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."
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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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 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)
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
attack on Jabal Muhsin
Whenever Hariri Salafite supporters in Tripoli get angry, they start shelling indiscriminately Jabal Muhsin--the predominantly `Alawite area.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
The explosion in Beirut
This is a live shot of the Ashrafiyyah explosion (thanks Samah)
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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")
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
"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.""
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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:
"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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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".
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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.
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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)
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad
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."
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."
Posted on October 22, 2012 by As'ad