The intelligence cheif of the Hariri family

"Lebanese security chiefs survive by making themselves valuable to many different parties. While Hassan was known for his close ties to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Western-backed anti-Syrian political coalition known as the March 14th movement, he was also skilled at navigating the treacherous terrain between Beirut and Damascus. If in death he has become another totem in March 14th’s macabre pantheon of assassinated public figures, in life he was more complex, a key node within the web of shifting alliances that belie the divisions of Lebanese politics.

Take, for example, the continued whispering about his whereabouts during the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (father of Saad). Explaining his absence from the ill-fated convoy, Hassan told investigators that he had been taking a university exam. Leaked documents from the U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon indicate that prosecutors there entertained suspicions about Hassan’s alibi. Yet Saad Hariri kept him within his inner circle and elevated him to higher positions of power.
Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal that Hassan was deeply distrusted by many of Saad Hariri’s allies, even as he was assailed by political opponents of March 14th for his mysterious dealings in the U.N. investigation and for his role in the government’s crackdown on Fatah al-Islam, a terrorist group that fought a bloody conflict with the Lebanese Army in 2007. Around the same time, his intelligence branch uncovered the tight-knit network that monitored Rafik Hariri just before his death. Relying on sophisticated telecommunications analysis, the Information Branch’s findings were incorporated into the U.N. investigation, eventually leading to the indictment of four individuals connected with Hezbollah."

Invention of news by Saudi media

"The next day, Al-Arabiya recycled the story, but the Saudi news outlet cited Now Lebanon as the source. Interestingly, al-Arabiya lifted nearly word-for-word the Jewish Press’ own background paragraphs about Imad al-Zein’s warrants against Lebanese citizens charged with collaborating with Israel.
The British Independent then referenced the story in an article on the killing of two Palestinian senior fighters by Israeli air strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip. Here, the Independent cited “Arab media” as the source.
Al-Akhbar could not find any online presence for Yoni Alpert or his “Terror Watch.” The earliest reference to Hussein Fahs appears to be a blog post for a website called the Arab Digest on September 13. According to the Arab Digest’s "About Us" page, the site was created and run by a “Middle East reporter who saw in the Arab Spring an opportunity for better coverage of the region away from petrodollar sponsored news outlets.”
The report was immediately denied by both Israel and Hezbollah. And this is what makes stories like this irresistible to editors, and almost impossible to kill: they can never be disproven, and the risk to journalists and their bosses is fairly low as long as they are accurately quoting the other outlets from whom they picked up the story." (thanks Emily)

The Israeli government is shy sometimes

"A spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declined to comment on Sunday evening about whether Israeli intelligence had assisted the Jordanian authorities in the case."

Najib Miqati and the Bin Ladenites

It should be said that the Salafites in Tripoli have been sponsored and financed not only by Hariri (through the Intelligence Branch of Wisam Al-Hasan), but also by Najib Miqati.  Reporters in Lebanon have told me that they have seen homes of people in Tripoli where pictures of Bin Laden and Miqati were displayed side-by-side.

attack on Jabal Muhsin

Whenever Hariri Salafite supporters in Tripoli get angry, they start shelling indiscriminately Jabal Muhsin--the predominantly `Alawite area. 

The Hariri myth

The late Syrian filmmaker, `Umar Amiralay, placed the first brick in the massive propaganda construct of the Hariri cult in his documentary film about Rafiq Hariri. 

The explosion in Beirut

This is a live shot of the Ashrafiyyah explosion (thanks Samah)

Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza

""Many news outlets reported cheers in Gaza when Morsy was announced as president of Egypt. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum had said, “The Egyptian nation did not elect a president just for Egypt, but for Arab and Islamic nations too.” A few months on, there doesn’t seem to be much to celebrate. The border restrictions haven’t been lifted, and Gaza’s “allies” in Egypt destroyed the tunnels that the Gazans depended on for their livelihood — tunnels that had survived the despotic Mubarak years. “I think it’s a mistake that some people expected a lot from the new political regime (in Egypt),” Ghazi Hamad, Hamas’s deputy foreign minister finally said, breaking the Gazan government’s long weeks of silence.

In fact, it was Qatar who moved faster in Gaza than its Brotherhood allies. In the past few weeks, Qatar has opened a diplomatic office in Gaza, announced the financing of over a quarter of a billion dollars of infrastructure in the besieged strip, and announced a visit by its Emir to the strip. By early October, Hamas’s frustration with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood led them to remove a giant poster depicting Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh with Morsy, replacing it with one that read “Thank you, Qatar.”" (thanks "Ibn Rushd")

When an Arab regime seeks more US support for its repression it claims that it has uncovered a dangerous plot

Jordanian regime suddenly uncovers a dangerous plot.

"Murkey" massacre

""Exactly 51 years after one of the murkiest episodes in recent French history, French President François Hollande recognised on Wednesday the "bloody repression" of Algerian protesters by French police that took place in the heart of Paris on October 17, 1961.""

NYT skips the name of Alhurra US TV channel destroyed in Libya

Amir sent me this:  ""In Benghazi in the east, residents reported that hundreds of protesters who were marching in support of Bani Walid destroyed the offices of a television station."

"Several dozen protesters have burst into the office of the Alhurra US TV channel, broadcasting in Arabic, in Benghazi, in the east of Libya, destroyed it and set it on fire."

Hariri, then and now

Basim sent me this:

"As the goons and thugs of March 14 attempted to storm the PM headquarters and continue to rampage throughout Beirut, Saad Hariri issued the following statement:

"We want peace, the government should fall but we want that in a peaceful way. I call on all those who are in the streets to pull back," Hariri told supporters after the attack, speaking on the Future Television channel.

Yet when Hariri peacefully lost his parliamentary majority in early 2011 after Hezbollah pulled out of the governing coalition and thanks to the whims of Walid Jumblatt), March 14 described the transition of power like this:

"As for the coup that Hezbollah is carrying out, it is an attempt to put the office of prime minister under the control of Wilayat al Fakih (Iran's clerical authority)," they said in a statement.

“Forcing a candidacy through intimidation fails to lay the foundations for a Lebanese state and dialogue but rather violates the Constitution and the people’s right and will,” - Okab Sakr

"Me and my allies, we will represent the opposition," [Hariri] said ... "What has happened is virtually a coup d'etat, a political coup d'etat."

Hariri is now calling for the armed, sectarian gangs who want to lynch Mikati to conduct themselves in a "peaceful way" but when he lost his constitutional hold on parliament, it was a "coup d'etat" and cause to unleash his militant thugs yet again in their trademark hooliganism."

Look how the New York Times justifies the massacre in Bani Walid

"A city under siege, a rising death toll and hospitals filling with men wounded by gunfire were unmistakable signs Sunday that war has returned to the Libyan town of Bani Walid, imperiling the country’s fragile political transition.

At least 22 people have been killed in the last week and hundreds more injured in fighting around the city, a one-time bastion of support for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that has shrugged off the new government’s authority.

The violence, rooted in old enmities and nudged by fresh outrages, has pitted militias from a rival town against fighters in Bani Walid, a hilltop city in western Libya where, according to government officials, wanted men have fled.

Residents of the city say that the electric and gas supplies have been cut off and that the militias encircling the town, including many from the coastal city of Misurata, are shelling it indiscriminately. On Saturday, the United Nations representative for Libya warned all sides “to abide by humanitarian principles” and expressed concern at reports of growing civilian casualties resulting from the shelling."

When they protest against a pro-US regime, you call them terrorists

Protesting against the NATO regime in Libya.  And the NATO regime simply calls them Qadhdhafi supporters.  

The doctrine of Barry Obama

"“The president made a decision to side with democratic change,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser..."  Yes, true.  The president made a decision to side with democratic change...except in Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, and (the new) Libya.

When New York Times read Arab public opinion

"More than a decade of public opinion polls have shown that, except for the hope that America might goad Israel toward recognizing a Palestinian state, overwhelming majorities of the populations in every Arab country would prefer a more restrained American foreign policy like Mr. Obama’s. For many, Mr. Romney’s assertion in an address that “there is a longing for American leadership in the Middle East” is not just false but a laugh line."  Yes, Arab public opinion expresses more restraint if not outright retreat of the US from the region, but they hardly call Obama's policies "restraint".

March 14

I never enjoyed March 14 even when they pretended that they were a peaceful civil movement.  So imagine how I feel about them when they are now engaged in violent thuggery all over Lebanon. 

The man who yelled "fire"

The man who yelled fire in Beirut yesterday and instigated the crowd in downtown Beirut is a Hariri TV journalist who graduated from the American propaganda channel, Hurra TV.  Enjoy him.

Muslim coercion

"Another incident of forceful application of personal interpretation took place recently in a classroom in the southern town of Luxor, Egypt. According to a news report, a female school teacher was fired last week for cutting the hair of two 12-year-old girl pupils because they were not wearing the appropriate Islamic headscarves.

She defended her actions by stating that she had asked all her girl pupils “to put on the headscarf, saying it was required for girls older than 10 to do so. Our religious traditions make it obligatory,” she said. “It started as a joke with the girls when I told them I would cut their hair if they don’t wear headscarves. Last Wednesday, one of my boy students reminded me and gave me scissors from his school bag and I used them and cut small amounts of their hair”.

Her action drew immediate condemnation by a leading woman’s organisation who termed it as one of “illegal violations of human rights and the rights of children”. A human rights activist chimed: “Without exaggeration, we feel that many of the hardline Islamists feel empowered by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power to impose their strict views on society.” Many of the country’s top clerics had on previous occasions addressed the issue of head-covering as a matter of personal choice." (thanks Tariq)

Bahraini heroine

"Bahrain human rights defender Maryam Al-Khawaja has pulled out of a UNESCO human rights conference that is honoring her father, political prisoner Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, because the same event is honoring Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Amnesty International considers Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and other Bahrain rights activists held in prison “to be prisoners of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly” and has called for their immediate, unconditional release."

Lies of Al-Arabiyya: a Hezbollah "loyalist"

This will be a regular feature here.  Having exposed the lies and fabrications of Al-Arabiyya (the news station of King Fahd's brother-in-law), I will continue to expose their lies.  Western media carried a story from Al-Arabiyya in English in which a screaming vulgar Lebanese guest threatens a Syrian opposition figure.  The Lebanese guy is identified as "Hizbullah loyalist".   I found out that Mr. Jawad is in fact a supporter of the Hariri movement.  Just yesterday, he appeared on LBC TV and was outed by another March 14 guest as being part of the March 14 movement (the rival movement of Hizbullah).  Here, he writes an article in Now Hariri paying tribute to Sa`d Hariri. 

Scene in Beirut: the "pro-democracy" March 14 coalition

When Hizbullah was in the opposition and its supporters were holding peaceful demonstrations--demonstrations, mind you--the US ambassador in Lebanon and various US officials were outraged.  They would constantly urge people in Lebanon to respect the "democratic process" in Lebanon and they would urge that governments can't be changed by force.  Of course, the picture above was not in Western media.  And I noticed that Hariri and Saudi media took shots of the crowd while making sure that no flags of Al-Qa`idah were allowed in the picture and Western media did the same.

"Vicious anti-Zionism"

"A letter signed by 15 leaders of Christian churches that calls for Congress to reconsider giving aid to Israel because of accusations of human rights violations has outraged Jewish leaders and threatened to derail longstanding efforts to build interfaith relations.  The Christian leaders say their intention was to put the Palestinian plight and the stalled peace negotiations back in the spotlight at a time when all of the attention to Middle East policy seems to be focused on Syria, the Arab Spring and the Iranian nuclear threat.  “We asked Congress to treat Israel like it would any other country,” said the Rev. Gradye Parsons, the top official of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “to make sure our military aid is going to a country espousing the values we would as Americans — that it’s not being used to continually violate the human rights of other people.”  The Jewish leaders responded to the action as a momentous betrayal and announced their withdrawal from a regularly scheduled Jewish-Christian dialogue meeting planned for Monday. In a statement, the Jewish leaders called the letter by the Christian groups “a step too far” and an indication of “the vicious anti-Zionism that has gone virtually unchecked in several of these denominations.”

Bahrain Update

From Angry Arab's Bahrain correspondent:  "I know I haven't written for a while, but this is urgent. The tiny village of Al-Ekr has been under siege since Friday. I have no idea what's going on inside. No one can go in. No one can go out. Goods can't come in. Goods can't come out. Its absolutely ridiculous and what I'm hearing reminds me of what happened in Bahrain in March 2011, except that no one is reporting whats going on. The siege came after a police man was apparently killed in an explosion in Al-Ekr. The thing is that the villagers of Al-Ekr claim that they never heard an explosion, so the entire story is suspect. Either way, there's no excuse for collective punishment. Also when policemen and security forces are allowed to act with impunity, the government should expect that one of them will eventually get killed. Zainab AlKhawaja, Yousif AlMuhafdha and Naji AlFateel (you obviously know who Zainab is but the other two are also human rights activists that work for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) tried to enter the village but were arrested (they were later released). Victoria Nuland is of course only condemning the policeman's death (she didn't bother condemning the twitter arrests that happened a few days before).

You can read more about the siege here: 

By the way, the situation in Bahrain is dismal. Nabeel Rajab is in jail. He'll be there for the next two years. The five remaining doctors had their final appeal a few weeks ago. Their sentences were affirmed and they are now in jail. This was completely unexpected, given the high profile nature of the case. Anyone who is speaking up is being arrested. You posted about the people who were arrested for tweeting against the King. The two former heads of the Bahrain Teachers Association, Mahdi Abu Deeb and Jalila AlSalman (another high profile case) were just sentenced to five years and six months respectively. You can read more about their case here: "

Al-Qa`idah is now an official member of the "pro-Western" March 14 coalition in Lebanon: we have seen this film before--a few times

Hariri militia in Beirut

 
Looking at this picture of Hariri militia men in Beirut reminded me of the various speeches that Jeffrey Feltman used to make about the need for disarming of Hizbullah because--look how innocent he is--only the Lebanese government should possess arms.

Recognizing the obvious

This won't be said in Western media and won't be said in Lebanese media but I will say it:  the armed gangs (Salafite and other thuggish groups) which lashed out today in Lebanon were armed, financed, and sponsored by Wisam Al-Hasan.  They were orphaned and want to seek revenge. 

New York Times account

There is no mention of Al-Qa`idah flags.  There is no mention about the flare up of violence by the pro-Western March 14 thugs around the country.  There is no mention that Wisam Al-Hasan was involved in the conflict in Syria.  There is no mention that Salafites and Lebanese Forces were the main force in the street today.  There is no mention that Saudi Arabia actually runs the Hariri family in Lebanon.  And there is no mention that the American government issued stern warnings in 2005 against any attempt to storm the prime minister's headquarter when Sanyurah was prime minister.

Saudis writing on Twitter

"With so many people writing mostly under their real names".  Not true. The most daring are not using their real names.  I know that because I know their real names.

repression in Saudi Arabia

"Earlier this year, when a young Saudi poet and columnist named Hamza Kashgari wrote three Twitter postings that seemed to criticize the Prophet Muhammad, the Saudi Twittersphere was full of calls for his arrest and prosecution, even as Western liberals urged clemency."  No, no one called for clemency.  Saudi liberals and religious fanatics competed in calling for stiffer punishment.   And who are the Western liberals who championed this case? Which Western liberal spoke on his behalf? Who?

Mujtahid

"a single mysterious person named Mujtahidd. (The word means “studious.”)".  No, here the word is used in the religious sense to mean a person who is striving to provide original religious interpretations.

NATO government in Libya wants more liberation

"" "The campaign to liberate the country has not been fully completed," said Mohammed Megaryef, the head of Libya's democratically elected General National Congress (GNC). Government-aligned militias from the city of Misrata began shelling Bani Walid on Wednesday, enraged over the July abduction and torture of ex-rebel fighter Omran Shaaban, who subsequently died at the hands of his captors in the city.""

Hariri sectarian killers

The Hariri Salafite killers in Tripoli today shot a nine-year old girl.  They thought she was `Alawite because she was coming from Jabal Muhsin but she was half-Sunni and half-`Alawite.

Pro-Western Bin Ladenism

In today's rally in Beirut, the Hariri Bin Ladenite cleric, Usamah Al-Rif`a`i, rebuked the audience for "crying like women."

sectarianism in Turkey

""Approximately 10 million Alevi Muslims live in Turkey. They differ from the Sunni majority in so far as they allow alcohol and do not necessarily fast for Ramadan. They are keen to distance themselves from Syria's Alawites - the minority to to which President Bashar Assad belongs. Even so, the Alevis in Turkey are being targeted by Sunnis since the troubles began in Syria."" (thanks Amir)

Explaining Lebanon

Look, why is no one saying the obvious in Lebanon?   The Intelligence Apparatus of Wisam Al-Hasan (who was killed in the car bomb) was involved in the killings in Syria, just as the Syrian regime is involved in the killings in Lebanon.   How can you write about the story and miss this Syrian extension part?

French foreign minister shows brilliance: Hezbollah involved in Syria because it flew a drone over Israel

"The French foreign minister also said Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is closely allied to Assad's regime, was involved in the Syrian unrest. "Hezbollah is in the Lebanese government and we don't see much of their role," he said. "But their presence in the conflict has been apparent in the past few days, such as the drone which overflew Israel."" (thanks Basim)

Bab Tuma explosion

From Akram: "For the first time ever since the unrest erupted in Syria 19 months ago, a terrorist attack has struck Bab Touma Square in Damascus when a huge blast shook the area at 11 in the morning> The explosion was a result of a bomb implanted under a car that was parking there according to Sana, the state-run news agency that said 13 people were killed and 29 others injured. The sound of the explosion could be heard from hundred meters away and tens of ambulances could be seen leaving the explosion scene to transport the victims to the hospitals, especially the nearby St. Louis hospital which alone received 13 of them. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Bab Touma is one of the main entrances to the Old Town, and located at the intersection of a number of quarters resided mainly by the Christian minority in Syria. In most days, the square witnesses great congestion in this time of the day due to the presence of a number of shops and few public facilities (the police station, customer care center of both electricity and drinking water), a major bus station that attracts a large number of employees heading to their jobs, a number of nearby schools and a café that is usually overcrowded on Sunday morning.

The terrorist attack of Bab Touma comes after a long day that witnessed a fierce fighting with machineguns and heavy weapons in the eastern suburbs of Damascus (Jobar, Ain Tarma, Kabbass) and lasted to the late hours of yesterday evening

Amazingly, days before the attack, the residents of the neighborhood were exchanging rumors about the possibility of the occurrence of such an attack and many refrained from sending their children to schools last Friday"

Saudi Arabia uncovers a plot

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accused The Head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, Ammar al-Hakim, of smuggling the explosives to Qatif city.  The formal Saudi Newspaper (Ukadh) stated "Some weapons and explosives were seized in a truck smuggled to Qatif city in KSA." "Hakim is behind the smuggling of those explosive materials," the News agency added. "We do not need to terrify anyone and do not afraid of anyone, but we are able to protect our territories and sustain its security and will not allow anyone to violate our sovereignty," the Newspaper concluded." (thanks Hassan)

The Asad regime and the sovereginty of Syria

Akram, Angry Arab's correspondent in Syria, sent me this:

"As of now, the two sides agree that their border disputes are ended, and that none of them has any claims or rights accrued in the territory of the other side.

The "two sides" are Turkey and Syria, the "border disputes" concerns the Turkish province of Hatay (known in Syria as Liwa' Iskenderun) annexed by the French mandate to Turkey in 1939 as the price that Syria paid on behalf of France and the allied forces so Turkey takes their side in the Wold War II. And the above statement is the third annex of the secret Adana agreement signed between the Syrian regime and the Republic of Turkey in 1998 as a result of the great tension the relations between the two countries had witnessed then on the background of the Turkish claims that the Syrian regime was hosting and assisting the PKK party.

But this isn't everything. According to the agreement, the Syrian regime had given Turkey the right to take all necessary security measures within 5 km deep into Syrian territory without giving Syria the same right.

If the text is proved to be authentic, it means that:

1. The regime who has oppressed looted the Syrian people since 1970 in the name of its alleged defense of the Syrian sovereignty, has conceded in the name of the Syrian people and without having its approval (represented at least by the ever-sleeping Syrian parliament) a part of the Syrian territory leaving to the coming generations the burden of engaging, from a weak position, a legal contest in order to recuperate its stolen territory
2. Turkey may claim that its latest aggressions against the Syrian territory are legally justified according to the agreement without the Syrian side has the right to present any objection (and this may, partly, explain the silence of the Syrian regime towards the recent Turkish violations of the Syrian sovereignty)

Read the full story here (Arabic) and for non-Arabic readers here is the full text of Adana agreement with annexes in English".

History of this period in Lebanon

As fighting is being reported in Lebanon in different places and as people are being shot, and as citizens are being stopped to check their sectarian affiliations by Hariri thugs, it will be said that Sa`d Hariri triggered this chapter of violence on board of his yacht in the Mediterranean and on behalf of Saudi intelligence.  This is the Saudi Sunni sectarian agitation plan getting out of hand, increasingly.  

Syrian workers in Lebanon: unknown victims

There were Syrian workers among the victims in Lebanon.  No one mentions them in the capital of racism.   Both warring factions in Lebanon don't care about Syrian workers--that is for sure. 

Al-Qa`idah flags in Beirut

Western media habitually describe March 14 as "pro-Western".  So please when you report--if you report--the waving of Al-Qa`idah flags in today's March 14 demonstration today, make sure that you say: pro-Western Al-Qa`idah.  Thanks.

Sunni Syrian opposition

Did people notice that Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi today referred to the Syrian exile opposition as the "Sunni opposition"?  At least he is not making pretenses like the pathetic Western media.

What happened in Lebanon today

If 2005 funeral of Rafiq Hariri triggered a political movement that fooled Western governments and media, you can't say the same about the festival of thuggery today.  Flags of Al-Qa`idah were hoisted along with the flags of Syrian armed groups.  The crowd--or some of it--then got out of control and they tried to violently stormed the headquarters of the Lebanese prime minister.  How would have Western governments and media reacted if the Hizbullah crowd in 2007 were to storm the same headquarters when Fu'ad Sanyurah was prime minister?  I bet that the UN Security Council would have issued a toughly-worded statement and the Arab League would have called for an emergency sectarian gathering.  And the call for storming the headquarters of the prime minister was issued by none other than Nadim Qutaysh (a Hariri TV presenter and former broadcaster of US Hurra propaganda TV--my problem with Qutaysh is not about politics is about his insistence on a new show to mimic Jon Stewart but Qutaysh to wit and humor is what Sa`d Hariri is to brilliance and science).  The melange of Salafites and Lebanese Forces "westernized" mob was quite a show.  This is the real movement of March 14 that Western media does not ever report about.  The Zionists in Washington DC championed March 14 and wittingly or unwittingly served as the midwife of Al-Qa`idah in Lebanon.  It would be fair to say that Al-Qa`idah in Lebanon is the legitimate child of Jeffrey Feltman.  I can't way to see what kind of twist Zionist Western media would put on the developments today.  What is ironic is that Western media were hostile to the peaceful sit-in in downtown Beirut while they will be sympathetic to the violent attempt at storming the building today.  Such are the standards of Western governments and media.  Today, the true nature of the "civil" project of March 14 was exposed for all to see. 

Two car bombs: and two Western reactions

It just occurred to me.  There was a car bomb in Damascus a few months ago that killed a Syrian intelligence chief.  Western media and governments hailed the bombing as a heroic act that killed a villain.  There was a car bomb in Lebanon yesterday against a Lebanese intelligence chief.  Western media and governments denounced the bombing as a heinous terrorist act that killed a good guy.  This shows the extent to which Western media AND governments apply moral standards in evaluating violent acts.  Who are you kidding, really? 

Israel's war of destruction

""Yerachmiel Kahanovich described how he had dug a hole in the wall of the Dahmash Mosque in the center of Lydda, where more than 150 Palestinians had taken shelter, and shot an anti-tank shell through it. Asked what had happened to the Palestinians, he said they were all crushed against the walls by the pressure from the blast.""

This is your "revolution"--not mine

"Anyone who tries to slip out of the Shiite villages of Zahraa and Nubl is risking his life. Sunni rebel snipers stand ready to gun down anyone who dares. Roads are blocked with barricades and checkpoints.

For more than three months, Syria's rebels have imposed a smothering siege on the villages, home to around 35,000 people, maintaining they are a den of pro-regime gunmen responsible for killing and kidnapping Sunnis from nearby towns."

rape at Amhest College

"Amherst has almost 1800 students; last year alone there were a minimum of 10 sexual assaults on campus. In the past 15 years there have been multiple serial rapists, men who raped more than five girls, according to the sexual assault counselor. Rapists are given less punishment than students caught stealing. Survivors are often forced to take time off, while rapists are allowed to stay on campus. If a rapist is about to graduate, their punishment is often that they receive their diploma two years late.
I eventually reported my rapist.
He graduated with honors.
I will not graduate from Amherst." (thanks Devan)

Counting the calories of Palestinians in Gaza

"Ibn Rushd" sent me this:  "when I read your post on calories, it occurred to me that the last regime who counted calories was Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and Ceausescu was, as you might remember, the only eastern european friend of Israel". 

thrown off the plane

"A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: 'Mubarak Hamad, 29, of Belgravia, was charged on October 17th with being drunk on an aircraft and has been bailed to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates Court.' ""

another war in the offing

""President Francois Hollande is pushing hard for military action against al Qaeda-linked militants in northern Mali to quash what he believes is a growing risk of them launching an attack on French soil." "Mali's former colonial ruler fears al Qaeda's north African arm, AQIM, is cementing its base in the West African state, creating a launch pad from which to target French political and economic interests at home and abroad.""

How dare they

""For all the billions of dollars that have been invested over the past decade, parts of Afghanistan remain beyond the reach of Western influence.""

Syrian regime paper

By comrade `Imad Ba`albaki.  The name of the paper is `Abath (a play on the name of Ba`th, which means absurdity and not Ba`th), and the headline reads: Battles and dead and injured in the hundreds and shelling by planes and explosion in Damascus.  

So how is the NATO regime in Libya doing? Let us see the unplicized US view

"While official statistics are often inaccurate and difficult to access, crime levels have significantly increased with the fall of the Qadhafi regime as local militias are demobilized and there remains an absence of effective security and police structures.  Carjackings, robberies, bulgaries, and theft have noticeably increased in Tripoli."  I dont know about you but this sure sounds like a US-style "liberation" to me.   

Beating Syrian workers in Lebanon

"Ibn Rushd" sent me this:  ""Security sources told The Daily Star that the group of young men, who used three motorcycles and a four-wheel drive vehicle to storm the construction site in Wata Mossaitbeh, Beirut, shortly after midnight, beat and stabbed six Syrian workers."
and the irony is that
'The injured, some in serious condition, were taken to Rafik Hariri state hospital for treatment'".

Charles Ayyub

Akram sent me this:  "The assassination of Wissam Al-hassan, the head of the information branch in Lebanon, has been turned into a circus of accusations on TVs launched by the bogus politicians of 14 of March against the Syrian regime while few from the opposite camp pointed their fingers directly to Israel. It was interesting to watch the populist politician Wiam Wahhab describing the strategic relationship between Wissam Al-hassan and the Syrian regime. The Lebanese PM Elie Firzli put the assassination of Al-hassan in the context of the new arrangements between the United-States and Russia, the region will witness in the coming period adding that these arrangements require some powers to suffer some decline of their roles and some figures to disappear from the scene.

This is one of the few times that I find myself in favor with Elie Firzli’s point of views. But I would like to add this: If you really want to know who killed Wissam Al-hassan, Ask Charles Ayoub who paid him for the fierce campaign he is launching against Wissam Al-hassan in his “newspaper”, Al-Dyyar. Something similar happened in the days before the assassination of Rafiq Al-harriri in February 2005 and Charles Ayoub was playing the same role."

Why not?

""Eighty-seven percent of respondents want Egypt to have its own nuclear bomb." "The poll of 812 Egyptians, half of them women, was conducted in a series of in-person interviews by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and sponsored by the Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy organization with offices in Washington and Jerusalem.""

history of torture

""At least two Afghans died under interrogation at Bagram after being chained for several days from the ceiling of their cells while being beaten about the legs. Postmortem examinations showed their injuries were so severe that, had they survived, their legs would have had to be amputated.""

That Dalai Lama

""Speaking at Brown University Wednesday, the Dalai Lama appeared to tell listeners that if they didn’t like his message about living peaceful lives, they could just "f---" it.""

Israeli intelligence officers is an expert on what Hizbullah wants

""Former Israeli intelligence officer Michael Ross tweeted, "Hezbollah has wanted Wissam al-Hassan for a long time. #Syria just gave them the excuse." ""  Can you imagine the Post reporting about the Tweets of a Hizbullah chief on Israeli domestic politics?   (thanks Amir)

Mr. Hasan was studying for his exam

"A few years after Hariri's death in a massive car bomb in 2005, there were reports that Mr Hassan was suspected of involvement.  As Mr Hariri's chief of protocol, he would normally have been in the convoy that was hit by the blast but had taken the day off to take a university exam.  UN investigators were reported in 2010 to have found this alibi unlikely, but Mr Hariri's son Saad said he had always had full confidence in Mr Hassan.   The following year, Mr Hassan was not among those indicted by the UN-backed tribunal. Instead, prosecutors sought the arrest of four members of the pro-Syrian Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah." (thanks Samer)

We do it but how care the criminal Syrian regime do it

"The practice of manufacturing and surreptitiously distributing tampered military equipment that explodes at unexpected times has a long history, but it is not often publicly documented as it happens. The British and German militaries used the tactic in World War II, and the United States developed exploding Kalashnikov ammunition in the 1960s and leaked it to South Vietnamese guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers."  But the story is fully documented:  "as well as an examination of shattered rifles and the contents of a booby-trapped cartridge..." So the correspondent examined the shattered rifles and determined that they were booby-trapped?  (thanks Electronic Ali)

Who analyzes Syria for the New York Times

Look at this long article on Syria for the New York Times.  It takes its clues from recent Economist articles on Syria: they ask right-wing Lebanese supporters of March 14 to offer analysis of the Syrian situation.  This is like asking Iranian analysts to offer analysis on Israeli domestic politics.  But hell: Israelis are often asked to comment on domestic Arab affairs so it should not be surprising. 

Where else would such dumb statement by hosted except in the New York Times

"“Turkey has become the effective leader of the Arab world, even though it’s not Arab.”"

State Department expertise

"STATE could've spared itself the ridicule by saying that the two individuals are hosted in south east Iran and are also supporting (for example) Jundallah elements! via the unremitting 'b':

"... The U.S. Department of State has authorized a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to the location of Iran-based senior facilitator and financier Muhsin al-Fadhli and up to $5 million for information leading to the location of his deputy, Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi....... 
Al-Qaida elements in Iran, led by al-Fadhli, are working to move fighters and money through Turkey to support al-Qaida-affiliated elements in Syria. Al-Fadhli also is leveraging his extensive network of Kuwaiti jihadist donors to send money to Syria via Turkey.
Additionally, he has assisted al-Qaida in moving multiple operatives from Pakistan via Iran and Turkey to destinations in Europe, North Africa, and Syria, and is believed likely to continue moving experienced al-Qaida operatives to reinforce and gain influence in these areas....""

Yair Lapid

Eyal sent me this:  "Lapid, the columnist and TV news anchor and ad presenter for Shari
Arrison's Ha-Poalim bank, recently turned popular politician, said this in a meeting in a suburb of Haifa:
"We must finally be rid of the Palestinians and put a fence between us."   ... "There will not be new Middle East, but there will also not be 3 Million Palestinians in Israeli territory."
Don't see it on the English site yet."

Mr. `Ar`ur, again

When I wrote about `Ar`ur months ago, many wrote to me and said that he had no influence in Syria whatsoever although his name was chanted in demonstrations--that is in the era of demonstrations in Syria.  "The sheikh’s recent return to the rebel-held swathe of northern Syria, where he starred at a rare gathering of commanders from rebel military councils, showed how popular he is among the fighters. Yet it is not just the surge in religiosity among Syrian Sunnis that gives him his cachet. Mr Arour has been a vociferous and effective fund-raiser in the Gulf."

The Economist is trying to convince you that Mr. `Adnan Al-`Ar`ur is a moderate

"A prominent Salafist television preacher, Adnan al-Arour, has condemned Jabhat al-Nusra’s suicide-bombing tactics (see article)."

Anne Barnard just does not know

She has a long piece today about the assassination of Wisam Al-Hasan.  She, of course, only talks to one side.  In her defense, it is not that she is biased--which she is--but she really does not know any better.  She does not know the story and like every new NYT correspondent who lands in Beirut, they receive their contacts and citations from the Hariri press office and their contacts among the Western press corp.  But look at this statement about Rafiq Hariri:  "Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a longtime foe of Mr. Assad’s".  Now, I know that Ms. Barnard has no clue (I mean, she took some Russian in college, for potato's sake and she has no connection to the Middle East story like most of her colleagues who are writing for the Times from the Middle East--I know this because I asked them and they told me), but who on earth would refer to Rafiq Hariri as "longtime foe of Mr. Asad"?  Hariri became prime minister in 1992 and served until 2004 although he briefly (between 1998 and 2000) did not serve as prime minister.  These were the years of Syrian regime domination in Lebanon and if he was a foe why would the Syrian regime which controlled the political system agree to install him as prime minister?  Can you solve that riddle for me, Ms. Barnard.  And then Ms. Barnard cites the wisdom of my childhood classmate, Paul Salem (actually we were not classmates for long because I skipped a grade in elementary school and became a classmate with his brother, Adib) about the work of Mr. Hasan:  "they were doing things that a sovereign state does.”  What are those things, Paul? Like taking marching orders from Saudi intelligence? Like funding and controlling fanatical Islamist groups in Tripoli and beyond? Like operating OUTSIDE the jurisdiction of the Lebanese government?  Like receiving outside funding that does not pass through the Lebanese treasury?  Like serving at the pleasure of a family because of its wealth?  Sovereign state, Paul?  I know that it is the role of intellectuals to prostrate before the powerful forces in Lebanon now especially that the Syrian army is out of Lebanon, but a measure of dignity is in order, if only for a bit of credibility. 

The Decline of the Economist

More than a year after the beginning of the non-revolution Syrian "revolution", the Economist decided to write a piece about the sectarian opposition preacher, `Adnan Al-`Ar`ur.  None of the Western media wrote profiles about this man who operate from the Saudi Salafite channels of hate and discord.  But the correspondent of the Economist could not help herself: she had to be defensive about even `Ar`ur to fit her heroic narrative of the Syrian "revolution":  "And it has been claimed that his blood-curdling video threat to Alawites, who comprise the core of the Assad regime’s support, is often taken out of context, since he directed his meat-grinder rant only at those Alawites who were actively suppressing the revolt; any of them who stayed neutral, he insisted, should be protected as equal citizens."

Sectarianism of Yasin Hajj Salih

Somebody sent me what Yasin Hajj Saleh (the ostensibly secular Syrian intellectual) wrote on his Facebook page today (or yesterday):  "(It is not only probably that the policy of alliance between minorities will lead to an alliance with Israel.  It is inevitable, and it is registered in their genes". 

 "ليس احتمالا أن تقود سياسة تحالف الأقليات إلى التحالف مع إسرائيل. هذا محتم، وهو مدوّن في جيناتها".

I mean, what do you say about such sectarian trashy language?  It seems Mr. `Adnan `Ar`ur is now inspiring the secular intellectuals of the "revolution."

Two Intelligence chiefs: the same fate

So when Asaf Shawkat was killed in a car bomb, the intellectuals of March 14 (in its Lebanese and Syrian branches as they are the same and have the same financial sponsors in Riyadh) were outraged (rightly, I say) that supporters of Hizbullah in Lebanon expressed sympathy and support for the man.  I, of course, said that Shawkat should not be mourned and that he was--like his counterparts in the region--a criminal.  But today, a fellow criminal intelligence chief, Wisam Al-Hasan, is dead and the same intellectuals of March 14 (in its Lebanese and Syrian branches) are weeping on the floor mourning the death of another criminal.   This is an ugly world of Middle East intelligence: the chiefs are criminals and have engaged in crimes and should not be mourned.  I mourn the death of 8 innocent people who were killed by the blast.  That is why I abhor car bombs as a weapon.  But if you make Al-Hasan a hero, it is the same as those supporters of Hizbullah who made Shawkat a hero.  Heroism to the two men is what intelligence, competence, and knowledge are to Sa`d Hariri.

A Lebanese paper: On Friday and then on Saturday

Ad-Diyar is a lousy Lebanese newspaper owned and operated by the vulgar pro-Syrian regime "jouranlist", Charles Ayyub.  He was an intelligence link between Syrian intelligence and Rafiq Hariri.  He admitted publicly that in 2009 he accepted cash payments from Prince Bandar in order to oppose Gen. `Awn (but refused to go after the Syrian regime or Hizbullah).  He has been launching a campaign for weeks against Wisam Al-Hasan: calling him a Mossad agent.  Today, his paper appeared with a headline: "I lost you, O Wissam, I lost you, o martyr of Lebanon."  (The paper to the left--my left).  And he wrote an editorial saying that Al-Hasan was his "best friend" and that he has been attacking him and calling him Mossad agent because he wanted to "revive the friendship" between them.  On Friday, the paper had this headline (to my right):  "Accusation that Wisam Al-Hasan is distributing weapons.  Citizens:  The Intelligence Branch is supporting extremists and fundamentalists".  You can only have contempt for the Lebanese press. 

Bturatij

Wisam Al-Hasan is from a village in Kurah in north Lebanon called Bturatij.  It is an odd non-Arabic sounding word.  It is most likely a corruption of an Aramaic word Bet-tur-taj or Locality of the Mountain Crown or Locality of the Crown of the Mountain.  Or something like that.

Car Bomb in Beirut: Wisam Al-Hasan

My latest blog post for Al-Akhbar English: "Car Bomb in Beirut: Wisam Al-Hasan"

Let Hasan Nasrallah apologize

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar:  "Let Hasan Nasrallah Apologize."

Syrian "revolutionaries" name a battalion after Wisam Al-Hasan

"The Unified Revolutionary Military Council of Damascus and its rural area is honored to name one of its qualitative battalions, which is located in Damascus, after the hero colonel, Wisam Al-Hasan".

"يتشرف المجلس العسكري الثوري الموحد في دمشق وريفها بإطلاق إسم العميد البطل وسام الحسن على إحدى كتائبه النوعية "المتمركزة في العاصمة دمشق... من دمشق الياسمين لروحك السلام يا وسام

Flash: Wisam Hasan targeted in Beirut explosion

Update: he is dead.  It has been confirmed that Hariri security chief (and coordinator of Saudi intelligence work in Lebanon), Wisam Al-Hasan has been targeted in Beirut explosion.  A reporter on the scene reports that Hasan has been seriously injured.  Al-Hasan has been tasked with Saudi intelligence of facilitating arming and funding of Free Syrian Army from Lebanon.  His name has been linked with the ship, Lutfallah II, which was intercepted as it carried arms to Syrian rebels in Lebanon.  This former bodyguard of Rafiq Hariri quickly rose in rank and became the head of a predominantly Sunni security apparatus (Shu`bat Al-Ma`lumat, or Intelligence Branch) which has received tens of millions in US covert funding.  Hasan was first suspected in the Hariri assassination because he was absent that day and because he had long-standing ties with Syrian intelligence.  He told the Hariri investigators that he was studying for an exam that day.

PS Western media will NOT report another angle to the story: that Hasan's Intelligence branch has been responsible for catching scores of Israeli spies and terrorists in Lebanon.

PPS  This is the third assassination (or attempt) to target chiefs of the Intelligence Branch.

Zionist embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood

My latest blog post for Al-Akhbar English on Zionist embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Qatif: before the spread of the rule of House of Saud

A Saudi reader sent me this.  Qatif in the past.

US contractors in Afghanistan

"Cellphone video recorded earlier this year at an operations center of a U.S. defense contractor in Kabul, Afghanistan appears to show key personnel staggeringly drunk or high on narcotics," "The whistleblowers say that the drunken and stoned security personnel would often throw live ammunition rounds and fire extinguishers into the flames and watch as they exploded, often sounding like a real bomb explosion.""

Salafists destroyed 8000-year-old petroglyph in Morocco

""An 8,000-year-old rock engraving depicting the Sun as a divinity has been destroyed in the south of Morocco, local residents said, blaming Salafists seeking to impose their fundamentalist view of Islam.""

Correction

My post in Arabic on Twitter and Facebook to the effect that the racist, sectarian, homophobic, and misogynist Lebanese TV station, MTV, has announced that a "man with Shi`ite features" was spotted at the scene before the explosion was purely ironic.  It is not true.  Please inform the Lebanese sites that reproduced my comment. 

but they still need to toss explosives in slingshots

""The Syrian rebels now have access to a significant amount of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, some supplied from Libya.""

They want mo Saudi money

"“War is good for us,” he says of the community of smugglers that regularly transit the nearby border. “We buy antiquities cheap, and then sell weapons expensively.” That business, he says, is about to get better. Fighters allied with the Free Syrian Army units battling the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad have told him that they are developing an association of diggers dedicated to finding antiquities in order to fund the revolution. “The rebels need weapons, and antiquities are an easy way to buy them,” says Abu Khaled, who goes by his nickname in order to protect his identity". (thanks Khodor)

Meet the Syrian revolutionaries

"In Aleppo, I heard Salafi jihadists talk of slaying the minority Alawites, and call for both the immediate support of America, and its immediate demise. These extremist groups are getting weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar already; they are not groups that the West would choose to arm."

FSA gangs

"Anyone who tries to slip out of the Shiite villages of Zahraa and Nubl is risking his life. Sunni rebel snipers stand ready to gun down anyone who dares. Roads are blocked with barricades and checkpoints. For more than three months, Syria's rebels have imposed a smothering siege on the villages, home to around 35,000 people, maintaining they are a den of pro-regime gunmen responsible for killing and kidnapping Sunnis from nearby towns." (thanks Basim)

portraying Palestinians

""Nurit Peled of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has studied Israeli textbooks covering history, geography and civics, says that in the books she has looked at Palestinians, when they appear at all, are depicted as refugees, farmers or terrorists—never as doctors or engineers, or any other sort of professional."" (thanks Amir)

Palestinians in Lebanon

""From the moment they arrive at the border with Lebanon, Palestinians are treated worse than Syrians. They have to buy a transit visa for $17, valid for just 15 days. If they want to stay on legally they must apply for a non-renewable one-month visa for another $33. They are generally denied the right to work in Lebanon. Conditions in the camps to which they are confined are bad.""

religious jobs in Saudi Arabia

 A Saudi researcher indicated that "the number of religious jobs or those that are under the authority of clerics in the official establishment [in Saudi Arabia] is more than quarter of a million jobs, or 25% of all government jobs in 2008, and that the Awqaf Ministry appointed 140000 callers to prayer (mu'azzins) and Imams as full-time employees in 2010, and the number of mosques has reached 72,000 and the Office of Commanding Good and Discouraging Evil runs some 470 offices around the country, and they are staffed by 4400 employees.".

"Twelve-year-old arrested 10 times by Israel in three years"

"In an unwavering voice, Muslim Odeh recounted how Israeli riot police took him from his bed earlier this week, blindfolded him, subjected him to hours of intense interrogation and held him overnight in a Jerusalem prison compound.  Odeh vomited after Israeli police punched him four times in the stomach on his way to his prison cell. Odeh’s calm demeanor, only days after his ordeal, was evidence of how this was his tenth arrest in three years.  More shocking, however, is the fact that this resident of Silwan in East Jerusalem is only 12-years-old. “I miss my house,” Odeh told The Electronic Intifada, as he stared longingly from the balcony of his uncle’s home — where he is under house arrest until next Wednesday, 24 October — onto his family’s house below.  “I don’t feel comfortable. I miss my friends, my grandmother, my mother,” he said. “I don’t know if they will arrest me again.”"

If Muslims did that: how Western liberals find Israeli misogyny to be cute

""Woman jailed for praying aloud at Western Wall barred from holy site for 30 days "". (thanks Raed)

Beirut explosion

I don't know who committed the crime in Beirut today but the two sides in the region (the Syrian regime and its followers and the Saudi regime and its followers) are capable of such heinous crimes.  But I do believe that Sa`d (mini) Hariri bears the most responsibility: this idiot--literally--thinks that he can enter the game of regime changes in the region and can strike alliances with Jihadi groups to please his masters at Saudi intelligence at no cost to Lebanon.

A Message to America from Syria

The slogan of this Friday in Syria (yes, Turkish-Saudi-Qatari-sponsored Syrian opposition claims that there are still demonstration in Syria on Fridays) is: "Have your vincitiveness, America, not had enough for our bloods?".  I thought I should tell knowing that the Beirut correspondents of Western media would not report that as their Arabic-speaking stringers would not tell them.

Decline of Al-Jazeera II

Shortly after posting on the decline of Al-Jazeerah yesterday (and the post dealt only with the decline of Aljazeera net in terms of figures and ranking on Alexa), I received a phone call from an inside source at Aljazeera who does not wish to be identified for obvious reasons.  He confirmed my general impression and my posts and told me that an inside survey (unpublished) by Aljazeera that was conducted some 6 months ago revealed a decline in viewership by 37% (he said that this was part of a study commissioned to a British firm).  He said that the departure of Waddah Khanfar made a difference in staffing: that the Hamas folks who were hired by Waddah were all removed and that the news staff all belong to Al-Ikhwan.  He tells me that the Tunisia office is now run and staffed practically by An-Nahdah party, and that the Cairo office is staffed by Ikhwan, like the office in Turkey.  He said that the recent hire for the Beirut office was someone who fought with an Islamist gang in Aleppo.  Ahmad Zaydan of the Pakistan office is a well-known Bin Ladenite, he confirmed to me.  As for the new director of Al-Jazeera (who replaced Waddah), he said that he has no knowledge or even interest in news, that he is basically a financial manager.  There is, he added, a campaign to replace the non-Qatari staff with Qataris.  He said that there is a big problem of morale at the network but that people don't want to quit and look for jobs.  Some, he said, hoped to join the Arabic Skynews but that its political leanings and reputation are problematic.  He told me (as I have known) that the Emir himself runs the network and gives the marching orders.  People at the network only follow orders.  The orders, he said, is obsessive about Syria hoping that the network would bring down the Syrian regime.  He said that there are no secular Arab nationalists at the network left anymore.  He also told me about organization chaos: that each branch of Aljazeera hires a Western firm to advise on development and feasibility and that millions are squandered in that regard.  He added that the folks at Al-Jazeerah are fully aware of the decline in viewership but feel that there is nothing that they can do because the orders are all-Syria, all the time, to the exclusion of other stories and to the disregard of the professional standards.  He said that those who worry about there careers and who want to be promoted feel that they can only please their superiors and please the Emir by offering more propaganda services on the Syrian question.  Once there was a decent professional network called Al-Jazeera. 

Another Al-Arabiyya exclusive

Al-Arabiyya (the news station of King Fahd's brother-in-law which is now dubbed the Arabic National Inquirer) "reports" another exclusive: it says that "Western diplomatic sources" have informed it that Bashshar changes his bodyguards regularly and even relies on Iranian Revolutionary Guards. 

HE did not say what was reported

Norman Finkelstein disagreed with my citation of a talk he gave.  He does not believe that it does justice to his presentation.  I will link to the talk and let people judge.