LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 20/12

Bible Quotation for today
Matthew 23/1-12/Humality
Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat. All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don’t do their works; for they say, and don’t do. For they bind heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not lift a finger to help them. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries (phylacteries (tefillin in Hebrew) are small leather pouches that some Jewish men wear on their forehead and arm in prayer. They are used to carry a small scroll with some Scripture in it. See Deuteronomy 6:8). broad, enlarge the fringes or, tassels of their garments, and love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, the salutations in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ by men. But don’t you be called ‘Rabbi,’ for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers. Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for one is your master, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Assad’s Ally Arrested in Lebanon/By LEE SMITH/The Weekly Standard/August 19/12
'Rehabilitating' Jihadis with Cage-Fighting/By: Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPageMagazine/August 19/12

US-Israeli deal on Iran? No Israeli strike now if Obama pledged a spring attack
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 18, 2012/.The White House this week scrambled to reconnect with Jerusalem after the Obama administration was persuaded that Israel was serious about conducting a fall military operation against Iran’s nuclear program before the Nov. 6 US presidential election - notwithstanding the heavy opposition guns firing against it at home and from Washington. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, assisted by their newly-appointed Home Front Defense Minister, were seen deep in practical preparations for this operation and its repercussions, as well an outbreak of hostilities with Syria and Hizballah.
The White House accordingly got in touch with Netanyahu’s office to find out what America must do to convince Israel to back off.
Wednesday, Aug.15, debkafile revealed exclusively that the Obama and Netanyahu were discussing a one-on-one encounter on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session opening in New York on Sept. 18 in order to resume their military and strategic dialog on the Iranian issue broken off by their polar differences.
debkafile now learns that those discussions have moved forward. Handled by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon for the US president and senior adviser Ron Dermer for the prime minister, they focus essentially on a four-point plan embodying Israel’s requirements for delaying an attack.
1. President Obama will formally inform the two houses of congress in writing that he plans to use military force to prevent Iran from arming itself with a nuclear weapon. He will request their endorsement. Aside from this step’s powerful deterrent weight for persuading Iran’s leaders to give up their pursuit of a nuclear bomb, it would also give the US president the freedom to go to war with Iran when he sees fit, without have to seek congressional endorsement.
2. To underscore his commitment, President Obama would pay a visit to Israel in the weeks leading up to election-day and deliver a speech to the Knesset solemnly pledging to use American military force against the Islamic Republic if Tehran still refuses to give up its nuclear weapon program. He will repeat that pledge before various other public forums.
3, In the coming months up until Spring 2013, the United States will upgrade Israel’s military, intelligence and technological capabilities so that if President Obama (whether he is reelected or replaced by Mitt Romney) decides to back out of this commitment, Israel will by then be in command of the resources necessary for inflicting mortal damage on Iran’s nuclear program with a unilateral strike.
debkafile’s military sources note that an influx of these top-grade US military resources would bridge the gap between American and Israeli ticking clocks for an attack on Iran, and dispel the fear in Jerusalem that delay would give Iran time to bury its key facilities in “zones of immunity” - outside Israel’s reach for serious damage with its present capabilities.
4. If points 1-3 can be covered – and Netanyahu and Barak are convinced the US really means to strike Iran next spring - our Washington and Jerusalem sources report that Jerusalem may be coming around to agreeing to hold back a lone Israeli attack this autumn. Those sources report that President Obama has not rejected the plan. Donilon was told to keep on talking to Netanyahu and Barak.

Dichter: Iran is an existential threat
Boaz Fyler Published: 08.19.12/Ynetnews
MK Avi Dichter officially assumes role of Home Front Defense minister. Outgoing Minister Vilnai predicts ministry's importance will only grow .Newly inducted Home Front Defense Minister MK Avi Dichter officially took office on Sunday, at a ceremony held at the IDF's Tel Aviv Rabin Base (AKA "Hakirya"). Dichter, who will be taking over for Matan Vilnai, who was named ambassador to China, said he was taking office with great respect for his predecessor's work. "The defense establishment has learned many valuable lessons from the Second Lebanon War, but our enemies have also been building their offensive capabilities. "Lebanon, Gaza and Syria pose a strategic threat, and Iran, for the first time, poses an existential threat." According to Dichter, the IDF's massive defensive and offensive abilities are "Meant to ensure that the home front doesn’t turns into the front line. "The Arab Spring has rattled the region and it mandates that the Israeli leadership carefully reviews its policies," he said. Outgoing minister Vilnai added: "The past five years have dramatically changed what we call 'the home front' in Israel. It should really be referred to as "the civilian front.' "My successor to this office is a worthy man, as befitting a worthy ministry. The Home Front Defense Ministry will only become more and more important now," he said

Muslim 'Gang' Torments Christian Copts for Jizya-Money
by Raymond Ibrahim • Aug 19, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Cross-posted from Jihad Watch
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/2012/08/muslim-gang-torments-christian-copts-for-jizya
After the recent events of Dahshur, Egypt, when thousands of Muslims rampaged and plundered Christian homes—in a conflict that began when a Christian laundry worker accidentally burned the shirt of a Muslim—news now comes from Asyut, Egypt, of a Muslim "gang" attacking Christian homes, abducting children, and demanding money—ransoms and extortions as a form of tribute, or jizya (see here http://www.alkhabrnews.com/view/?q=5048).According to Al Akhbar News, last Tuesday, "hundreds of Christians gathered before the Asyut Security Directorate in Manfalut Municipality, demanding that police protect them, their children, and houses from a gang attacking their homes and imposing tributes on them." Led by two men Mustafa al-Sissi and Mustafa al-Asmar, "the gang kidnapped the son of a Coptic Christian last week and did not release him until his family paid a ransom of 3,000 EGP."Most recently, the Muslim gang "attacked the house of Romani Murad al-Gawli [another Copt], releasing several gunshots in the air, and threatening him either to pay or die."The gang, which comes from a town called Abdul-Rasul, "picked this specific village because Copts form 80% of its inhabitants."
The report concludes with an all too familiar note: "After numerous calls for help" and after "filing several reports in vain," the Christian villagers decided to demonstrate.

Al-Rahi: Maronite Church Rejects Violence, Spread of Arms in Regional Countries
Naharnet/19 August 2012/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi rejected on Sunday violence and the killing of children in regional countries, saying any attack on the lives of people is a crime before God. “Any assault on the life of any person is a crime before God,” al-Rahi said in his sermon during a mass in his summer seat in Diman. “Christianity totally rejects violence, war and murder,” he said, adding “the church raises its denunciation voice to all what’s happening in the countries of this region in terms of violence, war and the spread of arms and money for that purpose.” His sermon came as Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a boy and a girl were among seven people killed in Syria as government forces shelled rebel strongholds including parts of the main northern battleground of Aleppo.It also reported at least 137 deaths Saturday, and said 42 bodies had been dumped in al-Tal town in Damascus province, in a gruesome sign of escalating brutality.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea calls for state of emergency, rejects Nasrallah’s statement
August 18, 2012 /Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Saturday called on President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati to declare a state of emergency, and rejected Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s statement that his party was not responsible for the kidnapping of Syrian nationals in Lebanon.
“The cause of the Lebanese abductees in Syria is a righteous cause, which is being used for [harmful purposes]; President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati must declare a state of emergency, otherwise they would be unintentionally contributing to the destruction of the state,” Geagea said during an interview with Free Lebanon radio.
Nasrallah on Friday denied that either his party or the Amal Movement were behind the recent wave of kidnappings in Lebanon and said that neither party were “controlling the situation on the ground” anymore. The LF leader countered that Hezbollah was behind the abduction of Syrian nationals through the Al-Moqdad family.
“The kidnappings could have been under control had the state taken actions to [stop them], but it is not under control because the majority of the ministers represent Hezbollah, [which is] encouraging and standing behind the kidnappings,” Geagea added. Geagea also compared Hezbollah’s behavior to that of the Syrian regime. “Hezbollah creates the problems and then starts calling for resolving them, while it is the only party capable of doing so,” Geagea said. Geagea also said that some of the Lebanese abductees in Syria were not kidnapped by the rebels, but were being kept captive as a pretext to continue the wave of kidnappings in Lebanon aiming at oppressing all those opposed to the Syrian regime. On Wednesday, the Lebanese Moqdad family said that its “military wing” abducted “more than 20 FSA members” and a Turkish national. The kidnapping followed the abduction of Hassan al-Moqdad in Syria. Moqdad’s kidnappers identified the abductee as a Hezbollah member, a statement denied by the Shiite party.
In May, 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo while returning from a pilgrimage in Iran.-NOW Lebanon

Assad’s Ally Arrested in Lebanon
3:15 PM, Aug 17, 2012 • By LEE SMITH/The Weekly Standard
In Beirut last week, former Lebanese MP and cabinet member Michel Samaha was arrested and later confessed to “planning terrorist attacks in Lebanon at Syrian orders.” A longtime ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Samaha was apparently acting under the direction of Damascus to stir sectarian strife in Lebanon between Sunnis and Alawites, as well as between Sunnis and Christians.A recent campaign of kidnappings between the borders of the two countries, featuring Lebanese Shiite clans and the Sunni-majority Free Syrian Army, is yet more evidence that the main sectarian divide in the region is between Sunnis and Shiites, but it seems that Samaha’s latest campaign was directed primarily against Christians. When he was caught he was reportedly preparing a bombing attack in north Lebanon to coincide with a visit by the Maronite patriarch Beshara al-Rahi. It seems that the purpose of the operation was to cast blame on the Sunni community for the assassination of Lebanon’s most important Christian religious and political, figure, and lend more evidence to the Syrian regime’s claim that once Assad falls. Sunni Islamists in both Syria and Lebanon will slaughter not just Alawites, but Christians, too.The irony is that the patriarch himself has previously lent support to Assad’s sectarian public diplomacy. “If the regime changes in Syria, and the Sunnis take over, they will form an alliance with the Sunnis in Lebanon,” Rahi said in the fall, arguing that Christians in both countries would pay the price. Little could Rahi have imagined that the most immediate threat to his own life was not a Sunni Islamist empowered by Assad’s fall, but another Christian like Samaha, working under Assad’s orders.
Samaha’s arrest should put paid to the idea, professed not just in pro-Assad Middle East circles but also in various Western ones, that only Assad can protect the Christians. After a Syrian-sponsored campaign of assassinations of Lebanese Christian political figures and journalists starting in 2005 and up to the thwarted operation against Rahi, evidence points rather to the fact that Assad sees Christians the way he sees Sunnis, Israelis, Iraqis, Americans, and anyone else whose death might serve his purpose, as sheep for the slaughter.
The fact that Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces were able to move freely against Samaha suggests that the 16-month uprising in Syria has steadily eroded Assad’s influence in Lebanon. Nonetheless, the Damascus regime, and perhaps Assad himself, is “exerting pressure” on the Lebanese judiciary and President Michel Suleiman to release Samaha. However, with the Syrian regime wholly occupied in its fight for survival, it’s unclear how many levers Assad has left in Lebanon, aside from Hezbollah. The Shiite militia has made its anger over the detention known—“We will not remain silent,” says Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad—other Samaha supporters are up in arms, and his lawyers expect him to be released, but so far he’s still being held in jail. If the Lebanese government is able to make the charges against Samaha stick, it will mean that Syria’s trusted allies on Lebanon, as NOW Lebanon’s Hanin Ghaddar writes, are not “protected anymore. If Samaha was left to drown, then anyone, no matter how close they are to Assad, could face the same destiny.”
The story of Samaha’s arrest also has a ripple effect, extending far outside of the Levant, reaching finally Washington, where it touches on the Obama administration’s policy regarding not just Syria but also the entire Middle East. For several months now, the White House has warned that the uprising against Assad has empowered al Qaeda affiliates in the Levant. The Samaha story suggests that the White House’s assessment is flawed.Samaha was, after Hezbollah, perhaps Assad’s most valuable asset in Lebanon, where the former Lebanese information minister mediated between Damascus, its Beirut-based allies and Western journalists in an effort to sell the regime’s narrative. Samaha arranged hard-to-get meetings and interviews for foreign correspondents and was regularly quoted in the Western media. In a sense, this aspect of Samaha’s work became even more important after the Syrian uprising started in March 2011 when it became increasingly difficult and dangerous for journalists to get across the border. Nonetheless, his essential narrative has changed little over the years: the Sunnis are the problem, Syria and its allies are the solution.
For instance, here’s Adam Shatz, writing in the April 29, 2004 issue of the New York Review of Books: “According to Samaha … Hezbollah has been providing the Lebanese government with intelligence on Sunni extremists operating in refugee camps in southern Lebanon.”Samaha’s essential message played on the post-9/11 concerns of Western journalists and policymakers who were incapable of seeing the tectonic shifts underway in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. In reality, the major problem was not a stateless network of Sunni jihadists, but a real nation-state with assets throughout the region and a nascent nuclear weapons program—Iran. Samaha brought his interlocutors back to the days when the World Trade Center towers had just fallen and reassured them that their fears then were still an accurate guide to the region: al Qaeda, and other Sunni extremists, constituted the real strategic issue in the region. Syria’s minority Alawite regime shared American concerns since Assad saw Sunni jihadists as a threat as well. As for Hezbollah, Syria’s praetorian guard in Lebanon and listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, the Shiite militia was effectively on the same side as Washington. By extension, so was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
What prevented the Americans from understanding their true interests, according to Samaha, was their relationship with Saudi Arabia. Here, Samaha found a willing dupe in the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, crusading this time out against the George W. Bush administration. Hersh’s March 5, 2007 article claimed that in an effort to counter Iran and Hezbollah, Dick Cheney led the U.S. effort to bolster “Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.” The New Yorker apparently turned the volume down on some of Hersh’s charges because when he spoke with CNN his argument was even more conspiratorially farfetched. Cheney and Elliott Abrams, Hersh claimed, brokered a private White House agreement with and Saudi prince Bandar “to support various hard-line jihadists.”
Presumably, the American flourishes come from Hersh’s own imagination, the rest from his Lebanese fixer. “It was Samaha,” according to Lebanese media, “who helped organize several of Hersh’s Lebanese interviews for that article… And who reportedly handed Hersh the plum of his visit: a meeting with the secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.”
After Hersh’s train wreck, many foreign journalists learned to be wary of Samaha’s services as well as the information that he provided. For instance, immediately after Samaha’s arrest last week, the Washington Post’s Beirut correspondent Liz Sly tweeted, “In Jan, Michel Samaha warned me that AQ is plotting bombings in Lebanon. Today, Samaha is in custody, accused of plotting bombings.”
Nonetheless, it worth noting that Samaha, in prison and apparently abandoned by his masters, ably performed the job assigned him. His decade-long disinformation campaign has reached precisely the target that it was designed for—the White House.
The American intelligence community knows very well that the Assad regime consorted with Sunni terrorist groups, including al Qaeda affiliates. Damascus International Airport served as a transit hub for foreign fighters making their way across the border to Iraq to fight American troops. It hardly comes as any surprise, then, that some Sunni fighters, including al Qaeda, have turned against the regime and are now making war against it. But given Samaha’s arrest, with what confidence can the White House claim that all the bombings in Syria attributed to al Qaeda are the work of jihadists, rather than the regime itself, furthering Samaha’s narrative?
5:44 PM 19/08/2012The Obama administration fears that supporting the Free Syrian Army might inadvertently assist al Qaeda, which the administration’s actions suggest is the major strategic issue in the Middle East. After all, the Obama campaign boasts that killing Osama bin Laden is the president’s major foreign policy achievement. Toppling Bashar, however, and thereby weakening Iran and cutting off Hezbollah’s supply lines, is not that important.

Lebanese Police arrest suspected bank robber: report
August 19, 2012/The Daily StarظBEIRUT: Police arrested an unidentified man Sunday in the southern coastal city of Sidon on the suspicion that he robbed a bank, Al-Jadeed television reported.
The local television station said that police believe the man robbed a Blom Bank branch northeast of Beirut. It added that the man was arrested by the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces.

Future Movement MP Nuhad Mashnouq says impossible Hezbollah cannot control clan
August 19, 2012ظThe Daily Star
BEIRUT: Future Movement MP Nuhad Mashnouq dismissed Monday Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s claim that his party cannot control a local clan that went on an abduction spree of Syrians, particularly as the clan resides in the party’s stronghold. “It is not possible that Hezbollah is capable of threatening Israel but incapable of controlling a clan that lives in an area under Hezbollah’s control,” Mashnuq told Voice of Lebanon Radio Station.“Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah's words that the situation spun out of his party's control go against the facts on the ground and constitute a direct threat to the Lebanese,” he added. In a speech Friday marking Jerusalem Day, Nasrallah said, “What happened in the past two days is out of the control of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.”
The Meqdad clan kidnapped over 20 Syrians and a Turkish national Wednesday in retaliation for the abduction of Hasan al-Meqdad in Damascus by Syrian rebels.
A group by the name of “Al-Mokhtar al-Thaqafi Brigades,” believed to be affiliated with the families of the 11 kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, also kidnapped several Syrians in reaction to reports that the pilgrims were killed in an air strike in Syria.Mashnuq also reiterated his party’s accusations against Prime Minister Najib Mikati, saying the latter should resign since “he is hostage to a certain political logic. “The current government was formed to sabotage the political situation and support the Syrian regime and it wants to put Lebanon on a path of confrontation with the Arabs and the West,” the parliamentarian said.

An Australian of Lebanese origin wins third place in Miss World
August 19, 2012 /The Daily Star
BEIRUT: An Australian of Lebanese origin has won third place in this year’s Miss World competition, Al-Arabiya reported Sunday.
Jessica Kahawaty placed after Miss China Yu Wenxia, who won first place in the pageant and Sophie Elizabeth Moulds of Wales, who came in second place.
This was not the Lebanese beauty’s first pageant. She was in the 2008 Miss Lebanon Emigrant and also competed for Miss Lebanon 2010. She became Miss World Australia in 2012, in part due to playing Beethoven’s "Für Elise" on the piano with a severely injured hand.“I had so much adrenaline and thought: ‘I’m going to do it even if it doesn’t sound so good. I took off my cast despite the doctor’s orders,” Al-Arabiya reported her as saying at the time.Kahawaty is the second Lebanese Australian after Nicole Ghazal to become Miss World Australia.
Another beauty pageant winner of Lebanese heritage is Rima Fakih, who was crowned Miss USA in 2012, making her the first Arab American to win that title.

Turkey’s ambassador to Lebanon says Turkey unable to pressure abductors of Lebanese pilgrims
August 19, 2012/The Daily StarظBEIRUT: Turkey’s ambassador to Lebanon, Inan Ozyildiz, said his country does not have the means to pressure the captors of 11 Lebanese pilgrims into releasing them, in remarks published Sunday. “We do not have the means to secure the release of the Lebanese, but we are trying,” Ozyildiz told Al-Hayat newspaper of the men who have been held captive in Syria for two months. “The Lebanese authorities, for their part are cooperating with us regarding the Turks [kidnapped in Lebanon] and they are doing their best to secure their release,” he added.
Two Turkish men were kidnapped this week in Lebanon. Businessman Aydin Toufan was kidnapped upon his arrival in Beirut Wednesday by the Meqdad clan, which also abducted over 20 Syrians, in retaliation for the recent abduction of one of their members, Hassan Meqdad, in Damascus.Another Turkish citizen, Abdel-Basset Arslan, was kidnapped at dawn Friday, but the Meqdad family has denied involvement in his abduction.The envoy also denied that his government placed conditions on the negotiations, asking for the release of Turkish hostages in Lebanon first.
During his trip to Turkey, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Saturday that all 11 Lebanese hostages in Syria are "alive and well."
Fabius said he would continue efforts with his Turkish counterpart “in order to secure the release of the hostages and ensure their return home,” according to a press release issued by the office of Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri.The French official’s comments come days after media outlets reported that the head of the captors, who is known as Abu Ibrahim, said that four of the pilgrims had been killed in an air strike last week.

Qaouk says Lebanon must not be entrusted to March 14
August 19, 2012/The Daily StarظBEIRUT: Sheikh Nabik Qaouk, deputy head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, said the March 14 coalition cannot be trusted with stewardship of Lebanon, accusing the alliance of involving the country in the Syrian crisis via its “partnership” with the rebels.“March 14 cannot be trusted with the country because it could not care less about liberating Shebaa Farms, Kfarshouba Hills and the remaining part of Ghajar, [nor does it care about] any Israeli violation of Lebanon's sovereignty,” Qaouk said in a ceremony in Burj Qalawey in south Lebanon. Qaouk also reiterated his party’s accusation that its rivals had made Lebanon complicit in the 17-month-old crisis in Syria. “They changed their slogan from ‘Lebanon first’ to ‘Free Syrian Army first’ after partnering with [the Free Syrian Army] in a military, security, political and financial agreement, and dragged Lebanon into the flames of Syrian crisis.” He added that Hezbollah has warned on several occasions against "dragging Lebanon into the flames" of the Syrian crisis but claimed that the March 14 party was implementing a "U.S.-regional" decision.March 14 figures have repeatedly fended off similar allegations, saying that they support the Syrian uprising against President Bashar Assad but have not provided material or financial support to the rebels.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani says Lebanon's plight responsibility of leaders, citizens
August 19, 2012/The Daily StarظBEIRUT: Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani blamed Sunday the deteriorating situation in the country on political leaders and Lebanese who have accepted repression, adding that Lebanon needs an electoral law that guarantees true representation. “The deterioration in the country is not the responsibility of the current president or the one before him. It is not the responsibility of the current government or the one before it,” Qabbani said in his sermon on the occasion of the first day of Eid al-Fitr. “It is the responsibility of each and every one, every Lebanese who has accepted repression in his country. It is the responsibility of every citizen who failed to ask for his rights,” he added.“It is the responsibility of every politician who incites people against each other and every leader who pushes people to dig the country’s grave,” Qabbani said.Qabbani also described attempts to ignite conflict on the streets between people as "a project for strife.”
Additionally, the mufti spoke about the phenomenon of road-blocking and the proliferation of arms in the country, saying: “Every time you block the roads you destroy bridges of communication between the country and every time you carry arms you assassinate your country.”“How can the citizen be happy this Eid with the problems of the world being transported to his land, even as Lebanon's problems are enough for the world?” he asked during the ceremony, which was attended by Prime Minister Najib Mikati.Among the attendees were Information Minister Walid Daouk and Education Minister Hassan Diab. Qabbani also said that a new electoral law in Lebanon should guarantee true representation of the Lebanese, saying, “We don't need an election law that eliminates the other but one that guarantees true representation of everyone.”

The Daily Star/Lebanon's Arabic press digest - Aug. 19, 2012
An-Nahar
A race between diplomatic efforts and "random abductions"
Diplomatic efforts in the last few hours aimed at revealing the truth about the fate of the 11 [kidnapped] Lebanese pilgrims coincided with dangerous developments regarding kidnappings in Lebanon.
What is [most] dangerous is that the organized kidnapping based on Syrian identification which widened to include Turks has metamorphosed into random kidnapping with the abduction of three Syrians on the airport road and two in Shoueifat. The three were later released.
However, some positive signs have surfaced concerning the case of the kidnapped Lebanese after Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent
Fabius informed the [public] that they are fine and that there is no truth to what has been reported about their death.
Al-Mustqbal
Sleiman awaits clarification from Asad about the terrorist cell
The start of the Eid holiday and the positive signs regarding the fate of the kidnapped Lebanese in Aazaz -- namely that they are alive and well and that their case is almost resolved -- coincided with negative developments continued on the local scene.
The chaos of kidnappings continued along with the rumors. The reality on the ground was that the "out of control gangs" understood Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah's disassociation from the kidnappings as allowing anyone to destabilize security. This is what prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to urge the government to announce a state of emergency in the country.
At the same time, President Michel Sleiman made the smart move of throwing the ball into the court of President Bashar Assad and said that he was waiting for the latter to call him and explain to him the situation after the Lebanese judiciary accused [high-ranking Syrian security official] Ali Mamlouk of forming a terrorist gang aimed at killing and inciting strife in Lebanon.
Ad-Diyar
Information Branch asks officials for support after catching Samaha
Members of the Information Branch as well as Internal Security Forces chief Ashraf Rifi are visiting officials, starting with President Michel Sleiman, asking for their support after catching Michel Samaha.
Now there is a problem. The investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghoda agreed to call Milad Kfoury, who is an agent for the Information Branch. If Kfoury fails to show up, the investigation by the ISF will appear flawed before the court. That is why the branch tried to showcase what they confiscated from Samaha. But the critical thing is that the Lebanese judiciary asked the branch about the whereabouts of Kfoury, how he was flown out of the country and what the branch knows of his whereabouts.

Syrian beaten, robbed in east Lebanon
August 19, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A Syrian man was severely beaten and robbed Sunday in the east Lebanon town of Baalbek, the National News Agency reported.Tamim Youssef Kiwan, 50, was beaten by a group of unidentified people who also robbed him of LL400,000. He works as a guard for a farm near the town. Kiwan was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Sheikh Ahmad Assir and supporters demonstrate against Hezbollah, Syria
August 19, 2012/The Daily StarظBEIRUT: Tens of supporters of Sheikh Ahmad Assir gathered over the weekend in the coastal city of Sidon to protest the recent spree of kidnappings in the country and denounce Hezbollah’s insistence on maintaining its arms. The protesters marched from the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque to the Karameh roundabout near the northern entrance of the sea road in Sidon. They carried banners praising the Syrian uprising and denouncing President Bashar Assad. Addressing his supporters, Assir said: “What happened in the past few days, with the showcasing of a military wing, the appearance of masked gunmen, the deployment of armed men and threats to figures is very alarming.” Assir was referring to the Meqdad clan, which announced that its “military wing” had kidnapped over 20 Syrians and a Turkish national in retaliation for the abduction of one of its kinsmen in Damascus by Syrian rebels. Although the Meqdad clan has since announced a halt to its “military operations” against Syrians affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), three Syrians were briefly kidnapped Saturday. Another Turkish man was kidnapped earlier this week while ten Syrians were also kidnapped by a previously unknown group demanding the release of 11 Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped by the FSA on May 22. Assir also spoke extensively about Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s comments that his party would not wait for permission to respond if Lebanon is attacked by Israel.Addressing Nasrallah, Assir said: “You are not the one to decide when to fight on behalf of Lebanon.”
Assir and his supporters blocked a portion of the vital Sidon highway for almost a month earlier this year in protest of Hezbollah’s arsenal.
“We announce to the prime minister and all Lebanese that we will resort to one escalation after the other until the last moment of our lives and until [all] arms come under the jurisdiction of the state,” he warned.Addressing Hezbollah, he added: “You will not rest until you place your arms as an item on the agenda of the National Dialogue; otherwise, we will never be silent regarding your arms, whether you like it or not,” he added.He also said that supporters of Iran and Syria in Lebanon insist on "sinking the ship" that is Lebanon in order to save the embattled government in Damascus.

Assad makes rare appearance for Eid prayers
August 19, 2012/By Tom Perry/Daily Star
BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad performed Eid prayers in a Damascus mosque on Sunday, state television showed, his first appearance in public since a stunning July bombing in the capital that killed four of his top security officials.Assad, battling a 17-month-old uprising against 42 years of rule by his family, was accompanied by his prime minister and foreign minister but not his vice president, Farouq al-Shara, whose reported defection was denied the previous day.His administration shaken by the July 18 attack and defections including that of his last prime minister, Assad's recent appearances had been restricted to state television footage of him during official business. Most recently, he was shown swearing in the new prime minister a week ago.
Syria's civil war has intensified since the audacious attack that killed members of Assad's long inaccessible inner circle including his defense minister and brother-in-law.
With diplomatic efforts to end the war hampered by divisions between world powers and inter-Arab rivalries, Syria faces an unabating conflict that threatens to destabilize the Middle East with its sectarian reverberations, pitting a mainly Sunni Muslim opposition against the Alawite minority to which Assad belongs.In the footage broadcast on Sunday, Assad sat cross-legged during a sermon in which Syria was described as the victim of terrorism and a conspiracy hatched by the United States, Israel, the West and Arab states but which would not "defeat our Islam, our ideology and our determination in Syria".Eid prayers mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.Assad, dressed in a suit and tie, smiled as he greeted officials including senior members of his Baath Party.
In attendance were Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem and Prime Minister Wael al-Halki. He is the replacement for Riyad Hijab, a Sunni who has joined the opposition to Assad since his defection was announced on August 6.Hijab was the highest-level Syrian official to desert the government so far. Reports on Saturday that Shara, also a Sunni, had tried to bolt to Jordan drew a denial from the government.Shara had "never thought for a moment about leaving the country", according to a statement from his office broadcast on state television. Shara, whose cousin - an intelligence officer - announced his own defection on Thursday, comes from Deraa province where the revolt began against Assad.
The 73-year-old ex-foreign minister kept a low profile as the revolt mushroomed but surfaced in public last month at a state funeral for three of the slain officials: the fourth died later of his wounds.
The statement said he had worked since the start of the uprising to find a peaceful, political solution and welcomed the appointment of Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as a new international mediator for Syria.Brahimi, who hesitated for days before accepting a job that France's U.N. envoy Gerard Araud called an "impossible mission", will replace former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is leaving at the end of the month.Annan's six-point plan to stop the violence and advance towards negotiations was based on an April ceasefire agreement which never took hold. The conflict has deepened since then.
Assad's forces have resorted increasingly to air power to hold back lightly armed insurgents in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's largest city and business hub. More than 18,000 people have died in Syria's bloodshed and about 170,000 have fled the country, according to the United Nations.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 190 Syrians were killed on Saturday, 62 of them in Damascus and the surrounding countryside as a result of bombardment by government forces. The figure could not be independently verified.
The Observatory added that protesters took to the streets in and around Damascus and in Idlib province in the northwest to demand an end to Assad's rule following Sunday's Eid rites.
Aleppo has been the theatre for some of the heaviest recent fighting. Rebels hold several districts in the country's largest city and have tried to push back an army counter-offensive.
In the town of Tel, north of Damascus, local activists said the bodies of 40 people killed by bombardment were gathered together for a joint burial. A picture showed what appeared to be several corpses wrapped in colorful blankets on a street.
Syrian state television reported that government forces had thwarted several attempts by armed groups to infiltrate Syria from neighboring Lebanon, a country whose own fragile stability has been put under strain by the conflict next door.Brahimi will have a new title, Joint Special Representative for Syria. Diplomats said this was to distance him from Annan, who complained that his peaceful transition plan was crippled by splits between Western powers - who want Assad out - and Russia - his weightiest ally - and China in the U.N. Security Council.
Describing the situation in Syria as "absolutely terrible", Brahimi told Reuters he urgently needed to clarify what support the United Nations can give him and said it was too soon to say whether Assad should step down - in contrast to Annan who said it was clear the Syrian leader "must leave office".
The last U.N. observers who deployed in Syria four months ago to monitor Annan's failed ceasefire planned to leave after midnight on Sunday, when their mandate expires.
They will leave a "liaison office" open in Damascus after their departure, though its size and role have not been finalized, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Egypt president to visit Iran, a first in decades
August 19, 2012/By Maggie MichaelظDaily Star
CAIRO: Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi will attend a summit in Iran later this month, a presidential official said on Saturday, the first such trip for an Egyptian leader since relations with Tehran deteriorated decades ago.
The visit could mark a thaw between the two countries after years of enmity, especially since Egypt signed its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and Iran underwent its Islamic revolution. Under Mursi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, predominantly Sunni Muslim, sided with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated Arab states in trying to isolate Shiite-led Iran.
Until now, contacts have been channeled through interest sections, a low-level form of diplomatic representation. In May last year, Egypt, which was ruled by an interim military council, expelled a junior Iranian diplomat on suspicion he tried to set up spy rings in Egypt and the Gulf countries.
It's too early to assess the implications of the visit or to what extent the Arab world's most populous country may normalize relations with Tehran, but analysts believe it will bring Egypt back to the regional political stage. The visit is in line with popular sentiment since Mubarak's ouster in an uprising last year for Cairo to craft a foreign policy independent of Western or oil Gulf countries' agendas.
"This really signals the first response to a popular demand and a way to increase the margin of maneuver for Egyptian foreign policy in the region," said political scientist Mustafa Kamel el-Sayyed. "Morsi's visits ... show that Egypt's foreign policy is active again in the region."
"This is a way also to tell Gulf countries that Egypt is not going to simply abide by their wishes and accept an inferior position," he added.
The official said that Morsi will visit Tehran on Aug. 30 on his way back from China to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, where Egypt will transfer the movement's rotating leadership to Iran. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not yet authorized to make the announcement.
The trip is no surprise — it came days after Morsi included Iran, a strong ally of Syrian Bashar Assad, in a proposal for a contact group to mediate an end to Syria's escalating civil war. The proposal for the group, which includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, was made at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca.
During the summit, Morsi exchanged handshakes and kisses with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in their first meeting since Morsi assumed his post as Egypt's first elected president.
The idea was welcomed by Iran's state-run Press TV, and a leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said that Tehran's acceptance of the proposal was a sign Egypt was beginning to regain some of the diplomatic and strategic clout it once held in the region.
After the fall of Egypt's longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak in last year's popular revolt, officials have expressed no desire to maintain Mubarak's staunch anti-Iranian stance.
Last July, former Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Elaraby, who also heads the Arab League, delivered a conciliatory message to the Islamic Republic, saying "Iran is not an enemy." He also noted that post-Mubarak Egypt would seek to open a new page with every country in the world, including Iran.
Tensions have not been absent however in contacts with Iran's clerical state since Egypt's uprising. When a delegation of politicians and youth activists made a visit to Iran last year, one Egyptian pro-democracy activist, Mustafa el-Nagger, said his Iranian hosts claimed the revolt sweeping the Arab world was part of an "Islamic awakening." He responded with a different interpretation: the anti-Mubarak uprising was "not a religious revolution, but a human evolution."
Any normalization between the two countries would have to be based on careful calculations.
Majority Sunni Egypt has its own suspicions of Iran on both religious and political grounds. The country's ultraconservative Salafis and even the moderate consider Shiites heretics and enemies.
Since splitting from their Sunni brethren in the 7th century over who should replace the Prophet Muhammad as Muslim ruler, Shiites have developed distinct concepts of Islamic law and practices.
They account for some 160 million of the Islamic world's population of 1.3 billion people, and make up some 90 percent of Iran's population, over 60 percent of Iraq's, and around 50 percent of the people living in the arc of territory from Lebanon to India.
In 2006, Mubarak angered Shiite leaders by saying Shiites across the Middle East were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries. His view was shared by other Arab leaders and officials, including Jordan's King Abdullah II who warned of a Shiite crescent forming in the region.
"The old regime used to turn any of his rivals to a ghost. We don't want to do like Mubarak and exaggerate of the fear of Iran," said Mahmoud Ezzat, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mursi was the leader of its political arm.
"But at the same time, we should not take the Iranians' ambitions lightly. As much as they don't want us to interfere in their business, we don't want them to interfere in our business," he said, mentioning his group's opposition to Iran's "grand project to spread Shiite faith."
While nearly three decades of Mubarak rule left Egyptians inundated with state-spun scenarios of Iranian plots aiming to destabilize the country, many sympathize with Iran's Islamic revolution and consider Tehran's defiance of the United States a model to follow. Others seek a foreign policy at the very least more independent of Washington.
A new understanding with Iran would be a big shake-up for a region that has been split between Tehran's camp — which includes Syria and Islamic militias Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — and a U.S.-backed group led by Saudi Arabia and rich Gulf nations.
To add another level of complexity, there is also the fact that Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian enclave in the Gaza strip to the frustration of neighboring Israel, is a historical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the dominant force in Egyptian politics since Mursi's election.
Aware of the Gulf states' anxieties over the rise of political Islam in post-Mubarak Egypt, Mursi has focused on courting Saudi Arabia. He visited it twice, once just after he won the presidency, and a second time during the Islamic summit. In an attempt to assuage fears of the Arab uprisings by oil monarchs, he vowed that Egypt does not want to "export its revolution". He has also asserted commitment to the security of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies, a thinly veiled reference to the tension between them and Iran.

'Rehabilitating' Jihadis with Cage-Fighting?
by Raymond Ibrahim
FrontPageMagazine.com
August 15, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3303/jihadis-cage-fighting
UK officials have taken wishful thinking to a new level: not only are some of the most violent Islamic terrorists being released onto the streets; but in order to "rehabilitate" them, they are being trained by a former radical Muslim in one of the most violent forms of sports—cage-fighting, which even the Olympics refuses to acknowledge.
CNN's "Cagefighter 'cures' terrorists," by Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, has the details. While the entire 2,300-word report is worth reading for its eye-opening (or eye-popping) qualities, the following excerpt summarizes:
In the shadow of London's Olympic stadium, home of the Summer Games, is a hotbed of radical fundamentalism dubbed Londonistan, from where al Qaeda has already recruited for some of its most ambitious plots. In past months, dozens of convicted terrorists have been released in the UK, including onto the same London streets…. At the same time a no-holds barred fight for security is under way. It is unorthodox, but British officials say it is working, producing results which have never been seen before—and at its epicenter is a veteran Muslim cagefighter. … "Unfortunately, we know that some of those prisoners are still committed extremists who are likely to return to their terrorist activities," Jonathan Evans, the director of British domestic intelligence service MI5, warned two years ago. The task of managing the re-integration into society of these young men has proved beyond the capabilities of most Muslim community groups. But one east Londoner, proud to be both British and Muslim, has felt religiously compelled to take on the fight. Usman Raja, the 34-year-old grandson of a Pakistani immigrant is not tall but he is built like an ox, with a close shaven head, short beard, and otherwise pure muscle….Raja is one of the UK's most renowned cage-fighting coaches… He is also a man of deep ideas, including harnessing Islamic teaching to defeat the ideology of the terrorists. Three years ago, Raja began taking under his wing some of the most dangerous offenders being released from the highest security wings of the British prison system; men convicted of carrying out terrorism on behalf of al Qaeda in murder, assassinations, bombing, and arson plots. His aim was to rehabilitate them into mainstream society.…. Raja tried a novel approach with some of the most challenging freed convicted terrorists; he coached them cage-fighting skills. Raja says it proved a remarkably effective way of breaking them out of their pro al Qaeda mentality and opening up their minds to his counter-extremist message.
Some questions:
First, where is the proof that training violent jihadis in cage-fighting is a great success, "producing results which have never been seen before"? Indeed, the report later quotes a UK official gushing about how Raja—who "once subscribed to fundamentalist views himself, and says he came close to fighting Jihad in Bosnia in the 1990s"—is "the most successful guy out there doing this sort of work."
Yet the closer one reads, the more it appears that the only proof for Raja's success is that the released jihadis he is training have not (yet) been rearrested on terror charges.
Is that really proof that this approach is working? Are all jihadis like trapped animals that, once released, must instantaneously start terrorizing all and sundry? Is it inconceivable that they could still harbor the same jihadi inclinations, yet have learned to be patient, in accordance with jihad's prescribed tactics (see taqiyya and tawriya), even as they continue sating their bloodlust through cage-fighting?
And exactly how does the specific act of cage-fighting help rehabilitate jihadis? Again, the closer one reads, the less answers one receives. Instead, it's more of the usual: during their training, Raja "impresses on them [the released jihadis] that true Islam is spiritual, tolerant and humanistic, and not the narrow-minded, divisive message of hate peddled by self-serving radical preachers," who exploit the fact that, in Raja's words, "some of them [UK's Muslims] are very angry."
In short, this jihadi cage-fighting business is being hailed by CNN simply because it has all the ingredients to validate leftist ideas: 1) "true Islam is spiritual, tolerant, and humanistic"; 2) jihadis are simply "very angry," presumably at Western foreign policy; 3) this pent up frustration and hostility is nothing that some good old fashioned cage-fighting won't alleviate (apparently "art therapy" and Play Station were deemed insufficient).
On the other hand, this story can also be interpreted according to Islam's perspective: 1) jihad is not about instantaneous terrorism but long-term preparations. Even the Muslim Brotherhood—which recently boasted "we will be masters of the world, one of these days"—showcases the word "prepare" in their logo, which comes directly from Koran 8:60, which commands Muslims to "prepare" for jihad "so that you may strike terror into the hearts of Allah's enemies and your enemies"; 2) according to most Arabic legal manuals on jihad, combat sports—cage-fighting being ideal—are essential for jihadis in training.
Despite all this, now that the Olympics have ended without incident, no doubt those myopic UK officials who think only in the short-term and according to their leftist paradigms are now convinced that training jihadis in cage-fighting—that is, preparing them for acts of violence—is the way to go.
*Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Aoun, Franjieh and Miqati
Hazem al-Amin/Now Lebanon
Why did M. K. confess about the explosive devices, which – according to the Information Branch – former Minister Michel Samaha was caught delivering to him?
He did so because he felt he was at the service of a regime that could no longer protect him. This is a different sort of dissent, which has started to loom on the horizon, and its repercussions are beginning to reach us. It is a dissent resulting from the lack of trust rather than from the lack of faith. This form of dissent is more dangerous as it results from the awakening of one’s conscience, and it is likely to be the prevailing from of Lebanese cases of dissent from the Syrian regime since the lack of trust is a characteristic trait of Lebanese-Syrian relations. Lebanese loyalty to the Syrian regime was not some kind of fateful loyalty similar to that of many Syrian officials, as many of them were born and raised under the regime’s wings and the regime was their only horizon for leadership and promotion. This is naturally not the case for many who have chosen the regime while fully aware of their choice. In Lebanon, politicians, security officials, civil servants and union members chose the relationship with the Syrian regime in order to further their interests, but – being Lebanese – they have greater flexibility and ability to voice their dissent.
Predictions fraught with a good dose of imagination have it that the Free Patriotic Movement is the one Lebanese movement that is expected to face the greatest amount of trouble in dissenting from the Syrian regime. This is not due to the fact that it is the closest to the regime, but rather because the public opinion supporting the FPM experienced so many clashes and changes in positions and stances that it is left brittle and incoherent if such an event were to occur. A simple comparison with Jumblatt’s coherent base of support in the Mountain, which was exposed by its leader to a similar situation, shows that the relationship between Aoun’s support base and its leader is different from that of Jumblatt’s. The latter’s support base is indeed less demanding and clearer with regard to its relationship with the Mountain leader, whereas a Aounist and his/her loyalty to Aoun is always held back by a variety of ties feelings and interests. Should he dissent, Aoun would have to face exhausting questions, the answers to which will be unconvincing for large swathes of his supporters.
Predictions also have it that Suleiman Franjieh’s dissent is more probable, even though the Zgharta leader enjoys a more deeply-rooted relationship with the Syrian regime. Still, his leadership is undoubtedly likely to suffer, as its nature is similar to Jumblatt’s. It is actually a mountain leadership based on a complex regional clannishness, a minority leadership within a greater religious community. This leadership has a top-level relationship with the Syrian regime rather than a social one, and does not require any mutual identification beyond the realms of direct interest. It is made of a clannish matter with no political struggle. A supporter of Suleiman Franjieh does not support him because he is Syria’s ally, but rather because he is perceived as a counterweight to other local leaderships and to the hegemony of the center over the fringes within the [Maronite] community. It will do no harm to this supporter if his/her leader declares his dissent from Syria. Suleiman’s Franjieh’s influence will take a hit and so will his capacity to offer services, but that’s that.
Hezbollah will not steer away from the Syrian regime due to dissent, but rather as a result of concomitant changes in regional and international variables, the least important and prominent of which is the Lebanese one. The repercussions of such a move are, however, too essential to be monitored in a quick look by a casual observer.
PM Najib Miqati dissented and did not dissent at the same time. He is everything and nothing all at once. Indeed, it is impossible to make out how close Najib Miqati really is to either the Syrian regime or the Syrian revolution, knowing that the means to evaluate this closeness to wither one has yet to be tested.
*This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Thursday August 16, 2012