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Bible Quotation For Today/Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’"
Mark 10/35-45: "James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’ When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’"

Bible Quotation For Today/Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory
Second Letter to Timothy 02/01-10: "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 19-20/15
Lebanon protests need a vision to make a change/Nayla Tueni/Al Arabiya/September 19/15/
Did Palestinians use live fire against the Israeli Border Police/DEBKAfile/September 19/15
Obama in the Middle East: What we’ve got here is failure… of leadership/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
Iran’s offer to help in Yemen: What’s the agenda/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
Death in Egypt’s Western Desert/Abdallah Schleifer/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
“Wake Up!”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, July 2015/Raymond Ibrahim/September 19/15
The Syrian Orphan and a Club of Cynics/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 19/15

Lebanon activists plan mass march
Now Lebanon/September 19/15/BEIRUT – A coalition of Lebanese civil activists groups have called for a mass march Sunday to demand Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk’s resignation after security forces beat and arrested dozens of protesters earlier in the week. “We call for a mass rally on Sunday at 5 p.m. beginning from the Beirut River Bridge in Bourj Hammoud and ending at [Downtown Beirut’s] Nejmeh Square,” a committee bringing together the #YouStink, We Want Accountability and other movements announced Thursday. “What the movement must do is to rise to the level of the open battle that the authorities have launched against us,” spokesperson Nidal Ayoub—who was arrested during Wednesday’s protest—declared. The grassroots movements announced that they are now demanding the dismissal of the interior minister as well as Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk. They also said that they had put together an immediate environmental emergency plan to deal with Lebanon’s worsening trash crisis. Lebanon’s government two weeks ago approved a plan to tackle waste management, however it has been rejected by the #YouStink movement and its implementation is now in doubt as local municipalities and environmental experts question key points of the measure. Thursday’s renewed call to take to the streets comes after security forces beat and arrested dozens of protesters following the #YouStink movement's attempt to block Lebanese leaders from joining a national dialogue session. Amid heavy security measures in the Downtown district, confrontations erupted between riot police and protesters at the morning protest, with a number of pictures, videos as well as television feeds showing clear-cut cases of police brutality. “What happened [Wednesday] is a new episode in the authorities [attempt] to contain the movement,” Ayoub announced in the Thursday press conference. “In comparison with the previous attacks, the extent of violence yesterday was unprecedented,” she said, adding that “there is a clear decision by the authorities to put an end to the movement.” #YouStink announced that 40 demonstrators were arrested Wednesday, while activists reported a number of civil society organizers had been detained in the heavy-handed security sweep, including a hunger striker who had gone 14-days without food and was released in the late afternoon.
The arrests prompted civil society organizations to call for a sit-in Wednesday evening in Downtown Beirut until the release of the detained protesters. Approximately 2,000 activists gathered at Riad al-Solh Square following the day of violence, dispersing only after authorities released detainees in the night. “The release of the detainees yesterday in record time and under the pressure of the street… is a new achievement that adds to this movement’s credit,” Ayyoub declared. Lebanon’s interior minister, for his part, told As-Safir in an interview published Friday that resigning from his post was not necessary, saying he would only resign if he knew it “guaranteed the right to peaceful assembly” or “solved the problems of the country.”On Wednesday, Nohad Machnouk claimed that some protesters “are looking for someone to beat them so they can bleed on the street.”“There are those who want to show that they were beaten up or wounded, they want to be depicted as the victims and the oppressed,” he said in an interview on the TV outlet of his political party, the Future Movement. He further claimed that the grassroots anti-government movement is “severely limited.” The coalition of activist groups was not deterred by Machnouk's comments, saying that “the popular movement will continue to confront the corrupt, criminal authorities.”“The street is ours, today and tomorrow, no withdrawal, no surrender. Power, authority and wealth belong to the people.”

PM Says Cabinet Must Convene after his Return from New York
Naharnet/September 19/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam said Saturday that the cabinet should convene following his return from New York where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly session. Following talks with Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh, Salam said: “I will represent Lebanon next week at the U.N. General Assembly. Upon my return, the cabinet should convene.”“The executive authority should not stop (functioning) or not following up (on issues) and confronting a lot of problems,” he stated. The cabinet is facing paralysis as a result of huge differences between rival parties on its working mechanism in the absence of a president and the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials. Salam also revealed that strong efforts are being exerted to resolve the waste crisis. Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb's plan that was adopted by the government is making progress, he said. The cabinet approved the plan last week. But it has faced opposition from residents over their rejection to have landfills in their areas. The garbage crisis erupted when the Naameh landfill, Lebanon's largest, was closed in mid-July.

Report: Salam to Meet with Pope in New York
Naharnet/September 19/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam is expected to meet with Pope Francis on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly next week, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday. Salam will travel to New York next Thursday to represent Lebanon and address the 70th session of the General Assembly. He is also set to meet with top world leaders, including the pope, said the report. Diplomatic sources told the newspaper that a request made by Lebanese authorities for Salam to meet with Francis was swiftly welcomed by the Vatican. The premier is expected to discuss with the pope the developments in Lebanon and the region, they said. A high-level meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon will also take place during the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

Salam Says Lebanon Breaking Down
Naharnet/September 19/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam has warned that Lebanon is breaking down because of differences between the rival political parties and their failure to resolve controversial issues. Salam told the Washington Post in an interview that the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon “are a burden because they share our electricity, our water, our schools, our roads, our commerce, our jobs — and yes, the Lebanese are tired of this.”“But the (real) breakdown in Lebanon will take place because of the inability to solve the problems of the country, like the garbage issue and others,” he said. The garbage crisis erupted when Lebanon's largest landfill in Naameh was closed on July 17. Trash began piling up on the streets, leading to anti-government demonstrations. The main activist group behind the protests is the “You Stink” movement.“I can’t blame them at all,” Salam told his interviewer about the protesters. “I respect their anger, because it is emanating from a reality: the weakness in almost everything as a result of the stalemate the country is going through — the incapacity of electing a new president for the past year and four months, the paralysis of legitimate institutions like the parliament, and the paralysis also seeping through to the Council of Ministers,” he said. Asked about the vacuum at the Baabda Palace, Salam said: “Solving the problem in Lebanon requires much less effort. It only requires the international big powers and the regional ones to get together and say, “Yes, we will support this guy as a president,” and things will start moving.”Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 as a result of differences between the March 8 and 14 alliances.

Gunmen Open Fire at al-Jadeed Building
Naharnet/September 19/15/Unknown assailants opened fire at dawn Saturday at al-Jadeed television building in Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported. NNA said the incident took place around 2:30 am. Forensic experts inspected the location of the shooting and the TV station is waiting for the results of the investigation, the agency added. The attack happened hours after the station was cleared of charges of contempt for publishing details of witnesses in the trial of the alleged killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon also on Friday cleared al-Jadeed's deputy chief editor, Karma Khayat, of one charge of contempt, but found her guilty of obstruction of justice for failing to remove the broadcast from the TV's website and social media as ordered.

Arrest Warrants for Two who Tried to Assault Airport Customs Chief
Naharnet/September 19/15/First Military Examining Magistrate Judge Riad Abou Ghida issued Friday arrest warrants for Mohammed and Tarek al-Sabeaa on charges of “assaulting and insulting Customs agents at the Rafik Hariri International Airport,” state-run National News Agency reported. It said Abou Ghida made his decision after interrogating the two men. On Saturday, NNA said the army arrested the two men after an attempt to assault the customs chief at the airport. Several individuals including Tarek Hisham al-Sabeaa and another man from the same family stormed into the office of the customs chief at the airport Samer Diaa and tried to assault him, NNA said. It added that the police airport had seized smuggled merchandise that the assailants were trying to exchange for shoe insoles.

Aoun Set to Tackle Appointments, Dialogue in Important Speech
Naharnet/September 19/15/Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun is expected to announce on Sunday an important stance from the controversial military and security appointments and his possible boycott of the national dialogue. Aoun is set to give a speech during a ceremony that will be held on the occasion of handing over the Free Patriotic Movement leadership to his son-in-law Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. Sources close to Aoun told An Nahar daily on Saturday that the blatant extension of the terms of high-ranking army and security officials will prolong the country's political crisis. The Change and Reform leader has rejected the extensions, calling for the appointment of new officials. The issue has caused huge differences among cabinet members, leading to almost paralysis. Aoun wants to strike a deal on the promotion of army brigadier generals to the rank of major general before Oct. 15 when the term of Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz ends. The promotion will keep Roukoz, his son-in-law, in the army and make him eligible to become military commander. Aoun, a candidate, has also called for direct elections to resolve Lebanon's presidential deadlock which erupted in May last year when the term of Michel Suleiman ended. The rival March 8 and 14 camps have failed to agree on a successor over their differences on a compromise candidate. Aoun did not attend the second round of all-party talks that were chaired by Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday. He delegated Bassil instead. “What would we do in a dialogue in which the other party rejects to discuss” ways to grant the people the right to choose their president? the sources asked. MP Alain Aoun told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the Change and Reform bloc has not yet taken the final decision to boycott the national dialogue. “It is still giving it a chance to reach a solution on the different issues that are under discussion,” he said.

Germany, Austria Urge More U.N. Refugee Aid for Lebanon, Jordan
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/ Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann and German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on Saturday called for United Nations countries to contribute an extra five billion euros ($5.65 billion) in aid for refugees living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan.
"We have to help countries where the misery is so great that people are going on the road," Gabriel said, in reference to the tens of thousands of migrants -- many of them Syrian refugees -- who have headed to Europe in recent months."If people have nothing to eat and drink, what can they do but flee? No barrier in the world will stop them," Gabriel told a press conference. In a thinly veiled reference to Hungary, which has been fencing off its borders in a bid to keep the migrants out, Faymann said: "A country can build a fence and try to pass on the responsibility to provide humanitarian aid to its neighbors," but added that "international solidarity" is needed to solve the crisis.Lebanon, which has a population of over four million, is currently hosting around 1.5 million registered and unregistered Syrians forced from their homes by their country's brutal civil war. The United Nations estimates that Jordan is hosting 600,000 Syrian refugees, while the government puts the figure at up to 1.4 million. Berlin called last week at a meeting of G7 and Arab countries for more funds for the U.N. refugee agency. Europe is facing its biggest migration crisis since World War II as it struggles to cope with a massive influx of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and elsewhere. The International Organization for Migration said this week that nearly 474,000 people braved perilous trips across the Mediterranean to reach Europe this year.

Lebanon protests need a vision to make a change
Nayla Tueni/Al Arabiya/September 19/15/In order to preserve Lebanon’s civil society, difficult questions need to be asked in order to protect it from deviating from the right path. These difficult questions are necessary to avoid falling into the trap of chaos, and to put pressure on the authorities, among whom corruption and neglect of people’s affairs persists. The late former Member of Parliament and journalist Gebran Tueni, who was assassinated in 2005, was among the first of the rebels. He launched Nahar al-Shabab, a weekly supplement of An-Nahar newspaper, as a space for young Lebanese people to express themselves. He launched it for the sake of overcoming fear, beginning a journey of change which he knew would be long and tough. Yet he continued to believe in the Lebanese people’s capabilities and desire to achieve change. Calling for change must be associated with a vision, because the aim of change is not to simply replace who is in power.Many challenges lay ahead of him. But Gebran Tueni witnessed the end of all occupations of Lebanon, before he himself was targeted. Part of Tueni’s legacy we preserve today is his call on civil society to work for change. It’s about changing the political class, renewing parties and developing a formula for a state of institutions that maintains the dignity of the Lebanese people. It is a people who has suffered and sacrificed so much, with many killed, displaced, tortured, imprisoned or humiliated.
Need for a vision
But calling for change must be associated with a vision, because the aim of change is not to simply replace who is in power but to actually achieve the strategy of building an independent, free and sovereign state that meets the aspirations of its citizens and guarantees residents’ rights. This is the case in all civilized countries. The protest in Beirut on August 29 inspired hope in the many Lebanese people who took to the streets. It was the hope that they can indeed push for change and fight corruption. There are however several campaigns involved that do not necessarily coordinate with each another. There were protesters intent on causing trouble, and those affiliated with political parties aiming to exploit the situation. This made many people hesitate in participating in the demonstrations; and allowed some politicians to succeed in raising fears about them. What we witnessed on Saturday in Zaitunay Bay in Beirut – a protest organized by ‘Change is Coming’ to reclaim public space – garnered support but also upset many. To push towards change and to restore people’s support, the different campaigns – the ‘You Stink’ campaign, etcetera – must work together. They must not work in a way that creates further divisions. It’s important to specify goals and work accordingly to achieve them. It’s also essential to respect private and public property – as attacking them makes the campaign lose its credibility.

PM Says Cabinet Must Convene after his Return from New York
Naharnet/September 19/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam said Saturday that the cabinet should convene following his return from New York where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly session. Following talks w ith Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh, Salam said: “I will represent Lebanon next week at the U.N. General Assembly. Upon my return, the cabinet should convene.” “The executive authority should not stop (functioning) or not following up (on issues) and confronting a lot of problems,” he stated. The cabinet is facing paralysis as a result of huge differences between rival parties on its working mechanism in the absence of a president and the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials. Salam also revealed that strong efforts are being exerted to resolve the waste crisis. Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb's plan that was adopted by the government is making progress, he said. The cabinet approved the plan last week. But it has faced opposition from residents over their rejection to have landfills in their areas. The garbage crisis erupted when the Naameh landfill, Lebanon's largest, was closed in mid-July.

IAEA chief heads to Tehran for nuclear talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/ The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog will travel to Iran on Saturday for talks on Tehran's nuclear program with senior officials, the IAEA said in a statement. The discussions between International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano and the "high-level" officials will take place on Sunday, it said, as a December deadline looms for completion of a long-running investigation into Iran's past nuclear activities. "The visit will focus on... clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program," it said. The U.N. atomic watchdog on September 9 said Iran must resolve some "ambiguities" over its past nuclear activities before crippling international sanctions can be lifted. The IAEA wants to probe allegations that at least until 2003, Iran's nuclear program had "possible military dimensions" -- in other words that it conducted research into making a nuclear weapon. Iran has said that the allegations that it sought to build a bomb -- including that it conducted relevant explosives tests at the Parchin military base -- are groundless and based on faulty intelligence provided by its enemies to a gullible and partial IAEA. Under the July 14 agreement aimed at ending a 13-year standoff, Iran will dramatically reduce in scale its nuclear activities in order to make any dash to produce atomic weapons all but impossible. It signed an agreement with the IAEA on the same day that it signed the nuclear deal with the six world powers setting out a roadmap for wrapping up the investigation by December 15.

Iran's Rouhani Reassures Americans over Death Chant
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has tried to reassure a skeptical American public that when crowds in Tehran chant "Death to America!" they don't mean it personally. In an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes" to be broadcast Sunday in the United States, the Iranian president said the famous Friday ritual is a reaction to previous Washington policy decisions that hurt Iran. In April, U.S. President Barack Obama's administration signed a deal with Rouhani's government to release Iran from many of the economic sanctions harming its economy in return for tight controls on its nuclear program. But many in the United States are still convinced that Iran, which is ultimately led not by Rouhani but by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains bent on their country's destruction. In the fierce domestic American debate over the deal, opponents have often cited the regular appearance of chanting anti-American crowds as evidence of Tehran's true intentions. But Rouhani, seen as a moderate reformer by the standards of the Islamic republic, attempted to reassure his CBS interviewer Steve Kroft and the wider audience. "This slogan that is chanted is not a slogan against the American people. Our people respect the American people," he insisted, in an extract from the interview released Friday. "The Iranian people are not looking for war with any country," he said. "But at the same time the policies of the United States have been against the national interests of Iranian people, it's understandable that people will demonstrate sensitivity to this issue. "When the people rose up against the Shah, the United States aggressively supported the Shah until the last moments. In the eight-year war with Iraq, the Americans supported Saddam.
"People will not forget these things. We cannot forget the past, but at the same time our gaze must be towards the future."Iran rose up against its pro-Western monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. After the revolt, Iranian radical students took 52 U.S. embassy workers hostage and held them for more than a year. During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, the United States remained close to the aggressor, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, despite the deaths of up to a million Iranians, many through chemical weapon attacks.

Syrian Girl Dies in New Migrant Boat Sinking off Greece
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/A five-year-old Syrian girl was found dead on Saturday and several other refugees were believed to be missing when their boat sank in an attempted crossing from Turkey to Greece, the state ANA agency reported. The Greek coastguard rescued another 13 people and was looking for other survivors, the agency said. The accident occurred north of the island of Lesbos, one of the Greek islands that have seen a heavy influx of refugees from war-torn Syria this year. Many have perished trying to cross the Aegean Sea in search of a better future in Europe. Earlier this month, harrowing pictures of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi, whose body was found washed up on a Turkish beach after the boat carrying his family to the Greek island of Kos sank, caused an outpouring of emotion around the world, pressuring European leaders to step up their response to the refugee crisis. The body of another four-year-old Syrian girl washed up on a beach in western Turkey on Friday. Migrants have in recent days turned to Turkey's land borders with Greece and Bulgaria to avoid the sea voyage that has cost over 2,600 people their lives in the Mediterranean this year.

Gaza Rockets Target Southern Israel, Spark Air Raid
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Two rockets were fired into southern Israel by Palestinian militants in Gaza on Friday, causing no casualties but triggering a series of Israeli air raids. No one was hurt in either of the attacks. One of the rockets hit a parked bus in the town of Sderot, while the Israeli army said the second was destroyed by its "Iron Dome" defense system over the town of Ashkelon. Israeli warplanes then bombed a base of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist movement Hamas, in northern Gaza, according to a witness and a security official in Gaza. The security official said the air raid caused no casualties. The rocket fire, which has not yet been claimed by any group, came as Palestinians clashed with Israeli security in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank after Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, called for a "day of rage" over tensions at the city's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Sisi Swears in New Egypt Government
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi swore in a new government on Saturday that included 16 new ministers, a week after the previous administration resigned following a corruption scandal. Sharif Ismail, who served as petroleum minister in the last cabinet, was sworn in as prime minister in a ceremony shown on state television. The ministers of foreign affairs, defense, interior, justice and finance have kept their positions in the new cabinet. Former premier Ibrahim Mahlab's government resigned on September 12 days after the arrest of agriculture minister Salah Helal as part of a corruption probe. It had also come under growing criticism for delays in economic projects. A senior government official had told AFP the reshuffle, the first major shake-up since Sisi won elections last year, was meant to "pump new blood" into the government. Ismail is seen as a veteran technocrat with experience in state-owned oil companies before he joined the cabinet in 2013. In his first remarks after assuming his post, Ismail struck a note of caution and warned the new government "does not have a magic wand." "It will take some time to solve some of the problems," he was quoted as saying by state television. The new cabinet consists of 16 new ministers, and sees four ministries axed, the presidency said in a statement. The state news agency had reported 15 new ministers. There had been growing calls for Mahlab's resignation and increasing protests by civil servants over a new law that centralizes promotions while taxing bonuses. Mahlab quit as Egypt prepares to hold long-delayed legislative elections in two phases between October 17 and December 2. The elections had initially been scheduled for early 2015 but were cancelled by a court on technical grounds. Mahlab, who had headed the Arab Contractors construction firm, had been appointed by interim president Adly Mansour in March 2014, less than a year after the army led by then defense minister Sisi toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
New state prosecutor
Morsi's removal and detention unleashed a deadly crackdown on Islamists that killed hundreds of protesters, and the army has struggled to quash a jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. Separately on Saturday, Sisi appointed a new state prosecutor, Nabil Sadiq, to replace Hisham Barakat, who was killed in a car bombing in June. The assassination of Barakat, the most senior government official killed since Morsi's overthrow, helped fast track tough new anti-terrorism laws. The government had enjoyed support in the face of militants who have killed hundreds of soldiers, but in recent months had come under fire for corruption and the unpopular civil service law. There has also been growing discontent over a rise in food prices and slashes to a generous fuel subsidy system as Sisi pushes to narrow a budget deficit. Sisi has been able to pass decrees virtually unchecked in the absence of a parliament, including the subsidy cuts that previous governments had shirked to avoid unrest. The new parliament, expected to begin work by the end of the year, will review those laws. However, it is unlikely to present the president with any sustained opposition and will probably be dominated by Sisi loyalists and weak and fractured political parties that have generally backed him. The previous parliament, elected in 2011 after an uprising ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak, had been dominated by Morsi's now blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Kerry: Assad Must Go, but when is Negotiable
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must step down, but not necessarily immediately upon reaching a settlement to end the country's civil war. Speaking after talks in London with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Kerry said he was prepared to negotiate to achieve a solution but asked whether Assad was. "For the last year and a half we have said that Assad has to go but how long, what the modality is... it doesn't have to be on day one or month one or whatever," Kerry told reporters. "There's a process by which all the parties have to come together and reach an understanding of how this can be achieved."He welcomed Russia focusing its efforts against the Islamic State jihadist group (ISIL) in Syria. "We welcome that and we are prepared to try to find the ways to most rapidly and most effectively eliminate ISIL," he said. "We need to get to the negotiation. That's what we are looking for and we hope Russia, Iran and other countries with influence will help to bring about that because that is what's preventing this crisis from ending," he added. "We're prepared to negotiate. Is Assad prepared to negotiate, really negotiate? Is Russia prepared to bring him to the table and actually find the solution to this violence?" "Right now Assad has refused to have a serious discussion and Russia has refused to bring him to the table in order to do that." Russia and the United States launched military talks on the Syrian conflict on Friday as Moscow increased its build-up of forces in the war-torn country. The phone conversation between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ended an 18-month freeze in military relations triggered by NATO anger over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.
Hammond said that as a result of Moscow's involvement, "the situation in Syria is becoming more complicated.""We need to discuss this as part of a much bigger problem: the migration pressures, the humanitarian crisis in Syria as well as the need to defeat ISIL."He said Assad's presence was "a magnet for foreign fighters to come to the region".

Obama, Raul Castro Speak ahead of Pope's Visit to U.S., Cuba
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 19/15/President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro had a rare phone call Friday ahead of Pope Francis' impending visit to both their nations. The White House said Obama and Castro commended the pope's role in "advancing relations between our countries." Francis was instrumental in the secret talks that led to a thaw in relations between the Cold War foes, even offering the Vatican as a neutral location for negotiations. Francis' visit to the U.S. and Cuba comes as the two countries painstakingly work to normalize relations after a half-century diplomatic freeze. Earlier on Friday, the U.S. eased rules for citizens wishing to travel to Cuba or do business with its growing ranks of independent entrepreneurs, a step aimed at kindling greater economic freedom on the island. The Treasury and Commerce departments said the regulations that take effect Monday simplify procedures for tourism, telephone and Internet investments, and money transfers to Cuba. Even as the U.S. and Cuba move forward on easing tensions, deep differences remain. Cuba wants the U.S. to fully lift its economic embargo on the communist island, a step the Republican-controlled Congress opposes. The U.S. also has concerns about Cuba's human rights record and detainment of political prisoners. "The leaders discussed steps that the United States and Cuba can take, together and individually, to advance bilateral cooperation, even as we will continue to have differences on important issues and will address those differences candidly," the White House said. Francis is due to arrive in Cuba on Saturday. He'll then travel to the U.S. for a multi-city visit, including a White House meeting with Obama. Obama and Castro first spoke in December after the secret process to restore diplomatic relations was revealed. They also met in person earlier this year during a regional summit in Panama.

Nusra Front Executes 56 Syria Regime Troops
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Al-Qaida's Syria affiliate and its Islamist allies have executed at least 56 regime troops at a military airport they recently seized in the northwest, a monitoring group said Saturday. Al-Nusra Front and the Islamists shot dead the regime fighters, who were being held as prisoners, "execution-style" inside the Abu Duhur airport, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He said the killings in Idlib province had occurred earlier this week but his monitoring group -- which gathers news from sources on the ground -- confirmed them on Saturday. Al-Nusra is a leading member of an alliance of jihadist and Islamist forces called the "Army of Conquest" that overran the Abu Duhur military airport on September 9. When it overran the airbase, the Army of Conquest killed dozens of regime loyalists and took others captive. The powerful coalition has seized almost all of Idlib province except for Fuaa and Kafraya, two regime-controlled villages inhabited by Shiite Muslims.The Army of Conquest ramped up its assault on the two villages on Friday, detonating at least nine car bombs, seven of which were suicide bombers, the Observatory said. The attack left at least 21 regime loyalists and 17 Army of Conquest militants dead. One of the suicide bombers managed to enter Fuaa itself and killed seven civilians, including two children, Abdel Rahman said. Fierce clashes and heavy shelling on the two villages continued on Saturday.Fuaa, Kafraya and the rebel stronghold of Zabadani in Damascus province were at the center of two failed attempts last month to secure broad ceasefire deals.

Over 4,500 Migrants Rescued off Libya in One Day
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Twenty rescue operations Saturday picked up over 4,500 people off the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard, which was coordinating the response for yet another boat in distress in the Mediterranean. Among those taking part was Doctors Without Borders ship Bourbon Argos, which told AFP it had rescued over 800 people, who were expected to be brought to safety in Italy along with the rest of those saved. "We started before first light this morning with our first rescue. We rescued two wooden fishing boats and two rubber dinghies," said Simon Burroughs, emergency coordinator for search-and-rescue missions by the medical group -- commonly known by its French initials MSF. Burroughs said those rescued included Eritreans, Nigerians, Somalis, Libyans, Syrians and West Africans. The 20 operations took place between 30 and 40 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, and saw rescue workers pluck people from eight boats and 12 dinghies. The body of a woman was also recovered. The mass effort was carried out by an Italian military ship, the MSF's Bourbon Argos, the MAOS search and rescue Phoenix, a Croatian vessel operating under EU border agency Frontex, two vessels operating within the Eunavfor Med mission -- one British, one German -- and the Italian coastguard. The coastguard said another mission was under way to save yet more people who had run into difficulty during the perilous crossing from Libya to the Italian shores. In videos sent to AFP by MSF, hundreds of people in brightly-colored clothes could be seen sprawled out on the Argos, a nearly 70-meter-long Luxembourg-flagged ship which typically carries around 700 people. "It's quite a big boat, but at the moment every inch of deck space is covered. People are extremely relieved to be off of their sinking boats," Burroughs said. "We've had about a week of bad weather that stopped any kind of rescue operations, but last night and this morning weather changed," he said, as children were heard crying in the background. "There are multiple nationalities... Thankfully, everyone is in good health," said MSF spokesman Sami al-Subaihi, who is seen aboard the ship in the video. Launched in May, the Argos has been handling large rescue missions due to the growing waves of people seeking refuge in Europe. "It's a large operation, but unfortunately it's becoming quite a typical operation... Our last rescue was over 1,000 people," Burroughs said. The Bourbon Argos has a staff of 26 people on board, including medical specialists. According to Yazan al-Saadi, MSF's regional communications officer in Beirut, the three MSF search-and-rescue vessels are equipped to treat migrants for various medical issues. On Friday, 102 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean by Libyan authorities, and seven other bodies were recovered. The Italian coastguard said it coordinated the rescue of a total of 1,013 migrants. Another 124 people were detained by Libyan coastguard officials Friday as they were preparing to cross to Europe.

15 Killed as Arab Coalition Planes Pound Yemen Capital
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Air raids by Saudi-led coalition warplanes killed 15 people in Yemen's capital in one of the heaviest nights of bombardment in months, aid workers and witnesses said Saturday. One rescuer told AFP at least 10 civilians were among the dead. "Ten members of the same family were killed in the Al-Falihi neighborhood, in Sanaa's old town," he said. Residents said four houses were destroyed by a bomb and that 15 other buildings were damaged. Witnesses said five Huthi rebels were killed in a raid on their position in the capital, which the Iran-backed Shiite fighters seized last year. A Saudi-led coalition has conducted air strikes on rebel positions across Yemen since March and has provided troops, training and heavy weapons to forces seeking to reinstate exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
Residents of Sanaa's Al-Hassaba neighbourhood said coalition jets conducted several sorties overnight, targeting an interior ministry building and a police station. A residence of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose forces have allied with the Huthis, was also bombed, as well as an office of his political party, according to residents. In central Zubeiri Street, an army communications office was hit for the first time by the coalition. The building has been used by the pro-Huthi Saba news agency, as well as other media outlets, according to a rebel spokesman.
Oman ambassador's house hit In the southern neighbourhood of Hadda, the Omani ambassador's residence was hit during an air strike targeting the nearby home of a Huthi official, residents said. A spokesman from Oman's foreign ministry condemned the attack, the ONA news agency reported, without saying whether the envoy was at home at the time. "Oman calls on the United Nations to take all measures to end the war in Yemen," the spokesman said. Oman, the only Gulf state that does not belong to the coalition, has offered to host planned U.N.-mediated peace talks between the government and rebels. The government earlier this week said it would not attend talks unless the rebels first accept a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding their withdrawal from territory they have captured. The insurgents still control Sanaa but have lost ground in the south since July when the coalition sent in armour, troops and Yemeni fighters trained in Saudi Arabia Riyadh formed the alliance in response to fears the Huthis would take over all of Yemen and move it into the orbit of Sunni Saudi Arabia's Shiite regional rival Iran. An analyst estimates the coalition has more than 5,000 troops in Yemen, supporting local forces. In Marib province, east of Sanaa, where pro-Hadi forces have launched a mass ground offensive, several Huthi positions were also bombed overnight, military sources said. The Marib offensive began after an early-September missile strike on a coalition base in the province killed 67 coalition soldiers, including 52 from the United Arab Emirates. A Yemeni military source told AFP that General Fahd bin Turki, commander of Saudi-backed ground forces in Yemen, inspected troops deployed in Marib on Friday evening. The United Nations says nearly 4,900 people have been killed since late March in Yemen, where the U.N. aid chief has called the scale of human suffering "almost incomprehensible."

Report: Turkish Army 'Kills at Least 55' in New Airstrikes on Kurdish Rebels in Iraq
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/15/Turkish fighter jets carried out a new barrage of cross-border airstrikes this week against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, killing at least 55 rebels, state-run Anatolia news agency reported Saturday. The strikes by F-16 and F-4 jets targeted caves, houses and camps used by the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Anatolia said, citing unnamed security sources. "At least 55 to 60 terrorists" were killed in the operation, which destroyed munitions depots, the report added. Turkish security forces and the outlawed PKK have traded fire on a near daily basis since a two-year-old ceasefire fell apart in late July with Ankara's launch of a two-pronged "anti-terror" offensive against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and the jihadists' Kurdish foes. The bulk of the government's firepower has been reserved for airstrikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq or in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, to which the rebels have responded with a string of bloody attacks on the security forces. Around 150 soldiers and police have been killed in PKK bombings and shootings since the return to open conflict, compared with around 1,100 in the rebel camp, according to pro-government media. The PKK does not give figures for its dead, making it impossible to confirm the government's claims to be inflicting huge losses. With the tit-for-tat attacks showing no sign of abating in the run up to November 1 parliamentary elections, the government has announced plans to boost a controversial pro-government "Village Guard" militia. "Following instructions from our Prime Minister (Ahmet Davutoglu) we will advertise for 5,000 'village guardians' in the press," Interior Minister Selami Altinok was quoted by NTV broadcaster as saying. Created towards the end of the 1980s to contain the PKK, the militia currently numbers around 70,000 men and women, who draw a government salary. Human rights groups have repeatedly called for the force, which has been tainted by allegations of violent crime and drug smuggling, to be disbanded. Of the around 5,000 militia members to have been implicated in wrongdoing, only 900 have faced legal action, according to official figures. The battle between the state and PKK will take center stage at an anti-terrorism rally in Istanbul Sunday to be addressed by Erdogan. The president's critics accuse him of reigniting a three-decade conflict with the PKK to curry nationalist support for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the upcoming election. Some 40,000 people have died since the PKK took up arms in 1984 seeking an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority. The rebels have since refocused their demands on securing greater autonomy and cultural rights.

Obama Pick for U.S. Army Would be 1st Openly Gay Service Chief
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 19/15/President Barack Obama said Friday that he will nominate longtime Pentagon official Eric Fanning to be the Army's new secretary. If confirmed, Fanning would be the U.S. first openly gay leader of a military service. The nomination comes as the Obama administration works to eliminate barriers to military service based on sexuality or gender. Army secretary is a civilian position. "Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role," Obama said in a written statement. "I am grateful for his commitment to our men and women in uniform, and I am confident he will help lead America's soldiers with distinction. I look forward to working with Eric to keep our Army the very best in the world." Fanning has been acting undersecretary of the Army since June. He has served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and held senior positions in the Air Force, including undersecretary from 2013 to 2015. Fanning's nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. He would replace John McHugh, who has said he plans to step down no later than Nov. 1.

Egyptian security source: Cairo acting to prevent collapse of Gaza truce
YASSER OKBI/ MAARIV HASHAVUA/J.Post/09/19/2015
Despite rocket fire on southern Israel over the weekend and IDF reprisals in Gaza, an Egyptian security source said Saturday that neither the Israelis nor Palestinians have intimated that the truce between them has ended.The source told the Hamas-affilitaed al-Resaleh news portal that "as of now, the Gaza cease-fire agreement, which was signed on August 26, 2014, is valid and binding for all parties."The source added that Egypt "is closely following developments in the area, including the firing of three rockets from Gaza toward southern Israeli communities on the border, as well as the response from the IDF, which bombed Palestinian sites."The anonymous source revealed that officials in Cairo called both Israeli officials and Palestinian factions overnight Friday to ensure the continuation of the Gaza cease-fire. The security source called on all sides "to fulfill their obligation to uphold the cease-fire," and called on the Palestinian factions "not to succumb to Israeli provocations, which seek to drag Gaza into war and incite an escalation in the whole area." The Israeli Air Force struck three terrorist infrastructure sites, including a Hamas run telecommunications facility in the North of Gaza, early Saturday morning in response to multiple rocket attacks from the coastal enclave the previous day. The IDF Spokesperson's Office released a statement saying that the IDF viewed the rocket attacks on Israel with the utmost severity and that it would not tolerate attempts to harm Israeli citizens. The IDF said that Hamas was responsible for the attack. Just before midnight Friday evening, an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery shot down a Gazan rocket over the southern city of Ashkelon. There were no injuries or damages, the IDF said.A Salafist organization affiliated with Islamic State calling itself "The Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade" took responsibility for the rocket attack on Ashkelon after posting a statement on Twitter. Earlier Friday, a Palestinian rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip exploding in Sderot, causing damage to a home and a nearby bus.
**Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report.

Did Palestinians use live fire against the Israeli Border Police?
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 19, 2015/Following the clashes on Friday, Sept. 18 in the Jabal Mukabar neighborhood, a question has arisen on whether the Palestinians opened fire on undercover units and Border Police forces in the area. Such shooting by Palestinians in the capital is not new, and it occasionally happens in the northern part of the city, emanating usually from the Shoafat refugee camp and the village of Issawiya. These are isolated incidents, occasional volleys at adjacent Jewish neighborhoods, such as Pisgat Zeev. But the situation in Jabal Mukabar was completely different, with shoot-to-kill gunfire aimed at members of the Border Police. On that day, the news reports of the Voice of Israel radio station at 17:00 and 18:00 opened with a story that was impossible to ignore: four border policemen were wounded from gunfire on their armored vehicle in Jabal Mukabar, with one of them wounded seriously. However, the item vanished from the 19:00 broadcast, with Molotov cocktail attacks and rock-throwing incidents reported instead. There are several conflicting points to consider regarding this matter: the armored vehicle clearly had bullet holes, but no signs of firebomb attacks. Then too press photographers on the scene reported specifically that border policemen were wounded by gunfire; residents of Jerusalem’s Meir Nakar street, next to Jabal Mukabar, said in interviews to various news organizations that there were exchanges of fire between the border police and Palestinians; and police officers said late Friday night that undercover units had arrived and opened fire in order to save themselves, and that several border policemen were injured by a Molotov cocktail. The suggestion was that the officers had been injured by friendly fire - not Palestinian gunshots. Several hours after the clashes at Jabal Mukabar, there was another incident south of Jerusalem in which Palestinians who threw firebombs at an IDF post near the Tomb of Rachel were shot and seriously wounded. That was not the only attack on an IDF position in the Jerusalem area during that 24-hour period. On Thursday, Sept. 17, a Home Front Command base on the Mount of Olives was attacked with firebombs and a section caught on fire. In addition to these incidents, on several occasions last week, Palestinians who had barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa mosque threw stones and stone blocks at police and shot firecrackers directly at them, which might have caused serious injury and even permanent blindness, but luckily none of the policemen were injured.
In other words, the latest developments show a surge in clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli security forces. Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat said on Friday, following incident at Jabal Mukabar, that he welcomed the increase of offensive police’s anti-terror operations which entered the city’s flashpoint neighborhoods. His comment aimed at raising the morale of the police forces fighting the new wave of Palestinian terror for the past two weeks. It also drew attention to the ongoing debate within the Israeli government over the choice of next police commissioner, who is the official in charge of the country’s strategy for fighting terrorism. While this appointment hangs fire, it is not clear who is in charge of this war, in the interim, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or Public Security Minister Gilead Erdan? Gil Hirsch, Erdan’s choice for commisioner, is out of the running. We have learned that the prime minister is opting for an army general to shed his uniform and take charge of the police - against the wishes of the Public Security Minister. Palestinian terror tacticians are no doubt exploiting the fact that the war on terror is bouncing between them, with no sign that the violence is about to be brought under control in the immediate future.debkafile’s military sources reported on September 15 that the latest rioting is the face of the third intifada, At least for now, the unrest is not in the form of suicide attacks of the last uprising but more like “localized armed clashes.”Our military and counter-terrorism sources point out that armed Palestinian groups, including Israeli Arabs from the extremist Islamic movement, have made an ad-hoc agreement to carry out attacks. In light of such a development, gunfire at Israeli security forces is very likely to grow.

Obama in the Middle East: What we’ve got here is failure… of leadership
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
The scene was surreal. The burly General was clearly uncomfortable; his body language and words betrayed his embarrassment. He was about to unintentionally indict the overall policy of his Commander-in-Chief regarding the war in Syria. Those interrogating him were incredulous. Last Wednesday, Army General Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the air campaign in Iraq and Syria, told the stunned members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the 10-month, $500 million U.S. program to train and equip 5400 moderate Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria had yielded a ‘small number’ of fighters, acknowledging a ‘slow start’ to an effort that was dubbed by its many critics as quixotic. If these allegations are proven to be true, they will elevate the Obama administration’s deceptive tactics to almost ‘Nixonian’ proportions.How many fighters were trained? The General shifted and hesitated before he blurted a sentence he will surely live to regret: “the ones that are in the fight, we are talking four or five”. One Senator called the program “a total failure”, while another said it is a “joke”. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the committee, may have expressed the views of most members when he said “I’ve been a member of the committee for nearly 30 years and I’ve never heard testimony like this. Never.” But the General stuck to his talking points, claiming that the campaign by a coalition of sixty countries led by the United States against ISIS has been “extraordinarily effective” against the terrorists, ignoring the fact that at best the results have been mixed, in the ebb and flow of fighting with ISIS retreating from some areas, while advancing on other fronts including the occupation of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the Syrian city of Palmyra.
Nixonian proportions
General Austin’s testimony came after a group of intelligence analysts complained officially that their assessments of the war on ISIS have been manipulated by senior officers at Centcom – the military command that oversees the effort against the jihadist group – in order to paint a positive picture of the war that is in sync with the public assessments of the Obama administration. General Austin said he will take “appropriate action” after the Inspector General of the Department of Defense concludes his investigation. He denied “absolutely” ordering such manipulation or distortion of intelligence assessments. If these allegations are proven to be true, they – along with the doublespeak of the administration regarding who ultimately should be held responsible for the program to train and equip Syrian rebels – will elevate the Obama administration’s deceptive tactics to almost ‘Nixonian’ proportions.
That surreal scene was only one act in a week of embarrassments that highlighted the abject failure of the Obama administration in the Middle East and its pathetic attempts at avoiding responsibility for its actions.
But instead of being chastened by General Austin’s revelations, and own the failure, the White House doubled down and circled the wagons to shield the President from criticism. In an act of shameless audacity, the White House press secretary Josh Earnest repeatedly said that President Obama was initially skeptical of the program and reluctantly agreed to it, and accused those whom convinced the President to adopt the program – including cabinet members and the CIA director in his first term – of being responsible for its utter failure.
“It is true that we have found this to be a difficult challenge,” Mr. Earnest said. Then came the “devil made me do it” defense: “But it is also true that many of our critics had proposed this specific option as essentially the cure-all for all of the policy challenges that we’re facing in Syria right now. That is not something that this administration ever believed, but it is something that our critics will have to answer for.”It is as if the President of the United States lacks human agency. If the President did not believe in the merit of the program why did he approve it? He had the option of rejecting it, or proposing an alternative. And now he is abdicating his responsibility. But this should not be surprising since it is part of his modus operandi; this is the flipside of “leading from behind” that the doomed military intervention in Libya gave us. There too, Obama was the reluctant leader, unwilling to be in the front responsible for the military campaign and its aftermath. But just as he abandoned Libya in the post-Qaddafi phase, he abandoned Syria repeatedly and shamelessly while pretending to be caring and engaging.
Checkmate
The week began with Secretary of State John Kerry making his third phone call to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in 10 days, expressing concerns about stepped up military support for the Assad regime, and complaining about the deployment of Russian forces and new weapons at an air base in the coastal city of Latakia, in western Syria. Once again the Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised President Obama by his military buildup in Syria, just as he surprised him with his takeover of Crimea from the Ukraine. The administration sought initially, but probably halfheartedly, to deny Russia the air corridors to deploy men and materiel in Syria through European air space, but Russia outmaneuvered and embarrassed the Obama administration by using the airspace of both Iran and Iraq to reach Syria. Once again Putin acts, and Obama reacts. Putin plays chess, and Obama plays checkers. Sources say that Putin considers Obama ‘weak’ and that Obama sees Putin as a ‘thug’. Both presidents are correct.One would like to listen to the conversations between American officials, and their supposed Iraqi allies about these activities. In the beginning of the week the Obama administration criticized Russia’s moves as provocative and with the possibility of leading to confrontations. Then it sought clarifications of Russia’s intentions, while expressing the usual “deep concerns”, one of its trademark expressions when facing overseas problems. And when Moscow proposed military-to-military talks about Syria, the administration said it will review the request, then by the end of the week it accepted it. In few days, Putin gave Obama an offer on Syria he could not refuse, and succeeded in ending America’s suspension of military-to-military contacts with Russia imposed following the occupation of Crimea, and forced Washington to engage Russia on its terms.
If Obama agrees to a summit with Putin later this month at the United Nations, this will significantly lessen Russia’s isolation, and enhances Putin’s stature. Once again Putin acts, and Obama reacts. Putin plays chess, and Obama plays checkers. It has been said that sources close to both Putin and Obama say that Putin considers Obama ‘weak’ and that Obama sees Putin as a ‘thug’. Both presidents are correct. In recent years Obama-administration officials would point to Russia’s economic woes, due to a sharp decline in energy prices and because of the Western sanctions imposed following the Crimea takeover, and then conclude that Putin lacks a strategic mind. Regardless of whether this is true or false, it looks like Putin this week may have checkmated Obama in Syria and elsewhere.
A legacy of terror and errors…
It may be a bit early to write about President Obama’s international legacy; but since all the crises that have faced Obama will remain with us until the end of next year – from the Ukraine, to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan – one can render some judgments with some certainty.
With the war in Syria in its fifth year Obama still does not have anything approaching a policy, let alone a strategy towards the war in Syria. The President’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba is clearly a positive achievement. The killing of Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders will be part of Obama’s legacy in confronting terrorism. But Obama’s war on ISIS has been marred by dithering, confusion and indecisiveness. A year ago Obama admitted “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. With the war in Syria in its fifth year Obama still does not have anything approaching a policy, let alone a strategy towards the war in Syria. The air campaign against ISIS is settling into a stalemate, in part because the U.S. is not conducting the war as part of a comprehensive strategy that would include more U.S. and allied military muscle, deeper political engagement, soft power, counter messaging, and economic incentives. Obama’s reluctance to criticize human rights violations in the Middle East was clearly demonstrated during the “Green Revolution” in Iran in 2009. Later on there were shy and pro forma criticisms against violations of human rights in Arab states, Turkey and Iran.
… And abandonment
The nuclear agreement with Iran will be seen by Obama and his supporters as his most important prize. But many in the region will see the agreement with Iran as a contributing factor to the catastrophic chaos engulfing the region, since Iran is involved directly or indirectly in most of these conflicts.
Syria is no longer a conflict pulling its neighbors into its maelstrom; Syria today is a European problem too. And that too will be part of Obama’s legacy.
Obama cannot escape partial responsibility for the tragedies in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The human toll in these countries has been staggering. Almost 15 million people have been displaced by the wars in Syria and Iraq. The Syrian refugees, numbering four million people in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, with hundreds of thousands in Europe or on the move. And seven million have been displaced inside Syria, and three million inside Iraq, in part as a result of intentional campaigns of sectarian and ethnic cleansing. Political approaches that might have worked in Syria and Iraq a few years ago are no longer achievable. The current chaos is in part the result of Obama’s inaction and dithering. Syria is no longer a conflict pulling its neighbors into its maelstrom; Syria today is a European problem too. And that too will be part of Obama’s legacy.
There are proposals and ideas that could at least slow the fragmentation of Syria and maybe Iraq, and alleviate the agonies of the civilians. These could include no-fly or safe zones that the U.S. – along with Turkey, Jordan and others – could set up and protect; there could also be serious efforts to work with certain non-Jihadi groups and minorities. But it is very unlikely that the Obama administration will seize any of them. From the beginning of the conflict, and despite his protestations to the contrary, Obama was never serious in trying to effectively help the Syrian people beyond providing much needed humanitarian aid. His half-baked attempt at helping the armed opposition was too little too late, because he never intended to help them overthrow their tormentor – the Assad regime. Just as Obama abandoned the Libyan people after the overthrow of Qaddafi, he abandoned the Syrian people to the depredation and savagery of the Assad regime. From the beginning of the conflict, Assad’s friends – the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah – were committed to his survival; unlike the friends of Syria, who met regularly, talked and then talked more, but were never committed to their victory against tyranny.
There is an iconic scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke (1967) in which the prison warden played by Strother Martin, after striking Luke the main protagonist, played by Paul Newman, says: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”. One could say that one of America’s failures in the Middle East, historically, was communicating clearly its policies and strategies, assuming that they do exist. However, in the case of President Obama we would be more accurate if we paraphrase the warden’s sentence as: “What we’ve got here is failure of leadership.”

Iran’s offer to help in Yemen: What’s the agenda?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
There has been a slight change in Iranian officials’ rhetoric and tone on the Yemen recently, for purely tactical reasons. This change was initiated because of the shift in Iran’s foreign policy regarding how to use “diplomacy” and words in order to achieve Tehran’s ideological, geopolitical and economic objectives. This week saw the surprise news that Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, has offered his country’s assistance to other Arab states for “getting out of the crisis in Yemen”, according to BBC Persian. Since the Yemen crisis began and through last week, Iranian officials, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the country’s state-controlled media outlets launched a war of rhetoric against several Arab countries – particularly Saudi Arabia. The countries were criticized for their involvement in Yemen.Tehran’s struggle to tip the regional balance of power in its favor, promoting its ideological and sectarian values, and demonstrating its regional supremacy. What is intriguing about Tehran’s attitude is that the Islamic Republic views other countries’ engagement in Yemen – even those that share borders with Yemen and have justifiable security reasons to be concerned about the conflict – as interventions, irrelevant, and intrusive. Simultaneously, Iran sees its own role in Yemen as justifiable even though it does not share a border with Yemen and the conflict does not pose any security threat whatsoever to Tehran.
Iran sees the Yemen conflict as Tehran’s struggle to tip the regional balance of power in its favor, promoting its ideological and sectarian values, and demonstrating its regional supremacy over other Arab states in the Gulf.
Nevertheless, why is there a sudden diplomatic offer coming from Tehran? Iranian leaders biting off more than they can chew
Iran goes to great lengths to present an image of economic power, however in reality Iranian leaders are hemorrhaging billions of dollars, with the approval of Mr. Khamenei, to maintain their proxies fighting and to keep two other governments in power – in Syria and Iraq. For many years, the geopolitical, strategic, ideological and economic benefits of creating Shiite proxies across the region exceeded the financial, military and weaponry expenses that Tehran spent in doing so. The trend has changed for the Islamic Republic. Iran’s foreign policies of supporting Shiite proxies and governments led to excesses and unintended consequences. Iran found itself and its proxies and allies fighting in several full-fledged wars against its strategic rivals, thus spending billions of dollars more in its efforts to support them. Iranian leaders are bleeding economically and militarily. This is due to the country’s underlying ideological values, its unintended consequences, and Tehran’s foreign policy standards – to search for regional supremacy, support its proxies, and maintain its ideological and hegemonic ambitions. What is worse for Tehran is that this economic and military bleeding – in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, etcetera – does not appear to be stopping anytime soon. As a result, Iran is desperately pleading and manipulating, using words and rhetoric in an attempt to save its budget and military manpower. We should remember that Iran’s rhetoric and words worked to solidify the nuclear deal.
But do all of these words mean that Iran is going to actually alter its foreign policy toward Yemen and the Houthis?
Iran wants to have its proxies’ cake and eat it too. Iran’s Supreme Leader and the senior cadre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are so shackled into the underlying ideological and deep-rooted institutional values of the Islamic Republic that they will not, and cannot, alter their position of supporting the Houthis.They also cannot retract their support from other Shiite proxies and governments in the region. Halting financial, advisory, intelligence, and political support to these proxies and governments could save Iranian leaders billions of dollars. If Tehran lessens its support to those proxies and states, they will be forced to make concessions and consequently the conflict will cease because as long as the Houthis and other proxies believe that the Islamic Republic is behind them, they have no incentive to stop the war. Hence, Iran will benefit economically if it changes its foreign policies. But the underlying issue is that Tehran is so deeply entrenched in the well-established and instituted ideological, sectarian (Sunni vs Shia), and ethnic (Persians vs Arabs) norms that it is impossible for the government and Iranian leaders to change the character of the state.
After the success of the nuclear deal, Iranian leaders have learned that smiley faces and wielding a diplomatic tone can assist them. Iran’s ideological norms, which are pervasive throughout the country, includes the struggle to tip the regional balance of power against Arab states in the Gulf, which is an indispensable element and pillar of the Islamic Republic, primarily the Supreme Leader and IRGC. The other reason behind Iran’s change of rhetoric is related to Tehran’s tactical shift in using verbal manipulation and “diplomacy” in order to achieve its ideological, geopolitical and economic objectives. After experiencing the success of the nuclear deal, Iranian leaders have learned that smiley faces and wielding a diplomatic tone assisted them in paving the way to receive billions of dollars and have some of the crippling economic sanctions on their country lifted. From the Iranian leaders’ perspective, a new rhetoric, tactical shift and different choice of words on Yemen might assist them in their attempt to save billions of dollars while simultaneously maintaining Tehran’s proxy. As a result Iran could become more empowered in Yemen, all while leaving Iran’s underlying foreign policy objectives, ideological principles and regional hegemonic ambitions intact.
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Death in Egypt’s Western Desert
Abdallah Schleifer/Al Arabiya/September 19/15
The human tragedy aside, the accidental killing of eight Mexican tourists by the Egyptian Army could not have come at a worst time. Egypt’s tourist industry – a major employer and hard-currency earner – was beginning to recover from the serious drop in tourism in the wake of the unrest that led to the fall of former presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohammed Mursi. Earnings in the industry were up in the first half of this year. What was particularly painful – so I initially thought – was that this tragedy occurred not in Sinai but in the Western Desert, which is very much part of what I think of as ‘mainland’ Egypt. Tourist groups should have barred from the neighborhood. There was a breakdown in communication between the Army and local authorities. Sinai, separated from the mainland by the Suez Canal, both psychologically and geographically seems so distant from the capital. Sinai is where a simmering ISIS-affiliated insurgency escalated almost immediately after Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mursi was deposed two years ago.
Western Desert
So it is shocking that there was an insurgent force operating in the Western Desert. It was being pursued by Egyptian armed forces, which mistook the party of 12 Mexican tourists and several Egyptians (four of whom were also killed) providing support for the tour group. These distinctions are my own, but are perhaps shared by most Egyptians. But for the typical would-be tourist to Egypt – from New York or Shanghai, perhaps – what matters is not where exactly tourists were killed, but the fact of the killing. And what has not helped is how both the Egyptian government and its critics have respectively handled this. At all levels government, officials – including President Al-Sisi – have expressed their condolences to Mexico, to both its people and leaders. But because Egypt has not officially apologized, the issue stays alive, and aggressively so – causing a furious reaction from the Mexican media.
The usual chorus of international human rights groups has also joined in, condemning Egypt for having a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach. Egyptian officials and state media have denied that, saying the Egyptian armed forces go out of their way to determine the exact nature of the target of a possible attack.
Combat zone
But this is nonsense from both sides. In a combat zone, particularly one involving a fight against guerrilla forces wearing, often, civilian dress rather than uniforms, one does not “ask first”. How can one ask a question? Send someone forward with a white flag? Or fly the helicopter sufficiently low so the pilot can shout out “friend or foe?” If the suspected enemy is the enemy, the reply with be a burst of gunfire, not a polite discourse about a group’s allegiance. Terrible tragedies occur in war and always have. Seventy five years ago, few were ever reported. Not only do those armies with no intent to kill civilians do so, but they describe those of their own men they have killed by accident as victims of “friendly fire”. Since this tragic touristic jaunt into a potential combat zone was apparently approved by a police unit in the region, one of which actually accompanied the group, we must assume the local authorities were unaware that a small group of elusive insurgents had moved into the area. Tourist groups should have barred from the neighborhood. And that should have been part of the expression of regret – that there was a breakdown in communication between the Army and local authorities. There is something else that is as reasonable as an apology, and would have possibly gone some way to dampen the tears of those who mourned, as well as put an end to the vilification of Egypt in the Mexican press. I believe that word is “compensation”, and yesterday the Mexicans got around to demanding it.

“Wake Up!”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, July 2015
Raymond Ibrahim/September 19, 2015
He was told that his daughter refused to change her religion, so she was buried from the neck down, and then stoned to death. — Nigeria.
Nearly 300 Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram last year were being beaten, forced to convert to Islam, and indoctrinated into believing that their mission is to “slit the throats of Christians and to carry out suicide attacks.” — Nigeria.
Christians kidnapped and held for ransom continue to be slaughtered even after their ransom is paid. — Pakistan.
“In most instances the victims are minors, young adolescent girls. They suffer sexual violence, forced prostitution, domestic abuse and even sold to human traffickers.” — Sardar Mushtaq Gill, human rights lawyer, Pakistan.
“If the West wants to do something about the present crisis, the most effective thing would be to support local governments, which need sufficient armies and forces to maintain security and defend respective populations against attacks.” — Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of Antioch.
Not only is the Islamic State (IS) persecuting Christians but so are the U.S.-supported “rebel” forces in Syria, which the Obama administration assures are “moderate.” According to a recent National Public Radio (NPR) report, “With backing from U.S. allies, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, this [U.S. supported] rebel coalition fights both the Syrian regime and the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS. But the coalition has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes”—just as IS has done.
In response, Mideast Christian leaders have made clear that, far from expecting the West to intervene on their behalf, they merely wish that the West would stop arming, supporting, or even facilitating the Islamic terrorists who are making their lives a living hell. The crisis was spelled out in an article in Christian Today, entitled, “Syrian Christian leader tells West: ‘Stop arming terror groups who are massacring our people.”
According to the Patriarch of Antioch, Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, “If the West wants to do something about the present crisis, the most effective thing would be to support local governments, which need sufficient armies and forces to maintain security and defend respective populations against attacks. State institutions need to be strengthened and stabilized. Instead, what we see is their forced dismemberment being fueled from the outside.”
Another Christian leader had another message to the West. According to Iraqi priest, Fr. Douglas Bazi, once a torture victim who now takes care of thousands of refugees forced to flee Mosul since the Islamic State took over the city last year, the West needs to “Wake up!” During celebrations of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Iraqi priest further reflected that, “We cannot celebrate the feast of two martyrs without remembering the living martyrs of our time.”
These martyrs are not limited to the Middle East. Among the many Christians slaughtered in Nigeria in July was a young girl who was stoned to death for refusing to renounce Christ and convert to Islam. Pastor Mark lost his daughter, Monica, in the Chibok abduction, in which almost 300 predominantly Christian girls were kidnapped at the hands of the Islamic organization, Boko Haram. He was told that his daughter refused to change her religion, so she was buried from the neck down, and then stoned to death.
The rest of July’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed by theme.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Nigeria: Dozens of Christian churches were attacked in the Muslim-majority northern regions, where Boko Haram is headquartered:
Thirty-two churches and 300 houses were burnt when Boko Haram jihadis attacked Mussa community in Borno State. Thirteen people were also killed in the jihad.
A female Muslim suicide bomber blew herself up in the Redeemed Christian Church of God on Sunday, July 5, in the town of Potiskum. The priest and a woman and her two children were killed. “People were just going to the church when the bomber entered,otherwise the casualty figure would have been higher,” said a Red Cross worker. Earlier it was revealed that some of the nearly 300 Christian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram last year were being beaten, forced to convert to Islam, and indoctrinated into believing that their mission is to “slit the throats of Christians and to carry out suicide attacks.”
On Sunday, July 12, explosives planted at a church in Jos went off but there were no casualties; the bomb was detected by the church’s security personnel.
In response to a mosque explosion that killed 20 people—part of Boko Haram’s “Ramadan killing spree“—rioting Muslims burned down two churches on July 6 in Jos. According to the report, the mosque attack “has revived historic tensions between members of both faiths in Jos. Christians in Nigeria now not only fear Boko Haram, but also attacks from their Muslim neighbors.”
Some of the hundreds of Christian Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted last year by Boko Haram. (Image source: Boko Haram video)
Iraq: The Islamic state blew up another Christian church under its authority, the Mother of Aid Church, which had stood in central Mosul for thousands of years. The blast also killed four children who were near the church at the time. IS also transformed the St. Joseph Church, an ancient Chaldean church in Mosul, into a mosque. Pictures of St. Joseph show that the dome has been painted black and the church has been stripped of all crosses and Christian symbols and images.
Egypt: Three church related attacks took place: The Fathers Church in eastern Alexandria was attacked on July 21 by unknown assailants who hurled Molotov cocktails and other homemade bombs at the church. No one was injured, although the facade of the church was damaged. Security services discovered a bag with more firebombs on the scene from where the assailants had fled. According to El Watan, the incident created a “state of panic” in the area, especially because the Fathers Church is considered the most important church for the Coptic Catholics of the region.
Muslims suspended prayer in a church in the village of Arab Asnabt in Abu Qurqas, Minya, and called for demolishing it in an effort “to prevent Coptic Christians from practicing their religious rites.”
Dozens of “incensed” Muslims congregated before the house of a Christian on the accusation that he was trying to use his home as a church. Security services arrived in time to disperse the angry Muslims. Coptic Christians trying to—or merely being accused of—turning their homes into churches in Egypt is not uncommon, and, in accordance with Islamic law, ultimately reflects the difficulties Christians face in building or even renovating existing churches.
Niger: Approximately 70 Christian churches and an orphanage continue facing a lack of resources and difficult conditions in attempts to rebuild them, six months after thousands of Muslims had attacked and destroyed them. The onslaught was in “revenge” for the offending Muhammad cartoons published by the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo—a secular magazine based in France that also mocks Christianity. “Since these incidents, it is as if life had stopped,” said Baptist pastor Jacques Kangindé. His home was also destroyed during the riots. Recalling the destroyed church, the pastor said: “I felt very bad, such an indescribable feeling when I saw my ripped-up Bible on the ground. For a pastor, it was like my entire life was torn apart. I could not stop shedding tears.”
Muslim Violence and Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: Boko Haram jihadis shot and killed 29 people in two Christian enclaves of northeast Nigeria. Most people in Dille village ran, but those who could not were gunned down and many homes were set ablaze. Separately, at a busy market in northeastern Damaturu town, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up, killing 15 people and wounding 50. And in Maikadiri village, at least 14 people were killed and 500 cows were slaughtered.
Iraq: Christians kidnapped and held for ransom continue to be slaughtered even after their ransom is paid. The body of Quais Abdul Shaya was returned to his family—after they had paid the demanded ransom of $25,000 USD. Saher Hanna, who worked at the Ministry of the Interior, was also killed after his Islamic abductors received his ransom. Killing Christian hostages, including children, after receiving payment is not limited to the Islamic State and occurs in other Muslim nations such as Egypt.
Libya: Unconfirmed reports, including from the Libyan Herald, say that the Islamic State executed another Egyptian Coptic Christian it had seized. Bekhit Nageh Efrank Ebeid, a 25-year-old laborer, was kidnapped along with two other Christians, Kofi Frimpong Sekyere from Ghana and Ibrahim Adeola from Nigeria.
Egypt: An unknown man attacked a Coptic nun in the Muslim-majority nation. According to Fr. Abdel Quddus, “An unknown person stalked a sister in the diocese of Fashn, Beni Suef, and attacked her last week with a bladed weapon while she was outside her residence. He then hit her head against the wall and fled.” And Wadie Ramses, a Christian who was kidnapped and held for 92 days by Islamic militants in the Sinai desert, managed to escape. During his time in captivity, he was blindfolded and handcuffed, beaten and abused. According to his account, the most terrifying moments came when he would overhear his Muslim kidnappers debating whether to behead the Christian doctor or keep him alive to ensure a ransom. The police, though given many opportunities, never made any effort to rescue him, said the Copt.
Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism
Uganda: Muslims once again tried to kill a Muslim convert to Christianity. Last year, Hassan Muwanguzi, a former Muslim Sheikh, now born-again Christian, survived a poisoning attempt by Muslim relatives, but, in a separate attack, lost his twelve-year old daughter. Recently, Muslims broke into his house with knives and clubs in another attempt to assassinate him. Muwanguzi was at a prayer meeting at the time, but the assailants stole thousands of dollars’ worth of his possessions. Despite Uganda being a majority-Christian nation, Muwanguzi lives in a majority-Muslim region, and faces regular death threats (read more here).
Pakistan: Muslims again used the “blasphemy” accusation to persecute Christian minorities:
Two Christian women and the husband of one of the women in the Punjab were tortured by Muslim villagers. Afterwards, they painted the women’s and man’s faces black, put shoes around their necks as “garlands”—shoes are considered ultra-degrading symbols in Pakistan—and paraded them around the town on donkeys, while the Muslim mob continued to taunt and beat them. The two women, identified as Rukhsana and Rehana, were accused of committing blasphemy after they got into an argument with a Muslim woman who wanted to buy a carpet for a low price, which the Christians refused. The Muslim woman then accused the Christians of committing blasphemy; she said that the carpet had images of Holy Books and Koran verses on it. The remark prompted the mob to drag the Christians out of their homes and beat them.
Another Christian couple was nearly lynched by a Muslim mob after they were accused of “blasphemy.” The illiterate couple were using a banner that also allegedly carried scriptures from the Koran. After a local barber and two clerics denounced the couple, they were beaten and about to be hanged when police intervened. A few months earlier,another couple was thrown into an oven and burned to death when they too were accused of blasphemy.
Two Christian brothers, Qaisar and Amoon Ayub of Lahore, were arrested on blasphemy charges after one of them was accused of posting on his website material supposedly offensive to Islam. According to Qaisar, he closed his account in 2009 but one of his Muslim colleagues, Shahryar Gill, somehow managed to restore the website, while ownership remained in Qaisar’s name. Apparently in revenge for some office quarrel, the Muslim framed the Christian, reported the “blasphemy” to the authorities; the two brothers fled Pakistan. Years later, thinking things had cooled down, they tried to return to their wives and children, only to be arrested.
Sudan: Two imprisoned Presbyterian pastors are on trial and facing a possible death sentence. Rev. Yat Michael and the Rev. Peter Yen Reith of the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church are being charged with espionage and blasphemy under the Republic of Sudan’s Islamic laws. Other church leaders say that Christians are often targeted for their faith, and that the government’s accusations are pretexts: “This is not ‘something new’ for our church. Almost all pastors have gone to jail under the government of Sudan. We have been stoned and beaten. This is their habit to pull down the church. We are not surprised. This is the way they deal with the church,” said Rev. Tut Kony.
Egypt: Three young Christians were arrested in Alexandria on charges of “contempt for Islam.” The previous evening, the Christians had been seen handing out bags of dates to Ramadan fasting Muslims. Some Muslims reported them to authorities; they said that the pamphlets contained “the teachings of Christ” were found in the bags of dates. They were all arrested and charged with contempt for Islam. The three Christian youth pled that the pamphlets were for their own personal use and not meant to be placed in the bags of dates. They were ordered to pay 10,000 Egyptian pounds and released.
“Dhimmitude”: Islamic Contempt, Hostility, and Abuse of Christians
Pakistan: Christian girls continued to be abducted and raped in the Muslim majority nation. A new report indicates that every year 1,000 non-Muslim girls are abducted, raped, forced to convert to Islam or “marry” their abductors. Cases reported in July include:
Tarfa Younis, a 12-year- old Christian orphan girl, was sold to a 55-year-old Muslim man who “repeatedly raped” her for over a year; the man’s nephew also abused her. The traumatized girl managed to run away and reach the home of an uncle. According to The Voice, a human rights organization involved in the case, “the practice of raping and forcing Christian girls into marriage continues in Punjab, especially in suburban areas.”
Fouzia, a 25-year-old married Christian woman and mother of three children, was abducted on July 23 by Muhammad Nazir, another 55-year-old Muslim man. He forced her to convert to Islam and become his wife. Her family asked Muhammad for her return, but he insisted that she had voluntarily converted and married him—and that if they made any trouble “there would be serious consequences.” According to human rights lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill: “Usually episodes like this proceed in the following manner: the family of the victim presents a complaint. The abductor lodges a counter-complaint affirming that the woman made a voluntary decision. In most instances, the victims are minors, young adolescent girls. They suffer sexual violence, forced prostitution, domestic abuse and even sold to human traffickers.” Gill concluded that it is rare for such cases to end with the return of the girls to their original families.
Indonesia: A group of Muslims attacked and disrupted a Christian scout camp that had brought together thousands of young people. The camp had been organized by a Protestant group in Yogyakarta, central Java. The Muslim assailants argued that the Christian group was not authorized to organize any public activity—especially as it was Ramadan and public activities that violate the Islamic nature of the month are forbidden. On the second day of the event, local Muslims stormed the site and brought everything to a halt. As a result of the raid, thousands of Christian participants from around the country were forced to leave the area. According to the Christian camp manager, “organizers said they had official permission [to hold the event], but suddenly scores of radical Muslims arrived ordering everyone to clear off.” Commenting on the expulsion of Christians, Muhammad Fuad, head of the local branch of the Islamic Community Forum, expressed satisfaction that the Christian event was shut down: “It is good because everyone should understand how to behave towards the Muslim community.”[1]
Iraq: The Islamic State issued a call to its members at the University of Mosul to burn all books written by Christians—whether researchers, writers, or academics—that are found in the Central Library at the University of Mosul.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians is expanding. “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some — by no means all — of the instances of persecution that surface each month.
It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.
It posits that such persecution is not random but systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities and locations.
**Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War in Christians (published by Regnery in cooperation with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).

The Syrian Orphan and a Club of Cynics
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 19/15
Syria these days reminds me of an orphan surrounded by real enemies and false friends, forming a club of cynics, and trying to seize control of its destiny.
Consider just the following examples:
• Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that whatever “transition” is agreed must be chaperoned by President Bashar Al-Assad even though that might mean a return to square one. What counts for Putin is securing a bit more time during which he could build his military bases on the Syrian coast and then force any future government in Damascus to accept this as fait accompli.
• British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond suggests that Assad should remain in power for another six months during which unspecific miracle might reveal a way to peace in Syria. The suggestion is designed to cover London’s nakedness, creating the impression that Hammond and his colleagues are “doing something” about Syria.
• French President Francois Hollande wants Assad to go almost immediately but rejects the idea of taking any action against his regime. Call it posturing if you like, but Hollande appears more concerned about projecting his own image as a strong leader than doing anything about Syria. This is why he uses bellicose language he is quick to assert that he is not thinking of any French boots-on-the-ground scenario.
• Former British Foreign Secretary David Lord Owen suggests that Syria be put under a Jordanian mandate backed by the United Nations. The esteemed lord does not say how this is going to be done in the middle of a war that has split Syria into at least five segments. Nor is he concerned about such matters as Jordan’s ability to play a role far beyond its resources.
• The Barack Obama administration is dancing around the issue as it has been with regard to all other issues, notably the Iranian nuclear program, for the past seven years. Its latest posturing concerns the idea of creating a special force from unspecified “regional powers” to restore peace to Syria. The good news is that Vice President Joe Biden is not calling for carving up Syria into several mini-states as he keeps saying about Iraq.
• In Tehran, Ali-Akbar Velayati adviser to the Supreme Guide reports that his boss Ali Khamenei has decided that Assad must stay in power- period. Since whatever Khamenei says, whether it is on religious doctrine or film criticism is regarded as “fasl al-khitab” (end of discussion), there is no point in asking such silly questions as: What if Syrians do not want Assad? Worse still, it is increasingly clear that Tehran treats Assad as a puppet rather than an ally. Tehran demanding direct control of some territory inside Syria is just an indication of that changed attitude.
• The Syrian orphan has other uses for other people. Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germans are ready to receive up to a million Syrian refugees out of the goodness of their heart. Then Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel lets the cat out of the bag by hinting that a million Syrians, many of them middle-classers and reasonably well-educated, could do wonders for Germany’s collapsing demographic curve.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is using Syrian refugees as a bogeyman to whip up chauvinistic and xenophobic sentiments and settle scores with the European Union which he has always regarded with suspicion.
• The Syrian refugee issue has also helped sectarians of all ilk to emerge from the woodwork. Greece and Bulgaria which have always maltreated their own Muslim minorities try to portray the current tragedy as a disguised Islamic invasion of Europe even though Syrians are fleeing the self-declared Caliphate of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on one hand and the Assad gang backed by Tehran’s mullahs. In Slovakia and Poland people are openly demanding that only Christian Syrians be allowed in, although the whole world knows that all Syrian communities have suffered and are suffering from the current tragedy.
• The upshot of all this is that ISIS has become almost everyone’s second choice. The US and its few remaining allies are reluctant to attack ISIS in an effective way because crushing it might strengthen Assad.
• This week Iraqis revealed that Washington has, in effect, asked Baghdad to put an attack on ISIS in Ramadi on the backburner for the time being. Assad and his Iranian and Russian backers are not attacking ISIS either because they see the “Caliph” as an objective ally against other Syrian opposition forces.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for his part, needs ISIS as a smokescreen behind which he could attack and, hopefully, destroy the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) bases inside Syria. He could easily shut ISIS’s logistics line through the Turkey frontier but does not. His claim is that Turkey would act if only the NATO allies, led by the US, agreed to also hit Assad, which they do not.
• The PKK and their Syrian Kurdish allies are also ambivalent about ISIS. They are ready to fight it if it threatens Kurdish areas but would not be prepared to hit against its core area. After all ISIS is a good excuse for PKK and its local allies to demand more money and arms from Western powers while chipping at territory controlled by Baghdad.
• The Iraqi government is also reluctant to take on ISIS in a serious way. Such a move might anger Tehran which, as already noted, does not want non-ISIS Syrian opposition forces to gain ground.
• Some Arab states also regard ISIS as the lesser of the evils compared to a Syria ruled by a coalition led by the Muslim Brotherhood which they regard as enemy number one.
• The core of the Syrian tragedy consists of the fact that Assad and ISIS represent the two faces of the same coin. Both want the Syrian people, or what is left of them inside the country, scripted out of the equation. Both have enough of a popular base to hang on for some more time even if they did not receive succor from the outside which they regularly do. At the same time neither is strong enough or is ever likely to have the popular base to impose its agenda on Syria.
• With ISIS as everyone’s second choice, the Syrian orphan seems doomed to a situation that Turks call “achmaz”, meaning “no-exit.”

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