Lebanon holds state funeral for slain soldiers

by Associated Press - Lebanon has held a state funeral for 10 of its soldiers captured and killed by the Islamic State group. President Michel Aoun presided over Friday's ceremony in honor of the soldiers held at the Defense Ministry near Beirut. The bodies of the soldiers were recovered late last month following an army offensive to wipe out hundreds of IS militants who were occupying parts of the Lebanese-Syria border region since 2014.

by Daily Star Lebanon - Army Commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Aoun gave the opening speech at the ceremony, where he mourned the death of the servicemen. “We are gathered here today on this emotional occasion that is filled with great sacrifices offered by the sons of the military institution who declared their complete readiness to defend the country and to martyr for its sake the minute they were abducted by the hands of brutal terrorists,” Gen. Aoun said. “Our joy in the victory over terrorism remains sorrowful for we were hoping that we manage to free you unharmed from the hands of the terrorism so that you may return to your Army and families in order to participate with us in this historic achievement,” Gen. Aoun continued. President Michel Aoun also gave a speech to the crowds at the Defense Ministry, in which he lamented the death of the soldiers. "The feelings of pain and sadness are mixed with pride and honor, and our martyrs in their lives have been a source of pride and honor for their families,” Aoun said. Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Speaker Nabih Berri arrived at the state funeral at around 10 a.m. Also in attendance were the families of the soldiers, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon force commander Maj. Gen. Michael Beary, Internal Security Forces Director-General Maj. Gen. Imad Othman and Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf. Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk was not seen at the event. Coffins carrying the remains of the abducted soldiers slain by Daesh (ISIS) were transported from the Army Hospital in Badaro to the Defense Ministry. “Today our martyrs will be honored and we will all be given ... heroes of Lebanon, but our souls will not rest until the truth is revealed and justice is achieved,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil tweeted earlier. “On the day of the martyrs' farewell, we hope that their blood will yield national immunity and that the political decision will rise to the level of sacrifice,” Minister of State for Administrative Development Inaya Ezzeddine said on his official Twitter account. The bodies of 10 servicemen who were killed in the aftermath of the Arsal clashes were retrieved last month. Eight of the soldiers were held hostage by Daesh and later killed by the group. A ninth soldier was executed in a separate incident, and a tenth soldier was killed by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – formerly known as the Nusra Front - when they attacked an Army patrol in the outskirts of Arsal between 2014 and 2017. The 10 soldiers honored Friday were identified as Ibrahim Mgheit, Ali Masri, Mustafa Wehbe, Seif Ziblen, Mohammad Youssef, Khaled Hasan, Hussein Ammar, Ali Hajj Hasan, Abbas Medlej and Yehya Ali Khoder. Friday was declared a national day of mourning with government departments, banks, schools and businesses closing as a sign of respect. Embassies and foreign officials also gave statements mourning the loss of the servicemen and offering their support for Lebanon. "Italians are close to the Lebanese people in this day of mourning. Long live #Lebanon, long live the #LAF," the Italian Embassy said on Twitter. “The U.S. Embassy Beirut extends its deepest condolences to the people of Lebanon, particularly the families of the fallen [Lebanese Army] soldiers, kidnapped by [Daesh], in August 2014,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. “We also offer our sincere condolences for the soldiers who were killed in the line of duty during the ‘Fajr al-Jouroud’ operation.” The British Embassy in Lebanon marked the state funeral for the 10 servicemen Friday by lowering their flags to half-mast. British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter said that “our thoughts will be with those who have lost loved ones as the country observes a day of national mourning.” “Our prayers are with the families, the Army & the whole country today. They paid the highest price for our freedom. We will remember them,” British diplomat Tom Hartley said via Twitter Friday.

Ziad Doueiri’s new film The Insult is a metaphor for the fault lines that scar Lebanon

by Stephen Applebaum- the national,ae

Words can hurt and words can heal. In the Leb­a­nese ­film­maker Ziad Doueiri’s thrill­ing new court­room dra­ma, The ­In­sult, they do both. The film grew out of a real in­ci­dent three years ago in­volv­ing Doueiri, what he calls his “hurt­ful mouth”. It digs into the sect­ar­ian re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal fault lines that still exist in Leb­a­non, al­most 30 years af­ter the end of the coun­try’s bloody civ­il war. Talk­ing last week dur­ing the Ven­ice Film Fes­ti­val, where The In­sult is com­pet­ing for the Gold­en Lion, Doueiri re­calls wat­ering plants on a bal­cony in Bei­rut when some­one swore at him from the street be­low. “I leaned over the bal­cony and said, ‘Why are you in­sulting me?’ and he said, ‘Be­cause your wa­ter’s fall­ing on me.’ I no­ticed from his ac­cent that he was Pal­es­tin­ian and I said what you should nev­er say to a Pal­es­tin­ian … I wanted to hurt him as much as pos­sible, and I suc­ceed­ed.”

Doueiri apolo­gised – “He couldn’t even look me in the eye. He was very, very hurt”. In the film, his words (unprintable here) are spat out by Toni (Adel Karam), a Leb­a­nese right-wing Chris­tian car mech­an­ic, to­wards Yas­ser (Ka­mel El Ba­sha), a Pal­es­tin­ian con­struc­tion work­er who fixed his il­le­gal wa­ter pipe, af­ter the Pal­es­tin­ian re­fuses to apo­lo­gise for in­sulting him. There fol­lows an escal­at­ing ar­gu­ment that be­gins ver­bal­ly, then turns phys­ic­al­ly vi­o­lent and ends up in court as a case that grips the pub­lic, ex­plo­sive­ly split­ting opin­ion along lines that ­ex­pose the sim­mering ten­sions in Leb­a­nese so­ci­ety. “In the Mid­dle East, you know how we are,” says Doueiri. “We are like a pow­der-keg, waiting for a small spark.” The film­maker and his co-writ­er, Joelle Touma, were go­ing through a di­vorce while writ­ing the film, which no doubt helped give a sharp­ness and en­ergy to the con­fron­ta­tions be­tween the characters Toni and Yas­ser, and be­tween their re­spect­ive law­yers. The In­sult doesn’t take sides, though, and like their pre­vi­ous film, The At­tack, a­bout the fall-out from a sui­cide bombing in Tel Aviv, it shows great em­pathy by ac­knowl­edg­ing the hurt and trau­ma that un­der­lie its an­tag­o­nists. This is im­pres­sive giv­en Doueiri’s back­ground.

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Iran says jailed U.S. student, dual nationals lose spying appeal

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran confirmed on Sunday that an appeals court had upheld 10-year jail terms against a U.S. citizen, two Iranian-Americans and a U.S. resident from Lebanon who had been convicted on spying charges. In July, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran would face “new and serious consequences” unless all “unjustly detained” American citizens were released and returned.

Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi identified the four as Princeton University student Xiyue Wang, Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his elderly father Baquer and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent U.S. residency, the judiciary’s official news website reported. In Washington, Jared Genser, a lawyer for the Namazis, said in a statement carried by U.S. media last week that their family was informed that a Tehran court had upheld the convictions days earlier. Earlier in August, Princeton University and the wife of Wang, a history doctoral student and U.S. citizen, said they had been informed that Iranian authorities had denied the appeal. Wang was conducting dissertation research in Iran in 2016 when he was detained and charged with “spying under the cover of research”, an accusation his family and university denied.

Iran sentenced Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent U.S. residency, to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine in 2016 after he was found guilty of collaborating against the state, according to his U.S.-based lawyer. Zakka, an information technology expert, had been invited to Iran by a government official a year earlier, but then disappeared after attending a conference in Tehran. ALARM Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers lifted most international sanctions and promised Iran’s reintegration into the global community in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. The potential detente with the West has alarmed Iranian hardliners, who have seen a flood of European trade and investment delegations arrive in Tehran to discuss possible deals, according to Iran experts. Security officials have arrested dozens of artists, journalists and businessmen, including Iranians holding joint American, European or Canadian citizenship, as part of a crackdown on “Western infiltration”. The arrests have undermined President Hassan Rouhani’s goals of reviving business and political ties with the West, as well as pushing for more political and social reforms at home, Iran experts and observers said. A number of Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Austria, Canada and France have been detained in the past year and are being kept behind bars on charges including espionage and collaborating with hostile governments. According to former prisoners, families of current ones, and diplomats, in some cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with Western countries. In January 2016, the United States and Iran reached a historic prisoner swap deal that saw Iranians held or charged in the United States, mostly for sanctions violations, released in return for Americans imprisoned in Iran. Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Andrew Bolton

Raed Khoury: Lebanon’s Government Stands Despite Divisions

by english.aawsat.com Beirut- Economy Minister Raed Khoury said on Friday that the Lebanese government would not fall despite divisions among its members. “The government will stand due to an agreement reached between all Lebanese sides to keep disputes aside and work on what unites us in the benefit of Lebanon and the people,” he said in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat. The minister rejected accusations against “Hezbollah” of trying to harvest the fruits of the Lebanese army’s victory in the Jurud battle. Khoury spoke about the continuous Israeli threats against Lebanon and the need to remain attached to the “Army, People, Resistance” formula to protect the country. Last week, the Lebanese army ended its “Jurud Dawn” battle against ISIS after a first of its kind agreement was reached between “Hezbollah” and the extremist organization and later blessed by the Syrian regime to allow a safe passage for ISIS militants to Syria’s Deir Ezzor after the terrorist group uncovered the fate of the captured Lebanese soldiers, who had been missing for the past three years. However, the agreement led to large scale criticism by the Lebanese people who rejected a deal with the militants. Commenting on the issue, Khoury, who represents the Free Patriotic Movement, said: “The Lebanese should be proud of the army that did not announce the end of the battle before achieving all its targets.” According to the minister, the Jurud battle mainly aimed to “liberate the land and uncover the fate of the captured Lebanese soldiers with the least damages, and not to kill the terrorists.” He said that Hezbollah’s agreement with the ISIS militants came at the last phase of the battle, after the terrorists had almost surrendered. Khoury said that Hezbollah had no say in the Jurud Dawn battle, although the party had claimed the opposite. Commenting on calls that Hezbollah hands over its arms particularly after the Lebanese army proved being capable of engaging in difficult battles, Khoury said: “Such a request is currently irrational. We live in region that is constantly threatened by Israel and terrorists, a situation which requires cooperation among all parties.”

Islamic State convoy in Syria appears to have turned back, U.S.-led coalition says

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A convoy of Islamic State fighters appears to have turned back after U.S.-led airstrikes thwarted its attempt to reach territory held by the militant group in eastern Syria, the head of U.S.-led forces fighting Islamic State said on Thursday. More than 300 lightly armed IS fighters and about 300 family members were evacuated from Syria’s western border with Lebanon under a ceasefire agreement involving the ultra-hardline group, the Syrian army and the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah. On Thursday they sought to move into IS-held territory from a new location after U.S.-led strikes on Wednesday stopped them joining forces with their jihadist comrades, a commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said. (For graphic on IS convoy to move, click tmsnrt.rs/2wlya8V) However, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of U.S.-led forces fighting Islamic State, told a Pentagon briefing that the convoy had turned back into Syrian government territory. “When I walked into this conference about an hour ago, the buses were on the move. They had turned and had driven back into regime-held areas,” he told reporters via a video teleconference from Baghdad. “We haven’t struck the convoy. But we have struck every ISIS fighter and/or vehicle that has tried to approach that convoy. And we’ll continue to do that,” he said. The coalition opposes experienced combatants being moved to a battle zone in which it is active, and used warplanes on Wednesday to halt the convoy by damaging the road ahead. It also struck fighters on their way to meet the convoy. A commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said the convoy had headed north towards the town of Sukhna on Thursday after being halted in the desert and would try to reach Deir al-Zor province, close to the border with Iraq. Two sources familiar with U.S. policy on Syria said the airstrikes did not signal a more aggressive military approach, and were intended to prevent the IS fighters in the convoy reinforcing their comrades in Deir al-Zor.

But the standoff shows the tangled nature of a war theatre divided into several overlapping conflicts, and where the engagement of local, regional and global powers is further complicated by a mosaic of alliances and enmities. Six years into Syria’s civil war, in which Islamic State has seized swathes of land, the jihadist group is on the retreat across the region, losing ground to an array of foes. In Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad has rapidly gained ground this year as the army advanced eastwards, backed by Russia and allied Iran-backed militia including Hezbollah, towards its besieged enclave in Deir al-Zor. But in the north, the United States -- which opposes Assad, Iran and Hezbollah -- has led a coalition backing Kurdish and Arab militias as they assault Islamic State’s former Syrian capital of Raqqa.

UN Security Council spars over Lebanese peacekeeping mission

France 24 - Lebanon has called for a UN peacekeeping force’s mandate to be renewed without changes after Washington accused its commander of being “blind” to the flow of weapons to Iran-backed Hezbollah. The peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, which patrols Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, is up for renewal when its mandate expires on August 31. Israel and the US are pressing for improvements to the force to combat what they say is the spread of illegal arms to the region, which is dominated by Hezbollah. But Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that renewing the force’s mandate in its present form was paramount to the country’s security. "Preserving the mandate of @unifil is necessary for peace and stability, otherwise will jeopardize efforts of @UN," Bassil added on Twitter.

‘Giving terrorists a pass’ Bassil’s comments follow sharp criticism of the peacekeeping force by officials in Washington, where Hezbollah is regarded as a terrorist organisation. Last Friday, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, accused UNIFIL’s Irish commander, Major General Michael Beary, of an “embarrassing lack of understanding” in failing to uncover Iranian weapon supplies to the Lebanese militant group. "[Beary] seems to be the only person in south Lebanon who is blind to what Hezbollah is doing," she said, adding that his view of the situation "shows that we need to have changes" in the mission. "We are not looking to change the mandate itself. We are looking to include language that clearly directs UNIFIL to do what it should have been doing for years," Haley said. "It's time the Security Council puts teeth in the UNIFIL operation," she added. "We don't need to be giving terrorists a pass."

Continuity First launched in 1978, UNIFIL was expanded after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah so that peacekeepers could deploy along the border to help Lebanese troops extend their authority into the south. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has told the Security Council that he intends to look at ways for the peacekeeping force to "enhance its efforts", but that it is primarily the Lebanese military's responsibility to ensure the south is free of illegal weapons. It is not clear how the council will respond to the pressure from Washington, but several members have already called for continuity. Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said last week that the mandate should be renewed as is and that other countries had voiced the same view during a council discussion. French Deputy Ambassador Anne Gueguen, whose country is in charge of drafting a proposed renewal, said it was "of paramount importance for the stability of Lebanon and the region, and in the best interest of all, that UNIFIL keeps its mandate and is in a position to fulfill it". (FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AP)