LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

July 19/16

 Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For Today

Whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23/16-22/:"‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, "Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath." You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? And you say, "Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath." How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it."

Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification
Acts of the Apostles 21/15-26:"After these days we got ready and started to go up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came along and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we were to stay. When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.
So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgement that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.’ Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 18-19/16

Lebanese Cabinet Agrees on Need for State Budget as Economic Losses Estimated at $15 Billion
Report: Salam Says Oil Committee Won't Meet Unless Data is Complete
Top Palestinian Officials Meet Mashnouq, Say Won't Allow 'Another Nahr al-Bared'
Berri Warns 'Obstruction' of Oil Exploration 'Serves Israel'
Jumblat from Bkirki: Presidency Settlement More Important than Candidate
Asseri calls Hezbollah to cease 'twisting truth'
Abu Faour says new retirement hospitalization benefits to bridge gap between state, citizens
Kataeb fears concocted deals to stand behind oil dossier
In Lebanon, Syria Refugees Fear Rising Discrimination
Lebanon tradition of celebratory gunshots comes under fire
Lebanese prime minister: ‘Only an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Lebanon will produce a president’
Lebanese speculate about oil and gas riches but politics remains the same

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on July 18-19/16

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 18-19/16

Links From Jihad Watch Site for July 18-19/16

Latest Lebanese Related News published on July 18-19/16

Lebanese Cabinet Agrees on Need for State Budget as Economic Losses Estimated at $15 Billion
Naharnet/July 18/16/The cabinet convened in a special session on Monday to tackle the worsening financial and economic situation in the country in light of an absent state budget since 2005, reports said. Monday's meeting discussed Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil's report on the state's finances which was presented during last week's session in a move to find a solution for Lebanon's economic crisis. “The ministers expressed their viewpoints on the finance minister's report, which describes the economic and financial situations and proposes practical suggestions on the need for passing a state budget, reforming the electricity sector, introducing taxing reforms to boost the economy, launching the oil and gas sector, and fighting corruption,” Information Minister Ramzi Jreij announced after the session. “After discussions and deliberations, the cabinet endorsed the suggestion on the need to approve a state budget for the year 2017 according to the norms and within the constitutional deadlines,” he said. The cabinet has also decided to “continue its discussions during the upcoming sessions regarding the proposals aimed at addressing the financial and economic situations,” Jreij added. Ahead of the session, Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan had said: “It is time that we realize that the past economic policies have failed. We must focus more on increasing production and exports while reducing imports.” Hajj Hassan revealed that Lebanon's economic losses because of the Syrian exodus have amounted to $15 billion. For his part, Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq said that the only way to “reduce Lebanon's public debt is by placing a state budget to be approved by the parliament and to approve the oil and gas decrees because it it the only file capable of reducing the debt.” Last week's cabinet session ended with a dispute between Khalil and Mustaqbal bloc chief ex-PM Fouad Saniora when Khalil announced that he has a report about budget irregularities from the period between 1997 and 2010, during which Saniora was a finance minister, hinting that “the coming period might witness measures and accountability. Due to conflicts between the rival political parties, Lebanon has been without a state budget since 2005 and its public debt has amounted to $70 billion.

Report: Salam Says Oil Committee Won't Meet Unless Data is Complete
Naharnet/July 18/16/Prime Minster Tammam Salam “broke the silence” with regard to the latest agreement between the Free Patriotic Movement and the AMAL party on the oil excavation file, and expressed his annoyance over the “unideal manner” that the agreement was struck between the two, As Safir daily reported on Monday. Media reports said over the weekend that the agreement between the two parties did not meet the approval of the PM and that Salam was disappointed that he was not briefed beforehand. “I will not be calling for a meeting of the ministerial committee before the file is fully addressed in a transparent and clear manner and all its requirements are complete,” Salam told the daily.
He pointed out that the disagreement between the FPM and AMAL “were not over a priority of which blocs to excavate first but has other goals, which requires an integrated path and entails clear decisions.”“I am trying to have the full data on the issue,” added the PM.
The FPM and the AMAL met in Ain el-Tineh recently and announced that they have settled their dispute over the excavation of Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas reserves. The disagreement between the two parties has hindered agreements on energy extraction for years. For his part, Speaker Nabih Berri expressed his resentment to al-Joumhouria daily at what he described “the renewed disruption of the oil file” and warned that obstructing it again only serves Israel's interests. Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves that could generate billions of dollars. Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas. In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus. In August 2014, the government postponed for the fifth time the first round of licensing for gas exploration over a political dispute.
The disagreements were over the designation of blocks open for bidding and the terms of a draft exploration agreement. Lebanese officials have continuously warned that Israel's exploration of new offshore gas fields near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state is syphoning some of Lebanon's crude oil. Beirut argues that a maritime map it submitted to the U.N. is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel

Top Palestinian Officials Meet Mashnouq, Say Won't Allow 'Another Nahr al-Bared'
Naharnet/July 18/16/A senior Palestinian delegation held talks with Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Monday and reassured that Palestinians in Lebanon will not allow jihadist groups to seize control of any Palestinian refugee camp in the country. The delegation comprised Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah Movement's Central Committee who is in charge of the file of Lebanon's camps, Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour, and Fathi Abu al-Ardat -- the Lebanon secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “The meeting was part of the joint coordination for assessing the problems that the Palestinian camps are facing from all aspects, especially security,” said al-Ahmed after the talks. “We will coordinate joint efforts and steps in order to preserve stability and security in the camps,” the Palestinian official added. “We stressed our solidarity with our Lebanese brothers and that we will maintain coordination to thwart any attempt to undermine civil peace in Lebanon,” al-Ahmed went on to say. Asked about reports that the jihadist Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups are seeking to seize control of some Palestinian camps in Lebanon, especially Ain el-Hilweh, al-Ahmed said: “We are relieved despite these attempts and so far Lebanese-Palestinian coordination has succeeded in preventing these extremist forces from repeating the experience of the Nahr al-Bared camp.” “Neither the PLO nor the Lebanese state will allow a repetition of what happened there,” the Palestinian official added, referring to the 2007 takeover of the Nahr al-Bared camp by the extremist Fatah al-Islam group, which sparked a deadly conflict with the Lebanese army and resulted in the total destruction of the camp. “We do not believe everything that the media reports and I call on Lebanese media outlets to verify the information that they publish and not to be dragged into rumors or erroneous analyses,” al-Ahmed urged. “All Lebanese institutions, including Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, are relieved but caution is needed and we remain vigilant regarding the security and stability of the camp,” the official added. Al-Joumhouria newspaper had reported Thursday that Palestinian factions and the residents of Ain el-Hilweh have received warnings from Lebanese sides that some militants are seeking to enable jihadist groups to seize control of the camp, which is the largest in Lebanon. “There are terrorist preparations to overrun some areas in the Ain el-Hilweh camp and the pro-Islamic State groups are being led by Imad Yassine while the pro-Nusra Front groups are being led by Haitham al-Shaabi,” the daily said. “The factions and the residents must prevent these groups from achieving the objective of turning the camp into an emirate for them and a launchpad for creating conflict between the camp and its neighbors,” it quoted security sources as saying. The sources, however, reassured that “the army is thoroughly monitoring what is happening in the Ain el-Hilweh camp.”By long-standing convention, the army does not enter the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, leaving the Palestinian factions themselves to handle security. That has created lawless areas in many camps, and Ain el-Hilweh has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives. But the camp is also home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the fighting in Syria. More than 450,000 Palestinians are registered in Lebanon with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. Most live in squalid conditions in 12 official refugee camps and face a variety of legal restrictions, including on their employment.

Berri Warns 'Obstruction' of Oil Exploration 'Serves Israel'
Naharnet/July 18/16/Speaker Nabih Berri has warned that any “obstruction” in the oil and gas exploration file would “serve Israel's interest,” vowing that he would not remain silent over any such attempt. “There is something suspicious in this regard and the obstruction of the oil exploration file would serve Israel's interest,” cautioned Berri in remarks published Monday in al-Joumhouria newspaper. He expressed concern that “some malicious hands could be manipulating things in Israel's favor” and that “some Lebanese might be bowing to this obstruction.”“I don't want to accuse anyone, but I don't understand why anyone would obstruct the oil exploration file and why they would seek to serve Israel's interest,” Berri added. “Things were moving forward normally, but someone has suddenly backed down. Was it their own decision or someone has pressed them to backpedal and obstruct?” Berri went on to say. Stressing that the issue is “very crucial for Lebanon,” the speaker warned that “the renewed obstruction would lead to a major problem in the country.”“Let them know that I won't remain silent. This issue must move forward because it contains a vital interest for the country,” Berri said. Prime Minister Tammam Salam has announced that he will not convene the oil ministerial committee before gathering “all the data” about the issue of offshore oil and gas exploration, noting that the file requires “high readiness on all levels.”Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves that could generate billions of dollars. Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas. In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus. In August 2014, the government postponed for the fifth time the first round of licensing for gas exploration over a political dispute. The disagreements were over the designation of blocks open for bidding and the terms of a draft exploration agreement. Lebanese officials have continuously warned that Israel's exploration of new offshore gas fields near Lebanese territorial waters means that Israel is siphoning some of Lebanon's crude oil.

Jumblat from Bkirki: Presidency Settlement More Important than Candidate
Naharnet/July 18/16/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed Monday from Bkirki that exerting efforts to reach a “settlement” over the stalled presidential vote is “more important” than focusing on candidates. After talks with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, Jumblat said he visited the patriarch to ask him to “bless the completion of the renovation of the Our Lady Church in Mukhtara.” “This year we will mark the 15th anniversary of the (Druze-Christian) reconciliation that was sponsored by patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, and we hope this reconciliation applies to entire Lebanon,” Jumblat added.
Asked whether he discussed potential presidential candidates with al-Rahi, Jumblat noted that “exerting efforts to reach a presidential settlement is more important than proposing candidates.”Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move was followed by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea's endorsement of his long-time Christian foe Aoun for the presidency after a rapprochement deal was reached between their two parties. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Asseri calls Hezbollah to cease 'twisting truth'
Mon 18 Jul 2016/NNA - Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Awadh Asseri, upped calls on Monday upon Hezbollah officials to cease "twisting the truth" and end the political gridlock in the country instead. Asseri said that the Lebanese must speed up the election of a new president and "to put limit to the political side that is hindering the election."He also called them to work on protecting their country from the reverberations of fresh developments. The Ambassador made these remarks during a dinner banquet hosted by IDAL at Four Seasons Hotel. During the event, IDAL granted Saudi Arabia a piece of land at Chouf Cedar reserve, that shall hold the name of King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman al-Saud.

Abu Faour says new retirement hospitalization benefits to bridge gap between state, citizens
Mon 18 Jul 2016/NNA - Minister of Public health, Wael Abu Faour, told al-Anbaa news site on Monday that his new plan to provide full hospitalization coverage after retirement aimed to contribute to bridging the growing gap between the state and citizens.
Abu Faour, who is to officially announce his unprecedented project at the Grand Serial tomorrow, indicated that the state had proven to be present in the service of citizens, stressing that no Lebanese must be deprived of health care.

Kataeb fears concocted deals to stand behind oil dossier
Mon 18 Jul 2016/NNA - Kataeb Party expressed fears on Monday that profit deals would be standing behind the long-awaited agreement over Lebanon's oil and gas resources' dossier, warning of "direct interests of political parties." The party convened in a regular meeting under the chairmanship of MP Samil Gemayel, and issued a closing statement where it considered that the visit paid by world officials to Lebanon could not resolve the presidential crisis, "as long as Hezbollah and its allies insist on making Lebanon part of regional considerations."Moreover, conferees sounded the alarm on the ailing economic condition in the country.

In Lebanon, Syria Refugees Fear Rising Discrimination
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Syrian refugee Abu Adnan was rushing his newborn to the doctor one night in the Lebanese town of Rmeish when municipal police stopped him and began questioning him. He was in violation of a municipal curfew that prevents Syrian refugees from leaving their homes between sunset and sunrise. "They began questioning me -- 'Where are you going? Why?'" he told AFP, speaking on condition that a pseudonym be used. Eventually he was allowed to continue, but was followed to and from the doctor's office, ensuring that he returned home directly. This is just one example of what Syrian refugees and local activists say is increasing pressure on, and even outright racism against, Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Lebanon hosts more than one million Syrian refugees -- roughly a quarter of its population -- and has regularly been praised for opening its borders to those fleeing the brutal conflict in its neighbor. But the refugee influx has strained resources and tempers, with some Lebanese viewing the years-long presence of Syrians as a burden, even an imposition. Some municipalities have taken matters into their own hands, imposing curfews on refugees, ordering night raids on their homes, evicting them or even making them clean the streets. "Lately, things have become very difficult," said Abu Adnan. "Once, a group of drunken young men broke into the home of some Syrian refugees and started beating and cursing them," he said. "The municipality did nothing for the Syrians; instead it evicted dozens from their homes."
- Obligation to protect refugees
Such incidents spiked again recently after a string of suicide bombers attacked al-Qaa village on Lebanon's border with Syria. Reports initially suggested the attackers had come from nearby refugee settlements, though that was later denied by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq. Lebanese activists say the security fears of citizens are being manipulated by some to justify measures against the Syrians. On Monday, they planned a "march against racism" in Beirut from the foreign ministry to the interior ministry. Rights groups have urged Lebanon to protect Syrians escaping the war that began in March 2011 and has killed more than 280,000 people. "Amnesty International is concerned about recent reports of harassment and physical abuse of Syrian refugees including arbitrary arrests and forced evictions from informal settlements," said its refugee researcher Khairunissa Dhala.
She said Lebanon has "international obligations to protect Syrian refugees who are seeking safety in the country." Matthew Saltmarsh, senior communications officer for the U.N.'s refugee agency UNHCR, added: "It is important to remember that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are themselves seeking sanctuary from violence in their home country."
But in Rmeish, the municipality's Facebook page urges "all citizens to be guards." "It is our duty to report any suspicious movement to the authorities," it says.Municipality chief Maroun Shibli says Rmeish is home to 6,000 Lebanese and that the arrival of more than 1,000 Syrians was "more than we could handle."
'Forced to clean streets'
"A decision was taken to keep only those who could have a local sponsor. Now there are only about 500 refugees left," he said. Other municipalities have also come under fire for their treatment of refugees. In mid-July, municipal police in the coastal town of Amchit north of Beirut carried out night-time raids on several homes. Pictures posted online showed refugees kneeling or lined up facing a wall, their hands crossed behind their backs, as municipal policemen checked their identity documents. Under pressure from activists, the interior minister wrote to municipality heads warning that law enforcement officers would face "disciplinary measures" if they abused their power. Amchit municipality dismissed any wrongdoing and said its policemen were acting in line with nationwide security measures aimed at "preventing any terrorism action." Other violations of refugee rights have been reported. In Tartej village north of Beirut, municipal officials forced refugees to "clean up the streets," the As Safir newspaper reported in mid-July. And in the predominantly Christian coastal town of Jounieh, also north of the capital, one resident said she witnessed municipal policemen beating up and insulting a Syrian man. "It was a painful sight," said Sarah Kamel, who tried in vain to defend the man, a resident of Lebanon for more than 20 years. She said she shouted at the policemen, who said the man failed to heed a warning to stop. "The policemen told me 'When he comes to your house to rob you, you can come to us and defend him,'" she said.

Lebanon tradition of celebratory gunshots comes under fire
AFP/July 18/16/Whether it's joy, political passion or grief, for many Lebanese, there's only one way to show it: by lifting a gun and firing off rounds into the air. But the deadly practice, a tradition in many Arab countries, has attracted new scrutiny and police attention following a spate of deaths and serious injuries in incidents involving indiscriminate gunfire."It felt like a fire had burst into my chest," said 15-year-old Hussein Azab, whose chest was pierced by a bullet fired during celebrations after municipal elections in May.One person was killed and three others were wounded in celebratory gunfire that day.
The following month, a child was killed and a woman wounded in separate incidents by people firing guns to celebrate official exam results. "I was with my mum, my brother and my aunt on our way to my grandfather's house at around 8:30 (pm) when I was hit," said Azab, who was shot in southern Beirut.
"The blood started pouring out of my chest and I was very afraid. I thought I would die," he said, struggling to recount his ordeal as he gazed at the 15-centimetre (six-inch) scar running down his chest.The experience has also scarred him psychologically, leaving him afraid of loud noises, particularly fireworks. "My life changed. I've become irritable and afr aid all the time. I can't sleep, and if I do, I wake up from panic attacks," he said. Hussein's mother Wafaa was angry and tearful. "They were celebrating winning elections while we were crying blood.

"'A sick phenomenon'

With the deadly incidents making headlines, Lebanon's police force says it has made more than 130 arrests of people firing in the air since early June. It is also encouraging people to report shooters via a special hotline. Police spokesman Joseph Mousallem called the practice "a sick, fatal phenomenon".
"Civilians must come together to stop shooting and not be silent about the shooters," he told AFP. "This isn't an issue of tradition. It is a crime that leads to death."Officially, celebratory gunfire is illegal in Lebanon, where firearm ownership remains widespread more than two decades after the end of its 1975-1990 civil war. A 1959 law states "anyone firing in residential areas or in a crowd, whether their gun is licensed or not" faces up to three years in prison or a fine.But the fine has not increased since it was set at 500 Lebanese pounds in 1959, an amount now worth just 60 US cents. Shopowner Qassem, a resident of the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon, is undeterred by the legislation. He first fired into the air 14 years ago, to celebrate the birth of his daughter. "It was our first joy and I shot about 75 bullets into the air. I started firing every year on my daughter's birthday, which is Lebanese Independence Day," he said.
He insisted he takes precautions before firing, refraining from shooting in packed residential streets and asking those around him to step away before he lets loose.

'Sky hasn't swallowed a bullet'
In a bid to deter people like Qassem, one member of parliament has submitted a draft law increasing the jail time for such gunfire to up to 20 years, and the maximum fine to the equivalent of $12,500.The bill has received support from various political parties, but it has yet to be voted on because Lebanon's parliament is paralysed and not meeting to legislate. In the interim, the powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah has taken the initiative to curb indiscriminate shooting in neighbourhoods under its control. The issue is more pressing for the group because its supporters often fire bursts of bullets into the air when Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah gives one of his frequent speeches, or during the funerals of fighters killed in the Syrian conflict. Nasrallah himself has publicly criticised the practice, telling his supporters in June that celebratory gunfire "will be enough for us to expel someone from our ranks".
The decision would apply to everyone, even senior Hezbollah members "who have been fighting Israel for 30 years", he warned. Fadi Abi Allam, who heads the Permanent Peace Movement, an NGO, called for tighter regulations and better implementation of existing gun laws.
"I know that firing weapons is an expression of joy or sadness, but the sky has never once swallowed a bullet," he said. Exacerbating the issue is the sheer number of weapons in Lebanon. An estimated four million guns are licenced as personal firearms in Lebanon, which has just four million citizens, according to Abi Allam. "Some households don't own any weapons -- others own dozens," he said.Abi Allam urged families, schools, religious figures, civil society and the state to combine their efforts and work together to put an end to the practice.

Lebanese prime minister: ‘Only an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Lebanon will produce a president’
Mohamed Kawas/The Arab Weekly
BEIRUT - Lebanon’s Tammam Salam is a prime minister without a president. Salam, a political independ­ent, is Lebanon’s most senior official and works from the midst of an unprecedented political and constitutional crisis, with the country’s parliament unable to agree on a new president since Michel Suleiman left office in May 2014. Salam is careful not to take sides in the political manoeu­vring over the selection of the next president. He defended Lebanon’s complex political system in spite of the presiden­tial vacuum, stressing that it leads to compromise and consensus.
“With the exception of the 1970 election that brought Suleiman Frangieh to power by just one [parliamentary] vote, all other presidents were elected following political compromise and consensus, both at home and abroad,” he said. In spite of this, Lebanon’s prime minister and acting president admitted: “Yes, I am frustrated by this presidential vacuum.”Salam, who became acting prime minister after Najib Mikati’s resignation in May 2013, was himself a consensus figure, being tasked with forming a new government by a vote of 124 out of 128 parliamentarians. He was chosen by consensus from within the country, as well as support from abroad. Salam was the right man at the right time for Lebanon but his tenure in office could be ending. Many political analysts say any deal between Lebanon’s rival political forces to settle on a consensus president must include a new prime minister and government.
Salam acknowledged the Lebanese people’s frustration towards the government, with political action in the country virtually at a standstill during the last two years given the entrenched divisions that emerged in the presidential crisis. With all sides — particu­larly the rival March 14 and March 8 blocs that form the bulk of Salam’s coalition government — failing to engage on a variety of issues, and no president to break the deadlock, Salam’s government is facing a situation beyond difficult.
“If there was a president in office, then the government’s performance would not have reached this level,” Salam said. His government — formed in February 2014 — operated for a few months under Suleiman before Lebanese politics became overshadowed by attempts to decide on a successor.
“When this same government was operating under president Michel Suleiman for more than three months, we achieved a lot and secured movement on a number of issues,” Salam said. As the political crisis contin­ues in Lebanon, some observers have called for the dissolution of the Taif agreement, which put in place a power-sharing agree­ment between Lebanon’s various political forces and sectarian communities, including that the president must be a Maronite Christian and elected by parliament. “Nothing stops us from developing and improving the constitution… but we cannot accept abandoning the Taif agreement for a leap into the dark,” Salam said. There is an interna­tional dimension to the presiden­tial crisis, given that regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran are backing political rivals in Lebanon. The March 14 alliance, which is led by the Future Move­ment’s Saad Hariri, is sup­ported by Riyadh, while the March 8 alliance, which includes the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbol­lah, is backed by Tehran. “Only an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Leba­non will produce a president,” he said. His comments come at a difficult time in the Middle East, including increasing tensions between Arab Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, and Iran and its affiliates, including the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) formally designated Hezbollah a terrorist group in March, with Arab Gulf states pushing through a similar motion in the Arab League. Lebanon’s Foreign Affairs Ministry — headed by March 8 alliance’s Gebran Bassil — failed to join Arab condemnations against attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January. Riyadh responded by suspending a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese military, with Salam acknowledging tensions between Lebanon and the Arab Gulf. Despite this, Salam was keen to stress Lebanon’s ties to the Arab world, addressing the Arab Gulf in particular. “Do not give up on Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” he said. “We are in an era in which the security and stability of the Arab Gulf is a supporter and incubator for Lebanon. Hezbollah’s actions are not representative of Leba­non. Salam said any actions by Leba­nese political parties or figures deemed negative to the Arab Gulf “do not express the position of the majority of the Lebanese people who are committed to the best relationship with the Arab Gulf”. As for ongoing and future challenges he faces — from the presidential vacuum to diplo­matic crises — Salam pledged: “I will do everything I can to ensure that Lebanon reaches a safe shore.”

Lebanese speculate about oil and gas riches but politics remains the same
Mohamad Kawas/The Arab Weekly
London - Nothing explains the in­creasing importance of energy resources than the curious intersection of ties between Turkey, Russia and Israel due to oil and gas discoveries in the Mediterranean and speculation of a new pipeline that would export gas from Israel via Turkey into Europe.
This is an issue that is also be­coming increasingly important for Beirut, following new movement on Lebanon’s offshore gas and oil discoveries.
This was confirmed at the head­quarters of Lebanese parliamen­tary Speaker Nabih Berri during a meeting with Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and Foreign Minis­ter Gebran Bassil. The meeting of Lebanese political heavyweights — and rivals — sought to reach a quick decision on technical and tax issues related to Lebanon’s energy sector at a time when the country remains without a president and is mired in political deadlock.
Geology Professor Marcelle BouDagher-Fadel of University Col­lege London professor said there was a report published more than a decade ago confirming significant undiscovered oil and gas reserves in Lebanese waters. She said the Lebanese government at the time decided to bury the report and not seek to extract this resource while the country was under Syrian tute­lage.
With Syrian troops forced to leave Lebanon in 2005, movement on the issue is overdue, but none has come.
Lebanon’s political factions were divided on how to move forward on offshore gas exploration, some­thing that has begun in neighbour­ing Israeli and Cypriot waters. This is not just due to the technicalities of the issue but also due to the ab­sence of a green light from the in­ternational community.
It had been thought that noth­ing could be done until the political future of Lebanon, which has been without a president since May 2014, became more certain. Lebanon is still facing an uncertain political future but perhaps not in terms of energy.
US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Glaser visited Lebanon in May to discuss American sanctions on Hezbollah. US Assistant Secre­tary of State for Energy Amos Hoch­stein was visiting Lebanon at the same time and Beirut newspapers speculated that he was discussing the extent of US influence on Leba­non, not just in politics, but also in energy.
Hochstein met with a number of senior Lebanese figures and spoke publicly about Washington sup­porting Beirut to activate its energy sector. He said the United States was keen to see an end to Leba­nese-Israeli disputes over maritime zones. Hochstein completed his visit without announcing any offi­cial breakthrough. It now seems there was one, with Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas exploration moving forward sig­nificantly following an agreement among Lebanon’s divided political factions. Lebanon is set to offer all of its offshore oil blocks for inter­national bidding, according to local media.
Popular Lebanese Forces MP An­toine Zahra has demanded to know the “secret” behind this new move­ment and precise details of any agreement between the country’s various political parties, particular­ly Berri’s Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, which is led by presidential contender Michel Aoun.There are questions whether the previous lack of movement can be traced to Bassil — a former En­ergy minister and Aoun’s son-in-law. This is a demand that is being backed by the Lebanese street.
Whatever issue was holding things up has been resolved and the Lebanese people can only be shocked by the political paralysis that gripped this issue given the po­tential oil and gas reserves in ques­tion and what this could mean for the country’s economy. That only leaves the international dimension, and the various agreements, or dif­ferences, between Israel, Russia, and Turkey. Energy expert Nicolas Sarkis said there could be as much as 800 mil­lion barrels of oil and 25 trillion-30 trillion cubic feet of gas beneath Lebanon’s territorial waters. Other estimates are much higher.
“Lebanon can expect gas produc­tion worth approximately $400 bil­lion-$500 billion based on the glob­al prices that prevailed before the 2014 market collapse. As for Leba­non’s expected revenues… this can be estimated at between $150 bil­lion-$200 billion,” Sarkis said.
To demonstrate the significance of these figures for Lebanon, this would be four times the domestic national product and allow Leba­non to pay off its public debt twice over. Lebanon’s current exports stand at $3 billion-$4 billion.
A green light from the interna­tional community would allow Lebanon to benefit from this great wealth. Paradoxically, Lebanese citizens do not seem to be over­joyed by this news and instead are concerned about scandal and cor­ruption and wondering why it took so long for Lebanon to exploit this wealth.
Lebanon’s energy sector may be in the process of transforma­tion but its politics remains the same.
Mohamad Kawas is a Lebanese writer.

 

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 18-19/16

US-led coalition resumes strikes against IS from Turkey base
AFP/July 18/16/The US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group has resumed air strikes from a Turkish air base that were suspended after a failed military coup d'etat, the Pentagon said on Sunday. "After close coordination with our Turkish allies, they have reopened their airspace to military aircraft," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement. "As a result, counter-ISIL coalition air operations at all air bases in Turkey have resumed," he added, using an acronym for the IS group. "US facilities at Incirlik are still operating on internal power sources, but we hope to restore commercial power soon. Base operations have not been affected."The Turkish authorities on Saturday imposed a security lockdown at the Incirlik air base in the southern province of Adana used by US and other coalition forces in the fight against jihadists in Syria and Iraq. The facility is 68 miles (110 kilometers) from the Syrian border and houses 1,500 US troops. The base has notably been used to deploy drones, Prowler electronic warplanes and A-10 ground attack aircraft in the fight against the IS group. The US military has a total of around 2,200 service members and civilian employees in Turkey, which is a NATO member and a crucial regional partner for Washington. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday said the airspace closure did not appear to be connected to coalition activities. "Apparently, there has been refueling with the Turkish air force with planes that were flying in the coup itself and I think that has something to do with what's taken place there," he told CNN. The Turkish authorities "have absolutely assured us of their commitment to the fight against Daesh," he added, using a term for the IS group. "I expect operations will get back to normal very quickly." Government forces reportedly detained a senior air force general at the Incirlik base, along with other officers accused of backing the failed coup. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put down the bloody overnight coup attempt on Saturday, but the events have raised concerns in the West about the stability of the country and its continued role in the anti-IS coalition.

Turkey told to respect rule of law during mass purge
Agencies Monday, 18 July 2016/Several world leaders told Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his government must respect the rule of law, as Ankara continues a widespread purge of the army, police and other officials after a failed coup attempt which killed over 260 people."This is no excuse to take the country away from fundamental rights and the rule of law, and we will be extremely vigilant on that," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry. The top American diplomat said Turkey must "uphold the highest standards for the country's democratic institutions and the rule of law."While he recognized the need to apprehend the coup plotters, Kerry said: "We caution against a reach that goes beyond that."NATO head Jens Stoltenberg on Monday said Turkey – a longstanding fellow member of the alliance - must fully respect the rule of law and democratic freedoms, just like any other alliance member, in the aftermath of a failed military coup. “Being part of a unique community of values, it is essential for Turkey, like all other allies, to ensure full respect for democracy and its institutions, the constitutional order, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms,” Stoltenberg said in a statement after speaking with Erdogan. Chancellor Angela Merkel told Erdogan that Germany vehemently opposes the reinstatement of the death penalty in Turkey – something the president wishes to be reinstated to punish the coup’s perpetrators - and that such a step would prevent Turkey becoming an EU member, a German government spokeswoman said. “The chancellor urged the president to abide by the principles of proportionality and rule of law in the Turkish state’s response (to the coup attempt),” the spokeswoman said, adding that the recent wave of arrests and dismissals in Turkey was a cause for great concern. British Prime Minister Theresa May said that she expected to speak with Erdogan shortly. “We call for the full observance of Turkey’s constitutional order and stress the importance of the rule of law prevailing," May told parliament.
Mass sackings
Thirty Turkish governors and more than 50 high-ranking civil servants have been removed from their posts, broadcaster CNN Turk reported on Monday, following in the wake of Friday's coup attempt. News channels also reported the number of police removed from duty stood at 8,777, amid what is seen as a purge of state structures. Turkey also detained a total of 103 generals and admirals, state media said. 3,000 judges and prosecutors who had sometimes blocked Erdogan's requests were also purged. Seemingly, no-one serving in any state capacity in Turkey is safe from the firing line. On Monday, Ankara sacked 1,500 financial ministry staff believed to have ties to US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his network of supporters. Ankara accuses Gulen of orchestrating the failed Friday night coup. Gulen strongly denies the accusation. The top military figures have been detained in sweeps across the country after Friday's attempted putsch, the agency added, in what appears to be a major purge of the armed forces. They are now being taken to courts to decide on remanding them in custody.(With AFP, the Associated Press and Reuters)

Turkey Launches Fresh Raids, Sacks 9,000 Officials in Post-Coup Purge
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Turkey launched fresh raids and sacked almost 9,000 officials Monday in a relentless crackdown against suspects behind an attempted coup that left over 300 people dead, as Western allies warned against reinstating the death penalty. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to wipe out the "virus" of the putschists after facing down the coup bid by elements of the military disgruntled with what they see as his increasingly iron-fisted 13-year rule. But the United States and European Union have sternly warned him against excessive retribution as the authorities round up the alleged perpetrators of Friday's attempted power grab. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman denounced "revolting scenes of caprice and revenge against soldiers on the streets" after disturbing pictures emerged of the treatment of some detained suspects. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said over 7,500 people have been detained so far, including 103 generals and admirals, in the investigation into Friday's coup which Erdogan has blamed on his arch-enemy, the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen. The interior ministry said almost 9,000 police, municipal governors and other officials had also been dismissed in a widening purge.
Early Monday, special Istanbul anti-terror police units raided the prestigious air force military academy, detaining four suspects, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The authorities have also detained General Mehmet Disli, who conducted the operation to capture chief-of-staff Hulusi Akar during the stand-off, an official said. The 103 generals detained are accused of seeking to violate the constitution and attempting to overthrow the authorities by force, as well as belonging to what the authorities call the Fethullahci Terror Organization (FETO) led by Gulen. Erdogan has urged citizens to remain on the streets even after the defeat of the coup, in what the authorities describe as a "vigil" for democracy. Thousands of pro-Erdogan supporters waving Turkish flags filled the main Kizilay Square in Ankara while similar scenes were seen in Taksim Square in Istanbul. According to Anadolu, 1,800 additional elite special police forces have been drafted in from surrounding provinces to ensure security in Istanbul.With Turkey's big cities still on edge, Turkish security forces killed an armed attacker who shot at them from a vehicle outside the Ankara courthouse where suspects from the failed coup were appearing before judges.
End of EU bid
Western leaders have urged Turkey to follow the rule of law in the wake of the coup bid, with the massive retaliatory purge adding to concerns about human rights and democracy in the NATO member state. "We also urge the government of Turkey to uphold the highest standards of respect for the nation's democratic institutions and the rule of law," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters after talks with EU foreign ministers. Responding to the criticism, Yildirim said the plotters would be brought to account but Turkey would "act within the law." But the divisive Erdogan added fuel to the fire Sunday when he told supporters that Turkey could consider reintroducing the death penalty which it had abolished in 2004 as part of its longstanding EU membership bid. "We cannot delay this anymore because in this country, those who launch a coup will have to pay the price for it," he said. EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini responded bluntly on Monday.
"Let me be very clear... no country can become an EU state if it introduces the death penalty," she said. Yildirim said it would be wrong to "act in haste", calling for a parliamentary debate on the issue. There has also been concern about the nature of the arrests which have appeared aimed at humiliating the suspects. Turkish television has shown images of captured suspects forced to lie face down on the tarmac after their arrest while AFP photographers have seen suspects roughly led away, pursued by angry mobs. Anadolu published pictures of the arrest of former air force commander Akin Ozturk bent forwards, facing a wall with hands tied behind his back. Meanwhile, a Greek court will Thursday decide the fate of eight Turkish military officers who fled across the border by helicopter after the failed coup in Turkey and who Ankara wants to see extradited.
Show us evidence
The turbulence has raised concern about the stability of Turkey, a key NATO member which is also part of the international coalition against Islamic State jihadists in Syria. It has also hit financial markets, with the lira at one point losing five percent in value against the dollar although it rallied slightly on Monday. Erdogan has long accused Gulen of running a "parallel state" in Turkey, and urged Obama to extradite the reclusive preacher from the United States to face justice. The 75-year-old preacher has categorically denied any involvement in the plot and suggested it could have been staged by Erdogan himself. Kerry said he had urged his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to "send us evidence, not allegations."Yildirim said 208 people were killed during the coup bid, including 145 civilians, 60 police and three loyalist soldiers. In addition, the military said 104 coup plotters were killed.

EU, Germany Warn Turkey against Reinstating Death Penalty
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Germany warned Turkey on Monday against reinstating the death penalty, as it blasted "revolting scenes of caprice and revenge" in the wake of a failed coup attempt. In strongly worded remarks, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters that Berlin had grave questions about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's response to the foiled military takeover. After Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey would consider a return of capital punishment, Seibert said such a move "would mean the end of EU membership talks". Seibert said the EU was a "community of laws and values" with which capital punishment was not compatible. "Germany and the EU have a clear stance: we categorically oppose the death penalty. A country with the death penalty cannot be a member of the EU," he said. He urged a proportionate response from the government in Ankara. "In the first hours after the failed coup, we witnessed revolting scenes of caprice and revenge against soldiers on the streets," Seibert said. "That cannot be accepted."Seibert reiterated that Germany "condemns" the attempted takeover but stressed that the response by the Turkish government needs to be "proportionate" and "based on the rule of law"."In that context, we need to say clearly: it raises profound and worrisome questions when on the day after the coup attempt, 2,500 judges are removed from their posts," he said. In the aftermath of Friday's failed coup, thousands of Erdogan supporters called for capital punishment to make a return. "In democracies, decisions are made based on what the people say. I think our government will speak with the opposition and come to a decision," Erdogan said Sunday. The European Union also warned Turkey on Monday against reinstating the death penalty, with EU's foreign affairs head Federica Mogeherini saying Turkey would be barred from joining the bloc if it reintroduces such a measure.
"Let me be very clear... no country can become an EU state if it introduces the death penalty," Mogherini said when asked about the possible impact on long-stalled accession talks with Ankara. Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 under reforms aimed at obtaining European Union membership. Reinstatement would create further issues between the EU and Ankara in the already stalled membership talks. Germany has the largest ethnic Turkish community outside Turkey with some three million members.

U.S.-Led Coalition Raids Kill 21 Civilians in Syria's Manbij
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition killed at least 21 civilians in and around a stronghold of the Islamic State group in northern Syria on Monday, a monitor said. At least 15 civilians were killed in raids in a northern district of Manbij while six others were killed in a village near the city, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The jihadist bastion lies on their main supply route between Syria and Turkey in the northern province of Aleppo. It has faced a U.S.-backed offensive by Kurdish and Arab fighters since May 31 that has caused thousands of civilians to flee. But tens of thousands of civilians are still trapped in Manbij, most of which is controlled by the jihadists. On June 23, the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters broke into western districts of Manbij, after blocking the road south of the city heading to IS' de facto capital of Raqa. But their advance has been slowed in the past month because of landmines planted by the jihadists, which are also fighting back by launching suicide attacks against the SDF. Founded in October, the Kurdish-dominated alliance has seized territory from IS across large parts of northern and northeastern Syria. Capturing Manbij would be its most significant victory yet. Syria's war has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Iran Denounces 'Unconstructive' Bahrain Opposition Ban
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Iran has criticised as "unconstructive" a Bahraini court's decision to dissolve and seize the funds of the country's main Shiite opposition group. The order -- which can be appealed -- came Sunday despite international criticism of the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom's intensified crackdown on dissent. The administrative court in Manama found Al-Wefaq guilty of "harbouring terrorism" and ordered the government to seize its assets. "Such actions by the Bahraini government prove that they don't seek to resolve the existing crises," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in a statement late Sunday. Bahrain has unleashed a crackdown on opposition groups since a wave of Shiite-led protests in 2011 called for greater freedoms in the Sunni-ruled kingdom. It has long accused Iran of fomenting unrest among the island's Shiite majority. Sunday's ruling came amid appeals by the United Nations, United States and rights groups for the legal action against Al-Wefaq to be dropped. Ghasemi called on Bahrain to replace "escalated security and police approaches with trust-building measures," setting the stage for "serious, constructive and converging dialogue". Authorities have stripped at least 261 people of their citizenship since 2012, according to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, including the country's Shiite spiritual leader Sheikh Isa Qassem. Dissolving "moderate groups" and stripping political and religious leaders of their citizenship are "not in line with the regime's interest," Ghasemi said. Last month, Iran voiced concern over Bahrain's decision to strip Qassem of his nationality. "Surely they know that the aggression against Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassem is a red line... that will leave no option for the people but to resort to armed resistance," said Qassem Suleimani, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations arm, the Quds Force.

Kerry Denounces Bahrain Move Dissolving Key Opposition Group
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed deep concern Sunday after a Bahraini court dissolved the country's main opposition group and seized its funds. "This ruling is the latest in a series of disconcerting ‎steps in Bahrain," he said in a statement sparked by the action against the country's main Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq, once the largest group in parliament. The chief U.S. diplomat took pains to acknowledge the "very real security threats facing Bahrain," but added that the "recent steps to suppress nonviolent opposition only undermine Bahrain's cohesion and security" and "strain our partnership with Bahrain."He called on Bahrain to "reverse these and other recent measures (and) return urgently to the path of reconciliation." The administrative court in Manama, in ordering the dissolution of Al-Wefaq, said the group had incited violence and encouraged protests that threatened "sectarian strife" in the Gulf kingdom. But critics have deplored such moves as a crackdown on dissent. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is responsible for U.S. naval forces in the region, making Bahrain a crucial regional partner for the United States. It has been the scene of sporadic troubles since government forces repressed a protest movement launched in February 2011 amid the ferment of the Arab Spring. The country's Shia majority has been demanding a true constitutional monarchy in the country, now led by a Sunni dynasty.

UN envoy meets with Yemen’s warring sides separately
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 18 July 2016/Yemen’s UN envoy met with the rivaling delegations Monday in Kuwait on the second day of the UN-backed peace talks. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who has been chairing the peace talks in Kuwait since April, separately met with the Houthi delegation and their allies and President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s Saudi-backed government. Ahmed is later expected to meet with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Sabah, Kuwait News Agency reported. The agency noted that the UN envoy will discuss a number of political, security and humanitarian issues with all parties involved. The talks will aim to assert from both delegations to commit to the Security Council resolution 2216 which requires the militants and their allies to withdraw from areas they have occupied since 2014, including the capital Sanaa, and hand over heavy weapons. In a press statement, the two delegations stressed the talks should be based on the previously agreed points. They stated that “any other agendas or diversions in this regard would not be accepted.” More than two months of negotiations between Hadi’s government and the Houthi militants have failed to make any headway. Hadi on Sunday warned that his government would boycott the talks if the UN envoy insisted on a roadmap stipulating a unity government that included the insurgents. His government wants to re-establish its authority across the entire country, much of which is Houthi-controlled, and to restart a political transition interrupted when the Houthis seized Sanaa. More than 6,400 people have been killed in Yemen since the Arab coalition intervened in support of Hadi’s government in March last year. Another 2.8 million people have been displaced and more than 80 percent of the population urgently needs humanitarian aid, according to UN figures.(With AFP)

Twin Bombings Kill 11 in ex-Qaida Strongholds in Yemen
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 18/16/Suicide bombers on Monday attacked two army checkpoints in a former stronghold of al-Qaida in southeastern Yemen, killing 11 people, health and security officials said. One attacker drove his bomb-laden truck into a checkpoint in a western district of Hadramawt's provincial capital Mukalla, security officials told AFP. The second attacker simultaneously blew up his vehicle at an army checkpoint in the nearby town of Hajr, located some 15 kilometers (nine miles) to the west of Mukalla, the sources said. The commander of Hadramawt's second military region, General Faraj Salmeen had earlier told AFP that the second bombing struck the center of the city, blaming the attack on "terrorists." Eleven people were killed and 18 were wounded in the twin bombings, said Riad Jariri, head of the health department in Mukalla. Four civilians were among those killed, he told AFP. No group has yet claimed responsibility. Mukalla and surrounding towns were under the control of al-Qaida for one year until pro-government troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition recaptured the city in April. In March, a U.S. air strike on an al-Qaida training camp in Hajr killed more than 70 jihadists, provincial officials said. Yemen has been gripped by a devastating conflict that escalated in March 2015 when Saudi-led air strikes began against Iran-backed Huthi rebels after the insurgents seized northern and central parts of the country including the capital, Sanaa. The violence has allowed extremists such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group to extend their influence and launch scores of attacks on security forces. Last month, IS claimed a wave of suicide bombings targeting Yemeni troops in Mukalla that killed at least 42 people. The Pentagon said in May that a "very small number" of U.S. military personnel had been deployed around Mukalla in support of pro-government forces. Washington considers the Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to be the network's deadliest franchise and its drone strikes have taken out a number of senior AQAP commanders in Yemen over the past year.


Suspects in Saudi embassy attack appear in Tehran court
Reuters, Dubai Monday, 18 July 2016/Nine people accused of storming Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January appeared in a Tehran court on Monday, Fars news agency reported, weeks after President Hassan Rowhani urged the judiciary to take action. The suspects are accused of “disturbing the public order and damaging embassy buildings”, according to the state media. Twelve other suspects were absent in the first hearing, according to Fars.Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters attacked the kingdom’s embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad. The Iranian government promptly condemned the attack and Rowhani asked the judiciary to punish the protesters and to halt embassy attacks, which have recurred throughout the Islamic Republic 37-year history and often complicated its foreign policy. Iranian demonstrators attacked the embassy of the United States in 1979, Kuwait in 1987, Saudi Arabia in 1988, Denmark in 2006 and Britain in 2011 - most of which have led to a breach in diplomatic relations. None of the attackers in those incidents were convicted. Iran releases 152 accused of attacking Saudi embassy . Iran’s judiciary announced in April that more than 100 suspects had been arrested in relation to the attack on the Saudi missions and 48 had been charged. All were released on bail. Speaking in the judiciary’s annual gathering in June, Rowhani said the attackers had been identified and urged the courts to take action. “People want to know how the judiciary will deal with those who attacked the embassy against the law and Iran’s national security,” Rowhani was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency. “They are waiting to hear the verdicts for these rogue elements.”

Iraq's Sadr tells followers to target US troops fighting ISIS
Reuters, Baghdad Monday, 18 July 2016/Powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr instructed his followers on Sunday to target US troops deploying to Iraq as part of the military campaign against ISIS. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday the Pentagon would dispatch 560 additional troops to help Iraqi forces retake the northern city of Mosul in an offensive planned for later this year. Sadr, who rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled US troops after the 2003 invasion, posted the comments on his official website after a follower asked for his response to the announcement. "They are a target for us," Sadr said, without offering details. The Mahdi Army was disbanded in 2008, replaced by the Peace Brigades, which helped push back Islamic State from near Baghdad in 2014 under a government-run umbrella, and maintains a presence in the capital and several other cities. Sadr, who commands the loyalty of tens of thousands of supporters, is also leading a protest movement that saw demonstrators storm Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone government district twice this year, hampering parliament for weeks. The new troop deployment, which is expected to happen within weeks, would raise the number of US forces in Iraq to around 4,650, far below the peak of about 170,000 reached during the nearly nine-year occupation. Other Shiite militias, particularly those backed by Iran, have made similar pledges to attack US soldiers in the past year, but the only casualties since American forces returned to Iraq to battle ISIS two years ago have come at the hands of the Sunni militant group.
 

Iran: 16 prisoners including a woman hanged in one day, two in public
National Council of Resistance of Iran/Monday, 18 July 2016/Thirty prisoners executed in less than a week in cities across the country
In a new wave of executions, the Iranian regime executed 30 prisoners in various cities from July 11 to 17. Sixteen were executed today, July 17, in Karaj and Birjand.In Karaj, 11 prisoners including a woman were executed en masse in Ghezel Hessar Prison and another two were hanged in public in Mehrshahr district. Two prisoners were executed in the Central Prison of Lakan, in Rasht (northern Iran) on July 16. Six prisoners were hanged on July 13, in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj. Five more prisoners were hanged on July 11, in the Central Prison of Arak (central Iran), and another prisoner was executed also on July 11, in the Prison of Maragheh (East Azerbaijan Province in northwest Iran) after enduring eight years in prison. Beset by various crises, the Iranian regime is unable to respond to the most basic needs of the Iranian people, especially the deprived and low income strata. To confront growing public dissent and protests across the country, it has resorted to a new wave of executions. One year after the nuclear deal, these crimes reveal the claims of moderation in the clerical regime as hollow and expose the falsehood of promises of improvement under the mullahs' rule. It was thus proved that appeasement of the mullahs' medieval regime will not bring about change. The Iranian Resistance calls on human rights organizations to condemn the rising number of executions in Iran and to immediately undertake measures to send the dossier of violations of human rights in Iran to the UN Security Council. All relations with the Iranian regime must be made conditional on an end to executions and an improvement of the human rights situation in Iran.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran July 17, 2016

Iran regime hangs 18 people over the weekend
Sunday, 17 July 2016 /NCRI – Iran’s fundamentalist regime hanged 18 prisoners over the weekend, including two cases in public. A woman was among those hanged on Sunday. Eleven prisoners were hanged en masse in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, on Sunday. Two of the prisoners were identified as Saeed Saberi and Moslem Bahrami. At least one of the 11 prisoners was a woman. Two men, identified only by their initials Q. J. and M. R., were hanged in public in Karaj on Sunday. The two men were hanged in a public square in the city’s Mehshahr District, the state-run Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday. Another three men were hanged in prison in the city of Birjand, eastern Iran, on Sunday. They were identified as Mansour Zafarani, Yousef Barahoui and Qassem Delshad. They were accused of drugs-related charges.
Two prisoners, whose names were not given but who were said to be 40 and 49 years old, were hanged on Saturday in Lakan Prison in Rasht, northern Iran, according to the state broadcaster IRIB which quoted Ahmad Siavosh-Pour, the provincial head of the judiciary. They were accused of drugs-related charges.Also it emerged over the weekend that five men were hanged on July 11 in the Central Prison of Arak, central Iran. They were identified as Masoud Taqi-Pour, Hassan Faraj-Pour, Mehdi Baqeri, Baqer Jalili and Hamid Haqvin. They too were accused of drugs-related charges.
The mullahs’ regime hanged nine prisoners collectively on July 13 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. Three of the executed prisoners were identified as Seyyed Mohammad Taheri, Amir Khadem Rezaiyan and Saeid Ahmadi. More than 270 Members of the European Parliament signed a joint statement on Iran last month, calling on the European Union to “condition” its relations with Tehran to an improvement of human rights. The MEPs who were from all the EU Member States and from all political groups in the Parliament said they are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran after Hassan Rouhani took office as President three years ago. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before." "Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said.There have been more than 2,500 executions during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of “God’s commandments” and “laws of the parliament that belong to the people.

AMNESTY - Health taken hostage: Cruel denial of medical care in Iran’s prisons
Monday, 18 July 2016/National Council of Resistance of Iran/The Iranian regime is "callously toying with the lives of prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners by denying them adequate medical care, putting them at grave risk of death, permanent disability or other irreversible damage to their health," Amnesty International said on Monday. A new report by Amnesty International published today, July 18, 2016, called "Health taken hostage: Cruel denial of medical care in Iran’s prisons", provides a grim snapshot of health care in the regime’s prisons.
It presents strong evidence that the regime's judiciary, in particular the Office of the Prosecutor, and prison administrations deliberately prevent access to adequate medical care, in many cases as an intentional act of cruelty intended to intimidate, punish or humiliate political prisoners, or to extract forced “confessions” or statements of “repentance” from them, the human rights group said. “In Iran a prisoner’s health is routinely taken hostage by the authorities, who recklessly ignore the medical needs of those in custody. Denying medical care to political prisoners is cruel and utterly indefensible,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program. “Prisoners’ access to health care is a right enshrined in both international and Iranian law. When depriving a prisoner of medical care causes severe pain or suffering and it is intentionally done for purposes such as punishment, intimidation or to extract a forced ‘confession’, it constitutes torture,” he added.
The report details 18 appalling cases of prisoners who have been denied medical care in some form and are at risk of suffering permanent damage to their health.
The report provides a deeply disturbing image of the Office of the Prosecutor, which in Iran is responsible for decisions concerning medical leave and hospital transfers. The Office of the Prosecutor often refuses to authorize hospital transfers for sick prisoners even though the care they need is not available in prison, and denies requests for medical leave for critically ill prisoners against doctors’ advice.
Amnesty International’s research found that in some cases prison officials had also violated prisoners’ rights to health, or were responsible for torture or other ill-treatment. In several cases, they withheld medication from political prisoners or unnecessarily used restraints such as handcuffs and leg shackles on political prisoners, interfering with their medical treatment, bruising theirs hands and feet or causing them discomfort and humiliation.
Prisoners interviewed by Amnesty International also said that prison doctors were sometimes complicit in the abuse. They said some prison doctors consistently downplayed or outright dismissed their health problems as “figments of their own imagination” and treated serious conditions with painkillers or tranquillizers. The report reveals that women political prisoners, at least in Tehran’s Evin Prison where the clinic is entirely staffed by male doctors and nurses, face additional barriers to accessing medical care. On several occasions women prisoners, who experienced health problems, were denied emergency medical tests or other treatment because it was deemed inappropriate for them to be treated by male medical staff. Women were also subjected to sexual slurs and harassment for failing to comply with strict veiling regulations.
“The Iranian authorities and in particular the prosecution authorities have displayed a chilling ruthlessness in their attitude towards sick prisoners. They are toying with individuals’ lives with devastating, lasting consequences to their health,” said Luther.
“Iran’s authorities must immediately stop using the denial of medical care as a form of punishment or coercion and ensure all people in custody are able to access adequate health care without discrimination.”
Many political prisoners suffering from health conditions have felt that they have had no choice but to go on hunger strike to compel the authorities to provide them with medical care, Amnesty International said. Hunger strikes are usually greeted with indifference but in some cases the authorities have eventually granted the hunger striker short-term medical leave, then forced them to interrupt their treatment by returning them to prison after a brief period against medical advice.
In some cases prisoners were punished for going on hunger strike, it said.
Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian regime to immediately stop denying prisoners access to adequate medical care, in line with its international obligations. The authorities must investigate the prosecution authorities and all other officials – including medical staff – who may be involved in deliberately denying medical care to prisoners, the rights group said. Scores of political prisoners affiliated to the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) have gone on hunger strike on many occasions in the past year in protest inhumane conditions and duress in the regime’s prisons. There have also been continuous reports on the mistreatment of other political prisoners from ethnic and religious minorities, in particular Kurdish and Sunni prisoners.

Iran regime deports 80 Afghans attending Eid al-Fitr celebration
Monday, 18 July 2016/NCRI - Iran's fundamentalist regime has expelled a group of 80 Afghan nationals who were arrested earlier this month while attending an Eid al-Fitr celebration in a village north-west of Tehran to mark the end of Ramadan.
Eid al-Fitr was celebrated in Iran on July 6. The 80 Afghan nationals were rounded up by the regime's suppressive State Security Forces as they were “dancing” during a celebration in a village near the city of Qazvin, according to Bahman Ashayeri, the provincial governorate's head of immigration. "Given that those present at this party where travelling illegally in Qazvin Province, following the necessary coordinations they were transferred to Asgarabad Prison in Varamin and were deported from the country," the state-run ISNA news agency quoted Ashayeri as saying on Sunday, July 17. Some 35 young men and women were flogged in May for taking part in a mixed-gender party after their graduation ceremony near Qazvin city, some 140 kilometers northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran, the regime's Prosecutor in the city said on May 26.
Ismaeil Sadeqi Niaraki, a notorious mullah, said a special court session was held after all the young men and women at the party were rounded up, the Mizan news agency, affiliated to the fundamentalist regime's judiciary, reported on May 26. "After we received information that a large number of men and women were mingling in a villa in the suburbs of Qazvin ... all the participants at the party were arrested," he said. Niaraki added that the following morning every one of those detained received 99 lashes as punishment by the so-called 'Morality Police.' According to Niaraki, given the social significance of mixed-gender partying, "this once again required a firm response by the judiciary in quickly reviewing and implementing the law." "Thanks God that the police questioning, investigation, court hearing, verdict and implementation of the punishment all took place in less than 24 hours," Niaraki added.
The regime’s prosecutor claimed that the judiciary would not tolerate the actions of “law-breakers who use excuses such as freedom and having fun in birthday parties and graduation ceremonies.”Similar raids have been carried out on mixed-gender parties across Iran in recent weeks.

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 18-19/16

Pokemon, fatwas and terrorism
Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/July 18/16
In the aftermath of the new terror attack in France, the issue of eradicating Islamist terrorism is once more brought to the forefront. This attack comes a couple of weeks after the terror attacks in Iraq and Madinah, collectively claiming hundreds of lives.The response toward the attack in Nice, France, was predictable. Most Muslims distanced themselves from the crime allegedly perpetrated in the name of Islam, a vocal minority blamed Western aggression against Islam and Muslims, radical politicians called for more restrictions on Muslims, and moderate politicians called for restraint and distinguishing between 99.99 percent of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and the 0.01 percent responsible for such carnage. Muslims condemning the attack have reiterated the need for a unanimous fatwa (religious edict) excommunicating terrorists. Such calls have been frequently made, and are being considered as an important prerequisite to ending terror in the name of Islam. Such calls assume that Muslim clerics have influence on would-be terrorists, and that a threat of excommunication would be a deterrent. There are also stronger calls to punish clerics who issue fatwas encouraging terrorism.
The focus on fatwas is based on the premise that clerics have a strong hold on the conscience of the average Muslim, and that a Muslim would thus abide by their edicts. This premise has been the basis of various efforts by clerics to play a role in de-radicalization and eradicating terrorism. It has also been a basis of laws, policies and budget allocations made by various governments in Muslim countries, tracking and punishing radical fatwas and encouraging moderate ones. Such efforts are commendable and important in the process of developing a moderate discourse among Muslims in the long run. However, it will not be useful for the purposes of de-radicalization and eradicating terrorism, and not even for inoculating Muslims from the influence of the radical Islamist discourse promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, or by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
If we want to eradicate terrorism, we need to stop speaking about religion and focus solely on ideology.
Firstly, it is not religion that motivates terrorism, it is ideology. The difference between them cannot be overstated. Religion primarily defines one’s relation to God, and ideology primarily defines one’s course of political action. What motivates religious action is piety, and what motivates ideological action is the perception of oppression, real or imagined. A fatwa will not resonate with an actual or potential terrorist because it belongs to a different sphere; it attempts to influence one motivated by a perception of oppression using a statement that speaks to a motivation of piety.
Clerical influence
Secondly, even if we assume that some terrorists are religiously motivated, the fact is that clerics have lost their influence over Muslims. Anyone comparing the lives of most Muslims worldwide and clerical fatwas will see that. An example is a fatwa a few days ago prohibiting Pokemon Go.
The response from lay Muslims varied from outright ridicule to rejection. Many Muslims used the edict to emphasize individual religiosity, and dismantling clerical authority and the institution of the fatwa. This is merely one example among scores that illustrate clerical status. We can debate the authenticity of that fatwa and its context, but the point is that many Muslims believed it to be authentic and responded to it as such. Fatwas that incite terrorism are influential not because Muslims abide by edicts or bind themselves to clerics. That fatwa resonated with an ideological impulse, or - as in most cases - was initiated by an ideologized cleric in the spirit of resisting a perceived oppression, not in the spirit of piety. If we want to eradicate terrorism, we need to stop speaking about religion and focus solely on ideology. Otherwise we are wasting our time, and more significantly, doing little to stop the next terrorist attack.
**Abdullah Hamidaddin is a writer and commentator on religion, Middle Eastern societies and politics with a focus on Saudi Arabia and Yemen. He is currently a PhD candidate in King’s College London.

The Sept. 11 road began from Tehran
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/July 18/16
Tehran has been dealt a severe blow with confirmation that Saudi Arabia was not involved in any way in the Sept. 11 attacks. “US intelligence officials have finished reviewing 28 classified pages of the official report on the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and they show no evidence of Saudi complicity,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Terrorism sponsor
Tehran is trying to involve others in its crimes and create a distraction from its own involvement. Iran is reported to have sheltered 500 al-Qaeda members and leaders, and is the most prominent supporter of Hezbollah, whose military leaders met with late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Sudan and trained the organization’s best group in South Lebanon on guerrilla warfare and targeting buildings. Tehran has been dealt a severe blow with confirmation that Saudi Arabia was not involved in any way in the Sept. 11 attacks Iran appears to have been silent regarding the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and, it seems, has “normalized” ties with the group. It protects the journeys of leaders from terror organizations from Afghanistan to Iraq and Yemen. Iran hosted high-ranking al-Qaeda official Saif al-Adel, protects Bin Laden’s son Hamza, and looks after militant Saleh al-Qaarawi. Iran is the world’s top sponsor of terrorism. This article was first published in Okaz on July 18, 2016.

Who stands behind the betrayal of Syrians?
Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor
I am beginning to smell something nasty cooking, which if I am correct would amount to a betrayal of the Syrian people’s aspirations and those who have fought valiantly for their freedom. Washington and its allies seem to be taking the line: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”Confronted with economic woes and terrorist attacks, Ankara is in the mood to forgive and forget. It bent over backward to restore relations with Moscow, which were cut following Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane. Although Ankara swore not to re-establish relations with Israel unless the blockade of Gaza was lifted, it has made up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a six-year dispute over Israel’s storming of a Turkish vessel out to break the siege. I was shocked to hear of a third about-face in the offing. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the government was considering mending fences with the Syrian regime. “It’s our greatest and irrevocable goal: developing good relations with Syria and Iraq,” he said. “We normalized relations with Russia and Israel. I’m sure we’ll normalize relations with Syria as well. For the fight against terrorism to succeed, stability needs to return to Syria and Iraq.” Yildirim did later clarify that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would have to step down as a prerequisite to normalization. Now that terrorists, once cared for in Turkey’s hospitals “for humanitarian reasons,” are biting the hand that treated their brethren, the Assad regime’s responsibility for the deaths of 400,000 Syrians is of secondary importance.
Unwelcome alliance?
Meanwhile, the White House is courting Moscow in the hope of forging a military alliance to eviscerate al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra – described by the Washington Post as the most successful rebel force against the regime – and other extremist groups. Terrorists should have no place in Syria or anywhere else. However, while I have nothing against a US-Russian bombing campaign in principle, its prime target should be regime forces, whose bombs have reduced entire neighborhoods to blood-soaked rubble. If this partnership gets off the ground, it will benefit Assad. This month, he said the United States was not Syria’s enemy, and Western countries deal with Syria “through back channels.” It is notable that US Secretary of State John Kerry no longer insists that Assad must step down, and President Barack Obama’s demands have lost their vigour. Suspicions that the Obama administration has gone soft on the regime are gaining traction. The question is whether Washington, Ankara and Moscow are new partners in what I consider to be nothing short of a crime. If mainly Sunni opposition forces feel there is a conspiracy afoot to bolster Assad, they will lose heart. Why should they sacrifice their lives for a lost cause? Facing retribution, their only option would be to flee with their families to find a safe haven. I hope I am wrong, but if Assad remains in power Syria’s Sunni population will be reduced further than it has already been. Like Iraq, it will fall under Shiite domination and be subsumed into Iran’s sphere of influence. Together with Russia, Iran is succeeding in cleansing Syria of a major Sunni presence, a strategy now being rubber-stamped by the United States and other Western countries.
Refugees
Those millions of refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq will find their dreams of returning home shattered. The million-plus refugees in Europe have discovered they are unwanted, mistrusted and feared. Many who were joyous upon arrival in Germany are heartbroken to find there is no prospect of their families being permitted to join them. Turkey is mulling offering citizenship to 300,000 wealthy, highly-educated or skilled Syrians. Others, particularly the best and brightest, are being resettled in the West, where they might be treated as second-class citizens and objects of hate for far-right groups. They are the lifeblood of Syria’s future. Syrians are a proud people. Their greatest wish is to go home to resume their lives. They did not choose to be refugees. They are treated not as human beings but as statistics. It is not their fault they are reduced to subsisting often in dire conditions, lacking schooling for their children and anything other than basic medical care. Generations have been traumatized, and their children will always struggle to erase the scars etched in their memories.
Failure
The so-called international community has failed to end the conflict. The big powers have been impotent to stop it. The result is the creation of a ticking time bomb, another Palestinian-style diaspora on a far greater scale and with far greater consequences. The Palestinians never relinquished their identity or soil. Neither will Syrians. Their collective pain and loss will be their legacy, passed on over the coming decades. The tragedy is that with international resolve and unity of purpose, Syria could have been saved. Hundreds of thousands were needlessly lost and almost half the population displaced. Each country involved, many of which were willing participants in illegal wars, shied away from committing to a just fight to keep innocents from being slaughtered. It seems some are now secretly shaking hands with the slaughterer. I appeal to leaders of good conscience to intervene fast, before the underhand deals with the devil are signed and sealed. Assad must go so the living can rebuild and the lives of the martyred were not sacrificed in vain. The prophet’s companion Khalid ibn al-Walid – a brilliant military commander who defended Mesopotamia from Persian conquest and smashed the Byzantine occupying forces in Syria – must be turning in his grave. Never have the honorable and brave been so sorely needed.

Al-Qaeda: The Original ‘Social Justice Warrior’
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/July 18/16
After the Orlando massacre, when an armed Muslim killed 49 people in a homosexual nightclub, al-Qaeda published a guide urging more such “lone wolf” attacks, but with one caveat: to exclusively target white Americans. According to the jihadi group’s online publication, “Inspire guide: Orlando operation,” killing homosexuals is “the most binding duty.” Nonetheless, would be jihadis are advised to “avoid targeting places and crowds where minorities are generally found in America,” and rather to target “areas where the Anglo-Saxon community is generally concentrated.” Several talking heads and pundits responded by warning that al-Qaeda is shifting gear, somehow trying to portray itself as a “social justice warrior.” In fact, al-Qaeda has long presented itself to the West in this manner, and these latest guidelines are hardly new. Rather, they help explain the real differences between al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the stage of jihad they see themselves in. Although The Al Qaeda Reader documents al-Qaeda’s dual approach—preach unrelenting jihad to Muslims, whine about grievances to Westerners—a nearly decade-old communique from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is sufficient. In it, he spoke to the many “under-privileged” of the world:
That’s why I want blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world, to know that when we wage jihad in Allah’s path, we aren’t waging jihad to lift oppression from Muslims only; we are waging jihad to lift oppression from all mankind, because Allah has ordered us never to accept oppression, whatever it may be…This is why I want every oppressed one on the face of the earth to know that our victory over America and the Crusading West — with Allah’s permission — is a victory for them, because they shall be freed from the most powerful tyrannical force in the history of mankind.
American blacks, however, were Zawahiri’s primary targets. Zawahiri praised and quoted from the convert to Islam, Malcolm X: “Anytime you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something you have to do for yourself. The price of freedom is death.”
The al-Qaeda leader appealed to another potentially sympathetic segment: environmentalists: “[The U.S.] went out and ruined for the entire world, the atmosphere and climate with the gases emitted by its factories,” said the terror leader. Years, earlier Osama bin Laden himself complained about the U.S.’ failure to sign the Kyoto protocols: “You [the U.S.] have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history.”
What does this ostensibly disparate group of people—“third worlders,” environmentalists, and disaffected American blacks—have in common? They all harbor anti-Western sentiments that can be exploited by the jihadis. Hence why al-Qaeda is again reaffirming that, while killing homosexuals is “the most binding duty,” it’s still best to continue targeting non-minorities in America, i.e., traditional whites, they who are so easy to demonize. He used the same strategy in Egypt in 2014. During a particularly bad bout of Christian persecution—dozens of churches were burned—Zawahiri counseled Egypt’s Muslims to stop attacking the Coptic Christians. The al-Qaeda leader who on numerous occasions had exhibited his antipathy for Christians made clear his call was for “PR” purposes, for the jihad’s image in the West.
While agreeing to the most draconian of Sharia’s tenets, al-Qaeda also knows that many of these—for example, the destruction of churches and subjugation of “infidel” Christians—need to be curtailed or hidden from the Western world. Otherwise al-Qaeda’s efforts of portraying jihadis as “freedom fighters” resisting an oppressive West risk being undermined.
On the other hand, ISIS (or al-Qaeda 2.0) represents the unapologetic and indifferent to Western opinion jihad. By widely broadcasting its savage triumphalism in the name of Islam, ISIS forfeits the “social warrior” card and instead plays the “strength” card, thus inspiring hundreds of millions of Muslims, according to polls. Put differently, al-Qaeda was born at a time when deceiving the West about the aims of the jihad was deemed necessary; ISIS has been born at a time when deceiving an already passive West is no longer deemed important. Time will tell which strategy is better.

Turkey's Manipulation of Europe, Then and Now
Efraim Karsh/The Times Literary Supplement/July 18/16
Originally published on June 24 under the title "Holding the Balance of Power: Turkey's Complicating Relationship with Europe during the First World War and Since."
It is a historical irony that, for the second time in a century, Turkey is exploiting a major international crisis to manipulate the most powerful European nation into a hugely misconceived and self-defeating policy.
Having exacerbated the Syrian civil war by allowing jihadists of all hues to cross Turkish territory to fight his friend-turned-nemesis Bashar al-Assad, then spurred a massive humanitarian crisis by allowing hundreds of thousands of Syrian refuges (and assorted Middle Eastern migrants camped in Turkey) to infiltrate Europe illegally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan capitalized on Chancellor Merkel's recoil from her "open door" migration policy to extract substantial financial and political concessions from the European Union that, if fully implemented, will irreversibly change the EU's demographic and cultural identity.
Ottoman culpability for the outbreak of the First World War was of course infinitely smaller, yet the ailing Muslim empire was equally adroit in harnessing German vulnerabilities and anxieties to its advantage. In The Ottoman Endgame, Sean McMeekin lays bare the full extent of Istanbul's manipulation and deceit, beginning with its success in goading Berlin into a secret defence alliance unpalatable to most German decision-makers, including the Chancellor, the Foreign Minister, the Ambassador to Istanbul, and numerous senior officers who considered the Ottoman army a "problem child."
Sean McMeekin, The Ottoman Endgame. 550 pp. Allen Lane. £30, 9-781846-147050.
He shows, for example, how the Ottoman Minister of War, Enver Pasha, clinched the alliance treaty by promising to turn over to Germany the soon-to-be-delivered UK-built Ottoman flagship, knowing full well that the vessel had been requisitioned by London; and how, immediately after signing the agreement, the Ottomans extracted a string of far-reaching concessions, left out of the preceding negotiations lest they prevent the treaty's conclusion, by allowing two German warships into the Dardanelles (in contravention of the 1841 London Convention stipulating the closure of the straits to military vessels), only to have them incorporated into the Ottoman navy so as to comply with Istanbul's declaration of neutrality - made in flagrant violation of the nascent alliance treaty.
Indeed, in order to get their ally to comply with its contractual obligation to join the war, the Germans had to pour vast quantities of weapons and money into the bottomless Ottoman pit and had to endure months of insinuated threats of defection before the Sultan declared war on the Anglo-French-Russian Triple Entente on November 10, 1914.
Nor was the objective balance of power between the two allies reflected in the actual relationship between them throughout the war. Quite the reverse; in line with their long-established practice of using their perennial weakness as a lever for winning concessions from powerful allies, the Ottomans exploited their First World War setbacks to attract ever-growing military, economic, and political support from Berlin for paltry returns.
The Ottomans exploited their wartime setbacks to attract greater military and economic support from Berlin.
Thus, for example, in the late-war negotiations on the renewal of the bilateral alliance, Istanbul secured the reiteration and expansion of the original German pledges as well as a commitment both to avoid a separate peace treaty and to accord the Ottoman Empire vast territorial gains in Thrace, Macedonia, and Transcaucasia. Similarly, in the summer of 1917, when Enver set out to establish a special 120,000-strong new army, code-named Yilderim ("Thunderbolt"), the Germans agreed to assign to it thousands of troops despite their great reluctance to divert any forces from the main theatre of war in Europe.
Last but not least, the Germans so resented the Ottoman foray into Transcaucasia following Russia's departure from the war in the wake of the October 1917 Revolution that they threatened to withdraw all their officers from the Ottoman Empire were it to march on the Azeri capital of Baku, and planned to resist such a move "with all available means," including sabotaging the railways used to supply the Turkish army. These attempts at influence, however, came to naught as Istanbul considered Transcaucasia the natural preserve for its imperial ambitions, going so far as to order its forces to engage in battle any German units that stood in their way.
McMeekin's meticulous documentation of this pushing and shoving goes a considerable way to discrediting the conventional paradigm of Ottoman victimhood. Yet he seems reluctant to follow his factual findings to their logical conclusion. "The decision by Turkish statesmen to enter the war in 1914 is best understood as a last gasp effort to stave off decline and partition by harnessing German might against the more dangerous powers with designs on Ottoman territory - Russia, Britain, and France (in roughly that order)", he writes. "Given the security problems facing the empire in 1914, there was no realistic scenario in which it could have endured indefinitely on some kind of status quo ante, only bad and worse options."
Istanbul's plunge into World War I was a straightforward attempt to revive imperial glory and regain lost territories.
This conclusion is hardly supported by the historical facts (or, indeed, by The Ottoman Endgame's narrative). Far from a desperate bid to stave off partition by the European powers (merely a year before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain and Russia prevented the destruction of the Ottoman Empire by its former Balkan subjects), Istanbul's plunge into the whirlpool was a straightforward attempt to revive imperial glory and regain lost territories. Had the Ottomans stayed out of the conflict, as begged by the Triple Entente, they would have readily weathered the storm and the region's future development might well have taken a different course.
No empire can of course endure indefinitely and the Ottoman Empire was no exception to this rule. Yet, having lost its European colonies well before the First World War, it faced no intrinsic threat to its continued existence for the simple reason that its mostly Muslim Arabic-speaking Afro-Asian subject population was almost totally impervious to the national idea - the ultimate foe of empires in modern times and the force that had driven the Ottomans out of Europe.
Even more far-fetched is the author's speculation that in the event of a German victory "a semi-victorious Britain (whatever this creative euphemism means) may still have picked off Ottoman Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria in exchange for accepting the German position in Russia and Ukraine." For one thing, there is no reason to assume that a victorious Germany would have shown greater magnanimity to a defeated Britain (or France) than that accorded to it by the two powers. For another, having shown no interest in colonizing the Ottoman Empire before the world conflict, Britain remained wedded to its continued existence for months after Istanbul's entry into the war, leaving it to a local Meccan potentate - Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of the Hashemite family - to push the idea of its destruction.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk extricated Turkey from its imperial past reestablished it as a modern, largely secularist nation-state.
In his concluding comments, McMeekin rightly deems Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's extrication of Turkey from its imperial past and its reestablishment as a modern, largely secularist nation-state to have been a resounding success. What he fails to note, however, is that for quite some time this legacy has been under sustained assault. In the thirteen eventful years since it first came to power in November 2002, Erdoğan's Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has largely undone Atatürk's secularist reforms; transformed Turkey's legal system; suppressed the independent media; sterilized the political and military systems; and embarked on an aggressive foreign policy blending anti-Western rhetoric with Neo-Ottoman ambition to "reintegrate the Balkan region, Middle East and Caucasus... together with Turkey as the centre of world politics in the future" (in the words of Foreign-Minister-turned-Prime-Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu).
This in turn means that while for Atatürk and his erstwhile successors Turkish-European relations, notably Ankara's bid for EU membership, were a matter of political and cultural affinity on top of anything else, for the AKP these relations are strictly instrumental: a springboard both for harnessing European economic and financial resources to the AKP's grand ambitions without real reciprocation, not unlike Istanbul's First World War alliance with Berlin, and for establishing an Islamist bridgehead in Europe with a view to its gradual expansion. As Davutoğlu told a large gathering of Swiss Turks in January 2015:
Islam is Europe's indigenous religion, and it will continue to be so... I kiss the foreheads of my brothers who carried the tekbir [i.e., the call Allahu Akbar] to Zurich... How holy those people were, who came and sowed the seeds here, which will, with Allah's help, continue to grow into a huge tree of justice in the centre of Europe. No one will be able to stop this... We will enter the EU with our language, our traditions, and our religion... Would we ever sacrifice one iota of that culture? With Allah's grace, we will never bow our heads.
***Efraim Karsh is emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at Kings College London, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, and principal research fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Was Turkey's coup attempt just an elaborate hoax by Erdogan?
Cengiz Çandar/Al-Monitor/July 18/16
While the Turkish coup was underway, The New York Times was asking me whether I was surprised, expecting my answer to be, “Of course I am.”
I bluntly wanted to respond “No” and remind New York Times correspondent Sabrina Tavernise that only two weeks ago, in our lengthy chat in Istanbul, I had told her of the “Faustian bargain President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan made with the military, which therefore, in my opinion, opened the way for a coup or a coup attempt to take place in Turkey within the upcoming two years.”
But I conceded and told her, “Yes, I’m surprised. I did not expect that to happen in two weeks.”
More surprising for me is the amateurishness of the attempted coup on the night of July 15. As a veteran observer of military coups and coup attempts in Turkey, I have never seen any with this magnitude of such inexplicable sloppiness.
The first coup occurred on May 27, 1960; the most ferocious one was on Sept. 12, 1980. Another military intervention occurred March 12, 1971 — I was one of its victims — and came to be known as the “postmodern coup.” I was given the reputation of coining this name thanks to a title I had used in one of my articles about the two aborted coup attempts in February 1962 and May 1963 that led to exchanges of fire in my neighborhood in Ankara, as our house was overlooking the premises of the War Academy, whose cadets had taken part in the failed attempts. Neither one of those occasions seemed so unprofessionally executed and really bizarre as this one.
Everyone observing the last attempt could not help but ask, “What is this? Who is behind this? What are they doing? Why?”
In no previous military coup or coup attempt in Turkey’s history has parliament been bombed by military helicopters and fighter jets.
Why did the coup attempt begin with blocking one side of Istanbul's Bosporus Bridge? Why was the passage from the Asian side to Europe blocked while the passage from Europe to Asia was allowed to flow?
Why did the putschists — knowing that Erdogan was neither in Ankara nor Istanbul but instead spending his vacation in the Mediterranean seaside town of Marmaris — not move to detain him? They let him travel from Marmaris to the nearby Dalaman airport and then fly to Istanbul on a flight that took over an hour.
Why did the putschists not seize the main TV news channels and instead waste precious time taking over the least-watched state TV channel, TRT, allowing their targets to regroup and use more popular channels and social media effectively to challenge the coup attempt?
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim spoke first on the NTV channel, alleging that it was not a coup but a rebellion perpetrated by a small faction in the military. Erdogan then spoke through CNN-Turk via FaceTime and called on his supporters to take to the streets.
Seemingly a headless and disoriented coup attempt crumbled after a few hours, leaving 265 dead, some 1,440 wounded and at least 2,839 military personnel in custody.
The failed attempt left more questions behind rather than plausible answers as to who perpetrated it and why it was executed so sloppily and poorly.
Although the coup attempt foundered, the damages inflicted are grave. First, the reputation of Turkey as the bastion of stability in a volatile region where military takeovers are a relic of the past is over. The country’s image is tarnished, and nobody can assure impossibility of a coup or a coup attempt in the future.
Erdogan and Yildirim unhesitatingly pointed to Fethullah Gulen, a cleric and former ally who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania for the last 18 years. The Turkish leaders implied that they would seek his extradition from Washington.
I read a tweet from AFP's White House correspondent Andrew Beatty that Kerry offered US help in investigating the coup and urged Erdogan to present evidence against Gulen.
It is a challenging task indeed. It is not very convincing that key positions in the military of Turkey — a NATO force second only to the United States in terms of its numbers and believed to be a formidable institution — are controlled by an Islamic faction.
Over 40 generals are among some 3,000 putschists arrested. One of them is a four-star general who commands the second army responsible for the regions next to Syria and Iraq. Dozens of brigadiers and major generals commanding mainly combat troops of land forces, gendarmerie units fighting Kurdish insurgents, and combat units of the navy and air force can hardly be classified as Gulenists. Another four-star general — a commander of the third army — was also arrested yesterday. The first army commander, who is in charge of defending Istanbul and had declared his allegiance to the government on the night of the coup, asked Erdogan to come to Istanbul where his safety would be assured, thereby playing a decisive role in the collapse of the attempt.
Twenty-four hours had not passed after the collapse of the coup attempt when 140 judges — judges of the Court of Appeals and 48 judges of the Council of State, two of the highest judiciary institutions — were taken into custody. Summarily purged from the judiciary apparatus were another 2,475 judges. A member of the Constitutional Court, the highest institution of the judiciary, was arrested and charged with association with the putschists.
The swiftness and scope of the action of the executive branch was remarkable. It gave the impression that Erdogan and the government were prepared for a coup attempt and had ample intelligence as to who in the state system would be associated with it.
Looking at the 2,839 military personnel under arrest, including scores of generals who commanded the combat units of a NATO army, it is quite bizarre that no security bureaucracy from the military intelligence to the National Intelligence Organization, the General Directorate of Security and Special Forces Command had a clue that a coup was being hatched at such a magnitude.
Such matters awaiting convincing answers naturally aroused conspiracy theories. A particular interesting one is this: "The way you launch a coup is pretty straightforward. First you grab the leader, then the media outlets, then you exhibit the humiliated leader in the media. Instead, these people decided to throw the coup while Erdogan was on vacation and apparently didn’t even attempt to secure him. By the time the coup began, he was already taken to a secret location. Then the whole thing went straight to hell very quickly. The coup told people to go home, while Erdogan told his people to go to the streets. So the coup supporters were at home, while the Erdogan supporters were out on the streets. The coup also reportedly fired on civilians, which is also something you definitely do not want to do. That makes even people who were inclined to support it turn against it. In short, the whole thing could not have been better arranged for Erdogan himself, who now looks like a hero of the people. As such, it seems to me the most likely possibility is that Erdogan — presumably with the blessing of Western forces — worked with some of his own people in the military to arrange a coup hoax."
It sounds outrageous to everybody who is in a mood to celebrate the victory of democracy over a military coup, the victory of the people over a “handful of traitors,” to suggest that the attempted Turkish coup actually was an arranged coup hoax.
As long as more questions than convincing answers remain and until the dust clears, an abundance of such conspiracy theories should not be surprising.

Why Turkey's coup didn't stand a chance
Metin Gurcan//Al-Monitor/July 18/16
On the night of July 15, Turkey passed a major democracy test that included a coup attempt, an uprising and the worst terror ever against its citizens. Thousands of Turkish citizens who took to the streets that night — despite the warnings of the coup plotters to stay indoors and obey the curfew — gave the clearest message: Those who came with elections, will leave with elections.
The coup attempt saw the use of tanks, heavy armor, and assault helicopters and warplanes, mostly in Ankara and Istanbul; 161 people were killed, 1,440 wounded and 2,839 soldiers of various ranks, mostly conscript privates, were detained. In addition, 104 coup forces were killed.
On the morning of July 17, as this article was penned, clashes had ended but detentions were continuing. The last bastions of the coup at the Chief of Staff headquarters in Ankara and at Akincilar air base, which is 20 kilometers (roughly 12 miles) from Ankara, were recovered and life was quickly returning to normal.
The first indications that something was happening on the night of July 15 around 10 p.m. local time was when the media began reporting the closure by soldiers and tanks of two bridges in Istanbul that link Asia to Europe. Turkish air space was declared closed and military planes were in the sky. Like everyone else, I first thought that Turkey was experiencing another plane hijacking. But soon reports of clashes at the bridges and strategic points in Ankara and Istanbul indicated that this was something very different. What it was became clearer when Prime Minister Binali Yildirim appeared on major TV networks around 11 p.m. He said it was a coup attempt by a faction of the military in an attempt to take over the political rule of the country. Later, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on live TV that the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETO) led by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen was behind the coup attempt, and called on the people to take to the streets to save democracy. Civilians responded bravely and came out and marched to the areas where the clashes were taking place, especially in Istanbul and Ankara. As time passed, a more dangerous situation developed. For the first time in its history, Turkey witnessed the bombing of its parliament by F-16s. A Turkish F-16 shot down a Turkish Sikorsky helicopter, and officers in a Black Hawk helicopter sought asylum in Greece.
Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar was informed about the coup attempt around 5 p.m. but did not want to leave his headquarters. Akar and Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Guler were seized and then taken into custody by the junta, who locked them up at the Akincilar air base near Ankara. Similarly, Commander of the Land Forces Gen. Salih Zeki Colak, Gendarmerie Commander Gen. Galip Mendi, Commander of the Air Force Abidin Unal and Commander of the Turkish Naval Forces Bulent Bostanoglu were taken into custody by the plotters. A coup declaration on the official internet site of the High Command around 3 a.m. and a communique aired by TRT state TV announced that the military had taken over the rule of the country under its chain of command. Eventually, the street clashes eased and small military groups were arrested by the police. Life began turning back to normal around noon on July 16.
Though the final answer to this crucial question will be known after the legal investigations have taken place, I believe that the clique behind this coup consists of FETO-affiliated officers and a group of officers some of who want to save their military careers and personal interests and some of who are truly dedicated to secular values and who were opposed to Erdogan. Whether Gulen was behind it all will be determined in time, but no doubt he was a source of inspiration. There are serious allegations that Lt. Gen. Metin Iyidil, the head of the Land Forces Training and Doctrine Command in Ankara, and former Legal Counsel of the Chief of General Staff Col. Muharrem Kose, who was removed from his post in May 2016 on accusations of FETO membership, played key roles in the uprising.
The highest-ranking generals who were detained in this coup attempt, which was not backed by Akar and other branch commanders, are Gen. Akin Ozturk, who until last year was the commander of the air force; Gen. Adem Huduti, commander of the second army responsible for combating terror in the southeast; and Lt. Gen. Erdal Ozturk, the commander of the third army corps in Istanbul. In addition, another four-star general, the commander of the third army, was also detained. Roughly one-third of the 220 brigadier generals in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and about 10 major generals were detained. These numbers indicate that although they did not have the support of the Chief of General Staff and other key commanders, the plotters had significant support in the ranks of brigadiers and colonels. Large number of majors and lieutenant colonels were also taken into custody.
Among the clique, air force personnel that constitute 8% of the TSK and the gendarmerie that constitute 15% of TSK particularly play an important role. What was missing from the coup forces was adequate participation from the land forces, which make up 65% of the TSK.
According to some reports, if the coup had succeeded, Ozturk, the former air force commander who currently does not occupy a post, was to be appointed as the Chief of General Staff.
Why did the coup attempt fail?
The following developments on the night of July 15 caused the coup attempt to fail:
The fate of the coup was determined by Gen. Umit Dundar, the commander of the first army in Istanbul who called Erdogan, who was on holiday in the Mediterranean resort of Marmaris, to brief him on the events; he persuaded him to come to Istanbul where his safety would be assured — instead of trying to reach Ankara. Thanks to this early warning, Erdogan quickly left Marmaris. The coup forces raided his hotel an hour after he had left it. Erdogan’s quick departure to Istanbul was one of the key elements of disrupting the coup plans.
Dundar appeared calm and informative during the press conference that was broadcast live on TV, when he declared the coup illegitimate. He said the attempt was out of the TSK's chain of command and that top commanders were being held hostage by the plotters.
Erdogan took the risk of taking about an hour-long flight from Marmaris to Istanbul, which was a relatively secure location for him given his service as the Istanbul mayor in 1994-98 and the third army’s actions to suppress the uprising there.
Most of the soldiers were conscripts who were told they were sent out into the streets “because of an exercise or a terror activity.” Small units in the streets made up of young soldiers doing their compulsory military service and who were led by junior commanders were surprised and disoriented when confronted with the opposition of the police and the masses of irate citizens. They quickly lost control.
The anti-coup reporting of mainstream TV channels offered the government a psychological advantage.
The efforts of the citizens and police persuaded and compelled the soldiers at strategic points — the bridges over the Bosporus, Istanbul Ataturk airport, Ankara’s Kizilay Square as well the presidential compound — to end their operations. The coverage of this courageous resistance of the people and police by TV channels reinforced the government’s efforts.
The opposition political parties refused to support the coup attempt.
The Land Forces Command, which carries the most weight in the TSK, lacked support.
What else may have prompted the coup attempt?
The plotters did not have a proper chain of command and could not coordinate their actions; they did not have an operations center. The junta that appeared to be focused on Ankara and Istanbul could not exploit the element of surprise it had achieved between 10 p.m. and midnight, which gave the impression the coup attempt was a hastily hatched kamikaze effort.
Why now?
The indictment July 14 against the Gulenists within the TSK, as part of the Izmir espionage case, facilitated the coup attempt.
According to reliable sources who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, had there not been a coup attempt July 15 there would have been massive detentions on July 16-17, prompted by the espionage case. These sources claim that the prosecutor of the espionage case in Izmir had already secured Erdogan's approval to order mass arrests before the approaching Supreme Military Council meeting on Aug. 1-4, which would have decided on the next round of promotions and appointments within the TSK. The plotters learned of this plan and launched their sloppy and uncoordinated attempt hastily. In other words, the coup attempt that was planned for a future date was moved up.
What if it had succeeded?
If it had succeeded, the TSK would have split. The shooting down of a Sikorsky helicopter by an F-16 supporting the government was a signal. Moreover, the coup forces did not have any other option than opening fire to suppress the civilians on the streets in response to the government's call. If the coup had succeeded, Turkey could have found itself in a bloody civil war.
The inevitable political uncertainty and instability that would have followed the success of a coup would have had earthquake effects on Turkey’s struggle against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State, and on its foreign relations in general.
Why did the National Intelligence Organization and the General Staff not know about the junta? The existence of the Gulenist structure within the TSK has been known for a long time, including the identities of its key members. While the government was probably planning to launch a massive purge against the Gulenists in the TSK during the Supreme Military Council meeting, providing a sense of comfort to commanders and the government, Ankara obviously did not believe that a junta would undertake such madness. The command level did not expect such a widespread and uncoordinated uprising that included most of the combat brigade commanders.
What is next?
Was it democracy or Erdogan that was the winner on July 15? We will find out when the steps Erdogan plans to take are revealed.
The course of combat against the PKK may change. The only key question asked by pro-Kurdish social media accounts on the night of July 15 was whether the situation would affect their imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
We must take note finally of the phenomenal trauma the TSK is experiencing now. Traditionally, the TSK has been an institution emulating Western modernization with a pro-West and robust secular outlook. Could the current situation cause an identity crisis in the TSK? Can the TSK’s secular character be diluted and make the Turkish military more sensitive to religion? And can purges expected after the coup attempt turn the TSK more toward Eurasia and push it toward a more nonaligned and anti-Western orientation?

Palestinians: The Power Struggle between Young Guard and Old Guard
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/July 18/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8478/palestinians-power-struggle
Who is supplying Mohamed Dahlan with money? The United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is their cash that has enabled Palestinians in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to purchase weapons and buy loyalty for Dahlan in preparation for the post-Abbas era -- especially disgruntled young Fatah activists in the West Bank who feel that Abbas and the PA leadership have turned their backs on them.
This power struggle will not end with the departure of Mahmoud Abbas. The next Palestinian president will surely be one of Abbas's current loyalists. This in itself will drive Dahlan and his ilk to continue railing against the old guard.
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas faces a real threat; its name is Mohamed Dahlan.
Abbas has become obsessed with Dahlan, according to insiders. The PA president, they report, spends hours each day discussing ways to deal with the man and his supporters. And, it is rumored, Abbas's nights are not much better.
Backed by at least three Arab countries, Dahlan, a former Palestinian security commander from the Gaza Strip, seems to have unofficially joined the battle for succession in the PA.
The 54-year-old Dahlan, young enough to be Abbas's son, continues to deny any ambition to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president of the PA. Yet Dahlan's continued efforts to establish bases of power in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip belie his claims.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (left) and Mohamed Dahlan (right), a former Fatah security commander, have, for the past five years, been at each other's throats. The two were once close allies and had worked together to undermine the former PA president, Yasser Arafat. (Image sources: U.S. State Dept., M. Dahlan Office)
Abbas's top aides talk about the cash that Dahlan has lavished on many Palestinians, thereby winning their support. Any Palestinian activist whose request for financial aid is turned down by Abbas's office can always turn to Dahlan, who is not inclined to disappoint those who seek his help.
Who is supplying Dahlan with money? The United Arab Emirates. It is their cash that has enabled Palestinians in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to purchase weapons and buy loyalty for Dahlan in preparation for the post-Abbas era.
Unsurprisingly, Abbas and the PA leadership are less than enthusiastic about this turn of events. Since 2011, they have taken a series of measures to stop Dahlan, but to no avail.
First, Abbas ordered his security forces to raid Dahlan's home in Ramallah and confiscate documents and equipment. Second, the Fatah Central Committee, a body dominated by Abbas loyalists, voted in favor of expelling Dahlan from its ranks. Third, the PA, at the behest of Abbas, filed charges in absentia against Dahlan, accusing him of financial corruption and embezzlement.
As part of a smear campaign, Abbas and the PA have claimed that Dahlan is a murderer who has Palestinian blood on his hands. They have also been saying that Dahlan stole hundreds of millions of dollars and is in collusion with the Palestinians' enemies.
Still, Dahlan appears to be far from vanishing from the Palestinian political scene. In fact, the campaign against him seems to have increased Dahlan's resolve to continue and even step up his efforts to bring down Abbas and his veteran loyalists in the Palestinian Authority.
So what is fueling Dahlan's success? Abbas and some of his top aides point a finger at the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the wealthy Gulf country that has been harboring and funding Dahlan for the past five years. Dahlan's ties with the ruling family in the UAE are so strong that he has been appointed as a "special advisor" to Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Forces. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah call Dahlan the "spoiled lad" of Sheikh Al Nahyan.
United Arab Emirates money has helped Dahlan and his supporters buy loyalty among Palestinians, especially disgruntled young Fatah activists in the West Bank who feel that Abbas and the PA leadership have turned their backs on them.
But while the influential Gulf country provides Dahlan with shelter and funds, two other Arab countries -- Egypt and Jordan -- grant him a certain degree of legitimacy and a platform for his public activities, including those directed against Abbas and some of his top advisors and aides in Ramallah. Dahlan maintains a close friendship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, with whom he has met a number of times in Cairo over the past two years. Recently, Dahlan visited Amman and met with several Jordanians and Palestinians, much to the dismay of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership.
Dahlan's close ties with the Egyptians and Jordanians are the force driving the tensions that have erupted between Abbas and both Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah.
According to Palestinian sources in Ramallah, Abbas has expressed outrage over the way the Egyptians and Jordanians have openly embraced and endorsed the man he considers his greatest threat. Upon learning of Dahlan's visit to Jordan, Abbas refrained from meeting with government officials in Amman (where he has a private house) on his way to visit other countries. (Abbas routinely travels around the world through Jordan). Abbas was particularly enraged when he learned that King Abdullah had given Dahlan and his family members Jordanian citizenship.
Dahlan's visit to Jordan last April is believed to be in the context of his effort to establish bases of power among Palestinians living in the kingdom. According to some reports, Dahlan has already succeeded in rallying dozens of Palestinians from refugee camps in Jordan behind him.
"Dahlan is President Abbas's worst nightmare," remarked a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah who has been closely following the complicated ties between the two men over the past two decades. "You can be fired or punished in various ways if the president suspects that you are in touch with Dahlan."
Dahlan founded and headed the Palestinian Preventive Security Force in the Gaza Strip shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords. After the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, he became one of Abbas's closest confidants, later appointed by Abbas as National Security Advisor to the Palestinian Authority leadership. In 2006, he was elected as a Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for the Khan Yunis district in the southern Gaza Strip.
How Abbas and Dahlan came to be at one another's throats is food for speculation. Some Palestinians believe that the ill-will between the two is purely personal, and began when Dahlan was overheard belittling Abbas's two sons, Yasser and Tareq. Others say that Abbas decided to get rid of Dahlan because he suspected that Dahlan was plotting to stage a coup against him.
Then again, 81-year-old Abbas is highly suspicious of Palestinians such as Dahlan who have too much ambition and charisma. Abbas is also very overprotective of his family, particularly his two sons. Other Palestinian officials, such as Salam Fayyad and Yasser Abed Rabbo, who have dared to challenge Abbas in various ways have found themselves stripped of power and money. Abbas's campaign against his critics has been notably successful so far, with the exception, of course, of Dahlan. Those officials who continue to live in the West Bank now keep their mouths shut. Dahlan, of course, does not.
Based in Abu Dhabi, Dahlan is beyond Abbas's long arm. Dahlan's close ties with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and, to some degree, Jordan, has given him immunity against Abbas, who is keen to pacify these three important Arab countries. Besides, Abbas is well aware that he is surrounded by too many wolves, and that opening a new front with Dahlan and his friends/patrons in the Arab countries could put him over the edge.
Buoyed by impressive political and financial aid, Dahlan pulls no punches when it comes to Abbas.
Last year, Dahlan chose a Jordanian online newspaper to launch a scathing attack on his former boss. In the eyes of some Palestinian political analysts, Dahlan's platform was far from random. They argue that the online newspaper could not have published Dahlan's statements had it not received permission from the highest echelons in the royal palace in Amman. Some Jordanian writers and journalists have in the past been imprisoned for insulting some Arab leaders or countries. Not in this case, where Dahlan made the charges against Abbas.
So what did Dahlan share in the interview with the Ammon News website, which described him as a charismatic leader and the number one enemy of Abbas?
Dahlan accused Abbas of "hiding" $600 million following the death of Yasser Arafat. According to Dahlan, former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad gave Abbas a total of $1.4 billion, but when Abbas was asked about the sum he claimed he had only received $800 million. He accused Abbas's sons of corruption, claiming their fortune was estimated at over $300 million. He also reminded that Abbas was no longer a legitimate president because his term in office had expired in January 2009.
"What kind of a president is this who lives in Amman and rules in Ramallah?" Dahlan asked in the interview. "Abbas's problem is that when the he sits with me he doesn't feel he's a president. No one respects him, not in Palestine and not abroad."
Abbas's aides have dismissed the charges as "lies and fabrications," saying they are in the context of Dahlan's ongoing effort to undermine the Palestinian Authority leadership and "serve the agenda of regional powers and foreign parties."
Sources close to Abbas have also claimed that the Jordanian news website that gave Dahlan a platform for his attacks on the PA was on the payroll of Dahlan's patrons in the United Arab Emirates. They also claim that Dahlan has similarly used UAE funds to purchase a popular Egyptian online newspaper.
The rivalry between Abbas and Dahlan is emblematic of the power struggle between the old guard and young guard in Fatah, the largest Palestinian faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
This is a power struggle that has been raging for the past three decades. Dahlan is a representative of the young guard, whose members are strongly opposed to the continued hegemony and monopoly of the old guard over the decision-making process. Dahlan and the young guard are mostly from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, grassroots leaders who have long been complaining that they have been marginalized by the veteran leaders of the Palestinians who came from Lebanon and Tunisia after the signing of the Oslo Accords and who continue to block the emergence of new and younger leaders.
This power struggle will not end with Abbas's departure. The next Palestinian president will surely be one of Abbas's current loyalists. This in itself will drive Dahlan and his ilk to continue railing against the old guard. Dahlan's ghost will continue to haunt not only any future Palestinian president, but also Abbas in his grave.
Who, then, one might ask, will step up and lead the Palestinians away from the edge of their own abyss? For now, it does not seem that there is a Palestinian leader who has the power or credentials to stop the deterioration.
**Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Middle East Strategic Outlook - July 2016
Shmuel Bar/Gatestone Institute/July 18/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8477/middle-east-strategic-outlook-july-2016

It may be expected that in the coming months, the Syrian efforts to implement "ethnic cleansing" of Sunnis in the north will continue and even escalate, resulting in a growing stream of refugees into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. This will continue to destabilize these countries and to pose a challenge to a weakened Europe.
The overt American support for the Iranian involvement in Iraq will also serve to rally Sunnis to an anti-American position, while actually exacerbating the main problem -- the sectarian divide. Therefore, the American involvement in the Fallujah campaign will not buy it Sunni gratitude.
Iran is entering a new stage of war in Syria which evokes the situation that the Soviet Union found itself in in Afghanistan in 1985. Like the Soviet Union in that stage of the Afghan war, Iran has achieved no decisive victory, but has incurred significant domestic opposition to the war and has no additional resources that could tip the scales.
The explanation put forward by the American administration that the attacks reflect the Islamic State's "despair" in the face of its defeats in Syria and Iraq over the last months is specious. International terrorism "to strike fear in the hearts of Allah's enemies" has been a hallmark of the Islamic State since its beginning and it does not need the excuse of military defeat in Syria and Iraq to continue to carry out such attacks.
Saudi Arabia
Approval of the National Transformation Plan
The Saudi Cabinet approved (June 6) the National Transformation Program (NTP), part of Saudi Vision 2030, led by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. The NTP is supposed to be the basis for laying out targets to be met by government ministries and departments. The NTP was well received not only be the Saudi mainstream media (to be expected) but by the Saudi social media that represents to a great degree the public opinion of the younger Saudi generation. It may be expected that Prince Mohammad bin Salman will continue to take steps in the framework of his initiative that will, at least, preserve the sense of momentum and the public support he is enjoying.
Saudi-US Relations
In this framework, Mohammad bin Salman visited Washington DC in a bid to sell his project and himself as the future Saudi leader. During the visit, and especially in the meetings with officials from Congress and the security and intelligence Community, he also sought to build his own stature as future king and as the leader who must be at the helm throughout the period of implementation of his "Vision 2030" plan and beyond. His goal therefore was also to usurp Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef's status as the favorite of the Washington officialdom as the successor to King Salman. This status derived not only from Washington's respect of the Saudi rules of succession, but also from his years-long and tight cooperation with US agencies on security and counter-terrorism issues. Therefore, Mohammad bin Salman made an effort to project himself as a preferred effective interlocutor on those issues. The fact that Mohammad bin Salman was accorded meetings with President Obama, an honor usually reserved for heads of state, and the red-carpet reception he received, indicates that the administration now considers him as a likely future king and therefore seeks to establish a dialog with him and influence him.
Iraq
The War against the Islamic State
The liberation of Fallujah from the "Islamic State" after a month-long campaign (23 May-26 June) may be an important milestone is not the "beginning of the end" and it will certainly not lead to a stronger and more unified Iraqi state. The campaign and its anticipated aftermath will only exacerbate the sectarian divide in the country and encourage further conflict, whether in the name of the "Islamic State" or its successor under another name
The overt American support for the Iranian involvement[1] will also serve to rally Sunnis to an anti-American position. By backing a military campaign against Sunnis in which Shiite militias and Iran played a direct role, the US-led international coalition was fighting against the symptom -- the Islamic State -- while actually exacerbating the main problem: the sectarian divide in Iraq. Therefore, the American involvement in the Fallujah campaign will not buy it Sunni gratitude. The view of the US as pro-Shiite and pro-Iranian must have been enhanced by Secretary of State John Kerry's statement (28 June) that Iran's presence in Iraq is helpful to American attempts to beat back the threat of the Islamic State, and the praise heaped on the Shiite militias by the US special envoy tasked with defeating the Islamic State, Brent McGurk[2].
Many Sunnis -- in Fallujah and elsewhere in Anbar Province -- view the Fallujah campaign as part of a strategic Iranian plan to take control, through its Iraqi proxies, of central and western Iraq, from the Diala Governorate on the Iraq-Iran border to the Iraqi-Syrian border, in order to create a safe land-bridge from Iran through Syria to Lebanon. To achieve this objective, the Sunnis of western Iraq have to be weakened and denied the ability to stage a meaningful resistance[3].
No End to the Political Stalemate Expected
The paralysis of the Iraqi Parliament further complicates the situation. The parliament cannot reach agreement on the composition of a new cabinet, and cannot pass the 2016 budget. While Iraq can continue to muddle along with a caretaker government under al-'Abadi (just as Lebanon "survives" without electing a president), passing a reduced 2016 budget is a sine qua non for execution of the agreement that that the government reached in May with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a low-interest loan of $5.4 billion and for loans from other international institutions.
Iran's interest is to maintain its control over the government in Baghdad, On one hand, this calls for a relatively stable and cohesive Shiite establishment. On the other hand, Iran enhances its position in Baghdad by playing one party against the other and positioning itself as the only acceptable broker between the different Shiite factions. In the eyes of Tehran, Muqtada al-Sadr is a loose cannon, and al-'Abadi is too close to the West and therefore must be held in check. By maintaining the innate instability of the Shiite political system, Iran attempts to preserve the Iraqi Shiites' dependency on it to bridge the differences between the different factions.
Therefore, the Shiite infighting will continue as long as al-Sadr is around. This is clear to Iran and to al-Sadr's rivals and increases the possibility that an attempt will be made to assassinate him. In such a case, the reaction of those elements in the Shiite community who currently support him will be violent and extreme, possibly ultimately leading to the total breakdown of the Shiite political establishment that Iran is trying to prevent.
Iran and Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq
In contrast to its singular status as power-broker in Iraq, the situation in Syria and Lebanon does not bode well for the Iranian strategy. Since these two theaters are critical for Iran's regional designs, it has no options for an exit strategy, disengagement or even reduction of its footprint. Its primary agent, Hezbollah is suffering setbacks on all the fronts. Without massive Russian military support in Syria, Hezbollah has had to resort to repeated tactical withdrawals and it and the Iranian forces are suffering increasingly heavy fatalities, wounded and fighters taken as prisoners by the Syrian Sunni rebels. In addition to that, the rebels know their own turf better, limiting Hezbollah's ability to deploy more troops in the more sensitive areas of the theater. Nevertheless, Hezbollah is committed to increase its footprint in the Syrian theater and cannot back down -- even as its growing casualties cause increasing discontent within its Shiite Lebanese constituency[4].
Iran is entering a new stage of war in Syria which evokes the situation that the Soviet Union found itself in in Afghanistan in 1985. Until that year, the Soviet Union achieved no decisive victory over the mujahedeen, but also did not lose any battle on the ground. Like the Soviet Union in that stage of the Afghan war, Iran has achieved no decisive victory, but has incurred significant domestic opposition to the war and has no additional resources that could tip the scales. In light of this, our forecast is that the current situation in Syria will become a stalemate for all the parties at least in the months to come.
Israel-Syria-Lebanon
In these circumstances, a conflict with Israel does not serve the interests of either Iran, Hezbollah or Syria. Therefore, all four parties (and Russia) have adapted themselves to a routine of tolerance towards Israeli attacks on Syrian and Hezbollah targets that endanger Israel directly or threaten Israel's "strategic edge" in the Syrian-Lebanese theater. In a series of actions directed towards enhancing Israel's deterrence, the IDF held an extensive war game (12-14 June) based on a scenario of confrontation with Hezbollah. Subsequently, Israeli aircraft hit a Syrian military target near the Israeli border and uncharacteristically released a communiqué that the target had indeed belonged to the Syrian regime and had been hit in response to shelling by the Syrians near the border fence.
Hezbollah seems to be losing its predominance even within the Lebanese theater itself, where it had been almost unchallenged for decades. The attrition of Hezbollah in Lebanon is weakening it within the Shiite community. At the same time, the large (1.4 million) Syrian Sunni refugee population has effectively changed the demographic status quo in Lebanon and created a large restive population for whom Iran, Shiites and particularly Hezbollah are the prime enemy.
Syria
Bashar Assad is defiant, but not delusional
On June 7, Bashar Assad delivered a speech to the newly "elected" Syrian Parliament. This was his first major speech since the collapse of the peace talks sponsored by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Geneva in April. Assad vowed to retake every inch of the country from his enemies, and effectively dismissed the concept of a peaceful transition of power, which is at the heart of the ISSG's approach to the resolution of the crisis.
Assad is not -- as the US State Department implied -- "delusional". He clearly perceives no military or political threat to his rule. He may rationally asses that Secretary Kerry's reported "Plan B" that called for escalated military action if Assad continued his defiance will not receive support of President Obama, who will be reluctant to increase the American military involvement in Syria and to risk damaging Iranian-American relations and the nuclear agreement, which is the centerpiece of Obama's foreign policy legacy.
Assad also most probably assesses that neither Hillary Clinton, whose Libyan experience will discourage her from intervention, nor Donald Trump, who has laid out a non-interventionist foreign policy approach, would undertake a more active involvement in Syria than that of President Obama. Assad therefore felt free to obstruct the international efforts to transport emergency aid to civilians trapped in rebel-held areas, and to reject in his speech the August 1 deadline set by the US for developing a transition plan leading to his stepping down.
Assad's attitude, the limits of the American, Iranian and Russian interventions and the absence of any additional forces that could appear in the theater and tip the scales means that the war will grind on. It may be expected, therefore, that in the coming months, the Syrian efforts to implement "ethnic cleansing" of Sunnis in the north will continue and even escalate, resulting in a growing stream of refugees into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. This will continue to destabilize these countries and to pose a challenge to a weakened Europe.
Iran
New Political Appointments
It may be assumed that the Iranian leadership understands that restoring full control by the Assad regime over all of Syria is unrealistic and it has an undeclared "Plan B". This would entail defining "useful Syria" as the stretch of land from Damascus along Lebanon's border through Homs to Aleppo and along the Syrian coast that would be essential for the above objectives. This "useful Syria," however, does not correspond territorially with the "useful Syria" that Russia envisions. Russia's "useful Syria" focuses on maintaining a viable "Alawistan" that would enable Russia to maintain a beachhead on the Mediterranean and a presence on the Turkish border.
There has been disagreement inside the Iranian power elite since the Syrian uprising began to deteriorate into a full-fledged civil war. The disagreement focused on the extent of the Iranian investment of resources to support Assad's objective of restoring the regime's control over the entire country.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which dominated the policy on Syria and was the key executor of the policy through the Qods Force and Hezbollah, has supported these objectives. Other Iranian power-brokers -- notably those associated with the Rouhani camp -- have warned against a Syrian quagmire and have opposed tying Iran to Assad's fate. They argue that while it is of strategic importance to prevent Syria from falling into the hands of radical Sunni groups, it is not prudent to insist on Assad remaining in office, particularly in view of his use of chemical weapons against his own population. (The use of chemical weapons is a sensitive issue in Iran since their use by Saddam Hussain against the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war.)
The recent appointment of Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani as military and security coordinator of the Iran-Syria-Russia joint cooperation group, and the reshuffle in the Foreign Ministry, may indicate a move towards willingness to project more flexibility vis-à-vis the Syrian peace process even before the anti-Assad forces have been crushed militarily, and a formal willingness to consider the possibility of a post-war Syria without Assad personally.
This was implied in the statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif after his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, that "there will be no solution if we focus on any individual [i.e. Bashar Assad]," and that the process must "focus on institutional dispersion of power and the future form of governance, through which it will be possible to reduce or even eliminate the centrality of the role of any individual or ethnicity."
If Iran no longer insists on Bashar Assad staying in power, it could open the road to some procedural progress in the peace talks, which have been blocked by the dispute regarding his future, with Western powers and the Sunni Arab states insisting on his departure. However, the damage done by the civil war is irreversible. Even if some formula is found that would facilitate negotiations, the crux of the crisis is whether Syria will return to be dominated or even co-ruled by an Alawite minority. The Assad regime and Iran (and even Russia) cannot accept a Sunni-dominated Syria that would inevitably take revenge on the Alawites and destroy all the assets that Iran has built up over the last thirty years.
The Financial Sanctions Issue
The US administration is continuing in its determined efforts to convince the Western business community to invest in Iran. In May, John Kerry and US Treasury Department officials met with European bankers in London to tell them "legitimate business" is available to them in Iran and to "dispel any rumors" regarding future American sanctions on Iran. The administration's message was that as long as the banks do their normal due diligence, "they are not going to be held to some undefined and inappropriate standard."
Nevertheless, the international banking system continues to view Iran as high-risk and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Regardless of the credibility of the guarantees of the current American administration, which will not be in office after January 2017, the reluctance of the international financial community to approach Iran derives from real risk assessment. Iran ranks 130th (out of 168) on Transparency International's "Corruption Perception Index" and 118th on the World Bank's "Ease of Doing Business" list.
Given the current state of affairs, these goals are far from achievable. The approval of the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) model does not guarantee its implementation, given the opaque and informal character of the Iranian economy. The goals of the regime's Five Year Plan are also not clearly detailed and it is difficult to see how they can be achieved. Furthermore, Iran cannot comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) rules without a fundamental transformation of its economic structure and the very essence and worldview of the regime. Taking into consideration the leadership structure, the predominance of the Supreme Leader and the position of the IRGC in economy, such a move is impossible.
The Kurdish Factor
The alliance between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Movement for Change (Gorran) is openly challenging the Barzani clan's dominance of Kurdish politics and raises the pressure on Massoud Barzani. To consolidate his popularity among the Iraqi Kurdistan Region's population, Massoud Barzani might therefore resort to "patriotic" acts, like holding his promised referendum on Kurdish independence soon, which PUK-Gorran will not be able to oppose. This could lead to "Kurexit" (Kurdish exit from Iraq), which would be the result not of well-thought-out strategic planning but of Kurdish political infighting.
Israeli-Turkish "Reconciliation"
The Israeli-Turkish reconciliation is a formal step that will certainly not revive the golden age of Israeli-Turkish relations. Turkey will continue to support Hamas and to incite against Israel in international fora, though it will stick to the letter of the agreement and will take advantage of the economic opportunities afforded by the reconciliation.
The French Peace Initiative
The chances that the French peace initiative will succeed in relaunching the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are very slim. The Israeli position remains that negotiations must take place directly between Israel and the Palestinians, and not through international fora. The French initiative, however, will encourage the Palestinian Authority to reject alternative proposals for direct negotiations, pending the international conference.
Terrorism
The spate of terrorist attacks by the Islamic State during the period of this report highlights the disconnect between the situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq and the threat of Islamic State or al-Qaeda inspired jihadi terrorism in susceptible countries. Most the latest attacks took place in Muslim countries (Istanbul, Turkey in June; Dhaka, Bangladesh in June; Baghdad, Iraq in June, and Mecca, Qatif and Medina in Saudi Arabia on July 4) in which the ability to "profile" potential attackers is limited and security measures are weak.
The explanation put forward by the American administration that the attacks reflect the Islamic State's "despair" in the face of its defeats in Syria and Iraq over the last months is specious. International terrorism "to strike fear in the hearts of Allah's enemies" has been a hallmark of the Islamic State since its beginning and it does not need the excuse of military defeat in Syria and Iraq to continue to carry out such attacks. Furthermore, these attacks were obviously planned many weeks or even months in advance. The Islamic State will continue to attempt to carry out such attacks according to its strategy to project its jihad into the heartland of its enemies -- into Europe and in the territory of its enemies in the Middle East.
Spotlight on the Saudi Economic Transformation Plan
Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's economic plan represents far more than economic change: it calls for no less than a transformation of the nature of the Saudi state and political order through creation of an economically independent citizenry. The developments in the level of education of the Saudi population and particularly the potential of Saudi women entering the upper levels of the workforce, coupled with the high level of unemployment among those parts of the society, are among the unspoken drivers of the Vision 2030 plan. The goal of this process is to gradually replace the waning traditional tribal and clerical power base of the regime with a young professional economic power base out of concern that the high percentage of (unemployed) youth in the country would be a recipe for social unrest that, along with the loss of the influence of the traditional Wahhabi power base to more radical anti-establishment Salafi clerics, may destabilize the country.
Mohammad bin Salman seeks therefore to mobilize their support by making Saudi society advanced technologically and by creating a large number of jobs in technology. Monitoring of social media shows significant support for Mohammad bin Salman and his plans among the younger Saudi population, including high expectations that the economic initiatives will be followed by social change -- loosening religious controls and social restrictions, expanding women's rights and increasing social mobility. The Saudi leadership, however, is on the horns of a dilemma; accelerated change will raise the ire of the conservative elements in the elite, whereas a sense among the younger population that change is too slow will give rise to a crisis of expectations and subsequent instability.
***Dr. Shmuel Bar is a senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Studies at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, and a veteran of Israel's intelligence community.
[1] Secretary of State, John Kerry, declared that Iran has been very "helpful" in Iraq.
[2] McGurk said that Iran-backed Shiite militias are mostly helpful in Iraq, though some go rogue: Most of them do operate under the control of the Iraqi state, but about 15-20% of them actually do not, "and those groups are a fundamental problem".
[3] This Sunni suspicion finds support in statements of senior Shiite Iraqi leaders like former PM Nouri al-Maliki, whose hard-handed policies towards the Sunnis in Anbar Province fed the rise of the "Islamic State", and who now praises the role of Iran and the Shiite militias, and accuses Iraq's Sunni political leaders of supporting terrorism.
[4] Hassan Nasrallah (26 June): "The defense of Aleppo is the defense of the rest of Syria, it is the defense of Damascus, it is also the defense of Lebanon, and of Iraq. ... It was necessary for us to be in Aleppo and we will stay in Aleppo. We will increase our presence in Aleppo...".
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