Iran says jailed U.S. student, dual nationals lose spying appeal

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran confirmed on Sunday that an appeals court had upheld 10-year jail terms against a U.S. citizen, two Iranian-Americans and a U.S. resident from Lebanon who had been convicted on spying charges. In July, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran would face “new and serious consequences” unless all “unjustly detained” American citizens were released and returned.

Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi identified the four as Princeton University student Xiyue Wang, Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his elderly father Baquer and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent U.S. residency, the judiciary’s official news website reported. In Washington, Jared Genser, a lawyer for the Namazis, said in a statement carried by U.S. media last week that their family was informed that a Tehran court had upheld the convictions days earlier. Earlier in August, Princeton University and the wife of Wang, a history doctoral student and U.S. citizen, said they had been informed that Iranian authorities had denied the appeal. Wang was conducting dissertation research in Iran in 2016 when he was detained and charged with “spying under the cover of research”, an accusation his family and university denied.

Iran sentenced Zakka, a Lebanese citizen with permanent U.S. residency, to 10 years in prison and a $4.2 million fine in 2016 after he was found guilty of collaborating against the state, according to his U.S.-based lawyer. Zakka, an information technology expert, had been invited to Iran by a government official a year earlier, but then disappeared after attending a conference in Tehran. ALARM Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers lifted most international sanctions and promised Iran’s reintegration into the global community in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. The potential detente with the West has alarmed Iranian hardliners, who have seen a flood of European trade and investment delegations arrive in Tehran to discuss possible deals, according to Iran experts. Security officials have arrested dozens of artists, journalists and businessmen, including Iranians holding joint American, European or Canadian citizenship, as part of a crackdown on “Western infiltration”. The arrests have undermined President Hassan Rouhani’s goals of reviving business and political ties with the West, as well as pushing for more political and social reforms at home, Iran experts and observers said. A number of Iranian dual nationals from the United States, Britain, Austria, Canada and France have been detained in the past year and are being kept behind bars on charges including espionage and collaborating with hostile governments. According to former prisoners, families of current ones, and diplomats, in some cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with Western countries. In January 2016, the United States and Iran reached a historic prisoner swap deal that saw Iranians held or charged in the United States, mostly for sanctions violations, released in return for Americans imprisoned in Iran. Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Andrew Bolton

Raed Khoury: Lebanon’s Government Stands Despite Divisions

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by english.aawsat.com Beirut- Economy Minister Raed Khoury said on Friday that the Lebanese government would not fall despite divisions among its members. “The government will stand due to an agreement reached between all Lebanese sides to keep disputes aside and work on what unites us in the benefit of Lebanon and the people,” he said in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat. The minister rejected accusations against “Hezbollah” of trying to harvest the fruits of the Lebanese army’s victory in the Jurud battle. Khoury spoke about the continuous Israeli threats against Lebanon and the need to remain attached to the “Army, People, Resistance” formula to protect the country. Last week, the Lebanese army ended its “Jurud Dawn” battle against ISIS after a first of its kind agreement was reached between “Hezbollah” and the extremist organization and later blessed by the Syrian regime to allow a safe passage for ISIS militants to Syria’s Deir Ezzor after the terrorist group uncovered the fate of the captured Lebanese soldiers, who had been missing for the past three years. However, the agreement led to large scale criticism by the Lebanese people who rejected a deal with the militants. Commenting on the issue, Khoury, who represents the Free Patriotic Movement, said: “The Lebanese should be proud of the army that did not announce the end of the battle before achieving all its targets.” According to the minister, the Jurud battle mainly aimed to “liberate the land and uncover the fate of the captured Lebanese soldiers with the least damages, and not to kill the terrorists.” He said that Hezbollah’s agreement with the ISIS militants came at the last phase of the battle, after the terrorists had almost surrendered. Khoury said that Hezbollah had no say in the Jurud Dawn battle, although the party had claimed the opposite. Commenting on calls that Hezbollah hands over its arms particularly after the Lebanese army proved being capable of engaging in difficult battles, Khoury said: “Such a request is currently irrational. We live in region that is constantly threatened by Israel and terrorists, a situation which requires cooperation among all parties.”

Islamic State convoy in Syria appears to have turned back, U.S.-led coalition says

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - A convoy of Islamic State fighters appears to have turned back after U.S.-led airstrikes thwarted its attempt to reach territory held by the militant group in eastern Syria, the head of U.S.-led forces fighting Islamic State said on Thursday. More than 300 lightly armed IS fighters and about 300 family members were evacuated from Syria’s western border with Lebanon under a ceasefire agreement involving the ultra-hardline group, the Syrian army and the Lebanese Shi‘ite group Hezbollah. On Thursday they sought to move into IS-held territory from a new location after U.S.-led strikes on Wednesday stopped them joining forces with their jihadist comrades, a commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said. (For graphic on IS convoy to move, click tmsnrt.rs/2wlya8V) However, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of U.S.-led forces fighting Islamic State, told a Pentagon briefing that the convoy had turned back into Syrian government territory. “When I walked into this conference about an hour ago, the buses were on the move. They had turned and had driven back into regime-held areas,” he told reporters via a video teleconference from Baghdad. “We haven’t struck the convoy. But we have struck every ISIS fighter and/or vehicle that has tried to approach that convoy. And we’ll continue to do that,” he said. The coalition opposes experienced combatants being moved to a battle zone in which it is active, and used warplanes on Wednesday to halt the convoy by damaging the road ahead. It also struck fighters on their way to meet the convoy. A commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said the convoy had headed north towards the town of Sukhna on Thursday after being halted in the desert and would try to reach Deir al-Zor province, close to the border with Iraq. Two sources familiar with U.S. policy on Syria said the airstrikes did not signal a more aggressive military approach, and were intended to prevent the IS fighters in the convoy reinforcing their comrades in Deir al-Zor.

But the standoff shows the tangled nature of a war theatre divided into several overlapping conflicts, and where the engagement of local, regional and global powers is further complicated by a mosaic of alliances and enmities. Six years into Syria’s civil war, in which Islamic State has seized swathes of land, the jihadist group is on the retreat across the region, losing ground to an array of foes. In Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad has rapidly gained ground this year as the army advanced eastwards, backed by Russia and allied Iran-backed militia including Hezbollah, towards its besieged enclave in Deir al-Zor. But in the north, the United States -- which opposes Assad, Iran and Hezbollah -- has led a coalition backing Kurdish and Arab militias as they assault Islamic State’s former Syrian capital of Raqqa.

UN Security Council spars over Lebanese peacekeeping mission

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France 24 - Lebanon has called for a UN peacekeeping force’s mandate to be renewed without changes after Washington accused its commander of being “blind” to the flow of weapons to Iran-backed Hezbollah. The peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL, which patrols Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, is up for renewal when its mandate expires on August 31. Israel and the US are pressing for improvements to the force to combat what they say is the spread of illegal arms to the region, which is dominated by Hezbollah. But Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that renewing the force’s mandate in its present form was paramount to the country’s security. "Preserving the mandate of @unifil is necessary for peace and stability, otherwise will jeopardize efforts of @UN," Bassil added on Twitter.

‘Giving terrorists a pass’ Bassil’s comments follow sharp criticism of the peacekeeping force by officials in Washington, where Hezbollah is regarded as a terrorist organisation. Last Friday, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, accused UNIFIL’s Irish commander, Major General Michael Beary, of an “embarrassing lack of understanding” in failing to uncover Iranian weapon supplies to the Lebanese militant group. "[Beary] seems to be the only person in south Lebanon who is blind to what Hezbollah is doing," she said, adding that his view of the situation "shows that we need to have changes" in the mission. "We are not looking to change the mandate itself. We are looking to include language that clearly directs UNIFIL to do what it should have been doing for years," Haley said. "It's time the Security Council puts teeth in the UNIFIL operation," she added. "We don't need to be giving terrorists a pass."

Continuity First launched in 1978, UNIFIL was expanded after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah so that peacekeepers could deploy along the border to help Lebanese troops extend their authority into the south. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has told the Security Council that he intends to look at ways for the peacekeeping force to "enhance its efforts", but that it is primarily the Lebanese military's responsibility to ensure the south is free of illegal weapons. It is not clear how the council will respond to the pressure from Washington, but several members have already called for continuity. Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said last week that the mandate should be renewed as is and that other countries had voiced the same view during a council discussion. French Deputy Ambassador Anne Gueguen, whose country is in charge of drafting a proposed renewal, said it was "of paramount importance for the stability of Lebanon and the region, and in the best interest of all, that UNIFIL keeps its mandate and is in a position to fulfill it". (FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AP)

Isis agrees to first ever evacuation deal after ceasefire on Lebanese-Syrian border

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Troops from both the Syrian army and Hezbollah have escorted Isis militants out of their territory on the border with Lebanon in the first ever publicly agreed evacuation deal the Sunni jihadists have ever struck. A pause in a week-old offensive by the Lebanese armed forces as well as Hezbollah to drive Isis from towns it has held on the Lebanese-Syrian border since 2014 saw 25 injured Isis fighters moved in ambulances to a marshalling point for an evacuation convoy, the Hezbollah-run War Media Centre said on Monday. An eyewitness told the AP that buses were being prepared to also carry the fighters’ families back to Isis’ last remaining strongholds in Eastern Syria.

The incident - which marks the first time Isis has ever publicly agreed to an evacuation deal, instead of fighting to the death - has been hailed as a dramatic surrender by Lebanese and Hezbollah officials. “We do not bargain. We are in the position of the victor and are imposing conditions,” Lebanese Internal Security General Abbas Ibrahim told reporters on Sunday. Isis agreed to a ceasefire on Sunday after fighting the Lebanese army on one front and Hezbollah and the Syrian army on another, losing much of the territory in the mountainous enclave it holds on the border. Part of the evacuation deal was supposed to ensure the safe return of nine Lebanese soldiers kidnapped when Isis overran the area in 2014.

The victory has been bittersweet, however, as an army statement confirmed that eight bodies found near the town of Arsal had been identified as the missing servicemen. The news was greeted with the tears of family members who have staged a tented protest outside government offices in Beirut since their loved ones went missing three years ago. The families of those who lost relatives in suicide bomb attacks in nearby al-Qaa in 2016 condemned the deal, Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported. So far dozens of militants and six Lebanese soldiers have been killed in the drive to oust Isis from Lebanese territory.

Two Hezbollah offensives against other Sunni militant groups in Syria’s north earlier this year proved successful. There is no official coordination between the militant Shia group and the Syrian army with the Lebanese armed forces.  Hezbollah, an important Syrian government ally, has maintained a strong presence in the parts of Syria near the border with Lebanon for several years, helping President Bashar al-Assad to recapture several rebel-held towns and villages there.

Here's how much the highest-paid women in every US state earn

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