by: Thomas Joscelyn & Oren Adaki, The Long War Journal

The Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, has released a video and a series of photos documenting its recent operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The video has since been removed by YouTube, and featured footage from Al Nusrah's raid on a Hezbollah outpost in the town of Brital, which is close to the border with Syria. In text displayed during the video, the al Qaeda group claims its fighters killed 11 Hezbollah jihadists wounded tens of others, and forced the remaining Hezbollah forces to flee.

Al Nusrah says its fighters captured a variety of weaponry, including an American-made rocket launcher. And the group also claims that only one of its members was killed and one other wounded during the raid. Skirmishes also took place elsewhere inside Lebanon. And the total number of Hezbollah casualties from this engagement varies greatly in the reporting, with some reports saying that 10 Hebollah fighters were killed.

Hezbollah sources, meanwhile, have given their version of events to the press. Citing a "person close to Hezbollah," Reuters reports that at least 16 Nusrah Front fighters were killed. While Hezbollah temporarily lost control of the outpost, Hezbollah sources say, Al Nusrah's fighters were pushed back into Syria.

By Warren Singh-Bartlett

http://www.singhbartlett.com/news/2014/10/4/why-beirut-really-matters

For the last few days, a pleasant little story on VICE by Mary von Aue has been doing the rounds in Beirut. Entitled ‘Fighting for the Right to Party’, it’s essentially an interview with Yousef Harati, one of the city’s more interesting movers and shakers on the nightlife scene.

Essentially, von Aue’s article posits that in a country floundering under the weight of more than 1 million Syrian refugees (von Aue, for some reason, puts that figure at 800,000) and which is next door to a civil war, the Islamic State (almost) and Israel

Of course, it’s elicited howls of delight and horror, as well as the usual self-loathing accusations that the Lebanese are one nation under amnesia. If, for me, there is any sense of unease in reading it, that's because the story is an old one and a favourite American trope, to boot. Beirut as the centre of decadence, the city that danced even as the bombs dropped, has been rehashed in assorted American and European publications at least once a year since I got here. The emergence of the IS just adds a new sexy spin.

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi attended at the Vatican on Sunday a landmark two-week synod of bishops on the family. Pope Francis …

  BEIRUT: Lebanon is considering using a Saudi grant to buy much needed weapons and equipment from Moscow to bolster its Army …