Hezbollah Intervention Fans Shiite-Sunni Fires
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SUBSCRIPTION SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2013 RAJAB 30, 1434 AH www.kuwaittimes.net Globally, Swedish Pak summons Relentless people resigned princess weds US diplomat Serena powers to little New York to protest to French privacy7 online banker9 over12 drones Open20 title Hezbollah intervention Max 43º fans Shiite-Sunni fires Min 29º High Tide 01:18 & 11:23 Syria war has morphed into proxy fight Low Tide 06:12 & 19:25 40 PAGES NO: 15834 150 FILS CAIRO: The Egyptian cleric was in a fervor. With Hezbollah’s Shiite fighters helping Bashar Al-Assad crush Syrian rebels, he wanted to sound the alarm to Sunnis across the Middle East: “Now is the time for jihad.” Speaking on a Saudi TV station, Sheikh Mohammed El-Zoghbi called on “young men in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen,” to go to Syria to fight. “We must all go to purge Syria of this infidel regime, with its Shiites who came from Iran, southern Lebanon and Iraq,” he shouted during an appearance on Al-Khalijiya TV. The overt entry by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia in Syria’s civil war on the side of its ally Assad has sharpened sectarian divisions throughout the Middle East. Fighters from the Shiite guerrilla group helped Syrian forces batter the rebel-held town of Qusair for three weeks until they finally overran it this week in a significant victory for Assad’s regime. Many Sunni hardliners have taken Hezbollah’s intervention as a declaration of war by Shiites against Sunnis. That could have dangerous implications not only for Syria’s con- flict but for the entire region. Calls for jihad by Sunni clerics could increase the flow of foreign militants into Syria to fight alongside the rebels. Sunni Arab powers like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, who see the war as a way to break the influence of Assad’s Shiite ally Iran, may step up weapons supplies to Syria’s rebels to counterbal- ance Hezbollah. Already several thousand foreign mili- tants - from across the Arab world and as far away as Chechnya and Somalia - are believed to be fighting among the rebels. Some have close ties to Al-Qaeda. Their presence has been a major reason the United States is reluctant to help arm the rebel movement. It could also fuel the fires of conflict in Syria’s neigh- bors. Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria threatens to bring that country’s conflict even further into Lebanon, where rebels have vowed to retaliate with attacks on the Shiite group’s home turf. It has also enraged Sunnis in Lebanon, who resent Hezbollah’s political domination in their country and the weak government’s inability to rein them in. Speaking in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Wednesday, a founder of the hardline Sunni Salafi movement in ANKARA: Protesters take part in a demonstration in the center of the capital yesterday. — AFP Lebanon, Sheikh Islam Al-Shahal, said it was time for Sunnis to fight back against what he called Shiite Iran’s control of Lebanon through Hezbollah. “The (Iranian) Turkey rules out early polls occupation of Lebanon must be confronted by prepar- ing every Sunni family and every young Sunni man to ISTANBUL: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK necessitates early elections,” he told reporters after a helicopters and armoured vehicles first clashed with defend his faith, his home and his honor. We are clear- Party yesterday ruled out early elections as thousands meeting of the party’s executive committee in protesters a week ago. Tourists and curious locals ly targeted,” he said. of anti-government demonstrators defied his call for Istanbul. “The world is dealing with an economic crisis swelled their numbers around a makeshift protest Iraq has also seen a dangerous upsurge in tit-for-tat an immediate end to protests. Huseyin Celik, deputy and things are going well in Turkey. Elections are not camp in Gezi Park, a leafy corner of the square where attacks and bombings between Sunnis and Shiites in chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) Party held because people are marching on the streets.” activists have been sleeping in tents and vandalised recent weeks, raising fears of a revival of the sectarian founded by Erdogan just over a decade ago, said local A few kilometres away, tens of thousands of Turks buses, or wrapped in blankets under plane trees. slaughter of 2005-2008. Syria’s conflict is intertwined and presidential elections would be held next year as defied Erdogan’s call on Friday for an immediate end What began as a campaign against government with Iraq: Al-Qaeda’s branch in Iraq is connected with planned, and a general election in 2015. “The govern- to anti-government demonstrations, massing again in plans to build over the park spiralled into an jihadi fighters in Syria and the two are believed to ment is running like clockwork. There is nothing that the central Taksim Square, where riot police backed by Continued on Page 15 trade resources. Continued on Page 15 Obama, Xi seek new ties RANCHO MIRAGE, California: US translators. President Barack Obama and China’s Faithful to a new, less formal tone in Mandela in President Xi Jinping met for a second day Sino-US ties they are trying to cultivate, yesterday, grasping for a personal under- they eased the dress code from Friday’s standing that could ease often prickly business casual, with Obama in an open ‘serious but US-China relations. Obama and Xi spent collared blue shirt with rolled up sleeves nearly six hours together at a secluded and brown slacks. Xi sported a white desert oasis in California on Friday, shirt, open collar and black pants. stable’ state wrestling with the future shape of rela- “Terrific,” Obama replied, when a reporter tions between America and the rising asked how things were going. In an PRETORIA: Nelson Mandela was back in hospital yes- Asian giant and the new flashpoint of unusually public airing of views Friday, Xi terday in a “serious but stable” condition, triggering cyberhacking. They got back down to and Obama discussed cyberhacking with an outpouring of concern from around the world for work yesterday morning, strolling reporters - following reports that the beloved South African hero. Mandela, who turns through a lush landscape at the Chinese Internet spies have snapped up 95 next month, was whisked to a Pretoria hospital in Sunnylands retreat together, followed by Continued on Page 15 KABUL: This photo taken on June 5, 2013 shows a six-month-old lion sitting in the early hours of yesterday with a renewed lung the sun on a rooftop of a residential neighbourhood in central Kabul. — AFP infection. It is his fourth hospi- tal stay in seven months. “The truth of the matter is a simple $20,000 lion lives one. Madiba is a fighter and at his age as long as he is fight- ing, he’ll be fine,” presidency on Kabul rooftop spokesman Mac Maharaj told AFP, using Mandela’s clan KABUL: For Kabul’s wealthy elite some but never this close. So without any hesi- name. His wife Graca Machel things are de rigueur: armed guards, a tation, I said I will buy it. To me, lions are was at his bedside in hospital marble-clad mansion, a blacked-out SUV. brave and I respect them. Knowing I after calling off a trip to But one man has taken the flamboyant could buy one was very exciting.” Nelson Mandela London. lifestyle a step further and bought a lion. The lion, still unnamed, is not chained The anti-apartheid icon Mohammad Shafiq, a 42-year-old busi- up and has no collar and spends much of was once again suffering from pneumonia, after he nessman, is very proud of his growling the day lying quietly in a corner of the was discharged in April for the same condition, said pet, which spends its days prowling a roof terrace above a storeroom, coming Maharaj. “His condition deteriorated to the point roof terrace at his sprawling home in a down each evening to eat. Shafiq says he where it was found necessary to hospitalise him,” he posh residential area of central Kabul. “A spends about $1,000 a month employing said. “But I am told by the doctors that he is breathing friend said he had a lion in Kandahar and a caretaker to feed it fresh meat bought on his own, so I think that is a positive side,” he added. wanted to sell it to me,” Shafiq, who runs from a butcher and also paying a vet to The announcement, calling his condition “serious”, a construction company, told AFP. “He check its health regularly. Tens of billions sparked a buzz on Twitter.”Stay strong mr Mandela knew I loved dogs and birds, but this was of dollars have flowed into Afghanistan RANCHO MIRAGE, California: US President Barack Obama walks with Chinese heaven isn’t ready for you quite yet!,” was one plea. more than what I was expecting. I had in the 12 years since the US-led invasion President Xi Jinping at the Annenberg Retreat of the Sunnylands estate yes- Continued on Page 15 seen lions on television and in the zoo, Continued on Page 15 terday. — AP SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2013 LOCAL Oasis Team marks launch of ‘Kuwait Green Wall Project’ Project aims to plant 315,000 trees along borders By Nawara Fattahova Kuwait Oasis Team, made a presenta- Kulaib during the ceremony. the operations beyond Kuwait, and to tion about the project including its The project aims to plant 315,000 set the standard for NGO operations.