In hiding, Tripoli’s militiamen dream of fighting

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The afternoon sun beats down on a group of men as they construct the walls of a children’s playground by the seaside outside Tripoli. A sea breeze blows across the reclaimed land jutting out over the rocky shore.

It might sound like paradise, but the husky men here are wanted by security forces for their role in recent Tripoli clashes.

As they wait for fighting they claim will start anew, they are confined to this embankment property where they spend their days looking to the past, when they were free to roam the city.

“It was better when there were battles because there was work and action,” says Ali, a wanted militiaman. “Now, there’s no work and no money.” The plot of land Ali works on is owned by his militia’s leader, and he is helping to build a wall by spreading cement over large concrete blocks, his three sons playing on a carousel a few meters away.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Jun-05/258908-in-hiding-tripolis-militiamen-dream-of-fighting.ashx#ixzz33rMvM9WW
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Inadequate net regulation sees Lebanon’s fishermen suffer

BEIRUT/SIDON/TRIPOLI: The saline scent of the Mediterranean hangs in the air as 69-year-old Adnan al-Oud stands looking out at his nautical bureau where he’s spent decades seafaring.

For years, the sea generously provided heaps of fish for fishermen like Oud, but the once-plentiful aquatic expanse is no longer as giving as it once was.“[Today], the fisherman does not have enough money to pay for his food and if he has kids in school he can’t pay for them,” he says, standing in a small harbor under Beirut’s Ain al-Mreisseh boardwalk.

Oud lets a cigarette dangle from his calloused left hand. Grey curly hair crawls out from the back of his brown Pirelli hat, covering his small squinting eyes from the sun. He wears a tattered long brown T-shirt, long navy blue shorts, and his comfortable Crocs.

In his youth, Oud would work 10 days straight as a fireman and would use his usual 20 days off at sea being a fisherman.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Jun-03/258623-inadequate-net-regulation-sees-lebanons-fishermen-suffer.ashx#ixzz33rNBKZ9D
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Ethnic tensions erupt in Burj Hammoud

BEIRUT: The stout, gray-haired man, who says he is “bigger than the mukhtar” in the community, stares coldly and speaks with authority.

“The Kurds have no religion,” Serge says firmly, standing only a block away from where a Syrian Kurd put a local man in intensive care Saturday. “They have no Jesus, no God.”Serge is one of many in Beirut’s northeastern suburb of Burj Hammoud who harbors a flagrant resentment toward Kurds. Enmity between some runs so deep that tensions have even descended into gang warfare in the past.

That sentiment boiled over during the weekend after Lebanese citizen Elias Kalash was knocked unconscious by a gas canister thrown by a Syrian Kurdish man.

The ensuing tensions were only quelled Monday when local municipality figures and representatives comprising various security forces held a series of meetings aimed at preventing a recurrence of Saturday’s events. A representative from the Kurdish Lebanese Razgari Party was also in communication with the Burj Hammoud municipality in an attempt to further defuse ethnic and communal hostilities.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/May-20/257075-ethnic-tensions-erupt-in-burj-hammoud.ashx#ixzz33rNMnzKq 

Claims of corruption add to Al-Qaa water woes -- & more

AL-QAA, Lebanon: On a warm spring day in the Bekaa Valley town of Al-Qaa, Hana Rizk stood outside his neighbor’s one-story house, a tired grimace on his face from coping with the town’s insufficient water supply.
“The water came for two hours today,” Rizk said with quiet anger. “The last time it was turned on was two days ago and now it probably won’t come for another two to three days. How much use can we get out of two hours of water?”
Many residents in Lebanon’s semi-arid Bekaa Valley have received what they say are inadequate amounts of water in recent months, a situation attributed to complications including the lack of precipitation this past winter and the torrential influx of refugees from neighboring Syria.
The water concern is magnified in Al-Qaa, a Greek Catholic town 10 kilometers from the Syrian border, by tales of mismanagement and accusations of corruption among the town’s municipal water committee.
The Bekaa Valley is Lebanon’s driest region and normally receives an average of up to 600mm of rainfall each year. And as summer rapidly approaches fears of drought are escalating because the region has only received 240 milimeters of rainfall, making 2014 the driest in 100 years.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Apr-17/253587-claims-of-corruption-add-to-al-qaa-water-woes.ashx#ixzz2z7wWRf8d
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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Deadly fish thriving in Lebanon's waters

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: At 1 p.m. on this sunny Thursday afternoon, Tripoli fishermen Ibrahim Shehade and Ishaac Sidawi should be out at sea. Instead, they sit forlornly watching cars pass by on the Mina sea road.
There is no work for them on the water, something they blame on the recent boom of rapidly spawning and lethal puffer fish – neffaykh in Arabic – in the sea their families have trawled for generations.
“There’s a war going on in Tripoli, both at land and at sea,” says Sidawi, 27, despondently.
Sitting next to him, the older, more pensive Shehade, 39, adds: “This puffer fish is causing us fishermen a lot of damage because it’s eating smaller fish and ripping our nets. On top of this, they say it’s poisonous, so we can’t sell it.”
The fish could also be described as opportunistic as it eats other fish caught in nets, effectively taking away the fishermen’s catch as well as ruining their gear.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Apr-07/252498-deadly-fish-thriving-in-lebanons-waters.ashx#ixzz2z7wnjrIi
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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Armenians mourn rebel take over of Kasab in Syria

BEIRUT: Seated outside the clothes shop in Burj Hammoud where he works, Syrian-Armenian Ararad Mahdesian gazes into the distance, reminiscing about the place he still calls home.
“I had beautiful days in Kasab. I was born there and I am from there,” the 25-year-old says solemnly, referring to a town in northwest Syria that was overrun by rebels less than two weeks ago while he wasn’t there.
Located on the border with Turkey, Kasab is a historical town with an ethnic Armenian population that dates back to the medieval Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Until the civil war, Kasab was a tourist destination mostly inhabited by farmers.
Now, like so many places in Syria, it has all changed.
Mahdesian says his 65-year-old father was one of the last people to leave Kasab, and that his relatives are now in Latakia with around 600 other families who all fled due to the rebel attack.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Apr-03/252133-armenians-mourn-rebel-takeover-of-kasab-in-syria.ashx#ixzz2z7x1WJoi
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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Chimp rescued from zoo after eight year struggle

 BEIRUT: An animal rights group confiscated Lebanon’s last imprisoned chimpanzee from a zoo over the weekend, nine years after it was smuggled into the country.
Accompanied by seven police officers and a court clerk, Animals Lebanon entered a zoo along the Nahr al-Kalb river Saturday and took Charlie the chimp into their care in a court-approved operation supported by the Agriculture Ministry that took around 30 minutes.
“Charlie, a 9-year-old chimpanzee, was smuggled to Lebanon in 2005 and sold from a pet shop before ending up in Animal City zoo,” said a press release from Animals Lebanon. “The Ministry of Agriculture declared in 2006 that Charlie was smuggled into Lebanon and that no permits have been issued for his importation. An attempted confiscation in early 2006 failed after the zoo removed Charlie the day before the confiscation was to take place.”

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Apr-09/252735-chimp-rescued-from-zoo-after-eight-year-struggle.ashx#ixzz2z7xB9fK4
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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Central Beirut brought to standstill as politicians gather

BEIRUT: Roads in Beirut’s Downtown were blocked Tuesday for the first day of a three-day Parliament session, causing traffic jams, enraging motorists and debilitating nearby businesses.
Banks Street closed to motorists at 7 a.m. and remained closed until the end of the first legislative session in the late afternoon, with security forces cordoning off the perimeter of Downtown. Roads were also closed leading to Riad Solh Square, and a roadblock was set up by the An-Nahar building on the other side of Downtown.
Closure of roads in central Beirut is common when Lebanon’s Parliament meets, with many of the roads that pass through Downtown blocked off by security forces in a bid to minimize the possibility of terrorist attacks and political assassinations, making life hellish for the city’s commuters.
Seething and staring ahead at the traffic jam, Leah, 30, jested, “I want to kill [Parliament] for this.”

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Apr-02/251995-central-beirut-brought-to-standstill-as-politiciansgather.ashx#ixzz2z7xLV0kU
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

(France 24 Eng) Lebanon blasts raise concerns of Syrian conflict spilling over

Twin blasts rock city in north Lebanon

Photo by Justin Salhani

By Justin Salhani
TRIPOLI, Lebanon – Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli was rocked Friday by devastating twin car bombs that left at least 29 dead and more than 300 wounded in a coordinated attack that appears to be connected to the war in Syria on neighboring Lebanon.

The bombs were detonated outside crowded mosques ran by sheikhs known for delivering fiery sermons against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime.

Lebanon rests on tenuous geopolitical fault lines with Israel to the south and Syria bordering the north and east. Tripoli, a bastion for Sunni Muslims in Lebanon, is 10 miles from the Syrian border and overwhelmingly sympathetic with the Syrian opposition. In certain parts of Tripoli, armed men roam the streets in a show of power without interference from local security forces. Political cover or support from portions of the local population protects the armed groups, some of which are Salafist.

On Friday, the first explosion took place outside Taqwa mosque, located on the outskirts of the troubled Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood, turning nearby parked cars into heaps of twisted scrap metal and shattering the glass of surrounding buildings. The street flooded with water where the blast left a crater, as somber faces looked on at charred trees and the other destruction encompassing the mosque.

Read full story here: http://theatlanticpost.com/security/twin-blasts-rock-city-in-north-lebanon-3048.html

New actors in Lebanon’s north threaten Tripoli’s stability

 I wrote a blogpost about this a few months back. Here is the final story of my investigative report into what was fueling the fighting between Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen. The intro to the story is the usual caveats but the interesting information is further down. I've put a few graphs here.

In the past, prominent Tripoli politicians have provided funds to Bab al-Tabbaneh street leaders in exchange for popular support and votes, multiple sources said.

Mouin Merhabi is a representative in parliament of the Future Movement, an anti-Assad party led by former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, the son of the Rafik al-Hariri. He said, “More than 90 percent of people in [Bab al-] Tabbaneh are poor. They used to buy the bullets themselves and sometimes they would ask people from the city to [fund their fighting].”

Portraits of former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and Mohammad Kabbara, a Tripoli parliamentarian from the Future Movement, are commonly found plastered on Bab al-Tabbaneh’s bullet-ridden walls.
But Tripoli’s politicians are finding it harder to control the conflict. Sitting behind his desk in his Beirut office, an adviser to one of Tripoli’s most prominent politicians said, “The politicians are no longer in control [of the men on the street].” The adviser, who is not affiliated with the Future Movement, asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Future Movement parliamentarian Ahmad Fatfat, said, “Politicians cut all attempts to try and control [Bab al-Tabbaneh].” Now, “[street leaders] found a way to keep [their funding] alive.”

According to the Tripoli-based political adviser, “Gangsters [in Bab al-Tabbaneh] have direct access to primary funding. They don’t go to politicians anymore.” In the latest round of fighting, when Mohammad Kabbara asked for a meeting to organize a ceasefire he was ignored by fighters once loyal to him, said the adviser of the Tripoli politician.

The adviser said that Gulf state intelligence agencies are funding street leaders, or “gangsters” as he labeled them, in Bab al-Tabbaneh. “High-level experts on the other side go to Damascus or Tehran,” he said.

When fighting erupted in Tripoli in June, the Lebanese English online publication Naharnet reported that Saad al-Masri, a prominent street leader in Bab al-Tabbaneh and one-time ally of caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, had traveled to Turkey to obtain financial support. Fighters on the street however said al-Masri was “on vacation.”

“If you are a Salafist or Islamist, you go to Saudi Arabia or Qatar,” said the adviser to the Tripoli politician. “Gangsters go to Turkey, but not to meet with the Turks,” he added. Fadda, the ADP spokesperson, also accused the Bab al-Tabbaneh fighters of receiving funding from Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The adviser said that leaders like Masri broke from their political allies because of constraints placed upon them regarding buying arms and fighting with Jabal Mohsen. Today, they have no constraints.
Requests for an interview with Saad al-Masri went unanswered.

Read full story: http://theatlanticpost.com/security/new-actors-in-lebanons-north-threaten-tripolis-stability-2866.html