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Divide Widens in Libya over Parliament Meetings in Benghazi, Ghadames

Speaker Aguila Saleh. (Reuters file photo)
Speaker Aguila Saleh. (Reuters file photo)
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Divide Widens in Libya over Parliament Meetings in Benghazi, Ghadames

Speaker Aguila Saleh. (Reuters file photo)
Speaker Aguila Saleh. (Reuters file photo)

The east-based Libyan parliament renewed on Saturday its call on members to convene on Monday at the legislature’s constitutional headquarters in Benghazi.

The move is believed to be an attempt to thwart efforts to oust Speaker Aguila Saleh ahead of a parliament meeting scheduled for the city of Ghadames in the west.

The scheduling of the meeting in Ghadames had revealed divisions among the Benghazi parliament.

This is the second time in a week that the lawmakers are asked to meet in Benghazi. A meeting was convened last week, but the majority of members did not attend. They instead took part in a parliament meeting in Ghadames.

That meeting failed in resolving legal obstacles impeding the ouster of Saleh and appointing a replacement.

Separately, Government of National Accord Defense Minister Salah al-Namroush threatened to withdraw GNA representatives from the joint military committee meetings.

He said the delegates would quit the panel if the Libyan National Army (LNA), supported by mercenaries, continued to launch attacks in southern Libya.

The joint military committee includes representatives from the GNA and LNA. It had reached a UN-sponsored ceasefire in November.

“Should the ceasefire collapse, then the GNA is prepared to wage a military battle against (LNA commander Khalifa) Haftar,” warned Namroush.

“We reject any deal that includes Haftar and no political agreement that involves him will be struck. We adamantly refuse to involve Haftar in any future political deal,” stressed the minister.

“The GNA is ready to begin talks with the other side in order to reach a political solution on condition that Haftar is permanently marginalized,” he stated.

Meanwhile, UN acting special representative to Libya, Stephanie Williams, is set to take part on Monday in the meeting of the joint Economic Working Group that was formed during the Berlin conference earlier this year.

The meeting, which will be held at the UN headquarters in Geneva, will include representatives of Libya’s main financial institutions and will aim to reach an agreement on economic reforms in the North African country.

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Arab World

Hezbollah Supporters Dismayed as Leaked Videos Show Assad Mocking Party

A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
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Hezbollah Supporters Dismayed as Leaked Videos Show Assad Mocking Party

A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
A tattered Syrian flag and Assad poster in Aleppo on Dec. 5, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon expressed their dismay in the leaked videos of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late media advisor Luna al-Shibl in which they mock supporters of the regime, including the Iran-backed party, during the 14-year Syrian civil war.

Al Arabiya released the videos that showed Assad driving a vehicle in Damascus, with Shibl in the passenger seat. A third person was filming from the back seat. The videos are undated but suspected to date back to 2018 after opposition fighters were forced out of Ghouta near Damascus.

As they drive, the trio encounter gunmen, whom Assad said were Lebanese, meaning Hezbollah fighters. Shibl then started to discuss the party and its performance during the war.

Hezbollah had sent its fighters to Syria to prop up the regime during the conflict. Its intervention helped prolong the war. Russia’s eventual intervention helped tip the balance in the regime’s favor.

In the videos, Shibl said that the “Syrian army has learned and now has experience that it can share with other armies.”

“Hezbollah in the end could not back up its claims and we never heard from it,” she added.

Commenting to Asharq Al-Awsat about the videos, Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon expressed their disappointment, saying they were a “mockery of all the sacrifices and denial of the facts on the ground.”

One supporter said Assad’s silence over Shibl’s comments “is a sign of his agreement and another insult” to the party.

Assad has no loyalty and does not appreciate the sacrifices, he stressed.

Another supporter dismissed Shibl, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that she is “delusional”, a “liar” and “flatterer”.

“She and Assad both know that were it not for Hezbollah, the opposition would have captured Damascus in winter 2012,” he remarked.

Hezbollah supporters often trade stories about their fighting in Syria. The party has also released footage of its operations in Syria, most notably in the regions of Qusayr and al-Qalamoun in spring 2013, and Aleppo, al-Zabadani and Ghouta in 2016. Those operations have become part of the party’s “lore”.

One Hezbollah fighters told Asharq Al-Awsat that the regime army “did not know how to stop attacks in southern Damascus in 2012. (...) The party had to step in and draft plans.”

The offensive launched by the opposition in Daraa at the time “was repelled by the party alone and some Syrian fighters,” he went on to say.

In eastern Ghouta, he recalled how the regime forces were retreating, “leaving Hezbollah members to fight alone for two hours” before regrouping.

“Shibl should have spoken about who devised the plans to capture al-Qalamoun and al-Zabadani and who fought there” before she doubted the party’s capabilities, the fighter told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The disappointment in the videos also played out on social media, with supporters recalling that before they were allied during the war, Hezbollah and the regime had a rivalry that dates back to Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

The rivalry was patched up because the regime needed the party, said one social media user.

Another said the videos were a message to those who still defended Assad.

Ties between Hezbollah and Assad were strained before his ouster in December 2024. Some Hezbollah leaders accused Assad of abandoning the party during the “support war” it had launched from Lebanon in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

It has since been revealed that Assad barred Hezbollah from using Syrian territory to launch rockets at Israel during the “support war”. The regime also restricted the delivery of weapons to the party through Syria during the conflict.

Arab World

Assad Curses Ghouta, Mocks Syrian Troops in Leaked Videos

Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
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Assad Curses Ghouta, Mocks Syrian Troops in Leaked Videos

Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)
Bashar al-Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power. (EPA)

As Syrians gear up to mark the one-year anniversary of the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad's regime on Monday, Al Arabiya television released videos of the toppled leader recorded a few years ago showing him cursing the region of al-Ghouta and mocking his own troops even amid the civil war.

The videos released on Saturday showed Assad as he was driving his car through Damascus with his late media advisor Luna al-Shibl. The videos are undated but suspected to have been recorded around 2018 after opposition fighters were forced out of Ghouta. They were filmed by a third person in the vehicle with Assad and Shibl.

In one video, Assad is heard cursing Ghouta, saying: “To hell with it.” Other shots showed him mocking his own soldiers when they would kiss the president’s hands in a show of loyalty.

At one point, Shibl asked Assad how he feels about seeing posters of himself on the streets of Syria, to which he replied that he feels “nothing” about them.

On the situation in war-torn Syria, Assad said he was “not only ashamed but disgusted.”

Assad at one point mocks even his family name, which translates to “lion” in Arabic, saying maybe he should change it to “some other animal.”

Assad and Shibl even mocked Lebanon's Hezbollah that had sent its fighters to Syria to prop up the regime.

Commenting on the leaks, Syrians dismissed them, while other said they were further evidence of his lack of loyalty to forces that had stood by him during the war.

Journalist Wael Youssef said he did not care about the leaks, saying Assad and Shibl were now part of the past.

He added that he was disturbed even hearing their voices. “Personally, I could never listen to Bashar when he was delivering an allegedly important speech. If it was really important, I would get a copy of it to read. Today they are now behind us, thank God.”

Assad's late media advisor Luna al-Shibl.

Radwan, a resident of Damascus’ Jobar neighborhood that was destroyed by regime forces during the war, described Assad as an “idiot, which is why we rose up against him”.

“When he would bomb us with planes, we would often wonder how he could possibly call himself Syrian because he has an unnatural animosity to Syria and its people,” he said. “The videos are evidence of this.”

Lawyer Nibal Hamdoun said she was not surprised by Assad’s comments in the leaks. “We had experienced his sentiments during 14 years of killing and destruction during the war,” she remarked.

“If he believes Syria is disgusting, then it is because of his corrupt rule and the corruption of his father (late President Hafez al-Assad),” she stressed, adding that he should be ashamed of himself.

Another Syrian, Badr Rahmeh said he was curious to learn how Assad feels in his Moscow exile as he watches Syria prepare to celebrate a year since his ouster.

“Will he watch as we trample posters of his image that he allegedly didn’t like to see on the streets where we were forced to hang them?” he wondered.

“I want to know how the supporters Shibl had called on to persevere during the war now feel as they watch these videos that mock their loyalty,” he went on to say.

Shibl had died in mysterious circumstance in 2024. The official story was that she died in a car accident, while skeptics say that the accident was deliberate and staged by the regime after she had fallen afoul of it.

She had worked for years as the director of the presidency media office before being promoted to Assad’s media advisor.

Arab World

Abbas Calls on Hamas to Disarm, Israel to Withdraw from Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (dpa)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (dpa)
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Abbas Calls on Hamas to Disarm, Israel to Withdraw from Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (dpa)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (dpa)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan in Gaza demands Israel’s withdrawal from the enclave and for Hamas and other armed groups to turn over their weapons to his Palestinian Authority.

Speaking during a telephone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Abbas added that his priority now lies in implementing Trump’s plan to end the war, stop the bloodshed and ease the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and prevent their displacement.

The implementation of the second phase will pave the way for the deployment of Palestinian police and the international stabilization force in Gaza and the launch of the reconstruction phase in an organized and effective manner, he explained.

Parallel steps must be carried out in the occupied West Bank to put an end to Israeli measures that are undermining the two-state solution, Abbas continued.

He demanded an end to Israeli settler violence against the Palestinian people, an end to settlement expansion and annexation policies, and an end to Israeli policies that are harming the Palestinian economy and government’s ability to meet its commitments to the people.

Abbas reiterated his condemnation of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, saying the movement “must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons.”

He renewed Palestine’s commitment to recognize Israel and the two-state solution, “so that an independent Palestinian state can coexist side by side by Israel in peace and security.”

Abbas and Merz held their call hours before the German leader arrived in Israel on an official visit.