Category Archives: Lebanon

Hezbollah, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Mission Impossible in Lebanon: Hariri Returns to Confront his Former Wahhabi Allies and Hezbollah………

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“Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri did not return to Lebanon empty-handed the way he left it three years and four months ago. After having spent his time roaming between the hotels of Europe and castles of Saudi Arabia, he crowned his return to Lebanon with a Saudi grant to the Lebanese army and security forces. Backed by the decision of King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, Hariri is here to spend $1 billion in support of the Lebanese Army in its fight against terrorism. He is also set to “lead the Sunni moderate movement,” as he said at a March 14 meeting yesterday, and as Future Movement officials constantly reiterate. Many questions surround the circumstances of Hariri’s return, while the answers may start in Mosul but not end in Ersal. “Hariri is back and this is final. He may travel abroad to visit someone, but he is back in Lebanon,” a source close to Hariri told Al-Akhbar, while Future Movement officials insist that he returned to lead “Sunni moderation” and [oversee] the spending of the Saudi grant……………”

A tough task entrusted by the Al Saud princes to their man in Beirut. Reset the “Sunni” movement by re-configuring relations with the Wahhabi takfiri terrorist groups that the Hariri alliance had encouraged and aided only a couple of years ago in both Lebanon and Syria. The one billion dollars in Saudi aid is read by some as a reduction of an earlier Saudi commitment which promised $3 billion of arms to be bought specifically from France. (But perhaps that French weapons deal was offered by the Saudis when they were trying to get France to help their side in the Syrian war). Others have added this new billion to that earlier three billion and talked about $4 billion total Saudi military aid. Apparently so far none of it has materialized, as far as I know.

The other task entrusted to Hariri, a task that is the main Saudi obsession, is even tougher, nay hopeless. Recent years have not been kind to the pro-Saudi March 14 bloc, and Mr. Hariri is now tasked with resuming the “fight” against Hezbollah in its own territory. The Saudis have been trying for years to stem the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon through the use of the only weapons at their disposal: oil money and Western sanctions. But facts on the ground, Lebanese political alliances, and population demographic trends have been moving against them. Apparently petro-money is not enough to get a majority of Lebanese to discover the joys of an alliance with Wahhabism.

Even the last elections of 2009, when the infusion of a lot of money managed to get a temporary majority in parliament for the Saudi-allied March 14 Movement (Hariri, Falange, etc), did not turn out as expected. The voters still awarded March 8 (Hezbollah and its Christian allies) a majority of the popular vote (about 54%). Given that political reality, it did not take long for Mr. Hariri to be forced out of power.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Lebanon, Uncategorized

Lebanon-Syria: A Confusion of Alleged Gunfights at O.K. Arsal………..

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Jihadist terrorist militias have been flooding into Arsal (in the Bekaa region of Lebanon) from Syria. ISIS and Al Nusra, the two baddest Wahhabi Jihadi militias have controlled much of the town. Recent developments, allegedly:

  • ISIS attacks Lebanese army around Arsal.
  • Lebanese army fights ISIS at Arsal.
  • ISIS and Al Nusra have engaged Lebanese army forces, killing several resulted. Both Wahhabi militias have taken hostages.
  • Chief (Emir) of ISIS in Arsal (apparently a Palestinian) was killed in the fighting, which pissed off his followers.
  • Lebanese media report more kidnappings, and executions by the Jihadis in Arsal.
  • Jihadi militias fire at entrance of Arsal, preventing people and the wounded from leaving.
  • ISIS refuse to withdraw from Arsal.
  • ISIS fires other militias trying to withdraw from Arsal (al Nusra, Green Brigade, Qalamoun Freedom).
  • Iran official: we condemn movements by terrorist militias at Arsal.
  • Al Nusra Front and ISIS fight at Arsal.
  • Al Nusra pulls back, ISIS keeps firing at them.
  • Hezbollah: security and protection of Lebanese citizens at Arsal is the job of the army.
  • Saudi network Alarabiya claims that Hezbollah shells ISIS at Arsal.
  • A truce is reached through intermediation between the Lebanese Army and ISIS. ISIS breaks the truce. Fighting resumes.
  • Saudi king donates US$ 1 billion to the Lebanese Army (no, not out of his personal pocket). He presents this (very) publicly to Saad Al Hariri, his man in Lebanon (his man in Paris). But how is Hariri going to carry $1 bn all the way to Beirut? Maybe it will go straight to Paris.
  • French media gets excited about this new Saudi gift, it is not clear why.
  • More alleged news from Arsal on the way. Stay tuned.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Elections, Arab Revolutions, Lebanon, Syria

Syrian Shock and Awe? Al Assad’s Political Base Extends to Lebanon and Jordan and……

      

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                                 Syrian refugees voting in Lebanon

Lebanese politicians of the right-wing pro-Saudi March 14 Movement and their media are apparently shocked and also pissed at the Syrian refugees in their country. They are probably also secretly awed but are afraid to say so. What they saw in Beirut, with tens of thousands of Syrian refugees lining up for hours outside their embassy to vote in the presidential election, shocked and embarrassed these pro-Jihadist Lebanese. All these refugees turning out to vote for Assad, the man under whose rule Syria has disintegrated, when the opposition urged them to boycott the election! While in Cairo the everlasting Mubarak bureaucrats allegedly had to scrap the bottom of the barrel to get voters for Generailsimo Sisi’s 90+ percent “victory”.

The process was speculated about by the BBC as a possible demonstration of popular support for Al Assad, and by his presumed ‘victims’. Quite a shot at the rebel and Saudi narrative that most Syrians oppose Al Assad (many do oppose him but it is arguable how many). 

In fact I have often written here in the past that the Syrians are divided and it is hard to tell how they would line up. The way the war has been going, many of these refugees may be hoping for the regime to win just so that they can go home and put their shattered lives back together. Clearly, leaving the country means just getting out of the war zone and may not reflect political preferences. Some of the shocked and pissed (and secretly awed) Lebanese of the March 14 bloc are suggesting a typical ‘Arab solution’: they are calling for all pro-Assad refugees to be expelled from Lebanon. Humanitarian help to be based only on one’s politics: can’t get more humanitarian that that. 

Meanwhile media report that in Europe (and in some Arab countries) Syrians were not allowed to vote. Only Egyptians (and Ukrainians) were allowed to vote in their own funny elections.

Cheers
mhg

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GCC, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, MENA, Sectarian

Qassem Suleimani: Plotter with Morsi, Drug Smuggler to GCC, Election Manager in Iraq …….

      

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According to the Kuwait daily Al Qabas Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani has been a master at multitasking over the past few years. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief of the Quds Force is reported everywhere from Basrah to Damascus to Cairo. He is quoted extensively in Gulf and Western media, although he has never talked to any of them:

  • Last year when the Muslim Brotherhood were ruling Egypt the newspaper claimed that they sought help from Iran’s Brigadier Suleimani. Morsi was president in Egypt at the time and Al Qabas claimed in a bizarre story that Qassem Suleimani had met a senior Egyptian (Muslim Brotherhood) leader at a famous Cairo hotel. It did not claim they met at a hotel bar over drinks. But where else? 
  • Now we all know Morsi was as sectarian as anyone else in Cairo, as sectarian as any of his former Salafi allies who betrayed him last July. No doubt the purpose of the leak was to discredit the local Muslim Brotherhood (both Kuwaiti and Gulf) and perhaps influence events in Egypt. 
  • Now the same newspaper, which represents the interests of traditional business oligarchs in Kuwait, has a new gem which it claims is based on Saudi and Gulf intelligence sources (as suspect in my book as Iranian and Syrian and Israeli or any other intelligence when it comes to disinformation). Mr. Suleimani is also in the illegal drug business.
  • They report that Qassem Suleimani is now also in charge of a network that prepares and smuggles drugs into the Persian Gulf states. The daily claims that the ‘raw drugs’ are originally shipped through Iraq (according to Saudi and Gulf GCC intelligence agencies) to Syria and Lebanon where they are processed (not clear where the raw materials come from into Iran). Then the final products are presumably shipped from Lebanon all the way to Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port on the Gulf. A hell of a long way to ship drugs, several thousand kilometers through the Suez Canal (or maybe the longer route around Africa?). Why not process the drugs in Iran, or even Iraq, instead of shipping them all the way to Lebanon to be shipped back to the Gulf by sea? Somebody is very stupid here, either the Iranians or the writer for Al Qabas. I pick the Al Qabas writer for the prize.
  • Al Qabas also claims that Suleimani runs the drug operation from Southern Iraq, where he is also managing a campaign to get another term for Nouri Al Maliki as prime minister of Iraq. Imagine that.
  • Now that is true multitasking. Notice how all the countries involved are the “usual suspects”: all either Shi’a majority or plurality or members of a certain camp? I mean Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria?That must be a coincidence, no? 
  • Al Qabas did not say, however, that Qassem Suleimani is also in charge of the Iranian nuclear program and operates execution squads, as well as the Amsterdam Red Light District and the Mexican Drug Cartels (all based on Saudi and Gulf intelligence source). Not yet. But maybe some Saudi prince would hire him to run their family campaign to become king after their next election.
  • All this can be true, of course. Anything is possible these days and not only on paper. But I am not buying it.


Cheers
mhg

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censorship, Lebanon, Media

STL Censorship: a Political Court Charges Media with Contempt………

      

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“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) tasked with trying those charged with assassinating Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005 said Thursday it had summoned two editors and two media organizations for contempt. “Karma Mohamed Tahsin al Khayat from al-Jadeed TV, as well as the station’s parent company New TV S.A.L., have been summoned to appear before the STL on two counts of Contempt and Obstruction of Justice,” the Tribunal said in a statement posted on its official website………….”

This Hariri (STL) court is now trying to muzzle Lebanese media that oppose it and report its credibility issues. It is a court that has been around for many years, and has been clearly suspect as a political instrument of foreign policy, and occasionally as a political instrument in internal Lebanese feuds. It is seen by most Arabs as a convenient sword to be waved over Lebanon whenever it is convenient. Just the leaks about its suspects have changed over the years according to Middle East political winds: Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, back to Syria, then several combinations of these ‘usual suspects’. Now it is getting in the business of muzzling the press (whatever you think of the press in question).
Does the STL have the power and jurisdiction to silence its opponents and detractors in Lebanon and other places? Can they call citizens of any country to punish them? Apparently its judicial bureaucrats seem to think so.

Arab Revolutions, Hezbollah, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria

New Sectarian Kids in Town: From Iraq Through Syria and Lebanon………

      

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“The newest inhabitants of the world’s biggest cemetery were killed not here in Iraq but in Syria, where they fought under the green flag of the Middle East’s most potent new Shia Islamic political force, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous). The militia has been busy readying for the afterlife, buying up more than 2,500 square metres of burial plots and erecting shrines for its fallen. And in Baghdad, nearly 100 miles north, the group has been more occupied with the here and now, imposing its influence on Iraq’s fractured political scene and steadily asserting its will throughout the city’s Shia heartland suburbs. Since the American military left Iraq in December 2011, and within two months of the first national election since then, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq has quietly emerged as one of the most powerful players in the country’s political and public life. Through a mix of strategic diplomacy, aggressive military operations and intimidation – signature methods of its main patron, the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani – the group is now increasingly calling the shots in two countries………………..”

This sounds ominous, this fundamentalist group’s entry complicates thing (religious militias always complicate things they touch, adding one more point of contention). Yet something like it has been predicted for almost three years. Once the Syrian uprising, which had legitimate demands in 2011, became a mainly sectarian enterprise as a Saudi-Qatari proxy war. 

All this might be one factor behind the ratcheting up of Salafi terrorist attacks in Iraq and their recent expansion into Lebanon. It is partly an attempt by their patrons and financiers to try and reset things in both countries and see if something works in either country. A Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad has always been treated in some Arab capitals, especially among the potentates of the Persian Gulf and their Salafi allies, as a ‘loss of Iraq’. As if that country has changed its skin and become something else. It takes a lot of petro-money to run a sustained terrorist enterprise of kind that has been murdering Iraqis. That might explain why a frustrated prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki openly accused both Saudi Arabia and Qatar of fomenting and supporting terrorism. 



The other angle is to try and get Hezbollah to pull its forces of Syria. Presumably the idea is that Lebanese deaths from terrorism will create popular pressures on Hezbollah to pull out. The ideal goal is to shift the allegiance of most Lebanese Shi’as away and toward ‘other’ politicians. But that is now as likely as pigs being declared halal and kosher and starting to fly. Those ‘other’ politicians are either discredited remnants (feloul) of past Shi’a feudal lords of the South or some known flunkies (a few politicians and clerics) in the pay of the Al Saud princes.

Of course all this can shift again if only Hassan Nasrallah takes down the picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that is probably hanging in his office and replaces it with a picture of the Saudi king.

Cheers
mhg

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Lebanon, Libya, MENA, US Foreign Policy

Ronald Reagan and Obama: Reckless in Beirut, Cautious in Benghazi………

      

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Writing on the Lebanese adventures of Ariel Sharon and the American forces in Beirut and the bombing of the U.S. Marines and French barracks and the embassy in 1983 has reminded me of a more recent event. Three major bombings in Beirut in 1983 killed tens of U.S. diplomats and CIA agents as well as hundreds of U.S. Marines and French soldiers.
Which begs a comparison with the more recent ‘event’ in Benghazi, Libya. The recent battle cry (one of them) of the Republican Party has been: “Benghazi, Benghazi!” Four good men died in Benghazi. Yet in 1983, hundreds of Marines and tens of diplomats and spooks were killed in Beirut. The Marines died because the Reagan administration recklessly inserted them in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, placing their barracks right among the warring confessional and sectarian militias and hereditary warlords of Lebanon.
So, Mr. Obama hears this squawk of: “Benghazi, Benghazi….. Four good men died in Benghazi!” to contend with. Did Mr. Reagan have to face squawks of: “Beirut, Beirut…….Hundreds of good men and women died in Beirut!”?

Cheers
mhg

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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

Ariel Sharon and the Liberation of Lebanon……..

      

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“Israeli leaders seemed like moths irresistibly attracted to the fires of Lebanon” Me

Ariel Sharon was probably more hated by Arabs than any other Israeli, until Benyamin Netanyahu showed up and took that crown. Sharon did his fighting mostly on the ground: in the battlefield and in occupied Arab territory from Gaza to the West Bank to Lebanon to the African bank of the Suez Canal in October 1973. Netanyahu has ‘personal’ baggage that Sharon did not have. He is also no military commander: he prefers to jaw-jaw the United States into war on his behalf. He does much of his fighting in front of a microphone, in the halls of the U.S. Knesset Congress, and especially within the halls of the powerful AIPAC.


In 1982 Israeli forces led by Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon, swept across the border, reaching the outskirts of Beirut right in the middle of the Lebanese Civil War. Maybe they were given the impression that they were liberating Lebanon and that they would be met with flowers. They were in fact met with the equivalent of flowers, but only by the Gemayyel’s Phalange fascist militia and some other warlords now allied with the Hariri March 14 bloc. One of their goals was to break and expel the PLO from southern Lebanon, and that they did. That invasion, at least the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon at the time, lasted many years. The PLO was expelled, but the Israelis probably regret that by now, seeing what replaced them. The expulsion of Palestinian security left the refugee camps open and vulnerable. Israeli forces had surrounded the camps (Sabra and Shatila) but allowed their local allies among Lebanese fascist militias to enter them and exact their revenge. Thousands of unprotected Palestinian civilians were massacred, after being subjected to other atrocities.
After that the Reagan administration and France managed to blunder into the Lebanese civil war, establishing vulnerable military bases in the middle of the warring factions. A classic blunder and the tragic consequences for French and U.S. forces are well recorded. The shaken Western forces pulled out quickly. The Israelis had also pulled back to the border region and decided to remain inside Lebanon, within reach of their local ‘allies’ who ironically were inspired by European Fascists and Nazis and hence inherently anti-Semitic.

The PLO departed for Tunisia, but in its place emerged a new indigenous organization called the Party of God, Hezbollah. The war and economics had pushed many repressed Lebanese Shi’as away from the border region, north to Beirut and its suburbs. That movement and the aftermath of the invasion and occupation of the South in 1982 weakened the political influence of the traditional Shi’a political “bosses” who were like other quasi-feudal Lebanese political warlords. Hezbollah, and Amal (Hope) movement before it, quickly attracted Shi’a loyalty as the Israelis seemed set to remain in the country. The guerrilla war against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and against its Lebanese surrogates of the so-called South Lebanon Army lasted about 18 years, until Hezbollah guerrillas forced them out in the year 2000. Over the years of war Lebanon lost several politicians including at least two presidents of the republic to car bombs. The victims also included many honest citizens.
 
When it came to Lebanon, Sharon was no different from other Israeli leaders who followed him. I posted once that Israeli leaders seemed like moths irresistibly attracted to the fires of Lebanon. They keep getting burned by it but they come back for more. They are still making incursions, flying sorties, and bombings in Lebanese territory, and against UN resolutions which seem to only apply to Arabs and Muslims.

Sharon failed in his quest to liberate Lebanon from its future, to preserve it for the right-wing hereditary warlords. That impossible task has now been handed over to Saudi intelligence and Saudi money and the politicized and widely discredited STL Lebanon Tribunal. Going against the tide of the future, the writing on the wall in Lebanon, it will also fail.
Cheers
mhg

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Culture, Europe, Lebanon

A Nordic Mystery: Stormy Seas, Animal Mutilations, Mutilated Lebanese Cows………

      

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“Fourteen dead cows that washed up on the beaches of Denmark and Sweden were probably dumped overboard by the crew of a Lebanese ship after it encountered bad weather, Danish police said Friday. “The police suspects that (the source is) a Lebanese ship that was transporting live cattle from a US port to Europe,” the South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police said in a statement. “The ship ran into a storm in the Bay of Biscay, in which a number of cows died,” it added. The ship’s management may be prosecuted since dumping dead animals in the Baltic Sea is prohibited, it said. The puzzling appearance of nine cows on the beaches of south Sweden and five in Denmark has stunned the public, especially after it was revealed that some of them had been shot and had their ears mutilated…………….”

I am not touching this one, just linking to it. It might be cultural, a WTF. You figure it out.

Cheers
mhg

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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Mossad

Israeli Mossad and Collaborators Assassinate Top Hezbollah Military Techie………

      

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                                 Video:
A Kenny G Holiday

“Israeli intelligence has assassinated Hassan al-Laqqis. A deadly breach has taken out one of the leading minds of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon. The executioners snuck under cover of darkness and struck a blow to Hezbollah deep inside its stronghold. The five bullets did not penetrate the head of Hassan al-Laqqis alone but also the heart of the Resistance itself. The assailants followed Laqqis, snuck in, and struck down the head of Hezbollah’s air defense division, and one of the Resistance’s most important “electronic minds.” The perpetrators fired five shots – one of which missed – killing Laqqis after several botched assassination attempts in the past. There is no doubt that this is a Mossad operation, no matter who carried it out directly – whether takfiri groups or collaborators…………..”

Once upon a time, Arab regimes and Arab media blamed Israel for almost every political assassination and sabotage. Even for many of the killings that were perpetrated by other Arabs. Take the Sabra-Shatilla refugee camp massacre of 1982 (somewhere between 750 to 2,000 unprotected unarmed Palestinian civilians were murdered). It is true that Israeli occupation forces stood by and let “the Lebanese” killers into the camps, but those who shot, stabbed, and raped the unarmed refugees were Lebanese. The killers are now mainly part of the March 14 pro-Saudi political bloc led by Saad Hariri and the Gemayyel clan and others. Yet for decades Arab media mostly blamed the Israelis without pointing the finger at the actual killers.
That day is past, gone. Most official Arabs now blame other Arabs (of other sects or other parties) and occasionally they blame Iran. Even if Israel is the guilty party. In this case Israel is almost certainly the guilty party, perhaps along with some Lebanese collaborators, who can be from the March 14 and their Salafi allies or just paid agents.

Cheers
mhg

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