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Hezbollah Supporters Intensify Threats against Opponents ahead of Lebanon's Elections

Hezbollah supporters wave their group and Iranian flags during a protest on the Lebanese-Israeli border near the southern village of Kafr Kila, Lebanon, May 14, 2021. (AP)
Hezbollah supporters wave their group and Iranian flags during a protest on the Lebanese-Israeli border near the southern village of Kafr Kila, Lebanon, May 14, 2021. (AP)
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Hezbollah Supporters Intensify Threats against Opponents ahead of Lebanon's Elections

Hezbollah supporters wave their group and Iranian flags during a protest on the Lebanese-Israeli border near the southern village of Kafr Kila, Lebanon, May 14, 2021. (AP)
Hezbollah supporters wave their group and Iranian flags during a protest on the Lebanese-Israeli border near the southern village of Kafr Kila, Lebanon, May 14, 2021. (AP)

Supporters of the Hezbollah party in Lebanon have increased their threats against opponents through social media ahead of the May parliamentary elections.

The latest threat was against Lebanese University professor Bassel Saleh.

Threats are often made ahead of elections, but this year they take on a new edge given that the polls are taking place after the 2019 popular revolt against Lebanon's ruling class.

Civil society groups that have emerged from the protests are working hard to run in the elections, with hopes pinned that they would achieve a breakthrough given the support they have from the people.

Saleh, a native of Kfar Shouba in the South - a Hezbollah stronghold, revealed that he received a death threat through social media from a party loyalist after he had criticized the party in wake of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon in recent days. He said Hezbollah supporters were "arrogant" for boasting that they did not fear the jets.

Saleh wrote on social media: "Aren't [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah and his party ruling us so that Israeli jets could stop violating our airspace?"

He added that he didn't understand the "arrogance that comes with those who boast of excessive force and not fearing death". He also cited the detention of a "militiaman in Chouya" for launching a rocket towards Israel last summer.

The man, a Hezbollah member, was riding a rocket launcher in the southern region of Chouya. He was held by a number of local residents after he launched the projectile.

Soon after making his posts, Saleh revealed that he received a direct threat against his life, with the aggressor even knowing where he worked.

He said the Hezbollah supporter was defying the law and security agencies, while his followers cheered him on.

"These are a group of people, who claim patriotism and purity, according to their standards alone, while accusing those who oppose them of treason and that they should be taken out," said Saleh.

He urged the security agencies and international powers monitoring Lebanon to make note of the threat.

"We are waging a direct conflict with an alliance of militias and mafias. We are at the mercy of theft, deception and the violation of all rights," he continued.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that he was following up on the legal proceedings after he had filed a complaint over the threat.

Saleh tied the threat to the upcoming elections and his activism along with others in the South.

He said the supporters were primarily "irked by his criticism of the alleged invincible fighter, whose image the party has been building for the past 35 years, and whom he described as a militiaman."

Moreover, he remarked that Hezbollah will be wary of the electoral battle in the South. He said the party was able to terrorize the southerners who took to the street in 2019 and it will make sure that the dissidents' voices are not heard at the ballot boxes.

Saleh predicted that the party will intensify its campaign against its opponents as the elections draw near.

He cited the assassination of Shiite dissident Lokman Slim in 2021 as evidence of how far the party will go to silence opponents. He also recalled the intimidation against Shiite activists ahead of the 2018 elections. Journalist Ali al-Amine, who was running for a seat in the South, was even assaulted.

Researcher and professor Mona Fayyad said Hezbollah's threats against opponents will only intensify ahead of the elections, not ruling out the possibility of it resorting to assassinations.

She told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party is being defensive, adding that the it will use the elections to reap more seats in parliament and prove that its popularity has not waned in spite of the evident rising voices of dissent among its Shiite community.

The party's real image had been exposed, she continued, especially after Israeli gas will be pumped to Lebanon and after the authorities signaled that they were prepared to relinquish some territory for Israel in the maritime border negotiations.

The people view this all as an act of treason, so the party will react in self-defense, she warned.

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Tehran Taps Run Dry as Water Crisis Deepens Across Iran

People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, November 10, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, November 10, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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Tehran Taps Run Dry as Water Crisis Deepens Across Iran

People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, November 10, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, November 10, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iran is grappling with its worst water crisis in decades, with officials warning that Tehran — a city of more than 10 million — may soon be uninhabitable if the drought gripping the country continues.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has cautioned that if rainfall does not arrive by December, the government must start rationing water in Tehran.

"Even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all. They (citizens) have to evacuate Tehran," Pezeshkian said on November 6, AFP reported.

The stakes are high for Iran's clerical rulers. In 2021, water shortages sparked violent protests in the southern Khuzestan province. Sporadic protests also broke out in 2018, with farmers in particular accusing the government of water mismanagement.

WATER PRESSURE REDUCTIONS BEING APPLIED

The water crisis in Iran after a scorching hot summer is not solely the result of low rainfall.

Decades of mismanagement, including overbuilding of dams, illegal well drilling, and inefficient agricultural practices, have depleted reserves, dozens of critics and water experts have told state media in the past days as the crisis dominates the airwaves with panel discussions and debates.

Pezeshkian's government has blamed the crisis on various factors such as the "policies of past governments, climate change and over-consumption".

While there has been no sign of protests yet this time over the water crisis, Iranians are already struggling under the weight of a crippled economy, chiefly because of sanctions linked to the country’s disputed nuclear program.

Coping with persistent water shortages strains families and communities even further, intensifying the potential for unrest, when the clerical establishment is already facing international pressure over its nuclear ambitions. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Across Iran, from the capital’s high-rise apartments to cities and small towns, the water crisis is taking hold.

When the taps went dry in her eastern Tehran apartment last week, Mahnaz had no warning and no backup.

"It was around 10 p.m., and the water didn’t come back until 6 a.m.,” she said. With no pump or storage, she and her two children were forced to wait, brushing teeth and washing hands with bottled water.

Iran’s National Water and Wastewater Company has dismissed reports of formal rationing in Tehran, but confirmed that nightly water pressure reductions were being applied in Tehran and could drop to zero in some districts, state media reported.

Pezeshkian also warned against over-consumption in July. The water authorities said at the time 70% of Tehran residents consumed more than the standard 130 litres a day.

TEHRAN'S RESERVOIRS AT AROUND HALF CAPACITY

Iranians have endured recurrent electricity, gas and water shortages during peak demand months in the past years.

"It’s one hardship after another — one day there’s no water, the next there’s no electricity. We don’t even have enough money to live. This is because of poor management," said schoolteacher and mother of three Shahla, 41, by phone from central Tehran.

Last week, state media quoted Mohammadreza Kavianpour, head of Iran’s Water Research Institute, as saying that last year’s rainfall was 40% below the 57-year average in Iran and forecasts predict a continuation of dry conditions towards the end of December.

The capital depends entirely on five reservoirs fed from rivers outside the city. But inflow has plummeted. Behzad Parsa, head of Tehran’s Regional Water Company, said last week that water levels had fallen 43% from last year, leaving the Amir Kabir Dam at just 14 million cubic meters — 8% of capacity.

He said Tehran’s reservoirs, which collectively could once store nearly 500 million cubic meters, now hold barely 250 million, a drop of nearly half, which at current consumption rates, could run dry within two weeks.

The crisis extends far beyond Tehran. Nationwide, 19 major dams — roughly 10% of Iran’s total — have effectively run dry. In the city of Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, with a population of 4 million, water reserves have plunged below 3%.

"The pressure is so low that literally we do not have water during the day. I have installed water tanks but how long we can continue like this? It is completely because of the mismanagement," said Reza, 53, in Mashhad. He said it was also affecting his business of carpet cleaning.

Like the others Reuters spoke to, he declined to give his family name.

CLIMATE CHANGE INTENSIFIED WATER LOSS

The crisis follows record-breaking temperatures and rolling power outages. In July and August, the government declared emergency public holidays to reduce water and energy consumption, shutting down some public buildings and banks as temperatures topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

Climate change has intensified the problem, authorities say, with rising temperatures accelerating evaporation and groundwater loss.

Some newspapers have criticized the government’s environmental policies, citing the appointment of unqualified managers and the politicization of resource management. The government has rejected the claims.

Calls for divine intervention have also resurfaced.

"In the past, people would go out to the desert to pray for rain,” said Mehdi Chamran, head of Tehran’s City Council, state media reported. "Perhaps we should not neglect that tradition."

Authorities are taking temporary measures to conserve what remains, including decreasing the water pressure in some areas and transferring water to Tehran from other reservoirs.

But these are stopgap measures, and the public has been urged to install storage tanks, pumps, and other devices to avoid major disruption.

"Too little, too late. They only promise but we see no action," said a university teacher in the city of Isfahan, who asked not to be named. "Most of these ideas are not doable."

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Exiled Syrian Opens up About Death-Defying Smuggling Operation That Showed Proof of Assad’s Cruelty

A Syrian man inspects cells at the prison of Sednaya, north of Damascus, Syria, Dec. 16, 2024. (AFP)
A Syrian man inspects cells at the prison of Sednaya, north of Damascus, Syria, Dec. 16, 2024. (AFP)
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Exiled Syrian Opens up About Death-Defying Smuggling Operation That Showed Proof of Assad’s Cruelty

A Syrian man inspects cells at the prison of Sednaya, north of Damascus, Syria, Dec. 16, 2024. (AFP)
A Syrian man inspects cells at the prison of Sednaya, north of Damascus, Syria, Dec. 16, 2024. (AFP)

He waited for his brother-in-law to cross the front line smuggling documents stolen from the Syrian dictatorship’s archives. Detection could mean dismemberment or death, but they were committed to exposing the industrial-scale violence used to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power.

Ussama Uthman, now 59, was building a vast record of the brutality — photographs that showed Assad’s government was engaging in systematic torture and extrajudicial killings.

Now, safely in exile in France and with Assad having fallen in a surprise opposition offensive last year, Uthman is sharing how he, his wife and her brother teamed up to smuggle evidence of the horrific crimes out from under Syria’s infamous surveillance apparatus as war tore the country apart.

The photos of broken bodies and torture sites — records were apparently kept to show orders were being followed — began appearing online in 2014. They spurred US sanctions, and are being used to prosecute suspected war crimes and help Syrians find out what happened to family members who disappeared.

“We have hundreds of thousands of mothers waiting for news of their loved ones,” said Uthman.

During a recent interview in northern France — The Associated Press agreed to withhold the exact location for security reasons — the only time Uthman's voice broke was when he recounted sending a woman photos of a brutalized body and asking if she recognized her son.

“I send her five snapshots of her son’s body, torn under Bashar al-Assad’s whips, and she rejoices. She says, ‘Thank God, I have confirmed that he is dead,’” he recalled. “This sadness should have kept our flags at half-staff in Syria for years.”

Family secrets, risks and duty

With the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East in 2011, protests in the southern city of Daraa inspired demonstrations throughout Syria. The government responded with force, but rather than crushing the demonstrations, the brutality sparked a civil war that spurred foreign intervention and pitted a patchwork of opposition groups against the armor and air power of the military and Assad’s allies.

When news broke that first year of a massacre in Hama, Uthman, a construction engineer from the Damascus suburb of al-Tall, swore he'd help topple Assad. He didn’t know how until he got a call from his wife’s brother Farid al-Mazhan, a military police officer who asked him to meet in person — electronic communications were too risky.

Al-Mazhan showed Uthman gory images taken by photographers in the military forensic pathology department that he helped run. He said he could access more.

The two launched a secret operation that would eventually smuggle more than 53,000 photographs out of Syria showing evidence of torture, disease and starvation in the country's lockups.

The operation was incredibly dangerous but straightforward.

As an officer, Al-Mazhan could pass government-run checkpoints; his connections in the opposition-held town where he lived and eventually Uthman’s secret coordination with the opposition enabled him to cross checkpoints staffed by their fighters.

He would then secretly pass CDs, hard drives and USB sticks containing photos and other documents to Uthman. He also slipped them to his sister, Khawla al-Mazhan, who is married to Uthman. She was the first to suggest using the photos to try to topple Assad.

“Why don’t we use these images to bring down the regime?” Uthman recalled her saying.

Uthman adopted the nom de guerre Sami. Farid al-Mazhan took Caesar. Their operation would become known as the Caesar Files.

Justice for Syria, from exile

Deciding to escape Syria — an estimated 6 million people fled during the war — the team uploaded 55 gigabytes of photos and documents dating from May 2011 to August 2014 to a foreign server. They then began furtively moving their extended families to neighboring countries. Diplomats eventually helped Uthman’s family settle in France in 2014.

Once safely out of Syria, they began publishing the material, sparking immediate and widespread condemnation of Assad.

As families scoured the ghastly archive for signs of what happened to their loved ones, the team gave copies to European prosecutors. Authorities in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland have arrested or initiated legal proceedings against former Syrian officials accused of torture and killings.

The release of the files marked “a key point in Syria’s history,” said Kholoud Helmi, co-founder of the independent Syrian news site Enab Baladi. Both the international community and Syrians were faced with “striking proof” of the Assad government’s crimes.

“Almost nobody believed us or thought we were exaggerating,” said Helmi, who fled during the war.

The Caesar Files team are heroes, said Lina Chawaf, editor-in-chief of Radio Rozana, an independent Syrian media outlet.

“You know the price that you will pay, but it will cost all of your family,” said Chawaf, who also fled Syria.

Hoping to plug the leak, Syrian authorities tightened their grip on their archive. Gradually, the team reorganized and grew to roughly 60 members both inside and outside of Syria. They built a second tranche of evidence, the Atlas Files, from 2014 until 2024.

Late last year, as they were starting to organize this new catalog — it's nearly three times the size of the first — startling news broke: The opposition had seized Syria’s second-biggest city, Aleppo.

Accountability under a new regime

Within 10 days, opposition forces sprinted across government-held territory to take Damascus, forcing Assad to flee to Russia and ending his family's nearly 54-year rule.

The sudden power vacuum bred chaos, with opposition forces flinging open the doors of the country's most feared prisons.

Team members still in Syria and families of the missing rushed to the sites in search of information — more than 130,000 Syrians disappeared during the war, according to international bodies.

Helmi, of the Enab Baladi news site, considers her family lucky to have found proof of her brother Ahmad's execution.

“They killed him 27 days after he was detained, and we’ve been waiting for him for 13 years,” said Helmi, who thinks the new government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former opposition leader, hasn't done enough to help families.

Uthman went further, saying so much evidence was lost in the immediate aftermath of Assad's ouster that it was akin to the new authorities “destroying evidence, tampering with the crime scene.”

Documents lay scattered on rainy streets, psychologically shattered prisoners wandered out of broken jails, and wild dogs chewed on bones in mass graves, he said.

The government — which hopes the US will permanently lift the sanctions imposed for the abuses exposed by the Caesar Files — says it is doing all it can to reckon with Assad’s bloody legacy. During Sharaa’s visit to Washington on Monday, the Treasury announced a waiver of the sanctions had been renewed for another six months.

In a news conference last week in Damascus, Reda al-Jalakhi, who heads the government's National Commission for the Missing, acknowledged that “in the first two days of the liberation, there was some chaos and a lot of documents were lost.”

But he said the authorities quickly took control of Assad's old lockups and is preserving the remaining evidence. He thanked the Caesar Files team for providing some documentation to the commission, but he didn't signal any plans for ongoing cooperation, saying the government would build a centralized database to find the missing.

With a defiant twinkle in his eyes, Uthman said his team's work will continue to fight any impunity in Syria as fresh sectarian violence bloodies the country. The team dreams that one day Assad might face their evidence at trial.

Features

What’s at Stake in Iraq’s Parliamentary Election 

A person votes at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Kirkuk, Iraq, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
A person votes at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Kirkuk, Iraq, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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What’s at Stake in Iraq’s Parliamentary Election 

A person votes at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Kirkuk, Iraq, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)
A person votes at a polling station during the parliamentary election in Kirkuk, Iraq, November 11, 2025. (Reuters)

Iraqis were voting on Tuesday in a parliamentary election that comes at a crucial moment for the country and the region. The outcome of the vote will influence whether Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani can serve a second term.

The election comes against the backdrop of fears over another war between Israel and Iran and potential Israeli or US strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq. Baghdad seeks to maintain a delicate balance in its relations with Tehran and Washington amid increasing pressure from the Trump administration over the presence of Iran-linked armed groups.

Here's a look at what to expect in the vote.

Iraq's electoral system

This year's election is the seventh since the US-led invasion of 2003 that unseated the country's longtime ruler, Saddam Hussein.

In the security vacuum after Saddam's fall, the country fell into years of bloody civil war that saw the rise of extremist groups, including the ISIS group. But in recent years, the violence has subsided. Rather than security, the main concern of many Iraqis now is the lack of job opportunities and lagging public services, including regular power cuts despite the country's energy wealth.

Under the law, 25% of the country's 329 parliamentary seats must go to women, and nine seats are allocated for religious minorities. The position of speaker of Parliament is also assigned to a Sunni according to convention in Iraq’s post-2003 power-sharing system, while the prime minister is always Shiite and the president a Kurd.

Voter turnout has steadily fallen in recent elections. In the last parliamentary election in 2021, turnout was 41%, a record low in the post-Saddam era, down from 44% in the 2018 election, which at the time was an all-time low.

However, only 21.4 million out of a total of 32 million eligible voters have updated their information and obtained voter cards, a decrease from the last parliamentary election in 2021, when about 24 million voters registered.

Unlike past elections, there are no polling stations outside of the country. Early voting was held on Sunday for members of the security forces and displaced people living in camps.

The main players

There are 7,744 candidates competing, most of them from a range of largely sectarian-aligned parties, in addition to some independents.

They include Shiite blocs led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, cleric Ammar al-Hakim, and several linked to armed groups; competing Sunni factions led by former Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi and current speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani; and also the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Several powerful, Iran-linked Shiite militias are participating in the election via associated political parties. They include the Kataib Hezbollah militia, with its Harakat Huqouq bloc, and the Sadiqoun Bloc, led by the leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, Qais al-Khazali.

However, one of the most prominent players in the country's politics is sitting the election out.

The popular Sadrist Movement, led by influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is boycotting the vote. Al-Sadr’s bloc won the largest number of seats in the 2021 election but later withdrew after failed negotiations over forming a government, amid a standoff with rival Shiite parties. He has since boycotted the political system.

The Sadrist stronghold of Sadr City on the outskirts of Baghdad is home to roughly 40% of Baghdad's population and has long played a decisive role in shaping the balance of power among Shiite factions.

But in the run-up to this election, the usually vibrant streets were almost entirely devoid of campaign posters or banners. Instead, a few signs calling for an election boycott could be seen.

Meanwhile, some reformist groups emerging from mass anti-government protests that began in October 2019 are participating but have been bogged down by internal divisions and lack of funding and political support.

Concerns about the process

There have been widespread allegations of corruption and vote-buying ahead of the election, and 848 candidates were disqualified by election officials, sometimes for obscure reasons such as allegedly insulting religious rituals or members of the armed forces.

Past elections in Iraq were often marred by political violence, including assassinations of candidates, attacks on polling stations and clashes between supporters of different blocs.

While overall levels of violence have subsided, a candidate was also assassinated in the run-up to this year's election.

On Oct. 15, Baghdad Provincial Council member Safaa al-Mashhadani, a Sunni candidate in the al-Tarmiya district north of the capital, was killed by a car bomb. Five suspects have been arrested in connection with the killing, which is being prosecuted as a terrorist act.

Al-Sudani seeks another term

Al-Sudani came to power in 2022 with the backing of a group of pro-Iran parties but has since sought to balance Iraq’s relations with Tehran and Washington. He has positioned himself as a pragmatist focused on improving public services.

While Iraq has seen relative stability during al-Sudani's first term, he does not have an easy path to a second one. Only one Iraqi prime minister, Maliki, has served more than one term since 2003.

The election outcome will not necessarily indicate whether or not al-Sudani stays. In several past elections in Iraq, the bloc winning the most seats has not been able to impose its preferred candidate.

On one side, al-Sudani faces disagreements with some leaders in the pro-Iran Shiite Coordination Framework bloc that brought him to power over control of state institutions. On the other side, he faces increasing pressure from the US to control the country's militias.

A matter of particular contention has been the fate of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of militias that formed to fight the ISIS group. It was formally placed under the control of the Iraqi military in 2016 but in practice still operates with significant autonomy. Members of the PMF will be voting alongside Iraqi army soldiers and other security forces on Saturday.