful and said the envoy had outlined preparations. “The Special Envoy is looking forward to the active participation of relevant parties in the Geneva talks. He will be continuing his consultations in the region,” it added. Syrian rebels and opposition politicians have expressed doubts over whether the peace talks will begin as planned. Their concerns over the diplomatic bid include the absence of any mention of Assad’s fate. Earlier this week, they told de Mistura that before negotiations the Syrian government must stop bombing civilian areas, release detainees and lift blockades imposed on opposition-held areas.
Aid delivery agreed
“Can the international community achieve the implementation of this pre-negotiation stage in the few remaining days? If it can, there is no problem. But I doubt they can,” Riyad Naasan Agha, a member of the opposition council, told Reuters. Another opposition official said on Friday the opposition would not name its negotiating team until the government did so. The outlook for the talks has been further clouded by increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which back opposing sides in the conflict. Tensions have risen since Saudi Arabia executed Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The aid deal agreed on Saturday will result in humanitarian supplies being sent to the opposition-held town of Madaya at the Lebanese border, and to two villages in the northwestern province of Idlib that are blockade by rebels. Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where some 40,000 people are at risk. The United Nations said on Thursday that Damascus had agreed to allow access to all three areas, but did not say when the delivery would take place. “Both date and time have been set. Aid will go to three towns on Monday morning, all at the same time,” said a source familiar with the matter. A second, pro-Syrian government source confirmed the details.

Syrian rebel group casts new doubt on peace process, wants missiles
Reuters, Beirut Sunday, 10 January 2016/A big Syrian rebel group said it was unacceptable to talk about a political solution to the war as people die of hunger and bombardment and the best way to force Damascus towards a settlement was to give insurgents anti-aircraft missiles. The statement from Islam Army (Jaysh al-Islam) underlines opposition concerns over a U.N.-led diplomatic effort to launch peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 25. The opposition want goodwill measures including a ceasefire, a detainee release and the lifting of blockades on besieged areas before negotiations. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is shuttling around the region to prepare for the talks, part of a plan endorsed by the Security Council last month to end the five-year-war that has killed 250,000 people and created millions of refugees. Islam Army, part of a newly formed council set up to oversee the negotiations on the opposition side, said the “best way to force the regime to accept the (political) solution and stick by it” was to allow states that back the opposition to supply rebels with anti-aircraft missiles. The statement, sent by the group’s spokesman overnight, said it would guarantee the missiles would not reach groups that would use them “illegally”. While foreign governments including the United States and Saudi Arabia have provided rebels with military support, they have resisted demands for such missiles for fear they would end up with hardline jihadist groups such as Islamic State.The Syrian government says Islam Army is a terrorist group, like all the groups that fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, who has received crucial support from Russia and Iran. Both states have sent forces to help him fight the insurgency. The Syrian government told de Mistura on Saturday it was ready to take part in Geneva talks but stressed the need to see the names of the Syrian opposition figures who will take part. Pointing to another potential complication, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem also stressed the need for the government to obtain a list of groups that would be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process.Islam Army said the success of the success of the political process “depended on the seriousness of the international community in putting pressure on the criminal regime to halt the killing”.Opposition officials have already cast doubt on whether the talks will go ahead on schedule, citing the need to see the goodwill measures from the government side.

Bombs hamper troops two weeks after victory declared in Iraq’s Ramadi
Reuters, Baghdad Sunday, 10 January 2016/Two weeks after declaring victory over ISIS in Ramadi, Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism forces have pushed militants out to its eastern suburbs, but bombs littering the streets are holding up efforts to rebuild the city, officials said. Ramadi, the largest city retaken by government forces, was touted as the first major success for Iraq’s army since it collapsed in the face of ISIS’ lightning advance across the country’s north and west 18 months ago. But almost all the city remains off-limits to its residents, most of whom fled before the army advance, said security services. “The security forces are advancing to a large degree inside Ramadi. Most areas are now under their control,” Anbar governor Sohaib al-Rawi said on Saturday at a temporary government complex southeast of the city. “Most of the streets in Ramadi are mined with explosives so it requires large efforts and expertise,” he added. The counter-terrorism forces which spearheaded the military campaign to retake the capital of western Anbar province are securing only main streets and buildings considered tactically important, security sources said. They have built up earth banks at the entrance of central neighborhoods deemed clear of militants but still laden with explosives, and marked many buildings’ exteriors as “mined”, the sources added. The U.N. Development Program is still waiting for the green light from the Iraqi government to enter the city and start work to rebuild it.

Turkish forces kill 32 Kurdish militants as conflict escalates: Sources
By Reuters Diyarbakir, Turkey Sunday, 10 January 2016/Security forces killed 32 Kurdish militants in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast this weekend, the army and security sources said on Sunday, escalating a conflict reignited by the collapse of a two-year ceasefire last summer. It was one of the bloodiest weekends since the three-decades-old insurgency resumed last July, scuppering a peace process launched by Ankara with the jailed leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in late 2012. On Saturday, 16 rebels were killed in the towns of Cizre and Silopi, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, and another four were killed in the historic Sur district of the region’s largest city, Diyarbakir, the armed forces said in a statement. It said that a total of 448 militants had been killed in those three areas since they were placed under round-the-clock curfew and security operations were launched last month. Police killed a further 12 PKK members after finding them in a house in the southeastern city of Van overnight, security sources said. One police officer died and two others were wounded in the operation. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984. The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, says it is fighting for autonomy and greater rights for Kurds in the NATO member country. On Friday, security forces killed 16 militants in Cizre and two in Sur on Friday, according to a previous military statement. A recent shift in fighting from the countryside to urban centers has left civilians caught in the middle. According to figures from the pro-Kurdish HDP party, 81 civilians have been killed in Diyarbakir, Silopi and Cizre since they were placed under curfew last month. Thousands of people have left their homes in the towns. Residents complain of indiscriminate operations and say the curfews have even prevented the sick from getting to hospital. President Tayyip Erdogan has said 3,100 PKK members were killed in operations inside and outside Turkey in 2015.

Rights group: 162 civilians have died in Turkey conflict
By AP Ankara, Turkey Sunday, 10 January 2016/A Turkish human rights group says as many as 162 civilians have died since August, caught up in the increased fighting between government forces and Kurdish rebels in urban districts.
The Turkish Human Rights Foundation said late Saturday that 32 children, 29 women and 24 elderly people were among civilians killed in districts where authorities have imposed 24-hour curfews as they battle militants linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The security forces have launched large-scale operations in areas where the militants have mounted barricades, dug trenches and set up explosives to keep authorities away. Turkish authorities say 426 militants have died in ongoing operations in the towns of Cizre and Silopi and Diyarbakir’s Sur neighborhood. The conflict against the PKK resumed in July, shattering a two-year-old peace process.

Houthis accused of arbitrary detentions: HRW
AFP, Dubai Sunday, 10 January 2016/Human Rights Watch on Sunday accused Yemen's Houthi militias of arbitrarily detaining dozens of opponents in the capital Sanaa, where they have ruled for more than 15 months. The Iran-backed militias detained 35 people between August 2014 and October 2015, the rights group said, adding that 27 remained in custody. It said many of the detainees appeared to have links to the Islah Sunni Islamist party, a rival of the powerful militias. "Houthi arrests and forced disappearances of alleged Islah supporters have generated palpable fear in the capital," said Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director. "Politicians, activists, lawyers, and journalists tell us they've never been more frightened of ending up 'disappeared,'" he said. Aided by troops loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Houthis overran Sanaa unopposed in September 2014, and went on to expand their control over several regions. A Saudi-led coalition launched a military campaign against the militias in March after the insurgents advanced on the southern city of Aden, where President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi took refuge before fleeing to Riyadh. "At a time when the Houthis are fighting to remain key power brokers in Yemen, they should recognize that instilling fear in the population is no way to govern," Stork said. "The Houthis should take the necessary steps to ensure that no one is held unlawfully and families have access to their loved ones," he said. A fresh round of U.N.-sponsored talks to end the Yemen conflict is due later this month in Geneva.

Egypt’s parliament meets after long absence
Reuters, Cairo Sunday, 10 January 2016/Egypt's new parliament held its opening session on Sunday, state television reported, more than three years after a court dissolved the old Islamist-dominated chamber. The body is expected to choose a speaker on its first day back, and now has 15 days to approve hundreds of laws issued by executive decree during the period when it was suspended. Egypt's last parliament was elected in 2011-12 in the country's first free vote following a popular uprising that ended autocrat Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. But a court dissolved that parliament in mid-2012 after ruling that the election laws at the time were unconstitutional. A year later, Mubarak's elected successor, Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, was himself overthrown by the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The new parliament, which will be dominated by an alliance loyal to now President Sisi, has 568 elected members plus another 28 appointed directly by him. The new assembly was chosen in elections that critics said were undermined by a security crackdown on Islamist and other opposition groups.

Organization of Islamic Cooperation appoints four women in key posts
By Abdullah Al-Amry Okaz/Saudi Gazette, Jeddah Sunday, 10 January 2016/The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has appointed four women as directors of departments at its Jeddah-based headquarters with the aim of bolstering the pan-Islamic group’s social role. “We believe that Islam is the religion of prosperity, civility, peace and social justice and development. We aim through our programs to combat the defamation of Islam by supporting and empowering Muslim women,” said Muhlah Talibnah, the newly appointed director general for cultural, social and family affairs. Talibnah from Mauritania said the goal of her directorate was to promote OIC’s role in society with the cooperation of other Islamic organizations. She said some of the issues that require urgent attention include women empowerment, family, children, youth and elderly, and people with special needs. Fadheelah Qareen from Algeria was appointed director general for social and family affairs. Speaking about her role, Qareen said among the goals she aims to achieve are social and family development in Islamic societies. “We are currently setting long-term and short-term goals. We must establish a stable directorate for social and family issues in the Islamic world. That entails having a plan for quality assurance and having consistent developmental strategies,” said Qareen. She added we must have strategies for women empowerment, childcare, youth empowerment, preservation of family values, social security for the elderly and those with special needs. OIC’s Media Director Maha Aqeel said her role is to highlight the issues facing the Islamic world and bring attention to not only the calamities but also the successes of the Islamic world. “Our most important issue is Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause. The organization is 47 years old and it was mainly founded to find a solution to this problem. We will also highlight issues of Islamic minorities in non-member states, Islamophobia in the West, sectarianism and the fight against terrorism and extremism,” said Aqeel, a Saudi national. OIC’s Humanitarian Affairs Director and International Organizations and European Union Ambassador Noriyah Al-Hamami said she aims to bring about positive changes in issues such as women employment. “Women should take on more leading positions in the Islamic world and branch out to all areas and fields of society. Hopefully, by time we will improve the image the Western world has of a Muslim woman,” said Al-Hamami, who is from Yemen.

Next round of Yemen peace talks postponed: minister
AFP, Dubai Sunday, 10 January 2016/The next round of peace talks between Yemen’s government and Iran-backed Houthi militia scheduled for next week have been postponed, Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi said Saturday. “The negotiations will not take place on the announced date of Jan. 14,” Mekhlafi said on the phone from Cairo. “They will be postponed until Jan. 20 or 23 because the Houthis rejected the date of Jan. 14.” He said U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed would travel to the capital Sanaa on Sunday to “convince the Houthis to participate in the negotiations on the new dates.”The envoy would also seek “confidence-building measures” from the Houthis, including the lifting of their siege of Taez and allowing aid into the southwestern city, he added. The next round of peace talks would be held in Geneva, said the Yemeni minister. Yemen’s government sat down with the rebels and their allies in Switzerland last month for six days of talks that ended with no major breakthrough. A halt to the violence is sorely needed in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation, where the U.N. says fighting since March has killed thousands of people and left about 80 percent of the population needing humanitarian aid.

Swedish tourist hurt in Egypt hotel attack leaves hospital: medics
AFP, Egypt Sunday, 10 January 2016/A Swedish tourist wounded in an attack on an Egyptian Red Sea resort hotel has been released from hospital, medical officials said Sunday. Sammie Olovsson, 27, was among three foreigners injured in the Friday attack by men carrying knives on the Bella Vista hotel in Hurghada -- the latest blow to Egypt's struggling tourism industry. "The Swedish patient left hospital late last night," hospital official Alaa Mohamed told AFP. An elderly Austrian couple wounded in the attack were still being monitored, he added. "They are stable and there is no cause for worry but they need more care," Alaa said. Hospital director Reda al-Naggar said the couple could be discharged as early as Sunday. Two men carrying knifes stormed the restaurant of the Bella Vista as tourists were having dinner on Friday night. Security forces shot the attackers, killing one and wounding another. The incident further undermined efforts to repair the country's damaged tourism industry, coming a day after a Cairo hotel hosting Israeli tourists came under attack by men who hurled fireworks and fired birdshot. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group claimed that attack, which it said targeted "Jewish" tourists. Police said they were Arab Israelis, and that the assailants had targeted policemen guarding the hotel and not them. The jihadist group's Egyptian affiliate is waging an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, and dealt a body blow to the country's tourism industry by claiming to have downed a Russian airliner in October, killing all those on board.

Israel Appoints Interior Minister who Served Time for Graft
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 10/16/Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the controversial appointment of the country's new interior minister, an ultra-Orthodox party head who had served prison time for corruption. Aryeh Deri takes over the post after his predecessor Silvan Shalom resigned last month following allegations of sexual harassment. His Shas party is vital to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing governing coalition, which holds a one-seat majority in parliament. Deri, who had served as interior minister from 1988 to 1993, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2000 for taking $155,000 in bribes, though his sentence was reduced by a third for good behavior. Deri resigned as economy minister in November after refusing to overrule anti-trust authorities' objections to a major natural gas deal being pushed by Netanyahu. His resignation allowed Netanyahu to take over the economy minister post himself and move ahead on the gas deal. Following his resignation, Deri served as development minister for the Negev and Galilee regions. Critics on Sunday said the interior ministry post should not be granted to someone convicted for corruption. Others argued that Deri, who is also a member of parliament, had paid his debt to society. The interior ministry notably oversees local government and efforts to prevent illegal immigration. The police fall under a separate ministry.
Source

Starving to death in Madaya among ‘walking skeletons’
Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
There is perhaps no greater evidence of the collective failure to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people than the photographs showing rampant starvation in Madaya. Choked off from critical humanitarian aid for months, officials from Doctors without Borders have indicated that at least 23 people in their care have died from hunger since December 1. At least six of those victims were reportedly under one year old. Meanwhile, the United Nations has confirmed that upwards of 42,000 people – half of whom are children, according to UNICEF – are still trapped inside the town and remain on the brink of dying from hunger. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Rupert Colville has described the situation as “ghastly.” In an interview with Amnesty International a resident of Madaya described the horror of seeing what he referred to as “walking skeletons.” The man identified only as Mohammad further said: “The children are always crying. We have many people with chronic diseases. Some told me that they go every day to the checkpoints, asking to leave, but the government won’t allow them out.”This is not the first time Bashar al-Assad’s criminal regime has besieged an area to systematically starve it. Nearly two years ago to date, the world was made aware of the Assad regime’s starving of the Yarmouk refugee camp. Since such reports were documented, the regime has continued to periodically choke off critical aid to areas of the country as part of deliberate military strategy.
The international community should note that repeatedly allowing the Assad regime and its backers to treat the transfer of humanitarian aid as totally optional is a grave mistake. The continued usage of starvation as a weapon, while international parties continue to attempt to negotiate an end to the conflict, underscore the need for a shift in the focus of such talks.
Futility of Syria talks
Notably, recent negotiations among key parties involved in the Syrian conflict, including the U.S. and Russia, led to the adoption of Resolution 2254. However, soon after its implementation, the Russian military abandoned it, bombing a hospital and a school. As such, there is no reason to assess Russia will help facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to areas under the regime’s control but it should nonetheless be pressured to do so. Resolution 2254 Number 12 stipulates that all parties should “immediately allow humanitarian agencies rapid, safe and unhindered access throughout Syria by most direct routes, allow immediate, humanitarian assistance to reach all people in need, in particular in all besieged and hard-to-reach areas.”The Syrian regime has continued to periodically choke off critical aid to areas of the country as part of deliberate military strategy. Further, the document indicates that all parties of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) should “use their influence immediately to these ends.” The U.S. and its U.N. allies should convene a meeting and ask Moscow to not only once again recommit to Resolution 2254 but also to pressure the Assad regime to break sieges in government-controlled areas and begin facilitating the transfer of aid without further delay. Repeatedly focusing on long-term issues while failing to address the immediate needs of Syrian civilians will not end this bloody conflict. Discussions regarding when elections should take place should not be prioritized above breaking sieges in both regime and rebel-controlled areas. Failing to accept this point will only exacerbate suffering on the ground while talks continue elsewhere.

Assad reveals his latest weapon of war
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
Syria’s President Assad is not engaged in a conventional war. He is not using armed forces against other armed forces. He is not even engaged in a conventional civil war: using armed forces against rebels and militants, and any potential rebels and militants such as young men from the ‘wrong areas’ or the ‘wrong ethnic/religious background’. No, Assad is engaged in total war. He is directing his military and intelligence apparatus, and that of his Russian and Iranian allies, towards all people living in rebel areas. And his goal is to beat these people into submission. Or destroy them altogether. In a normal conventional war, or a normal civil war, one is fighting with all one’s resources against the opposing military actors, but one understands that the key to victory is getting the larger civilian population on board with your war aims. This is what the Western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq failed to do. We assumed, wrongly, that the civilians would automatically be on our side. We were wrong. President Assad, on the other hand, entertains no illusions that the majority of Sunni civilians in Syria would ever back him continuing in power in the country. I believe many of these very people would rather live in the hell that is ISIS, than live in the even worse hell that is Assad’s Syria. And the rest do the best they can to leave Syria altogether – hence the huge refugee inflow into neighbouring countries and into Europe.
Assad’s commitment to killing
Once we understand that Assad is engaged in total war with large swathes of the civilian population in Syria, we understand why he used such tactics in the past as chemical attacks, and cluster and barrel bombs. These are all weapons banned under international treaties because of the destructive effects they have especially against civilians, and also because they have a huge psychological effect on any survivors. And that was exactly the point – Assad was not trying to win people over to his war goals. He was trying to beat them into submission. He needs these people to forfeit – to accept that the only way they’ll get peace is if he remains in power. To believe that he cannot be defeated, and that they are only heaping hell on themselves by continuing the rebellion. Once we understand that Assad is engaged in total war with large swathes of the civilian population in Syria, we understand why he used such tactics in the past as chemical attacks, and cluster and barrel bombs.
This approach has failed. The conflict has lasted over 5 years now. And the more brutal the attacks, the more heinous the violations of human rights and international treaties, the more resolute the Syrian opposition have become. When you show that much commitment to killing your people, those people don’t trust you to keep them safe if they lay down their weapons – who would have thought it? And thus, Assad has little reason left to exercise any restraint. He does not want to do anything too brazen so as to not embarrass Russia and Iran, so we shouldn’t expect any escalation on the chemical weapon use. But there are other, better ways to obliterate civilian populations, and sap their will and capacity to fight you: for example, starvation.
This is exactly what is happening right now in the town of Madaya. The rebel town is completely surrounded by Assad forces and Hezbollah, and they are not allowing any aid even to the civilians, they’ve imposed a complete trade blockade so the town residents cannot acquire any food, and they are not allowing anyone to leave, either. The few that do manage to leave can only do so by paying bribes to the besiegers to be guided through the minefields that have been installed around the town. And the only outcome the government forces will accept is complete surrender – not just of the rebel fighters, but of everyone. The logic of starvation is undeniable too: while bombing may kill a few family members, it inevitably radicalizes the others who will seek revenge and drive even non-fighters to join ranks with the rebels. Starvation, on the other hand, kills everyone at once. Any while starving, people will lack the energy to fight.
This situation has been going on in Madaya for nearly six months. Assad must be judging the result as promising. And with the new upper hand the Assad forces have gained on the ground since Russia joined the war, expect these tactics to be deployed against many other rebel towns. And still we in the West have no strategic or even tactical response to the atrocities that the Assad regime is heaping on Syria’s people.

World doing little to curb North Korea’s nuke ambitions
Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/January 10/16
Why does it matter for people in the Gulf to closely follow the North Korean nuclear program?
In 2006, the country launched its first nuclear test, by 2013 it had reached its third. The country insists on continuing its nuclear program while at the same time insisting that it will only use those weapons if it were attacked. Recently, North Korea claimed that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. Some analysts are skeptical about that claim. But one still wonders why a country facing so many sanctions, that has had history of mass starvations and is almost totally isolated from the international community, would even insinuate that it is doing what can only make things worse for it? The story of North Korea and its nuclear capabilities sounds quite familiar to us living in the Gulf. Iran had also insisted that its nuclear program is not meant to threaten the countries of the region. Iran had also ramped up its missile arsenal capabilities. And it did both at a time when it was under severe U.S., European and U.N. sanctions. Of course Iran was not able, yet, to have nuclear weapons but it was heading in that direction had it not been for the deal it struck with the West. But the similarity between Iran and North Korea is not why we in the Gulf must follow North Korea’s nuclear story. What I see - when I assess North Korea – is the incapability of the international community to stop what should be defined as an existential threat to the world
The answer relates to the way in which the West has been dealing with it. We can learn so much by following the responses of the U.S., Japan, China, Russia, South East Asian countries and the U.N. All of them, without exception, had done little to stop North Korea from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The U.S. and Japan in particular have stated once and again that they cannot accept a nuclear North Korea. And those countries, in addition to the U.N., went no further than condemnations. The international community has most probably placed North Korea’s head of state in the “least rational” of leaders category, to say the least. Kim Jong Un is described as an erratic, unpredictable and ruthless dictator. He rules his country with a fanatical version of Marxism that even the most radical Marxist would reject. He, in other words, represents everything that ought to worry the U.S. and Europe, and the rest of the world for that matter.
Yet, despite all this, we have seen little being done to punish him or to halt his nuclear ambitions. The sanctions have only punished the North Korean people. Kim and his political circle are known to face no shortage of food and other pleasures of life. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that the sanctions would weaken his grip on the people of North Korea. On the contrary, one may argue that sanctions have actually enabled him to assert his grip. What I see - when I assess North Korea – is the incapability of the international community to stop what should be defined as an existential threat to the world.
If that is how the world deals with such a detested irrational and erratic regime, then how would it deal with the Iranian regime should the nuclear deal falter? Iran is much more active on the global stage, and considered rational by many military and political leaders – including President Obama. Iran also has immense soft power due to its cultural heritage and active lobbying. And on this note, let us not forget that it was Iran that agreed to accept the nuclear deal because it decided that it was in its own interests to lift the sanctions, and not because it was threatened with military strikes due to its nuclear program.
So why does it matter for us in the Gulf to follow North Korea’s nuclear program? Because it reveals what we should expect from world powers towards a nuclear Iran: nothing.

The Islamization of Germany in 2015
"We are importing religious conflict"
Soeren Kern/© 2016 Gatestone Institute/January 10/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7199/germany-islamization
A mob of a thousand men of "Arab or North African" origin sexually assaulted more than 100 German women in downtown Cologne on New Year's Eve.
Similar attacks also occurred in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Cologne's Mayor Henriette Reker, said that "under no circumstances" should the crimes be attributed to asylum seekers. Instead, she blamed the victims for the assaults.
"There is nothing wrong with being proud German patriots. There is nothing wrong with wanting Germany to remain free and democratic. There is nothing wrong with preserving our own Judeo-Christian civilization. That is our duty." — Geert Wilders, Dutch politician, addressing a rally in Dresden.
"We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population." — From a leaked government document, published by Die Welt.
Germany will spend at least €17 billion ($18.3 billion) on asylum seekers in 2016 — Die Welt.
Saudi Arabia is preparing to finance the construction of 200 new mosques in Germany to accommodate asylum seekers. — Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Germany's Muslim population skyrocketed by more than 850,000 in 2015, for the first time pushing the total number of Muslims in the country to nearly six million.
Of the one million migrants and refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015, at least 80% (or 800,000) were believed to be Muslim, according to estimates by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland, ZMD), a Muslim umbrella group based in Cologne.
In addition to the newcomers, the natural rate of population increase of the Muslim community already living in Germany is approximately 1.6% per year (or 77,000), according to data extrapolated from a recent Pew Research Center study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.
Based on Pew projections, the Muslim population of Germany reached an estimated 5,068,000 by the end of 2014. The 800,000 Muslim migrants arriving in Germany in 2015, combined with the 77,000 natural increase, would indicate that the Muslim population of Germany jumped by 877,000, to reach an estimated 5,945,000 by the end of 2015. This would leave Germany vying with France for the highest Muslim population in Western Europe.
Muslim mass migration is fast-tracking the rise of Islam in Germany. It is also responsible for a host of social disruptions, including a rape epidemic, a public health crisis, and a rush by German citizens to purchase weapons for self-defense. What follows is a chronological round-up of some of the key stories in 2015.
JANUARY 2015
January 8. A survey published by the Bertelsmann Foundation found that because of the growing Muslim population: 57% of Germans believe that Islam is threatening to German society; 61% believe that Islam does not fit into Western society; 40%, feel like "foreigners in their own country."
January 9. The newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, reported that Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) enacted a nationwide emergency plan to prevent Islamic terrorists from striking in Germany. Federal and state security agencies were ordered to locate the whereabouts of up to 250 German Islamists and other "relevant persons." The magazine also reported that the BKA had evidence "that key European cities could be attacked at any time."
January 11. The offices of the Hamburger Morgenpost were firebombed, after the newspaper, in solidarity with the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, republished its cartoons on the cover, in defense of free speech.
January 11. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière confirmed that German intelligence was monitoring "around 260 individuals" who could potentially strike at any moment. He said:
"We have about 260 dangerous individuals (Gefährder). We also have around 550 people who have travelled to the battle zones in Syria and Iraq. Between 150 and 180 of these have returned to Germany; 30 of them are battle-hardened fundamentalists. They pose a serious threat to our security. I am very concerned about well-prepared perpetrators such as those in Paris, Brussels, Australia and Canada. This situation is serious."
According to Bild, at least 60 police officers are needed successfully to monitor just one German jihadist around the clock. The newspaper questioned whether Germany has enough security personnel to track all the potential terrorists. De Maizière conceded: "So far we have been lucky. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case."
January 12. More than 25,000 people showed up in the city of Dresden for a weekly gathering of a burgeoning grassroots movement known as PEGIDA — short for "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West." In what was the largest turnout yet, marchers wore black armbands and observed a minute of silence for "the victims of terrorism in Paris."
On its Facebook page, PEGIDA wrote that the attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris confirmed its worst fears. It said:
"The Islamists PEGIDA has been warning about for 12 weeks showed France that they are incapable of democracy and rather look to violence and death as an answer! Our politicians want us to believe the opposite. Must such a tragedy happen here in Germany first???"
January 12. Chancellor Angela Merkel repudiated the PEGIDA movement by saying that Islam "belongs to Germany."
January 12. A 20-year-old Eritrean refugee and asylum seeker, Khaled Idris Bahray, a Muslim, was stabbed to death in Dresden. European media were quick to blame PEGIDA for inciting the murder. The London-based Guardian reported that the killing "exposes racial tensions" and "anti-immigration sentiment" in Germany. On January 22, however, German prosecutors said that Bahray's 26-year old Eritrean roommate had confessed to the stabbing.
January 14. The German cabinet approved a plan to confiscate the national ID cards of known Islamists, making it harder for them to leave the country to fight for ISIS.
January 15. Police in Lower Saxony arrested a 26-year-old German-Lebanese jihadist, identified as Ayub B., and charged him with participating in the jihad in Syria. Also on January 15, police in Pforzheim raided the apartments of two Balkan Salafists.
January 16. More than 250 police searched 11 premises in Berlin. They arrested five Turkish Islamists, including a 41-year-old Turk identified as Ismet D., who refers to himself as the "Emir of Berlin."
January 20. More than 200 police raided 13 properties linked to Islamists in Berlin and the eastern states of Brandenburg and Thuringia.
January 21. The founder and leader of PEGIDA, Lutz Bachmann, abruptly stepped down after German media published a photograph of him with an Adolf Hitler-style haircut and moustache. In Facebook posts, he also referred to asylum seekers as "trash" and "filth." PEGIDA's detractors said the photo, taken at least two years before the group's rise to prominence, proves the movement was motivated by racism. Bachmann insisted that the photograph was an act of satire.
January 21. The Roman Catholic diocese of Münster banned Paul Spätling, a Roman Catholic priest, from preaching after he spoke at a PEGIDA rally in Duisburg. He told a group of 500 listeners: "Europe has been at war with Islam for 1,400 years. It is unbelievable that Chancellor Angela Merkel said 'Islam belongs to Germany.'" Stephan Kronenburg, a spokesman for the diocese, said: "With his statements he stirs up hostility against Islam; we consider this dangerous."
January 25. The prime minister of the eastern German state of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, disagreed with Merkel's statement that "Islam belongs to Germany." He said: "Muslims are welcome in Germany and can practice their religion. But this does not mean that Islam is part of Saxony." The capital city of Saxony is Dresden, headquarters of the PEGIDA movement.
January 29. The carnival committee in Cologne dropped plans to build a Charlie Hebdo-themed float. The cancellation was prompted by fears that it might pose a security threat. The float was to be featured in the February 16 parade as an expression of support for France and Charlie Hebdo. The design, chosen by the public in an online poll, showed a cartoonist forcing a pencil into the barrel of a terrorist's gun.
Also in January, the German supermarket chain, Aldi, removed a brand of liquid soap from store shelves after complaints that its packaging was offensive to Muslims. Aldi said the packaging of the Ombia 1001 Nights liquid soap, which depicts a mosque with dome and minarets, together with a lantern and a set of prayer beads, was intended to evoke a scene from the Middle East.
Muslim customers had posted complaints on Aldi's Facebook page. "When I saw your liquid soap by Ombia on your shelves, I was a little shocked as it showed a mosque," one customer wrote. "The mosque with its dome and minarets is a symbol that stands for dignity and respect for Muslims. That is why I do not find it appropriate to depict this meaningful image on an item of daily use."
FEBRUARY 2015
February 8. The newspaper, Die Welt revealed that German public prosecutors were investigating 83 German jihadists for war crimes, based on atrocities committed in the name of the Islamic State.
February 12. The Hamburger Morgenpost reported that senior politicians representing the State of Saxony and the City of Dresden secretly used more than €100,000 ($115,000) in taxpayer money to pay for a PEGIDA counter-demonstration held in Dresden on January 10. The purpose of this demonstration, for which more than 35,000 people showed up, was to portray PEGIDA supporters as "intolerant" and "bigoted," in contrast to the majority of Dresdeners, who are considered "cosmopolitan" and "committed to tolerance."
February 15. The city of Braunschweig cancelled a planned carnival parade because of the "specific threat of an Islamist attack."
February 26. The President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, warned Jewish men not to wear skullcaps while in the Muslim districts of Berlin. "This is a development I would not have expected five years ago," he said. "It is certainly frightening."
MARCH 2015
March 6. Police in Bremen warned that Islamists were plotting to attack the city's cathedral as well as a synagogue. Two suspects were arrested after a raid on a local mosque.
March 7. Sheik Abu Bilal Ismail, a Danish imam who called for the death of Jews during a sermon at Berlin's Al-Nur mosque, was found guilty of hate speech and ordered to pay a fine of €9,600 ($10,300). "O Allah," Ismail had said, "destroy the Zionist Jews. They are no challenge for you. Count them and kill them to the very last one. Do not spare a single one of them. Oh Lord, bring torment upon them." He later said his words had been taken out of context.
March 12. A court in Berlin fined the father and two uncles of Nasser El-Ahmad, an 18-year-old Lebanese Muslim, for attempting to force him into marriage with a woman despite his being openly homosexual. El-Ahmad said his father had threatened to slit his throat and his uncle doused him with gasoline because they refused to accept this fact. Observers said the case showed that males can be victims of forced marriage, as well.
March 14. Hooligans, Salafists, PEGIDA and far-left counter-demonstrators all descended on the city of Wuppertal. It was the first time the groups all held simultaneous events. More than 1,000 police were deployed to maintain calm.
March 26. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière banned the Salafist group Tauhid, which he said was recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria and Iraq.
APRIL 2015
April 8. Federal Police Chief Dieter Romann revealed that in 2014, more than 57,000 people had tried to enter the country illegally, a 75% jump in comparison to 2013. In addition, police arrested 27,000 people who had managed to enter the country and were living there illegally, a 40% jump from the year before. Most of the illegal immigrants were from Syria, Eritrea, Serbia, Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
April 13. Dutch politician Geert Wilders addressed a rally of the German grassroots anti-Islamization movement known as PEGIDA in the eastern city of Dresden. Wilders said: "There is nothing wrong with being proud German patriots. There is nothing wrong with wanting Germany to remain free and democratic. There is nothing wrong with preserving our own Judeo-Christian civilization. That is our duty."
April 22. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a think tank in Berlin, announced the launch of the "Muslimisches Forum Deutschland." The new forum aims to promote the voices of liberal Muslims in order to counter-balance the influence of extremist Muslim groups in Germany.
Also in April, the German rapper-turned-jihadist Dennis Cuspert appeared in an ISIS propaganda video rapping the following lyrics:
"To the enemies of Allah. Where are your troops? We can no longer wait. O Allah, destroy them! Grant us victory over them. Take from us. Make us honorable. Take from our blood. Fisabilillah [One who fights for the cause of Allah]...
"We want your blood. It tastes so wonderful...In Germany, sleeper cells lie in wait. The brothers are coming. Terrorize the Kafir [nonbeliever]."
MAY 2015
May 1. Police in Oberursel, a suburb of Frankfurt, cancelled a professional bicycle race with more than 5,000 participants, on fears that Islamic terrorists were planning to attack the event.
May 20. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière addressed a conference in Berlin called "Jewish Life in Germany: Is it at Risk?" He said that in 2014, anti-Semitic hate crimes were up by 25% and that much of the increase was due to attacks perpetrated by Muslim immigrants.
May 23. The German Army announced that it would recruit its first imam for the 1,600 Muslims in uniform.
JUNE 2015
June 3. More than 90 police officers were deployed to break up a fight between 70 members of rival immigrant clans at a public playground in Moabit, an inner city neighborhood of Berlin. The fight began when two women got into an argument over a man, and turned violent after more and more family members participated. Two police officers were seriously hurt.
June 5. A 30-year-old Somali asylum seeker called "Ali S" was sentenced to four years and nine months in a Munich prison for attempting to rape a 20-year-old woman. Ali had previously served a seven-year term for rape, and had been out of prison for only five months before he attacked again. In an effort to protect the identity of Ali S, a Munich newspaper referred to him as "Joseph T." — a name deemed more politically correct.
June 8. More than 50 police officers were deployed to break up a fight resulting from an argument at a wedding reception for Bosnian immigrants in Berlin. Within moments, more than a dozen other had people joined in. But as soon as the police arrived, the rival clans stopped fighting each other and began attacking them. One of the wedding guests hit a police officer over the head with a chair; critically wounding him. Other officers had bottles thrown at them, were spat on or verbally attacked.
June 10. A 26-year-old Muslim woman, Betül Ulusoy, was allowed to begin an internship as a junior lawyer in the town hall in Berlin. Local authorities had initially considered rejecting her application because she insisted on wearing a Muslim head-covering. Berlin's neutrality law (Neutralitätsgesetz) stipulates that anyone who works for the city is prohibited from showing outward signs of religiosity. But city officials, apparently in order to avoid being accused of Islamophobia, made an exception for Ulusoy.
June 24. In an interview with the Rheinische Post, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that the number of German jihadists fighting in Syria had risen to around 700. "The number has never been as high as it is now," he said. The number of violent Islamists in Germany who are "prepared to commit politically motivated crimes of considerable importance" was around 330. He said there were more than 500 ongoing counter-terrorism efforts involving 800 Islamists.
June 26. The administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium, a school in the Bavarian town of Pocking, warned parents not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing, in order to avoid "misunderstandings" with 200 Muslim refugees housed in emergency accommodations that happened to be in a nearby building. Their letter said:
"The Syrian citizens are mainly Muslim and speak Arabic. The refugees have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be worn in order to avoid disagreements. Revealing tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings."
June 29. A mob of Lebanese immigrants attacked two police officers attempting to arrest two men for smoking cannabis on a public sidewalk in Duisburg. Within minutes, the officers were surrounded by more than 100 men who tried to prevent the arrests. Ten squad cars and dozens of police reinforcements were required to rescue the policemen.
Also in June, a debate erupted over whether Muslim students should be exempted from mandatory visits to former concentration camps as part of Holocaust education programs. The dispute centered on a proposal that would require students in all secondary schools in Bavaria to visit Holocaust memorials as part of the school curriculum. The proposal was opposed by the governing Christian Social Union, which said that "many children from Muslim families... have no connection to our past and... will need much more time before they can identify with our history. We need to be careful about how we address this issue with these children."
JULY 2015
July 17. For the first time ever in Germany, public television and radio channel Bayerischer Rundfunk aired Muslim prayers marking the beginning of the Eid el-Fitr holiday and the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
July 20. Germany's first Sharia-compliant bank, the Turkish-owned Kuveyt Turk Bank, opened for business in Frankfurt. The bank's director, Kemal Ozan, said: "Our market research has shown that 21% of Muslims in this country would see an Islamic bank as their natural household bank."
July 24. Two police officers in Gelsenkirchen, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, were attacked by a mob of Lebanese immigrants after they tried to pull over a driver who ran a stoplight. The driver got out of the car and attempted to flee on foot. When police caught up with him, more than 50 people appeared from virtually nowhere to prevent the suspect's arrest. A 15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began strangling him, rendering him unconscious. Massive amounts of police reinforcements and pepper spray were needed to control the situation.
July 25. A confidential police document leaked to the Rheinischen Post revealed that in 2014, a record-breaking 38,000 asylum seekers in Germany were accused of committing crimes in the country. Analysts believe this figure — which works out to more than 100 crimes a day — is only a fragment: many crimes are not made public.
July 25. The newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that spiraling levels of violent crime by immigrants from the Balkans and the Middle East have turned parts of Duisburg, a key German industrial city, into "areas of lawlessness." Such areas, according to a police report that was leaked, have effectively become "no-go" zones for police.
July 25. In an interview with the newsmagazine, Focus, the head of the police union in North Rhine-Westphalia, Arnold Plickert, warned of the emergence of no-go zones in the cities of Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen and Cologne. "Several rival rocker groups as well as Lebanese, Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian clans are fighting for supremacy of the streets," he said. "They make their own rules; here the police have no say in it."
AUGUST 2015
August 3. A confidential document leaked to the newspaper Bild, revealed that the Hamburg transit authority (Hamburger Verkehrsverbund, HVV) ordered ticket inspectors to "look the other way" whenever they encounter migrants who are using public transportation without a ticket. The move ostensibly aims to protect the HVV against "bad press."
August 6. Police revealed that a 13-year-old Muslim girl was raped by another asylum seeker at a refugee facility in Detmold. The girl and her mother reportedly fled their homeland to escape a culture of sexual violence; as it turns out, the man who raped the girl is from the country they had fled.
August 18. A coalition of four social work organizations and women's rights groups sent a letter to the leaders of the political parties in the regional parliament in Hesse, warning them of the worsening situation for women and children in the refugee shelters. The letter said:
"The practice of providing accommodations in large tents, the lack of gender-separate sanitary facilities, premises that cannot be locked, the lack of safe havens for women and girls — to name just a few spatial factors — increases the vulnerability of women and children within the shelters. This situation plays into the hands of those men who assign women a subordinate role and treat women traveling alone as 'wild game.'
"The consequences are countless rapes and sexual assaults. We are also receiving an increasing number of reports of forced prostitution. It must be stressed: these are not isolated cases.
"Women report that they, as well as children, have been raped or subjected to sexual assault. As a result, many women sleep in their street clothes. Women regularly report that they do not use the toilet at night because of the danger of rape and robbery on the way to the sanitary facilities. Even during daylight, passing through the camp is a frightful situation for many women."
August 19. At least 20 Syrian migrants staying at an overcrowded refugee shelter in the eastern German town of Suhl tried to lynch an Afghan migrant after he tore pages from a Koran and threw them in a toilet. More than 100 police officers were called in to restore order, but when they arrived, were attacked with stones and concrete blocks. Seventeen people were injured in the melee, including 11 refugees and 6 police officers. The president of the German state of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, said that Muslims of different nationalities should be housed separately to avoid similar violence in the future.
August 21. Germany suspended the so-called Dublin Regulation — a law that requires people seeking refuge within the EU to do so in the first European country they reach — for asylum seekers from Syria. This means that Syrians reaching Germany will be allowed to stay while their applications are being processed. Critics said the move would encourage even more migrants to make their way to Germany.
August 27. Aiman Mazyek, director of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland, ZMD), a Muslim umbrella group based in Cologne, estimated that at least 80% of the migrants and refugees arriving in Germany in 2015 are Muslim.
August 30. German sociologist Hans Georg Soeffner warned that Germany was importing religious conflict:
"Immigration brings religious conflicts with it — like the ones between different Muslims. We must assume that the conflicts will grow. The refugees bring political and religious conflicts from their countries of origin to Germany — like the conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites, or liberal Muslims and Salafists. We are already familiar with the conflicts between Turks, Kurds, Alevites and the rest of Muslims, so we've seen these conflicts. But in view of the expected number of new immigrants, the conflicts will grow. And that is why we quickly have to begin promoting German values, meaning the constitution. Only then will the immigrants know what the rules here are."
Also in August, the number of asylum seekers entering the country in a single month surpassed the 100,000 mark for the first time ever. A record 104,460 asylum seekers arrived in August 2015, bringing the cumulative total for the first eight months of 2015 to 413,535.
SEPTEMBER 2015
September 3. In an interview with Die Zeit, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said the integration of Muslim migrants from the Arab world would be more difficult than the integration of Turkish Muslims; at least 20% of migrants arriving in the country this year were illiterate.
September 7. Aiman Mazyek, director of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, said that Muslim mass migration would significantly alter the nature of Islam in Germany. Until now, German Islam has been predominately Turkish in nature; in the future, it will become far more Arab.
September 8. The Frankfurter Allgemeine reported that Saudi Arabia was preparing to finance the construction of 200 new mosques in Germany to accommodate asylum seekers.
September 17. In an interview with the Rheinische Post, Hans-Georg Maassen, the director of the Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), said that German Salafists were posing as aid workers and were offering gifts of money and clothing in efforts to recruit asylum seekers. Others were offering translation services and inviting migrants to their homes for tea. Still others were handing out leaflets with information about local Salafist mosques. Maassen said:
"Many of the asylum seekers have a Sunni religious background. In Germany there is a Salafist scene that sees this as a breeding ground. We are observing that Salafists are appearing at the shelters disguised as volunteers and helpers, deliberately seeking contact with refugees to invite them to their mosques to recruit them to their cause."
September 19. In Bielefeld, Salafists were infiltrating refugee centers by bringing toys, fruits and vegetables for the migrants.
September 23. Municipal officials in Hamburg introduced an audacious bill in the local parliament that would allow the city to seize vacant commercial real estate (office buildings and land) and use it to house migrants.
September 25. Asadullah and Shazia Khan, migrants from Pakistan living in Darmstadt, went on trial for the "honor killing" of Lareeb, their 19-year-old daughter. Asadullah confessed to strangling his daughter with his bare hands because he did not approve of her boyfriend.
September 28. More than 70 asylum seekers in Hamburg began a hunger strike to pressure local authorities to provide them with better housing. "We are on a hunger strike," said Syrian refugee Awad Arbaakeat. "The city lied to us. We were shocked when we arrived here." The migrants said they were angry they were being asked to sleep in a huge warehouse rather than in private apartments. Hamburg officials say there are no more vacant apartments in the city, the second-largest in Germany.
Also in September, it emerged that hundreds of Muslim refugees are converting to Christianity, apparently in an effort to improve their chances of having their asylum applications approved. Under Islam, Muslims who convert to Christianity are guilty of apostasy, a crime punishable by death. The "converts" apparently believe that German immigration officials will allow them to stay in Germany if they can be persuaded that they will be killed if they are sent back to their countries of origin.
OCTOBER 2015
October 1. In Bad Kreuznach, a family of asylum seekers from Syria made an appointment to view a four-room rental property but refused to see the house because the real estate agent was female. According to real estate agent Aline Kern:
"One of the men, who spoke broken German, said they were not interested in viewing the property because I am a woman, I am blonde, and because I looked the men into their eyes. This was inappropriate. My company should send a man to show the property. I was taken aback. You want to help and then are sent away, unwanted in your own country."
October 2. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, Tania Kambouri, a German police officer and the author of a bestselling new book about the failure of German multiculturalism, described the deteriorating security situation in Germany due to migrants who have no respect for law and order. She said:
"For weeks, months and years I have noticed that Muslims, mostly young men, do not have even a minimum level of respect for the police. When we are out patrolling the streets, we are verbally abused by young Muslims. There is the body language, and insults like 'sh** cop' when passing by. If we make a traffic stop, the aggression increases ever further, this is overwhelmingly the case with migrants.
"I wish these problems were recognized and clearly addressed. If necessary, laws need to be strengthened. It is also very important that the judiciary, that the judges issue effective rulings. It cannot be that offenders continue to fill the police files, hurt us physically, insult us, whatever, and there are no consequences. Many cases are closed or offenders are released on probation or whatever. What is happening in the courts today is a joke.
"The growing disrespect, the increasing violence against police... We are losing control of the streets."
October 5. The public television station ARD denied broadcasting "anti-Islamic propaganda" after it aired a photomontage of Chancellor Angela Merkel wearing an Islamic head dress. The image was shown in the background of a segment on refugee quotas in the "Report from Berlin" program, while moderator Rainald Becker said:
"Can we really do this? Or are we overwhelmed? If we succeed [in managing the migrant crisis], what will happen to our values? How will life change? How will we react if refugees have problems — with equality, with women's rights, with press freedom and freedom of expression?"
ARD later said: "We regret that some viewers disagreed with, or even misunderstood, how our chancellor was portrayed."
Left: Some of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived in Munich during 2015. Right: Germany's public television station ARD denied broadcasting "anti-Islamic propaganda" after it aired a photomontage of Chancellor Angela Merkel wearing an Islamic head dress.
October 14. In Osnabrück, an asylum seeker from Somalia successfully sued the German Agency for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) for taking too long to process his application. A judge ordered the BAMF to make a decision on his application within three months or provide him with financial compensation.
October 14. Sumte, a tiny village with 100 inhabitants in Lower Saxony, was required by the federal government to host 1,000 asylum seekers.
October 15. City officials in Hamburg revealed that 35,021 migrants arrived in the city during the first nine months of 2015. During this same period, Hamburg police were dispatched to the city's refugee shelters more than 1,000 times — including 81 times to break up mass brawls, 93 times to investigate physical and sexual assaults, and 28 times to prevent migrants from killing themselves.
October 14. The president of the Bavarian Association of Municipalities (Bayerische Gemeindetag), Uwe Brandl, warned that Germany is now on track to have "20 million Muslims by 2020," out of a population in 2014 of 81.1 million. He arrived at this figure after factoring in family reunifications — based on the assumption that individuals whose asylum applications are approved will subsequently bring to Germany an average of four additional members of their families.
October 20. Eight Islamists went on trial in Cologne. They were accused of stealing €19,000 ($20,500) from collection boxes in churches and schools in Siegen, then sending the money to ISIS.
October 21. More than 200 mayors in North-Rhine Westphalia signed an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel; they warned they were no longer capable of taking in more migrants.
October 25. The contents of a leaked government document published by Die Welt revealed growing alarm within the highest echelons of Germany's intelligence and security apparatus about the consequences of Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy.
The document warned that the "integration of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants will be impossible given the large numbers involved and the already-existing Muslim parallel societies in Germany." The document added:
"We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law. German security agencies are unable to deal with these imported security problems, and the resulting reactions from the German population."
Also in October, the Evangelical Christian Church in the Rhineland was criticized by other Christians when it advised against attempting to evangelize Muslims migrants. In a position paper, the church argued that the passage in the 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew known as the Great Commission — "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" — does not mean Christians should try to convert others. The paper argued: "A strategic mission to Islam or meeting Muslims to evangelize them threatens social peace and contradicts the spirit and mandate of Jesus Christ and is therefore to be strictly rejected."
NOVEMBER 2015
November 6. The newsmagazine, Focus, reported that sales of pepper spray jumped by 600% since Germany's migration crisis exploded in August 2015. Supplies of the product were completely sold out in many parts of the country and additional stocks would not become available until 2016. "Manufacturers and distributors say the huge influx of foreigners in recent weeks has apparently frightened many people," Focus reported.
November 7. Jürgen Mannke, director of the Teacher's Association of Saxony-Anhalt (Philologenverbandes Sachsen-Anhalt, PhVSA), was fired after advised underage female students to guard against "superficial sexual adventures" with Muslim asylum seekers. In the group's quarterly membership magazine, Mannke wrote:
"An immigrant invasion is inundating Germany. Many citizens are ambivalent about this. There is no doubt that it is our human duty to help people who are facing existential distress due to war and political persecution. But it is extremely difficult to distinguish these people from those who come to our country for purely economic or even criminal motives....
"Already, we hear from conversations with acquaintances in many places about sexual harassment in their daily lives, especially on public transportation and in supermarkets. As responsible educators, we ask ourselves: How can we enlighten our young girls aged 12 and up so that they do not engage in superficial sexual adventures with often certainly attractive Muslim men?"
November 10. Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the Munich-based Center for International Economics (Ifo Zentrum für Außenwirtschaft), estimated in an interview with Der Spiegel that the migrant crisis will cost German taxpayers €21.1 billion in 2015 alone. "This includes costs for housing, food, day care centers, schools, German language courses, training and administration," he said.
November 12. Speaking at a meeting of the Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel argued that Germany should airlift a "large contingent" of migrants into Germany to prevent human traffickers from profiting from the migrant crisis. "No one should die on the way to Europe, which must be our goal," he said. According to Gabriel, "What matters is not the number of people who come to Germany, but the speed at which they come."
November 13. N24 television news reported that up to 50% of the asylum seekers arriving in Germany have gone into hiding and their whereabouts are unknown. They presumably include economic migrants and others who are trying to avoid deportation if or when their asylum applications are rejected.
November 13. In an interview with the public television channel ZDF, Chancellor Angela Merkel doubled down on her open-door asylum policy: "The Chancellor has the situation under control. I have my vision. I will fight for it."
November 17. Authorities in Hanover called off a friendly soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands about 90 minutes before kickoff after police received a "credible" bomb threat. Chancellor Angela Merkel had planned to attend the match to show support for the victims of the jihadist attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed and more than 350 severely hurt.
November 20. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian alliance partner of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), called for Germany to ban the burqa in public spaces.
November 22. The head of the Federal Criminal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), Holger Münch, acknowledged that German intelligence lacks the human resources necessary to track all of the most dangerous Islamists in the country. "Given the number of potential attackers, we must prioritize," he said.
November 23. In an interview with Die Welt, Ahmad Mansour, an Israeli-Arab expert on Islam who has lived in Germany for more than a decade, said the German government is not doing nearly enough to combat extremist Islam. Mansour — a member of the Muslim Brotherhood for more than a decade until he abandoned extremist Islam in the late 1990s — said that many young Muslims in Germany "believe in conspiracy theories, cherish anti-Semitic thoughts and do not think democratically." For these people, he said, "Islam is their only identity."
Mansour said the German government "lacks a plan" to deal with the problem of extremist Islam. He added that much of the blame lies with "highly problematic" teachers of Islam who are radicalizing German youth. Commenting on the question of why jihadists have not yet carried out a major attack in Germany, Mansour said: "So far Germany has been lucky."
November 29. Hundreds of migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria housed at an overcrowded refugee shelter at the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin attacked each other while waiting in line for lunch. More than 150 police were deployed to contain the situation. Other mass confrontations occurred in the Kreuzberg and Spandau districts of Berlin.
DECEMBER 2015
December 1. Salafists in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein distributed recruitment literature with the message: "Come to us. We will show you Paradise."
December 1. City officials in Frankfurt sent teams of police, translators and social workers to refugee shelters to warn asylum seekers of the dangers of extremist Islam. The teams were also educating migrants about the German legal system, religious freedom and the equal rights for men and women.
December 3. In an interview with the Berlin newspaper, Der Tagesspiegel, Hans-Georg Maassen, the director of the Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), said that the number of Salafists in Germany has now risen to 7,900 — up from 7,000 in 2014; 5,500 in 2013; 4,500 in 2012, and 3,800 in 2011. Although Salafists make up only a small fraction of the estimated six million Muslims living in Germany, intelligence officials say that most of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who are willing to carry out terrorist acts at a moment's notice in the name of Islam.
December 3. A poll by the newsmagazine Stern found that 61% of Germans believe jihadists will attack their country in the near future. The poll shows that 58% think the German military should be attacking the Islamic State, although 63% believe this would lead to retaliation in the form of terrorist attacks inside Germany. Overall, nearly 75% of Germans believe the government needs to do more to prevent terrorism in the country.
December 7. The German Interior Ministry revealed that 206,101 migrants had arrived in November alone.
December 8. Bavarian Social Minister Emilia Müller said that the number of migrants entering Germany in 2015 had officially passed the one million mark. "We urgently need an upper limit for the number of migrants, because Germany cannot continue to shoulder so many arrivals over the long term," she said.
December 10. A court in Wuppertal ruled that Islamists who patrolled streets in the city as "Sharia police" did not break the law and will not be prosecuted. Nine men, wearing bright orange jackets with the words "Sharia police," had been arrested in September 2014. The men had told passers-by not to visit bars, casinos or discotheques. The group had also carried notices in English saying "Sharia Controlled Zone," in which alcohol, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution were forbidden. The court said the men had not violated any laws on uniforms and public gatherings. Prosecutors lodged an appeal.
December 17. Police in Stuttgart raided and shut down a Muslim association and mosque said to have supported financially — and recruited on behalf of — ISIS. Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister, Reinhold Gall, said The Islamic Educational and Cultural Center Mesdschid Sahabe was often frequented by Salafist preachers and Islamist fundamentalists from the West Balkans.
December 21. The newspaper, Die Welt, quoted police sources who revealed that only 10% of the one million migrants arriving in Germany in 2015 underwent background checks.
December 28. Local officials in Arnsberg banned the use of New Year's fireworks outside refugee shelters to prevent the noise from triggering post-traumatic stress among people seeking asylum. "Those who come from a war zone associate explosions with gunfire and bombs rather than fireworks," a spokesman for the local council, Christoph Söbbeler, said. "This could cause new trauma to those affected."
December 29. The newspaper, Die Welt, revealed that Germany will spend at least €17 billion ($18.3 billion) on asylum seekers in 2016.
December 31. Police in Munich evacuated two major railway stations and cancelled New Year's Eve celebrations after a "friendly intelligence agency" warned of an imminent attack. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said authorities received information that ISIS suicide bombers could target the central station.
December 31. The public television broadcaster ZDF aired Chancellor Angela Merkel's New Year's address to the nation with subtitles in Arabic. She repeated her mantra, "we can do this," referring to the challenge of integrating the one million migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015. "What is important is that we do not allow ourselves to be divided, not between generations or social classes, nor between those who have been here a long time and those who are new," she said.
December 31. Shortly after Merkel's New Year's address, a mob of a thousand men of "Arab or North African" origin sexually assaulted more than 100 German women in downtown Cologne on New Year's Eve. Similar attacks also occurred in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers called it "a completely new dimension of crime."
The mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, said that "under no circumstances" should the crimes be attributed to asylum seekers. Instead, she blamed the victims for the assaults: "One must behave wisely when moving around in a group. One behaves wisely by not demonstrating exuberant joy to everyone you meet and who smiles at you. Such gestures can be misunderstood." Reker said her office would publish guidelines, presumably including a dress code, for German women and girls to follow to avoid similar incidents in the future.
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. His first book, Global Fire, will be out in early 2016.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7199/germany-islamization

Oman, stuck between Saudi Arabia and Iran
Giorgio Cafiero/Al-Monitor/January 10/16
SALALAH, Oman — The Sultanate of Oman has always been the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member on best terms with Iran. Muscat’s alliance with Tehran must be understood within the context of Oman’s independent approach to foreign affairs under Sultan Qaboos’ leadership.
Since seizing power in 1970, Qaboos has wisely and strategically balanced the conflicting interests of Oman’s larger and more powerful neighbors against one another without making enemies. A key pillar of Oman’s foreign policy has been to maintain alliances with both Riyadh and Tehran, rather than siding with Saudi Arabia to counter the Islamic Republic.
The Middle East’s escalating geopolitical crisis of early 2016 — stemming from Saudi Arabia’s execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Jan. 2, followed by Iran’s livid response — is testing Oman’s ability to maintain such strategic neutrality at a time when Riyadh is determined to unite its allies against Tehran.
At this pivotal juncture in Middle Eastern history, during which sectarian tensions have reached their highest level since the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), there is no indication that Oman is on the verge of abandoning this conciliatory approach. On the contrary, Omani officials have responded to the escalation of Saudi Arabia and Iran’s geopolitical rivalry in their traditionally calm manner.
Omani leaders did indeed condemn the violent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic presence in two Iranian cities following Nimr’s execution, calling the actions “unacceptable.” However, unlike the other GCC members, Muscat did not sever and/or downgrade diplomatic relations with Tehran. In fact, Oman’s foreign minister, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, and Oman's ambassador to Iran, Saud bin Ahmad al-Barwani, traveled to Tehran to meet with Iranian officials and to discuss the crisis.
From Muscat’s vantage point, this escalation of geopolitical tension and sectarian strife is unfortunate, and may severely undermine Oman’s own national interests across the region. Last year, Muscat spent considerable effort advancing dialogues between Syria and Yemen’s warring factions. Yet, now that Saudi Arabia and nine of its allies and partners (Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates) have severed and/or downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran — with leaders in Egypt and Turkey expressing pro-Saudi positions — such a diplomatic crisis truly jeopardizes fragile peace initiatives in Syria and Yemen.
Omani national interests
Oman shares ownership of the strategically prized Strait of Hormuz with Iran, and therefore has its own deep national interests at heart in cooling tensions between fellow GCC members and the Islamic Republic. The issue of the sultanate’s long-term energy demands is at the fore. Although the project has not moved as quickly as Muscat would have preferred, Oman and Iran are in the process of developing an underwater natural gas pipeline between the two nations. Oman, which is less oil rich than other GCC members and faces grave economic problems as a result of low oil prices, views the importation of Iranian natural gas as a critical geopolitical and economic objective. Surely Muscat will be careful to avoid moves that could compromise this growing energy relationship with Iran, which, by extension, opens up Oman to the gas-rich nations of Central Asia.
Not lost in the equation is sectarianism. Oman, with an Ibadi majority, views the escalation of sectarian strife between the Middle East’s Shiite and Sunni Muslims as a tragedy for the greater Islamic world. Rather than joining Saudi Arabia in arming Sunni fundamentalists across the region to counter Iran’s extended influence, Oman has avoided taking sides in such conflicts, valuing instead a peaceful resolution. Oman has leveraged its neutrality to develop trustworthy relationships with all sides in the Syrian and Yemeni crises, enabling the sultanate to serve as a legitimate and impartial mediator in ways that no other GCC member could.
Oman: Iran’s only loyal friend in the GCC
Historical bonds between Iran and Oman (made especially strong by the shah’s deployment of forces to the Dhofar governorate to help the sultanate crush a foreign-backed Marxist insurgency in the 1970s) shape Muscat’s unique understanding of Iran and its role in the Gulf’s geopolitical order. Oman does not view Iran as a Persian empire, a monarchy or as an Islamic republic, but rather as a neighbor that will always exist regardless of whichever political structure holds power.
That said, no two states have all interests in common, and Oman and Iran’s relationship is not entirely free of issues. Ever since the Iranian revolution, officials in Muscat and Iran have had fundamentally different outlooks on the American military role in the Gulf. Oman, a close ally of the West, has always relied on the world’s strongest naval power of the day — once Britain, now the United States — to safeguard its national security. Since 1979, however, Iran’s leadership has viewed the US military’s presence in the Middle East as a root cause of insecurity and instability.
Despite Muscat and Tehran’s conflicting understandings of America’s military presence in the region, Omani officials have always believed that it is best to address problems in Arab-Iranian relations using dialogue, not belligerency. Undoubtedly, the severing and/or downgrading of relations between 10 Sunni African and Arab governments in the region and Iran mark a setback to Muscat’s efforts to advance such a meaningful dialogue.
The unfortunate events that heralded in the new year underscore how Oman is truly the GCC’s outlier. In breaking with the Saudi-led council’s framework, Muscat did not permit Iran’s angry response to Nimr’s execution to justify cutting off diplomatic ties with Tehran.
The full implications of this dangerous escalation of tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran have yet to be realized. However, as the one GCC state that has maintained official relations at the highest level with Iran, Oman is likely Riyadh’s only ally in a strong enough position to cool Saudi Arabia and Iran’s recently exacerbated tensions through mediation. It would be wise for leaders on both sides of the Gulf to tone down their inflammatory rhetoric, to put an end to recklessly impulsive behavior and to follow Oman’s mature lead by engaging in dialogue rather than issuing threats.

The Saudi predicament
Week in Review/Al-Monitor/January 10/16
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius described Saudi Arabia on Jan. 5 as a “frightened monarchy” and warned that “countries that feel vulnerable sometimes do impulsive and counterproductive things.”The execution on Jan. 2 of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 others accused of extremism and terrorism, provoked a predictable wave of outrage and demonstrations among Shiite populations across the Middle East, and worsened already terrible relations between Riyadh and Tehran. Saudi Arabia could not have expected anything less. The kingdom broke ties with Iran after demonstrators ransacked the annex to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, although, as an Iranian diplomat told Ali Hashem this week, “in practice, we had no real diplomatic relations in recent years.”
Of the 47 executed on Jan. 2, 43 were linked to al-Qaeda. The US State Department released a statement that said it was “particularly concerned that the execution of prominent [Shiite] cleric and political activist Nimr al-Nimr risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced.” The killing of Nimr and three other Shiite citizens for inciting violence in the Saudi Eastern Province suggested that the kingdom was also “using the death penalty in the name of counter-terror to settle scores and crush dissidents,” said Philip Luther of Amnesty International, which characterized Nimr’s trial as “political and grossly unfair.”
Mohammed al-Nimr, the brother of the executed cleric, told Jean Aziz, “Sheikh Nimr’s defense lawyer, Sadeq al-Jibran, skillfully represented my brother. But, I contend that the trial was political, and its outcome was predetermined.” Mohammed al-Nimr offered his explanation for the execution, and said, "When news leaked about the death sentence, we thought that because al-Qaeda and Islamic State members were to be executed, Sheikh Nimr’s name was included to placate some members of the Sunni community and create a sort of sectarian balance. But, we later determined that the opposite was true. The whole intent was to get rid of Sheikh Nimr, with the names of terrorists added to cover that up. This was proven by the fact that 42 of the 47 people who were executed had been on death row for 10 to 13 years, while Sheikh Nimr had been convicted only a little over a year ago.”
The execution of the al-Qaeda figures carries its own risks. This column reported last week that Saudi Arabia could become the next target of the Islamic State. The executions will likely encourage IS, al-Qaeda and their fellow terrorist travelers to seek retribution and expand their operations in Saudi Arabia.
The already fragile Syrian peace process is now on life support. Again, this should have been no surprise. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura met in Riyadh on Jan. 5 with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Syrian opposition representatives to try to salvage the talks. While Jubeir reaffirmed Riyadh’s commitment to the Vienna process, it is almost impossible to imagine that Saudi Arabia and Iran will be burying the hatchet anytime soon to bring relief to the besieged Syrian people. The expectations for the next meeting of the International Syria Support Group on Jan. 25 in Geneva, regrettably, could not be lower.
The executions coincided with an intensification of airstrikes and fighting on the ground by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Jan. 8 that he was “deeply concerned” about the expanded military operations, especially in residential areas, and reports of the use of cluster munitions by the Saudi-led coalition. A chamber of commerce, wedding hall and center for the blind have been the target of recent airstrikes in Yemen, according to the United Nations. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a letter to Ban about the “Saudi strategy to derail the nuclear agreement and maintain and even exacerbate tension in the region,” claimed that Saudi airstrikes hit Iran’s embassy in Yemen on Jan. 7. There have been 2,800 civilian deaths in Yemen so far as a result of the war.
Bruce Riedel describes Saudi Arabia as now facing “a potentially perfect storm of low oil income, open-ended war in Yemen, terrorist threats from multiple directions and an intensifying regional rivalry with its nemesis Iran.” Riedel writes that “the most dangerous threat is economic.” An International Monetary Fund report in October 2015 concluded, “While the substantial fiscal buffers meant there is no need for a knee-jerk reduction in fiscal spending, a medium-term fiscal consolidation plan needs to be established and a gradual adjustment started.” Riedel continues, “The Saudi welfare state — which provides subsidies for health and housing, cheap gasoline and free education — is already being cut back because of the large deficit between oil revenues and government spending. Last years' deficit totaled $98 billion and foreign reserves dropped from $728 billion to less than $640 billion. With Iranian oil returning to the market, Saudi revenues could be depleted even faster than anticipated in the 2016 budget.”
This week, the kingdom announced that it is considering listing shares in Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, which is widely viewed as a means to address the growing budget imbalance. The son of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who also serves as minister of defense and head of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs — told The Economist that the kingdom is considering an ambitious economic agenda of subsidy reductions, reform and privatization. While in principle the Saudi economy could, and should, over time benefit from reducing its bloated welfare state, reform and change are not without social and political consequence, especially given the free fall in oil prices and the kingdom’s precarious security predicament.

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