Obama Addresses Vaccinations, Other Issues In NBC Interview

President Barack Obama on Sunday encouraged parents to vaccinate their children and said the U.S. is doing everything in its power to rescue a 26-year-old woman held by the Islamic State, speaking in a wide-ranging interview also covering football and politics.

Obama's comments to NBC came as the U.S. grapples with a measles outbreak traced back to California's Disneyland theme park and a day after the release of video that purportedly showed the beheading of a Japanese journalist held by the militants.

Obama says he has watched videos of hostages being beheaded. "I think it would affect anybody who has an ounce of humanity. And it's part of the reason why I think we've been so successful in organizing such a broad-based coalition" to go after the Islamic State, Obama said.

Three Americans — aid worker Peter Kassig and journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff — were beheaded last year by the Islamic State. A fourth American being held is a woman captured last year in Syria while working for aid groups. U.S. officials have asked that she not be identified out of fears for her safety.

"Obviously this is something that is heart-breaking for the family and we want to make sure we do anything we can to make sure that any American citizen is rescued from this situation," Obama said.

On the measles outbreak that has spread to more than 100 people, Obama said children who are not vaccinated are putting infants and other people who can't get vaccinations at risk. "You should get your kids vaccinated," Obama said directly.

Some parents continue to believe debunked research linking vaccines to autism and refuse to vaccinate their children.

"I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations," Obama said. "The science is, you know, pretty indisputable."

Obama spoke to NBC's Savannah Guthrie before hosting a Super Bowl party at the White House for his friends. His comments on terrorism and vaccinations were taped to air on The Today Show Monday, but NBC released excerpts in advance.

Lighter topics were covered in a short segment that aired live in the pregame show. As Guthrie and Obama sampled White House-brewed beer from the executive mansion's kitchen, they mixed a discussion of the game's high-profile controversy — deflated footballs — with a brief discussion of politics.

But the president ducked picking between possible 2016 Democratic presidential contenders Joe Biden and Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Love 'em both," Obama said with a smile.

He also wouldn't pick a favorite in the New England Patriots Super Bowl match-up against the Seattle Seahawks. "I think it's always wise for me not to choose a team because then I just alienate one big city," Obama said.

As the NFL investigates how the Patriots used the deflated balls in their 45-7 AFC championship victory, Obama said the team would have defeated the Indianapolis Colts "regardless of what the footballs looked like."

"The one thing I did not realize — and I'll bet most fans didn't — was that each team prepares its own footballs and brings them to the game," Obama said. "I don't think there's any other sport like that so I'm assuming one of the things the NFL is going to be doing just to avoid any of these controversies is figuring out how the officials are in charge of the footballs from start to finish."

Pressed on whether the Patriots were cheating, Obama said: "I think that if you break the rules then you break the rules."

The president rejected the idea he was doing his own end zone dance with a defiant State of the Union address after Democrats lost seats in the midterm election. "My job is not to trim my sails," Obama said, confidently arguing for his ability to win over even some of his political rivals. He spoke on the eve of his presentation of a budget to Congress, where his proposals are certain to get a rough reception from the Republican majority.

"One thing I've learned over the last six years is that when I tell the American people very clearly what direction I think the country should go in, sometimes people change their minds," Obama said. "And even Republicans occasionally start agreeing with me, although sometimes a little bit later than I would like."

Netanyahu criticizes U.N. over Lebanon flare-up

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused United Nations peacekeepers of failing to enforce a resolution barring Hezbollah guerrillas from smuggling weapons into Lebanon.

In a phone call with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Netanyahu blamed Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, for Wednesday's flare-up that killed two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish peacekeeper in the worst fighting along the Israeli, Lebanese frontier since a 2006 war.

He said that a resolution ending that 34-day conflict was "not being implemented," and that the peacekeepers, known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) "aren't reporting on weapons smuggling into southern Lebanon."

The soldiers and peacekeeper died when guerrillas fired rockets at unmarked Israeli vehicles at the frontier, and Israel responded with artillery shells and an air strike.

Netanyahu "expressed sorrow" for the U.N. soldier's death and said he had agreed with Spain to jointly investigate the circumstances, a statement for the Israeli leader's office said.

The U.N. force has policed southern Lebanon since a deal achieved after a 1978 Israeli incursion.

Hezbollah's attack was seen as revenge for a Jan. 18 raid blamed on Israel that killed several Hezbollah members and an Iranian general in southern Syria.

The exchange of fire triggered concerns the conflict could escalate, with Israel nervous at Hezbollah's deployment not only in Lebanon but now also across the Syrian frontier, where the guerrillas have been helping Syria's embattled President Hafez Assad fight a civil war.

In his remarks to Ban, Netanyahu accused Tehran of trying to widen the conflict against Israel, and complained that "until now the world community has not pointed an accusatory finger at Iran, which was behind the attack on the northern border."

Israel and Hezbollah have signaled that despite the violence, they are not interested in a further escalation, and despite increased vigilance on both sides the border area has been calm for the past four days.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Friday "we do not want a war" but would remain ready to respond to any Israeli violence.

Beirut to be free of political posters: Berri

Beirut to be free of political posters: Berri

Speaker Nabih Berri announced that Beirut will be free of political posters and provocative slogans as part of an...

Next round of talks with Hezbollah tough: Machnouk

BEIRUT: Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said Monday the new round of discussions between Hezbollah and the Future Movement will be more complex than the four previous dialogue sessions.

“The upcoming dialogue session with Hezbollah is going to be difficult after [Hezbollah leader] Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s latest speech,” Machnouk told local daily As-Safir.

He said the Future delegation will "frankly express its opinion" on Nasrallah’s speech during the talks, which are expected to resume this week.

Machnouk, however, stressed that dialogue would continue despite the difficulties.

Top officials from Hezbollah and the Future Movement have met on four separate occasions since Dec. 27 in a bid to ease sectarian tensions.

Machnouk said a campaign to remove flags and signs of political parties in various areas of Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli as well as the coastal highways will kick off this week.

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Six Lebanese killed in Damascus bus blast

BEIRUT: A bomb ripped through a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Damascus Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding up to 20, in an attack linked to the ongoing war between Hezbollah and Islamist militants who have vowed to punish the party for its involvement in the Syrian war.

The cause of the rare attack that rocked a central district of the Syrian capital was unclear. While a Twitter account associated with the Nusra Front, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate, claimed responsibility for the blast, saying a Saudi member of the group identified as Abu al-Ezz al-Ansari blew himself up inside the bus, Syrian media and the trip’s organizers said the blast was caused by an explosive device.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said the “terrorist bombing” involved 5 kilograms of explosives placed in the front of the bus and that authorities had defused a second device inside a bag which was found on the floor of the vehicle.

The bus had made its first stop close to the Sayyida Roqaya shrine and was heading toward the revered Sayyida Zeinab shrine in southeast Damascus when the attack occurred, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station.

The targeted bus, part of a four-vehicle convoy, carrying Lebanese pilgrims on regular weekly trips to Shiite shrines in Damascus, had Lebanese number plates and Syrian security services had cordoned off the area close to the bustling Souq al-Hamidiyeh in the Syrian capital. Rescue workers sifted through the rubble and cleared away pools of blood from the ground.

“I was thrown out of my seat by the force of the explosion and when I stood up I saw some passengers who fell martyrs,” Mohammad Musawi, one of the survivors who was slightly wounded in the blast, told Al-Manar TV upon returning to Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Musawi, in his early 30s, said he was sitting in the back in the bus when the explosion occurred.

Hezbollah and Lebanese leaders on both sides of the political divide condemned the blast. Prime Minister Tammam Salam denounced the explosion as “a barbaric act.”

“The crime committed against civilian Lebanese who were on a religious visit in Damascus is a condemned act by all humanitarian and moral criteria and has nothing to do with the noble Islamic religion with which the terrorists are disguised,” Salam said in a statement.

He called on the Lebanese to deny the “terrorists the chance to carry out their wicked strife schemes” by “displaying the highest level of national unity to confront the wave of black terrorism and shield the country’s security and stability.”

Hezbollah blamed takfiri groups, the party’s label of militant Islamist groups fighting to topple the regime in Syria, for the blast, saying they served Israel with their criminal action.

“Hezbollah condemns the terrorist blast that was executed by takfiri criminals in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and which targeted pilgrims to the granddaughter of the Messenger of God, Sayyida Roqaya, and led to the killing and wounding of a large number of pilgrims,” the party said in a statement.

Hezbollah said the explosion was a link in a chain of attacks that targeted pilgrims in Syria, civilians in Iraq and worshippers in Pakistan which had resulted in the killing of scores of people.

The bus carried Shiite pilgrims from Lebanon as part of a weekly tour trip to two religious sites in Damascus, organized by a Lebanese organization called “Admirers of Imam al-Hussein Campaign.”

“The vicious blast demonstrates the barbarian behavior of those terrorists, who with their criminal actions, are serving the Zionist entity and its project to dismember our [Muslim] nation and its peoples,” the Hezbollah statement said.

“The deeds of those criminals [jihadis] throughout the world – be it suicide attacks, beheadings or sacrileges – should serve as an incentive for all the wise and vibrant forces in the [Muslim] nation and in the world to gear efforts toward fighting and eradicating them after they have become a criminal tool in the hands of the Zionist entity,” it added.

Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora deplored the Damascus blast, calling it “a terrorist criminal act against humanity.”

The one “who planned [the blast] and carried it out is a criminal terrorist who serves the interests of the Syrian regime and the enemies of Syria, Islam and the Arabs,” Siniora, head of the Future bloc, said in a statement.

Siniora, a harsh critic of Hezbollah over its role in Syria, offered condolences to the Lebanese people and the families of the victims, saying the phenomenon of terrorism should be dealt with in a comprehensive manner in order to eradicate it along with its causes.

Syrian state television showed footage from the scene of the blast, with men in military uniforms picking through the wreckage of the blackened bus. Its front half was mostly blown off, leaving only the metal frame, and bags of belongings were strewn across the remaining seats.

TV footage showed the exterior parts of the bus soaked with pilgrims’ blood, with its blue curtains in shreds. The TV also showed images from inside a hospital where the wounded were treated, including a woman whose black robes had been lifted up, revealing a blood-soaked undershirt.

Fadi Kheireddine, an organizer in the group, said the bus was not struck by a suicide attack but by an explosive device planted toward the front end of the bus.

Speaking to Al-Manar and Al-Jadeed TV channels, Kheireddine said the bus carried around 52 pilgrims including the organization’s chief Ali Madi, who was “lightly wounded.”

Al-Manar TV identified the six victims as Mahdi Youssef al-Moqdad, Mohammad Ahmad al-Moqdad, Qassem Hatoum, Ali Abbas Balouq, Chadi Houmani and Mohammad Hussein Ayoub.

The agency had been making regular trips to Syria despite the civil war there, with groups leaving each weekend for a daylong visit to shrines revered by Shiites across the border.

On Sunday evening, 19 of the surviving pilgrims arrived by bus in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where they were warmly received by their parents and relatives. According to the organizers, 17 of those who returned to Beirut were in good health, while two of them had sustained light wounds and were admitted to hospital for treatment.

Al-Manar TV said the transfer of the dead bodies of the six martyrs from Syria to Lebanon has been postponed until Monday.

Parts of Damascus have remained relatively unscathed by the fighting raging in much of Syria since an uprising erupted in March 2011. But rebels regularly fire rockets into the capital from rear bases in the surrounding countryside and the city has also been hit by bombings.

Girault visits amid gloomy presidential prospects

French presidential envoy Jean-Francois Girault is scheduled to visit Beirut early this week in a new attempt aimed at ending the political deadlock that has left Lebanon without a president for over eight months.

However, Girault’s visit, the second to Lebanon in less than two months as part of a French initiative designed to prod rival Lebanese leaders to agree on a consensus president, comes amid bleak prospects for breaking the presidential impasse after Iran refused to respond favorably to the French efforts, diplomatic sources said.

“The French initiative, which has been put on hold for now, will remain in limbo until the fate of the ongoing behind-the-scene negotiations is known in order to find out whether they will lead to positive results,” an Arab diplomat based in a European country said, referring to Iran’s ongoing talks with Western powers over its nuclear program.

“Each of international negotiators is upholding cards of pressure which makes the French initiative, whose broad lines are articulated by Girault, useless,” he said.

Girault, head of the French Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa Department, who held talks on the presidential crisis with rival Lebanese leaders during his trip to Beirut in December, has also visited Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Vatican for the same purpose.

The Arab diplomat noted that the high-ranking foreign officials, including U.S. President Barak Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who thronged to Saudi Arabia last week to offer condolences over the death of King Abdullah, have sent a minor signal about the openness of lines between Riyadh and Tehran that could help find a solution to the presidential crisis in Lebanon.

“The outcome of regional developments will shape the new political outlook of the region,” he said.

Despite the gloomy prospects over the presidential election, as a result of Iran’s reluctance to respond favorably to the French initiative by referring Girault to its allies in Lebanon, the diplomat disclosed that the French envoy might be carrying a new proposal to discuss with Lebanese officials that could help break the deadlock.

Girault has requested meetings with Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam and other leaders. They will find out from the French envoy whether he was coming here on a fact-finding visit to accompany the internal dialogues (between the Future Movement and Hezbollah and between the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces), or whether he will present new ideas to resolve the presidential crisis.

Ahead of Girault’s visit to Lebanon, it was reported that French diplomats held preliminary meetings with some Lebanese factions, including Hezbollah, that could help define the path of the ongoing local and regional consultations over the presidential election.

However, a Lebanese source in contact with Girault told The Daily Star that the French envoy’s new visit does not entail more than France’s insistence on proceeding with its initiative over Lebanon’s presidential election and sounding out the views of Lebanese leaders in light of the ongoing dialogue among rival factions.

France wants to keep the presidential election issue on the go, while waiting for local and regional conditions to be ripe for the election of a consensus president, the source said.

Despite Girault’s upcoming visit to Beirut, the attention of the Lebanese, who have become accustomed to the presidential vacuum, is currently focused on other issues, mainly the deteriorating security situation in the country, on Lebanon’s northern and eastern border with Syria, and the southern border with Israel, the source added.

Although Girault’s visit is a follow-up to previous trips he made to Lebanon and other countries in the region, the source said the envoy has reached the conviction that none of the countries concerned with the Lebanese presidential crisis is ready to facilitate the French initiative. France is facing successive frustrations in its foreign policy, primarily in the Middle East.

Should Iran decide to cooperate over the presidential issue, it prefers to deal directly with the United States, the main player, the source said.

He added that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were willing to see the presidential election take place before a nuclear agreement is signed between Iran and Western powers. The Vatican also encourages this approach, but it does not seem that solutions for the presidential crisis have been put on the right track.

Third Lebanon war inevitable, Israeli foreign minister says

BEIRUT: Tensions between Israel and Lebanon rose Sunday as Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that a third war between the two countries has become “inevitable.” “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable,” Lieberman told Ynet news, the English-language website of Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, in an interview.

“There’s no doubt the rules of the game have been changed, what Hezbollah forced upon us. We don’t respond, but rather decide to contain this incident. I think that’s completely unreasonable,” Lieberman said. “Hezbollah is bolder, more determined, more provocative.”

Lieberman said that Israel’s deterrence had been compromised following Hezbollah’s attack on an Israeli envoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms last week and he labeled Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response insufficient, Ynet reported.

Lieberman had immediately called for a “harsh and disproportionate,” response to Hezbollah’s attack that left two Israeli soldiers dead and seven others wounded. Israel responded by shelling villages in south Lebanon, causing no casualties to Hezbollah but killing a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper.

Hezbollah’s offensive came in response to an Israeli strike on Jan. 18 on a convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra in the Golan Heights which killed six Hezbollah fighters and a high-ranking official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

One of the Hezbollah members killed was Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of the slain Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh.

Lieberman’s comments came a day after U.S. publications The Washington Post and later Newsweek revealed how the CIA and Israel’s spy agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to kill Mughniyeh in 2008.

Both publications detailed how the two spy agencies executed a pinpoint operation using a car bomb to take down Mughniyeh in a restaurant parking lot in Damascus on Feb. 12, 2008.

The CIA led the operation, carrying out tedious tests on the car bomb at a facility in North Carolina to ensure that the bomb would have a small radius and cause no collateral damage, both publications said.

After deciding on the right bomb, CIA and Mossad agents had to wait months to carry out the operation, monitoring Mughniyeh’s movements and waiting for a moment when he was alone to carry out the strike.

However, there is a stark difference between the two publications on one detail of the operation regarding who actually detonated the bomb that killed Mughniyeh.

The Post reported that operatives on the ground monitored Mughniyeh’s movements but the device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv.

“The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” a former U.S. intelligence official told the Post.

They added that the Israelis wanted to pull the trigger as payback with one former official describing it as “revenge,” but the Americans didn’t care.

However, Newsweek reported that the CIA operative that was monitoring Mughniyeh’s movements with a Mossad agent in Damascus would “press the remote,” to detonate the bomb.

Newsweek reported that this Mossad agent was present to identify Mughniyeh while the Post said that facial recognition technology was used.

Both publications scrutinized the legality of the operation. Following a 1981 executive order, the CIA was banned from carrying out assassinations. Therefore, in order to authorize this mission the CIA had to receive permission from former President of the United States George W. Bush as well as several senior figures, the Post said.

The CIA justified the operation by stating that Mughniyeh was a threat to American national security as he had been involved in a number of operations that killed Americans and was also thought to be training Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting American troops at the time.

Newsweek reported that it only took the U.S. president 30 seconds to agree to the order when former CIA Chief Michael Hayden brought him the request, telling him to “Go with God.”

Hayden was nonetheless nervous about carrying out the operation due to its precarious legality but eventually agreed, Newsweek said.

Mughniyeh had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for decades after being involved in operations such as the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the kidnapping and murder of Beirut CIA station Chief William Buckley and the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut airport in the 1980s.

Future officials slam Nasrallah’s speech

BEIRUT: Former premier Fouad Siniora denounced over the weekend Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s latest speech, describing it as impetuous and dangerous. Speaking during a seminar at the AmericanUniversity of Beirut to commemorate the assassination of former Minister Mohammad Chatah, Siniora slammed Nasrallah’s comments with respect to changing the rules of engagement with Israel.

Nasrallah delivered his speech Friday during a ceremony to honor six Hezbollah fighters killed during the Jan. 18, Israeli airstrike in Syria’s Qunaitra, in which he announced that the rules of engagement between the resistance and Israel had ended.

“Following the Qunaitra operation and the response in the Shebaa Farms, I want to be clear: We in the Islamic Resistance [Hezbollah] in Lebanon are no longer concerned with any such thing as the rules of engagement. We don’t recognize the rules of engagement that have ended,” Nasrallah said in his speech.

Hezbollah retaliated to the Qunaitra attack Wednesday – two days prior to the speech – in an ambush operation that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

Siniora said Nasrallah’s remarks were “unilateral and hasty and eliminate the will of the Lebanese people who are committed to [U.N] Resolution 1701,” which ended the July 2006 War.

Speaker Nabih Berri slammed those criticizing Nasrallah’s speech, saying that the Hezbollah attack on the Israeli military convoy in Shebaa did not breach U.N. Resolution 1701 and was “a clean operation carried out on occupied Lebanese territory.

Ahmad Hariri, Future Movement’s secretary-general, said Saturday that the Lebanese were united against the idea of being dragged into a new war with Israel, “amid living through the ravages of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria.”

Hariri also denounced the heavy gunfire that accompanied Nasrallah’s speech in areas where Hezbollah enjoys broad support, saying it was a danger to citizens.

As the fifth Hezbollah-Future Movement dialogue session is set to take place this week, Tripoli MP Mohammad Kabbara questioned Sunday the rationale behind Nasrallah’s move.

He echoed Hariri remarks with respect to celebratory gunfire, asking: “Is this how Hezbollah respects the security plan, which is a key theme in its dialogue with Future?”

Kabbara said he believes that Nasrallah’s speech only aimed to lift the spirits of Hezbollah supporters, as the party’s military wing was suffering great “losses” in its military operations in Syria.

Other politicians hailed Hezbollah’s response to Israel’s strike in Qunaitra and Nasrallah’s speech.

Among those singing Nasrallah’s praises was Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek, representative of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Lebanon and a high-ranking Hezbollah official.

“The speech imposed an equation that will protect Lebanon from future violations by the Israeli enemy,” Yazbek said during a ceremony marking the one-week anniversary of the death of 1st Lt. Ahmad Mahmoud Tabikh, who was killed with seven others during the Jan. 23 clashes in Ras Baalbek’s Tallet al-Hamra sparked by an ISIS ambush.

Yazbek’s comments were directed at “those annoyed by the resistance’s response in the Shebaa Farms.”

He said Hezbollah had retaliated in a manner that would restore the dignity of the Lebanese.

Israel has been defeated, said Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan, describing Hezbollah’s response as “heroic.”

“The conflict with the Zionist enemy is once again a priority to people in the Arab world,” Hasan added, speaking during a ceremony to commemorate the death of Army recruit Mujtaba Amhaz in Ras Baalbek.

Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said that fears of escalation following Hezbollah’s retaliatory attack had eased.

He told Radio Liban Libre Saturday that Hezbollah gave considerable thought to the manner in which its responded to the Qunaitra attack.

No rules of engagement mean no more red lines with Israel

BEIRUT: Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah addressed his supporters on Feb. 17, 2010, in a televised speech to commemorate the killing of both his predecessor Abbas Mousawi, who died during an Israeli air raid in 1992, and Hezbollah’s top military commander Imad Mughniyeh, killed in a car bomb attack in 2008. Their deaths, he promised, would be avenged “in the right time and place, and circumstances.” By threatening to respond to Israeli attacks proportionately – “If you bomb the Rafic Hariri Airport in Beirut, we will bomb Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion,” he told the cheering crowd – Nasrallah gave to observers a frame with which to understand Hezbollah’s confrontation with its enemy.

Five years later the scene would repeat itself, and the promise of revenge was renewed, this time at a ceremony to honor the deaths of six Hezbollah fighters killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria’s Qunaitra. Among the dead was the son of the late military commander, 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh. But on this occasion Narsallah’s vow included a game-changing qualifier.

“We have the right to respond in any place, at any time and in the way we deem appropriate,” he said, signaling that the tacit rules of combat underlying Hezbollah’s war of deterrence with Israel had changed. But how this “new equation,” as Hezbollah deputy commander Naim Qassem referred to the shift, would affect future battles between the warring entities remains to be seen.

In the past, the rules of the game were simpler, recalled Timur Goksel, former spokesperson for UNIFIL and professor at the American University of Beirut, who witnessed the gradual evolution of Hezbollah during the ’90s.

The first instance in which Hezbollah and Israel agreed to respect red lines was in the Israeli-Lebanese Ceasefire Understanding of April 1996, which concluded Israel’s Operation Grapes of Wrath. In it both sides agreed to avoid attacks on civilians and to use populated villages to launch attacks. The dynamics changed after Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, after which clashes centered around the still-occupied Shebaa Farms.

“In between, before the 2006 [July War] the rules of the game were not to attack any place beyond Shebaa, the reason being there are no civilians there, it’s a completely militarized zone,” Goksel said.

But in 2006, the equation drastically changed when Israel launched a wide-ranging war in response to a cross-border raid by Hezbollah to kidnap two Israeli soldiers with the hope of exchanging them for captives held by Israel.

“Because the area where Hezbollah carried out the operations was not in Shebaa, everyone said they broke the rules of the game.”

Both the number of casualties and the nature of the target often determined the question of escalation, Goksel explained. Other than civilian deaths, the number of military casualties was also a factor that could determine the severity of counterattack. For instance, had the Hezbollah ambush of an Israeli convoy in Shebaa, in retaliation for the Qunaitra attack, killed 10 and not two soldiers, Goksel believes the blowback would have been far more drawn out.

Qassem Qassir, an expert in Islamic movements, interpreted Nasrallah’s public rejection of the rules of the game to mean attacks could be waged on a wider stage, well beyond the confines of Shebaa. “Now the world is an open field for Hezbollah and Israel to launch attacks,” he said, expecting the Golan Heights to see more military operations in the coming months.

“Right now we are in a transitional phase, we need to wait until the dust has settled to see what is going to happen in the region,” he added, predicting that warming U.S.-Iranian relations, as well as developments in Syria, would weigh on military calculations from both sides.

“Hezbollah has made it clear that there are no red lines,” he said. “The conflict is open.”

Former Lebanese Army Gen. Elias Hanna disagreed that Nasrallah had done away with rules of engagement. “Nature opposes a void,” he told The Daily Star. “Nasrallah said there are no more rules to the game, but that by itself constitutes a rule of the game.”

The principle of proportionality was never a set standard, he argued, but a strategic calculation considering regional and domestic circumstances in Lebanon and Israel.

“If you hit me, I will hit back, this dynamic will create an understanding, an unspoken agreement that everyone comprehends,” he said. “But sometimes there can be miscalculations, this can lead to war.”

If one side feels it is in their interest to shift the status quo, which might have provoked Israel’s attack in Qunaitra for instance, each subsequent strike would rewrite the rules, he said.

“The purpose of this is psychological: to create an atmosphere of ambiguity and anxiety that the stakes are rising,” he explained.

“It’s clear no one wants a war now – the situation today is that Israel killed seven and Hezbollah retaliated, everyone is happy – but if we go to war, it will be because it benefits the parties.”

ISF explosives unit kept busy in times of turmoil

BEIRUT: Every day, Captain Bassam Bitar prepares his men for combat. Instead of using assault weapons and mortars, Bitar’s elite Internal Security Forces unit is armed with engineering degrees and advanced training to think like terrorists who would seed carnage and chaos in Lebanon.

The ISF’s explosives unit has just 15 experts and a few dozen trainees who respond to more than 4,500 calls each year.

Suspicious packages, rigged cars, post-explosion crime scene examinations are all managed by this small but dedicated squad.

“We’re in a battle with the terrorists,” Bitar told The Daily Star. “Danger follows the men [in the unit] every day.”

The delicate art of defusing bombs requires an exhaustive understanding of electrical engineering and computer science. Most men in the program have degrees in a related field, and many have participated in an anti-terrorism program in the United States. Over more than two and a half years of training, aspiring bomb squad members learn how to anticipate and block the schemes of terrorists.

“Each time we go to work, we have to think like terrorists in order to know how they set the trigger, and what they were trying to accomplish with the explosion,” Bitar said.

As technology continues to advance, terrorists have kept up to pace, using inventive new ways to wreak destruction. “There are systems that work on a timer, that employ mobile signals, infrared ... Wi-Fi or Bluetooth,” Bitar said.

“[The terrorists] are always looking to find new methods that the [bomb squad] experts don’t yet know ... We’re always following them, trying to block their systems before they explode,” he said.

This high-stakes game of cat and mouse plays out every day across the country.

As the security situation across Lebanon deteriorated over the past year, work picked up for Captain Bitar and his team. Instead of housing the entire unit in the Beirut central office, they dispatched small two or three-man teams across the country to cut the response time.

Each team is equipped with devices that detect explosive materials, equipment to safely detonate charges from a distance and perhaps most critically, a 50-kg bomb suit designed to protect bomb disposal experts in the event of a blast.

The equipment, much of which has been provided by the United States, has proved vital to safely executing missions, Bitar said.

Aside from gear and electronics expertise, the ability to work well under both physical and psychological stress is vital for members of the unit, he added. “Imagine the person in that suit: He’s carrying 50 kilos, he can’t breathe normally ... his vision is limited” by a bulky helmet, Bitar said. “He’s watching everyone flee the scene and he goes in.”

Sometimes members of the team safely detonate explosive ordnance in their original place. Often, however, the team must transport the explosive materials to an army base “in the mountains” to detonate them far away from towns and citizens, Bitar said.

Unfortunately, the gory aftermath of explosions is an all-too familiar sight for members of the unit. Flipping through a recent report documenting the Jabal Mohsen bombing last month, Bitar unblinkingly exhibits photos his men took of twisted body parts strewn across the street.

“We need to choose the best people for this job,” Bitar said. “The people who work here, they’re different. They want to help people.”

With careful vetting, top-of-the- line equipment and thorough training, Bitar has built a tight ship: In the five years that he has headed the unit, not a single member of the bomb squad has been killed in the line of duty.

Unfortunately, Bitar said the unit does not have the resources to proactively prevent explosive materials from passing into Lebanon or to determine where bombs are being constructed in the country. “If we knew where these things were being made, we could intervene, but we don’t know.”

As long as the political situation remains tense in the country, the unit will remain busy, he said.

“Politics have a huge effect on our work. If everything is good and calm in politics and if everyone is getting along, you definitely feel that our work slows down. But when the tensions are high, it has the opposite effect.”

For Colorado's Undocumented, The Wait At The DMV Just Got Longer

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Aleida Ramirez must wait longer for an appointment to renew her expired driver's license because Colorado Republicans have blocked funding for licensing undocumented immigrants. Megan Verlee/Colorado Public Radio hide caption

itoggle caption Megan Verlee/Colorado Public Radio

Aleida Ramirez must wait longer for an appointment to renew her expired driver's license because Colorado Republicans have blocked funding for licensing undocumented immigrants.

Megan Verlee/Colorado Public Radio

Aleida Ramirez is proud of her old driver's license. It's faded and battered, held together by tape in two places, and it expired two years ago.

But Ramirez wouldn't think of throwing it out.

"Because it's my treasure," Ramirez says. "I mean, this is the only proof that I've been living in this state. This is the only proof that I have that I've been working hard, that I want to be here."

Ramirez has lived illegally in the United States for 25 years. She got her license before Sept. 11, when laws around driver's licenses were more lax. Though she can't drive legally now, she is still on the road.

"I don't know what is going to happen if I get involved in accident, or if I get stopped by police," she says. "I just try to be really, really careful."

Two years ago, Democrats in Colorado's state legislature voted to allow undocumented immigrants to get licenses again. When the program went into effect in July, the state became the 10th in the country to license undocumented immigrants.

Demand has been strong, with long waits for DMV appointments. Ramirez hasn't been able to get one yet — and now she has to wait even longer: Republican state lawmakers have blocked funding for the program.

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"We don't condone the activity," says Sen. Kevin Grantham. "We don't condone the policy. How can we condone the funding of it?"

Grantham says giving drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants sends the wrong message.

"We have essentially, through the legislation originally in 2013, authorized a state agency to condone and license an illegal activity, which is being in this country illegally," he says.

Republicans won control of Colorado's Senate in November. With Democrats still holding the House, conservatives don't have the votes to repeal the driver's license policy outright. But they do have enough seats on the budget committee to deadlock spending bills.

Democratic Sen. Jessie Ulibarri, the original sponsor of the driver's license bill, describes Republicans' tactics with the worst insult possible in state politics: He compares them to Congress.

"We know that in Washington, D.C., the Republicans there can't pass a bill through the Senate or the House, so they tack things onto the budget," Ulibarri says. "I think Colorado voters want a better process in our state capitol than we witness in Washington, D.C."

Starting Monday, any undocumented immigrant in Colorado who wants a driver's license will have to take the driver test at a crowded DMV office on Denver's southwest side — the only one still offering the licenses.

Slots for 2015 are all already full, and the DMV is telling people who don't have appointments, like Ramirez, to check back next January.

Ramirez sees renewing her license as one more way to show that she knows how to play by U.S. rules.

"Even though I'm not legal in the country, I'm responsible," she says. "I know I have to be responsible."

While she waits for her shot at a license, Ramirez is starting work on another angle to get right on the roads: Her adult children are sponsoring her for citizenship.

Corruption the cause of Lebanon’s misery: Rai

Israeli Foreign Minister: Third Lebanon war inevitable

A third war with Lebanon has become inevitable, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdom Lieberman said Sunday, adding that...

Democrat Seeks Limits On Operations Against ISIS

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At least 7 dead, 20 wounded in Lebanese pilgrim bus blast in central Damascus

6 dead, 10 wounded in central Damascus blast: activists

A blast on a bus in a central district of the Syrian capital kills at least 6 people and wounded 10, an activist group...

Sacked Lebanon Casino staff reject new committee to end standoff

BEIRUT: A group of sacked Casino du Liban employees rejected Sunday a decision by the board of directors to form a committee to find a solution to a five-day standoff over their dismissal, after two board members revoked their earlier resignation over the issue.

George Nakhle and Hicham Naser quit their positions Friday night following a board meeting that failed to propose any tangible solution to the dispute, but Saturday went back on their decision.

They are now joining a new committee formed to reconcile the administration and some 191 employees who were sacked as part of sweeping reforms at the iconic entertainment venue and are now protesting within the building, forcing it to temporarily close.

The committee is expected to propose compensations for some of the sacked employees and an early retirement deal for others, according to media reports.

However, the employees have rejected the idea of the committee, and sent a delegation to discuss the issue Sunday morning with Bishop Boulos Sayyah, representing Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai.

Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi announced Sunday in an interview with Al-Jadeed that he had not been informed in advance of the Casino administration’s decision. He stressed that while reform was necessary for the Casino and all other public institutions, any solution reached should be fair to the employees too.

“The Central Bank’s Gorvernor [Riad Salameh] is indirectly intervening in the Casino file to protect the rights of everyone and the reputation of the Casino,” Azzi said.

Political intervention at the Casino has been the norm since it opened in 1959. Many of the employees at Casino du Liban have been hired by influential political groups in Kesrouan, where the venue is located.

Azzi visited the employee’s protest site in the Casino Friday and suggested that they resume work temporarily for 15 days until a fair deal was reached. This too has been rejected by the employees.

The minister called on the representatives of both sides to meet Tuesday at the Labor Ministry to discuss the fate of the workers, but the striking employees insisted that they would not call off the strike and reopen the casino until the management reinstates all the fired workers.

Casino Chairman Hamid Kreidi has said the decision to sack them was based on the recommendation of an international auditing firm hired to cut waste and boost revenues.

Israeli Foreign Minister: Third Lebanon war inevitable

BEIRUT: A third war with Lebanon has become inevitable, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday, adding that Hezbollah’s recent attack on the state has changed the rules of the game.

"A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable," Lieberman told Ynet news, the English-language website of Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, in an interview.

"There's no doubt the rules of the game have been changed, what Hezbollah forced upon us. We don't respond, but rather decide to contain this incident. I think that's completely unreasonable,” Lieberman said. “Hezbollah is bolder, more determined, more provocative.”

Lieberman called for a “harsh and disproportionate” response after Hezbollah attacked an Israeli patrol in the occupied Shebaa Farms last week, killing two soldiers and wounding seven others.

The blast was revenge for an Israeli strike on a convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra in the Golan Heights earlier this month, in which six Hezbollah members and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander were killed.

Israel responded to the Shebaa Farms attack by shelling villages in south Lebanon, causing no casualties for Hezbollah but killing a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper.

The Soviet-born Israeli politician also insisted that another war on Gaza was on the horizon, saying Hamas was already rebuilding its military capacities.

"Don't let them tell us stories about how Hamas is begging and they're on their knees. We saw 10 rockets being fired at the sea last week. We see every week how they're rebuilding [their arsenal]," he said.

Mawlawi still in Ain al-Hilweh: report

BEIRUT: Fugitive terror suspect Shadi Mawlawi is still in Ain al-Hilweh camp despite reports to the contrary, according to his recently detained wife, Al-Hayat newspaper said Sunday.

The pan-Arab daily said the Lebanese security forces caught Mawlawi’s wife and her four-year-old son while they were on their way back to Tripoli from Sidon’s Palestinian refugee camp, the country's largest.

Al-Hayat quoted “judicial sources” as saying the woman confirmed that Mawlawi has remained inside the camp, contradicting statements last week about him having fled to avoid an Army crackdown.

Last month, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk claimed Mawlawi had joined militants in the outskirts of Arsal. The Islamist himself later confirmed the news via his Twitter account, saying he had left Ain al-Hilweh to avoid causing trouble to the camp’s residents.

However, Arsal Mayor Ali Hujeiri told Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa in comments published Sunday that the rumors about Mawlawi’s escape to Arsal or its outskirts were not based on any strong evidence.

“Arsal refuses to be a pathway or residence for fugitives,” Hujeiri said.

The mayor argued that the Army’s strong presence in the town - both in terms of troops and intelligence agents - made it impossible for such infiltrations to happen, especially given Mawlawi is one of the country's most wanted men.

Mawlawi is believed to have been hiding in Ain al-Hilweh since he fled the northern city of Tripoli when the Army launched a security crackdown on Islamist militants last year.

Lebanon’s judiciary has charged him with operating a terrorist group with his partner-in-crime Osama Mansour.

He is wanted for his alleged links to the perpetrators of a Jan. 10 double suicide bombing in Jabal Mohsen districtthat killed at least nine people and wounded more than 30, and also over his connection to a series of suicide bombing plots last year that were foiled by the Army.