LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

March 14/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.march14.16.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006

Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006

Bible Quotations For Today
You will search for me and you will not find me" and, Where I am, you cannot come
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 07/32-36: "The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about Jesus, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. Jesus then said, ‘I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.’The Jews said to one another, ‘Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?What does he mean by saying, "You will search for me and you will not find me" and, "Where I am, you cannot come"?’"

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf
Letter to the Romans 15/25-33: "At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things. So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.The God of peace be with all of you. Amen."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 14/16
Hariri’s bloc not to hold ceremony on 11th anniversary in Lebanon/Joseph A. Kechichian/Gulf News/March 13/16
Wasn’t Hezbollah a terrorist group before today/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
Is the Syrian refugee a soft target/Mshari Al Thaydi/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
Five years that changed Israeli-Syrian relations forever/Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
Islamic State Closing in on Germany/Stabbing Is First ISIS-Inspired Attack on German Soil/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 13/16
Turkey: Normalizing Hate/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 13/16
Turkey and Iran: The Seduction Game/Middle East Briefing/March 13/16
The Bi-Polar Nature of the Transitional Phases in Iraq and Syria/Middle East Briefing/March 13/16
The Death Sentence of a Businessman in Iran: The beginning of Factional War/Middle East Briefing/March 13/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on March 14/16
5 Lebanese Hurt in Deadly Attack on Ivory Coast Resort Frequented by Westerners
Saudi to deport Hezbollah sympathizers
Saudi Vows to Deport Anyone who 'Shows Support for Hizbullah'
Reports: U.S.-bound Missiles Found on Lebanon-Serbia Flight
Rifi Says Informed of 'Syrian-Iranian' Plot to Assassinate Him and Fatfat
Anti-Trash Activists Rally in Naameh, Choueifat, Vow to Block Beirut Entrances Monday Morning
Report: Lengthy Cabinet Session on Trash Divided over Gains
Arslan Warns: We Will be Watching Each Stone Thrown in Costa Brava
FPM Urges 'Strong President, Army', Threatens 'Popular Quorum' for Presidency
Bassil Says Labeling Hizbullah as Terrorist 'Unacceptable'
Syrian Delegation Travels from Beirut to Geneva for Peace Talks
Hariri’s bloc not to hold ceremony on 11th anniversary in Lebanon
Wasn’t Hezbollah a terrorist group before today?

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 14/16
Syria Rivals Clash ahead of Peace Talks
Kerry Says 600 IS Fighters Killed in Syria in Last 3 Weeks
French FM Says Muallem Remarks on Assad 'Provocation, Bad Sign'
Kerry Says Muallem Remarks on Assad Removal 'Disruptive' to Peace Talks
IS Commander Shishani 'Clinically Dead'
IS Jihadists Pull out of Town in Iraq's Anbar
Massive Anti-Government Protests Set to Shake Brazil
Saudi Forces Kill Armed Woman during Raid
Deadly Clashes in Yemen's Aden as Loyalists Press Taez Offensive
Israel Chief Rabbi: Knife-Wielding Attackers Should be Killed
Hamas Shutters Group Headed by Gaza Shiite Leader
Outrage in Egypt over Justice Minister's Prophet Remark
France Says Sanctions Possible over Iran Ballistic Missile Launches
 

Links From Jihad Watch Site for March 14/16
Hellfire missiles bound for Portland, Oregon discovered on passenger flight from Lebanon
Ivory Coast: Muslims screaming “Allahu akbar” open fire at beach resort, murdering at least 12
Ivory Coast: Jihad murderers killed anyone who refused to scream “Allahu akbar”
Uruguay: Muslim says, “I killed a Jew because Allah ordered it”
Egypt’s justice minister fired after saying he would jail a prophet
Germany: Cologne police arrest Muslim accused of joining the Islamic State
Islamic Jihad calls for mass murder of Jews “inside their settlements”
Al-Qaeda jihadis seize bases, weapons from U.S.-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels
Iraqi MP: Iraqi army doesn’t have “enough forces” to liberate areas of Iraq occupied by the Islamic State
Video: Robert Spencer on CTV News on the jihad massacre in Ivory Coast
Al-Qaeda claims Ivory Coast jihad mass murder attack
AP “corrects” Trump for saying Islam treats women badly
Robert Spencer in PJ Media: New York Times Portrays Islam More Negatively Than Cancer, Study Claims
Ukraine: “Palestinian” Muslim indicted for plotting jihad mass murder attacks against Israelis
Shock horror in UK: Muslim parents find pork in cheese and onion rolls bought at supermarket
Tajikistan seeks to tackle Islamic “extremism” with new classes for teenagers
Israel: Muslim planned jihad mass murder attacks at Tel Aviv kindergartens, gunned down 2 Israelis on street
Rubio: “Anywhere in the world you’re going see American men and women serving us in uniform that are Muslims”
Italy: Warrant issued for Muslim who said, “I will take a car with some explosives to carry out an attack against the unfaithful”

5 Lebanese Hurt in Deadly Attack on Ivory Coast Resort Frequented by Westerners
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Five Lebanese were injured Sunday when heavily-armed gunmen opened fire in the Ivory Coast resort town of Grand-Bassam in an attack that left at least five people dead. “The attack was carried out by more than 13 militants, who arrived by sea at the targeted area and opened fire indiscriminately on the restaurants' customers, causing heavy casualties,” Lebanon's National News Agency said. Wissam Kalakesh, the Lebanese charge d'affaires in Ivory Coast, confirmed to NNA in a phone call that no Lebanese were killed in the attack. "Five Lebanese were injured, including Najibeh Sabra, her sons Mohammed and Hassan Mortada, and Mohammed's wife Rasha," Kalakesh said, reassuring that "all Lebanese have been evacuated from the hotel." NNA said the five Lebanese citizens hail from the southern town of Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain. "At the moment there are five dead," an Ivorian military source said on condition of anonymity after the assault in the resort popular with Westerners. An Agence France-Presse photographer saw seven bodies on the beach and another in the Etoile du Sud (Southern Star) hotel, one of the establishments that came under attack in the country's former French colonial capital. A witness told AFP they heard one of the attackers shouting "Allahu akbar" -- Arabic for "God is greatest". The assailants, who were "heavily armed and wearing balaclavas, fired at guests at the L'Etoile du Sud, a large hotel which was full of expats in the current heatwave," another witness told AFP. It was not immediately clear who was behind the shooting in the resort, which lies on the Gulf of Guinea around 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the commercial hub Abidjan. "We were on the beach, we heard the gunshots and we saw people fleeing -- we understood this was an attack," witness Braman Kinda told AFP, showing photos of seven bodies lying on the beach including that of at least one woman. Kinda said four attackers had "roamed the beach firing shots."Abbas El-Roz, a Lebanese national who was staying at the Etoile du Sud, said one of the attackers had a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a grenade belt. At least one assailant was killed, several witnesses reported. Another witness called Kouamena Kakou Bertin said three others fled on foot via a nearby road. "Search operations are continuing, the hotel has been secured," a police source told AFP.
Attacks on hotels
A crowd of several hundred people gathered at the entrance to Grand-Bassam's French quarter at the edge of the old town, where a dozen ambulances were on standby. An AFP journalist saw around a dozen people, including an injured Western woman, being evacuated in a military truck. Military vehicles carrying heavy machine guns also headed to the scene, along with armed traditional hunters known as Dozo. The army was tightly controlling access to the area.Attacks in recent months on luxury hotels in the capitals of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso have left dozens of people dead, leaving West African nations scrambling to boost security in the face of a growing jihadist threat. Analysts have voiced fears that Islamist attacks could spread to countries such as Ivory Coast and Senegal, and the recently-concluded Flintlock exercise, which groups African, U.S. and European troops, focused on the need to counter jihadism. In Burkina Faso and Mali, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on hotels popular with foreigners in November 2015 and in January this year. The Mali attack in November left 20 people dead, while gunmen killed 30 people in the assault on a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou in January.Home to some 80,000 people, Grand-Bassam holds UNESCO World Heritage status thanks to its elegant colonial-era facades. The town has several hotels frequented by expatriates. UNESCO describes Grand-Bassam as a late 19th and early 20th century colonial town that "bears witness to the complex social relations between Europeans and Africans, and to the subsequent independence movement."

Saudi to deport Hezbollah sympathizers
By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News Channel Sunday, 13 March 2016/Saudi Arabia on Sunday said it will deport anyone sympathizing with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group after the Arab League declared the movement as “terrorist,” Al Arabiya News Channel reported. An Interior Ministry statement carried by the state news agency SPA said that Saudis and expatriates would be subjected to “severe penalties” under the kingdom's regulations and anti-terrorism laws. The Arab League on Friday formally branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a move that raises concerns of deepening divisions among Arab countries and ramps up the pressure on the Shiite group, which is fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Arab League’s decision followed the blacklisting of Hezbollah by Gulf states.

Saudi Vows to Deport Anyone who 'Shows Support for Hizbullah'
Naharnet/March 13/16/Saudi Arabia vowed Sunday to deport any resident who “shows support” for Hizbullah or collaborates with it in any manner, warning that those involved in such activities would be prosecuted under the kingdom's anti-terror laws. “The Ministry of Interior stresses that any citizen or resident who shows affiliation or support for the so-called Hizbullah group … will face harsh penalties according to the anti-terror laws and regulations,” the ministry said in a statement. The measures also apply to those who “promote” Hizbullah's ideology and those who donate to the group or communicate with it, the ministry added, warning against offering refuge to any Hizbullah “member.”“Any resident involved in such activities will be deported,” the Ministry of Interior cautioned. The kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council have blacklisted Hizbullah as a “terrorist” organization. On Wednesday, the GCC discussed measures “that must be taken to confront Hizbullah,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir announced after a council meeting in Riyadh. Asked about further Gulf sanctions against Hizbullah, Jubeir said the foreign ministers of the GCC had decided to look into measures that "would prevent Hizbullah from benefiting from GCC states." The measures come amid an unprecedented strain in the relations between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia that Riyadh has attributed to “hostile” Lebanese diplomatic positions and alleged Hizbullah "terrorist acts against Arab and Muslim nations."Saudi Arabia started a series of measures against Lebanon and Hizbullah on February 19 when it announced that it was halting around $4 billion in military aid to the Lebanese army and security forces. The kingdom later slapped sanctions on individuals and firms accused of ties to Hizbullah and advised its citizens against travel to Lebanon while urging those already in the country to leave it. It also pushed the GCC to label Hizbullah as a “terrorist” organization over purported "terrorist acts and incitement in Syria, Yemen and in Iraq." Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hit back last Sunday, noting that “Saudi Arabia is angry because its bets in Syria and Yemen have failed.”
 

Reports: U.S.-bound Missiles Found on Lebanon-Serbia Flight
Associated Press/Naharnet/March 13/16/Serbia's authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for the U.S. containing two missiles with explosive warheads was found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.
N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at Belgrade airport. Serbian media said documents listed the final destination for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles as Portland, Oregon. The American-made projectiles can be fired from air, sea or ground platforms. N1 reported Sunday that Air Serbia is helping in the investigation. The Serbian flag carrier said "security and safety are the main priorities for Air Serbia."
 

Rifi Says Informed of 'Syrian-Iranian' Plot to Assassinate Him and Fatfat
Naharnet/March 13/16/Resigned justice minister Ashraf Rifi revealed Sunday that he has received information about an alleged “Syrian-Iranian” plot to assassinate him along with outspoken al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Ahmed Fatfat. “The reports are true and I come from a security background. I served for 40 years in the Internal Security Forces and led the agency as its director general for eight years. Normally, I have ties with all the friendly Arab and foreign security agencies and communication is still ongoing,” Rifi told Orient News TV when asked about the reports. “Yes, I have been informed of this and through my analysis and information I know that I might be a target,” he added. The resigned minister revealed that he received a phone call in recent days from a certain figure after which he held a meeting with the caller's representative. “He asked me to be cautious seeing as there is information that four individuals at a Palestinian (refugee) camp in northern Lebanon have been tasked with assassinating either Ashraf Rifi or Ahmed Fatfat with a bomb-laden car or motorbike,” said Rifi. “They would appear to be members of the terrorist Daesh group but in reality it would be a Syrian-Iranian intelligence scheme,” the resigned minister added. “Those behind the plot prefer the act to occur in a Sunni region in northern Lebanon in a bid to deviate attention from the real criminals and terrorists,” he went on to say.

Anti-Trash Activists Rally in Naameh, Choueifat, Vow to Block Beirut Entrances Monday Morning
Naharnet/March 13/16/Following a cabinet decision to open three landfills to remove the accumulating trash in several Lebanese areas, residents and anti-trash campaigners held sit-ins Sunday in the Naameh and Choueifat areas and declared that they would block “Beirut's entrances” on Monday morning. “We will escalate our protests tomorrow through blocking Beirut's entrances in the morning for several hours,” civil society protesters announced from the Riad al-Solh Square, where an open-ended sit-in has been underway since Saturday evening. “Our moves are not targeted against people and we are acting for their sake,” the protesters emphasized in a statement. Earlier in the day, environmentalist campaigners held a symbolic sit-in at the entrance to the controversial Naameh landfill, whose closure in July was behind the country's unprecedented garbage crisis. “The landfill was closed in July 2015 and it will not be reopened,” said the activists. Threatening to escalate measures, the protesters said: “We will block the road at the entrance and will prevent dump trucks from entering.” They called on related authorities “not to drag us to escalate measures.”The closure of the Naameh landfill in July resulted in the pile up of garbage on the streets throughout the country, sparking environmental and health warnings over the prolongation of the problem. Later on Sunday, a popular sit-in was held in the Choueifat region to protest the government's decision to set up a garbage landfill in the Costa Brava area. “The town refuses the utilization of any land lot or shore within its geographic boundaries for the purpose of land-filling garbage,” the protesters stressed. The Khalde-Ouzai highway was later blocked with burning tires in protest at the same government decision. The cabinet on Saturday decided to establish two landfills and to reactivate Naameh temporarily as part of a four-year plan to resolve the country’s waste problem despite the rejection of civil society activists who called for a general strike. Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said two landfills – in the Bourj Hammoud and Costa Brava areas – would be established, and the Naameh landfill would reopen for two months to receive waste that has accumulated in makeshift dumps. A landfill’s location in the Shouf and Aley areas will be determined later following consultations with the local municipalities, said Jreij in his press briefing.

Report: Lengthy Cabinet Session on Trash Divided over Gains
Associated Press/Naharnet/March 13/16/Lebanon's cabinet that spent almost eight-hour in session was marred by what ministerial reports described as “outbidding and blackmail” in order for some ministers to roll up a bargain from the trash solution, An Nahar daily reported on Sunday. The session which lasted for more than eight hours has witnessed “outbidding and blackmail” in order for some ministers to get the biggest bulk of the profits, prompting Prime Minister Tammam Salam to threaten to suspend the session and carry out his threat to resign from the cabinet, unnamed ministerial sources told the daily.Salam was quoted as addressing the ministers during the session, he said: “If any of the discussions taking place at this session were leaked and the people learn that the dispute is based on financial gains, while they believe that we are here to discuss how to end the crisis, then the government cannot continue to cover this situation.”He was threatening to resign from the cabinet. On Saturday, the government announced a temporary solution for the country's eight-month trash crisis by opening three landfills as thousands protested in downtown Beirut. Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said after the cabinet meeting that the temporary solution will last four years and by then a permanent solution will be in place. In Beirut more than 2,000 protesters rejected the option of temporary landfills and demanded a more long-term waste-disposal plan. The trash crisis began in July, when the country's main landfill in the town of Naameh just south of Beirut was scheduled to close, with no real alternative landfills available. Naameh area residents said the dump was over capacity and began blocking the roads to prevent garbage trucks from reaching it. As garbage began piling up in Beirut, protesters formed the "You Stink" movement, demanding sweeping reform in Lebanon's government. Since the peaks of the protest in the summer, authorities have blunted the public anger by ensuring that the streets of Beirut are kept relatively garbage-free. However, the trash has been pushed to the city's periphery, where it piles up along the roadside and the banks of the Beirut River. Jreij said that the Naameh landfill will be reopened for two months to take in tens of thousands of tons of trash that have piled around the country. He added that two other landfills and treatment plants will be opened, north and south of Beirut. Jreij said the state will compensate areas that host landfills with significant payments and development projects. He said the government will pay $6 for every ton that is sent to Naameh. Jreij said the government will distribute $40 million this year to municipalities that agree to host landfills and spend another $50 million over the next four years on development projects in those areas. Assad Thebian, one of the protest organizers since the trash crisis began, told The Associated Press that activists are studying the government's plan and will make an announcement soon.Earlier Saturday, more than 2,000 protesters chanted: "We are fed up." The protesters vowed to escalate on Monday by "paralyzing the movement in the country."

Arslan Warns: We Will be Watching Each Stone Thrown in Costa Brava
Naharnet/March 13/16/MP Talal Arslan stated on Sunday that the landfill plan to solve the months long trash management crisis will “explode” in the face of the government, stressing that opening the Costa Brava landfill does not mean that it will be used “randomly.”“The government plan to open landfills will explode in its face. The state cannot act randomly in using the Costa Brava landfill because we will be watching each stone that will be thrown there,” said Arslan in a press conference. Arslan's comments came following a lengthy cabinet session on Saturday that approved to establish two landfills including the Costa Brava and reactivate Naameh's temporarily as part of a four-year plan to resolve the country’s eight-month-long waste problem. The approval faces the rejection of civil society activists who called for a general strike.The MP has long protested against opening a landfill in Costa Brava, he stressed:"The government is a failure by all political means. It has given the citizens a choice between opening landfills or leaving the trash in the streets,” pointing out that the landfills are located in remote areas. Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said following the cabinet meeting Saturday that two landfills – in Bourj Hammoud and Nahr al-Ghadir areas – will be established, and the Naameh landfill will reopen for two months to receive waste that has accumulated in makeshift dumps. A landfill’s location in the Shouf and Aley areas will be determined later following consultations with the local municipalities, said Jreij in his press briefing. Expressing dismay and disapproval at the cabinet's decision, Arslan said: “Since day one, I called for a group of experts to oversee and develop radical solutions for the trash file but no one listened,” stressing that even in the trash file some politicians fight over profit shares. Lebanon's trash management crisis erupted when the biggest landfill of Naameh south of Beirut was closed. The trash is being dumped in makeshift areas, in forests and near river banks.

FPM Urges 'Strong President, Army', Threatens 'Popular Quorum' for Presidency
Naharnet/March 13/16/The Free Patriotic Movement declared Sunday that a strong Lebanon requires “a strong president and a strong army,” as it warned against any attempt to elect a president through a non-consensual parliamentary quorum. “Lebanon's strength lies in a strong president and a strong army … and a balanced foreign policy that achieves the country's interest,” FPM chief Jebran Bassil said, reciting clauses of the movement's new political manifesto. “There is a need to adopt a policy of internal openness and dialogue with the country's components who are ready to build new understandings that complete the understandings that the FPM has forged,” Bassil added. Reassuring that the FPM “will not call for federalism” in response to what he described as the “systematic marginalization” of Christians, Bassil noted that his movement “has started seeking a new administrative structure that uses decentralization to ensure rights.”Turning to the issue of the stalled presidential elections, the FPM chief threatened to resort to “popular quorum” if some political forces decide to disregard the size of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc and its representation in the Christian community. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and the FPM, Hizbullah and some of their allies have been boycotting the electoral sessions. Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri launched late in 2015 a proposal to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his suggestion was rejected by the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. The Hizbullah-led March 8 camp, as well as March 14's Lebanese Forces, have argued that FPM founder MP Michel Aoun is more eligible than Franjieh to become president given the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Bassil Says Labeling Hizbullah as Terrorist 'Unacceptable'
Naharnet/March 13/16/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil stressed on Sunday that declaring Hizbullah as a terrorist group at the Arab League was “unacceptable,” pointing out that Lebanon has already expressed reservation on that labeling. In an interview to the Kuwaiti al-Rai daily Bassil said: “Describing the party as terrorist does not comply with the Arab treaty to combat terrorism.”“Hizbullah has been ranked in the United Nations and it has a broad representation of Lebanese. It enjoys mass parliamentary and ministerial blocs,” pointed out Bassil. “We have agreed to the terms of the rest of the resolution. It was normal not to accept describing the party as a terrorist,” added the Minister. Bassil reiterated saying that “Beirut condemns the attacks against Saudi missions in Iran and denounced any interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries.”The Arab League on Friday declared Iran ally Hizbullah a "terrorist" group, after Gulf monarchies adopted the same stance over the movement's support for the regime in Syria's war. The move reflects the worsening tensions between Shiite Iran and the six-nation Sunni-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia is a key member. It comes a month after Riyadh cut ties with Tehran following demonstrations in which its embassy and a consulate were torched, in the wake of the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. Friday's decision was endorsed by the majority of foreign ministers of the pan-Arab body except for Lebanon and Iraq which expressed "reservations". In January, GCC member Bahrain said it had dismantled a "terror" cell allegedly linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah. Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf nations also accuse Iran of supporting Shiite rebels in Yemen, as well as attempting to destabilize their own regimes. They also denounce its alliance with the Syrian regime and Hizbullah while support rebels who have been fighting since 2011 to topple the Damascus government and President Bashar Assad. On March 2, the GCC -- which also includes Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- declared Hizbullah a "terrorist" group. It was the latest step taken by Gulf states against Hizbullah, which has lawmakers in Lebanon's parliament. It came days after Saudi Arabia in February halted a $4 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon in protest against Hizbullah. After that announcement, Saudi Arabia urged its nationals to leave Lebanon and avoid traveling there, with Qatar and Kuwait later issuing similar advisories. The United Arab Emirates banned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon. The United States, Canada and Australia have listed Hizbullah as a "terrorist" group. The European Union has also blacklisted its military wing.

Syrian Delegation Travels from Beirut to Geneva for Peace Talks
Naharnet/March 13/16/The Syrian delegation traveled on Sunday from Beirut to Geneva where it is set to participate in the second round of the upcoming peace negotiations with the opposition under UN auspices, the state-run National News Agency reported. “The Syrian delegation headed by Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, traveled from Beirut to Geneva to participate in the meetings, which will start Monday,” NNA added. Syria's warring sides prepared Sunday for fresh peace talks after locking horns over the fate of President Bashar Assad, with the regime insisting his ouster was a "red line" while the opposition vowed to see him go -- dead or alive. The UN-brokered indirect negotiations are the latest international push to try to end Syria's five-year conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes. Government negotiator Bashar Jaafari arrived in Geneva, where delegates from the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) are already preparing. Analysts say much has changed since the last round collapsed in February as fighting raged, but that the huge regime-opposition divide will complicate a settlement. A fragile February 27 truce brokered by the United States and Russia has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations, a development U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said was "very significant". But key obstacles remain, including the fate of Assad, the holding of elections within 18 months and the shape of any new government. The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad's departure as a prerequisite for any deal. UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva meetings, opening on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in March 2011, would not last more than 10 days.

Hariri’s bloc not to hold ceremony on 11th anniversary in Lebanon
Joseph A. Kechichian/Gulf News/March 13/16
Beirut: The March 14 alliance will not hold an eleventh anniversary ceremony on account of sharp divisions between its leading figures, former prime minister Sa’ad Hariri and Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, even if the latter’s officially designated candidate for the presidency, Michel Aoun, is scheduled to make a televised appearance to mark the occasion. Ironically, Aoun will not commemorate the 2005 Cedar Revolution but another March 14 anniversary, the one that occurred in 1989 when he, in his capacity as Prime Minister in a deeply divided country caught between the two rocks of war and occupation, declared a “Liberation War” against Syrian forces present in Lebanon. That tragic chapter ended on October 13, 1990, when Syrian troops invaded and occupied areas under Aoun’s control, overran the presidential palace where Aoun was squatted, allowing him to reach the French Embassy, and tolerated his exile to Paris. More than a decade later, and in the midst of epochal changes throughout the region that involved the Hezbollah militia, Lebanon has lost significant ground, preoccupied with woes that covered the gamut from trash to traffic and including electricity shortages, simply because its political elite, including Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, were mired in perpetual negotiations. Hezbollah ignored the will of the Lebanese, and even if it signed-on to a disassociation policy, immersed itself fully in Syria as an Iranian satrapy. Its ministers served in the “Lebanese Government” but Hezbollah leaders preferred the Iranian velayet-e faqih [Jurisconsult of God] to the Lebanese Constitution. On Saturday, and after eight months of intense discussions, the cabinet devoted nearly eight-hours to a session marred by what ministerial reports described as “outbidding and blackmail” in order for some officials to roll up a bargain from the trash solution, as reported by Al Nahar. According to the daily, several ministers sought to get the biggest bulk of the profits, prompting Prime Minister Tammam Salam to threaten to suspend the session and carry out his threat to resign. “If any of the discussions taking place at this session were leaked and the people learn that the dispute is based on financial gains, while they believe that we are here to discuss how to end the crisis, then the government cannot continue to cover this situation,” Salam affirmed. Hapless citizens wondered how they could restore the authority of the state, uphold law and order, exercise democratisation, and otherwise pretend to be a functioning democracy, when its leaders devote months to weighing how best to dispose of garbage? On Saturday, a few thousand protesters chanted: “We are fed up,” and threatened to escalate their anger by calling for strike movements across the country starting on Monday, although the deal worked out to pay large sums of money to various entities paled in comparison to fresh preoccupations that isolated Beirut from its natural Arab environment and brought the so-called Daesh project to their shores. Indeed, and because of recent disputes over Hezbollah’s participation in several regional wars, most Lebanese — Muslim as well as Christian — were startled by a video in which two Daesh members threatened just about everyone. Two heavily bearded terrorists urged Lebanon’s Sunni population to “revolt,” with images of Sa’ad Hariri meeting US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi King Salman, as they explicitly accused Hariri of purchasing millions of dollars worth of weapons for the army and security forces that “have no purpose but to kill Sunnis.”Using vile language, they identified Hezbollah as “the source of crime and oppression in the country,” and warned “the dictators of the Lebanese statelet,” which apparently include Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, and Interior Minister Nouhad Al Mashnouq, to get ready for the “arrival of the Islamic State,” referring to the Daesh terror group. Neither Michel Aoun nor any other Christian leader reacted to the video contents reserved to Christians, who were urged to convert to Islam “and if they fail to do so, then they will not be able to confront [Daesh].”

Wasn’t Hezbollah a terrorist group before today?
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
The Lebanese party Hezbollah was formally labeled a terrorist outfit by the Arab League during a meeting in Cairo on Friday. Prior to that, the group was branded terrorist by the Arab interior ministers in Tunisia. However, we have regarded it as a terrorist organization a decade ago when it assassinated high-ranking Lebanese leaders and when it engaged in the murder of thousands of Syrian civilians. It has been a terrorist group since then and continues to be so. However, no one dared to officially say that until last week when Arab governments officially declared the same. Those who defended Hezbollah during the League’s foreign ministers’ meeting were representatives of helpless Lebanon and the almost-helpless Iraq and Algeria. The League has been accustomed to this support for Iran since it played the role of the mediator in releasing American hostages held at the American embassy in Tehran. The other 19 Arab countries stood against Hezbollah, marking a significant political and popular anger of Arabs toward Hezbollah. Until few weeks ago, most Arab governments avoided public criticism of Hezbollah even after it was found to be involved in the fighting in Syria. Even prior to that, it was evident that it assassinated several Lebanese leaders, with former prime minister Rafiq Hariri being the most important among them. Until few weeks ago, most Arab governments avoided public criticism of Hezbollah even after it was found to be involved in the fighting in Syria. No one publically criticized them even when Hezbollah lured Israel to attack Lebanon and destroy it in 2006 by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. This was a move which the party later said it had miscalculated. Back then, only two Arab governments dared criticize Hezbollah while others remained silent despite the destruction Lebanon suffered from.
Long history
Everyone knows that Hezbollah has been a terrorist organization ever since it was established in the 1980s. It hijacked Lebanon, seized its resources and decision-making process and obstructed its political and economic development a lot more than it confronted Israel over the course of 30 years.
Criticizing the party and its terrorist nature remained the subject of private meetings behind closed doors. However, it has now become public as most Arab governments now have the courage to declare their position as there is no longer anything to avoid or to be ashamed of.
Around half a million Syrians have been killed since the revolution started and some of them have been killed by Hezbollah fighters and Iran, which is fighting alongside the Assad regime. Such a situation does not leave room for maneuvers and courtesy and takes the situation to the point of no return.
They’d all known that Hezbollah is a terrorist group before these recent disagreements with it surfaced as it has been killing Lebanese, Syrian, Arab and foreign citizens since the 1980s. However, they hoped that there will come a day when Hezbollah decides to give up its role as Assad’s and Iran’s proxy and become a civil political party, particularly following Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon 16 years ago. Hezbollah, however, remained the same and its brutality worsened even as it expanded its activities into Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain.
 

Syria Rivals Clash ahead of Peace Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Syria's warring sides prepared Sunday for a new round of peace talks after locking horns over the fate of President Bashar Assad, with the regime insisting his ouster was a "red line" while the opposition vowed to see him go -- dead or alive. The UN-brokered indirect negotiations are due to begin in Geneva on Monday, the latest international push to find a solution to Syria's five-year civil war, which has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes.Government negotiators are expected in Geneva on Sunday, where delegates from the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) are already preparing. Analysts say much has changed since the last round collapsed last month as fighting raged across the country, but that the huge government-opposition divide will complicate a settlement. A fragile February 27 truce brokered by the United States and Russia has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations, a development U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said was "very significant". But key obstacles remain, including the fate of Assad, parliamentary presidential elections and the shape of any new government. "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar al-Assad is a red line," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told a Damascus news conference on Saturday. "If they continue with this approach, there's no reason for them to come to Geneva."The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad's departure as a prerequisite for any deal. "We believe that the transitional period should start with the fall, or death, of Bashar al-Assad," chief opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush told Agence France Presse in a joint interview in Geneva. "It cannot start with the presence of the regime, or the head of this regime still in power." UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva meetings, opening on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in March 2011, would not last more than 10 days. - 'Assad stronger than ever' -The negotiations are set to cover the formation of a new government, a fresh constitution and UN-monitored presidential and parliamentary elections within 18 months. Assad's fate has long been a major stumbling block, with key Damascus ally Russia rejecting any suggestion he should go, while the United States wants him to step down. "Assad is stronger than ever and is going nowhere," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, describing the agenda for the talks as "not realistic". Muallem said the UN envoy had no right to "discuss presidential elections," saying the talks aimed to form a unity government to appoint a committee to either write a new constitution or amend the existing one. "Then we will have a referendum for the Syrian people to decide on it," he said. The HNC has called for the creation of a transitional body with full executive powers, and Alloush said Muallem's comments "show that the regime is not serious about the political process". There have also been questions about how any deal wold be felt on Syria's battlefields, where myriad groups have been competing for territory. Russia -- which launched its own air strikes in support of the Assad regime in September -- had called on de Mistura to include Syrian Kurds in peace talks.
The envoy told Swiss newspaper Le Temps that while they would not take part, they should be given a chance to express their views. - 'Critical moment' -Fighting has eased across Syria since the landmark ceasefire between the regime and rebels -- but not jihadist groups such as Islamic State -- took effect. Kerry, who was in Paris on Sunday for talks with European partners on the conflict, said the truce had reduced violence by 80-90 percent, which he described as "very, very significant". "We believe that the start of talks this next week in Geneva presents a critical moment for bringing the political solution to the table that we've all been waiting for," he said after meeting top officials in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. Both sides have accused the other of breaking the truce, and Alloush said there have been 350 violations, which showed the regime was "not serious" about the ceasefire. In the latest violence, regime air raids killed seven civilians in rebel-held areas of the main northern city of Aleppo on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor said an Islamist rebel group claimed to have shot down a regime warplane Saturday in central Hama province, but a pro-government Facebook page blamed "technical difficulties".

Kerry Says 600 IS Fighters Killed in Syria in Last 3 Weeks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that 600 fighters from the Islamic State group had been killed in Syria in the last three weeks. "In Syria, over the last three weeks alone, Daesh has lost 3,000 square kilometers (1,160 square miles) and 600 fighters," Kerry said after talks with European allies in Paris, using another name for Islamic State.

French FM Says Muallem Remarks on Assad 'Provocation, Bad Sign'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault hit out Sunday at comments by his Syrian counterpart that removing President Bashar Assad would cross a "red line" in the negotiations, describing them as a "provocation" and a "bad sign" for the attempts to find peace. Muallem said in Damascus Saturday: "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar Assad is a red line." Assad's fate has long been a major stumbling block, with Russia rejecting any suggestion he should go, while the United States wants him to step down.

Kerry Says Muallem Remarks on Assad Removal 'Disruptive' to Peace Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/U.S., France Warn Syrian Regime ahead of New Peace Talks. The United States and France warned the Syrian regime on Sunday against trying to disrupt the fragile ceasefire as the warring sides prepared for fresh peace talks to end the brutal five-year conflict. The U.N.-brokered indirect negotiations are due to start Monday in Geneva, the latest international push to try to end a war that has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes. After talks with European allies in Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hit out at comments by his Syrian counterpart that removing President Bashar Assad would cross a "red line" in the negotiations. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault went further, describing Walid Muallem's comments as a "provocation" and a "bad sign" for the attempts to find peace. Kerry warned Syria and its allies Russia and Iran against "testing boundaries" or lessening their compliance with a fragile February 27 truce brokered by Washington and Moscow that has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations. While analysts say much has changed since the last round of talks collapsed in February, the fate of Assad and the holding of elections with 18 months remain huge obstacles to peace. Muallem said in Damascus Saturday: "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashar Assad is a red line."
Kerry said the Syrian minister was "clearly trying to disrupt the process... clearly trying to send a message of deterrence to others. "But the fact is (Assad's) strongest sponsors Russia and Iran have both adopted... an approach which dictates that there must be a political transition and that we must have a presidential election at some time," he added.
Moment of truth'
Kerry urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring the Syrian regime into line, saying he should be concerned that Assad had used his foreign minister "to try and act as a spoiler, to take off the table something that president Putin and Iran had committed to." "So this is a moment of truth, a moment where all of us have to be responsible." Kerry hailed the fact that the ceasefire had led to a reduction of violence of up to 90 percent, and made possible the delivery of emergency supplies to some 150,000 civilians in besieged areas. "Despite this progress, we all of us here remain deeply concerned by the Assad regime's practice of removing badly needed medical supplies from those supplies and in particular the surgical kits," he said. Kerry said the coalition had pushed the Islamic State jihadist group out of 20 percent of the territory it once controlled in Syria and that 600 IS fighters had been killed in the last three weeks. He highlighted the importance of the Geneva process in tackling the unprecedented refugee crisis in Europe, saying that if the ceasefire did not hold "we will be back here next year or even the year after next facing a Middle East with even more refugees, even greater numbers of dead and displaced, even more suffering."
Transitional period
Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari arrived on Sunday in Geneva, where delegates from the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), are already preparing. The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad's departure as a prerequisite for any deal. "We believe that the transitional period should start with the fall, or death, of Bashar Assad," chief opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush said Saturday. "It cannot start with the presence of the regime, or the head of this regime still in power."U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva meetings, opening on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in March 2011, would not last more than 10 days. Assad's fate has long been a major stumbling block, with Russia rejecting any suggestion he should go, while the United States wants him to step down. In the latest violence to threaten the ceasefire, al-Qaida fighters and allied jihadists clashed with a rebel faction known as Division 13 overnight in northwestern Syria after storming its weapons depot, the group said. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, the fighting left at least six combatants dead, four of them identified as Division 13 fighters.

IS Commander Shishani 'Clinically Dead'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Top Islamic State group commander Omar al-Shishani has been "clinically dead" for several days after a U.S. air strike in northern Syria, a monitoring group said Sunday. "Shishani is not able to breathe on his own and is using machines. He has been clinically dead for several days," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Abdel Rahman said the notorious red-bearded commander, known as Omar the Chechen, was in a hospital in the northern province of Raqa, IS' bastion in Syria.  A U.S. official said on March 9 that Shishani "likely died" in a barrage of U.S.-led air strikes on March 4 in northeastern Syria. The official branded Shishani "the ISIL equivalent of the secretary of defense," using another acronym for the group. Abdel Rahman at the time said the jihadist had been "seriously injured" in the strike on his convoy, but that he had not died. Shishani was one of the IS leaders most wanted by Washington, which put a $5 million bounty on his head. Shishani comes from the Pankisi Gorge, a mainly ethnic Chechen region of ex-Soviet state Georgia. As early as May 2013, when IS was just emerging in Syria, he was appointed the group's military commander for the north of the country. While Shishani's exact rank is unclear, Richard Barrett of the U.S.-based Soufan Group has described him as IS' "most senior military commander", adding that he has been in charge of key battles. Shishani is not, however, a member of IS' political leadership, a structure that is even murkier than its military command. The lack of a U.S. presence on the ground makes it difficult to assess the success of operations targeting militants in Syria, and Shishani's death has been falsely reported several times.

IS Jihadists Pull out of Town in Iraq's Anbar
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/The Islamic State group on Sunday pulled its fighters out of Rutba, a desert town in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, an army general and the mayor said. The pullout, if confirmed, would be a rare case of the jihadists abandoning a position under no massive miliary pressure and suggests a manpower crisis in the organisation. "Daesh (IS) has completely pulled out of Rutba and gone towards Al-Qaim," a major general told Agence France Presse, referring to a jihadist bastion on the border with Syria, further north in Anbar. "Daesh's armed men started pulling out last night and completed their withdrawal this morning," the senior officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Rutba is now free of Daesh." The mayor of the isolated town, which lies about 390 kilometers (245 miles) west of Baghdad on the road to Jordan, confirmed that IS had withdrawn. "Daesh has pulled out. They have no armed men there now," Imad Ahmed said. "This withdrawal looks real, a consequence of their losses in Anbar, notably the retaking by the security forces of Ramadi, of areas east of Ramadi and the progress towards Hit," he said. After launching a final push against IS in the provincial capital Ramadi late last year, Iraq's security forces established full control over the city last month. They have since been securing areas east of Ramadi, further isolating the jihadist stronghold of Fallujah, which lies only 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad. - Operation in Hit -The security forces are also currently working their way up the Euphrates, west of Ramadi, with a view to retaking the town of Hit. "It cannot be ruled out however that Daesh is pulling out to try to lure out sleeper cells among the population cooperating with the security forces," the mayor said. "We have warned the residents that this could be a trick... and asked the Iraqi security forces to come and retake control of the area," he said. The major general said any operation in the Rutba needed the approval of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and sufficient time to plan. Raja Barakat, a member of Anbar provincial council's security committee, confirmed the Rutba pullout and said IS had also been pulling some of its forces from Hit. "It was not just from Rutba but also from Hit after their fighters shaved their beards to slip out," he said."But in Hit, it's not a complete pullout, some Daesh fighters remain," Barakat said. He said that the IS fighters who withdrew from Hit moved through the desert towards Baiji, to the northeast, and towards Al-Qaim, to the northwest. The U.S.-led coalition that has been carrying air strikes against IS for more than a year and a half has said that the jihadist group was stretched increasingly thin. Iraqi forces have in recent weeks been attempting to flush out jihadists from vast areas around Lake Tharthar, which straddles Anbar and the province of Salaheddin. In several of its strongholds, IS is reported to have forcibly recruited children to man checkpoints as it sends adult males to combat.

Dead and Wounded in Blast in Central Ankara
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/A explosion ripped through a busy square in central Ankara on Sunday, killing several people and wounding many more, according to local media reports, which described it as an attack. Ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion on Kizilay square, a key shopping and transport hub close to the city's embassy area. Turkish television pictures showed burnt-out vehicles including a bus. The incident comes just weeks after 29 people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack targeting the military in Ankara on February 17 that was claimed by a Kurdish militant group. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said it carried out the February bombing as revenge for operations by the Turkish military in the southeast of the country and warned foreign tourists not to visit Turkey. Turkish security forces have been waging a major offensive against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since December, imposing strict 24-hour curfews in a number of towns and cities in the southeast. Sunday's blast came as the authorities hit two more towns in the Kurdish-dominated southeast with curfews.Turkey has been hit by a spate of deadly attacks since the middle of last year, most of them blamed on the Islamic State group. In the deadliest bombing ever on Turkish soil, 103 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in twin suicide bombings targeting a pro-Kurdish peace rally in Ankara in October last year.

Massive Anti-Government Protests Set to Shake Brazil
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Protesters, many draped in the Brazilian national flag, poured into the streets of Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at the start of mass demonstrations seeking to bring down President Dilma Rousseff. More than a million people were expected to turn out across the nation, which will host the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this August. Rousseff, struggling to hold on to power in the face of a massive corruption scandal and the worst recession in decades, urged demonstrators remain to peaceful. "I am appealing for there not to be violence," Rousseff told Brazilian media late Saturday. "I think all people have a right to be on the streets. However, no one has a right to be violent. No one." The largest demonstration was expected later in Sao Paulo, the country's financial capital and main opposition stronghold. Authorities said they were bracing for a million protesters. Thousands of people were already gathering in Rio and Brasilia and organizers said more than 400 cities in all would participate. Many protesters in Rio and Brasilia came wearing the national football team shirt or with the yellow and green flag around their shoulders. "I'm demonstrating today because I believe that only my participation can eventually stop the mismanagement of the country's riches," said Marcelo Antunes, 66, an engineer in Rio de Janeiro. "I think all Brazilians need to participate -- we can't stand aside." In the battle to topple Rousseff and her ruling Workers' Party, pressure from the street will be vital, he said. "All revolutions in history were pushed by the masses.""We need to get rid of Dilma, the Workers' Party, the whole lot. It's not their time anymore," said Rio resident Maria do Carmo, 73, who was carrying a Brazilian flag.  Asked if she feared violence, she said "people don't want civil war or trouble. They just want to peacefully demonstrate."
Question of turnout
Rousseff -- deeply unpopular because of a giant corruption scandal centered on state oil company Petrobras and because of her management of the recession -- faces impeachment in Congress. Her chief mentor in the leftist Workers' Party, ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is fighting allegations that he was part of the Petrobras corruption network. As if that weren't enough, the PMDB party, Rousseff's crucial partner in a shaky government coalition, indicated Saturday that it could pull out in 30 days.Criminal charges filed against Lula on Wednesday for allegedly undeclared ownership of a luxury apartment have invigorated the opposition and increased chances for an impressive turnout. A single call on Facebook for Jiu-jitsu and other martial arts fans to attend the Rio march was viewed more than 214,000 times by Saturday. In Sao Paulo, yoga instructor Ruben Caetano, 45, told AFP he was attending in "hope of changing the way things are in the country. We are living in a time of a lot of corruption. Corruption permeates all levels of public office in the country. So it's not against party A, B or C." For deputies in Congress of all stripes, crowd size will be a crucial signal for whether or not to push for Rousseff's impeachment. Opposition movements like Go to the Streets are so well organized that anything less than very large turnout would likely be seen as failure. The biggest anti-government protest last year, in March, saw an estimated 1.7 million people across Brazil, with a million in Sao Paulo alone. Another six months later some 1.2 million people attended. Supporters of Rousseff have backed away from a threatened counter demonstration in the capital Brasilia, but with tensions in this divided country growing by the week and compromise seemingly off the table, there were fears of trouble. Lula, who founded the Workers' Party and became one of the world's most popular politicians during his 2003-2010 presidency, is fighting not just for his political future but freedom. Sao Paulo state prosecutors this week asked a judge to authorize preventative detention for the powerful figure. "If they want to defeat me, they will have to face me in the streets," Lula said.
Power struggle
Congress is mulling impeachment on the grounds that Rousseff allegedly manipulated government accounts so that she could illegally boost public spending during her 2014 re-election campaign. Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla tortured under Brazil's dictatorship, insists there isn't "the slightest possibility" she will resign. But as pressure builds, Rousseff is running out of allies. Not only is the PMDB threatening to abandon her, but its leader -- her vice president Michel Temer -- has additional motivation to see impeachment go through: under the constitution he would become interim president. Against that backdrop, Rousseff needs help from Lula more than ever. Although now a highly divisive figure, Lula gives Rousseff credibility with swaths of voters who remember his success in bringing millions of Brazilians out of extreme poverty. In the latest of a series of chess-like maneuvers with the opposition, Rousseff has said she is considering giving Lula a ministerial post. This would put him out of reach of regular criminal courts, because sitting politicians can only be judged in the Supreme Court. However, Lula is said to be reluctant, given that such a move would make him an even more hated figure to the opposition, escalating the power struggle.

Saudi Forces Kill Armed Woman during Raid
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Saudi security forces shot dead a woman armed with a machinegun during a swoop to arrest jihadist suspects, the interior ministry said Sunday. Binan Issa Hilal was shot while resisting officers during the raid on Thursday in the northern Jawf region, official news agency SPA quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. She died in hospital and the two suspects, Suweilem al-Ruwaili and Naem al-Khalaf, were detained. Ruwaili was wanted in connection with a number of alleged attacks, including August's bombing of a mosque used by soldiers that left 15 dead. He was being sheltered by Khalaf who was in a relationship with Hilal, the ministry said. The Islamic State group has claimed several attacks on Saudi security forces as well as deadly bombings and shootings targeting the Sunni kingdom's Shiite minority, which IS considers to be heretics.

Deadly Clashes in Yemen's Aden as Loyalists Press Taez Offensive
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/At least 17 suspected al-Qaida militants and two policemen have been killed in two days of clashes in Aden, the temporary base of Yemen's government, security sources said. The clashes, which resumed early Sunday, came as loyalist forces pressed an offensive to retake third city Taez in the southwest of Yemen which has been under siege for months by Huthi rebels. The fighting in Aden raged in the jihadist stronghold of Mansura, a residential area which loyalist forces backed by aircraft from a Saudi-led coalition have been trying to recapture since Saturday. Coalition fighter jets and Apache helicopters carried out air strikes overnight that hit at least three vehicles and a local council office occupied by the jihadists, security sources said. "At least 17 al-Qaida fighters and two policemen have been killed since Saturday," a security official told AFP, adding that most of the jihadists were killed in air raids. Dozens of gunmen in balaclavas carrying the al-Qaida flag deployed to push back police trying to enter the central Aden neighborhood, witnesses said.The police said in a statement that fighting against the "armed terrorist gangs in Mansura will continue to ensure the safety of residents" in Yemen's main southern city. Security sources estimate that around 300 heavily armed al-Qaida fighters are entrenched in Mansura. Al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have taken advantage of the conflict between Iran-backed Huthi insurgents and pro-government forces to reinforce their presence in the south, including in Aden. Meanwhile, pro-government forces clashed with Huthi rebels Sunday as they tried to break a siege of Taez after retaking the city's southern and western suburbs on Friday, loyalist military sources said. Coalition aircraft provided support and hit a military convoy that was trying to bring reinforcements to the rebels, the sources said. At least 94 people have been killed in the offensive since Friday, including 24 rebels, nine loyalist forces and four civilians, the sources added. Officials are hoping to break the siege in order to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to the nearly 200,000 residents trapped in Taez. More than 6,100 people have died -- half of them civilians -- since the coalition launched air strikes against the Shiite rebels and their allies in March 2015, according to the U.N.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday said that he and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had agreed to work towards a ceasefire in Yemen.

Israel Chief Rabbi: Knife-Wielding Attackers Should be Killed
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/An Israeli chief rabbi said that knife-wielding attackers should be killed, after a call by the head of the armed forces to not use excessive firepower in combating a wave of Palestinian violence. "If a terrorist comes at someone with a knife, it is a (religious) duty to kill him –- he who comes to kill you, kill him first," Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said on Saturday. "Don't get all afraid of the courts, or if some chief of staff says something else," Yosef said in a televised weekly sermon. This was an apparent reference to Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, who angered some right-wing politicians in remarks he made last month that were interpreted as advocating a more lax approach to assailants. "When there's a 13-year-old girl holding scissors or a knife and there is some distance between her and the soldiers, I don't want to see a soldier open fire and empty his magazine at a girl like that," the general had said. Yosef, however, stressed too that assailants who were disarmed and posed no threat were no longer under the "comes to kill you" category and should be jailed rather than killed. Since October 1, a wave of violence has killed 188 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an Agence France Presse count. Most of the Palestinians were killed while carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. The United Nations and human rights groups have voiced concern that Israeli security forces are responding to attacks with excessive force, but Israel denies the charges.

Hamas Shutters Group Headed by Gaza Shiite Leader
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Gaza's interior ministry said Sunday it had dissolved an association led by the head of the only Palestinian Shiite group for conducting "political activities" under the guise of charity. "Al-Baqiat al-Salihat association was recently dissolved because its administration had violated the law governing the actions of charitable organizations by engaging in political activities," said a spokesman for the ministry controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement. The spokesman, Iyad al-Bozom, did not provide details on the activities. A month ago the association, which receives Iranian funding, had been warned to comply with the law, Bozom said. "Since that did not happen, the association is now considered dissolved," he said. The head of al-Baqiat al-Salihat, Hisham Salem, whose home was targeted by a bomb last month, in a statement condemned the "arbitrary decision lacking a clear legal basis" against his association. The Hamas rulers of Gaza had targeted it with "a tyrannical policy contrary to public interest and that doesn't take people's needs into account unless it's in its own interest," Salem said. Shiite Islam is considered a foreign import from Iran among Palestinians who are exclusively Sunni Muslims or Christians. Salem formed al-Sabirin, the only Palestinian Shiite Muslim movement, in 2014.He is a former member of Islamic Jihad -- a group that also takes inspiration from the Shiite Iranian revolution, but which is Sunni.

Outrage in Egypt over Justice Minister's Prophet Remark
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/Egypt's justice minister faced outrage on social media Sunday after a television interview in which he said he would arrest even "a prophet," although he later admitted it was a "slip of tongue". When asked in an interview on private satellite channel Sada Al-Balad on Friday about a case involving journalists accused of defaming him and whether he would jail them, Ahmed al-Zind said he would imprison anyone. "Even if it's a prophet, God's peace and blessings be upon him," Zind said, using the Islamic saying of reverence spoken by Muslims only when referring to the Prophet Mohammed. Upon realising what he had said, Zind immediately stopped and said: "I ask for forgiveness from God."He further said any "wrongdoer, whatever his identity -- even judges" would be jailed if found guilty. Zind's remarks triggered outrage on social media networks immediately after the interview, with angry tweets continuing to pour in on Sunday. Cairo-based Al-Azhar, a prestigious learning centre of Sunni Islam, even issued a warning. Angry Egyptians launched the Twitter hashtag "trial for Zind" as they lashed out at the minister, who only in January had angered human rights groups after he called for the "mass killing" of outlawed Muslim Brotherhood supporters. "At least he should be sacked and then put on trial. This issue is not a joke," said one tweet on Sunday. "God will take revenge," said another. Zind clarified in a separate telephone interview with private network CBC television on Saturday that his remark was a mere "slip of tongue".They were "meant in a hypothetical sense ... but the Muslim Brotherhood supporters seized on them". Al-Azhar warned against insulting the Prophet Mohammed. "All those involved in public discourse and in the media must respect the name of the Prophet," it said in a statement without naming Zind. "He should not be subjected to any insult even if it's unintentional." In January, Zind said in an interview with the same Sada al-Balad channel that he "would not be satisfied until 10,000 Brotherhood members were killed for every martyr" from the armed forces and the police. Human Rights Watch said his remarks encouraged the "slaughter" of political opponents. Egyptian authorities have cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood movement after the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been killed and thousands more jailed in the crackdown, while several of its leaders including Morsi have been sentenced to death or lengthy jail terms.

France Says Sanctions Possible over Iran Ballistic Missile Launches
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 13/16/French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on Sunday warned Iran of possible European sanctions over its recent ballistic missile launches. "If necessary, sanctions will be taken," Ayrault said after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and several European counterparts. Kerry described the Iranian actions -- which the U.S. has asked to be discussed at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday -- as a breach of U.N. resolutions.

Welcome the ‘fear’ of the enemy
Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
The North Thunder joint military exercise concluded last week with drills and military shows. The bedazzling details of the event was on display and so was its success. The military drills, which brought together armed forces from 20 Arab and Islamic countries, came to an end on Friday with a marching parade attended by leaders of the participating countries. The exercise, unprecedented in the history of the region, was truly remarkable from a security and defense perspective. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the region, there are those who kept silent out of fear. These include the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and other similar groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. This element of fear has reached the ISIS, which was dealt a major blow recently. On the last day of the drills when the murderers of Badr al-Rashidi, the Saudi Arabian soldier who was shot dead last month, were killed by Saudi authorities after they refused to surrender and exchanged fire with the police.
Muallem’s talk
Syria’s foreign minister Walid al-Muallem continues to talk about Saudi Arabia’s initiative to defend itself and the region. He used a funny description that indicates fear, weakness and political shabbiness. He has repeatedly used the term “reckless” ever since Saudi Arabia declared the possibility of ground intervention in Syria. It is better to be described reckless by your enemies than to be described as slow; their satisfaction with our performance would indicate a defect in the strategy and preparedness The sense of responsibility toward defending the homeland, every inch of it, has been instilled in this growing generation. Display of power and strength becomes necessary to intimidate those who are greedy. Saudi Arabia has experienced wars, it has emerged victorious and has been supported by others in pursuit of its objectives. Western media outlets have been surprised by the North Thunder exercise, the massive number of participating soldiers and the modern equipment and technologies that have been used. Meanwhile, in countries north of Saudi Arbia, media outlets who oppose the operation continue to suffer from bouts of hysteria. his role in supporting civil society, human rights and advancing women’s roles in Gulf societies.

Is the Syrian refugee a soft target?
Mshari Al Thaydi/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
The sexual assaults that took place in Cologne on the New Year eve sparked a controversy – not only in Germany but in the entire West – over how Muslims, particularly those belonging to the Arab world, are traditionally perceived.
The German media held young refugees accountable for the crime, an accusation echoed by the German right-wing parties. Commenting on this, Germany’s Bild newspaper said that there is a big “cultural difference” between the Western civilization and Muslims, which is manifested particularly in the respect given to women.The subject was extensively debated and the element of cultural conflict was highlighted instead of just treating this incident as a crime and avoiding the racist rhetoric that complicates the problem.
Disregarding the context
The German police initially denied these prejudices, insisting that the perpetrators were not refugees but well-known criminals with major antecedents. Even if the culprits were refugees from Syria or any other country – which is probably closer to truth – does that mean one can hold on to one part of the story and disregard the entire context? The thousands of families that have fled from Syria are still only a section of the Syrian community where people of all hues could be found. It is hence not fair to condemn an entire community for the misdeeds of some and make them a soft target. Europe is afraid of losing its identity due to the flow of refugees not only from Syria but from many Muslim countries, and even non-Muslim ones, who travel to the continent for the sake of security and a better future. I do not intend to deny crimes committed by young refugees in Europe. I only maintain that it is foolish and immoral to see all the people through the same prism. However, Europe and the entire West are not terrorized because of the economic pressure put by influx of refugees as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are hosting a larger number of refugees. Their fear stems from the medieval history of wars between Muslims and Europeans and from the crusades and ottoman wars. It seems that Pope Francis unintentionally mentioned the “cultural difference” while expressing his concern over the Arab invasion of Europe owing to the flow of Syrian refugees. He then tried to avoid talking on the subject later. According to several Muslim and European historians, the fear of Muslims arises from European memory of the days of crusades. The same applies to Muslims. I do not intend to deny crimes committed by young refugees in Europe. Such incidents always happen. I only maintain that it is foolish and immoral to see all the people through the same prism. This only aggravates the problem and plays into the  hands of Muslim and Christian fanatics.

Five years that changed Israeli-Syrian relations forever
Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/March 13/16
For most of the time during the civil war in Syria, Israel stood on the sidelines playing a curious though a proactive observer that intervened sporadically for rather limited objectives. Syria of five years ago was regarded as the last remaining potential strategic rival to Israel with shared borders. In truth the border between Syria and Israel, along the occupied Golan Heights, had been quiet for nearly four decades since the end of the 1973 war. The potential military threat posed in the past to Israel from the northern neighbour almost evaporated for a combination of factors. First and foremost the peace agreements signed first with Egypt and later Jordan, eliminated Israel’s deep concerns of war on more than one front. Moreover, military and economic support from Moscow for the regime in Damascus dwindled considerably as a result of the end of the Cold War. Consequently the Syrian army lagged behind the Israeli army, which continued to increase capabilities due to American military and economic assistance, a highly advanced domestic weapons industry, and a successful economy capable of sustaining a powerful army. The arrival of the so-called Arab Spring to Syria in March 2011 caught the decision makers in Jerusalem and the intelligence community by complete surprise. Falling asleep in the warm comfort of the status quo, as happened to most intelligence communities and analysts everywhere, blurred the signs of a fast approaching radical and bloody change in Syria. It was inconceivable for them that a regime that had relied for so long on the spears of ruthless security forces, that had crushed any signs of dissent in the past, ruling by fear, would fail to nip any resistance in the bud. At first the Israeli reaction to the political upheaval in Syria was one of cautious alert, expecting President Assad to supress it quickly.
Marginal role
When this failed to materialize, a realization sunk in that Israel could only play a marginal role in such a complex and unpredictable conflict. It could neither impact the overall outcome nor the direction this neighbouring country was taking. For a country that is almost conditioned to react instantly, usually using force at the very hint of danger, Israel has been restrained and calculated. It was reluctant to take measures that might get it embroiled in what was to become the most horrific fields of killing in the region. One should not confuse Israel’s combination of puzzlement and a generally measured intervention in the Syrian civil war, with a lack of profound concerns regarding its potential impact on Israel. The first source of concern was the fear that the war would spill over into the Israeli occupied Golan Heights or even deeper into Israel. Secondly, the idea that the strengthening of the Iran-Hezbollah nexus in Syria could result in their presence closer to the Syrian-Israeli border. In response to these two growing risks, Israel has vowed to respond by military force to any cross border attack into its territory, and to thwart any attempt to transfer of advance “game changing” weapons from Syria to the Hezbollah in Lebanon. These two parameters of maintaining Israeli interests were pursued rather methodically. The increasing presence of both the Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is certainly a growing concern, which has been exacerbated in recent months as a result of the Russian military intervention on the side of the Syrian regime. In this sense the events in Syria align with Israel’s wider strategic perception of the Iranian existential threat to Israel. The current strategic thinking in Israel is that the worst outcome for it would be that through the fog of war in Syria, the Golan Heights would gradually become Israel’s border with Iran
Israeli leadership is still coming to terms with the failure to derail the nuclear agreement with Iran, which consumed Israeli foreign policy for at least a decade. It also witnesses, with great unease, the massive growth of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite movement’s military capabilities since the 2006 war in Lebanon.
From the very beginning of the uprising against Bashar Al Assad’s regime, Israel had no pre-conceived expectations regarding its outcome. It might have harboured some early hopes, some might argue wishful thinking, for the emergence of pro-Western democratic forces that might be also more accommodating towards Israel. Nonetheless, these hopes were very quickly dashed. Hence, especially with the appearance of extreme Jihadist movements such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS as forces to reckon with, Israel was tacitly content with the continuation of the civil war in hopes that the warring sides would offset and weaken each other. Thus, it might seem surprising that Israel provides some humanitarian assistance, including admitting a limited number of Syrians injured in the war to its hospitals, or its public expression of horror at the five years of carnage, of nearly half a million people, and the displacement of millions from their homes. However, it serves Israel’s public relations very well, without having a broader impact.
Future of the regime
Yet, Israel five years into the Syrian civil war, and in the midst of a very shaky ceasefire, is still unsure how its interests have been affected. Syrian military capabilities have suffered tremendously and it had to give up most of its chemical weapons. However, if the regime survives it will owe it to a large extent to Iran and the Hezbollah, who Israel currently perceives as sworn enemies. Israel’s expectations for the US and the EU, to be more proactive in supporting the more moderate Sunni elements in resistance against the Syrian regime, as well as the Kurdish militias, to create a counterweight to the ever increasing militant elements, has hardly achieved any traction. The current strategic thinking in Israel is that the worst outcome for Israel would be that through the fog of war in Syria, the Golan Heights would gradually become Israel’s border with Iran. For all Israel’s gains and risks from the conflict in Syria, this is the one outcome Israel is reluctant to endure. It might present the greatest stimulus for it to become more involved in a war, which is already congested with all major world and regional actors.
 

Islamic State Closing in on Germany/Stabbing Is First ISIS-Inspired Attack on German Soil
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 13/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7609/germany-islamic-state

Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV), warned that the Islamic State was deliberately planting jihadists among the refugees flowing into Europe, and reported that the number of Salafists in Germany has now risen to 7,900. This is up from 7,000 in 2014 and 5,500 in 2013.
"Salafists want to establish an Islamic state in Germany." — Hans-Georg Maaßen, director, BfV, German intelligence.
More than 800 German residents -- 60% of whom are German passport holders -- have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Of these, roughly one-third have returned to Germany. — Federal Criminal Police Office.
Up to 5,000 European jihadists have returned to the continent after obtaining combat experience on the battlefields of the Middle East. — Rob Wainwright, head of Europol.
A 15-year-old German girl of Moroccan descent stabbed and seriously wounded a police officer in Hanover. The stabbing appears to be the first lone-wolf terrorist attack in Germany inspired by the Islamic State.
The incident occurred at the main train station in Hanover on the afternoon of February 26, when two police officers noticed that the girl — identified only as Safia S. — was observing and following them.
The officers approached the girl, who was wearing an Islamic headscarf, and asked her to present her identification papers. After handing over her ID, she stabbed one of the officers in the neck with a six-centimeter kitchen knife.
According to police, the attack happened so quickly that the 34-year-old officer, who was rushed to the hospital, was unable to defend himself. After her arrest, police found that Safia was also carrying a second, larger knife.
"The perpetrator did not display any emotion," a police spokesperson said. "Her only concern was for her headscarf. She was concerned that her headscarf be put back on properly after she was arrested. Whether the police officer survived, she did not care."
On March 3, Hanover Public Prosecutor Thomas Klinge revealed that Safia had travelled to the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015 to join the Islamic State, but that her mother had persuaded her to return to Germany on January 28.
Last month, Safia S., a 15-year-old German girl of Moroccan descent, stabbed and seriously wounded a police officer in Hanover, in what appears to be the first lone-wolf terrorist attack in Germany inspired by the Islamic State.
According to police, the stabbing was premeditated: unable to join the Islamic State in Syria, Safia had determined to carry out an attack against the police in Germany.
Safia is being charged with attempted murder. She is also being charged with a terrorism offense. According to prosecutors, by travelling to Turkey to join the Islamic State, the girl violated Section 89a of the German Criminal Code, "Preparation of a serious violent offense endangering the state."
The newspaper, Die Welt, reported that Safia had been part of the local Salafist scene since 2008 — she was only seven years old at the time. She had appeared in Islamist propaganda videos alongside Pierre Vogel, a convert to Islam and one of the best-known Salafist preachers in Germany. In those videos, Vogel praised Safia for wearing a headscarf to school and for being able to recite verses from the Koran.
Safia's brother, Saleh, is reportedly being held in a jail in Turkey, where he was arrested for trying to join the Islamic State.
Until now, the only other successful Islamist attack in Germany took place at Frankfurt Airport in March 2011, when Arid Uka, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, shot and killed two United States airmen and seriously wounded two others. Uka was later sentenced to life in prison.
On February 4, 2016, German police arrested four members of an ISIS cell allegedly planning jihadist attacks in Berlin. In coordinated raids, more than 450 police searched homes and businesses linked to the cell in Berlin, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The ringleader — a 35-year-old Algerian who was staying at a refugee shelter with his wife and two children in Attendorn — arrived in Germany in the fall of 2015. Posing as an asylum seeker from Syria, the Algerian, identified only as Farid A., is said to have received military training with the Islamic State in Syria.
Also arrested were: a 49-year-old Algerian living in Berlin under a fake French identity; a 30-year-old Algerian living in Berlin with a valid residence permit; and a 26-year-old Algerian, allegedly with ties to Islamists in Belgium, who is living in a refugee shelter in Hanover.
The men allegedly were planning to attack Checkpoint Charlie, the iconic Cold War crossing point between East and West Berlin. They also allegedly were planning to attack the Alexanderplatz, a large public square and transportation hub in the center of Berlin.
On February 8, German police arrested an alleged ISIS commander who was living at a refugee shelter in the small town of Sankt Johann. The 32-year-old jihadist, known only as Bassam and posing as a Syrian asylum seeker, had entered Germany in the fall of 2015. German intelligence authorities were unaware of the man's true identity until the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, interviewed him after receiving a tip from other Syrians at the shelter. Bassam said the accusations against him are false: "I want to learn German and work as a cook," he said.
In a February 5 interview with ZDF television, Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), warned that the Islamic State was deliberately planting jihadists among the refugees flowing into Europe. "The terror risk is very high," he said.
On February 4, the Berliner Zeitung quoted Maaßen as saying that the BfV had received more than 100 warnings that there were Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently living in Germany. Some of the jihadists are known to have entered Germany using fake or stolen passports.
Maaßen also revealed that the BfV knows of 230 attempts by Salafists to canvass German refugee shelters in search of new recruits. In a recent interview with the Berlin newspaper, Der Tagesspiegel, Maaßen said that the number of Salafists in Germany has now risen to 7,900. This is up from 7,000 in 2014; 5,500 in 2013; 4,500 in 2012, and 3,800 in 2011.
Although Salafists make up only a small fraction of the estimated six million Muslims living in Germany today, intelligence officials warn that most of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who, at a moment's notice, are willing to carry out terrorist acts in the name of Islam.
In an annual report, the BfV described Salafism as the "most dynamic Islamist movement in Germany." It added:
"The absolutist nature of Salafism contradicts significant parts of the German constitutional order. Specifically, Salafism rejects the democratic principles of separation of state and religion, popular sovereignty, religious and sexual self-determination, gender equality and the fundamental right to physical integrity."
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Maaßen warned: "Salafists want to establish an Islamic state in Germany."
On February 16, more than 200 German police raided the homes of 44 Salafists in the northern city state of Bremen. The Interior Minister of Bremen, Ulrich Mäurer, said he had ordered the closure of the Islamic Association of Bremen (Islamischen Fördervereins Bremen) for the alleged recruiting of jihadists for the Islamic State:
"It is rather apocalyptic that we have people living in the middle of our city who are prepared, from one day to the next, to participate massively in the terror of the Islamic State."
In December 2014, authorities in Bremen shut down another Salafist group, the Culture and Family Association (Kultur- und Familieverein, KUF), after some of its members joined the Islamic State.
More than 800 German residents — 60% of whom are German passport holders — have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, according to Die Welt, based on the most recent data compiled by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA). Of these, roughly one-third have returned to Germany. Around 130 others have been killed on the battlefield, including at least a dozen suicide bombers.
In a February 19 interview with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, the head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, said that up to 5,000 European jihadists have returned to the continent after obtaining combat experience on the battlefields of the Middle East. He added that further jihadist attacks in Europe were to be expected:
"Europe is now facing the greatest terrorist threat in more than ten years. We expect that ISIS or other Islamist groups will carry out an attack somewhere in Europe, with the aim of achieving high losses among the civilian population. In addition, there is the threat posed by lone-wolf attackers. The growing number of foreign fighters presents the member states of the EU with completely new challenges."
A recent poll conducted by YouGov for the news agency, Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA), found that 66% of Germans expect the Islamic State to carry out a jihadist attack on German soil in 2016. Only 17% of those surveyed believe there will be no attack; 17% said they did not have an opinion.
Speaking at a gathering of international police in Berlin on February 25, Hans-Georg Maaßen, the spy chief, warned that Germany is not an island: "We have to assume that we will become the target of jihadist attacks, and we need to be prepared."
**Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.
Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its content

Turkey: Normalizing Hate

Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 13/16
World Champion Violator of Right to Freedom of Speech
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7461/turkey-normalizing-hate

"[T]hey have launched an investigation against me in accordance with article 301 because I mentioned 'peace, brotherhood, and human rights' in my statement to the press. Hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against lawyers and members of opposition in Turkey because they talked about peace and brotherhood." — Ilhan Ongor, Co-President of the Adana branch of the Human Rights Association.
Starving or murdering civilians does not, apparently, constitute a crime in Turkey, but speaking out about them does.
Insulting non-Turkish and non-Muslim people has almost become a social tradition in Turkey. Prejudice and hate speech have become normalized.
What makes this hate speech even more disturbing is that these people -- Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Jews, among others -- are the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Thrace, where they have lived for millennia. Today, as a result of Turkey's massacres, pogroms and deportations, they have been turned into tiny communities.
According to the 2015 statistics of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Turkey, 28 lawsuits were opened by applicants against member states regarding their violations of freedom of expression. 10 of those applications (complaints) were made against Turkey's violations of freedom of expression. So Turkey ranked first in that category.
Turkish law professor Ayse Isil Karakas, both a judge and elected Deputy Head of the ECHR, said that among all member states, Turkey has ranked number one in the field of violations of free speech.
"619 lawsuits of freedom of expression were brought at the ECHR between 1959 and 2015," she said. " 258 of them -- almost half of them -- came from Turkey and most were convicted as violations of freedom of expression."
For a country that fancies itself a candidate for EU membership, that is quite a record. Actually, when it comes to deciding what thoughts are warmly tolerated and what thoughts are severely punished, Turkey is extraordinary. If the statement involves Jew-hating for instance, it is welcomed by many.
Seyfi Sahin, a columnist in the Islamist pro-government newspaper Vahdet, wrote on January 31:
"I believe that the gorillas and chimpanzees living in the forests in northern Africa today are cursed Jews. Those are mutated, perverted people.
"Believe me, this view is stronger and more scientific than the Darwin theory. We Muslims, and those who believe that, do not have the banks, the money, the organizational power in the world of science, or the propaganda power to scream those truths.
"But we have our wisdom, our faith and our Allah. Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah)."
In an attempt to back up his "views," Sahin mentioned that he is also a medical doctor, and quoted Koranic verses 2/65, 5/60 and 7/166. "Those verses are signs that monkeys descended from human beings," he said. "Allah always tells the truth."
Throughout his entire piece -- which has been widely "liked" and shared on social media -- he tried to "prove" his claim that monkeys come from Jews, and his newspaper saw no harm in publishing it. Yet, no one has yet brought him to account for his libelous insults. Who knows? He might even be given an award for this piece.
However, much of the Turkish public and the Turkish state are not so tolerant and welcoming when human rights issues -- especially Kurdish issues -- are discussed.
According to reports, two lawsuits were filed on January 3 against Sibel Ozbudun, an author and retired associate professor of anthropology known for her writings about minority rights. The indictment claims that through her social media posts, Ozbudun has committed the crime of "openly inciting people to commit an offense" and "making propaganda of the PKK." The lawsuits were filed after the police received an e-mail from someone denouncing Ozbudun for her posts.
One of the pieces of "evidence" of the prosecutors is a verse, popular in Turkey, shared by Ozbudun on her Facebook page: "I want the country be divided -- henchmen, sycophants and slimy ones to one side; honorable, dignified, laborious, patriotic people to the other."
On another occasion, on December 30, a Turkish instructor and a member of the Social Rights Association, Cise Atalay, during a lecture at Amasya University mentioned human rights abuses. A student called the police; Atalay was arrested for "terrorist propaganda" on the spot. Next, her home and office were searched.
The student who called the police is not alone. Turkish state authorities also regard requests for human rights as "terrorist propaganda" or "insulting the Turkish state." On January 7, an investigation was launched against the co-president of the Adana branch of the Human Rights Association (IHD), Ilhan Ongor, for violating Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it illegal "to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions."
On November 11, apparently, Ongor had issued a press release in which he said, "Today, in Silvan, a crime against humanity is being committed by the state. They are trying to make the massacres ordinary." He had been criticizing the recent military attacks against Kurds during a curfew imposed on the Kurdish district of Silvan.
The military attacks had caused starvation, civilian deaths and massive destruction. After his criminal investigation, Ongor said that "People's right to life is violated while the judiciary is trying to suppress human rights and defenders of freedom."
"Interestingly, they have launched an investigation against me in accordance with article 301 because I mentioned 'peace, brotherhood, and human rights' in my statement to the press. Hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against lawyers and members of opposition in Turkey because they talked about peace and brotherhood."
Starving or murdering civilians does not constitute a crime in Turkey, apparently, but speaking out about them does.
In Turkey, if someone utters the most vicious or threatening remarks about Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Christians, Kurds, Alevis or other members of a minority, he is never condemned by the state or held to account. But those who speak of human rights abuses, or criticize the state for its violent, repressive actions, will most probably be accused of violations.
After a group of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK guerillas were killed in battle on September 8, the principal consultant of President Tayyip Erdogan and former Chairman of the Constitutional Commission of Turkey's Parliament, Burhan Kuzu, wrote in his Twitter account:
"So far, thousands of terrorists have been bumped off. This will continue. The corpses of the dead terrorists should definitely have autopsies. Many of them will be found to be uncircumcised. Wake up, my Kurdish brother, wake up now!"
Kuzu seems to be trying to legitimize the killings of PKK members because being uncircumcised implies being Christian or non-Muslim. He also seems to think that the PKK members are not Muslims, and that any non-Muslim deserves to be "bumped off."
Evidently jumping to conclusions about the possible political leanings of dead people based on their genitalia, and saying that because of their religious background they deserve to be killed, is perfectly acceptable in Turkey. What is more alarming is that Kuzu, who made these statements, is a constitutional law professor.
In 1996, at Turkey's parliament, the interior minister at the time, Meral Aksener, and a current MP from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said that the leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), Abdullah Ocalan, was "Armenian semen." She then clarified the remark by saying, "I did not refer to the Armenians living in Turkey. I referred to the Armenian race in general."[1]
Humiliating statements about non-Turkish or non-Muslim people are common and popular, even among political circles, but if one makes critical statements about the state policies, one might be prosecuted, or end up in prison -- due to the vagueness of Turkey's "terrorism" laws.
Because of several articles in the Turkish penal code, many individuals face prosecution as if they were actually fighting the government as "members" of the armed Kurdish PKK, and are often sentenced accordingly.[2]
Many peaceful demonstrators have also faced prosecution for exercising their right of freedom of expression, if they shout slogans, hold up banners, or make statements to the press.
The latest victims are the peace activists who demanded an end to the recent military siege in Turkey's Kurdistan. On December 27, activists from western Turkey started a journey towards Diyarbakir in an attempt to oppose the military siege and civilian deaths in the region. Calling their action "We are walking towards peace," they arrived in Diyarbakir on December 31 -- to be attacked by the police. Four were injured and twenty-four were taken into custody, accused of "carrying out acts on behalf of a terrorist organization."
In December, peace activists walked to the city of Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan in an action they called "We are walking towards peace." When they arrived, they were attacked by the police. Four were injured and twenty-four were arrested, accused of "carrying out acts on behalf of a terrorist organization." (Image source: JINHA)
The state tradition of violating the freedom of expression goes back to the foundation of the Turkish republic in 1923. The new regime established by the Republican People's Party (CHP) -- with its laws and "independence tribunals" -- totally crushed any kind of political opposition and freedom of opinion.
The 1925 Law on the Maintenance of Order gave the government that founded the Turkish republic extraordinary authority through which it could suppress all kinds of opposition and ban any group or publication it viewed as threatening its authority.
In 1926, all major national newspapers except Cumhuriyet and the official Ankara daily, Hakimiyet-i Milliye were closed.[3]
In another autocratic policy, the "independence tribunals" were founded in 1920 -- and functioned periodically until 1929 -- to prosecute the dissidents of the government and hand down swift capital punishment for them.
"The members of the independence tribunals were chosen from the parliament," wrote the historian Ayse Hur.
"But those members -- except for the prosecutors -- were not jurists. On the doors of the tribunals were written 'Independence tribunals are afraid of Allah only' and they were not responsible for their rulings but all of the civilian and military bureaucrats were responsible for the executions of punishments without delay.
"No evidence was needed to give rulings. It was very rare that the defendants had lawyers. There was neither time for that nor lawyers courageous enough. The rulings were given in accordance with the personal convictions of judges and those who were tried did not have a right of appeal. The punishments (and hangings) were carried out right away. The rulings were given and executed so swiftly that sometimes the wrong people were hanged instead of real defendants."
"By the time the independence tribunals were disbanded two years later," wrote professor Michael M. Gunter, "more than 7400 Kurds had been arrested, 660 had been executed, hundreds of villages had been destroyed, and thousands of other Kurds had been killed or exiled."[4]
The tribunals were legally closed down in 1929, but the laws concerning independence tribunals remained in force until 1949. They continued functioning as the nightmare of the opponents of the regime until the end of the one-party regime of the Republican People's Party (CHP) in 1950.
Sadly, the new Turkish regime founded in 1923 did not aim to foster a culture of free opinions and free debate. And the rest of Turkey's history has mostly been about repeated violations of freedom of expression. Almost all opinions that are different from the state's official ideology are targeted, criminalized and repressed.
Turkey has pursued discriminatory and violent policies towards minority groups, but discussing those policies often constitutes a crime.
Omer Asan, a Turkish author and publisher, was accused by Turkish courts of "spreading separatist propaganda" through "Pontus, Pontic Culture," a book he wrote. The title means "sea" in Greek, and is a historical Greek designation for the territory located in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. The inhabitants of Pontus were some of the very first converts to Christianity. From 1914 to 1923, out of approximate 700,000 Pontic Greek Christians, as many as 350,000 were killed by Muslim Turks in a genocidal campaign. Almost all the rest were driven out of their homes during the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
That act marked the end of one of the ancient Greek civilizations in Asia Minor. The ancient region known as Pontus has been almost totally Turkified and Islamized up until today.
The book was, among other things, the subject of a television program in which a theology professor accused Asan of "being a traitor friendly to Greece" and of "wanting to reintroduce Orthodox Christianity to a Muslim region."
In January 2002, the National Security Court ordered the seizure of the book.[5]
In March, 2002 the State Security Court brought criminal proceedings against Asan. He was charged with disseminating separatist propaganda by asserting that there were still some communities influenced by Pontic Greek culture in the province of Asan's hometown, Trabzon, and the surrounding area.
In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights convicted Turkey of violating Asan's right to free speech.
Why is Turkey disturbed by critical thoughts, questions and books, but not by those who call Armenians "sperm," Jews "monkeys" or who talk about the private parts of dead Kurds? Insulting non-Turkish and non-Muslim people has almost become a social tradition in Turkey. Prejudice and hate speech have become normalized.
What makes this hate speech even more disturbing is that these people -- Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Jews, among others -- are the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Thrace, where they have lived for millennia. Today, as a result of Turkey's massacres, pogroms and deportations, they have been turned into tiny communities.
After committing crimes against these native people, Turkey not only denies the realities of this history, but insults and threatens the remaining members of those groups. It also represses whoever would like to discuss these issues. The only people who seem to enjoy "freedom" completely are those engaging in hate speech.
Citizens of other countries who live in Turkey are also exposed to prohibitions on free speech.
Norma Cox, an American academic who worked as a lecturer at Turkish universities during the 1980s, was deported and banned from re-entering Turkey by order of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior in 1986, 1989 and 1996. She has been unable to return to Turkey ever since.
The Ministry of the Interior claimed that Cox had been expelled and banned because of her separatist activities against national security, "namely statements she had made about Turks assimilating Kurds and Armenians, and Turks forcing Armenians out of the country and committing genocide."
Cox's application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said: "Expressing opinions on Kurdish and Armenian issues at a university, where freedom of expression should be unlimited, could not be used as a justification for any sanctions, such as the ban on her re-entry into Turkey."
In 2010, the ECHR convicted Turkey of violating Cox's freedom of expression.[6]
While hate speech and racism are warmly tolerated and even promoted by state authorities, free debate on Turkey's social and political issues such as the Kurdish question and the PKK, Armenian genocide, history of Anatolian and Pontic Greeks, and the Christian roots of Anatolia, among others, are criminalized.
Turkey thereby systematically violates Turkish citizens' freedom of information or right to know, a right recognized by the United Nations.
The researcher Lisa Reppell, who analyzed Turkey's cases in the ECHR, wrote:
"The category in which Turkey stands out most significantly is freedom of expression. ... Though by number of incidences, freedom of expression judgments are a smaller percentage of Turkey's judgments, violations of this category are much more common in Turkey than in any other member state. Out of a total of 544 judgments handed down by the Court between 1959 and 2013, 41 percent of all freedom of expression violations have come from cases against Turkey."
Turkey is a mental prison. In Turkey, knowledge of history and respect for human rights are neither valued nor popular; hatred, bans and discrimination are.
Despite Turkey's unchanging pattern of violating freedom of expression, the country was officially recognized as a candidate for full membership of the European Union in 1999, and is a part of the "Western Europe" branch of the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) at the United Nations.[7]
For decades, Europe has treated Turkey almost as if Turkey were a part of Europe. Turkey, however, has never behaved like a modern European state or even a state that truly aspires to be one.
Perhaps Turkish authorities in charge of the country's tourism affairs should prepare more truthful videos or posters. They might say: "Come to Turkey, where Asking for Peace is a Crime., but Asking for Uncircumcised People To Be Killed Is Normal."
Or: "Watch your books and remarks! We Are So Sensitive That Even the Mention of Greeks and Christians Offends Us."
Another poster could say, "In This Country, Recognizing the Armenian Genocide Is a Crime but Calling Someone "Armenian Sperm" is Just Fine. Welcome to Turkey!"
Uzay Bulut, born and raised a Muslim, is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara.
[1] "Armenian semen" is one of the most popular swear words in Turkey, often used for Kurds, as well. Kurds, or Kurds who request national rights, are "accused" of being Armenian. Many people in Turkey, including military personnel openly refer to Kurds or Kurdish activists as "Armenians," "dirty Armenians," "Armenian bastards," "Armenian sperm" or "Armenian semen."
[2] For more details, see: "Protesting as a Terrorist Offense: The Arbitrary Use of Terrorism Laws to Prosecute and Incarcerate Demonstrators in Turkey," by Human Rights Watch, November 1, 2010.
[3] "The History of Turkey", by Douglas Arthur Howard, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001.
[4] "The A to Z of the Kurds", by Michael M. Gunter, Scarecrow Press, 2009.
[5] For details about Asan's case at ECHR, please see: European Court of Human Rights, 840; 27.11.2007 Asan V. Turkey.
[6] Cox's application to the ECHR also said:
"[T]he Ministry's allegations against her had not been proved. Even assuming that she had said those things at the university, she had remained within the permissible limits of criticism. Furthermore, she had never been prosecuted for having expressed those opinions. The action taken against her by the Ministry had therefore been devoid of any legal basis."
For details about Cox's case at ECHR, see "Case of Cox v. Turkey", Application no. 2933/03, 20 May 2010
[7] In 1987, Turkey's application to accede to the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union (EU), was made. Since 1963, Turkey has been an associate member. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949; the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1961; and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1973. It was an associate member of the Western European Union from 1992 to its end in 2011. It also signed a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995.
Follow Uzay Bulut on Twitter
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. 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.

Turkey and Iran: The Seduction Game
Middle East Briefing/March 13/16
There are already timid signs that the regional tension in the Middle East may have already passed its peak. The fact that Syria’s ceasefire is still holding, at least in some areas, is definitely one of them. Another is the recent visit of Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu March 4. Diplomatically, it was the turn of Tehran to make up for the visit of its foreign minister, Jawad Zarif, who cancelled his visit to Ankara at the last minute in August.
According to Iran’s TV, Syria was on the agenda of Davutoglu-Zarif talks. Iraq was discussed as well. The difference between the two dossiers is obvious. While the Syrian crisis has not reached any pause yet, Iraq’s problems are more or less clear to all eyes.
Davutoglu took with him to Tehran his ministers of economy, trade, energy, transport, communications and development. This explains that the real focus of the Prime Minister was to rebuild the bridges with an Iran getting ready to enter the global market in the post-sanctions era. Political hot-headed speeches can step aside for a moment when Turkey finds its potentially dynamic neighbor planning its way forward.
And Davutoglu heard it out loud in Tehran: It will not be for free. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani had this to say while receiving the Turkish Prime Minister: “Iran and Turkey have common objectives and interests and must strengthen the foundations for peace and stability in the region through improving bilateral cooperation and focusing on the fight against terrorism as a common enemy”.
What Rouhani was in fact saying is that it all depends on Ankara’s regional behavior.
Davutoglu responded in kind. ““Behind closed sessions, we have already discussed upgrading the level of bilateral ties in order to boost cooperation in energy, banking, transport and tourism. By upgrading our ties, we can also sit for talks and resolve our political differences in the region”.
What the Prime Minister was in fact saying is that economic ties come first, then we can talk about political differences.
Further determination of the kind of price Tehran expects came from Zarif. Iran’s foreign minister hinted at Ankara’s regional ties in a way that directly pointed to the need, in Tehran’s view, to change their orientation. “Some countries in our region, particularly the Saudi government, have pursued wrong policies, seeking to create tensions and insecurity in the entire region”, Zarif bluntly said after his meeting with Turkish PM.
It was clear after Davutoglu bold visit that actually he achieved very little results, if any. Just following the departure of the Prime Minister, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister Amir Abdullahian briefed the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee by saying that “it is obvious that Ankara’s Syria’s policy has failed”. “Yet, Turkey failed to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Al Assad despite support by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US”, he added.
The visit should not, however, be declared a total failure. It helps crystalize an illicit pressure on Ankara to review its regional policies. Although no direct consequences, in the form of announced changes in policies, should be expected, Turkey would see the potential fruits of such a review in clearer terms. Tehran hopes that this will grow gradually into a change in Turkey’s regional positions at one point down the road.
Yet, such a reorientation in Ankara’s policies is difficult to envisage in the foreseeable future. There is a genuine ideological dimension in Ankara’s motivations. Furthermore, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still believes that his Middle East policies have not failed totally yet. He is willing to adapt his approaches, as seen in his successful not-very-secret talks recently held with Israel, but he does not see any pressing need to change those approaches altogether. And, practically speaking, he might not be able to make a full U-Turn even if he sees the benefits.
The prospects of a potential change may worry the Saudis. So far, they are progressing in effecting Egypt’s positions, albeit too slowly to fit their perceived pressing regional coalition. A Turkish-Saudi-Egyptian alliance would indeed play a central role in shaping the Middle East. And Tehran is trying to show the Turks some promised goodies to inch them out of the Saudi orbit. They may extend some help to Cairo as well. Iraq’s PM Haider Abadi was in Cairo recently in an official visit. He might have been carrying in one of his pockets a message about regional policies along the lines of Mr. Zarif’s views of that matter.
One way to move forward for Turkey is to start with an easier problem like the one in Iraq. Although Ankara has limited cards there, it still has some. It receives Kurdistan oil and can work on a solution for the budget dispute between Erbil and Baghdad in coordination with Tehran. It can also pave the road for an understanding between the Arabs and the Iranians in Iraq. There are many ways, out of the box, to be able to play a constructive role without threatening its allies in the Arab side all the while creating a dialogue with the Iranians.
True that Syria poisons all the horizons, but the Syrian crisis will not remain forever. This crisis showed that it is easy to go to war, but it is difficult to end it or to achieve a zero-sum “absolute” victory. The road in the middle is there wide open, even for Ankara’s Tehran and regional policies.

The Bi-Polar Nature of the Transitional Phases in Iraq and Syria
Middle East Briefing/March 13/16
While Syria’s ceasefire is slowly unfolding as expected, it is fair to say that the general fight against ISIL, which has two parallel tracks: military and political, is facing serious obstacle on both tracks at present. Yet, we do not see those obstacles as signs of regress. They look more like signs of progress, albeit in a very slow pace.
On the Syrian political track, and despite the large violations of the ceasefire by almost all parties March 7 and 8, the prospects of an intermediate phase of relative quiet are coming out of the fog. In Iraq, the US seems to see the problem of ISIL correctly-that is to see that first and above all, it is a political problem.
Militarily, however, we hear now US military officials explain that defeating ISIL in Mosul, Raqqa and elsewhere in Iraq and Syria will require putting more US boots on the ground there. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday March 8, General Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, pointed to the need for “additional capability” to retake Mosul, as well as ISIL “capital” Al Raqqa in Syria. “We could increase some elements of the Special Operations footprint”, he said.
The future Commander of CENTCOM (effective this month), and current Commander of US Special Operations Command, General Joseph Votel, said there is no current plans to capture Raqqa.
Aside from reluctance in Washington to send more troops to Iraq, the “strategy” of training and equipping indigenous forces to fight ISIL should obviously consider the ethnic and sectarian realities of the landscape. General Austin said he has asked for “permission” to restart a program to train and equip indigenous forces to go after ISIS “using a different approach” from the previous program that ended in failure.
Austin explained that the different approach would focus this time on a smaller set of people to train others who would then “enable” larger groups allied with the U.S. and its allies inside Syria. As we will see shortly, the US is simultaneously pushing hard for a political deal in Baghdad, while trying hard to keep Syria’s ceasefire in place until talks start and gain some momentum on their own.
The political problems in both country differ only in appearance and details. They both are reflections of the same problem: alienation of segments of the populations on sectarian or ethnic bases and the sheer political oppression. But details count. While in Syria we see serious prospects for a de facto partition, at least for some time, in Iraq, however, the country is already and silently partitioned.
If a partition of a country would not bring stability or end terrorism, then why should it be considered? And if partition will cause a new fight to “regain the national unity”, it would be an exercise in futility.
The expedient “solution” of partitioning Iraq and Syria should be historically understood as a short process towards a different unity. Otherwise, the “old glorious past” of the imagined “united and independent national unity” will replace the illusions of the “old glorious past” empires that we hear of in fundamentalists’ literature and which are gone long ago.
Partitioning would go in the collective conscious in the region as a result of an “external conspiracies of the major powers”. Yet, preserving the “unity”, as Mr. Vladimir Putin understands it, that is to say by sheer oppression, is in fact an artificial preservation of the whole through a “cut and paste” technique. Furthermore, it is wrong to assume that both countries have zero national identity. There was a process going on, albeit extremely slow, to forge such a collective identity. A Syrian or an Iraqi identify themselves as such before talking about their ethnic or sectarian differences. But a fully formed national identity, capable of suppressing ethnic or sectarian affiliations if they oppose the national bond, was not there yet.
Historically, this intermediate process, summoned in what we currently see in both Syria and Iraq, should be a step towards a different unity. But what does this mean in terms of the immediate threat: ISIL?
The question reveals the interlink between both the political and the military tracks. And obviously, strategists and officials in the US understand that clearly.
In Baghdad, for example, and during the first week of this month, US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL Bret McGurk held three separate meetings with senior Iraqi officials. It was noticeable that Vice President Jo Biden, who was in the nearby UAE, avoided visiting the Iraqi capital, though he is the ultimate US authority in Iraqi issues. Instead, McGurk had to fly to Abu Dhabi March 6 to brief the VP. Biden only called Iraq’s PM Haider Abadi to reiterate what McGurk already said to the PM.
And according to stories told by Iraqi officials, McGurk expressed discontent at the pace of political reform and the fight against corruption. He explained that while the US understands the urgent financial needs of the Iraqi government, which is almost running out of cash, it cannot help much so long as corruption remains at its current levels. The US official waved before the Iraqi PM eyes a loan of $10 billion only “if there is enough progress” in both reforms and sufficient anti-corruption measures.
In the past, Biden needed no invitation to visit Iraq. He was there often. Now, this is his third visit to the region which skips Baghdad from its itinerary.
If that was indeed what McGurk said in Baghdad, this would be the right policy. Defeating ISIL, while preserving all the conditions that led to its emergence in the first place, does not mean much.
The current tension in the bi-polar tissue of the present day Iraq testifies to the nature of the transitional period we currently see in there. There are forces pulling Iraq, maybe unintentionally, towards partitioning the country, even within the Putin “envelope” of preserving the artificial whole through an iron fest policy. On the other hand, there are forces that understand that Putin’s policy, which is identical to Iran’s (as shown during the two terms of Nouri Al Maliki), would lead to another ISIL.
This was clear in a meeting which gathered all Iraqi Shia leaders in Karbala March 6. The meeting was held to reach an agreement on how to deal with popular protests, reforms and corruption. Muqtada Al Sadr and Amar Al Hakim expressed views that tend towards moving the country forward in the path of reform. However, Sadr stormed out of the meeting and Hakim left earlier. Sadr later said that the communique issued after the meeting was not approved by any of the two. “I left this meeting early with enormous pain in my heart and deep concern over the unknown future of our country”.
Sadr and Hakim have some of civil society protests’ support. Sadr is said to be preparing for a popular march to the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Signs of the bi-polar nature of the transition are multiple as shown in the popular protests and the differences with the Shia political block. However, the political establishment, or precisely said, the pro-Iran political forces in Baghdad, are putting substantial resistance. They are firm believers in the Putin’s concept of a forced “national unity”.
It is indeed an extended cross road for Iraq. Abadi is too weak a politician to become a “national leader” and implement the needed reforms without hesitation. He has the support of the Iraqi “street”, yet he is unable to translate that into bold steps to fight institutionalized corruption and sectarianism.
Iraq is waiting for the formation of a new government which, hopefully, would be based on proper inclusive political representation. It is waiting for the implementation of sweeping political legislations which address the sectarian and national fragmentation of the country (The return of the displaced and the general amnesty in particular) and settling the differences about the National Guard and the oil revenues proposed laws. It was indeed the proper time for McGurk to make things clear.
However, on the military front, the battle for Mosul is suspended for some time on the hope that Baghdad will pull itself, and the country, from the current crisis and take the road towards reform. If wishes have wings, the best way to go is to gather all of Iraq’s population and capacities behind the forces that will free Mosul. Yet, this front has some additional clouds.
The PKK, sensing that the US needs its role, is showing signs of defiance. A spokesman for the party said March 8 that Iraqi Security Forces and the Kurdish region’s Peshmerga “Cannot liberate Mosul on their own without our help”. The spokesman of the Kurdish group explained that the sectarian and ethnic nature of the forces which are supposed to liberate Mosul do not enable them to accomplish the mission. “Without us, the liberation of Mosul would be impossible. The Turks better avoid any participation in the fight if Mosul is to regain some stability once ISIL is defeated. We have 4000 fighters standing by to participate”, he said. It is indeed a strange statement coming from a fully Kurdish force.
A spokesman for the KRG responded by asserting that it would only be the Coalition, Iraqi Security and the Peshmerga that will fight for Mosul. “No one else is allowed to participate”, he said.
This shows that “the political track” is not merely a domestic Iraqi issue. It is also Iranian and Turkish in many ways. Mosul would certainly turn into a battle field between the Turks, the Kurds and Iraqi Security forces backed by the pro-Iran Shia militias. Once on a regional level, Mosul transcends the ISIL issue.
In Syria, we see the same interlink between the political and the military anti-ISIL efforts. And again, if wishes have wings, we hope to see a solution to pull Syria out of the Putin’s concept of national “unity” to the broader horizons of people determining for themselves the kind of government and country they call theirs, then collectively fighting ISIL and all other forms of organized terrorism.
However, what we see on the ground is yet another manifestation of the overall regional transitional phase and the same kinds of bi-polar forces, albeit in different forms, fighting to take the process either on Putin’s road or on the only proper way: The voluntary collective participation in building a nation based on the equality and liberty of its citizens.
While Syria’s ceasefire is starting to collapse in some fronts, in one small town, Al Dameer, south of Damascus, and the same way their Iraqi brethren did, the population gathered in a large rally and demanded that all opposition group “complete their exchange of prisoners by noon March 11, get all non-Syrian fighters out of town, return private properties they confiscated and end all signs of armed presence by the same time”. The town may witness clashes between the two sides in the coming weeks.
Demonstrations swept Syria during the few days of quiet calling for the fall of Assad and singing for freedom. Last year, and up to now, Iraq witnesses the awakening of its civil society as well. Yet, it is not in the hands of the people of either Iraq or Syria to even determine what kind of country they would have until they appropriate this role by themselves. This is their road to building true nations and defending the equality of their citizens.
The objectives of the transitional phase is to prepare for the fight to defeat ISIL, force Putin’s concept of national unity into retreat, get rid of Assad who kills his people as a hobby, convince Tehran to respect the peoples of its neighbors and defeat those backward apocalyptic so-called “Islamists”. And this certainly is not a stone throw away.

The Death Sentence of a Businessman in Iran: The beginning of Factional War?
Middle East Briefing/March 13/16
Sentencing Babak Zanjani to death in Tehran March 5 does not necessarily mean an all-out war between the reformists and the Iranian IRGC. Taking the harsh sentence as a beginning of an open fight between the corrupt militarized “public sector” IRGC economic empire and the Rafsanjani-Rouhani alliance which is re-emerging in the political landscape of Iran may be an “over-reading” of the surprisingly harsh sentence.
Zanjani was arrested over two years ago. His shadowy deals with some IRGC generals did not bode well either with other generals or some centers of the political power. While he was an “Ahmadinejad man”, almost all Iranian officials, other than the IRGC fat cats, know that the main feature of the former President’s period in his office was widespread corruption.
However, the real figure that hold the key to a wealth of information on the corruption of the higher up leaders of the IRGC is not Zenjani, It is Saeed Mortazavi, the infamous “butcher of Tehran”.
Mortazavi was the head of the prosecution office of the IRGC and the Judge of Tehran Press Court. He gained fame when he disregarded the verdict of the jury in a case to close a reformist newspaper. The juries resigned and filed a suit against him, which went nowhere. Then he was rewarded by naming him the prosecutor general of Tehran in 2003. He earned this position following the 90’s campaign against Iran’s freedom of press. The campaign, led by the IRGC and allied conservative forces, was launched in the beginning of 1999 when Khamenei gave the green light. “A dangerous, creeping cultural movement…writing against Islam…. I’m now waiting to see what the officials will do. Of course, stopping these vicious actions is not difficult, and I do not care what the international organizations would say. We will never care about them”, he said in a public speech.
The crackdown started the following morning after Khamenei’s call for war. Mortazavi, who was a dominant figure in the Social Security Authority was later demoted in 2009 by Iran’s judiciary chief, Sadegh Larijani, as a consequence of abusing imprisoned students. According to a leaked WikiLeaks telegram, the predecessor of Larijani, Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shrroudi, who appointed Mortazavi as the Public Prosecutor of Tehran in the first place, was unable to rein in Mortazavi. “Notably, he had little control over the hardline conservative Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor General, who spearheads the judicial anti-reformists”, the telegram said.
Larijani understood that Mortazavi has become a “burned card” as a prosecutor following the 2009 public scandal of torturing students in Kahrizak prison and the death of three of them. The father of one of the murdered youth was an official in the regime. Larijani also had personal grudge against Mortazavi following some sour shadow business deals between the Mortazavi-Zanjani economic network and some close allies of Larijani.
Therefore, one of the first decisions of Larijani was to demotion Mortazavi. He was moved then, as he was still useful in the dark world of the regime’s anti-sanctions plans, to the very convenient position of the Head of Iran’s Anti-Smuggling Force. His job there would be the facilitator of smuggling, but only that which serves both the IRGC generals and Iran’s effort to break the sanctions.
However, the Zanjani- Mortazavi alliance made a move that will alert all the figures dealing with their corruption network. They gave Ahmadinejad a video tape of conversations regarding shadow deals with members of Larijani’s family. Their objective was to use the Larijani-Ahmadinejad competition in their favor and to show that Larijani is a corrupt official as a response to the demotion decision. Ahmadinejad happily played the tape in the Parliament. Handing the tape to Ahmadinejad and playing it in public proved to be a fatal mistake by the corrupt couple.
It became obvious that both men broke the code of silence which governs inter-relations between the regime’s centers of power. Everyone predicted, correctly in fact, that both men may have recorded other conversations with other figures, and all leaders of the corrupt network became increasingly worried.
The use of tapes proved to be a stupide move. Those tapes would have been of value only if there is free press. The corrupt couple could have smuggled the tapes abroad, but that would have led to accusing them of espionage.
Soon after, Mortazavi was arrested (in February 2013) for crimes against prisoners. The arrest came a day after Ahmadinejad released the secret video in parliament where Mortazavi allegedly discussed a fraudulent business deal, implicating Iran’s highly influential Larijani family. The same year, Babak Zanjani was also arrested to be sentenced to death later on.
Mortazavi, a “loyal son of the regime”, was acting upon instructions from higher levels in his crack-down on the relatively free press of former President Khatami and on student protestors. He was released from prison upon instructions from Khamenei and his trial was held later behind closed doors. Contrary to his partner, Zanjani, Mortazawi avoided mentioning any of the corrupt officials’ names. He furthermore offered detailed information about Zanjani’s activities.
Zanjani, at that time, declined to transfer 4 billion Euros to the Social Security Authority headed by the disgraced Mortazavi. It is believed that Motrazavi blamed Zanjani for all corrupt deals abd embezzlements. It is also believed that by declining to transfer the 4 billion Euros to the Social Security coffer, Zangani set himself to be sacrificed by the regime.
Mortazavi was merely disbarred in 2014 for five years, fined $60 and prevented from exercising any official responsibility thereafter. Due to his previous services to the conservative judiciary, he was acquitted from the charge of “participation in murder”. When Zanjani was arrested he was accused of “receiving funds from certain bodies … and received oil and other shipments and now has not returned the funds”. Prosecutors accused Zanjani of owing the government more than $2.7bn for oil sold on behalf of the oil ministry. It is not clear if those “funds” were related to the 4 billion euros which he said he directed to other companies in his empire and not to the “Social Security” as agreed were the real reason of the arrest.
It must have been a hell of a ride for the businessman, who was just a front, and to his main “helper”, who used to supervise the shadow pay-offs to the generals of the IRGC. During his trial, and also due to Mortazavi’s detailed testimony, government official agencies claimed that Zanjani owed billions of dollars in unpaid money to the government.
Zanjani was the engineer of shadowy oil deals between Iran on the one hand and Turkey, several European and Asian fronts on the other, in the oil business on the other hand. Due to schemes designed to bypass the sanctions, the profits were extremely high.
The general picture does not tell us that we are having an open war between the reformists and the IRGC. This a case where an IRGC stooge, Mortazavi, got away with theft, corruption, torture and murder. It is also a case where a businessman tried to embezzle what the government perceived as its own money. It is not a political case and it should not be over-read in any context of an inner fight in Tehran. It should simply be seen in the context of a businessman stealing money at a moment when the regime’s need for his shadowy services was ending. It is a case of stupidity, not of an alleged beginning of a general confrontation between factions in Iran. Zanjani used Mortazavi. But he did not comprehend that he himself was used by the regime. He filled the gray area between the public sector of the IRGC and the private world of businesses. But both have one sole Master: the State.
We are still sometime away from seeing enough growth and self-consciousness in the Iranian private sector to predict an open fight between the business community and the IRGC economic empire.