Another ticking bomb for Assad: Hariri

The Lebanese capital was not the only the first stop for a delegation of the UN-backed Special Tribal for Lebanon investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Thursday, June 30, the group arrived in Beirut and presented four arrest warrants against top Hizballah officers. Its next destination may be Damascus for the submission of a second batch of warrants against Syrian officials suspected of controlling the Hizballah hit-team in the commission of the murder.

The Lebanese authorities were given 30 days to execute the arrest warrants. Hizballah has offered no response to the indictments but security has been reinforced on the streets of Beirut.

The three wanted Hizballah operatives have been named as Sami Issa and Salim Ayyash, top officers of Hizballah's security apparatus and close associates of the organization's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, and Mustafa Badreddine, a relative of its late commander, Imad Moughniyeh who died in a bombing attack in Damascus. The fourth is unknown.

Counter-terror sources report the Syrian officials most often mentioned as wanted by the tribunal are Gen. Asif Showqat, brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad, former chief of Syrian military intelligence and currently Syrian chief of staff; and Rostom Ghazale, the Syrian strongman behind the Lebanese government at the time of the murder. Today, he is Assad's personal arm in suppressing the uprising against his regime in southern and eastern Syria.

For six years, Lebanon has limped from one political crisis to another under the polarizing shadow cast by the assassination of Lebanon's leading Sunni politician, Rafiq Hariri along with 23 other victims.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established to probe the crime and establish guilt, so closing the books on an assassination whose repercussions spread far and wide up until the present day. The court's investigations have been fought every step of the way by Hizballah, Syria and Iran.

The pro-Western government led by his son, Saad Hariri was overthrown last January after he refused to renounce the court. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then stepped in on behalf of the Shiite Hizballah, Tehran's proxy. He ruled any STL indictment "null and void" as the work of a tool of the West and Israel for discrediting Hizballah and breaking up the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah alliance.

Tehran and Damascus then joined hands to replace the Hariri government with a puppet regime headed by Hizballah's nominee Najib Miqati. After six months of wrangling, he managed earlier this month to form a "unity" government which put Hizballah and its Iranian and Syrian backers firmly in the saddle.

Saad Hariri opted to stay in opposition.

After the tribunal's sealed indictment was submitted Thursday to Lebanon's prosecutor general, Miqati gave a news conference in which he clearly played for time to avoid obeying the arrest warrants and extraditing the four Hizballah suspects to Holland.
There was no final word yet on who killed the former prime minister, Miqati declared: "The indictments are not verdicts," he said, and all suspects are innocent until proved guilty.

However a great deal of water has passed under Middle East bridges since Miqati was picked for the task of invalidating the international tribunal. Today, the "Arab Spring" is venting its fury in Syria, leaving Tehran's closest ally, Bashar Assad, hanging onto power by a thread in his own country.

Amid the storm of protest against his regime, the Syrian ruler may decide to bar the STL team's entry to Damascus and so dodge an indictment inculpating his henchmen as the prime movers in the Hariri murder, a step that would reduce Hizballah to the role of accessories.

The impact of this turn of events on Assad's already shaky regime would be explosive, say  Middle East and military sources - on a par with the Hariri assassination's destabilizing effect on Lebanon in the past six years.

If, as expected, Damascus and Beirut flout the tribunal's indictments and refuse to extradite the suspects and witnesses named therein, they will lay themselves open to the court's application to the UN Security Council for sanctions against both their governments to enforce their compliance.

Neither Russia nor China will have grounds for voting against such motions without appearing to support state-sponsored terrorism and political assassination.

Therefore, if Assad is not toppled by his own people, he and his close family and helpers may find themselves in the dock on both those charges. One way or another, he appears to be heading to join the list of Arab rulers targeted by the US and Europe for removal.

DEBKAfile

Related articles

• Hariri indictments unleash sabotage accusations (ctv.ca)
• UN court issues indictment in Hariri assassination (theglobeandmail.com)
• Hezbollah blames Israel for Hariri killing (edition.cnn.com)

NATO is undoubtedly trying to kill Qaddafi

The top U.S. admiral involved in the Libya war admitted to a U.S. congressman that NATO forces are trying to kill Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. The same admiral also said he anticipated the need for ground troops in Libya after Qaddafi falls, according to the lawmaker.

House Armed Services Committee member Mike Turner (R-OH) told The Cable that U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, told him last month that NATO forces are actively targeting and trying to kill Qaddafi, despite the fact that the Obama administration continues to insist that "regime change" is not the goal and is not authorized by the U.N. mandate authorizing the war.

"The U.N. authorization had three components: blockade, no fly zone, and civil protection. And Admiral Locklear explained that the scope of civil protection was being interpreted to permit the removal of the chain of command of Qaddafi's military, which includes Qaddafi," Turner said. "He said that currently is the mission as NATO has defined."

"I believed that we were [targeting Qaddafi] but that confirmed it," Turner said. "I believe the scope that NATO is pursuing is beyond what is contemplated in civil protection, so they're exceeding the mission."

Later in the same briefing, Turner said, Locklear maintained that the NATO mission does not include regime change. "Well, certainly if you remove Qaddafi it will affect regime change," Turner said that he replied. "[Locklear] did not have an answer to that."

Locklear also said that, upon Qaddafi's removal, ground troops would be needed during the immediate period of instability, Turner said. In fact, Locklear said publicly that a "small force" might be necessary following the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in a May 30 conference in Varna, Bulgaria.

US and NATO military build up against Syria

USS George H.W. Bush

The US and NATO continue to pile up military assets in the Mediterranean and Turkey.

The huge USS George H.W. Bush carrier cruising in the central Mediterranean opposite Syrian shores has been joined by the USS Truxtun missile destroyer which departed the Israeli naval base in Haifa on June 17 and the USS Barry guided missile destroyer which sailed out of the Italian port of Gaeta on the same day.

USS Barry

Also that day, Turkey assumed command of the Standing NATO Maritime Group-2 Response Force in the Mediterranean.

In Paris, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin issued another warning against military intervention in Syria on the Libyan model.

 USS Truxtun

Monday, it was reported that some sources described Turkish military helicopters as infiltrating northern Syria on reconnaissance missions and NATO planning to fly extra troops from Spanish and Germany bases to the Izmir Air base in western Turkey.

Related articles

• Turkish Actions Designed To Trigger NATO Confrontation With Syria? by Rick Rozoff (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• The Destabilization of Syria and the Broader Middle East War (wakeupbd.wordpress.com)
• NATO welcomes Russian plan to build a common missile defense center - Rasmussen (rt.com)

Blood from NATO strikes hit Libya

Yazan Khalifeh

War against Assad soon

There are reports of war fever in and around Syria after Syrian President Bashar Assad's speech Monday, June 20, sparked riots by disappointed protesters in Damascus and Latakia.

Military sources checked reports from Cypriot aviation sources that Syria had closed its airspace to civilian traffic and found its skies were still open.

According to other sources, some Iranian, Turkish military helicopters are infiltrating northern Syria on reconnaissance missions.

Arab sources report NATO is planning to fly extra troops from Spanish and Germany bases to the Izmir Air base in western Turkey to expand the current number of 400.

Damascus accuses Turkey of seeking to seize Syrian territory on the pretext of providing a buffer zone for Syrian refugees.

Yazan Khalifeh

What to Do With Lemons

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proposes a solution to untangle the Palestinian Authority-Israeli problem in his column What to Do With Lemons: The United Nations 1947 Partition Plan

He proposes an amendment  should be voted upon in the UN:

 “This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.”  

His arguments are interesting - read them. As are two criticisms posted:

• Thomas Friedman's "What to Do With Lemons": A Lemon of a Proposal
• Thomas Friedman ‘Solves’ the 'PA Homeland' with Sour Lemons

What Friedman and his critics seem unable to grasp is the pivotal point of his proposed resolution as applied to the party who originally accepted the United Nations' Partition Plan in 1947.

He wishes "This body recognizes the Palestinian state...".

Israel rightly expects all to recognize the State of Israel and this State's right to exist within secure borders.

Unless all interested parties can accept this fundamental truth then any lemonade made by any body will be undrinkable.

On the Blessed Trinity

Let's just think for a moment about a young woman who is pregnant, and who is delighted that she is. She is a reflective soul, and she loves to spend some time on her own each day, contemplating the miracle that is happening within.

As time goes by, she is more and more conscious of the stirring of new life within her, and her response is a whole-hearted and a grateful yes. Her prayer has never been more profound, even if she is not conscious that she is praying. She is in the midst, and in the process of creation; she is opening her heart totally to the possibility and to the potential. Her baby is already being created and nourished with love.

This is a sacred time, and hers is a very sac­red call. There is a trust that is totally dependent on the process, and it is not a trust that she would have in herself of her own ability to see this through. That trust is nurtured by the love she experiences; it is that love that strengthens her trust. She just believes that all will be well.

'For God so loved the world ... ' When Jesus speaks of the great love of the Father, he immediately appeals for trust in that love. Jesus entered the womb of the world ... His coming among us was an expression of the Father's hug.

'They who see me, see the Father; they who hear me, hear the Father, because I and the Father are one.'

US naval movements around Syria

The USS Bataan opposite Syrian coast

Military and intelligence sources report that Monday, June 13, the US deployed the USS Bataan amphibian air carrier strike vessel opposite Syria's Mediterranean coast with 2,000 marines, 6 war planes, 15 attack helicopters, including new V-22 Ospreys,  and 27 choppers for landing forces aboard.Also this week, US naval units went operational in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas as part of the joint US-Ukrainian Sea Breeze 2011 exercise.

The USS Monterrey cruiser armed with Aegis surface missile interceptors has additionally been stationed in the Black Sea. Western sources additionally report a build-up of ship-borne anti-missile missile strength in the Mediterranean basin.

This huge concentration of naval missile interceptor units looks like preparations by Washington for the contingency of Iran, Syria and Hizballah letting loose with surface missiles against US and Israeli targets in the event of US military intervention to stop the anti-opposition slaughter underway in Syria.

Moscow, Tehran and Damascus, in particular, are taking this exceptional spate of American military movements in and around the Mediterranean as realistically portending American intervention in Syria.

This concentration of US might also has the effect of deterring the Turkish government from going through with its decision to send Turkish troops into Syria. The plan was to create a protected buffer zone where the thousands of refugees in flight from the Assad regime's military crackdown would be kept safe on Syrian side of the border and out of Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan is averse to be seen working hand in glove militarily with any US interference in Syria. At the same time, Western intelligence sources in the Persian Gulf are sure Washington is coordinating its military movements with Ankara and that Erdogan quietly agreed to place Turkish bases at US disposal for an operation in Syria.

Military sources also report that Monday, June 13, Hizballah began shifting the long- and medium-range rockets it had stored in northern Lebanon to locations in the center of the country.

Western military sources first thought the Lebanese Shiite group was taking the precaution of keeping its arsenal safe from a spillover of violence from Syria. Tuesday, however, they learned that Iranian intelligence had advised Hizballah to remove its rockets out of range of a possible American operation in Syria.

Tuesday, Iran capped these events with three separate warnings to the Obama administration against military interference in Syria.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tuesday: "The Americans are not allowed to launch a military intervention in any country of the region including Syria."
He accused "Israel and the USA of standing behind the riots in Syria, Iran's closest ally in the Arab world… with particular aims…of provoking terrorist groups in Syria and in the region to carry out terrorist and sabotage operations."

Another spokesman warned: "Western attempts to set the model of Libya in Damascus are doomed to failure."

Iranian Vice President Reza Rahimi accused the United States of preparing and executing "the slaughter of Muslims" worldwide.

Iran's ground forces commander Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heidari added this threat: Any new military move by the US in the region will impose heavy costs on the country far greater than the costs it paid in Iraq and Afghanistan."

DEBKAfile

Cameron preaches at the Church of iatrogenics

High priest David Cameron enchants members of the Church of iatrogenics and other followers of the God of Modern Medicine by announcing  £814m to help vaccinate children. At the same time plans are being revealed of a Vatican II like re-organisation of the inner workings of the Mystical body (commonly called the NHS).

Why do we ignore the work of the so-called "heretic" Dr. Ivan Illich? He documented quite clearly, with supporting evidence in his book, Medical Nemesis, the following facts:

• 90% of the reduction in the worst diseases had come before widespread immunization or antibiotics.
• Nutrition and disease link is much better 
• Environment is everywhere the most important way to control disease and promote health 
• Current nutrition levels would have been fatal except for hygiene 
• Some medical related developments have increased health: contraceptives, treatment of water and excrement, use of soap and scissors by midwives, small pox vaccinations of infants, antibacterial washing and insecticides.
• Rate of doctors in a population, number of hospital beds, nor their clinical tools relates to increasing health if other factors are considered.
• Supply of doctors does not relate to prevalence of disease, rather doctors live where they like and they like to live where it is healthy, where people work and are healthy and can pay them. 

Filled with the Holy Spirit

You have probably been in a restaurant where the waitress has asked, "Can I warm up your coffee for you?"

 The cup may be half-full and cold after sitting on the table for a while. When she pours the new coffee in, she refills and warms up the cup.

If are spiritually cold, empty or dry. It doesn't have to stay that way. Quit trying to live in your own power and strength and ask God today to fill you with His Holy Spirit.

Yes,now, today, Pentecost Sunday, the Birthday of the Church. No better day

"If you have the Word without the Spirit, you'll dry up.

If you have the Spirit without the Word, you'll blow up.

If you have both the Word and the Spirit, you'll grow up."

Derek Prince 

Turkey to send troops into Syria.

A new and dramatic turn in the Syrian crisis;: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday night, June 10, ordered his army to move into northern Syria where battles were blazing in Idlib, Maarat al-Numaan and Jisr al-Shuhour. Exclusive sources report that the prime minister's office and high command in Ankara are still working out how to define the Turkish military mission in Syria. One proposal is to evoke UN Security Council's 1973 resolution which mandated the NATO operation in Libya to protect civilian lives against Col. Qaddafi.

Turkey would be acting to defend Syrian civilians against a crackdown which Erdogan called barbaric.

Ankara decided on military intervention Friday night, two days before Turkey's general election, after learning about the latest turn in the showdown between the Syrian government and the opposition.

Most of the day's reporting focused on the small northern town of Jisr al-Shughour near the Turkish border, where tanks blasted residential areas Friday night and killed an estimated 28 civilians to punish its residents for the 120 officers and soldiers killed in clashes with protesters Monday, June 6.

Away from the limelight, heavy fighting also raged in Idlib, west of Syria's second largest town Aleppo, and Maarat al-Numaan, a small western market city located on the highway between Aleppo and Hama.

In these places, the Syrian army encountered the guns of a Muslim Brotherhood militia fighting alongside a group of defecting soldiers, according to our military sources.

In the late afternoon, Assad sent tanks and attack helicopters armed with heavy machine guns to strike rebel positions. The casualty toll in this northern battleground is believed to be the highest of any day since the start of the uprising in early April.

The Turkish expeditionary force in Syria will have three missions:

1.  To stem the swelling stream of Syrian refugees fleeing massacre at the hands of government forces. Ankara has accepted over 3,000 refugees from Jisr al-Shughour who are desperate to escape certain slaughter; it is not prepared to take on tens or possible hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing from larger towns like Idlib, Maarat al-Numaana and the Kurdish regions abutting the Turkish border.

2.  To mark out a military zone on the Syrian side of the border where the Red Crescent will set up camps for Syrian refugees to shelter under Turkish army protection;

3.  Next week, the Turkish army will establish a military buffer zone in the Kurdish region of northern Syria near its main town, Qamishli.

The Erdogan government will be taking the chance of Assad deciding that the Turkish military incursion is an act of war. Fighting would then break out between the two armies.

DEBKAfile

Assad paid Golan demonstrators $1,000 apiece

Syrian President Bashar Assad's security machine is creaking judging by its failure to raise thousands of Palestinian and Syrian volunteers to brave the Israeli troops manning the Golan Sunday, June 5 - three weeks after his success in staging the first mass border incursion.

Intelligence sources reveal that even the few hundred willing to turn out demanded a fee: $1,000 for every demonstrator who managed to cut a piece of razor wire from the Israeli border fence – and exorbitant fee in Syrian terms - and $10,000 for the families of volunteers shot by Israeli troops before they reached their goal.

Syrian state TV reported 20 killed and 277 injured in clashes with Israeli border troops - figures which are not reliably confirmed.

Assad's home front is sinking fast, which was why he tried to stage a piece of nation-cementing drama on the Israeli border. He hoped the Golan dead would outnumber the many hundreds killed in his three-month crackdown on the protest movement against his regime and is therefore likely to keep on trying.

Sunday alone, scores died in Syrian tank-backed attacks on protesters in northwest Syria who are now using live fire against his troops. Sources report that Syrian security agents captured by protesters were hanged in broad daylight from electricity poles on city high streets Sunday, June 5, causing troops and police to flee in panic.

"We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life," the State Department said in a statement.
"We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself," the US statement added.

DEBKAfile

Salvation is of God

According to a certain theology, when we sin we are punished, and when we are good we are rewarded. This makes sense. But it isn’t what the sages, saints, or Scriptures tell us about God.

This “theology” is designed to urge us to save ourselves, and unfortunately this is the theology that many people live by: we get back as good as we give to God. This means that our salvation depends totally on us and on our ability to become perfect, or at least good.

Thank God, it’s not true.

This is not what Jesus teaches us. It’s much truer to say that our weakness and brokenness bring us to God—exactly the opposite of what most of us believe. It can take a lifetime, even with grace, to accept such a paradox. Grace creates the very emptiness that grace alone can fill.

St. Paul stated this with elegant concision: “’For power is made perfect in weakness.’. . . For whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

 Richard Rohr 

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad "should be tried"

Hamza al-Khatib's death has become a rallying point for anti-government protesters

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should face trial at a UN court over the "brutal" treatment of his people, Australia's foreign minister says.

Kevin Rudd said incidents such as the alleged torture and murder of a 13-year-old boy by security forces had robbed Mr Assad of any legitimacy.

President Assad invited the boy's family to meet him and promised an inquiry, state television said.

Activists say more than 1,000 people have died in weeks of protests.

The 13-year-old boy, Hamza al-Khatib, has become an icon of the anti-government uprising in Syria, says the BBC's Jim Muir.

Activists say he was detained by security forces and tortured to death, while the authorities insist he was shot dead during a demonstration.

Mr Rudd called it a "brutal act" and accused Mr Assad of taking "large-scale directed action" against his own people.

"I believe it is high time that the Security Council now consider a formal referral of President Assad to the International Criminal Court," said Mr Rudd.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the boy's death showed the regime was deaf to the voice of its people.

Assad tortures children

Hamza al-Khateeb used to love it when the rains came to his small corner of southern Syria, filling up the farmers' irrigation channels enough so that he and the other children could jump in and swim.

But the drought of the last few years had left the 13-year-old without the fun of his favourite pool.
Instead, he'd taken to raising homing pigeons, standing on the roof of his family's simple breeze-block home, craning his neck back to see the birds circling above the wide horizon of fields, where wheat and tomatoes were grown from the tough, scrubby soils.

Though not from a wealthy family himself, Hamza was always aware of others less fortunate than himself, said a cousin who spoke to Al Jazeera.

"He would often ask his parents for money to give to the poor. I remember once he wanted to give  someone 100 Syrian Pounds ($2), and his family said it was too much. But Hamza said, 'I have a bed and food while that guy has nothing.' And so he persuaded his parents to give the poor man the 100."

In the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's security forces, however, Hamza found no such compassion, his humanity degraded to nothing more than a lump of flesh to beat, burn, torture and defile, until the screaming stopped at last.

Arrested during a protest in Saida, 10km east of Daraa, on April 29, Hamza's body was returned to his family on Tuesday 24th May, horribly mutilated.

The child had spent nearly a month in the custody of Syrian security, and when they finally returned his corpse it bore the scars of brutal torture: Lacerations, bruises and burns to his feet, elbows, face and knees, consistent with the use of electric shock devices and of being whipped with cable, both techniques of torture documented by Human Rights Watch as being used in Syrian prisons during the bloody three-month crackdown on protestors.

Hamza's eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly.

On Hamza's chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off.

"Where are the human rights committees? Where is the International Criminal Court?" asks the voice of the man inspecting Hamza's body on a video uploaded to YouTube.

"A month had passed by with his family not knowing where he was, or if or when he would be released. He was released to his family as a corpse. Upon examining his body, the signs of torture are very clear.