Reuters – The Lebanese army will not coordinate with the Syrian army to fight against ISIS in the Lebanese-Syrian border zone, a military source told Reuters on Saturday, rejecting a local media report of direct military cooperation between the two. The source said the Lebanese army had the military capability to confront and defeat the […]

Al Monitor – By Florence Massena – Beirut could be considered one of the world’s least bike-friendly cities due to its air pollution and traffic jams. But more and more residents are riding bikes during the day — and night. Every Thursday night, cyclists wearing helmets and reflective yellow cuffs for visibility cruise bravely on the main roads with Cycling Circle, a company that specializes in cycling projects in Lebanon. Karim Sokhn founded the company in 2012 to share his passion for cycling with others. Since then, he has organized rides in Beirut and biking trips to villages and historical sites around Lebanon. “I used to bike between my house and the university every day, and everyone looked at me strangely,” Sokhn told Al-Monitor. “Biking was either for the very rich or the very poor. The very rich who could afford expensive bikes used them for exercise, and the very poor who couldn’t afford any other way of transportation used bikes out of necessity.”

Sokhn pointed out that everyone used to bike before the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), but the war destroyed the country’s infrastructure and also changed how people lived. “It is now a challenge to get people to bike as a way of life,” he said. He started the night rides with his friends, and more and more people who heard about the rides through word of mouth joined them. This eventually led to his starting Cycling Circle. “My goal is to promote biking as a way of transportation and create a safe and secure environment for people to have the best experience, with guides, insurance and security measures taken during the rides we organize,” Sokhn told Al-Monitor. “I also want to develop bicycle tourism in Lebanon.”

He added, “I even started a delivery service on bikes — called ‘Deghri Messengers’ — after watching the movie ‘Premium Rush‘ about a delivery service in New York. We stopped this year, but at least it made us known and gave a positive image of the bike in Beirut.” Sokhn opened a boutique and community space last year in Badaro, a popular Beirut neighborhood. He developed new bike tours, gave biking lessons to all skill levels, held technical workshops to teach bikers how to repair their bikes and started sales of secondhand bikes. “It’s a very slow process, but we see more and people interested in bicycling,” he said.

by Rania Ghanem –businessnews.com.lb Hotels are breathing a sigh of relief after four difficult years, according to a special report about hospitality in the August issue of Lebanon Opportunities. Rami Sayess, Regional Vice President and General Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Beirut, said: “Business began improving in October 2016.” He said that if business were […]

BEIRUT (Sputnik) — Buses with Syrian militants and their families who were staying in Lebanese refugee camps crossed back into Syria late on Wednesday, sources with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement told Sputnik. Members of Jabhat Fatah al Sham terror group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front were granted safe passage to Syria through the mountainous Aarsal region […]

By Susan B. Glasser, Article represents opinion of the author and does not represent khazen.org

Russia won in Syria thanks to President Barack Obama’s inaction. The Middle East unraveling of the past decade is due in no small part to America not listening to her allies in the region. Never mind President Donald Trump’s Muslim-bashing rhetoric, he may just be a better partner. For months, leaders of America’s Arab allies in the Mideast have telegraphed this view of the world, and it helps explain why the gilded palaces of the troubled, war-torn region are the few places on the planet — outside Russia — where Trump has been more popular than the president he succeeded.This is the case Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri laid out in an exclusive interview for The Global Politico at the end of a weeklong visit to Washington. The tone was measured, but taken together his comments amount to a striking and stark indictment of Obama and much recent U.S. policy in the Middle East. “The unfortunate consequence of not acting” there, Hariri argued, has been Russia’s restoration as a regional heavyweight, the resurrection of Bashar Assad’s bloody regime in Syria and the failure to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

“Clarity,” the prime minister said, and the hope for a more decisive approach is the reason why he and other Arab leaders prefer Trump, despite the bombast and uncertainty the first six months of his presidency have unleashed. Unstated, but by all accounts just as significant, is the expectation that Trump will take a more hawkish approach toward Syria’s backers in Iran, and Hariri repeatedly brought up concessions Obama made toward Tehran to get his nuclear deal as an example of how the U.S. lost its way in the region. Given the bloody six-year war in next-door Syria that has come close to overwhelming tiny Lebanon, sending a flood of 1.5 million refugees into a fragile nation of just 4.5 million people and putting the terrorist group ISIS right on their border, it’s a case worth listening to — even if you think it absolves the Arab world of accountability for its own actions.

FLEITA, Syria, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — Tens of buses are ready to transfer thousands of militants and civilian refugees from Lebanon into an insurgent-held city in northern Syria. Convoys of buses entered the Lebanese side of the mountainous barrens of Qalamoun region in western Syria on Tuesday, as part of a deal between the Lebanese […]

BEIRUT, July 31 (Xinhua) — A Lebanese warplane struck the Islamic State group (IS) posts in the outskirts of Ras Baalbeck Monday, which resulted in injuries of the militants, the local LBCI TV reported. The strikes come following reports that the Lebanese Army has reinforced areas around the northeastern towns of Ras Baalbeck and Al-Qaa […]

by  Philip Issa, The Associated Press –  BEIRUT – Hezbollah and a Syrian affiliate to Al-Qaida exchanged the bodies of dead fighters along the Lebanese-Syrian border on Sunday in the first stage of an agreement to restore order to a contested frontier zone. The al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front is expected to leave the border region in the coming stages, following two weeks of battles with Hezbollah and the Syrian army. But the Front announced Sunday it had captured three Hezbollah fighters, one day after Hezbollah admitted a group had gone missing in the Arsal border region. It was not immediately clear whether the revelation would affect the deal underway to resettle the Fatah al-Sham Front. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah handed over the bodies of nine al-Qaida fighters in exchange for the bodies of five of its own, according to the Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station. Lebanese Red Cross spokesman George Kattani says a woman and child were also handed over to the al-Qaida affiliate, known as the Nusra Front and recently rebranded as Fatah al-Sham Front. The exchange, like the battles that preceded it, underscores Hezbollah’s clout in regional affairs as it clears the border of al-Qaida and Islamic State group militants, with the Lebanese government largely a bystander. U.S. President Donald Trump credited the Lebanese government with standing up to Hezbollah, last week, but the Lebanese Army assumed a defensive position behind Hezbollah lines in the course of the battles in the Arsal badlands. Hezbollah is also a member of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government. The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The Syrian military provided air support to Hezbollah’s ground operations around Arsal.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech Wednesday his fighters fought “shoulder to shoulder” with Syrian soldiers on the Syrian side of the border. Twenty-six Hezbollah fighters and between 47 and 90 Al-Qaida fighters were killed in the fighting, Hezbollah media officials told reporters on a tour of the Arsal badlands on Saturday. The fighting ended with a cease-fire Thursday for negotiations to allow refugees, fighters, and family members to leave to Syria’s northwest Idlib province, leaving Hezbollah and the Lebanese and Syrian states in control of this corner of the border. Up to 9,000 Syrians could be seeking resettlement, al-Manar reported.