Khazen – Page 404

What’s behind Hezbollah’s safe zone project in Syria’s Qalamoun?

adminMarch 23, 2017UncategorisedComments are off for this post

In a report published by The New Arab on Feb. 10, a Hezbollah official declared Hezbollah’s plan to establish a safe zone in Qalamoun, where Syrian refugees could soon be relocated from neighboring Lebanon. The first draft
of the deal proposed 24 terms to be negotiated between Hezbollah and a
militia in Qalamoun known as Saraya Ahl al-Sham. Syrian journalist Ahmad
al-Quasir, who has been following the situation closely, recently told
Al-Monitor that Saraya Ahl al-Sham was established by local opposition
forces in 2015 and is linked to the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Under the initial terms of the agreement, Hezbollah and Syrian regime
forces would vacate the areas of Qalamoun where Saraya Ahl al-Sham is
present. Saraya Ahl al-Sham would also create local
committees responsible for the administration and policing of their
communities. Excluded from the deal would be several Christian-majority villages
along the M-5 highway. The road, which serves as an important supply
corridor for Hezbollah linking Damascus to the group’s stronghold in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, would be open to traffic to and from Syria and Lebanon. The arrangement also would provide major incentives to draw refugees
back to Qalamoun. Most notably, returnees would be issued identification
documents after screening by local authorities. New papers would be
hugely beneficial to the over 70% of Syrian refugees
who no longer have valid national ID cards, without which they cannot
travel, get married or obtain legal residency in host countries.

Returnees who join Saraya Ahl al-Sham’s brigade would also be exempt
from conscription into the Syrian Arab Army even if they had previously
fled Syria to escape the draft. They could return without punishment if
they join Saraya Ahl al-Sham. Quasir said renewed discussions of safe zone initiatives along the Turkish and Jordanian borders, following the recent endorsement of the United States,
was a key motivator for the proposed deal. Quasir said Hezbollah first
submitted the draft agreement in an effort to beat the international
community to the most practical area for a Lebanese-Syrian safe zone,
thereby determining the framework for itself.

by Thomas Schellen

Overall, it is not clear what the local
share of the global cybersecurity market – estimated by Gardner at $81
billion in 2016 – is or might be. Estimates and
anecdotal evidence suggest, however, that the local market is still
small. Salah Rustum, president of local firm Commercial & Industrial
Enterprises of Lebanon (CIEL) and a veteran in the data protection
business here as partner with electronic signatures authentication
services company GlobalSign, estimates the market at currently “around
$10 million” when queried by Executive. Other decision makers in
Lebanese cybersecurity consultancies and network operating companies say
they prefer not to make any estimate about the current size of the
cybersecurity market, citing the known dearth of reliable statistics in
the country. Beirut-based cybersecurity stakeholders
also have only vague estimates on the number of qualified competitors
that they face in the Lebanese market or on the number of highly skilled
analysts with the required expertise to staff a Security Operations
Center (SOC) – not currently existing in the country – as top-level
forensic experts. General agreement, however, among stakeholders is that
this specialist subsector of the information technology (IT) industry
is set for substantive growth – at least double-digit year-on-year –
over the coming years and that the biggest challenge is not to find new
customers but to obtain qualified engineers that either already have or
can obtain cybersecurity skills.