Naharnet, The Interior Ministry announced Monday that the candidate for the vacant parliamentary seat in Jezzine, Amal Abou Zeid, has won the by-electionsAbou Zeid, fielded by the Free Patriotic Movement, was elected for the seat that was left vacant after the death of Change and Reform local MP Michel Helou. He was facing other candidates […]

• Pamela Engel

Experts have been warning for a while now that Al Qaeda is still very much a presence as a jihadist group, posing perhaps an even bigger long-term threat than ISIS.

And now, Al Qaeda is planning to challenge ISIS in its stronghold — Syria.

American and European officials told The New York Times recently
that Al Qaeda has started moving veteran operatives to Syria as the
group plans to escalate its fight with ISIS (also known as the Islamic
State, ISIL, or Daesh), which operated under the Al Qaeda umbrella until
the two groups split off and became rivals.

And though ISIS has been grabbing most headlines with its gruesome propaganda machine
and bold proclamations about building a “caliphate” that will take over
the world, Al Qaeda has been quietly focusing on its strategy to be the
last group standing when the dust settles.

Natasha Bertrand

Two Syrian Kurds were shot dead by a former member of the Free Syrian
Army (FSA) last weekend, in what the executioner said was a response to
an incident last month in which the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) killed around 50 FSA fighters and transported them back to Kurdish territory in an open-top trailer.

Tensions have flared
as images of both incidents — which could not be independently verified
— circulated on social media over the weekend and into Monday,
until the FSA-aligned rebel group Jaysh al-Thuwar disavowed the alleged murder of the Kurdish civilians as a “crime” by a disgruntled former FSA fighter.

“The offender was fired by the rebels a month ago,” the group
said in a statement published on its website, calling the incident “a
false military operation.” The incident is symbolic, however, of the mutual distrust that
continues to cast a shadow over the Kurdish-Arab relationship in
northern Syria.

Naharnet, Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon
Ali Awadh Asiri threw a dinner banquet Friday in honor of Lebanon’s
political, security and religious leaders and hoped a new president will
be elected “before Eid al-Fitr,” which will be observed in early July.

“The presidential vacuum is about to enter its third
year and the more it protracts the more the State and its institutions
are nearing the edge of the abyss,” Asiri said in a speech at the
dinner. “I urge you to find the political will and consensual
solutions to resolve this issue, so that Eid al-Fitr can be celebrated
in the presence of a new president,” he added.

The dinner was attended by Prime Minister Tammam Salam, a
representative of Speaker Nabih Berri, al-Mustaqbal movement leader
ex-PM Saad Hariri, Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun,
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, MP Suleiman Franjieh’s son Tony,
ex-presidents Amin Gemayel and Michel Suleiman, ex-PMs Najib Miqati and
Fouad Saniora, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan, a representative
of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and Greek Orthodox Archbishop
Elias Aude.

Mary Achkhanian, Staff Reporter Dubai: There’s finally a Lebanese president, but in Brazil not in
Lebanon, Lebanese expats have said after Vice-President Michel Temer
assumed the role of president in Brazil early this month.

As Lebanon marks its
second year without a head of state, Lebanese expatriates in the UAE
commented on the irony of Brazil having a president of Lebanese descent
while Lebanon is still struggling to appoint one.Due to the ongoing political drift in the country, parliamentarians’ efforts to elect a president has remained on hold.The expatriates said the appointment of Temer brought both happiness and sadness to the Lebanese people.

Diana John, 30, a
teacher, said, “I personally felt proud that Lebanese people are
achieving and doing well and are prominent outside their country, but at
the same time it upset me that they have to leave our country to be
able to achieve something,” she said.

Natasha Bertrand

The US-led coalition has begun a new “mess-with-them” campaign that
involves dropping leaflets on ISIS’ de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria,
urging residents to leave the city, The Daily Beast’s Nancy Youssef reported on Friday.

“The time … has arrived. It’s time to leave Raqqa,” read one of
the leaflets, which was posted on Twitter by a Raqqa resident on
Thursday.The leaflets initially raised speculation that
the US-led anti-ISIS coalition was planning an assault on Raqqa, which
has served as the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria since June
2014.

But Pentagon officials confirmed to The Daily Beast that there was no imminent, US-led offensive being planned: “It’s part of our mess-with-them campaign,” a Pentagon official told The Beast.

Gulfnews , Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Lebanon, where one out of every four residents is a refugee,
rejected a proposal to naturalise the estimated 2 million Syrians if
they chose to stay. On Wednesday, senior
officials responded to a pitch made by United Nations (UN) Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon who argued that refugees should be given the right
to apply for citizenship in host states.

The objective, while
doable in most countries, confronted immense hurdles in Lebanon where a
fragile and increasingly threatened confessional balance holds the
country together and prevents a permanent fissure. Rashid Derbas, the
Minister of Social Affairs, said Ban and other world leaders know all
too well “that Lebanon, with all its factions, sects and institutions,
has a united stance on this regard,” and cannot tolerate such political
diktats. He told reporters after attending a meeting of a ministerial
committee on the refugee crisis chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam:
“We hosted Syrian brothers just the way brothers should behave. We are a
noble and generous people, but we are also patriotic. Out of our
adherence to our patriotism and that of the Syrians, we refuse to give
our nationality to anybody and don’t accept that others abandon their
nationalities as well.”