LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
September 29/06
Biblical Reading For today
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 9,7-9.
Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying, "John has been raised from the dead";others were saying, "Elijah has appeared"; still others, "One of the ancient prophets has arisen." But Herod said, "John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?" And he kept trying to see him.
New Opinions
Divine victory. By: Lucy Fielder - Al Ahram 29.09.06
Hariri's No's. By: Zuheir Kseibati Al-Hayat 29.06.06
Hezbollah, With $100 Bills, Struggles to Repair Lebanon Damage-Bloomberg 29.09.06
Latest New from Miscellaneous sources for September 29/06
AP interview: top Lebanese Shiite cleric blasts Bush over Iraq-International Herald Tribune
Vatican: Extremists undermining religion-Seattle Post Intelligencer
Bush Urges Allies to Unite in Terror War-ABC News
Siniora: IDF presence in Lebanon 'mother of all ills'-Ha'aretz
Israeli jets execute air raids over Lebanon-Kuwait News Agency
Saniora calls for immediate withdrawal of IDF forces-Jerusalem Post
170 Spanish peacekeepers, engineers land in Lebanon-International Herald Tribune
Olmert: No talks with Syria at this time-Gulf News
Iraq Gives Ultimatum to Syria, Iran-New York Sun
Amal-Hezbollah schism denied-United Press International
'No' to Hamas; 'Yes' to Syria-Ynetnews
Hezbollah faces little pressure to disarm-AP
Lebanon row overshadows Francophone summit opening-Euronews.net
Romanian president defends Lebanese president summit snub-People's Daily Online
Romanian president says he did not invite Lebanese president-International Herald TribuneSyria Should Have Avoided Belligerent Statements-Arutz Sheva
Harper slams Martin for criticizing Afghan mission-CTV.ca - Canada
UN accelerates pace to choose successor to Annan-Reuters
Poll: Blair is 'true friend' of Israel-Jerusalem Post, Israel
White House: More "Jihadis" Doesn't Mean US Losing Terror War-WCSH-TV
Bin Laden alive in Afghanistan: Musharraf-Daily Telegraph
Who Is the Traitor?
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
WHEN countries grow bigger and are busy with their own internal problems, it is hard for them to ensure their security and maintain their treaties with others. In such a scenario we say the past was better and start worrying about the future. We start thinking why people aren’t optimistic and comfortable any longer. The rise of fundamentalism has led to a situation where the principles of the past are being applied to the present. Afraid of being accused as traitors and foreign agents, people are prepared to join fundamentalist movements.
Hezbollah is one such movement which has imposed itself on Lebanon and caused more devastation than the enemy. Hezbollah, which has confiscated the freedom of choice of the Lebanese by pretending to be a religious movement, is actually using religion as a political tool. Hezbollah had to justify its existence as a legitimate religious movement which represents a segment of the Lebanese. Because of this need Hezbollah didn’t mind causing the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure and leaving thousands of Lebanese homeless. To top it all Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah has claimed victory over Israel.
Hezbollah, which is dancing to the tunes of Syrian intelligence, claims to be a Party of the God and it can’t go wrong. Syrian intelligence didn’t fail to attend Hezbollah’s “victory celebration” although the people of Lebanon no longer consider Hezbollah a Lebanese movement.
Not satisfied with claiming victory in the war Nasrallah, who acts under the instructions of Tehran and Damascus without worrying about Lebanon’s interests, warned the Lebanese that they would be accused of being traitors if they didn’t join his movement. Such tribal and sectarian ideology is unseemly and reveals the ignorance of the man.
If anybody asks who between Nasrallah and Prime Minister of Lebanon Fouad Al-Siniora is more patriotic, the Lebanese have a ready answer. The people of Lebanon have rejected fundamentalist projects and defused Hezbollah’s to establish a totalitarian system in that country. As sad circumstances have reached their peak, good things of the past will return, soon.
e-mail: ahmedjarallah@hotmail.com
Hezbollah faces little pressure to disarm: report
Updated Thu. Sep. 28 2006
Associated Press
Six weeks after the end of the Lebanon war, the militant Hezbollah group is facing little on-the-ground pressure to give up its weapons and disarm -- despite a U.N. cease-fire resolution demanding just that.
The leaders of a U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon say the job is not theirs. And Lebanon's ill-equipped army, some of whose soldiers wear tin-pot helmets and carry outdated M-16 rifles, shows no signs of diving into a confrontation with battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters.
For now, all sides say it's likely full disarmament will happen only in the future as part of a political solution -- despite the U.N. resolution that ended the 34-day war on Aug. 14 and required disarmament.
The commanders of the U.N. force say that under the resolution, their job is merely to assist the Lebanese army in regaining control of southern Lebanon and to ensure the area cannot be used for launching rocket attacks into northern Israel.
Meanwhile, Lebanese security officials say the army's mission in the south is based on what they call an "understanding" with Hezbollah that the army will not search for and seize weapons, but only confiscate those shown in public.
At one Lebanese military checkpoint near the town of Marjayoun, some eight miles from the Israeli border, soldiers recently waved most cars through -- although some were stopped so identity papers and registration documents could be checked.
The Lebanese government, which for years allowed Hezbollah to run a "state within a state" in the south, has long argued that disarming the militants could be done only through agreement among the country's major political groups.
Israel says the resolution makes clear that Hezbollah must be disarmed south of the Litani River. Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said of the current situation, "It's a process."
Israeli soldiers have been instructed to shoot Lebanese stone-throwers along the border if they feel their lives are in danger. The order came after dozens of yellow-clad Hezbollah supporters threw stones at Israeli soldiers Friday.
Regev said Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, at a rally last week, "publicly stated that he is out to flout the will of the international community and to prevent the implementation of what was an unanimous resolution of the Security Council."
At the rally in the Beirut suburbs Friday, Nasrallah vowed his guerrillas will not surrender their weapons and said: "There is no army in the world capable of making us drop our weapons as long as there will be people who believe in this resistance."
The current U.N. peacekeeping contingent is far larger and better-armed than a previous 2,000-member force. Some 15,000 troops, more than half from Europe, will eventually be deployed with tanks, artillery cannons and other heavy armor.
But the multinational troops, who now number 5,000, are acutely aware that their presence could become unpopular if they are viewed as supporting Israel's attempts to eliminate Hezbollah's arms.
French peacekeepers setting up base near the town of Deir Kifa noted they had encountered a less-than-friendly reception from some residents, who defiantly waved yellow Hezbollah flags.
"We mustn't be seen as an occupying force -- the people can reject us very quickly," said Col. Jerome Salle.
He said the U.N. troops would mount patrols but would not establish checkpoints on public roads, to avoid inflaming residents.
Gen. Alain Pelligrini, the French officer who commands the U.N. force, said the peacekeepers wouldn't even act if they saw weapons being carried openly by Hezbollah fighters.
"No, I would ask the Lebanese army to intervene and if the Lebanese army has difficulties in intervening, then we would see what we need to do," he said last week.
Halim Sarhan, who runs a dental laboratory in the market town of Nabatiyeh, expressed a common sentiment when he said no one should try to disarm Hezbollah by force. "There must be political consensus on the issue first," he said.
Hezbollah has said it would agree to disarm only if the government is strong enough to defend Lebanon against Israel -- a stance that reflects its own ambitions to become the country's dominant political force.
It has also linked the issue to Israel's return of the Shebaa farms, a 25-square-mile contested area where Lebanon, Syria and Israel meet.
Some weapons and explosives have been found in a few Hezbollah positions that were either overrun or abandoned during the fighting, said Lebanese security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Hezbollah is thought to have a great deal of experience in concealing its weapons. Many are believed to be in underground tunnels, buried in groves or in remote parts of the mountainous south.
The U.N. forces and the Lebanese army are likely to have more teeth when it comes to preventing new weapons shipments.
A German naval force is to patrol the waters off southern Lebanon and Lebanese authorities are tightening controls at the country's only international airport in Beirut and on the Syrian border.
But Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose country has long been a route for arms deliveries to Hezbollah believed to come from Iran, said this week that it was "Mission Impossible" to cut off the guerrillas' supply of weapons altogether.
Vatican: Extremists undermining religion
By ANNA DOLGOV
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State, addresses the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
UNITED NATIONS -- The Vatican's foreign minister said Wednesday that misunderstanding between cultures is breeding a "new barbarism" and expressed hope that reason and dialogue would stop those who use their faith as a pretext for attacks.
In a speech on the closing day of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting, Giovanni Lajolo said extremists are far from devout and undermine the very religion they claim to defend.
"Violent reactions are always a falsification of true religion," Lajolo said in a passage devoted to the pope's Sept. 12 speech at Regensburg University in Germany.
Benedict XVI quoted words attributed to a 14th century Byzantine emperor: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Muslims angered by the remarks took to the streets in Indonesia, Turkey and Syria. Churches were attacked in the West Bank; an effigy of the pope was burned in Iraq; and a nun was shot dead in Somalia in an apparently related attack.
Lajolo reiterated the Vatican's view that Benedict's remarks were misinterpreted. He said the pope has sought only to promote rational dialogue and understanding.
Benedict has expressed regret for offending Muslims and said they did not reflect his personal views, but he has not offered a complete apology as some had sought.
Lajolo suggested that the anger may also lie in the lack of understanding between religions, and a schism between reason and faith.
"As the Pope affirmed, were reason to turn a deaf ear to the divine and relegate religion to the ambit of subcultures, it would automatically provoke violent reactions," Lajolo, who also serves as president of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State, told the assembly.
"It falls to all interested parties - to civil society as well as to states - to promote religious freedom and a sane, social tolerance that will disarm extremists even before they can begin to corrupt others with their hatred of life and liberty," he said.
Lajolo referred to the story of the Tower of Babel, saying the "confusion of tongues" in the Biblical city was a symbol of fracturing and hostilities in the contemporary world.
"Human pride hampers the acknowledgment of one's neighbor and the recognition of his or her needs and even more makes people distrusting," he said.
"Today, that same negative fundamental attitude has given rise to a new barbarism that threatens world peace," the Vatican minister said.
Terrorists bent on "rejecting the best achievements of our civilization" are one example, Lajolo said.
Major powers, in their attempt to make the world more fair, may also occasionally slide into believing that this can only be achieved by force, he said.
"It can go so far as to regard the possession of nuclear weapons as an element of national pride," he said.
Amal-Hezbollah schism denied
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Shiite Amal Movement, refuted as "mere dreams" U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's claims of a Shiite schism.
"Bets by Mrs. Rice about divisions between Amal and Hezbollah and allegations of a schism within the Shiite bloc, are mere dreams and illusions, because Amal and Hezbollah are closer than ever before and share common understandings more than any time in the past," Berri said in a press comment Wednesday.
He was responding to Rice's remarks to the American media Tuesday that divisions existed between Amal and Hezbollah, who compete over control of Lebanon's majority Shiite community.
Berri said Amal and Hezbollah agree on the smallest details, "especially about Israel's attempts to give wrong interpretations of U.N. Resolution 1701 and about political life in Lebanon."
He said "the leaderships of Amal and Hezbollah have underlined their keenness to take Lebanon out of the phase of foreign tutorship to that of building a strong and just state, and not a state that would be dominated and influenced by the outside."
Berri stressed Amal and Hezbollah share the same position with regard to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, and "that is of support and assistance as long as the force carried out its mission as defined by 1701."
"I had hoped to hear from Mrs. Rice something different from supporting Israel's continued violations and occupation of the Shabaa Farms and certain border positions in south Lebanon," he said.
Berri reminded Rice that the U.S. administration had promised on the eve of approval of 1701 that Israeli occupation troops will not stay in Lebanon for more than 10 days.
Resolution 1701 halted 34 days of an unabated Israeli offensive against Lebanon following Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack July 12.
Lebanon row overshadows Francophone summit opening
The 11th summit of French speaking nations has opened in Bucharest amid controversy over the exclusion of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. The pro-Syrian Lahoud said the failure to invite him was a breach of sovereignty, and accused hosts Romania of bowing to pressure from French President Jacques Chirac.
But Romanian President Traian Basescu said he took full responsibility for the decision, saying it was legitimate given suspicions concerning the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. The row overshadowed the opening of the summit, which brings together heads of state and representatives from 63 countries with French speaking populations.
Chirac said the bloc should be a force for world peace. "There's no future for our world or for the French speaking world without peace," he said. "And the tragedy that once again has struck in Lebanon is a sad reminder of this." The biennial summit of the French-speaking world comes at a time when there's concern that French is losing ground in the diplomatic world, and in particular within the European Union. The delegates will work on a communiqué to present on Friday.
Romanian president defends Lebanese president summit snub
Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Wednesday his decision to invite Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora but not the president, Emile Lahoud, to the Francophony Summit was based on suspicions in the UN report surrounding the death of former premier Rafik Hariri in Beirut.
"The invitation extended to the prime minister of the Lebanese government was a decision I made and I think it was a correct one, considering the suspicions in the report on the death of former Prime Minister Hariri," said Traian Basescu at the end of the talks with his French counterpart Jacques Chirac. "I assume responsibility for the option of inviting the prime minister," he added.
Journalists tried to draw Chirac on his suspected involvement in the decision but he refused to answer, saying any questions surrounding the matter should not be put to him. Leaders of dozens of French-speaking countries, including Chirac, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, were gathering here to discuss matters ranging from crises in the Middle East to the importance of the French language and culture.
Lebanese officials confirmed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had been invited to the summit but was sending the culture minister as a personal envoy instead. President Basescu's move to invite Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora and not President Emile Lahoud to the summit sparked a diplomatic scandal in June, when Lahoud condemned France for urging Romania to address the invitation to the head of government and not to the head of the Lebanese state. Lahoud accused Romania on Tuesday of violating Lebanese sovereignty by failing to invite him to the meeting, and blamed the decision on pressure from France. "Lebanon will not participate in the Francophony Summit because no invitation was extended to the President of the Republic according to the regulations in force," the Beirut Presidency said in a press release issued on Monday.
"The presence of any Lebanese official of no matter what rank will be considered a personal attendance and not as representing the Lebanese state," said the statement, "It is deeply regrettable that the Romanian president is subject to direct pressure by French President Jacques Chirac that no invitation be extended to the head of the Lebanese state according to the international etiquette and practice." Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu said on Tuesday that he still hoped for Lebanon's participation in the Francophony Summit on Sept. 28-29, although no confirmation had been received from Beirut. Source: Xinhua
Poll: Blair is 'true friend' of Israel
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Almost two-thirds of Israelis believe that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a "true friend of Israel," according to a recent poll by TNS Teleseker on behalf of the British Embassy in Tel Aviv. When asked to what extent they agreed that Blair is a true friend of Israel, 51 percent said they agreed with the statement and 12 percent of respondents said they strongly agreed with it. Blair in last speech: 'Let liberty stand up for the law-abiding' In his final speech as Prime Minister to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester on 26 September, Blair promised "From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland, to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism." The survey of Israeli perceptions of Britain also found that Britain is seen by Israelis as the European country that is friendliest towards Israel. Respondents were asked at the start of the survey to spontaneously name the European countries they believe are friendly towards Israel. A quarter of respondents mentioned Britain first, and 34 percent overall said Britain is friendly towards Israel.
As for British policy towards Israel, 40 percent of those polled said that British policy was pro-Israeli, 27 percent said it was neutral, and 25 percent thought it was pro-Arab. The majority of the Israeli public (68%) believes that Britain's policy in the Middle East is based on current interests, rather than historical considerations. When asked whether Israel can rely on Britain as a political ally, 7 percent said it definitely can, 16 percent said it can and 37 percent said it can to some extent. The first thing that springs to the Israeli mind when asked about Britain is royalty: 24% of respondents mentioned the royal family, palaces, servants, changing of the guard, etc. when asked what they associate with the UK. The next most popular associations were football (15%), London landmarks like Big Ben and the Tower of London (12%), and the British Mandate / War of Independence (10%). Most Israelis see Britain as both a culturally diverse society (72%) and a tolerant society (63%). Just over half of Israelis see Britain as an important source of creative ideas (52%), while a third of Israelis have visited Britain at least once.
A total of 625 Israelis adults were polled for the survey, which was conducted between 30 July - 1 August 2006, during the hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. Interviewing was conducted in three languages (Hebrew, Arabic and Russian). The maximum margin of error in this survey is +/- 3.9%.
UN accelerates pace to choose successor to Annan
Thu Sep 28, 2006
International News
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is moving quickly to select a successor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan in October, a procedure that favors front-runner South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon.
A third informal poll is set for Thursday and another, more revealing poll on Monday will indicate which of the seven candidates is backed or opposed by any of the veto-bearing council members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. A candidate needs at least nine votes and no veto. The campaigning for votes has been intense, with nominees speaking at various forums in New York and traveling around the globe to secure the post of the world's top diplomat. "We are at the point where we should make a decision," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Wednesday, saying governments had had all year to nominate a candidate to replace Annan, whose term ends on December 31.Most diplomats believe the United States favors Ban and a quick vote would confirm his front-runner status.
On Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Chris Hill called Ban a "very, very consummate professional," after a congressman alleged the South Korean was too pro-China. Only Britain has spoken against the rush to close the process, arguing that two candidates -- Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga and former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani -- had entered late and should have the chance in straw polls, council members said. Britain, they said, also wanted to keep the race open for any other candidate who might want to run. Continued...
'A REAL CHOICE'
Using colored ballots to distinguish between the five permanent council members and the 10 nations elected for two-year terms, could, for all practical purposes, end the contest after Monday's poll.
But on Thursday afternoon, council ambassadors will mark ballots to "encourage, discourage or express no opinion" as in the previous two straw polls.
In the last informal poll, Ban received 14 out of 15 favorable votes, ahead of Shashi Tharoor, an Indian novelist and the U.N. undersecretary-general for public information, who got 10 positive votes.
The other three candidates are Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand's deputy prime minister; Jordan's U.N. ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein; and Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, a former U.N. undersecretary-general for disarmament.
Tharoor said the next balloting would be crucial.
"I was second in both the two straw polls because I do believe that many ambassadors and many governments are looking for a real choice," Tharoor said in an interview. "But I acknowledge, as a realist, that if Mr. Ban consolidates his lead Thursday, it could be all over."
The secretary-general's job has changed over the years, but Bolton said the first priority was to be the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and institute management reforms.
Even Ban had some qualms about that. He told the Asia Society on Monday that many of the administrative operations would be left to a deputy. In an interview last week, he spoke of playing a "bridging role" between developed and developing nations but stressed the need for reform.
.The Security Council selects the new secretary-general, who then has to be confirmed by the 192-member General Assembly. U.N. tradition deems that the next U.N. leader come from Asia.
'No' to Hamas; 'Yes' to Syria
Israel should concentrate efforts on striking deal with Assad
Published: 09.27.06, 23:52
Israel has been holding on to the Golan Heights, occupied Syrian territory, since June 1967. Syrian sovereignty over most of the Golan was not annulled as a result of unilateral Israeli legislation. That is the essential difference between Judea and Samaria and the Golan. Jordan voluntarily renounced its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and since then at least part of the area has been earmarked for a future Palestinian state. At present, this land belongs to nobody and is under the joint control of Israel and the national Palestinian Authority. The Golan Heights are different: Nobody in the world recognizes Israel's claim of sovereignty over it. Therefore, it is only a matter of time and circumstance until Israel withdraws from the Golan, as it did from other occupied areas.According to leading Israeli security officials as well as past and present top military commanders, the biggest failure of Israeli policy in the last decade was missing out on the opportunity to reach a peace deal with Syria.
The fundamentals of such deal were formulated a while ago, with the agreement of both sides, and are kept in secret vaults. Most practical disagreements have already been settled, and now all that is left is to resolve the debate over a very narrow strip of land across part of the Sea of Galilee's northern shore. Israel and Syria hold on to clashing stances on the issue, but those can be bridged through creative solutions.
However, no government in Israel had the courage to face the people and announce: We're withdrawing from the Golan in exchange for peace and full normalization. Moreover, Israeli media reports of peace talks with Syria always stressed Syrian coldness and top Syrian officials recoiling over the prospect of exchanging hugs and friendly slaps with the Israelis in the open.
The policy of running away from peace with Damascus is currently facing yet another fateful test. President Bashar Assad, who internalized the lessons of Hizbullah's defeat in the second Lebanon war, is begging to launch talks on a withdrawal in exchange for peace. At the same time, he warns that should dialogue fail to materialize, he will have no choice but to go to war for the Golan.
Such war would lead to numerous victims and expose the Israeli home front to missile attacks. There's no doubt the IDF will win, and there's also no doubt that by war's end Israel will have to withdraw from the entire Golan Heights, in the face of global pressure. The outcome then is already known, but the price is still unknown.
Syrian option realistic
Israel's defense leadership is united today in its recommendation to quickly reach a comprehensive peace agreement with Syria. The strategic advantages inherent in such deal are clear: Severing the Syrian-Iranian alliance, eliminating Hamas and Jihad headquarters in Damascus, and curbing the flow of weapons from Syria to Hizbullah. Most importantly, such deal would bring another Arab states, from the rejectionist block no less, into the list of Muslim countries that recognize Israel and maintain diplomatic and trade ties with it.
The current Israeli government – a perplexed government that has lost its bearings – has nothing to seek in talks with Hamas, as long as this organization has failed to meet the three conditions set forth by the international community. This government also has nothing to gain nothing through talks with Saudi officials, who many Israelis have met before without any practical diplomatic results. In the current Middle East, which is embroiled in conflict, comprehensive peace initiatives such as the "Saudi Initiative" are merely pipedreams. The Syrian option, on the other hand, is realistic. It certainly is better than unilateral withdrawals that end in disaster.So before Prime Minister Olmert dismisses Syria's peace gestures and foolishly declares that the Golan is "an inseparable part of Israel," he should take into account the fact we can spare no children for needless wars.
Harper slams Martin for criticizing Afghan mission
Updated Wed. Sep. 27 2006
CTV.ca News Staff
Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a stinging response Wednesday to former prime minister Paul Martin's accusation that Canada had lost its way in Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters in Romania, where the Francophonie summit officially opens on Thursday, Harper said Martin approved the current mission in the war-torn country and was not in a position to criticize it. "When you make those kinds of decisions as a prime minister, you have to be able to take responsibility for them and stick with them,'' he said. "The fact that Mr. Martin is unable to do that, in this and so many other cases, illustrates why he is no longer prime minister of our country.'' In an interview with the Toronto Star Tuesday, Martin said he didn't approve of the way the military mission was unfolding and said there needed to be more emphasis on aid and reconstruction if Canada and NATO hoped to succeed. "Are we doing the amount of reconstruction, the amount of aid that I believe was part of the original mission? The answer unequivocally is that we're not," Martin told the Star.
Harper's comments about the former Liberal prime minister Wednesday came after he attended a meeting with Romanian President Traian Basescu in the country's capital Bucharest. Romania has 600 troops in Afghanistan, with another 200 on the way. Basescu said terrorism is the "biggest scourge" facing the world, adding that he supported a continued international presence in Afghanistan. Following his meeting with Basescu, Harper opened Canada's new embassy in Bucharest and met with Canadian businessmen who've signed a US$1billion-dollar deal to build a large shopping complex.
Francophone summit
On Thursday, Harper will join Quebec Premier Jean Charest and dozens of other international leaders for the two-day 11th Francophonie conference. Harper and Charest will also promote Quebec City's anniversary in 2008 while attending the meeting, which brings together more than 60 states and governments from five continents. Joining them on the trip is Quebec City Mayor Andree Boucher. The provincial capital will host the next Francophonie gathering in the fall of 2008. Boucher wants to remind delegates that Quebec City is the second oldest city in North America, the only fortified city north of the Rio Grande and a merger of American and European cultures.
This year's summit, which begins Thursday, is set to focus on the use of French in education around the world and in information and communications technologies. The summit comes at a time when, diplomats say, France is increasingly frustrated with the declining use of French in EU business in Brussels. More and more meetings are conducted in English, particularly since the EU's 2004 eastward enlargement, which brought in ex-communist states whose officials are less likely to speak French than their Western counterparts.
Mideast crisis
Also among the issues delegates will be discussing at the conference is the crisis in the Middle East -- in particular the recent 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, host country Romania did not invite the pro-Syrian President of Lebanon -- Emile Lahoud and although Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was invited, he declined to attend. "Part of the problem with this summit is that Lebanon is not representated, which is unfortunate because Lebanon has always been a big player in the Francophonie," said CTV's Rosemary Thompson, reporting from Bucharest Wednesday. International relations analyst Aurel Braun, of the University of Toronto, said the power of the Francophonie on the international stage was "somewhat limited.""It doesn't carry the prestige of the United Nations, it doesn't have the power of NATO, so whatever comes out of this meeting, it will not reverberate in the same way," Braun told CTV Newsnet Wednesday.
Delegates will release a communique on Friday, elect a new Francophonie secretary-general to replace former Senegal President Abdou Diouf, and discuss new membership applications.Although la Francophonie -- the French equivalent of the Commonwealth -- is an organization designed to bring together the leaders of the French-speaking world, not every country that will participate in the summit actively uses the language.
About 10 of the 63 delegations barely speak French at home. The list includes Albania, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Greece, Sa Tome, Egypt, Moldova and the former French colonies of Vietnam and Laos. Even the host country doesn't use French in official circles. Just 20 per cent of Romanians understand the language, a university report says.
AP interview: top Lebanese Shiite cleric blasts Bush over Iraq
The Associated Press
Published: September 27, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon Lebanon's top Shiite cleric, who recently dubbed George W. Bush "the devil's messenger," launched another blistering attack on the U.S. president Wednesday, saying his policies have turned the region into a "hell" of violence and strife.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hassan Fadlallah, in an interview with The Associated Press, also entered Lebanon's deepening political crisis, charging that every sect except his own wanted to dominate the small and diverse nation and insisting that Hezbollah needed to keep its weapons to defend the country.
"When I look at the actions of that man and his administration, I see that his policies have managed to turn the region into hell," Fadlallah said, referring to Bush. "They are responsible for all the problems of the world."
Without offering evidence, he said the United States and Israel were behind the revival of the Sunni-Shiite schism in the Arab world, arguing that a divided Arab world would be easier to control.
Except for Iraq, he said the Shiite-Sunni divide has not yet reached the point of turning into a sectarian conflict. This in part, he argued, was due to the popular Arab support received by the Shiite Hezbollah in its 34-day war against Israel this summer.
One of Shiite Islam's top clerics, Fadlallah has a long history of animosity toward the United States. However, his comments Wednesday and in a sermon Friday reflected his growing anger at the U.S. handling of this summer's Hezbollah-Israel war and in Iraq, where Shiite-Sunni violence has pushed the country to the brink of civil war.
Washington rejected repeated pleas by Lebanon and other Arab nations to call for a cease-fire in the early days of the Lebanon war, arguing that a truce would not endure without changes on the ground. The war left nearly 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, dead and the country's infrastructure in ruin.
Fadlallah was widely thought to have been Hezbollah's spiritual leader in the 1980s. He escaped a 1985 bombing attack outside his home that killed 75 people and wounded 256, an attack believed by many to have been masterminded by the CIA following reports — repeatedly denied by Fadlallah — that he blessed the drivers of vehicles used in a bomb attack on a U.S. Marine barracks that killed 241 Americans in 1983.
The ayatollah's links to the Shiite guerrilla movement appear to have been somewhat loosened since. However, he and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah remain on good terms and the two share almost identical views on domestic and international issues.
A frail and pale Fadlallah, 70, spoke to the AP in an underground room belonging to a large mosque complex in Beirut's teeming southern Dahiyah suburb, a Shiite stronghold. His nearby home and office were destroyed in an Israeli air raid during the fighting, though he was not in either at the time.
"President Bush is the leader of terrorism in the world," Fadlallah told worshippers on Friday. "He thinks that God has sent him to make the world a better place, but I see that he is the devil's messenger sent to destroy the world."
Fadlallah's comment appeared to be inspired, at least in part, by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who two days earlier called President Bush the "devil" during a speech at the U.N. General Assembly.
A sign outside the mosque where Fadlallah was interviewed bore the image of a smiling Chavez with the word "gracias," Spanish for "thank you," written above.
In the interview, Fadlallah accused the United States of engineering Iraq's sectarian strife to perpetuate its presence there and warned Iraqis that the Sunni-Shiite violence raging in their country will "bring the temple down on everyone's head."
"I believe there will be no problem when the American occupation of Iraq ends," said Fadlallah, who has followers in Iraq, the Gulf Arab region and among large Shiite communities in Pakistan and India.
He said proposals for a federal system in Iraq, where Kurds have an autonomous region and some Shiite political groups want one in the south, will harm the war-scarred nation.
"Federalism will not be the solution. In fact, it may be a prelude to a break-up."
Turning to Lebanon's postwar political crisis, Fadlallah sought to defuse the debate over Hezbollah's future. Critics of the Iranian-backed guerrilla group — mainly among Lebanon's Christians and Sunni Muslims — maintain that its July 12 abduction of two Israeli soldiers triggered the ruinous war.
Boosted by a wave of support among Shiites after the fighting, Hezbollah has demanded a change in government to bring in more of its representatives and allies, a demand others are resisting.
Fadlallah insisted Shiites — Lebanon's largest sect, making up 30-35 percent of the 4 million population — are not seeking to dominate the country.
"But we know that every other sect in Lebanon has a plan to dominate the country. Only the Shiites have no such plan," he said. "Even the weapons of the resistance (Hezbollah) are for the defense of Lebanon and not to move domestically against any of the other sects."
Hariri's No's
Zuheir Kseibati Al-Hayat - 28/09/06//
Amid the noise of the politicians and the festivities, some Lebanese remember that the major parties to the national dialogue, which had been skillfully managed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri but was superseded by the Israeli war, unanimously agreed on a code of honor for the benefit of every country and every citizen. The purpose of this code was to put a stop to the temporary or deliberate tremors that threatened security, which was giving way to a war of wills and intentions. This code of honor evaporated, first with the disaster of the killings, destruction, and displacement of many Lebanese, and then with the skirmishes between the major parties.
Who started it? Who waged the war on the border? Who raises doubts in the festivals of the major parties?
The good news is that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassures them that a fresh national consensus will be reached, but did not disclose any secrets. The bad news is that she emphasized the fears of the expected assassinations of some figureheads of the March 14 Forces.
It is most likely that the Lebanese will be divided over Rice's prediction that there will be a schism in the Shiite bloc and the fact that she is brandishing the stick of sanctions against Syria. This means that there will be a reaction and that the question will be raised: who will pay for it? They are also divided over the warnings about the smuggling of arms into the country, despite the presence of naval fleets. The Lebanese also disagree on the future of the Resistance and on the question of whether to cling to the government of Resistance - Fouad Siniora's government - or topple it through pressure and intimidation on the streets and the scenario of besieging the Presidential Palace.
Let us move on to the fate of the Taif Agreement. Amid the process of separating the sheep from the goats, which puts the March 14 Forces on the defensive, and Hezbollah, Amal and Gen. Michel Aoun's movement on the offensive, thanks to the victory of the Resistance over Israel's attempt to break it; the culmination of the political engagement in the project to either topple or expand the government manifests itself in the following question: which is more dangerous, the unilateral decision to go to war and taking Lebanon 15 years back in time, or monopolizing power, regardless of the validity of the charges against the majority and the State that is sharply criticized by an opposition that overlooks the distinction between the obligations of the State and the duties of the Resistance?
There is another question, to which the ordinary Lebanese, who felt the flail of war and the constant drain in human resources for decades in an unexceptional manner, knows the answer. Is there any hope of restoring confidence between Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and the Future Movement Leader Saad Hariri, after Siniora had been offended and his government's ability to protect Lebanon questioned? Nasrallah's pledge before the Victory Festival crowd to change the government by expanding it, and Hariri's rejection of the language of 'threats' and Hezbollah's 'flexing its muscles' in the face of the State and 'modifying it [the State] according to its criteria'?
Will any dialogue be useful, when the issue of the future of the Resistance is excluded, regardless of Sayyed Nasrallah's reassurances about its objectives? Many Lebanese will not be convinced that this will not be a pretext for a war that will keep the country in regional conflicts.
Hariri warned Siniora against 'poison trees' and 'political suicide' after the latter concealed the magnitude of the Israeli war disaster. This is tantamount to a warning against a scenario for besieging the Presidential Palace, and inciting clashes in the streets to isolate the Prime Minister or force him to step down. This would paralyze the country and therefore complete what the leader of the Democratic Parliamentary Gathering, Walid Jumblatt, called the 'reverse of the Taif Agreement'. More serious is that, under the shadow of sectarianism, the void may be filled with another cycle of sectarian strife which all the major parties warn against, but who mobilize their movements in that direction.
"Mobilization for mobilization", said Saad Hariri, after the scathing criticism of the Victory Festival culminated in a last chance for Nasrallah before he launches his project to change the political map in Lebanon in a way that would make the majority lose its power to run the country. The leader of the Mustaqbal movement left room for doubt that the March 14 Forces have decisively chosen its option: no to bargaining on the Taif Agreement, no compromise with the attempts to 'eliminate' the government, and no priority in any dialogue except discussing the future of the Resistance.
Hariri rejects surrender and provocation, but he did not say that the government supported the Resistance when Hezbollah's leader defied the Arabs during the war when they called for a ceasefire; and that it therefore does not deserve to be criticized alongside the victorious Resistance. Nasrallah himself acknowledged the government's part in the victory.
Perhaps many wonder why Nasrallah should run the risk of losing his reputation for wisdom, a wisdom that preserved the achievement of liberation in 2000: he has failed to win over the other parties. It seems, therefore, that the war has changed the role of the Resistance.
For decades, the Lebanese have been addicted to flaying the State, as though it were not theirs. After the Israeli war, the problem has become the tendency to make the State a target for other war projects, as though it were the nation's greatest enemy: the 'enemy' will not achieve victory, nor will the nation rise above loyalties and slogans.
Divine victory
Al Ahram 28.09.06By: Lucy Fielder - reports from Beirut
At a vast rally on Friday, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah made his first public appearance since Israel's aggressive and ill-fated war,
"The leader has arrived." A roar greeted the announcement and thousands of fists punched a sky dotted with balloons in Lebanese colours trailing yellow Hizbullah flags. Hassan Nasrallah did not disappoint, addressing his "Divine Victory" rally for an hour, defiant despite Israeli warnings that his days were numbered.
"My heart, soul and mind would not allow me to speak to you from afar or from a screen," Nasrallah told the crowds, which police estimated at over 800,000. He and his aides decided only 30 minutes in advance that his first public appearance since the "33 days' war" should go ahead.
"The resistance today -- pay attention -- has more than 20,000 rockets," the resistance leader said. "[Hizbullah] has recovered all its organisational and military capabilities. It is stronger than it was before 12 July," referring to when Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers. " Labbaik " (whatever you wish), the crowd chanted back. "Here we are, Nasrallah!" Flags waved furiously. Coloured streamers burst into the air.
"When we were alone for 33 days of war, with the world just watching, I was praying everyday for God to protect Nasrallah," said a mother of four who would give only the name Muqawamah (resister). Many cried, one man sobbing so hard he could barely raise his fist into the air.
The "internationalisation" of Lebanon's internal affairs is one of Hizbullah's main fears, analysts say. Nasrallah reflected growing Hizbullah suspicion of the government and international interpretation of UN Resolution 1701 that brought about an uneasy cessation of hostilities while Israeli troops remained in pockets of the south. He warned the beefed up UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) against "spying on the resistance" or trying to disarm it and dismissed its blocking of potential arms routes as redundant, given the 20,000 rockets Hizbullah claims to possess.
Under pressure not to deepen sectarian rifts since an uneasy calm settled 14 August, Hizbullah has focused on rebuilding and compensation and generally kept a low profile while critics accused the group of courting disaster by seizing two Israeli soldiers. Supporters have clamoured for the chance to shake off the insult and show pride in Hizbullah's "Divine Victory" -- its resistance to and survival of Israel's ferocious onslaught, which killed more than 1,200 mainly Shia Lebanese.
Former UNIFIL spokesman and American University in Beirut lecturer Timor Goksel said that as well as a celebration, the victory rally was part of Hizbullah's "conflict management style" to ease internal pressure. "They have a very young constituency, some of whom were fighting, some lost their lives. Why are we keeping so quiet, they say, we won a war. They feel they have really done something and they don't want to be insulted."
Most who packed the 37-acre rally site Friday were Shia, but amid the blanket of yellow Hizbullah flags, banners of Hizbullah's Christian allies Michel Aoun and Suleiman Franjieh also fluttered alongside occasional hammer and sickle emblems and Che Guevara's image.
Student Ali Bazii set off the morning before to walk from his ravaged village of Zibqine, south of Tyre, with a yellow banner bearing its name. "We came to show the world our loyalty. We owe everything we have to Hizbullah; our money, our homes, our lives." Bazii no longer has a great deal. His father, who worked for Hizbullah, and grandparents were killed, his home destroyed. Until then, he says, he did not consider himself a die-hard supporter.
Friday was a show of pride and defiance. Nasrallah called for a national unity government -- widely expected to bring in Christian ally Aoun if it transpires -- and said working for one would be Hizbullah's "new project". But there were conciliatory notes also. Hizbullah has been appealing for cross-sectarian unity whilst opposing the 14th March ruling bloc. Nasrallah called for a reopening of the national dialogue of leaders that started earlier this year, a suggestion Walid Jumblatt, Druze chieftain in the 14th March coalition, promptly rejected. "When you separate yourself from the Syrian leadership, I might possibly hold a dialogue with you," he said.
Crucially, Nasrallah said Hizbullah would not hold on to its arms forever, describing them as a "result", rather than a cause, of conflict. He did not rule out future discussion on their status, but linked any such prospect to a strong state.
"There are communities here who are really afraid of Hizbullah supporters and their strength; some really fear that this power could be used internally," Goksel said. "I think this is Hizbullah's main responsibility, to calm down the sectarian fears of other communities while pursuing the reconstruction for their own. There are people in this country who like to play on those fears and say, 'we need to get organised ourselves, make up our own militia'."
Fawwaz Traboulsi, a historian at the Lebanese American University, agrees. "Hizbullah is going to have to be responsible and allay those fears," he said. "People are getting more edgy and resorting more to accusations. It's not enough to say, 'Where did you stand? With the enemy or against it?' We're talking about large numbers of the Lebanese."
Two days after Hizbullah's Friday rally tens of thousands of Christians attended an annual mass for civil war "martyrs" of the Lebanese Forces -- the most powerful Christian militia during the war and now a disarmed party in the majority coalition. Right-wing leader Samir Geagea was present for the first time in 11 years after being pardoned on multiple murder charges dating back to the civil war. He was released from jail after the Syrians pulled out last year. His portrait was everywhere -- smiling, waving or with his eyes closed in prayer.
An ageing bus crawled up the steep hill to the Harissa cathedral north of Beirut. Youths perched on the roof of the bus chanted to the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkirki: "O Bkirki, say, say: 'Samir Geagea is Christian!'"
To an ecstatic response, Geagea scoffed at the victory Hizbullah claims and accused the group of forming a Syrian and Iranian-backed "statelet" within the state. "They first have to accept national unity and then demand a national unity government," he said.
Geagea pulled Nasrallah's speech apart bit by bit. "They say that there is no army in the world capable of making them drop their weapons. We say that there is no weapon that can make us accept that as the reality." A chorus of anti-Nasrallah and anti-Aoun jeers followed
Hezbollah, With $100 Bills, Struggles to Repair Lebanon Damage
By Kambiz Foroohar
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- On an August morning, men in T- shirts and baseball caps guard metal barricades that block the street leading to the al-Mehdi al-Shahid high school in southern Beirut, Lebanon, black sports bags hanging menacingly off their shoulders.
Inside, other guards in jeans watch as 500 people wait for aid beneath yellow flags that bear a fist clenching a Kalashnikov assault rifle, the symbol of Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim group that fought Israel to a draw earlier in the month.
Upstairs, past posters of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, silver-haired Ali Ahmad Sharara tells a Hezbollah worker that he lost his home in Israeli bombings and now lives with his children. ``It's so badly damaged that it will fall down or be pulled down,'' says Sharara, a former shoe factory owner.
Without hesitating, the worker reaches into a black plastic shopping bag and takes out $12,000 in a bundle of new $100 bills. Sharara, 62, pockets more than twice the average annual Lebanese salary. All told, Hezbollah may pay out as much as $180 million in cash for rent and furnishings for people made homeless after the group's July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers incited 33 days of Israeli bombing, says Riad Salameh, governor of Lebanon's central bank.
For Sharara, the payout comes after he registered with Hezbollah as a war victim just 48 hours earlier.
``If Hezbollah hadn't taken care of those who'd lost their homes, it would lose support,'' Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour says. ``Politically they had to do it.''
Biggest Test
Money paves the way for Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon. Now, in what may be the biggest test of its clout, the group is striving to win the peace, aided by what the U.S. Treasury Department estimates is a $200 million budget from Iran.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has promised to rebuild decimated apartment blocks and restore neighborhoods from the hard-hit suburbs south of Beirut to bombed-out villages and towns in the south, all within three years, starting with the $12,000 handouts.
``You won't need to ask a favor of anyone, queue up anywhere,'' Nasrallah, 46, assured the victims, who are largely his own Shiite supporters, in a television address immediately after the Aug. 14 cease-fire.
With Iran's help, Hezbollah, Lebanon's only political party with an armed militia, builds schools, hospitals and orphanages. It has delivered fresh water and provided trash collection to areas that the government has neglected and raised the social standing of Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiite Muslims, the poorest group among the country's approximately 4 million people.
Social Role
Hezbollah's charities support the families of men killed or injured fighting Israel, which is the party's sworn enemy and one it vowed to destroy in its manifesto in 1985.
During the war, Hezbollah fired almost 4,000 rockets into Israel and struck an Israeli ship with a C802 Noor guided missile obtained from Iran. Hezbollah's Zelzal rocket, also from Iran, has a range of 120 miles (193 kilometers), enough to reach Tel Aviv, says Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior Israeli intelligence officer.
Finance Minister Azour says he, for one, is skeptical that Hezbollah's fistfuls of dollars will be enough to make a dent in Lebanon's devastation.
``Compared to the level of reconstruction, it's peanuts,'' he says of Hezbollah's monetary relief effort.
In Dahiya, a few miles from downtown Beirut and home to Sharara and 300,000 of Hezbollah's staunchest backers, the seven-story, tan brick school that serves as a makeshift administration headquarters is one of the few buildings standing. Nearby streets are impassable.
`Never Would Have Done It'
Across the country, more than 130,000 homes are in ruins. The Israeli bombing knocked out most of Lebanon's bridges, half of its highways, its airport, one power station, 14 power generation units, two hospitals and numerous factories.
Damage to Lebanon's economy, estimated at $3.6 billion to repair the infrastructure alone, may rise to $9 billion-$11 billion once the loss of earnings from tourism, exports and sales are added, says Marwan Barakat, head of research at Beirut's Banque Audi, Lebanon's second-biggest lender.
Nasrallah, who wears flowing robes and a black turban, a sign that he's a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, said he didn't expect Israel's massive retaliation.
``Had I known that capturing the soldiers would lead to this result, I never would have done it,'' he said during a two- hour televised address on Aug. 27.
Iran's Nuclear Plans
As the $12,000 cash bundles change hands and the awareness of the devastation sets in, Lebanese are assessing the cost of the war and Hezbollah's links to Iran, says Boutros Harb, a former minister of education and a Christian member of Parliament.
Harb says the Hezbollah kidnappings may have been timed to divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans as the Group of Eight, the seven largest industrialized nations and Russia, met in Moscow in July.
Iran ignored a United Nations Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment program by the end of August. The U.S., which charges that Iran is hiding secret work to make nuclear arms, is pushing for UN sanctions.
``Nasrallah has been exposed as someone who follows the direction of Iran,'' Harb says. ``The handouts are a bribe to keep people from asking questions.''
In the mainly Christian district of Achrafieh, which escaped the bombings, cafes brim with young Christian and Sunni Lebanese enjoying Beirut's night life. The war and its aftereffects are favorite topics.
Critics Gather
``Hezbollah stood up to the Israelis, but look at the costs,'' says lawyer Nader Husseini, who is a Sunni. ``It will take years for us just get back to where we were.''
Even some Shiites are criticizing Hezbollah. ``The war was forced upon the country and people, who did not want it,'' Ali al-Amin, the mufti, or religious leader, of Tyre, Lebanon's second-biggest city, said in an Aug. 22 interview with Beirut's Al Nahar newspaper. ``The Shiite community in Lebanon authorized no one to declare war in its name.''
In the U.S., the Treasury Department is using the war as a platform to persuade European banks to cut support for what it says are terrorist groups. The U.S. labeled Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, putting it in the same category as al-Qaeda and Peru's Shining Path. The UN and the European Union haven't done so.
During a weeklong tour in September, Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, traveled to London and then on to other European capitals to meet bank officials whom he declined to identify.
Isolating Iran
``It's our assessment that Iran is providing $200 million a year in monetary assistance to Hezbollah,'' Levey says. By comparison, the U.S. gives $3 billion in annual aid to Israel.
The U.S. wants international banks to help isolate financial institutions involved in terror funding, Levey says. ``We are seeing banks and other institutions reassessing their ties to Iran,'' he says.
On Sept. 16, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the G-7 finance ministers and central bankers, who were meeting in Singapore, that he was surprised to learn the extent to which Iranian front companies had infiltrated the international banking system. Both the Treasury and State departments point to Iran as the backer of Hezbollah's attacks, saying it provides monetary and logistical support.
``Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East,'' U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in March.
Unregistered Flights
Even before the fighting in Lebanon ended, Iran committed to fund Hezbollah's relief effort, says Nehme Tohme, Lebanon's minister for the displaced. Tohme says Hezbollah officials told him that Iran would provide Hezbollah with an ``unlimited budget'' for reconstruction once the shooting stopped.
In all likelihood, the crisp $100 bills that Sharara and other bombing victims pocketed were flown from Tehran to Damascus, on an unregistered flight, says Magnus Ranstorp, author of ``Hizb'Allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 275 pages, $39.95).
``From there the money would be put on a number of small trucks and sent across the border,'' says Ranstorp, chief scientist at the Stockholm-based Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College, which trains Sweden's armed forces.
`Classified Budget Item'
Mohsen Sazegara, a founder of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a military organization created in 1979 to defend Iran's Islamic Revolution, says Hezbollah's funds may originate with a branch of the guards called the Qods Force. The design on Hezbollah's flag of a clenched fist holding a Kalashnikov is almost identical to the symbol of the Revolutionary Guards.
``The budget for the Qods Force is a classified budget item,'' Sazegara says. ``This is not reflected in the Iranian general budget.'' Sazegara, who is now a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a former Iranian deputy prime minister who left the government in 1989 and was jailed for 114 days in 2003 for his dissident views.
The central bank's Salameh says the $100 bills weren't from Lebanon, which faced a shortage of dollar notes during the war.
``The money did not come from Lebanon's banking system,'' he says, as he smokes a Cuban cigar in his office two miles north of the devastated southern suburbs of Beirut.
Signs of Iran's involvement in the rebuilding and in previous aid efforts are everywhere in the southern suburbs. Iran distributed more than 40 power generators to temporarily restore electricity. The $1 million program will supply enough fuel to meet power needs of each southern village for at least three months, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, a humanitarian relief organization.
Nasrallah Posters
Dozens of blue contribution boxes in the shape of cupped hands collect for the Iranian charity locally known as Emdad, or the Imam Khomeini's Relief Committee. It's named for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Revolution.
Ali Zreik heads Lebanon's branch of Emdad. He's also the mayor of Khiam, a town of 40,000 people a mile from the Israeli border.
Getting to Khiam requires navigating knocked-out bridges and blasted highways. Pictures of Nasrallah, with his bushy beard and square-framed glasses, stare out from posters. Some billboards depict Katyusha rocket launchers with the slogan ``Divine Victory.'' Hanging from lampposts are banners, bleached by the sun, of men killed in the fight against Israel.
On a hilltop north of Khiam across the Litani River, a Hezbollah sign measuring 30 feet (9.1 meters) wide welcomes visitors to ``Liberated Lebanon,'' a reference to the departure of the Israel Defense Forces in 2000.
Israeli Invasion
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive out Palestinian guerrillas who were firing rockets and bombarding Israeli towns. After Israel seized Beirut, it evicted the armed Palestinian groups to Tunisia. A multinational peacekeeping force of U.S., French and Italian troops arrived.
The Israeli army continued to occupy southern Lebanon, terming it a security buffer, in spite of Security Council resolutions that called on Israel to leave. Hezbollah countered with a series of attacks, including suicide bombings against Israeli positions. In 2000, after 18 years of occupation, Israel withdrew.
In the recent fighting, more than 80 percent of Khiam has been completely or partially destroyed, Zreik says. ``If the government will not help with reconstruction, Hezbollah will,'' he says.
As Zreik, 54, sits in his office, volunteers and engineers wander in with damage reports. He speaks fluent Farsi that he learned in Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
Volunteering in Iran
Before joining Emdad, Zreik was a volunteer at Bonyad-e Shahid, or the Martyr's Foundation, which funds families of fighters who died battling the Israeli army. He says he talks with the leader of Emdad in Tehran two or three times a week. Emdad's Iranian Web site says the charity's Lebanese branch had a budget of $12.6 million for the year ended in March 2005.
``At Emdad, we provide welfare payments for 5,000 families and 4,200 orphans,'' says Zreik, who says his budget is $7 million. ``We make the money go three times as far; that's what I learned from Iran.''
Mehdi Khalaji, an Iranian visiting scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says Iranian funds have helped construct more than 90 schools through a charity called Jihad al-Binna, or Reconstruction Crusade, which is also the main force behind Hezbollah's reconstruction efforts.
``Hezbollah is Iran in Lebanon,'' Khalaji says. ``When Iran's leadership looks at Hezbollah, it sees itself.''
`Same Pool of Money'
U.S. Treasury officials say they make no distinction between Hezbollah's militia and its charities.
``The bomb throwers and hospitals get their money from the same pool of money,'' says Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury.
In September, the U.S. cut off one path of what it says is Iran's influence to Hezbollah. The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat Iran, which has the largest network of branches in Iran.
Treasury Undersecretary Levey says Bank Saderat has transferred funds from the Iranian government to Hezbollah and to radical Palestinian groups, including Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Since 2001, a Hezbollah-controlled organization, which Levey declined to name, has received $50 million directly from Iran through Saderat via London, he says.
``That path is now closed,'' Levey says.
`Not Much We Can Do'
Saderat arrived in Lebanon in the early 1960s and has offices in Dahiya and in the Bekaa Valley. On its Web site, the bank says it complies with Islamic banking and international regulations and won't be affected by U.S. sanctions. Like all Iranian financial institutions, Saderat is prohibited from having direct access to the U.S. banking system.
In the past, Hezbollah has had no trouble transferring funds directly from Iranian banks such as Bank Melli Iran and Saderat, both of which have branches in Beirut's southern suburbs, Israel's Kuperwasser says.
Israel hasn't been able to penetrate Hezbollah's financial structure the way it has that of Hamas, another Islamic group that has sworn to destroy the Jewish state. Palestinians have had to go through the U.S. and Israeli bank systems to transfer money, Kuperwasser says.
``We've had the opportunity to intervene,'' he says. ``In Lebanon, there's not much we can do.''
Revolutionary Guards
The U.S. has been trying to break Hezbollah and chip away at its Iranian supporters for two decades. In 1982, Iran's then ambassador to Syria, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, encouraged radical Shiites to split from Amal, the mainstream Shiite political party. His followers set up camp in Baalbek, Lebanon, near the Syrian border. Iran sent more than 1,000 Revolutionary Guards to train Hezbollah, which at the time was a loosely organized group mainly made up of Shiites who opposed the Israeli invasion.
In 1988, Hezbollah won a bitter war against Amal for control of Beirut's Shiite neighborhoods.
``Syria supported Amal and Iran supported Hezbollah,'' says Ali Fayyad, a member of Hezbollah's politburo, which advises the group's highest decision-making body. ``At the time there wasn't an understanding between Iran and Syria.''
Judith Palmer Harik, a former professor at American University of Beirut, says that Hezbollah started to deliver social services after it took control of Dahiya. First was reliable trash removal, five years before the central government sent any garbage trucks to the area.
Water Tanks
When there was a water shortage, Iran provided giant, 4,000-liter (1,057-gallon) water tanks in each district and filled them five times a day. Some of the water tanks, bearing the Iranian flag, are still around 16 years later.
``Hezbollah's popularity is due to their social programs, which in some areas complement government's efforts,'' Palmer Harik says. ``With Hezbollah, when they promise something, they usually deliver. The money goes where they say it will.''
At the end of the country's 15-year-long civil war in 1990, Lebanon's militias agreed to disarm, with the exception of Hezbollah. The group argued that it needed weapons to push the Israeli army out of the parts of Lebanon occupied since 1982. The Lebanese government recognized Hezbollah as a legitimate national resistance movement.
Two years later, Hezbollah entered Lebanon's political arena, winning 12 of 27 seats allocated to Shiites in the 128- seat parliament. Today, it has 14 members in the parliament, compared with 15 for Amal, and controls two cabinet posts in the coalition government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. In local elections, Hezbollah won control of 21 percent of Lebanon's municipalities.
Terrorism Charges
In 1996, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher highlighted the link between Hezbollah and Iran, saying that Iran was providing $100 million a year to Hezbollah -- about the same as the budget of a small U.S. university.
Daniel Byman, associate professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, says Iran's help was about $30 million-$50 million before the July 12 war. ``Iran doesn't have unlimited resources,'' Byman says.
In 2001, the late Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the U.S. believed Hezbollah was behind three car bombings in 1983 that killed 350 people at the French and U.S. embassies and the U.S. Marine compound, all in Beirut. U.S. officials say Hezbollah was responsible for kidnapping Westerners as hostages in Lebanon and for the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and its 153 passengers and crew, which resulted in the death of a U.S. Navy diver. Hezbollah has denied involvement.
`A-team of Terrorists'
``Hezbollah may be the A-team of terrorists,'' Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in 2002. ``And maybe al-Qaeda is actually the B-team.''
Sitting in a coffee shop across from the American University in Beirut, Hezbollah's Fayyad, 44, ponders the U.S. accusations. He's one of Nasrallah's political advisers and among Hezbollah's top officials.
``There was too much chaos in the early 1980s and Hezbollah did not have an organization,'' Fayyad says, responding to the charges that Hezbollah had carried out the Beirut bombings. In 1983, a group calling itself Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the three attacks.
``Many groups were fighting Israel and it was not possible to know who was Hezbollah and who wasn't,'' Fayyad says.
Viagra and Cigarettes
In September, U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington ordered Iran to pay $317 million to victims of the 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing. He determined that the country had provided support to Hezbollah terrorists who had staged the attack. Iranian officials didn't appear in court to defend against the claims.
Fayyad says Hezbollah receives money from a number of sources, such as religious donations. Shiites are expected to donate 20 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in the form of contributions known as khoms, he says.
Money also has flowed in from illicit activities such as counterfeiting dollar currency, pirating software and selling fake drugs, says the Treasury's Glaser. ``Hezbollah operates like a crime family,'' he says.
In March, the office of the U.S. attorney in Detroit indicted 18 people for dealing in contraband cigarettes to avoid Michigan taxes, selling counterfeit Viagra pills and sending some of the profits to Hezbollah. Two key operatives escaped, and three have pleaded guilty.
Baby's Blanket
A trial is set for early next year, says Kenneth Chadwell, an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit. He estimates that Michigan may have lost $20 million in unpaid taxes. He declines to make an estimate of how much of that sum ended up with Hezbollah.
``Their primary organizing principle was their loyalty to Hezbollah,'' Chadwell says. ``Our action is against an avowed enemy of the U.S.''
On the streets of Dahiya, Ghaleb Abo Zeinab, another member of Hezbollah's politburo, mingles with volunteers amid the bomb craters. ``The government is not working fast enough so Hezbollah has to move first to help the people,'' Abo Zeinab, 44, says. ``Waiting for bureaucracy can take months.''
Zahra Darwish, wearing a patterned scarf and long mustard- colored raincoat, has just climbed a 30-foot-tall mountain of rubble and emerged with a baby's blue blanket salvaged from what used to be her home.
``Nasrallah said he'll rebuild and he keeps his promises,'' she says.
`Divine Victory'
All around, the work of repairing bridges, roads, buildings and power stations looms. Red banners proclaiming ``Divine Victory'' and ``Made in U.S.A.'' proliferate in the rubble. From the collapsed remains of one building, an Iranian flag hangs defiantly. Giant posters of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and Khamenei keep an eye on the proceedings.
``Many think that Hezbollah has become stronger,'' parliament member Harb says. ``I think the reverse is true. They are weaker because they are now vulnerable.''
With stretches of Lebanon that Hezbollah seeded with schools, hospitals and clinics reduced to ruins and its political clout on the line, funding the peace -- even with what may be an open purse from Iran -- may carry a greater cost than fighting the war.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kambiz Foroohar in London at kforoohar@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: September 28, 2006 03:17 EDT