organization:hizbollah

Video de propagande du Hizbollah indiquant les cibles (avec leur coordonnées) de la riposte au cas ou l’état d’Israel attaquerait le Liban :
الميادين | الاعلام الحربي : إن تجرّأتم ستندمون
▻http://www.almayadeen.net/news/politics/919477/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKqen0aHDLc

Where the Islamic State hides – Peter Harling archive
▻https://peterharling.com/2018/02/26/where-the-islamic-state-hides

THE ISLAMIC STATE WAS LONG IN THE MAKING. It is here to stay, if not in the Iraqi city of Mosul, then in people’s minds and our own memory. Under its current name or its next avatar, it likely will linger on in our lives like a trauma—a familiar fear, quick to surface, however deeply burrowed.
Indeed, it fills a hole we cannot plaster over: decaying power structures and social compacts throughout the Middle East, in parts of Africa and Central Asia, and in places closer to home, such as the urban fringes at the heart of Western societies. It taps into the same groundswell of inchoate anti-establishment anger that has been molded into virtually anything: from dissident democrats to insurgent republicans in recent American elections; from Occupy Wall Street to the Tea-Party movement; from a leftist takeover in Greece to its rightwing equivalent in Poland; from the British Brexit to the French Front National; and from hopeful uprisings in the Arab world to “ISIS,” their nihilistic antithesis.
The problem we face is an old one: the banality, the oddity of evil, which can seep into our lives and become the new normal. As this collection of images will show us, the “true” Islamic State may not be a beheading video, but a more ordinary scene.
To deny its hold on our reality, we make the Islamic State into something extraordinary, exogenous—a creature from the past, from an exotic elsewhere, with an inhuman rationality. But it doesn’t just mangle: it mingles too. Craving attention, it keeps creeping up on us, seeking ways to photobomb the course of history. And it is, without doubt, media-savvy: digitally-native, almost geeky in its use of modern communication tools, it promotes itself much less through a coherent ideology than via the equivalent of an aggregated, gigantic snuff-selfie.
Paradoxically, this portfolio is filled with the Islamic State’s absence. The movement is, indeed, a small one: it has far fewer troops than any of its opponents; its resources are mostly limited to what it can plunder; its paltry weapons pale in the tall shadows of the guns arrayed against it; its popular support is ambivalent at best; its violence is staged to maximize effect; and its territorial empire always comprised much desert and rubble.
This lesser militia nevertheless prompted the greatest de facto coalition of forces ever assembled in history: a US-led alliance of more than thirty countries, to which one must add Russia, Iran, the Syrian and Iraqi regimes, the Lebanese Hizbollah and others, all of which have declared the Islamic State as the epitome of evil and their paramount enemy. And still it is there, bizarrely hard to defeat.
This publication appears to revolve around this mystery: the truly massive disruptions we pin on such a diminutive entity. Perhaps there are three clues to this riddle. The first is that the Islamic State magnifies itself through the media’s echo chamber, by turning its opponents’ grandstanding into a multiplying factor, and by leveraging their truly superior power. It deliberately provokes the kind of response that serves its purpose—another “war on terror” that plays up the importance of its foes while further dilapidating the urban and social fabric they already prey upon.
Certainly ISIS ravaged archeological artifacts and stole many lives; but the wholesale destruction of large parts of Syria and Iraq is a service it owes to its proclaimed enemies. Only in that void can it thrive. The photographs in this collection capture, incredibly, this inhabited vacuum—a place of ample misery and so little meaning.

Saudi Arabia frustrated in its campaign to counter Hizbollah
▻https://www.ft.com/content/343a8c46-cabf-11e7-ab18-7a9fb7d6163e

Riyadh may [...] be forced to backpedal on its threats or push for drastic economic measures that would bring the country to its knees — similar to the regional embargo it has led since June against Qatar, banning flights and cutting trade routes in an attempt to choke its rival Gulf state into submission.

[...]

Such harsh tactics may become harder to impose, with western governments pushing back against Riyadh. They have no desire to see further chaos in the war-torn region, fearing radicalisation and more refugees. On Wednesday, France said it would invite Mr Hariri to Paris in an effort to ease tensions and facilitate the premier’s eventual return to Beirut.

“[We] have been pretty clear that destabilising Lebanon any further is not in anyone’s interest,” said one western diplomat. “I think the Saudis realise that they cannot push much harder or they will shoot themselves in the foot.”

#arabie_saoudite

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Allies of ISIS in Lebanon: the pro-US/pro-Saudi camp
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2017/09/allies-of-isis-in-lebanon-pro-uspro.html

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R8C8Vyxea_U/WamKIBHkT_I/AAAAAAAAJ8A/7PKsbtddzMkhF4zRHo6B-a-rbg7Y4IrUwCLcBGAs/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/Unknown.jpg

Because the attention of Western correspondents in Beirut is focused on serving the propaganda of the Saudi-US-Israeli camp in the Middle East, and because they are allies of the March 14 in Lebanon, there is an unreported story about Lebanon and ISIS. As soon as ISIS emerged, March 14 figures supported ISIS and even publicly. This guy, is a major March 14 figure (and is now the man in charge of all media for the pro-Saudi Lebanese Forces) wrote in 2013. It says: “Is ISIS against the Syrian regime: Yes. Is ISIS against Iran? Yes. Is ISIS against Hizbollah? Yes. Therefore I am with ISIS”. This sentiment, by the way, was pretty much the sentiment of Western powers in the region.

“#modérés” #Liban #Arabie_saoudite #etats-unis #MSM

« Les véritables créateurs de #daech ce sont les États-Unis et l’Arabie et leur but est de détruire des... »
▻http://levant.tumblr.com/post/157901483853

“Les véritables créateurs de Daech ce sont les États-Unis et l’Arabie et leur but est de...

#hassan_nasrallah #hezbollah #hizbollah #hizbullah #liban #etats_unis #arabie_saoudite #iraq #irak #syrie #egypte

#Irak : Paris confirme qu’un #drone piégé a blessé deux membres des forces spéciales françaises à Erbil
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2016/10/11/irak-deux-commandos-francais-gravement-blesses-a-erbil-par-un-drone-piege_50

Le gouvernement français a confirmé, mercredi, cette attaque. L’engin, qui a aussi tué deux peshmergas kurdes, aurait été envoyé par un groupe lié à l’organisation Etat islamique, un mode d’action inédit contre les forces françaises.

Pentagon Urgently Pushing Anti-Drone Tech to #ISIS Fight
▻http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/10/pentagon-urgently-pushing-anti-drone-tech-isis-fight/132308

#Pentagone #Etats-Unis #France

David Gardner of the Financial Times is wrong—but who is counting when it comes to foes of US and Israel?
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2016/04/david-gardner-of-financial-times-is.html

“The diplomatic break with Iran, and rupture with Lebanon, came after the Saudi execution in January of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a dissident Shia cleric. Riyadh reacted after the Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad were attacked by mobs. Lebanon’s foreign minister, a Hizbollah-aligned Christian, declined to condemn the events — acting as more papist than the Pope given that the Iranian government itself did so.” In fact, the Lebanese foreign minister repeatedly condemned the attacks on Saudi embassy and consulate in Iran, but he refused to categorize Hizbullah as a terrorist organization. That was the tiff.

#mensonges

Azerbaijan versus Armenia: the Saudi regime media are baffled
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2016/04/azerbaijan-versus-armenia-saudi-regime.html

The Saudi-Israeli anti-Shiite alliance is siding with [Shi'ite] Azerbaijan while the Shiite Iranian-Hizbollah alliance is siding with Christian Armenia. This does not fit into the sectarian narrative of Arab oil and gas and Western media.

#cécité #surdité #mutité

Arsal in the Crosshairs: The Predicament of a Small Lebanese Border Town - International Crisis Group
▻http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/syria-lebanon/lebanon/b046-arsal-in-the-crosshairs-the-predicament-of-a-small-lebanese-border

Weakened by deepening inter- and intra-communal rifts, the Lebanese state has gradually abandoned its primary role in governance and as manager of representative politics and relies increasingly on security measures to maintain stability and the political status quo. The remote border town of Arsal in the north east is emblematic of this security-centric method of tackling unrest. The approach, which escalated after the Syrian war began next door, is short-sighted and dangerous, as it fights symptoms while inadvertently reinforcing underlying factors that drive instability. If the government were to address Arsal’s plight in a more balanced manner that takes those factors into account by folding its security component into an overall political strategy, it could yet turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one, preventing the town’s downward spiral and providing a model for tackling such problems in the country overall.

Arsal combines many of Lebanon’s woes: economic erosion and poor governance at its fringes; sectarian fault lines shaping the fate of a Sunni enclave within a majority-Shiite governorate (Baalbek-Hermel) in the Beqaa Valley; the weakening of Sunni national leadership and growing assertiveness of Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement whose militia is actively fighting in Syria; and the spillover of the Syrian conflict. The latter has turned the town into a rear base for anti-regime fighters, a trans-shipment point for explosive devices, and – for both these reasons – a threat for Hizbollah and Lebanon’s security apparatus. It has also turned the town into an initial haven for waves of refugees, adding to severe pressures on both the Lebanese state and individual localities throughout Lebanon.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب : Hunger in Madaya
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2016/01/hunger-in-madaya.html

This passage in an article by Al-Akhbar’s Elie Hanna, who was able to reach Madaya yesterday, sums up the situation (these are the words of one old man in the town): "No one can deny cases of hunger and illness in Madaya: “How don’t we get hungry when the aid is not being distributed adequately, and the siege exists, and the armed men and merchants control the existing commodities and at their prices, said an old man holding a bag containing bushes for heating”.
“لا ينكر أحد حالات الجوع والمرض في مضايا. «كيف لا نجوع والمساعدات لا توزّع بنحو سليم والحصار موجود والمسلحون والتجار يتحكّمون بالبضائع الموجودة وبأسعارها»، يقول عجوز يحمل بيده كيساً فيه بعض الأغصان «للتدفئة».”
So some remarks about Madaya:
1) Yes, there was hunger in Madaya. That can’t be denied.
2) Those who are responsible for Madaya: the Syrian regime forces and Hizbullah forces imposing the siege; and the various armed groups in the town who basically confiscate all humanitarian aid and either use it for themselves or sell it at exorbitant high prices.
3) Mocking the hungry in Madya is discpiable: and mocking the suffering of people has become a staple of both sides in Lebanon and in Syria.
4) Of course, international media ignored the suffering of people in Fua and Kafrya, and Nubul and Zahra, because the civilians there are not residing in the “liberated” areas of Syria.
5) The armed groups in Madya and their supporters grotesquely exploited the suffering of the people in Madya either by showcasing little children and elderly and forcing little children to hold political signs and also by adding pictures that are not from Madaya. The propaganda of Syrian armed groups has no respect for truth; it never has.
6) Hizbollah’s statement on the matter of Madaya was rather pathetic: it basically used the typical Israeli Zionist line “about how armed groups are hiding behind women and children”: even if that is the case, that should not deny aid to the people. On the contrary: it requires more aid. Also, the notion that aid was delivered in November is a silly response: if there is a need for more aid (even if the reason has to do with confiscation by armed rebels) there should be more aid, no matter.
7) Not one side in the ugly Syrian war has clean hands. This is a filthy war which dirties the hands of whoever enters it.
8) Please spare me the fake sympathy of Lebanese March 14 journalists: the March 14 coalition in Lebanon is in charge (through its Minister of Social Affairs, Rashid Dirbas) of handling the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and not one in that camp is protesting the mistreatment and injustices inflicted on Syrian refugees: from blatant racism to imposed curfews on Syrians in Lebanon.

#madaya

Asad Abukhalil - لنفترض ان “ثوّار” النظام القطري والسعودي...
▻https://www.facebook.com/asad.abukhalil/posts/692450717447

My stance on Madaya and my critique of Hizbollah’s statement on the matter
I don’t have time to translate from Arabic, but if you are interested you can read my statement here. My summary is this : I don’t support nor do I sympathize with one armed man in the destructive Syrian war—not one.

[Je traduis en gros et à la volée ! Ne pas citer tel quel SVP. Comme on dit : les idées exprimées dans ces lignes n’engagent que la responsabilité de leur auteur. Merci de ne pas me prêter forcément les idées de ceux ou celles (trop rares hélas) que je traduis !]

Faisons l’hypothèse que..

لنفترض ان “ثوّار” النظام القطري والسعودي والتركي في سوريا يفرضون حصارات تجويع على فوعا وكفريا ونبل والزهراء وغيرها من قبل ومن بعد—وهم فعلوا ذلك, وأكثر من ذلك.
les “révolutionnaires” de l’AS, du Qatar et de la Turquie encerclent et affament des villages [Fua, Kafraya, etc. 4 en tout]
لنفترض ان “ثوّار” النظام القطري والسعودي والتركي يحترفون الكذب, والفبركة وهم روّجوا لصور سبق وأن نُشرت عن فلسطين والعراق والغوطة, لا بل هم خلقواً حساباً مُزوّراً على فايسبوك قبل أيام لواحد من أبواق النظام السوري لكن نسبوا له أقوال في الإبادة لم يقلْها—وآخر همّي الدفاع عن شبّيحة النظام لكن أدلّل على ان جماعة قطر والسعوديّة يستسهلون الكذب أكثر من أحمد فتفت,
les “révolutionnaires” de l’AS, du Qatar et de la Turquie ont fabriqué de fausses informations, de fausses images, et même un faux compte Facebook pour diffuser leurs mensonges
لنفترض ان النظام السوري وقوّاته هي المسؤولة عن فرض الحصار على مضايا وهي التي ترفض دخول مساعدات غذائيّة,
les forces du régime syrien soient responsables du siège
لنفترض ان أعوان الصهاينة من العرب يريدون أية فرصة للنيل من حزب الله—كمقاومة ضد العدوّ الإسرائيلي وليس كحزب سياسي—وبعض هؤلاء من الذين يتصنّعون التعاطف مع الشعب السوري هم مِن الذين واللواتي رضعوا حليب العنصريّة ضد الشعبيْن السوري والفلسطيني من بشير الجميّل وورثته, وبعض الإعلاميّين من هذا الفريق تدرّب على الإعلام في الذراع الفكري للوبي الإسرائيلي في واشنطن,
les collabos arabes du sionisme ne perdent jamais une occasion pour s’en prendre à la réputation de la résistance contre Israël...
لنفترض ان الذين يهرقون الدموع السخيّة على مضاياً هم من جماعة إعلام الحريري من الذين صمتوا عن القتل والتعذيب والخطف الذي تعرّض له الشعب السوري في لبنان (وكان هذا الجزء المستور من “ثورة” الأرز المشؤومة), وهؤلاء هم الذين إتهموا بائعي الكعك الفقراء في شوارع بيروت بأنهم من المخابرات السوريّة وهتفوا لقتلهم وجلدهم وتعذيبهم,
ceux qui versent des larmes de crocodile sur les Syriens de Madaya sont les propagandistes de Hariri, ceux-là même qui n’ont rien dit quand les Syriens sont/étaient persécutés au LIban
ولنفترض ان عصابات أنظمة الخليج تستغلّ الأطفال والأولاد بأبشع الصور من أجل تسويق حملات دعائيّة مُقزّزة في إستخدامها للأطفال كوقود للدعاية السياسيّة,
les gangs rémunérés par les régimes du Golfe exploitent ces photos d’enfant aux seules fins de leur propagande
ولنفترض ان إعلام النظاميْن القطري والسعودي وأتباعه في لبنان—والأتباع هؤلاء في سوريا ولبنان هم أصحاب الحملة الحاليّة—منافقون ومنافقات ولم يفتحوا أفواههم لللإعتراض على التجويع والحصار الذي يتعرّض له كل شعب اليمن—كل شعب اليمن, أسمعتم يا أصحاب الحساسيّات الكاذبة,
que les médias saoudiens et qataris et tous ceux qui sont à leur solde dans cette campagne n’aient jamais dit un mot au sujet des souffrances des enfants et même de tous les Yéménites
ولنفترض ان المقاتلين في مضايا, يتاجرون بالمساعدات ويولّون انفسهم على الأطفال والمسنّين من أجل إستعمالهم أدوات في حملات غوبلزيّة,
que les combattants de Masaya trafiquent les aides et manipulent les souffrances des civils
لكن هذا لا يلغي ان بيان حزب الله أمس عن مضايا اليوم كان مُسيئاً له ولغيره:
il reste que le communiqué diffusé hier par le Hezbollah est mauvais pour lui et pour les autres
١) رجاء لا تسوقوا قصّة الإختباء وراء المدنيّين كدروع بشريّة (بالنسبة ل”الثوّار” الجهاديّين في مضايا). هذه الحجّة هي من إختراع العدوّ الإسرائيلي ولا يجوز ان تُستعمل من أعداء العدوّ الإسرائيلي بنوب. لنفترض ان عصابات أنظمة الخليج تختبئ وراء المدنيّين, هل يُبرّر هذا حرباً على المدنيّيين, او تجاهلا للمدنيّين ولمعاناتهم؟
1) utiliser les histoires de “boucliers humains” civils utilisés par les combattants c’est reprendre les arguments des sionistes;
2) et si les forces des pays du Golfe se protégeaient derrière leur population, cela justifierait de les attaquer ?
٢) لنتفرض ان عصابات انظمة الخليج سرقت مساعدات غذائيّة للمدنيّيين أو تاجرت بها—وهذا ديدنها—هل يُبرّر هذا منع المساعدات اليوم؟ على العكس, إذا كان لديكم دليل على ان عصابات أنظمة الخليج جوّعت مدنيّيين, فهذا يزيد من واجبكم لفرض دخول مساعدات إضافيّة عاجلة.
٣) يقول الحزب ان معاناة المدنيّيين في الفوعة وكفريا وغيرها لم تلقَ اهتماماً إعلاميّاً من قبل. شو يعني؟ ماذا يبرّر هذا؟ وشو دخلنا إذا كنتم انتم فاشلين في الإعلام بأبسط قواعده؟ هل نحمّل مدنيّي ومدنيّات مضاياً المسؤوليّة عن فشلكم الدعائي والإعلامي؟ أو هل يُسوّغ هذا لمعاناة مدنيّين يعانون تحت وطأة حكم ميليشيات الجهاد وتحت وطأة حصار خانق؟
3) dire, comme le fait le hezbollah, que les souffrances des civils dans les villages de Foua, Kefraya et autres n’ont pas reçu le même écho ne justifie rien ! Il n’a qu’à être plus efficace médiatiquement !
٤) إن قتال حزب الله إلى جانب قوّات النظام السوري (التي خبرنا أساليبها في القتال في لبنان منذ الحصار على المخيّمات في ١٩٧٦) يحمّل الحزب—شاء أم أبى—أوزار وتبعات أساليب وطرق قتال النظام السوري.
4) En combattant aux côtés des forces syriennes (dont on connaît les techniques au LIban depuis 1976) signifie pour le hezb, qu’il le veuille ou non, qu’il adopte ces tactiques.
خلاصة القول, ليس من نظافة في هذه الحرب السوريّة المُدمّرة التي لا أناصر فيها محارباً واحداً.

Il n’y a rien de propre dans cette guerre syrienne destructrice, et je ne soutiens pas un seul de ses combattants ( I don’t support nor do I sympathize with one armed man in the destructive Syrian war—not one.)

#syrie #madaya

L’opérateur saoudien Arabsat stoppe la diffusion d’al Manar et d’al Mayadeen
▻http://www.lexpressiondz.com/culture/lecran_libre/231293-l-operateur-saoudien-stoppe-la-diffusion-d-el-manar-tv.html

Décidément rien ne va plus entre le Liban et l’Arabie saoudite. Pour cause, le groupe saoudien Arabsat a décidé de stopper la diffusion de la chaîne libanaise al-Manar, appartenant au Hizbollah. Arabsat avait déjà eu le mois dernier un litige avec la chaîne al Mayadeen, qui est également proche du Hizbollah. L’affaire est tellement sensible que l’opérateur satellitaire Arabsat, qui émettait de Jouret el-Ballout, dans le Metn près de Beyrouth au Liban, a déménagé ses centres de diffusion vers la Jordanie, pour ne pas subir la colère des autorités libanaises. La raison de ce clash est une attaque verbale d’un invité lors d’un talk-show en avril dernier, qui avait insulté la famille régnante saoudienne, spécialement le roi d’Arabie saoudite. Le présentateur du talk-show avait souligné, en direct, conformément aux règles en usage au Liban, que l’opinion de l’invité n’engageait pas la chaîne.

L’Etat islamique revendique le double attentat-suicide de Beyrouth
►http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2015/11/12/double-attentat-suicide-dans-un-fief-du-hezbollah-au-sud-de-beyrouth_4808562

dans un fief du Hezbollah dans la banlieue sud de Beyrouth

Comme pas mal d’autres je pense, je commence à ne plus supporter du tout qu’on nous parle SYSTEMATIQUEMENT du « fief du Hezbollah » ou de son « bastion » (plus militaire encore), quelles ques soient les circonstances. Un « quartier populaire de Beyrouth », c’est vraiment impossible à écrire ? les victimes sont des chiites-enrôlés-par-le-Hezbollah ou juste de pauvres civils massacrés par des tueurs qu’on arme en toute impunité depuis des années ?

#liban

Interview – H.A. Hellyer
▻http://www.e-ir.info/2015/10/10/interview-h-a-hellyer

Dr H.A. Hellyer is nonresident Fellow with the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and Associate Fellow in International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. An analyst & political scientist on Arab affairs, Muslim-Western communities, Egyptian politics, European security policies, and political theory, Dr Hellyer was appointed as Deputy Convenor of the UK Government’s Taskforce for the 2005 London bombings. He served as the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) first Economic & Social Research Council Fellow attached to the ‘Islam’ & ‘Counter-Terrorism’ teams with FCO security clearance, as a non-civil servant, independent academic with security clearance. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick (UK) and Research Associate at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Some of his publications include “Muslims of Europe: the ‘Other’ Europeans” for Edinburgh University Press, “Engagement with the Muslim Community and Counter-Terrorism: British Lessons for the West” for Brookings Institution Press, and “The Chance for Change in the Arab World: Egypt’s Uprising” for Chatham House’s Journal of International Affairs. He is currently writing a book on the Egyptian revolutionary uprising of 2011 and its aftermath.

Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?

I tend to focus on three different fields – and at the moment, I’m truly fascinated by the current developments in all three. The first relates to the politics of the Arab world, including Islamist politics; the second pertains to Muslim Western populations and their challenges to, as well as challenges from, the countries in which they reside; and the third around the interchange between Islam and modernity.

Many of our assumptions have been challenged in the past 5 years, since the revolutionary uprisings took place in the Arab world. I can still remember a world where academics wrote about the ‘resistance axis’ in the region, and the likes of Hizbollah and Bashar al-Assad’s Damascus were a part of that, described as ‘counter-weights’ to the machinations of right-wing neoconservatism and imperialism. The frames are wholly different now, on both of those points, due to the Syrian revolutionary uprising – and that leads to an important question for the Arab anti-imperialist left, as well as the old left in the West. Is this what left-wing politics is about, where we sacrifice the Syrian revolutionary uprising on the altar of some kind of imagined ‘resistance’ – while another type of foreign interference, be it from Tehran, Moscow, or Hizbollah, is critical in propping up a regime that has overseen the killing of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians? That’s a question that ought to be asked. In so doing, I hope the answer is not for the left to decide that they ought to become akin to the right-wing, whether in the West or the Arab world, and lose their time-honoured commitments to social justice as leftists. But rather, that the left ought to become more nuanced, and really take seriously the autonomy of people as a motivating factor, even when it is politically inconvenient.

I’ve also been interested to see the discussion unfold around Islamism. Pre 2011, there were certain basic elements that more progressive, liberal and left-wing thinkers had when it came to Islamism in general. The first was that Islamism was, generally, to be considered as ‘political Islam’ – i.e., that it was normative, mainstream, historically authentic Islam, but simply put into politics. The second was that the Muslim Brotherhood, as the mainstream of Islamism, was, across the board, rather moderate, pluralistic, and democratic.

Live du « The Telegraph » sur les bombardements russes en Syrie,
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11903702/Russias-Vladimir-Putin-launches-strikes-in-Syria-on-Isil-to-US-anger-li

Are the non-Isil groups being bombed terrorists?

The groups they are bombing a spectrum of opposition groups from an alliance called Jaish al-Fatah - Army of Conquest - to brigades of “moderate” rebels backed and even, according to one account, trained by the US.
Jaish al-Fatah made up of hardline groups that include Jabhat al-Nusra, which is aligned to #al-Qaeda, so they are formally designated by the West and the United Nations as terrorists.

Good ! Hit ALL jihadi groups ! Create a coordination center !
▻http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/09/httpwwwtelegraphcouknewsworldnewseuroperussia11900853putin-requ

“So, who else could Russian jets be targeting? Ruth Sherlock writes:

Russia may have targeted Jaysh al-Fatah as they are the rebel group that poses the greatest threat to Latakia, the regime’s heartland and location of the Russian controlled port of Tartous.

Some background on who this group are: Jaysh al-Fateh - the Army of Conquest - is a broad alliance of hardline Islamist groups, which includes both Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham.

In March this group captured Idlib, making it the second provincial capital to fall to the opposition since the start of the war.

Since then they have been effective in fighting the regime in Idlib and it looks like they may be able to push on government strongholds in central Syria and Latakia.

One interesting note - the Russians appear to have been watching this group for a long time: A year ago much of the Ahrar al-Sham leadership was wiped out by an explosion that took place where all the commanders had gathered.” Telegraph

New Approach in Southern Syria - International Crisis Group
▻http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/syria-lebanon/syria/163-new-approach-in-southern-syria.aspx

The Syrian war rages on, its devastating civilian toll rising with no viable political solution in sight. Diplomacy is stymied by the warring parties’ uncompromising positions, reinforced by political deadlock between their external backers. The U.S. is best placed to transform the status quo. A significant but realistic policy shift focused on dissuading, deterring or otherwise preventing the regime from conducting aerial attacks within opposition-held areas could improve the odds of a political settlement. This would be important, because today they are virtually nil. Such a policy shift could begin in southern Syria, where conditions are currently most favourable.

While the White House has declared its desire for an end of President Bashar Assad’s rule, it has shied from concrete steps toward this goal, pursuing instead a strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State (IS), which it deems a more serious threat to its interests. Yet, a year into that strategy, the overall power of Salafi-jihadi groups in Syria (as in Iraq) has risen. This is no surprise: the Assad regime’s sectarian strategy, collective punishment tactics and reliance on Iran-backed militias, among other factors, help perpetuate ideal recruitment conditions for these groups. By attacking IS while ignoring the regime’s ongoing bombardment of civilians, the U.S. inadvertently strengthens important aspects of the Salafi-jihadi narrative depicting the West as colluding with Tehran and Damascus to subjugate Sunnis.

Angry Arab: Saudi and Hariri media in a state of panic
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2015/08/saudi-and-hariri-media-in-state-of-panic.html

Marching orders have been issued. All Saudi and Hariri media today are claiming that all the protesters in Beirut are “rioters” and “anarchists” who are sent by Hizbollah. Hizbollah in reality is as far from the protests as far as I am from Mars. Sectarian agitation in those media is in full force: sectarianism is the first and last refuge of Harirism.

« On ne peut donc exclure »… que ces gugusses soient de longue date alignés sur les lubies du 14 Mars libanais… Admire-moi ce gloubiboulga :
▻http://syrie.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/12/30/le-hizbollah-syrien-prend-un-caractere-officiel

Au cours des trois années écoulées, le comportement du Hizbollah libanais a permis de constater que son appartenance au chiisme prévalait sur son appartenance à la nation libanaise. Il a également permis de confirmer que les armes que ledit Parti de Dieu prétendait conserver pour affronter l’ennemi israélien lui servaient en réalité à imposer ses volontés dans le champ politique local, et à travailler comme mercenaire au service d’un régime despotique engagé dans une guerre confessionnelle contre sa population.

On ne peut donc exclure que, imaginé et créé par les mêmes idéologues et destiné à servir en priorité encore une fois les intérêts de l’Iran, le Hizbollah syrien se révolte un jour contre l’Etat syrien, paralyse ses institutions et prenne le pays entier en otage au profit de ses maîtres chiites étrangers.

Hizbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on the tenth night of Muharam commemorating Ashura during the central council held in Sayyed Ashuhada (pbuh) Complex in Haret Hreik on November 3, 2014 :: English | جريدة السفير
▻http://assafir.com/Article/50/382713

Neither Syria nor Iran demands anything from anyone in the world in exchange for facilitating and holding the presidential elections. Some have tried to link the Lebanese presidential file with the Iranian nuclear talks. These do not know anything about the Iranian nuclear talks. In fact, Iran refuses to connect its nuclear file with any other file – neither the presidency in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, nor Azerbaijan. It focuses its discussion and dialogue on this issue from the position of power and wisdom, and it refuses to be blackmailed at the expense of its friends, allies, and the peoples in the region to facilitate its nuclear file. So this is also settled.
It remains that you solve your problems. You have a problem with the regional axis you are allies with. You usually say that you don’t have any problem with such and such or so and so but for example you say that our brethrens in Saudi Arabia do not approve on him. Well then try to address this dilemma.

Syria’s dirty secret is that Assad could win in a fair election
▻http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/syrias-dirty-secret-is-that-assad-could-win-in-a-fair-election

#Syrie

16 décembre 2013 : Les réfugiés syriens, facteur de déstabilisation régionale (que j’avais qualifié de « navrant » et « gravissime »)
▻http://seenthis.net/messages/208034

12 décembre 2013 : The “Arab Spring” and Refugees in the Middle East, sur le site du think tank israélien Institute for National Security Studies :
▻http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=6173

Unlike in Jordan and Turkey, governmental ineptitude – as well as opposition from Hizbollah – has thus far kept Lebanon from building permanent camps for the Syrian refugees. It is feared, particularly by Hizbollah, that refugee camps will become permanent abodes, encouraging the Syrian refugees to remain, and become a center for Syrian opposition groups that will make them a base of operations against the Assad regime and Hizbollah itself. In contrast to the situation in Jordan and Turkey, the Syrian refugees in Lebanon are spread according to their ethnic distribution throughout hundreds of communities and villages, and in improvised refugee camps, mostly in the border area. If they remain in the country, they are liable to dramatically alter the demographic ethnic balance in Lebanon.

No end to the civil war in Syria is in sight, and it is believed that hundreds of thousands of Syrians, mostly Sunnis, will settle in Lebanon even after the crisis ends, due to the expected difficulty reconstruction process. The Syrian refugees are not eligible to vote in Lebanon and therefore do not affect the electoral balance, but the current situation in Lebanon is shaped more in the street than in parliament. A dramatic change in the demographic balance in Lebanon in favor of the Sunnis is liable to have a negative impact on the standing of the Christians, and in the long term, is also likely to undermine the status of Hizbollah. The presence of many of the refugees in the Beqaa region, a predominantly Shiite region with part effectively controlled by Hizbollah, is likely to arouse sectarian conflict and also to undermine the status of Hizbollah in the region, especially since most of the Syrian refugees support the opposition to Assad and regard Hizbollah as responsible for their plight.

C’est ma veille lubie : les sujets « à la mode » sur les sujets sensibles ne le sont pas de manière fortuite. Le calendrier médiatique qui « suggère » les sujets à traiter est le premier problème quand on écrit un article.

We can get rid of Assad or fight al-Qaeda, but we can’t do both - Telegraph
▻http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/10662823/We-can-get-rid-of-Assad-or-fight-al-Qaeda-but-we-cant-do-both.html

For the past three years, when seeking enlightenment about the Syrian crisis, I have often talked to Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer. Mr Crooke, who left government service a decade ago after a long career, now runs a think tank called Conflicts Forum, which maintains contact with organisations such as Hizbollah and governments such as Iran, when official contact has been broken off.
I have learnt to respect and trust Mr Crooke, who has the invaluable habit of being right. When the British and American governments both claimed that President Assad of Syria would fall within weeks, he told me this was wishful thinking. When Western governments hailed the Syrian rebels as a democratic movement of national liberation, he said: hang on a moment. At the heart of the rebellion, he pointed out, was a group of armed gangs funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, dedicated to the establishment of a militant Sunni caliphate across the Middle East. He uttered this warning right at the start of the Syrian conflict, and at last the penny is (ever so painfully) beginning to drop in Whitehall and Washington.

Cafe society is universal even in South Beirut | The National
▻http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/cafe-society-is-universal-even-in-south-beirut#full

The Dahiya area of Beirut is often described in the western press as a “Hizbollah stronghold” and by the Lebanese as the “suburbs”, near the city’s downtown areas yet conveniently tucked away from traditional elites. Lately it has been a site of recurring and uncontrollable violence: kidnappings and explosions.

But the authors of a newly published book Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shiite South Beirut, have chosen to focus on an entirely different aspect of that neighbourhood: its emerging cafe society and the relationship between leisure, religious and social morals, and the changing urban landscape.

#Liban
#Dahiyeh
#Hezbollah

Interview du Sheikh Al Qaradawi, qui appelle de nouveau à la guerre sainte en Syrie contre le Hizbollah, « le parti de Satan »
(vidéo)

▻http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/06/09/Sheikh-Qaradawi-renews-call-for-holy-war-against-Hezbollah.html

(Hizb Allah signifie « Parti de Dieu »)

#Syrie #Hezbollah #Qaradawi

Cameron: help me kick Hizbollah out of Europe | The Jewish Chronicle
▻http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102252/cameron-help-me-kick-hizbollah-out-europe