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Lebanon’s Rahi Warns of Coup Against Results of Parliamentary Elections

Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi (NNA)
Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi (NNA)
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Lebanon’s Rahi Warns of Coup Against Results of Parliamentary Elections

Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi (NNA)
Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi (NNA)

Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi warned Sunday of a coup against the results of the May 15 parliamentary vote, cautioning that some parties might use the security and economic turmoil in the country to control the upcoming election of a Speaker and President.

Presiding over Sunday mass in Bkirki, Rahi said the parliamentary elections gave new hopes to the people on possible change in the country that would encourage the international community to help Lebanon seriously, not symbolically, to get out of its economic crisis.

However, the Patriarch expressed concern over the return of the fuel crisis, the lack of medicine and bread, the rising commodity prices and the manipulation of the dollar peg.

"Wasn’t the opposite supposed to happen?" Rahi asked.

He said this suspicious development in the aftermath of the elections confirms once again that certain parties want to disrupt the new reality imposed by the polls and the movement for political change.

Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies have lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament in the general election. The Shiite party’s opponents including the Christian Lebanese Forces gained ground.

“The significance of the forces winning the majority is not in the number of their representatives, but in their ability to form homogeneous, united and multi-sectarian parliamentary blocs that respect the principles of sovereignty, independence, neutrality and decentralization,” the Patriarch said.

As of May 22, after the current assembly's mandate expires, the new lawmakers will have 15 days to pick a speaker, a position Nabih Berri has held since 1992 and is not intent on leaving despite reaching the age of 84.

The Patriarch said electing a new parliament is the beginning of a crucial stage on which Lebanon’s future and the shape of the Lebanese state depend.

He added that Lebanon will have to face important stages that begin with the election of a Speaker, the formation of a national government and the election of a new President.

Therefore, Rahi said that winning the parliamentary elections is not the end of the struggle, rather its beginning.

“We call on all citizens, especially those who believe in positive change, national sovereignty, the unity of arms, neutrality, and decentralization, to be vigilant and ready to confront the attempts to sidestep the popular will,” the Patriarch stressed.

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Houthi Network Recruits Hundreds of Yemenis to Fight in Ukraine

Honoring a Yemeni fighter in the ranks of the Russian forces (local media)
Honoring a Yemeni fighter in the ranks of the Russian forces (local media)
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Houthi Network Recruits Hundreds of Yemenis to Fight in Ukraine

Honoring a Yemeni fighter in the ranks of the Russian forces (local media)
Honoring a Yemeni fighter in the ranks of the Russian forces (local media)

In a nearly one-minute video, a young Yemeni man tells how he and his colleagues traveled to Russia on the promise of lucrative employment in fields such as “security” and “engineering”, but ended up fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
The young man, whose face was covered, expressed with his colleagues their desire to return to Yemen. They said they did not wish to suffer the same fate as their friends and get killed.
Last Sunday, The Financial Times said in a report that Russia’s armed forces have recruited hundreds of Yemeni men to fight in Ukraine, brought by a shadowy trafficking operation that highlights the growing links between Moscow and the Houthi militant group.
Later in video recordings, young Yemeni men spoke about the practice of Houthi smugglers who take advantage of the difficult economic conditions of Yemenis to recruit hundreds of them, and send them to fight alongside Russian troops.
The network of traffickers operate from Yemen and other Arab countries, and coordinate with others within Russian territory.
The Houthi network recruited hundreds of Yemenis and sent them to fight in Russia, according to sources close to their families and others in the Yemeni government.
In one of the videos, a group of Yemeni recruits said they worked in Oman, when a medical equipment company founded by a Houthi politician, Abdulwali Abdo Hassan al-Jabri, lured them by promises of lucrative employment in fields such as “security” and “engineering” in Russia.
They said they were promised a salary of $2,500 per month. But arriving in Moscow, they were received by a representative from the Russian Defense Ministry who told them they will work as security guards at Russian facilities.
Two days after their arrival, the recruits were sent to camps, where they trained for combat and received a salary of between $185 and $232 a month. They are now calling on the Yemeni government to intervene to return them to their country.
But another Yemeni, Ahmed, who is familiar with a group of recruits, explains that he and his friends had warned these young men not to go to Russia where they risk getting involved in the ongoing war.
The recruits told him that they could escape to Europe and seek asylum as hundreds of Yemenis did before.
However, after arriving with the help of a Houthi-linked medical company, many have apparently been coerced into the Russian military, forced to sign fighting contracts at gunpoint and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.
A member of the Yemeni community in Russia told Asharq Al-Awsat that smugglers are luring Yemeni young men to go to Russia to work for salaries of up to $2,500 per month and are then transferred to Arab capitals, including Muscat, Beirut and Damascus, to be then transferred to Russian territory.
After their arrival, he said, the recruits are taken to weapons training camps, allegedly as employees of a security company. But they are later sent to fight on the front lines with Ukraine along with mercenaries from other nationalities.
Activists and members of the Yemeni community in Russia estimate that there are about 300 young Yemenis who refuse to join the fighting in Ukraine and want to return to their country.
“Those men were tempted by the dire economic conditions in Yemen due to the ongoing war,” the activists said.
A Yemeni recruit of the shadowy trafficking operation said that Abdulwali Abdo Hassan al-Jabri, a prominent Houthi politician, is one of the main recruiters. He is assisted by his brother Abdul Waheed, who was appointed by the group as director of Al-Masrakh districts in Taiz Province.
The recruit said that the group of traffickers includes Hani al-Zarriqi, who has been living in Russia for years, and Mohammed al-Iyani, who lives in a Yemeni neighboring country.
Two relatives of the recruits accuse al-Jabri and his aides of arranging the transfer of the young men from Yemen to a neighboring country, and from there to Moscow, on the pretext of working for private security companies. The traffickers receive a commission of between $10 and $15 thousand per person.