LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 22/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

 

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Bible Quotations
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed
Isaiah 06/08-13: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’  Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “For how long, Lord?”And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”
 
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 21-22/18
Lebanon Gets Tough on the Press ahead of ElectionsظAssociated Press/Naharnet/February 21/18/
Lebanon gets tough on the press ahead of elections/AP/February 21/18
Lebanon and Israel: Ominous clouds loom over their border/Christian Chesnot/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
US Allies Are Failing to Fill the Global Leadership Void/Hal Brands/Bloomberg/February 21/2018/
Syria Is the New Afghanistan/Noah Feldman/Bloomberg/February 21/18
Trump’s ‘Hard Line’ on North Korea Is Soft Symbolism/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/February 21/18
The Disinformation Factory Threatening National Security/David Von Drehle/The Washington Post/February 21/18
Iran's Most Famous General Is More Poppular Than President As New Threats Emerge At Home And Abroad/Tom O'Cnnor/Newsweek/February 21/18
Is there a place for women within Egypt’s judiciary/Sonia Farid/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
Qatar’s attempt to deceive the West/Mohammed Al-Hammadi/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
Thus spoke Sayyaf/Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
Britain: The Hijab as the Entry Point for Islam/Khadija Khan/Gatestone Institute/February 21/18

Titles For Latest LCCC Lebanese Related News published on February 21-22/18
Aoun Begins Official Visit to Armenia
Aoun visits Armenian genocide victims' monument
Report: U.S Mediation in Oil and Border Dispute 'Fails'
Satterfield Resumes Oil Dispute Talks with Bassil after Meeting Israeli Officials
Aoun Meets Jabburi, Allawi in Iraq, Stresses on Arab Unity
Jumblat: Syrians Paying the Price of Regime's Brutality
IS Plot to Blow Up Army Bus Thwarted
Berri Says Israel Bid to Share Lebanon Gas 'Categorically Rejected'
Lebanon Gets Tough on the Press ahead of Elections
Foreign Ministry affirms relationship with Vatican excellent
Greenpeace: Zayed World Humanitarian Renewable Energy Initiative shows UAE's determination to fight climate change
Duquesne visits Hariri: This government has shown that it is moving in the right direction
Bassil, Estonian counterpart discuss gas exploration, displaced Syrians issue
Lebanon Arrests Syrian ISIS Financial Official
American Sentenced to Life in Jail for Killing Lebanese Neighbor
Lebanon gets tough on the press ahead of elections
Lebanon and Israel: Ominous clouds loom over their border

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 21-22/18
Turkey Warns Syrian Regime Forces Entering Afrin Face Grave Consequences
Fears and Outrage over Bloodshed in Syria Enclave
Russia denies role in deadly air strikes on Syria's Eastern Ghouta
Russia, Iran must help end 'massacre' in Syria enclave: Berlin
Macron condemns strikes on Syria's Eastern Ghouta, urges truce
UN: Six Syria enclave hospitals bombed in two days
UN chief António Guterres ‘deeply alarmed’ by eastern Ghouta violence
Erdogan spokesman says Turkey talks with Syria on hold, messages conveyed
Hundreds Detained in Tehran after Clashes between Sufi Protestors, Security Forces
4 ‘Very Dangerous’ Extremists Killed in Sinai Operation, Says Egyptian Army
Three Sufi protesters killed hours after being shot by Iranian forces
Iran teams carry plane crash dead down from mountain
Sisi: Egypt govt not a party on gas deal with Israel
Other nations could be part of future Mideast peace talks
The nuclear future of the Middle East
Egyptian girl, 4, raped and murdered in case similar to Pakistan’s Zainab
Rape-accused Tariq Ramadan faces US charges as ‘Muslim victim comes forward’
Netanyahu Confidant to Testify against Him
Secret Pence, N. Korea Meeting Planned, then Scrapped
Gaza to pump sewage straight into sea as crisis worsens
Two French soldiers killed in Mali attack
Greek Cyprus urges Turkey to end gas standoff, resume talks
 
Latest Lebanese Related News published on February 21-22/18
Aoun Begins Official Visit to Armenia

Naharnet/February 21/18/President Michel Aoun on Wednesday kicked off an official visit to Armenia following a similar visit to Iraq. Aoun began his talks in Yerevan by meeting Catholicos Karekin II -- the Catholicos of All Armenians and the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. “This visit will reinforce bilateral ties between Lebanon and Armenia and between the two peoples,” Aoun told reporters after the meeting. He later visited the Armenian Genocide memorial complex and wrote a statement in its visitors' book. “The horrible pictures and material evidence I have seen in this museum... prompt me to stress that justice should be fulfilled for this cause,” Aoun wrote. “I salute the Armenian people, who have managed to build a country they can pride themselves in despite the woes, difficulties and persecution,” the president added. The president's visit to Armenia follows a trip to Iraq in which he met with President Fuad Massum and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Aoun visits Armenian genocide victims' monument
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Wednesday visited the museum and monument of the Armenian genocide victims, NNA reporter said. Writing down a word on the Museum's visitors' book, President Aoun emphasized that justice must be realized in the Armenian genocide case, saluting the Armenian people who, despite all ordeals and tribulations, managed to build a proud country and advance towards a better future.

Report: U.S Mediation in Oil and Border Dispute 'Fails'
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 21/18/The United States mediation to solve a dispute between Lebanon and Israel over oil drilling rights and a controversial separation wall “have reportedly failed,” media reports said on Wednesday. Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield's mediation “has failed in advance because it first requires the consent of both parties, meanwhile Lebanon refuses negotiations with Israel over fears it could be dragged into subsequent peace negotiations,” well-informed sources told al-Joumhouria daily. “The Israeli side also adamantly adheres to its position on sharing Block 9 oil field with Lebanon, considering part of it is located in the Israeli territorial waters, which is strongly rejected by Lebanese authorities,” added the source. The US efforts will reportedly “see a slowdown at this stage” regarding the oil file issue since “Lebanon and Israel both are adhering to their positions,” they said.
However, a source in the US administration close to Foreign Minister Rex Tillerson prefers the continuation of the US role even if it failed at making a breakthrough in the oil file, but at least “it can address the possibility of security deterioration between the two countries in light of recent statements made by Israeli and international officials, mainly the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres.”Satterfield was in Israel on Sunday where he met with Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz “seeking to defuse an escalating oil and gas dispute with Lebanon.”Last week Lebanon signed its first contract to drill for oil and gas in a pair of offshore zones, including one that Israel says belongs to it. Lebanese officials have said the whole zone belongs to Lebanon while Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has insisted it is solidly in Israeli territory. Sunday's Israeli statement quoted Steinitz as telling Satterfield that "a diplomatic solution is preferable for both sides."It added that the two agreed to meet again during the coming week. Satterfield also held talks on the issue with top officials in Lebanon.

Satterfield Resumes Oil Dispute Talks with Bassil after Meeting Israeli Officials
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/February 21/18/US Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield arrived in Beirut on Wednesday coming from occupied Palestine, and held talks with Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, the National News Agency reported.
Satterfield left the meeting at the foreign ministry without making a statement. But unnamed ministry sources said talks have focused on Lebanon's oil and land rights, assuring the US official will continue his “shuttle talks” between Lebanese and Israeli officials regarding the oil dispute. Satterfield held talks with Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz “seeking to defuse an escalating oil and gas dispute with Lebanon,” reports said. Last week Lebanon signed its first contract to drill for oil and gas in a pair of offshore zones, including one that Israel says belongs to it. Lebanese officials have said the whole zone belongs to Lebanon while Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has insisted it is solidly in Israeli territory. A report said Steinitz told Satterfield that "a diplomatic solution is preferable for both sides." It added that the two agreed to meet again during the coming week. Satterfield also held talks on the issue with top officials in Lebanon.

Aoun Meets Jabburi, Allawi in Iraq, Stresses on Arab Unity
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/February 21/18/President Michel Aoun held talks on his second day in Iraq with Speaker Salim al-Jabburi and Iraqi Vice President Iyad Allawi, Aoun's media office said on Wednesday. President Michel Aoun first held talks with al-Jabburi in the presence of Iraqi and Lebanese delegations. Aoun led a delegation Tuesday to Iraq on the first visit by a Lebanese head of state to the war-scarred country, for talks that included ways to eradicate terrorism. He held talks with Iraqi President Fuad Masum and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi before he was due to travel to Armenia on Wednesday. “We had constructive talks which reflect the historical and brotherly ties that link our two countries and our people," Aoun told a joint news conference with Masum. He said Arab states and the international community must build "joint efforts to fight against terrorism in an efficient and radical way, to eliminate them and end the factors that favor terrorist ideology".

Jumblat: Syrians Paying the Price of Regime's Brutality
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/February 21/18/Head of the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc MP Walid Jumblat on Wednesday slammed the “brutality” of the Syrian regime wondering when will the suffering of Syrian people end. “How long will the Syrian people keep on paying the price of the regime's brutality and the regional and international conflict in interests?” asked Jumblat in a tweet. “Today we witness a genocide of mankind in eastern Ghouta amid sharing of international and regional influence in Syria... Adherence of some states to the (Syrian) regime has turned the neighborhoods and cities in Syria more like into Warsaw in World War II.” On Tuesday, Syrian and Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta enclave have killed more than 100 civilians for the second straight day and put another hospital out of service. At least 250 civilians have been killed since the escalation began on Sunday, among them dozens of children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Bombardment on Tuesday killed 106 civilians, including 19 children, the Britain-based war monitor said. Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad, but the ensuing war has carved the country into various zones of control among rebels, jihadists, the regime, and Kurds. Turkey has been waging an air and ground offensive against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the Afrin enclave for the past month but on Tuesday the stakes were ratcheted up.

IS Plot to Blow Up Army Bus Thwarted
Naharnet/February 21/18/A plot to blow up a Lebanese Army bus has been thwarted, General Security said on Wednesday. “The General Directorate of General Security has arrested Syrian national A.F.H., 24, for belonging to a terrorist group and communicating with terrorists,” the directorate said in a statement. “During interrogation, he said he had met a foreign woman and they started exchanging (internet) channels belonging to the terrorist Islamic State group. The woman then managed to recruit him for the aforementioned group and to convince him of its ideology,” the statement added.
“She started urging him to wage jihad through carrying out a security operation in Lebanon before eventually managing to convince him and to link him to a security official from the terrorist IS group,” General Security said. The detainee “suggested targeting Lebanese soldiers during his conversations with the aforementioned IS security official, telling him that he was seeing a Lebanese Army military bus carrying soldiers on daily basis and that he was willing to target it with a suicide operation.”The suspect then sent a picture of the bus to the IS official after monitoring its routes and timetable. “The security official linked him to one of the group's bomb making experts, who communicated with him and provided him with instructions to create a suicide belt. The bomb making expert was about to provide him with the needed material to create the suicide belt but he was arrested before that,” General Security added. “Following interrogation, he was referred to the relevant judicial authorities and efforts are underway to arrest the rest of the culprits,” it said.

Berri Says Israel Bid to Share Lebanon Gas 'Categorically Rejected'
Naharnet/February 21/18/Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri emphasized Wednesday that Lebanon will not allow Israel to seize control of parts of its offshore oil and gas fields. “Lebanon's stance is unified and coherent in terms of defending our sovereignty, oil resources and maritime and territorial borders,” Berri said during his weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting with lawmakers. “The Israeli equation 'What's ours is ours and what's yours is ours and yours' is categorically rejected and shall not pass,” the Speaker underlined. U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield arrived Wednesday in Lebanon following talks in Israel over the latest gas dispute. He has been shuttling between Lebanon and Israel since February 7 in a mediation endeavor. Lebanon this month signed its first contract to drill for oil and gas in a pair of offshore zones, including one that Israel says belongs to it. Lebanese officials have said the whole zone belongs to Lebanon while Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has insisted it is solidly in Israeli territory. Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz has told Satterfield that "a diplomatic solution is preferable for both sides."
A consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI, and Novatek has pledged to begin drilling off of Lebanon's coast by 2019.

Lebanon Gets Tough on the Press ahead of Elections
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 21/18/
A string of court cases and judicial investigations against Lebanese media figures is testing this country's reputation as a forum for ideas in a region blanketed by censorship and threats to the press. Lebanese authorities are getting tough on free speech ahead of national elections, summoning two leading talk show hosts to court over on-air remarks and sentencing an analyst to jail for comments she made in Washington about the Lebanese army. A raft of taboos enshrined by law is shielding the country's military, political leaders, and religious institutions from criticism. "The Lebanese journalist used to be a pioneer for freedoms for the entire Arab world," said Marcel Ghanem, who is facing a suit because of remarks made by a guest on his highly regarded talk show, Kalam Ennas, in November. "Is it possible that today Lebanese journalists are afraid of the specter of the authorities?" Ghanem and others targeted by criminal suits and investigations say the political class is closing ranks ahead of parliamentary elections in May - the first national referendum in eight years - and trying to tamp down on the torrent of media opprobrium since a national trash crisis disgraced politicians in 2015.
"The vulnerable 'system' needs to be protected," said Hanin Ghaddar, a Lebanese analyst at the Washington Institute, who was sentenced by a military court to six months in prison for comments she made at a U.S. symposium in 2014. Ghaddar, who lives in Washington, said she would not return to Lebanon to serve her sentence. An outspoken critic of Hizbullah, Ghaddar charged that Lebanon's Army was showing leniency to the group while cracking down on Sunni extremists. Ghaddar's case is "a mark of shame on Lebanon," said Ayman Mhanna, the executive director of the Samir Kassir Foundation, a press freedoms organization named after the late editor of Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper, who was assassinated in 2005. "No politician can say that the status of freedom is acceptable in Lebanon when a military court can issue a sentence to prison or exile because of an opinion," said Mhanna. Justice Minister Selim Jreissati said Ghaddar was accusing the army of treason, and that this was not protected by the constitutionally-enshrined principle of freedom of speech. "She calls herself Lebanese?" Jreissati said to the AP in a phone call. Ghanem, who has hosted his show for 23 years, said he was blindsided by the charges leveled against him after he refused to testify in a criminal investigation of a guest accused of defaming Lebanon's leaders. In a live episode, Saudi journalist Ibrahim Al-Merhi said Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri were "partners" in "Hizbullah's terrorism."
The Iran-backed Hizbullah is a partner in Lebanon's ruling coalition government and a political ally of both Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Berri's Amal Movement.
Jreissati, who belongs to Aoun's party, said at the time that the press had lost its "moral and professional bearings." The episode underscored the perils of journalism in Lebanon's charged political atmosphere, where Saudi Arabia and Iran grapple for influence in the context of a wider regional rivalry that has fueled wars in Syria and Yemen. Prime Minister Saad Hariri's abrupt resignation last November only served to inflame the situation. Many here saw the resignation as orchestrated by his patron, Saudi Arabia, as an indication of its dissatisfaction with Hizbullah's sway over Lebanese politics. Saudi politicos and journalists flooded Lebanese channels as the local press sought an explanation, attracting talk and comedy show barbs. Hicham Haddad, a leading late night host, is facing legal action after making a joke at the expense of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in January. Reacting to a clip on a rival network advising the crown prince to swear off fast food for his health, Haddad suggested he should swear off "fast politics," instead.
It is illegal to "defame" Lebanon's political leaders, its army and foreign leaders - a tempting threshold for comedians to cross in a country where foreign meddling is a staple of national politics. It is also illegal to insult religion. Hariri walked backed his resignation later in November.
Haddad's case, and Ghanem's, are still working their way through the judiciary, while new episodes of their shows air on the same Lebanese network, LBC. Others, too, have faced harassment. In July, journalist Fidaa Itani was detained and interrogated after criticizing the army's treatment of Syrian refugees in a Facebook post. He agreed to take it down. In November, authorities arrested the head of the Civil Islamic Coalition, Ahmad Ayoubi, on charges of defaming the president and insulting a "brotherly nation." He was later released on bail. Lebanon has endured a turbulent 13 years since its so-called "Cedar Revolution" forced Syria's military — and its feared intelligence services, which had directed the press and politics from behind the scenes — out of the country. But instead of ushering a new era of press freedoms, the 2005 uprising marked the start of a wave of assassinations that overwhelmingly targeted journalists and politicians seen as critical of Damascus and its closest partner in Lebanon, Hizbullah. Samir Kassir, a popular editorial writer at An-Nahar, was killed in a car bomb blast. The paper's editor, Gebran Tueni, was killed in a similar blast six months later. In the meantime, political parties sought to undermine the press syndicates, said Mhanna, the Kassir foundation director, leaving journalists today with limited recourse in the face of potentially career-ending criminal cases. "These unions are not playing an adequate role, they are not speaking out in the face of these violations," said Mhanna. Cash-starved newspapers have shut down or turned to political patrons for funds, but other reporters have vowed to fight on. "Everything they did to me, they weren't able to silence me," said the former talk show host May Chidiac, who was maimed in a failed assassination attempt in 2005. "We are a people raised on freedoms, and they cannot suppress us so easily," she said.

Foreign Ministry affirms relationship with Vatican excellent
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a statement this Wednesday in response to the lately circulating rumors about Lebanon's relationship with the Vatican. "All that is being said is fabricated and incorrect, whether with regard to the position of our ambassador there, who is doing his job normally and has recently met with His Holiness the Pope, or with regard to the Vatican's ambassador in Lebanon, or the visit of His Holiness the Pope to Lebanon," the statement read. "It is important for the ministry to make clear that the relationship with Vatican is excellent and impeccable, and is characterized by mutual respect and cooperation at all levels. This relationship is rooted in the mind and consciousness of all the Lebanese and no one can derail it," the statement read.

Greenpeace: Zayed World Humanitarian Renewable Energy Initiative shows UAE's determination to fight climate change

Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - In reaction to the launch of the Zayed World Humanitarian Renewable Energy Initiative by the Emirates Red Crescent and Masdar, Julien Jreissati Arab World campaigner at Greenpeace Mediterranean declared: "with this initiative the UAE demonstrated yet again their determination to be a prominent actor in the fight against climate change by transitioning away from dirty fossil fuels and by supporting the most vulnerable communities.""However, this transition should lead to renewable energies and not to false solutions mistakenly labeled as clean energies such as nuclear and 'clean coal' which present their fair shares of problems and negative impacts" warned Jreissati. He added, "The next big challenge for the UAE will be to decarbonise their transport system which currently relies almost exclusively on oil". "No other country in the region is more capable than the UAE to innovate and find creative ways to develop a sustainable, efficient and healthy transport system," concluded Jreissati.

Duquesne visits Hariri: This government has shown that it is moving in the right direction
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received today at the Grand Serail the French interministerial delegate for the Mediterranean, Pierre Duquesne, in the presence of Hariri's advisor Nadim Mounla and the charge d'affaires at the French embassy Arnaud Pescheux.
Mr Duquesne is in charge of the preparations for the Cedre Conference (Economic Conference for Development through Reforms and with Entreprises).
After the meeting, Duquesne said: "I am Pierre Duquesne, the interministerial delegate for the Mediterranean and I am in charge of the preparation of the Cedre conference, which is not called Paris 4 but Cedre, not the conference of the Cedar, but the Cedre Conference: Every word is important, it's an Economic Conference, so we are not going to deal with security or humanitarian issues that are going to be dealt with either in Rome or in Brussels. It is a conference for Development, so it will deal with the medium and long-term problems of Lebanon, especially its shortage of physical and social infrastructure which are bottlenecks for the economy. This is a long-term perspective. It is not only about emergency problems or crisis, which was the case of Paris I, Paris II and Paris III. By Reforms, to make the investments suggested by the Lebanese government, which needs reforms that are not necessary difficult, sectoral reforms in water, telecommunications, energy, and with Entreprises.
There will be public investments, there will also be private investments and on March 6, a preparation meeting for the Cedre conference will be held in Beirut. This Cedre Conference will take place on April 6 in Paris at a ministerial level at least. So it is an intergovernmental conference with around, fifty or so countries and international organizations that will be invited by Lebanon and France.
Preparations are going well. I just saw the Prime Minister with whom things are well set. I also see other countries, international organizations, Lebanese ministries, so that everyone is on board for a collective preparation of this important event that the President of the French Republic wished for, to help advance Lebanon in a period that is not the most difficult in its history, there have been more crises, but especially because the elections will be held on May 6, there is a need to renew the social contract between the international community and Lebanon.
Question: Has the list of participants been confirmed? In particular the Gulf countries?
Duquesne: I am telling you that we are finalizing the guest list so they will be invited, all of course, and they will answer. I am not able to tell you at this point, but that does not mean that they said no. As you follow my travels, nobody has confirmed, since the formal invitations have not yet been launched. They will be. No conclusions. And don't say that I am not in Beirut, I am in Beirut. No conclusions. We are still in February.
Questions: Are there conditions that Lebanon must fulfill before May 6th?
Dusquesne: There are no conditions, there is a dialogue on public policies, there are signals, not necessarily very complicated, to give before the elections, there are mainly things that will have to be done after the elections . Reform of the energy sector, for example. No economy works without an energy infrastructure with tariffs that match the costs. These are subjects that we knew in France about fifty years ago. There was a report from a very famous French official who said that clocks are made to tell the time and tariffs to tell the costs.
Question: Will it be a problem if the 2018 budget is not concluded in Lebanon?
Dusquesne: Until now, there is no reason to doubt that it will be concluded. Secondly, the whole international community is happy that after 8 years, there was a budget in 2017. This government has proven that it has already moved in the right direction and no doubt it will continue to do so, so no speculations about things that are not going to happen.
Question: In your opinion, if there are countries that will not participate, what will they miss?
Dusquesne: They will miss an opportunity to help a country whose stability is important for the region and for the world. Once again, why say in advance that they will not participate? The invitations have not been launched, when you have dinner at home, if you start to speculate on who will not come before you invite anyone, you will not make many diners.

Bassil, Estonian counterpart discuss gas exploration, displaced Syrians issue
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - Foreign Affairs Minister, Gebran Bassil, received on Wednesday his Estonian counterpart, Sven Mikser, in the presence of the Honorary Consul of Estonia to Lebanon Fuad Fadel. After the meeting, the Estonian minister said that discussions dealt with bilateral relations, "especially that Estonia participates in the international force operating in southern Lebanon." "We discussed the issue of gas exploration in the Mediterranean, and we also tackled the conflict in Syria and the dossier of displaced persons who are hosted by Lebanon in large numbers. We support a political solution in Syria," the Estonian minister said.


Lebanon Arrests Syrian ISIS Financial Official
Asharq Al-Awsat/ February 21/2018/Lebanon announced on Wednesday the arrest a Syrian, who confessed to collecting funds for the ISIS terrorist organizations in Syria. The State Security General Directorate announced in a statement that it had received information about a terrorist suspect present in the northern city of Tripoli. It consequently carried out a raid in the area and arrested a Syrian, identified as Saud M. The operated by using his brother’s telephone. He also confessed that he was sending funds to ISIS in Alboukamal city in eastern Syria. The suspect entered Lebanon through a legal border crossing using his brother's identity. It was not clear when he entered the country and whether he was planning any militant activities, a security source said. The suspect has since been sent to Roumieh prison.

American Sentenced to Life in Jail for Killing Lebanese Neighbor
Asharq Al-Awsat/ February 21/2018/An American detainee was convicted on Tuesday of murder and committing a hate crime for killing his Lebanese neighbor in 2016. Stanley Vernon Majors, 63, was convicted earlier this month of gunning down 37-year-old Khalid Jabara outside of his Tulsa home in August 2016.The murder charge carried a life sentence, and the jury recommended that Majors never get the chance to go free — a recommendation the judge followed Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Majors killed Jabara after bombarding him with racial insults in a feud with Jabara's family that lasted several years. It escalated to the point where the victim's mother, Haifa Jabara, obtained a protective order in 2013 that required Majors to stay 300 yards (275 meters) away and prohibited him from possessing any firearms until 2018.But prosecutors said Majors was undeterred, and that he struck Haifa Jabara with his car in 2015 and drove off. She suffered a broken shoulder, among other injuries. Officers who stopped him later reported that he was intoxicated. The jury foreman, Randall Hardee, told The Tulsa World that the jury agreed that Majors was having mental problems, but that he also understood the consequences of his actions. Jurors also found it difficult to ignore that Majors had antagonized the Jabara family for years, he said. "I don't know how somebody could treat a whole other family like that," Hardee said. "At the end of the day, I thought Mr. Majors was just an incredibly unhappy man who just wanted to take it out on the world."Authorities said Majors shot Khalid Jabara on his own front porch while out on bond. The Jabara family did not attend Tuesday's hearing and instead submitted a letter to District Judge Sharon Holmes. "We do not believe this defendant is worthy of any more attention," the letter said. Defense attorneys argued that Majors showed signs of dementia and appeared to have problems with his long-term memory, and that these conditions interfered with their ability to prepare a defense. In addition to his convictions in Oklahoma, Majors has a 2009 felony conviction in California for threatening a crime with intent to terrorize. Jabara had immigrated to the United States decades ago to escape the 1975-90 civil war that was raging in his country.

Lebanon gets tough on the press ahead of elections
الحكم في لبنان يتشدد مع الإعلام قبل الانتخابات النيابية

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/62753
BEIRUT (AP)/February 21/18/
A string of court cases and judicial investigations against Lebanese media figures is testing this country’s reputation as a forum for ideas in a region blanketed by censorship and threats to the press. Lebanese authorities are getting tough on free speech ahead of national elections, summoning two leading talk show hosts to court over on-air remarks and sentencing an analyst to jail for comments she made in Washington about the Lebanese army. A raft of taboos enshrined by law is shielding the country’s military, political leaders, and religious institutions from criticism.
“The Lebanese journalist used to be a pioneer for freedoms for the entire Arab world,” said Marcel Ghanem, who is facing a suit because of remarks made by a guest on his highly regarded talk show, Kalam Ennas, in November. “Is it possible that today Lebanese journalists are afraid of the specter of the authorities?”
Ghanem and others targeted by criminal suits and investigations say the political class is closing ranks ahead of parliamentary elections in May - the first national referendum in eight years - and trying to tamp down on the torrent of media opprobrium since a national trash crisis disgraced politicians in 2015.
“The vulnerable ‘system’ needs to be protected,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a Lebanese analyst at the Washington Institute, who was sentenced by a military court to six months in prison for comments she made at a U.S. symposium in 2014. Ghaddar, who lives in Washington, said she would not return to Lebanon to serve her sentence.
An outspoken critic of the militant group Hezbollah, Ghaddar charged that Lebanon’s Army was showing leniency to the Shiite group while cracking down on Sunni extremists. Ghaddar’s case is “a mark of shame on Lebanon,” said Ayman Mhanna, the executive director of the Samir Kassir Foundation, a press freedoms organization named after the late editor of Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper, who was assassinated in 2005.“No politician can say that the status of freedom is acceptable in Lebanon when a military court can issue a sentence to prison or exile because of an opinion,” said Mhanna.
Justice Minister Selim Jreissati said Ghaddar was accusing the army of treason, and that this was not protected by the constitutionally-enshrined principle of freedom of speech.
“She calls herself Lebanese?” Jreissati said to the AP in a phone call.
Ghanem, who has hosted his show for 23 years, said he was blindsided by the charges leveled against him after he refused to testify in a criminal investigation of a guest accused of defaming Lebanon’s leaders. In a live episode, Saudi journalist Ibrahim Al-Merhi said Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri were “partners” in “Hezbollah’s terrorism.”
The Iran-backed Hezbollah is a partner in Lebanon’s ruling coalition government and a political ally of both Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and Berri’s Amal Movement. Jreissati, who belongs to Aoun’s party, said at the time that the press had lost its “moral and professional bearings.”
The episode underscored the perils of journalism in Lebanon’s charged political atmosphere, where Saudi Arabia and Iran grapple for influence in the context of a wider regional rivalry that has fueled wars in Syria and Yemen.
Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s abrupt resignation last November only served to inflame the situation. Many here saw the resignation as orchestrated by his patron, Saudi Arabia, as an indication of its dissatisfaction with Hezbollah’s sway over Lebanese politics.
Saudi politicos and journalists flooded Lebanese channels as the local press sought an explanation, attracting talk and comedy show barbs.
Hicham Haddad, a leading late night host, is facing legal action after making a joke at the expense of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, in January. Reacting to a clip on a rival network advising the crown prince to swear off fast food for his health, Haddad suggested he should swear off “fast politics,” instead. It is illegal to “defame” Lebanon’s political leaders, its army and foreign leaders - a tempting threshold for comedians to cross in a country where foreign meddling is a staple of national politics. It is also illegal to insult religion.
Hariri walked backed his resignation later in November.
Haddad’s case, and Ghanem’s, are still working their way through the judiciary, while new episodes of their shows air on the same Lebanese network, LBC. Others, too, have faced harassment. In July, journalist Fidaa Itani was detained and interrogated after criticizing the army’s treatment of Syrian refugees in a Facebook post. He agreed to take it down. In November, authorities arrested the head of the Civil Islamic Coalition, Ahmad Ayoubi, on charges of defaming the president and insulting a “brotherly nation.” He was later released on bail. Lebanon has endured a turbulent 13 years since its so-called “Cedar Revolution” forced Syria’s military — and its feared intelligence services, which had directed the press and politics from behind the scenes — out of the country. But instead of ushering a new era of press freedoms, the 2005 uprising marked the start of a wave of assassinations that overwhelmingly targeted journalists and politicians seen as critical of Damascus and its closest partner in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
Samir Kassir, a popular editorial writer at An-Nahar, was killed in a car bomb blast. The paper’s editor, Gebran Tueni, was killed in a similar blast six months later. In the meantime, political parties sought to undermine the press syndicates, said Mhanna, the Kassir foundation director, leaving journalists today with limited recourse in the face of potentially career-ending criminal cases. “These unions are not playing an adequate role, they are not speaking out in the face of these violations,” said Mhanna. Cash-starved newspapers have shut down or turned to political patrons for funds, but other reporters have vowed to fight on. “Everything they did to me, they weren’t able to silence me,” said the former talk show host May Chidiac, who was maimed in a failed assassination attempt in 2005. “We are a people raised on freedoms, and they cannot suppress us so easily,” she said.


Lebanon and Israel: Ominous clouds loom over their border
Christian Chesnot/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
Ominous clouds loom over Lebanon and Israel. The two countries are technically still in a state of war, but their common borders have remained without any tension since the 2006 conflict. A UN drawn ‘blue line’ marks their borders both on land and on sea, following Israeli withdrawal from its ‘safe zone’ in southern Lebanon. This demarcation is not definitive and requires signing as part of an eventual peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon and hence is placed under the supervision of the United Nations peacekeeping forces.
New, contentious Israeli wall
However, two issues have recently revived tension on both sides of this tenuous ‘blue line’. The first issue pertains to Israel’s ongoing construction of a ‘separation wall’. Israel gives security reasons as an excuse for the construction of this wall, which resembles the wall it built earlier in the occupied West Bank.
Israel claims that it will build the wall on its territory, but Lebanon challenges the claim and denounces the Israeli decision by calling it an “aggression’ and “provocation”. This Israeli project is being carried out unilaterally without consultation with its northern neighbor. More seriously, it comes on the heels of tension with Syria in the Golan region. After exploiting the Syrian chaos, Iran’s revolutionary guards have come closer to Israeli borders. Fiddling close to the ‘blue line’ is like playing with fire. Is Israel trying to set a trap for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon by provoking it? One cannot discount the possibility. For its part, the line drawn by the United Nations itself has many flaws. It cuts the village of Al-Ghajar in half, and its demarcation is unclear in Shebaa Farms. Then there are issues like it running through the tomb of a Muslim saint, Sheikh Abbad! However, this ‘technical fence’ in UN jargon is being hailed as having put a freeze over the conflict.
Energy exploration rights
The seeds of a future conflict between Israel and Lebanon are not only sown over land, but are spread under the sea as well, as the ‘blue line’ also dives into the Mediterranean Sea. However, Lebanon has just signed its first exploration contract with an international consortium of French, Russian and Italian companies. The problem is that one of the exploration blocks (Number 9) lies at the cusp of the Israeli maritime zone. As a result, Israel has started crying foul and got the chance to challenge Lebanese energy aspirations. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was recently in Beirut to defuse this incipient crisis, but both parties are sticking to their proverbial guns, unwilling to compromise.
The IRGC menace
Behind these disputes around the ‘blue line’ and its energy issues lurks the shadow of Hezbollah. The socalled ‘Party of God’ has even threatened to attack Israel’s offshore platforms in the Mediterranean. Whether it carries out the threat or not, these statements cause consternation in Israel, given the fact that Hezbollah has significantly strengthened its military arsenal since the 2006 war as well as its combat capability after its experience on the Syrian battlefield. Israel’s neurosis can also be linked to the latest developments in the Syrian war. It is an open secret that after exploiting the Syrian chaos, Iran’s revolutionary guards have come closer to Israeli borders. Israel had thought it had an understanding with Russia over denying Iranians access to regions south of Damascus. The reality is probably far more complex and nuanced.
It is these aggravations that might have spilled over to cause the present spat over the ‘blue line’.

 
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 21-22/18
Turkey Warns Syrian Regime Forces Entering Afrin Face Grave Consequences
Asharq Al-Awsat/ February 21/2018/Turkey warned on Wednesday that pro-Syrian government forces entering the northwest Afrin region to support a Kurdish militia there will face “serious consequences” and they will be regarded as legitimate targets. A convoy of some 40-50 vehicles carrying pro-government forces tried to enter Syria’s Afrin on Tuesday, but retreated after artillery fire by Turkish forces, President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said. The forces later resumed their progress and were in Afrin, media quoted regime sources as saying. “Any step by the regime or other elements in this direction will surely have serious consequences,” Ibrahim Kalin told a news conference, stressing Turkey’s determination to press ahead with its offensive to clear Afrin of Kurdish fighters despite an attempt by Syrian pro-government forces to enter the region. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkey’s offensive continued overnight, including shelling of the main Afrin town. Turkey launched a military operation last month to drive Kurdish YPG fighters out of Afrin. Ankara says the YPG is a terrorist group and an extension of the PKK which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey. “Any step there aimed at supporting the... YPG terrorist organization will mean they are directly siding with terrorist organizations and will therefore become legitimate targets for us,” Kalin said. Turkey launched its operation an air and ground offensive on Jan. 20 to clear Afrin of Syrian Kurdish fighters who it regards as "terrorists" because of their links to a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. However, on Tuesday the stakes were ratcheted up as hundreds of Syrian pro-government forces entered the region for the first time since 2012 to face off against Turkey alongside Kurdish forces. But they quickly came under shelling by Turkish forces, who said they had fired "warning shots" at the "pro-regime terrorist groups". In a statement, YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud said the Kurdish forces had called on the regime forces to help fend off Turkey's assault. "The Syrian government responded to the invitation, answered the call of duty and sent military units today, February 20, to take up positions on the borders, and participate in defending the territorial unity of Syria and its borders," the statement said.The YPG has controlled Afrin since government forces withdrew from Kurdish-majority northern areas in 2012.

Fears and Outrage over Bloodshed in Syria Enclave
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/February 21/18/Syrian jets carried out more deadly raids on Eastern Ghouta Wednesday, as Western powers and aid agencies voiced alarm over the mounting death toll and spiraling humanitarian catastrophe. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad intensified its strikes this month on the rebel enclave east of Damascus, where close to 300 civilians have been killed since Sunday. Warplanes continued to pound Eastern Ghouta towns on Wednesday, killing 24 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Most of them were killed when barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that usually cause indiscriminate damage -- were dropped on the town of Kfar Batna, the Britain-based war monitor said. More than 1,400 people were wounded in three days that saw the bloodiest wave of strikes on the enclave since the start of the civil war in 2011.Medics have been overwhelmed throughout February. The five-year siege of the enclave has restricted access to medical supplies, while three clinics were hit and put out of service this week. The hospital in the town of Arbin was hit twice on Tuesday and the Observatory said Russian warplanes had carried out that strike and others, its first on Eastern Ghouta in three months. The Kremlin on Wednesday denied any involvement in the strikes and rejected reports to the contrary as "groundless accusations."The hospital in Douma, the largest town in Eastern Ghouta, is still functioning but the influx of wounded is such that doctors and nurses cannot save everyone. "We received a mother yesterday who was pulled from the rubble. She was six-months pregnant and seriously wounded," said surgical nurse Maram."We did a C-section but could not save her, nor her baby," she said.
Outcry
Next to her a man expressed his anger after bringing the body of his neighbors' daughter -- retrieved dead from the rubble of her home -- to the mortuary. "What crime did this girl commit, what is her crime?," he shouted. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said at least 67 children were among the 274 people killed in strikes since Sunday. The bloodshed prompted U.N. children's agency UNICEF to issue a largely blank statement saying "we no longer have the words to describe children's suffering." U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply alarmed" by the escalation of violence. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert criticized the "siege and starve tactics" of the Assad regime and said: "The cessation of violence must begin now." Eastern Ghouta is home to more than 400,000 people living under crippling siege, with little access to food or basic services.
Anti-regime groups, mostly Islamist factions as well as al-Qaida's former Syrian affiliate, have controlled the area since 2012. With the Islamic State group's once sprawling "caliphate" now wiped of the map, the regime looks bent on completing its reconquest by taking on remaining enemies.
New Aleppo -
In recent days, government forces have been been massing around Eastern Ghouta, apparently preparing for a ground offensive. "We have long feared Eastern Ghouta will see a repeat of the terrible scenes observed by the world during the fall of east Aleppo and these fears seem to be well founded," said Mark Schnellbaecher, the regional head of the International Rescue Committee. The battle that saw government forces wrest back the country's second city from rebel forces in 2016 caused extensive destruction and suffering that drew comparisons with the World War II era devastation in Stalingrad and the Warsaw ghetto. The regime is also seeking to restore its grip on other areas in the north, including the province of Idlib, the last one that remains largely outside its control. On Tuesday, regime forces deployed inside the region of Afrin, a Kurdish enclave along Syria's northern border with Turkey. The move came after Kurdish forces asked Damascus to protect it from a month-old offensive by Ankara. They quickly came under shelling by Turkish forces, who said they had fired "warning shots" at the "pro-regime terrorist groups."
 
Russia denies role in deadly air strikes on Syria's Eastern Ghouta
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - The Kremlin on Wednesday denied involvement in air strikes on Syria's Eastern Ghouta enclave that monitors say have killed at least 250 civilians since the start of the week. "These are groundless accusations. It is not clear what they are based on. No specific data has been given. We do not agree (with them)," said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response to a US briefing saying that Russia was responsible for the attacks.--AFP

Russia, Iran must help end 'massacre' in Syria enclave: Berlin
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - Germany Wednesday urged Russia and Iran to push the Syrian regime to end the airstrikes on rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, noting that the two had pledged to be guarantors of peace in Syria. "One has to ask where is Russia, where is Iran, which had pledged in Astana to guarantee a ceasefire also in Eastern Ghouta," Steffen Seibert said, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, referring to peace talks in the Kazakh capital. "Without the support of these two allies, Assad's regime would not be where it is today, and undoubtedly, without this support, this regime would have to show more readiness to negotiate in the UN [peace] process," the German government spokesman added. "We demand that the Assad regime immediately end the massacre in Ghouta and allow in humanitarian aid as well as medical evacuation. We also demand that the backers of the Assad regime use their strong influence to achieve this end," Seibert said.--AFP

Macron condemns strikes on Syria's Eastern Ghouta, urges truce
Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - French President Emmanuel Macron called for a truce on Wednesday in Syria's Eastern Ghouta to allow for the evacuation of civilians trapped by a barrage of airstrikes on the rebel-held enclave. "France is asking for a truce in Eastern Ghouta in order to ensure the evacuation of civilians and facilitate humanitarian access as quickly as possible," he told reporters.--AFP

UN: Six Syria enclave hospitals bombed in two days
AFP, Amman/Tuesday, 20 February 2018/Six hospitals have been struck over two days in the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, putting three out of service and killing several people, the United Nations said Tuesday. "I am appalled and distressed by reports of the horrifying attacks against six hospitals in East Ghouta over the past 48 hours," said Panos Moumtzis, the UN's regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis. In addition to the six listed by the UN, another key hospital was hit and put out of service Tuesday, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said.

UN chief António Guterres ‘deeply alarmed’ by eastern Ghouta violence
AFP, UN/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday said he was “deeply alarmed” by the escalating violence in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta enclave after more than 100 civilians were killed in the second straight day of air strikes. Guterres urged all sides to uphold the basic principles of humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians. “The secretary-general is deeply alarmed by the escalating situation in Eastern Ghouta and its devastating impact on civilians,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Syrian and Russian air strikes battered rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, killing at least 106 civilians including 19 children on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On Monday, 127 Syrians were killed. “Nearly 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta have been subjected to airstrikes, shelling and bombardment,” said Dujarric. Besieged by Syrian government forces, residents of Eastern Ghouta “are living under extreme conditions, including malnutrition,” he added. Guterres recalled that Eastern Ghouta has been designated as a de-escalation zone by Russia, Iran and Turkey and he reminded all parties “of their commitments in this regard.”Negotiations meanwhile were continuing at the Security Council on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire to allow for urgent deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.

Erdogan spokesman says Turkey talks with Syria on hold, messages conveyed
Reuters/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/Turkey is not in direct talks with the Syrian government, but its messages are being indirectly conveyed to Damascus, President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said on Wednesday. Ibrahim Kalin also told a news conference that Ankara remains optimistic, but cautious, regarding ties with the United States after last week’s visit to Ankara by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Hundreds Detained in Tehran after Clashes between Sufi Protestors, Security Forces
Asharq Al-Awsat/ February 21/2018/Hundreds of the Sufi Gonabadi protestors were detained overnight in northern Tehran a day after fierce confrontations erupted between Iranian security officials and members of the order, The developments took place after Iranian authorities cracked down on anti- government and regime protests that swept the country in late 2017.Police spokesman Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi announced Tuesday that five security officers were killed during the unrest over the past two days. The Sufis had organized several sporadic sit-ins near the home of Nurali Tabandeh, 90, because they are worried that he could be detained by police. Tabandeh served for a brief period as a deputy at both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance before deciding to head the Gonabadi order. According to Reuters, some Sufis were shouting they would not tolerate his possible arrest. The Iranian religious leadership is wary of the Sufi order because it opposes the country’s Wilayet al-Faqih ideology. On Monday, reports said that three policemen were killed after a Sufi bus driver ran over them. Later, the police spokesman said two members of the hardline Basij militia, which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards, were also killed. Reuters quoted al-Mahdi as saying that among the more than 300 people arrested were the two drivers of the “death vehicles”. Around 30 police officers and some protesters were injured, he added. The clashes drove conflicting reactions in Iran. Spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's Presiding Board Behrouz Nemati said the parliament supports steps taken by security officials against the protesters, warning members of the order against inciting chaos. Iranian state television later broadcast a report claiming that Sufis had protested against the arrest of two car thieves outside a police station near the house of their leader. Majzooban, a website linked to the Sufis, said some protesters were shot by the police.

4 ‘Very Dangerous’ Extremists Killed in Sinai Operation, Says Egyptian Army

Asharq Al-Awsat/February 21/2018/The Egyptian military announced on Wednesday that four “very dangerous takfiri” extremists were killed in the ongoing Sinai 2018 operation to rid the peninsula of terrorists. Dozens of suspects have also been detained in the latest development in the campaign that was launched earlier this month, said the army. In the eleventh statement released since the start of the operation, the military said that the “takfiris” were killed after a shootout with security forces that were carrying out a raid against their location. Several arms and an amount of ammunition was confiscated from their possession. A total of 112 fugitives were arrested and legal measures have been taken against them, said that statement released on the military’s official Facebook page. Thirteen vehicles and 27 motorcycles were also seized and 350 hideouts and warehouses have been destroyed during the security forces’ sweep of the area. The air force meanwhile struck eight terrorist targets during the ongoing Sinai operation. The military said that the navy is continuing with its search of all vessels to ensure that they are not transporting terrorists or smuggling weapons. President Abdul Fattah al-Sis ordered the armed forces in November to defeat extremists in Sinai within three months after an attack on a mosque killed more than 300 people, the deadliest such violence in the Arab world’s most populous country.

Three Sufi protesters killed hours after being shot by Iranian forces
Iliya Jazayeri, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/Iranian sources reported on Tuesday the death of three Gonabadi Sufis in the hospital hours after being shot in clashes with Iranian security forces north of the capital Tehran. The site "Zaytoun" reported that the Iranian police forces have transferred three Gonabadi Sufis on Monday evening to the hospital in Tehran and were reported dead on Tuesday night as their injuries were fatal. Monday evening witnessed intense clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Iranian capital Tehran, which lasted until Tuesday morning, killing at least five security men, wounding dozens from both sides and leading to the arrest of hundreds of protesters. The official Iranian news agency Irna quoted a police spokesman as saying that three policemen and two Basij militia were killed during the clashes, and 300 Gonabadi Sufis were arrested. A video posted on social networking sites in Iran showed a speeding bus trampling a number of policemen during the clashes. Police sources claim that the driver is a Gonabadi Sufi called Mohammed Thalith, which is denied by the Sufis. The Sufi protests began after the arrest of a person named Nematollah Riahi about two weeks ago during violence in northern Tehran, where the Sufis gathered outside the house of their guide, "Nurallah Tabenda", following reports that the security forces intend to arrest him. This occured although Tehran police chief Hussein Rahimi announced that "There is no intention to go after the Gonabadi Sufis in Tehran."In the last two decades, Gonabadi Sufis have been subjected to security pursuits throughout Iran, with several arrested and facing charges.

Iran teams carry plane crash dead down from mountain
AFP/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/Iranian emergency teams on Wednesday began recovering the bodies of the dead from a plane that crashed high in the Zagros mountains with 66 people on board, officials said. No survivors have been found from Aseman Airlines flight EP3704, which disappeared from radar on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight. Search helicopters finally located the crash site after a break in the weather on Tuesday at a height of around 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) in the Dena range. But the altitude and weather conditions have meant that helicopters cannot land to recover the bodies of the dead and they are being brought down on the backs of emergency personnel to a road at the foot of the mountain. “At the moment, we have a snowstorm and icy winds on the peaks and visibility is very low,” the deputy commander of army ground forces, Brigadier General Nozar Nemati, told state television. “We decided that those bodies that can be carried down would be brought down by army commandos or by the emergency services,” he said. Mohsen Mehralizadeh, the governor of Isfahan province from where part of the recovery operation is being coordinated, said 32 bodies had been found so far. The first seven were being brought down on Wednesday morning, state television reported. Crevasses and the risk of avalanches made the operation hazardous and time-consuming, emergency officials said. The crash of the ATR-72 twin-engine plane, which had been in service since 1993, has reawakened concerns over aviation safety in Iran, which has been exacerbated by international sanctions over the years. Aseman Airlines was blacklisted by the European Commission in December 2016. It was one of only three airlines barred over safety concerns the other 190 being blacklisted due to broader concerns over oversight in their respective countries.

Sisi: Egypt govt not a party on gas deal with Israel
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that the Egyptian government is not a party to the recent gas agreement with Israel. Sisi said during his opening of a number of service centers for investors, on Wednesday, that the Egyptian government is not party to a private company’s deal to import quantities of natural gas from Israel. He added that he was very pleased with the Egyptians' involvement in the events taking place in their country. He pointed out that Egypt has nothing to hide, and what happened is a contractual matter between a private sector company based in Egypt and the state of Israel. Israel has announced a deal with the private company “Dolphinus Holdings” to import natural gas over 10 years against 15 billion dollars. Egyptian Oil Minister Tariq Mulla denied the government’s intervention in the deal, while Hamad Abdul Aziz, spokesman of the Ministry of Petroleum, said that in case the government approves of the agreement which is signed between private companies to import gas from Israel, these companies will use the local network for gas pipelines as well as the liquefaction stations in Egypt. He added that the law regulating the new gas market allows companies to buy gas, import and resell, whether in the local market or re-export it through the liquefaction stations, adding that there are several countries in the region seeking to play this pivotal role as a regional energy midpoint, and Egypt has all the potential to take on this role.

Other nations could be part of future Mideast peace talks
Reuters, Washington/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/The US State Department said on Tuesday the United States would consider supporting the involvement of other countries in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the future if it believes it would be helpful in reaching an accord. Asked about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' call on Tuesday for international peace talks, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: "If at some point we believe that other countries could be helpful to the peace process, we would certainly be willing to bring them in." "Is the time right for that right now? I'm not sure we've decided that, but that is certainly something that could happen in the future," Nauert added.

The nuclear future of the Middle East
Awad Mustafa/Al Arabiya/February 21/18/The middle east is going nuclear. The UAE will be launching its first reactors by the end of this year while Egypt and Kuwait are both in discussions to build their own. Saudi Arabia is looking to build 16 reactors in the kingdom and will also be signing contracts soon. According to the director general of the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), Christer Viktorsson, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating around the world in 30 countries. Currently Egypt is planning to have a nuclear plant running by 2024 located at El Dabaa, about 130 Kilometers northwest of Cairo. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia announced that by 2032 the Kingdom is planning to supply a whopping 17.6 gigawatts of power generated from nuclear energy. “For a new country establishing a nuclear program you have a lot of infrastructure elements in place,” Viktorsson said,
“The regulatory element is one but you also have to have a lot of international relations, sign conventions and agreements in order to ensure you do it in a safe manner, provide security to the population and do it in a peaceful manner,” he added. Viktorsson also explained the measures taken to secure a nuclear power plant including security and environmental measures.

Egyptian girl, 4, raped and murdered in case similar to Pakistan’s Zainab
Ashraf Abdelhamid, Al Arabiya/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/In a similar fate to that of Pakistan girl Zainab Ansari, a four-year-old girl was recently raped and murdered in an Egyptian village in a case that has sparked outrage. The details surrounding the tragic case of Rodaina Abdou resembles much of what had happened to the Pakistani seven-year-old more than a month ago. Abdou from a village in the Menoufia governorate, northern Egypt, had been brutally raped and “slaughtered” by her rapist. Residents of the area said the father reported his little girl missing on Saturday noon and began searching for her in nearby houses, but to no avail. Coincidentally, the villagers found “traces of blood” outside the house of one the residents. The man was “confused” when the villagers asked about the girl, who he had denied seeing nor having inside his house. However, the people in the village insisted to search his house. After eventually letting them in, the residents “found remains of blood on a bed,” which he claimed were from a cat. Unconvinced with his version of the story, the residents pressured the man to tell the truth. His 16-year-old son finally confessed to the crime, saying that he took the girl from outside her house and lured her into playing with his mobile phone. He then attempted to rape her, but failed. Out of fear he would get caught, he banged her head with a small stone until she fell unconscious. He then “slaughtered her with a knife” and threw her body into a box, before hiding it in the basement.
Investigations have shown that the traces of blood found inside the attacker’s house did belong to the young girl. The attacker confessed to his crime to police officers, who referred him to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to resume investigations. The prosecution’s also permitted the burial of the child’s body.

Rape-accused Tariq Ramadan faces US charges as ‘Muslim victim comes forward’
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 21 February 2018/Rape-accused Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan could now face charges in the United States after American attorney Rabia Chaudry said she had referred an alleged victim to a federal prosecutor this week. Ramadan is currently being held in a French prison since February 2 on charges that he raped two women in Paris and Lyon. Chaudry confirmed to Al Arabiya English that she had referred “a Muslim victim” to the prosecutor, declining to comment on the matter further or explaining exactly what the US victim had accused Ramadan of. The attorney had written in a Facebook post, however, that she was “guessing there will be more [victims]” to come forward. Chaudry added: “This is not a vast international conspiracy. This is also not how people are wrongfully convicted. Wrongfully convicted people are not accused of multiple similar crimes in different countries. In fact, they usually have completely clean records other than one accusation that ends up being false.” Ramadan has been imprisoned at the Fleury-Mérogis prison, south of Paris, as authorities investigate the rape charges. He could be held in long-term custody while the probe continues. The Swiss academic, who is a grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, found fame after writing numerous books on Islam and the integration of Muslims in Europe. He traveled frequently to give talks around the world and was also a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford.
Commenting on the French judicial proceedings, Chaudry wrote: “I don't know much about the French legal system other than it seems to have a lower evidentiary threshold than the US. The standard is not beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard is an intimate conviction, i.e. jurors’ impressions based on the evidence [sic]. I also don't know if that there is a plea process but if there is one it might be better for him than a trial in which the witnesses confront him and testify - imagine a jury reacting to that. “I know this is hard on our community, but it does not serve us to bury our heads in the sand. He will likely serve time in prison, and it will likely be a just result,” she added. Last year, Chaudry was widely outspoken against Pakistani-American preacher Nouman Ali Khan after he was accused of threatening and bribing women.

Netanyahu Confidant to Testify against Him
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 21/18/Israeli media reported Wednesday that one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest confidants has turned state witness and will incriminate him in corruption allegations, the latest in a dizzying series of developments that threaten to topple the beleaguered Israeli leader. Police would not confirm whether long-time aide Shlomo Filber would testify against Netanyahu, but all the major Israeli media outlets said a deal to do so had been reached. Filber, the former director of the Communications Ministry under Netanyahu, is under arrest on suspicion of promoting regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel's Bezeq telecom company. In return, Bezeq's popular news site, Walla, allegedly provided favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family. The reports came shortly after another bombshell allegation that a different longtime confidant attempted to bribe a judge in exchange for dropping a corruption case against Netanyahu's wife. The prime minister, who held the communications portfolio until last year, has not yet been named a suspect, though he may soon be questioned. Netanyahu has denies all the charges, calling them part of a media witch hunt, and has vowed to carry on. Still, the string of accusations appears to be taking its toll. Senior Cabinet ministers from his ruling Likud party, who until just recently have marched out dutifully to defend him, have largely gone silent. Netanyahu himself appeared ashen in video released late Tuesday calling the claims "total madness."
Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the Haaretz daily, wrote Wednesday that "these are the final days of Benjamin Netanyahu's rule."Other leading columnists suggested that if Filber told all he knew, Netanyahu was probably more worried about avoiding prison than staying in office.
"When so many dark clouds accumulate in the sky, the chances of rain increase," wrote Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahronot. "His appearance lent the fight he is waging the dimensions of a Shakespearean tragedy. This isn't the end. It isn't even the beginning of the end. But it cannot have a different end."The latest probes come days after police announced that there was sufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two separate cases. Attorney General Avihai Mandelblit, a Netanyahu appointee, will make the final decision on whether to file charges — a process that is expected to take several months. Netanyahu is accused of receiving lavish gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. In return, police say Netanyahu operated on Milchan's behalf on U.S. visa matters, legislated a tax break and connected him with an Indian businessman. In the second case, Netanyahu is accused of offering a newspaper publisher legislation that would weaken his paper's main rival in return for more favorable coverage.

Secret Pence, N. Korea Meeting Planned, then Scrapped
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/February 21/18/Mike Pence and North Korean officials had planned to meet secretly during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but Pyongyang scrapped the talks after the US vice president denounced abuses from the "murderous regime," US officials said Tuesday. Pence did not interact with the North Koreans even though he was seated in the same box as them at the opening ceremony of the Games on February 9 -- nor did he shake hands with the North's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam during an earlier leaders' reception.
The North Koreans, who had sent Kim Yong Nam and leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong to the Games, backed out of the planned meeting after Pence announced Washington would soon unveil its "toughest and most aggressive sanctions" against Pyongyang. During his Asian tour, he also denounced the North's nuclear drive and sought to shore up ties with regional allies -- and longtime North Korean foes -- Japan and South Korea. Pence, who led the American delegation to the Games, said at the time he traveled with the father of late former prisoner Otto Warmbier to the South to "remind the world of the atrocities happening in North Korea." "North Korea would have strongly preferred the vice president not use the world stage to call attention to those absolute facts or to display our strong alliance with those committed to the maximum pressure campaign," Pence's spokesman Ayers said. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said only a "brief meeting" with leaders of the North Korean delegation had been on the table. "The vice president was ready to take this opportunity to drive home the necessity of North Korea abandoning its illicit ballistic missile and nuclear programs," Nauert said in a statement. "At the last minute, DPRK officials decided not to go forward with the meeting. We regret their failure to seize this opportunity." - 'Murderous regime' -Ayers characterized the offer as the North having "dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics.""As we've said from day one about the trip: this administration will stand in the way of Kim's desire to whitewash their murderous regime with nice photo ops at the Olympics," Ayers said. "Perhaps that's why they walked away from a meeting or perhaps they were never sincere about sitting down."Analysts say the North's Olympic diplomatic drive sought to loosen international sanctions against it and undermine the alliance between Seoul and Washington. Even as the US warned against falling for Pyongyang's Olympic charm offensive, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued an invitation via his sister Kim Yo Jong, who was attending the Games, for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. But on his return trip from the Games, Pence said there was "no daylight" between the US, South Korea and Japan on efforts to isolate Pyongyang economically and diplomatically until it abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile program.
Washington calls it a campaign of "maximum pressure."
Mintaro Oba, a former State Department diplomat specializing in the Koreas, tweeted that "it's entirely possible that North Korea scheduled the reported secret meeting with VP Pence fully intending to cancel so that they could play the blame game.""Sudden cancellations/withdrawals are a well-established part of the North Korean playbook," added Oba, now a speechwriter in Washington.
Complete denuclearization first -Global alarm at the rapid advance of nuclear-armed North Korea's weapons technology rose further last year when the regime tested its Hwasong-15 ballistic missile -- theoretically capable of hitting the mainland US -- in a challenge to Washington, which has threatened to "utterly destroy" the regime in the event of an attack. President Donald Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong Un have engaged in a series of personal insults. But as tensions rose between the North and Washington, the Games triggered a rapid reconciliation between the two Koreas, who are still technically at war. "The president made a decision that if they wanted to talk, we would deliver our uncompromising message. If they asked for a meeting, we would meet," Ayers said, referring to Trump. "He also made clear that until they agreed to complete denuclearization we weren't going to change any of our positions or negotiate."Woodrow Wilson Center vice president Aaron David Miller, a former advisor to Republican and Democratic diplomatic chiefs, highlighted the Trump administration's conflicting messages on whether to talk or not with the North Koreans.
"Has the locked and loaded fire and fury Trump Administration come to conclusion that it's time to stop talking about North Korea and to start talking to them?" he asked.

Gaza to pump sewage straight into sea as crisis worsens

Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - Gaza City, Palestinian Territories: Municipalities in Gaza announced Wednesday they will pump sewage straight into the sea from the Palestinian coastal enclave due to fuel shortages and the desperate humanitarian situation in the strip. "The beaches of the Gaza Strip will be completely closed and sewage will be pumped into the sea because the municipalities are unable to provide fuel for treatment plants," Nizar Hejazi, head of the Gaza City municipality, said. Hejazi also noted "the policy of collective punishment continues to be imposed on the population," in a statement representing municipalities across the strip. "We announce a state of emergency in the cities and municipalities of the Gaza Strip," Hejazi said, noting services would be cut by as much as 50 percent. The only power plant in Gaza stopped operating last week due to lack of fuel, leaving the strip totally reliant on imports. Residents currently receive only a couple of hours power per day.--AFP

Two French soldiers killed in Mali attack

Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - Two French soldiers were killed after their armored vehicle was hit by an explosive device in Mali, the French president’s office said on Wednesday. Another soldier was injured as a result of the explosion. France has deployed around 4,000 French troops in the West Africa’s Sahel region as part of Operation Barkhane aimed at tackling militants in the region.-- Reuters

Greek Cyprus urges Turkey to end gas standoff, resume talks

Wed 21 Feb 2018/NNA - Greek Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades urged Turkey on Feb. 21 to lift its blockade of offshore gas exploration that would benefit both the Greek and Turkish Cypriots if the island is reunited. “The rhetoric by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots is unjustified and unfounded, and it does not serve the best interests of the Cypriot people... The planning of the Republic of [Greek] Cyprus in the field of energy will proceed,” Anastasiades said in a statement. “I publicly call on Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot community to immediately respond to my call to return to the negotiating table, provided this is preceded by the termination of the violation of the sovereign rights” of Greek Cyprus in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), he said. Anastasiades said the island’s untapped energy riches belonged to the state and would be shared with the Turkish Cypriots once the island was reunified. “Our goal is to fully explore Cyprus’s hydrocarbon potential, in the best terms possible, so as to maximize the benefits for all the people of Cyprus,” he said. Greek Cyprus is embroiled in a standoff with Turkish warships blocking an Italian drillship from exploring for gas in the divided island’s politically sensitive waters.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned foreign energy companies not to “overstep the mark” in the Mediterranean after Turkey’s warships blocked the Italian vessel. The standoff over exploiting energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean risks further complicates stalled efforts to reunify Cyprus following the collapse of U.N.-brokered peace talks last year. Italy’s energy giant ENI said its ship had been ordered to stop by Turkish ships earlier this month over “military activities in the destination area” as it was on course to start exploring in block 3 of EEZ. -- AFP

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 21-22/18
US Allies Are Failing to Fill the Global Leadership Void
Hal Brands/Bloomberg/February 21/2018/
If America abandons the liberal international order it created, can that order still endure?
This has been the central geopolitical question posed by Donald Trump’s presidency. So far, longtime US allies have been working to fill the void created by the retreat of American leadership, and thus to prevent the erosion of a system that has served so many so well for so long. Yet their efforts cannot be more than a temporary solution to the crisis of global stewardship that Trump has created.
From the time Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, his visceral distaste for the international system the US shaped after World War II was obvious. Generations of previous presidents saw the promotion of a geopolitically stable, economically open, ideologically liberal world order as a form of enlightened self-interest -- a strategy that would allow America to remain secure, prosperous and free by helping others become secure, prosperous and free.
Trump, however, has long seen this order-building project as a geopolitical fool’s errand that allows other countries to free-ride on American labors. “We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon,” he said in his inaugural address.
Despite the best efforts of many of his advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Trump has thus taken dead aim at key aspects of America’s own international order.
He has harangued and bullied US allies, and withdrawn or threatened to withdraw from numerous free trade agreements. He has derided the importance of human rights and democratic values, and sought to make common cause with countries -- namely Russia -- that most threaten American interests, allies and ideals. Not least, he has revived narrowly nationalistic rhetoric and ideas -- encapsulated in his “America First” slogan -- that sound to many observers like the very antithesis of inclusive, positive-sum global leadership.
Fortunately, America’s closest partners have not simply stood still as US statecraft has taken this ominous turn.
Japan and Australia responded to the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership by launching a surprisingly effective bid to sustain that agreement without Washington’s participation. (So effectively that Trump has made noises about re-considering US involvement.)
Likewise, Japan and the European Union agreed to negotiate a major free trade pact. In global security affairs, France and Japan are now reportedly planning naval exercises in the South China Sea to show support for freedom of navigation in the face of a continuing Chinese challenge. Meanwhile, the EU, led by Germany and France, has outlined ambitious plans to improve European defense cooperation, in part as a hedge against a future in which US commitments no longer seem so ironclad. Finally, the rest of the world is continuing to implement the Paris accords on climate change, despite Trump’s decision to withdraw.
This behavior should be encouraging to those who value the US-led international order, precisely because it is the ultimate testament to the success of that order. That US allies see such great value in this system demonstrates just how attractive a world Washington has created in the decades since World War II. They are conducting a critical holding action -- they are trying to keep the liberal order as healthy and stable as possible until Washington once again emerges as its chief defender. All this will help keep the positive dynamics that US leadership has traditionally fostered -- openness, security, international cooperation -- from being swamped by more negative trends like protectionism, instability and parochial nationalism, at least in the short term.
Yet neither the liberal order nor the US can thrive in the long term without stronger American engagement, for three key reasons.
First, America’s allies may be defending the liberal order, but they are not necessarily doing so in the way that Americans might prefer. It is laudable that the EU, Japan and other countries are pushing back against protectionism, but the agreements they conclude will be far less favorable to US interests than they would be if Washington were at the table and setting the agenda.
American exporters are already worried, for instance, that an 11-member “rump TPP” will put them at a competitive disadvantage by creating a more integrated economic zone from which the US will be excluded. Trump may think his foreign policy will allow the US to cut better deals, but it is actually giving other countries incentive to cut deals at America’s expense.
Second, Trump’s withdrawal is not just creating space for America’s democratic allies. It is also clearing the field for authoritarian actors -- namely China -- whose goals often run contrary to US interests. As I recount in my new book, “American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump,” Chinese leaders have cleverly positioned themselves to benefit from Trump’s nationalistic turn. They have accelerated geopolitical and geo-economic projects, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Project and the Belt and Road Initiative, which are meant to weaken the US-led order by creating China-centric alternatives.
They have also exploited Trump’s global unpopularity by portraying China as the new world leader on issues such as climate and globalization. Some of these claims are risible -- Beijing’s foreign economic policy is mercantilist to its core, and China has long been adept at reaping the benefits of the liberal economic order without obeying its rules. But US withdrawal is nonetheless giving the global initiative to actors threatening as well as benign.
Finally, although US allies have sometimes bristled at descriptions of America as the “indispensable nation,” the hard reality is that there are limits to what they can achieve without Washington. No one, not even most Europeans, expects great breakthroughs in European defense cooperation in the age of Trump. This is because EU military integration still suffers from its perpetual problem -- it has all the liabilities of a complicated multilateral undertaking without the benefit of having the US there to plug the inevitable gaps.
Likewise, the downsized TPP and the EU-Japan trade agreement are positive developments, but it is hard to imagine that a truly liberal international economy will long endure if the world’s two largest national economies -- the US and China -- take protectionist stances.
In short, longstanding US allies can buy time for Washington to get back in the game -- but they can’t do much beyond that. If Atlas doesn’t take up his burden again sometime soon, the world he formerly supported will surely start to crumble.

Syria Is the New Afghanistan
Noah Feldman/Bloomberg/February 21/2018/
It’s official: Syria has become a war of all against all. The latest proof is the report that US planes killed somewhere between four and 200 Russian “mercenaries” last week. A few days before that news broke, Israel shot down an Iranian drone that came from Syria and then attacked Iranian targets, losing an F-16 in the process. And just a few days before that, Turkey mounted an extensive war against US-backed Syrian Kurds -- probably the same people who called in the airstrikes against the Russians.
Ladies and gentlemen, Thomas Hobbes is in the house. It’s hard to overstate the consequences of Syria’s gradual descent into this stage of chaos. Resolving the Syrian civil war was never going to be easy. But once a country becomes the venue for broader international conflict, resolution can become downright impossible. Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion in 1979 until the present poses a perfect example. As the scholar Barnett Rubin argued even before the Sept. 11 attacks and the US invasion, what made the Afghan conflict unresolvable was the involvement of so many outside actors. That war, seen in its truest terms, has been going on for almost 40 years, with no end in sight. The same fate may await Syria, which is only seven years into its conflict.
From the start, the Syrian conflict had the hallmarks of a proxy war. Sunnis seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad had the encouragement and support from the Sunni Arab Gulf states, the US and Turkey. Bashar had help from his ally Iran and its proxy militia, Lebanese Hezbollah.
But it is a big step from a civil war encouraged and supported by outsiders to a situation where Turkey, Iran and Israel have aircraft over Syrian airspace. And it is a bigger step still to the direct military involvement of global actors like the US and Russia from air and ground.
Each step along the way has made local sense. The US wanted to fight ISIS, which demanded air support for whoever would do the work on the ground. That turned out to be the Syrian Kurds, who became, in essence, allies for hire.
Russia cared less about fighting ISIS than about taking the opportunity to save the Assad regime and re-establish itself as a significant Middle Eastern actor, which it had not been since the fall of the Soviet Union. Helping Assad prevail took a lot of air power. As it turned out, it also required some boots on the ground.
Wanting to avoid the use of regular Russian soldiers, President Vladimir Putin took advantage of a tactic he had used effectively in Crimea and Ukraine. He deployed what have been called “little green men”: non-uniformed Russians who might be regular army without insignias or else private contractors.
This trick shouldn’t altogether be unfamiliar to the Americans, who pioneered the use of private military contractors in Iraq. The aim then wasn’t to deny a US ground presence, but to minimize the number of official troops on the ground without sacrificing leverage.
We don’t know how many contractor-mercenaries Putin has in Syria. But if the high-end estimates of the losses from the US airstrike turn out to be accurate -- as many as 200 in one strike -- the number may be very high indeed.
Turkey’s intervention is driven by the desire to stop Syrian Kurds from creating an autonomous zone analogous to the one that Iraq’s Kurds have sustained for decades. Iran is flying drones over Syria to consolidate its military gains from Assad’s survival. Israel is next door, and it has been signaling that it cannot tolerate the very presence that Iran wants to establish.
The key fact about all these actors is that their interests are mostly orthogonal to each other. Almost no one is trying to affect the primary outcome of the civil war any more. The Syrian Sunnis have essentially lost. ISIS no longer holds meaningful territory. Assad has essentially won by surviving and gradually retaking territory. The rest, including the status of the Kurds, is secondary to what the war was about until now. Yet these crosscutting international interests won’t go away anytime soon.Putin needs to show that he got something concrete out of victory. That means staying present to make sure Assad doesn’t totter if the Russians withdraw. The Syrian Kurds aren’t going anywhere, because they have nowhere else to go. That assures Turkey’s involvement so long as the Kurds haven’t been defeated. Iran has a long-term interest in Syria. Israel has a long-term interest in resisting Iran so long as Iran continues to deny its right to exist. As for the US, it’s more likely to stop fighting than anyone else. But that won’t be easy if massacres multiply as the US tries to step down its air support for the Kurds. In theory, final status talks could follow this chaotic period, and regional actors could agree to back down and find some new status quo to accept. But as the Afghanistan example shows, there is always the risk that outside actors will rearm locals and restart the fighting. That risk makes de-escalation extremely difficult. The agony of the Syrian people isn’t close to being over.

Trump’s ‘Hard Line’ on North Korea Is Soft Symbolism
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/February 21/2018/
One could be forgiven for thinking the symbolism at the Olympics signaled a hard line from the Donald Trump administration on North Korea.
Before the opening ceremony, Vice President Mike Pence met with North Korean dissidents. At the opening ceremonies, he sat with the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American student who was imprisoned and injured so gravely during his detention that he died shortly after being flown back to the US. In Tokyo, Pence announced that new sanctions would be unveiled soon against North Korea. But the symbols masked an important concession. Pence on Sunday told the Washington Post's Josh Rogin that the US was willing to talk with Pyongyang even before the Hermit Kingdom takes any steps ratcheting down the crisis it has created. That concession averted a break with the South Korean government of Moon Jae-in, who wants to turn the Olympic thaw into more substantive negotiations with the Kim Jong Un regime.
It was not a total collapse of the US position either. Pence now says that while the US is willing to talk about talks, the sanctions and other pressure will not abate until North Korea begins making nuclear concessions of its own.
All of that said, most Korea experts concede there is no real chance that talks or financial penalties will persuade Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal. The sanctions might be effective in starving the regime of resources to complete its work on a nuclear weapon (a nuclear warhead for its missiles that would survive re-entry into the atmosphere from space). But as a cudgel to get interim concessions, they are almost certainly futile.
And this brings us back to Pence's symbolic diplomacy last week. He thanked the dissidents last Friday for their bravery. He said he wanted to make sure the world heard the stories of men and women who suffered torture, amputation and deprivation to escape hell on earth. "The American people stand with you for freedom, and you represent the people of North Korea, millions of which long to be free as well," Pence said. It was an inspiring moment. But raising awareness is the work of journalists and activists. Statesmen have the power to do more. What does America's broader approach to North Korea offer the people who must endure the Kim family's rule? Of course it's possible to engage in diplomacy and work toward transforming dictatorships without war. President Ronald Reagan was able to negotiate arms agreements with the Soviet Union and still undermine that regime by increasing defense spending, supporting the Polish Solidarity movement and instructing his diplomats to emphasize the conditions of political prisoners. For the Trump administration, though, all we see is the arms control strategy, what officials now call "denuclearization." US pressure is designed to extract a nuclear pause and ultimately disarmament. Where is the strategy for a free North Korea?While it's fashionable to say everything has been tried during the last 30 years of nuclear brinkmanship with the Kim family, the element that has been consistently lacking in US policy has been any real effort to aid North Koreans who want to live with dignity.
It has been more or less the same kind of formula: pressure and inducements in exchange for nuclear promises, your regime for your nukes.
Pence's focus on North Korean political prisoners is a good start. But that's all it is. Until we see evidence of an American plan to end North Korean tyranny, the vice president's good intentions are hollow, and the dissidents with whom he meets are props.

The Disinformation Factory Threatening National Security

David Von Drehle/The Washington Post/February 21/2018/
A sobering paper published in the winter edition of Strategic Studies Quarterly — the strategy journal of the US Air Force — explains how propagandists manipulate social media in their cyberwars against the United States. Hostile forces, employing automated bots, leverage the blind spots and biases of unwitting Americans to help them send falsehoods flying to spread division and demoralization. Figuring out how to fight back, in a free society of open communication, is the most urgent national security challenge we face. Friday’s indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of a Russian trolling operation is a welcome sign that we are joining the battle. But so far, we are losing. And should we fail, the future will belong to authoritarian states that protect their virtual borders by controlling Internet access. In his paper, “Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare,” Lt. Col. Jarred Prier examines strategies and tactics used by both the Islamic State and the Russian government to seize command of trending topics on Twitter and, to a lesser degree, Facebook. By hijacking these algorithms, enemy agents and their armies of bots inflame tension and erode trust across American society.
A striking example, which Prier documents in detail, came during the November 2015 protests at the University of Missouri. A dispute over benefits for graduate teaching assistants had escalated into broad allegations of racism on campus. Spotting the trending hashtag #PrayforMizzou, a Russia-linked Twitter account, @Fanfan1911, tweeted a photo of a bruised African American youth that was lifted from an unrelated story. “The cops are marching with the KKK!” the tweet declared. “They beat up my little brother! Watch out!” This untrue message, signed “Jermaine,” was retweeted hundreds of times by Russian bots — enough to unleash it as a viral contagion among duped Americans, including Missouri’s student body president. As other accounts in the orbit of @Fanfan1911 added fake details, Jermaine demanded the news media cover the nonexistent Klan rampage. Twitter-obsessed reporters ran in search of a story. Though the facts eventually came limping onto the scene, lasting damage was done. Morale and enrollment sagged at the university. Trust in media and police took another hit. The reputation and economy of Missouri absorbed a blow.
Not bad for a single shift at the disinformation factory.
Prier follows Jermaine as his display name morphs into FanFan to stoke false rumors of Muslim refugees raping German women in spring 2016. He transforms again into DeplorableLucy to support the Donald Trump campaign. In each incarnation, the agent employs the same tools: distorted or fabricated narratives, legions of retweeting bots, existing networks of unsuspecting partisans ready to believe the worst, allegations of elite corruption, and the viral engine of trending hashtags.
Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats reported to Congress this last week that such efforts are designed “to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” “to create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes,” and “to encourage anti-US political views.”
It’s working. That’s why this challenge is critical to our national security. We cannot tackle either threats or competition from China, North Korea, Russia or violent Islamist extremists without a common sense of purpose at home and supportive allies abroad.
Prier wraps up his paper by calling on social media companies, political leaders and journalists to come to the aid of the country. Twitter, he notes, faces a particular quandary because bot networks and the trending-topic feature — two key weapons in the enemy’s arsenal — are both integral to the company’s business model. Advertisers love Twitter bots, while the trending algorithm lends an air of urgency and authority that the platform would otherwise lack. On the other hand, I see no good reason journalists can’t go straight to work curbing our “overreliance on social media for breaking news,” as Prier puts it. Reporters should treat every tweet with skepticism and demand real-world confirmation of tweeted “news” before sharing it. What we need from politicians is sufficient leadership to raise the issue of cyberdefense above the muck of partisan advantage. Sparring over the Trump-Russia investigation is of passing importance compared with the survival of open societies.
Uncle Sam wants you, and your smartphone. It is up to this generation of Westerners — every woman, man and child — to show that self-government can survive the digital revolution. To educate ourselves in the use and abuse of personal tools of mass communication, and to employ these tools without stoking social division.
We are being tested. From Moscow to Tehran, Havana to Beijing, authorities are already taking the other path, protecting their rule by controlling digital access. The same will happen in the West, if we can’t control ourselves.

Iran's Most Famous General Is More Poppular Than President As New Threats Emerge At Home And Abroad
Tom O'Cnnor/Newsweek/February 21/18
The head of Iran's most secretive, elite force has become increasingly popular at home as he helps expand Tehran's influence through military victories by allies across the Middle East.
Major General Qassem Soleimani, head of the expeditionary Quds Force branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), enjoyed a "very favorable" view among 67.7 percent of Iranians, according to a poll conducted last month by the University of Maryland and cited Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal. In the past two years, public opinion of the military leader, seen as one of the top faces of Iran's hardline conservative political bloc, has substantially gained on the more liberal Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose enthusiastic supporters have dropped to 23.5 percent among the population polled.
The results came as ultraconservative Sunni Muslim fighters of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) suffered consecutive defeats partially overseen by Soleimani at the hands of Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq and Syria. With these developments, however, have also come increasingly violent tensions with Israel and sparks of unrest toward the revolutionary religious government at home.
As head of Iran's foremost group tasked with conducting operations abroad for some 20 years, Soleimani has earned a lengthy reputation among the Islamic Republic's allies and enemies alike. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, he ascended to his position in 1998 and has been at the vanguard of Iran's relations with various foreign movements including the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas and the Iraqi Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of many groups that resisted U.S. occupation of Iraq and later became part of the Popular Mobilization Forces battling ISIS there.
In 2007, the State Department branded Soleimani a supporter of terrorism and, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the U.S. has taken an increasingly hardline stance against the IRGC as a whole. These measures have apparently had little effect on the public relations value of Soleimani's visits to the frontlines against jihadis, which Iran often accused the U.S. of secretly protecting. He was also named one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2017.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo personally reached out in November to Soleimani, who reportedly rejected the U.S. spy chief's "secret" gesture later exposed by Iran.
Despite the heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, whose 2015 nuclear deal has been assaulted by Trump, the two powers were forced to work alongside one another in beating ISIS in Iraq. In neighboring Syria, Iran and Russia helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad overcome a 2011 uprising by jihadis and rebels, including insurgents once sponsored by the U.S. With ISIS largely destroyed, ground forces backed by the U.S. and Iran have continued to both support and clash with one another at times in Iraq and Syria.
The proliferation of Iran-backed militias in Syria has also angered U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Israel. Earlier this month, the alleged crossing of Iranian drone over Israeli airspace provoked massive Israeli air raids against reported pro-Syrian government and Iranian positions near Damascus. Syrian anti-aircraft fire downed one Israeli F-16, stoking further tensions and Israeli attacks. Israel has occasionally conducted operations and airstrikes in neighboring Syria and Lebanon targeting positions and individuals associated with Iran and its partners, which have also attacked Israel at times.
At a commemoration of the 2008 assassination of a senior Hezbollah figure Imad Mughniyah, who died in a Damascus car bombing blamed on Israel, Soleimani said Thursday an appropriate revenge would be "not launching one missile or killing one person, but the dismantling and uprooting of the baby-killing Zionist regime" in Israel, according to the Associated Press.
Iran's growing footprint in the region may have won over much of the Iranian population, but many other Iranians were less impressed with the costly war effort and the militarization of their economy. Discontent toward the Iranian government's latest budget, which favored defense and religious organizations, exploded in rare nationwide New Year's protests that have yet to completely dissipate despite crackdowns by authorities and the appearance of larger, pro-government counterdemonstrations.
Trump's threats to scrap his predecessor's nuclear agreement and targeting of the Iranian government with new sanctions over alleged support for terrorism and ballistic missile activity have put pressure on Rouhani's promises to open the economy, which has been heavily controlled by the IRGC. Soleimani, on the other hand, has continued to successfully portray himself to the public as the necessary strongarm of Iran's regional ambitions, constantly under threat by the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Is there a place for women within Egypt’s judiciary?
Sonia Farid/Al Arabiya/February 21/2018
Egyptian MP Nadia Henry submitted on February 7 a draft law to the House of Representatives demanding gender equality in judicial positions. The proposal, which was referred by the parliament speaker to the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, states that all judiciary entities should be committed to appointing women in accordance with the same criteria based on which men are selected and that any laws to the contrary are to be revoked. The draft law cites articles 9, 11, and 53, all of which stress equality between Egyptian citizens and article 14, which states that appointment in public positions is merit-based. She also refers to the law regulating appointments in the State Council, the judicial entity most known for its adamant objection to the appointment of women in addition to the General Prosecution Authority, and noted that nothing in this law justifies the council’s stance. Henry’s draft law reignited a debate that has hardly subsided over years as women seem more determined to defy what they see as a flagrant infringement upon their rights.
Omnia Gadallah case
Henry’s initiative was to a great extent driven by the case of Omnia Gadallah, a female lawyer whose application for the position of assistant delegate—and eventually judge—at the State Council was rejected despite meeting all the requirements. Gadallah’s appeal against the council’s decision was rejected by the Commissioners Authority of the Supreme Administrative Court in November 2017. The authority’s report denied Gadallah’s claim that the council’s rejection of her application is an act of discrimination and argued that “the State Council has the right to select the applicants it sees fit and the constitution did not specify any conditions it needs to abide by.” The report also underlined the difference between constitutional rights in daily life and the specificity of particular jobs in which the nature of the work and the working environment needs to be taken into consideration. More than 120 rights organizations and public figures declared solidarity with Gadallah and issued a statement that accused the entire judiciary system, not only the State Council, of discriminating against women.
“Even though Egyptian women were ahead of their counterparts in Arab and even some European countries as far as political rights are concerned, this does not apply to the judiciary,” said the statement. “Out of a total of 16,000 judges only 66 are women.”
Professor of political science Nevine Mosaad noted that Egyptian women’s battle for the judiciary has been ongoing for 70 years, particularly since 1949 when then lawyer later professor of international law, first Egyptian female ambassador, and minister of social affairs Aisha Rateb applied for the position of assistant delegate at the State Council and was rejected. “A ruling was issued in 1953 to the effect that there are no legal, constitutional, or religious rules that hinder women’s work in the judiciary, but rather social considerations and factors pertaining to the job itself,” she wrote.
Fighting for rights
“Ever since, women have been fighting for their right to work in the judiciary.” Mosaad admits that progress has been made starting 2003 with the appointment of Tahani al-Geblai as vice president of the Supreme Constitutional Court, hence becoming the first Egyptian woman to occupy a judicial position, then in 2007 and 2008 as a number of women started working in civil, criminal, and family courts. “Yet, the State Council remained a restricted area for women even after adding article 11 in the 2014 constitution and which gives women the right to work in judiciary entities.” According to Mosaad, the constitution is in many cases being dealt with selectively so that articles that are not in line with long established norms are ignored. “What is also ignored is the contribution of women to the judiciary in different Arab countries starting with Morocco in 1961 through Lebanon, Sudan, Libya, Jordan, Oman, the UAE and most recently Mauritania in 2014.”
Mosaad scoffed at claims that female judges in the Arab world have proven a failure and cited the example of Lebanese judge Jocelyne Matta who sentenced three Muslim men charged with insulting Virgin Mary to memorizing a chapter from the Quran that glorifies the Virgin and Jesus. “This is a unique verdict that unravels the judge’s wisdom and it was praised by people and authorities alike.”
Incapability to perform
Judge Adel Farghali, former deputy director of the State Council, argued that while many women are qualified to become judges and have all the right to, the nature of their responsibilities would render them incapable of performing efficiently. “In order for a verdict to be issued, judges have to be present throughout hearing sessions, deliberations, and the ruling, but the developments in a woman’s life might not make this possible,” he said. “She will get married and have kids so she will be on leave for some time more than once, which means that another panel has to be formed and the cases she was on will be started from the beginning.”Farghali added that a female judge can also decide to don a face veil, which will be a major obstacle. “Plaintiffs and defendants have the right to know the identity of the judges in charge of their lawsuits to ensure fairness and due process, hence the entire case becomes invalidated if the judge covers her face.” Another obstacle, Farghali said, would be if the judge is conservative and would not agree to be in a closed room with her fellow male judges during deliberations. “Even if she’s not conservative at the beginning, this can happen after she gets married.”
Journalist Mohamed Roshdi quoted a source from the State Council as saying that despite article 11 that allows women to occupy all position, the council has its own law that does not allow this. “In its last emergency meeting, the State Council General Assembly voted against the appointment of women,” the source said. The source added that the assembly, which is comprised of all the council judges, is the highest body within the council and the only one capable of changing this decision and until then no women can be appointed. “It is also noteworthy that any article in the constitution requires a law that puts it into action and there no is law that binds the State Council as far as appointing women is concerned.”

Qatar’s attempt to deceive the West
Mohammed Al-Hammadi/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
The Qatari emir's speech at the Munich Security Conference recently held was a remarkable attempt at deceiving the West. Through his words, the emir tried to outsmart Westerners, and so he made use of smart one-liners and outlandish claims that no longer fool countries of the region. One wonders whether he was seriously expecting to deceive powerful countries with sound faculty of judgment. Strangely, Qatar continues to believe that it is in the right and imagines that various countries still support it. However, the whole world knows that Qatar is being used by some regional countries and international powers, as nothing but a pawn.
Emir tries to hoodwink Europe
This speech by the Qatari emir in Munich is his fourth since the boycott of his country began. The style and the content of all four speeches are quite similar, but the Munich speech was remarkable because it tried to trick and mislead the Europeans. Here are some of the bizarre claims he made in his speech.
The emir of Qatar tried to sell to the West old ideas, when he asserted that “injustice paves the way for the flourishing of terrorism. The emir said that “the EU has proven that unity is based on common security interests.” The question is, did Qatar preserve the security interests of the Gulf States and Arab countries? To the contrary, did it not cause problems in its neighboring states and used its media outlets to spread rumors and lies, especially through Al Jazeera? The emir of Qatar tried to sell to the West old ideas, when he asserted that “injustice paves the way for the flourishing of terrorism”, as if the world does not realize that Qatari money was channeled through many countries to help terrorism to spread and flourish. Definitely, nobody doubts this fact.
Invective against the GCC
He even tried to propose in his speech the idea of closing down the Gulf Cooperation Council when he said that the Gulf crisis “caused by our neighbors” prevented the existence of the Gulf region to function as a political entity. Perhaps, he forgot that his father’s administration had been destabilizing the Gulf Cooperation Council for two decades, and that it was Qatar that had hatched conspiracies to overthrow the ruling families of the Gulf countries. In fact, Qatar conspired against many countries starting with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain. Does the emir of Qatar believe that anyone will be fooled by this talk? The Qatari emir boasted in front of the Western audience that “Qatar is the safest and most secure country in the world”. Perhaps, he only puts the safety and security of his own country ahead of Arab countries that are experiencing wars and destruction. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and even Palestine faced direct and indirect interventions from Qatar. Is it right for Doha to revel in peace, while her neighboring countries are troubled by wars and conflicts? The other false claim made by the Qatari emir at the Munich conference was that “the boycotting countries insist on curbing press and media freedoms”. This is the strangest accusation to come from Qatar. After watching Qatari television channels or reading its newspaper, we can only pity the Qatari media.

Thus spoke Sayyaf
Mashari Althaydi/Al Arabiya/February 21/18
I was pretty much surprised by the interview which colleague Nasser al-Haqbani at Ash-Sharq al-Awsat daily conducted with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a former “star mujahideen” in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. Sayyaf looked like he just walked out of the pages of history. Besides his grey hair and beard, his looks did not change at all. Sayyaf commented on Afghanistan’s current situation but what was really interesting in the interview is his statements on figures from that phase and who have influenced politics and culture ever since. He discussed his relation with Osama Bin Laden and how he first met him and Abdullah Azzam. “We had something to do outside Afghanistan, and I met Bin Laden and Abdullah Aazzam at the same time. Two or three years later, I was in Paktia Province, southeast of Afghanistan, when Bin Laden and seven others whose names I don’t know visited us. They stayed with us for months, and they later traveled for some time and returned,” Sayyaf said.
That phase in Afghanistan has in general helped establish plenty of principles that founded today’s groups and policies.“Bin Laden’s son Abdullah was with him. He was young and he was not assigned any tasks. He only spent time with us in the trench. Bin Laden did not bring any of his other family members. I did not even hear about Hamza during that time and I never met him,” he added. As for Abdullah Azzam, the symbol of jihadists in the world and who was killed in Peshawar, Sayyaf said: “I have plenty of information and secrets on some jihad-related issues, including Azzam’s murder. I will expose them when the time is right,” adding that if he reveals these details at an improper time, strife may ensue. Asked if he expected the assassination of Azzam, whom he was friends with, he said: “He himself felt it would happen during his last days, and he talked to me about it. Two months before he was killed, I dispatched him to a safe front to keep him far from those after him. However, they assassinated him when he returned to Peshawar.”
Massoud’s death
Sayyaf also narrated some new details about the circumstances surrounding the death of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Tajiks’ jihadist symbol, and who was assassinated by al-Qaeda members posing as journalists in the Arab Maghreb. That phase in Afghanistan has in general helped establish plenty of principles that founded today’s groups and policies. Many influential Afghan figures, as well as Arab ones, from that phase are still alive, like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. It would be useful to orally document this history and to collect visual and written material related to it, such as Azzam’s magazine issues Al-Jihad.
The Afghan and Pakistani arenas during the 1980s and 1990s helped produce groups and figures such as al-Qaeda, al-Zarqawi, al-Maqdisi, al-Muqrin, al-Zawahiri and Refai Taha. This is why Nasser’s interview with Sayyaf is significant and why I cited it.

Britain: The Hijab as the Entry Point for Islam
Khadija Khan/Gatestone Institute/February 21/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11884/britain-hijab-schools
Islamists seem to be influencing the British school system with ease: there is simply no solid opposition to them. The government even stays silent about the harassment and intimidation. Islamists in Britain seem to be intent on establishing regressive requirements, such as the hijab for young girls, wife beating, making homosexuality illegal, death for apostates, halala rituals in divorce, and exploitation of women and children through Sharia courts as part and parcel of British culture.
That St. Stephen's School allowed itself to be blackmailed in this way bodes ill for both Britain and its education system.
St. Stephen's School in East London recently imposed a ban on hijabs (Islamic headscarves), but reversed its decision after administrators received hundreds of threats from enraged Muslims.
Among the targeted officials from the primary school was the head of governors, Arif Qawi, who had supported the ban on the grounds that the girls wearing hijabs were less likely to integrate socially with their peers. As a result of the outcry, Qawi submitted his resignation, saying that members of the staff were afraid to come to the school. Head teacher Neena Lall, whose educational philosophy has turned St. Stephen's into one of the best secular primary schools in Britain's capital -- in spite of its being in Newham, a poor neighborhood where English is spoken predominantly as a second language -- was bombarded with e-mails calling her a "pedophile" who "deserved what she had coming." Lall, of Punjabi origin, was even compared to Hitler in a video uploaded to YouTube.
It is not the first time that British educators have been intimidated by Muslim extremists. The head of Anderton Park School in Birmingham, Ms. Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, received similar threats on social media.
Anderton Park School was inspected as part of the "Trojan Horse" scandal, in which the British government discovered that Muslim extremists had been trying to take over Britain's secular school system.
One death threat to Hewitt-Clarkson read: "Any head teacher who teaches my children it's alright to be gay will be at the end of my shotgun."
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services, as well as Chief Inspector of the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), Amanda Spielman, was also targeted when she expressed public support for Lall. School principals, she said, "must have the right to set school uniform policies as they see fit, in order to promote cohesion." Spielman was also subjected to anti-Semitic abuse, apparently based merely on the sound of her name.
Spielman was already the recipient of what she called "nasty tweets" and threatening messages -- such as, "We know where you live and we can get you anytime we want to" -- from a mixture of "Islamic extremists and the hard left," after an Ofsted report critical of conservative faith schools that were apparently "spreading beliefs that clash with British values."
The unprecedented scale of this harassment -- even against the government -- indicates the alarming degree to which extremist elements have penetrated British society and threaten the careers of anyone who would speak against Islamic extremism.
Activists who had lobbied for the banning of hijabs in the British primary schools were apparently crestfallen. One British activist, Amina Lone, tweeted:
"This is an important step in promoting religious extremism, mob rule and refusing to give #Muslim young girls equal gender equality rights.... So much for choice and individual liberty. Terribly sad day for a secular democracy."
While secular British values need to be upheld to provide equal opportunities to everyone, regardless of caste, creed, gender or color, Islamists seem to be influencing the British school system with ease: there is simply no solid opposition to them. The government even stays silent about the harassment and intimidation.Was St. Stephen's forced to succumb to the pressure of ignorant zealots, who either do not know or choose to ignore that under Islamic law (Sharia), girls are not required to cover their heads until they reach puberty? Ignorance also seems not to have prevented them from accusing anyone who says or acts otherwise of "Islamophobia." It is a form of political blackmail used by Muslim extremists against the Western institutions, the values of which they abhor.
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System, Lord Agnew of Oulton, pledged to support the schools that are trying to ban hijabs as well as obligatory fasting: in Islam, young children are not subject to either.
Lord Agnew said that the government should support head teachers in making difficult and "sensitive" decisions in the face of vitriolic opposition. We have yet to see the effects of his statement. Supporting head teachers is one thing, but there is also a dire need to confront these extremists on all levels, including law enforcement, if they try to harass or intimidate anyone.
Someone please needs to back up Lord Agnew: there are only a few such policy-makers left willing to offer rational help during such crises.
Islamists in Britain seem to be intent on establishing regressive requirements, such as the hijab for young girls, wife-beating, halala rituals in divorce, making homosexuality illegal, death for apostates, and the exploitation of women and children through Sharia courts as part and parcel with British culture.
Instead of making statements, the British government needs to take concrete steps to stop the further infiltration of these practices into Britain's social fabric, the warping of children's minds, and the harassment of whoever disagrees with those plans.
That St. Stephen's allowed itself to be blackmailed in this way bodes ill for both Britain and its education system.
*Khadija Khan is a Pakistani journalist and commentator, currently based in Germany.
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