Barbara Tasch

The French police have named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as the suspect in the attack in Nice, France, on Thursday night, Le Monde reports. The attacker reportedly shot at a crowd of Bastille Day revelers from
a truck and accelerated the vehicle into them, leaving at least 84
people dead and hundreds more injured. Al Jazeera News on Friday afternoon released a purported photo of the alleged attacker. Police officers shot the attacker dead. Authorities found identity papers in the truck.

The Nice-Matin newspaper reported that people close to Bouhlel were being questioned by the police. Bouhlel’s neighbors described him as a solitary and quiet person in
interviews with AFP. Most people in his apartment building said they
never talked to him. Bouhlel was born in 1985 and was of Tunisian origin, from the town of Msaken, The Telegraph reports, citing Tunisian security sources. The newspaper reported that Bouhlel was a father of three who
had become depressed since a divorce, citing neighbors who said he also
had financial problems.

His ex-wife has been taken into custody according to Nice-Matin.

by Pamela Engel

Another
attack has hit France, and early indications seem to point to
terrorism.

At least 70 people were reportedly killed in the southern French
city of Nice when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the
Bastille Day national holiday on Thursday night.

If a terrorist group is responsible, then this would be the
second major terrorist attack to his France in a year — and the
third since January 2015.

John Schindler, the national-security columnist for The New York
Observer, tweeted after
the November attacks in Paris that killed 130 people:
“Jihadists with Balkan small arms were shooting up France in 1995
… got no idea why anybody is surprised.” Attackers used guns and bombs at several sites across Paris in
that attack, including the Stade de France and the Bataclan
theater, leading to an examination of why France has become a
prime target for terrorist groups.

ISIS — aka the Islamic State, Daesh, or ISIL — called Paris “the
capital of prostitution and vice” in a statement claiming
responsibility for the Paris attacks last year. The terrorist
group also stated that France and “all nations following in its
path” are “at the top of the target list for the Islamic State.” Under President Francois Hollande, France
launched its first airstrikes against ISIS targets in
Syria last September. The country is also a closer and
more opportunistic target for extremist groups.

Witnesses at the Bataclan said that the gunmen shouted in French,
“This is because of all the harm done by Hollande to Muslims all
over the world,”
according to The New York Times. Another witness confirmed
this to CNN, telling the news network that the attacker who
shouted that statement sounded like a native French speaker.

by Pamela Engel

It’s not clear yet who is responsible for the truck attack that
killed dozens at a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France. But
terrorist groups have long been calling for supporters to attack
“infidels” with cars. At least 70 people were killed in the southern French city of Nice when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the country’s national holiday on Thursday night.

The earliest information from the attack does point to terrorist
involvement. US President Barack Obama said that it appears to be a
“horrific terrorist attack.” The truck was reportedly loaded with firearms and grenades, and US officials told The Daily Beast that the terrorist group ISIS — aka the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh — is a top suspect in the attacks.

ISIS and Al Qaeda have publicly called for supporters to use vehicles as weapons. The Institute for the Study of War noted in a 2014 report that ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani instructed supporters in a speech in September of that year.

He said:

By Brooke Anderson | Catholic News Service

AL-QAA, Lebanon — Boulos al-Ahmar had just driven the ambulance to
the scene of the explosion when more bombs detonated, killing him. When
Majed Wehbe heard the first explosions near his home, he ran to the
scene to help, only to arrive in time for the next set of explosions.

These men died as heroes, unafraid to run toward disaster to help
others, and their Christian village wants to honor their memory by
shunning the fear these explosions were designed to instill. The Lebanese frontier village is mourning the loss of five residents
to a series of explosions in late June. But within two weeks, the people
were showing their determination to bring back life.

“We will continue to have culture, activities and late-night
celebrations. We’re not just going to survive. We’re going to live our
lives,” said Bashir Mattar, the mayor of al-Qaa, a village of about
15,000, predominantly Melkite Catholic, with some Maronite Catholic and
Orthodox. They share the village with nearly 30,000 Syrian refugees who
have fled war in their country, about three miles away.

By

RFI

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
told Lebanon’s rival politicians to come to an agreement on a new
president after two years of stalemate. On a two-day visit to the
country he promised that France would maintain its troops in the UN
peacekeeping force on the border with Israel.

By Michel Abu-Najm: english.aawsat.com

Paris- French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault is scheduled to
visit Beirut next Monday to compel Lebanese officials into ending the
country’s political crisis by electing a new president.

The minister, who is set to make a two-day official visit to Beirut,
“does not carry new ideas,” foreign ministry sources said. However, he
has the ability “to talk to everyone” inside Lebanon and abroad.

Paris believes that “complications” in Lebanon should not be a reason
for an end to French diplomatic action towards the presidential crisis. On the contrary, French authorities believe there is an urgent need to “mobilize their efforts” to end Lebanon’s deadlock. Yet, they have admitted that France “does not have the magic wand” to resolve Lebanon’s political crisis.

French diplomatic sources said that Ayrault, who has lately discussed
the Lebanese file with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javad Zarif and
Saudi Deputy Crown Mohammed bin Salman, in separate meetings held in
Paris, has come out with the impression that the two sides do not object
to a political settlement in Lebanon.

by Selina Denman

I am not trying to say anything. But at the same time, I am
trying to say everything.” So claims industrial designer Karen
­Chekerdjian, encapsulating within a single quote the ambiguity that
lies at the centre of her work.

Chekerdjian, who’s arguably
Lebanon’s most successful design export, is currently the subject of an
exhibition at Paris’s ­Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World ­Institute).
Founded in 1980, the IMA is a collaboration between 18 Arab countries
and France, envisaged as a means of promoting cultural understanding of
the Arab world. Chekerdjian readily admits to having been entirely
shaped by the country she calls home, so it’s entirely fitting that she
should be showing here.

At the heart of the exhibition is a movie
that Chekerdjian has made about Beirut. “It shows my daily life, my
kids, my friends. It’s an opportunity to see Beirut through my eyes. And
the message is that you cannot put all Arabic countries in the same
bag,” she tells me. “The movie was very important. My work has nothing
to do with ­Europe, or with other countries in the region. It is very
specific to Beirut.”

While it’s difficult to imagine her doing
anything else, it took a while for Chekerdjian to find her calling. Her
trajectory into product and furniture design was, she admits,
“unsystematic”. Born in Beirut in 1970, she started her career in
advertising, working in film and graphic design at Leo Burnett ­Beirut,
before going on to co-found her own branding company. “I did a lot of
different things, from directing movies to graphic design,” she
explains. “But I felt like I needed more.”

By BEN HUBBARD and HWAIDA SAAD

AL
QAA, Lebanon — The mourners packed the vast hall behind the Mar Elias
Church and crowded around five white coffins, some clutching flowers or
photographs of the dead. A marching band struck up a dirge, and
relatives of the deceased raised their arms, wailing and swaying with
the rhythm.

Outside,
armored vehicles rumbled through the streets, and soldiers, police
officers and militiamen stood on rooftops and guarded intersections,
seeking on Wednesday to prevent further catastrophe from striking this
ordinarily sleepy, predominantly Christian town.

Two
days earlier, two waves of suicide bombers — four who carried out
nearly simultaneous attacks in the morning and four who attacked in
close succession in the evening — had blown themselves up here, killing five men and wounding dozens.

The attacks were a new, terrifying spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria,
and they fractured the tenuous coexistence that had developed in Al Qaa
and beyond between Lebanese residents and the Syrians who have flooded
their towns seeking refuge from the violence at home.